dine abroad in this season (December), you may at least let a friend or two dine with you." 66 Well, well, come you and dine with me to-morrow," looking earnestly at Miss Hunter, his niece. "I am engaged to-morrow, but I can return at four to-day." He looked more earnestly at his niece. "What's to hinder him?" said she, meaning to answer his look, which said, "Have you any dinner to-day, Betty?" I returned, accordingly, at four, and never passed four hours more agreeably with him, nor had more enlightened conversation. Nay more, three days before his death he sent to John Home a part of his History, with two or three pages of criticism on that part of it that relates to Provost Drummond, in which he and I thought John egregiously wrong. It was long before Blair's circumstances were full, yet he lived handsomely, and had literary strangers at his house, as well as many friends. A task imposed on both Robertson and Blair was reading manuscript prepared for the press, of which Blair had the greatest share of the poetry, and Robertson of the other writings, and they were both kind encouragers of young men of merit. 1 BEATRICE'S SONG. BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. OME, I will sing you some low, sleepy tune, COME Not cheerful, nor yet sad; some dull old thing Some outworn and unused monotony, Such as our country gossips sing and spin, SONG. False friend, wilt thou smile or weep When my life is laid asleep? Little cares for a smile or a tear The clay-cold corpse upon the bier; What is this whispers low? There is a snake in thy smile, my dear Sweet sleep! were death like to thee, Or if thou couldst mortal be, Listen to the passing bell! It says, thou and I must part, THANATOPSIS. BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. O 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 When thoughts Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 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 be a brother to the insensible rock, And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods In silence from the living, and no friend The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 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, -A 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. པཎྜ с い 'niet wete in B.-surrection to Iternal |