him to lose the chance which the morning, however unpropitious it seemed, in its external aspect, might yield him of profiting by the turn of a fraction. He was a stout-built, round-shouldered, squab-looking man, of a bearish aspect. His features were hard, and his heart was harder. You could read the interest-table in the wrinkles of his brow, trace the rise and fall of stocks by the look of his countenance; while avarice, selfishness, and money-getting, glared from his gray, glassy eye. Nature had poured no balm into his breast; nor was his " gross and earthly mould" susceptible of pity. A single look of his would daunt the most importunate petitioner that ever attempted to extract hard coin by the soft rhetoric of a heart-moving tale. The wife of one whom he had known in better days, pleaded before him for her sick husband, and famishing infants. Jacob, on occasions like these, was a man of few words. He was as chary of them as of his money, and he let her come to the end of her tale without interruption. She paused for a reply; but he gave none. "Indeed, he is very ill, Sir."- -"Can't help it."- "We are very distressed." "Can't help it."-"Our poor children, too"Can't help that neither." The petitioner's eye looked a mournful reproach, which would have interpreted itself to any other heart but his, "Indeed, you can ;" but she was silent. Jacob felt more awkwardly than he had ever done in his life. His hand involuntarily scrambled about his breeches' pocket. There was something like the weakness of human nature stirring within him. Some coin had unconsciously worked its way into his hand-his fingers insensibly closed; but the effort to draw them forth, and the impossibility of effecting it without unclosing them, roused the dormant selfishness of his nature, and restored his self-possession. "He has been very extravagant."—" Ah, Sir, he has been very unfortunate, not extravagant."-" Unfortunate!Ah! it's the same thing. Little odds, I fancy. For my part, I wonder how folks can be unfortunate. I was never unfortunate. Nobody need be unfortunate, if they look after the main chănce. I always look after the main chănce." -"He has had a large family to maintain."-" Ah! married foolishly; no offence to you ma'am. But when poor folks marry poor folks, what are they to look for? know. Besides, he was so foolishly fond of assisting others. you If a friend was sick, or in gaol, out came his purse, and then his creditors might go whistle. Now if he had married a woman with money, you know, why then. The supplicant turned pale, and would have fainted. Jacob was alarmed; not that he sympathized, but a woman's fainting was a scene that he had not been used to: besides, there was an awkwardness about it; for Jacob was a bachelor. Sixty summers had passed over his head without imparting a ray of warmth to his heart; without exciting one tender feeling for the sex, deprived of whose cheering presence, the paradise of the world were a wilderness of weeds. -So he desperately extracted a crown piece from the depth profound, and thrust it hastily into her hand. The action recalled her wandering senses. She blushed-it was the honest blush of pride at the meanness of the gift. She curt'sied; staggered towards the door; opened it; closed it; raised her hand to her forehead, and burst into tears.* * * * LESSON CI. The Highlander.-W. GILLESPIE. Many years ago, a poor Highland soldier, on his return to his native hills, fatigued, as it was supposed, by the length of the march and the heat of the weather, sat down under the shade of a birch-tree, on the solitary road of Lowrin, that winds along the margin of Loch Ken, in Galloway. Here he was found dead, and this incident forms the subject of the following verses. FROM the climes of the sun, all war-worn and weary, Though fierce was the noon-beam and steep was the road. He sunk to repose where the red heaths are blended, No arm in the day of the conflict could wound him, And moisteneth the heath-bell that weeps on his breast. LESSON CII. The Harvest Moon.-W. MILLAR. How lovely is the scene!-how bright The wood-the lawn-the mountain's breast, When thou, fair Moon of Harvest! hast Thy radiant glory all unfurled, And sweetly smilest in the west, Far down upon the silent world. Dispel the clouds, majestic orb! That round the dim horizon brood, That rests upon the slumbering flood, Oh! let thy cloudless glory shed The omens of a frowning sky. Shine on, fair orb of light! and smile He bore in summer's sultry ray; LESSON CIII. Thalaba among the ruins of Babylon.—SOUTHEY. THE many-colored domes* When through the gate the early traveller pass'd. Distinct in darkness seen, Above the low horizon's lingering light, Looked down on swarming myriads; once she flung Low lay her bulwarkst; the black scorpion basked The she-wolf hid her whelps. Is yonder huge and shapeless heap, what once * Of Bagdad. + Pron. bul-wurks-u as in bull. Work of imperial dotage? Where the fane The Assyrian slaves adored? A labyrinth of ruins, Babylon Spreads o'er the blasted plain. The wandering Arab never sets his tent Eternal nature's work. Through the broken pōrtal, Cautious he trod, and felt The dangerous ground before him with his bow. The stork, alarmed at sound of man, The adder, in her haunts disturbed, Twilight and moonshine, dimly mingling, gave The moon still pale and faint,— Broken by many a mass of blackest shade; Long columns stretching dark through weeds and moss; And of their former shape, low-arched or square, Figured with long grass fringed. Reclined against a column's broken shaft, It seemed as if no foot of man |