It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make men better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:
A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that night;

It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures, life may perfect be.

BEN JONSON (b. 1574).

SWEET day! so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die.

Sweet rose! whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring! full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows you have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like seasoned timber, never gives;

But when the whole world turns to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

GEORGE HERBERT (b. 1593).

Thee I revisit safe,

HAIL, holy light!
And feel thy sov'reign vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt,
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief

Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,

That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget

Those other two equalled with me in fate,
So were I equalled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature's works to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the Mind through all her power
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell

Of things invisible to mortal sight.

JOHN MILTON (b. 1608).

His puissant sword unto his side,
Near his undaunted heart, was tied,
With basket-hilt that would hold broth,
And serve for fight and dinner both;
In it he melted lead for bullets
To shoot at foes, and sometimes pullets,
To whom he bore so fell a grutch,
He ne'er gave quarter to any such.
The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,
For want of fighting was grown rusty,
And ate into itself, for lack
Of somebody to hew and hack :
The peaceful scabbard, where it dwelt,
The rancour of its edge had felt;

For of the lower end two handful
It had devoured, it was so manful.
This sword a dagger had, his page,
That was but little for his age,
And therefore waited on him so
As dwarfs upon knight-errants do:
It was a serviceable dudgeon,
Either for fighting or for drudging :
When it had stabbed, or broke a head,
It would scrape trenchers, or chip bread,
Toast cheese or bacon, though it were
To bait a mouse-trap, 't would not care;
"Twould make clean shoes, and in the earth
Set leeks and onions, and so forth:
It had been 'prentice to a brewer,
Where this and more it did endure,
But left the trade, as many more
Have lately done on the same score.

SAMUEL BUTLER (b. 1612).

Of these the false Achitophel* was first,
A name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close designs and crooked counsels fit;
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfixed in principles and place,
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace:
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity;

Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high,

He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,

Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,

And thin partitions do their bounds divide;

Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?

* Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury.

And all to leave, what with his toil he won,
To that unfeathered, two-legged thing, a son!
In friendship false, implacable in hate,
Resolved to ruin, or to rule, the state.

Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting fame,
Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name:
So easy still it proves, in factious times,
With public zeal to cancel private crimes.
Yet, fame deserved, no enemy can grudge,
The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.
In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin
With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean,
Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress,
Swift of despatch, and easy of access.
Oh! had he been content to serve the crown,
With virtues only proper to the gown,
David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And Heaven had wanted one immortal song.
JOHN DRYDEN (b. 1631).

SECTION V.

JAMES WATT AND THE STEAM-ENGINE.

THE marvellous feats ascribed, in the age of romance, to magicians and goblins, have been more than realized in our times by that wonder-worker, Steam. How amazing are the services to man which that modern giant renders, when armed with the necessary mechanical appliances! Are the thousand wheels and spindles of a factory to be made to spin cotton yarn for us? Summon up the ready vassal steam, and he will impel them to do their work with a gentler touch than that of a lady, and with greater power and persistency than forty horses. Is force wanted to drive those massive hammers and rollers which mould the glowing iron like dough? Not Vulcan, with all his Cyclops, could manage the process so dexterously as steam. Go into the

printing office, where thousands of copies of a journal are required before day has well dawned, and there the busy giant is at work, patiently twirling the type-covered cylinders, and stamping their news upon broad sheets, which will be scattered over England before sunset. Do you wish to traverse the island at the rate of some forty miles an hour? Put the faithful steam in harness, and that which all the griffins of mythology could not have accomplished, had they been yoked to the vehicle, he will effect with the precision of an intelligent being. In short, wherever science has obtained a firm footing, we see this noble helot of civilisation charging himself with the chief drudgery of our planet-pumping, sawing, printing, coining, spinning, blasting, forging, propelling-and all without one murmur at the severity of the labour, and without needing a single holiday.

For conjuring up this valuable goblin from the vasty deep of thought, or, at least, for setting him to labour for us, we are indebted to the inventive genius and skill of one remarkable man-JAMES WATT.

The specific work of the steam-engine is to set and keep in motion other machinery-as, for example, the spindles of a cotton factory, or the paddles of a steam-ship—and its power of doing this depends upon two properties of steam, namely, the expansive power communicated to that vapour by heat, and the ready conversion of that vapour into water by cold. There must, of course, be a water-boiler and furnace to generate steam; and, in order that the steam thus generated may act on the machinery which is to be put in motion, there must also be an intermediate apparatus to transmit to the machinery the motive force produced by the steam. This intermediate apparatus is the steamengine, which consists essentially of a cylinder of metal, with a movable piston within, and a piston-rod connected. with the machinery to be put in motion. It is obvious that if the steam can be so applied in the cylinder as to drive the piston alternately from the bottom to the top, then the piston-rod will alternately ascend and descend, and thereby communicate motion to any oscillating beam or