tors of caloric, as it is this quality which reduces their temperature below that of the atmosphere. Hence, we find, that little or no dew is deposited on rocks, sand, or water; while grass and living vegetables, to which it is so highly beneficial, attract it in abundance,-a remarkable instance of the wise and bountiful dispensations of Providence. The same benevolent design we may observe also in the abundance of dew in summer and in hot climates, where its cooling effects are so much required. The more caloric the earth receives during the day, the more it will radiate afterwards; and, consequently, the more rapidly its temperature will be reduced in the evening, in comparison to that of the atmosphere. In the West Indies, accordingly, where the intense heat of the day is strongly contrasted with the coolness of the evening, the dew is prodigiously abundant. When dew is frozen the moment it falls, it gets the name of hoar-frost. Compiled.

THE CLOUD.

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noon-day dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet birds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under;

And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 't is my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder-
It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning-star shines dead;
crag,

As on the jag of a mountain

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardours of rest and love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-coloured bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,

While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water,

And the nursling of the sky;

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die:

For, after the rain, when, with never a stain,

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams,
Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.

SHELLEY.

CHOICE PASSAGES FROM EMINENT PREACHERS.

Composure of Mind necessary to Prayer.-PRAYER is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts; it is the daughter of charity, and the sister of meekness; and he that prays to God with an angry, that is, with a troubled and discomposed spirit, is like him that retires into a battle to meditate, and sets up his closet in the outquarters of an army. Anger is a perfect alienation of the mind from prayer; it causes the thoughts to be troubled and broken, so that there cannot be that attention which presents our prayers in a right line to God; and the good man who yields to such an infirmity must be content to lose his prayer; and he can recover it only when his anger is removed, and his spirit is becalmed, made even as the brow of Jesus, and smooth like the heart of God. For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards singing as he rises, and hoping to get to heaven and climb above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and unconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest than it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings; till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was over; and then it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing as if it had learned music and motion from an angel, as

he passed sometimes through the air about his ministries. here below. JEREMY TAYLOR.

Man's Intellect before the Fall.—I confess it is difficult for us, who date our ignorance from our first being, and have been bred up with the same infirmities about us with which we were born, to raise our thoughts and imagination to those intellectual perfections that attend our nature in the time of innocence. This is as difficult for us, as it is for a peasant, bred up in the obscurities of a cottage, to fancy in his mind the unseen splendours of a court. But by rating positives by their privatives, and other arts of reason, by which discourse supplies the want of the reports of sense, we may collect the excellency of the understanding then by the glorious remainders of it now, and guess at the stateliness of the building by the magnificence of its ruins. All those arts, rarities, and inventions, which vulgar minds gaze at, the ingenious pursue, and all admire, are but the relics of an intellect defaced by sin and time. We admire it now, only as antiquaries do a piece of old coin, for the stamp it once bore, and not for those vanishing lineaments and disappearing draughts that remain upon it at present. And certainly that must needs have been very glorious, the decays of which are so admirable. He that is comely when old and decrepit, surely was very beautiful when he was young. An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise. SOUTH.

On the threatened Invasion in 1803.-By a series of criminal enterprises, the liberties of Europe have been gradually extinguished; and we are the only people in the castern hemisphere who are in possession of equal laws and a free constitution. But freedom, driven from every spot on the Continent, is pursued even here, and threatened with destruction. The inundation of lawless power, after covering the whole earth, threatens to follow us here; and we are most exactly, most critically, placed in the only aperture where it can be successfully repelled-in the Thermopyla of the world. As far as the interests of freedom are concerned

the most important by far of sublunary interests !—you, my countrymen, stand in the capacity of the federal representatives of the human race; for with you it is to determine (under God) in what condition the latest posterity shall be born. If liberty, after being extinguished on the Continent, is suffered to expire here, whence is it ever to emerge in the midst of that thick night that will invest it? It remains with you, then, to decide, whether that freedom, at whose voice the kingdoms of Europe awoke from the sleep of ages, to run a career of virtuous emulation in everything great and good; the freedom which dispelled the mists of superstition, and invited the nations to behold their God, whose magic torch kindled the rays of genius, the enthusiasm of poetry, and the flame of eloquence;-the freedom which poured into our lap opulence and arts, and embellished life with innumerable institutions and improvements, till it became a theatre of wonders ;-it is for you to decide, whether this freedom shall yet survive, or be covered with a funeralpall, and wrapped in eternal gloom. It is not necessary to await your determination. In the solicitude you feel to approve yourselves worthy of such a trust, every thought of what is afflicting in warfare, every apprehension of danger must vanish, and you are impatient to mingle in the battle of the civilized world. Go then, ye defenders of your country, accompanied with every auspicious omen; advance with alacrity into the field, where God himself musters the host to war. Religion is too much interested in your success not to lend you her aid; she will shed over this enterprise her selectest influence. While you are engaged in the field, many will repair to the closet, many to the sanctuary; the faithful of every name will employ that prayer which has power with God; the feeble hands, which are unequal to any other weapon, will grasp the sword of the Spirit; and from myriads of humble contrite hearts, the voice of intercession, supplication, and weeping, will mingle, in its ascent to heaven, with the shouts of battle and the shock of arms. And it is next to impossible for victory not to crown your exertions; for the extent of your resources, under God, is equal to the justice of your cause. But should Providence deter