THE BUTTERFLY'S BALL.

COME, take up your hats, and away let us haste
To the Butterfly's ball and the Grasshopper's feast;
The trumpeter Gadfly has summoned the crew,
And the revels are now only waiting for you.

On the smooth-shaven grass, by the side of the wood,
Beneath a broad oak, that for ages has stood,
See the children of earth, and the tenants of air,
For an evening's amusement together repair.

And there came the Beetle, so blind and so black,
Who carried the Emmet, his friend, on his back;
And there was the Gnat, and the Dragon-fly too;
With all their relations, green, orange, and blue.

And there came the Moth in his plumage of down,
And the Hornet in jacket of yellow and brown,
Who with him the Wasp, his companion, did bring,
But they promised that evening to lay by their sting.

And the sly little Dormouse crept out of his hole,
And led to the feast his blind brother, the Mole;
And the Snail, with his horns peeping out from his shell,
Came from a great distance—the length of an ell.

A mushroom their table, and on it was laid
A water-dock leaf, which the table-cloth made;
The viands were varied, to each of their taste,
And the Bee brought his honey to crown the repast.

There close on his haunches, so solemn and wise,
The Frog from a corner looked up to the skies;
And the Squirrel, well pleased such diversion to see,
Sat cracking his nuts, overhead, in a tree.

Then out came the Spider, with fingers so fine,
To show his dexterity on the tight-line;

From one branch to another his cobwebs he slung,
Then as quick as an arrow he darted along.

But just in the middle, oh! shocking to tell!
From his rope in one instant poor harlequin fell;

Yet he touched not the ground, but with talons outspread,

Hung suspended in air at the end of a thread.

Then the Grasshopper came, with a jerk and a spring, Very long was his leg, though but short was his wing; He took but three leaps, and was soon out of sight, Then chirped his own praises the rest of the night.

With step so majestic, the Snail did advance,
And promised the gazers a minuet to dance;

But they all laughed so loud, that he pulled in his head,
And went, in his own little chamber, to bed.

Then, as evening gave way to the shadows of night, Their watchman, the Glowworm, came out with his

light;

So home let us hasten, while yet we can see,

For no watchman is waiting for you or for me.

HUGH MILLER'S ACCOUNT OF HIS
FIRST DAY'S WORK.

Ir was twenty years last February since I set out one morning, a little before sunrise, to make my first acquaintance with a life of labour and restraint; and I have seldom had a heavier heart than I had that morning. I was but a slim boy at the time, fond enough of imaginings and day-dreams; and now I was going to work at what I had heard was one of the most disagreeable of all employments-to work in a quarry. The portion of my life which had already gone by, had been happy beyond the common lot. I had been a wanderer among rocks and woods—a reader of curious books, when I could get them —a gleaner of old stories; and now I was going to exchange all my day-dreams, and all my amusements, for the kind of life in which men toil every day that they may be enabled to eat, and eat every day that they may be enabled to toil.

The quarry in which I wrought lay on the southern shore of a noble inland bay, with a little clear stream on one side, and a thick fir-wood on the other. It had been opened in the old red sandstone rocks of the district, and was overtopped by a huge bank of clay. A heap of loose fragments, which had fallen from above, blocked up the face of the quarry, and my first employment was to clear this away. The friction of the shovel soon blistered my hands, but the pain was by no means very severe, and I worked hard and willingly, that I might see how the huge strata below were to be torn up and removed. Picks, wedges, and levers were applied by my brother workmen ; but they all proved inefficient, and it became necessary to

bore a hole and blow up the rock with gunpowder. This process was new to me, and I thought it a highly amusing one; and its very danger added to my interest and excitement. We had a few capital shots; the fragments flew in every direction, and an immense mass came toppling down. The earth, in its fall, brought with it the bodies of two little birds, which had crept into its fissures, to die in the shelter; and I felt a new interest in examining them. One was a pretty cock-goldfinch, with its hood of vermilion, and its wings inlaid with gold, to which it owes its name as unsoiled and smooth as if it had been preserved for a museum. The other was a somewhat rarer bird, of the woodpecker tribe, and was variegated with light blue and a greyish yellow. I was taken up with admiring the poor little things, when I heard our employer bidding the workmen lay by their tools. I looked up, and saw the sun sinking behind the thick fir-wood beside us, and the long dark shadows of the trees stretching down towards the shore.

This, then, was no very formidable beginning of the course of life I had so much dreaded. To be sure, my hands were a little sore, and I felt nearly as much fatigued as if I had been climbing among the rocks: but I had worked and been useful, and had yet enjoyed the day quite as much as usual.

I was as light of heart next morning as any of my brother workmen. There had been a smart frost during the night, and the rime lay white on the grass, as we passed onward through the fields; but the sun rose in a clear sky, and the day softened, as it advanced, into one of those delightful days of early spring, which give so pleasant a foretaste of whatever is mild and genial in the better half of the year. All the workmen rested at mid-day, and I

went to enjoy my half-hour alone on a mossy knoll in the neighbouring wood, which commands, through the trees, a wide prospect of the bay and the opposite shore. There was not a wrinkle on the water, not a cloud in the sky, and the branches were as motionless in the calm, as if they were drawn in a picture. I enjoyed my repose, and the exquisite view, and returned to my work at the quarry, convinced that a very delightful pleasure may be a very cheap one, and that the busiest employment may afford leisure enough to enjoy it.

PERSEVERANCE.

A STORY.

You may perhaps have heard that my father was a man of good estate. He thought of nothing, poor man! but how to spend it. He died at the age of five and forty, and left his family beggars. I believe he would not have taken to drinking, as he did, had it not been for his impatient temper, which made him fret and vex himself for every trifle, and then he had nothing for it but to drown his care in liquor.

It was my lot to be taken in charge by my mother's brother, who was master of a merchant-ship. I served him as an apprentice several years, and underwent a good deal of the usual hardships of a sailor's life. He had just made me his mate in a voyage up the Mediterranean, when we had the misfortune to be wrecked on the coast of Morocco. The ship struck at some distance from shore, and we lay a long stormy night, with the waves dashing over us, expect