Many thoughts of many minds. Compiled by H. Southgate

NEWSPAPERS.

scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Shakspeare.

NICKNAMES-Durability of.

NIGHT.

Whether the moon, into her chamber gone,
Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan
Climbs with diminish'd beams the azure steep;
Or whether clouds sail o'er the inverse deep,
Piloted by the many-wandering blast,

A good name will wear out; a bad one may And the rare stars rush through them, dim and

be turned; a nickname lasts for ever.

Zimmerman.

Nicknames stick to people, and the most ridiculous are the most adhesive. Haliburton.

Names alone mock destruction; they survive
The doom of all creation.
H. Trevanion.

NIGGARDLINESS AND WASTE

FULNESS.

He that spareth in everything is an inexcusable niggard. He that spareth in nothing is an inexcusable madman. The mean is to spare in what is least necessary, and to lay out more liberally in what is most required in our several circumstances. Lord Hallifax.

NIGHT-Beauty of.

How beautiful is night!

A dewy freshness fills the silent air,

No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor

stain

Breaks the serene of heaven:

In full-orb'd glory yonder moon divine

Rolls through the dark-blue depths.

Beneath her steady ray

stars

The desert circle spreads,

Were muffled deep, and not one ray below.

NIGHT.

Forget the travail of the day in sleep:
Care only wakes, and moping Pensiveness;
With meagre, discontented looks, they sit,
And watch the wasting of the midnight taper.
Rowe.

NIGHT-Gentleness of.

All is gentle, nought
Stirs rudely; but congenial with the night,
Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit. Byron.

NIGHT-Gloom of.

Night, moonless night! The forest hath no

sound

But the low shiver of its dripping leaves,
Save here and there, amid its depths profound,
The sullen sigh the prowling panther heaves;
Save the fierce growling of the cubless bear,
Or tramp of gaunt wolf rushing from his lair,
Where its slow coil the poisonous serpent
Mrs. Sigourney.

weaves.

NIGHT-Influence of.

How well
The night is made for tenderness-so still
That the low whisper, scarcely audible,
Is heard like music and so deeply pure
That the fond thought is chasten'd as it springs
And on the lip made holy.

NIGHT-Language of.

In her starry shade

Of dim and solitary loveliness,

Willis.

Over the drowsy earth still night prevails;
Calm sleep the mountain-tops and shady vales,
The rugged cliffs and hollow glens;
The wild beasts slumber in their dens,
The cattle on the hill. Deep in the sea,
The countless finny race and monster brood
Tranquil repose. Even the busy bee
Forgets her daily toil. The silent wood
No more with noisy hum of insect rings;
And all the feather'd tribes, by gentle sleep
subdued,

Roost in the glade, and hang their drooping
wings.
C. Mure.

NIGHT-the Time for Rest.
Night is the time for rest:

How sweet when labours close,
To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose;
Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head
Upon our own delightful bed!

Night is the time for dreams;

The gay romance of life,

When truth that is, and truth that seems,

Blend in fantastic strife:

Ah! visions less beguiling far

Than waking dreams by daylight are!

I learn the language of another world. Byron. Night is the time to weep;

Mottle with mazy shades the orchard slope;
Here, o'er the chesnut's fretted foliage grey
And massy, motionless they spread; here,
shine

Upon the crags, deepening with blacker night
Their chasms; and there the glittering argentry
Ripples and glances on the confluent streams.
A lovelier, purer light than that of day
Rests on the hills; and oh, how awfully
Into that deep and tranquil firmament
The summits of Auseva rise serene !
The watchman on the battlement partakes
The stillness of the solemn hour; he feels
The silence of the earth, the endless sound
Of flowing water soothes him, and the stars,
Which, in that brightest moonlight well nigh

quench'd,

Scarce visible, as in the utmost depth

To wet with unseen tears

Those graves of memory where sleep
The joys of other years;
Hopes that were angels in their birth,
But perish'd young, like things of earth!

Night is the time to watch,

On ocean's dark expanse,
To hail the Pleiades, or catch

The full moon's earliest glance,
That brings unto the home-sick mind
All we have loved and left behind.

Night is the time to muse;

Then from the eye the soul
Takes flight, and with expanding views
Beyond the starry pole,
Descries athwart the abyss of night
The dawn of uncreated light.

Night is the time to pray:
Our Saviour oft withdrew
To desert mountains far away;
So will His followers do;

Steal from the throng to haunts untrod,
And hold communion there with God.

And fragrant boughs with dewy lustre clothed, And green-hair'd valleys, all in glory dress'd, Make up the pageantry of night. One glance Upon old ocean, where the woven beams

Have braided her dark waves. Their roar is hush'd!

Her billowy wings are folded up to rest;
Till once again the wizard wing shall yell,
And tear them into strife.

A lone owl's hoot-
The waterfall's faint drip-or insect stir
Among the emerald leaves-or infant wind
Rifling the pearly tips of sleeping flowers-
Alone disturb the stillness of the scene.

Spirit of all! as up yon star-hung deep Of air, the eye and heart together mount, Man's immortality within him speaks That thou art all around! thy beauty walks In airy music o'er the midnight heavens Thy glory garmenteth the slumbering world. Robert Montgomery.

NIGHT-Silence of.

Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world.
Silence, how dead! and darkness, how pro-

found!

Nor eye, nor list'ning ear, an object finds;
Creation sleeps! 'tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause,
An awful pause! prophetic of her end. Young.

How absolute and omnipotent is the silence of night? And yet the stillness seems almost audible! From all the measureless depths of air around us comes a half-sound, a halfwhisper, as if we coula hear the crumbling and falling away of earth and all created things, in the great miracle of nature, decay and reproduction, ever beginning, never ending, the gradual lapse and running of the sand in the great hour glass of Time. Longfellow.

The soul to thoughtless indolence inclines,
Concealing every object which might keep
The sense awake, which now is hush'd to rest,
While silence o'er the wide creation reigns.
How gently treads each animal! how still
The darkness! Motion's self almost at rest!
While man retires to his soft couch,

To taste the sweets of needful sleep. Just such the care

Of the fond mother, hushing every noise, When, folded in her arms, she gently lulls The child, fond object of her love, to rest. Newcomb.

NIGHT-Solemnity of.

Hail sacred Night, thou too shalt share my
song;
Sister of ebon-sceptred Hecat, hail!
Whether in congregated clouds thou wrap'st
Thy viewless chariot, or with silver crown
Thy beams encirclest, ever hail!

Yet more delightful to my pensive mind
Is thy return, than bloomy morn's approach,
Ev'n then in youthful pride of op'ning May,
When from the portals of the saffron east
She sheds fresh roses, and ambrosial dews.
Thomas Warton.

All things are calm, and fair, and passive.

Earth

Looks as if lulled upon an angel's lap
Into a breathless, dewy sleep; so still,
That we can only say of things, they be,
The lakelet now, no longer vexed with gusts,
Replaces on her breast the pictured moon,
Pearled round with stars. Sweet imaged scene
of time

NIGHT.

To come, perchance, when this vain life o'erpast,

Farth may some purer being's presence bear; Mayhap e'en God may walk among his saints In eminence and brightness like yon moon, Mildly outbeaming all the beads of night Strung o'er night's proud, dark brow. Bailey.

NIGHT-Solitude of.

This sacred shade and solitude, what is it?
Tis the felt presence of the Deity:

Few are the faults we flatter when alone;
Vice sinks in her allurements, is ungilt,
And looks, like other objects, black by night.
Young.

NOBILITY-Elective.

Nobility should be elective, not hereditary. Zimmerman.

NOBILITY-Generosity of.

In brave pursuit of honourable deed,
There is I know not what great difference

If a man be endued with a generous mind, Between the vulgar and the noble seed, this is the best kind of nobility.

NOBILITY-Real.

Plato.

an emperor.

Which, unto things of valorous pretence, Seems to be borne by native influence.

Not all her arts my steady soul shall move, And she shall find, indifference conquers love. Lord Lyttelton.

NONSENSE-Sparing Use of.

To write or talk concerning any subject, without having previously taken the pains to understand it, is a breach of the duty which we owe to ourselves, though it may be no offence against the laws of the land. The

privilege of talking and even publishing nonsense is necessary in a free state; but the more sparingly we make use of it the better. Coleridge.

NOOK-One Silent.

One silent nook Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,

Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,

Saadi. It overlooked in its serenity

The dark earth, and the bending vault of Where flows the murmuring brook, inviting

dreams,

decay,

Red, yellow, or ethereally pale,

Rival the pride of summer.
Of every gentle wind, whose breath can teach
The wilds to love tranquillity.

'Tis the haunt

Shelley.

NOON-Calm of.

It was so calm, that scarce the feathery weed Sown by some eagle on the topmost stone Swayed in the air. So bright that noon did

Upon the bosom of the heaving deep
All the day long the pleasant sunbeams sleep:
The lazy streams soft lapsing, deep and slow,
Call you to slumber with their voices low;
Deep in the water stand the sleepy herds,-
The woods are silent all-the voiceless birds
To the sun's eye droop down the gaudy wing,
And hang the drowsy lid, and cease to sing:
From the day's furnace breath, sweetly em-

breed

bower'd

No shadow in the sky beside mine own.
Mine, and the shadow of my chair alone,
Below the smoke of roofs involved in flame,
Rested like night, all else was clearly shown
In the broad glare: yet sound to me none

came,

The poet lies, deep heat hath overpower'd Even his listening thoughts: but through his

slumbers

Still waking creep the bright unbidden
numbers:
It is the earth's siesta-even the bee

But of the living blood that ran within my Flags in his deep and dull monotony.

NOTHING.

Whitmore Jones.

Nothing! thou elder brother ev'n to shade! Thou hadst a being ere the world was made, And, well-fix'd, art alone of ending not afraid. Rochester.

Why should I in words attempt to tell
What that is like, which is, and yet is not?
Pollok.

NOTHING-Mystery of.

Mysterious Nothing! how shall I define

Thy shapeless, baseless, placeless emptiness? Nor form, nor colour, sound, nor size, are thine, Nor words, nor fingers, can thy voice express But though we cannot thee to aught compare, A thousand things to thee may likened be; And though thou art with nobody, nowhere,

Yet half mankind devote themselves to thee.

How many books thy history contain,

How many heads thy mighty plans pursue, What lab'ring hands thy portion only gain, What busy bodies thy doings only do, To thee, the great, the proud, the giddy bend, And-like my sonnet-all in nothing end. Porson.

NOVEL-A.

A novel was a book Three-volumed, and once read, and oft cramm'd

full

Of poisonous error, blackening every page;

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