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hand, to whom we will offer bland greeting and hospitable we come what time he arriveth: nevertheless we must not emulate the churl of whom the Swan of Avon singeth,

"The fashionable host

That coldly ushers forth the parting guest,

But, with his arms outstretched as he would fly,
Greets the incomer."

Such would, indeed, ill beseem us "minions of the moon," heirs of an heritage for which the year multiplieth the harvest even a dozen fold!

Friends! countrymen! what say ye of our stewardship? It has been the labour of our love to seek for your delight "the fairest flowers of the season, carnations and streaked gilliflowers," and carefully to exclude from our posy even one leaf of "rue for remembrance:" it has been our care that the serpent should not lurk beneath our garland, neither the poison-tree breathe among its odours. What say ye, has the end crowned the purpose? Reader, courteous and considerate! when as thou scannist the pages which we indite for thy gratification, let it enhance their zest to know that they are no offerings to the midnight oil, no toil of such "as coin their hearts for drachmas." Written con amore, they are, as the offices of charity, "doubly bless'd." To recal the memory, while we trace the record for your pleasure, of days of past happiness, hoc est vivere bis. Not only are such memorials convenient, they are necessary. Whatever duration the scene whereon the drama of joy is enacted may really count, it seems

"but like to Hallowmas, or shortest day."

We are no poets, but if we were, and at this season were called upon for a sample of our muse, we will tell you what we would do. Instead of entreating the old fellow with the wings and scythe to put-to another pair of pinions, and hurry him on a down-stage, where there is no chance of an up-coach, we should beg of him not to put himself out of the way in the matter of pace upon our account. We would volunteer to stand a drain of something at the half-way house, and hand him the best Havannah in our case. We would not grumble in elegy, nor growl in sonnet, that he "loitered o'er his glass;" but, on the contrary, beg of him to accept a stirrup-cup at our expense as often as opportunity offered. In short, "if the numbers came," we should address him in something very probably to this effect :

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Wherefore thus like meteor dies
Should all vanish from our eyes!
Joys that rose so brightly o'er us
Fade like morning mists before us!
Fain are we to loiter here-
Not so fast, good Charioteer!

Little boots it now to tell
All the chances that befel
Since from boyhood up to prime
You and I first met, Old Time!
Many a scene my glance can find
All unwisely left behind.

Ill betide thy steeds that flew
O'er the spots where roses grew!
Wild to snatch them in their bloom,
'Mid their freshness and perfume,
Onward all too quickly borne-
For the flower I grasped the thorn!

Gaffer Time! there's one would fain
Have thee start anew again;
But if Fate forbid thee track
Paths already trode aback,
Prythee, of thy favor, trace

Those to come with steadier pace.

Whence the haste that bids thee thus

Urge thy mortal omnibus!

Ease thy coursers, draw the rein,

Those be with thee that would fain
Gaze awhile around, nor skim
O'er their journey, driver grim!

Pilgrims, to one shrine we tend :
Who are wisest-those who wend
Through soft flowery tracks, or they
Who the desert make their way?
He that gives the golden grain
Spreads the wild flower on the plain!

Father Time! what makes the need
For thine ever headlong speed?
Ease thy flight, and look awhile
On the joys that round thee smile :
Mingle pleasure and good cheer
With thy journey, Charioteer!

The chimes tell midnight: the knell of the past year is the peal that welcomes the new-comer. How passing strange is it that the brow of Philosophy is ever wont to be "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought!" Surely content and gladness would seem to be of twin birth; and what is the aim and end of the Philosopher but truth, the parent of peace? Wherefore seek in the schools of controversy answers to be found in Nature's echos? The truly wise are such as deal with the world as the bee with the flower. The humblest of

the children of Nature can teach a wisdom that may serve as a model for the loftiest disciples of knowledge!

There is a little French rural carol of the fifteenth century, a very pattern of elegance as regards the principle for which we are contending. It suits the season; and though the translation fall infinitely short of the truly beautiful original, it may be more convenient to introduce it in modern attire, though of more humble materiel, than in the somewhat quaint costume of the era to which it belongs, rich and rare as the fabric is of which it is composed.

CAROL-" En regardent ces belles fleurs."

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Ours be the practical reply worthy so grateful a theory! It has been as truly as beautifully said, "in Nature there is nothing melancholy." Look at all her dispensations, to what end are they contrived: examine all her springs and movements, they are shaped for the convenience and happiness of every condition of existence. Let it not be supposed, because the serious business of life mingle not with the purpose of this Work, that therefore those who have the conduct of it are indisposed towards all grave consideration. There are many paths leading to the Temple of Truth: some conduct to it through the stern dark valley of Science; others by the laughing, flowery domain of Nature: the latter is the course which we have chosen. Accept the guidance which we offer it has at least a journey through paths of pleasantness to recommend it; and trust us that her's is the philosophy, simple and artless as it is, which sages have sought through the labyrinths of metaphysics, the endless mazes of the Schools, and found, in the end, expounded in this one word-containing all her lore-Content. Such is the aim with which we write; and, as we believe, such, through the safest of all paths, the end at which you will arrive. We have so far supported our theory by our own arguments: we cannot point it better than in the words of the first of England's Ethic Poets

"Take Nature's path, and mad opinions leave;
All states can reach it, and all heads conceive.
Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell,
There needs but thinking right and meaning well:
And mourn our various portions as we please,
Equal is common sense, and common ease!”

A BRIEF MEMOIR OF THE LATE EARL OF EGREMONT.

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THE solemn lore of the "Great Teacher" knows no respect of time, place, or person; neither should the lesson it conveys be held wholly unsuited to any page. Its wisdom is independent of style-its moral alike effective in the gay as the pathetic. The habit of regarding death as a calamity ill accords with the faith which we profess. In one of the noblest thoughts bequeathed to us by ancient philosophy, it is thus beautifully spoken of:

"Victurosque dei celant, ut vivere durent,
Felix esse mori *.”

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It is in this manner Lucan alludes to it. Now hear how it is treated by another Heathen. Socrates, seeing a mother inconsolable for the death of her son, asked her in what manner he had lived? to which she answered" Blameless."—" Then," said the philosopher, you have great cause to rejoice that he has finished his days with glory." It is in such fashion, by adopting the maxim of the Athenian Sage, that we shall best do honor to his memory, who, all men bear testimony, has "finished his days with glory."

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In the eighty-sixth year of his age, for more than half a century pattern for English Noblemen," died at Petworth, Sussex, George O'Brien Wyndham Earl of Egremont. His biography will be written by many more worthy the honor of such association; it will adorn volumes of more pretension; but nowhere will the memorial be traced with greater sense of his value, to whose public and private worth it is a sincere though humble offering. If in the details here registered, aught of consideration should be added to the name with which they are linked, proud indeed will be his office, thus "giving and stealing odour." Among all whose patronage has done service and conferred honor upon our National Sports, we shall search in vain for one, past or present, to place before the Lord of Petworth: how few even to compare with him! In all the relations of life, the gentleman, the scholar, the artist, we find him lavish of his time, his countenance, and his wealth, in upholding, in all their branches, the rural sports of his country. Before his name shall disappear for ever the senseless and unworthy sneers that bookmen have loved to level against a class to which England is indebted for her "bold peasantry "—for a rural population, the pride of her own land and the envy of all others-her Country Gentlemen. That the sketches of the Squirearchy, found in the novelists of the last century, were drawn from nature, there is cause to believe; but I doubt strongly whether such were portraits taken from originals belonging to the age in which they appeared. By the term " belonging to the age," I mean common to it. They might have been discovered here and there, as we still, upon occasions, encounter a queue-wearer in our walks, but they were probably quite as rare. I have myself known as broad a specimen of the genus as Western or the Squire in Joseph Andrews, but he was an isolated lusus. I allude to the late Mr. Leche

* Which I venture thus to render :

"That men may bear to live, the gods deny

The knowledge of the rapture 'tis to die !"

of Carden in Cheshire, who breakfasted at five in the winter, hunted up his fox's trail while the stars were in the sky, got over his day's sport, and was at dinner by noon. But such a style of fox-hunting was by no means in keeping with the spirit of his day. Coeval with that eccentric, but kind and excellent old man, we find the great Sporting leaders of the North and South, in every respect the most accomplished scholars, the most polished gentlemen of their time-the Earls of Derby and Egremont.

After a minority of upwards of twelve years, Lord Egremont acceded to his large patrimonial estates, and a considerable amount in ready money. Though, as might be naturally expected, the entrance into life of a young Noble so circumstanced was one not suited to a scrutiny founded on the ultra-school of morals, it was unmarked by a single feature of coarseness or offence against good taste. With any portion, however, of his domestic life, early or late, it is not our business to deal. Doubtless he was not exempted from the heritage to which the Author of the Essay on Man tells us we are all born―

"Virtuous and vicious every man must be,

Few in the extreme, but all in the degree."

Born in an age when two of the worst remnants of barbarism were still found in the highest circles in the land, and thrown into constant allurement to the indulgence of them at a period of all others the least fitted to resist temptation, he escaped the ordeal unscathed: wine and play were never numbered among his transgressions. To the latter, still unhappily the besetting sin of but too many of the highly-endowed in station and talent, there seems to be a natural abhorrence bequeathed by him to his sons. So strong is the antipathy of General Wyndham to anything having even the semblance of gaming, that I have heard him, zealous and munificent a patron of Sporting as he is, say, that in no way would he afford sanction or assistance to a Steeple Chase, or anything that led directly or indirectly to promote gambling. This is an extent to which Lord Egremont never strained his interpretation of play. It is known to every man that has ever heard of the English Turf, that he carried his patronage of that popular Sport to an extent never attempted by any single individual. At one period the Stud at Petworth contained upwards of sixty brood-mares, whose produce was trained as well as bred for home service. We have nothing like this in our day. The establishments at Riddlesworth and Underley are the most extensive now existing; but they fall far short of the olden doings at Petworth, and they, be it remembered, are not kept up for the production of stock for the use of their proprietors, but as selling studs.

Of the early career of His Lordship as a Sporting character I cannot of course speak other than from hearsay, and such facts as probably have reached the public already through other channels. Though his name does not stand in the Annals of our Turf so singularly prominent for individual achievements or extraordinary success as some of his cotemporaries, his connection with Racing was of more general utility and did more to improve our breed of horses than that of any of its patrons. As far back as 1782 we find the name of Egremont prefixed to a winner of the Derby-Assassin, by Sweetbriar. Subsequently His Lordship won those Stakes-in 1804, with Hannibal, by Driver; in the next year, with Cardinal Beaufort, by Gohanna; in the next but one

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