THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD. 383 into a fever, and a fever to the plague, fear into despair, anger into rage, and loss into madness, and sorrow to amazement and confusion. But if either we were innocent, or else by the sadness we are made penitent, we are put to school, or into the theatre, either to learn how, or else actually to combat for a crown; the accident may serve an end for mercy, but is not a messenger of wrath."-Jeremy Taylor. WHILE others crowd the house of mirth, Let such as would with wisdom dwell, Better to weep with those who weep, When virtuous sorrow clouds the face, The wise in heart revisit oft Grief's dark sequestered cell; CAMERON. LIV. THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD. "DEATH implies separation: and the loss of those whom we love must, necessarily, so far as we can conceive, be accompanied with pain. To the brute creation, nature seems to have stepped in with some secret provision for their relief, under the rupture of the attachments. In their instincts towards their offspring, and of their offspring to them; I have often been surprised to observe how ardently they love, and how soon they forget. The pertinacity of human sorrow (upon which time also, at length, lays its softening hand) is probably, therefore, in some manner connected with the qualities of our rational or moral nature. One thing, however, is clear, viz., that it is better that we should possess affections, the sources of so many virtues, and so many joys, although they be exposed to the incidents of life, as well as the interruptions of mortality, than by the want of them, be reduced to a state of selfishness, apathy, and quietism."Paley. "If we are to experience no other felicity but what this life affords, then are we miserable indeed. If we are born only to look about us, repine and die, then has Heaven been guilty of injustice. If this life terminates my existence, I despise the blessings of Providence, and the wisdom of the giver. If this life be my all, let the following epitaph be written on the tomb of Altangi : By my father's crimes I received this; by my own crimes I bequeath it to posterity.'"Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. THEY grew in beauty side by side, One, 'midst the forests of the west, The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one, One sleeps where southern vines are drest He wrapt his colours round his breast, And parted thus they rest, who played They that with smiles lit up the hall, And nought beyond, oh earth! MRS. HEMANS. LV. "ON THE RECEIPT OF MY MOTHER'S PICTURE." "HONOUR thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.' "A mother, that earliest, most constant, most unfailing friend, whose kindness, beginning with our breath, blends with, and forms a part of, our whole history, ought not to go down to the grave without leaving the feeling of a melancholy void. I do not think that we have on earth so striking an image of God's goodness as in a mother's love."- Channing. ON THE RECEIPT OF MY MOTHER'S PICTURE. I will obey, not willingly alone, But gladly, as the precept were her own :3 A momentary dream, that thou art she. My mother! when I learned that thou wast dead, 6 Ꮓ +385 Where once we dwelt, our name is heard no more, Children not thine have trod my nursery floor; And where the gardener, Robin, day by day, Drew me to school along the public way, Delighted with my bauble coach and wrapt In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet-capt, 'Tis now become a history little known, That once we called the pastoral house our own. Short-lived possession! but the record fair, That memory keeps of all thy kindness there, Still outlives many a storm that has effaced A thousand other themes less deeply traced. Thy nightly visits to my chamber made, That thou mightst know me safe and warmly laid; Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, The biscuit, or confectionary plum; The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed ;- Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here. Could time, his flight reversed, restore the hours, When playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers, The violet, the pink, and jessamine, I pricked them into paper with a pin, (And thou wast happier than myself the while, Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head, and smile,) Could those few pleasant days again appear, Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here? Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast THE PRIMROSE. Shoots into port at some well-havened isle, And while the wings of fancy still are free, 1. What part of speech is last? 2. What they? 3. Ellipsis in this line. 4. Case of wretch? 5. Case of jouryney? 387 CowPER. 6. In what sense is maidens here used? LVI. THE PRIMROSE. "THE thunder, the pestilence, and the tempest, awe and humble us into dismaying recollections of God's tremendous omnipotence and possible visitations, and of our total inability to resist or avert them; but the beauty and benefactions of his vegetable creations-the flowers and the fruits more especially-remind and assures us of His unforgetting care, of His condescending sympathy, of His paternal attentions, and of the same affectionate benignity still actuating His mind, which must have influenced it to design and execute such |