inevitably! The way is, to swim round till their plunging slackens, and they rise to the surface of the water generally for the last time, when you must go behind them- never before them; seize either the back of the neck, or even a lock of the back hair, particularly if long hair, will be quite sufficient to hold them, and to urge them before you to shore-holding them by one hand, and swimming with the other. (Parties should practise swimming with either hand alone, and they will be more fitted, having tested their own resources this way, to rely upon their ability for any attempt to rescue others.) Sometimes the foot can be readiest seized: this will do, though not so well. Always keep clear of their arms and hands, with one exception perhaps the back of their arm, or grasping the shoulders round and under the armpit from behind. They must be made your prisoner in one of these ways, which are the chief, or else you may be made, however unintentionally, theirs, which, as we have said, is fatal to both; the reverse being a happy success in your object. Alas! how many noble endeavours, on the part even of good swimmers, are worse than thrown away, by not attending to this-how often does there result a double loss of life, deepening into horror the earlier part of the catastrophe-as our newspaper records show almost day by day. A person had better not jump in to help, under the promptings of a noble anxiety, unless he can with presence of mind put these precautions into practice. If in his praiseworthy efforts to save the struggler, or the lifeless body, from a watery grave," he finds his own strength failing, and the hope he bravely cherished impossible to realise, then he must consign his prisoner to his fate, and save his own life, however distressing to desert a drowning fellow-creature. This duty to himself he cannot discharge if he have allowed himself to become im

prisoned in the drowning man's death-grasp for though magnanimous courage may call him to make an attempt at rescuing a fellow-creature from fatal danger, and none would keep this in more distinct view than the writer, as a moral obligation; yet it is no less true that an attempt so to do without the probability of accomplishing it through adequate and properly-directed means, is, however amiable a trait of enthusiastic feeling for another's jeopardy, condemned as rash by prudence, as an infringement of organic and inorganic laws, amounting to a temptation of Providence, though in the loveliest garb rash profligacy of your own existence can be found to wear! Yet it is a mistaken 'building of a tower without having counted the cost,' the prosecution of which can only be left off by doing as we have said, ere the weight of its falling mass and scaffold crushes such builder under its destructive ruins. Coolness is never more emphatically the handmaiden of courage than here; and us engrave these rules by another word beginning with the letter C, that is-Caution; like the Irishman taking prisoners-be always surrounding them— (a push now and then will be all needed often). Courage to attempt their rescue; coolness to apply knowledge; caution to crown with success a heroism well begun. If but one life more were rescued through our suggestions, this book may be, "like bread cast upon the waters," found after many days-many years it may be-useful for once, and the author will be immeasurably repaid.

"What is a man,

If his chief good, and market of his time,

Be but to sleep, and feed; a beast, no more.

Sure, He that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before, and after, gave us not

That capability, and godlike reason,
To fust in us, unused."

SHAKSPEARE.

let

"Idleness is the badge of gentry, the bane of body and mind. the nurse of naughtiness, the stepmother of discipline, the chief author of all mischief, one of the seven deadly sins, the cushion upon which the devil chiefly reposes, and a great cause not only of melancholy, but of many other diseases; for the mind is naturally active, and if it be not occupied about some honest business, it rushes into mischief. or sinks into melancholy."

BURTON.

"Who says, the wan autumnal sun

Beams with too faint a smile

To light up Nature's face again,

And, though the year be on the wane,

With thoughts of Spring the heart beguile ? "Waft him, thou soft September breeze,

And gently lay him down

Within some circling woodland wall,

Where bright leaves, reddenning ere they fall,
Wave gaily o'er the waters brown.

"And let some graceful arch be there
With wreathed mullions proud,

With burnish'd ivy for its screen,

And moss, that glows as fresh and green
As though beneath an April cloud."

The liberty, for frail, for mortal man,
To roam at large among unpeopled glens,
And mountainous retirements, only trod
By devious footsteps - Regions cons ecrate
To oldest time !-And reckless of the storm
That keeps the raven quiet in his nest,
Be as a presence or a motion-one
Among the many there."

KEBLE.

WORDSWORTH.

TO THE SKY.

"Far from the rustlings of the poplar bough, Which o'er my opening life wild music made,

Far from the green hills with their heathery glow
And flashing streams whereby my childhood play'd;
In the dim city, 'midst the sounding flow

Of restless life, to thee in love I turn,

O, thou rich sky! and from thy splendours learn
How song-birds come and part, flowers wane and blow.
With thee all shapes of glory find their home,
And thou hast taught me well, majestic dome!
By stars, by sunsets, by soft clouds which rove,
Thy blue expanse, or sleep in silvery rest,
That nature's God hath left no spot unbless'd,
With founts of beauty for the eye of love."

MRS. HEMANS.

MORNING.

The rosy morning clouds stood upon the mountains, and announced the coming of their Lord, the Sun. But as soon as the tidings spread over field and wood, the thousand-voiced echo awoke, and sleep was no more to be thought of. And soon did the royal sun himself arise, at first his dazzling diadem alone appeared above the mountains; at length he stood upon their summit in the full majesty of his beauty, in all the charms of eternal youth, bright and glorious, his kindly glance embracing every creature of earth, from the stately oak to the blade of grass bending under the foot of the wayfaring man. Then arose from every breast, from every throat, the joyous song of praise; and it was as if the whole plain and wood were become a temple, whose roof was the heaven, whose altar the mountain, whose congregation all creatures, whose priest the sun."-STORY WITHOUT AN END. HOWITT.

"Come forth, and let us through our hearts receive The joy of verdure !-see, the honied lime

Showers cool green light o'er banks where wild flowers

weave

Thick tapestry: and woodbine tendrils climb

Up the brown oak from buds of moss and thyme.
The rich deep masses of the sycamore

Hang heavy with the fulness of their prime,

And the white poplar, from its foliage hoar,

Scatters forth gleams like moonlight, with each gale

That sweeps the boughs :-the chestnut flowers are past,

The crowning glories of the hawthorn fail,

But arches of sweet eglantine are cast

From every hedge:-Oh! never may we lose,

Dear friend! our fresh delight in simplest nature's hues!"

MRS. HEMANS.

EVENING.

"When the last sunshine of expiring day
In summer's twilight weeps itself away,
Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart as dew along the flower."

BYRON.