"Youth's coffin! hush, the tale it tells,
Be silent, memory's funeral bells!

Lone in one heart, her home, it dwells

Untold till death,

And where the grave mound greenly swells

O'er buried faith."

After two more verses, alluding to the revolutions in empires, we come to this finale:

"Empires to-day are upside down,
The castle kneels before the town,

The monarch fears a printer's frown,

A brickbat's range:

Give me, in preference to a crown,

Five shillings change!"

Surely, it is unworthy to mar a fine subject by such an old joke. It scarcely seems credible that so poor a verse could have slipped in even by accident.

These are sweetly said:

"A poet's daughter-dearer word

Lip hath not spoke, nor listener heard;
Fit theme for song of bee and bird,
From morn till even,

And wind harp by the breathing stirred
Of star-lit heaven.

"My spirit's wings are weak-the fire

Poetic comes but to expire;

Her name needs not my humble lyre

To bid it live:

She hath already from her sire

All bard can give."

The whole of the poem from which we have quoted these lines is very peculiar, and shows how very small a temptation it takes to lead our poet astray.

We shall give a few specimens from his longest poem, but by no means his most successful. It is certainly a light and graceful collection of pleasantly expressed odds and ends of thought, but its entire want of story is fatal.

"I've felt full many a heartache in my day,

At the mere rustling of a muslin gown,
And caught some dreadful colds, I blush to say,
While shivering in the shade of beauty's frown,
They say her smiles are sunbeams-it may be-
But never a sunbeam would she throw on me.

"Her father kept, some fifteen years ago,

A retail dry good shop in Chatham street,
And nursed his little earnings, sure though slow,
Till having mustered wherewithal to meet
The gaze of the great world-he breathed the air
Of Pearl street, and set up in Hanover square.

"Money is power-'t is said-I never tried;
I'm but a poet—and bank-notes to me
Are curiosities, as closely eyed,

Whene'er I get them, as a stone would be
Passed from the moon, on Dr. Mitchell's table,
Or classic brickbat from the tower of Babel !"

The sudden investment of wit which the crowd discover in a wealthy man is well described.

"-brilliant traits of mind,

And genius, clear and countless as the dies

Upon the peacock's plumage; taste refined,
Wisdom and wit were his-perhaps much more.
"T was strange they had not found it out before!"

There is always, however, something to be said on the wrong as well as on the right side of the question, and there is a foundation of truth for every prejudice, nay, for even every error. The world is a shrewd beast, and knows well that a poor man who raises himself to wealth has some faculties in him superior to them. It is not because the man is rich that they listen, it is because they feel he knows more than they do. Before he achieved his wealth they knew not his power. Не rises to a loftier station, and consequently has earned the right to speak, and to be listened to with attention.

We do not make this defence out of any affection for the opinion of a rich man per se, but out of a desire that every question should be fairly tested.

It may, certainly, on the other hand be argued, that the pos

session of the wealth had no real influence on the man's intellect, and that his remarks must have been as brilliant before his money-making as after; but even here it may be said, "that nothing gives one so much confidence as gold, and nothing allows a freer play for the mind than confidence." We will illustrate this by an anecdote we were told the other evening, by a clergyman whose knowledge of human nature is more extensive than generally falls to that class.

A poor parson was in the habit every Saturday of borrowing of a friend a five dollar note; this was invariably returned, with wonderful punctuality, early every Monday morning. What astonished the lender more than all, was, the singular fact, that

he was always repaid in the very same bill he lent. Being a very curious man, this puzzled him amazingly. He felt sure that the parson could not want the money for household expenses, because the note was never changed. After a time, he resolved to seize the first opportunity of begging for an explanation of so unaccountable a proceeding. Shortly after, the parson himself came on Saturday evening, and asked for the loan of a ten dollar note. His friend seized the opportunity of demanding the solution of the mystery. After a pause, the borrower said: "You must know, my dear Smith, that my income is so small that I never have at the end of the week one cent I can call my own. Now, some cannot preach or pray on an empty stomach: I am one who cannot do so on an empty pocket. When I have nothing in them I feel a poor, miserable devil, and afraid to look my congregation in the face, much less to denounce their wickedness; but with a five dollar bill in my pocket, I feel a man and a Christian, and I preach with great eloquence and force. Now, as the President is coming to hear me to-morrow, I intend to try the effect of the double money power, and I shall feel obliged by your lending me a ten dollar bill to put in my pocket for this grand occasion!"

Absurd as this sounds when reduced to a confession, it is the undoubted truth, and is the foundation of every rich man's arrogance, and every poor man's despondency.

Despite the desultory writing of this poem, there are scattered here and there some beautiful thoughts, tenderly expressed.

"There are some happy moments in this lone

And desolate world of ours, that well repay

The toil of struggling through it—and atone

For many a long, sad night, and weary day.
They come upon the mind like some wild air
Of distant music, when we know not where,

"Or whence, the sounds are brought from, and their power,
Though brief, is boundless. That far, future home,
Oft dreamed of, beckons near-its rose-wreathed bower,
And cloudless skies before us. We become

Changed in an instant—all gold leaf and gilding.

This is, in vulgar phrase, called 'castle building.'

Now and then he has a sly hit at a brother author:

"Dear to the exile is his native land,

In memory's twilight beauty seen afar:
Dear to the broker is a note of hand
Collaterally secured-the polar star

Is dear at midnight to the sailor's eyes,
And dear are Bristed's volumes at half price.

"Brokers of all grades—stock and farm-and Jews

Of all religions, who at noonday form
On 'Change, that brotherhood the moral muse
Delights in, when the heart is pure and warm,
And each exerts his intellectual force

To cheat his neighbor-legally of course.

-for many bosom friends, it seems,

Did borrow of him, and sometimes forget

To pay-indeed, they have not paid him yet.

"But these he deemed as trifles-when each mouth Was open in his praise, and plaudits rose