86 THE OYSTEE. 



belicTed in the toadstone; we do not. The fable 

 remains in its pristine beauty ; but here is one truth 

 equally beautiful, that the adversity of the oyster 

 turns to a jewel so costly and glorious, that monarchs 

 reckon it amongst the records of their houses and 

 conquered provinces. May we ever turn our sorrows 

 and troubles to as good an account ; may we ever con- 

 tinue to do so, for assuredly some men do. The best 

 of men are those who are tried by affliction and trouble, 

 or those who have some deep and secret care, which 

 they hide in theii^ hearts, and which makes them wiser 

 and better. Shelley has a theory that poets are made 

 somewhat after the fashion of pearls, or that, at any 

 rate, their poetiy is so produced. He sings — 



" Most ■wi'etclied men 

 Are cradled into poetry by wrong ; 

 They learn in suffering, what they teach in song." 



AYe have very little doubt but that the trae poetry from 

 which the world learns anything worth learning is so 

 produced. 



There have been other theories as to the production 

 of the pearl, some holding that the interior formation 

 which we state to be a grain of sand, is a dead ovum 

 which the fish attempts to exude. This theory, too, has 

 its supporters. 



''If," said Sir Everard Home, " if I can prove that 

 this, the richest jewel in a monarch's crown, which 

 cannot be imitated by any art of man" (he is rather 

 wrong there; it can be imitated, and wonderfully 

 imitated too,) " either in beauty of form or biilliancy of 



