2. This youth hath sense and spirit;

But yet, with all his sense,

Excessive diffidence

Obscured his merit.

3. One day, at table, flushed with pride and wine, His honor, proudly free, severely merry, Conceived it would be vastly fine

To crack a joke upon his secretary.

4. "Young man," he said, “by what art, craft, or trade Did your good father gain a livelihood?

"He was a saddler, sir," Modestus said, "And in his time was reckoned good."

5. "A saddler, eh? and taught you Greek,
Instead of teaching you to sew!
Pray, why did not your father make
A saddler, sir, of you?"

6. Each parasite then, as in duty bound,

The joke applauded, and the laugh went round.
At length Modestus, bowing low,

Said (craving pardon, if too free he made),
"Sir, by your leave, I fain would know

Your father's trade."

7. "My father's trade! Come, come, sir! that's too bad!
My father's trade! Why, blockhead, are you mad?
My father, sir, did never stoop so low-
He was a gentleman, I'd have you know."

8. "Excuse the liberty I take,"

Modestus said, with archness on his brow, "Pray, why did not your father make A gentleman of you?"

XLII.-THE TWO WEAVERS.

HANNAH MORE.

1. As at their work two weavers sat,
Beguiling time with friendly chat,
They touched upon the price of meat,
So high, a weaver scarce could eat.

2. "What with my brats and sickly wife,”
Quoth Dick, "I'm almost tired of life;
So hard my work, so poor my fare,
'Tis more than mortal man can bear.

3. "How glorious is the rich man's state!
His house so fine, his wealth so great!
Heaven is unjust, you must agree ;
Why all to him? Why none to me?

4. "In spite of what the Scripture teaches,
In spite of all the parson preaches,
This world (indeed I've thought so long)
Is ruled, methinks, extremely wrong.

5.

Where'er I look, howe'er I range,
'Tis all confused and hard and strange;
The good are troubled and oppressed,
And all the wicked are the blessed."

6. Quoth John, "Our ignorance is the cause Why thus we blame our Maker's laws; Parts of his ways alone we know ; 'Tis all that man can see below.

7. "See'st thou that carpet, not half done, Which thou, dear Dick, hast well begun? Behold the wild confusion there,

So rude the mass it makes one stare!

8. "A stranger, ignorant of the trade,

Would say, no meaning's there conveyed;
For where's the middle? where's the border?
Thy carpet now is all disorder."

9. Quoth Dick, "My work is yet in bits,
But still in every part it fits;
Besides, you reason like a lout-
Why, man, that carpet's inside out."

10. Says John, "Thou say'st the thing I mean,
And now I hope to cure thy spleen ;

This world, which clouds thy soul with doubt,
Is but a carpet inside out.

11. "As when we view these shreds and ends,
We know not what the whole intends;
So, when on earth things look but odd,
They're working still some scheme of God.

12. "No plan, no pattern, can we trace;
All wants proportion, truth, and grace ;
The motley mixture we deride,
Nor see the beauteous upper side.

13.

"But when we reach that world of light,
And view those works of God aright,
Then shall we see the whole design,
And own the workman is divine.

14. "What now seem random strokes, will there
All order and design appear ;

Then shall we praise what here we spurned,
For then the carpet shall be turned."

15. "Thou'rt right," quoth Dick; no more I'll grumble That this sad world's so strange a jumble;

My impious doubts are put to flight,

For my own carpet sets me right."

XLIII.-THE SNOW-WALKERS.

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

1. He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter. It is true the pomp and the pageantry are swept away; but the essential elements remain, the day and the night, the mountain and the valley, the elemental play and succession, and the perpetual presence of the infinite sky.

2. In winter the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of more exalted simplicity. Summer is more wooing and seductive, more versatile and human, appeals to the affections and the sentiments, and fosters inquiry and the artimpulse. Winter is of a more heroic cast, and addresses the intellect. The severe studies and disciplines come easier in winter. One imposes larger tasks upon himself, and is less tolerant of his cwn weaknesses.

3. The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to Literature, summer the tissues and blood.

4. The simplicity of winter has a deep moral. The return of Nature, after such a career of splendor and prodigality, to habits so simple and austere, is not lost either upon the head or the heart. It is the philosopher coming back from the banquet and the wine to a cup of water and a crust of bread.

5. And then this beautiful masquerade of the elements,the novel disguises our nearest friends put on! Here is another rain and another dew, water that will not flow, nor spill, nor receive the taint of an unclean vessel. And if we see truly, the same old beneficence and willingness to serve lurk beneath all.

6. Look up at the miracle of the falling snow, the air a dizzy maze of whirling, eddying flakes, noiselessly transforming the world, the exquisite crystals dropping in ditch and gutter, and disguising in the same suit of spotless livery

all objects upon which they fall. How novel and fine the first drifts! The old, dilapidated fence is suddenly set off with the most fantastic ruffles, scalloped and fluted after an unheard-of fashion! Looking down a long line of decrepit stone-wall, in the trimming of which the wind had fairly run riot, I saw, as for the first time, what a severe yet masterartist old Winter is. Ah, a severe artist! How stern the woods book; dark and cold, and as rigid against the horizon as iron!

7. All life and action upon the snow have an added emphasis and significance. Every expression is underscored. Summer has few finer pictures than this winter one of the farmer foddering his cattle from a stack upon the clean snow, -the movement, the sharply defined figures, the great green flakes of hay, the long file of patient cows-the advance just arriving and pressing eagerly for the choicest morsels,—and the bounty and providence it suggests.

8. Or the chopper in the woods,-the prostrate tree, the white new chips scattered about, his easy triumph over the cold, coat hanging to a limb, and the clear, sharp ring of his ax. The woods are rigid and tense, keyed up by the frost, and resound like a stringed instrument. Or the road-breakers, sallying forth with oxen and sleds in the still, white world, the day after the storm, to restore the lost track and demolish the beleaguering drifts.

9. All sounds are sharper in winter,—the air transmits better. At night I hear more distinctly the steady roar of the North Mountain. In summer it is a sort of complacent pur, as the breezes stroke down its sides; but in winter always the same low, sullen growl.

10. A severe artist! No longer the canvas and the pigments, but the marble and the chisel. When the nights are calm and the moon full, I go out to gaze upon the wonderful purity of the moonlight and the snow. The air is full of latent fire, and the cold warms me—after a different fashion from that of the kitchen-stove. The world lies about me in a trance of snow." The clouds are pearly and iridescent, and seem the farthest possible remove from the condition of a storm, the ghosts of clouds, the indwelling beauty freed from all dross.

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