Tell. Is the boy ready? Keep silence now
For Heaven's sake, and be my witnesses,
That if his life's in peril from my hand,
'Tis only for the chance of saving it.

For mercy's sake keep motionless and silent.

[He aims and shoots in the direction of the boy. In a moment Sarnem enters with the apple on the arrow's point.]

Sar. The boy is safe.

Tell. [Raising his arms.] Thank Heaven!

[As he raises his arms the concealed arrow falls.]

Ges. [Picking it up.] Unequalled archer! why was this

concealed ?

Tell. To kill thee, tyrant, had I slain my boy.

LESSON CIV.

The Philosopher's Scales.-JANE Taylor.

1. A MONK,* when his rites sacerdotal were o'er,
In the depth of his cell, with its stone-covered floor,
Resigning to thought his chimerical brain,

Once formed the contrivance we now shall explain ;
But whether by magic's or alchymy's powers,
We know not-indeed, 'tis no business of ours:

2. Perhaps it was only by patience and care,
At last, that he brought his invention to bear;
In youth 'twas projected, but years stole away,
And ere 'twas complete, he was wrinkled and gray;
But success is secure, unless energy fails-

And, at length, he produced the Philosopher's Scales.

3. "What were they?" you ask; you shall presently see;
These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea ;
O no; for such properties wondrous had they,

That qualities, feelings, and thoughts they could weigh:
Together with articles, small or immense,

From mountains or planets, to atoms of sense;

4. Nought was there so bulky, but there it could lay, And nought so ethereal, but there it would stay,

Monk, a member of the Roman Catholic church, who has taken a vow of poverty and celibacy.

And nought so reluctant, but in it must go

All which some examples more clearly will show.

3. The first thing he weighed, was the head of Voltaire,*
Which retained all the wit that had ever been there;
As a weight, he threw in a torn scrap of a leaf,
Containing the prayer of the Penitent Thief;
When the scull rose aloft with so sudden a spell,
That it bounced like a ball on the roof of the cell.

6. One time he put in Alexander the Great,†

With a garment, that Dorcas‡ had made, för a weight,
And though clad in armor from sandals to crown,
The Hero rose up, and the garment went down.

7. A long row of alms-houses, amply endowed
By a well esteemed Pharisee, busy and proud,
Next loaded one scale; while the other was prest
By those mites the Poor Widow|| dropt into the chest ;
Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce,
And down, down the farthing-worth went with a bounce.
8. Again, he performed an experiment rare—
A monk, with austerities, bleeding and bare,
Climbed into his scale-in the other, was laid
The heart of our Howard, now partly decayed-
When he found with surprise, that the whole of his brother
Weighed less by some pounds than the bit of the other.

9. By further experiments, (no matter how,)

He found that ten chariots weighed less than one plough ;

Voltaire, a most celebrated French historian, philosopher, dramatic writer, and epic poet, was born at Paris, 1694, and died 1778. He was an extraordinary character; possessing uncommon powers of mind, but was ever inconstant, ever wavering;-and though he often exerted his powerful talents to promote the cause of reason and humanity, he too often, and too successfully, exerted himself in extending principles of irreligion, anarchy, libertinism, and infidelity.

† A king of Macedon, born at Pella, B. C. 355. After extending his power with unusual rapidity over Greece, he invaded Asia. Having defeated the Persians at the three celebrated battles of the Granicus, of Issus, and of Arbela, which rendered him the master of the country, he wandered over the southern part of Asia, in quest of more enemies. He afterward returned to Babylon, where he died of intemperance, B. C. 323, in the 33d year of his age, and 13th of his reign.

See Acts, Chap. ix. 39.

I See St. Mark, Chap. xii. 42.

John Howard, a celebrated English philanthropist, born A. D. 1726, and died 1790.

A sword, with gilt trappings, rose up in the scale,
Though balanced by only a ten penny nail-
A shield and a helmet, a buckler and spear,
Weighed less than a widow's uncrystalized tear—
10. A Lord and a Lady, went up at full sail,

When a Bee chanced to light on the opposite scale-
Ten Doctors, ten Lawyers, two Courtiers, one Earl,
Ten Counsellor's Wigs, full of powder and curl,
All heaped in one balance, and swinging from thence,
Weighed less than a few grains of candor, and sense;
11. A first water diamond, with brilliants begirt,

Than one good potatoe, just washed from the dirt :
Yet not mountains of silver and gold, would suffice,
One pearl to outweigh-'twas the Pearl* of great price!
12. Last of all, the whole world was bowled in at the grate,
With the soul of a beggar, to serve for a weight-
When the former sprang up with so strog a rebuff,
That it made a vast rent, and escaped at the roof—
When balanced in air, it ascended on high,
And sailed up aloft, a balloon in the sky-
While the scale with the soul in, so mightily fell,
That it jerked the Philosopher out of his cell.

MORAL.

13. Dear Reader, if e'er self-deception prevails,
We pray you to try the Philosopher's Scales-
But if they are lost in the ruins around,

Perhaps a good substitute, thus may be found:
Let Judgment and Conscience, în circles be cut,
To which strings of Thought, may be carefully put--

14. Let these be made even, with caution extreme,
And impartiality serve for a beam.

Then bring those good actions, which pride overrates,
And tear up your motives, in bits, for the Weights.

LESSON CV.

[In the Zoonomia of Dr. DARWIN, among various instances recorded by that philosophical physician of what he calls maniacal hallucination, or men. tal delusion, is the case of a young farmer of Warwickshire, whose story was well authenticated in the public papers of the time. A poor elderly

* Religion-see Matthew xiii. 46.

woman in his neighborhood was in the habit, urged by the pinching necessi ties of an inclement winter, of taking a few sticks from his grounds and his hedge, to preserve the fading fire in her forlorn cottage. Suspecting the delinquent, the hardhearted hind watched and detected her. After wrenching from her the scanty faggot, blows and reproaches succeeded. Struck with the misery of her situation, and the cruelty of her oppressor, she kneeled, and, rearing her withered hands to the cold moon, prayed that "he might never again know the blessing of warmth." The consciousness of wrong, the solemnity of the hour, the pathetic tone, "sharp misery," and impassioned gesture of the miserable matron, at once extinguished the dim reason of the rustic. He immediately complained of a preternatural chilness, was continually calling for more fire and clothes, and conceived himself to be in a freezing state, till the time of his death, which happened shortly after. On this singular story is founded the following ballad, which is in the genuine spirit of ancient English song, and shows, by proof irrefragable, that simplicity, and the language of ordinary life, may be connected with the most exquisite poetry.-Farmer's Museum.]

Goody Blake and Harry Gill.-Wordsworth.

1. OH! what's the matter? what's the matter?
What is't that ails young Harry Gill?
That evermore his teeth they chatter,
Chatter, chatter, chatter still.
Of waistcoats Harry has no lack,
Good duffle gray, and flannel fine;
He has a blanket on his back,
And coats enough to smother nine.
2. In March, December, and in July,
"Tis all the same with Harry Gill;
The neighbours tell, and tell you truly,
His teeth they chatter, chatter still.
At night, at morning, and at noon,
'Tis all the same with Harry Gill;
Beneath the sun, beneath the moon,
His teeth they chatter, chatter still.
3. Young Harry was a lusty drover,
And who so stout of limb as he?
His cheeks were red as ruddy clover,
His voice was like the voice of three.
Auld Goody Blake was old and poor,
Ill fed she was, and thinly clad;
And any man who passed her door,
Might see how poor a hut she had.

4. All day she spun in her poor dwelling,
And then her three hours' work at night!
Alas! 'twas hardly worth the telling,

1

LESSON CII.

Happiness.-LACON.

1. What is earthly happiness? that phantom of which we hear so much, and see so little? whose promises are constantly given and constantly broken, but as constantly believed? that cheats us with the sound instead of the substance, and with the blossom instead of the fruit?

2. Like Juno,* she is a goddess in pursuit, but a cloud in possession; deified by those who cannot enjoy her, and despised by those who can. Anticipation is her herald, but Disappointment is her companion; the first addresses itself to our imagination, that would believe, but the latter to our experience, that

must.

3. Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route. Aristippust pursued her in pleasure, Socratest in wisdom, and Epicurust in both; she received the attentions of each, but bestowed her endearments on neither; although like some other gallants, they all boasted of more favors than they had received.

4. Warned by their failure, the stoic‡ adopted a most paradoxical mode of preferring his suit; he thought, by slandering, to woo her; by shunning, to win her; and proudly presumed, that by fleeing her, she would turn and follow him.

5. She is deceitful as the calm that precedes the hurricane ; smooth as the water on the verge of the cataract; and beautiful as the rainbow, that smiling daughter of the storm; but, like the mirage in the desert, she tantalizes us with a delusion that distance creates, and that contiguity destroys.

6. Yet, when unsought, she is often found, and when unexpected, often obtained; while those who seek for her the most diligently, fail the most, because they seek her where she

is not.

7. Anthony sought her in love; Brutus in glory; Cæsar in dominion; the first found disgrace,-the second disgust,the last ingratitude, and each destruction. To some she is

* A heathen goddess.

† A Grecian philosopher.

Stoics, a sect of heathen philosophers, who prided themselves in an affected indifference to pleasure or pain.

A curious phenomenon, supposed to result from an inverted image of the sky intermixed with the ground scenery. They are seen principally in the African deserts.

A Roman gen ral.