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