THE TEMPLE OF NATURE. [DAVID VEDDER, born 1790, died 1854, a British writer of graceful rhymes, whose best known work is "Orcadian Sketches," (1832), published a volume of collected poems in 1842.] And all the stars of heaven; selves for the entrance of the show, which, I like birds from a refreshing shower, and consisting of music and dancing, continues tripping lightly forward with garments, and in noisy exhibition through the whole night. perhaps looks, a little the worse for the wear At twelve o'clock, supper is produced, when of the preceding evening, plunge at once pilaus, kabobs, preserves, fruits, dried sweet- again into all the depths of its amusements. meats, and sherbets of every fabric and fla- Coffee, sweetmeats, kaliouns, as before, acvour, engage the fair convives for some time. company every obstreperous repetition of Between the second banquet and the pre- the midnight song and dance; and all being ceding, the perfumed narquilly is never followed up by a plentiful breakfast of rice, absent from their rosy lips, excepting when meats, fruits, &c., toward noon the party they sip coffee, or indulge in a general separate, after having spent between fifteen shout of approbation, or a hearty peal of and sixteen hours in this riotous festivity. laughter at the freaks of the dancers or the subject of the singers' madrigals. But no respite is given to the entertainers; and, during so long a stretch of merriment, should any of the happy guests feel a sudden desire for temporary repose, without the least apology she lies down to sleep on the luxurious carpet that is her seat; and thus she remains, sunk in as deep an oblivion as if the nummud were spread in her own chamber. Others speedily follow her example, sleeping as sound; notwithstanding the bawling of the singers, the horrid jang-Talk not of temples—there is one ling of the guitars, the thumping on the Its lamps are the meridian sun, Built without hands, to mankind given; jar-like double-drum, the ringing and loud clangour of the metal bells and castanets of the dancers, with an eternal talking in all keys, abrupt laughter, and vociferous expressions of gratification, making in all a full concert of distracting sounds, sufficient, one might suppose, to awaken the dead. But the merry tumult and joyful strains of this conviviality gradually become fainter and fainter; first one and then another of the visitors-while even the performers are not spared by the soporific god -sink down under the drowsy influence, till at length the whole carpet is covered with the sleeping beauties, mixed indiscriminately with hand-maids, dancers, and musicians, as fast asleep as themselves. The business, however, is not thus quietly ended. "As soon as the sun begins to call forth the blushes of the morn, by lifting the veil that shades her slumbering eyelids," the faithful slaves rub their own clear of any lurking drowsiness, and then tug their respective mistresses by the toe or the shoulder, to rouse them up to perform the devotional ablutions usual at the dawn of day. All start mechanically, as if touched by a spell; and then commences the splashing of water and the mutterings of prayers, presenting a singular contrast to the vivacious scene of a few hours before. This duty over, the fair devotees shake their feathers Its floor the earth so green and fair; All Nature worships there! The Alps arrayed in stainless snow, Like altar-fires to God. As if with hallowed victims rare; The Ocean heaves resistlessly, His waves-the priesthood of the sea- As if they murmured praise and prayer) All Nature worships there! The cedar and the mountain pine, The willow on the fountain's brim, In reverence bend to Him; THE THREE WARNINGS. [MRS. THRALE is author of an interesting little moral poem, the "Three Warnings," which is so superior to her other compositions, that it was supposed to have been partly written, or at least corrected by Johnson. It first appeared in a volume of “Miscellanies,” published by Mrs. Anna Williams (the blind inmate of Johnson's house) in 1766. Hester Lynch Salisbury (afterwards Mrs. Thrale) was a native of Bodvel, Carnarvonshire, born in 1739. In 1763 she was married to Mr. Henry Thrale, an eminent brewer, who had taste enough to appreciate the rich and varied conversation of Johnson, and whose hospitality and wealth afforded the great moralist an asylum in his house. After the death of this excellent man in 1781, his widow in 1784 married Signior Piozzi, an Italian music-master, a step which Johnson ever could forgive. The lively lady proceeded with her husband on a continental tour, and they took up their abode for some time on the banks of the Arno. In 1785, she published a volume of miscellaneous pieces, entitled "The Florentine Miscellany," and afforded a subject for the satire of Gifford, whose "Bariad and Mariad" was written to lash the Della Cruscan songsters with whom Mrs. Piozzi was associated. Returning to England she became a rather voluminous writer. In 1786 she issued "Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson;" in 1788," Letters to and from Dr. Johnson;" in 1789, "A Journey through France, Italy, and Germany;" in 1794, " British Synonymy, or an Attempt at regulating the Choice of Words in familiar Conversation;” in 1801, “Retrospection, or a Review of the most striking and important Events, etc., which the late 1800 years have presented to the view of Mankind, etc." In her 80th year Mrs. Piozzi had a flirtation with a young actor, William Augustus Conway, aged 27. A collection of her "loveletters" was surreptitiously published in 1843. She died at Clifton, May 2, 1821. Mrs. Piozzi's eldest daughter, Viscountess Keith (Johnson's "Queeny "), lived to the age of 95, and one of her sisters to the age of 90.] 'Young as I am, 'tis monstrous hard! What more he urged I have not heard, And grant a kind reprieve; Well pleased the world will leave." What next the hero of our tale befell, Nor thought of Death so near: His friends not false, his wife no shrew, He passed his hours in peace. Brought on his eightieth year. The unwelcome messenger of Fate THE OLDEST OBELISK IN THE WORLD-THE Rising wild amidst garden shrubs is the temple, then in company with another, solitary obelisk which stood in front of the whose base alone now remains. This is the THE CHILDREN OF THE DESERT. The relation of the Desert to its modern inhabitants is still illustrative of its ancient history. The general name by which the Hebrews called "the wilderness," including always that of Sinai, was "the pasture." Bare as the surface of the Desert is, yet the thin clothing of vegetation, which is seldom entirely withdrawn, especially the aromatic shrubs on the high hillsides, furnish sufficient sustenance for the herds of the six thousand Bedouins who constitute the present popu lation of the peninsula. Along the mountain ledges green, The scattered sheep at will may glean So were they seen following the daughters EXTRACTS FROM DEAN STANLEY. [ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D. D. Dean of Westminster, born 1815, was a pupil of Dr. Thomas Arnold (whose life he afterward wrote) at Rugby School, graduated at Oxford, 1838, where he became tutor and professor of ecclesiastical history, taking orders in the Church of England, of which he became noted as one of the most liberal and scholarly members. His chief works are "Sinai and Palestine" (1856), "History of the Eastern Church" (1861), “History of the Jewish Church" (1862-76), “ Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey" (1867), and many volumes of sermons, essays, etc. He died in 1881.] We make the following extracts as exam- scale, the image of the vast encampment ples of his clear scholarly style: gathered round the one sacred tent which, with its coverings of dyed skins, stood con- | his own words. He was sitting with his spicuous in the midst, and which recalled friend, his whole soul was shaken with the the period of their nomadic life long after violence of his inward conflict-the conflict their settlement in Palestine. The deserted of breaking away from his evil habits, from villages, marked by rude inclosures of stone, his evil associates, to a life which seemed to are doubtless such as those to which the him poor, and profitless, and burdensome. Hebrew wanderers gave the name of "Ha- Silently the two friends sat together, and at zeroth," and which afterwards furnished the last, says Augustine: "When deep reflection type of the primitive sanctuary at Shiloh. had brought together and heaped all my The rude burial-grounds, with the many misery in the sight of my heart, there arose nameless headstones, far away from human a mighty storm of grief, bringing a mighty habitation, are such as the host of Israel shower of tears." He left his friend, that he must have left behind them at the different might weep in solitude; he threw himself stages of their progress at Massah, at Sinai, down under a fig-tree in the garden (the at Kibroth-hattaavah, "the graves of desire." spot is still pointed out in Milan), and he The salutations of the chiefs, in their bright cried in the bitterness of his spirit: "How scarlet robes, the one "going out to meet the long? how long?-to-morrow? to-morrow? other," the "obeisance," the "kiss" on each Why not now-why is there not this hour side the head, the silent entrance into the an end to my uncleanness?" "So was I tent for consultations, are all graphically speaking and weeping in the contrition of described in the encounter between Moses my heart," he says, "when, lo! I heard from and Jethro. The constitution of the tribes, a neighbouring house a voice as of a child, with the subordinate degrees of sheiks, re- chanting and oft repeating, “Take up and commended by Jethro to Moses, is the very read, take up and read." Instantly my same which still exists amongst those who countenance altered; I began to think are possibly his lineal descendants-the whether children were wont in play to sing gentle race of the Towâra. such words, nor could remember ever to have heard the like. So, checking my tears, I rose, taking it to be a command from God to open the book and read the first chapter I should find." There lay the volume of St. Paul's Epistles, which he had just begun to study. "I seized it," he says, "I opened it, and in silence I read that passage on which my eyes first fell. Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and enrying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lust thereof. No further could I read, nor needed I; for instantly, at the end of this sentence, by a serene light infused into my soul, all the darkness of doubt vanished away." CONVERSION OF ST. AUGUSTINE. Augustine's youth had been one of reck less self-indulgence. He had plunged into the worst sins of the heathen world in which he lived; he had adopted wild opinions to justify those sins; and thus, though his parents were Christians, he himself remained a heathen in his manner of life, though not without some struggles of his better self and of God's grace against these evil habits. Often he struggled and often he fell; but he had two advantages which again and again have saved souls from ruin-advantages which no one who enjoys them (and how many of us do enjoy them!) can prize too highly-he had a good mother and he had good friends. He had a good mother, who wept for him, and prayed for him, and warned him, and gave him that advice which only a mother can give, forgotten for the moment, but remembered afterwards. And he had good friends, who watched every opportunity to encourage better thoughts, and to bring him to his better self. In this state of struggle and failure he came to the city of Milan, where the Christian community was ruled by a man of fame almost equal to that which he himself afterwards won, the celebrated Ambrose. And now the crisis of his life was come, and it shall be described in We need not follow the story further. We know how he broke off all his evil courses; how his mother's heart was rejoiced; how he was baptized by the great Ambrose; how the old tradition describes their singing together, as he came up from the baptismal waters, the alternate verses of the hymn called from its opening words Te Deum Laudamus. We know how the profligate African youth was thus transformed into the most illustrious saint of the Western Church, how he lived long as the light of his own generation, and how his works have been cherished and read by good men, perhaps more extensively than those of any Christian | the metamorphoses themselves occupy but teacher since the Apostles. It is a story in- a small part of the book, which finds its structive in many ways. It is an example, real charm and beauty in the brilliant epilike the conversion of St. Paul, of the fact sodes, for the introduction of which they that from time to time God calls His ser- supply the occasion. vants not by gradual, but by sudden changes. How far the idea was Ovid's own it is im. possible to say. Two Greek poets are knowr to have written on the same subject. One of them was Nicander, of Colophon, in Asia Minor, an author of the second century B. C., THE METAMORPHOSES OR TRANS. attached, it would seem, to the court of FORMATIONS. [PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO, the great Roman poet, was born at Sulmo, about 90 miles from Rome, March 20th, B. C., 43, died in exile, A. D., 18. He came of a noble family, and was educated in the best accomplishments of the times. After travelling through Sicily, Greece, and Asia, he settled in Rome, forming one of that gal axy of talent which distinguished the Augustan era. When 50 years old he was banished to Torni, on the Euxine, which event he immortalizes in his "Tristia." His works are, “The Amores," the picture of a dissolute age, "The Roman Fasti," and "The Metamorphoses," of which we present the Rev. Alfred Church's abridge ment from "The Ancient Classics."] Ovid tells us that before he was banished he had written, but not corrected, the fifteen books of the "Metamorphoses," and had also composed twelve books (only six have been preserved) of the "Fasti" or Roman Calendar. These are his chief surviving poems. In the "Metamorphoses" we have the largest and most important of Ovid's works; and, if we view it as a whole, the greatest monument of his poetical genius. The plan of the book is to collect together, out of the vast mass of Greek mythology and legend, the various stories which turn on the change of men and women from the human form into animals, plants, or inanimate objects. Nor are the tales merely collected. Such a collection would have been inevitably monotonous and tiresome. With consummate skill the poet arranges and connects them together. The thread of connection is often slight; sometime it is broken altogether. But it is sufficiently continuous to keep alive the reader's interest; which is, indeed, often excited by the remarkable ingenuity of the transition from one tale to another. But it did not escape the author's perception, that to repeat over and over again the story of a marvel which must have been as incredible to his own contemporaries as it is to us, would have been to insure failure. Hence Pergamus, which, under the dynasty of the Attali, was a famous centre of literary activity. Of his work, the "Changes" (for so we may translate its Greek title), only a few fragments are preserved, quite insufficient Parthenius, a native of the Bithynian to give us any idea of its merits or methods. Nicæa, so famous in ecclesiastical history, may be credited with having given some hints to the Roman poet,-to whom, indeed, as a contemporary,* and connected with the great literary circle of Rome, he was proba bly known. Parthenius, we know on good authority, taught the Greek language to Virgil, who condescended to borrow at least one line from his preceptor. His "Metamorphoses" have entirely perished. We have only the probability of the case to warrant us in supposing that Ovid was under obligations to him. Of these obligations, indeed, no ancient authority speaks; and it is safe, probably, to conjecture that they were inconsiderable-nothing, certainly, like what Virgil owed to Homer, Hesiod, and Theocritus. It would weary the reader, not to mention the space which the execution of such a task would require, to conduct him along the whole course of the metamorphoses-from the description of Chaos, with which the poet begins, to the transformation of the murdered Cæsar into a comet, with which, not following the customary adulation to the successor of the great Dictator, he concludes. Specimens must suffice; and the book is one which, better than any other great poem that can be mentioned, specimens may adequately represent. The first book begins, as has been said, with a description of Chaos. "Nothing," says Bayle, in his satirical fashion, "could be clearer and more intelligible than this description, if we consider only the poetical phrases; but if we examine its philosophy, *Parthenius died at an advanced age, about the b inning of the reign of Tiberius. |