The guests, withdrawn, had left the treat,
And down the mice sat, tête-à-tête.
Our courtier walks from dish to dish,
Tastes, for his friend,,of fowl and fish;
Tells all their names, lays down the law;
"Que ça est bon ! Ah, goutez ça !8
That jelly's rich, this malmsey❞ healing;
Pray dip your whiskers and your tail in."
Was ever such a happy swain!

He stuffs and swills, and stuffs again:
"I'm quite ashamed--'tis mighty rude
To eat so much-but all's so good!
I have a thousand thanks to give—
My lord alone knows how to live."

No sooner said, but from the hall
Rush chaplain, butler, dogs and all :
"A rat, a rat! clap to the door!"
The cat comes bouncing on the floor.
Oh for the heart of Homer's mice,10
Or gods to save them in a trice!
And when the mice at last had stole,
With trembling hearts, into a hole,
"An't please your honour," quoth the peasant,
"This same dessert is not so pleasant.
Give me again my hollow tree,

A crust of bread, and liberty."

6 Face to face, lit., head to head.

↑ How delicious this is!

8 Oh! taste this!

10 An allusion to the poem ascribed to Homer-" The Battle of the Mice and Frogs."

9malmsey, a strong sweet wine from a place named Malvasia, in Greece.

48

RESTORATION OF JERUSALEM,

From "The Messiah."

RISE, Crown'd with light, imperial Salem,1 rise!
Exalt thy towery head, and lift thine eyes!
See, a long race thy spacious courts adorn!
See, future sons, and daughters yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend!
See, thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,
And heap'd with products of Sabean3 springs!
For thee Idumè's spicy forests blow,

And seeds of gold in Ophir's" mountains glow.
See, Heav'n its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolv'd, in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze,

O'erflow thy courts; the Light Himself' shall shine
Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine!

1 Salem, Jerusalem.

2 towery, having many towers. 'Sabean, Arabian.

Edom, or Idumæa.

5 Ophir, a great gold country of antiquity, the locality of which is unknown.

H

• Cynthia, the moon. Mount Cyn-
thus, in the island of Delos, was
the fabled birthplace of Apollo
and Artemis, who were wor-
shipped as the Sun and Moon.
7 The Messiah.

The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away,
But fixed his word, his saving power remains,
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns!

A LESSON OF THANKFULNESS.

HEAVEN from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prescrib'd,1 their present state :
From brutes, what men2; from men, what spirits know:2
Or who could suffer being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,

Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
O blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n.
Hope, humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blest.
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor❜d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;

1 prescribed, here, laid down for

present direction. 2 Supply "is hidden."

3 pinions, wings.

4 Supply "will be thine."

expatiates, ranges at large.

His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk" or milky way;7

Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n

Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler Heav'n;
Some safer world in depths of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, nor Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,

He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.

Go, wiser thou; and in thy scale of sense,
Weigh thy opinion against Providence ;
Call imperfection" what thou fanciest such;
Say, "here He gives too little, there too much":
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,10
Yet cry, "If man's unhappy, God's unjust";
If man alone engross11 not Heaven's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there;
Snatch from His hand the balance12 and the rod,1s
Re-judge His justice, be the God of God.

6 solar walk, the wide circle of the

heavens, in which the stars are
suns. Solar, from Lat. Sol, the
Sun.

'milky way, the great nebula or

cloud of stars most prominent in our skies. It was, of old, fabled to be the path of the gods over the heavens. In a bright night the blended light of uncounted stars makes it white, or milky.

8

8 This and the line before allude to
the treatment of the Indians of
the West Indies, Mexico, and
Peru, by the Spaniards, who en-
slaved and worked them to death.
Call that imperfection which, &c.
10 Taste, caprice.

To absorb, or occupy wholly.
12 balance, the scales of Eternal
Justice.

13 the rod, the Sceptre of Omnipo

tence.

JAMES THOMSON. Born, 1700; Died, 1748.

James Thomson, born at Ednam, in Roxburghshire, where his father was parish minister, is one of our most delightful poets of Nature. He is, now, best known by his poems "The Seasons," but "The Castle of Indolence" is a charming composition. Several Tragedies were written by him, and also a poem called "Liberty." He was amiable in disposition, but wanted energy to advance himself in life.

A HYMN ON THE SEASONS.

THESE1 as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love,
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
And every sense, and every heart, is joy.

Then comes Thy glory in the Summer months,
With light and heat refulgent.2 Then, Thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year:
And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks;
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter, awful Thou! with clouds and storms
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled.
Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, Thou bidd'st the world adore,
And humblest Nature with Thy northern blast.

1 These seasons.

2 refulgent, lit., flashing back, bright.

3 The keen north wind of winter.