that she had been playing at crimp upon which Rhadamanthus beckoned to the keeper on his left hand to take her into custody and you madam says the judge that look with such a soft and languishing air I think you set out for this place 3 in your nine and twentieth year what have you been doing all this while I had a great deal of business on my hands says she being taken up the first twelve years of my life in dressing a jointed baby and all the remaining part of it in reading plays and romances very well says he you have employed your time to good purpose away with her the next was a plain country woman well mistress says Rhadamanthus and what have you been doing an't please your worship says she I did not live quite forty years and in that time brought my husband seven daughters made him nine 4 thousand cheeses and left my youngest daughter with him to look after his house in my absence and who I may venture to say is as pretty a housewife as any in the country Rhadamanthus smiled at the simplicity of the good woman and ordered the keeper of Elysium to take her into his care and you fair lady says he what have you been doing these five and thirty years I have been doing no hurt I assure you sir said she that is well said he but what good have you been doing the lady was in great confusion at this question and not knowing what to answer the two keepers leaped 5 out to seize her at the same time the one took her by the hand to convey her to Elysium the other caught hold of her to carry her away to Erebus but Rhadamanthus observing an ingenuous modesty in her countenance and behavior hid them both let her loose and set her aside for re-examination when he was more at leisure an old woman of a proud and sour look proscuted herself next at the bar and being asked what she had been doing truly said she I lived threescore and ten years in a very wicked world and was so angry at the behavior of a parcel of young flirts that I 6 passed most of my last years in condemning the follies of the times I was every day blaming the silly conduct of people about me in order to deter those I conversed with from falling into the like errors and miscarriages very well says Rhadamanthus but did you keep the same watchful eye over your own actions why truly said she I was so taken up with publishing the faults of others that I had no time to consider my own madam said Rhadamanthus be pleased to file off to the left and make room for the venerable matron that stands behind you old gentlewoman says he I think 7you are fourscore you have heard the question what have you been doing so long in the world ah sir said she I have been doing what I should not have done but I had made a firm resolution to have changed my life if I had not been snatched off by an untimely end madam says he you will please to follow your leader and spying another of the same age interrogated her in the same form to which the matron replied I have been the wife of a husband who was as dear to me in his old age as in his youth I have been a mother and very happy in my children whom I endeavored to 8 bring up in every thing that is good my eldest son is blessed by the poor and beloved by every one that knows him I lived within my own family and left it much more wealthy than I found it Rhadamanthus who knew the value of the old lady smiled upon her in such a manner that the keeper of Elysium who knew his office reached out his hand to her he no sooner touched her but her wrinkles vanished her eyes sparkled her cheeks glowed with blushes and she appeared in full bloom and beauty a young woman observing that this officer who conducted the happy to Elys9 ium was so great a beautifier longed to be in his hands so that pressing through the crowd she was the next that appeared at the bar and being asked what she had been doing the five and twenty years that she had passed in the world I have endeavored says she ever since I came to years of discretion to make myself lovely and gain admirers in order to it I passed my time in bottling up May-dew inventing whitewashes mixing colors cutting out patches consulting my glass suiting my complexion Rhadamanthus without hearing her out gave the sign to take her off upon 10 the approach of the keeper of Erebus her color faded her face was puckered up with wrinkles and her whole person lost in deformity. I was then surprised with the distant sound of a whole troop of females that came forward laughing singing and dancing I was very desirous to know the reception they would meet with and withal was very apprehensive that Rhadamanthus would spoil their mirth but at their nearer approach the noise grew so very great that it awakened me. LESSON XII. The Ass and the Nightingale.-KRILOV. 1 AN Ass, a nightingale espied, And shouted out, "Hollo! hollo! good friend! Now let me hear thee, that I may decide; Through all the regions of sweet music ranging, Varying her song a thousand different ways; Rising and falling, lingering, ever changing: 2 Full of wild rapture now-then sinking oft To almost silence-melancholy, soft As distant shepherd's pipe at evening's close: Strewing the wood with lovelier music;-there All nature seems to listen and repose: --- No zephyr dares disturb the tranquil air :- Seems to say, "Listen!" to his favorite maid. : 66 Now that's so so;-thou really hast some merit; Curtail thy song, and critics then might hear it. Thy voice wants sharpness :-but if chanticleert Would give thee a few lessons, doubtless he poor And winged her peaceful flight into the air, * Clever, possessing talent. + Chan-ti-cleer: CH, as in Church. .. SELECT PASSAGES. But should these credulous infidels, after all, be in the right, and this pretended revelation be all a fablè; from believing it, what harm could ensue? Would it render princes more tyrannical, or subjects more ungovernáble; the rich more insolént, or the poor more disorderly? Would it make worse parents or childrén, husbands or wives; masters or servants, friends or neighbórs? or, would it not make men more virtuoùs, and, consequently, more happy in every situation? (m) Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep, Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes : And lights on lids unsullied by a tear.-Young. LESSON XIII. Extract from the Declaration of Independence.--JEFFERSON. 1 WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them; a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires, that they should declare the causes, which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident-that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator, 2 with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed: that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments 3 long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. SELECT PASSAGES. The great comprehensive truth, written in letters of living light on every page of our history, the language addressed by every past age of New England to all future agés, is this : Human happiness has no perfect security but freedom;freedóm none but virtùe;-virtue none but knowledge; and neither freedóm, nor virtúe, nor knowledge, has any vigor, or immortal hópe, except in the principles of the Christian faith, and in the sanctions of the Christian religion.-Quincy. We cannot honor our country with too deep a reverence; we cannot love her with an affection too pure and fervent; we cannot serve her with an energy of purpose or a faithfulness of zeal too steadfast and ardent. And what is our country? It is not the East, with her hills and her valleys with her countless sails, and the rocky ramparts of her shores. It is not the North, with her thousand villages, and her harvest-home, with her frontiers of the lake and the ocean. It is not the Wèst, with her forest-sea and her inland isles, with her luxuriant expanses, clothed in the verdant corn; with her beautiful Ohio, and her majestic Missouri. Nor is it yet the South, opulent in the mimic snow of the cotton, in the rich plantations of the rustling cane, and in the golden robes of the rice-field. What are these but the sister families of one greater, better, holièr family, our COUNTRY?Grimke. |