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together, hand in hand, beneath the starless sky of The Children of the Lord's Supper.

midnight!

NIGHT in the EAST.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

Beautiful is the moonlight of the south! In those climes the night so quickly glides into the day, that twilight scarcely makes a bridge between them. One moment of darker purple in the sky—of a thousand rose-hues in the water-of shade half victorious over light, and then bursts forth at once the countless stars— the moon is up—night has resumed her reign.

NIGHT.

The Last Days of Pompeii, Book IV. Chap. VI.
E. B. LYTTON.

Solemnity of

The slumbering Night rolls on her velvet car;
The church-bell toils, deep sounding down the glade,
The solemn hour for walking spectres made;
The simple plough-boy, wakening with the sound,
Listens aghast, and turns him startled round,
Then stops his ears, and strives to close his eyes,
Lest at the sound some grisly ghost should rise.
Now ceased the long, the monitory toll,
Returning silence stagnates in the soul;
Save when, disturb'd by dreams with wild affright,
The deep-mouth'd mastiff bays the troubled night;
Or, where the village ale-house crowns the vale,
The creaking sign-post whistles to the gale.

Clifton Grove.-H. K. WHITE.

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Oft, in the lone church-yard at night I've seen, By glimpse of moonshine chequering thro' the trees, The school-boy with his satchel in his hand, Whistling aloud to bear his courage up,

And lightly tripping o'er the long flat stones
(With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown)
That tell in homely phrase who lie below;

Sudden he starts! and hears, or thinks he hears,
The sound of something purring at his heels;
Full fast he flies, and dares not look behind him,
Till out of breath he overtakes his fellows;
Who gather round, and wonder at the tale
Of horrid apparition tall and ghastly,

That walks at dead of night, or takes his stand
O'er some new-open'd grave; and, strange to tell!
Evanishes at crowing of the cock.

NIGHT.

Beauty of

The Grave.-ROBERT BLAIR.

I linger yet with Nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face

Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness,

I learned the language of another world.

NIGHT the time for Study.

Manfred.-LORD BYRON.

Is there not

A tongue in every star that talks with man,

And woos him to be wise? nor woos in vain :
This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.
At this still hour the self-collected soul
Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there
Of high descent, and more than mortal rank;
An embryo god; a spark of fire divine,
Which must burn on for ages, when the sun
(Fair transitory creature of a day)

Has closed his golden eye, and, wrapt in shades,
Forgets his wonted journey through the east.

A Summer Evening's Meditation.
Mrs. BARBAULD.

NIGHT the Time for REST.

Night is the time for rest;

How sweet, when labours close,
To gather round an aching breast

The curtain of repose,

Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head
Upon our own delightful bed!

Night.-JAMES MONTGOMERY.

NONSENSE.

Hudibras has defined nonsense, as Cowley does wit, by negatives. Nonsense says he, is that which is neither true nor false. These two great properties of nonsense, which are always essential to it, give it such a peculiar advantage over all other writings, that it is incapable of

being either answered or contradicted. It stands upon its own basis like a rock of adamant, secured by its natural situation against all conquests or attacks. There is no one place about it weaker than another, to favour an enemy in his approaches. The major and the minor are of equal strength. Its questions admit of no reply, and its assertions are not to be invalidated. A man may as well hope to distinguish colours in the midst of darkness, as to find out what to approve and disapprove in nonsense: you may as well assault an enemy that is buried in intrenchments. If it affirms anything, you cannot lay hold of it; or if it denies, you cannot refute it. In a word, there are greater depths and obscurities, greater intricacies and perplexities, in an elaborate and well-written piece of nonsense, than in the most abstruse and profound tract of school divinity.

The Whig, Examiner, No. 4.—Addison.

Obedience. Necessity for

Therefore doth Heaven divide

The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;
To which is fixed as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for so work the honey-bees;
Creatures, that by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

King Henry V. Act I. Scene II.—SHAKSPERE.

OBLIGATIONS and INGRATITUDE.

Everybody takes pleasure in returning small obligations; many go so far as to acknowledge moderate ones; but there is hardly any one who does not repay great obligations with ingratitude.

Maxims, XLVII. --ROCHEFOUCAULT.

OBLIVION.

Oblivion is not to be hired: the greatest part must be content to be as though they had not been; to be found in the register of God, not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story before the flood; and the recorded names ever since contain not one living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the equinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetic which scarce stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina of life; and even Pagans could doubt whether thus to live were to die; since our longest sun sets at right descensions, and makes but winter arches, and therefore it cannot be long before we lie down in darkness, and have our light in ashes; since the brother of death daily haunts us with dying mementos, and time, that grows old in itself, bids us hope no long duration; diuturnity is a dream, and folly of expectation.

Christian Morals.-SIR THOS. BROWNE.

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