FRIENDSHIP! mysterious cement of the soul!
Sweetener of life, and solder of society!
I owe thee much. Thou hast deserved of me
Far, far beyond what I can ever pay.

Oft have I proved the labors of thy love,
And the warm efforts of a gentle heart,
Anxious to please.

BLAIR.

What though on Love's altar the flame that is glowing Is brighter? yet Friendship's is steadier far!

One wavers and turns with each breeze that is blowing, And is but a meteor - the other 's a star!

In youth Love's light

Burns warm and bright,

But dies ere the winter of age be past;
While Friendship's flame

Burns ever the same,

And glows but the brighter, the nearer its last!

O, let my friendship in the wreath,

Though but a bud among the flowers, Its sweetest fragrance round thee breathe 'Twill serve to soothe thy weary hours.

MRS. WELBY.

JASMINE.

Jasminum.

LANGUAGE AMIABILITY.

THE blessings of her quiet life

Fell on us like the dew;

And good thoughts, where her footstep pressed,
Like fairy blossoms grew.

Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds

Were in her very look ;

We read her face as one who reads
A true and holy book.

The pleasure of a blessed hymn
To which our hearts could move,

The breathing of an inward psalm,

A canticle of love.

WHITTIER.

And we talked-O, how we talked! her voice, so cadenced

in the talking,

Made another singing — of the soul! a music without

bars

While the leafy sounds of woodlands, humming round where we were walking,

Brought interposition worthy-sweet-as skies about

the stars,

And she spake such good thoughts natural, as if she al

ways thought them.

MISS BARRETT.

JAPONICA.

Japonica Alba.

LANGUAGE EXCELLENCE.

VIEW them near

At home, where all their worth and power is placed ;
And there their hospitable fires burn clear,
And there the lowest farm-house hearth is graced
With manly hearts in piety sincere ;

Faithful in love, in honor stern and chaste,
In friendship warm and true, in danger brave,
Beloved in life, and sainted in the grave.

What, my soul, was thy errand here?
Was it mirth, or ease,

Or heaping up dust from year to year?

66

Nay, none of these!"

Speak, soul, aright, in His holy sight

Whose eye looks still

And steadily on thee through the night:

And yet its glory far exceeds

That base and sensual life which leads

To want and shame.

HALLECK.

WHITTIER.

LONGFELLOW.

JONQUIL.

Narcissus Jonquilla.

LANGUAGE IS MY AFFECTION RETURNED?

O LADY, there be many things
That seem right fair above;
But sure not one among them all
Is half so sweet as love:
Let us not pay our vows alone,

But join two altars into one.

O. W. HOLMES.

And canst thou not accord thy heart

In unison with mine?

Whose language thou alone hast heard
Thou only canst divine.

RUFUS DAWES.

'Twas then the blush suffused her cheek, Which told what words could never speak; The answer's written deeply now

On this warm cheek and glowing brow.

And had he not long read

L. M. DAVIDSON.

The heart's hushed secret, in the soft dark eye
Lighted at his approach, and on the cheek,
Coloring all crimson at his lightest look?

L. E. LANDON.

THE BROKEN HEART.

"I never heard

Of any true affection, but 'twas nipped
With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats

The leaves of the spring's sweetest book, the rose."

Middleton.

Ir is a common practice with those who have outlived the susceptibility of early feeling, or have been brought up in the gay heartlessness of dissipated life, to laugh at all love stories, and to treat the tales of romantic passion as mere fictions of novelists and poets. My observations on human nature have induced me to think otherwise. They have convinced me that however the surface of character may be chilled and frozen by the cares of the world, or cultivated into mere smiles by the arts of society, still there are dormant fires lurking in the depths of the coldest bosom, which, when once enkindled, become impetuous, and are sometimes desolating in their effects. Indeed, I am a true believer in the blind deity, and go to the full extent of his doctrines. Shall I confess it?I believe in broken hearts, and the possibility of dying of disappointed love. I do not, however, consider it a malady often fatal to my own sex; but I firmly believe that it withers down many a lovely woman into an early grave.

Man is the creature of interest and ambition. His nature leads him forth into the struggle and