No more in noontide sun I bask; My head 's ne'er out of school ; My friends grow strangely cool. The very chum, that shared my cake, No skies so blue or so serene O for the garb that marked the boy, Well inked with black and red; O for the ribbon round the neck! A boy of larger growth? O for that small, small beer anew; The " omne bene" Christmas come. But now I write for days and days For fame a deal of empty praise, Without the silver pen! Then home, sweet home! the crowded coach, The winding horns like rams'! The meeting sweet that made me thrill, 119. Happiness. WHAT is earthly happiness?-that phantom, of which we hear so much and see so little; whose promises are con Fagged, beat, compelled to drudge. — Fag, a laborious drudge, a drudge for another. In the English schools, this term is applied to a boy who does menial services for another of a higher form or class. Omne bene, supreme good Satis. sufficiency, enough. -- stantly given, and constantly broken, but as constantly believed; that cheats us with the sound instead of the substance, and with the blossom instead of the fruit. Anticipation is her herald, but Disappointment is her companion; the first addresses itself to our imagination, that would believe; but the latter to our experience, that must. Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route. Aristippus pursued her in pleasure, Socrates in wisdom, and Epicurus in both; she received the attentions of each, but bestowed her endearments on none of them. Warned by their failure, the Stoic adopted another mode of preferring his suit; he thought, by slandering, to obtain her; by shunning, to win her; and proudly presumed, that, by fleeing her, she would turn and follow him. She is deceitful as the calm that precedes the hurricane; smooth as the water at the edge of the cataract; and beautiful as the rainbow, that smiling daughter of the storm; but, like the image in the desert, she tantalizes us with a delusion that distance creates and that contiguity destroys; yet, often, when unsought, she is found, and when unexpected, often obtained; while those who search for her the most diligently, fail the most, because they seek her where she is not. Anthony sought her in love; Brutus in glory; Cæsar, in dominion. The first found disgrace; the second, disgust; the last, ingratitude; and each, destruction. To some she is more kind, but not less cruel; she hands them her cup, and they drink even to stupefaction, until they doubt whether they are men— with Philip; or dream that they are gods- with Alexander. On some she smiles, as on Napoleon, with an aspect more bewitching than that of an Italian sun; but it is only to make her frown the more terrible, and, by one short caress, to imbitter the pangs of separation. Ambition, avarice, love, all these seek her, alone. Alas! they are neither presented to her and her nor will she come to them. She despatches, however, to them her envoys. To ambition, she sends power, tc avarice, wealth; and to love, she sends jealousy. Alas! what are these but so many other names for vexation or disappointment? Neither is she to be won by flatteries nor bribes: she is to be gained by waging war against her enemies, much sooner than by paying any particular court to herself. Those that conquer her adversaries will find that they need not go to her, for she will come unto them. None bid so high for her as kings; few are more willing, none more able, to purchase her alliance at the fullest price But she has no more respect for kings than for their subjects; she mocks them, indeed, with the empty show of a visit, by sending to their palaces all her equipage, her pomp, and her train; but she comes not herself. What, then, detains her? She is travelling incognito, to hold an interview with Contentment, and to partake of a conversation and a dinner of herbs, with some humble, but virtuous peasant, in a cottage. 120. Westminster Abbey. He who first raised from Gothic gloom Of his own Gloriana's reign! And he who mocked at Art's control, The mighty master of the soul, Shakspeare, our Shakspeare!- By his side The man who poured his mighty tide! The brightest union genius wrought Was Garrick's voice and Shakspeare's thought. Here Dryden's meteor brilliance closes ' Stars, numerous as the host of heaven, The wounded heal, the deaf man cure, And they do live! - Our Shakspeare's strains Whilst light and colors rise and fly, Lives Newton's deathless memory; Whilst freedom warms one English breast, Like sparks from heaven, they make the blaze, Bid England's glories flash across the gloom, MISS MITFORD. |