receives only a portion of these rays, an excess of
which would injure your retina. My dear Cat, you are a perfect
_optician_!

When you wish to descend a precipice, you calculate the distance of the
solid points with astonishing accuracy. In the first place, you dangle
your legs as if to measure the space, which you divide in your judgment,
by the motions of your feet; then you throw yourself exactly upon the
wished-for spot, the distance to which you have compared with the effect
on your muscles. My dear Cat, you are a skilful _geometrician_!

When you wander in the country, you examine plants with judicious
nicety; you soon select that kind which pleases you, when you roll
yourself on it, and testify your joy by a thousand other gambols; you
know also the several grasses, and their medicinal effects on your
frame. My dear Cat, you are an excellent _botanist_!

Your voice merits no less eulogium; for few animals have one so
modulated. The rhyming pur of satisfaction, the fawning accents of
appeal, the vigorous bursts of passion, and innumerable diatonic
varieties, proceed from your larynx, according to the order of nature.
My dear Cat, you are a _dramatic musician_!

In your amusements, you prefer pantomime to dialogue; and you neglect
the pen to study the picture. But then what agility! what dancing! what
cross-capers! The difficulty never impairs the grace of the feat. Oh, my
dear Cat! you are a _delightful dancer_!

Lastly, my dear Puss, show me a man who possesses as many kinds of
knowledge as you do, and I will proclaim him a _living cyclopaedia_, or
concentration of human wisdom. But, what do I see? I am praising you,
and you are fast asleep! This is still greater philosophy.

* * * * *

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

(_For the Mirror._)

Yes, radiant spirit, thou hast pass'd
Unto thy latest home,
And o'er our widow'd hearts is cast
A deep and with'ring gloom!
For when on earth thou wert as bright
As angel form might be:
And mem'ry shall exist in night,
If we think not of thee.

For, oh, thy beauty o'er us came
Like a fair sunset beam,
And the sweet music of thy name
Was pure as aught might deem.
With silent lips we gaz'd on thee,
And awe-suspended breath--
But thine entrancing witchery
Abideth not in death.

And all that we suppos'd most fair
Is but a mockery now;
No beam illumes the silken hair
That t