A shallow brain behind a serious mask,
An oracle within an empty cask.

The solemn fop;-significant and budge,
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge;
He says but little, and that little said

Owes all its weight, like loaded dice, to lead.
5. His wit invites you, by his looks, to come;
But when you knock, it never is at home:
'Tis like a parcel sent you by the stage,
Some handsome present, as your hopes presage;
'Tis heavy, bulky, and bids fair to prove
An absent friend's fidelity and love,-

But when unpack'd, your disappointment groans
To find it stuffed with brickbats, earth, and stones.

90. HENRY IV.'S APOSTROPHE TO SLEEP.

COWPER

OW many thousands of my poorest subjects

How

Are at this hour asleep! O Sleep, O gentle Sleep,

Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,

That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness !

2. Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?
Oh thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds; and leav'st the kingly couch,
A watch-case, or a common 'larum-bell?

3 Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude, imperious surge,

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafening clamors in the slippery shrouds
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
4. Canst thou, O partial Sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And, in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

SHAKSPEARE.

91. SUCCESS THE REWARD OF MERIT.

ISAPPOINTED authors and artists often talk as if they were the victims of the world's stupidity or malice; as if men were unable or unwilling to appreciate them. Now, I know it is said that such things have been. There have been men of rare promise, but of a sensitive nature, who have been crushed by coldness and neglect, or by the hard and unfair criticism with which their first attempts were met. But this is far from being a common thing. The world likes to be amused and pleased. It is really interested in having something to praise.

2. This being so, how is it possible for a man of real merit to remain long unrecognized? Who can imagine that the great masterpieces of painting, or the great poems that have come down to us from the past, could have failed to excite the admiration of men? In fact, human judgment, when you take its suffrages over wide tracts and through the lapse of ages, is infallible. In a particular place it may be warped by passion; in a particular time it may conform to an artificial standard; but give it time and room, and it is sure with unerring accuracy to detect the true.

3. It is as far as possible, then, from being the case that celebrated authors or celebrated artists have become great by

accident. There may have been favorable circumstances. There were undoubtedly great gifts of nature; but there was also deep study and painful, persevering toil. I have been told that the manuscripts of a distinguished English poet show so many erasures that scarcely a line remains unaltered. The great cathedrals of Europe were the fruit of life-long labor. And these are but instances of a general rule.

4. We go into the workshops in which some of the beau tiful articles of merchandise are manufactured, and see a great fire and hear the clank of machinery, and men are hurrying to and fro, stained with dust and sweat. Now some thing like this has been going on to give birth to these beautiful creations in letters and arts which have delighted the world. There has been a great fire in the furnace of the brain, and each faculty of the mind has toiled to do its part, and there have been many blows with the pen, the pencil, or the chisel, until the beautiful conception is complete. Such men are successful, because they deserve it. The approbation of the world did not create their success, it only recognized it.

REV. F. S. BAKER

92. ALEXANDER'S FEAST.

[This poem, of which we give but an extract, is considered the lyric masterpiece of English poetry, exemplifying as it does all the capabilities of our language, in the use of every figure of speech. The measures change in every couplet; there are scarce two lines alike in accentuation, yet the whole seemi as spontaneous as the cries of alarm and consternation excited by the baccha nal orgies described.]

TOW strike the golden lyre again,

Now

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain;

Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark! bark the horrid sound

Has raised up his head,
As awaked from the dead,

And amazed he stares around.

2. Revenge! revenge! Timotheus cries;

See the furies arise;

See the snakes that they rear,

How they hiss in the air,

And the sparkles that flash from their eyes.
Behold the ghastly band,

Each a torch in his hand!

These are Grecian ghosts, that in battle are slain,
And unburied remain,
Inglorious on the plain;
Give the vengeance due
To the valiant crew!

3. Behold how they toss their torches on high-
How they point to the Persian abodes

And glittering temples of the hostile gods!
The princes applaud with a furious joy,

And the king seized a flambeau, with zeal to destroy;

Thais led the way,

To light him to his prey,

And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

DRYDEN.

93. THE SILVER-BIRD'S NEST.

["We were shown a beautiful specimen of the ingenuity of birds a few days since. It was a bird's-nest made entirely of silver wires, beautifully woven together. The nest was found on a sycamore-tree. It was the nest of a hanging-bird, and the material was probably obtained from a soldier's epaulet which it had found."]

A

STRANDED soldier's epaulet,

The water's cast ashore,

A little wingéd rover met,

And eyed it o'er and o'er.

The silver bright so pleased her sight,

On that lone, idle vest,

She knew not why she should deny

Herself a silver nest.

2. The shining wire she peck'd and twirl'd,
Then bore it to her bough,

Where on a flowery twig 'twas curl'd—
The bird can show you how;

But when enough of that bright stuff
The cunning builder bore

Her house to make, she would not take,
Nor did she covet, more.

3. And when the little artisan,
While neither pride nor guilt
Had entered in her pretty plan,
Her resting-place had built;

With here and there a plume to spare
About her own light form,

Of these, inlaid with skill, she made
A lining soft and warm.

4. But, do you think the tender brood
She fondled there, and fed,

Were prouder when they understood
The sheen about their bed?
Do you suppose that ever rose,
Of higher powers possess'd,

Because they knew they peep'd and grew
Within a silver nest?

MISS H. F. GOULD.

94. THE BURIAL AT SEA.

[The author of this extract, singularly beautiful in thought and expression, Is an Anglican clergyman of England, a popular, pure, and poetical writer.]

IT

T was that of one who, after seeking for health in a more genial climate, was returning to England, in the hope of lying among her own people. But we yet wanted three days of making our own land, when it pleased God to call her to himself.