Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart.
And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
To join with men, in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly; 'tis not maidenly:

Our sex, as well as I, may chide you
Though I alone do feel the injury!

for it;

A WIFE'S DUTY TO HER HUSBAND.-SHAKSPERE. (From The Taming of the Shrew.")

THY husband is thy life, thy lord, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance; commits his body
To painful labour, both by sea and land;
To watch the night in storm, the day in cold,
While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands,
But love, fair looks, and true obedience,—
Too little payment for so great a debt!
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband:
And when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel,
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed, that women are so simple,
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,

When they are bound to serve, love and obey.

OPHELIA'S DEATH BY DROWNING-SHAKSPERE. (From "Hamlet.")

THERE is a willow grows askant the brook,
That shows his hoar leaves, in the glassy stream;
There wild, fantastic garlands, did she make
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies and long purples;
There, on the pendant boughs, her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down, her weedy trophies and herself,
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread
wide,

And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;
Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,
As one incapablef of her own distress,

Or like a creature, native and indued

Unto that element: but long it could not be,
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay,
To muddy death.

THE PROGRESS OF SIN.

JEREMY TAYLOR (1613-67).

[This great and eloquent divine, a native of Cambridge, has been styled the Shakspere of theological literature, from the poetic fancy and imagination, and the metrical sweetness that mark his compositions. A sermon of Jeremy Taylor's is, indeed, like a fine poem; and the love of nature

* Sliver, a small branch, a twig.

† Incapable, unconscious; an old use of the word.

that shines through all his works gives them a charming freshness; while his noble spirit of Christian toleration exalts him far beyond the age in which he lived.]

I HAVE seen the little purls of a spring sweat through the bottom of a bank, and intenerate* the stubborn pavement, till it hath made it fit for the impression of a child's foot; and it was despised, like the descending pearls of a misty morning, till it had opened its way, and made a stream large enough to carry away the ruins of the undermined strand, and to invade the neighbouring gardens: but then the despised drops were grown into an artificial river, and an intolerable mischief. So are the first entrances of sin stopped with a hearty prayer, and checked into sobriety by the eye of a reverend man, or the counsels of a single sermon ; but when such beginnings are neglected, and our religion hath not in it so much philosophy as to think anything evil as long as we can endure it, they grow up to ulcers and pestilential evils; they destroy the soul by their abode, who at their first entry might have been killed by the pressure of a little finger. He that hath passed many stages of a good life, to prevent his being tempted to a single sin, must be very careful that he never entertain his spirit with the remembrances of his past sin, nor amuse it with the fantastic apprehensions of the present. When the Israelites fancied the sapidness† and relish of the flesh-pots, they longed to taste and return.

* Intenerate (Latin). To soften.

† Sapidness (Latin) tastiness, flavour; hence insipid, insipidity.

So, when a Lybian tiger, drawn from his wilder foragings, is shut up and taught to eat civil meat, he sits down tamely in his prison, and pays to his keeper fear and reverence; but if he chance to come again, and taste a draught of warm blood, he presently leaps unto the natural cruelty. He scarce abstains from eating those hands that brought him discipline and food. So is the nature of a man made tame and gentle by the grace of God, and reduced to reason, and kept in awe by religion and laws, and by an awful virtue is taught to forget those alluring and sottish relishes of sin; but if he diverts from his path, and snatches handfuls from the wanton vineyards, and remembers the unwholesome food that pleased his childish palate, then he grows sick again, and hungry after unwholesome diet, and the apples of Sodom.

The Pannonian bears, when they have clasped a dart in the region of their liver, wheel themselves upon the wound, and with anger and malicious revenge strike the deadly barb deeper, and cannot be quit from that fatal steel; but, in flying, bear along that which themselves make the instrument of a more hasty death: so is every vicious person struck with a deadly wound, and his own hands force it into the entertainments of the heart; and because it is painful to draw it forth by a sharp and salutary repentance, he still rolls and turns upon his wound, and carries his death in his bowels where it first entered by choice, and then dwelt by love; and, at last, shall finish the tragedy by divine judgments and an unalterable decree.

TALENT AND GENIUS.—BULWER.

[Present Period.]

TALENT convinces, Genius but excites;
This tasks the reason, that the soul delights;
Talent from sober judgment takes its birth,
And reconciles the pinion to the earth;
Genius unsettles with desires the mind,
Contented not till earth be left behind;
Talent, the sunshine on a cultured soil,
Ripens the fruit by slow degrees for toil:
Genius, the sudden Iris of the skies,
On cloud itself reflects its wondrous dyes,
And to the earth in tears and glory given,
Clasps in its airy arch the pomp of heav'n!
Talent gives all that vulgar critics need,
From its plain horn-book learn the dull to read;
Genius, the Pythian* of the beautiful,

Leaves its large truth a riddle to the dull;

From eyes profane a veil the Isis screens,

And fools on fools still ask-what Hamlet means!

HYMN.-BISHOP HEBER.

[Dr. Reginald Heber, the learned and accomplished scholar, was born at Malpas, in Cheshire, in 1783; in 1823 he accepted the bishopric of Calcutta ; and died of apoplexy at Trichinopoly in 1826. He was found by his servant dead in

* The Pythian; that is, the oracle. The Pythian oracle spoke in riddles.