the wolf, as he scampered away; "I have got my deserts : 8 this will teach me another time to keep to my trade of a butcher, and not attempt to play the musician.' 5. THE WOLF ON HIS DEATH-BED. A wolf lay at the last gasp, and was reviewing his past life. "It is true," said he, “I am a great sinner, but yet, I hope, not one of the greatest. I have done evil, but I have also done much good. Once, I remember, a bleating lamb, that had strayed from the flock, came so near to me that I might easily have throttled it; but I did it no harm. At the same time, I listened with the most astonishing indifference to the gibes 50 and scoffs of a sheep, although I had nothing to fear from dogs.” "I can testify to all that," said his friend the fox, who was helping him prepare for death. "I remember perfectly all the circumstances. It was just at the time when you were so dreadfully choked with that bōne which the good-natured crane afterwards drew out of your throat." 6. - THE TWO BEES. One fine morning in May, two bees set forward in quest of honey; the one wise and temperate, the other careless and extravagant. They soon arrived at a garden enriched with aromatic herbs, the most fragrant flowers, and the most delicious fruits. They regaled themselves for a time on the various dainties set before them; the one loading his thighs at intervals with wax for the construction of his hive, the other revelling in sweets, without regard to any thing but present gratification. At length they found a wide-mouthed vial, that hung filled with honey beneath the bough of a peach-tree. The thoughtless epicure, in spite of all his friend's remonstrances, plunged headlong into the vessel, resolving to indulge himself in all the pleasures of sensuality. 94 EI The philosopher, on the other hand, sipped with caution; but being suspicious of danger, flew off to fruits and flowers, where, by the moderation of his meals, he improved his relish for the true enjoyment of them. In the evening, however, he called for his friend, to inquire whether he would return to the hive; but found him surfeited 32 in sweets which he was as unable to leave as to enjoy. Clogged in his wings, enfeebled in his legs, and his whole frame enervated, he was but just able to bid his friend adieu, and to lament, with his latest breath, that, though a taste of pleasure may quicken the relish of life, an unrestrained indulgence is inevitable destruction. SELECT APOLOGUES. 7.- THE PARTIAL JUdge. 99 75 A farmer came to a neighboring lawyer, expressing great concern for an accident which, he said, had just happened. "One of your oxen," continued he, "has been gored by an unlucky bull of mine; and I should be glad to know how I am to make you reparation." "Thou art a very honest fellow," replied the lawyer, "and wilt not think it unreasonable that I expect one of thy oxen in return." "It is no more than justice," quoth the farmer, " to be sure. But what did I say? I mistake. It is your bull that has killed one of my oxen." "Indeed!" says the lawyer; "that alters the case: I must inquire into the affair; and if "And IF!" said the farmer-"the business, I find, would have been concluded without an IF, had you been as ready to do justice to others as to exact it from them." 8. -THE COURT OF DEATH. Death, the king of terrors, was determined to choose a prime minister;11 and his pale courtiers, the ghastly 2 train of diseases, were all summoned to attend, when each preferred his claim to the honor of this illustrious office. Fever urged the numbers he destroyed; cold Palsy set forth his pretensions by shaking all his limbs; and Dropsy, by his swelled, unwieldy carcass; Gout hobbled up, and alleged his great power in racking every joint; 96 and Asthma's inability to speak was a strong though silent argument in favor of his claim. Stone and Colic pleaded their violence; Plague his rapid progress in destruction; and Consumption, though slow, insisted that he was sure. ΕΙ In the midst of this contention, the court was disturbed by the noise of music, dancing, feasting, and revelry; when immediately entered a lady, with a confident air, and a flushed countenance, attended by a troop of cooks and bacchanals: EI her name was INTEMPERANCE.EI She waved her hand, and thus addressed the crowd of diseases: "Give way, ye sickly band of pretenders, nor dare to vie with my superior merits in the service of this great monarch. Am not I your parent? Do ye not derive the power of shortening human life almost wholly from me? Who, then, so fit as myself for this important office?" The grisly monarch grinned a smile of approbation, placed her at his right hand, and she immediately became his principal favorite and prime minister. ΕΙ 9. - DISHONESTY PUNISHED. A usurer, having lost a hundred dollars in a bag, promised a reward of ten dollars to the person who should restore it. The finder brought it to him, and demanded the reward. The usurer, loath to give the reward, now that he had the bag, alleged, as soon as the bag was opened, that it contained, when he lost it, a hundred and ten dollars. Being called before the judge, he unwarily acknowledged that the seal was broken open in his own presence, and that the amount in the bag was but a hundred dollars. "You say," said the judge, " that the bag you lost had a hundred and ten dollars in it?" "Yes, sir.” "Then," replied the judge, "this cannot be your bag, as it contained but a hundred dollars; therefore the plaintiff must keep it till the true owner appears, and you must look for your bag where you can find it.” ΕΙ XIV. ADORATION AMID NATURAL SCENES. 1. THE turf shall be my fragrant shrine; 6 2. My choir 38 shall be the moonlit waves, 3. I'll seek by day some glade unknown, 4. Thy heaven,30 on which 'tis bliss to look, 5. I'll read thy anger in the rack EI Of sunny brightness breaking through. 6. There's nothing bright, above, below, 7. There's nothing dark, below, above, MOORE. PRACTICAL JOKES. 77 XV. — THE SPARTAN BOY.* 1. WHEN I the memory repeat of the heroic actions great, which, in contempt of pain and death, were done by men who drew their breath in ages past, I find no deed that can in fortitūde exceed the noble boy, in Sparta1 bred, who in the temple ministered. 2. By the sacrifice he stands, the lighted incense in his hands; through the smoking censer's lid dropped a burning coal, which 108 slid into his sleeve, and pass'ed in between the folds, e'en to the skin. 3. Dire was the pain which then he proved, but not for this his sleeve he moved, or would the scorching ember shake out from the folds, lest it should make any confusion, or excite disturbance at the sacred rite; but close he kept the burning coal, till it ate itself a hole in his flesh. The standers-by saw no sign, and heard no cry. All this he did in noble scorn, and for he was a Spartan born. 4. Young student who this story readest, and with the same thy thoughts now feedest, thy weaker nerves might thee forbid to do the thing the Spartan did; thy feebler heart could not sustain such dire extremity of pain. But in this story thou mayst see what may useful prove to thee. By this example thou wilt find, that to the ingenuous mind shame can greater anguish bring than the body's suffering; that pain is not the worst of ills—not when it the body kills; that in fair religion's cause, for thy country, or the laws, when occasion dire shall offer, 'tis reproachful not to suffer. MISS LAMB. XVI. PRACTICAL JOKES. 91 1. THE youth who resorts for amusement to hazardous práctical jokes must be poorly off in resources of mirth. The most deplorable results have often followed the indulgence of this foolish propensity. Children have been seriously injured for life, and sometimes killed, by attempts to frighten them by means of masks, white sheets, and other contrivances. A boy This poem is printed as prose, that the pupil may exercise his own ear for harmony in supplying the metrical divisions. Let him first acquaint himself with what is said in paragraphs 156, 31, and 164, in respect to inversion, the diæresis, the suspension of the voice at the end of lines, &c. once told his little sister, in sport, that the rag-man was coming to carry her off. Afterwards, when the rag-man really came, the child was so terrified that she sickened and died in consequence. 2. An instance is related by Allston of a collegian who undertook to frighten his fellow-student by appearing at midnight, dressed in white, in his sleeping-room. The victim of this stupid jest, roused from sleep, and seeing the white figure in his room, took a pistol from beneath his pillow, and threatened to fire. The figure did not move. The student fired, but, as the charge made no impression, he was so overcome with horror that he fell back a hopeless maniac. The practical joker had extracted the balls from the pistol before venturing upon his heartless experiment. 3. What numberless accidents have resulted from the levelling of fire-arms at persons, by practical jokers, young and old! The youth who, forewarned of the danger, still resorts to this practice, and who, to annoy or terrify another, aims at him a gun or pistol, should be treated as little better than one who wants but opportunity to become a murderer. It is not merely levity, but wickedness,91 to court such risks. 4. "There are many good-natured fellows," says the author of Lacon,El ,EI" who have paid the forfeit 32 of their lives to their love of bantering and raillery." No doubt they have had much diversion, but they have purchased it too dear. Although their wit and their brilliancy may have been often extolled, yet it has at last been extinguished forever, and by a foe, perhaps, who had neither the one nor the other, but who found it easier to point a sword than a repartee. ΕΙ ΕΙ 5. "I have heard of a man, in the province of Bengal, who had been a long time very successful in hunting the tiger; his skill gained him great éclat, and had insured him much diversion; at length he narrowly escaped with his life. He then relinquished the sport, with this observation: Tiger-hunting is very fine amusement, so long as we hunt the tiger; but it is rather awkward when the tiger takes it into his head to hunt us.' ΕΙ 90 6. " Again: 98 this skill in small wit, like skill in small arms, is very apt to beget a confidence which may prove fatal in the end. We may either mistake the proper moment (for even cowards have their fighting days,) or we may mistake the proper man. A certain Savoyard got his livelihood by exhibiting a monkey and a bear. He gained so much applause from his tricks with the monkey, that he was encouraged to practise some of them upon the bear; he was dreadfully lacerated, and, on being rescued with great difficulty from the gripe of Bruin, he exclaimed, What a fool was I not to distinguish between a ΕΙ |