out.) There, that will do; now go and order John the carter the pony; will you?

Snacks. (Aside.) What a cunning dog it is! He's up (Exit.)

to me now.

Rob. Ha, ha, ha! how he hopped about and hallooed; but I'll work him a little more yet. (Re-enter Snacks.) Well, Snacks, what d'ye think of your dancing master?

Snacks. I hope your lordship won't give me any more lessons at present: for, to say the truth, I don't much like the accompaniment.

Rob. You must have a lesson every day, or you'll forget the step.

Snacks. No: your lordship has taken care that I shan't forget it for some time. (Exeunt.)

CLXVII. THE POOR HOUSE.

BEHOLD yon house that holds the parish poor,
Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;
There, where the putrid vapors flagging play,
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day;
There children dwell who know no parent's care;
Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there;
Dejected widows with unheeded tears,
And crippled age with more than childhood's fears;
The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they!
The moping idiot, and the madman gay.

Here, too, the sick their final doom receive,

Here brought, amid the scenes of grief to grieve:
Where the loud groans from some sad chamber flow,
Mixed with the clamors of the crowd below;
Here, sorrowing, they each kindred sorrow scan,
And the cold charities of man to man:

Whose laws indeed for ruined age provide,

And strong compulsion plucks the scrap from pride;
But still that scrap is bought with many a sigh,
And pride embitters what it can't deny.

Say, ye oppressed by some fantastic woes,
Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose;

Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance
With timid eye, to read the distant glance;
NEW EC. S.-25

Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease
To name the nameless, ever-new disease;
Who with mock-patience dire complaints endure,
Which real pain, and that alone, can cure;
How would you bear in real pain to lie,
Despised, neglected, left alone to die?

How would you bear to draw your latest breath,
Where all that's wretched paves the way for death?

Such is that room which one rude beam divides,
And naked rafters form the sloping sides;

Where the vile bands that bind the thatch are seen,
And lath and mud are all that lie between;

Save one dull pane, that, coarsely thatched, gives way
To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day.
Here, on a matted flock, with dust o'erspread,
The drooping wretch reclines his languid head;
For him no hand the cordial cup applies,
Nor wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes;
No friends with soft discourse his pain beguile,
Nor promise hope, till sickness wears a smile.
FROM CRABBE.

CLXVIII.-NOBILITY OF LABOR.

I CALL upon those whom I address to stand up for the nobility of labor. It is Heaven's great ordinance for human improvement. Let not that great ordinance be broken down. What do I say? It is broken down; and it has been broken down, for ages. Let it, then, be built up again; here, if anywhere, on these shores of a new world, of a new civilization.

But how, I may be asked, is it broken down? Do not men toil? it may be said. They do, indeed, toil; but they too generally do it because they must. Many submit to it as, in some sort, a degrading necessity; and they desire nothing so much on earth as to escape from it. They ful-. fill the great law of labor in the letter, but break it in the spirit; fulfill it with the muscle, but break it with the mind.

To some field of labor, mental or manual, every idler should fasten, as a chosen and coveted theater of improvement. But so is he not impelled to do, under the teach ́ings of our imperfect civilization. On the contrary, he sits down, folds his hands, and blesses himself in his idleness. This way of thinking is the heritage of the absurd and unjust feudal system, under which serfs labored, and gentlemen spent their lives in fighting and feasting.

It is time that this opprobrium of toil were done away. Ashamed to toil, art thou? Ashamed of thy dingy workshop and dusty labor-field; of thy hard hand, scarred with service more honorable than that of war; of thy soiled and weather-stained garments, on which mother nature has embroidered, mid sun and rain, mid fire and steam, her own heraldic honors? Ashamed of these tokens and titles, and envious of the flaunting robes of imbecile idleness and vanity? It is treason to nature, it is impiety to Heaven, it is breaking Heaven's great ordinance. TOIL, I repeat, TOIL, either of the brain, of the heart, or of the hand, is the only true manhood, the only true nobility!

FROM DEWEY.

CLXIX.-RELIGION THE BASIS OF INDEPENDENCE.

STANDING, at this hour, on the dividing line which separates the ages that are past, from those which are to come, how solemn is the thought that not one of this assembly, not one of that great multitude who now throng our streets, rejoice in our fields, and make our hills echo with their gratulations, shall live to witness the next return of the era we this day celebrate! The dark vail of futurity conceals from human sight the fate of cities and nations, as well as of individuals. Man passes away. Generations are but shadows. There is nothing stable but truth. Principles only are immortal.

What, then, are the elements of the liberty, prosperity, and safety, which we, at this day, enjoy? In what language, and concerning what comprehensive truths, does the wisdom of former times address the inexperience of the future?

Those elements are simple, obvious, and familiar. Every civil and religious blessing, all that here gives happiness to human life, or security to human virtue, is alone to be perpetuated in the forms and under the auspices of a free commonwealth. The commonwealth itself has no other strength or hope, than the intelligence and virtue of the individuals that compose it. For the intelligence and virtue of individuals, there is no other human assurance than laws, providing for the education of the whole people.

These laws themselves have no strength, or efficient sanction, except in the moral and accountable nature of man, disclosed in the records of the Christian's faith. The right to read, to construc, and to judge concerning this, belongs to no class or caste of men, but exclusively to the individual, who must stand or fall by his own acts and his own faith, and not by those of another.

The great comprehensive truths, written in letters of living light on every page of our history, the language addressed by every past age to all future ages is this: Human happiness has no perfect security but freedom; freedom none but virtue; virtue none but knowledge; and neither freedom, nor virtue, nor knowledge has any vigor, or immortal hope, except in the principles of the Christian faith, and in the sanctions of the Christian religion.

Men of America! descendants of the early emigrants! consider your blessings! consider your duties! You have an inheritance acquired by the labors and sufferings of many successive generations of ancestors. They founded the fabric of your prosperity, in a severe and masculine morality; having, intelligence for its cement, and religion for its ground work. Continue to build on the same foundation, and by the same principles. Let the extending temple of your country's freedom rise, in the spirit of ancient times, in proportions of intellectual and moral architecture, just, simple, and sublime.

As from the first to this day, let America continue to be an example to the world, of the blessings of a free government, and of the means and capacity of man to maintain it. And, in all times to come, as in all times past, may

we be among the foremost and boldest to exemplify and uphold whatever constitutes the prosperity, the happiness, and the glory of our country. FROM QUINCY.

CLXX-REFORM.

THE great element of Reform is not born of human wisdom. It does not draw its life from human organization. I find it only in CHRISTIANITY. "Thy kingdom come!" There is a sublime and pregnant burden in this It is the aspiration of every soul, that goes forth in the spirit of Reform. For what is the significance of this prayer?

prayer.

It is a petition that all holy influences would penetrate, and subdue, and dwell in the heart of man, until he shall think, and speak, and do good, from the very necessity of his being. So would the institutions of error and wrong crumble and pass away. So would sin die out from the earth. And the human soul, living in harmony with the divine will, this earth would become like Heaven.

It is too late for the reformers to sneer at Christianity. It is foolishness for them to reject it. In it are enshrined our faith in human progress, our confidence in Reform. It is indissolubly connected with all that is hopeful, spiritual, capable in man. That men have misunderstood it and perverted it, is true. But it is also true that the noblest efforts for human amelioration have come out of it; have been based upon it. Is it not so? Come, ye remembered ones, who sleep the sleep of the just, who took your conduct from the line of Christian philosophy; come from your tombs, and answer!

Come Howard, from the gloom of the prison and the taint of the lazar-house, and show us what philanthropy can do when imbued with the spirit of Jesus. Come Eliot, from the thick forest where the red-man listens to the Word of Life; come Penn, from thy sweet counsel and weaponless victory; and show us what Christian zeal and Christian love can accomplish with the rudest barbarians