TRUTH.

O! WHO would face the blame of just men's eyes,

And bear the fame of falsehood all his days,
And wear out scorned life with useless lies,
Which still the shifting, quivering look betrays.

For what is hope, if truth be not its stay?

And what were love, if truth forsook it quite ? And what were all the sky, if falsehood gray, Behind it, like a dream of darkness, lay,

Ready to quench its stars in endless, endless night?

Anon.

CURIOSITY.

CURIOSITY is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to further progress. All the attainments possible in our present state are evidently inadequate to our capacities of enjoyments; conquest serves no purpose but that of kindling ambition; discovery has no effect but of raising expectation; the gratification of one desire encourages another; and after all our labours, studies, and inquiries, we are continually at the same distance from the completion of our schemes, have still some wish importunate to be satisfied, and some faculty restless and turbulent for want of its enjoyment. * * * This passion is, perhaps, regularly heightened in proportion as the powers of the mind are elevated and enlarged. * There is, indeed, scarce any kind of ideal acquire

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ment which may not be applied to some use, or which may not at least gratify pride with occasional superiority. * * * Curiosity is the thirst of the soul; it inflames and torments us, and makes us taste every thing with joy, however otherwise insipid, by which it may be quenched. Johnson.

ALLOY OF BLISS.

WHO that would ask a heart to dulness wed,
The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead?
No; the wild bliss of nature needs alloy,
And fear and sorrow fan the fire of joy!
And say, without our hopes, without our fears,
Without the home that plighted love endears,
Without the smile from partial beauty won,
O! what were man ?-a world without a sun.

Campbell.

MUTUAL DEPENDENCE.

THE apparent insufficiency of every individual to his own happiness or safety compels us to seek from one another assistance and support. The necessity of joint efforts for the execution of any great or extensive design, the variety of powers disseminated in the species, and the proportion between the defects and excellencies of different persons, demand an interchange of help, and communication of intelligence, and by frequent reciprocations of beneficence unite mankind in society and friendship.

Johnson.

MOUNTAIN BARD.

ON Caledonia's hills, the ruddy morn

Breathes fresh :-the huntsman winds his clamorous horn.
The youthful Minstrel from his pallet springs,
Seizes his harp, and tunes its slumbering strings.
With airy foot he treads that giddy height,
His heart all rapture, and his eye all light;
His voice all melody, his yellow hair
Floating and dancing on the mountain air,
Shaking from its loose folds the liquid pearls,
That gather clustering on his golden curls ;-
And, for a moment, gazes on a scene,

Tinged with deep shade, dim gold, and brightening green;
Then plays a mournful prelude, while the star

Of morning fades :-But when heaven's gates unbar,
And on the world a tide of glory rushes,

Burns on the hill, and down the valley blushes;
The mountain bard in livelier numbers sings,

While sunbeams warm and gild the conscious strings,
And his young bosom feels the enchantment strong,
Of light, and joy, and minstrelsy, and song!

Pierpont.

JUDGMENT IN COMPOSITION.

Ir is only a great artist who knows when to be brief in descriptions, and when copious; where to light up his landscape with sunshine, and where to cover it with darkness and tempest.

J. Beattie.

MUSIC AT MIDNIGHT.

HARK! how it floats upon the dewy air!
O! what a dying, dying close was there!
'Tis harmony from yon sequestered bower,
Sweet harmony, that soothes the midnight hour!
Long ere the charioteer of day had run

His morning course, the enchantment was begun;
And he shall gild yon mountain's height again,
Ere yet the pleasing toil becomes a pain.

THE pleasure of travel is in the fancy. Men and manners are so nearly alike over the world, and the same annoyances disturb so certainly, wherever we are, the gratification of seeing and conversing with our living fellow-beings, that it is only by the mingled illusion of fancy and memory, by getting apart, and peopling the deserted palace or the sombre ruin from the pages of a book, that we ever realize the anticipated pleasure of standing on celebrated ground. The eye, the curiosity, are both disappointed, and the voice of a common companion reduces the most romantic ruin to a heap of

stones.

N. P. Willis.

ANTIQUITIES.

To confine our studies to mere antiquities is like reading by candle-light, with our shutters closed, after the sun has risen.

T. Campbell.

PAINTING.

THINE are, O Mind! the colours that delight
The artist in his visionary mood !—

Thou art the inspiration and the might,

The deep enchantment of his solitude:

Amid the grand-the wonderful-the wild-
Forever have thy loftiest revelations smiled!

Who may behold the works of Raphael's hand
And feel no mountings of the soul within?
Find not his mould of intellect expand,

And the creations of the pencil win

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His thoughts toward heaven, to which they are akin; Ennobling his whole being-touching chords

Of holiest sweetness-purifying sin

Raising a deathless moral, that records

The majesty of truth in tints surpassing words!

Of lips half blushing, odorous, and warm;
Of eyes like heaven's own paradise of blue;