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By this time the day is far spent; I feel myself fatigued and retire to rest. Thus what with tilling the ground, and eating the fruit of it, hunting, and walking, and running, and mending old clothes, and sleeping and rising again, I can suppose an inhabitant of the primeval world so much occupied, as to sigh over the shortness of life, and to find at the end of many centuries, that they had all slipped through his fingers, and were passed away like a shadow. What wonder then that I, who live in a day of so much greater refinement, when there is so much more to be wanted, and wished, and to be enjoyed, should feel myself now and then pinched in point of opportunity, and at some loss for leisure to fill four sides of a sheet like this? Thus, however, it is, and if the ancient gentlemen to whom I have referred, and their complaints of the disproportion of time to the occasions they had for it, will not serve me as an excuse, I must even plead guilty, and confess that I am often in haste when I have no good reason for being so.

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March 19, 1785. MY DEAR FRIEND,-You will wonder, no doubt, when I tell you that I write upon a card-table; and will be still more surprised when I add, that we breakfast, dine, sup upon a card-table. In short, it serves all purposes, except the only one for which it was originally designed. The solution of this mystery shall follow, lest it should run in your head at a wrong time, and should puzzle you, perhaps, when you are on the point of ascending your pulpit: for I have heard you say, that at such seasons your mind is often troubled with impertinent intrusions. The round table, which we formerly had in use, was unequal to the pressure of my superincumbent breast and elbows. When I wrote upon it, it creaked and tilted, and, by a variety of inconvenient tricks, disturbed the process. The fly-table was too slight and too small; the square dining-table, too heavy and too large, occupying, when its leaves were spread, almost the whole parlour; and the sideboard-table, having its station at too great a distance from the fire, and not being easily shifted out of its place and into it again, by reason of its size, was equally unfit for my purpose. The card-table, therefore, which had for sixteen years been banished as mere lumber, the card-table, which is covered with green baize, and is therefore preferable to any other that has a slippery surface,-the card-table, that stands firm and never totters,

is advanced to the honour of assisting me upon my scribbling occasions; and, because we choose to avoid the trouble of making frequent changes in the position of our household furniture, proves equally serviceable upon all others. It has cost us now and then the downfal of a glass: for, when covered with a tablecloth, the fish-ponds are not easily discerned; and not being seen, are sometimes as little thought of. But having numerous good qualities which abundantly compensate that single inconvenience, we spill upon it our coffee, our wine, and our ale, without murmuring, and resolve that it shall be our table still, to the exclusion of all others. Not to be tedious, I will add but one more circumstance upon the subject, and that only because it will impress upon you, as much as anything that I have said, a sense of the value we set upon its escritorial capacity.-Parched and penetrated on one side by the heat of the fire, it has opened into a large fissure, which pervades not the moulding of it only, but the very substance of the plank. At the mouth of this aperture, a sharp splinter presents itself, which, as sure as it comes in contact with a gown or an apron, tears it. It happens, unfortunately, to be on that side of this excellent and never-to-be-forgotten table which Mrs. Unwin sweeps with her apparel, almost as often as she rises from her chair. The consequences need not, to use the fashionable phrase, be given in detail: but the needle sets all to rights; and the card-table still holds possession of its functions without a rival.

Clean roads and milder weather have once more released us, opening a way for our escape into our accustomed walks. We have both, I believe, been sufferers by such a long confinement. Mrs. Unwin has had a nervous fever all the winter, and I a stomach that has quarrelled with everything, and not seldom even with its bread and butter. Her complaint, I hope, is at length removed; but mine seems more obstinate, giving way to nothing that I can oppose to it, except just in the moment when the opposition is made. I ascribe this malady-both our maladies, indeed-in a great measure, to our want of exercise. We have each of us practised more, in other days, than lately we have been able to take; and for my own part, till I was more than thirty years old, it was almost essential to my comfort to be perpetually in motion. My constitution, therefore, misses, I doubt not, its usual aids of this kind; and unless, for purposes which I cannot foresee, Providence should interpose to prevent it, will probably reach the moment of its dissolution the sooner for being so little disturbed.

CORRESPONDENCE OF COWPER.

vitiated digestion, I believe, always terminates, | Newton was there; but it is so no longer. The if not cured, in the production of some chronical disorder. In several I have known it Death is produce a dropsy. But no matter. inevitable, and whether we die to-day or tomorrow, a watery death or a dry one, is of no consequence. The state of our spiritual health is all. Could I discover a few more symptoms of convalescence there, this body might moulder into its original dust without one sigh from me. Nothing of all this did I mean to say; but I have said it, and must now seek another subject.

One of our most favourite walks is spoiled. The spinney is cut down to the stumps: even the lilacs and the syringas, to the stumps. Little did I think, though indeed I might have thought it, that the trees which screened me from the sun last summer would this winter be employed in roasting potatoes and boiling teakettles for the poor of Olney. But so it has proved; and we ourselves have, at this moment, more than two waggon-loads of them in our wood-loft.

Such various services can trees perform;
Whom once they screened from heat, in time they

warm.

TO MRS. NEWTON.

March 4, 1780. DEAR MADAM,-To communicate surprise is almost, perhaps quite, as agreeable as to receive it. This is my present motive for writing He would to you rather than to Mr. Newton. be pleased with hearing from me, but he would not be surprised at it; you see, therefore, I am selfish upon the present occasion, and principally consult my own gratification. Indeed, if I consulted yours, I should be silent, for I have no such budget as the minister's, furnished and stuffed with ways and means for every emergency, and shall find it difficult, perhaps, to raise supplies even for a short epistle.

You have observed in common conversation, that the man who coughs the oftenest, I mean if he has not a cold, does it because he has nothing to say. Even so it is in letter-writing: a long preface, such as mine, is an ugly symptom, and always forebodes great sterility in the following pages.

The vicarage-house became a melancholy object as soon as Mr. Newton had left it; when you left it, it became more melancholy: now it is actually occupied by another family, even I cannot look at it without being shocked. As I walked in the garden this evening, I saw the smoke issue from the study chimney, and aid to myself, That used to be a sign that Mr.

walls of the house know nothing of the change
that has taken place; the bolt of the chamber-
door sounds just as it used to do; and when
goes up-stairs, for aught I know,
Mr. P
or ever shall know, the fall of his foot could
hardly perhaps be distinguished from that of
Mr. Newton. But Mr. Newton's foot will
never be heard upon that staircase again.
If I were
These reflections, and such as these, occurred
to me upon the occasion;
in a condition to leave Olney too, I certainly
It is no attachment to
would not stay in it.
the place that binds me here, but an unfitness
I lived in it once, but now I
for every other.

am buried in it, and have no business with the
world on the outside of my sepulchre; my ap-
pearance would startle them, and theirs would
be shocking to me.

My respects attend Mr. Newton and yourself, accompanied with much affection for both. Yours, dear Madam, W. C. you

THE CHILDREN WE KEEP.

The children kept coming, one by one,

Till the boys were five, and the girls were three;
And the big brown house was alive with fun
From the basement floor to the old roof-tree.

Like garden flowers the little ones grew;

Nurtured and trained with the tenderest care,
Warmed by love's sunshine, bathed in its dew,
They bloomed into beauty like roses rare.

But one of the boys grew weary one day,

And leaning his head on his mother's breast,
He said: "I am tired and cannot play:

Let me sit awhile on your knee, and rest.”
She cradled him close in her fond embrace;
She hushed him to sleep with her choicest song;
And rapturous love still lightened his face
When his spirit had joined the heavenly throng.
Then the eldest girl with her thoughtful eyes,

Who stood where "the brook and the river meet,"
Stole softly away into Paradise

Ere "the river" had reached her slender feet.

While the father's eyes on the graves were bent,
The mother looked upward beyond the skies;
"Our treasures," she whispered, "were only lent; ¡
Our darlings were angels in earth's disguise."
The years flew by, and the children began
With longing to think of the world outside;
And as each in his turn became a man

The boys proudly went from the father's side;
The girls were women so gentle and fair
That lovers were speedy to woo and win
And with orange blossoms in braided hair
The old home was left; new homes begin.

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heard him quote these words: "For Justice all place a temple, and all season, summer." He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave he would sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of flowers.

Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We

A TRIBUTE TO EBON C. INGERSOLL, strive in vain to look beyond the heights.

BY HIS BROTHER ROBERT.

DEAR FRIENDS: I am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would do for me

The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the west. He had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point; but, being weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust.

Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship. For whether in mid sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love, and every moment jewelled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death.

This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock; but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights, and left all superstition far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of the grander day.

He loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak, the poor, the wronged, and lovingly gave alms. With loyal heart and with the purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts.

He was a worshipper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have

We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.

He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, "I am better now." Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead.

The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower.

And now, to you, who have been chosen, from among the many men he loved, to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust.

Speech cannot contain our love. There was, there is, no gentler, stronger, manlier man.

A VISION OF THE WAR.

BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. [Extract from a Speech delivered at the Soldiers' Reunion, at Indianapolis, Indiana, September 21, 1876.]

We see

THE past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for national life. We hear the sounds of preparation-the music of boisterous drums-the silver notes of heroic bugles. thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators; we see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are walking for the

We are

last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they adore.. We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and kisses -divine mingling of agony and love! And some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms-standing in the sunlight sobbing -at the turn of the road a hand wavesshe answers by holding high in her loving arms the child. He is gone, and forever.

We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags, keeping time to the grand, wild music of war-marching down the streets of the great cities-through the towns and across the prairies-down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right.

We

lion souls in fetters. All the sacred rela tions of wife, mother, father and child trampled beneath the brutal feet of might. And all this was done under our own beautiful banner of the free.

The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of the bursting shell. The broken fetters fall. These heroes died. We look. Instead of slaves we see men and women and children. The wand of progress touches the auction-block, the slave pen, the whipping-post, and we see homes and firesides and school-houses and books, and where all was want and crime and cruelty and fear we see the faces of the free.

These heroes are dead. They died for liberty-they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless palace of Rest. Earth may run red with other wars-they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: Cheers for the living; tears for the dead.

We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all the gory fields-in all the hospitals of pain-on all the weary marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. are with them in ravines running with blood -in the furrows of old fields. We are with them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls We see away among the withered leaves. The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just; them pierced by balls and torn with shells, It consecrates each grave within its walls, in the trenches by forts, and in the whirlAnd breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust. wind of the charge, where men become iron,

with nerves of steel. We are with them in

the prisons of hatred and famine; but human speech can never tell what they endured.

We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old man bowed with his last grief.

GOD'S-ACRE.

God's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts

Comfort to those who in the grave have sown

The seed that they had garnered in their hearts,

Their bread of life; alas! no more their own.
Into its furrows shall we all be cast,

In the sure faith that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.
Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,
In the fair gardens of that second birth;

The past rises before us, and we see four millions of human beings governed by the lash-we see them bound hand and foot-And each bright blossom mingle its perfume we hear the strokes of cruel whips-we see the hounds tracking women through tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty unspeakable! Outrage infinite!

With that of flowers which never bloomed on earth

Four million bodies in chains-four mil

With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod,

And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;

This is the field and Acre of our God,

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This is the place where human harvests grow!
Longfellow.

CUPID TAUGHT BY THE GRACES.

It is their summer haunt;-a giant oak
Stretches its sheltering arm above their heads,
And midst the twilight of depending boughs
They ply their eager task. Between them sits
A bright-haired child, whose softly-glistening wings
Quiver with joy, as ever and anon

He, at their bidding, sweeps a chorded shell,
And draws its music forth. Wondering, he looks
For their approving smile, and quickly drinks
(Apt pupil!) from their lips instruction sweet,-
Divine encouragement! And this is LOVE
TAUGHT BY THE GRACES how to point his darts
With milder mercy and discreeter aim;
To stir the bosom's lyre to harmony,

And waken strains of music from its chords
They never gave before!

THE ADOPTED CHILD.

"Why wilt thou leave me, oh! gentle child?
Thy home on the mountains is bleak and wild,
A straw-roofed cabin with lowly wall-
Mine is a fair and pillared hall,

Where many an image of marble gleams,
And the sunshine of picture for ever streams."

"Oh! green is the turf where my brothers play Through the long bright hours of the summer's day; They find the red cup-moss where they climb, And they chase the bee o'er the scented thyme; And the rocks where the heath-flower blooms they know

Lady, kind lady, oh! let me go!"

N.

"Content thee, boy, in my bower to dwell! Here are sweet sounds which thou lovest well: Flutes on the air in the stilly noon

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