But his old heart, too faithful still,
For time, with palsying touch to chill.
Oft resting on his master's knee
His head, with faithful sympathy
And thought intent, he seem'd to trace
The care-worn furrows of his face,
Till that mute eloquence of eye
Obtains attention and reply,

That murmurs low, in plaintive tone,
"Yes, old companion! she is gone;
There hangs her unstrung lute, and there
Before him stands her vacant chair,
And there the book, with mark between,
As last she left it, still is seen.
No busy hand has dared displace
Of these, of her, the faintest trace,
And round the little chamber still,
Was many a work of infant skill,
And many a flower and landscape traced
In later years, by Ellen's taste.

Her hand shall wake the lute no more,
Her voice again shall never pour

For him its silver notes;

Yet oft he sits and seems to hear,
For oft in fancy's list'ning ear
The fond remembrance floats.

O COULD we step into the grave.
And lift the coffin-lid,

And look upon the greedy worms
That eat upon the dead!

It well might change the reddest cheek
Into a lily-white;

And freeze the warmest blood to look
Upon so sad a sight.

Yet still it were a sadder sight,

If in that lump of clay,

There were a sense to feel the worms

So busy with their prey.

O pity then the living heart ;

The lump of living clay,

On whom the canker-worms of care
For ever, ever prey!

BOX HILL,

"A Pen and Ink Sketch, by the Author of the Promenade Round Dorking. HERE can be nothing said to enhance Box Hill in the recollections of those who have enjoyed the delightful solitude of its cool retreats. Thither the man of business, and the man of pleasure alike fly for repose; the one from the toils of busy life, and the other from the follies of fashion, to the unsophisticated beauties of rural retirement. In my sojournings and rambles I have ever considered that the only means of enjoying the country is by withdrawing our minds from the every day humdrum of life. With such a frame of mind I betake myself to Nature's woods and groves: here I muse and meditate on the unspeakable satisfaction derived from a single view of her congregated beauties.

The inn at the foot of Box Hill is alike the resort of the contemplatist and the bon-vivant. It has, however, its special charms. It partakes more of the domestic quiet of a family house than of the turmoil of a public inn. The rooms are neat and cheerful, and their unostentatious walls are hung with original drawings and other tributes of their visitors, who have left them as testimonials of the high gratification which they experienced from a temporary abode in this earthly elysium. You are not annoyed by the to and fro bustle of an inn-yard; arrivals and departures are not proclaimed by the bawlings of officious helpers, but you are welcomed by the respectful civilities and polite attentions of an interesting family, whose sole aim is your comfort. Here we may leave the ostentatious inns of large towns to those who prize style as the symbol of enjoyment. I would not even exchange the rustic moss-house, in which I am writing, for the costly saloons of the Clarendon. This humble retreat is built of laths covered with moss, with trunks of trees, around which clings broad-leaved ivy forming two rude arches of beautiful evergreen. Beneath such a portico I envy not the splendid corridors of a palace with all its delusive pageantry. Humility, the sincerest emblem of contentment, here contrasts itself with the pride of a crowded and overgrown city, and under the influence of such sentiments who can but be happy. Before me is a fine lawny ascent to the brow of Box Hill. Here is a fine clump of box-tree, the characteristic produce of the hill; there an

aged apple-tree extends its paternal branches to shelter casual visitors seated on a rustic bench. But above all, I admire the sweet simplicity of a little rose-tree which entwines round the trunk of the apple-tree. It conjures up many pleasing reminiscences of days gone by, when gardening was my morning, noon, and eventide recreation. A narrow path on the left leads off to a long walk overarched with box-wood, and leading to a rude bridge over the winding river Mole. Here I catch a fine view of the chalky steeps of the hill, which form a wall to shelter the enchanting valley at its foot. Returning by the same path in the opposite corner of the grounds is a lovely hermitage, which I will attempt to describe. Its form is circular, with mossy wall, and covered with thatch rising to a conical shape; the seat is of oak and unpainted elm trunks: the floor consists of transverse sections of the stumps of trees, in the centre of which stauds an old oak table: it is lighted by a small unglazed window, with a distant view of the road, and the entrance is by a gate of the rough limbs of trees nailed together.

Who amidst such scenes of tranquil nature can envy the tinsel and glare of luxurious life; or the ceaseless round of fashionable pleasure!

VIRTUE is the queen of labourers; Opinion the mistress of fools; Vanity the pride of Nature; and Contention the overthrow of families.

Virtue is not obtained in seeking strange countries, but by mending old errors.

Pythagoras compares Virtue to the letter Y, which is small at the foot, and broad at the head; meaning, that to attain Virtue is very painful, but its possession very pleasant.

THE SOLDIER'S FUNERAL.
IT is the funeral march. I did not think
That there had been such magic in sweet sounds.
Hark! from the blacken'd cymbal that dead tone,
It awes the very rabble multitude.

They follow silently, their earnest brows
Lifted in solemn thought. 'Tis not the pomp
And pageantry of death that with such force
Arrests the sense, the mute and mourning train,
The white plume nodding o'er the sable hearse,
Had passed unheeded, or perchance awoke
A serious smile, upon the poor man's cheek,

At pride's last triumph. Now these measur'd sounds,
This universal language, to the heart

Speak instant, and on all these various minds
Compel one feeling.

But such better thoughts
Will pass away, how soon! and they who here
Are following their dead comrade to the grave,
Ere the night fall, will, in their revelry,
Quench all remembrance. From the ties of life
Unnaturally rent, a man who knew

No resting place, no dear delights at home,.
Belike who never saw his children's face,
Whose children knew no father, he is gone,
Dropt from existence, like the withered leaf

That from the summer tree is swept away,
Its loss unseen. She hears not of his death
Who bore him, and already for her son
Her tears of bitterness are shed: when first
He had put on the livery of blood,

She wept him dead to her.

We are indeed
Clay in the potter's hand! one favour'd mind,
Scarce lower than the angels, shall explore
The ways of Nature, whilst his fellow-man,
Fram'd with like miracle the work of God,
Must, as the unreasonable beast, drag on
A life of labour, like this soldier here,
His wondrous faculties bestow'd in vain,
Be moulded by his fate, till he becomes
A mere machine of murder.

RAY what is earthly happiness? that phantom of which we hear so much and see so little; whose promises are constantly given and constantly broken, but as constantly believed; that cheats us with the sound instead of the substance, and with the blossom instead of the fruit. Like Juno, she is a goddess in pursuit, but a cloud in possession, deified by those who cannot enjoy her, and despised by those who can. Anticipation is her herald, but Disappointment is her companion; the first addresses itself to our imagination, that would believe, but the latter to our experience that must. Happiness, that grand mistress of ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route. Aristippus pursued her in pleasure, Socrates in wisdom, and Epicurus in both; she received the attentions of each, but bestowed her endearments on neither; although, like some other gallants, they all boasted of more favours than they had received. Warned by their failure, the stoic adopted a most paradoxical mode of preferring his suit; he thought, by slandering to woo her; by shunning, to win her; and proudly presumed, that, by fleeing ber, she would turn and follow him. She is deceitful as the calm that precedes the hurricane, smooth as the water on the verge of the cataract, and beautiful as the rainbow, that smiling daughter of the storm, but like the mirage in

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