3. PARTED FRIENDSHIP.

Alas! they had been friends in youth:
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline :
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother;
They parted-ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another

To free the hollow heart from paining;
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between,-
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,

The marks of that which once hath been.

From "Christabel," Part II., by

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S. T. COLERIDGE.

Listen not to a tale-bearer or a slanderer, for he tells thee nothing out of good will; but as he discovereth of the secrets of others, so he will of thine in turn.—Socrates.

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The worthiest people are the most injured by slander, as we usually find that to be the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at.-Dean Swift.

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When will evil-speakers refrain from evil-talking? When listeners refrain from evil-hearing.—Archdeacon Hare.

4. THE CHIMNEY-SWALLOW.

The house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, is undoubtedly the first comer of all the British swallows, and appears in general on or about the 13th of April, as I have remarked from many years' observation. Not but now and then a straggler is seen much earlier; and, in particular, when I was a boy, I observed a swallow for a whole day together on a sunny, warm Shrove Tuesday; which day could not fall later than the middle of March, and often happened early in February.

It is worth remarking that these birds are seen first about lakes and mill-ponds; and it is also very particular that if these early visitors happen to find frost and snow, as was the case of the two dreadful springs of 1770 and 1771, they immediately withdraw for a time.

This swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no means builds altogether in chimneys, but often within barns and outhouses against the rafters.

In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called the barn - swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe there are no chimneys to houses, except they are English built; in these countries she constructs her nest in porches, and gateways, and galleries, and open halls.

Here and there a bird may affect some odd, peculiar place as we have known a swallow build down the shaft of an old well, through which chalk had been formerly drawn up for the purpose of manure; but

in general, with us the swallow breeds in chimneys, and loves to haunt those stalks where there is a constant fire, no doubt for the sake of warmth. Not that it can subsist in the immediate shaft where there is a fire; but prefers one adjoining to that of the kitchen, and disregards the perpetual smoke of that funnel, as I have often observed with some degree of wonder.

Five or six or more feet down the chimney does this little bird begin to form her nest about the middle of May,-which consists, like that of the housemartin, of a crust or shell composed of dirt or mud, mixed with short pieces of straw, to render it tough and permanent; with this difference, that whereas the shell of the martin is nearly hemispheric, that of the swallow is open at the top, and like half a deep dish. This nest is lined with fine grasses and feathers, which are often collected as they float in the air.

Wonderful is the address which this adroit bird shows all day long in ascending and descending, with security, through so narrow a pass. When hovering over the mouth of the funnel, the vibrations of her wings acting on the confined air occasion a rumbling like thunder. It is not improbable that the dam submits to this inconvenient situation so low in the shaft, in order to secure her broods from rapacious birds, and particularly from owls, which frequently fall down chimneys, perhaps in attempting to get at these nestlings.

The swallow lays from four to six white eggs, dotted with red specks, and brings out her first brood

about the last week in June or the first week in July. The progressive method by which the young are introduced into life is very amusing. First they emerge from the shaft with difficulty enough, and often fall down into the rooms below; for a day or so they are fed on the chimney-top, and then are conducted to the dead, leafless bough of some tree, where, sitting in a row, they are attended with great assiduity, and may then be called perchers.

In a day or two more they become flyers, but are still unable to take their own food; therefore they play about near the place where the dams are hawking for flies; and when a mouthful is collected, at a certain signal given the dam and the nestling advance, rising towards each other, and meeting at an angle the young one all the while uttering such a little quick note of gratitude and complacency, that a person must have paid very little regard to the wonders of nature that has not often remarked this feat.

The dam betakes herself immediately to the business of a second brood as soon as she is disengaged from the first, which at once associates with the first broods of house-martins, and with them congregates, clustering on sunny roofs, towers, and trees. This swallow brings out her second brood towards the middle and end of August.

All the summer long is the swallow a most instructive pattern of unwearied industry and affection; for from morning to night, while there is a family to be supported, she spends the whole day in skimming