Che Philosopher's Scales. JANE TAYLOR. IN days of yore, as Gothic fable tells, And wandering thro' the depths of mental night, In vain chimeras and unknown results In those grey times there lived a reverend Sage, Such were the sounds that broke the silence there. He formed the contrivance we now shall explain; 214 THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES. At last that he brought his invention to bear. And at last he produced the Philosopher's Scales! What were they, you ask—you shall presently see- From mountains or planets to atoms of sense- The first thing he weighed was the head of Voltaire, One time he put in Alexander the Great, A long row of Almshouses, amply endowed By those mites the poor widow dropped into the chest- And down, down the farthing's worth came with a bounce! THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES. Again he performed an experiment rare A Monk, with austerities bleeding and bare, The heart of our Howard, now partly decayed 215 When he found with surprise that the whole of his brother Weighed less, by some pounds, than this bit of the other? By further experiments, (no matter how,) He found that ten Chariots weighed less than one Plough; When a Bee chanced to light on the opposite scale. Last of all, the whole world was bowled in at the grate, MORAL. Dear reader, if e'er self-deception prevails, 216 STAND AS AN ANVIL, WHEN IT IS BEATEN UPON. But if they are lost in the ruins around, Then bring those good actions which pride over-rates, "Stand as an Anvil, when it is beaten upon." Of stalwart men falls fierce and fast: Whose brawny arms embrace the blast. "Stand like an anvil," when the sparks Where malice proves its want of power. "Stand like an anvil," when the bar And conscious innocence, its rest. "Stand like an anvil," when the sound Of the great heart that cannot fear. "Stand like an anvil," noise and heat Are born of earth and die with time. G. W. DOANE. Of the Open Sky. RUSKIN. It is a strange thing how little in general, people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him and teaching him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the part in which we least attend to her. There are not many of her other works in which some more material or essential purpose than the mere pleasing of man is not answered by every part of their organization: but every essential purpose of the sky might, so far as we know, be answered, if once in three days, or thereabouts, a great ugly black rain-cloud were brought up over the blue, and every thing well watered, and so all left blue again till next time, with perhaps a film of morning and evening mist for dew. And instead of this, there is not a moment of any day of our lives, when nature is not producing scene after scene, picture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon such exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is quite certain it is all done for us, and intended for our perpetual pleasure. And every man, wherever placed, however, far from other sources of interest or of beauty, has this doing for him constantly. The noblest scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few; it is not intended that man should live always in the midst of them, he injures them by his presence, he ceases to feel them if he be always with them; but the sky is for all; bright as it is, it is not "too bright and good, for human nature's daily food;" it is fitted in all its functions for the perpetual comfort and exalting of the heart, for the soothing and purifying it from its dross and dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes awful, never the same for two moments together: almost human in its passions, almost spiritual 20 10 217 |