162 HUMPHREY Davy. edifice like the palace of ice upon the Neva, as in the system of Lavoiser. It is not a European museum like the substantial fabric which the long days' work of Berzelius has slowly builded over his future bed of rest, and filled with all that is rich and rare from Icelandic caldrons, Ural mines, Tropical woods, and the heights of the Andes and the Himmelah, for the useful instruction of mankind: nor a half-lit, unfinished, but magnificent orrery, like the "New Philosophy" of Dalton, in which, when the undiscovered planets and the unexpected Comets shall have been found, and when the central idea shall have been kindled into a blaze of light and force by the Prometheus of another day, the movements and the sheen of all the stars shall be held up to the astonished eye, as one complete microcosm of creation. Yet there is something of all these together, in the work of the London discoverer. There are the neigbouring shadows of Stahl, and as it appears from the researches of Faraday, something also like the inverted representation of the truth. There is the brightness of Wollaston, in the great facts he has won from their enchanted holds. There is the sound logic of Lavoiser. And, last of all these, there is the independence, and the essential vitality of glorious promise for posterity, of our Quaker-the immortal Dalton: but over the great proportions of the fabric, there is shed that brilliancy which is all his own: a lustre partly derived from the accidental character of his particular discoveries, and partly from the original endowment of his mind, by that only Potentate, whose "minister he was.” Such is the elaborate and richly laden mausoleum of Humphrey Davy. NORTH BRITISH REVIEW. PERFUMES, the more they're chafed the more they render Their pleasant scents; and so affliction Expresseth virtue fully. My Cimes are in Chy Band My times are in Thy hand! I know not what a day Or e'en an hour may bring to me, On Him rely Who fix'd the earth, and spread the starry sky. My times are in Thy hand! Pale poverty, or wealth, Corroding care, or calm repose, Spring's balmy breath, or Winter's snows, Sickness or buoyant health Whate'er betide, If God provide, 'Tis for the best-I wish no lot beside. My times are in Thy hand! Should friendship pure illume, And strew my path with fairest flowers, Or should I spend life's dreary hours, In solitude's dark gloom, Thou art a Friend, "Till Time shall end, Unchangeably the same-in Thee all beauties blend. My times are in Thy hand! Many or few my days, I leave with Thee-this only pray, 164 MY TIMES ARE IN THY HAND. May ready be, To welcome Thee, Whene'er Thou comest to set my spirit free. My times are in Thy hand! Howe'er I die, "Twill be the dawn of Heavenly ecstacy. My times are in Thy hand! To Thee I can entrust My slumb'ring clay 'till Thy command Awaking from the dust. Beholding Thee, What bliss 'twill be With all Thy saints to spend eternity! Haste, haste, my Lord, and soon transport me there. N. H. FULL soon must all these summer birds be gone- Chought. the “THERE are rare and precious moments, snatched from the whirl of life, and spent in stillness and alone. Even when not devoted to direct meditation, and appearing too fleeting to be productive of much good, they yet tend to give us a knowledge of the realities that encompass us. By the depth of their solemnity and repose, they remind us, that, beneath the surface of this weary, working existence, there is another worldanother and an enduring life :-imaged in the unchanging sky, and the returning sun, and the ever renewed beauty of the trees and flowers, and the steadfastness of the everlasting hills and if our hearts are open to the truth, they may sometimes teach us to remember, that, as in far off years, glorious Temple rose silently in the city of Jerusalem, neither axe, nor hammer, nor tool, giving warning or notice of the work -so the more glorious temple-the Church of the living Godis, at this moment, rising unperceived in the midst of a tumultuous world: each stone quarried and fashioned by the sharp edge of sorrow, and the keen stroke of adversity, until, perfected and prepared, it is fitted for that destined position, which shall be the place of its rest for eternity. It does not signify, in the concerns of life, whether we are called upon to rule a kingdom, or pick up stones on the highway, if only what we do is work: work for Him, that shall turn to account in the reckoning of the long day of life: work for Him to whom nothing is great, and therefore nothing can be little." SPEAK gently!-'tis a little thing Complaint of the Sea Shell. I COME from the Ocean-a billow passed o'er me, The sky-lark at noon pours a carol of pleasure, And when guests with officious intrusion address me, Since I left the blue deep I am ever regretting, And mingled with men in the regions above, I have known them-the ties they once cherished, forgetting, Oh! is it so hard to preserve true devotion? I am bound by mysterious links to the ocean, ABDY. 166 |