the knowledge of twenty-eight languages, and whose attainments in all that ennobles man were such, that it was pronounced a happiness to his race that he was born, persevered in a regular allotment of his time to particular occupations, and a scrupulous adherence to the distribution which he had established. Thus his great designs went on without confusion, and so convinced was he of the excellence of daily system, and so humble in the estimation of his native endowments, that to the inquiry how his wonderful attainments had been made, he was accustomed to reply "Only by industry and regular application."

SIGOURNEY.

BOADICEA,

[WILLIAM COWPER was the son of a clergyman of good family. He was born at Berkhamstead, Herefordshire, in 1731, and died in 1800. Through the influence of his family he was appointed to the valuable and honourable situation of Clerk to the House of Lords; but his nervousness and timidity were such, that he was obliged to resign it. Although his mind was frequently assailed by gloom, and bent down by despondency, he was not only a very voluminous writer, but a poet of first-rate merit. In addition to translating Homer, he wrote "The Task"-the best of all his poems, "Tirocinium," and a host of smaller pieces.]

When the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman róds,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's góds:

Sage beneath the spreading oak'
Sat the Drúid, hoàry chief;
Every burning word he spoke,
Full of ráge, and full of grief.

Princess! if our aged eyes!

Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,

"Tis because reséntment' ties

All the terrors of our tongues.

Róme' shall pèrish-write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Pérish, hopeless and abhórred,
Deep in rúin as in guilt.

Rome, for empire far renówned,
Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground-
Hark! the Gaùl is at her gates!

Other Romans shall arise,

Heedless of a sòldier's name; Sounds, not árms, shall win the prize,

Harmony the path to fame.

Then the progeny that springs

From the forests of our lánd,

Armed with thunder, clad with wings,

Shall a wider world command.

Regions Cæsar never knéw'
Thy postérity shall swày;
Where his eagles' never flew,
None invincible as thèy.

Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fìre,
Bending as he swept the chords
Of his sweet' but àwful lyre.

Shè, with all a monarch's príde,
Félt them in her bòsom glow;
Rushed to battle, foúght, and died;
Dýing' hùrled them at the foe.

Ruffians, pitiless as proud,

Heaven awards the vengeance due;

Empire is on ús bestowed,

Shame and rúin wait for you.

COWPER.

THE TELESCOPE AND MICROSCOPE.

[REV. DR. THOMAS CHALMERS was born at Anstruther, in Fife, in the year 1780, and died in 1847. He was early sent to the University of St. Andrews, and it was there that his passion for the physical sciences was first developed. On being licensed to preach, he was first minister of Kilmany, and then of the Tron Church of Glasgow. In 1824 he accepted the chair of moral philosophy at St. Andrews; in 1838 he was removed to the chair of theology in the University of Edinburgh; and at the "Disruption" in 1843, he joined the Free Church, and became principal and professor of theology to the seceding body. Chalmers was one of Scotland's greatest and most eloquent divines. In him we see one great by intellectual power, great by sanctified attainments-one on whose like Scotland will not soon look again.]

ABOUT the time of the invention of the télescope, anòther instrument was formed, which laid open a scene no less wonderful, and rewarded the inquisitive spirit of màn. This was the microscope. The one' led me to see a system in every stár; the other leads me to see a world in every àtom. The one taught me that this mighty globe, with the whole burden of its people and its cóuntries, is but a grain of sand on the high field of immensity; the other teaches mel that every grain of sànd may harbour within it the tribes and the families of a busy population. The one told me of the insignificance of the world I tread upon; the other' redèems it from all its insignificance; for it tells mel that in the leaves of every forest, in the flowers of every gàrden, and in the waters of every rívulet, there are worlds teeming with lífe, and as númberless' as are the glories of the fìrmament. The ònel has suggested to mel that beyond and above all that is visible to mán, there may be fields of creátion which sweep immeasurably along, and carry the impress of the Almighty's hand' to the remotest scenes of the úniverse; the other suggests to mel that within and beneath all that minuteness, which the aided eye of man has been able to explóre, there may be another region of invisibles; and that, could we draw aside the mysterious cùrtain' which shrouds it from our senses, we might see a theatre of as many wonders as astronomy has unfolded-a úniverse! within the compass of a point so smáll, as to elude all the powers of the microscope, but where the wonder-working God! finds room for

the exercise of all His attributes, where He can raise another mechanism of worlds, and fill and animate them áll' with the evidence of His glòry.

CHALMERS.

TO THE RAINBOW.

TRIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,

I ask not proud Philosophy

To teach me what thou art.

Still seem as to my childhood's sight,

A midway station given—

For happy spirits to alight

Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Can all that Optics teach, unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamt of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?

When Science from creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!

And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.

When o'er the green undeluged earth
Heaven's covenant thou didst shine,

How came the world's grey fathers forth,
To watch thy sacred sign!

And when its yellow lustre smiled
O'er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child
To bless the bow of God.

Methinks thy jubilee to keep,
The first made anthem rang,
On earth delivered from the deep,
And the first poet sang.

Nor ever shall the Muse's eye,
Unraptured greet thy beam:
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the poet's theme.

The earth to thee its incense yields,
The lark thy welcome sings,
When glittering in the freshened fields,
The snowy mushroom springs.

How glorious is thy girdle cast
O'er mountain, tower, and town!
Or mirrored in the ocean vast
A thousand fathoms down!

As fresh in yon horizon dark,

As young thy beauties seem, As when the eagle from the ark First sported in thy beam.

For faithful to its sacred page,

Heaven still rebuilds thy span,

Nor lets the type grow cold with age

That first spoke peace to man.

CAMPBELL.