It is certain that quick sensibility is inseparable from a ready understanding: but should not that good understanding call up all its forces, upon such occasions, to master the sudden inclination to anger?

The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself;
Yea all which it inherits shall dissolve,
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a wreck behind.

TO THE RISING SUN.

From the red wave rising bright, &c. Harmonious or discordant?

Though an honourable title may be conveyed to posterity, yet the ennobling qualities of the mind, which are the soul of true greatness, are a sort of incommunicable perfection, and cannot be transferred. If a man could bequeath his virtues by will, and settle his sense and learning upon his heirs, as certainly as he can his lands, a noble descent would then, indeed, be a valuable privilege.

Nobility is to be considered only as an imaginary distinction, unless it be accompanied by those generous virtues, by which alone it ought to be obtained.

Titles of honour conferred on those who have no personal merit, is, at best, but the royal stamp set upon base metal.

Let reason go before every enterprize, and counsel, &c.

L

CHAP. III.

Exercises on sentences in general, with grammatical error for correction.

A man of polished imagination enjoys many and various pleasures, of which the uneducated are incapable. He can converse with a picture, and find an agreeable companion in a statue. He finds secret refreshment in a description, and often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospect of fields and meadows, than another experiences in their possession. It gives him, indeed, a kind of property in every thing he sees, and makes the rudest and most uncultivated parts of nature administer to his pleasure. Thus he beholds this world in a peculiar light, and discovers in it, a multitude of charms, which conceal themselves from the generality of mankind.

There are, indeed, few who know how to be idle and innocent, or have a relish for any pleasures which are perfectly pure and rational. The diversions which they take, are, too often, at the expense of some virtue; and their very first step out of business is into vice or folly.

A man should endeavour, therefore, to enlarge, as much as possible, the sphere of his innocent pleasures; that he may retire into it with safety, and find therein a satisfaction which a wise man need not blush to take.

HUMAN FRAILTY.

Weak and irresolute is man:
The purpose of to-day,
Woven with pains into his plan,

To-morrow rends away.

The bow well bent and smart the spring,
Vice seems already slain;

But passion rudely snaps the string,
And it revives again.

Some foe to his upright intent,
Finds out his weaker part,
Virtue engages his assent,

But pleasure wins his heart.

"Tis here, the folly of the wise
Through all his art we view;
And while his tongue the charge denies,
His conscience owns it true.

Bound on a voyage of awful length,
And dangers little known;

A stranger to superior strength,
Man vainly trusts his own.

But oars, alone, can ne'er prevail,

To reach the distant coast;

The breath of Heaven must swell the sail,

Or all the toil is lost.

During eight progressive centuries from the first foundation of the city of Rome, her history presents a long and splendid succession of triumphs. In the second century of the Christian Era, her empire was established over the most desirable parts of the known world. The valour which had acquired her dominions, enabled her to defend them, and the equitable tenor of her laws, and the cultivation of the arts and sciences, reconciled the provinces to her sway. The earlier ages of Rome are marked by rapidity of conquest; but the wisdom of Augustus, after he had attained the supreme power, first tempered the rage for unbounded sovereignty. He considered Rome as having but little to gain, and much to lose. An unsuccessful enterprize of his generals, in Ethiopia, confirmed him in his pacific intentions, and the defeat of Varus, which impressed his mind with settled melancholy, convinced him of the danger of engaging a race of hardy barbarians, amidst the woods and morasses of Germany. In his testament, he enforced the advice of confining the empire within its natural limits, the Atlantic Ocean on the west; the Rhine and the Danube on the north; the Euphrates on the east; and the Deserts of Arabia and Africa on the south. The dissolute disposition of his immediate successors allowed them not to interrupt the pacific system which Augustus recommended. Immersed in the pleasures of Rome, with effeminate aversion they regarded the painful toils of war, and the rigid discipline of the camps. During the first century of Christianity, the province of Britain, conquered by the arms of Agricola, was the only accession to the

Roman empire. But the promotion of Trajan to the imperial dignity, was attended by more ambitious counsels and more warlike measures. Being a hardy soldier and consummate general, he aspired to rival the fame of Alexander, and despised the moderate maxims of his predecessors.

RURAL SOLITUDE.

Oh, what is the gain of restless care,
And what is ambition's treasure?

And what are the joys which the modish share,
In their haunts of sickly pleasure?

The shade with its silence, oh! is it not sweet,
And to bask in the sun by the fountain,
And the wild flowers' scent at eve to meet,
And to rove o'er the heath and the mountain?

Oh, where is the morning seen to rise,
The violet marked as 'tis springing?
The Zephyr heard at eve as he sighs,

The blackbird loved for his singing?
Oh, there alone can the heart be gay,
The thought be free from sorrow;
And soft the night and sweet the day,
And welcome again the morrow.

There is no one common saying, which has more good sense in it, than what we often hear in the mouths of the vulgar, "that custom is second nature." It is, indeed, able to form man anew, and to give him inclinations and capacities different from those with