THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES.

IN days of yore, as Gothic fable tells,
When Learning dimly gleamed from grated cells,
When wild Astrology's distorted eye

Shunned the fair field of true philosophy,

And wandering through the depths of mental night,
Sought dark predictions 'mid the worlds of light:
When curious Alchymy, with puzzled brow,
Attempted things that Science laughs at now,
Losing the useful purpose she consults,

In vain chimeras and unknown results;-
In those grey times there lived a reverend Sage,
Whose wisdom shed its lustre on the age.
A monk he was, immured in cloistered walls,
Where now the ivied ruin crumbling falls.
'Twas a profound seclusion that he chose :
The noisy world disturbed not that repose:
The flow of murmuring waters, day by day,
And whistling winds that forced their tardy way
Through reverend trees, of ages' growth, that made
Around the holy pile a deep monastic shade;
The chanted psalm, or solitary prayer-

Such were the sounds that broke the silence there.
"Twas here, when his rites sacerdotal were o'er,
In the depth of his cell with its stone-covered floor;
Resigning to thought his chimerical brain,
He formed the contrivance we now shall explain;
But whether by magic or alchymy's powers
We know not, indeed 'tis no business of ours;
Perhaps it was only by patience and care
At last that he brought his invention to bear.
In youth 'twas projected; but
And ere 'twas complete he was wrinkled and gray;
But success is secure unless energy fails;

years stole

away,

And at length he produced "The Philosopher's Scales."

What were they? you ask; you shall presently see;
These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea;
Oh no;-for such properties wondrous had they,
That qualities, feelings, and thoughts they could weigh;
Together with articles small or immense,

From mountains or planets, to atoms of sense:
Nought was there so bulky, but there it could lay;
And nought so ethereal, but there it would stay;
And nought so reluctant, but in it must go;
All which some examples more clearly will show.

The first thing he tried was the head of Voltaire,
Which retained all the wit that had ever been there;
As a weight, he threw in a torn scrap of a leaf,
Containing the prayer of the penitent thief;
When the skull rose aloft with so sudden a spell,
As to bound like a ball on the roof of the cell.

Next time he put in Alexander the Great,
With a garment that Dorcas had made-for a weight;
And though clad in armour from sandals to crown,
The hero rose up, and the garment went down.

A long row of almshouses, amply endowed
By a well-esteemed Pharisee, busy and proud,
Now loaded one scale, while the other was prest
By those mites the poor widow dropped into the chest ;—
Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce,
And down, down, the farthing's worth came with a bounce.

Again, he performed an experiment rare;

A monk, with austerities bleeding and bare,
Climbed into his scale; in the other was laid
The heart of our Howard, now partly decayed;

When he found, with surprise, that the whole of his brother
Weighed less, by some pounds, than this bit of the other.

By further experiments (no matter how)

He found that ten chariots weighed less than one plough.
A sword, with gilt trappings, rose up in the scale,
Though balanced by only a tenpenny nail :
A shield and a helmet, a buckler and spear,
Weighed less than a widow's uncrystallized tear.
A lord and a lady went up at full sail,

When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale.
Ten doctors, ten lawyers, two courtiers, one earl,
'Ten counsellors' wigs full of powder and curl,
All heaped in one balance, and swinging from thence,
Weighed less than some atoms of candour and sense;―
A first-water diamond, with brilliants begirt,
Than one good potato, just washed from the dirt;
Yet, not mountains of silver and gold would suffice,
One pearl to outweigh-'twas the "Pearl of great price."

At last the whole world was bowled in at the grate;
With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight;
When the former sprang up with so strong a rebuff,
That it made a vast rent, and escaped at the roof;
Whence, balanced in air, it ascended on high,
And sailed up aloft, a balloon in the sky;

While the scale with the soul in so mightily fell,
That it jerked the philosopher out of his cell.

MORAL.

Dear reader, if e'er self deception prevails,
We pray you to try "The Philosopher's Scales :"
But if they are lost in the ruins around,
Perhaps a good substitute thus may be found :-
Let judgment and conscience in circles be cut,
To which strings of thought may be carefully put :
Let these be made even with caution extreme,
And impartiality use for a beam;

Then bring those good actions which pride overrates,
And tear up your motives to serve for the weights.

Contributions of Q. Q.

WHERE THERE IS A WILL THERE IS A WAY.

A GENTLEMAN once had a present from abroad of several flasks of fine Florence oil. He placed them in a cellar to which no one had access beside himself. One day, to his great surprise, he observed that two of the flasks were empty. Shortly afterwards he found another flask empty, and was still more perplexed to account for it. He could not for a moment think that any person on the premises had contrived secret means to get at the cellar; and lest such a surmise should unjustly be awakened in his mind, he resolved secretly to watch in the cellar. After remaining concealed more than an hour, he saw several rats issue from a hole in the corner, and proceed to the next flask. One rat stood upon his hind legs, and with his fore feet held the flask steady; a second sprang on the shoulders of the first, so that he could reach the top of the flask; with his teeth he drew out the cork, by means of the bit of cotton twisted round it; then dipping in his long tail, he presented it to a third rat to lick. They then changed places, as regularly as a set of soldiers relieving guard, and continued to do so till the flask was empty, each rat having had a fair proportion of the spoil.

I have often heard the gentleman to whom this happened mention this singular fact. He always related it if any one in a hopeless, indolent tone, said of anything that ought to be done, I can't do it. It is of no use to try." He would say, "If you had but as much heart for your

duty as the rats had for the oil, you would neither want time nor ability to do it."

How is it that Jem Price always looks decent and respectable, has a good coat for Sundays, and a mite to put in the savings' bank every Saturday, while his next-door neighbour, who takes the same wages, and has not so large a family, goes like a beggar and a vagabond, and finds it impossible to make both ends meet? Just because Price has set his mind upon being decent and thrifty, and "where there is a will there is a way." No doubt he bestirs himself when his neighbour lies idle, and denies himself while his neighbour lives in self-indulgence; but then success and satisfaction attend his endeavours, and he finds that, under the blessing of God, nothing is impossible to labour and patience.

How is it that Mary Jones keeps her children so clean and decent, when everybody knows that she must have many a hard pinch to get a bit of bread, now work is scarce, and her husband has had a very severe illness, and she herself also is but sickly? If you give her an old thing for the children, you see it month after month tidily patched, and always clean. It is astonishing how she manages. Those little dirty ragged beings at the next door have three times the money spent on them, and yet one should be afraid to come within three yards of them for fear of being poisoned with their dirt, while Mary Jones's children are as clean as the children of a lord. What can make the difference? Just this-Mary Jones cannot live in dirt; she says, The victuals, if ever so little, do the children twice the good if they have but a clean skin; and though, poor woman, she has not wherewithal to change them, she sends them to bed betimes, and washes their clothes, and presses them smooth with a rolling-pin, for want of a fire to heat irons, and gets them tidily mended to go to school the next day. Whatever hardships she endures, she must and will be clean, and will see her children clean about her; and "where there is a will there is a way." Her neighbour, with better means, has not a will, and that is the reason she never finds out a way.

How is it that John Richards, with his numerous young family, contrives also to keep his aged mother in comfort, and will not suffer her to be a burden on the parish, while Thomas Smith cannot spare a shilling to help his mother, but lets her live in the unicn workhouse, and does not even allow her a trifle for tea and sugar? Why, we must come to the old answer, "Where there is a will there is a way."

John feels grateful to his mother for her kindness to him in childhood, and he says it would break his heart to see her want for comforts in her old age, or have to look to the parish for them. "No," says he, and his wife heartily joins in the sentiment, "if it please God to grant us health to work for her, she shall never want; it is but working an hour earlier and later, and sparing a few things, which we, who are strong and healthy, can do very well without, and the dear old woman is made comfortable for her last days, and many a blessing comes upon us and ours through her prayers and holy sayings." When the heart is thoroughly set upon duty, God gives ability and opportunity for the performance. One thing in which John had been used to indulge himself was a pipe of tobacco and a glass of gin-andwater most evenings. He never took more than one, but he had been long used to it, and it seemed as if he could not do without it. When John's wife was confined with twins, he was musing how they should be able to get along and do as they had done for his mother. They could not save in rent, or firing, or bread, or shoe-leather. "But," thought John, "I might spare my pipe and gin-andwater, which costs me best part of two shillings a week; it is but trying." He said nothing of his resolution; but, from that day, he left it off, and has found not only that he could do without, but that he has ever since been richer and healthier and happier every way. Self-denial not only puts in a man's power the means of doing good, and accomplishing what seemed almost impossible, but it is its own reward in real satisfaction of mind and independence.

Can any one tell how Sam Driver got his learning? He was a poor lad, who had to work hard for his daily bread, and nothing to spare for going to school; but somehow or other he has got more learning than the schoolmaster himself, and a room full of books about stars and air-pumps, and in foreign languages, and he understands them all. Why, Sam had set his heart on learning; there is the secret of it, and he denied himself to save a penny or twopence a week to buy books, and he spent every moment of his leisure in poring over them; and, if he met a friend who could instruct him, he never failed to propose some questions, or lay before him some difficulty; and, if he was baffled once, twice, or thrice, in any pursuit, he tried again and again till he got over the difficulty. It was a favourite saying of his, "Whatever man has done, man may do."

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