The Omnibus.

FINE SPEAKING.Two foreigners of distinction having landed at Dover, put up at the principal inn there; wishing to shew the fluency with which they could converse in the English language, when the landlord entered the apartment, one of them said to his companion in an affected manner, "did it rain to-morrow?" To which the other quickly replied, "yes it was."-L. L. E.

DECLINING Hoc. A pedantic fellow called for a bottle of Hock at a tavern, which the waiter not hearing distinctly, asked him to repeat." A bottle of Hock, hic, hæc, hoc," replied the visitor. After sitting, however, for a length of time, and no wine appearing, he ventured to ring again and enquire into the cause of the delay. Did not I order some Hock, Sir? Why is it not brought in?" "Because, (answered the waiter, who had been taught the Latin Grammar,) you afterwards declined it."

REMARKS UPON MAN.-Man is likened to a book: his birth, the title-page; his groans and crying, the epistle to the reader; his infancy or childhood, the contents; his life and actions, the subject matter; his sins and errors the errata; and his repentance, the correction of them.

ABSTRACTION OF AUTHORS.-The following anecdote is related of Lessing, the German author, who in his old age, was subject to extraordinary fits of abstraction. On his return home one evening, after he had knocked at the door, his servant looked out of the window to see who was there. Not recognizing his master in the dark, and mistaking him for a stranger, he called out the Professor is not at home.” “Oh, well!” replied Lessing, "no matter, I will call another time," and he very composedly walked away.

in

APOPHTHEGMS.-Always take the most pleasant view of a dubious event; at least, side with hopes; for, why should we call supernumerary ills, antedate those sufferings which we shall too soon undergo, and destroy the happiness of the present time, with superficial views of futurity.

It is a great act of life to know how to sell air;—that is, to take advantage by giving good words.

THE COUNTRY MISCELLANY

AND LITERARY SELECTOR.

No. 2.

Original Communications, &c.

STANZAS.

(For the Country Miscellany.)

I SAW thee in the pride of youth,
And mark'd thy rolling eye:
It told me not the tale of truth-
That thou wert born to die.
For could I deem a form like thine,
Was aught but heavenly and divine!

I saw thee blithe as morn of May,
When hopes were brighter far
Than summer sun's refulgent ray :

Than evening's radiant star-
When not a cloud, or shade of gloom,
Gather'd around thy lively bloom.

I saw thee when pale sickness came
And dimm'd thy sparkling eye,
And, gazing on thy wither'd frame,

That told its agony,

I pray'd that Heaven's strong arm would save

So loved and loving from the grave.

F

I saw thee when the humid blast
Of death was hovering near,
When the sea of life was ebbing fast-
But the fiend thou didst not fear:
No terrors could he bring, or give,
To one like thee, too pure to live.

I saw thee in that awful hour,

When nature strives with death; When life exerts her utmost power,

And, struggling, gasps for breath :
But never once one murmuring word,
To 'scape thy lips was ever heard.

Thy mother raised thy dying head
With all a mother's care;
Thy father knelt beside thy bed,
In attitude of prayer:

Crying with bitterness of heart,

"My child, my child, we will not part!

But all was o'er-thy spotless soul

Had wing'd its seraph-flight

To realms beyond earth's utmost pole
Of uncreated light:

Where glory's sun doth ever glow,
And ne'er was heard the wail of wo.

I stood beside thy lifeless form

And kiss'd thy clay-cold cheek,

That once with health's bright flush was warm— What language did it speak?

It told me that at Death's stern call,

The young, the beautiful must fall.

And dark thoughts rush'd upon my mind,
Swift as the murky clouds,

That borne by the mad tempest-wind,

O'er earth and ocean shrouds :

Faversham.

I wept to know that thou wert born
To vanish with the breath of morn.

I thought of yesterday, when thou
Wert in the flower of youth;
When joy sat sparkling on thy brow,

And thy smile could sorrow soothe :
But now thou art an alter'd thing,
A bud nipt in its blossoming.

And thou art number'd with the dead:
Beneath the earth laid low,
Thou sleepest in thy narrow bed,
Beneath the reach of wo;

Where nothing ever dares intrude,
To break the solemn solitude.

W. H. P

THE PLEASURE AND UTILITY OF KNOWLEDGE.

(To the Editor of the Country Miscellany.)

AMONG the most distinguished men who have appeared on the world's stage, we find those eminent philosophers, who, amidst the darkness of paganism, shed a perpetual lustre on the ages in which they lived, and, by their wise precepts and excellent examples, raised their fellow-countrymen to a height of civilization scarcely attained by any modern society. While the most magnificent princes, and the most renowned heroes of antiquity, have sunk into oblivion, or are remembered only on account of their unparalleled extravagance or brutality, the philosophers, their contemporaries, are still fresh in our recollection, and become the more venerable and worthy of esteem as time places them at a greater distance from us. The splendour and trophies of the former either have altogether ceased to exist, or are crumbling into dust; but the monuments of learning, the books of wisdom in which the thoughts and discoveries of the ancient sages are recorded, appear imperishable; and, after a lapse of two thousand years, are not without their use to the present generation. Solomon, the wisest of men,

to us.

whose splendour eclipsed that of all other princes of his age, is remembered chiefly for the lessons of morality he has bequeathed Of his magnificence there is nothing left, but his wisdom remains to enlighten and direct mankind in the practice of virtue. Egypt, Babylon, India, Rome, have each been distinguished by the bright constellations of genius they have produced. But of all the nations of antiquity Greece stands unrivaled in its learned men. Such was the respect paid to some of these illustrious sages, that kings scrupled not to admit them to the closest intimacy and to become their pupils in science and art.

The sacrifices made by these ancient philosophers were of no ordinary kind. Property, home, friends, country, were all relinquished, and hazardous and distant journies undertaken in search of wisdom to enrich their minds and enable them to unravel the mysteries in which every thing around them seemed to be involved. It is natural to inquire what it was that prompted them in the pursuit of that knowledge, which made them so eminent and has given them such enduring fame. There must have been some exciting cause of more force than the ordinary impulses of human nature, that withdrew their attention from the common concerns of life, and induced them to seek in the improvement of the mind the most elevated enjoyments of which man is destined to be the partaker.

The philosopher Anaxagoras, a noble by birth, who had great riches, abandoned the whole of his property, believing the care of an estate an obstacle to his taste for contemplation; he renounced it absolutely in order to devote his whole time and application to the study of wisdom and the inquiry after truth which were his only pleasures. When he returned into his own country after a long voyage, and saw all his lands lying abandoned and uncultivated, far from regretting the loss, he cried out " I should have been undone, if all this had not been ruined." The example of Anaxagoras is not placed here with a view to induce imitation, but only to shew what it was that led him to give up so much to follow the bent of his mind. It was the pleasure resulting from his studies and observations. The gratification he felt whenever new light broke in upon his mind, and disclosed to him truths which before