Our

them if they had stayed longer with us. kindness to them is deemed to proceed from common opinons or fond imaginations, not friendship, or esteem; and to be grounded upon entertainment rather than use in the many offices of life. Nor would it pass from any person besides your ladyship, to say you lost a companion and a friend of nine years old; though you lost one, indeed, who gave the fairest hopes that could be of being both in time, and everything else that is estimable and good. But yet that itself is very uncertain, considering the chances of time, the infection of company, the snares of the world, and the passions of youth: so that the most excellent and agreeable creature of that tender age might, by the course of years and accidents, become the most miserable herself; and a greater trouble to her friends by living long, than she could have been by dying young.

Yet after all, madam, I think your loss so great, and some measure of your grief so deserved, that, would all your passionate complaints, all the anguish of your heart, do anything to retrieve it; could tears water the lovely plant, so as to make it grow again after once it is cut down; could sighs furnish new breath, or could it draw life and spirits from the wasting of yours, I am sure

your friends would be so far from accusing your passion, that they would encourage it as much, and share it as deeply, as they could. But alas! the eternal laws of the creation extinguish all such hopes, forbid all such designs; nature gives us many children and friends to take them away, but takes none away, to give them to us again. And this makes the excesses of grief to be universally condemned as unnatural, because so much in vain; whereas nature does nothing in vain; as unreasonable, because so contrary to our own designs; for we all design to be well and at ease, and by grief we make ourselves troubles most properly out of the dust, whilst our ravings and complaints are but like arrows shot up into the air at no mark, and so to no purpose, but only to fall back upon our own heads and destroy ourselves.

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.

GOD GRACIOUS IN HIS JUDGMENTS. BUT for myself, I bless God I have observed and felt so much mercy in this angry dispensation of God, that I am almost transported; I am sure highly pleased with thinking how infinitely sweet his mercies are, when his judgments are so gracious.-Jeremy Taylor on the loss of two children.

THE TWINS.

"TWAS summer, and a Sabbath eve,
And balmy was the air;

I saw a sight that made me grieve,
And yet that sight was fair:

Within a little coffin lay

Two lifeless babes as sweet as May.

Like waxen dolls which children dress,

The little bodies were;

A look of placid happiness

Did in each face appear:

And in the coffin, short and wide,
They lay together, side by side.

Their mother, as a lily pale,

Sat by them on their bed;
And bending o'er them told her tale,
And many a tear she shed;

Yet oft she cried amidst her pain,
"My babes and I shall meet again."

THE BITTER CUP DECLINED.

THE cup of life just to her lips she prest, Found the taste bitter, and declined the rest: Averse, then turning from the face of day, She softly sighed her infant soul away.

I SEE THEE STILL.

I SEE thee still;

Remembrance, faithful to her trust,
Calls thee in beauty from the dust;
Thou comest in the morning light,
Thou 'rt with me through the gloomy night;
In dreams I meet thee as of old;
Then thy soft arms my neck enfold,
And thy sweet voice is in my ear;
In every scene to memory dear,
I see thee still.

I see thee still,

In every hallowed token round;
This little ring thy finger bound,
This lock of hair thy forehead shaded,
This silken chain by thee was braided,
These flowers, all withered now, like thee,
Sweet Sister, thou didst cull for me;

This book was thine; here didst thou read; ah! yes, here, indeed,

This picture

I see thee still.

I see thee still;

Here was thy summer noon's retreat,

Here was thy favorite fireside seat;

This was thy chamber- here, each day,
I sat and watched thy sad decay;

Here, on this bed, thou last didst lie;
Here, on this pillow, thou didst die.
Dark hour! once more its woes unfold;
As then I saw thee, pale and cold,
I see thee still.

I see thee still;

Thou art not in the grave

confined

Death cannot claim the immortal Mind;
Let Earth close o'er its sacred trust,
But Goodness dies not in the dust;

Thee, O my Sister! 't is not thee
Beneath the coffin's lid I see!
Thou to a fairer land art gone;
There, let me hope, my journey done,
To see thee still!

CHARLES SPRAGUE.

ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT.

A GUARDIAN ANGEL bore it to the shore

Where souls embark upon Life's stormy sea, When, turning from the angry billows' roar, The infant cried, "O take me back with thee!"