guished at college. Goldsmith, in the same manner, recollected more of that friend's early years as he grew a greater man."
Johnson observed "that a man should take a sufficient quantity of sleep, which Dr. Mead says is between seven and nine hours." I told him that Dr. Cullen said to mc that a man should not take more sleep than he can take at once. JOHNSON: "This rule, sir, cannot hold in all cases; for many people have their sleep broken by sickness; and surely Cullen would not have a man to get up after having slept but an hour. Such a regimen would soon end in a long sleep."
"Thomas à Kempis," he observed, must be a good book, as the world has opened its arms to receive it. It is said to have been printed, in one language or other, as many times as there have been months, since it came out. I always was struck with this sentence in it: "Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be."
Next morning, while we were at breakfast, Johnson gave a very earnest recommendation of what he himself practised with the utmost conscientiousness-I mean a strict attention to truth. "Accustom your children," said he, constantly to this. If a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end. It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world."
THE STORY OF POOR MARGARET.
Never did my steps Approach this door but she who dwelt within A daughter's welcome gave me, and I loved her As my own child. Oh, sir! the good die first, And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust Burn to the socket. Many a passenger
Hath blessed poor Margaret for her gentle looks,
When she upheld the cool refreshment drawn
From that forsaken spring; and no one came
But he was welcome; no one went away
But that it seemed she loved him. She is dead,
The light extinguished of her lonely hut,
The hut itself abandoned to decay,
And she forgotten in the quiet grave.
I speak, continued he, of one whose stock
Of virtues bloomed beneath this lowly roof.
She was a woman of a steady mind,
Tender and deep in her excess of love;
Not speaking much, pleased rather with the joy
Of her own thoughts: by some especial care
Her temper had been framed, as if to make
A being who, by adding love to peace,
Might live on earth a life of happiness.
Her wedded partner lacked not on his side
The humble worth that satisfied her heart :
Frugal, affectionate, sober, and withal
Keenly industrious. She with pride would tell
That he was often seated at his loom,
In summer, ere the mower was abroad
Among the dewy grass-in early spring,
Ere the last star had vanished. They who passed
At evening, from behind the garden fence,
Might hear his busy spade, which he would ply
After his daily work, until the light
Had failed, and every leaf and flower were lost
In the dark hedges. So their days were spent
In peace and comfort; and a pretty boy
Was their best hope, next to the God in heaven.
Not twenty years ago, but you I think
Can scarcely bear it now in mind, there came
Two blighting seasons, when the fields were left
With half a harvest. It pleased Heaven to add
A worse affliction in the plague of war:
This happy land was stricken to the heart!
A wanderer then among the cottages,
I, with my freight of winter raiment, saw
The hardships of that season: many rich
Sank down, as in a dream, among the
poor;
And of the poor did many cease to be,
And their place knew them not. Meanwhile, abridged Of daily comforts, gladly reconciled
To numerous self-denials, Margaret
Went struggling on through those calamitous years
With cheerful hope, until the second autumn,
When her life's helpmate on a sick bed lay,
Smitten with perilous fever. In disease
He lingered long; and, when his strength returned,
He found the little he had stored to meet
The hour of accident or crippling age
Was all consumed. A second infant now
Was added to the troubles of a time
Laden, for them and all of their degree,
With care and sorrow; shoals of artisans,
From ill-requited labour turned adrift
Sought daily bread from public charity,
They, and their wives and children-happier far
Could they have lived as do the little birds
That peck along the hedge-rows, or the kite
That makes her dwelling on the mountain rocks.
A sad reverse it was for him who long
Had filled with plenty and possessed in peace
This lonely cottage. At the door he stood,
And whistled many a snatch of merry tunes
That had no mirth in them; or with his knife
Carved uncouth figures on the heads of sticks—
Then, not less idly, sought, through every nook
In house or garden, any casual work
Of use or ornament; and with a strange
Amusing, yet uneasy novelty,
He mingled, where he might, the various tasks
Of summer, autumn, winter, and of spring.
But this endured not; his good humour soon
Became a weight in which no pleasure was:
And poverty brought on a petted mood
And a sore temper day by day he drooped,
And he would leave his work-and to the town
Would turn without an errand his slack steps;
Or wander here and there among the fields.
One while he would speak lightly of his babes,
And with a cruel tongue: at other times
He tossed them with a false unnatural joy;
And 'twas a rueful thing to see the looks
Of the poor innocent children. Every smile,"
Said Margaret to me, here beneath these trees,
"Made my heart bleed."
While thus it fared with them,
To whom this cottage, till those hapless years,
Had been a blesséd home, it was my chance
To travel in a country more remote ;
And when these lofty elms once more appeared
What pleasant expectations lured me on
O'er the flat common! With quick step I reached
The threshold, lifted with light hand the latch;
But, when I entered, Margaret looked at me
A little while; then turned her head away
Speechless and, sitting down upon a chair,
Wept bitterly. I wist not what to do,
Nor how to speak to her. Poor wretch! at last
She rose from off her seat, and then,-O, sir!
I cannot tell how she pronounced my name:
With fervent love, and with a face of grief
Unutterably helpless, and a look
That seemed to cling upon me, she inquired
If I had seen her husband. As she spake
A strange surprise and fear came to my heart,
Nor had I power to answer ere she told
That he had disappeared-not two months gone.
He left his house: two wretched days had passed,
And on the third, as wistfully she raised
Her head from off the pillow, to look forth,
Like one in trouble for returning light,
Within her chamber casement she espied
A folded paper, lying as if placed
To meet her waking eyes. This tremblingly
She opened-found no writing, but beheld
Pieces of money carefully enclosed,
Silver and gold. "I shuddered at the sight,"
Said Margaret, "for I knew it was his hand
That must have placed it there; and ere that day
Was ended, that long anxious day, I learned,
From one who by my husband had been sent
With the sad news, that he had joined a troop
Of soldiers going to a distant land.
He left me thus-he could not gather heart
To take a farewell of me; for he feared
That I should follow with my babes, and sink
Beneath the misery of that wandering life!"
This tale did Margaret tell with many tears;
And, when she ended, I had little power
To give her comfort, and was glad to take
Such words of hope from her own mouth as served
To cheer us both. But long we had not talked
Ere we built up a pile of better thoughts,
And with a brighter eye she looked around
As if she had been shedding tears of joy.
We parted. 'Twas the time of early spring:
I left her busy with her garden tools;
And well remember o'er that fence she looked,
And, while I paced along that foot-way path,
Called out, and sent a blessing after me,
With tender cheerfulness, and with a voice
That seemed the very sound of happy thoughts.
THE STORY OF POOR MARGARET.
I roved o'er many a hill and many a dale,
With my accustomed load; in heat and cold,
Through many a wood and many an open ground,
In sunshine and in shade, in wet and fair,
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