MESSENGER.

With that he gave his able horse the head,
And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head, and starting so,
He seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.

He comes, the herald of a noisy world, With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks;

News from all nations lumbering at his back, True to his charge, the close-pack'd load behind, Yet careless what he brings, his one concern

Is to conduct it to the destin'd inn;

Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knolling a departing friend.

Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.

One of my fellows had the speed of him:
Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
Than would make up his message.

Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some;
To him indifferent whether grief or joy.
Cowper's Task,

The Tartar lighted at the gate,
But scarce upheld his fainting weight;
His swarthy visage spake distress,
But this might be from weariness:
His garb with sanguine spots was dyed,
But these might be from his courser's side;
He drew the token from his vest,
Angel of death! 't is Hassan's cloven crest!

MIND.

Byron's Giaour.

Hail, horrors! hail, Infernal world, and thou, profoundest hell, Receive thy new possessor; one who brings A mind not to be chang'd by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n. Milton's Paradise Lost.

Mind, mind alone, (bear witness earth and heaven!)

The living fountains in itself contains
Of beauteous and sublime: here, hand in hand,
Sit paramount the graces; here enthron'd,
Celestial Venus, with divinest airs,
Invites the soul to never-fading joy.

Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination.

Look then abroad through nature, to the range
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres,
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense;
And speak, O man, does this capacious scene
With half that kindling majesty dilate
Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate,
Amid the crowd of patriots; and his arm
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove,

When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel,
And bade the father of his country hail?
For lo! the tyrant prostrate on the dust,
And Rome again is free!

Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination.
The immortal mind, superior to his fate,
Amid the outrage of external things,
Firm as the solid base of this great world,
Rests on his own foundation. Blow, winds!
ye
Ye waves! ye thunders! roll your tempests on!
Shake, ye old pillars of the marble sky!
Till all its orbs and all its worlds of fire
Be loosen'd from their seats; yet still serene,
The unconquer'd mind looks down upon the wreck;
And ever stronger as the storms advance,
Firm through the closing ruin holds his way,
Where nature calls him to the destin'd goal.
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination.
With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,
Preys on herself, and is destroy'd by thought!
Constant attention wears the active mind,
Blots out her pow'rs, and leaves a blank behind.
Churchill.

For just experience tells, in ev'ry soil,
That those who think, must govern those who toil;
And all that freedom's highest aims can reach
Is but to lay proportion'd loads on each.

Goldsmith's Traveller.

Mind, despatch'd upon the busy toil,

soil;

Visiting every flow'r with labour meet,

And gathering all her treasures sweet by sweet,
She should imbue the tongue with what she sips,
And shed the balmy blessing on the lips,
That good diffus'd may more abundant grow,
And speech may praise the pow'r that bids it flow.
Cowper's Conversation.

Our souls at least are free, and 't is in vain
We would against them make the flesh obey—
The spirit in the end will have its way.

Byron. Heads bow, knees bend, eyes watch around a throne, And hands obey-our hearts are still our own. Byron.

Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.

O spirits gay, and kindly heart! Precious the blessings ye impart!

Joanna Baillie.

He is so full of pleasant anecdote,
So rich, so gay, so poignant in his wit,
Time vanishes before him as he speaks,
And ruddy morning through the lattice peeps.
Joanna Baillie's De Montford

But then her face,

So lovely, yet so arch

—so full of mirth,

The overflowing of an innocent heart; —
It haunts me still.

Rogers While her laugh, full of life, without any control But the sweet one of gracefulness, rung from her soul.

And where it most sparkled, no glance could dis

cover,

In lip, check or eyes, for she brighten'd all over,
Like any fair lake that the breeze is upon,
When it breaks into dimples, and laughs in the sun

Merry books, once read for pastime,
If ye dar'd to read again,
Only memories of the last time
Would swim darkly up the brain!

Moore.

Miss Barrett's Poems

The merry heart, the merry heart,
Of heaven's gift I hold thee best;
And they who feel its pleasant throb,
Though dark their lot, are truly blest.—
From youth to age it changes not,

When skies are dark, and tempests scowl,
In joy and sorrow still the same;
It shines a steady beacon flame.
It gives to beauty half its power,

The nameless charms worth all the restThe light that dances o'er a face,

And speaks of sunshine in the breast.
If Beauty ne'er have set her seal,

It well supplies her absence too,
And many a cheek looks passing fair,
Because a merry heart shines through.

New England Magazine, Vol. I

Such excess

Of mirth's exuberance visits not for good.
Miss Landon's Poems.

- Don't you know that people wont employ

A man who wrongs his manliness by laughing

like a boy?

Ah, me! full sorely is my heart forlorn,

To think how modest worth neglected lies; While partial fame doth with her blasts adorn Such deeds alone as pride and pomp disguise, Deeds of ill sort, and mischievous emprise.

Shenstone

Thou gavest me, lady, in thy mirth, And mourn, that with the perishing hours Such fair things perish from the earth; For thus, I know, the moment's feeling Its own light web of life unweaves, The dearest trace from memory stealing, Like perfume from their dying leaves The thought that gave it, and the flower, Alike the creatures of an hour.

And thus it better were, perhaps― For feeling is the nurse of pain,

And joys that linger in their lapse Must die at last- and so are vain.

Often, often have I lifted

To my lip the cup of mirth, When the beautiful and gifted Crowded round the festal hearth.

Willis.

W. H. C. Hosmer.

A little of thy merriment,
Of thy sparkling, light content,
Give me, my cheerful brook,-
That I may still be full of glee
And gladsomeness where'er I be,
Though fickle fate hath prison'd me
In some neglected nook.

So modest case in beauty shines most bright; Unaiming charms with edge resistless fall, And she who means no mischief, does it all.

MISER.

A. Hill

The miser lives alone, abhorr'd by all
Like a disease, yet cannot so be 'scap'd,
But, canker-like, eats through the poor men's

hearts

That live about him: never has commerce
With any but to ruin them: his house
Inhospitable as the wilderness,
And never look'd upon but with a curse.
He hoards in secret places of the earth,
Not only bags of treasure, but his corn;
Whose every grain he prizes 'bove a life;
And never prays at all but for dear years.
May's Old Couple
Good morning to the day; and next my gold;
Open the shrine that I may see my saint:
Hail the world's soul and mine! more than glad is
The teeming earth to see the long'd-for sun,
Peep through the horns of the celestial ram,
Am I to view thy splendour, dark'ning his;
That lying here amongst my other hoards,
Show'st like a flame by night, or like the day,
Struck out of chaos, when all darkness fled
Unto the centre.

He that toils and labours hard

Ben Jonson

To gain, and what he gets has spar'd,

Is from the use of all debarr'd.