And such an instrument I was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before.-There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business, which informs

Thus to mine eyes.—Now o'er the one half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offering; and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost.—Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my where-about,
And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it.-Whiles I threat, he lives;
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

I

go, and it is done; the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell

[A bell rings.

That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.

[Exit.

THE TEARFUL CORNET.

TO-DAY, arresting the passers' feet,

A cornet I heard in the hurrying street.

Common the cornet and man that play'd it;
What was it so telling and plaintive made it?

What could be its spell?

I couldn't get from it.
There was one I knew;

that I could but feel well.

Often I'd heard our Koenig play,
But never the cornet before to-day.

Strange was its charm, it must be confest;
Whence was its power you'd little have guessed.

The player was one not worth a rap,

With a broken hat and a coat with no nap.

Out at the elbows-with shoes that let
Out, his bare toes and, in, the wet.

Wrinkled and old-too aged by half

To be standing for pence amid jeer and laugh:

Though many I saw, to my elbows nigh,
Thought little of laughter, as moved as I.

What could the cause be that all of us made
Not able to stir while that tune he played?

'Twas a common street-air, I shouldn't have linger'd, Except I'd been forced, to hear uttered or finger'd.

One-why, a month past each urchin had humm'd it, No organ but ground it-no scraper but strumm'd it.

And yet as it swell'd now and died through my ears, My heart, it beat to it and praised it with tears.

You'll think me a maudlin: I wasn't a fool
To let that cornet my feelings rule.

For the powers that ruled in that cornet's breath
Were not age and want, but misery and death.

Away in a dirty lane of the town,

A close court where never the sun comes down,

Up reeking stairs, if you'll pick your way,
You'll come to a garret, so high, there's day.

Neat, to your wonder-cleanly though bare,
Though with half of a table and hardly a chair.

Though the rusty grate seems little to know
Of coals, and the cupboard no bread can show;

Yet the room is furnish'd, as better ones are,
In city and country-ay, near and afar.

For a silence is there that is hushing your breath,
And throned, on the bed in the corner, is-death.

The sunshine seems dim and the day full of awe As it touches with reverence that old bed of straw,

And the wither'd face on it, and hair thin and gray, To pay for whose coffin that cornet must play.

THE OLD PHILOSOPHER AND THE YOUNG LADY. 303

Yes, to pay dues to death for his aged old wife,
That cornet is suing for pence there to life.

Who wonders-not I-my heart to it beat,
When grief and love play'd it afar in the street!

Who wonders-not I-I never had known
A cornet like that for tears in its tone!

That I felt in its music a terrible sense

Of a something beyond a mere playing for pence!

The heart it was played it-the heart it was heard it, And therefore it was that old wretched breath stirr'd it.

God send that few players may play so well
The cornet, such grief and such want to tell!

That the ears of few passers be startled again
By a cornet that grief plays, a coffin to gain!

BENNETT.

THE OLD PHILOSOPHER AND THE YOUNG

LADY.

"ALAS!" exclaimed a silver-headed sage, "how narrow is the utmost extent of human knowledge! I have spent my life in acquiring knowledge, but how little do I

know! The farther I attempt to penetrate the secrets of nature, the more I am bewildered and benighted. Beyond a certain limit all is but conjecture: so that the advantage of the learned over the ignorant consists greatly in having ascertained how little is to be known.

It is true that I can measure the sun, and compute the distances of the planets; I can calculate their periodical movements, and even ascertain the law by which they perform their sublime revolutions; but with regard to their construction, to the beings which inhabit them, their conditions and circumstances, what do I know more than the clown!-Delighting to examine the economy of nature in our own world, I have analyzed the elements, and given names to their component parts. And yet, should I not be as much at a loss to explain the burning of fire, or to account for the liquid quality of water, as the vulgar, who use and enjoy them without thought or examination ?—I remark, that all bodies unsupported, fall to the ground, and I am taught to account for this by the law of gravitation. But what have I gained here more than a term? Does it convey to my mind any idea of the nature of that mysterious and invisible chain which draws all things to a common centre ?-Pursuing the track of the naturalist, I have learned to distinguish the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms, and to divide these into their distinct tribes and families;-but can I tell, after all this toil, whence a single blade of grass derives its vitality? Could the most minute researches enable me to discover the