Imatges de pàgina
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pleases; they command, like a good man out of office, not by authority, but by virtue.

Her features are not perfectly regular: that sort of exactness is more to be praised than to be loved; for it is never animated.

Her stature is not tall. She is not made to be the admiration of every body, but the happiness of one.

She has all the firmness that does not exclude delicacy: she has all the softness that does not imply weakness. There is often more of the coquette shown in an affected plainness than in a tawdry finery. She is always clean without preciseness or affectation. Her gravity is a gentle thoughtfulness, that softens the features without discomposing them: she is usually grave.

Her smiles are inexpressible.

Her voice is a low, soft music, not formed to rule in public assemblies, but to charm those who can distinguish a company from a crowd. It has this advantage — you must come close to her to hear it.

To describe her body describes her mind; one is the transcript of the other. Her understanding is not shown in the variety of matters it exerts itself on, but in the goodness of the choice she makes.

She does not display it so much in saying or doing striking things, as in avoiding such as she ought not to say or do.

She discovers the right and wrong of things not by reasoning, but sagacity. Most women, and many good ones, have a closeness and something selfish in their dispositions: she has a true generosity of temper: the most extravagant cannot be more unbounded in their liberality; the most covetous not more cautious in the distribution.

No person of so few years can know the world better; no person was ever less corrupted by that knowledge.

Her politeness seems to flow rather from a natural disposition to oblige than from any rules on that subject, and

therefore never fails to strike those who understand good breeding and those who do not.

She does not run with a girlish eagerness into new friendships, which, as they have no foundation in reason, serve only to multiply and imbitter disputes. It is long be fore she chooses, but then it is fixed forever; and the first hours of romantic friendships are not warmer than hers after the lapse of years. As she never disgraces her good-nature by severe reflections on any body, so she never degrades her judgment by immoderate or ill-placed praises; for every thing violent is contrary to her gentleness of disposition and the evenness of her virtue. She has a steady and firm mind, which takes no more from the female character than the solidity of marble does from its polish and lustre. She has such virtues as make us value the truly great of our own sex; she has all the winning graces, that make us love even the faults we see in the weak and beautiful of hers.

LESSON CLVIII.

The Millennium.

COWPER.

O, SCENES surpassing fable, and yet true

Scenes of accomplished bliss! which who can see,
Though but in distant prospect, and not feel
His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy?
Rivers of gladness water all the earth,

And clothe all climes with beauty; the reproach
Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field
Laughs with abundance; and the land, once lean,
Or fertile only in its own disgrace,
Exults to see its thistly curse repealed.
The various seasons woven into one,
And that one season an eternal spring,

The garden fears no blight; and needs no fence,
For there is none to covet; all are full.

The lion, and the libbard, and the bear,
Graze with the fearless flocks; all bask at noon
Together, or all gambol in the shade.

Of the same grove, and drink one common stream.
Antipathies are none. No foe to man

Lurks in the serpent now: the mother sees,
And smiles to see, her infant's playful hand
Stretched forth to dally with the crested worm,
To stroke his azure neck, or to receive
The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue.
All creatures worship man, and all mankind
One Lord, one Father. Error has no place;
That creeping pestilence is driven away;

The breath of heaven has chased it. In the heart
No passion touches a discordant string;

But all is harmony and love. Disease

Is not; the pure and uncontaminate blood
Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age.
One song employs all nations; and all cry,
"Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!"
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
Shout to each other, and the mountain-tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy;
Till, nation after nation taught the strain,
Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round!

LESSON CLIX.

The Idea of a State. SIR W. JONES

WHAT Constitutes a state?

Not high-raised battlement or labored mound,

Thick wall, or moated gate;

Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad-armed ports,

Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts,

Where low-born baseness wafts perfume to pride.
No-men, high-minded men,

With powers as far above dull brutes endued,
In forest, brake, or den,

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude:

Men, who their duties know,

But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain : Prevent the long-aimed blow,

And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain,

These constitute a state;

And sovereign Law, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate,

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
Smit by her sacred frown,

The fiend Dissension like a vapor sinks;
And e'en the all-dazzling Crown

Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.

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One with all a father's truth,
One with all the fire of youth.

One on earth in silence wrought,
And his grave in silence sought;
But the younger, brighter form
Passed in battle and in storm.

So whene'er I turn my eye

Back upon the days gone by,

Saddening thoughts of friends come o'er me,
Friends that closed their course before me.

But what binds us friend to friend,
But that soul with soul can blend?
Soul-like were those hours of yore;
Let us walk in soul once more.

Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee,-
Take; I give it willingly;

For, invisible to thee,

Spirits twain have crossed with me.

LESSON CLXI.

Rosamund Gray. LAMB.

It was noontide. The sun was very hot. An old gentlewoman sat spinning in a little arbor at the door of her cottage. She was blind; and her granddaughter was reading the Bible to her. The old lady had just left her work, to attend to the story of Ruth.

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Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto her." It was a passage she could not let pass without a

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