THE TOY OF THE GIANT'S CHILD.

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The giant's daughter once came forth the castle-gate before,
And played with all a child's delight, beside her father's door;
Then sauntering down the precipice, the girl did gladly go,
To see, perchance, how matters went in the little world below.
With few and easy steps she passed the mountain and the wood;
At length near Haslach, at the place where mankind dwelt, she
stood;

And many a town and village fair, and many a field so green,
Before her wondering eyes appeared, a strange and curious scene.
And as she gazed, in wonder lost, on all the scene around,
She saw a peasant at her feet, a-tilling of the ground;
The little creature crawled about so slowly here and there,
And lighted by the morning sun, his plough shone bright and
fair.

Oh, pretty plaything!" cried the child, "I'll take thee home with me;"

Then with her infant hands she spread her kerchief on her knee, And cradling horse, and man, and plough, all gently on her arm, She bore them home with cautious steps, afraid to do them harm! She hastes with joyous steps and quick (we know what children

are),

And spying soon her father out, she shouted from afar;
"O father, dearest father, such a plaything I have found,
I never saw so fair a one on our own mountain ground."
Her father sat at table then, and drank his wine so mild,
And smiling with a parent's smile, he asks the happy child,
"What struggling creature hast thou brought so carefully to me?
Thou leap'st for very joy, my girl; come, open, let us see."
She opes her kerchief carefully, and gladly you may deem,
And shows her eager sire the plough, the peasant, and his team;
And when she'd placed before his sight, the new-found pretty toy,
She clasped her hands, and screamed aloud, and cried for very joy.
But her father looked quite seriously, and shaking slow his head,
"What hast thou brought me home, my child?-this is no toy,'

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he said;

Go, take it quickly back again, and put it down below; The peasant is no plaything girl,-how could'st thou think him so?

So go, without a sigh or sob, and do my will," he said; "For know, without the peasant, girl, we none of us had bread; "Tis from the peasant's hardy stock the race of giants are; The peasant is no plaything, child-no-God forbid he were!" RICHARDSON, German Ballads.

XVIII. THE GLEANER.

"It is this sense of duty which makes all men essentially equal, which annihilates all the distinctions of the world. Through this the ignorant and the poor may become the greatest of the race; for the greatest is he who is most true to the principle of duty. It is not improbable that the noblest human beings are to be found in the least favoured conditions of society, among those whose names are never uttered beyond the narrow circle in which they toil and suffer, who have but 'two mites' to give away, who have perhaps not even that, but who'desire to be fed with the crumbs which fall from the rich man's table;' for in this class may be found those who have withstood the severest temptation, who have practised the most arduous duties, who have confided in God under the heaviest trials, who have been most wronged and have forgiven most; and these are the great, the exalted. It matters nothing, what the particular duties are to which the individual is called,-how minute or obscure in their outward form. Greatness in God's sight lies, not in the extent of the sphere which is filled, or of the effect which is produced, but altogether in the power of virtue in the soul, in the energy with which God's will is chosen, with which trial is borne, and goodness loved and pursued." -Channing.

BEFORE the bright sun rises over the hill,
In the corn-field poor Mary is seen,
Impatient her little blue apron to fill

With the few scattered ears she can glean.

She never leaves off, or runs out of her place,
To play, and to idle and chat;

Except now and then just to wipe her hot face,
And fan herself with her broad hat.

"Poor girl, hard at work in the heat of the sun,
How tired, and warm you must be ;

Why don't you leave off, as the others have done,
And sit with them under the tree ?"

"Oh no, for my mother lies ill in her bed,
Too feeble to spin, or to knit ;

And my poor little brothers are crying for bread,
And yet we can't give them a bit.

"Then could I be merry, and idle, and play,
While they are so hungry and ill?

Oh no, I would rather work hard all the day,
My little blue apron to fill."

ANONYMOUS.

ASPIRATIONS OF YOUTH.

XIX. ASPIRATIONS OF YOUTH.

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"IF any young man have embarked his life in the pursuit of knowledge, let him go on without doubting or fearing the event; let him not be intimidated by the cheerless beginnings of knowledge, by the darkness from which she springs, by the difficulties which hover around her, by the wretched habitations in which she dwells, by the want and sorrow which sometimes journey in her train; but let him ever follow her as the angel that guards him, and as the genius of his life. She will bring him out at last into the light of day, and exhibit him to the world comprehensive in acquirements, fertile in resources, rich in imagination, strong in reasoning, prudent and powerful above his fellows, in all the relations and in all the offices of life." Sydney Smith's Moral Philosophy.

HIGHER, higher will we climb

Up the mount of glory,

That our names may live through time

In our country's story;
Happy, when her welfare calls,

He who conquers, he who falls.
Deeper, deeper let us toil

In the mines of knowledge;
Nature's wealth and Learning's spoil
Win from school and college;
Delve we there for richer gems
Than the stars' of diadems.

Onward, onward may we press
Through the path of duty;
Virtue is true happiness,

Excellence, true beauty:
Minds are of celestial birth,
Make we then a heaven of earth.

Closer, closer let us knit

Hearts and hands together,
Where our fireside-comforts sit
In the wildest weather;-
O, they wander wide who roam
For the joys of life from home!

1. What case is stars in ?

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

i 2. Case of "hearts and hands?"

XX. OCCASIONAL ODE FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE ROYAL BRITISH SYSTEM OF EDUCATION.

"THE situation of man on the globe he inhabits, and over which he has obtained the control, is in many respects exceedingly remarkable. Compared with its other denizens, he seems, if we regard only his physical constitution, in almost every respect their inferior, and equally unprovided for the supply of his natural wants and his defence against the innumerable enemies which surround him. No other animal passes so large a portion of its existence in a state of absolute helplessness, or falls in old age into such protracted and lamentable imbecility. To no other warm-blooded animal has nature denied that indispensable covering without which the vicissitudes of a temperate, and the rigours of a cold climate are equally insupportable; and to scarcely any has she been so sparing in external weapons, whether for attack or defence. Destitute alike of speed to avoid and of arms to repel the aggressions of his voracious foes, tenderly susceptible of atmospherical influences, and unfitted for the coarse aliments which the earth affords spontaneously during at least two-thirds of the year, even in temperate climates, man, if abandoned to mere instinct, would be of all creatures the most destitute and miserable * * ** Yet man is the undisputed lord of the creation. The strongest and fiercest of his fellow-creatures-the whale, the elephant, the eagle, and the tiger-are slaughtered by him to supply his most capricious wants, or tamed to do him service, or imprisoned to make him sport. The spoils of all nature are in daily requisition for his most common uses, yielded with more or less readiness, or wrested with reluctance from the mine, the forest, the ocean, and the air. Such are the first fruits of reason.-Sir John Herschel.

THE lion o'er his wild domains
Rules with the terror of his eye;

The eagle of the rock maintains

By force his empire in the sky;

The shark, the tyrant of the flood,

Reigns through the deep with quenchless rage:

Parent and young, unweaned from blood,

Are still the same from age to age.

Of all that live, and move, and breathe,
Man only rises o'er his birth;

He looks above, around, beneath,

At once the heir of heaven and earth:
Force, cunning, speed, which Nature gave
The various tribes throughout her plan,
Life to enjoy, from death to save,

These are the lowest powers of man.

TRY AGAIN.

From strength to strength he travels on:
He leaves the lingering brute behind;
And when a few short years are gone,
He soars a disembodied mind:
Beyond the grave his course sublime
Destined through nobler paths to run,
In his career the end of Time
Is but Eternity begun.

What guides him in his high pursuit,
Opens, illumines, cheers his way,
Discerns the immortal from the brute,
God's image from the mould of clay ?
'Tis Knowledge :-Knowledge to the soul
Is power, and liberty, and peace;
And while celestial ages roll,

The joys of Knowledge shall increase.

Hail to the glorious plans that spread
The light with universal beams,
And through the human desert led
Truth's living, pure, perpetual streams!
Behold a new creation rise,

New spirit breathed into the clod,
Where'er the voice of wisdom cries,

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JAMES MONTGOMERY.

XXI. TRY AGAIN.

"KING ROBERT BRUCE, being out on an expedition to reconnoitre the enemy, had occasion to sleep at night in a barn. In the morning, still reclining his head on a pillow of straw, he beheld a spider climbing up a beam of the roof. The insect fell to the ground, but immediately made a second essay to ascend. This attracted the notice of the hero, who, with regret, saw the spider fall a second time from the same eminence. It made a third unsuccessful attempt. Not without a mixture of concern and curiosity, the monarch twelve times beheld the insect baffled in its aim; but the thirteenth essay was crowned with success. It gained the summit of the barn, and the king, starting from his couch, exclaimed, This despicable insect has taught me perseverance! I will follow its example. Have I not been twelve times defeated by the enemy's superior force? On one fight more hangs the independence of my country!' In a few days his anticipations were fully realized, by the glorious result, to Scotland, of the Battle of Bannockburn."- Goodrich's Fireside Education.