But some night-wandering man, whose heart was pierced With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,

Or slow distemper, or neglected love,

(And so, poor wretch! filled all things with himself,

And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale

Of his own sorrow)-he, and such as he,

First named these notes a melancholy strain.
And many a poet echoes the conceit;

Poet who hath been building up the rhyme

When he had better far have stretched his limbs
Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell,

By sun or moonlight, to the influxes

Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements
Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song
And of his fame forgetful! so his fame
Should share in Nature's immortality,
A venerable thing! and so his song
Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself
Be loved like Nature! But 'twill not be so;
And youths and maidens most poetical,
Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring
In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still
Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs
O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.

My Friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learnt
A different lore: we may not thus profane
Nature's sweet voices, always full of love
And joyance! 'Tis the merry Nightingale
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates
With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
Of all its music!

And I know a grove
Of large extent, hard by a castle huge,
Which the great lord inhabits not; and so
This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
Thin grass, and king-cups, grow within the paths.
But never elsewhere in one place I knew
So many nightingales; and far and near,
In wood and thicket, over the wide grove,

They answer and provoke each other's songs
With skirmish and capricious passagings,
And murmurs musical and swift jug-jug,

And one low piping sound more sweet than all-
Stirring the air with such a harmony,

That should you close your eyes, you might almost
Forget it was not day! On moon-lit bushes,
Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed,

You may perchance behold them on the twigs,
Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full,
Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade
Lights up her love-torch.

A most gentle Maid,
Who dwelleth in her hospitable home
Hard by the castle, and at latest eve

(Even like a lady vowed and dedicate

To something more than Nature in the grove)

Glides through the pathways; she knows all their notes,
That gentle Maid! and oft a moment's space,
What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,
Hath heard a pause of silence, till the moon,
Emerging, hath awakened earth and sky
With one sensation, and these wakeful birds
Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,
As if some sudden gale had swept at once
A hundred airy harps! And she hath watched
Many a nightingale perched giddily

On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze,

And to that motion tune his wanton song

Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head.”

COLERIDGE.

But the chorus of birds, the full harmony of the grove, is the great charm of a sunny springtime. Ol Drayton has made his rough verse musical with the ever-varied songs of the leafy Arden:-

"When Phoebus lifts his head out of the winter's wave,
No sooner does the earth her flowery bosom brave,
At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring,
But 'hunt's-up' to the morn the feath'red sylvans sing:
And in the lower grove, as on the rising knole,
Upon the highest spray of every mounting pole
Those quiristers are perch'd, with many a speckled breast.
Then from her burnish'd gate the goodly glitt'ring East
Gilds every lofty top, which late the humorous night
Bespangled had with pearl to please the morning's sight:
On which the mirthful quires, with their clear open throats,
Unto the joyful morn so strain their warbling notes,
That hills and valleys ring, and even the echoing air
Seems all composed of sounds, about them every where.
The throstle, with shrill sharps; as purposely he song
Tawake the lustless sun; or chiding that so long
He was in coming forth, that should the thickets thrill
The woosel near at hand, that hath a golden bill;
As nature him had markt of purpose to let see
That from all other birds his tunes should different be,

For, with their vocal sounds, they sing to pleasant May:
Upon his dulcet pipe the merle doth only play;
When, in the lower brake, the nightingale hard by
In such lamenting strains the joyful hours doth ply,
As though the other birds she to her tunes would draw;
And, but that nature (by her all-constraining law)
Each bird to her own kind this season doth invite,
They else, alone to hear that charmer of the night

(The more to use their ears) their voices sure would spare,
That moduleth her tunes so admirably rare,

As man to set in parts at first had learn'd of her.

To Philomel, the next the linnet we prefer;

And by that warbling bird the wood-lark place we then,
The reed-sparrow, the nope, the red-breast, and the wren.
The yellow-pate; which, though she hurt the blooming tree,
Yet scarce hath any bird a finer pipe than she.
And of these chaunting fowls, the goldfinch not behind,
That hath so many sorts descending from her kind.

The tydy from her notes as delicate as they,
The laughing hecco, then the counterfeiting jay;
The softer with the shrill (some hid among the leaves,
Some in the taller trees, some in the lower greaves)
Thus sing away the morn, until the mounting sun
Through thick exhaled fogs his golden head hath run,
And through the twisted tops of our close covert creeps
To kiss the gentle shade, this while that sweetly sleeps."

DRAYTON.

Wordsworth holds, and with a deep philosophy, that the language of birds is the expression of pleasure. Let those whose hearts are attuned to peace, in listening to this language, not forget the poet's moral:

:

"I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played;
Their thoughts I cannot measure:-
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
From Heaven if this belief be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?"
WORDSWORTH.

We may fitly conclude this selection with Shelley's exquisite ode to the Sky Lark:'

"Hail to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert,

That from heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated

art.

Higher still and higher,

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring

ever singest.

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven A thing wherein we feel there is some

With music sweet as love, which overflows Or how could thy notes flow in such a

[We give a paper by the celebrated Dr. Franklin, which has been perhaps as much read as any thing ever written, but which may be new to many of our younger readers. It has been often printed under the name of 'The Way to Wealth; but we scarcely know at the present time where to find it, except in the large collection of the author's works. 'Poor Richard' was the title of an almanac which Franklin published for twenty-five years, when he was a printer in America, and the sayings in the following paper are extracted from those Almanacs. His subsequent career as a man of science and a statesman exhibits what may be accomplished by unwearied industry and a vigilant exercise of the reasoning powers. The great characteristics of Franklin were perseverance, temperance, and common sense. There have been many higher minds, but few more formed for practical utility. Benjamin Franklin was born at Boston, in 1706; he died in 1790.]

Courteous Reader,

I have heard, that nothing gives an author so great pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by others. Judge, then, how much I must have been gratified by an incident I am going to relate to you. I stopped my horse, lately, where a great number of people were collected at an auction of merchants' goods. The hour of the sale not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the times; and one of the company called to a plain, clean, old man, with white locks, “Pray, father Abraham, what think you of the times? Will not those heavy taxes quite ruin the country? how shall we be ever able to pay them? What would you advise us to?" Father Abraham stood up, and replied, "If you would have my advice, I will give it you in short; 'for a word to the wise is enough,' as poor Richard says." They joined in desiring him to speak his mind, and, gathering round him, he proceeded as follows:

"Friends," says he "the taxes are indeed very heavy; and, if those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly; and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by allowing an abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and something may be done for us; 'God helps them that help themselves,' as poor Richard says.

"I. It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their time to be employed in its service; but idleness taxes many of us much more: sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely shortens life. 'Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears, while the used key is always bright,' as poor Richard says. But dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of,' as poor Richard says. How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep; forgetting that 'The sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that there will be sleeping enough in the grave,' as Poor Richard says.

"If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be,' as Poor