Oh no-for such properties wondrous had they,
That qualities, feelings, and thoughts they could weigh:
Together with articles small or immense,

From mountains or planets, to atoms of sense;
Naught was there so bulky, but there it could lay;
And naught so ethereal but there it would stay;
And naught so reluctant but in it must go;

All which some examples more clearly will show.

The first thing that was tried was the head of °Voltaire,
Which retained all the wit that had ever been thêre;
As a weight, was thrown in a torn scrap of a leaf,
Containing the prayer of the penitent thief;
When the skull rose aloft with so sudden a spell,
That it bounced like a ball on the roof of the cell.

One time was put in

With a garment that

Alexander the Great,
Dorcas had made, for a weight;
And though clad in armor from sandals to crown,
The hero rose up, and the garment went down.

A long row of almshouses, amply endowed,
By a well-esteemed pharisee, busy and proud,
Next loaded one scale, while the other was prest
By those mites the poor widow dropped into the chest ;
Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce,

And down, down, the farthing's worth came with a bounce.

Again was performed an experiment rare ;
A monk, with austerities bleeding and bare
Climbed into the scale, in the other was laid

The heart of good Howard, now partly decayed;

It was found, with surprise, that the whole of his brother
Weighed less by some pounds, than this bit of the other.

By further experiments (no matter how),

It was found that ten chariots weighed less than one plough:
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,
Weighed less than a widow's uncrystallized 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 counselors' wigs, full of powder and curl,

All heaped in one balance, and swinging from thence,
Weighed less than a few grains of candor 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."

Last of all, the whole world was bowled in at the grate,
With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight;
When the former sprung 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 sailed up aloft-a balloon in the sky:
While the scale with the soul in, so mightily fell,
That it jerked the philosopher out of his cell.
Dear reader, if ê'er self-deception prevails,
We pray you to try the philosopher's scales:
But if they are lost in the ruins around,
Perhaps a good substitute thus may be found;-
Let judgment and conscience in circles be cut,
To which springs of thought may be carefully put.
Let these be made even with caution extreme,
And impartiality serve as a beam:

Then bring those good actions which pride overrates,
And tear up your motives in bits for the weights.

MISS JANE TAYLOR.

CXVII. THE JUST MAN.

A JUST man is always simple. He is a man of direct aims and purposes. There is no complexity in his motives, and, thence, there is no järring or discordancy in his character. He wishes to do right, and in most cases he does it; he may err, but it is by mistake of judgment, and not by perversity of intention. The moment his judgment is enlightened, his action is corrected. Setting before himself always a clear and worthy end, he will never pursue it by any concealed or unworthy means.

We may carry our remarks, for illustration, both into private and into public life. Observe such a man in his home, there is a charm about him, which no artificial grace has ever had the power to bestow; there is a sweetness, I had almost said a music, in his manners, which no sentimental refinement has ever given. His speech ever

fresh from purity and rectitude of thought, controls all that are within its hearing, with an unfelt, and yet a resistless sway. Faithful to every domestic trust, as to his religion and his God, he would no more prove recreant to any loyalty of home, than he would blaspheme the Maker in whom he believes, or than he would forswear the heaven in which he hopes.

Fidelity and truth to those bound by love and nature to his heart, are to him most sacred principles; they throb in the last recesses of his moral being, they are embedded in the life of his life; and to violate them, or even think of violating them, would seem to him as a spiritual extermination, the suicide of his soul. Nor is such a man unrewarded, for the goodness that he so largely gives is largely paid back to him again; and though the current of his life is transpârent, it is not shallow; on the contrary, it is deep and strong. The river that fills its channel, glides smoothly along in the power of its course; it is the stream which scarcely covers the ruggedness of its bed, that is turbulent and noisy.

With all this gentleness, there is exceeding force; with all this meekness, there is imperative command; but the force is the force of wisdom, and the command is the command of love. And, yet, the authority which rûles so effectually, never gathers an angry or an irritable cloud over the brow of the ruler; and this sway which admits of no resistance, does not repress one honest impulse of nature, one movement of the soul's high freedom, one bound of joy from the heart's unbidden gladness, in the spirit of the governed. Take this character into public life. Place him before the people as candidate for their legislative suffrages; he is there for no selfish ambition, and, willing to be most loyal to his country, he will be no traitor to his conscience. Place him in the representative assembly to which these willing suffrages send him, he maintains inviolate the trust given to him; with a brave eloquence, he maintains the rights of the citizens; with a grave dignity, he maintains the privileges of the senator. Place him in the council of the executive magistrate, and no favor can win him, and no danger can appall; indifferent to office, and fearless of power, he will assert the highest right, and he will stand by it, whatever be the cost. Place him on the bench of justice, no prejudice can approach him, no passion can move him. Nothing can ruffle the august placidity of his soul, except it be the stirrings of a gracious pity. Unmoved he sits, while all around him heaves; he listens not to popular clamor, he cares not for the scowl of power; and while he is guardian, no corruption shall sully the fountain of justice, and no obstruction shall impede its stream.

Place him in the presence of a tyrant; call upon him for his opinion, let life or death hang on the result, he will not speak rashly but he will not speak falsely. Let the tyrant cajole and fondle, it

avails not; let the tyrant rail and threaten, it is still as vain; let wife entreat; let children hang upon his neck; let friends beseech; let multitudes implore; he meets affection with affection; he weeps, while others weep; but fixed as the rock in the ocean, the tempest may crash about his head, and the waves strike against his breast, his foundation based unchangeably on the centre of eternal right, his head majestically erect, gloriously lifted up to heaven, bends not before the shock, and his breast receives the tempest only to shiver it.

Place him in the dungeon; shut him in from the fair earth and the open sky; wrench him from the delights of home; let him be loaded with years; let him be enfeebled by sickness; let him be wearied with confinement; let life hang by the finest thread that ever held a spirit from its God; the unwavering faith of a true man upholds him, and his hope remains undimmed, and his peace remains unbroken. Call him from the dungeon to his doom; he goes rejoicing to the scaffold; he looks cheerfully on the axe; he faces death almost with gayety; he converses playfully with the executioner; he blesses his friends; he forgives his enemies; he pities his destroyers; he wishes good to all men; he gives a moment to silent prayer; he meekly lays his head upon the block; then, there is the echo of a blow that sends a soul to heaven. This character is not imaginary; it is real, it is practicable. The original is, Sir Thomas More of England. REV. H. GILES.

CXVIII.-AFAR IN THE DESERT.

"AFAR in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side."
When the sorrows of life the soul o'ercast,
And, sick of the Present, I cling to the Past;
When the eye is suffused with regretful tears,
From the fond recollections of former years;
And shadows of things that have long since fled
Flit over the brain, like the ghosts of the dead;
Bright visions of glory-that vanish too soon;
Day-dreams-that departed êre manhood's noon;
Attachments-by fate or by falsehood 'reft;
Companions of early days-lost or left;
And my native land-whose magical name
Thrills to the heart like electric flame;

The home of my childhood; the häunts of my prime;
All the passions and scenes of that rapturous time

When the feelings were young and the world was new,
Like the fresh bowers of Eden unfolding to view;
All-all now forsaken-forgotten, foregone!
And I-a lone exile remembered of none--
My high aims abandoned-my good acts undone,
A-weary of all that is under the sun,-

With that sadness of heart which no stranger may scan,
I fly to the desert afar from man!

Afar in the desert I love to ride,

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
When the wild turmoil of this wearisome life,

With its scenes of oppression, corruption, and strife,—
The proud man's frown, and the base man's fear,-
The scorner's laugh, and the sufferer's tear,-
And malice, and meanness, and falsehood, and folly,
Dispose me to musing and dark melancholy;
When my bosom is full, and my thoughts are high,
And my soul is sick with the bondman's sigh-
Oh! then there is freedom, and joy, and pride,
Afar in the desert alone to ride!

There is rapture to vault on the champing steed,
And to bound away with the eagle's speed,
With the death-fraught firelock in my hand-
The only law of the Desert Land!

Afar in the desert I love to ride,

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
Away-away in the wilderness vást,

Where the white man's foot hath never passed,
And the quivered Coranna or Bechuan
Hath rarely crossed with his roving clan:
A region of emptiness, howling and drear,

Which man hath abandoned from famine and fear;
Which the snake and the lizard inhabit alone,
With the twilight bat from the yawning stone;
Where grass, nor herb, nor shrub takes root,
Save poisonous thorn that pierces the foot';
And the bitter melon, for food and drink,
Is the pilgrim's fare by the salt lake's brink.

A region of drought, where no river glides,
Nor rippling brooks with osiered sides;
Where sedgy pool, nor bubbling fount,
Nor tree, nor cloud, nor misty mount,