compense for what you resign, dismiss your scruples this instant, and be a slave-merchant, a director, or-what you please.

THE VIRTUOUS SPENDING OF YOUTH.

(Fordyce.)

He who, in his youth, improves his intellectual powers in the search of truth and useful knowledge, and refines and strengthens his moral and active powers by the love of virtue, for the service of his friends, his country, and mankind; who is animated by true glory, exalted by sacred friendship for social, and softened by virtuous love for domestic life; who lays his heart open to every other mild and generous affection, and who, to all these, adds a sober masculine piety, equally remote from superstition and enthusiasm; that man enjoys the most agreeable youth; and lays in the richest fund for honourable action, and happy enjoyment of the succeeding periods of life.

SELECTIONS.

OUR HAPPY ISLE.

(Dyer.)

Hail, noble Albion !

See the sun gleams; the living pastures rise,
After the nurture of the fallen shower.

How beautiful! How blue the ethereal vault,
How verduous the lawns, how clear the brooks!
Such noble warlike steeds, such herds of kine,
So sleek, so vast; such spacious flocks of sheep,
Like flakes of gold illumining the green,
What other paradise adorn but thine,
Britannia? Happy, if thy sons would know
Their happiness. To these, thy naval streams,
Thy frequent towns superb of busy trade,

And ports magnific add, and stately ships in

numerous.

PITY.

Teach me to soothe the helpless orphan's grief, With timely aid the widow's woes assuage, To misery's moving cries to yield relief,

And be the sure resource of drooping age. So when the genial spring of life shall fade, And sinking nature owns the dread decay, Some soul congenial then may lend its aid, And gild the close of life's eventful day.

R.

BLINDNESS.

(Milton.)

Thus with the year

Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with an universal blank

Of Nature's works, to me expung'd and ras'd,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers

Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

THE DIVINE BENEVOLENCE.

(Pope.)

Has God, thou fool! work'd solely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food?
Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,
For him as kindly spreads the flow'ry lawn:
Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
The bounding steed you pompously bestride
Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.
Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain?
The birds of heaven vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harvest of the golden-year?
Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer.
Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods;
For some his interest prompts him to provide,
For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride:
All feed on one vain patron, and enjoy

Th' extensive blessing of his luxury.
life his learned hunger craves,

That very

He saves from famine, from the savage saves ;

Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast,
And, till he ends the being, makes it blest;
Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain,
Than favoured man by touch ethereal slain.
The creature had his feast of life before;
Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er.

REFLECTIONS ON A FUTURE STATE.

(Thomson.)

Tis done!-dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, And reigns tremendous o'er the conquered year. How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!

How dumb the tuneful!

Horror wide extends

His desolate domain. Behold, fond man!

See here thy pictured life: pass some few years, Thy flow'ring Spring, thy Summer's ardent strength.

Thy sober Autumn fading into age,

And pale concluding Winter comes at last,

And shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are fled
Those dreams of greatness? those unsolid hopes
Of happiness? those longings after fame?
Those restless cares? those busy bustling days?
Those gay-spent, festive nights? those veering
thoughts,

Lost between good and ill, that shar'd thy life?
All now are vanish'd! Virtue sole survives