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MARRIAGE COMPARED WITH SINGLE LIFE.

BY BISHOP TAYLOR.

Marriage is a school and exercise of virtue; and though marriage hath cares, yet the single life hath desires, which are more troublesome, and more dangerous, and often end in sin, while the cares are but instances of duty and exercises of piety; and, therefore, if single life hath more privacy of devotion, yet marriage hath more necessities and more varieties in it-it is an exercise of more graces.

Marriage is the proper scene of piety and patience, of the duties of parents, and the charity of relations; here kindness is spread abroad, and love is united and made firm as a centre. Marriage is the nursery of heaven: The virgin sends prayers to God; but she carries but one soul to Him; but the state of marriage fills up the number of the elect, and hath in it the labour of love, and the delicacies of friendship, the blessings of society, and the union of the hearts and hands. It hath in it less of beauty but more of safety than the single life: it hath more care, but less danger; it is more merry and more sad; it is fuller of sorrows, and fuller of joys; it lies under more burdens, but it is supported by all the strength of love and charity, and those burdens are delightful.

Marriage is the mother of the world, and preserves kingdoms, and fills cities, and churches, and Heaven itself. Celibacy, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in perpetual sweetness; bit sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity; but marriage, like the useful bee, builds a house, and gathers sveetness from every flower, and labours and unites into societies and republics, and sends out armies, and feds the world with delicacies, and oeys their king, and keeps order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes tle interest of mankind, and is that sate of good things to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world.

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I might have gazed within, and felt relief

In mine own innocence, a spotless heart;

But now, I am a sear'd and blighted leaf,

To which no earthly charm can life impart,

Strewn on the earth, yet not by Winter's

power,

But in the Spring-time of life's happiest hour.

While Joy was chanting o'er her many spells,

Throwing her charm around me,
Hope went by ;—

Then rose the tempest which my bosom swells,

And bids this bursting heart throb audibly ;

Kindling through all that heart's remotest cells

The fiercest fires of quenchless agony: While the dark canker'd worm preys deep within,

Deep! deep! and fatally proclaims my sin.

All is not over yet, for time will bring

Another cause for sorrow and for

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Breathing a parent's curse upon my head,

To blast me, e'en in my impurity; And yet he loved me-on his dying bed He bless'd me, in my heedless infancy;

I wept for him, but now I do not weep, Lest it might break his calm, unconscious sleep.

I am, alas! what thou hast made meThou,

Whom once I loved to madness, in the hour

When Nature smiled upon a tranquil brow,

And bless'd me in her plenitude of power;

But why of what I was remind thee

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Then would I hail it, for thou wert to me,

The star of hope, that ruled my destiny.

But I shall die; and then, when I am dead,

My lowly grave no stone shall desig

nate;

The grass shall bloom and wither o'er my head,

At once the type and record of my fate;

Perchance ere spring shall her first mantle spread,

You may lament me, but lament too late;

For then your footsteps will not break my sleep,

And o'er me if you weep, you vainly

weep.

Now fare thee well! a word, and I have done :

If I remind thee of life's happier

day,

When hope came brightly o'er me, when the sun

Shone not on one more innocent, or gay,

All listlessly I feel the day is done; "Tis not to call thee back-no, I would The spell that gave me life and hope is

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THE above engraving represents a part
of the excavated City of Pompeii, as it
appeared in 1822. The view is now
exhibiting in the Panorama, Strand;
and a more interesting subject was
never offered for the gratification of the
scholar, the historian, and the general
traveller. It is painted from drawings
taken on the spot, by Mr. Burford;
and is another proof of the versatile
talents of that pleasing and instructive
artist. The exhibition is certainly a
most delicious treat; and we strongly
recommend our numerous readers not
to lose the opportunity of beholding it.
"Pompeii stands at the foot of Ve-
suvius, which rises with majestic
grandeur in the midst of a plain, called
by the ancients Campania. Its walls
were once washed by the waves, but
the sea has since retired to some dis-
tance. Although evidently of Greek
origin, nothing certain is known of the
earlier history of this city, the founda-
tion of which is attributed to Hercules.
The Oscans, Cumæans, Etruscans, and
Samnites, seem to have been the suc-
cessive possessors of these delightful
plains, where Nature has lavished
under a pure unclouded sky every
luxury that can procure enjoyment to
man, but which too often, unhappily,
enervate his frame and debase his
mind. Pompeii, with many other
cities, underwent various reverses dur-
ing the punic and social wars. It was
besieged by Sylla, and at length yield-
ed to the power of the dictator. After
the time of Augustus it became a colony,
when its history merges in the more
important annals of the Roman empire.
Placed on an isulated elevation,
formed of the lava, and by some
thought the summit of a volcano, on
the borders of a sea celebrated for the
beauty of its shores, at the entrance of a
fertile plain, and watered by a pure
stream, Pompeii offered a position,
strong in a military point of view, and
favourable to commerce: nor was its
situation less enchanting from being
surrounded by villas, which, like so
many gems, adorned the neighbouring
declivities of Vesuvius. The Pom-
peians, in the midst of their tranquil
existence, in the month of February,
A D. 63, were surprised by a terrible
earthquake and eruption, which caused
considerable damage. As soon as the
inhabitants had recovered from their
consternation, they began to clear away
the ruins, and to repair the damage

sustained by the edifices; a fact that is evident from the quantity of parts wanting in many of the buildings, even at this time. The taste, however, seems to have become materially corrupt, and purer details are covered by stuccoes, composed in a barbarous style. After an interval of sixteen years, during which several shocks were experienced, on the night of the 23d of August, A.D. 79, a volume of smoke and ashes issued from the mouth of the crater of Vesuvius, with a tremendous explosion: after rising to a certain height, it extended itself like a lofty pine, and, assuming a variety of colours, fell and covered the surrounding country with desolation and dismay. The inhabitants, terrified by repeated shocks, and breathing an atmosphere no longer fit to support life, sought refuge in flight; but were suffocated by the ashes, oppressed by flames of fire, or overwhelmed by the falling edifices. Some skeletons, which have been found, shew the futility of the attempt in many instances:-here a master seeks for safety, and is arrested at the threshold of his door by a shower of ashes; he carries in his hands keys, coins, and precious ornaments; and is followed by a slave bearing vessels of silver and bronze;-there we discover the skeletons of a groupe of females, one of whom is adorned with gold trinkets, and the impressions of some of the forms remain traced upon the ashes. At length, after four days of impenetrable darkness, light re-appeared; but sombre, as when an eclipse obscures the brilliancy of the sun's rays.

"After a lapse of fifteen centuries, a countryman, as he was turning up the ground, accidentally found a bronze figure. This discovery excited the attention of the learned, and the government immediately appropiated to itself the right of further researches, which, however, it did not commence till the year 1748, about eighty years after the first discovery.

The excavations were prosecuted with little energy, till the arrival of the French, who cleared away the greater part of that which is now open. The return of the king suspended the works for a time, but they were resumed, though with less activity. This is to be regretted, as the progress of excavation is so slow that the present generation will reap, comparatively, few advantages from the discoveries.

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