Sheds every hour a clearer light

In aid of our defective sight;

And spreads, at length, before the soul,

A beautiful and perfect whole,
Which busy man's inventive brain
Toils to anticipate, in vain.

Say, Anna, had you never known
The beauties of a rose full blown,

Could you, tho' luminous your eye,
By looking on the bud, descry,

Or

guess, with a prophetic power,

The future splendor of the flower?

Just so,

The

th' Omnipotent, who turns

system of a world's concerns,

From mere minutiæ can educe

Events of most important use;
And bid a dawning sky display
The blaze of a meridian day.

:

The works of man tend, one and all, A

As needs they must, from great to small; }
And vanity absorbs at length

The monuments of human strength.
But who can tell how vast the plant
Which this day's incident began?
Too small, perhaps, the slight occasion
For our dim-sighted observation;

It pass'd unnotic'd, as the bird

That cleaves the yielding air unheard,
And yet may prove, when understood,
An harbinger of endless good.

Not that I deem, or mean to call Friendship a blessing cheap or small: But merely to remark, that ours,

Like some of nature's sweetest flowers,

Rose from a seed of tiny size,

That seem'd to promise no such prize;

A transient visit intervening,

And made almost without a meaning,

(Hardly the effect of inclination, hinga
Much less of pleasing expectation)

Produc'd a friendship, then begun,
That has cemented us in one;

And plac'd it in our power to prove,
By long fidelity and love,

That Solomon has wisely spoken;

"A threefold cord is not soon broken."

A LETTER TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON,

SAYS the pipe to the snuff-box, I can't understand

What the ladies and gentlemen see in your face,

you are in fashion all over the land, I

That you are

And I am so much fallen into disgrace.

Do but see what a pretty contemplative air

I give to the company-pray do but note 'emYou would think that the wise men of Greece were all there,

Or, at least, would suppose them the wise men of Gotham.

My breath is as sweet as the breath of blown

roses,

While you are a nuisance where'er you appear; There is nothing but sniv'ling and blowing of

noses,

Such a noise as turns any man's stomach to

hear.

Then lifting his lid in a delicate way,

And op'ning his mouth with a smile quite en-gaging,

The box in reply was heard plainly to say,

What a silly dispute is this we are waging!

If you

have a little of merit to claim,

You may thank the sweet-smelling Virginian

weed,

And I, if I seem to deserve any blame,

The before-mentioned drug in apology plead.

Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own, No room for a sneer, much less a cachinnus, We are vehicles, not of tobacco alone,

But of any thing else they may chuse to put

in us.

THE COLUBRIAD.

[1782.]

CLOSE by the threshold of a door nail'd fast Three kittens sat; each kitten look'd aghast. I passing swift, and inattentive by,

At the three kittens cast a careless eye;