THE PATRIOT'S PRAYER FOR ENGLAND.

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of its industry new distant markets of commercial demand. He, too, is a benefactor to the community who plans and obtains the execution of the various public works that facilitate the intercourse of district with district, or give more safety to navigation, or embellish a land with its best ornaments, the institutions of charity or instruction. In accomplishing, or contributing our aid to accomplish, these valuable ends, we perform a part of the duty which we are considering, the duty of augmenting to the best of our ability the sum of national happiness. But, important as such exercises of public spirit are, they are not so important as the efforts of him who succeeds in remedying some error in the system of government, some error, perhaps, which has been, in its more remote influence, the retarding cause, on account of which those very public plans, which otherwise might have been carried into effect many ages before, were not even conceived as possible, till they were brought forward by that provident wisdom and active zeal which have obtained, and justly obtained, our gratitude.Brown's Lectures.

ISLAND of bliss! amid the subject seas

That thunder round thy rocky coasts set up,
At once the wonder, terror, and delight
Of distant nations; whose remotest shore
Can soon be shaken by thy naval arms;
Not to be shook' thyself, but all assaults
Baffling, like thy hoar cliffs, the loud sea wave.
O Thou, by whose almighty nod the scale
Of empire rises, or alternate falls,

Send forth the saving virtues round the land,
In bright patrol: white peace and social love,
The tender-looking charity, intent

On gentle deeds, and shedding tears through smiles;
Undaunted truth, and dignity of mind;

Courage, composed and keen; sound temperance,
Healthful in heart and look; clear chastity,
With blushes reddening as she moves along,
Disordered at the deep regard she draws;
Rough industry; activity untired,
With copious life informed, and all awake;
While in the radiant front, superior shines
That first paternal virtue, public zeal-
Who throws o'er all an equal wide survey,
And, ever musing on the common weal,
Still labours glorious with some great design.

1. Anything to remark on this use of the word shook?

THOMSON.

2. The meaning of the word informed here?

XXVIII. ENGLAND AND HER QUEEN.

"THE English are very fond of their fine country; they call it 'Old England,' and 'Merry England,' and think it the finest land that the sun shines upon. And the Scots are also very proud of their own country, with its great lakes and mountains; and, in the old language of the country, they call it the land of the lakes and mountains and of the brave men; and often also the land of cakes,' because the people live a good deal upon cakes made of oatmeal instead of wheaten bread. But both England and Scotland are now parts of the same kingdom, and there is no use in asking which is the best country or has the bravest men."-Scott's Tales of a Grandfather.

HURRAH! hurrah for England!
Her woods and valleys green;
Hurrah for good old England!
Hurrah for England's Queen!
Strong ships are on her waters,
Firm friends upon her shores;
Peace, peace within her borders,
And plenty in her stores.
Right joyously we're singing,
We're glad to make it known,
That we love the land we live in,
And our Queen upon the throne.
Then hurrah for merry England!
And may we still be seen

True to our own dear country,
And loyal to our Queen!

M. A. STODART.

XXIX. WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE?

"THE public spirit of a people (by which I mean the whole body of those affections which unites men's hearts to the commonwealth) is in various countries composed of various elements, and depends on a great variety of causes. In this country I may venture to say, that it mainly depends on the vigour of the popular parts and principles of our government; and that the spirit of liberty is one of its most important elements. Perhaps it may depend less on those advantages of a free government, which are most highly estimated by calm reason, than upon those parts which delight the imagination, and flatter the just and natural pride of mankind. Among these we are certainly not to forget the political rights which are not uniformly withheld from the lowest classes, and the continual appeal made to them, in public discussion, upon the greatest interests of the state. These are undoubtedly among the circumstances which endear to Englishmen their govern

HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE.

117.

ment and their country, and animate their zeal for that glorious institution which confers on the meanest of them a sort of distinction and nobility unknown to the most illustrious slaves, who tremble at the frown of a tyrant.-Sir James Mackintosh.

WHAT Constitutes a State?

Not high-raised battlement, or laboured mound,
Thick wall, or moated gate;

Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad-armed ports,

Where, laughing at the storm, proud navies ride;
Nor starred and spangled courts,

Where low-browed Baseness wafts perfume to Pride!
No! men, high-minded men,

With powers as far above dull brutes endued,

In forest, brake, or den,

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude:

Men, who their duties know,

But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain.

SIR WILLIAM JONES.

XXX. HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE.

"THE extent of your resources, under God, is equal to the justice of your cause. But should Providence determine otherwise, should you fall in this struggle, should the nation fall, you will have the satisfaction (the purest allotted to man) of having performed your part; your names will be enrolled with the most illustrious dead, while posterity to the end of time, as often as they revolve the events of this period (and they will incessantly revolve them), will turn to you a reverential eye, while they mourn over the freedom which is entombed in your sepulchre. I cannot but imagine the virtuous heroes, legislators, and patriots of every age and country, are bending from their elevated seats to witness this contest, as if they were incapable, till it be brought to a favourable issue, of enjoying their eternal repose. Enjoy that repose, illustrious immortals! Your mantle fell when you ascended; and thousands, inflamed with your spirit and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready to swear by Him that sitteth upon the throne and liveth for ever and ever, that they will protect freedom in her last asylum, and never desert that cause which you sustained by your iabours and cemented with your blood."-Hall, on the Threatened

Invasion in 1803.

How sleep the brave who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there.

COLLINS.

XXXI. THE SPARTANS' MARCH.

"It was at once a delightful and terrible sight to see the Spartans marching on to the tune of their flutes, without ever troubling their order or confounding their ranks; their music leading them into danger with a deliberate hope and assurance, as if some divinity had sensibly assisted them."-Plutarch.

"Twas morn upon the Grecian hills,

Where peasants dressed the vines ;
There was sunlight on Citharon's rills,
Arcadia's rocks and pines.

And brightly through his reeds and flowers
Eurotas wandered by,

When a sound arose from Spartan towers
Of solemn harmony.

Was it the Shepherd's choral strain
That hymned the Forest-god?
Or the virgins', as to Pallas' fane

With their full-toned lyres they trod?

But helms were glancing on the stream,
Spears ranged in close array,

And shields flung back a glorious beam
To the morn of a fearful day.

And the mountain-echoes of the land
Swelled through the deep-blue sky,
While to soft strains marched forth a band
Of men who marched to die.

They marched not to the trumpets' blast,
Nor bade the horn peal out;

And the laurel woods, as on they passed,
Rung with no battle shout!

They asked no clarion's voice to fire
Their souls with an impulse high;
But the Dorian reed, and the Spartan lyre,
For the sons of liberty!

"FEW are sufficiently aware how much reason most of us have, even as common moral livers, to thank God for being Englishmen. It would furnish grounds both for humility towards Providence and for increased attachment to our country if each individual could but see and feel how large a part of his innocence he owes to his birth, breeding, and residence in Great Britain. The adminsitration of the laws; the almost continual preaching of moral prudence; the pressure of our ranks on each other, with the consequent reserve and watchfulness of demeanour in the superior ranks and emulation in the subordinate; the vast depth, expansion, and systematic movements of our trade; and the consequent interdependence, the arterial or nerve-like network of property, which make every deviation from outward integrity a calculable loss to the offending individual himself from its mere effects, as obstruction and irregularity; and, lastly, the naturalness of doing as others do. These and the like influences, peculiar, some in the kind and all in the degree, to this privileged island, are the buttresses, on which our foundationless well-doing is upholden, even as a house of cards, the architecture of our infancy, in which each is supported by all."-Coleridge.

Oh! to be in England,

Now that April's there;

And whoever walks in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England-now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows-
Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops-at the bent spray's edge-
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!