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4.

Sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain', this intellectual being',
Those thoughts that wander through eternity',
To perish rather, swallow'd up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows,
Let this be good, whether our angry foe
Can give it, or ever will? How he can',
Is doubtful'; that he never will', is sure'.

5. Will he', so wise', let loose at once his ire',
Belike through impotence, or unaware,
To give his enemies their wish', and end
Them in his anger', whom his anger saves
To punish endless'? "Wherefore cease' we, then?"
Say they who counsel war': "we are decreed',
Reserved', and destined to eternal woe';
Whatever doing, what can we suffer more',
What can we suffer worse?"

6.

Is this, then, worst',
Thus sitting, thus consulting', thus in arms'?
What! when we fled amain', pursued and struck
With Heaven's afflicting thunder', and besought
The deep to shelter us'? this hell then seem'd
A refuge from those wounds: or when we lay
Chain'd on the burning lake'? that sure was worse'.

7. What if the breath that kindled those grim fires,
Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage',
And plunge us in the flames'? or from above
Should intermitted vengeance arm again
His red right hand to plague us? What if all
Her stores were open'd', and this firmament
Of hell should spout her cataracts of fire',
Impendent horrors', threatening hideous fall
One day upon our heads'? while we, perhaps
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurl'd,
Each on his rock transfix'd, the sport and prey
Of racking whirlwinds, or forever sunk
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapp'd in chains';
There to converse with everlasting groans',
Unrespited, unpitied', unreprieved',
Ages of hopeless end'?

8.

This would be worse'.

War, therefore', open' or concealed', alike

My voice dissuades'; for what can force or guile
With him, or who deceive his mind, whose eye
Views all things at one view? He from heaven's hight
All these our motions vain sees' and derides',-
Not more almighty to resist our might',

Than wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles'.

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9. Shall we then live thus vile', the race of heaven
Thus trampled', thus expell'd', to suffer here
Chains and these torments'? Better these than worse,
By my advice; since fate inevitable

Subdues us, and omnipotent decree,
The Victor's will.

LESSON CII.

THE EPHEMERA: AN EMBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE.

BY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

1. You may remember, my dear friend, that, when we lately spent that happy day in the delightful garden and sweet society of the Moulin Joly, I stopped a little in one of our walks, and stayed some time behind the company. We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations, we are told, were bred and expired within the day. I happened to see a living company of them on

a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in conversation.

2. You know I understand all the inferior animal tongues. My too great application to the study of them is the best excuse I can give for the little progress I have made in your charming language. I listened through curiosity to the discourse of these little creatures; but as they, in their natural vivacity, spoke three or four together, I could make but little of their conversation. I found, however, by some broken expressions that I heard now and then, they were disputing warmly on the merit of two foreign musicians, one a cousin, the other a mosquito; in which dispute they spent their time, seemingly as regardless of the shortness of life as if they had been sure of living a month.

3. "Happy people!" thought I; "you are certainly under a wise, just, and mild government, since you have no public grievances to complain of, nor any subject of contention but the per

fections and imperfections of foreign music!" I turned my head from them to an old gray-headed one, who was alone on another leaf, and talking to himself. Being amused with his soliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it will likewise amuse her to whom I am so much indebted for the most pleasing of all amusements, her delicious company and heavenly harmony.

4. "It was," said he, "the opinion of learned philosophers of our race, who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world, the Moulin Joly, could not itself subsist more than eighteen hours; and I think there was some foundation for that opinion, since, by the apparent motion of the great luminary that gives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably toward the ocean at the end of our earth, it must then finish its course, be extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave the world in cold and darkness, necessarily producing universal death and destruction. I have lived seven of those hours,- —a great age, being no less than four hundred and twenty minutes of time. How very few of us continue so long!

5. "I have seen generations born, flourish, and expire. My present friends are the children and grandchildren of the friends of my youth, who are now, alas! no more. And I must soon follow them; for, by the course of nature, though still in health, I cannot expect to live above seven or eight minutes longer. What now avails all my toil and labor in amassing honey-dew on this leaf, which I cannot live to enjoy? What the political struggles I have been engaged in, for the good of my compatriot inhabitants of this bush, or my philosophical studies for the benefit of our race in general? for, in politics, what can laws do without morals?

6. "Our present race of ephemera will in a course of minutes become corrupt, like those of other and older bushes, and consequently as wretched. And in philosophy how small our progress! Alas! art is long, and life is short! My friends would comfort me with the idea of a name, they say, I shall leave behind me; and they tell me I have lived long enough to nature and to glory. But what will fame be to an ephemera who no longer exists? And what will become of all history in the eighteenth hour, when the world itself, even the whole Moulin Joly, shall come to its end, and be buried in universal ruin ?"

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O PHI U CHUS, (o fe yu’kus,) a constellation in the Northern hemisphere.

1.

THE other shape',

If shape it might be call'd', that shape had none',
Distinguishable in member', joint', or limb',

Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd',
For each seemed either': black it stood as night',
Fierce as ten furies', terrible as hell',

And shook a dreadful dart'; what seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand'; and from his seat
The monster moving onward came as fast',
With horrid strides: hell trembled as he strode'.
The undaunted fiend', what this might be', admired',
Admired', not feared'; God and his Son except,
Created thing naught valued he', nor shunn'd';
And with disdainful look thus first began:-

:

2. (pf) "Whence and what art thou', execrable shape'! That darest, though grim and terrible, advance Thy miscreated front athwart my way

S.

To yonder gates? Through them I mean to pass',
That be assured', without leave ask'd of thee'.
Retire', or taste thy folly'; and learn by proof',
Hell-born', not to contend with spirits of heaven!"

To whom the goblin, full of wrath, replied:(p*f*) "Art thou that traitor angel', art thou he',

Who first broke peace in heaven', and faith', till then
Unbroken', and in proud rebellious arms

Drew after him the third part of Heaven's sons
Conjured against the Highest'; for which both thou
And they', outcast from God', are here condemn'd
To waste eternal days in woe and pain'?

4 (pf) "And reckonest thou thyself with spirits of heaven',
Hell-doom'd', and breathest defiance here and scorn,
Where I reign king,' and, to enrage thee more.
Thy king and lord'? Back to thy punishment',

False fugitive', and to thy speed add wings';
Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue

Thy lingering', or with one stroke of this dart
Strange horror seize thee', and pangs unfelt before."

5. (p3fs) So spake the grisly terror'; and in shape',
So speaking, and so threatening, grew tenfold
More dreadful and deform': on the other side,
Incensed with indignation, Satan stood,
Unterrified, and like a comet burn'd,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.

6.

Each at the head

Levell'd his deadly aim; their fatal hands
No second stroke intend: and such a frown
Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds,
With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on
Over the Caspian, then stand front to front,
Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow
To join their dark encounter in mid-air.

. So frown'd the mighty combatants, that hell
Grew darker at their frown; so match'd they stood;
For never but once more was either like

To meet so great a foe: and now great deeds
Had been achieved, whereof all hell had rung,
Had not the snaky sorceress that sat

Fast by hell-gate, and kept the fatal key,
Risen, and with hideous outcry rush'd between.

LESSON CIV.

WASHINGTON.

BY C. PHILLIPS.

1. Ir matters very little what immediate spot may be the birthplace of such a man as Washington. No people can claim, no. country can appropriate him: the boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin.

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