at seemed as if it were encircled by a rainbow.  Not long after the sight of the left part of the left eye (which I lost some years before the other) became quite obscured, and prevented me from discerning any object on that side.  The sight in my other eye has now been gradually and sensibly vanishing away for about three years; some months before it had entirely perished, though I stood motionless, every thing which I looked at seemed in motion to and fro.  A stiff cloudy vapor seemed to have settled on my forehead and temples, which usually occasions a sort of somnolent pressure upon my eyes, and particularly from dinner till evening.  So that I often recollect what is said of the poet Phineas in the Argonautics: 

  “A stupor deep his cloudy temples bound,
  And when he waked he seemed as whirling round,
  Or in a feeble trance he speechless lay.”

I ought not to omit that, while I had any sight left, as soon as I lay down on my bed, and turned on either side, a flood of light used to gush from my closed eyelids.  Then, as my sight became daily more impaired, the colors became more faint, and were emitted with a certain crackling sound; but at present every species of illumination being, as it were, extinguished, there is diffused around me nothing but darkness, or darkness mingled and streaked with an ashy brown.  Yet the darkness in which I am perpetually immersed seems always, both by night and day, to approach nearer to a white than black; and when the eye is rolling in its socket, it admits a little particle of light as through a chink.  And though your physician may kindle a small ray of hope, yet I make up my mind to the malady as quite incurable; and I often reflect, that as the wise man admonishes, days of darkness are destined to each of us.  The darkness which I experience, less oppressive than that of the tomb, is owing to the singular goodness of the Deity, passed amid the pursuits of literature and the cheering salutations of friendship.  But if, as it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God, why may not any one acquiesce in the privation of his sight, when God has so amply furnished his mind and his conscience with eyes?—­Milton’s Prose Works.

* * * * *

“ONCE CAUGHT, TWICE SHY.”—­“Many years ago,” says Mr. A. Smee, “I caught a common mouse in a trap, and instead of consigning it to the usual watery grave or to the unmerciful claws of the cat, I determined to keep it a prisoner.  After a short time, the little mouse made its escape in a room attached to my father’s residence in the Bank of England.  I did not desire the presence of a wild mouse in this room, and therefore adopted means to secure him.  The room was paved with stone, and inclosed with solid walls.  There was no hope for him that he would ultimately escape, although there were abundant opportunities for hiding.  I set the trap, and baited it with a savory morsel,