you not look before you? do you think that I have nothing else to do but to mend and repair after you?" "Good words, friend," said the bee, having now pruned himself, and being disposed to be droll: "I'll give you my hand and word to come near your kennel no more; I was never in such a confounded pickle since I was born." "Sirrah," replied the spider, "if it were not for breaking an old custom in our family, never to stir abroad against an enemy, I should come and teach you better manners." "I pray have patience," said the bee, "or you'll spend your substance, and, for aught I see, you may stand in need of it all, toward the repair of your house." "Rogue, rogue," replied the spider, 'yet methinks you should have more respect to a person whom all the world allows to be so much your betters." 66 By my troth," said the bee, "the comparison will amount to a very good jest; and you will do me a favour to let me know the reasons that all the world is pleased to use in so hopeful a dispute." At this the spider, having swelled himself into the size and posture of a disputant, began his argument in the true spirit of controversy, with resolution to be heartily scurrilous and angry; to urge on his own reasons without the least regard to the answers or objections of his opposite, and fully predetermined in his mind against all conviction.

66

"Not to disparage myself," said he, "by the comparison with such a rascal, what art thou but a vagabond without house or home, without stock or inheritance? born to no possession of your own, but a pair of wings and a drone-pipe. Your livelihood is a universal plunder upon nature; a freebooter over fields and gardens; and, for the sake of stealing, will rob a nettle as easily as a violet. Whereas I am a domestic animal, furnished with a native stock within myself. This large castle is all built with my own hands, and the materials extracted altogether out of my own person."

"I am glad," answered the bee, "to hear you grant at least that I am come honestly by my wings, and my voice; for then, it seems, I am obliged to heaven alone for my flights and my musie; and Providence would never have bestowed on me two such gifts, without designing them for the noblest ends. I visit, indeed, all the flowers and blossoms of the field and garden; but whatever I collect thence enriches myself, without the least injury to their beauty, their smell, or their taste. Now, for you and your skill in architecture and other mathematics, I have little to say: in that building of yours there might, for aught I know, have been labour and method enough; but, by woful experience for us both, it is too plain the materials are naught; and I hope you will henceforth take warning, and consider duration and matter, as well as method and art. You boast, indeed, of being obliged to no other creature, but of drawing and spinning out all from yourself; that is to say, if we may judge of the liquor in the vessel by what issues out, you possess a good, plentiful store of dirt and poison in your breast; and, though I would by no means lessen or disparage your genuine stock of either, yet I doubt you are somewhat obliged, for an increase of both, to a little foreign assistance. Your inherent portion of dirt does not fail of acquisition, by sweepings exhaled from below; and one insect furnishes you with a share of poison to destroy another. So that, in short, the question comes all to this; whether is the nobler being of the two, that which, by a lazy contemplation of four inches round, by an overweening pride, feeding and engendering on itself, turns all into excrement and venom, producing nothing at all but flybane and cobweb, or that which, by a universal range, with long search, much study, true judgment, and distinction of things, brings home honey and wax."

MIND-GLEANING S.

(Selected by the Editor.)

No man likes to be instructed at the expense of being lessened in his own opinion.

Patience is the courage of virtue.

Emotion turning back on itself, and not leading to thought or action, is the element of madness.

He who conquers indolence, will

vice in human nature.

conquer every other

There never was a hypocrite so disguised, but he had yet some mark or other to be known by.

Knowledge without charity, is light without heat: it is frosty moonshine.

Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, and the security of the

state.

Man is allied to the invisible and spiritual world by thought; it is the medium of communication between them. But how little worn is the pathway of thought.

There is nothing of which people are more jealous than the compliments of their flatterers.

Talent is the comparative facility of acquiring, arranging, and applying, the stock furnished by others, and already existing in books or other conservatories of intellect.

A crowd convulsed by the language of a religious or political fanatic is, for the time, moonstruck.

Mankind moves onward through the night of time like a procession of torch-bearers, and words are the lights which the generations carry.

The prose man knows nothing of poetry, but poetry knows much of him, nay, all that he knows not himself; and how much is that! as well as all that he does know, which indeed is little.

The value of truth lies in its effect upon our moral condition.

Philosophy is amongst the loveliest of faith's handmaidens.

One dupe is as impossible as one twin.

We perpetually fancy ourselves intellectually transparent when we are opaque, and morally opaque when we are transparent.

Genius is originality in intellectual constructionthe moral accompaniment, and actuating principle of which consists, perhaps, in carrying on the freshness and feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood.

There is a certain melancholy in the evenings of early spring which is among those influences of nature the most universally recognised, the most difficult to explain.

Things seem to approximate to God in proportion to their vitality and movement.

The proper office of philosophy is not to suppose an origin and endeavour to prove it by a series of sophisms, but to classify phenomena, and ascertain the laws by which they are regulated.

How little the nobleness of aspect depends on the symmetry of feature, or the mere proportions of form! What dignity robes the man who is filled with a lofty thought!

Perverted genius is almost irreclaimable, because, in general, it is irreligious. An irreligious man, however great, cannot serve any good cause effectually.

No heart is so made as to be insensible to the beauty of flowers.

Bigotry arises from partial and contracted views, from arrogance and selfishness, joined with some portion of rancour and malignity.

Self-denial is the essence of strength of character, which includes a capability of sacrificing present indulgence for more future and distant object of desire.

The best and fairest world of which man can form a

complete and consistent image, is that in which men live.

The seas of human life are wide. Wisdom may suggest the voyage, but it must first look to the condition of the ship, and the nature of the merchandize to exchange.

Truth is an absolute fact: it is not necessary to the constitution of its existence that its existence should be demonstrated; but it is necessary to its practical effect, that both its existence and nature should be revealed.

Judgment, not used to discriminate, or compare objects and ideas, cannot be qualified to adjust the balance of the will, or, in any fair determinate manner, control the movements of the affections.

Enthusiasm is grave, inward, self-controlled; mere excitement, outward, fantastic, hysterical, and passing in a moment from tears to laughter.

The human heart is made for love as the household hearth for fire; and for truth as the household lamp for light.

There are two worlds: the world that we can measure with line and rule, and the world that we feel with our hearts and imaginations.

No evil action can be well done, but a good one may be ill done.

The sympathies of nature are neither exploded by philosophy nor condemned by religion.

Beauty without religion is the most dangerous gift that nature can bestow on woman; and talent, without principle, the most pernicious to man.

To embitter domestic life, maintain your opinion on small matters at the point of the bayonet.

Ever, although a little word, is of immense signification. A child may speak it, but neither man nor angel can fully understand it.

He that makes others fear, has, in his turn, more reason for apprehension than his victims.