Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

Resolution.-Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

Frugality. Make no expense, but do good to others as yourself; that is, waste nothing.

Industry-Lose no time, be always employed in something useful; but avoid all unnecessary actions.

Sincerity.-Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

Justice.-Wrong no one by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

Moderation.-Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries. Cleanliness.-Suffer no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or

habitation.

Tranquillity.-Be not disturbed about trifles, or at accidents. common or unavoidable.

Humility.-Imitate Jesus Christ.

EMPLOYMENT OF TIME.

The celebrated Lord Coke wrote the subjoined couplet, which he religiously observed in the distribution of time :Six hours to sleep,-to law's grave studies six,Four spent in prayer,-the rest to nature fix.

But Sir William Jones, a wiser economist of the fleeting hours of life, amended the sentence in the following lines :Seven hours to law,-to soothing slumber seven,Ten to the world allot,-and all to heaven.

LIVING LIFE OVER AGAIN.

Good Sir Thomas Browne says, Though I think no man can live well once but he that could live twice, yet for my own part I would not live over my hours past, nor begin again the thread of my days; not upon Cicero's ground,-because I have lived them well, but for fear I should live them worse. I find my growing judgment daily instruct me how to be better, but my untamed affections and confirmed vitiosity make me daily do worse. I find in my confirmed age the same sins I discovered in my youth; I committed many then, because I was a child,

and because I commit them still, I am yet an infant. Therefore I perceive a man may be twice a child before the days of dotage, and stand in need of Æson's bath before threescore.

RHYMING DEFINITIONS.

FAME.-A meteor dazzling with its distant glare.
WEALTH.-A source of trouble and consuming care.
PLEASURE.-A gleam of sunshine, passing soon away.
LOVE.-A morning stream whose memory gilds the day.
FAITH.-An anchor dropped beyond the vale of death.
HOPE.-A lone star beaming o'er the barren heath.
CHARITY. A stream meandering from the fount of love.
BIBLE. A guide to realms of endless joy above.
RELIGION. A key which opens wide the gates of Heaven.
DEATH. A knife by which the ties of earth are riven.
EARTH. A desert through which pilgrims wend their way.
GRAVE. A home of rest when ends life's weary day.
RESURRECTION.-A sudden waking from a quiet dream.
HEAVEN.-A land of joy, of light and love supreme.

EARTH.

What is earth, sexton ?-A place to dig graves
What is earth, rich man?-A place to work slaves.
What is earth, greybeard?-A place to grow old.
What is earth, miser?-A place to dig gold.
What is earth, school-boy?-A place for my play.
What is earth, maiden ?-A place to be gay.
What is earth, seamstress?-A place where I weep.
What is earth, sluggard?-A good place to sleep.
What is earth, soldier?-A place for a battle.
What is earth, herdsman?—A place to raise cattle.
What is earth, widow?-A place of true sorrow.
What is earth, tradesman ?-I'll tell you to-morrow.
What is earth, sick man?-'Tis nothing to me.
What is earth, sailor?-My home is the sea.
What is earth, statesman?-A place to win fame.
What is earth, author?-I'll write there my name.
What is earth, monarch?-For my realm it is given.
What is earth, Christian ?-The gateway of heaven!

RHYMING CHARTER.

The following grant of William the Conqueror may be found in Stowe's Chronicle and in Blount's Ancient Tenures :

:

HOPTON, IN THE COUNTY OF SALOp.

To the Heyrs Male of the Hopton, lawfully begotten:
From me and from myne, to thee and to thyne,
While the water runs, and the sun doth shine,
For lack of heyrs to the king againe,

I, William, king, the third year of my reign,
Give to the Norman hunter,

To me that art both line and deare,

The Hop and the Hoptoune,

And all the bounds up and downe.

Under the earth to hell,

Above the earth to heaven,
From me and from myne
To thee and to thyne;
As good and as faire

As ever they myne were.

To witness that this is sooth,†

I bite the wite wax with my tooth,
Before Jugg, Marode, and Margery
And my third son Henery,

For one bow, and one broad arrow,

When I come to hunt upon Yarrow.

NICE QUESTIONS FOR LAWYERS.

A gentleman, who died in Paris, left a legacy of $6000 to his niece in Dubuque, Iowa, who it appears also died about the same hour of the same day. The question which died first turns upon the relation of solar to true time, and must be decided by the difference of longitude. If the niece died at four o'clock A.M., and her uncle at ten o'clock A.M., the instants of their death would have been identical. Assuming that to be the hour of the testator's death, if the niece died at any hour between four and ten, although the legacy would apparently revert to his estate, it would really vest in her and her heirs, since by solar time she would have actually survived her uncle.

Another case where great importance depended upon the precise time of death was that of the late Earl Fitzhardinge, who died "about midnight," between October 10th and 11th. His

[blocks in formation]

rents, amounting to £40,000 a year, were payable on Old Ladyday and Old Michaelmas-day. The latter fell this year (1857) on Sunday, October 11, and the day began at midnight: so that if he died before twelve, the rents belonged to the parties taking the estate; but if after, they belonged to and formed part of his personal estate. The difference of one minute might therefore involve the question as to the title of £20,000.

THE BONE NOT DESCRIBED BY MODERN ANATOMISTS.
God formed them from the dust, and He once more
Will give them strength and beauty as before,
Though strewn as widely as the desert air,

As winds can waft them, or the waters bear.

The Emperor Adrian-the skeptic whose epigrammatic address to his soul in prospect of death,

Animula, vagula, blandula,* &c.,

is well known-asked Rabbi Joshua Ben Hananiah, in the course of an interview following the successful siege of Bitter, "How doth a man revive again in the world to come?" He answered and said, "From Luz, in the back-bone." Saith he to him, "Demonstrate this to me." Then he took Luz, a little bone out of the back-bone, and put it in water, and it was not steeped; he put it into the fire, and it was not burned; he brought it to the mill, and that could not grind it; he laid it on the anvil and knocked it with a hammer, but the anvil was cleft, and the hammer broken.

The name Luz is probably derived from Genesis xlviii. 3, where, however, it refers to a place, not to a bone. The bone alluded to is the sacrum, the terminal wedge of the vertebral column. Butler, in his Hudibras, erroneously traces to the

Byron's Translation.

Ah! gentle, fleeting, wavering sprite,
Friend and associate of this clay!

To what unknown region borne,
Wilt thou not wing thy distant flight?
No more with wonted, humor gay,

But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn.

Rabbinic belief the modern name os sacrum, its origin really being due to the custom of placing it upon the altar in ancient sacrifices.

The learned Rabbins of the Jews

Write, there's a bone, which they call Luz
I' th' rump of man, of such a virtue
No force in nature can do hurt to;
And therefore at the last great day
All th' other members shall, they say,
Spring out of this, as from a seed
All sorts of vegetals proceed;

From whence the learned sons of art

Os sacrum justly style that part.-Hudibras.

DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED PERSONS.
There taught us how to live; and-oh, too high

A price for knowledge!-taught us how to die.-TICKELL.
On parent knees, a naked, new-born child,
Weeping thou sat'st, while all around thee smiled;

So live that, sinking in thy last long sleep,

Calm thou mayst smile while all around thee weep.*

Napoleon.-Tête d'Armée!

SIR W. JONES: Pers. Trans.

Sir Walter Raleigh.—It matters little how the head lieth. Goethe.-Let the light enter.

Tasso. Into thy hands, O Lord.

Alfieri.-Clasp my hand, my dear friend: I die.

Martin Luther.-Father in Heaven, though this body is breaking away from me, and I am departing this life, yet I know that I shall forever be with thee, for no one can pluck me out of thy hand

A German journal proposed that the following lines should be translated into any other language, so that the number of lines and words should not exceed those in the original (twenty words).

Sohn! Du weintest am Tage der Geburt, es lachten die Freunde ;
Tracht, dass am Todestag, wahrend sie weinen, du lachst.

:

"The English response thus complied with the conditions (seventeen words) :When I was born I cried, while others smiled;

Oh, may I dying smile, while others weep.

« ElőzőTovább »