Man is his own star, and the soul that can
Be honest is the only perfect man.

-Fletcher.

Upon an Honest Man's Fortune.

I count myself in nothing else so happy,
As in a soul remembering my good friends.
-Shakspere. King Richard II. (Boling-
broke), Act II., Sc. III.

There's a strange secret sweet self-sacrifice
In any desecration of one's soul

To a worthy end.

--R. Browning. Mr. Sludge, the Medium.

What is the elevation of the soul?

A prompt,

delicate, certain feeling for all that is beautiful, all that is grand; a quick resolution to do the greatest good by the smallest means; a great benevolence joined to a great strength and great humility.

-Lavater.

Far from mankind, my weary soul, retire,
Still follow truth, contentment still desire.
Who climbs on high, at best his weakness shows,
Who rolls in riches, all to fortune owes.

Read well thyself, and mark thy early ways,
Vain is the muse, and envy waits on praise.

-Chaucer.

The body,--that is dust; the soul,—it is a bud

of eternity.

-Nathaniel Culverwell,

Where are Shakspere's imagination, Bacon's learning, Galileo's dream?

Where is the sweet

fancy of Sidney, the airy spirit of Fletcher, and Milton's thought severe ? Methinks such things

should not die and dissipate, when a hair can live for centuries, and a brick of Egypt will last three thousand years, I am content to believe that the mind of man survives, somehow or other, his clay.

17

-Barry Cornwall.

SLEEP.

God gave to earth no greater boon than sleep;
Pain's panacea, sorrow's healing balm.
O'er slumber, angels fair their vigils keep,
And bring to weary hearts God's infinite calm.

He giveth His beloved sleep.

-J. C. H.

-Bible.

Sweet pillows, sweetest bed; a chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light; a rosy garland, and a weary head.

Sir P. Sidney.

To sleep, there is a drowsy mellifluence in the very word that would almost serve to interpret its meaning,-to shut up the senses and hoodwink the soul; to dismiss the world; to escape from one's self; to be in ignorance of our own existence; to stagnate upon the earth, just breathing out the hours, not living them,-" doing no mischief, only dreaming of it"; neither merry nor melancholy, something between both, and better than either. Best friend of frail humanity, and, like all other friends, it is best estimated in its loss.

-Longfellow.

(O) sleep, O gentle sleep,

Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,

Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafening clamor in the slippery shrouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?—
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances, and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down !
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

-Shakspere. Henry IV., Pt. II. (King
Henry), Act III., Sc. I.

Still last to come where thou art wanted most. -Wordsworth. Sonnet to Sleep, XIII.

Our life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed

Death and Existence.

-Byron. The Dream, I.

To be, or not to be, that is the question-
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die-to sleep—
No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die-to sleep ;-
To sleep! perchance to dream: ay, there's the
rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's con

tumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,-
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,-puzzles the will,