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deep shade, and its points and pinnacles glittering in the sun. All hands were soon on deck looking at it, and admiring in various ways its beauty and grandeur. But no description can give any idea of the strangeness, splendour, and really the sublimity of the sight. Its great size, for it must have been two or three miles in circumference, and several hundred feet in height, its slow motion as its base rose and sank in the water, and its high points nodded against the clouds. The dashing of the waves upon it, which, breaking high with foam, lined its base with a white crust, and the thundering sound of the cracking of the mass, and the breaking and tumbling down of huge pieces, together with its nearness and approach, which added a slight element of fear, all combined to give it the character of true sublimity. The main body of the mass was, as I have said, of an indigo colour, its base crusted with frozen foam; and as it grew thin and transparent towards the edges and top, its colour shaded off from a deep blue to the whiteness of snow. It seemed to be drifting slowly towards the north, so that we kept away and avoided it. It was in sight all the afternoon, and when we got to leeward of it, the wind died away, so that we lay-to quite near it for a greater part of the night. Unfortunately there was no moon; but it was a clear night, and we could plainly mark the long, regular heaving of the stupendous mass as its edges moved slowly against the stars. Several times in our watch loud cracks were heard, which sounded as though they must have run through the whole length of the iceberg, and several pieces fell down with a thundering crash, plunging heavily into the sea. Towards morning, a strong breeze sprang up, and we filled away and left it astern, and at daylight it was out of sight.. No pencil has ever yet given anything like the true effect of an iceberg. In a picture they are huge uncouth masses stuck in the sea; while their chief beauty and grandeur, their slow, stately motion, the whirling of the snow about their summits, and the fearful groaning and crackling of their parts, the picture cannot give. This is the large iceberg; while the small and distant islands, floating on the smooth sea, in the light of a clear day, look like little floating fairy isles of sapphire.

LABOUR AND REST.-(SAMUEL JOHNSON.)

To oppose the devastations of Famine, who scattered the ground everywhere with carcases, Labour came down upon earth. Labour

was the son of Necessity, the nursling of Hope, and the pupil of Art; he had the strength of his mother, the spirit of his nurse, and the dexterity of his governess. His face was wrinkled with the wind and swarthy with the sun; he had the implements of husbandry in one hand, with which he turned up the earth, in the other he had the tools of architecture, and raised walls and towers at his pleasure.

He called out with a rough voice-" Mortals! see here the power to whom you are consigned, and from whom you are to hope for all your pleasures and for all your safety. You have long languished under the dominion of Rest, an impotent and deceitful goddess, who can neither protect nor relieve you, but resigns you to the first attacks of either Famine or Disease, and suffers her shades to be invaded by every enemy and destroyed by every accident. Awake therefore to the call of Labour. I will teach you to remedy the sterility of the earth and the severity of the sky; I will compel summer to find provisions for the winter; I will force the waters to give you their fish, the air its fowls, and the forests their beasts; I will teach you to pierce the bowels of the earth, and bring out from the caverns of the mountains, metals which shall give strength to your hands and security to your bodies, by which you may be covered from the assaults of the fiercest beasts, and with which you shall fell the oak, and divide rocks, and subject all nature to your use and pleasure."

Encouraged by this magnificent invitation, the inhabitants of the globe considered Labour as their only friend, and hasted to his command. He led them out to the fields and mountains, and showed them how to open mines, to level hills, to drain marshes, and change the course of rivers. The face of things was immediately transformed; the land was covered with towns and villages, encompassed with fields of corn, and plantations of fruit-trees; and nothing was seen but heaps of grain, and baskets of fruit, full tables, and crowded storehouses.

Thus Labour and his followers added every hour new acquisitions to their conquests, and saw Famine gradually dispossessed of his dominions; till at last, amid their jollity and triumphs, they were depressed and amazed by the approach of Lassitude, who was known by her sunken eyes and dejected countenance. She came forward trembling and groaning; at every groan the hearts of all those that beheld her lost their courage, their nerves slackened,

their hands shook, and the instruments of labour fell from their grasp. Shocked with this horrid phantom, they reflected with regret on their easy compliance with the solicitations of Labour, and began to wish again for the golden hours which they remembered to have passed under the reign of Rest, whom they resolved to re-visit, and to whom they intended to dedicate the remaining part of their lives. Rest had not left the world; they quickly found her, and, to atone for their former desertion, invited her to the enjoyment of those acquisitions which Labour had procured them.

Rest, therefore, took leave of the groves and valleys which she had hitherto inhabited, and entered into palaces, reposed herself in alcoves, and slumbered away the winter upon beds of down, and the summer in artificial grottoes with cascades playing before her. There was indeed always something wanting to complete her felicity, and she could never lull her returning fugitives to that serenity which they knew before their engagements with Labour; nor was her dominion entirely without control, for she was obliged to share it with Luxury, though she always looked upon her as a false friend, by whom her influence was in reality destroyed while it seemed to be promoted. The two soft associates, however, reigned for some time without visible disagreement, till at last, Luxury betrayed her charge, and let in Disease to seize upon her worshippers. Rest then flew away and left the place to the usurpers, who employed all their arts to fortify themselves in their possession, and to strengthen the interest of each other.

Rest had not always the same enemy; in some places she escaped the incursions of Disease, but had her residence invaded by a more slow and subtle intruder, for very frequently, when everything was composed and quiet, when there was neither pain within nor danger without, when every flower was in bloom and every gale freighted with perfumes, Satiety would enter with a languishing and repining look, and throw herself upon the couch placed and adorned for the accommodation of Rest.

No sooner was she seated than a general gloom spread itself on every side; the groves immediately lost their verdure, and their inhabitants desisted from their melody, the breeze sunk in sighs, and the flowers contracted their leaves and shut up their odours. Nothing was seen on every side but multitudes wandering about they knew not whither, in quest they knew not of what; no voice

was heard but of complaints that mentioned no pain, and murmurs that could tell of no misfortune. Rest had now lost her authority. Her followers again began to treat her with contempt; some of them united themselves more closely to Luxury, who promised by her arts to drive Satiety away; and others, that were more wise or had more fortitude, went back again to Labour, by whom they were indeed protected from Satiety, but delivered up in time to Lassitude and forced by her to the bowers of Rest.

Thus Rest and Labour equally perceived their reign of short duration and uncertain tenure, and their empire liable to inroads from those who were alike enemies to both. They each found their subjects unfaithful and ready to desert them upon every opportunity. Labour saw the riches which he had given always carried away as an offering to Rest, and Rest found her votaries, in every exigence, flying from her to beg help of Labour. They therefore at last determined upon an interview, in which they agreed to divide the world between them, and govern it alternately, allotting the dominion of the day to one, and that of the night to the other, and promised to guard the frontiers of each other, so that whenever hostilities were attempted, Satiety should be intercepted by Labour and Lassitude expelled by Rest.

WHAT WORK HAS DONE. (THOMAS CARLYLE.)

It is all work, and forgotten work, this peopled, clothed, articulate-speaking, high-towered, wide-acred world. The hands of forgotten brave men have made it a world for us; they-honour to them, in spite of the idle and the dastard. This English land, here and now, is the summary of what was found of wise, and noble, and accordant with God's truth, in all the generations of Englishmen. Our English speech is speakable because there were hero-poets of our blood and lineage; speakable in proportion to the number of these. This land of England has its conquerors, possessors which change from epoch to epoch, from day to day; but its real conquerors, creators, and eternal proprietors, are these following, and their representatives if you can find them. All the heroic souls that ever were in England, each in their degree, all the men that have ever cut a thistle, drained a puddle out of England, contrived a wise scheme in England, done or said a true

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or valiant thing in England, I tell thee they had not a hammer to begin with, and yet Wren built St. Paul's.-Past and Present.

THE MOST HONOURABLE. (THOMAS CARLYLE.)

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Two men I honour, and no third. First, the toil-worn craftsman that with earth-made implement laboriously conquers the earth and makes her man's. Venerable to me is the hard hand, crooked, coarse, wherein notwithstanding lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal as of the sceptre of this planet. Venerable too is the rugged face, all weather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence, for it is the face of a man living manlike. Oh, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, and even because we must pity as well as love thee, hardly-entreated brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed; thou wert our conscript on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles, wert so marred. For in thee too lay a Godcreated form, but it was not to be unfolded; encrusted must it stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of labour, and thy body, like thy soul, was not to know freedom. Yet toil on, toil on, thou art in thy duty be out of it who may; thou toilest for the altogether indispensable, for daily bread. A second man I honour and still more highly, him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable, not daily bread but the bread of life. Is not he too in his duty, endeavouring towards inward harmony, revealing this by act or by word through all his outward endeavours, be they high or low? Highest of all when his outward and his inward endeavour are one; when we can name him artist, not earthly craftsman only, but inspired thinker, who with heavenmade implements conquers heaven for us: If the poor and humble toil that we have food, must not the high and glorious toil for him in return, that he have light, have guidance, freedom, immortality? These two in all their degrees I honour; all else is chaff and dust, which let the wind blow whither it listeth. Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both dignities united, and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of man's wants, is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know I nothing than a peasant-saint. Could such now anywhere be met with, such a one will take thee back to Nazareth

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