common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these registers of existence-whether brass or marble—as a kind of satire upon the departed persons; who had left no other memorial of them, but that they were born, and that they died. saw in Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself with the digging of a grave; and every shovel-full of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull— intermixed with a kind of fresh mouldering earth, that some time or other had a place in the composition of a human body. Upon this, I began to consider with myself what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together, under the pavement of that ancient cathedral ;how men and women, friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the same common mass;-how beauty, strength, and youth; with old age, weakness, and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter! I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds, and gloomy imaginations: but, for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy; and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with objects which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tomb-stone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow: when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men who divided the world with their contests and disputes-I reflect, with sorrow and astonishment, on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind when I read the several dates of the tombs— of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago-I consider the great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together! LESSON LXXIV. The American Flag.-J. R. Drake. WHEN Freedom from her mountain height Majestic monarch of the cloud, Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, To hear the tempest trumpings loud And see the lightning lances driven, When strive the warriors of the storm, And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven, Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given To guard the banner of the free, Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly, And when the cannon-mouthings loud Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall; Flag of the seas! on ocean wave Flag of the free heart's hope and home! Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, LESSON LXXV. To a City Pigeon.-N. P. WILLIS. STOOP to my window, thou beautiful dove! To catch the glance of thy gentle eye. Why dost thou sit on the heated eaves, And forsake the wood with its freshen'd leaves? When the paths of the forest are cool and sweet? This noise of people-this sultry air? Thou alone of the feather'd race Has become a name for trust and love. A holy gift is thine, sweet bird! Thou 'rt named with childhood's earliest word! Are its brightest image of moving things. Angelic rays from thy pinions stream. Come, then, ever, when daylight leaves Lessons of Heaven, sweet bird, in thee! LESSON LXXVI. The First of March.-HORACE SMITH. THE bud is in the bough, and the leaf is in the bud, The perfume and the bloom, that shall decorate the flower, How awful is the thought of the wonders under ground, Go back, thou dove of peace, with the myrtle on thy wing, Say that floods and tempests cease, and the world is ripe for Spring. Thou hast fann'd the sleeping Earth, till her dreams are all of flowers, And the waters look in mirth for their overhanging bowers; The vivifying spell has been felt beneath the wave, Have started from their sleep at the summons of the Spring. LESSON LXXVII. Where is He?-HENRY NEELE. "Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?" Of her whose wants he loved to tend; |