conduct is as judicious as if he were the dullest of human beings, and his imagination as brilliant as if he were irretrievably ruined. But when wit is combined with sense and information; when it is softened by benevolence, and restrained by strong principle; when it is in the hands of a man who can use it and despise it, who can be witty and something much better than witty, who loves honour, justice, decency, good nature, morality, and religion ten thousand times better than wit-wit is then a beautiful and delightful part of our nature. There is no more interesting spectacle than to see the effects of wit upon the different characters of men; than to observe its expanding caution, relaxing dignity, unfreezing coldnessteaching age, and care, and pain to smile-extorting reluctant gleams of pleasure from melancholy, and charming even the pangs of grief. It is pleasant to observe how it penetrates through the coldness and awkwardness of society, gradually bringing men nearer together, and, like the combined force of wine and oil, giving every man a glad heart and shining countenance. Genuine and innocent wit, like this, is surely the flavour of the mind! Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food; but God has given us wit, and flavour, and brightness, and laughter, and perfumes to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to "charm his pained steps over the burning marle."-SYDNEY SMITH. THE SOLITARY REAPER. BEHOLD her, single in the field, No nightingale did ever chant Such thrilling voice was never heard Will no one tell me what she sings? Or is it some more humble lay, Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang WORDSWORTH. Explained. ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. Defend. Succeeded. Convincing. No boy is the happier for bad qualities, though they are so common among young people; many children find delight in tormenting defenceless creatures, and in unnecessarily destroying insects, forgetting the old saying "Destroy them not, for all things ought to live: A father once rebuked his cruel children in the following manner he told them that he had some very heavy charges to bring against them, and that the complainants whom they had injured were all in the next room, and would appear against them. The children were much frightened at this, and begged hard to know what it was they were charged with. Their father told them that one complainant had been pushed by them into a puddle up to his knees; another wounded by a sharp pike; a third knocked down; a fourth stoned; a fifth robbed of all that his house contained; and a sixth frightened almost out of his senses. All the children denied the truth of these accusations, and declared that they had never been guilty of such cruelty in their lives; but the father told them, he could not believe them f that children who were cruel would not scruple to tell fa He then fetched a basket from the next room, and ne table. Uncovering the basket, he took out a poor fly, which one of them had wantonly pushed into a cup of treacle; a cock-chafer, which they had been spinning; a butterfly, which they had knocked down as he was flying over the garden; a frog, whose leg they had broken with a stone, as he hopped about by the side of a pond; and a bird's nest, with the eggs they had taken from it. He then went out, and returned with a dog, to whose tail they had cruelly tied an old tin kettle, which rattled against the ground as he ran, and drove him almost mad. The children were all confounded. Their father explained to them, that if they had committed those acts of cruelty towards their fellow-creatures they would have been severely punished; but that their wickedness was not less clearly shown by being committed against feeble and helpless creatures, which had power neither to defend themselves, nor to punish their tormentors. They cried while their father spoke of the bird's nest, and he succeeded in convincing them of the sin which they had committed; and though the punishment he inflicted was light compared with their cruelty, it impressed on their youthful minds the remembrance of their transgression, and they did not again practise cruelty. The child who is cruel to insects, or animals, is a tormentor of God's creatures, and may well fear His judgments whose tender mercies are over all his works, and without whose permission not a sparrow falleth to the ground. It is better to overcome evil in our youth, than to let it overcome us in our manhood.—' Boy's Week-day Book.' THE SELFISH MAN. WHO should lament for him within whose heart His paternoster, and his decalogue. When yet he was a boy, and should have breathed To give his blood its natural spring and play, He in a close and dusky counting-house, Smoke-dried and seared, and shrivelled up his heart. He took the children by the hand, And two long miles he ledd them thus, While they for bread complaine: Stay here," quoth he, "I'll bring ye bread, When I do come againe." These pretty babes, with hand in hand, And when they sawe the darksome night, Thus wandered these two prettye babes, No burial these prettye babes Till robin red-breast painfully Did cover them with leaves. And now the heavy wrathe of God Upon their uncle fell; Yea, fearful fiends did haunt his house, His barnes were fired, his goods consumed, His cattle dyed within the field, And in the voyage of Portugal And, to conclude, himself was brought He pawned and mortgaged all his land Ere seven years came about; And now at length this wicked act Did by this meanes come out : The fellowe, that did take in hand All you that be executors, Of children that be fatherless, FRANKLIN had been some years absent from his native city,' and was at that period of life when the greatest and most rapid alteration is made in the human appearance. He was sensible that his person had been so much changed that his mother would not know him, unless there were some instinct to point out, at a single glance, the child to its parent. To discover the existence of this instinct by actual experiment, Franklin determined to introduce himself to his mother as a stranger, and to watch narrowly for the moment in which she should discover her son. On the afternoon of a sullen cold day, in the month of January, he knocked at his mother's door, and asked to speak with Mrs. Franklin. He found the old lady knitting before the parlour fire, introduced himself, by observing that he had been informed she entertained travellers, and requested a night's lodging. She eyed him with coldness, and assured him that he had been misinformed that she did not keep a tavern, though to oblige some members of the legislature, she took a number of them into her family during the session; and at that time had four members |