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Nor trusts the gorgeous sky.

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore!”
KEBLE—Christian Year. (25th Sunday after POE—The Raven. St. 8.
Trinity.) On the Rainbow.

And the Raven, never flitting,
A rainbow in the morning

Still is sitting, still is sitting Is the Shepherd's warning;

On the pallid bust of Pallas But a rainbow at night

Just above my chamber door; Is the Shepherd's delight.

And his eyes have all the seeming Old Weather Rhyme.

Of a demon's that is dreaming, 2

And the lamplight o'er him streaming What skilful limner e'er would choose

Throws his shadow on the floor, To paint the rainbow's varying hues,

And my soul from out that shadow, Unless to mortal it were given

That lies floating on the floor, To dip bis brush in dyes of heaven?

Shall be lifted-nevermore.
SCOTT—Marmion. Canto VI. St. 5.

PoeThe Raven. St. 18.
3
Mild arch of promise! on the evening sky
Thou shinest fair with many a lovely ray,

The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.

Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 264.
Each in the other melting.
SOUTHEY—Sonnets. The Evening Rainbow.

13 The raven himself is hoarse 4

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow in the sky!
TENNYSON-Idylls of the King. The Coming

Under my battlements.

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 5. L. 40. of Arthur. L. 401. 5 Hung on the shower that fronts the golden West,

O, it comes o'er my memory,

As doth the raven o'er the infected house, The rainbow bursts like magic on mine eyes! In hues of ancient promise there imprest;

Boding to all.

Othello. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 20.
Frail in its date, eternal in its guise.
CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER—Sonnets and
Fugitive Pieces. The Rainbow.

Did ever raven sing so like a lark, 6

That gives sweet tidings of the sun's uprise?
Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tie Titus Andronicus. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 158.
Of thy Lord's hand, the object of His eye!
When I behold thee, though my light be dim,

READING
Distinct, and low, I can in thine see Him
Who looks upon thee from His glorious throne,

Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to And minds the covenant between all and One. the body. As by the one, health is preserved, VAUGHAN—The Rainbow.

strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept

alive, cherished, and confirmed. RAVEN 7

ADDISON—The Tatler. No. 147. That Raven on yon left-hand oak (Curse on his ill-betiding croak)

Reading maketh a full man.
Bodes me no good.

BACON-Of Studies.
Gar–Fables. The Farmer's Wife and the
Raven.

Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. 8

Book of Common Prayer. Collect for the Second The Raven's house is built with reeds, —

Sunday in Advent.
Sing woe, and alas is me!
And the Raven's couch is spread with weeds,

In science, read, by preference, the newest High on the hollow tree;

works; in literature, the oldest. The classic litAnd the Raven himself, telling his beads erature is always modern. In penance for his past misdeeds,

BULWER-LYTTON—Caxtoniana. Hints on MenUpon the top I see.

tal Culture, Thos. DARCY McGEE—The Penitent Raven.

9 The raven once in snowy plumes was drest,

If time is precious, no book that will not inWhite as the whitest dove's unsullied breast,

prove by repeated readings deserves to be read

at all. Fair as the guardian of the Capitol, Soft as the swan; a large and lovely fowl

CARLYLE—Essays. Goethe's Hclena. His tongue, his prating tongue had changed him quite

We have not read an author till we have seen To sooty blackness from the purest wbite. his object, whatever it may be, as he saw it. Ovm-Metamorphoses. Story of Coronis. Ad

CARLYLE—Essays. Goethe's Helena. DISON's trans. 10

The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering Should turn to writers of an abler sort, from the Nightly shore,

Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile. Plutonian shore!

COWPER—Retirement. L. 715.

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READING

READING

657

That he that readeth it may run over it. But truths on which depends our main concern, Rendering in the Vulgate. That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn,

(See also CowPER, TENNYSON) Shine by the side of every path we tread With such a lustre he that runs may read.

Books have always a secret influence on the COWPER—Tirocinium. L. 77.

understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate (See also HABAKKUK)

ideas: he that reads books of science, though

without any desire fixed of improvement, will The delight of opening a new pursuit, or a new grow more knowing; he that entertains himself course of reading, imparts the vivacity and nov- with moral or religious treatises, will impercepelty of youth even to old age.

tibly advance in goodness; the ideas which are İSAAC D'ISRAELI-Literary Character of Men often offered to the mind, will at last find a of Genius. Ch. XXII.

lucky moment when it is disposed to receive

them. I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan SAMUEL JOHNSON—The Adventurer. No. 137. English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven. I should A man ought to read just as inclination leads as soon think of swimming across the Charles him; for what he reads as a task will do him litriver when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading tle good. all my books in originals, when I have them ren- SAMUEL JOHNSON—Boswell's Life of Johnson. dered for me in my mother tongue.

(1763) EMERSON—Essays. Books. 4

What is twice read is commonly better rememIf we encountered a man of rare intellect, we

bered than what is transcribed. should ask him what books he read.

SAMUEL JOHNSON—The Idler. No. 74. EMERSON—Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.

It may be well to wait a century for a reader,

as God has waited six thousand years for an Our high respect for a well-read man is praise

observer. enough of literature.

JOHN KEPLER-In Martyrs of Science. P. 197. EMERSON—Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.

I love to lose myself in other men's minds.

When I am not walking, I am reading; My early and invincible love of reading,

I cannot sit and think. Books think for me. * I would not exchange for the treasures

CHARLES LAMB—Last Essays of Elia. Deof India.

tached Thoughts on Books and Reading. GIBBON—Memoirs.

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Night after night, 7 The sagacious reader who is capable of read

He sat and bleared his eyes with books.

LONGFELLOW-Christus. The Golden Legend. ing between these lines what does not stand

Pt. I. written in them, but is nevertheless implied, will be able to form some conception. GOETHE-Autobiography. Bk. XVIII. Truth

Many readers judge of the power of a book by and Beauty.

the shock it gives their feelings.

LONGFELLOW—Kavanagh. Ch. XIII.
Zwar sind sie an das Beste nicht gewöhnt,
Allein sie haben schrecklich viel gelesen.

Seria cum possim, quod delectantia malim
What they're accustomed to is no great mat-

Scribere, tu causa es lector.

Thou art the cause, O reader, of my dwellter, But then, alas! they've read an awful deal.

ing on lighter topics, when I would rather han

dle serious ones. GOETHE-Faust. Vorspiel auf dem Theater. L. 13. BAYARD TAYLOR's trans.

MARTIAL-Epigrams. V. 16. 1.

His classical reading is great: he can quote In a polite age almost every person becomes a reader, and receives inore instruction from the

Horace, Juvenal, Ovid and Martial by rote. Press than the Pulpit.

He has read Metaphysics Spinoza and

Kant
GOLDSMITH—The Citizen of the World. Letter
LXXV.

And Theology too: I have heard him descant
Upon Basil and Jerome. Antiquities, art,

He is fond of. He knows the old masters by The first time I read an excellent book, it is

heart, to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read over a book I have perused before, it re

( sembles the meeting with an old one.

Canto II. Pt. IV. GOLDSMITH-The Citizen of the World. Letter

Who reads LXXXIII.

Incessantly, and to his reading brings not

A spirit and judgment equal or superior, Write the vision, and make it plain upon ta- (And what he brings what need he elsewhere bles, that he may run that readeth it.

seek) Habakkuk. II. 2.

Uncertain and unsettled still remains, Ut percurrat qui legerit eum.

Deep versed in books and shallow in himself,

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And his taste is refined, Lord Lytton) — Lucile.

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