of
folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his
composition. It is observed, that "the foolisher the fowl or
fish,--woodcocks,--dotterels,--cod's-heads, &c. the finer the flesh
thereof," and what are commonly the world's received fools, but such
whereof the world is not worthy? and what have been some of the
kindliest patterns of our species, but so many darlings of absurdity,
minions of the goddess, and, her white boys?--Reader, if you wrest my
words beyond their fair construction, it is you, and not I, that are
the _April Fool_.

A QUAKER'S MEETING

Still-born Silence! thou that art
Flood-gate of the deeper heart!
Offspring of a heavenly kind!
Frost o' the mouth, and thaw o' the mind!
Secrecy's confident, and he
Who makes religion mystery!
Admiration's speaking'st tongue!
Leave, thy desert shades among,
Reverend hermits' hallowed cells,
Where retired devotion dwells!
With thy enthusiasms come,
Seize our tongues, and strike us dumb![1]

Reader, would'st thou know what true peace and quiet mean; would'st
thou find a refuge from the noises and clamours of the multitude;
would'st thou enjoy at once solitude and society; would'st thou
possess the depth of thy own spirit in stillness, without being shut
out from the consolatory faces of thy species; would'st thou be alone,
and yet accompanied; solitary, yet not desolate; singular, yet not
without some to keep thee in countenance; a unit in aggregate; a
simple in composite:--come with me into a Quaker's Meeting.

Dost thou love silence deep as that "before the winds were made?" go
not out into the wilderness, descend not into the profundities of the
earth; shut not up thy casements; nor pour wax into the little cells
of thy ears, with little-faith'd self-mistrusting Ulysses.--Retire
with me into a Quaker's Meeting.

For a man to refrain even from good words, and to hold his peace, it
is commendable; but for a multitude, it is great mastery.

What is the stillness of the desert, compared with this place? what
the uncommunicating muteness of fishes?--here the goddess reigns and
revels.--"Boreas, and Cesias, and Argestes loud," do not with their
inter-confounding uproars more augment the brawl--nor the waves of the
blown Baltic with their clubbed sounds--than their opposite (Silence
her sacred self) is multiplied and rendered more intense by numbers,
and by sympathy. She too hath her deeps, that call unto deeps.
Negation i