whenever I strive for the reason my soul sinks away down and down into a depth that seems half air and half water, and I am like a man drownin' in a calm, and as he drowns, feelin' as if he were descendin' to the coral palaces o' the mermaids, where a' things are beautifu' but unintelligible, and after wanderin' about awhile under the saftly-looming climat, up again a' at ance into the every day world, in itself, o' a gude truth, as beautifu' and unintelligible too as any warld in the heavens above, or in the waters underneath the earth.

North. Posthumous fame!

Shepherd. What's mair nor ordinar' extrordinar' in that? We love our life, and we love our kind, and we love our earth, and we love ourselves. Therefore being immortal creatures, we love the thocht of never being forgotten by that kind, and in that life, and on that earth.

Noctes Ambrosianæ.

EVERY one that has been long dead has a due proportion of praise allotted to him, in which, while he lived, his friends were too profuse, and his enemies too sparing.

SOME with vast costly tombs would purchase it,*
And by the proofs of death pretend to live:
Here lies the Great-False Marble! where ?
Nothing but small and sordid dust lies there.

We poets madder yet than all,
With a refined fantastic vanity,

Think we not only have but give eternity.
Fain would I see that prodigal

Who his to-morrow would bestow

ADDISON.

For all old Homer's life, ev'n since he died till now.

COWLEY. Odes.

No man ever attained lasting fame who did not on several occasions contradict the prejudices of popular opinion.

BLAIR. Sermons.

* Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?

GRAY. Elegy.

TO EVENING.

IF aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales ;

O Nymph reserved, while now the bright-hair'd sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts
With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:

Now teach me, maid composed,

To breathe some soften'd strain,

Whose numbers stealing through the dark'ning vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit;

As, musing slow, I hail
Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours, and Elves
Who slept in buds the day,

And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still,

The pensive pleasures sweet

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;
Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,

Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.

Or if chill blustering winds or driving rain
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut
That, from the mountain's side
Views wilds and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim discover'd spires;
And hears their simple bell; and marks o'er all

Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train

And rudely rends thy robes:

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,

Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,
Thy gentlest influence own,
And love thy favourite name.

MORNING.

To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night,
From his watchtower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-briar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine;

While the cock, with lively din,
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before;
Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill.
Sometimes walking not unseen,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state,
Robed in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;

COLLINS.

While the ploughman near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale,
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

MILTON. L'Allegro.

THE rising of the sun has the same effect on me as it is said to have had on the celebrated statue of Memnon; and I never observe that glorious luminary breaking out upon me that I do not find myself harmonised for the whole day.

FITZOSBORNE. Letters, Letter LI.

THUS wore out night; and now the herald lark
Left his ground nest, high towering to descry
The morn's approach, and greet her with his song.

Paradise Regained, Book II.

UPON a summer Sunday morn
When Nature's face is fair,
I walked forth to view the corn
An' snuff the caller air.

The rising sun owre Galston muirs
Wi' glorious light was glintin';
The hares were hirplin' down the furs
The lav'rocks they were chantin'

Fu' sweet that day.

BURNS. The Holy Fair.

THUS, Night, oft see me in thy pale career,

Till civil-suited morn appear,

Not trick'd and frounc'd as she was wont

With the Attic boy to hunt,

But kercheft in a comely cloud

While rocking winds are piping loud,

Or usher'd with a shower still
When the gust hath blown his fill,*

As when a windy tempest bloweth hye,
That nothing may withstand his stormy stowre
The clowdes, as things afrayd, before him flye,
But all as soone as his outrageous powre
Is loyd, they fiercely then begin to showre,
And as in scorne of his spent stormy spight,
Now all at once their malice forth do powre.

Faëry Queen.

Ending on the rustling leaves

With minute drops from off the eaves.

MILTON. Il Penseroso.

TILL Morn

Waked by the circling Hours, with rosy hand

Unbarr'd the gates of light.

Paradise Lost, Book VII.

THUS pass'd the night so foul, till morning fair
Came forth with pilgrim steps, in amice grey;
Who with her radiant finger still'd the roar
Of thunder, chased the clouds, and laid the wind.
Paradise Regained, Book IV.

BUT who the melodies of morn can tell?
The wild brook babbling down the mountain side;
The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell;
The pipe of early shepherd, dim descried
In the lone valley; echoing far and wide
The clamorous horn along the cliffs above.
The hollow murmur of the ocean-tide;
The hum of bees, the linnet's lay of love,
And the full choir that wakes the universal grove.

*

O Nature, how in every charm supreme!
Whose votaries feast on raptures ever new!

Pleasure from the View of Nature.

Ripening harvest rushes in the gate.

A glorious sight, if glory dwells below,

Where Heaven's munificence makes all the show,
On every field and golden prospect found,

That glads the ploughman's Sunday morning's round,
When on some eminence he takes his stand,
To judge the smiling product of the land.
Here vanity sinks back, her head to hide :
What is there here to flatter human pride?
The tow'ring fabric, or the dome's loud roar,
And steadfast columns, may astonish more,
Where the charm'd gazer long delighted stays,
Yet traced but to the architect the praise;

Whilst here, the veriest clown that treads the sod,
Without one scruple gives the praise to God;
And twofold joys possess his raptured mind,
From gratitude and admiration join'd.

BLOOMFIELD. Farmer's Boy.