GEORGE III. AND THE DYING GIPSY.

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GEORGE III. AND THE DYING GIPSY.

GEORGE III. once, when hunting early in the season, became separated from his suite. He was returning alone through the forest to Windsor, when he fancied that he heard the cry of human distress. As he rode forward he heard it more distinctly. The curiosity and kindness of the sovereign led him instantly to the spot. It was a little green plot on one side of the forest, where was spread on the grass, under a branching oak, a little pallet, half covered with a kind of tent. Near to the root of the tree he observed a little swarthy girl about eight years of age, on her knees, while her little black eyes ran down with tears. "What is the cause of your weeping?" he asked. "For what do you pray?" The little creature started up from her knees, and pointing to the tent, said, "Oh, sir, my dying mother!" "What?" said his Majesty, dismounting, "what, my child tell me all about it."

The little creature now led the king to the tent, where lay a middle-aged woman in the last stages of a decline, and in the last moments of life. The little girl wept aloud, and stooping down, wiped the death-sweat from her mother's face. The king, much affected, asked the child her name, her family, and how long her mother had been ill. Just at that moment another gipsy girl, much older, came to the spot. She had been to Windsor, and brought some medicine for her dying mother. Observing a stranger, she curtsied modestly, and hastening to her mother, knelt by her, kissed her, and burst into tears. "What, child," said his Majesty, “can be done for you?" "Oh, sir," she replied, "my dying mother wanted a religious person to teach her, and to pray with her before she died. I ran all the way before it was light this morning to Windsor, and asked for a minister, but could get no one to come

with me." The dying woman seemed sensible of what her daughter was saying, and her countenance was much agitated. "God has sent me to instruct and comfort your mother," said the king. He then sat down by the side of the pallet, and taking the hand of the dying gipsy, discoursed on the demerit of sin, and the nature of redemption. Saviour.

He then pointed her to Christ, the all-sufficient While doing this, the poor creature seemed to gather

consolation and hope; her eyes sparkled with brightness, and her countenance became animated. She looked up-she smiled; but it was the last smile; it was the glimmering of expiring nature. As the expression of peace, however, remained strong in her countenance, it was not till some time had elapsed, that they perceived the struggling spirit had left mortality.

THE GOSSAMER.

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It was at this moment that some of his Majesty's attendants, who had missed him at the chase, and had been riding through the forest in search of him, rode up, and found him comforting the afflicted gipsies. It was an affecting sight, and worthy of everlasting record in the annals of kings.

He now rose up, put some gold into the hands of the weeping girls, promised them his protection, and bade them look to Heaven. He then wiped the tears from his eyes, and mounted his horse. His attendants, greatly affected, stood in silent admiration. Lord L- was going to speak, but his Majesty turned to the gipsies, and pointing to the breathless corpse, and to the weeping girls, said, with strong emotion, “Who, my lord, who, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto these?"

THE GOSSAMER.

O'ER faded heath-flowers spun, or thorny furze,
The filmy gossamer is lightly spread;
Waving in every sighing air that stirs,

As fairy fingers had entwined the thread.
A thousand trembling orbs of lucid dew
Spangle the texture of the fairy loom,

As if soft sylphs, lamenting as they flew,

Had wept departed Summer's transient bloom.

But the wind rises, and the turf receives

The glittering web: so evanescent fade

Bright views that youth with sanguine heart believes ;
So vanish schemes of bliss by fancy made;
Which, fragile as the fleeting dews of morn,
Leave but the withered heath and barren thorn.

LESSONS FROM THE GORSE.

"See! Nature, with Midas-like touch,
Here turns a whole common to gold."

ountain gorses, ever-golden,

Cankered not the whole year long!
Do ye teach us to be strong,
Howsoever pricked and holden

Like your thorny blooms, and so
Trodden on by rain and snow,

Up the hill side of this life, as bleak as where ye grow?

Mountain blossoms, shining blossoms,
Do ye teach us to be glad
When no Summer can be had,
Blooming in our inward bosoms?
Ye, whom God preserveth still,
Set as lights upon a hill,

Tokens to the wintry earth that Beauty liveth still!

Mountain gorses, do ye teach us

From that academic chair,

Canopied with azure air,

That the wisest word man reaches

Is the humblest he can speak?

Ye, who live on mountain peak, Yet live low along the ground, beside the grasses meek!

THE SUMMER SHOWER.

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THE SUMMER SHOWER.

"Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it . . . Thou makest it soft with showers."-Psalm lxv. 9, 10.

BEFORE the stout harvesters falleth the grain,

As when the strong storm-wind is reaping the plain;

And loiters the boy in the briery lane;

But yonder aslant comes the silvery rain,

Like a long line of spears brightly burnished and tall.

Adown the white highway, like cavalry fleet,

It dashes the dust with its numberless feet;
Like a murmurless school, in their leafy retreat,

The wild birds sit listening, the drops round them beat;
And the boy crouches close to the blackberry wall.

The swallows alone take the storm on their wing,
And, taunting the tree-sheltered labourers, sing;
Like pebbles the rain breaks the face of the spring,
While a bubble darts up from each widening ring;
And the boy in dismay hears the loud shower fall.

But soon are the harvesters tossing the sheaves;
The robin darts out from his bower of leaves;
The wren peereth forth from the moss-covered eaves ;
And the rain-spattered urchin now gladly perceives
That the beautiful bow bendeth over them all.