A LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

This Paper is Published Weekly, and may be had of the Booksellers in Manchester; of Agents in many of the principal Towns in the Kingdom; and of the News-carriers. The last column is open to ADVERTISEMENTS of a LITERARY and SCIENTIFIC nature, comprising Education, Institutions, Sales of Libraries, &c.

FASHIONABLE EDUCATION.

(From DWIGHT'S Travels in New York.") The end proposed by the parents is to make their children objects of admiration. The means, though not sanctioned, are certainly characterised by the end. That I have not mistaken the end may be easily proved by a single resort to almost any genteel company. To such company the children of the family are regularly introduced and the praise of the guests is administered to them as regularly as the dinner or the tea is served up. Commendation is rung through all its changes: and you may hear, both in concert and succession, "beautiful children;" "what a charming family! "what a delightful family!" "you are a fine little fellow," "you are a sweet little girl;""my son, can't you speak one of your pieces before this good company?" "Caroline, where is your work?" Susan, bring Miss Caroline's work, and show it to that lady: ،، Susan, bring with you the picture, which she finished last week" with many other things of similar nature. Were you to pass a twelvemonth in this country, and to believe all you heard said by people, not destitute of respectability; whatever opinion you might form of the parents, you would suppose that the children were a superior race of beings, both in person and mind and that beauty, genius, grace, and loveliness had descended to this world in form, and determined to make these States their future residence.

both must be exercised daily, and often to the utmost.
Had Goliath never exerted the powers of his body, he
would have been an infant in strength: had Newton
never exerted those of his mind, he would have been an
infant in understanding. Genius, in the abstract, is a
mere capacity for exertion. This is the gift of nature;
and is all that she gives. The utmost of this capacity
can never be conjectured, until the mind has in a long
continued habitual course made its most vigorous

efforts.

If these observations are just, they furnish every parent an easy and sure directory for the intellectual education of his children. If he wishes them to possess the greatest strength of which they are capable, he must induce them to the most vigorous mental exertions. The reading education, which I have described, will never accomplish the purpose. Hard study, a thorough investigation of mathematical science, and a resolute attention to the most powerful efforts of a distinguished logician; in a word, an old-fashioned, rigid, academical education will ever be found indispensable to the youth who is destined to possess

mental greatness.

On girls, this unfortunate system induces additional evils. Miss, the darling of her father and the pride of her mother, is taught from the beginning to regard her dress as a momentous concern. She is instructed in embroidery merely that she may finish a piece of work, which from time to time is to be brought out, to be seen, admired, and praised by visitors; or framed and admired, and praised. She is taught music, only that she may perform a few times, to excite the same admi ration and applause for her skill on the piano-forte. She is taught to draw, merely to finish a picture, which, when richly framed and ornamented, is hung up, to become an altar for the same incense. Do not misunderstand me. I have no quarrel with these accomplishments. So far as they contribute to make the subject of them more amiable, useful, or happy, I admit their value. It is the employment of them, which I censure; the sacrifice made by the parent, of his property and his child at the shrine of vanity.

The means of effectuating this darling object are the communication of what are called accomplishments.hung up in the room, to be stili more frequently seen, The children are solicitously taught music, dancing, embroidery, ease, confidence, graceful manners, &c. &c. To these may be added what is called reading and travelling. You may very naturally ask me what I find in these branches of education to complain of. My objection lies, originally to the end which is proposed, and to the direction which it gives to the means; in themselves harmless, and capable of being useful. Children educated in the manner to which I refer, soon learn that the primary end of their efforts, and even of their existence, is appearance only. What they are, they soon discern is of little consequence; but what they appear to be, is of importance inestimable. The whole force of the early mind is directed, therefore, to this object ; and exhausted in directing the trifles of which it is composed.

The reading of girls is regularly lighter than that of boys. When the standard of reading for boys is set too low, that for girls will be proportionally lowered. Where boys investigate books of sound philosophy, The thoughts of a boy, thus educated, are spent upon and labour in mathematical and logical pursuits, girls the colour, quality, and fashion of his clothes, and upon read history, the higher poetry, and judicious discourses the several fashions to which his dress is to be successively conformed; upon his bow, his walk, his mode of in morality and religion. When the utmost labour of dancing, his behaviour in company, and his nice obsery-boys is bounded by history, biography, and the ance of the established rules of good breeding. To | Pamphlets of the day, girls sink down to songs, novels, miugle, without awkwardness or confusion, in that and plays. Of this reading what, let me ask, are the conseempty, unmeaning chat, those mere vibrations of the tongue, termed fashionable conversation, is the ultimate quences? By the first novel which she reads, she is aim of his eloquence; and to comprehend and to dis-introduced into a world literally new ; a middle region cuss, without impropriety, the passing topics of the between "this spot which men call earth," and that day, the chief object of his mental exertions. When which is formed in Arabian Tales. Instead of houses, he reads, he reads only to appear with advantage in inhabited by mere men, women, and children, she is such conversation. When he acts, he acts only to be presented with a succession of splendid palaces, and admired by those who look on. Novels, plays, and gloomy castles inhabited by tenants half human and other trifles of a similar nature, are the customary sub- half angelic, or haunted by downright fiends. Every jects of his investigation. Voyages, travels, biography, thing in the character and circumstances of these beings comes at the wish or the call of the enchanter. Whatand sometimes history, limit his severe researches. By such a mind thinking will be loathed, and study ever can supply their wants, suit their wishes, or forregarded with terror. In the pursuits to which it is ward, or frustrate their designs, is regularly at hand. devoted there is nothing to call forth, to try, or to The heroes are as handsome, as dignified, as brave, as increase its strength. Its powers, instead of being generous, as affectionate, as faithful, and as raised to new degrees of energy, are never exercised plished as he supposes will satisfy the demands of his At the same time, they have always a quantum to the extent in which they already exist. His present readers. capacity cannot be known for want of trial. What that sufficit of money; or, if not, some relation dies at the capacity might become cannot be even conjectured. proper time, and leaves them an ample supply. Every Destitute of that habit of labouring, which alone can heroine is also a compound of all that is graceful and render labour pleasing, or even supportable, he dreads lovely. Her person is fashioned "by the hand of harexertion as a calamity. The sight of a classic author mony.' Her complexion outvies the snow, and shames gives him a chill: a lesson in Locke, or Euclid, a mental ague.

Thus, in a youth formed perhaps by nature for extensive views and manly efforts, sloth of mind is generated, dandled, and nursed, on the knee of parental indulgence. A soft, luxurious, and sickly character is spread over both the understanding and the affections; which forbids their growth, prevents their vigour, and ruins every hope of future eminence and future worth. The faculties of the mind, like those of the body, acquire strength only by exercise. To attain their greatest strength,

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the rose.

accom

Her features are such as Milton's Eve might envy; and her mind is of the same class with those refined beings, to whom this great poet, in his list of the celestial orders, gives the elegant name of Virtues. With these delightful inhabitants of Utopia are contrasted iron-banded misers, profligate guardians, traitorous servants, and hags, not excelled by those of Lapland itself. It ought not to be omitted, that in this sequestered region the fields and gardens are all secondhand copies of paradise. On them, wherever it is con venient, the morning beams with every tint of elegance,

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and every ray of glory: and, when Aurora has no further use for these fine things, her sister Evening puts them on herself, and appears scarcely less splendid, or less delightful.

With this ideal world the unfortunate girl corresponds so much, and so long, that she ultimately considers it as her own proper residence. With its inhabitants she converses so frequently, and so habitually, that they become almost her only familiar acquaintance.

But she must one day act in the real world. What can she expect, after having resided so long in novels, but that fortunes, and villas, and Edens, will spring up every where in her progress through life, to promote her enjoyment. She has read herself into a heroine, and is fairly entitled to all the appendages of this character. If her imagination may be trusted, she is to be romantically rich and romantically happy. The mornings which dawn upon her are ever to be bright, the days serene, and the evenings fragrant and delightful. In a word, the curse pronounced upon mankind, as to her is, to lose its gloomy influence, and sorrow and toil are to fly from the path in which she chooses to walk through life.

With these views, how disappointed must she be by the ruggid course of nature! How untoward must be the progress of facts! How coarsely must the voice of truth grate upon her ear! How disgusted must she be to find herself surrounded-not by trusty Johns, and faithful Chloes, but by ordinary domestics, chilling ber with rusticity, provoking her by their negligence, insulting her with their impudence, and leaving her service without even giving her warning. Must she not feel, that it is a kind of impertinence in the days to be cloudy and wet, in the nights to be dark and chilly, in the streets to encumber her with mud, or choke her with dust, and in the prospects to present nothing but the mere vulgar scenes of this vulgar world.

The very food which she eats, (for eat she must,) will disgust her by its coarse unlikeness to the viands on which her imagination has so often feasted. Her friends, even those most intimately connected with her, will lose all the amiableness with which they are invested by natural affection, because they differ so grossly in their persons, mauners, and opinions, from the fine forms of fancy, and from the poetical minds, whose residence is a novel or a song. In a word, the world will become to her a solitude; and its inhabitants strangers: because her taste for living has become too refined, too dainty, to relish any thing found in real If she is at all pleasing and amiable, she will be But by whom? Not by a Corydon, a addressed. Strephon, or even a Grandison. At the best, her suitor will be a being formed of flesh and blood, who intends to live by business, and to acquire reputation by He is in pursuit diligence, integrity, and good sense. of a wife, and therefore can hardly wish for an angel. It will be difficult for him to believe that a being so exalted would assume the marriage vow, do the honours of his table, direct the business of his family, or preside over the education of his children. He has hitherto

life.

spent his life, perhaps, in acting vigorously in the
counting-room, contending strenuously at the bar, or
pursuing with diligence some other business merely
human. How can such a being frame his mouth to
lisp the pretty things which alone can be in unison with
so delicate an ear? Figure to yourself the disgust, the
pain, the surprise of this silken existence, even at the
most refined language of honesty, and at the most
such a suitor.
honorable sentiments of affection, obtruded on her by

Should some man of art and mischief happen to think the conquest worth obtaining, how easily might she become a victim to the very accomplishments in which she considers all excellence as involved!

Besides, this life is always, in some degree, a season of suffering and sorrow. In what manner can our heroine encounter either? To patience and fortitude she has from her infancy been a stranger; with religion she is unacquainted. Principles such as religion approves, she has none. This world has daily blasted all her expectations: with the future world she has not begun a connexion. Between the Bible and novels there is a gulph fixed, which few novel readers are willing to pass. The consciousness of virtue, the dignified pleasure of having performed our duty, the serene

remembrance of a useful life, the hope of an interest in
the Redeemer, and the promise of a glorious inheritance

in the favour of God, are never found in novels; and
of course have never been found by her.
A weary,
distressed, bewildered voyager amid the billows of
affiction, she looks around her in vain, to find a pilot,
a pole-star, or a shore.

person he is who bears it on his pate. Indeed,
if you saw the hat itself hung upon a pole or
peg, you might decide almost to a certainty as
to the owner of it. Some hatters have attempted
(and in a few cases succeeded) to make the hat
so as to suit the character of the wearer; but I
think the hat oftener assumes a new shape, and
assimilates itself, gradually, to the head, &c. of
the possessor of it. Now to the proof.

to indicate the long-headed man; which head I take to be very different from that of the counsellor's, whose wig-maker grinned amazingly when measuring him for that awful thing, a two-tailed peruque; and upon being asked the reason, said that the learned gentleman's head was just as thick as it was long.

I hardly know what sort of hat can be said to designate the really thick headed and stupid If you see a hat "all tattered and torn," with man, except it be that which you now and then a piece out of the brim here and there, and the see, standing upon the top of some ponderous crown beat in, or sewn on with a bit of pack-noddle, perfectly circular in the crown, and as perfectly straight and unbent in the rim, which stands out as regularly all round, as if it had just been ironed.

Under the influence of this education, persons of both sexes also are in extreme danger of becoming a voluntary prey to the modern philosophy, and to the principles of enchantment and perdition which it so successfully holds out to minds destitute of sound principle and defensive prudence. Unaccustomed to think, they are pleased to find others willing to think for them. Unac-thread; it requires no prophetic power to decustomed to reason, their minds will be perplexed by clare the wearer of it to be some poor wretched every argument advanced against their opinions. The outcast, who, rather than be quite bare-headed, admission of truth, the comprehension of good sense, has robbed some stick, set up in a corn-field or requires the toil of sober, vigorous thought. The admission of fiction, and of philosophical, as truly as of gardener's ground to scare the birds, of its poetical fiction, demands nothing but the luscious highest appendage; thus leaving the crows to indulgence of fancy. To a soft and dainty mind, a taste sport and riot unmolested, or at all events fascinated by mental luxury, how much more congenial unalarmed, on the losses of the poor farmer. is the latter employment than the former. How impro- As a complete opposite to this, you see a hat bable is it, how hopeless, that such a mind can fail to as sleek and as new-looking as if just from the reject the dictates of sober truth and sound understand-maker's, without a hair out of its place, the ing; and from a self indulgence, by babit rendered brim unbent, the edges unworn, the ribbon and indispensable, imbibe the wretched doctrines created buckle all precisely even and in order; who can by the philosophists of the present day! How impro- doubt for a moment that it is an old bachelor's bable it is, that any mind which has once imbibed ti ese doctrines can escape from absoluto ruin ! hat; it looks placid, quiet, snug, even sly, like the owner of it; and seems to say, as he would,

I know that this education is expressly attempted

with a view to superior refinement but it is not a refinement of the taste, the understanding, or the heart. It is merely a refinement of the imagination-of an imagination already soft and sickly; of a sensibility already excessive; of a relish already fastidious. To a genuine perfection of taste it bears no more resemblance than the delicate white of decay to the native fairness of complexion; or than the blush of a hectic to the bloom of health.

It is not here intended, that this mode of education prevails more in Boston than in other populous places on this continent; perhaps it prevails less. That it actually exists in such places, that it is fashionable, and that this town has a share in the evil, will not, I believe, be questioned. I have taken this occasion to enter my protest against it. In every part of it the dictates of com mon sense are laid aside; that which is of the least importance is most regarded, and that which is of the greatest most forgotten. To enable children to appear with such fashionable advantages as to gain admiration and applause, is the sole concern. To enable them to be what they ought to be-wise, virtuous, and useful-is left out of the system. The mind, instead of being educated, is left to the care of accident and fashion. Dress, manners, and accomplish

ments, are placed under expensive masters, and regulated with extreme solicitude. With this education, what can a son, or a daughter become? Not a man, nor a woman; but a well-dressed bundle of accom

plishments. Not a blessing, nor an heir of immortality; but a fribble, or a doll.

and, as far as the remark applies to judges, counsellors, doctors of divinity, king's coachmen, and a few other great men, it is a very good one; but, in the absence of a knowledge of physiognomy, and craniology (that lump and bump system), neither of which do I profess to know much about, give me the system or science of Hatiana, whereby the adepts in it know, even if following a man, and when" the human face divine" is invisible to them, what sort of

"don't touch me."

I dread to say, that a very greasy round hat, though kept otherwise clean, is too apt to belong to some poor author, more likely a poet than any thing else, and it seems to say that neither its owner nor itself are any longer nappy; much might be said about this sort of hat and its wearers, but it is an awful subject, and I will quit the theme.

The white hat in summer-time, covers the head either of a country-gentleman, a coachman, or a sporting flash-man, who would give you more slang in five minutes, than you would understand in five months, unless with the aid of Grose's Dictionary of the vulgar tongue, or that of some other slang lexicographer.

I shall now only name one other hat as indicative of any peculiarity of character, and that is the well-thumbed one; being bent up on the right side of the brim, by constant compression between the thumb and fingers of some adept at making a bow, and I generally suspect such a man of being a genteel beggar, and if he is a courtier, he will have thumbed his hat in begging a place from the crown; or if a shabby plebeian, in begging for half-a-crown.

I could almost fill your paper with a great variety more, but I will have mercy on your readers, as well as yourself, for the rest are principally nondescripts, and therefore could only be guessed at. But there are two or three If you see, towards nine or ten in the even- modes of wearing hats, that I will just name, as ing, a smart chapeau bras fitting along the being tolerably explanatory of the character of street, with a form under it dressed in black, the wearers, such is the hat shoved off the foreyou may depend it is some young fellow gliding head; the man who does this is either a hotaway to a ball, who has paid a hatter half-a-headed choleric man or a star-gazer: and the hat crown for his head-ornament for the evening, and who cannot well afford to hide himself in a hackney-coach, but yet is ashamed to be seen on foot; perhaps there may be a gold-loop in his hat; if so, he is Captain Somebody, till the next morning finds him at his desk..

Now and then you meet with the real old three-cornered cocked hat, the true and original Egham, Staines, and Windsor (formerly so nicknamed from the triangular situation of those towns), but its visits to us are like those of angels,

"Short and far between;"

and it is universally the mark of an old pen-
sioner, or of some old gentleman born about
the year 1740, and who mounted just such a
hat when he was first breeched, and who is now
determined to part with his cocked hat but with
his life. The present rising generation would
hardly believe, that about fifty or sixty years
ago, all the hats worn were of that shape, even
to the little boys, and a man in a round hat
would then have been hooted.

The broad-brimmed low-crowned hat gener-
ally gives token of a Quaker,-I beg pardon, a
friend-but there are a few queer, quaint, for-
mal chaps, who assume the same sort of cover-
ing for their crowns; and when you see such a
hat upon a head where the sad-coloured suit is
not to be observed beneath it, set down the
wearer as a man who wishes to be thought
either wiser or better than his neighbours, per-
haps both; but who, it is quite likely, is nei-
ther. Perhaps this might be called the hypo-
critical hat.

The extremely oval hat, whose rim is drawn into the segment of a circle on each side, seems

sunk over the eyes as clearly marks a sloven, or one who is ashamed or afraid of being recognized the last is the hat lifted, or cocked, on one side, which is sure to belong to a dandy, or would-be-buck.

I have purposely avoided saying any thing about the clerical, magisterial, or official hat; having too much respect for the powers that be, to affront even a beadle or a street-keeper.

LOUISA.

Louisa's charms are quickly known,
To ev'ry heart (except her own);
Her blushing beauty, sweetly speaks
A language pure affection 'wakes;
Creating in the feeling breast

A sense of beauty sweetly drest.

So lovely nature's fragrant rose,
Unconscious of its beauty blows;
And though its virtues so prevail,
And sweeten ev'ry passing gale,
Yet to its still sequester'd shade
'Twould cling-for peace and beauty made!
Manchester.
A. Z.

EPITAPH ON JOHN FORDACE, A FISHMONGER.

Near to this Place, lies Jack Fordace,
Fishmonger, late of Salmon Lane.

He Carp'd and Smelt, bought, sold, and felt,
And shell'd till he was shell'd again.
A Chub in person, varied hues a Trout,
Foul as a Tench, aud sullen as a Pout ;*
In mind a Gudgeon, but, in shop, a Shark,
Jack Made trade answer to life's latest spark.
Now-Sound he sleeps in hope; and may no Surgeon
With Pike in search of knowledge Dare to stir-John.s

• Whiting Pout.
The Dare Dace.

JACK SPRAT.

+ For Maid.

§ For Sturgeon.

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.

One evening, beneath a lofty myrtle-tree, the beauteous Amaryllis was lamenting the death of a nightingale. She said, Sweetest tears have fallen with the touching close of its delicious tones: I felt the music creep along my nerves, and the fine vibrations play through my heart. I weep now, Lycidas, when I think such a charming sadness may never again give delightful tears.

Ah! that I could recal thy nightingale into existence, as I did thy drowned lamb! exclaimed the amiable youth.

Thou never canst, dear companion! it breathed a long and dying fall, like the gentle airs, moving the tops of the hollow reeds, making a moaning melody.

responsive to their cheerful influence, her light
footsteps gave what Lycidas termed, the music
to the eye and such was the origin of THEATRIC
DANCE!-D'Israeli's Origin of the Fine Arts.

COGGESHALL FACETIÆ.

1. Some inhabitants not liking the situation of their church, and being unable to afford the expense of pulling it down and building another, resolved to attempt to remove it entire. Some dozen stout labourers were hired to shove it to the desired site. Before they commenced their operations, they pulled off their jackets and laid them down, to mark how far they were to move the church; they then went to the other side and set to work. Meantime their clothes were stolen. After shoving for some time, they went to the other side to see what progress they had made, and finding their clothes gone, they said it was a pity they had not left off sooner, as they had shoved the church too far, and covered their clothes.

2. A man having received from Colchester
some red herrings as a present, was so pleased
with them, that he sent for a bushel to stock his
pond.

ordered his cook to send them up for supper.
3. A gentleman having received some oysters,
She served up the shells nicely washed. Being
asked what she had done with the oysters, she
replied that she had only gutted them.

Studious to charm his beloved with the voice of the nightingale, the thoughts of Lycidas produced a sleepless night: the next day he gave Amaryllis the care of his goats, and promised an early return. The sun declined, and Lycidas returned not. Amaryllis sighed at its farewell beam. She sat, her head reclining on her arm. Suddenly aerial notes floated in soft remote sounds. The startled Amaryllis exclaimedThe air sings in the clouds! The notes seemed approaching to her. She looked up at the myrtle-tree. They warbled more musically clear. She perceived Lycidas: he held something in his hands to his lips -Hast thou found another nightingale? (Lycidas replied but by the accents of his harmonious mouth.) What miracle is this! Canst thou give a vocal voice to a hollow reed?-Yes, (replied Lycidas,) it was thou who didst instruct me: Thou didst resem5. One who had planted French beans, ble the voice of the nightingale to the light AIRS watched anxiously to see them shoot; but perbreathing on the hollow REEDS. All day I wan-ceiving the beans appear above the ground, he dered for a nightingale, and I found none: I took a reed, and made little entrances for my breath: I said, Oh, gentle reed! I can give thee AIR, if thou canst yield me the VOICE of the nightingale: I BREATHED, and it was MUSIC!

This first of flutes was their most valued acacquisition, for it bestowed a new pleasure; and in the solitude of lovers, pleasure is their only avarice. Lycidas, gradually modulating his reed by his ear, perceived the successive sounds of MELODY, and, at length, the concords of HARMONY; but often, weary with trying musical sounds, the eyes of Amaryllis fired his soul, and the rapt enthusiast, tender or gay at such moments, made his lively infections, and variety of accent imitate their sensations and echo their passions. Such was the progress of INSTRU

MENTAL MUSIC!

As they wept or laughed, they marvelled how the air, through a hollow reed, could speak more persuasively to their hearts, than their own voices; they knew not that the imitations of Art please more than nature herself. When Lycidas played, Amaryllis could not sit still, and her gestures corresponded with the passions he inspired. Was Amaryllis capricious? Lycidas breathed a long dissolving strain; sounds associated in her mind with ideas of tenderness; her ear arrested her steps, and silenced her tongue; while the sweetness of her physiognomy melted in the dew of her eye, and expressed itself in many a passionate attitude. Was Amaryllis plunged in the softest melancholy? Aerial tones, rapid and voluble, vibrated around; till, stealing the sense of thought from the pensive beauty, they broke into gay melodies; while,

• Such is imitative music, which, says Rousseau, expresses

all passions, paints all pictures, represents all objects, and subjects all Nature herself to its skilful imitations; and thus

conveys to the heart of men those sentiments proper to touch and to agitate.

4. Another, who had received a barrel of oysters, paved his court-yard with them, in various devices, of circles, stars, &c.

conceived he had planted them the wrong end
downwards, and accordingly took them up and
reversed them.

6. A countryman returning home one even-
ing, saw the reflection of the moon in a pond;
he immediately gave the alarm that the moon
had fallen into the water. The peasants, with
their long rakes, proceeded to get it out; but
when they had disturbed the water, they said
they had unfortunately broken the moon to
pieces, and it would be useless to proceed in
their operations, as they never should be able to
all those fragments together.

put

7. One sent his servant to buy cherries, charging him to bring very large ones; the man bringing them much smaller than he expected, he eat them with spectacles on, that he might fancy they were large.

8. A good housewife having received a pound of coffee, boiled it, and served it up with parsley and butter. She declared they were the very worst peas she had ever seen, as she had boiled them for hours, and yet they remained quite hard.

9. Another boiled a pound of tea, and served up the leaves like spinach, throwing the water away.

10. The moat of a neighbouring manor-house being to be drained, the fish were advertised for sale. Some inhabitants of Coggeshall, who attended the sale, were met on their return, with their carts heavily laden, fagging up a steep hill. From the inquiries made of them by a citizen of Colchester who met them, it appeared, that intending to buy some of the fish, they had providently taken tubs full of water to put them in; and that, though they did not buy any, they were returning with their tubs still full, without thinking to relieve their horses, which were sinking with fatigue.

And whither, whither are they flown?
What traces have they left behind?
What transports can I call my own?
What social bosom can I find?
I view the past,
And stand aghast;

How much, alas! of life's short span!
And Memory cries, as thus I gaze,
"Where are thy friends of former days;—
Thou solitary man!”

Some, bless'd of heaven, and timely wise,
Are link'd in Hymen's silken bands;-
Have learnt "Heaven's last, best gift" to prize,
And join'd with hers their willing hands:
With fond embrace

Each grief they chase,
Whatever ill their steps betide;
And hand in hand they sweetly stray
Through life's perplex'd and thorny way,
With truest love their guide.

Some seek their Country's banner'd plain,
And fearless dare the hostile fray;
And some, the growing love of gain
Hath lured to foreign lands away;
And some, iudeed,
Whose names I read
Engraved on many a mossy stone,
Were early number'd with the dead.
Thus all, their different ways have sped,—
And left me here, alone!

They say that my unfeeling breast

Ne'er felt Love's pleasing, anxious smart ;—
Was ne'er with doubts and fears oppress'd,
Nor sigh'd to win a woman's heart.
And let them say
Whate'er they may;

I heed not censure now, nor praise:
I could not ask a lovely maid
To seek with me the lowly shade ;-
I hoped for brighter days.

Yes; I have felt that hallow'd flame

That burns with constant, chaste desire;
I too have cherished, long, a name
That set my youthful breast on fire!
But Hope's sweet smiles,
And 'witching wiles,
Beguiled my heart of every pain;
And I have slept in her soft bowers,
Till now, of life's last, lingering hours,
How few, alas, remain!