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COMMON-PLACE BOOK OF PROSE.

Goodness of the Deity displayed in the Beauty of
Creation.-DWIGHT.

WERE all the interesting diversities of colour and form to disappear, how unsightly, dull, and wearisome, would be the aspect of the world! The pleasures, conveyed to us by the endless varieties, with which these sources of beauty are presented to the eye, are so much things of course, and exist so much without intermission, that we scarcely think either of their nature, their number, or the great proportion which they constitute in the whole mass of our enjoyment. But, were an inhabitant of this country to be removed from its delightful scenery to the midst of an Arabian desert, a boundless expanse of sand, a waste, spread with uniform desolation, enlivened by the murmur of no stream, and cheered by the beauty of no verdure; although he might live in a palace, and riot in splendour and luxury, he would, I think, find life a dull, wearisome, melancholy round of existence; and, amid all his gratifications, would sigh for the hills and valleys of his native land, the brooks, and rivers, the living lustre of the Spring, and the rich glories of the Autumn. The ever-varying brilliancy and grandeur of the landscape, and the magnificence of the sky, sun, moon, and stars, enter more extensively into the enjoyment of mankind, than we, perhaps, ever think, or can possibly apprehend, without frequent and extensive investigation. This beauty and splendour of the objects around us, it is ever to be remembered, is not necessary to their existence, nor to what we commonly intend by their usefulness. It is, therefore, to be regarded

as a source of pleasure gratuitously superinduced upon the general nature of the objects themselves, and, in this light, as a testimony of the divine goodness peculiarly affecting.

Night Season favourable to Contemplation and
Study.-DENNIE.

"Watchman, what of the night ?"-ISAIAH Xxi. 11.

To this query of Isaiah, the watchman replies, that "The morning cometh, and also the night." The brevity of this answer has left it involved in something of the obscurity of the season in which it was given. I think that night, however sooty and ill-favoured it may be pronounced by those who were born under a daystar, merits a more particular description. I feel peculiarly disposed to arrange some ideas in favour of this season. I know that the majority are literally blind to its merits; they must be prominent, indeed, to be discerned by the closed eyes of the snorer, who thinks that night was made for nothing but sleep. But the student and the sage are willing to believe that it was formed for higher purposes; and that it not only recruits exhausted spirits, but sometimes informs inquisitive and mends wicked ones.

Duty, as well as inclination, urges the Lay Preacher to sermonize while others slumber. To read numerous volumes in the morning, and to observe various characters at noon, will leave but little time, except the night, to digest the one or speculate upon the other. The night, therefore, is often dedicated to composition, and, while the light of the paly planets discovers at his desk the Preacher, more wan than they, he may be heard repeating emphatically with Dr. Young,

"Darkness has much Divinity for me.'

No companions

He is then alone; he is then at peace. near, but the silent volumes on his shelf; no noise abroad, but the click of the village clock or the bark of the village dog. The deacon has then smoked his sixth, and last pipe, and asks not a question more concerning Josephus

or the church Stillness aids study, and the sermon proceeds. Such neing the obligations to night, it would be ungrateful not to acknowledge them. As my watchful eyes can discern its dim beauties, my warm heart shall feel, and my prompt pen shall describe, the uses and pleasures of the nocturnal hour.

"Watchman, what of the night?" I can with propriety imagine this question addressed to myself; I am a professed lucubrator; and who so well qualified to delineate the sable hours as

"A meager, muse-rid mope, adust and thin?"

However injuriously night is treated by the sleepy moderns, the vigilance of the ancients could not overlook its benefits and joys. In as early a record as the book of Genesis, I find that Isaac, though he devoted his assiduous days to action, reserved speculation till night. "He went out to meditate in the field at eventide." He chose that sad, that solemn hour, to reflect upon the virtues of a beloved and departed mother. The tumult and glare of the day suited not with the sorrow of his soul. He had lost his most amiable, most genuine friend, and his unostentatious grief was eager for privacy and shade. Sincere sorrow rarely suffers its tears to be seen. It was natural for Isaac to select a season to weep in, that should resemble "the colour of his fate." The darkness, the solemnity, the stillness of the eve, were favourable to his melancholy purpose. He forsook, therefore, the bustling tents of his father, the pleasant "south country," and "well of Lahairoi ;" he went out and pensively meditated at eventide.

The Grecian and Roman philosophers firmly believed that the "dead of midnight is the noon of thought." One of them is beautifully described by the poet as soliciting knowledge from the skies in private and nightly audience, and that neither his theme, nor his nightly walks, were forsaken till the sun appeared, and dimmed his "nobler intellectual beam." We undoubtedly owe to the studious nights of the ancients most of their elaborate and immortal productions. Among them it was necessary that every man of letters should trim the midnight lamp. The day

might be given to the forum or the circus, but the night was the season for the statesman to project his schemes, and for the poet to pour his verse.

Night has, likewise, with great reason, been considered, in every age, as the astronomer's day. Young observes, with energy, that

"An undevout astronomer is mad."

The privilege of contemplating those brilliant and numerous myriads of planets which bedeck our skies is peculiar to night, and it is our duty, both as lovers of moral and natural beauty, to bless that season, when we are indulged with such a gorgeous display of glittering and useful light. It must be confessed, that the seclusion, calmness, and tranquillity of midnight, are most friendly to serious, and even airy contemplations.

I think it treason to this sable Power, who holds divided empire with Day, constantly to shut our eyes at her approach. To long sleep I am decidedly a foe. As it is expressed by a quaint writer, we shall all have enough of it in the grave. Those, who cannot break the silence of the night by vocal throat, or eloquent tongue, may be permitted to disturb it by a snore. But he, among my readers, who possesses the power of fancy and strong thought, should be vigilant as a watchman. Let him sleep abundantly for health, but sparingly for sloth. It is better, sometimes, to consult a page of philosophy than the pillow.

Colloquial Powers of Dr. Franklin.—WIRT.

NEVER have I known such a fireside companion as he was!-Great as he was, both as a statesman and a philosopher, he never shone in a light more winning than when he was seen in a domestic circle. It was once my good fortune to pass two or three weeks with him, at the house of a private gentleman, in the back part of Pennsylvania; and we were confined to the house during the whole of that time, by the unintermitting constancy and depth of the snows. But confinement could never be felt where Frank

lin was an inmate. His cheerfulness and his colloquial powers spread around him a perpetual spring. When I speak, however, of his colloquial powers, I do not mean to awaken any notion analogous to that which Boswell has given us, when he so frequently mentions the colloquial powers of Dr. Johnson. The conversation of the latter continually reminds one of "the pomp and circumstance of glorious war." It was, indeed, a perpetual contest for victory, or an arbitrary and despotic exaction of homage to his superior talents. It was strong, acute, prompt, splendid and vociferous; as loud, stormy, and sublime, as those winds which he represents as shaking the Hebrides, and rocking the old castles that frowned upon the dark rolling sea beneath. But one gets tired of storms, however sublime they may be, and longs for the more orderly current of nature.-Of Franklin no one ever became tired. There was no ambition of eloquence, no effort to shine, in any thing which came from him. There was nothing which made any demand either upon your allegiance or your admiration.

His manner was as unaffected as infancy. It was nature's self. He talked like an old patriarch; and his plainness and simplicity put you, at once, at your ease, and gave you the full and free possession and use of all your faculties.

His thoughts were of a character to shine by their own light, without any adventitious aid. They required only a Inedium of vision like his pure and simple style, to exhibit, to the highest advantage, their native radiance and beauty. His cheerfulness was unremitting. It seemed to be as much the effect of the systematic and salutary exercise of the mind as of its superior organization. His wit was of the first order. It did not show itself merely in occasional coruscations; but, without any effort or force on his part, it shed a constant stream of the purest light over the whole of his discourse. Whether in the company of commons or nobles, he was always the same plain man ; always most perfectly at his ease, his faculties in full play, and the full orbit of his genius forever clear and unclouded. And then the stores of his mind were inexhaustible. He had commenced life with an attention so vigilant, that

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