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The mind, relaxing into needful sport,
Should turn to writers of an able sort,

Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style,
Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.

Retirement.

Barthélemy St. Hilaire, French Author and Statesman, 1805.

August 20.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains

Which only poets know. The shifts and turns,
Th' expedients and inventions multiform,
To which the mind resorts

T'arrest the fleeting images that fill

The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast.

Corneille, French Poet, 1710.

August 21.

O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,

The Task.

Might never reach me more! My ear is pain'd,
My soul is sick with ev'ry day's report.

St. Francis de Sales, 1567.

The Time-piece.

August 20.

August 21.

Ask now of history's authentic page,
And call up evidence from ev'ry age;
Display with busy and laborious hand
The blessings of the most indebted land.

They breathed in faith their well-directed pray’rs,
And the true God, the God of truth, was theirs.

John Hill Burton, LL.D., F.R.S. E., 1809.

August 23.

I admire,

Expostulation.

None more admires, the painter's magic skill,
Who shows me that which I shall never see,
Conveys a distant country into mine,

And throws Italian light on English walls.

Frank Stone, R.A., Painter, 1800.

August 24.

The Task.

Friend of the poor, the wronged, the fetter-gall'd,
Fear not, lest labour such as thine be vain.
Thou hast achieved a part; hast gain'd the ear
Of Britain's senate to thy glorious cause.

To William Wilberforce in 1792.

"I go to make freemen of slaves."

William Wilberforce, Philanthropist, 1759.

Morning Dream.

August 23.

August 24.

Philosophy, that does not dream or stray,
Walks arm in arm with Nature all his way;
Compasses earth, dives into it, ascends
Whatever steep Inquiry recommends,
And brings at his return a bosom charged
With rich instruction, and a soul enlarged.

Baron Bunsen, 1791.

August 26.

Charity.

To nurse with tender care the thriving arts;
Watch every beam Philosophy imparts;
To give Religion her unbridled scope,
Nor judge by statute a believer's hope;
With close fidelity and love unfeign'd,
To keep the matrimonial bond unstain'd;
Covetous only of a virtuous praise;
His life a lesson to the land he sways.
Prince Consort, 1819.

Angust 27.

Table Talk.

There stands the messenger of truth; there stands
The legate of the skies!-His theme divine,
His office sacred, his credentials clear.

By him the violated law speaks out

Its thunders; and by him, in strains as sweet
As angels use, the Gospel whispers peace.

St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, 430.

The Time-piece.

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