Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

XL. SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE.

1.- HAPPINESS. - Keble.

THERE are166 in this rude stunning tide
Of human care and crime,
With whom the melodies abide

Of the everlasting chime;
Who carry music in their heart,

Through dusty lane and wrangling mart Plying their daily toil with busier feet, Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.

2.- FRIENDSHIP. Wordsworth.

Small service is true service while it lasts;
Of friends, however humble, scorn not one:
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,

Protects the lingering dew-drop3 from the sun.

3.- COMFORT IN ADVERSITY.-
1.- Southey

Methinks, if ye would know

How visitations of calamity

Affect the pious soul, 't is shown you there!

Look yonder at that cloud, which, through the sky, Sailing alone, doth cross in her career

The rolling moon! - I watched it as it came,

And deemed the deep opaque would blot her beams
But, melting like a wreath of snow, it hangs
In folds of wavy silver round, and clothes
The orb with richer beauties than her own;
Then, passing, leaves her in her light serene!

4. — FUTURITY. 40 — Dryden.

Too curious man, why dost thou seek to know
Events, which, good or ill, foreknown are woe?
The all-seeing Power that made thee mortal gave
Thee everything a mortal state should have;
Foreknowledge only is enjoyed by Heaven,
And, for his peace of mind, to man forbidden;
Wretched were life, if he foreknew his doom;
Even joys foreseen give pleasing hope no room,
And griefs assured are felt before they come.

[ocr errors]

5.- SHORTSIGHTEDNESS OF MAN. - Trench.
A dew-drop, falling on the ocean-wave,
Exclaimed, in fear, "I perish in this grave;
But, in a shell received, that drop of dew
Unto a pearl of marvellous beauty grew;

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

I care not, Fortune, what you mel56 deny ;
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace;
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face,
You cannot barE my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve:
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave;

Of Fancy, Reason, Virtue, naught can me bereave!

7. THE MORAL LAW.

All true glory rests,

Wordsworth.

All praise of safety, and all happiness,
Upon the moral law. Egyptian Thebes,
Tyre by the margin of the sounding waves,

Palmy'ra central in the desert, fell,

And the arts died by which they had been raised.
Call Archimēdēs from his buried tomb45
Upon the plain of vanished Syracuse,EI
And feelingly the sage shall make report
How insecure, how baseless in itself,
Is that philosophy whose sway is framed
For mere material instruments: - - how weak
Those arts and high inventions, if unpropped
By Virtue.

8.THE RUINED CITY.

I asked of Time, from whom those temples rose,
That, prostrate by his hand, in silence lie.
His lips disdained the mystery156 to disclose,

And, borne on swifter wing, he hurried by!
"These broken columns,59 whose?" I asked of Fame:
(Her kindling breath gives life to works sublime131) —
With downcast looks of mingled grief and shame,
She heaved the uncertain sigh, and followed Time.
Wrapt in amazement, o'er the mouldering pile
I saw Oblivion pass, with giant stride;

And, whilst his visage wore Pride's scornful smile,

66

Haply thou know'st; - then, tell me whose!" I cried,

"Whose these vast domes that even in ruin shine?"

"I reck not whose," he said; "they now are mine!"

XLI. JOHN POUNDS, THE COBBLER.

at

ny

or

1. JOHN POUNDS was one of those good Samaritans of who every generation apparently produces some examples. Born the 17th of July, in the year 1766, at Portsmouth in Englan he was apprenticed, when twelve years of age, to a shipwright, with whom he served three years of his term, when a serious accident happened to the boy. Falling one day from a considerable height into one of the dry docks, he dislocated his thigh, and was in other respects very grievously injured. Time and surgical ingenuity sufficed to restore him to a tolerable state, but he was crippled in such a manner as to be unfitted to resume95 his trade; and so John Pounds became a cobbler.

2. He lived a lonely kind of life. Having no household soci ety,92 and being little disposed to go abroad in quest of entertainment, he relieved his involuntary solitude by rearing and domesticating all kinds of singing birds and harmless animals; teaching some of them a variety of amusing tricks, and accustoming those of opposite propensities to live together in harmony. He would sit with a cat upon one shoulder, and a canary-bird on the other, charming away fear from the one, and curbing destructive inclinations in the other.

3. The notion of undertaking the gratuitous education" of poor children seems to have been suggested accidentally to John Pounds. A brother of his, who was a seafaring man with a large family, had amongst the rest a feeble little boy, with deformed feet. John benevolently took charge of this lad, cured him of his deformity, and taught him to read. Thinking it would be well for the boy to have a companion in study, he took another, and then another poor child under his care, until at length he became a sort of ragged schoolmaster-general to all the poorer population; and, in a spirit of noble disinterestedness, performed a most serviceable work in his generation.

4. He might be seen, day after day, in his small workshop, about six feet wide, and eighteen in length, in St. Mary-street, Portsmouth, seated on his stool, mending shoes, and attending at the same time to the studies of a busy crowd of ragged children, clustering around him. Sometimes there would be assembled in his shop as many as forty boys and girls, the latter of whom he kept a little apart from the rest. In receiving pupils, he made choice of those who seemed most in need of his reforming discipline. He had a decided predilection for "the little blackguards," and was frequently at great pains to attract such within his door. He was once seen following a young vaga

93

bond of this stamp, and endeavoring to entice him to come to hool with the bribe of a baked potato.94

5. His methods of tuition were somewhat original.9o. He colted all sorts of refuse hand-bills and scraps of printed and tten paper, which he found lying anywhere uselessly about, d with these he contrived to teach reading and spelling. With he younger children his manner was particularly pleasant. He would ask them the names of different parts of their body, make them spell the words, and signify their uses. For instance, taking hold of a child's hand, he would say, What do you call this? and, having received his answer, direct him to spell the word. Then, giving the hand a playful slap, he would ask, "What do I do?" and teach him next to spell the word expressive of the

act.

[ocr errors]

6. Should this remind any one of Mr. Squeers' analogous method of teaching a boy to spell "horse," and then, by way of emphatic illustration, sending him to rub such an animal down, that he might the better remember his lesson, it will be proper to recollect the different pretensions of the parties, and not to confound an ignorant charlatan with an honest and benevolent person, who performs his work with conscientious consideration, and according to the extent of his ability and means.

7. Writing and arithmetic were taught by John Pounds to the elder pupils, in a manner to give them a creditable degree of skill in those branches. Many 25 of the boys he taught to mend their shoes, to cook their food, and perform a variety of useful services for themselves and others. Not only did he superintend their sports and personal habits, but the generous and considerate teacher likewise exerted himself in curing their bodily ailments, such as chilblains, and coughs, and the manifold cuts and bruises to which the children of the poor are continually exposed. Often he shared his own scanty and homely provisions with destitute and forsaken children. He acknowledged universal kinship with the neglected and unhappy.

8. The sort of education which John Pounds was enabled to give was doubtless very imperfect; but it was infinitely preferable to none at all. He had ample assurances that his steadfast labors, adhered to through a long life, were not fruitless. Coming home from foreign service or a distant voyage, often would some tall soldier, or rough jovial sailor, now grown up out of all remembrance, call to shake hands with him, and confess the benefits he had received from his instruction. These were proud occasions for the poor and modest cobbler. Other recompense than this he had scarcely any. So quietly and unobtrusively had he all along pursued his purpose, that comparatively few

persons, of the respectable sort in the world's estimation, knew anything of his proceedings.

103

9. It was the wish of John Pounds that his labors might terminate only with his life. The thought of lingering out any portion of his days uselessly and helplessly was a painful one for him to entertain; and it was his hope to go off suddenly, in the way, as he said, "in which" a bird drops from his perch." The desire of his soul was granted. On the first101 of January, 1839, he expired suddenly, from a rupture of one of the large vessels of the heart, at the house of a gentleman whom he had called ipon to thank for certain acts of kindness recently rendered to his establishment.

100

10. A little boy who was with him at the time carried the intelligence to his assembled school-fellows, who were all instantly overwhelmed with sorrow and consternation. Some of the younger ones returned to the house for several successive days, looking painfully about the room, and apparently unable to comprehend the reality of the loss they had sustained. Old and young, in a numerous and motley assemblage, followed his body to the grave, and saw him to his rest with tears and blessings.

11. One cannot sufficiently admire the heartiness and generosity of this poor man's labors. Patiently from year to year he went on, quietly performing these daily acts of charity and mercy, without needing or expecting anybody's approbation, or even conceiving that he was doing anything remarkable. A good man and a true one, he flung the benefits of his sympathy, and of such talents as he possessed, over all that seemed to need them; finding a joyful satisfaction in being useful to such as had no helper, and leaving, with an assured heart, the results of his endeavors to that universal Providence which heeds and nurtures whatever seeds of goodness are sown anywhere in the world. No slightest service to humanity can be lost, but successfully proclaims itself, or works silently to some benefit.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

1. AWAY to that snug nook! For, the thick shower
Rushes on stridingly. Ay, now it comes,
With its first drips glancing about the leaves
Like snatches of faint music. Joyous thrush!
It mingles with thy song, and beats soft time
To thy exulting measure.
Now it falls

Pattering, like the far voice of leaping rills;
And now it breaks upon the shrinking clumps
With a crash of many sounds. The thrush is still.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »