Page images
PDF
EPUB

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusky death.

6. Oh! who can hold a fire in his hand,

By thinking on the frosty Caucasus;
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feást;

Or wallow naked in December's snow, By thinking on fantastic summer's heat? 7. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stíllness-holds; Save where the beetle wheels his drony flight,

And drowsy tinklings lull the distant fólds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain

Of such, as wandering near her secret bower,

Molest her ancient, solitary reign.

8. Admit me, Mirth, to live with thee
In unreproved pleasures frée;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And, singing, startle the dull night
From his watch-tower in the skies
Till the dappled dáwn-doth-rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And, at my window, bid good morrow
Through the sweetbriar or the vine,
Or the twisted églantine:

While the cock, with lively din,
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And, to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dámes-before:

Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn
From the side of some hoar hill
Through the high wood echoing shrill.

EXERCISE 8.

Disjunctive (preceded in some places by Suspensive) Accents enforcing the distinctness of Clauses in Series, followed by a modulative Conjunctive or Suspensive Accent, and the Conclusive.

1. Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in géneral, we are wishing every period of it at an end: the minor longs to be at àge; thén to be a man of bùsiness; thén to make up an estàte; then to arrive at hónours; thén to retire.

2. The persuasion of the truth of the gospel, without the evidence which accómpanies it, would not have been so firm and so dùrable; it would not have acquired new force with àge; it would not have resisted the torrent of time; nor have passed from age to age to our own dàys.

3. The society of a discreet and virtuous friend, eases and unloads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates virtue and good resolútions, and finds employment for the most vacant hours of life.

4. What a piece of wórk is màn! how nóble in reason! how infinite in fàculties! in form and moving how express and àdmirable! in action how like an ángel! in apprehension how like a gòd!

5. When I look upon the tombs of the greát, every emotion of envy dìes-in-me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate passion expires; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tómbstone, my heart melts with compàssion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly fòllow.

6. An ill-natured or unprincipled man often gets the praise of wít, because he scruples not to use the means which a better man, of equal parts, disdains: he falls indifferently on friends and foes; ridicules the person who has most obliged-him; exposes failings which the other casts a veìl-over; laughs at vices which the other laments and conceàls; and, careless of the wounds it gives, allows his wit unlimited field for action.

7. Nature has laid out all her árt in beautifying the face; she has touched it with vermi

lion; planted in it a double row of ìvory; made it the seat of smiles and blùshes; lighted it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes; hung it on each side with curious organs of sènse; given it airs and graces that cannot be described; and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of háir, as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light.

8. See, what a grace was seated on his brow! Hyperion's cùrls; the front of Jove himsèlf;

An eye like Mars, to threaten or commànd;

A station like the herald Mercury

New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination and a form indeed
Where every god did seem to set his seál,
To give the world assurance of a màn.

EXERCISE 9.

Disjunctive Accents employed as in the preceding Exercise, followed by Suspensive and Conclusive Accents.

1. To advise the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are duties that fall in our way almost every day of our lives.

2. To play with important truths, to disturb the repose of established tènets, to subtilize objèctions, and elude proóf, is too often the sport

of youthful vanity, of which maturer experience commonly repènts.

3. The causes of good and evil are so various and uncertain, so often entangled with each òther, so diversified by various relations, and so much subject to accidents which cannot be foreseén, that he who would fix his condition upon incontestible reasons of preference, must live and die inquiring and deliberating.

4. To give an early preference to honour above gain, when they stand in competition; to despise every advantage which cannot be attained without dishonest àrts; to brook no meanness, and to stoop to no dissimulation; are the indications of a great mind, the presages of future eminence and ùsefulness-in-life.

5. From whence can any one produce such cogent exhortations to the practice of every virtue, such ardent excitements to piety and devotion, and such assistance to attaín-them, as those which are to be met with in every page of the sacred writings?

6. Where, amid the dark clouds of pagan philosophy, can be shown such a clear prospect of a future stàte, the immortality of the sòul, the resurrection of the deàd, and the general júdgment, as in St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians?

7. To acquire a thorough knowledge of our own hearts and characters; to restrain every irregular inclination; to subdue every rebelli

« PreviousContinue »