tone,

A dirge-like melody

For worth, and beauty modest as its own.

More gaily now it sweeps

By the small School-house, in the sunshine, bright:

And o'er the pebbles leaps,

Like happy hearts by holiday made light.

May not its course express,

Together with articles small or immense, From mountains or planets, to atoms of sense: Nought was there so bulky, but there it could lay;

A sword, with gilt trappings, rose up in the scale,

Though balanced by only a ten-penny nail. A shield and a helmet, a buckler and spear

stay;

And nought so reluctant but in it must go; All which some examples more clearly will show.

The first thing he tried was the head of Voltaire,

Which retain'd all the wit that had ever been there;

As a weight, he threw in a torn scrap of a leaf,

Containing the prayer of the penitent thief; When the skull rose aloft with so sudden a spell,

As to bound like a ball, on the roof of the cell.

Next time he put in Alexander the Great, With a garment that Dorcas had madefor a weight;

And tho' clad in armour from sandals to

crown,

The hero rose up, and the garment went down.

A long row of alms houses, amply endow'd By a well-esteem'd pharisee, busy and proud, Now loaded one scale, while the other was prest

By those mites the poor widow dropp'd into the chest ;

Up flew the endowment, not weighing an

ounce,

And down, down, the farthing's worth came

with a bonnce.

Again, he performed an experiment rare: A monk, with austerities bleeding and bare, Climbed into his scale; in the other was laid The heart of our Howard, now partly decayed;

When he found, with surprise that the whole of his brother

tear.

A lord and a lady went up at full sail, When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale.

Ten doctors, ten lawyers, two courtiers, one earl,

Ten counsellors' wigs, full of powder and curl,

All heaped in one balance, and swinging from thence,

Weigh'd less than some atoms of candour and sense ;

A first-water diamond, with brilliants begirt, Than one good potato just washed from the dirt;

Yet, not mountains of silver and gold would suffice,

One pearl to outweigh,-'twas the "pearl of great price."

At last the whole world was bowl'd in at

the grate;

With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight;

When the former sprang up with so strong a rebuff,

That it made a vast rent and escaped at the roof;

Whence, balanced in air, it ascended on high,

And sail'd up aloft-a balloon in the sky: While the scale with the soul in, so mightily

fell,

That it jerk'd the philosopher out of his cell.

MORAL.

DEAR reader, if e'er self-deception prevails,

We pray you to try The Philosopher's scales: But if they are lost in the ruins around,

"False colours on each object spread,
I know not whence, or where, I'm led!
Your boasted pleasures mount the wind,
And leave their venomed stings behind.
Where are you flown ?" Voices around
Cry, "Pleasure long hath left this ground;
Old Age advances; haste away!
Nor lose the light of parting day.
See Sickness follows; Sorrow threats;-
Waste no more time in vain regrets :-
O Duty one more effort given
May reach, perhaps, the gates of heaven,
Where, only, each with each delighted,
Pleasure and Duty live united !"

THE TWO WEAVERS.

MRS. MORE.

As at their work two weaver's sat, Beguiling time with friendly chat, They touched upon the price of meat; So high, a weaver scarce could eat.

"What with my brats, and sickly wife," Quoth Dick, "I'm almost tired of life; So hard we work, so poor we fare, 'Tis more than mortal man can bear.

"How glorious is the rich man's state! His house so fine, his wealth so great! Heav'n is unjust, you must agree: Why all to him, and none to me?

"In spite of what the Scripture teaches,
In spite of all the Pulpit preaches,
This world, indeed I've thought so long,
Is ruled, methinks, extremely wrong.

"Where'er I look, howe'er I range, 'Tis all confused, and hard, and strange; The good are troubled and oppress'd, And all the wicked are the bless'd."

Quoth John, "Our ignorance is the cause,
Why thus we blame our Maker's laws;
Parts of his ways alone we know,
'Tis all that man can see below.

"See'st thou that carpet, not half done, Which thou, dear Dick, hast well begun?

Behold the wild confusion there!
So rude the mass, it makes one stare!

A stranger, ignorant of the trade,
Would say, no meaning's there conveyed;
For where's the middle, where's the border?
Thy carpet now is all disorder!"

Quoth Dick," my work is yet in bits,
But still in every part it fits;
Besides, you reason like a lout;
Why, man, that carpet's inside out."

Says John," thou say'st the thing I mean,
And now I hope to cure thy spleen;
This world, which clouds thy soul with
doubt,

Is but a carpet inside out.

"As when we view these shreds and ends,
We know not what the whole intends;
So, when on earth things look but odd,
They're working still some scheme of God.

"No plan, no pattern, can we trace;
All wants proportion, truth, and grace:
The motley mixture we deride,
Nor see the beauteous upper side.

"But when we reach the world of light,
And view these works of God aright;
Then shall we see the whole design,
And own the Workman is Divine.

"What now seem random strokes, will there
All order and design appear;
Then shall we praise, what here we spurned,
For there the carpet will be turned."

"Thou'rt right," "quoth Dick, "no more I'll grumble,

That this world is so strange a jumble;
My impious doubts are put to flight,
For my own carpet sets me right."

THE BRAMBLE.

BISHOP.

WHILE wits through fiction's regions ram

ble ;

While bards for fame or profit scramble ;