/ SAN" A SARBARA «. THE UNlVERStr< 1 > > T- 0^ g ■ L K \ y II O THE UNIVERStTV o 3^ o THE LIBRARY OF o THE CABINET OF GEMS: ^^yMHERED FROfA JIIeEZBR/TED ^UTHOR^. WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY EMINENT ARTISTS. ' Society is a strong soliitioti of books. It draws the virtue out of what is best worth reading, as hot water draws the strength of tea leaves. If I were a prince, I would hire or buy a literary teapot, in which I would steep all the leaves of new books that promised well. The infusion would do for me, without the vegetable fibre.' — O. W. Holmes. WILLIAM P. NIMMO, LONDON, 14 KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND; AND EDINBURGH. 1875. MURKAV AND GIBB, EDINBURGW, fRlNTEKS TO HER MAJESTV's STATlONfiKV OFFICE. PREFACE N-^ OW and again, in the busiest life, there are times when the mind seeks change and refreshment from the subjects of its pre-occupation. Character, circumstance, and the mood of mind, may so far dictate what this recreation shall prove to be in the individual case. It may be walking, driving, gardening, music, painting, poetry, a quiet talk with a friend, or the com- panionship of a good book. When one is on the outlook for rest or variety, every good book will not answer the purpose. Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Hallam's Europe during the Middle Ages are both good books, but demand more vigour and freshness of mind than can always be spared, to read them successfully. The jaded reader might turn away from them with a sense of weariness. Something in less compass, and more readily comprehensible, is what is wanted, that shall pleasantly and profitably fill the mind without overcrowding it Such a silent friend the Cabinet of Gems purposes to be, having something to say during a quiet hour, when more pretentious authors are thrust aside, that shall please and profit, and help to brace the mind for the more serious duties of life. CONTENTS, SUT5JECTS. AUTHORS. PAGE Of Books, ..... Montaigne, II A Wish, Rogers, . 12 On a Proper Choice of Reading, . Carlyle, . 13 Crabbed Age and Youth, . Shakespeare, 17 Sense and Cleverness, Coleridge, iS Christmas, .... Washington Irz'ing, 21 Cruelty to Birds, .... Thomson, 24 The New Year, .... Hugh Miller, 25 The Good Lord Clifford, . IVordsworth, 27 Sayings from Shakespeare, Shakespea7-e, 28 The Light of Home, S. y. Hale, 31 Of Studies, .... Bacon, 32 Alas, how Easily Things go Wrong ! George Macdonald, 34 Law, ..... G. A. Stevens, . 35 Personal Appearance of Cromwell, Carlyle, 37 Auld Robin Gray, Lady Anne Barnard, 38 The Secret of True Contentment, . Isaac Walton, 40 Go, Youth Beloved, Mrs. Opie, 43 Truth, ..... Tillotson, 44 Wisdom, ..... Frederika Bremer, 44 Endymion, .... Longfello7v, 46 Await the Issue, .... Carlyle, . 48 Letter-Writing, .... • 51 8 THE CABINET OF GEMS. SUBJECTS. AUTHORS. PAGE ' Good in Everything, .... Tennyson, 52 Youth and Age, Coleridge, S3 Valentine's Day, Charles Lamb, . 55 Sonnet, Shakespeare^ 58 The Look and the Rose, . 61 Poetry, Dr. Channhig, . 62 Broken Friendship, Coleridge, 64 My First Play, Charles Lamb. 67 The Dowie Dens o' Yarrow . 69 The Vision of Mirza, Addison, 75 Nature, Ralph Waldo F.jnersoJi, 79 A Squall, . Thackeray, 80 The Last Days of George ill., Thackeray, 82 The Growing Good of the ^Vorld, George Eliot, 82 The Corsair, Lord Byron, 85 The Highest Friendship, . Edward Garrett, 86 The Child and Flower. W. C. Bryant, . 89 Luther and Zwingle. y. H. Merle D'Aitlngne, 90 Unselfishness, George Eliot, 90 The Dying Midshipman, . Alan Brodrick, . 93 Witty and Proverbial Sayings. 94 Burns and Alloway Kirk, . Nathaniel Ha'wthornc, 97 Autumn, A'eats, 98 Manliness, . Thomas Hughes, 100 Sonnet, Shakespeare, 100 Discussion between Luther and Zwingle, Mrs. Hardy, 103 The Awakening from an Opium Dream, Thomas De Quincey, 104 Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Longfello7v, 107 Letter in Prospect of Marriage. Lady Mary Worthy Mon 'agu, 109 Virtue, George Herbert, . 110 The Praise of True Womanhood, Various, III I am a Friar of Orders Grey, John CKeefe, . 112 The Mitherless Baim, William Thorn, . "5 Golden Gleanings, . Various, 116 The Treasures of the Deep, Mrs. Hemans, 121 Lidividuality of Character, F. W. Robertson, 122 The True Aim of the Artist, Buskin, . 125 SUBJECTS. Heaven, Music and Poetry, . The Strengtli of Virtue, Reading, On First Looking into Chapman's Tell me not. Sweet, Old Age and Death, Dante Alighieri, Prayer, Upon the Sight of a Beautiful Pict Falbtaff's Regiment, The Worth of Hours, Bitten by a Lion, . Sonnets from Wordsworth, English Scenery, A Sea-Shore Sketch, A Hunter, . Sayings from Boswell's Johnson, Human Help, AUTHORS. PAGE 126 Sir William Temple, 128 Milton, . 131 Locke, 132 I lonier, John Keats, 133 Colonel Lovelace, 134 Edmu7id Waller, 134 Various, 137 Tennyson and Colej-idge, 138 ure, Wordszuorth, 141 Shakespeare, 142 Richard Monckton Milne f, 143 Dr. Livingstone, 147 148 Washington Irving, 151 Crabbe, . 152 Butler, . 156 I (MONTAIGNE.) MUST shelter my own weakness under these great reputations; I shall love any one that can plume me, that is, by clearness of understanding and judgment, and by the sole distinction, of the force and beauty of discourse. For I, who, for want of memory, am at every turn at a loss to pick them out of their national livery, am yet wise enough to know, by the measure of my own abilities, that my soil is incapable of producing any of those rich flowers, that I there find set, and growing ; and that all the fruits of my own growth are not worth any one of them. For this, indeed, I hold myself very respon- sible, though the confession makes against me ; if there be any vanity and vice in my writings, which I do not of myself perceive, nor can discern, when pointed out to me by another ; for many faults escape the eye, but the infirmity of judgment consists in not being able to discern them, when, by another, laid open to us. Knowledge and truth may be in us without judgment, and judgment also without them ; but the confession of ignorance is one of the fairest and surest testimonies of judgment that I know; I have no other officer to put my writings in rank and file but only fortune. As things come into my head, I heap them one upon another, which sometimes advance in whole bodies, sometimes in single files ; I am content that every one should see my natural and ordinary pace as ill as it is. I suffer myself to jog on at my own rate and ease. Neither are these subjects, which a man is not permitted to be ignorant in, or casually, and at a venture, to discourse of. I could wish to have a more perfect knowledge of things, .but I will not buy it so dear as it will cost. My design is to pass over easily, and not laboriously, the remainder of my life. There is nothing that I will cudgel my brains about ; no, not knowledge, of what price soever. I seek, in the reading of books, only to please myself by an irreproachable diversion ; or, if I study, it is tor no other science than what treats of the knowledge of myself, and instructs me how to die, and live well. A WISH. (ROGERS.) MINE be a cot beside a hill ; A beehive's hum shall soothe my ear ; A willowy brook that turns a mill. With many a fall, shall linger near. The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch, Shall twitter from her clay-built nest; Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch. And share my meal, a welcome guest. Around my ivied porch shall spring Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew ; And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing. In russet gown and apron blue. The village church among the trees. Where first our marriage vows were given, With merry peals shall swell tlie breeze. And point with taper spire to Heaven. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 13 ON A PROPER CHOICE OF READING. (CARLYLE.) AS to the Books which you, whom I know so little of, should read, there is hardly anything definite that can be said. For one thing, you may be strenuously advised to keep reading. Any good book, any book that is wiser than yourself, will teach you something, — a. great many things, indirectly and directly, if your mind be open to learn. This old counsel of Johnson's is also good and universally applicable : Read the Book you do honestly feel a wish and a curiosity to read. The very wish and curiosity indicates that you then and there are the person likely to get good of it. ' Our wishes are presentiments of our capabiUties :' that is a noble saying, of deep encourage- ment to all true men ; applicable to our wishes and efforts in regard, as to other things. Among all the objects that look wonderful or beautiful to you follow with fresh hope the one which looks wonderfullest, beautifullest. You will gradually by various trials (which trials see that you make honest, manful ones, not silly, short, fitful ones) discover what is for you the wonderfullest, beautifullest \ what is your true element and province, and be able to abide by that. True Desire, the Monition of Nature, is much to be attended to. But here also you are to discriminate carefully between true desire and false. The medical men tell us we should eat what we truly have an appetite for ; but what we only falsely have an appetite for, we should resolutely avoid. It is very true. And flimsy, 'desultory' readers, who fly from foolish book to foolish book, and get good of none, and mischief of all, — are not these as foolish, unhealthy eaters, who mistake their superficial, ^/x^ desire after spiceries and confectioneries for the real appetite, of which even they are not destitute, though it lies far deeper, far quieter, after solid, nutritive food ? With these illustrations I will recommend Johnson's advice to you. 'Another thing, and only one other will I say. All Books are properly the record of the History of Past Men. What thoughts Past Men had in them ; what actions Past Men did ; the summary of all Books whatsoever lies there. It is on this ground that the class of Books specifically named 14 THE CABINET OF GEMS. History can be safely recommended as the basis of all study of Books ; the preliminary of all right and full understanding of anything we can expect to find in Books. Past History, and especially the Past History of one's own native country : everybody may be advised to begin with that. Let him study that faithfully, innumerable inquiries, with due indications, will branch out from it ; he has a broad beaten highway from which all the country is more or less visible ; there travelling, let him choose where he will dwell. Neither let mistakes nor wrong directions, of which every man in his studies and elsewhere falls into many, discourage you. There is precious instruction to be got hy finding that we were wrong. Let a man try faithfully, manfully, to be right ; he will grow daily more and more so. It is at bottom the condition on which all men have to cultivate themselves. Our very walk- ing is an incessant falling : a falling and a catching of ourselves before we come actually to the pavement. It is emblematic of all things a man does. In conclusion, I will remind you that it is not by books alone, or by books chiefly, that a man becomes in all points a man. Study to do faith- fully whatsoever thing in your actual situation, there and now, you find either expressly or tacitly laid to your charge ; that is your post ; stand in it like a true soldier ; silently devour the many chagrins of it, as all human situations have many ; and be your aim not to quit it without doing all that it, at least, required of you. A man perfects himself by work much more than by reading. They are a growing kind of men that can wisely combine the two things ; wisely, valiantly, can do what is laid to their hand in their present sphere, and prepare themselves withal for doing other wider things, if such lie before them. 1 6 THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE CABINET OF GEMS. CRABBED AGE AND YOUTH. (SHAKESPEARE.) CRABBED age and youth, Cannot live together : Youth is full of pleasance, Age is full of care ; Youth like summer morn, Age like winter weather ; Youth like summer brave, Age like winter bare. Youth is full of sport, Age's breath is short. Youth is nimble, age is lame ; Youth is hot and bold, Age is weak and cold ; Youth is wild, and age is tame. Age, I do abhor thee. Youth, I do adore thee ; O, my love, my love is young ! Age, I do defy thee, — O, sweet shepherd, hie thee, For methinks thou stay'st too long. SENSE AND CLEVERNESS. (COLERIDGE.) BY Sense, I understand that just balance of the faculties which is to the judgment what health is to the body. The mind seems to act en masse, by a synthetic, rather than an analytic process : even as the outward senses, from which the metaphor is taken, perceive immediately, each as it were by a peculiar tact or intuition, without any consciousness of the mechanism by which the perception is realized. This is often exemplified in well-bred, unaffected, and innocent women. I know a lady, on whose judgment, from constant experience of its rectitude, I could rely almost as on an oracle. But when she has sometimes proceeded to a detail of the grounds and reasons for her opinions — then, led by similar experience, I have been tempted to interrupt her with, * I will take your advice ; ' or, '1 shall act on your opinion ; for I am sure you are in the right. But as to ihefors and becauses, leave them to me to find out.' The general accompaniment of sense is a disposition to avoid extremes, whether in theory or in practice, with a desire to remain in sympathy with the general mind of the age or country, and a feeling of the necessity and utiUty of compromise. If Genius be the initiative, and Talent be the administrative, Sense is the conservative branch in the intellectual republic. By Cleverness (which I dare not with Dr. Johnson call a low word, while there is a sense to be expressed which it alone expresses), I mean a comparative readiness in the invention and use of means, for the realizing of objects and ideas, — often of ideas, which the man of genius only could have originated, and which the clever man perhaps neither fully comprehends, nor adequately appreciates, even at the moment that he is prompting or executing the machinery of their accomplishment. In short, Cleverness is a sort of genius for instrumentality. It is the brain in the hand. In litera- ture, Cleverness is more frequently accompanied by wit — Genius and Sense, by humour. THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE CABINET OF GEMS. CHRISTMAS. (WASHINGTON IRVING.) OF all the old festivals, that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, and lifts the. spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment. The services of the Church about this season are extremely tender and inspiring. They dwell on the beautiful story of the origin of our faith, and the pastoral scenes that accompanied its announce- ment. They gradually increase in fervour and pathos during the season of Advent, until they break forth in full jubilee on the morning that brought peace and good-will to men. I do not know a grander effect of music on the moral feelings, than to hear the full choir and the pealing organ per- forming a Christmas anthem in a cathedral, and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant harmony. It is a beautiful arrangement, also derived from days of yore, that this festival, which commemorates the announcement of the religion of peace and love, has been made the season for gathering together of family connections, and drawing closer again those bands of kindred hearts, which the cares, and pleasures, and sorrows of the world are continually operating to cast loose : of calling back the children of a family, who have launched forth in life, and wandered widely asunder, once more to assemble about the paternal hearth. THE CABINET OF GEMS. that rallying place of the aftections, there to grow young and loving again among the endearing mementoes of childhood. There is a something in the very season of the year that gives a charm to the festivity of Christmas. At other times we derive a great portion of our pleasures from the mere beauties of nature. Our feelings sally forth and dissipate themselves over the sunny landscape, and we 'live abroad and everywhere.' The song of the bird, the murmur of the stream, the breathing fragrance of the spring, the soft voluptuousness of summer, the golden pomp of autumn, earth with its mantle of refreshing green, and heaven with its deep delicious blue and its cloudy magnificence, — all fill us with mute but exquisite delight, and we revel in the luxury of mere sensation. But in the depth of winter, when nature lies despoiled of every charm, and wrapped in her shroud of sheeted snow, we turn for our gratifications to moral sources. The dreariness and desolation of the landscape, the short gloomy day and darksome nights, while they circumscribe our wanderings, shut in our feelings also from rambling abroad, and make us more keenly disposed for the pleasure of the social circle. Our thoughts are more concentrated, our friendly sympathies more aroused. We feel more sensibly the charm of each other's society, and are brought more closely together by dependence on each other for enjoyment. Heart calleth unto heart ; and we draw our pleasures from the deep wells of loving-kindness, which lie in the quiet recesses of our bosoms ; and which, when resorted to, furnish forth the pure element of domestic felicity. THE CABINET OF GEMS. CRUELTY TO BIRDS. (THOMSON.) T T A PLY some widow'd songster pours his plaint Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse ; While congregated thrashes, linnets, larks. And each wild throat, whose artless strains so late Swelled all the music of the swanning shades, Robb'd of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit On the dead tree, a dull, despondent flock ! With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes. And nought save chattering discord in their note. Oh ! let not, aim'd from some inhuman eye, The gun, the music of the coming year. Destroy ; and harmless, unsuspecting, harm. Lay the weak tribes, a miserable prey. In mingled murder, fluttering on the ground. THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE NEW YEAR. (HUGH MILLER.) THE past year has witnessed many curious changes, as a dweller in time; the coming year has already looked down on many a curious scene, as a journeyer over space. It has seen Cochin-China, with all its unmapped islands, and the ancient empire of Japan, with its cities and provinces unknown to Europe. It has heard the roar of a busy population amid the thousand streets of Pekin, and the wild dash of the midnight tides as they fret the rocks of the Indian Archipelago. It has been already with our friends in Hindustan ; it has been greeted, we doubt not, with the voice of prayer, as the slow iron hand of the city clock indicated its arrival to the missionaries at Madras ; it has swept over the fever jungles of the Ganges, where the scaled crocodile startles the thirsty tiger as he stoops to drink, and the exposed corpse of the benighted Hindu floats drearily past. It has travelled over the land of pagodas, and is now entering on the land of mosques. Anon it will see the moon in her wane, casting the dark shadows I 26 THE CABINET OF GEMS. of columned Palmyra over the sands of the desert ; and the dim walls of Jerusalem looking out on a silent and solitary land, that has cast forth its interim tenants, and waits unappropriated for the old predestined race, its proper inhabitants. In two short hours it will be voyaging along the cheerful Mediterranean, greeting the rower in his galley among the isles of Greece, and the seaman in his barque embayed in the Adriatic. And then, after marking the red glare of -^tna, reflected in the waves that slumber around the moles of Syracuse, — after glancing on the towers of the seven-hilled City, and the hoary snows of the Alps, — after speeding over France, over Flanders, over the waves of the German Sea, it will be with ourselves, and the tall ghostly tenements of Dunedin will re-echo the shouts of the High Street. Away and away, it will cross the broad Atlantic, and visit watchers in their beacon-towers on the deep, and the emigrant in his log-hut, among the brown woods of the west ; it will see the fire of the red man umbering with its gleam tall trunks and giant branches, in some deep glade of the forest; and then mark, on the far shores of the Pacific, the rugged bear stalking sullenly over the snow. Away and away, and the vast globe shall be girdled by the zone of the new-born year. Many a broad plain shall it have traversed, that is still unbroken from the waste, — many a moral wilderness, on which the Sun of Righteousness has not yet arisen. Nearly eighteen and a half centuries shall have elapsed since the shepherds first heard the midnight song in Bethlehem, — ' Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good-will to the children of men.' And yet the coming year shall pass, in its first visit, over prisons, and gibbets, and penal settlements, and battle-fields on which the festering dead moulder unburied ; it will see the shotted gun, and the spear, and the crease, and the murdering tomahawk, slaves in their huts, and captives in their dungeons. It will look down on uncouth idols in their temples ; worshippers of the false prophet in their mosques ; the Papist in his confessional ; the Puseyite in his stone allegory; and on much idle and bitter controversy among those holders of the true faith whose proper work is the conversion of the world. But the years shall pass, and a change shall come : the sacrifice on Calvary was not offered up in vain, nor in vain hath the adorable Saviour conquered, THE CABINET OF GEMS. 27 and ascended to reign as King and Lord over the nations. The kingdoms shall become His kingdoms, the people His people. The morning rises slowly and in clouds, but the dawn has broken ; and it shall shine forth more and more, until the twilight shadows shall have dispersed, and the sulphurous fogs shall have dissipated, and all shall be peace and gladness amid the blaze of the perfect day. THE GOOD LORD CLIFFORD. (WORDSWORTH.) LOVE had he found in huts where poor men lie, His daily teachers had been woods and rills, The silence that is in the starry sky. The sleep that is among the lonely hills. In him the savage virtue of the race, Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead : Nor did he change ; but kept in lofty place The wisdom which adversity had bred. Glad were the vales, and every cottage hearth ; The shepherd lord was honoured more and more ; And, ages after he was laid in earth, 'The good Lord CHfford' was the name he bore. 28 THE CABINET OF GEMS. SAYINGS FROM SHAKESPEARE. WHERE is any author in the world teaches such beauty as a woman's eye? To wail friends lost is not by much so wholesome, profitable, as to rejoice at friends but newly found. Honest, plain words best pierce the ear of grief. All delights are vain; but that most vain which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain. AU the souls that were, were forfeit once; and He that might the van- tage best have took, found out the remedy. Oh ! it is excellent to have a giant's strength ; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant. The miserable have no other medicine but only hope. Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry house. Unquiet meals make ill digestion. No remedy against this consumption of the purse ; borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. O how full of briars is this working-day world ! A woman's thought runs before her actions. O how bitter a thing it is, to look into happiness through another man's eyes ! Truth hath better deeds than words to grace it. God give them wisdom that have it ; and those that are fools, let them use their talents. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Love sought is good, but given unsought is better. There is no darkness but ignorance. Better a little chiding than a great deal of heartbreak. Society is the happiness of life. THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE LIGHT OF HOME. (S. J. HALE.) MY son, thou wilt dream the world is fair, And thy sj^irit will sigh to roam, And thou 7nust go ; — but never, when there, Forget the light of Home ! Though pleasures may smile with a ray more bright, It dazzles to lead astray ; Like the meteor's flash, 'twill deepen the night, When treading thy lonely way. But the hearth of home has a constant flame, And pure as vestal fire, — 'Twill burn, 'twill burn for ever the same, For nature feeds the pyre. The sea of ambition is tempest-tossed, And thy hopes may vanish Hke foam, — When sails are shivered and compass lost, Then look to the light of Home ! And there, like a star through midnight cloud, Thou'lt see the beacon bright ; For never, till shining on thy shroud. Can be quenched its holy light. The sun of fame may gild the name, But the heart ne'er felt its ray ; And fashion's smiles that rich ones claim Are beams of a wintry day. How cold and dim those beams would be, Should Life's poor wanderer come ! — My son, when the world is dark to thee, Then turn to the light of Home. THE CABINET OF GEMS. OF STUDIES. (bacon.) STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business: for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one ; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth ; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation ; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar ; they perfect nature, and are perfected by experi- ence, — for natural abilities are Lke natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them ; for they teach not their own use ; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested ; that is, some books are to be read only in parts ; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others ; but that THE CABINET OF GEMS. 33 would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man ; and therefore if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit ; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend : Ahaint studia in mores ('Studies influence the manners') ; nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises, — bowHng is good for the stone and reins, shooting for the lungs and breast, gentle walking for the stomach, riding for the head, and the like ; so, if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics, for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again ; if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen, for they are cumini scctores [' dividers of cummin seed'] ; if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call upon one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyer's cases — so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. 34 THE CABINET OF GEA/S. ALAS, HOW EASILY THINGS GO WRONG! (OEORGE MACDONALD.) ALAS, how easily things go wrong I A sigh too much, or a kiss too long, And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, And life is never the same again. Alas, how hardly things go right I 'Tis hard to watch in a summer night ; For the sigh will come, and the kiss will stay. And the summer night is a winter day. THE CABINET OF GEMS. LAW. (G. a. STEVENS.) LAW is law — law is law ; and as in such, and so forth, and hereby, and aforesaid, provided always, nevertheless, and notwithstanding. Law is like a country dance; people are led up and down in it till they are tired. Law is like a book of surgery, there are a great many desperate cases in it. It is also like physic, they that take least of it are best off. Law is like a homely gentlewoman, very well to follow. Law is also like a scolding wife, very bad when it follows us. Law is like a new fashion, people are bewitched to get into it : it is also like bad weather, most people are glad when they get out of it. We shall now mention a cause, called ' BuUum versus Boatum :' it was a cause that came before me. The cause was as follows : — There were two farmers : Farmer A and Farmer B. Farmer A was seized or possessed of a bull : Farmer B was seized or possessed of a ferry- boat. Now, the owner of the ferry-boat, having made his boat fast to a post on shore, with a piece of hay, twisted rope-fashion, or, as we say, vu/go vacate, a hayband, — after he had made his boat fast to a post on shore, as it was very natural for a hungry man to do, he went up town to dinner. Farmer A's bull, as it was very natural for a hungry bull to do, came down town to look for a dinner ; and, observing, discovering, seeing, and spying out some turnips in the bottom of the ferry-boat, the bull scrambled into the ferry-boat; he ate up the turnips, and, to make an end of his meal, fell to work upon the hayband. The boat, being eaten from its moorings, floated down the river, with the bull in it : it struck against a rock, beat a hole in the bottom of the boat, and tossed the bull overboard ; whereupon the owner of the bull brought his action against the boat for running away with the bull ; the owner of the boat brought his action against the bull for running away with the boat : and thus notice of trial was given, Bullum versus Boatum, Boatum versus Bullum. Now, the counsel for the bull began with saying : ' My lord, and you 3^3 THE CABINET OF GEMS. gentlemen of the jury, we are counsel in this cause for the bull. We are indicted for running away with the boat. Now, my lord, we have heard of running horses, but never of running bulls before. Now, my lord, the bull could no more run away with the boat, than a man in a coach may be said to run away with the horses ; therefore, my lord, how can we punish what is not punishable? how can we eat what is not eatable? or, how can we drink what is not drinkable? Or, as the law says, how can we think on what is not thinkable ? Therefore, my lord, as we are counsel in this cause for the bull ; if the jury should bring the bull in guilty, the jury would be guilty of a bull.' The counsel for the boat observed, that the bull should be nonsuited ; because, in his declaration, he had not specified what colour he was of; for thus wisely, and thus learnedly, spoke the counsel : ' My lord, if the bull was of no colour, he must be of some colour; and if he was not of any colour, what colour could the bull be of?' I overruled this motion myself, by observing, the bull was a white bull, and that white is no colour ; besides, as I told my brethren, they should not trouble their heads to talk of colour in the law, for the law can colour anything. This cause being afterwards left to a reference, upon the award, both bull and boat were acquitted; it being proved, that the tide of the river carried them both away; upon which, I gave it as my opinion, that, as the tide of the river having carried both bull and boat away, both bull and boat had a good action against the water- bailiff. My opinion being taken, an action was issued ; and, upon the traverse, this point of law arose : How, wherefore, and whether, why, when, and what, whatsoever, whereas, and whereby, as the boat was not a compos-ineniis evi- dence, how could an oath be administered ? That point was soon settled, by Boatuni's attorney declaring that for his client he would swear anything. The water-bailiff's charter was then read, taken out of the original record, in true law Latin ; which set forth, in their declaration, that they were carried away either by the tide of flood, or the tide of ebb. The charter of the water-bailiflf was as follows : ' Aquas bailififi est magistratus in choisi super omnibus fishibus qui habuerunt finnos et scalos, claws, shells, et talos, qui THE CABINET OF GEMS. 37 swimmare in freshibus vel saltlbus riveris, lakis, pondis, canalibus. et well- boatis ; sive oysteri, prawni, whitimi, shrimpi, turbutus solus;' that is, not turbots alone, but turbots and soles both together. But now comes the nicety of the law ; the law is as nice as a new-laid egg, and not to be under- stood by addle-headed people. Bullum and Boatum mentioned both ebb and flood, to avoid quibbling; but it being proved that they were carried away neither by the tide of flood, nor by the tide of ebb, but exactly upon the top of high water, they were nonsuited ; but such was the lenity of the Court, upon their paying all costs, they were allowed to begin again de novo. PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF CROMWELL. (CARLYLE.) ' T T IS highness,' says Whitelocke, ' was in a rich but plain suit — black v. A velvet, with cloak of the same; about his hat a broad band of gold.' Does the reader see him? A rather likely figure, I think. Stands some five feet ten or more ; a man of strong, solid stature, and dignified, now partly military carriage : the expression of him valour and devout intelligence — energy and delicacy on a basis of simplicity. Fifty-four years old, gone April last; brown hair and moustache are getting gray. A figure of suffi- cient impressiveness — not lovely to the man-milliner species, nor pretending to be so. Massive stature ; big, massive head, of somewhat leonine aspect ; wart above the right eyebrow; nose of considerable blunt-aquiline propor- tions ; strict yet copious Hps, full of tremulous sensibilities, and also, if need were, of all fierceness and rigours ; deep, loving eyes — call them grave, call them stern — looking from under those craggy brows as if in life-long sorrow, and yet not thinking it sorrow, thinking it only labour and endeavour : on the whole, a right noble lion-face and hero-face; and to me royal enough. THE CABINET OF GEMS. AULD ROBIN GRAY. (l.ADY ANNE BARNARD.) WHEN the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye's come hanie, And a' the warld to rest are gane, The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my e'e, Unkent by my gudeman, wha sleeps sound by me. Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and he sought me for his bride, But saving a crown-piece, he had naething beside ; To make the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea, And the crown and the pound they were baith for me. I THE CABINET OF GEMS. 39 He hadna been gane a twelvemonth and a day, When my father brake his arm, and the cow was stown away ; My mither she fell sick— my Jamie at the sea ; And auld Robin Gray came a-courting me. My father couldna work, and my mither couldna spin ; I toil'd day and night, but their bread I couldna win ; — Auld Rob maintained them baith, and, wi' tears in his e'e, Said : ' Jeanie, oh, for their sakes, will ye no marry me ? ' My heart it said na, and I look'd for Jamie back ; But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack; The ship was a wrack — why didna Jamie dee ? Or why am I spared to cry, Wae is me ? My father urged me sair — my mither didna speak ; But she look'd in my face till my heart was like to break ; _ They gied him my hand — my heart was in the sea — And so Robin Gray he was gudeman to me. I hadna been his wife a week but only four. When, mournfu' as I sat on the stane at my door, I saw my Jamie's ghaist, for I couldna think it he, Till he said : ' I'm come hame, love, to marry thee.' Oh, sair, sair did we greet, and mickle say of a'; I gied him a kiss, and bade him gang awa ; I wish that I were dead, but I'm nae like to dee ; For though my heart is broken, I'm but young, wae is me ! I gang like a ghaist, and carena much to spin ; I darena think o' Jamie, for that wad be a sin ; But I'll do my best a gude wife to be. For oh, Robin Gray, he is kind to me ! 40 THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE SECRET OF TRUE CONTENTMENT. ( ISAAC WALTON.) LET me tell you, Scholar, I have a rich neighbour that is always so busy that he has no leisure to laugh; the whole business of his life is to get money, and more money, that he may still get more and more money ; he is still drudging on, and says that Solomon says, ' The hand of the diligent maketh rich ;' and it is true indeed ; but he considers not that it is not in the power of riches to make a man happy : for it was wisely said by a man of great observation, 'That there be as many miseries beyond riches as on this side them.' And yet, God deliver us from pinching poverty, and grant that, having a competency, we may be content and thankful ! Let not us repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another abound with riches, when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep those riches hang often so heavily at the rich man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and restless nights, even when others sleep quietly. We see but the outside of the rich man's happiness ; few consider him to be like the silkworm, that, when she seems to play, is at the very same time spinning her own bowels, and consuming herself; and this many rich men do, loading themselves with corroding cares, to keep what they have, probably unconscionably got. Let us therefore be thankful for health and competence, and above all, for a quiet conscience. THE CABINET OE GEMS. THE CABINET OF GEMS. ^3 GO, YOUTH BELOVED. (MRS. OPIE.) GO, youth belov'd, in distant glades, New friends, new hopes, new joys to find ; Yet sometimes deign, 'midst fairer maids, To think on her thou leav'st behind. Thy love, thy fate, dear youth, to share, Must never be my happy lot ; But thou may'st grant this humble prayer, Forget me not. Forget me not ! Yet should the thought of my distress Too painful to thy feelings be. Heed not the wish I now express, Nor ever deign to think on me. But oh ! if grief thy steps attend, If want or sickness be thy lot. And thou require a soothing friend ; Forget me not, Forget me not ! 44 THE CABINET OF GEMS. TRUTH. (tillotson.) TRUTH is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out; it is always near at hand, and sits upon our lips and is ready to drop out before we are aware ; whereas a lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack, and one trick needs a great many more to make it good. It is like building upon a false foundation, which continually stands in need of props to shove it up, and proves at last more chargeable than to have raised a substantial building at first upon a true and solid foundation ; for sincerity is firm and substantial, and there is nothing hollow or unsound in it, and, because it is plain and open, fears no discovery ; of which the crafty man is always in danger ; and when he thinks he walks in the dark, all his pretences are so transparent, that he who runs may read them. He is the last man that finds himself to be found out ; and whilst he takes it for granted that he makes fools of others, he renders himself ridiculous. WISDOM. (fREDERIKA BREMER.) WE do not become wise through books alone. No ! not through books, not through travel, not through clever people, not through the whole world, if we do not carry in ourselves the slumbering power which calls forth out of all the individual parts the harmonious shape; or, to speak more simply, when we do not understand how to unite the end with the sensible deed. 46 THE CABINET OE GEMS, ENDYMION. (LONGFELLOW.) '"P^HE rising moon has hid the stars ; X Her level rays, like golden bars, Lie on the landscape green, With shadows brown between. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 47 And silver white the river gleams, As if Diana, in her dreams, Had dropt her silver bow Upon the meadows low. On such a tranquil night as this, She woke Endymion with a kiss, When, sleeping in the grove, He dreamed not of her love. Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought, Love gives itself, but is not bought \ Nor voice, nor sound betrays Its deep, impassioned gaze. It comes, — the beautiful, the free, The crown of all humanity, — In silence and alone To seek the elected one. It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep, And kisses the closed eyes Of him, who slumbering lies. O weary hearts 1 O slumbering eyes ! O drooping souls, whose destinies Are fraught with fear and pain. Ye shall be loved again ! THE CABINET OF GEMS. No one is so accursed by fate, No one so utterly desolate, But some heart, though unknown, Responds unto his own ; — Responds, — as if with unseen wings An angel touched its quivering strings ; And whispers, in its song, 'Where hast thou stayed so long?' AWAIT THE ISSUE. (CARLYLE.) AWAIT the issue. In all battles, if you await the issue, each fighter has prospered according to his right. His right and his might, at the close of the account, were one and the same. He has fought with all his might, and in exact proportion to all his right he has prevailed. His very death is no victory over him. He dies indeed; but his work lives, very truly lives. A heroic Wallace, quartered on the scaffold, cannot hinder that his Scotland become, one day, a part of England ; but he does hinder that it become, on tyrannous, unfair terms, a part of it ; commands still, as with a god's voice, from his old Valhalla and Temple of the Brave, that there be a just, real union as of brother and brother, not a false and merely semblant one as of slave and master. If the union with England be in fact one of Scotland's chief blessings, we thank Wallace withal that it was not the chief curse. Scotland is not Ireland : no, because brave men rose there, and said : ' Behold, ye must not tread us down like slaves ; and ye shall not, and cannot !' Fight on, thou brave true heart, and falter not, through dark fortune and through bright. The cause thou fightest for, so far as it is true, no further, yet precisely so far, is very sure of victory. The falsehood alone of it will be conquered, will be abolished, as it ought to be ; but the truth of it is part of Nature's own laws, co-operates with the world's eternal tendencies, and cannot be conquered. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 5t LETTER-WRITING. LETTER-WRITING has become an easy matter in modern days. We write because we have something to say, feeling careless how it is said; or we write to stop the mouth of a correspondent, and as we know he must swallow the sop we throw him, are not over nice about kneading it to his taste. But things were different in the days of our grandfathers. They wrote to do themselves credit, and to keep up their literary reputation. The good letter-writer had a distinct and recognised place in society as much as the good dancer or dresser. The perfect gentleman had to acquire an elegant style, which he must exhibit as a mark of his standing, as he did his rapier and his well-trimmed wig. His mind had to wear a court dress as well as his body, and he would have as soon thought of seizing his sovereign by the hand as of presenting himself to a correspondent without the epis- tolary bows and flourishes which good breeding demanded. Letter-writing was made an art; and the epistles of a great letter-writer of the last century had not a merely general and remote connection with his character and history, but served him as a field on which he might display and exercise his powers. To succeed in the literary effort was the primary object, and to please or inform the friend addressed was the subsidiary one. This art had a peculiar history of its own; its course may be marked off into characteristic epochs ; it rose, grew, and faded away. Pope began the series ; in his hands letter-writing was an instrument by which the writer strove to adopt and preserve the tone of an exclusive artificial society, a means of estab- lishing a sort of freemasonry between those whom birth or the privilege of genius entitled to speak a peculiar kind of language denied to the vulgar. With Pope we may couple Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as a specimen of a writer whose letters exhibited the high-bred ease and wit that suggested a corresponding display in men of literary reputation. The art of letter-writing passed into a second stage when from this beginning epistolary graces came to be cultivated as a requisite for high standing among the upper classes of society. It grew to be a study with the most refined members of these s- THE CABINET OF GEMS. classes how to say everything to their correspondents in the most pointed and elegant way. Of such writers we make take Horace Walpole and Lord Chesterfield as sufficient examples. Lastly, that which had been confined to the higher circles spread downwards, and all educated men imbibed some- thing of the love, and in some measure used the style, current in the world of fashion. Letter-writing then attained its highest perfection. It lost its forced and hothouse character, and retained all its beauty and grace. The style adopted was more elevated and sustained than would be employed in the present day ; but still it was perfectly easy, natural, and simple. Of the writers whose letters exhibited this perfection, Gray and Cowper are perhaps the most conspicuous. After the time of Cowper the art of letter-writing may be said to have quickly perished. How this happened must be obvious to any one who reflects on the change undergone towards the close of the century throughout the whole structure of society, and on the causes, political and moral, that conduced to this alteration. Society changed, and the art that suited and belonged to the old society did not suit the new. GOOD IN EVERYTHING. (tennyson.) OH, to what uses shall we put The wildweed-flower that simply blows ? And is there any moral shut Within the bosom of the rose ? But any man that walks the mead, In bud or blade or bloom may find. According as his humours lead, A meaning suited to his mind. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 53 YOUTH AND AGE. (COLERIDGE.) VERSE, a breeze mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee- Both were mine ! Life went a maying With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, When I was young ! When I was young ? — Ah, woful When, Ah ! for the change 'twixt Now and Then ! This breathing house not built with hands, This body that does me grievous wrong. O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands. How lightly then it flashed along : — Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, On winding lakes and rivers wide, That ask no aid of sail or oar, That fear no spite of wind or tide ! Nought cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I liv'd in't together. Flowers are lovely; love is flower-like; Friendship is a sheltering tree ; O ! the joys, that came down shower-like, Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, Ere I was old. Ere I was old ? — Ah, woful Ere, Which tells me. Youth's no longer here ! O Youth ! for years so many and sweet, 'Tis known, that Thou and I were one, I'll think it but a fond conceit, — It cannot be, that Thou art gone ! 54 THE CABINET OF GEMS. Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toU'd : And thou wert aye a masker bold I What strange disguise hast now put on, To make believe that thou art gone ? I see these locks in silvery slips, This drooping gait, this altered size. But springtide blossoms on thy lips, And tears take sunshine from thine eyes Life is but thought : so think I will That Youth and I are house-mates still. Dewdrops are the gems of morning, But the tears of mournful eve ! Where no hope is, life's a warning That only serves to make us grieve, When we are old. That only serves to make us grieve With oft and tedious-taking leave, Like some poor nigh-related guest, That may not rudely be dismist, Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while, And tells the jest without the smile. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 55 VALENTINE'S DAY. (CHARLES LAMB.) HAIL to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine ! Great is thy name in the rubric, thou venerable Arch-flamen of Hymen ! Im- mortal Go-between ; who and what manner of person art thou ? Art thou but a najiie, typifying the restless principle which impels poor humans to seek perfection in union? or wert thou indeed a mortal prelate, with thy tippet and thy rochet, thy apron on, and decent lawn sleeves? Mysterious personage ! like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the calendar ; not Jerome, nor Ambrose, nor Cyril ; nor the consigner of undipt infants to eternal torments, Austin, whom all mothers hate ; nor he who hated all mothers, Origen ; nor Bishop Bull, nor Archbishop Parker, nor Whitgift. Thou comest attended with thousands and ten thousands of Little Loves, and the air is Biush'd with the hiss of rustling wings. Singing Cupids are thy choristers and thy precentors ; and instead of the crosier, the mystical arrow is borne before thee. In other words, this is the day on which those charming little missives, 56 THE CABINET OF GEMS. ycleped Valentines, cross and intercross each other at every street and turn- ing. The weary and all forspent twopenny postman sinks beneath a load of delicate embarrassments, not his own. It is scarcely credible to what an extent this ephemeral courtship is carried on in this loving town, to the great enrichment of porters, and detriment of knockers and bell-wires. In these little visual interpretations, no emblem is so common as the hea>-t — that little three-cornered exponent of our hopes and fears — the bestuck and bleeding heart; it is twisted and tortured into more allegories and affecta- tions than an opera-hat. What authority we have in history or mythology for placing the head-quarters and metropolis of God Cupid in this anatomical seat rather than in any other, is not very clear ; but we have got it, and it will serve as well as any other. Else we might easily imagine, upon some other system which might have prevailed for anything which our pathology knows to the contrary, a lover addressing his mistress, in perfect simphcity of feeling, ' Madam, my Hver and fortune are entirely at your disposal ;' or, putting a delicate question, 'Amanda, have you a midriff lo bestow?' But custom has settled these things, and awarded the seat of sentiment to the aforesaid triangle, while its less fortunate neighbours wait at animal and anatomical distance. Not many sounds in life, and I exclude all urban and all rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door. It ' gives a very echo to the throne where Hope is seated.' But its issues seldom answer to this oracle within. It is so seldom that just the person we want to see comes. But of all the clamorous visitations, the welcomest in expectation is the sound that ushers in, or seems to usher in, a Valentine. As the raven himself was hoarse that announced the fatal entrance of Duncan, so the knock of the postman on this day is light, airy, confident, and befitting one that bringeth good tidings. It is less mechanical than on other days; you will say, 'That is not the post, I am sure.' Visions of Love, of Cupids, of Hymens ! — delightful eternal common-places, which ' having been will always be ;' which no schoolboy nor schoolman can write away ; having your irreversible throne in the fancy and affections — what are your transports, when the happy maiden, opening with careful finger, careful not to break the emblematic seal, bursts upon the THE CABINET OF GEMS. 57 sight of some well-designeJ allegory, some type, some youthful fancy, not without verses — • Lovers all, A madijga', or some such device, not over-abundant in sense — young Love disclaims it — and not quite silly — something between wind and water, a chorus where the sheep might almost join the shepherd, as they did, or as I apprehend they did, in Arcadia. All Valentines are not foolish ; and I shall not easily forget thine, my kind friend — (if I may have leave to call you so) E. B. — E. B. lived opposite a young maiden whom he had often seen, unseen, from his parlour window in C e Street. She was all joyousness and innocence, and just of an age to enjoy receiving a Valentine, and just of a temper to bear the disappoint- ment of missing one with good humour. E. B. is an artist of no common powers; in the fancy parts of designing, perhaps inferior to none; his name is known at the bottom of many a well-executed vignette in the way of his profession, but no further ; for E. B. is modest, and the world meets nobody half way. E. B. meditated how he could repay this young maiden for many a favour which she had done him unknown ; for when a kindly face greets us, though but passing by, and never knows us again, nor we it, we should feel it as an obligation, — and E. B. did. This good artist set himself at work to please the damsel. It was just before Valentine's day three years since. He wrought, unseen and unsuspected, a wondrous work. We need not say it was on the finest gilt paper with borders — full, not of common hearts and heardess allegory, but all the pretty stories of love from Ovid, and older poets than Ovid (for E. B. is a scholar). There was Pyramus and Thisbe, and be sure Dido was not forgot, nor Hero and Leander, and swans more than sang in Cayster, with mottoes and fanciful devices, such as beseemed, — a work, in short, of magic. Iris dipt the woof. This on Valentine's eve he commended to the all-swallowing indiscriminate orifice — (O ignoble trust !) — of the com- mon post; but the humble medium did its duty, and from his watchful stand, the next morning he saw the cheerful messenger knock, and by and bye the precious charge delivered. He saw, unseen, the happy girl unfold the 58 THE CABINET OF GEMS. Valentine, dance about, dap her hands, as one after one the pretty emblems unfolded themselves. She danced about, not with light love or foolish expec- tations, for she had no lover; or, if she had, none she knew that could have created those bright images which delighted her. It was more like some fairy present ; a Godsend, as our familiarly pious ancestors termed a benefit received where the benefactor was unknown. It would do her no harm. It would do her good for ever after. It is good to love the unknown. I only give this as a specimen of E. B., and his modest way of doing a concealed kindness. Good morrow to my Valentine, sings poor Ophelia; and no better wish, but with better auspices, we wish to all faithful lovers, who are not too wdse to despise old legends, but are content to rank themselves humble diocesans of old Bishop Valentine and his true church. SONNET. SHAKESPEARE. FULL many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green. Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy ; Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rack on his celestial face. And from the forlorn world his visage hide. Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace : Even so my sun one early morn did shine With all-triumphant splendour on my brow ; But, out, alack ! he was but one hour mine. The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now. Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth ; Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 6i THE LOOK AND THE ROSE. I GAVE a rose, you gave me but a glance ; Now which were sweeter, tell to me, O lieart ? The rose's perfume passing with the day's advance ; The look in freshness going to the heart, Awakened song, and song led on to joy, Joy broadening into calmness of delight. You laid the rose leaves softly in a book. And in the times beyond, days yet to come. Their dead perfume will wake a startled look, Like dead regrets when all but these are dumb. But I, within the red-leaved volume of my heart, Treasure thy look of love impressed there, Which daily living, grows of life a part. Till all things crown thee, fairest of the fair. 62 THE CABINET OF GEMS. POETRY. (dr. channing.) WE agree with Milton in his estimate of poetry. It seems to us the divinest of all arts; for it is the breathing or expression of that principle or sentiment, which is deepest and sublimest in human nature ; we mean, of that thirst or aspiration to which no mind is wholly a stranger, for something purer and lovelier, something more powerful, lofty, and thrilling than ordinary and real hfe affords. No doctrine is more common among Christians than that of man's immortality ; but it is not so generally under- stood, that the germs or principles of his whole future being are now wrapped up in his soul, as the rudiments of the future plant in the seed. As a neces- sary result of this constitution, the soul, possessed and moved by these mighty though infant energies, is perpetually stretching beyond what is present and visible, struggling against the bounds of its earthly prison house, and seeking relief and joy in imaginings of unseen and ideal being. This view of our nature, which has never been fully developed, and which goes further towards explaining the contradictions of human life than all others, carries us to the very foundation and sources of poetry. He who cannot interpret by his own consciousness what we now have said, wants the true key to works of genius. He has not penetrated those sacred recesses of the soul, where poetry is born and nourished, and inhales immortal vigour, and wings herself for her heavenward flight. In an intellectual nature, framed for progress and for higher modes of being, there must be creative energies, powers of original and ever-growing thought ; and poetry is the form in which these energies are chiefly manifested. It is the glorious prerogative of this art, that it 'makes all things new' for the gratification of a divine instinct. It indeed finds its elements in what it actually sees and experiences, in the worlds of matter and mind; but it combines and blends these into new forms, and according to new affinities ; breaks down, if we may so say, the distinc- tions and bounds of nature; imparts to material objects life, and sentiment. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 63 and emotion, and invests the mind with the powers and splendours of the outward creation; describes the surrounding universe in the colours which the passions throw over it, and depicts the soul in those modes of repose or agitation, of tenderness or sublime emotion, which manifest its thirst for a more powerful and joyful existence. To a man of a literal and prosaic character, the mind may seem lawless in these workings ; but it observes higher laws than it transgresses, the laws of the immortal intellect : it is trying and developing its best faculties; and in the objects which it describes, or in the emotions which it awakens, anticipates those states of progressive power, splendour, beauty, and happiness, for which it was created. We accordingly believe that poetry — far from injuring society — is one of the great instruments of its refinement and exaltation. It lifts the mind above ordinary life, gives it a respite from depressing cares, and awakens the consciousness of its affinity with what is pure and noble. In its legiti- mate and highest efforts, it has the same tendency and aim with Christianity ; that is, to spiritualize our nature. True, poetry has been made the instru- ment of vice, the pander of bad passions ; but when genius thus stoops, it dims its fires and parts with much of its power; and even when poetry is enslaved to licentiousness or misanthropy, she cannot wholly forget her true vocation. Strains of pure feeling, touches of tenderness, images of innocent happiness, sympathies with suffering virtue, bursts of scorn or indignation at the hollowness of the world, passages true to our moral nature, often escape in an immoral work, and show us how hard it is for a gifted spirit to divorce itself wholly from what is good. Poetry has a natural alliance with our best affections. It delights in the beauty and sublimity of the outward creation and of the soul. It indeed portrays, with terrible energy, the excesses of the passions ; but they are passions which show a mighty nature, which are full of power, which command awe, and excite a deep, though shuddering sympathy. Its great tendency and purpose is to carry the mind beyond and above the beaten, dusty, weary walks of ordinary life ; to lift it into a purer element; and to breathe into it more profound and generous emotion. It reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of early feel- ing, revives the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm 64 THE CABINET OF GEMS. which warmed the spring-time of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human nature by vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest feelings, spreads our sympathies over all classes of society, knits us by new ties with universal being, and, through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life. BROKEN FRIENDSHIP. (COLERIDGE.) ALAS ! they had been friends in youth ; But whispering tongues can poison truth ; And constancy lives in realms above ; And life is thorny ; and youth is vain : And to be wroth with one we love. Doth work like madness in the brain. And thus it chanced, as I divine, With Roland and Sir Leoline. Each spake words of high disdain And insult to his heart's best brother : They parted — ne'er to meet again ! But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining ; They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs which had been rent asunder : A dreary sea now flows between. But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween. The marks of that which once hath been. 66 THE CABIXET OF GEMS. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 67 MY FIRST PLAY. (CHARLES LAMB.) WHEN we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed — the breathless anticipations I endured ! I had seen something like it in the plate prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowe's Shakespeare — the tent scene with Dio- mede — and a sight of that plate can always bring back in a measure the feeling of that evening. The boxes at that time, full of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit; and the pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass, as it seemed, resembling — a homely fancy — but I judged it to be sugar-candy — yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy! The orchestra lights at length arose, those 'fair Auroras!' Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once again ; and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time. The curtain drew up. I was not past six years old, and the play was Artaxerxes ! I had dabbled a little in the Universal History — the ancient part of it — and here was the court of Persia. It was being admitted to a sight of the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for I understood not its import; but I heard the word Darius, and I was in the midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous vests, gardens, palaces, prin- cesses, passed before me. I knew not players. I was in Persepolis for the time, and the burning idol of their devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was awe-struck, and believed those significations to be some- thing more than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No such pleasure has since visited me but in dreams. Harlequin's invasion fol- lowed; where, I remember the transformation of the magistrates into reverend beldams seemed to me a piece of grave historic justice, and the tailor carry- ing his own head to be as sober a verity as the legend of St. Denys. . . . 68 THE CABINET OF GEMS. After the intervention of six or seven other years (for at school all play-going was inhibited) I again entered the doors of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had never done ringing in my fancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with the same occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does from six. In that interval what had I not lost ! At the first period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered all — Was noiirished, I could not tell how — I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a rationalist. The same things were there materially ; but the emblem, the reference, was gone ! The green curtain was no longer a veil, drawn between two worlds, the unfolding of which was to bring back past ages to present a 'royal ghost;' but a certain quantity of green baize, which was to separate the audience for a given time from certain of their fellow-men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The lights — the orchestra lights — came up a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's bell — which had been, like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voice, no hand seen or guessed at which ministered to its warning. The actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in them ; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those many centuries — of six short twelvemonths — had wrought in me. Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the play of the evening was but an indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some unreasonable expectations, which might have interfered with the genuine emotions with which I was soon after enabled to enter upon the first appearance to me of Mrs. Siddons in Isabella. Comparison and retrospec- tion soon yielded to the present attraction of the scene ; and the theatre became to me, upon a new stock,, the most delightful of recreations. THE CABINET OF GEMS. g^ THE DOWIE DENS O' YARROW. (SCOTTISH BALLAD.) LATE at e'en, drinking the wine, And ere they paid the lawing. They set a combat them between, To fight it in the dawing, ' You took our sister to be your wife. And thought her not your marrow ; You stole her frae her father's back, When she was tlie Rose o' Yarrow.' ' I took your sister to be my wife. And I made her my marrow ; I stole her frae her father's back. And she's still the Rose of Yarrow.' He has hame to his lady gane. As he had done before, O ; Says, * Madam, I maun keep a tryst On the dowie dens o' Yarrow.' ' O stay at hame, my noble lord, O stay at hame, my marrow ; My cruel brother will you betray- On the dowie dens o' Yarrow.' * Now hold your tongue, my ladie fair, For what needs a' this sorrow. For if I gae I'll soon return Frae the dowie dens o' Yarrow.' 70 THE CABINET OF GEMS. She kiss'd his cheek, she kaim'd his hair, As oft she'd done before, O ; She belted him wi' his noble brand, And he's awa' to Yarrow. As he gaed up the Tennies bank, I wot he gaed wi' sorrow ; Till in a den he spied nine armed men, On the dowie dens o' Yarrow. ' O come ye here to hunt or hawk, The bonnie forest thorough? Or come ye here to part your land, On the dowie dens o' Yarrow ?' * I come not here to hunt or hawk, The bonnie forest thorough ; Nor come I here to part my land, But I'll fight wi' you on Yarrow.' * If I see all, ye're nine to ane. And that's an unequal marrow. Yet I will fight while lasts my brand, On the bonnie banks o' Yarrow.' Four has he hurt, and five has slain, On the bloody braes o' Yarrow, Till that stubborn knicht cam him behind, And ran his body thorough. * Gae hame, gae hame, my gude brother John, What needs this dule and sorrow? Gae hame, and tell my lady dear, That I sleep sound on Yarrow.' THE CABINET OF GEMS. 71 As he gaed owre yon high, high hill, As he had done before, O ; There he met his sister dear, Was coming fast to Yarrow. ' O gentle wind, that bloweth south. From where my love repaireth, Convey a kiss from his dear mouth, And tell me how he fareth ! ' I dream'd a dreary dream last nicht, God keep us a' frae sorrow ! I dream'd I pu'd the birk sae green, Wi' my true love on Yarrow.' ' I'll read your dream, my sister dear, I'll tell you a' your sorrow ; You pu'd the birk wi' your true love ; He's killed, he's killed on Yarrow.' She's torn the ribbons frae her head, That were baith thick and narrow ; She's kiltit up her green claithing, And she's avva to Yarrow. Sometimes she rade, sometimes she gaed, As oft she'd done before, O ; And a' between she fell in a sweine, Lang ere she cam to Yarrow. As she sped down yon high, high hill, She gaed wi' dule and sorrow ; And in the glen spied ten slain men, On the dowie banks o' Yarrow. THE CABINET OF GEMS. She's ta'en him in her armis twa, And gien him kisses thorough ; And wi' her tears has washed his wounds, On the dowie banks o' Yarrow. ' Now haud your tongue, my daughter dear, For a' this breeds but sorrow ; I'll wed ye to a better lord Than him ye lost on Yarrow.' She kiss'd his lips and kaim'd his hair, As oft she'd done before, O ; Syne wi' a sigh her heart did break, On the dowie braes o' Yarrow. jfatfliaii \<. 74 THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 75 THE VISION OF MIRZA. (addison.) IN the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my lore- fathers, I always keep holy, after having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hills of Bagdad in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer. As I was here airing myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation on the vanity of human life ; and passing from one thought to another, ' Surely,' said I, * man is but a shadow, and life a dream.' Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes towards the summit of a rock that was not far from me, where I discovered one in the habit of a shepherd, with a little musical instrument in his hand. As I looked upon him he applied it to his lips, and began to play upon it. The sound of it Was exceeding sweet, and wrought into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different from anything I had ever heard. They put me in mind of those heavenly airs that are played to the departed souls of good men upon their first arrival in paradise, to wear out the impressions of the last agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures of that happy place. My heart melted away in secret raptures. I had been often told that the rock before me was the haunt of a genius; and that several had been entertained with music Avho had passed by it, but never heard that the musician had before made himself visible. When he had raised my thoughts by those transporting airs which he played, to taste the pleasures of his conversation, as I looked upon him like one astonished, he beckoned to me, and by the waving of his hand directed me to approach the place where he sat. I drew near with that reverence which is due to a superior nature ; and as my heart was entirely subdued by the captivating strains I had heard, I fell down at his feet and wept. The genius smiled upon me with a look of compassion and affability that familiarized him to my imagination, and at once dispelled all the fears and apprehensions with which I approached him. He lifted me from the ground, and taking me by the hand, ' Mirza,' said he, ' I have heard thee in thy soliloquies ; follow me.' 76 THE CABINET OF GEMS. He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and placing me on the top of it, 'Cast thy eyes eastward,' said he, 'and tell me what thou seest' ' I see,' said I, ' a huge valley, and a prodigious tide of water rolling through it.' 'The valley that thou seest,' said he, 'is the Vale of Misery, and the tide of water that thou seest is part of the great tide of eternity.' ' What is the reason,' said I, ' that the tide I see rises out of a thick mist at one end, and again loses itself in a thick mist at the other?' * What thou seest,' said he, ' is that portion of eternity which is called time, measured out by the sun, and reaching from the beginning of the world to its consummation. Examine now,' said he, ' this sea that is bounded with darkness at both ends, and tell me what thou discoverest in it.' ' I see a bridge,' said I, ' standing in the midst of the tide.' 'The bridge thou seest,' said he, 'is human life; consider it attentively.' Upon a more leisurely survey of it, I found that it consisted of three- score and ten entire arches, with several broken arches, which, added to those that were entire, made up the number about a hundred. As I was counting the arches, the genius told me that this bridge consisted at first of a thousand arches; but that a great flood swept away the rest, and left the bridge in the ruinous condition I now beheld it. ' But tell me further,' said he, 'what thou discoverest on it.' ' I see multitudes of people passing over it,' said I, ' and a black cloud hanging on each end of it.' As I looked more attentively, I saw several of the passengers dropping through the bridge into the great tide that flowed underneath it; and, upon further examination, perceived there were innumerable trap-doors that lay concealed in the bridge, which the passengers no sooner trod upon, but they fell through them into the tide, and immediately disappeared. These hidden pitfalls were set very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so that throngs of people no sooner broke through the cloud, but many of them fell into them. They grew thinner towards the middle, but multiplied and lay closer together towards the end of the arches that were entire. There were, indeed, some persons, but their number was very small. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 77 that continued a kind of hobbling march on the broken arches, but fell through one after another, being quite tired and spent with so long a walk. I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonderful structure, and the great variety of objects which it presented. My heart was filled with a deep melancholy to see several dropping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth and jollity, and catching at everything that stood by them to save themselves. Some were looking up towards heaven in a thoughtful posture, and in the midst of a speculation stumbled and fell out of sight. Multitudes were very busy in the pursuit of bubbles that glittered in their eyes and danced before them ; but often when they thought themselves within the reach of them, their footing failed, and down they sank. In this confusion of objects, I observed some with scimitars in their hands, and others with phials, who ran to and fro upon the bridge, thrusting several persons on trap-doors which did not seem to lie in their way, and which they might have escaped had they not been thus forced upon them. The genius, seeing me indulge myself on this melancholy prospect, told me I had dwelt long enough upon it. * Take thine eyes off the bridge,' said he, 'and tell me if thou yet seest anything thou dost not comprehend.' Upon looking up, ' What mean,' said I, ' those great flights of birds that are perpetually hovering about the bridge, and settling upon it from time to time? I see vultures, harpies, ravens, cormorants, and, among many other feathered creatures, several little winged boys, that perch in great numbers upon the middle arches.' * These,' said the genius, ' are Envy, Avarice, Superstition, Despair, Love, with the like cares and passions that infest human life.' I here fetched a deep sigh. * Alas 1 ' said I, ' man was made in vain ; how is he given away to misery and mortality, tortured in life, and swallowed up in death !' The genius, being moved with compassion towards me, bid me quit so uncomfortable a prospect. ' Look no more,' said he, ' on man in the first stage of his existence, in his setting out for eternity; but cast thine eye on that thick mist into which the tide bears the several generations of mortals that fall into it.' 78 THE CABINET OF GEMS. I directed my sight as I was ordered, and (whether or no the good genius strengthened it with any supernatural force, or dissipated part of the mist that was before too tliick for the eye to penetrate) I saw the valley opening at the farther end, and spreading forth into an immense ocean, that had a huge rock of adamant running through the midst of it, and dividing it into two equal parts. The clouds still rested on one half of it, insomuch that I could discover nothing in it : but the other appeared to me a vast ocean planted with innumerable islands, that were covered with fruits and flowers, and interwoven with a thousand little shining seas that ran among them. I could see persons dressed in glorious habits, with garlands upon their heads, passing among the trees, lying down by the sides of fountains, or resting on beds of flowers ; and could hear a confused harmony of singing birds, falling waters, human voices, and musical instruments. Gladness grew in me upon the discovery of so delightful a scene. I wished for the wings of an eagle, that I might fly away to those happy seats : but the genius told me there was no passage to them, except through the gates of death that I saw opening every moment upon the bridge. ' The islands,' said he, ' that lie so fresh and green before thee, and with which the whole face of the ocean appears spotted as far as thou canst see, are more in number than the sands on the sea-shore ; there are myriads of islands behind those which thou here discoverest, reaching farther than thine eye or even thine imagination can extend itself. These are the mansions of good men after death, who, according to the degree and kinds of virtue in which they excelled, are distributed among these several islands; which abound with pleasures of different kinds and degrees, suitable to the rehshes and perfections of those who are settled in them ; every island is a paradise accommodated to its respective inhabitants. Are not these, O Mirza, habi- tations worth contending for? Does life appear miserable, that gives thee opportunities of earning such a reward? Is death to be feared that will convey thee to so happy an existence ? Think not man was made in vain who has such an eternity reserved for him.' I gazed with inexpressible pleasure on these happy islands. At length said I, ' Show me now, I beseech thee, the secrets that lie hid under those THE CABINET OF GEMS. 79 dark clouds which cover the ocean on the other side of the rock of adamant.' The genius making me no answer, I turned about to address myself to him a second time, but I found that he had left me. I then turned again to the vision which I had been so long contemplating; but instead of the rolling tide, the arched bridge, and the happy islands, I saw nothing but the long hollow valley of Bagdad, with oxen, sheep, and camels grazing upon the sides of it. NATURE. (RALPH WALDO EMERSON.) HE influence of the forms and actions in Nature is so needful to man, that, in its lowest functions, it seems to lie on the confines of commodity and beauty. To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company. Nature is medicinal and restores their tone. The tradesman, the attorney, comes out of the din and craft of the street, and sees the sky and the woods, and is a man again. In their eternal calm, he finds himself. The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough. But in other hours, Nature satisfies the soul purely by its loveliness, and without any mixture of corporeal benefit. I have seen the spectacle of morning from the hill-top over against my house, from daybreak to sunrise, with emotions which an angel might share. The long slender bars of cloud float like fishes in the sea of crimson light. From the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid transformations: the active enchantment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with the morning wind. How does Nature deify us with a few and cheap elements ! Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria: the sunset and moonrise my Paphos, and unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the under- standing ; the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams. So THE CABINET OF GEMS. A SQUALL. (THACKERAY.) SQUALL upon a sudden Came o'er the waters scudding, And the clouds began to gather, And the sea was lashed to lather, And the lowering thunder grumbled, And the lightning jumped and tumbled, And the ship and all the ocean Woke up in wild commotion; Then the wind set up a howling, And the poodle-dog a yowling. And the cocks began a crowing, And the old cow raised a lowing As she heard the tempest blowing ; And the fowls and geese did cackle, And the cordage and the tackle Began to shriek and crackle, And the spray dashed o'er the funnels, And down the deck in runnels. And the rushing water soaks all, From the seamen in the fo'ksal To the stokers, whose black faces Peer out of their bed-places ; And the Captain he was bawling, And the sailors pulling, hauling. And the quarter-deck tarpauling Was shivered in the squalling ; THE CABINET OF GEMS. 8l And the passengers awaken, Most pitifully shaken, And the steward jumps up and hastens For the necessary basins. Then the Greeks they groaned and quivered, And they knelt, and moaned, and shivered As the plunging waters met them, And splashed and overset them ; And they call in their emergence Upon countless saints and virgins ; And their marrow-bones are bended. And they think the world is ended. And when, its force expended, The harmless storm was ended ; And as the sunrise splendid Came blushing o'er the sea, I thought, as day was breaking. My little girls were waking. And smiling and making A prayer at home for me. THE LAST DAYS OF GEORGE III. (THACKERAY.) ALL the world knows the story of his malady; all history presents no sadder figure than that of the old man, blind and deprived of reason. Wandering through the rooms of his palace, addressing imaginary parlia- ments, reviewing fancied troops, holding ghostly courts, I have seen his picture, as it was taken at this time, hanging in the apartment of his daughter, the Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg, amidst books and Windsor furniture, and a hundred fond reminiscences of her English home. The poor old father is represented in a purple gown, his snowy beard falling over his breast, the star of his famous order still idly shining on it. He was not only sightless, he became utterly deaf. All light, all reason, all sound of human voices, — all the pleasures of this world of God were taken from him. Some slight lucid moments he had ; in one of which the Queen, desiring to see him, entered the room, and found him singing a hymn, and accompanying himself at the harpsichord. When he had finished, he knelt down and prayed aloud for her, and then for his family, and then for the nation, concluding with a prayer for himself, that it might please God to avert his heavy calamity from him ; but, if not, to give him resignation to submit. He then burst into tears, and his reason again fled. THE GROWING GOOD OF THE WORLD. (GEORGE ELIOT.) THE gi-owing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts ; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 85 THE CORSAIR. (lord BYRON. ^(mt CS^ 'ER the glad waters of the dark-blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, Sur^•ey our empire, and behold our home ! These are our realms, no limits to their sway — Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey. Ours the wild life in tumult still to range From toil to rest, and joy in every change. ^^°'^^^A Oh, who can tell ? not thou, luxurious slave ! \Vhose soul would sicken o'er the heaving wave ; Not thou, vam lord of wantonness and ease ! Whom slumber soothes not — pleasure cannot please — Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried, And danced m triumph o'er the waters wide, The exulting sense — the pulse's maddening play, That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way ? That for itself can woo the approaching fight. And turn what some deem danger to delight ; That seeks what cravens shun with more than zeal, And where the feebler faint — can only feel — Feel — to the rising bosom's inmost core. Its hope awaken and its spirit soar? No dread of death — if with us die our foes — Save that it seems even duller than repose : Come when it will — we snatch the life of life — When lost — what recks it — by disease or strife? Let him who crawls enamour'd of decay, c Cling to his couch, and sicken years away ; 86 THE CABINET OF GEMS. Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head ; Ours — the fresh turf, and not the feverish bed. While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul, Ours with one pang — one bound — escapes control. THE HIGHEST FRIENDSHIP. (EDWARD GARRETT.) GOD has implanted a relationship between man and woman of which marriage is at once the consummation and the type. Love, the great motive-power of the world, is simply the highest friendship between man and woman ; and the same friendship, in all its lower levels, must naturally be a greater power and a more sacred sentiment than the corresponding degrees of friendship between people of the same sex. I almost think that nothing in the world has gone so wrong as the way in which men and women regard each other. They seem to think that they have nothing to do with each other except in marriage, — a view by which the holy state itself is cruelly injured, and the way to it often impassably blocked to the more thoughtful and purer natures. Simple, sincere, kindly friendship is lost sight of, — merged in the frivolity of girl and boy flirtation, or the worse than frivolity of older intrigues. How few women, at bottom, good and kind and wise in the life of their inner circle, dare to let their true selves be seen in general society. The influence of evil women is broadcast ; the influence of good women is a talent hidden in a napkin. The wicked woman drops her poison in every word; the good girl utters a commonplace, a polite platitude, and blushes with the fear lest all her care will not quite veil the true sentiments of her secret soul. Few women show their genuine selves, but rather hide in armours of mere conventional propriety, most of which were cast in an entirely different state of education and society, and many of which issue from very doubtful forges. THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE CHILD AND FLOWER. (\V. C. BRYANT.) INNOCENT child and snow-white flower! Well are ye pair'd in your opening hour ; Thus should the pure and the lovely meet, Stainless with stainless, and sweet with sweet. White, as those leaves just blown apart, Are the pliant folds of thy own young heart ; Guilty passion and cank'ring care Never have left their traces there. Artless one ! though thou gazest now O'er the white blossoms with earnest brow, Soon will it tire thy childish eye, — Fair as it is, thou wilt throw it by. Throw it aside in thy weary hour, Throw it to the ground the fair white flower ; Yet, as thy tender years depart. Keep that white and innocent heart. M THE CABINET OF GEMS. LUTHER AND ZWINGLE. (j. H. MERLE d'aUBIGNE.) THESE two men were the faithful representatives of their respective nations. In the north of Germany, the princes and nobihty were the essential part of the nation, and the people — strangers to all political liberty — had only to obey. Thus, at the epoch of the Reformation, they were content to follow the voice of their doctors and chiefs. In Switzerland, in the south of Germany, and on the Rhine, on the contrary, many cities, after long and violent struggles, had won civil liberty; and hence we find in almost every place the people taking a decided part in the Reform of the Church. There was good in this ; but evil was close at hand. The Reformers, themselves men of the people, who dared not act upon princes, might be tempted to hurry away the people. It was easier for the Reforma- tion to unite with republics than with kings. This facility nearly proved its ruin. The Gospel was thus to learn that its alliance is in heaven. UNSELFISHNESS. (gEORGE ELIOT.) IT is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves ; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it, that we can only tell it from pain by its being what we would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is good. There are so many things wrong and difficult in the world, that no man can be great — he can hardly keep him- self from wickedness — unless he gives up thinking much about pleasures or rewards, and gets strength to endure what is hard and painful. II THE DYING MIDSHIPMAN. AN INXIDENT OF THE ATTACK ON THE PEIHO RIVER, 1 85 9. (alan BRODRICK.) OUT on the foul mud-flats lying, A little Middy lay ; The torn colours clench'd around him, His right leg shot away ! In a quiet home of England, A mother on her knees Prays for her own blue-eyed darling Whom in sad dreams she sees. On his death-couch God is smiling, Heaven's sunshine crowns his brow ; And his soul is with the angels. Though his body stay below. He is thinking of dishonour Staining the flag he bore ; For his dying hands are scraping A grave on the mud-shore. A grave for the battle colours He digs with victor's joy : Would son of mine might emulate That deathless English boy ! I 94 THE CABINET OF GEMS. WITTY AND PROVERBIAL SAYINGS. TIME is money, and many people pay their debts with it. Ignorance is the wet-nurse of prejudice. Wit without sense is a razor without a handle. Half the discomfort of life is the result of getting tired of ourselves. Benevolence is the cream on the milk of human kindness. People of good sense are those whose opinions agree with ours. Face all things; even Adversity is polite to a man's face. Passion always lowers a great man, but sometimes elevates a little one. Style is everything for a sinner, and a little of it will not hurt a saint. Men now-a-days are divided into slow Christians and wide-awake sinners. There are people who expect to escape hell because of the crowd going there. Most people are like eggs, too full of themselves to hold anything else. It is little trouble to a graven image to be patient, even in fly-time. Old age increases us in wisdom — and in rheumatism. Health is a loan at call. Manner is a great deal more attractive than matter — especially in a monkey. Adversity to a man is like training to a pugilist. It reduces him to his fighting weight. Some men marry to get rid of themselves, and find that the game is one that two can play at, and neither win. Pleasure is like treacle. Too much of it spoils the taste for everything. Necessity is the mother of invention, but Patent Right is the father. Beware of the man with half-shut eyes. He's not dreaming. Man was built after all other things had been made and pronounced good. If not, he would have insisted on giving his orders as to the rest of the job. ]\Iice fatten slow in a church. They can't live on religion, any more than ministers can. 96 THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 97 BURNS AND ALLOWAY KIRK. (NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.) ALLOWAY Kirk is inconceivably small, considering how large a space it fills in our imagination before we see it. I paced its length, outside of the wall, and found it only seventeen of my paces, and not more than ten of them in breadth. There seem to have been but very few windows, all of which, if I rightly remember, are now blocked up with mason-work of stone. One mullioned window, tall and narrow, in the eastern gable, might have been seen by Tarn O'Shanter, blazing with devilish light, as he approached along the road from Ayr; and there is a small and square one, on the side nearest the road, into which he might have peered as he sat on horseback. Indeed, I could easily have looked through it, standing on the ground, had not the opening been walled up. There is an odd kind of belfry at the peak of one of the gables, with the small bell still hanging in it. And this is all that I remember of Alloway Kirk, except that the stones of its material are grey and irregular. The road from Ayr passes Alloway Kirk, and crosses the Doon by a modern bridge, without swerving much from a straight line. To reach the old bridge, it appears to have made a bend shordy after passing the kirk, and then to have turned sharply towards the river. The new bridge is within a minute's walk of the monument; and we went thither, and leaned over its parapet to admire the beautiful Doon, flowing wildly and sweetly between its deep and wooded banks. I never saw a lovelier scene; although this might have been even lovelier, if a kindly sun had shone upon it. The ivy-grown ancient bridge, with its high arch, through which we had a picture of the river and the green banks beyond, was absolutely the most picturesque object, in a quiet and gentle way, that ever blessed my eyes. Bonny Doon, with its wooded banks, and the boughs dipping into the water! The memory of them, at this moment, affects me like the song of birds, and Burns croon- ing some verses, simple and wild, in accordance with their native melody. N THE CABINET OF GEMS. AUTUMN. ( KEATS.) SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness ! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun ; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run ; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core ; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel-shells With a sweet kernel ; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease. For summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes, whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor. Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind ; Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook THE CABINET OF GEMS. 99 Spares the next swathe and all its twined flowers : And sometimes, like a gleaner, thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook ; Or by a cider press with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. Where are the songs of Spring ? Ay, where are they ? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, — While barr'd clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue ; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows borne aloft, Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies ; And full-grown lambs bleat loud from hilly bourn. Hedge-crickets sing : and now, with treble soft. The red-breast whistles from a garden croft. And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 1 MANLINESS.. (THOMAS HUGHES.) YOU can't alter society, or hinder people in general from being helpless and vulgar, — from letting themselves fall into slavery to the things about them if they are rich, or from aping the habits and vices of the rich if they are poor. But you may live simple, manly lives yourselves, speaking your own thought, paying your own way, and doing your own work, whatever that may be. You will remain gentlemen so long as you follow these rules, if you have to sweep a crossing for your livelihood. You will not remain gentlemen in anything but the name, if you depart from them, though you may be set to govern a kingdom. SONNET. (SHAKESPEARE.) WHEN to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought. And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste : Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow. For precious friends hid in death's dateless night. And weep afresh love's long-since cancell'd woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight Then can I grieve at grievances foregone. And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored, and sorrows end. THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 103 DISCUSSION BETWEEN LUTHER AND ZWINGLE. (mrs. hardy.) THE preparations made for the discussion showed the importance which the Landgrave attached to this meeting, which he arranged should be held in the Knights' Hall, a spacious room in an ancient castle overlooking Marburg, Here, on Saturday the 2d October, this important interview, from which he expected union, power, and an armed coalition of all the Protestant States against the Papacy, began, with results which soon convinced even his sanguine temperament that a union either of minds or of forces was impossible. Seated amidst his court, in the plain dress of a simple gentleman, he saw with pain that Luther's uncompromising manner foreboded an even more than usually obstinate adherence to his foregone conclusions. Approaching the table, at which seats for the four disputants were placed, the champion of consubstantiation lifted a piece of chalk, and steadily traced four words upon the velvet cloth which covered it. Every eye in the hall followed the movements of that bold hand ; and when he had finished, all could plainly read four Latin words — that oft- disputed utterance of our Lord's, Hoc est corpus meiim — ' This is my body.' It was the motto under which he had elected to fight, if need be, to the death. Further than the literal interpretation of these words he would not look ; to any other than their literal interpretation he would not listen. He had not come to weigh dispassionately both sides of the question ; he had come to conquer — to have his own way or nothing. *I protest,' he said, ' that I differ from the Swiss in regard to the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, and that I shall always differ from them. Christ has said, "This is my body." Let them show me that a body is not a body. They cannot ; but if they could, it would not matter to me. I reject reason, common sense, carnal arguments, and mathematical proofs. God is above mathematics.' In this spirit the discussion began on the side of the Saxon Reformers. The Swiss, on their part, were more temperate and moderate in their Ian- I04 THE CABINET OF GEMS. guage. Into the argument it is useless to enter, Luther had said in his opening speech that he would reject reason, and he was as good as his word : when hard pressed by the Swiss, — and he sometimes was very hard pressed indeed, — he refused either to argue or reason, but bellowed forth in a voice of thunder, ' Hoc est corpus meum.' THE AWAKENING FROM AN OPIUM DREAM. (thomas de quincey.) THE minutest incidents of childhood, or forgotten scenes of later years, were often revived ; I could not be said to recollect them ; for if I had been told of them when waking, I should not have been able to acknow- ledge them as part of my pas' experience. But placed as they were before me, in dreams like intuitions, and clothed in all their evanescent circum- stances and accompanying feelings, I recognised them instantaneously. I was once told by a near relative of mine, that having in her childhood fallen into a river, and being on the very verge of death, but for the critical assistance which reached her, she saw in a moment her whole life, in its minutest incidents, arrayed before her simultaneously as in a mirror; and she had a faculty developed as suddenly for comprehending the whole and every part. This, from some opium experiences of mine, I can believe ; I have, indeed, seen the same thing asserted twice in modern books, and accompanied by a remark which I am convinced is true, viz. that the dread book of account, which the Scriptures speak of, is, in fact, the mind itself of each individual. Of this, at least, I feel assured, that there is no such thing z.^ forgetting possible to the mind. A thousand accidents may and will inter- pose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on the mind ; accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil ; but alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains for ever; just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day, whereas, in fact, we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil, and that they are waiting to be revealed when the obscuring daylight shall have withdrawn. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 107 SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. (LONGFELLOW.) SOUTHWARD with fleet of ice Sailed the Corsair Death ! ^^'ild and fast blew the blast, And the east wind was his breath. His lordly ships of ice Glistened in the sun ; On each side, like pennons wide, Flashing crystal streamlets run. His sails of white sea mist Dripped with silver rain ; But where he passed there were cast Leaden showers o'er the main. Eastward from Campobello Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed ; Three days or more seaward he bore, Then, alas ! the land-wind failed. Alas ! the land-wind failed. And ice-cold grew the night : And never more, on sea or shore, Should Sir Humphrey see the light. He sat upon the deck, The Book was in his hand ; ' Do not fear ! Heaven is as near,' He said, ' by water as by land ! ' io8 THE CABINET OF GEMS. In the first watch of the night, Without a signal's sound, Out of the sea mysteriously The fleet of Death rose all around. The moon and the evening star Were hanging in the shrouds ; Every mast, as it passed, Seemed to rake the passing clouds. They grappled with their prize, At midnight black and cold ! As of a rock was the shock : Heavily the ground-swell rolled. Southward through day and dark. They drift in close embrace, With mist and rain, to the Spanish main ; Yet there seems no change of place. Southward, for ever southward, They drift through dark and day : And like a dream, in the Gulf stream Sinking, vanish all away. 5 ! THE CABINET OF GEMS. 109 LETTER IN PROSPECT OF MARRIAGE. (lady MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU.) ONE part of my character is not so good, nor t'other so bad, as you fancy it. Should we ever live together, you would be disappointed both ways ; you would find an easy equality of temper you do not expect, and a thousand faults you do not imagine. You think if you married me I should be passionately fond of you one month, and of somebody else the next. Neither would happen. I can esteem, I can be a friend ; but I don't know whether I can love. Expect all that is complaisant and easy, but never what is fond, in me. You judge very wrong of my heart, when you suppose me capable of views of interest, and that anything could obUge me to flatter anybody. ... I am incapable of art, and 'tis because I will not be capable of it. Could I deceive one minute, I should never regain my own good opinion; and who could bear to live with one they despised ! If you can resolve to live with a companion that will have all the deference due to your superiority of good sense, and that your proposals can be agreeable to those on whom I depend, I have nothing to say against them. As to travelling, 'tis what I should do with great pleasure, and could easily quit London upon your account; but a retirement in the country is not so disagreeable to me, as I know a few months would make it tiresome to you. Where people are tied for life, 'tis their mutual interest not to grow weary of one another. If I had all the personal charms that I want, a face is too slight a foundation for happiness. You would be soon tired with seeing every day the same thing. Where you saw nothing else, you would have leisure to remark all the defects ; which would increase in proportion as the novelty lessened, which is always a great charm. I should have the displeasure of seeing a coldness, which, though I could not reasonably blame you for, being involuntary, yet it would render me uneasy; and the more, because I know a love may be revived, which absence, inconstancy, or even infidelity, has extinguished ; but there is no returning from a degout given by satiety. THE CABINET OE GEMS. VIRTUE. (GEORGE HERBERT.) WEET day ! so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky ; The dews shall weep thy fail to-night; For thou must die. Sweet rose ! whose hue, angry and brave, Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye ; Thy root is ever in its grave ; And thou must die. Sweet spring ! full of sweet days and roses ; A box where sweets compacted lie ; Thy music shov/s ye have your closes ; And all must die. Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like season'd timber, never gives ; But, though the whole world turn to coal, Then chiefly lives. THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE PRAISE OF TRUE WOMANHOOD. FROM woman's eyes this doctrine I derive : They sparkle still the right Promethean fire ; They are the books, the arts, the academies, That show, contain, and nourish all the world : Else none at all in aught proves excellent. — Shakespeare. You talk of the fire of genius. Many a blessed woman, who dies unsung and unremembered, has given out more of the real vital heat that keeps the life in human souls, without a spark flitting through her humble chimney to tell the world about it, than would set a dozen theories smoking, or a hun- dred odes simmering, in the brains of so many men of genius. — O.- W. Holmes. Good dressing, quiet ways, low tones of voice, lips that can wait, and eyes that do not wander, — shyness of personalities, except in certain intimate communions, — to be light in hand in conversation, to have ideas, but to be able to make talk, if necessary, without them, — to belong to the company you are in, and not to yourself, — to have nothing in your dress or furniture so fine that you cannot afford to spoil it, and get another like it, yet to preserve the harmonies throughout your person and dwelling : I should say that this was a fair capital of manners to begin with. — O. W. Holmes. She will be herself in all changes of fortune ; neither blown up by prosperity, nor broken with adversity. You will find in her an even, cheerful, good-humoured friend, and an agreeable comj^anion for life, She will infuse knowledge into your children with their milk, and from their infancy train them up to wisdom. Whatever company you are engaged in, you will long to be at home; and retire with delight from the society of men into the bosom of one who is so dear, so accomplished, and so amiable. If she touches her lute, or sings to it any of her own compositions, THE CABINET OF GEMS. her voice will soothe you in your solitude, and sound more sweetly in your ear than that of the nightingale. You will spend with pleasure whole days and nights in her conversation, and be for ever finding out new beauties in her discourse. She will keep your mind in perpetual serenity, restrain its mirth from being dissolute, and prevent its melancholy from being painful. — Sir T. More. I I AM A FRIAR OF ORDERS GREY. (JOHN o'kEEFE.) AM a friar of orders grey, And down in the valleys I take my way ; I pull not blackberry, haw, or hip, — Good store of venison fills my scrip ! ]\Iy long bead-roll I merrily chant : Where'er I walk, no money I want ; And why I'm so plump, the reason I tell — Who leads a good life is sure to live well. What baron or squire. Or knight of the shire. Lives half so well as a holy friar ? After supper, of heaven I dream — But that is fat pullet and clouted cream. Myself by denial I mortify With a dainty bit of a warden-pie ; I'm clothed in sackcloth for my sin : With old sack wine I'm lined within ; A chirping cup is my matin song, And the vesper-bell is my bowl — ding dong ! What baron or squire, Or knight of the shire. Lives half so well as a holy friar ? THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE MITHERLESS BAIRN. (WILLIAM THOM.) WHEN a' ither bairnies are hush'd to their hame By aunty, or cousin, or frecky grand-dame, Wha stands last and lanely, an' naebody carin' ? 'Tis the puir doited loonie — the mitherless bairn ! The mitherless bairn gangs to his lane bed, Nane covers his cauld back, or haps his bare head ; His wee hackit heelies are hard as the airn, An' litheless the lair o' the mitherless bairn, Aneath his cauld brow siccan dreams hover there, O' hands that wont kindly to kame his dark hair ; But momin' brings clutches, a' reckless an' stern, That lo'e nae the locks o' the mitherless bairn ! Yon sister that sang o'er his saftly-rock'd bed Now rests in the mools where her mammie is laid ; The father toils sair their wee bannock to earn, An' kens na' the wrangs o' his mitherless bairn. Her spirit that pass'd in yon hour o' his birth, Still watches his wearisome wanderings on earth ; Recording in heaven the blessings they earn, Wha couthilie deal wi' the mitherless bairn ! Oh ! speak him na' harshly— he trembles the while. He bends to your bidding, and blesses your smile ; In their dark hour o' anguish, the heartless shall learn That God deals the blow for the mitherless bairn i THE CABINET OF GEMS. GOLDEN GLEANINGS. TRUTH is the breath of God.— >//;/ Puhford. Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. — Pope. Heaven's never deaf but when your heart is dumb. — Qiiarics. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. — Johnson. The eternal stars shine out, as soon as it is dark enough. — Cciijle. Paradise is always where love dwells, — Ricliter. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. — P. J. Bailey. If we would make love our household god, we had best secure him a comfortable roof. — Sheridan. They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts. — Sir P. Sidney. Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action to all eternity. — Lavaier. I love such mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one another next morning. — Izaak Walton. God has made sunny spots in the heart; why should we exclude the light from them ? — Haliburton. Speech is but broken light upon the depth Of the unspoken. — George Eliot. The mind ought sometimes to be amused, that it may better return to thought and to itself. — Phcedrus. God takes women's hearty desires and will instead of the deed, where they have not the power to fulfil it ; but He never took the bare will instead of the deed. — Baxter. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 117 Admonish your friends privately, but praise them openly. — Publhis Syrus. If the world be in the middle ot the heart, it will be often shaken, for aU there is continual motion and change; but God in it keeps it stable. — Archbishop LcigJiton. Endeavour to have as little to do with thy affections and passions as thou canst, and labour to thy power to make thy body content to go of thy soul's errands. — Jeremy Taylor. There is no action in this life which is not the beginning of so long a chain of consequences, as that no human providence is high enough to give us a prospect to the end. — Thomas of Malmeshicry. I know, is all the mourner saith, Knowledge by suffering entereth. And life is perfected by death. — yl//x Browning. He that shuts love out, in his turn shall be Shut out from love, and on her threshold lie Howling in outer darkness. — Robert Broivning. We have the comfort of thinking, that, with the heart once turned to God, and going on in His faith and fear, nothing can go very wrong with us, although we may have much to suffer and many trials to undergo. — Dr. Arnold. Must love be ever treated with profaneness as a mere illusion ? or with coarseness as a mere impulse ? or with fear as a mere disease ? or with shame as a mere weakness? or with levity as a mere accident? Whereas it is a great mystery and a great necessity, lying at the foundation of human exist- ence, morality, and happiness — mysterious, universal, inevitable as death. — Harriet Martineau. Love is good, and does good wondrously, without thinking about it, and without knowing it. Love does good by deeds and by words, and without deeds and words, by touches, by looks, by glances. The love of some human heart often plays its charm through you when you know not whence it comes and whither it goes. Love attracts love. — John Puhford. Might I give counsel to any young friend, I would say to him : ' Try to frequent the company of your betters ; learn to admire rightly : the great pleasure of life is in that. Narrow spirits admire basely and worship meanly ; broad spirits worship the right.' — Thackeray. I've nothing to say again' her piety, my dear, but I know very well I shouldent like her to cook my victual. When a man comes in hungry and tired, piety won't feed him, I reckon. Hard carrots 'uU lie heavy on his stomach, piety or no piety. I called in one day when she was dishin' up Mr. Tryan's dinner, an' I could see the potatoes were as watery as watery. It's right enough to be speritial — I'm no enemy to that; but I like my potatoes mealy. I don't see as anybody 'ull go to heaven the sooner for not digestin' their dinner, providin' they don't die sooner. — George Eliot. I live for those who love me. For those who know me true ; For the Heaven that smiles above me, And awaits my spirit too. For the cause that lacks assistance. For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that I can do. — Bernard Bar/on. Religion passes out of the ken of reason only where the eye of reason has reached its own horizon : and that Faith is then but its continuation ; even as the day softens away into the sweet twilight, and twilight, hushed and breathless, steals into the darkness. It is night, sacred night ! the upraised eye views only the starry heaven which manifests itself alone ; and the outward beholding is fixed on the sparks twinkling in the awful depth, though suns of other worlds, only to preserve the soul steady and collected in its pure act of inward adoration to the great I AM, and to the filial word that reaffirmeth it from eternity to eternity, whose choral echo is the universe. — Coleridge. THE CABINET OE GEMS. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 121 THE TREASURES OF THE DEEP. (mrs. hemans.) \\ /HAT hid'st thou in thy treasure-caves and cells, V V Thou hollow-sounding and mysterious Main ? Pale glistening pearls, and rainbow-colour'd shells, Bright things which gleam unreck'd of, and in vain ; Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy Sea, AVe ask not such from thee ! Yet more, the depths have more ! what wealth untold Far down, and shining thro' their stillness lies ! Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold. Won from ten thousand royal Argosies, Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful Main j Earth claims not these again ! Yet more, the depths have more ! thy waves have roll'd Above the cities of a world gone by ! Sand hath filled up the palaces of old. Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry ! Dash o'er them, Ocean ! in thy scornful play ! Man yields them to decay ! Yet more, the billows and the depths have more ! High hearts and brave are gather'd to thy breast ! They hear not now the booming waters roar. The battle-thunders will not break their rest. Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave^ Give back the true and brave ! Q THE CABINET OF GEMS. Give back the lost and lovely ! those for whom The place was kept at board and hearth so long I The prayer went up thro' midnight's breathless gloom, And the vain yearning woke 'mid festal song ! Hold fast thy buried Isles, thy towers o'erthrown. But all is not thine own ! To thee the love of woman hath gone down, Dark flow thy tides o'er Manhood's noble head — O'er Youth's bright locks and Beauty's flowery crown ; Yet must thou hear a voice — Restore the Dead ! Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee. Restore the dead, thou Sea ! INDIVIDUALITY OF CHARACTER. (f. v.'. ROBERTSON.) THERE is a sacredness in individuality of character; each one born into this world is a fresh new soul intended by his Maker to develope himself in a new fresh way. We reach perfection not by copying, much less by aiming at originality; but by consistently and steadily working out the life which is common to us ail, according to the character which God has given us. And thus will the Church of God be one at last — will present a unity like that of heaven. There is one universe in which each separate star differs from another in glory ; one Church in which a single spirit, the life of God, pervades each separate soul; and just in proportion as that life becomes exalted, does it enable every one to shine forth in the distinctness of his own separate individuality, like the stars of heaven. 124 THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 125 THE TRUE AIM OF THE ARTIST. (ruskin.) HIGH Art therefore consists neither in altering nor in improving Nature ; but seeking throughout Nature for ' whatsoever things are lovely, and whatsoever things are pure ;' in loving these, in displaying to the utmost of the painter's power such loveliness as is in them, and directing the thoughts of others to them by winning art, or gentle emphasis. Of the degree in which this can be done, and in which it may be permitted to gather together, without falsifying, the finest forms or thoughts, so as to create a sort of perfect vision, we shall have to speak hereafter; at present, it is enough to remember that Art {cceteris paribus) is great in exact proportion to the love of beauty shown by the painter, provided that love of beauty forfeit no atom of truth. ... In this respect, Schools of Art become higher in exact proportion to the degree in which they apprehend and love the beautiful. Thus, Angelico, intensely loving all spiritual beauty, will be of the highest rank ; and Paul Veronese and Correggio, intensely loving physical and corporeal beauty, of the second rank; and Albert Durer, Rubens, and in general the Northern artists, apparently insensible to beauty, and caring only for truth, whether shapely or not, of the third rank ; and Teniers and Salvator, Caravaggio, and other such worshippers of the depraved, of no rank, or, as we said before, of a certain order in the abyss. 126 THE CABINET OF GEMS. HEAVEN. I SHINE in the light of God, His likeness stamps my brow ; Through the shadow of death my feet have trod, And I rest in glory now. No breaking heart is here, No keen and thrilling pain ; No wasted cheek, where the frequent tear Hath rolled and left its stain. I have found the joys of Heaven ; I am one of the sainted band ; To my head a crown of gold is given, And a harp is in my hand. I have learnt the song they sing, Whom Jesus hath set free ; And the glorious walls of Heaven still rinf With my new-born melody. No sin — no grief — no pain — Safe in my happy home ; My fears all fled, my doubts all slain, My hour of triumph come. O friends of mortal years ! The trusted and the true ; Ye are walking still in the valley of tears, But I wait to welcome you. THE CABINET OE GEMS. 127 Do I forget ? Oh no— For memor/s golden chain Shall bind my heart to the saints below, Till they meet to touch again. Each link is strong and bright, And love's electric flame Flows freely down, like a river of light, To the world from whence they came. Do you mourn when another star Shines out from the glittering sky ? Do you weep when the raging voice of war And the storms of conflict die ? Then why should your tears run down, And your hearts be sorely riven, For another gem in the Saviour's crown, And another soul in Heaven ? 138 THE CABINET OF GEMS. MUSIC AND POETRY. (sir WILLIAM TEMPLE.) I KNOW very well, that many, who pretend to be wise by the forms of being grave, are apt to despise both Poetry and Music, as toys and trifles too light for the use and entertainment of serious men. But whoever finds themselves wholly insensible to these charms would, I think, do well to keep their own counsel for fear of reproaching their own temper, and bring- ing the goodness of their natures, if not of their understandings, into question: it may be thought at least an ill sign, if not an ill constitution, since some of the Fathers went so far as to esteem the love of music a sign of predestination, as a thing divine, and reserved for the feHcities of heaven itself. While this world lasts, I doubt not but the pleasure and requests of these two entertain- ments will do so too, and happy those that content themselves with these, or any other so easy and so innocent, and do not trouble the world, or other men, because they cannot be quiet themselves, though nobody hurts them. When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humoured a little, to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 131 THE STRENGTH OF VIRTUE. (milton.) THIS is the place, as well as I may guess, Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear ; Yet nought but single darkness do I find. What might this be ? A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory. Of caUing shapes, and beckoning shadows dire. And aery tongues, that syllable men's names On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses. These thoughts may startle well, but not astound The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended By a strong siding champion, Conscience. Oh, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope, Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings. And thou unblemish'd form of Chastity ! I see ye visibly, and now believe That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill Are but as slavish officers of vengeance. Would send a glistening guardian, if need were. To keep my life and honour unassail'd. Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night ? I did not err, there does a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night. And casts a gleam over this tufted grove : I cannot halloo to my brothers, but Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest I'll venture ; for my new-enliven'd spirits Prompt me ; and they, perhaps, are not far off. 132 THE CABINET OF GEMS. READING. (LOCKE.) THIS is that which I think great readers are apt to be mistaken in. Those who have read of everything, are thought to understand every- thing too ; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge : it is thinking makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment. There are, indeed, in some writers visible instances of deep thought, close and acute reasoning, and ideas well pursued. The light these would give would be of great use, if their readers would observe and imitate them : all the rest at best are but particulars fit to be turned into knowledge ; but that can be done only by our own meditation, and examining the reach, force, and coherence of what is said ; and then, as far as we apprehend and see the connection of ideas, so far it is ours , without that, it is but so much loose matter floating in our brain. The memory may be stored, but the judgment is little better, and the stock of knowledge not increased, by being able to repeat what others have said, or produce the arguments we have found in them. Such a knowledge as this is but a knowledge by hearsay; and the ostentation of it is at best but talking by rote, and very often upon weak and wrong principles. For all that is to be found in books is not built upon true foundations, nor always rightly deduced from the principles it is pretended to be built on. Such an examen as is requisite to discover that, every reader's mind is not forward to make, especially in those who have given themselves up to a party, and only hunt for what they can scrape together that may favour and support the tenets of it. Such men wilfully exclude themselves from truth, and from all true benefit to be received by reading. Others of more indifference often want attention and industry. The mind is backward in itself to be at the pains to trace every argument to its original, and to see upon which basis it stands, THE CABINET OF GEMS. 133 and how firmly ; but yet it is this that gives so much the advantage to one man more than another in reading. The mind should, by severe rules, be tied down to this, at first uneasy task; use and exercise will give it facility. So that those who are accustomed to it, readily, as it were with one cast of the eye, take a view of the argument, and presently, in most cases, see where it bottoms. Those who have got this faculty, one may say, have got the true key of books, and the clue to lead them through the mizmaze of variety of opinions and authors to truth and certainty. This young beginners should be entered in and shown the use of, that they might profit by their reading. Those who are strangers to it will be apt to think it too great a clog in the way of men's studies ; and they will suspect they shall make but small pro- gress, if, in the books they read, they must stand to examine and unravel every argument, and follow it step by step up to its original. ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER. (jOHN KEATS.) MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen ; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne : Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold : Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken ; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific — and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise — Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 134 THE CABINET OF GEMS. TELL ME NOT, SWEET. (colonel LOVELACE.) TELL me not, sweet, I am unkind,— That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind To war and arms I fly. True, a new mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field ; And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield. Yet this inconstancy is such As you, too, shall adore ; I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more. OLD AGE AND DEATH. (EDMUND WALLER.) THE seas are quiet when the winds give o'er ; So calm are we when passions are no more. For then we know how vain it was to boast Of fleeting things, too certain to be lost. Clouds of affection from our younger eyes Conceal that emptiness which age descries. The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, As they draw near to their eternal home. Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, That stand upon the threshold of the new. THE CABINET OF GEMS. m DANTE ALIGHIERI. NO poet had yet arisen gifted with absolute power over the empire of the soul, no philosopher had yet pierced into the depths of feeling and of thought, when Dante, the greatest name of Italy, and the father of her poetry, appeared and demonstrated the mightiness of his genius, by availing himself of the rude and imperfect materials within his reach to construct an edifice resembling in magnitude that universe whose image it reflects. Instead of amatory effusions addressed to an imaginary beauty, — instead of madrigals full of sprightly insipidity, sonnets laboured into har- mony, and strained and discordant allegories, — the only models, in any modern language, which presented themselves to the notice of Dante, — that great genius conceived in his vast imagination the mysteries of the invisible creation, and unveiled them to the eyes of the astonished world. — Sismondi. The character of Milton was peculiarly distinguished by loftiness of spirit ; that of Dante, by intensity of feeling. In every line of the Divine Comedy, we discern the asperity which is produced by pride struggling with misery. There is perhaps no work in the world so deeply and uniformly sorrowful. The melancholy of Dante was no fantastic caprice. It was not, as far as at this distance of time can be judged, the effect of external circum- stances. It was from within. Neither love nor glory, neither the conflicts of earth nor the hope of heaven, could dispel it. It turned every consolation and every pleasure into its own nature. It resembled that noxious Sardinian soil of which the intense bitterness is said to have been perceptible even in its honey. His mind was, in the noble language of the Hebrew poet, 'a land of darkness, as darkness itself, and where the light was as darkness.' The gloom of his character discolours all the passions of men and all the face of Nature, and tinges with its own livid hue the flowers of paradise and the glories of the eternal throne. All the portraits of him are singularly charac- teristic. No person can look on the features, noble even to ruggedness, the 138 THE CABINET OF GEMS. dark furrows of the cheek, the haggard and woful stare of the eye, the sullen and contemptuous curve of the lip, and doubt that they belong to a man too proud and too sensitive to be happy. — Macaiilay. To me [his] is a most touching face; perhaps of all faces that I know, the most so. Lonely there, painted as on vacancy with the simple laurel wound round it ; the deathless sorrow and pain ; the known victory which is also deathless, — significant of the whole history of Dante ! I think it is the mournfullest face that ever was painted from reality; an altogether tragic, heart-affecting face. There is in it, as foundation of it, the softness, tender- ness, gentle affection as of a child ; but all this is as if congealed into sharp contradiction, into abnegation, isolation, proud hopeless pain, A soft ethereal soul looking out so stern, implacable, grim, trenchant, as from imprisonment of thick -ribbed ice. . . . The face of one wholly in protest, and life-long unsurrendering battle against the world. — Carlyle. PRAYER. MORE things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. — Tennyson. An hour of solitude, in sincere and earnest prayer, or the conflict with and conquest over a single passion, or ' subtle bosom sin,' will teach us more of thought, will more effectually awaken the faculty and form the habit of reflection, than a year's study in the schools without them. — Coleridge. I40 THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 141 UPON THE SIGHT OF A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE. (WORDSWORTH.) PRAISED be the art whose subtle power could stay Yon cloud, and fix it in that glorious shape ; Nor would permit the thin smoke to escape, Nor those bright sunbeams to forsake the day ; Which stopp'd that band of travellers on their way Ere they were lost within the shady wood ; And show'd the bark upon the glassy flood, For ever anchor'd in her sheltering bay. Soul-soothing art ! which morning, noontide, even, Do serve with all their changeful pageantry ! Thou, with ambition modest, yet sublime, Here, for the sight of mortal man, hast given To one brief moment, caught from fleeting time, The appropriate calm of blest eternity. 1 4^ THE CABINET OF GEMS. FALSTAFF'S REGIMENT. (SHAKESPEARE.) IF I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the king's press confoundedly. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen's sons; inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the banns ; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as lief hear the devil as a drum ! such as fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck fowl, or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none but such toasts and butter, with hearts in their bodies no bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out their services ; and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of com- panies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores ; and such as, indeed, were never soldiers, but discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-lallen ; the cankers of a calm world and a long peace ; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old-faced ancient: and such have I, to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat : nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on ; for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company ; and the half shirt is two napkins tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves ; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's, or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that's all one ; they'll find linen enough on every hedge. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 143 THE WORTH OF HOURS. (RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.) BELIEVE not that your inner eye Can ever in just measure try The worth of hours as they go by ; For every man's weak self, alas ! Makes him to see them while they pass As through a dim or tinted glass : But if in earnest care you would Mete out to each its part of good, Trust rather to your after mood. Those surely are not fairly spent, That leave your spirit bow'd and beni In sad unrest, and ill content. And more, — though free from seeming harm, You rest from toil of mind or arm. Or slow retire from pleasure's charm — 144 THE CABINET OE GEMS. I( then a painful sense comes on, Of something wholly lost and gone, Vainly enjoyed, or vainly done, — Of something from your being's chain Broke off, nor to be link'd again By all mere Memory can retain — • Upon your heart this truth may rise,— Nothing that altogether dies Suffices man's just destinies : So should we live, that every hour May die as dies the natural flower, — A self-reviving thing of power ; That every thought and every deed May hold within itself the seed Of future good, and future meed ; Esteeming sorrow, whose employ Is to develope, not destroy. Far better than a barren joy. 14^ THE CABINET OF GEMS. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 147 BITTEN BY A LION. (dr. LIVINGSTONE.) IN going round the end of the hill, however, I saw one of the beasts sitting on a piece of rock as before, but this time he had a little bush in front. Being about thirty yards off, I took a good aim at his body through the bush, and fired both barrels into it. The men then called out, ' He is shot ! he is shot ! ' Others cried, ' He has been shot by another man too ; let us go to him!' I did not see any one else shoot at him, but I saw the lion's tail erected, in anger, behind the bush, and, turning to the people, said : ' Stop a little till I load again.' When in the act of ramming down the bullets, I heard a shout. Starting, and looking half round, I saw the lion in the act of springing upon me. I was upon a little height ; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess in which there was no sense of pain or feeling of terror, though quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloro- form describe, who see all the operation but feel not the knife. This singular condition was not the result of any mental process. The shake annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the beast. This peculiar state is probably produced in all animals killed by the carnivora, and, if so, is a merciful provision by our benevolent Creator for lessening the pain of death. Turning round to relieve myself of the weight, as he had one paw on the back of my head, I saw his eyes directed to Mebalwe, who was trying to shoot him at a distance of ten or fifteen yards. His gun, a flint one, missed fire in both barrels ; the lion immediately left me, and, attacking Mebalwe, bit his thigh. Another man, whose Hfe I had saved before, after he had been tossed by a buffalo, attempted to spear the lion while he was biting Mebalwe. He left Mebalwe and caught this man by the shoulder, but at that moment the bullets he had received took effect, and he fell down dead. 148 THE CABINET OF GEMS. SONNETS FROM WORDSWORTH. O FRIEND ! I know not which way I must loolc For comfort, being, as I am, oppress'd To think that now our life is only dress'd For show : mean handiwork of craftsman, cook, Or groom ! We must run glittering like a brool: In the open sunshine, or we are unblest : The wealthiest man among us is the best : No grandeur now, in Nature or in book, Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry ; and these we adore : Plain living and high thinking are no more : The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone ; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws. MILTON 1 thou shouldst be living at this hour England hath need of thee : she is a fen Of stagnant waters : altar, sword, and pen. Fireside, the heroic wealth ol hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men : Oh ! raise us ujd, return to us again ; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart : Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea : Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free; So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on itself did lay. THE CABINET OF GEMS. \^\ ENGLISH SCENERY. (WASHINGTON IRVING.) THE great charm of English scenery is the moral feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in the mind with ideas of order, of quiet, of sober, well-established principles, of hoary usage, and reverend custom. Everything seems to be the growth of ages of regular and peaceful existence. The old church of remote architecture, with its low, massive portal, its gothic tower, its windows rich with tracery and painted glass, in scrupulous pre- servation, its stately monuments of warriors and worthies of the olden time, ancestors of the present lords of the soil ; its tombstones, recording successive generations of sturdy yeomanry, whose progeny still plough the same fields, and kneel at the same altar \ the parsonage, a quaint, irregular pile, partly antiquated, but repaired and altered in the tastes of various ages and occu- pants ; the stile and footpath leading from the churchyard, across pleasant fields, and along shady hedgerows, according to an immemorial right of way ; the neighbouring village, with its venerable cottages, its public green sheltered by trees, under which the forefathers of the present race have sported ; the antique family mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a protecting air on the surrounding scene : all these common features of English landscape evince a calm and settled security, and hereditary transmission of home-bred virtues and local attach- ments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character of the nation. It is a pleasing sight of a Sunday morning, when the bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to behold the peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces and modest cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to church ; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the evenings, gathering about their cottage doors, and appearing to exult in the humble comforts and embellishments which their own hands have spread around them. 152 THE CABINET OF GEMS. 4 A SEA-SHORE SKETCH. (CRABBE.) 1L0VKD to walk where none had walked before, About the rocks that ran along the shore ; Or far beyond the sight of men to stray, And take my pleasure when I lost my way. For then 'twas mine to trace the hilly heath, And all the mossy moor that lies beneath. Here had I favourite stations where I stood, And heard the murmurs of the Ocean flood, With not a sound beside, except when flew Aloft the lapwing, or the grey curlew, VVho with wild notes my fancied power defied, And mocked the dreams of solitary jjride. 1 loved to stop at every creek and bay Made by the river in its winding way, And call to memory — not by marks they bare. But bv the thoughts that were created there. I A HUNTER (butler) Is an auxiliary hound, that assists one nation of beasts to subdue and overrun another. He makes mortal war with the fox for committing acts of hostility against his poultry. He is very solicitous to have his dogs well descended of worshipful families, and understands their pedigree as learnedly as if he were a herald ; and is as careful to match them according to their rank and qualities, as high Germans are of their own progenies. He is both cook and physician to his hounds, understands the constitutions of their bodies, and what to administer in any infirmity or disease, acute or chronic, that can befall them. Nor is he less skilful in physiognomy, and from the aspects of their faces, shape of their snouts, falling of their ears and lips, and make of their barrels, will give a shrewd guess at their inclinations, parts, and abilities, and what parents they are lineally descended from ; and by the tones of their voices and statures of their persons, easily discover what country they are natives of. He believes no music in the world is com- parable to a chorus of their voices, and that when they are well matched they will hunt their parts as true at first scent as the best singers of catches that ever opened in a tavern ; that they understand the scale as well as the best scholar that ever learned to compose by the mathematics; and that when he winds his horn to them, it is the very same thing with a cornet in a choir ; that they will run down the hare with a fugue, and a double d-sol- re-dog hunt a thorough-bass to them all the while ; that when they are at a loss they do but rest, and then they know by turns who are to continue a dialogue between two or three of them, of which he is commonly one himself. He takes very great pains in his way, but calls it game and sport, because it is to no purpose ; and he is willing to make as much of it as he can, and not be thought to bestow so much labour and pains about nothing. Let the hare take which way she will, she seldom fails to lead him at long running to the alehouse, where he meets with an aftergame of delight, in 156 THE CABINET OF GEMS. making up a narrative, how every dog behaved himself; which is never done without long dispute, every man inclining to favour his friend as far as he can ; and if there be anything remarkable to his thinking in it, he preserves it to please himself, and, as he beUeves, all people else with, during his natural life, and after leaves it to his heirs-male entailed upon the family, with his bugle-horn and seal-ring. SAYINGS FROM BOSWELL'S JOHNSON. THERE is nothing, sir, too little for so litde a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible. General principles must be had from books, which, however, must be brought to the test of real life. In conversation you never get a system. What is said upon a subject is to be gathered from a hundred people. The parts of truth, which a man gets thus, are at such a distance from each other that he never attains to a full view. There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible. Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully ; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else. Knowledge always desires increase ; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself. People seldom read a book which is given to them ; and few are given. The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price.- No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence, without an intention to read it. Get as much force of mind as you can. Live within your income. Always have something saved at the end of the year. Let your imports be more than your exports, and you'll never go far wrong. THE CABINET OF GEMS. 159 HUMAN HELP. A DIALOGUE. {lie) /'~^OME near me, love, a little space, V_-^ And let me look within thy face. Methinks thine eyes are somewhat sad ; Now, wherefore be not calmly glad ? There was no presage in the dawn, The clouds were meekly overdrawn, — E'en now the skies are grandly calm. {She) The throbbing glories of the morn Seem calm, and clear, and purely born. Not so the light within mine eyes. It cometh from a soul surprise. With hope and fear of coming change, Life holds so much of sad and strange. "We stand within a path of peace, Harmonious work and restful ease ; While life's broad surges at our feet In foam and spray for ever beat. Great griefs that never pity meet. {He) But heaven is high, and hell is deep, Where evil spirits never sleep ; To every soul beneath the sun Some hope is given, some joy is won. The fault is neither thine nor mine. That souls be sick, and sad, and pine. Even dowered with heritage of grief. The life of man at best is brief, i6o THE CABINET OF GEMS. In rest or toil, in love or hate, Ivich soul is passing to its fate. {She.) In shuddering loneness of the heart. When friendships break and drop apart ; In selfhood high, and cairn, and cold, Where one is bound to fame or gold ; In new found wealth of ready love, A gift descended from above; In aught that stirs the heart of man, In hope, in purpose, or of plan. Thy place is set the joy to share. The grief to lighten — even to bear. If neither, ours were selfish care. ut fo {}V^ MVr.RAV AND C:i:B, nDINEVRCH, r::lxTnus to ukr ma.it sty's stationprv offic:?. / g vavflav9 ViNvs « 11 ou; r J .,.,i3AlNn 3H1 • X \ p Of CAUrORNI/ 25 « io uvvan 9H1 «. tt Of CAIIFODNIA .« ^e^ o vavnovH TiNvi e a OF CALIFORNIA O