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Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on th' Atlantic isles; 'tis nought to me,
Since God is ever present, ever felt

In the void waste, as in the city full;

And where he, vital, breathes, there must be joy.
6. When even, at last, the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to worlds unknown;
I, cheerful, will obey. There, with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go
Where universal love smiles not around,
Sustaining all yon orbs and all their suns:
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression. But I lose

Myself in Him, in light ineffable!

Come, then, expressive silence, muse his praise.

THOMSON.

LESSON CXXVIII.

THE QUACK.

SCENE-The Inn.

Enter HOSTESS, followed by LAMPEDO, a Quack Doctor.

Hostess. NAY, nay; another fortnight.

Lampedo. It can't be.

The man's as well as I am: have some mercy!

He hath been here almost three weeks already.

Host. Well, then, a week.

Lamp. We may detain him a week.

[with a drawn sword

[Enter BALTHAZAR, the patient, from behind, in his night-gown,

You talk now like a reasonable hostess,

That sometimes has a reckoning with her conscience.

Host. He still believes he has an inward bruise.

Lamp. I would to heaven he had! or that he'd slipp'd

His shoulder-blade, or broke a leg or two,

(Not that I bear his person any malice,)

Or lux'd an arm, or even sprained his ancle!

Host. Ay, broken any thing except his neck.

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Lamp. However, for a week I'll manage him:

Though he had the constitution of a horse.

A farrier shall prescribe for him.

Balthazar. A farrier! [Aside.

Lamp. To-morrow, we phlebotomize again;

Next day, my new invented, patent draught;
Then, I have some pills prepared;

On Thursday, we throw in the bark; on Friday

Balth. [Coming forward.] Well, sir, on Friday-what on Friday? Come, proceed.

Lamp. Discovered!

Host. Mercy, noble sir!

Lamp. We crave your mercy! They fall on their knees.

Balth. On your knees? 'tis well! Pray, for your time is short.

Host. Nay, do not kill us.

Balth. You have been tried, condemn'd, and only wait For execution. Which shall I begin with?

Lamp. The lady, by all means, sir.

Balth. Come, prepare. [To the hostess.]

Host. Have pity on the weakness of my sex!
Balth. Tell me, thou quaking mountain of gross flesh,
Tell me, and in a breath, how many poisons-

If you attempt it-[ To LAMPEDO, who is making off]
you have cooked up for me?

Host. None, as I hope for mercy!
Balth. Is not thy wine a poison?
Host. No, indeed, sir;

'Tis not, I own, of the first quality;
But-

Balth. What?

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Rise, if thou canst, and hear me.

Host. Your commands, sir?

Balth. If, in five minutes, all things are prepared

For my departure, you may yet survive.

Host. It shall be done in less.

Balth. Away, thou lump fish!

[Exit Hostess

Lamp. So! now comes my turn! 'tis all over with me!

There's dagger, rope, and ratsbane in his looks!

Balth. And now, thou sketch and outline of a man!

Thou thing that hast no shadow in the sun!

Thou eel in a consumption, eldest born

Of Death on Famine! thou anatomy

Of a starved pilchard!

Lamp. I do confess my leanness. I am spare,

And, therefore, spare me.

Balth. Why! wouldst thou not have made me

A thoroughfare, for thy whole shop to pass through?

Lamp. Man, you know, must live.

Balth. Yes: he must die, too.

Lamp. For my patients' sake

Balth. I'll send thee to the major part of them.

The window, sir, is open; come, prepare.

Lamp. Pray, consider;

I may hurt some one in the street.

Balth. Why, then,

I'll rattle thee to pieces in a dice-box,

Or grind thee in a coffee-mill to powder,

For thou must sup with Pluto; so, make ready;
While I, with this good small-sword for a lancet,
Let thy starved spirit out, (for blood thou hast none,)
And nail thee to the wall, where thou shalt look
Like a dried beetle with a pin stuck through him.
Lamp. Consider my poor wife.
Balth. Thy wife!

Lamp. My wife, sir.

Balth. Hast thou dared think of matrimony, too? No flesh upon thy bones, and take a wife!

Lamp. I took a wife, because I wanted flesh.

I have a wife, and three angelic babes,

Who, by those looks, are well nigh fatherless.

Balth. Well, well! your wife and children shall plead for you. Come, come; the pills! where are the pills? produce them.

Lamp. Here is the box.

Balth. Were it Pandora's, and each single pill

Had ten diseases in it, you should take them.

Lamp. What, all ?

Balth. Ay, all; and quickly too. Come, sir, begin—that's well!

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Lamp. What will become of me?

Let me go home, and set my shop to rights,

And, like immortal Cesar, die with decency

Balth. Away! and thank thy lucky star I have not

Bray'd thee in thine own mortar, or exposed thee

For a large specimen of the lizard genus.

Lamp. Would I were one! for they can feed on air.
Balth. Home, sir, and be more honest.

Lamp. If I am not,

I'll be more wise, at least.

[Exit.]

[Exit.

ANONYMOUS.

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1. HAIL, candle-light! without disparagement to sun or moon, the kindliest luminary of the three; if we may not rather style thee their radiant deputy, mild viceroy of the moon! We love to read, talk, sit silent, eat, drink, sleep, by candle-light. It is every body's sun and moon: it is our peculiar and household planet. Wanting it, what savage, unsocial nights must our ancestors have spent, wintering in caves and unilluminated fastnesses! They must have lain about, and grumbled at one another in the dark. What repartees could have passed, when you must have

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felt about for a smile, and handled a neighbor's cheek, to be sure that he understood it? This accounts for the seriousness of the elder poetry. It has a somber cast, derived from the tradition of those unlanterned nights.

2. Jokes came in with candles. We wonder how they saw to pick up a pin, if they had any. How did they sup? What a medley of chance-carving they must have made of it! Here, one had got the leg of a goat, when he wanted a horse's shoulder; there, another had dipped his scooped palm in a kid-skin of wild honey, when he meditated right mare's milk. There is neither good eating nor drinking, in the dark. The senses give and take reciprocally. Can you tell veal from pork, without light? or distinguish sherry from pure Malaga? Take away the candle from the smoking man; by the glimmering of the left ashes, he knows that he is still smoking; but he knows it only by an inference, till the restored light coming in to the aid of the olfactories, reveals to both senses the full aroma. Then, how he redoubles his puffs, how he burnishes!

3. There is absolutely no such thing as reading, but by a candle. We have tried the affectation of a book at noon day, in gardens, and in sultry arbors; but it was labor thrown away. Those gay motes in the beam come about you, hovering and teasing, like so many coquettes, that will have you all to their self, and are jealous of your abstractions. By the midnight taper, the writer digests his meditations. By the same light, you must approach to their perusal, if you would catch the flame, the odor It is a mockery, all that is reported of the influential Phoebus.* No true poem ever owed its birth to the sun's light. abstracted works:

"Things that were born, when none but the still night
And his dumb candle saw his pinching throes."

They are

4. Daylight may furnish the images, the crude material; but for the fine shapings, the true turning and filing, they must be content to hold their inspiration of the candle. The mild, internal light that reveals them, like fires on the domestic hearth, goes out in the sunshine. Night and silence call out the starry fancies. Milton's morning hymn, we would hold a good wager, was penned at midnight; and Taylor's richer description of a sunrise, smells decidedly of a taper. Even ourself, in these our humbler lucubrations, tune our best measured cadences, (prose has her cadences,) not unfrequently to the charm of the drowsy watchman, "blessing the doors," or the wild sweep of winds at midnight.

*The sun.

Even now, a loftier speculation than we have yet attempted, courts our endeavors. We would indite something about the solar systera. Betty, bring the candles.

CHARLES LAMBE.

LESSON CXXX.

UTILITY OF LIGHT.

1. THE metaphorical expressions of all ages and nations with respect to light, sufficiently evince the value in which that inestimable gift is held. In the sacred Scriptures, indeed, not only are temporal blessings compared to light, and temporal evils to darkness, but holy deeds are frequently described under the character of the former, and unholy deeds under the character of the latter; and, with respect to classical or oriental literature, a thousand instances might easily be adduced, illustrative of the same metaphorical use of the terms in question.

2. There is something so congenial to our nature in light, something so repulsive in darkness, that, probably on this ground alone, the very aspect of inanimate things is instinctively either grateful or the reverse, in consequence of our being reminded by that aspect, of the one or of the other; so that, on this principle, perhaps, particular colors, throughout every province of nature, are more or less acceptable, in proportion as they approach nearest or recede farthest, from the character of light, whether reflected immediately from the heavenly bodies, or from the azure of the sky, or from the thousand brilliant hues, with which the setting or the rising sun, illuminates its attendant clouds. In illustration of this principle, gold and silver, among metals, might be opposed to lead and iron; and, among flowers, the brilliancy of the crocus, the lily, or the rose, to the lurid aspect of henbane or belladonna.

3. The abundant supply of light from its natural source, the sun, and the ease with which it is producible, by artificial means, during the absence of that luminary, render us habitually less sensible of its real value, than, undoubtedly, we should be, were we to experience a long continued privation of it. And, as to the regular periodical privation of it which we experience, in consequence of the alternation of night with day, this is so far from being an evil, that it is obviously beneficial; inasmuch, as in consequence of this very absence, sleep is both directly and indirectly conciliated; without which gift of Heaven, all our faculties would soon be exhausted.

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