THE CONTRAST.

LINES WRITTEN BY THE REVEREND CHARLES WOLFE, WHILE STANDING

UNDER WINDSOR TERRACE.

I saw him once on the terrace proud,
Walking in health and gladness,
Begirt with court, and in all the crowd

Not a single look of sadness;

Bright was the sun, and the leaves were green,

Blithely the birds were singing,

The symbol replied to the tambourine,
And the bells were merrily ringing.

I stood at the grave beside his bier,
When not a word was spoken,
But every eye was din with a tear

And the silence by sobs was broken,
The time since he walked in his glory thus,
To the grave till I saw him carried,

Was an age of the mightiest change to us,
But to him a night unvaried.

For his eyes were sealed, and his mind was dark,
And he sat in his age's lateness,

Like a vision enthron'd as a solemn mark

Of the frailty of human greatness.

A daughter beloved, a queen, a son,

And a son's sole child have perished,

And it saddeneth each heart, save his alone,
By whom they were fondly cherished.

We have fought the fight from his lofty throne,
The foe to our land we humbled,

And it gladdens each heart, save his alone,
For whom that foe was tumbled.

His silver beard o'er a bosom spread,
Unvaried by life's emotion,

Like a yearly length'ning snowdrift shed,
On the calm of a frozen ocean.

Still o'er him oblivion's water lay,

Tho' the tide of life kept flowing,

When they spoke of the King 'twas but to say-
"The old man's strength was going."

At intervals thus the waves disgorge,
By weakness rent asunder,

A piece of the wreck of the Royal George,
For the people's pity and wonder.

He is gone at length-he is laid in dust,
Death's hand his slumber breaking,
For the coffin'd sleep of the good and just
Is a sure and blissful waking.

His people's heart is his funeral urn,

And should sculptured stone be denied him,
There will his name be found when, in turn,

We lay our heads beside him.

A MAN is taller in the morning than at night, to the extent of half an inch, owing to the relaxation of the cartilages.

CREDIT.

THE most trifling actions, that affect a man's credit, are to be regarded. The sound of your hamıner at five in the morning, or nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer. But if he sees you at a billiard table, or hears your voice at a tavern, when you should be at work, he sends for his money the next day. Finer clothes than he or his wife wears, a greater expence in any particular, than he affords himself, shocks his pride, and he duns you to humble you. Creditors are a kind of people who have the sharpest eyes and ears, as well as the best memories of any in the world. Good-natured creditors feel pain when they are obliged to ask for money. Spare them that pain and they will love you. When you receive a sum of money, divide it among them, in proportion to your debts; do not be ashamed of paying a small sum because you owe a larger. Money, more or less, is always welcome; and your creditor would rather be at the trouble of receiving ten shillings voluntary brought him, though at ten different times of payment, than be obliged to go ten different times, to demand it, before he can receive it in the lump. It shews that you are mindful of what you owe, it makes you appear a careful as well as an honest man, and that still increases your credit. Remember the saying "That the good paymaster is lord of another man's purse.'

AN Englishman, having asked an Irishman, if the roads in Ireland were good-"Yes," said he, "so fine, that I wonder you do not import some of them to England." Stay let me see— there's the road to love, strewed with roses-to matrimony, through nettles-to honour, through the camp-to prison, through the law -and to the undertakers, through the physic." "Have you any road to preferment," said the Englishman. "Yes, but that is the dirtiest in the kingdom."

A SUITOR, for the hand of a young lady, at Harrowgate, had been repeatedly warned that she was of a violent and ungovernable temper, but persisted in attributing the information to envy or mistake. "At length," said the lover, relating his mishap to a friend, "I got into an argument with my dear Maria, about a mere trifle, when she so far forgot herself, in a moment of passion, as to throw a cup of tea in my face.' "And what was the effect?" inquired his auditor. "Oh! that completely opened my eyes."

VANITY is the besetting sin of more than one nation, but in France it sometimes exhibits itself in strange guise. The names and addresses of 500 young girls, who figured in the procession of the Fraternization Féte, at Paris, the other week, were actually hawked about the streets! "What!" exclaimed a wag, virtue become so rare, that one has need of its address in order to find it."

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MRS. CROWE ON WOMAN'S LOVE.

How few women have ever been in love! How few even marry from selection! They marry because they are asked, and because the marriage is suitable. It is their vocation to be married; parents approve, and they have no other attachment. Any observant person living in society, where there is a continual marrying, and giving in marriage, must be struck with this fact. Cupid's quiver must be exhausted, or his arrows blunt, as he pierces few hearts now. I incline to think that a girl really in love, one who bore the evident symptoms of the malady, would be thought very improper; yet I have often fancied that there must be a man born in the world for every woman; one whom to see would be to love, to reverence, to adore; one with whom her sympathies would so entirely blend, that she would recognise him at once as her true lord. Now and then these pairs come together; and woe to her who meets this other self too late. Women would be more humble and more merciful if they did not, through ignorance and thoughtlessness, measure the temptation of others by their own experience.

THE ROSE.

Hast thou no fears, O thou exulting thing!
Thus looking forth for life? Is there no spell
In the strong wind to tame thee? Thou hast yet
To learn harsh lessons from the changing hours,
And bow thy stately head submissively
Unto a heavy touch, for here, bright shape,
Thy resting place is not.

AN eccentric preacher, in the West, concluded an impressive charity sermon, in the following language :-" My dear brethren, it has been the usual fashion, for an audience, to testify their approbation of that which has been said, by the clapping of hands, but I recommend for your adoption a new method of clapping, less tumultuous and much more pleasing. When you leave this building, clap your hands into your breeches pocket, and draw them out again; clap your money into the box which is at the door to receive it; and may the Lord give it his blessing!" It is stated, that the address had the desired effect, and the audience, having given the needful, as requested, clapped their hats upon their heads, and started for their homes, much edified with the discourse.

CHATEANEUF was keeper of the seals in the minority of Louis XIII. At the age of 9, he was introduced to a French bishop, who said-" He would give him an orange if he would tell him where God is." "My lord," replied the boy, "I will give you two if you will tell me where He is not."

DOCTOR LITSOM ascribes health and wealth to water; happiness, to small beer; and all disease and crimes to the use of spirits.

ORIGIN OF CORONERS' INQUESTS.

THE Coroner's inquest is said to have originated in the following manner :-A gentlewoman, in London, having buried six husbands, found a suitor hardy enough to make her a wife once more. For several months their happiness was mutual, a circumstance which seemed to pay no great compliment to her former husbands, who had disgusted her, she said, with their drunkenness and infidelity. With a view of ascertaining the real character of his mate, the gentleman began to absent himself, and return at late hours in a state of intoxication. Reproaches at first, and menaces in succession, were the effects of this conduct. One evening, when she thought him senseless or asleep, she unsewed a leaden weight from a fold in her gown, and having melted it, approached her husband to pour it into his ear. Convinced of her wickedness, the gentleman started up, seized her, and having procured assistance, confined her till morning, when she was taken before a magistrate and committed to prison. The bodies of her six husbands were dug up, and as marks of violence were discernable upon the whole of them, she was brought to trial and convicted of murder. To these circumstances we are indebted for a most useful institution.

DEAN SWIFT once made a wager, that he would collect a crowd in the street, and keep it there for hours, merely acting on the love of mankind for the marvellous. Accordingly, he fixed himself in front of a certain church, and remained there for a time, casting his eyes alternately on the spire and on his watch. Parties noticing his abstracted attitude, speedily gathered around him, and some half indistinct mutterings revealed to them that he was waiting for the renewed appearance of some special object on the steeple. This intelligence spread like wild-fire, and his point being gained, the reverend wag slipped quietly away. Not so the crowd, which continued swelling and lingering about the spot, circulating all sorts of absurdities, until hours on hours passed away, proving the accuracy of Swift's anticipations.

A YOUNG man advertises, in the Boston Post, for a place as a salesman, and says, he has had a great deal of experience, having been discharged from seven different stores within a year.

ELEPHANTS live for 200, 300, and even 400 years. A healthy full-grown elephant consumes thirty pounds of grain per day. BATS in India are called flying foxes, and measure six feet, from tip to tip.

THREE Hudson's Bay dogs draw a sledge, loaded with three hundred pounds, fifteen miles a day.

SHEEP in wild pastures, practice self-defence, by an array in which the rams stand foremost in concert, with ewes and lambs in the centre of a hollow square.

SOCIAL ECONOMY.

THE great Exhibition of 1851, whose splendid pageantry has been the crowning marvel of an age of wonders, has established many important principles which mark the advent of a new era in the history of Industry. Amongst these, perhaps the most remarkable and gratifying, consists in a recognition of a mutual relationship, between mind and labour, much more extensive and intimate than had ever before been supposed to exist, or to be possible. The glorious result of this most holy alliance, will be to cheer the brow of toil with the light of genius and the smile of promise, and to elevate the character of the working man, by giving him a taste for the beautiful in connexion with the useful principles, which, in the economy of nature, are so wondrously associated;-in a word, to extend his resources and his usefulness, by inspiring him with an ambition to bring his peculiar industry, however humble in itself, to bear in some manner upon the highest and most honoured fields of enterprise. By such means we may hope to see the jealousies between classes and rival trades removed, and the best exertions of all uniting for the common good.

Extending our regards beyond our own shores, we see another and still more gratifying result of the Great Industrial Congress of 1851, in the conviction brought to the productive classes, of all nations, of a community of interests existing between them, superior to all interests of nationality, above all prejudices of race and birth. Thus, to sum up, we attain, in the first place, increased knowledge of our own resources, and of the resources of the rest of the world; which, whilst it creates a just confidence in ourselves, will also create a feeling of respect for our neighbours. Secondly, an acknowledgment of the true priuciples of reciprocal dealing, by which the peculiar advantages of one community may be interchanged by those of others. Finally, an enlarged field of commerce, and the infusion of a more liberal spirit into commercial transactions, by which commerce will grow, and with it civilization and peace be extended, as the connecting bond of the whole human family.

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A MERRY jesting fellow, being half drunk, went to the house of a Roman priest, and demanded him to give him a pound. "Give you a pound," said the priest, "why, surely the fellow is mad." Well, then, give me a half crown.' "And pray what for?" "Well, then, give me a shilling." "Nor a shilling, neither," replied the priest. "Well, then, give me a farthing." "I will give you nothing at all." "Pray reverend father, do not be angry, it was only your blessing I asked." If you come then, my son," replied the priest, "kneel down and receive it humbly." No," replied the arch wag, upon second thought, "I will not receive thy cheap blessing, for if it was worth one single farthing, you would not bestow it on me."

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