And play his brilliant parts before my eyes,
When I am hungry for the bread of life?
He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shames
His noble office, and, instead of truth,
Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock!
Therefore, avaunt all attitude, and stare,
And start theatric, practised at the glass!
I seek divine simplicity in him

Who handles things divine; and all besides,

Though learned with labor, and though much admired
By curious eyes and judgments ill-informed,

To me is odious as the nasal twang

Heard at conventicle, where worthy men,
Misled by custom, strain celestial themes
Through the pressed nostril, spectacle-bestrid.

I venerate the man whose heart is warm,

Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life,
Coincident, exhibit lucid proof

That he is honest in the sacred cause;

To such, I render more than mere respect,

Whose actions say that they respect themselves.
But loose in morals, and in manners vain,
In conversation frivolous, in dress
Extreme, at once rapacious and profuse ;
Frequent in park with lady at his side,
Ambling, and prattling scandal as he goes;
But rare at home, and never at his books,
Or with his pen, save when he scrawls a card;
Constant at routs, familiar with a round
Of ladyships-a stranger to the poor;
Ambitious of preferment for its gold;
And well prepared, by ignorance and sloth,
By infidelity and love of world,

To make God's work a sinecure; a slave
To his own pleasures and his patron's pride ;—
From such apostles, Oh, ye mitred heads,
Preserve the Church! and lay not careless hands
On skulls that cannot teach, and will not learn!

COUSIN SALLY DILLIARD.-H. C. JONES.

SCENE-A Court of Justice in North Carolina.

A BEARDLESS disciple of Themis rises, and thus ad dresses the Court: "May it please your worships, and you, gentlemen of the jury, since it has been my fortune

(good or bad, I will not say) to exercise myself in legal disquisitions, it has never befallen me to be obliged to prosecute so direful, marked, and malicious an assaulta more wilful, violent, dangerous battery-and finally, a more diabolical breach of the peace has seldom happened in a civilized country; and I dare say, it has seldom been your duty to pass upon one so shocking to benevolent feelings, as this which took place over at Captain Rice's in this county. But you will hear from the witnesses."

The witnesses being sworn, two or three were examined and deposed: one said that he heard the noise, and did not see the fight; another that he seen the row, but didn't know who struck first; and a third, that he was very drunk, and couldn't say much about the scrimmage.

LAWYER CHOPS. I am sorry, gentlemen, to have occupied your time with the stupidity of the witnesses examined. It arises, gentlemen, altogether from misapprehension on my part. Had I known, as I now do, that I had a witness in attendance who was well acquainted with all the circumstances of the case, and who was able to make himself clearly understood by the Court and jury, I should not so long have trespassed upon your time and patience. Come forward, Mr. Harris, and be sworn.

So forward comes the witness, a fat, shuffy old man, a "leetle" corned, and took his oath with an air.

CHOPS. Harris we wish you to tell about the riot that happened the other day at Captain Rice's; and as a good deal of time has already been wasted in circumlocution, we wish you to be compendious, and at the same time as explicit as possible.

HARRIS. Adzackly (giving the lawyer a knowing wink, and at the same time clearing his throat). Captain Rice, he gin a treat, and cousin Sally Dilliard she came over to our house and axed me if my wife she moutn't go. I told cousin Sally Dilliard that my wife was poorly, being as how she had a touch of rheumatics in the hip, and the big swamp was in the road, and the big swamp was up, for there had been a heap of rain lately; but, howsomever, as it was her, cousin Sally Dilliard, my wife she mout go. Well, cousin Sally Dilliard then axed me if Mose he moutn't go. I told cousin Sally Dilliard that he was the foreman of the crap, and the crap was

smartly in the grass; but, howsomever, as it was her, cousin Sally Dilliard, Mose he mout go

CHOPS. In the name of common sense, Mr. Harris, what do you mean by this rigmarole?

WITNESS. Captain Rice he gin a treat, and cousin Sally Dilliard she came over to our house and axed me if my wife she moutn't go. I told cousin Sally Dilliard

CHOPS. Stop, sir, if you please; we don't want to hear anything about your cousin Sally Dilliard and your wifetell us about the fight at Rice's.

WITNESS. Well, I will, sir, if you will let me.
CHOPS. Well, sir, go on.

WITNESS. Well, sir, Captain Rice he gin a treat, and cousin Sally Dilliard she came over to our house and axed me if my wife she moutn't go—

CHOPS. There it is again. Witness, please to stop. WITNESS. Well, sir, what do you want?

CHOPS. We want to know about the fight, and you must not proceed in this impertinent story. Do you know anything about the matter before the Court?

WITNESS. To be sure I do.

CHOPS. Well go on and tell it, and nothing else. WITNESS. Well, Captain Rice he gin a treatCHOPS. This is intolerable. May it please the Court; I move that this witness be committed for a contempt, he seems to be trifling with this Court.

COURT. Witness you are now before a court of justice, and unless you behave yourself in a more becoming manner, you will be sent to jail; so begin, and tell what you know about the fight at Captain Rice's.

WITNESS. [Alarmed.] Well, gentlemen, Captain Rice he gin a treat, and cousin Sally Dilliard

CHOPS. I hope the witness may be ordered into cus tody.

COURT. Mr. Attorney, the Court is of the opinion that we may save time by letting the witness to go on in his own way. Proceed, Mr. Harris, but stick to the point.

WITNESS. Yes, gentlemen. Well, Captain Rice he gin a treat, and cousin Sally Dilliard she came over to our house and axed me if my wife she moutn't go. I told consin Sally Dilliard that my wife she was poorly, being as how she had the rheumatics in the hips, and the big

swamp was up; but, howsomever, as it was her, cousin Sally Dilliard, my wife she mout go. Well, cousin Sally Dilliard then axed if Mose he moutn't go. I told cousin Sally Dilliard as how Mose-he was the foreman of the crap, and the crap was smartly in the grass-but, howsomever, as it was her, cousin Sally Dilliard, Mose be mout go. So they goes on together, Mose, my wife, and cousin Sally Dilliard, and they come to the big swamp, and it was up, as I was telling you; but being as how there was a log across the big swamp, cousin Sally Dilliard and Mose, like genteel folks, they walked the log; but ray wife, like a blamed fool, waded through.

CHOPS. Heaven and earth, this is too bad; but go on. WITNESS. Well, that's all I know about the fight.

NEW THANATOPSIS.-WM. H. HOLCOMBE

BENEATH the glory of a brighter sun

Than that which keeps this moving globe of dust
True to its orbit, and with vision fed

By spiritual light and wisdom sent from God,
I sought for death throughout the universe-
If haply I might note the dreaded being
Who casts such awful shadows on our hearts,
And seems to break, with his discordant step,
The harmonies of nature. But in vain

I scanned the range of substance infinite
From God to Angels, and through men to earth,
To beast, bird, serpent and the ocean tribes,
To worms and flowers, and the atomic forms
Of crystaline Creations. Change had been,
Perpetual evolution and fresh life,
And metamorphoses to higher states-
An orderly progress, like the building up
Of pyramids from earth's material base
Into the fields of sunlight-but no death.
With deep solemnity akin to fear,
I pondered o'er the elemental world,
That seeming chaos, but its bosom held
No embryonic forms but those of life;
Nor did the spiritual origin of things
Elude my recognition in the maze

Of chemic transformations. Then I read

The geologic leaves of stone sublime,
Immortal book in an immortal tongue,
Full of mysterious life.

And then I looked

Into the dark mausoleums of the past,

And up the swift and shadowy stream of Time,
Upon whose banks nations and men are said
To have perished. And I turned the teeming soil
Of all the battle-fields of every age,

Peered into charnels, tracked the desolate paths
Of plague and famine, and surveyed with awe
The secrets of the sea-but found no Death.
To spirits, the veil of whose material temple
Is rent in twain, and who are capable
Of purer thought and more interior life,
His name and nature are alike unknown.
Throughout the choral harmony of things,
And all the vast economy of God,

He has no place or power. There is no Death!
God, God alone, is Life; and all our life,
And all the varying substance of the world,
From Him derived, and vitalized by Him;
And every change which we ascribe to Death
Is but a change in form or place or state,
Of something which can never cease to live.
Insensate matter is the base of all,

The pedestal of life, the supple mould
Through which the vital currents come and go.
The universe, with its infinity,

Is but the visible garment of our God;

The sun is but the garment of our heavens;

The body is the garment of our soul,

The coarse material out-birth of its life,

Its medium for a time, a shell which keeps

Within its curves the music of the sea

A wondrous thing! which seems to live, but does not,

For nothing lives but God, and all in Him.

The Spirit is a substance, a pure form
Of immaterial tissue, finely wrought
Into the human shape, unseen in this
Our physical existence, but the cause
Of all its motions and its very life.
When ripened for a more exalted sphere,
The soul exuves its earthly envelope,
And leaves the atoms of its chemic dross,-
(Oh never, never more to be resumed!-)
For worms or weeds, or flowers to animate,
While it withdraws to more august abodes,
Happier beyond comparison, than those
Who pass in joy from hovels all forlorn
To palaces imperial.