Imatges de pàgina
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in my bed, nor repose my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles.

LESSON CV.

Extract from Mr. Pitt's Speech in the British Parliament, Jan. 20, 1775.

1. When your lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from America; when you consider their decency, firmness and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause, and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must declare and avow, that in all my reading and observation, (and it has been my favourite study: I have read Thucidydes, and have studied and admired the master-states of the world:)

2. I say I must declare, that, for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation, or body of men can stand in preference to the General Congress at Philadelphia. I trust it is obvious to your lordships, that all attempts to impose servitude upon such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be fatal.

They

3. We shall be forced, ultimately, to retract; let us retract while we can, not when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violent oppressive acts. MUST be repealed. You WILL repeal them. I pledge myself for it, that you will in the end repeal them. I stake my reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot, if they are not finally repealed.

4. Avoid, then, this humiliating, disgraceful necessity. With a dignity becoming your exalted situation, make the first advances to concord, to peace and happiness: for it is your true dignity, to act with prudence and justice. That you should first concede, is obvious from sound and rational policy. Concession comes with better grace, and more salutary effects from superior power; it reconciles superiority of power with the feelings of men; and establishes solid confidence on the foundations of affection and gratitude.

5. Every motive, therefore, of justice and of policy, of dignity and of prudence, urges you to allay the ferment in America, by a removal of your troops from Boston; by a repeal of your acts of Parliament; and by demonstration of amicable dispositions towards your colonies. On the other hand, every danger and every hazard impend, to deter you from perseverance in your present ruinous measures. 6. Foreign war hanging over your heads by a slight and brittle thread: France and Spain watching your conduct, and waiting for the maturity of your errors; with a vigilant eye to America, and the temper of your colonies, more than to their own concerns, be they what they may.

7. To conclude, my lords; if the ministers thus persevere in misadvising and misleading the king, I will not say, that they can alienate the affections of his subjects from his crown; but I will affirm, that they will make the crown not worth his wearing: I will not say that the king is betrayed; but I will pronounce, that the kingdom is undone.

LESSON CVI.

On the Proper Use of our Time.

1. "To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” We should lay it down as an essential and unerring rule, neither to waste our time in folly, nor destroy it by idleness. We too often hear the want of time pleaded as an excuse for the neglect of duty; but we should find our time more than sufficient for all our occasions, if we would apportion it in a regular manner to our various duties and occupations; still, however, making our worldly cares and employments subservient to our duty to God, and to the furtherance of our everlasting hopes.

2. From the moment in which we are capable of thought and reflection, to that in which thought and reflection cease, God will require from us an account of his most precious gift our time. Is it not worth our while to inform ourselves, early, in what manner we may best make use of it? We cannot be too earnest in our consideration of this subject, nor should we think ourselves too young to begin it. FENELON.

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LESSON CVII.

The Mechanical Wonders of a Feather.

If we

1. Every single feather is a mechanical wonder. look at the quill, we find properties not easily brought together-strength and lightness. I know few things more remarkable than the strength and lightness of the very pen with which I am now writing. If we cast our eyes towards the upper part of the stem, we see a material made for the purpose, used in no other class of animals, and in no other part of birds; tough, light, pliant, elastic.

2. The pith, also, which feeds the feathers, is neither bone, flesh, membrane, nor tendon. But the most artificial part of a feather is the beard, or, as it is sometimes called, the vane; which we usually strip off from one side, or both, when we make a pen. The separate pieces of which this is composed are called threads, filaments, or rays.

3. Now, the first thing which an attentive observer will remark is, how much stronger the beard of the feather shows itself to be when pressed in a direction perpendicular to its plane, than when rubbed either up or down in the line of the stem; and he will soon discover, that the thread of which these beards are composed are flat, and placed with their flat sides towards each other; by which means, while they easily bend for the approaching of each other, as any one may perceive by drawing his finger ever so lightly upwards, they are much harder to bend out their plane, which is the direction in which they have to encounter the impulse and pressure of the air, and in which their strength is wanted.

4. It also to be observed, that when two threads, separated by accident or force, are brought together again, they immediately reclasp. Draw your finger round the feather which is against the grain, and you break, probably, the junction of some of the contiguous threads: draw your finger up the feather, and you restore all things to their former state. It is no common mechanism by which this contrivance is effected!

5. The threads or laminæ above mentioned, are interlaced with one another; and the interlacing is performed by means of a vast number of fibres or teeth which the

threads shoot forth on each side, and which hook and grapple together. Fifty of these fibres have been counted in one-twentieth of an inch.

6. They are crooked, but curved after a different manner: for those which proceed from the thread on the side towards the extremity of the feather are longer, more flexible, and bent downward; whereas those which proceed from the side toward the beginning or quill-end of the feather, are shorter, firmer, and turned upward. When two laminæ, therefore, are pressed together, the crooked parts of the long fibres fall into the cavity made by the crooked parts of the others; just as the latch which is fastened to a door, enters into the cavity of the catch fixed to the door post, and there hooking itself fastens the door. DR. PALEY.

LESSON CVIII.

On Reading Works of Taste.

1. Young persons should be early introduced to an ac quaintance with polite literature, in order to exercise their imagination and form their taste. If they have time, property, and capacities, they should by all means learn Greek and Latin, and so study the ancient writers; but if not, the English language abounds with writings addressed to the imagination and feelings, and calculated for the improvement of taste; the sublime conceptions of Milton and Young, the learning and piety of Addison and Watts, the descriptive powers of Thomson, and the harmony of Pope, might, with some degree of confidence, be respectively brought into comparison with any example of similar excellence among the ancients.

2. Selections from these and others may be at first of use in directing their attention to such passages as are most likely to make a strong impression on the mind, and some of which should be committed to memory.

3. The value of a taste for this kind of reading is much greater than is commonly perceived: in solitude the elegant entertainment which it affords, is a great security against the intrusion of idleness and spleen: in society it provides innumerable topics of conversation, which affords ample scope for the display of judgment and taste, without much diminution of social enjoyment: thus by furnishing

the mind with elevated conceptions and refined sentiments, it renders it superior to gross and vulgar pleasures; and in fine, whilst science enriches the understanding, the study of polite literature cultivates the taste, and makes the accomplished man.

LESSON CIX.

Truth better than Dissimulation.

1. Truth and reality have all the advantages of appearance, and many more. If the show of any thing be good for any thing, I am sure sincerity is better; for why does any man dissemble, or seem to be that which he is not, but because he thinks it good to have such a quality as he pretends to? for, to counterfeit and dissemble is to put on the appearance of some real excellency.

2. Now, the best way in the world for a man to seem to be any thing, is really to be what he would seem to be. Besides that, it is many times as troublesome to make good the presence of a good quality, as to have it; and if a man have it not, it is ten to one but he is discovered to want it, and then all his pains and labour to seem to have it are lost. There is something unnatural in painting, which a skilful eye will easily discern from native beauty and complexion.

3. It is hard to personate and act a part long; for, where truth is not at the bottom, nature will always be endeavouring to return, and will peep out, and will betray herself one time or other. Therefore, if any man think it convenient to seem good, let him be so indeed, and then his goodness will appear to every body's satisfaction; so that upon all accounts sincerity is true wisdom.

4. Particularly as to the affairs of this world, integrity hath many advantages over all the fine and artificial ways of dissimulation and deceit; it is much the plainer and easier, much the safer and more secure way of dealing in the world; it has less of trouble and difficulty, of entanglement and perplexity, of danger and hazard in it; it is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying us thither in a straight line, and will hold out and last longest.

5. The arts of deceit and cunning do continually grow weaker and less effectual and serviceable to them that use them; whereas integrity gains strength by use, and the

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