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Thou who dost through th' eternal round of time,
Dost through th' immensity of space exist
Alone, shalt Thou alone excluded be
From this Thy universe! shall feeble man
Think it beneath his proud philosophy
To call for Thy assistance, and pretend

To frame a world, who cannot frame a clod?

BENJAMIN STILLINGFLEET.

The almost imperceptible gradation in the chain of universal being, from the highest to the lowest link, from man to the worm or vegetable, is a subject of wonder and delight to every thinking mind. The following extract from Soame Jenyns points out, with clearness and elegance, how this mysterious connection exists. "The manner by which the consummate wisdom of the divine Artificer has formed this gradation, so extensive in the whole, and so imperceptible in its parts, is this:-he constantly unites the highest degree of the qualities of each inferior order to the lowest degree of the same qualities, belonging to the order next above it; by which means, like the colours of a skilful painter, they are so blended together, and shaded off into each other, that no line of distinction is anywhere to be seen. Thus, for instance, solidity, extension, and gravity, the qualities of mere matter, being united with the lowest degree of vegetation, compose a stone; from whence this vegetative power ascending through an infinite variety of herbs, flowers, plants, and trees, to its greatest perfection in the sensitive plant, joins there the lowest degree of animal life in the shell-fish, which adheres to the rock; and it is difficult to distinguish which possesses the greater share, as the one shows it only by shrinking from the finger, and the other by opening to receive the water which surrounds it. In the same manner this animal life rises from this low beginning in the shell-fish, through innumerable species of insects, fishes, birds, and beasts, to the confines of reason, where, in the dog, the monkey, and chimpanze, it unites so closely with the lowest degree of that quality in man, that they cannot easily be distinguished from each other. From this lowest degree in the brutal Hottentot, reason, with the assistance of learning and science, advances through the various stages of human understanding, which rise above each other, till in a Bacon or a Newton it attains the summit."

WEEDS.

How many plants, we call them Weeds,

Against our wishes grow,

And scatter wide their various seeds

With all the winds that blow.

Man grumbles when he sees them rise,
To foul his husbandry ;

Kind Providence this way supplies
His lesser family.

Scatter'd and small, they 'scape our eye,

But are not wasted there;

Safe they in clefts and furrows lie,

The little birds find where.

SATURDAY MAGAZINE.

WRITTEN IN THE FLY-LEAF OF AN OLD EDITION OF ISAAC

66

WALTON'S COMPLETE ANGLER.

As fondly these discoloured leaves I turn,

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Out steal, methinks, sweet breathings of the may, And flower-embroidered fields, and new-mown hay; And sound of oaten pipe, and trotting burn,

And lark and milkmaid's song. Among the fern
And blue-bells, once again I seem to lie,
A happy child :-my father angling nigh.
Intent, as 'twere our daily bread to earn,
On his mute pastime. In that quiet nook

Nestling, o'ershadowed by a pollard beech,
And poring, dear old Isaac !-on thy book;

Lessons I learnt the schools can never teach,
Lessons that time can ne'er efface-nor age-
Nor worldly schooling, from the heart's warm page.

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THE SNOWDROP.

DARK winter freezes, and in storm
The wind all-chilling blows;
Yet see! a little slender form
Peeps from the crystal snows.
Fair on a weakly trembling stem,
It springs from icy bed,
And smiles a vegetable gem,
Hanging its modest head.

It nodding hangs, fair ev'n as light,
Just tipp'd with vernal green;
No cloud at noon of purer white,
Nor snows on cliff are seen.

The rose may blush in summer-dew,
The lily near it rise :—
No less delightful to the view
This child of wintry skies.

Say, is it not a drop of snow
Inspirited awhile,

At virgin Flora's will to show
How chastely she can smile?

Or does it bloom to let us see
How lovely Virtue's form?

Sweet flower, O may we learn, like thee

To blossom, in the storm.

REV. J. RICHARDSON.

The Snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, presents its modest milk-white corolla to our notice early in February. The French give it the name of Perce-neige, because it often pierces the snow.

Mrs. Barbauld thus beautifully alludes to it :

Already now the Snowdrop dares appear,
The first pale blossom of the unripened year;
As Flora's breath by some transforming power

Had chang'd an icicle into a flower,

Its name and hue the scentless plant retains,
And winter lingers in its icy veins.

ON A FLOWER OPENING TO THE SUN.

SWEET flower behold the rising sun,—
Scarce has his morning race begun,

When thou dost ope thine eye;

What gentle voice or whisper soft,
Tells thee to rear thine head aloft,
And greet him in the sky?

What secret power impels thy leaf
To close, and pass thy time in grief,
When he has gone his round?
In vain the beauteous orbs of night,
The moon and stars in vain unite,
To raise thee from the ground.

Astonish'd now, I stand and view-
Hast thou both sense and feeling too?
What wonders I behold!

The flower, I thought, would droop and die,
When darkness veil'd the midnight sky;
Now its fair leaves unfold!

Thus conscious in my opening mind,
When the reviving rays I find

Of my more glorious sun;

My hopes revive, my spirits rise,
My faith salutes the smiling skies,
And thinks her warfare done.

But when the evening shades return,
And I am left the light to mourn,

My spirit droops again :

Nor men, nor angels, all combin'd,

Could here relieve my burden'd mind,

Or ease me of my pain.

SUSANNA WILSON.

THE BROOM.

OH! the broom, the bonny, bonny broom,
On my native hills it grows;

I had rather see the bonny broom,
Than the rarest flower that blows:-
Oh! the yellow broom is blossoming,
In my own dear country;

I never thought so small a thing

As a flower my nerveless heart could wring,
Or draw a tear from me.

It minds one of my native hills,

Clad in the heath and fen;

Of the green strath and the flowery brae,
Of the glade and the rockless glen;
It minds me of dearer things than these,
Of love with life entwined,

Of humble faith on bended knees,
Of home joys gone, and memories,
Like sere leaves left behind!

It minds me of that blessed home,
Of the friends so true to me,
Of my warm-hearted Highland love,
When the broom was the trysting-tree;
I loathe this fair, but foreign strand,
With its fadeless summer bloom;
And I swear, by my own dear native land,
Again on the heathy hills to stand,
Where waves the yellow broom.

MARY HOWITT.

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