It seems a matter pretty generally agreed between all tellers and hearers of stories, that one party shall work by the rule of addition, and the other by that of subtraction. In most narratives where the relator is a party in the scene, I have remarked that the says-I has a decided advantage in dialogue over the says-he. Few people take an underpart in their own fable. CUMBERLAND.

THE WORLD.

I SAW Eternity the other night

Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm as it was bright;

And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
Driv'n by the spheres,

Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world
And all her train were hurl'd.

HENRY VAUGHAN.

Of this fair volume which we World do name,
If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care,
Of Him who it corrects, and did it frame,
We clear might read the art and wisdom rare ;
Find out His power which wildest powers doth tame,

His providence extending everywhere,

His justice which proud rebels doth not spare,
In every page, no period of the same.

But silly we, like foolish children, rest

Well pleased with colour'd vellum, leaves of gold,
Fair dangling ribands, leaving what is best,
On the great writer's sense ne'er taking hold;
Or if by chance we stay our minds on aught,
It is some picture on the margin wrought.

DRUMMOND. Sonnets.

AH! world unknown! how charming is thy view,
Thy pleasures many, and each pleasure new;
Ah! world experienced! what of thee is told?
How few thy pleasures, and those few how old!

CRABBE. Tales-The Borough School.

THE only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.

LOCKE. On Education.

You wonder at it!- This, sir, is the case:
The jest is lost-unless he print his face.

B B

ONCE kick the world, and the world and you live together at a reasonable good understanding.

SWIFT.

THE apparent and the real progress of human affairs are both well illustrated in a waterfall; where the same noisy bubbling eddies continue for months and years, though the water which froths in them changes every moment. But as every drop in its passage tends to loosen and detach some particle of the channel, the stream is working a change all the time in the appearance of the fall, by altering its bed, and so subjecting the river during its descent to a new set of percussions and reverberations. And what, when at last effected, is the consequence of this change? The foam breaks into shapes somewhat different, but the noise, the bubbling, and the eddies are just as violent as before. HARE. Guesses at Truth.

THE HEART.

SURELY if each one saw another's heart,
There would be no commerce,

No sale or bargain pass: all would disperse
And live apart.

G. HERBERT.

WATERFALL.

AND mounts in spray the skies, and thence again
Returns in an unceasing shower, which round,
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,

Is an eternal April, to the ground,

Making it all one emerald:

Horribly beautiful! but on the verge,

From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,

An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge,

Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn
Its steady dyes, while all around is torn

By the distracted waters, bears serene

Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn:
Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene,

Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.

BYRON. Childe Harold, Canto IV.

*

LAW.

LAW's the wisdom of all ages,

And manag'd by the ablest sages;

Who, though their bus'ness at the bar
Be but a kind of civil war,

In which th' engage with fiercer dudgenos
Than e'er the Grecians did and Trojans,
They never manage the contest
T'impair their public interest;
Or by their controversies lessen
The dignity of their profession;
Not like us, Brethren, who divide

Our commonwealth, the cause, and side:
And though w' are all as near of kindred
As th' outward man is to the inward,
We agree in nothing, but to wrangle
About the slightest fingle-fangle;
While lawyers have more sober sense
Than t' argue at their own expense,
But make the best advantages
Of others' quarrels, like the Swiss;
And out of foreign controversies,
By aiding both sides, fill their purses;
But have no int'rest in the cause

For which th' engage, and wage the laws;
Nor further prospect than their pay,
Whether they lose or win the day;
And though they abounded in all ages
With sundry learned clerks and sages,
Though all their business be dispute
Which way they canvass ev'ry suit,
Th' have no disputes about their art,
Nor in Polemicks controvert:

While all professions else are found
With nothing but disputes t' abound;
Divines of all sorts and physicians,
Philosophers, mathematicians:
The Galenist and Paracelsian

Condemn the way each other deals in:

The law can take a purse in open court,
Whilst it condemns a less delinquent for't.

BUTLER. Miscellaneous Thoughts.

Anatomists dissect and mangle,

To cut themselves out work to wrangle:
Astrologers dispute their dreams,
And in their sleep they talk of schemes:
And heralds stickle, who got who
So many hundred years ago.

But lawyers are too wise a nation
T'expose their trade to disputation;
Or make the busy rabble judges
Of all their secret piques and grudges;
In which whoever wins the day,
The whole profession's sure to pay.
Beside, no mountebanks, nor cheats,
Dare undertake to do their feats;
When in all other sciences
They swarm, like insects, and increase.
For what bigot durst ever draw,
By inward light, a deed in law?
Or could hold forth, by revelation,
An answer to a declaration ?

For those that meddle with their tools
Will cut their fingers, if they're fools :
And if you follow their advice,
In bills and answers, and replies,-
They'll write a love-letter in chancery,
Shall bring her upon oath to answer ye,
And soon reduce her to be your wife,
Or make her weary of her life.

Hudibras, Part III., Canto 3.
I OFT have heard him say, how he admir'd
Men of your large profession, that could speak
To every cause, and things mere contraries,
That with most quick agility could turn,
And return, make knots and undo them,
Give fork'd council, take provoking gold
On either hand, and put it up. These men
He knew would thrive with their humility,
And (for his part) he thought he should be blest
To have his heir of such a suffering spirit;
So wise, so grave, of so perplex'd a tongue,
And loud withal, that could not wag, nor scarce
Lie still without a fee.

BEN JONSON. Volpone.

OTHERS believe no voice t' an organ
So sweet as lawyer's in his bar-gown,
Until with subtle cobweb-cheats

Th' are catch'd in knotted law, like nets;
In which when once they are imbrangled,
The more they stir the more they're tangled,
And while their purses can dispute,

There's no end of th' immortal suit.

Petty fogger.

Hudibras, Part II., Canto 3.

WHERE in all governments and times
H' had been both friend and foe to crimes,
And us'd two equal ways of gaining,
By hind'ring justice or maintaining;

*

But was a kind and constant friend
To all that regularly offend;

As residentiary bawds,

And brokers that receive stol'n goods;
That cheat in lawful mysteries;

And
pay church duties, and his fees;
But was implacable, and awkward,
To all that interlop'd and hawker'd,

Ibid., Part III., Canto 3.

YOUR pettyfoggers damn their souls,
To share with knaves in cheating fools.

Ibid., Part II., Canto 2.

CITY.

THE city lies,

And like a mist beneath a hill doth rise,

Whose state and wealth, the business, and the crowd,

Seems at this distance but a darker cloud;

And is, to him who rightly things esteems,

No other in effect than what it seems;

Where, with like haste, through several ways they run, Some to undo, and some to be undone;

While luxury, and wealth, like war and peace,

Are each the other's ruin, and increase;
As rivers lost in seas, some secret vein
Thence reconveys, there to be lost again.

DENHAM. Cooper's Hill.