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These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms- but all these charms are fled,

LESSON 96.

264. 1. Render the following Extract into correct Prose, according to Directions No. 241.

2. Give an Analysis with Remarks on the leading topics and arguments, according to No. 242.

3. Observations on the Figures of Speech, Epithets, and instances of Poetical License employed, according to No. 242.

265. THE COUNTRY CLERGYMAN.

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild,
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,

Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power,

By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long-remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,

Sat by his fire, and talked the night away;

Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done,

Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,

And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,

His pity gave ere charity began.

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side;
But in his duty prompt, at every call,

He watch'd and wept, he prayed and felt, for all.
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

LESSON 97.

266. 1. Render the following Extract into correct Prose, according to Directions No. 241.

2. Give an Analysis with Remarks on the leading topics and arguments, according to No. 242.

3. Observations on the Figures of Speech, Epithets, and instances of Poetical License employed, according to No. 242.

267. THE PUBLIC ALEHOUSE CONDEMNED.

Pass where we may, through city or through town,
Village or hamlet of this merry land,

Though lean and beggared, every twentieth pace
Conducts the unguarded nose to such a whiff
Of stale debauch, forth issuing from the styes
That Law has licensed, as makes Temperance reel.
There sit, involved and lost in curling clouds
Of Indian fume, and guzzling deep, the boor,
The lackey, and the groom: the craftsman there

Takes a Lethean leave of all his toil;

Smith, cobbler, joiner, he that plies the shears,
And he that kneads the dough; all loud alike,
All learned, and all drunk! The fiddle screams
Plaintive and piteous, as it wept and wailed
Its wasted tones and harmony unheard.

Fierce the dispute whate'er the theme; while she,
Fell Discord, arbitress of such debate,
Perched on the sign-post, holds with even hand
Her undecisive scales. In this she lays
A weight of ignorance; in that, of pride;
And smiles delighted with the eternal poise.
Dire is the frequent curse, and its twin sound,
The cheek distending oath, not to be praised
As ornamental, musical, polite,

Like those which modern senators employ,
Whose oath is rhetoric, and who swear for fame!
Behold the schools, in which plebeian minds

Once simple, are initiated in arts,

Which some may practise with politer grace,
But none with readier skill! - 'tis here they learn
The road that leads from competence and peace
To indigence and rapine; till at last

Society, grown weary of the load,

Shakes her encumbered lap, and casts them out.

LESSON 98.

268. 1. Render the following Extract into correct Prose, according to Directions No. 241.

2. Give an Analysis with Remarks on the leading topics and arguments, according to No. 242.

3. Observations on the Figures of Speech, Epithets, and instances of Poetical License, according to No. 242.

269. IGNORANCE OF THE FUTURE BENEFICIAL.

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,

Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops his flowery food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven:
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar,
Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy, and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

In Pride, in reasoning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel :

And who but wishes to invert the laws

Of order, sins against th' Eternal Cause.

LESSON 99.

270. 1. Render the following Extract into correct Prose, according to Directions No. 241.

2. Give an Analysis with Remarks on the leading topics and arguments, according to No. 242.

3. Observations on the Figures of Speech, Epithets, and instances of Poetical License, according to No. 242.

271. MAN HAS APPROPRIATE FACULTIES ASSIGNED TO HIM.

What would this man? Now upward will he soar,
And, little less than angel, would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the powers of all?
Nature to these without profusion, kind,
The proper organs, proper powers assigned;
Each seeming want compensated of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:
Is Heaven unkind to man, and man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,

Be pleased with nothing, if not blest with all?
The bliss of man (could Pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

No powers of body or of soul to share,

But what his nature and his state can bear.
Why has not man a microscopic eye?

For this plain reason, man is not a fly.

Say what the use, were finer optics given,

T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the Heaven?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,

To smart and agonize at every pore?

Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

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