"Atom by atom thus the burthen grew, Even like an infant in the womb, till Time Deliver'd ocean of that monstrous birth, --A coral island, stretching east and west, In God's own language to its parent saying, 'Thus far, no farther, shalt thou go; and here Shall thy proud waves be stay'd:'--A point at first It peer'd above those waves; a point so small, I just perceived it, fix'd where all was floating: And when a bubble cross'd it, the blue film Expanded like a sky above the speck; That speck became a hand-breadth; day and night It spread, accumulated, and ere long Presented to my view a dazzling plain. White as the moon amid the sapphire sea; Bare at low water, and as still as death, But when the tide came gurgling o'er the surface, 'Twas like a resurrection of the dead: From graves innumerable, punctures fine In the close coral, capillary swarms Of reptiles, horrent as Medusa's snakes, Cover'd the bald-pate reef; then all was life, And indefatigable industry: The artisans were twisting to and fro. In idle-seeming convolutions; yet They never vanish'd with the ebbing surge, Till pellicle on pellicle, and layer On layer, was added to the growing mass. Ere long the reef o'ertopt the spring-flood's height, And mock'd the billows when they leapt upon it, Unable to maintain their slippery hold, And falling down in foam-wreaths round its verge. Steep were the flanks, sharp precipices, Descending to their base in ocean gloom. Chasms few, and narrow and irregular, Form'd harbours, safe at once and perilous,-- Safe for defence, but perilous to enter. A sea lake shone amidst the fossil isle, Reflecting in a ring its cliffs and caverns, With heaven itself seen like a lake below." _Montgomery's Pelican Island._ * * * * * THE GATHERER. "I am but a _Gatherer_ and disposer of other men's stuff."--_Wotton_. * * * * * TAKING PHYSIC. David Hartley eat two hundred pounds weight of soap to cure the stone, but died of that disease. Bishop Berkeley drank a butt of tar-water. Meyer, in a course of chemical neutralization, swallowed 1,200 pounds of crabs' eyes. In the German Ephemerides, the case of a person is described who had taken so much elixir of vitriol, that his keys were rusted in his pocket by the transudation of the acid through the pores of his skin; another patient is said to have taken argentum nitratum in solution till he became blue. _Throw physic to the dogs!_ * * * * * MARRIAGE. There are two cardinal points in a man's life, which determine his happiness or his misery; these are his birth and his marriage. It is in vain for a man to be born fortunate if he be unfortunate in his marriage. * * * * * PERVERSENESS OF FOREIGNERS.