9. If any ask, "What shall I learn?" the answer is, Do as you do with tunes-begin with what you sincerely like best, what you would most wish to remember, what you would most enjoy saying to yourself or repeating to another. You will soon find the list inexhaustible. Then "keeping up" is easy. Every one has spare ten minutes; one of the problems of life is how to employ them usefully. You may well spend some in looking after and securing this good property you have won.

VERNON LUSHINGTON.

L

O! the long, slender spears, how they quiver and flash
Where the clouds send their cavalry down!

Rank and file by the million the rain-lancers dash

Over mountain and river and town:

Thick the battle-drops fall-but they drip not in blood;
The trophy of war is the green fresh bud:

O, the rain, the plentiful rain!

II.

The pastures lie baked, and the furrow is bare,
The wells they yawn empty and dry;

But a rushing of waters is heard in the air,

And a rainbow leaps out in the sky.

Hark! the heavy drops pelting the sycamore leaves,

How they wash the wide pavement, and sweep from the eaves! O, the rain, the plentiful rain!

III.

See, the weaver throws wide his own swinging pane,

The kind drops dance in on the floor;

And his wife brings her flower-pots to drink the sweet rain

On the step by her half-open door;

At the tune on the skylight, far over his head,
Smiles their poor crippled lad on his hospital bed.

O, the rain, the plentiful rain!

See, the weaver throws wide his own swinging pane,

The kind drops dance in on the floor;

And his wife brings her flower-pots to drink the sweet rain On the step by her half-open door.

IV.

And away, far from men, where high mountains tower,
The little green mosses rejoice,

And the bud-heated heather nods to the shower,

And the hill-torrents lift up their voice:

And the pools in the hollows mimic the fight

Of the rain, as their thousand points dart up in the light: O, the rain, the plentiful rain!

V.

And deep in the fir-wood below, near the plain,

A single thrush pipes full and sweet,

How days of clear shining will come after rain,

Waving meadows, and thick-growing wheat;

So the voice of Hope sings, at the heart of our fears,
Of the harvest that springs from a great nation's tears:
O, the rain, the plentiful rain!

SPECTATOR.

It

L.—THE LOVE OF NATURE.

T is strange to observe the callousness of some men, before whom all the glories of heaven and earth pass in daily succession without touching their hearts, elevating their fancy, or leaving any durable remembrance. Even of those who pretend to sensibility, how many are there to whom the luster of the rising or setting sun, the sparkling concave of the midnight sky, the mountain forest tossing and roaring to the storm, or warbling with all the melodies of a summer evening; the sweet interchange of hill and dale, shade and sunshine, grove, lawn, and water, which an extensive landscape offers to the view; the scenery of the ocean, so lovely, so majestic, and so tremendous, and the many pleasing varieties of the animal and vegetable kingdom, could never afford so much real satisfaction as the steams of a ball-room, or the wranglings of a card-table.

2. But some minds there are of a different mould, who, even in the early part of life, receive from the contemplation of Nature a species of delight which they would hardly

exchange for any other; and who, as avarice and ambition are not the infirmities of that period, would, with equal sincerity and rapture exclaim,

"I care not, Fortune, what you me deny;
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace;
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,

Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace

The woods and lawns by living stream at eve."

3. To a mind thus disposed, no part of creation is indifferent. In the crowded city and howling wilderness, in the cultivated province and solitary isle, in the flowery lawn and craggy mountain, in the murmur of the rivulet and in the uproar of the ocean, in the radiance of summer and gloom of winter, in the thunder of heaven and in the whisper of the breeze, he still finds something to rouse or to soothe his imagination, to draw forth his affections, or to employ his understanding. And from every mental energy that is not attended with pain, and even from some of those that are, as moderate terror and pity, a sound mind derives satisfaction; exercise being equally necessary to the body and the soul, and to both equally productive of health and pleasure.

4. This happy sensibility to the beauties of Nature should be cherished in young persons. It engages them to contemplate the Creator in his wonderful works; it purifies and harmonizes the soul, and prepares it for moral and intellectual discipline; it supplies a never-failing source of amusement; it contributes even to bodily health; and as a strict analogy subsists between material and moral beauty, it leads the heart by an easy transition from the one to the other, and thus recommends virtue for its transcendent loveliness, and makes vice appear the object of contempt and abomination.

"O how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms which Nature to her votaries yields?
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves and garniture of fields;