ments which she borrows from rural scenes? Painters, statuaries and poets, therefore, are always ambitious to acknowledge themselves the pupils of nature; and, as their skill increases, they grow more and more delighted with every view of the animal and vegetable world.

The scenes of nature contribute powerfully to inspire that serenity, which heightens their beauties, and is necessary to our full enjoyment of them. By a secret sympathy, the soul catches the harmony which she contemplates, and the frame within assimilates itself to that without. In this state of virtuous impres

sweet composure, we become susceptible of sions from almost every surrounding object. The patient ox is viewed with generous complacency; the guileless sheep, with pity; and the playful lamb, with emotions of tenderness and love. We rejoice with the horse in his liberty and exemption from toil, while he ranges at large through enamelled pastures. We are charmed with the songs of birds, soothed with the buzz of insects, and pleased with the sportive motion of fishes, because these are expressions of enjoyment; and, having felt a common interest in the gratifications of inferior beings, we shall be no longer indifferent to their sufferings, or become wantonly instrumental in producing them.

But the taste for natural beauty is subservient to higher purposes, than those which have been enumerated. The cultivation of it not only refines and humanizes, but dignifies and exalts the affections. It elevates them to the admiration and love of that Being, who is the Author of all that is fair, sublime and good in the creation. Scepticism and irreligion are hardly compatible with the sensibility of heart, which arises from a just and lively relish of the wisdom, harmony and order subsisting in the world around us. Emotions of piety must spring up spontaneously in the bosom, that is in unison with all animated nature. Actuated by this beneficial and divine inspiration, man finds a fane in every grove; and, glowing with devout fervor, he joins his song to the universal chorus, or muses the praise of the Almighty in more express ive silence.

LESSON XXXII.

The Common Lot.-MONTGOMERY.

ONCE, in the flight of ages past,

There lived a man :-and who was he?Mortal, howe'er thy lot be cast,

That man resembled thee.

*Unknown the region of his birth;

The land in which he died unknown: His name has perished from the earth; This truth survives alone :

That joy and grief, and hope and fear,
Alternate, triumphed in his breast;
His bliss and wo,-a smile, a tear :-
Oblivion hides the rest.

The bounding pulse, the languid limb,
The changing spirits' rise and fall,-
We know that these were felt by him,
For these are felt by all.

He suffered, but his pangs are o'er;
Enjoyed, but his delights are fled;
Had friends, his friends are now no more;
And foes, his foes are dead.

He loved, but whom he loved, the grave
Hath lost in its unconscious womb:
Oh! she was fair; but nought could save
Her beauty from the tomb.

He saw whatever thou hast seen;
Encountered all that troubles thee:

He was whatever thou hast been:

He is what thou shalt be.

The rolling seasons, day and night,

Sun, moon and stars, the earth and main,
Erewhile his portion, life and light,

To him exist in vain.

The clouds and sunbeams, o'er his eye
That once their shades and glory threw,
Have left in yonder silent sky

No vestige where they flew.

The annals of the human race,
Their ruins since the world began,

Of him afford no other trace

Than this,-T

-THERE LIVED A MAN.

LESSON XXXIII.

The Deserted Wife.-J. G. PERCIVAL.

HE comes not. I have watched the moon go down,
But yet he comes not. Once it was not so.
He thinks not how these bitter tears do flow,
The while he holds his riot in that town.

Yet he will come and chide, and I shall weep;
And he will wake my infant from its sleep,
To blend its feeble wailing with my tears.

Oh! how I love a mother's watch to keep

Over those sleeping eyes, that smile, which cheers My heart, though sunk in sorrow fixed and deep!

I had a husband once, who loved me. Now

He ever wears a frown upon his brow.

But yet I cannot hate. Oh! there were hours, When I could hang forever on his eye, And Time, who stole with silent swiftness by,

Strowed, as he hurried on, his path with flowers.

I loved him then he loved me too. My heart
Still finds its fondness kindle, if he smile;
The memory of our loves will ne'er depart;
And though he often sting me with a dart,

Venomed and barbed, and waste, upon the vile,
Caresses, which his babe and mine should share;
Though he should spurn me, I will calmly bear
His madness; and, should sickness come, and lay
Its paralyzing hand upon him, then

I would, with kindness, all my wrongs repay,
Until the penitent should weep, and say,
How injured and how faithful I had been.

LESSON XXXIV.

The Last Man.-CAMPBELL

ALL worldly shapes shall melt in gloom,
The Sun himself must die,
Before this mortal shall assume
Its immortality.

I saw a vision in my sleep,

That gave my spirit strength to sweep
Adown the gulf of Time:

I saw the last of human mould,
That shall Creation's death behold,
As Adam saw her prime.

The Sun's eye had a sickly glare,
The Earth with age was wan;
The skeletons of nations were
Around that lonely man.

Some had expired in fight,-the brands
Still rusted in their bony hands,—

In plague and famine some:

Earth's cities had no sound nor tread;
And ships were drifting, with the dead,
To shores where all was dumb

Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood,
With dauntless words and high,

That shook the sere leaves from the wood,
As if a storm passed by,

Saying, "We're twins in death, proud Sun: Thy face is cold, thy race is run,—

'Tis Mercy bids thee go;

For thou, ten thousand thousand years,
Hast seen the tide of human tears,

That shall no longer flow.

"What though beneath thee man put forth His pomp, his pride, his skill,

And arts that made fire, flood and earth,
The vassals of his will;-

Yet mourn not I thy parted sway,
Thou dim, discrowned king of day;

For all those trophied arts

And triumphs, that beneath thee sprang,
Healed not a passion or a pang,
Entailed on human hearts.

"Go, let Oblivion's curtain fall
Upon the stage of men,
Nor with thy rising beams recall
Life's tragedy again :

Its piteous pageants bring not back,

Nor waken flesh, upon the rack

Of pain anew to writhe;

Stretched in Disease's shapes abhorred,

Or mown in battle by the sword,
Like grass beneath the scythe.

"E'en I am weary, in yon skies
To watch thy fading fire;
Test of all sumless agonies,
Behold not me expire.

My lips, that speak thy dirge of death

Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath