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have at all;-because we've no umbrella.-The children, too! (dear things!) they'll be sopping wet: for they shan't stay at home; they shan't lose their learning; it's all their father will leave them, I'm sure! But they shall go to school. Don't tell me they shouldn't (you are so aggravating, Caudle, you'd spoil the temper of an angel!); they shall go to school: mark that! and if they get their deaths of cold, it's not my fault; I DIDN'r

LEND THE UMBRELLA.

JERROLD.

DOUGLAS JERROLD was born in London on the 3d of January, 1803. His father, Samuel Jerrold, was manager of the two theaters of Sheerness and Southend, and in these sea-places much of his childhood was passed. His school-days were few, and the results of his studies unimportant. At eleven years of age he became a midshipman in the British navy, and served about two years, thus acquiring nautical experience, which he used in writing "Black-eyed Susan," one of his most successful plays. A mere boy when he came ashore, he went to London, became an apprentice in a printing-office, and went through the ordinary course of a printer's life. At this time, though the hours of labor were long, he studied very hard, and wrote pieces for the magazines. Emboldened by success, he wrote numerous plays for the theaters before he was twenty years old. Among the greatest and maturest of his comedies are "The Prisoner of War," "Bubbles of a Day," "Time works Wonders," "St. Cupid," and "The Heart of Gold." His chief brilliant and original prose writings, except "A Man made of Money," were first prepared for magazines. "Men of Character" appeared in "Blackwood's Magazine," "The Chronicles of Clovernook," in the "Illuminated Magazine," of which he was founder and editor,-and "The Story of a Feather," "Punch's Letters to his Son," and "The Caudle Lectures" in "Punch," of which he was the originator. The last literary event in his life was his assuming the editorship of "Lloyd's Newspaper," which rose under his hand to great circulation and celebrity. He died, from disease of the heart, on the 8th of June, 1857.

SECTION V.

I.

20. THANATOPSIS.'

To him, who, in the love of nature holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language; for his gayer hours,
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile,
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild,

1 Thăn`a tŏp'sis, this Greek word means a view of, or meditation on, death

2.

3.

And gentle sympathy that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.

When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour, come like a blight

Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;
Go forth into the open sky, and list

To nature's teaching, while, from all around,
Comes a still voice :

"Yet a few days, and thee, The all-beholding sun shall see no more,

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again:
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go,
To mix forever with the elements,

To be a brother to the insensible rock,

And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold. 4. "Yet not, to thy eternal resting-place,

5.

Shalt thou retire, ălōne-nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings,
The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre.

“The hills,

Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun; the vales,
Stretching in pensive quietnèss between ;

The venerable woods: rivers that move

In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadow green; and poured round all, Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,

6.

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages.

"All that tread
The globe, are but a handful, to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or, lose thyself in the continuous woods,
Where rolls the Or'egon, and hears no sound,
Save its own dashings-yet the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first

The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep: the dead reign there ălōne.
7. "So shalt thou rest; and what, if thou shalt fall,
Unnoticed by the living, and no friend

8.

Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh,
When thou art gone; the solemn brood of care
Plod on; and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet, all these shall leave
Their mirth, and their enjoyments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee.

"As the long train Of ages glide ǎway, the sons of men,

The youth, in life's green spring, and he, who goes In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, The bowed with age, the infant, in the smiles

And beauty of its innocent age cut off—

Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side,
By those who, in their turn, shall follow them.
9. "So live, that when thy summons comes, to join
The innumerable caravan that moves

To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go, not like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams!"

W. C. BRYANT. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, on the third day of November, 1794. He gave indications of superior genius at a very early age; and fortunately received the most careful and judicious instruction from his father, a learned and eminent physician. At ten years of age, he made very creditable translations from some of the Latin poets, which were printed in a newspaper at Northampton. At thirteen, he wrote "The Embargo," a po litical satire, which was never surpassed by any poet of that age. Bryant entered an advanced class of Williams College in the sixteenth year of his age, in which he soon became distinguished for his attainments generally, and especially for his proficiency in classical learning. He was admitted to the bar in 1815, and commenced the practice of his profession in the village of Great Barrington, where he was soon after married. He wrote the above noble poem"Thanatopsis "-when but little more than eighteen years of age. In 1821 he delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College his longest poem, "The Ages," which is in the stanza of Spenser, and in its versification is not inferior to "The Faerie Queene.' 19 "To a Waterfowl," "Inscription for an entrance to a Wood," and several other pieces of nearly equal merit were likewise written during his residence at Great Barrington. After passing ten years in successful practice in the courts, he determined to abandon the uncongenial business of a lawyer, and devote his attention more exclusively to literature. With this view, he removed to the city of New York in 1825, and, with a friend, established "The New York Review and Athenæum Magazine," in which he published several of his finest poems. In 1826 he assumed the chief direction of the "Evening Post," one of the best gazettes in this country, with which he has ever since been connected. In the summer of 1834, Mr. Bryant visited Europe, with his family, where he remained till 1836, when the illness of his partner and associate, the late William Leggett, caused his hasty return. A splendid edition of his complete poetical works was published in 1846. His last volume entitled "Thirty Poems," appeared in 1864. He is a favorite with men of every variety of tastes. He has passages of profound reflection for the philosopher, and others of such simple beauty as to please the most illiterate. He has few equals in grace and power of expression. Every line has compactness, precision, and elegance, and flows with its fellows in exquisite harmony. Mr. Bryant is the poet of nature. He places before us, in pictures warmly colored by the hues of the imagination, the old and shadowy forests, the sea-like prairies, the lakes, rivers, and mountains of our own country. To the thoughtful critic every thing in his verse belongs to America, and is as different from what marks the poetry of England as it is from that which most distinguishes the poetry of France or Germany.

MET

II.

21. EUTHANASIA.1

ETHINKS, when on the languid eye
Life's autumn scenes grow dim,—

When evening's shadows veil the sky,

' Euthanasia, (yủ`than d′ zî å), an easy death; a mode of dying to be desired.

And pleasure's siren' hymn
Grows fainter on the tunelèss ear,
Like echoes from another sphere,
Or dream of seraphim,-

It were not sad to cast away

This dull and cumbrous load of clay.
2. It were not sad to feel the heart
Grow passionlèss and cold;
To feel those longings to depart
That cheered the good of old;

To clasp the faith which looks on high,
Which fires the Christian's dying eye,
And makes the curtain-fold,

That falls upon his wasting breast,
The door that leads to endless rest.

3. It were not lonely thus to lie
On that triumphant bed,

Till the pure spirit mounts on high,
By white-winged seraphs led :
Where glories earth may never know
O'er "many mansions" lingering glow,
In peerless luster shed;

It were not lonely thus to soar,

Where sin and grief can sting no mōre.
4. And, though the way to such a goal
Lies through the clouded tomb,
If on the free, unfettered soul
There rest no stains of gloom,
How should its aspirations rise
Far through the blue, unpillared skies,
Up to its final home!

Beyond the journeyings of the sun,
Where streams of living waters run.

W. G. CLARK.

WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK, a journalist, poet, and miscellaneous writer, was born

'Siren, one of three damsels, or, according to some writers, of two, -said to dwell near the Island of Caprea, in the Mediterranean, and to sing with such sweetness that they

who sailed by forgot their country, and died in an ecstacy of delight; hence, an enticing, alluring, or dangerous woman; one rendered dan gerous by her enticements.

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