For contemplation he and valour form'd;
For softness she, and sweet attractive grace;
He for God only, she for God in him:
His fair large front and eye sublime declared
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders
broad:

She, as a veil, down to the slender waist
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevell'd, but in wanton ringlets waved,
As the vine curls her tendrils, which implied
Subjection, but required with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best received.

SHADE-Delights of.

Beside the dewy border let me sit,

Milton.

All in the freshness of the humid air;
There on that hollow'd rock, grotesque and
wild,

An ample chair, moss-lined, and overhead
By flow'ring umbrage shaded; where the bee
Strays diligent, and with th' extracted balm
Of fragrant woodbine, loads his little thigh.
Oh, bear me then to vast embow'ring shades,
To twilight groves, and visionary vales;
To weeping grottos, and prophetic glooms;
Where angel forms athwart the solemn dusk,
Tremendous sweep, or seem to sweep along;
And voices more than human, through the

void

Deep sounding, seize th' enthusiastic ear!

Thomson.

SHAME-Consequences of.
Shame greatly hurts or greatly helps mankind.
Homer.
SHAME-Effects of.

I regard that man as lost, who has lost his senso of shame. Plautus.

Shake one, and it awakes; then apply
Its polish'd lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abode

And murmurs as the Ocean murmurs there.
W. S. Landor.

SHELLS-Beauties of

See what a lovely shell,
Small and pure as pearl,
Lying close to my foot,
Frail, but a work divine,
Made so fairily well

With delicate spire and whorl,
How exqusitely minute,
A miracle of design!

What is it? a learned man
Could give it a clumsy name.
Let him name it who can,
The beauty would be the same.

The tiny cell is forlorn,
Void of the little living will
That made it stir on the shore.
Did he stand at the diamond door
Of his house in a rainbow frill?
Did he push, when he was uncurl'd,
A golden foot or a fairy horn
Through his dim water-world?

Tennyson.

A collection of shells is a beautiful and surprising sight; beautiful, since more exquisite samples of elegance of form and brilliancy of colour cannot be found through the wide range of natural objects, whether organized or inorganized; surprising, when we consider that all these durable relics were constructed by soft and fragile animals, among the most perishable of living creatures. Still more surprising is such an assemblage when we reflect upon the endless variation of pattern and sculpture which it displays; for there are known to naturalists more that fifteen thousand perfectly distinct kinds of shells. Every one of these kinds has a rule of its own, a law which every individual of each kind through all its generations implicitly obeys. Thus there is a liberty to vary given to some, whilst others are rigidly bound by immutable rules of the utmost simplicity; but to none is allowed the license to depart, unless in the exceptional cases of useless and abnormal monstrosities, from the law of its specific organization. The researches of the naturalist have made him conversant not merely with the fact of these myriads of modifications of the type of the molluscous shell, but also with the laws obeyed by whole groups of forms, and the principles which may be evoked from the careful and minute study of species and geLus. Thus a science arises out of a know

ledge of conchological details, and truths are elicited which bear importantly upon the elucidation of the laws of life and being throughout organized nature. The formation of the shell itself is but an example of a process at work equally in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. A shell, whether simple or complicated in contour or colour, is the aggregate result of the functional operation of numberless minute membranous cells, the largest of which does not exceed one-hundredth of an inch in diameter, and in the majority of instances is less than one-thousandth of an inch. In the cavities of these microscopic chambers is deposited a crystalline carbonate of lime, which gives compactness to the beautiful dwelling-house, or rather coat of mail, that protects the tender mollusk. How astonishing is the reflection, that myriads of exactly similar and exceedingly minute organs should so work in combination, that the result of their labours should present an edifice rivalling, nay, exceeding, in complexity, yet order of detail and perfection of elaborate finish, the finest palaces ever constructed by man! Throughout nature we find the same complicated results attained by the same simple mechanism. The flower of the field, the shell of the sea, the bird of the air, the beast of the forest, and man himself, are all so many cellconstructions, wings of the one wonderful animated edifice, whose masons we may behold through the aid of instruments of human construction, but whose Architect is beyond the power of mortal science to comprehend. Everywhere the naturalist discovers the handprints of Omniscient Designer, but humbly content himself with endeavouring to develop the unity and benevolence of the design.

SHIP-in a Fog.

must

Jesse.

The

There are few things more impressive to me than a ship lying up against some lonely quay in a black sea-fog, with the furrow traced under its tawny keel far in the harbour slime. noble misery that there is in it, the might of its rent and strained unseemliness, its waveworn melancholy, resting there for a little while in the comfortless ebb, unpitied, and claiming no pity; still less honoured, least of all conscious of any claim to honour; casting and craning by due balance whatever is in its hold up to the pier, in quiet truth of time; spinning of wheel, and slackening of rope, and swinging of spade, in as accurate cadence as a waltz music; one or two of its crew, perhaps, away forward, and a hungry boy and yelping dog, eagerly interested in something from which a blue dull smoke rises out of pot or

SHIP.

pan; but, dark-browed and silent, their limbs slack, like the ropes above them, entangled as they are in those inextricable meshes about the patched knots and heaps of ill-reefed sable sail. What a majestic sense of service in all that languor! the rest of human limbs and hearts at utter need, not in sweet meadows or soft air, but in harbour slime and biting fog; so drawing their breath once more, to go out again, without lament, from between the two skeletons of pier-heads, vocal with wash of under-wave, into the grey troughs of tumbling brine; there, as they can, with slacked rope, and patched sail, and leaky hull, again to roll and stagger far away amidst the wind and salt sleet, from dawn to dusk, and dusk to dawn, winning day by day their daily bread; and for last reward, when their old hands, on some winter night, lose feeling along the frozen ropes, and their old eyes miss mark of the lighthouse quenched in foam, the so-long impossible Rest, that shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, their eyes and mouths filled with the brown sea-sand.

Ruskin.

SHIP-a Thing of Life.
She walks the waters like a thing of life,
And seems to dare the elements to strife.

Byron

SHIPS-Associations connected with. Ships-ships everywhere; crowding their lofty quivering masts, and slender spars, and tense cordage, in apparently inextricable complication. Ships, that had battled with the waters of dark and far-distant seas in their wildest might, and now lay calmly, almost in the very streets, and gave up the treasures they had so bravely carried over the leaping

wilderness of the ocean

to their masters.

Ships, whose sweltering planks had been scorched beneath the blazing sun of strange lands since they last departed; whose rigging had strained and cracked, and yet held on, true and fast, against the anger of the storms; whose trusty bows had boldly met the lashing maddened billows, flinging back their angry foam to the vast and boiling cauldrons of the deep, as their fettered timbers struck the bissing waters, bearing all the love, and hope, and worlds of hundreds within their span. Ships-still ships, and ships! Albert Smith.

Among ships, the fisher-boat, corresponding to the cottage on the land (only far more sublime than a cottage can ever be), is, on the whole, the thing most venerable. I doubt if ever academic grove were half so fit for profitable meditation, as the little strip of shingle

SHIPS.

between two black, steep, overhanging sides of stranded fishing-boats. The clear heavy water-edge of ocean rising and falling close to their bows, in that unaccountable way which the sea has always in calm weather, turning the pebbles over and over as if with a rake, to look for something, and then stopping a moment down at the bottom of the bank, and coming up again with a little run and clash, throwing a foot's depth of salt crystal, in an instant, between you and the round stone you were going to take in your hand; sighing, all the while, as if it would infinitely rather be doing something else. And the dark flanks of the fishing-boats all aslope above in their! shining quietness, hot in the morning sun, rusty and seam, with square patches of plank nailed over their rents, just rough enough to let the little flat-footed fisher-children haul or twist themselves up to the gunwales, and drop back again along some stray rope; just round enough to remind us, in their broad and gradual curves, of the sweep of the green surges they know so well, and of the hours when those old sides of seared timber, all ashine with the sea, plunge and dip into the deep green purity of the mounded waves, more joyfully than a deer lies down among the grass of spring; the soft white cloud of foam opening momentarily at the bows, and fading or flying high into the breeze, where the sea-gulls toss and shriek; the joy and beauty of it all the while so mingled with the sense of unfathomable danger, and the human effort and sorrow going on perpetually from age to age; waves rolling for ever, and winds moaning for ever, and faithful hearts trusting and sickening for ever, and brave lives dashed away about the rattling

beech like weeds for ever; and still, at the helm of every lonely boat, through starless night and hopeless dawn, His hand, who spreads the fisher's net over the dust of the hand the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Sidonian palaces, and gave into the fisher's

Ruskin.

Sometimes a distant sail, gliding along the edge of the ocean, would be another theme of idle speculation. How interesting this fragment of a world, hastening to rejoin the great mass of existence! What a glorious monument of human invention, that has thus triumphed over wind and wave; has brought the ends of the world into communion; has established an interchange of blessings, pouring into the sterile regions of the north all the luxuries of the south; has diffused the light of knowledge, and the charities of cultivated life; and bas thus bound together those scattered portions of the human race between

SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS.

A dew-drop falling on the ocean-wave, Exclaim'd in fear: "I perish in this grave;" But in a shell received, that drop of dew Unto a pearl of marvellous beauty grew; And, happy now, the grace did magnify

perienced nurses, but still the responsibility and the anxiety rest with the mistress; for she cannot hire affection, thoughtful care, and all those little attentions which make the sole comfort of an invalid; she can merely secure a species of human machine which mechanically performs its duties, and between whiles eats, drinks, sleeps, and comforts itself. There are many excellent and kind-hearted professional nurses, but there are also more who have become, as it were, petrified by the habitual contemplation of suffering, and who merely regard the patient with a business-like eye. In a sick-room, the kindness and attention of the nurse often operate far greater marvels than the skill of the doctor; for she is there every hour, she sees every change, and can These minister to so many little wants. trifles which make up the events of an invalid, those minor details so unimportant to a person

in health, those whims, and desires, and nervous susceptibilities, which appear almost childish to lookers-on, will be studied by a good, conscientious nurse, and overlooked or disregarded by one who either does not feel interested in the patient, or has not sufficient sympathy to In the induce her to study these matters. former case, the invalid will be soothed and cheered; in the latter, irritated and depressed. Surely it is not difficult to conceive which influence must act most beneficially upon the system. Gentleness, watchfulness, firmness, judgment, some delicacy of feeling, and a truly Christian spirit, are the distinguishing characteristics which will best adapt a woman for fulfilling this phase of her duties.

SICK-BED-a Regal Solitude.

Mrs. Marsh.

If there be a regal solitude, it is a sick-bed. How the patient lords it there! what caprices he acts without control! how king-like he sways his pillow-tumbling, and tossing, and

die ;

flatting, and moulding it, to the ever-varying requisitions of his throbbing temples.

SICKNESS-Irritability of.

Lamb.

Those who are blessed with health can never know, till they in their turn are called upon to suffer, what heroic strength of spirit lies hidden under the mask of silent uncomplaining suffering; how strong the temptations are to be unreasonable, pettish, or repining; how difficult it is to be grateful, and still more to be amiable, when the irritation of every nerve renders the most skilful attendance irksome, and the dearest presence importunate; when the diseased frame loathes the sunshine of a smile, and dreads the tear and the cloud; where all is pain, and weariness, and bitterness.