Would pass for something, lacking such desert, [Enter Williams. Wil. One Master Jones hath asked to see your lordship. Tin. And what was your reply to Master Jones? Wil. I knew not if his lordship was at home. You'll do. Who's Master Jones? Tin. Roch. We read Latin and Greek together. Tin. Dropping them, As, now that you 're a lord, of course you've done, – say his lordship's not at home. Wil. So please your lordship, I forgot to say, One Richard Cricket likewise is below. Tin. Who? Richard Cricket? You must see him, Rochdale! A noble little fellow! A great man, sir! Not knowing whom, you would be nobody! I won five thousand pounds by him! Roch. Who is he? I never heard of him. Tin. What! never heard Of Richard Cricket! never heard of him! His lordship is at home to Richard Cricket. Roch. Bid him wait in the ante-room. The best room in your house! You do not know The use of Richard Cricket! Show him, sir, Into the drawing-room. [Exit Williams.] Your lordship needs Must be upon the turf; and you'll do well To make a friend of Richard Cricket. - Well, sir, What's that? [To Williams, reëntering. Wil. So please your lordship a petition. At tradesmen's, shopkeepers', and merchants' only Have such things leave to knock! Make thy lord's gate A wicket to a workhouse! Let us see it Subscriptions to a book of poetry! Who heads the list? Cornelius Tense, A. M., And is a conjuror in philosophy, Both natural and moral. Pshaw a man A D. D., Doctor of Divinity, Ushering in an LL. D., which means Doctor of Laws, their harmony no doubt The difference of their trades! There's nothing here Not an iota of nobility!" We cannot give our names. Take back the paper, But, talking of subscriptions, here is one Tin. A most worthy man! A man of singular deserts; a man In serving whom your lordship will serve me, Signor Cantata.* Roch. He's a friend of yours? Tin. Oh no, I know him not! I've not that pleasure. But Lady Dangle knows him; she 's his friend. He will oblige us with a set of concerts, Six concerts to the set. The set three guineas. Your lordship will subscribe? Roch. Oh! by all means. Tin. How many sets of tickets? Two at least. You'll like to take a friend? I'll set you down Six guineas to Signor Cantata's concerts; And now, my lord, we'll to him, then we 'll walk. *Pronounced Cantata. EXERCISE CXLV. THE PASSION FOR DRESS. - Dr. Freeman. Is it not strange, that man can be vain of his attire? Does he wear fine clothes? Let him give the credit to the weaver and the tailor. Is man a moral, intelligent being; and shall he swell with no higher ambition than the peacock? Surely the fluttering fop, who places all excellence in the cut and quality of his coat, if he ever possessed, must have wholly lost, the dignity of human nature. It is a mark of a little mind, to seek distinction by dress. It is the mind which constitutes the dignity of man. The powers of the mind are vast and enlarging. It is capable of clear conceptions and elevated sentiments. It can propose high ends and comprehend mighty schemes. To see this lofty mind dwindling to the dimensions of a wardrobe, deliberating with anxious solemnity on the color of a waistcoat, the relations of a cape, or the fitness of a shoe,- this is humbling indeed: I blush for the name of man. This passion for dress has been called a trifling weakness. What! is it nothing to cast away reason, to degrade the soul? Is it nothing to sacrifice moral powers and feelings, to blast the hope and promise of our nature? If any man is endowed with mind, and a capacity of perceiving excellence, then this love of dress is worse than suicide, and bears sad testimony to the debasement of his heart. What improvement might we anticipate, if the time, which is now wasted in contriving and preparing articles of dress, were applied to the cultivation of the heart and understanding! Ye vain, would ye indeed be adorned? Seek the ornaments of truth, of purity, of benevolence. These will clothe you in unfading glory. These will be in fashion through eternity. Do you desire to acquire and feel importance, when you mingle with the world? Believe me, there is a consciousness of honest, undesigning goodness, that inspires a confidence and an ease, which the gaudiness of foppery can never attain. EXERCISE CXLVI. THE RELIGION OF THE SEA.-N. L. Frothingham. The sea has often been likened to this our life. Poetry is fond of remarking resemblances between it and the passions and fortunes of humanity. Our contemplations launch forth on its capacious bosom, and gather up the images and shadowings of our existence and fate, of what we are, and what is appointed to us. Do we see its multitudinous waves, rushing blindly and impetuously along wherever they are driven by the lashing wind? They remind us of an angry mind, and the tumult of an enraged people. Are the waves hushed, and is a calm breathed over the floods? It is the similitude of a peaceful breast, of a composed and placid spirit, or a quiet, untroubled time. Doubts, anxieties, and fears pass over our minds, as clouds tinge the waters, with their deep and threatening hues. Does a beaming hope or a golden joy break in suddenly upon us, in the midst of care or misfortune? What is it but a ray of light, such as we sometimes behold sent down from the rifted sky, shining alone in the dark horizon, a sun-burst on a sullen sea? Then how often are the vicissitudes of life compared with the changes of the ocean! Who that has been abroad on the sea, or who has read or heard any thing of its phenomena, does not know that the morning may arise with the fairest promises, bringing the favoring breeze, and smiling over the pleasant water, and ere the evening falls, or before high noon comes, the scene may be wrapped in gloom, the steady gale may be converted into the savage blast, the gay sunbeams may be followed by the blue lightnings, and the floods above be poured down on the floods below, as if together they were determined, as of old, to drown and desolate the world? And do not these things take place in the voyage of human life? Who knows not how often youth sets sail with flattering hopes and brilliant prospects, which are changed, before manhood, into dreary disappointment or black despair? Who knows not, how often and how suddenly the sun of prosperity may be covered up from sight, and its glowing rays be quenched in the coldness, and darkness, and fearfulness of howling ad versity? Who knows not, that in the midst of joy and peace, the billows of affliction may all at once rise up, and roll in upon the soul? There is nothing among the earthly works of God, which brings the feeling of eternity so powerfully to the soul, as does the 'wide, wide sea. We look upon its waves, succeeding each other continually, one rising up as another vanishes, and we shink of the generations of men, which lift up their heads for awhile, and then pass away, one after another, for all the noise and show they make, even as those restless and momentary waves. Thus ages and the waves come and go, appear and disappear, and the ocean and eternity remain the same, undecaying and unaffected, abiding in the unchanging integrity of their solemn existence. We stand upon the solitary shore, and we hear the surges beat, uttering such grand, inimitable symphonies, as are fit for the audience of cliffs and skies; but our minds fly back through years and years, and ask, where are the myriads of men who have preceded us, in treading thereon? Alas, they are passed away! Scarcely a trace of them is left behind! And, where are the old kingdoms which were once washed by its waves? They have been changed and changed again, till a few ruins only tell where they stood. But the sea is all the same! Man can place no monuments upon it, with all his ambition and pride. It suffers not even a ruin to speak of his triumph or his existence. EXERCISE CXLVII. PEACE.-Thomson. O, first of human blessings, and supreme! |