"Why sir, d'ye think I've lost my eyes?''
""Twere no great loss," the friend replies-
"For if they always serve you thus,
You'll find them of but little use."
So high at last the contest rose,
From words they almost came to blows-
When luckily, came by a third;
To him the question they referr'd,
And begg'd he'd tell them if knew,
Whether the thing was green or blue.
"Sirs," cries the umpire, 66 cease your pother, The creature's neither one nor t'other. I caught the animal last night,
And view'd it o'er by candle light:
I mark'd it well-'twas black as jet-
You stare-but sirs I've got it yet,
And can produce it."-" Pray sir do:
I'll lay my life the thing is blue."-
"And I'll be sworn that when you've seen
The reptile, you'll pronounce it green."
"Well then, at once to end the doubt,"
Replies the man, t I'll turn him out:
And when before your eyes I've set him,
If you don't find him black I'll eat him."
He said then full before their sight
Produc'd the beast-and low 'twas white.
II.-On the Order of Nature.-POPE. SEE, through this air, this ocean and this earth, All matter quick, and bursting into birth. Above, how high progressive life may go, Around how wide! how deep extend below! Vast chain of being, which from God began: Natures etherial, human; angel, man; Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee. From thee to nothing. On superiour powers Were we to press, inferiour might on ours; Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd; From Nature's chain whatever link you strike, Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread,
Or hand, to toil, aspir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this gen'ral frame.
Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing MIND of ALL ordains.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul:
That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in th' etherial frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent,
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart:
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects and equals all.
Cease, then, nor ORDER, imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point; this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee.
Submit. In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear;
Safe in the hand of one disposing Power,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good;
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, "WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT."
III.-Description of a Country Alehouse.-GOLDSMITH.
NEAR yonder thorn that lifts its head on high,
Where once the signpost caught the passing eye;
Low lies that house, where nut brown draughts inspir'd;
Where gray beard mirth, and smiling toil retir'd;
Where village statesmen talk'd with looks profound,
And news, much older than their ale, went round.
Imagination fondly stoops to trace
The parlour splendours of that festive place;
The whitewash'd wall; the nicely sanded floor;
The varnish'd clock, that click'd behind the door;
The chest, contriv'd a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day;
The pictures plac'd for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose;
The hearth, except when winter chill'd the day,
With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay;
While broken teacups, wisely kept for show,'
Rang'd o'er the chimney, glisten'd in a row.
Vain transitory splendours! could not all
Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall!
Obscure it sinks; nor shall it more impart
An hour's importance to the poor man's heart:
Thither no more the peasant shall repair,
To sweet oblivion of his daily care;
No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale,
No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail;
No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear,
Relax his pond'rous strength, and lean to hear.
The host himself no longer shall be found
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round ;
Nor the coy maid, half willing to be press'd,
Shall kiss the cup, to pass it to the rest.
IV. Character of a Country Schoolmaster.-IE. BESIDE yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossom'd furze, unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule, The village master taught his little school. A man severe he was, and stern to view; I knew him well, and every truant knew. Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace The day's disasters in his morning face; Full well they laugh'd, and counterfeited glee, At all his jokes-for many a joke had he; Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd..
Yet he was kind; or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault.
The village all declar'd how much he knew,
'Twas certain he could write and cypher too;
Lands he could measure, times and tides presage ;
And e'en the story ran that he could guage.
In arguing too the parson own'd his skill;
For, e'en though vanquish'd he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thundering sound,
Amaz'd the gazing rustics, rang'd around;
And still they gaz'd-and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
V.-Story of Palemon and Lavinia.—THOMPSON,
The lovely young Lavinia once had friends,
And fortune smil'd deceitful, on her birth.
For, in her helpless years, depriv'd of all,
Of every stay, save innocence and Heaven,
She, with her widow'd mother, feeble, old
And poor, liv'd in a cottage, far retir'd
Among the windings of a woody vale;
By solitude and deep surrounding shades,
But more by bashful modesty conceal'd.
Together, thus they shun'd the cruel scorn,
Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet
From giddy passion and low minded pride;
Almost on nature's common bounty fed;
Like the gay birds that sung them to repose,
Content, and careless of tomorrow's fare.
Her form was fresher than the morning rose, When the dew wets its leaves; unstain'd and pure, As is the lilly, or the mountain snow.
The modest virtues mingled in her eyes,
Still on the ground dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers;
Or, when the mournful tale her mother told,
Of what her faithless fortune promis'd once,
Thrill'd in her thought, they, like the dewy star
Of evening, shone in tears. A native grace
Sat, fair proportion'd, on her polish'd limbs,
Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire,
Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most.
Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self,
Recluse, amid the close embowering woods.
As in the hollow breast of Appenine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,
A myrtle rises, far from human eye,
And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild ;
So flourish'd blooming, and unseen by all,
The sweet Lavinia; till at length compell'd
By strong Necessity's supreme command,
With smiling patience in her looks, she went
To glean Palemon's fields.-The pride of swains
Palemon was; the generous and the rich;
Who led the rural life, in all its joy
And elegance, such as Arcadian song
Transmits from ancient uncorrupted times,
When tyrant Custom had not shackled man,
But, free to follow nature, was the mode.
He then, his fancy with autumnal scenes
Amusing, chanc'd beside his reaper train
To walk, when poor Lavinia drew his eye,
Unconscious of her power, and turning quick,
With unaffected blushes, from his gaze:
He saw her charming; but he saw not half
The charms her downcast modesty conceal'd.
That very moment love and chaste desire
Sprung in his bosom, to himself unknown ;
For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh
(Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn)
Should his heart own a gleaner in the field;
And thus in secret to his soul he sigh'd.
"What pity that so delicate a form,
By beauty kindled, where enlivening sense,
And more than vulgar goodness seems to dwell,
Should be devoted to the rude embrace
Of some indecent clown! She looks, me thinks,
Of old Acasto's line; and to my mind
Recalls that patron of my happy life,
From whom my liberal fortune took its rise;
Now to the dust gone down, his houses, lands,
And once fair spreading family, dissolv'd.
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