From the rich sunset to the rising star,
Their magical variety diffuse :

And now they change; a paler shadow strews
Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new color as it gasps away,

The last still loveliest, till 'tis

gone

- and all is

gray.

LESSON LXXXIV.

Approach of Age. CRABBE.

Six years had passed, and forty ere the six,
When Time began to play his usual tricks;
The locks, once comely in a virgin's sight,
Locks of pure brown, displayed th' encroaching white;
The blood, once fervid, now to cool began,
And time's strong pressure to subdue the man.
I rode or walked as I was wont before,
But now the bounding spirit was no more;
A moderate pace would now my body heat;

A walk of moderate length distress my feet.

I showed my stranger guest those hills sublime,
But said, "The view is poor; we need not climb."
At a friend's mansion I began to dread

The cold, neat parlor, and the gay, glazed bed :
At home I felt a more decided taste,

And must have all things in my order placed.
I ceased to hunt; my horses pleased me less,
My dinner more; - I learned to play at chess.
I took my dog and gun, but saw the brute
Was disappointed that I did not shoot.

My morning walks I now could bear to lose,

And blessed the shower that gave me rest to choose :
In fact, I felt a languor stealing on;

The active arm, the agile hand, were gone ;

Small daily actions into habits grew,

And new dislike to forms and fashions new.

I loved my trees in order to dispose ;

I numbered peaches, looked how stocks arose;
Told the same story oft-in short, began to prose.

LESSON LXXXV.

The Influence of Woman.

DANIEL Webster.

It is by the promulgation of sound morals in the commu. nity, and more especially by the training and instruction of the young, that woman performs her part toward the preservation of a free government. It is generally admitted that public liberty, the perpetuity of a free constitution, rests on the virtue and intelligence of the community which enjoys it. How is that virtue to be inspired, and how is that intelligence to be communicated? Bonaparte once asked Madame de Staël in what manner he could most promote the happiness of France. Her reply is full of political wisdom. She said, "Instruct the mothers of the French people." Mothers are, indeed, the affectionate and effective teachers of the human race. The mother begins her process of training with the infant in her arms. It is she who directs, so to speak, its first mental and spiritual pulsations. She conducts it along the impressible years of childhood and youth, and hopes to deliver it to the rough contests and tumultuous scenes of life, armed by those good principles which her child has received from ma ternal care and love.

If we draw within the circle of our contemplation the mothers of a civilized nation, what do we sce? We behold so many artificers working, not on frail and perishable matter, but on the immortal mind, moulding and fashioning beings who are to exist forever. We applaud the artist whose skill and genius present the mimic man upon the canvas; we admire and celebrate the sculptor who works out that same image in enduring marble; but how insignificant are these achievements, though the highest and the fairest in all the departments of art, in comparison with the great vocation of human mothers! They work, not upon the canvas that shall fail, or the marble that shall crumble into dust, but upon mind, upon spirit, which is to last forever, and which is to bear, for good or evil, throughout its duration, the impress of a mother's plastic hand.

I have already expressed the opinion, which all allow to be correct, that our security for the duration of the free institutions which bless our country depends upon the habits of virtue, and the prevalence of knowledge and of education. Knowledge does not comprise all which is contained in the larger term of education. The feelings are to be disciplined; the passions are to be restrained; true and worthy motives are to be inspired; a profound religious feeling is to be instilled, and pure morality inculcated under all circumstances. All this is comprised in education. Mothers who are faithful to this grand duty will tell their children that neither in political nor in any other concerns of life can man ever withdraw himself from the perpetual obligations of conscience and of duty, that in every act, whether public or private, he incurs a just responsibility; and that in no condition is he warranted in trifling with important rights and obligations. They will impress upon their children the truth, that the exercise of the elective franchise is a social duty, of as solemn a nature as man can be called to perform; that a man may not innocently trifle with his vote; that every free elector is a trustee, as well for

others as himself; and that every man and every measure he supports has an important bearing on the interests of others as well as on his own. It is in the inculcation of high and pure morals, such as these, that, in a free republic, woman performs her sacred duty, and fulfils her destiny.

LESSON LXXXVI.

Three Pictures of Boston. EDWARD EVERETT.

We

To understand the character of the commerce of our own city, we must not look merely at one point, but at the whole circuit of country, of which it is the business centre. must not contemplate it only at this present moment of time, but we must bring before our imaginations, as in the shifting scenes of a diorama, at least three successive historical and topographical pictures; and truly instructive I think it would be to see them delineated on canvas. We must survey the first of them in the company of the venerable John Winthrop, the founder of the state. Let us go up with him, on the day of his landing, the seventeenth of June, 1630, to the heights of yonder peninsula, as yet without a name. Landward stretches a dismal forest; seaward, a waste of waters, unspotted with a sail, except that of his own ship. At the foot of the hill you see the cabins of Walford and the Spragues, who the latter a year before, the former still earlier - had adventured to this spot, untenanted else by any child of civilization. On the other side of the river lies Mr. Blackstone's farm. It comprises three goodly hills, converted by a springtide into three wood-crowned islets; and it is mainly valued for a noble spring of fresh water which gushes from the northern slope of one of these hills, and which furnished, in

the course of the summer, the motive for transferring the seat of the infant settlement. This shall be the first picture.

The second shall be contemplated from the same spot, the heights of Charlestown, -on the same day, the eventful seventeenth of June, one hundred and forty-five years later, namely, in the year 1775. A terrific scene of war rages on the top of the hill. Wait for a favorable moment, when the volumes of fiery smoke roll away, and over the masts of that sixty-gun ship, whose batteries are blazing upon the hill, you behold Mr. Blackstone's farm changed to an ill-built town of about two thousand dwelling-houses, mostly of wood, with scarce any public buildings, but eight or nine churches, the old State House, and Faneuil Hall; Roxbury beyond, an insignificant village; a vacant marsh in all the space now occupied by Cambridgeport and East Cambridge, by Chelsea and East Boston; and beneath your feet the town of Charlestown, consisting in the morning of a line of about three hundred houses, wrapped in a sheet of flames at noon, and reduced at eventide to a heap of ashes.

But those fires are kindled on the altar of Liberty. American independence is established. American commerce smiles on the spot; and now, from the top of one of the triple hills of Mr. Blackstone's farm, a stately edifice arises, which seems to invite us as to an observatory. As we look down from this lofty structure, we behold the third picture a crowded, busy scene. We see beneath us a city containing one hundred and forty thousand inhabitants, and mainly built of brick and granite. Vessels of every description are moored at the wharves. Long lines of commodious and even stately houses cover a space which, within the memory of man, was in a state of nature. Substantial blocks of warehouses and stores have forced their way to the channel. Faneuil Hall itself, the consecrated and unchangeable, has swelled to twice its original dimensions. Athenæums, hospitals, asylums, and infirmaries adorn the streets. The school-house rears its modest front in