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Such criticisms on the want of vigour of drawing in Giotto or Angelico, or the want of refinement in Rubens, are the marks of ignorance and injustice. To be just, to derive the highest degree of pleasure from the works of each individual artist, requires not merely the cultivated mind and judicious taste, but such a knowledge of his history and habits, his relations with his contemporaries, as may be gathered from the best authorities.

TO THE MORNING.

Beams of the daybreak faint! I hail
Your dubious hues, as on the robe

Of night, which wraps the slumbering globe,

I mark your traces pale.

Tir'd with the taper's sickly light,

And with the wearing, numbered night,

I hail the streaks of morn divine:

And lo! they break between the dewy wreathes

That round my rural casement twine :

The fresh gale o'er the green lawn breathes;

It fans my feverish brow,-it calms the mental strife,
And cheerily re-illumes the lambent flame of life.
The lark has her gay song begun,

She leaves her grassy nest,

And soars till the unrisen sun

Gleams on her speckled breast.

Now let me leave my restless bed,

And o'er the spangled uplands tread;

Now through the customed wood-walks wend;

By many a green lane, lies my way,

Where high o'er head the wild briars bend,

Till on mountain's summit grey,

I sit me down, and mark the glorious dawn of day.
Oh, Heaven! the soft refreshing gale

It breathes into my breast!

My sunk eye gleams; my cheek, so pale,

Is with new colour drest.

Blithe health! thou soul of life and ease!

Come thou, too, on the balmy breeze,

Invigorate my frame:

I'll join with thee the buskin'd chase,
With thee the distant clime will trace,
Beyond those clouds of flame.

Above, below, what charms unfold
In all the varied view!

Before me all is burnish'd gold,

Behind the twilight's hue.

The mists which on old night await,

Far to the west they hold their state,

They shun the clear blue face of morn;

Along the fine cerulean sky,

The fleecy clouds, successive fly,

While bright prismatic beams their shadowy folds adorn.

And hark! the thatcher has begun

His whistle on the eaves,

And oft the hedger's bill is heard

Among the rustling leaves.

The slow team creaks upon the road,

The noisy whip resounds,

The driver's voice, his carol blithe,
The mower's stroke, his whetting scythe
Mix with the morning sounds.
Who would not rather take his seat
Beneath these clumps of trees,
The early dawn of day to greet,
And catch the healthy breeze,
Than on the silken couch of sloth
Luxurious to lie?

Who would not from life's dreary waste

Snatch, when he could with eager haste,

An interval of joy?

To him who simply thus recounts

The morning's pleasures o'er,

Fate dooms, ere long, the scene must close
To ope on him no more.

Yet, morning! unrepining still

He'll greet thy beams awhile;

And surely thou, when o'er his grave
Solemn the whispering willows wave,

Wilt sweetly on him smile;

And the pale glowworm's pensive light

Will guide his ghostly walks in the drear moonless night.

A DISTINCTION.

In spite of the unconscious sarcasm of the honest sentry, who, when Madame told him she was an officer's lady, replied, " that his orders were to admit officer's wives, but he had no power to pass their ladies," we still have a good man's lawful wife described in a print as his "lady." We are told even in the fashionable news of a Republican Journal, that John Ross, the Cherokee chief, (who married a Quakeress,) is sojourning at Bran Divine Springs, Delaware, with his "lady."

A GENTLEMAN in his eagerness at the table, to answer a call for some apple pie, owing to the knife slipping on the bottom of the dish, found his knuckles buried in the crust, when a wag, who sat just opposite to him, very gravely observed, whilst he held his plate, "Sir, I'll trouble you for a bit whilst your hand's in."

A CERTAIN young clergyman, modest almost to bashfulness, was once asked by a country apothecary, of a contrary character, in a public and crowded assembly, and in a tone of voice to catch the attention of the whole company, "how it happened that the Patriarchs lived to such an extreme old age ?" To which impertinent question, he immediately replied, " perhaps they took no physic." THE PSALMS.-The finest specimen of oriental poems ever produced.

"I AM monarch of all I survey," as the mouse said ven he got a top of the cheese.

HOW MR. SMITHSON WAS HOOKED.

A LESSON FOR DESPAIRING SPINSTERS.

MR. SMITHSON, (an improvement on the name of Smith) wished to take Miss Brownly (another improvement) to the opera. He had been on terms of intimacy with the family, for about five years, but " never spoke of love," on the contrary, he had frequently declared his intentions of leading a bachelor life. One morning he put his hand on the bell handle, and was admitted. "Oh! James," exclaimed Miss Jane," where have you kept yourself so long?" This took Smithson a little aback, for he had spent the preceding evening with the family. Before he could answer, however, Jane's brothers and sisters (eight or ten in number) had gathered about him. Summoning all his courage, he said—" I have come to ask you." "Not here, James, not now." "Oh ! that is," stammered Smithson, " if you are not engaged." "Oh! water, quick," shrieked Jane. "What's that?" inquired her father, "who says she's engaged?" "I didn't mean," said Smithson, in confusion. "Of course not," continued Mr. Brownly, "you could not suppose such a thing, when you have always been our favourite." Then advancing and taking poor Smithson's hand, he said, "take her, my boy, she's a good girl, loves you to distraction. May you both be as happy as the days are long." Thereupon mother and children crowded upon Smithson, and wished him joy, and company coming in at the moment, the affair was told to them as a profound secret. So Smithson got a wife without popping the question, and almost before he knew it himself.

THE BITTER SWEET OF LIFE.

How can I live without thee! how forego
Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined !

WHEN a certain great man, had called the producers of wealth, the "swinish multitude;" a barber, in a populous district, adopted the title, and put over his shop, "Shaver to the swinish multitude.” A zealous magistrate told him to take it down, and finding his order disobeyed, called to say, that if he did not remove the offensive board, he would make him. "You can't," says the barber. "I will," says the magistrate. "I have had counsel's opinion upon it," said the barber. "Well, and what did he say ?" He said "I was a great fool for putting it up, and that you were a bigger for taking notice of it."

"NOTHING can be done well," said Doctor Ketchener, "that is done in an hurry." "Except catching fleas," adds a wag at our elbow.

THERE is a man up country that turns so pale when he is frightened, that people can scrape the white-wash from his face.

ANCIENT POETRY.

"SPEAKING of goose," said a wag to his companion, one Thursday, "I remember my mother roasted one of them birds once; 'twas so tarnation tough, we could not carve it, but had to chop up the creature with a broad axe, then boiled, and fricaseed it; but 'twas no go, we couldn't eat it any how. I reckoned it might have been the same one whose cackle saved Rome." "Very like," replied the other, "our folks undertook to cook a rooster-we hadn't the true record of his age, but I verily believe he was the same old cock which crowed to Peter! he was a devil of a fellow for crowing, any how, for after boiling him a whole day, when the lid was taken off at night, blow me, if the varmint didn't fly out of the pot, light on the crane, flap his wings, and scream--cock-a-doodle-doo!"

A NEW READING OF AN OLD PROVERD.
A bird in hand is better far

Than two what in the bushes are.

ONLY ONE CREATION.

IT was the opinion of Geoffrey and of Cuvier, that there never had been but one creation. Dr. Knox, who was formerly well known as a popular lecturer on anatomy, in one of the extraacademical schools connected with the University of Edinburgh, declares himself, in the course of a volume he has just published, entitled, A Manuel of Artistic Anatomy, to be of the same opinion. "I believe," he says, "all animals to be descended from primitive forms of life, forming an integral part of the globe itself; and that the successive varieties of animals and plants, which the dissection of the strata of the earth clearly sets forth, is due to the occurrence of geological epochs, of the power of which we cannot form any true conception."

Two gentlemen angling in the Thames, at Nuneham, lately, could not agree upon the appearance of one of their favourite baits, the horse fly, and they agreed to refer the question to a rustic whom they saw ploughing, at a little distance, and accosted him thus: "Did you ever see a horse fly ?" "Whoy," said Hodge, with some astonishment, "no'a drat it, I never seed a horse fly, but I once seed a cow fall down a hole."

"I'LL take your part," as the dog said when he robbed the cat of her portion of dinner.

MOTTO OF THE NORTH-EAST WIND. again."

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In a barber's shop, in North Shields, there is a bill recommending a certain patent medicine, with the very dubious heading

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PARENTS' DUTY.

CONSIDER ye, who are parents, the importance of your trust; the being which ye have produced, it is your duty to support. Upon you also it depends, whether the children of your bosoms shall be blessings or curses to yourselves; useful or worthless members to the community. Prepare them early by instruction, and season their minds with maxims of truth. Watch the bent of their inclinations, set them right in their youth, and let no evil habit gain strength with their years. So shall they rise like cedars on the mountains, their heads shall be seen above the trees of the forest. Wicked children are a reproach to their parents; but they, who do right, are an honour to their grey hairs. The soil is their own, let it not want cultivation; the seed which you sow, that also will ye reap. Teach them obedience, and they will bless you; teach them modesty, and they will not be ashamed; teach them gratitude, and they will receive benefits; teach them charity, and they will gain love; teach them temperance, and they will have health; teach them prudence, and fortune will attend them; teach them justice, and they will be honoured by the world; teach them sincerity, and their own hearts will not reproach them; teach them diligence, and their wealth will increase; teach them benevolence, and their minds will be exalted; teach them science, and their lives will be useful; teach them religion, and their deaths will be happy.

SPECIMENS OF POETRY.

True is, that whilome that good poet said,

The gentle minde by gentle deeds is knowne :
For a man by nothing is so well bewrayed
As by his manners, in which plaine is showne
Of what degree and what race he is growne.

But though life's valley be a vale of tears,
A brighter scene beyond appears,
Whose glory with a light that never fades,
Shoots between scatter'd rocks and opening shades.

Enjoy the spring of love and youth;
To some good angel leave the rest;
For time will teach you soon the truth,
There are no birds in last year's nest.

When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail.

A WAG speaking of the embarkation of troops, said-"Notwithstanding many of them are leaving blooming wives behind, they go away in transports!"

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