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seemed born of Heaven, and truths never to be forgotten were uttered in the ears of the subdued and reverent disciples.

7. O, how different is Heaven and earth! Can there be a stronger contrast than the BATTLE and TRANSFIGURATION of Mount Tabor? One shudders to think of Bonaparte and the Son of God on the same mountain,—one with his wasting cannon by his side, and the other with Moses and Elias just from Heaven. But no after desecration can destroy the first consecration of Mount Tabor; for, surrounded with the glory of Heaven, and honored with the wondrous scene of the TRANSFIGURATION, it stands a SACRED MOUNTAIN on the earth.

CXXXIX. REFLECTIONS FROM THE SUMMIT OF AN EGYPTIAN
PYRAMID.

1. THRONED on the sepulcher of mighty kings,
Whose dust in solemn silence sleeps below,
Till that great day, when sublunary things

Shall pass away, e'en as the April bow

Fades from the gazer's eyes, and leaves no trace
Of its bright colors, or its former place:

2. I gaze in sadness o'er the scenery wild:

On scattered groups of palms, and seas of sand:
On the wide desert, and the desert's child:

On ruins made by Time's destructive hand:
On temples, towers, and columns now laid low,-
A land of crime, of tyranny, and woe.

3. O Egypt! Egypt! how art thou debased!
A Moslem slave upon Busiris' throne!
And all thy splendid monuments defaced!

Long, long beneath his iron rod shall groan
Thy hapless children: thou hast had thy day,
And all thy glories now have passed away.

4. O! could thy princely dead rise from their graves,
And view with me the changes Time has wrought,—
A land of ruins, and a race of slaves,

Where wisdom flourished, and where sages taught,

A scene of desolation, mental night !—

How would they shrink with horror from the sight!

5. Ancient of days! nurse of fair science, arts!
All that refines and elevates mankind!
Where are thy palaces, and where thy marts,

Thy glorious cities, and thy men of mind?
Forever gone!-the very names they bore,
The sites they occupied, are now no more.
6. But why lament, since such must ever be

The fate of human greatness, human pride?
E'en those who mourn the loudest over thee,
Are drifting headlong down the rapid tide
That sweeps, resistless, to the yawning grave,
All that is great and good, or wise and brave.

7. E'en thou, proud fabric! whence I now survey
Scenes so afflicting to the feeling heart,
Despite thy giant strength, must sink the prey
Of hoary age, and all thy fame depart;
In vain thy head, aspiring, scales the sky:
Prostrate in dust that lofty head must lie.

8. The soul alone,-the precious boon of Heaven,—
Can fearless brave of time and fate the rage,
When to thy deep foundations thou art riven,
Yea, Egypt! blotted from th' historic page,
She shall survive, shall ever, ever bloom,
In radiant youth, triumphant o'er the tomb.

CXL.-ROMANTIC STORY.

1. THERE is a cavern in the island of Hoonga, one of the Tonga islands, in the South Pacific Ocean, which can only be entered by diving into the sea, and which has no other light, than that which is reflected from the bottom of the water. A young chief discovered it accidentally, while diving after a turtle, and the use which he made of his discovery, will probably be sung in more than one European language, so beautifully is it adapted for a tale in verse.

2. There was a tyrannical governor at Vavaoo, against

whom one of the chiefs formed a plan of insurrection. It was betrayed, and the chief, with all his family and kin, was ordered to be destroyed. He had a beautiful daughter, betrothed to a chief of high rank, and she also was included in the sentence. The youth who had found the cavern, and had kept the secret to himself, loved this dam sel. He told her the danger in time, and persuaded her to trust to him. They got into a canoe: the place of her retreat was described to her on the way to it,-these women swim like mermaids,—she dived after him, and rose in the cavern. In the widest part it is about fifty feet: its me dium hight being about the same, and it is hung with sta lactites.

3. Here, he brought her the choicest food, the finest clothing, mats for her bed, and sandal oil to perfume herself with. Here, he visited her as often as was consistent with prudence, and here, as may be imagined, this Tonga Leander, wooed and won the maid, whom, to make the interest complete, he had long loved in secret, when he had no hope. Meantime he prepared, with all his dependents, male and female, to emigrate in secret to the Fiji islands.

4. The intention was so well concealed, that they embarked in safety, and his people asked him, at the point of their departure, if he would not take with him a Tonga wife; and, accordingly, to their great astonishment, having steered close to the rock, he desired them to wait while he went into the sea to fetch her, jumped overboard, and just as they were beginning to be seriously alarmed at his long disappearance, he rose with his mistress from the water. This story is not deficient in that which all such stories should have, to be perfectly delightful—a fortunate conclusion. The party remained at the Fijis till the oppressor died, and then returned to Vavaoo, where they enjoyed a long and happy life.

CXLI. THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES.

JANE TAYLOR.

1. A MONK, when his rites sacerdotal were o'er,
In the depth of his cell with his stone-covered floor,
Resigning to thought his chimerical brain,
Once formed the contrivance we now shall explain;
But whether by magic's or alchemy's powers,
We know not,-indeed, 'tis no business of ours.
Perhaps, it was only by patience and care,

At last, that he brought his invention to bear;
In youth 'twas projected, but years stole away,
And ere 'twas complete, he was wrinkled and gray;
But success is secure, unless energy fails;

And, at length, he produced the philosopher's scales.

2. "What were they? you ask,-you shall presently see: These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea,―

O no; for such properties wondrous had they,

That qualities, feelings, and thoughts, they could weigh:
Together with articles small or immense,

From mountains or planets, to atoms of sense.
Naught was there so bulky, but there it would lay,
And naught so ethereal, but there it would stay,

And naught so reluctant, but in it must go :
All which some examples more clearly will show.

3. The first thing he weighed was the head of Voltaire,
Which retained all the wit that had ever been there :

As a weight he threw in a torn scrap of a leaf,
Containing the prayer of the penitent thief:
When the skull rose aloft with so sudden a spell,
That it bounced like a ball on the roof of the cell.
One time, he put in Alexander the Great,
With a garment that Dorcas had made, for a weight,
And, though clad in armor from sandals to crown,
The hero rose up, and the garment went down.

4. A long row of alms-houses, amply endowed
By a well esteemed Pharisee, busy and proud,
Next loaded one scale: while the other was prest
By those mites the poor widow dropt into the chest:
Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce,
And down, down the farthing-worth came with a bounce.
By further experiments, (no matter how,)

He found that ten chariots weighed less than one plow;

A sword with gilt trapping rose up in the scale,
Though balanced by only a ten-penny nail :
A shield and a helmet, a buckler and spear,
Weighed less than a widow's uncrystallized tear.

5. A lord and a lady went up at full sail,

When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale:
Ten doctors, ten lawyers, two courtiers, one earl,
Ten counselors' wigs, full of powder and curl,
All heaped in one balance and swinging from thence,
Weighed less than a few grains of candor and sense :
A first water diamond, with brilliants begirt,
Than one good potato, just washed from the dirt :
Yet not mountains of silver and gold could suffice,
One pearl to outweigh, 'twas the pearl of great price.

6. Last of all, the whole world was bowled in at the grate,
With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight,
When the former sprang up with so strong a rebuff,
That it made a vast rent and escaped at the roof;
When, balanced in air, it ascended on high,
And sailed up aloft, a balloon in the sky:
While the scale with the soul in't so mightily fell,
That it jerked the philosopher out of his cell.

CXLII. THE THREE WARNINGS.

1. THE tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground:
"Twas therefore said, by ancient sages,

MRS. THRALE.

That love of life increased with years,
So much, that in our latter stages,
When pains grow sharp and sickness rages,
The greatest love of life appears.

This great affection to believe,
Which all confess, but few perceive,
If old assertions can't prevail,

Be pleased to hear a modern tale.

2. When sports went round, and all were gay,
On neighbor Dobson's wedding-day:
Death called aside the jocund groom
With him into another room;

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