listen to reason? I had them a dead bargain, or I should not have bought them. The silver rims alone will sell for double the money."

"A fig for the silver rims!" cried my wife in a passion: "I dare swear they won't sell for above half the money at the rate of broken silver, five shillings an ounce."

"You need be under no uneasiness," said I, "about selling the rims, for they are not worth sixpence; for I perceive they are only copper varnished over."

"What!" cried my wife; "not silver! the rims not silver!"

"No," cried I; "no more silver than your saucepan.

"And so," returned she, "we have parted with the colt, and have only got a gross of green spectacles, with copper rims and shagreen cases? A murrain take such trumpery! The blockhead has been imposed upon, and should have known his company better." "There, my dear," cried I, "you are wrong; he should not have known them at all."

"To bring me such stuff!" returned she; “if I had them, I would throw them into the fire."

"There again you are wrong, my dear," said I; "for though they are copper, we will keep them by us, as copper spectacles, you know, are better than nothing."

By this time the unfortunate Moses was undeceived. He now saw that he had been imposed upon by a prowling sharper, who, observing his figure, had marked him for an easy prey. I therefore asked the circumstances of his deception. He sold the horse, it seems, and walked the fair in search of another. A reverend-looking man brought him to a tent, under pretense of having one to sell.

"Here," continued Moses, "we met another man, very well dressed, who desired to borrow twenty pounds upon these, saying that he wanted money, and would dispose of them for a third of the value.

The first gentleman whispered me to buy them, and cautioned me not to let so good an offer pass. I sent to Mr. Flamborough, and they talked him up as finely as they did me; and so at last we were persuaded to buy the two gross between us."

Our family had now made several vain attempts to be fine. "You see, my children," said I, "how little is to be got by attempts to impose upon the world. Those that are poor and will associate with none but the rich are hated by those they avoid, and despised by those they follow."

- OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

A LEGEND OF BREGENZ

GIRT round with rugged mountains
The fair Lake Constance lies;
In her blue heart reflected,

Shine back the starry skies;
And watching each white cloudlet
Float silently and slow,

You think a piece of heaven

Lies on our earth below!

Midnight is there and silence

Enthroned in heaven, looks down

Upon her own calm mirror,

Upon a sleeping town;

For Bregenz, that quaint city
Upon the Tyrol shore,

Has stood above Lake Constance
A thousand years and more.

Her battlements and towers,
Upon their rocky steep,
Have cast their trembling shadow
For ages on the deep:
Mountain, and lake, and valley

A sacred legend know,

Of how the town was saved one night Three hundred years ago.

And so she dwelt; the valley
More peaceful year by year;
When suddenly strange portents
Of some great deed seemed near.
The golden corn was bending
Upon its fragile stalk,

While farmers, heedless of their fields,
Paced up and down in talk.

The men seemed stern and altered,
With looks cast on the ground;
With anxious faces, one by one
The women gathered round;
All talk of flax, or spinning,

Or work was put away;
The very children seemed afraid
To go alone to play.