To angle when they've time.

Then fair befall the stream
That turns the mountain mill;
And fair befall the narrow road
That windeth up the hill!
And good luck to the countryman,
And to his old grey mare,
That upward toileth steadily,
With meal sacks laden heavily,
In storm as well as fair!
And good luck to the miller,
And to the miller's son;
And ever may the mill-wheel turn
While mountain waters run!

MARY HOWITT.

* * * * *

ENVY.

[Illustration: Letter E.]

Envy is almost the only vice which is practicable at all times, and in
every place--the only passion which can never lie quiet for want of
irritation; its effects, therefore, are everywhere discoverable, and its
attempts always to be dreaded.

It is impossible to mention a name, which any advantageous distinction
has made eminent, but some latent animosity will burst out. The wealthy
trader, however he may abstract himself from public affairs, will never
want those who hint with Shylock, that ships are but boards, and that no
man can properly be termed rich whose fortune is at the mercy of the
winds. The beauty adorned only with the unambitious graces of innocence
and modesty, provokes, whenever she appears, a thousand murmurs of
detraction and whispers of suspicion. The genius, even when he
endeavours only to entertain with pleasing; images of nature, or
instruct by uncontested principles of science, yet suffers persecution
from innumerable critics, whose acrimony is excited merely by the pain
of seeing others pleased--of hearing applauses which another enjoys.

The frequency of envy makes it so familiar that it escapes our notice;
nor do we often reflect upon its turpitude or malignity, till we happen
to feel its influence. When he that has given no provocation to malice,
but by attempting to excel in some useful art, finds himself pursued by
multitudes whom he never saw with implacability of personal resentment;
when he perceives clamour and malice let loose upon him as a public
enemy, and incited by every stratagem of defamation; when he hears the
misfortunes of his family or the follies of his youth exposed to the
world; and every failure of conduct, or defect of nature, aggravated and
ridiculed; he then learns to abhor those artifices at which he only
laughed before, and discovers how much the happiness of life would be
advanced by