Page images
PDF
EPUB

charming. 6. Listen to its fine long quivering notes. 7. What variety, sweetness, and brilliancy in them! 8. When she begins her song, she seems to study and compose beforehand the melodious notes she wishes to be heard. 9. She begins softly: then the notes swell gradually till they run with the rapidity of a torrent: she goes from serious to gay; from simple notes to the wildest warblings; from the lightest turns and shakes to languishing sighs; and has, throughout the whole, the art to please the ear.

10. This bird may give rise to many useful and edifying reflections; for example, we learn this truth from it, that homeliness of body is sometimes united with very estimable qualities, and does not exclude beauty from the soul. 11. How unjust then are those who, only attaching themselves to the features of the face, and to exterior qualities, praise or blame nothing but what strikes their senses, and despise those who have bodily defects. 12. Let us learn to judge with more equity. 13. Any man, though deprived of the advantage of figure and fortune, who proves himself by his conduct to have the soul of a sage or saint, is by much the more worthy of our esteem. 14. It is the perfection of the soul only that gives true merit to the man, or is worthy our admiration: the rest can only seduce those who do not know the value of wisdom and virtue. 15. Have we not often known persons, neither distinguished by rank, nor exterior qualities, who have done the greatest services to church and state? 16. Crooked and deformed people have often shown more greatness of soul than others possessed of the

most beautiful person and finest form. 17. It is a lesson not to trust to appearances. 18. Those we despise may often be superior to ourselves.

19. When we hear the skilful harmony of the nightingale, does it not naturally lead us to the Creator, from whom she has this talent? 20. What wisdom must there be in the formation of this bird, to make it capable of such sounds! 21. Lungs so delicate as those of the nightingale, the motions of which are so violent, must be easily wounded, if they had not the singular advantage of being fastened to the back-bone by a number of little sinews. 22. The orifice of the windpipe is very large, and that is certainly what most contributes to the variety of those sounds which, in charming the ear, fill the soul with sweet and pious joy. 23. Is it possible not to trace a Divine Wisdom and Providence in this? and will not even the song of the nightingale lead us to glorify the Author of all nature!

CHAP. XIV.

Foreign Plants.

1. Ve"-ge-ta-bles, s. pl. all kinds of plants.` 4. Cul'-ti-vate, v. to improve, to till.

DIBLIOTECA

DERECH

6. In-di"-ge-nous, a. (pro. in did-je-nous) natural to a country. Cul-ture, s. the art of improving.

8. Cen'-tu-ry, s. a period of 100 years.

9. Buck'-wheat, s. it is sometimes called French-wheat, from our receiving it from France. It is excellent food for poultry, &c.

10. O"-ri-gin, s. beginning or first existence.

11. Cres'-ses, s. pl. a herb used in sallads.

16. Len'-til, s. a plant sometimes called vetches.

21. Con-sti-tu-tion, s. law; the frame of body or mind.

Trans-mi gra' tion, s. is the removal or transition of a whole people from one country to another.

1. ALL our corn and a great number of our vegetables come from foreign countries, and generally from warmer climates than ours; most of them from Italy. 2. Italy got them from Greece, and Greece had them from the East. 3. When America was discovered, a great number of plants and flowers were found there which were till then unknown, and which have since been transplanted into Europe with much success. 4. The English still take a great deal of trouble, at this time, to cultivate the North American plants in their country. 5. Most of the different sorts of corn, of which men and animals make their best food, are grass plants; but though our fields are now covered with them, they are foreign to us. 6. Rye and wheat are indigenous in Little Tartary and Siberia, where they still grow without culture. 7. As for barley and oats, we are ignorant, indeed, from whence they come, but it is certain they are not indigenous in our climate, or it would not be necessary to cultivate them. 8. Rice is the produce of Ethiopia. Since the beginning of the last century it has been cultivated also in America; and they now send us from thence, every year, vessels entirely laden with those useful seeds. 9. The buck-wheat comes originally from Asia: the Crusades made it known in Italy, from whence it came into Germany. 10. Most of our herbage and vegetables also have a foreign origin. 11. Borage comes from Syria, cresses from Crete, cauliflower from Cyprus, and asparagus from Asia. 12. We are indebted to Italy for the chervil. 13. Aneth comes from Portugal and

Spain; fennel from the Canary Islands; anise and parsley from Egypt. 14. Garlic is the produce of the East. 15. Shalots come from Siberia, and horse-radish from China. 16. We owe the kidney beans to the East-Indies, the gourds to Astracan, the lentils to France, the potatoes to Brazil. 17. The Spaniards found tobacco at Tobago, a province of Jucatan, in America. 18. The ornaments of our gardens, the most beautiful flowers, are also foreign productions. 19. Jasmine comes from the East-Indies, the elder-tree from Persia, the tulip from Cappadocia, the daffodil from Italy, the lily from Syria, the tuberose from Java, and Ceylon; the carnation and pink, from Italy, the aster from China, &c.

20. With what goodness does God thus provide for our happiness and enjoyment, by making even the most remote countries contribute towards it! 21. But let us, at the same time, learn the constitution of the globe we inhabit. 22. There is a universal transmigration over all the earth: men, animals, and vegetables, transplant themselves, and go from one region to another, and this transmigration will only end with our globe. STURM.

CHAP. XV.

The Egyptian Astronomer.

A-stro"-no-mer, s. one that studies the motions of the heavenly bodies.

2. Man'dates, s. pl. commands, orders.

Tro"-pic, s. (in astronomy), a lesser circle of the earth, distant twenty-three and a half degrees from the equator; there are two

tropics, one called the tropic of Cancer, and the other the tropic of Capricorn.

3. In-un-da'-ti-on, s. an overflow of water, a flood.

Nile, s a great river in Egypt, which generally overflows the country once a year.

4. Mi"-ti-ga-ted, pret. lessened, cooled.

Dog-star, s. Sirius, a star that gives name to the dog-days.

E qui-noc'-ti-al, a. pertaining to the equinox, when days and nights are equal all over the world.

5. I-de-al, a. mental, formed in the mind, imaginary.

Ad-min'-is-ter, v. to give, supply.

6. Dis-cor'-dant, a. inconsistent, contrary.

Re-gi-on, s. any tract or space either of the heaven or earth.
Cli'-mate, s. much the same as region, but confined to the earth.

7. Pes-ti"-fer-ous, a. destructive.

9. Ax'-is, s. (in astronomy,) an imaginary line that passes through the earth from pole to pole.

E-clip-tic, s. (in astronomy), a great circle; it is called the sun's orbit or path.

10. So-h"-cit-ed, pret. entreated, asked.

11. Om-ni"-po-tent, a. all-powerful, having unlimited power.

1. AN Egyptian Astronomer, who had spent forty years in unwearied attention to the motions and appearances of heavenly bodies, conceived that he was endowed with the power of regulating weather, and varying the different seasons according to his pleasures. 2. The sun, he thought, obeyed his mandates, and passed from tropic to tropic, in his annual course, by his direction. 3. The clouds burst at his call on the southern mountains; and inundations of the Nile, which fertilized the field of the husbandmen, were governed by his will. 4. He mitigated the scorching rage of the dog-star; restrained the fury of the equinoctial tempests; and dispensed rain, snow, and sunshine to the numerous nations of the earth. 5. Such power, though ideal, was too extensive for the feebleness of mortal man, and the astronomer sunk under the burdens of an office

« EelmineJätka »