Common the cornet and man that play'd it ;
What was it so telling and plaintive made it?

I couldn't get from it.

What could be its spell?

There was one I knew; that I could but feel well.

Often I'd heard our Koenig play,

But never the cornet before to-day.

Strange was its charm, it must be confest ;

Whence was its power you'd little have guessed.

The player was one not worth a rap,
With a broken hat and a coat with no nap.

Out at the elbows-with shoes that let
Out, his bare toes and, in, the wet.

Wrinkled and old--too aged by half

To be standing for pence amid jeer and laugh :

Though many I saw, to my elbows nigh,
Thought little of laughter, as moved as I.

What could the cause be that all of us made
Not able to stir while that tune he played?

'Twas a common street-air, I shouldn't have linger'd, Except I'd been forced, to hear uttered or finger'd.

One-why, a month past each urchin had humm'd it, No organ but ground it- no scraper but strumm'd it.

And yet as it swell'd now and died through my ears,
My heart, it beat to it and praised it with tears.

You'll think me a maudlin: I wasn't a fool
To let that cornet my feelings rule.

For the powers that ruled in that cornet's breath
Were not age and want, but misery and death.

Away in a dirty lane of the town,

A close court where never the sun comes down,

Up reeking stairs, if you'll pick your way,
You'll come to a garret, so high, there's day.

Neat, to your wonder—cleanly though bare,
Though with half of a table and hardly a chair.

Though the rusty grate seems little to know
Of coals, and the cupboard no bread can show;

Yet the room is furnish'd, as better ones are,
In city and country—ay, near and afar.

For a silence is there that is hushing your breath, And throned, on a bed in the corner, is-death.

The sunshine seems dim and the day full of awe As it touches with reverence that old bed of straw,

And the wither'd face on it, and hair thin and gray, To pay for whose coffin that cornet must play.

Yes, to pay dues to death for his aged old wife,
That cornet is suing for pence there to life.

Who wonders-not I—my heart to it beat,
When grief and love play'd it afar in the street!

Who wonders-not I-I never had known
A cornet like that for tears in its tone!

That I felt in its music a terrible sense

Of a something beyond a mere playing for pence!

The heart it was played it—the heart it was heard it, And therefore it was that old wretched breath stirr'd it.

God send that few players may play so well
The cornet, such grief and such want to tell!

That the ears of few passers be startled again
By a cornet that grief plays, a coffin to gain!

BENNETT.

THE OLD PHILOSOPHER AND THE YOUNG

LADY.

66

ALAS!" exclaimed a silver-headed sage,

"how narrow

is the utmost extent of human knowledge! I have spent my life in acquiring knowledge, but how little do I

know! The farther I attempt to penetrate the secrets of nature, the more I am bewildered and benighted. 'Beyond a certain limit all is but conjecture: so that the advantage of the learned over the ignorant consists greatly in having ascertained how little is to be known.

"It is true that I can measure the sun, and compute the distances of the planets; I can calculate their periodical movements, and even ascertain the law by which they perform their sublime revolutions; but with regard to their construction, to the beings which inhabit them, their conditions and circumstances, what do I know more than the clown!-Delighting to examine the economy of nature in our own world, I have analyzed the elements, and given names to their component parts. And yet, should I not be as much at a loss to explain the burning of fire, or to account for the liquid quality of water, as the vulgar, who use and enjoy them without thought or examination ?—I remark, that all bodies unsupported, fall to the ground, and I am taught to account for this by the law of gravi tation. But what have I gained here more than a term? Does it convey to my mind any idea of the nature of that mysterious and invisible chain which draws all things to a common centre ?—Pursuing the track of the naturalist, I have learned to distinguish the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms, and to divide these into their distinct tribes and families;-but can I tell, after all this toil, whence a single blade of grass derives its vitality? Could the most minute researches enable me to discover the

exquisite pencil that paints the flower of the field? and have I ever detected the secret that gives their brilliant dye to the ruby and the emerald, or the art that enamels the delicate shell?—I observe the sagacity of animals-I call it instinct, and speculate upon its various degrees of approximation to the reason of man ; but, after all, I know as little of the cogitations of the brute as he does of mine. When I see a flight of birds overhead, performing their evolutions, or steering their course to some distant settlement, their signals and cries are as unintelligible to me as are the learned languages to an unlettered mechanic: I understand as little of their policy and laws as they do of Blackstone's Commentaries.

"Alas! then, what have I gained by my laborious researches but an humbling conviction of my weakness and ignorance! Of how little has man, at his best estate, to boast! What folly in him to glory in his contracted powers, or to value himself upon his imperfect acquisitions!'

"Well!" exclaimed a young lady, just returned from school, " my education is at last finished indeed, it would be strange if, after five years' hard application,

anything were left incomplete. now, and I have nothing to do

accomplishments.

Happily, it is all over but exercise my various

"Let me see!-as to French, I am mistress of that,

U