prompted him to sacrifice their blood to his ambition, was over; he may have been generous and merciful to his vanquished enemies; he reigned in a country whence arose the first dawn of the arts and sciences, he may have encouraged them, and contributed to the civilization, and consequently to the happiness of mankind. On the other hand, he may have been a tyrant over his subjects, inhuman and unmerciful to his enemies; the pestilence of his tyranny may have blighted the infant arts, and the storm of war and devastation may, during his reign, have darkened the glimmering beams of civilization under its cloud of blood. That he was powerful and renowned is all that his tomb proves to us. His name may have been coupled with curses or benedic tions. His cotemporaries relied upon posterity either to reward his virtues with praise, or punish his vices with an eternal stigma: Posterity has forgotten him. Time has poured the tide of oblivion over his actions; his virtues or crimes are as completely hidden from our knowledge, by the veil of centuries, as the once fertile soil, over which he reigned, is concealed from our sight by its eternal sands.

While it wounds human vanity to reflect upon this total oblivion into which the great of the species have sunk, it is a consolation, and a great one, to find that the subject immediately before our eyes was a conquering Monarch. It may console those who have suffered from these licensed depredators, that the oppressors may be disappointed in their hopes of immortal fame, the prize for which they have sacrificed the lives and happiness of mankind entrusted to their care; and it holds out a warning to others not to follow that path which has hitherto been considered a royal road to immortality. When ambition, heated and nursed by flattery, reminds royal youth of the fame of a Cyrus, an Alexander, or a Napoleon, let cold truth interpose, and tell the tale of Psammis; that he was great, victorious, triumphant, and-forgotten.

It is not from man that we are to hope for immortality. To all that mortals project, undertake, or accomplish, there is a sure, though not fixed termination. The actions and greatness of man will be veiled by a never-failing oblivion, whose advance seems protracted, when compared with human life; yet but an instant, when compared with eternity. If we have acquired fame at the expense of virtue, we may gaze upon the drop of time which is our own with the false pleasure of vanity; but we dare not turn our eyes towards the ocean into which that drop has fallen. The only real immortality for which we can hope, or to which we have courage to look forward, is that which is prepared by the Deity, as an inestimable reward for well a life; τα δ' άλλα συγχει

spent

A. L. B.

Ob Boots.

"whose conceit

Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich

To hear the wooden dialogue and sound

"Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage.”—SHAKSPEARE.

I HAVE got a pair of old Boots.

I bought them at Exeter last Summer, and they withstood all the malice of Devonshire paviors in a most inconceivable style, The leather was of a most Editorial consistency, and the sole resembled a Quarto.-It was in them that I revisited the desolate habitation of my infancy; it was their heavy changing sound which echoed through those deserted apartments. It was in them too, that I tottered upon the perilous summit of the Ness; and it was in them that I got wet to the knees in the disagreeable tempest which waited upon the Dawlish Regatta. How many pleasant moments, how many dear friends, do they recall to my recollection! It was with their ponderous solidity that I astonished the weak nerves of one, and trod upon the weak toes of another. Every inch of them, old and emeriti as they are, is pregnant with some delightful, some amiable sensation. It was in them that I excogitated the First Number of the Etonian.-They shall live to look upon the last! I cannot say they were ever very elegant in shape or texture. Like the genius of my friend Swinburne, they possessed more intrinsic strength than outward polish. They served me well, however, and travelled with me to Town.

I happened to put them on one wet morning in April. Whatever form or fashion they formerly boasted, was altogether extinct; they were as shapeless as an unlicked cub, and as dusky as a cloud on a November morning. I beheld their fallen appearance with some dismay. "I shall be stared at;" I said, "I had better take them off!"-but I thought of their former services, and resolved to keep them on.

They had brought their plated heels from the country, and they made a confounded noise upon the pavement as I walked along. Ding, dong, they went at every step, as if I carried a belfry swung at my toes. "This is a disagreeable sort of accompaniment," I said;-" I had better dismiss the Musicians!" Just at that moment a young Baronet passed me, attended by a fine dog. The dog was in high spirits, and made rather too much noise for the contemplative mood of his master. "Silence, Cæsar !-be quiet, Cæsar!"-No, it was all in vain, and Cæsar was kicked into the gutter. "That was cruel!" I said, "to dismiss an old

servant, because he was a note too loud! I think I will keep my Boots!"

I walked in the Park with Golightly. By the side of my stabile footcase his neat and dapper instep cut a peculiarly smart figure; it was a Molossus tête-a-tête with a Pyrrhic; an Etonian's skiff moored along-side of a coal-barge. Golightly's meditations seemed to be of the same cast; he once or twice turned his eyes to the ground, as I thought, with no very complacent aspect. "My friends grow ashamed of me," I said to myself" I must part with my Boots!" As I made up my mind to the sacrifice, Lady Eglantine met us, with her husband. She was constantly looking another way, nodding familiarly to the young men she met, and endeavouring to convince the world how thoroughly she despised the lump of earth which she was obliged to drag after her. "There is a woman," said Frederick, "who married Sir John for his money, and has not the sense to appear contented with the bargain she has made. What can be more silly than to look down thus upon a man of sterling worth, because he happened to be born an hundred miles from the Metropolis?""What can be more silly?" I repeated inwardly;" I will never look down on my Boots again!"

We continued our walk, and Golightly began his usual course of strictures upon the place and the company. Hurried away by the constant flow of jest and wildness with which he embellishes his sketches, I soon forgot both the Boots, which had been the theme of my reflections, and the moral lessons which the subject had produced. There was an awkward stone in the way! Ŏh! my unfortunate heels! I broke down terribly, and was very near bringing my companion after me. I rose, and went on in great dudgeon. "This will never do!" I muttered; "this will never do! I must positively cashier my Boots!" I looked up;—an interesting girl was passing us, leaning on the arm of a young man, whose face I thought I recognised. She looked pale and feeble; and, when my friend bowed to her with unusual attention, she seemed embarrassed by the civility. "That is Anna Leith," said Golightly; "she made an imprudent match with that young man about a year ago, and her father has refused to see her ever since. Poor girl! she is in a rapid decline, and the remedies of her physicians have no effect upon a broken spirit.— I would never cast off a beloved object for a single false step!"

"I will keep my Boots," I exclaimed,—“ though they make a thousand!"

P. C.

Song

TO THE SPRING BREEZE.

OH! Spirit of the Breeze,
Who singest in the trees,

Making low music, while the young leaves dance;
Unveil, unveil to me

Thy beauty silently,

Let me thy bright eyes view, and dove-like countenance.

Oft doth my Fancy's eye

The Naiads fair espy,

Silently floating down some heavy stream;
And glisten as it sees

The green-rob'd Dryades,

Or Oreads dancing nightly by their Queen's pale beam.

And I, on nights of June,

Have watch'd, beneath the Moon, The gambols quaint of many a gamesome Fay, Around the tiny throne

Of mirthful Oberon,

And his capricious Queen, proud-eyed Titania.

But, Spirit of the Breeze,
Whose noon-day melodies,

And fragrant breath, soothe me so tenderly;
In vain I strive to view

Thy form's celestial hue,

Too shadowy a dream art thou to flit o'er Fancy's eye.

Or art thou but a sound,
In fragrance floating round,

The whisper of some rural Deity;

Who, stretch'd in grotto calm,
With breath of purest balm,

Is warbling to the Nymph's delicious minstrelsy?

Oh! happy wandering thing,
Thus bearing on thy wing

Refreshing coolness, fragrance, and sweet sound;

Now calmly dost thou stray

Through groves and meadows gay,

Still catching, as thou glidest on, new freshness from the

ground.

Thou breathest on my brow,

I feel thy kisses now,

Thy cooling kisses :—but what charm was this?
For oh! those kisses bore

A joy unfelt before,

A momentary, strange, imaginative bliss.

From my distemper'd brain
Thou didst call up a train

Of recollections sweet, which long had slept;
Almost before my eyes

I saw dear forms arise,

And cherish'd thoughts and feelings from their deep cells crept.

Whence was this wondrous spell?
Thou sweet-voiced Spirit tell-

Oh! com'st thou from mine own Salopian hills?
Their freshness dost thou bring,
Thou blessed gale of Spring,

With soothing charms to win me from my dream of ills?

Oh! there did lurk beneath
The fragrance of thy breath

A dim emotion of remember'd joy;

And in thy voice I heard

Tones that my spirit stirr'd,

The kindly tones that spoke to me, and cheer'd me when a boy.

Hast thou not wandering been
Amid those valleys green,

Which bear the light print of my lov'd one's feet;
And as thou glidedst by,

Caught her most holy sigh?

I felt, I felt its fragrance in thy kiss so sweet.

And hast thou not stray'd o'er
Sabrina's grassy shore,

Sweetening thy cool breath with her springing flowers;
And pass'd the cot where dwell

They whom I love so well,

Beneath their arching trees, and honeysuckle bowers?