By bards and sages feigned of yore, O God of nature! with what might LESSON XLVII. EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION. th (aspirate): — thank, think, mouth, width, twelfth, rhythm, thwart, thousand, orthodox. Curiosity. CHArles Sprague. IT came from Heaven-its power archangels knew, On all, by turns, his chartered glance was cast, Those charmed his eye, but this entranced his soul, Another self, queen-wonder of the whole! Rapt at the view, in ecstasy he stood, And, like his Maker, saw that all was good. It reigned in Eden in that heavy hour When the arch-tempter sought our mother's bower, And hung its mystic apples to her view: "Eat!" breathed the fiend, beneath his serpent guise; "Ye shall know all things; gather, and be wise!" Sweet on her ear the wily falsehood stole, And roused the ruling passion of her soul. "Ye shall become like God!”. --- transcendent fate! That God's command forgot, she plucked and ate; To weep, to wander, die, and be forgot. It came from heaven — it reigned in Eden's shades - It haunts the beggar's nook, the monarch's throne; Now idly joins in life's poor, passing jars, Now shakes creation off, and soars beyond the stars. "Tis Curiosity-who hath not felt Its spirit, and before its altar knelt In the pleased infant see the power expand, Nor yet alone to toys and tales confined, Tell him who spoke creation into birth, Arched the broad heavens, and spread the rolling earth; Who formed a pathway for the obedient sun, And bade the seasons in their circles run; Boldly he knocks at wisdom's inmost gate, wh:—when, whence, where, what, which, why, while, whirl, whether. when, wen; where, wear; - while, wile; whether, weather; - which, witch. The Nile. DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE. For many an hour have I stood upon the city-crowning citadel of Cairo, and gazed unweariedly on the scene of matchless beauty and wonder that lay stretched beneath my view cities and ruins of cities, palm-forests and green savannas, gardens, and palaces, and groves of olive. On one side, the boundless desert, with its pyramids; on the other, the land of Goshen, with its luxuriant plains, stretching far away to the horizon. Yet this is an exotic land! That river, winding like a serpent through its paradise, has brought it from far regions, unknown to man. That strange and richly-varied panorama has had a long voyage of it! Those quiet plains have tumbled down the cataracts; those demure gardens have flirted with the Isle of Flowers, five hundred miles away; and those very pyramids have floated down the waves of the Nile. In short, to speak chemically, that river is a solution of Ethiopia's richest regions, and that vast country is merely a precipitate. The sources of the Nile are as much involved in mystery as every thing else connected with this strange country. The statue, under which it was represented, was carved out of black marble, to denote its Ethiopian origin, but crowned with thorns, to symbolize the difficulty of approaching its fountain-head. It reposed appropriately on a sphinx, the type of enigmas; and dolphins and crocodiles disported at its feet. The pursuit has baffled the scrutiny and self-devotion of modern enterprise as effectually as it did the inquisitiveness of ancient despots, and the theories of ancient philosophers. I have conversed with slave-dealers who were familiar with Abyssinia, as far as the Galla country, and still their information was bounded by the vague word south-still from the south gushed the great river. From the junction of the Taccaze or Astaboras, the Nile runs a course of upwards of twelve hundred miles, to the sea, without one tributary stream. During this career, it is exposed to the evaporation of a burning sun, drawn off into a thousand canals, absorbed by porous and thirsty banks, drunk by every living thing, from the crocodile to the pasha, from the papyrus to the palm-tree; and yet, strange to say, it seems to pour into the sea a wider stream than it displays between the cataracts a thousand miles away. The Nile is all in all to the Egyptian; if it withheld its waters for a week, his country would become a desert. It waters and enriches his fields, it supplies his harvest, and then carries off its produce to the sea. He drinks of it; he fishes in it; he travels on it. It is his slave, and used to be his god. Egyptian mythology recognized in it the Creative Principle, and, very poetically, engaged it in eternal war with the desert, under the name of Typhon, or the destructive principle. The Arab looks upon all men as aliens who were not fortunate enough to be born beside the Nile; and the traveller is soon talked into a belief that it affords the most delicious water in the world. Shiploads of it are annually sent to Constantinople, where it is in great request. The natives dignify their beloved river with the title of |