“And I were as you, I would never come at sea."

"Why (saith he), where did your great-grandfather and grandfather and father die?" He answered, "Where but in their beds." Saith the other, " And I were as you, I would never come in bed."

97. Alonso of Arragon was wont to say, in commendation of age, That age appeared to be best in four things: "Old wood best to burn; old wine to drink; old friends to trust; and old authors to read."

119. One of the fathers saith, "That there is but this difference between the death of old men and young men that old men go to death, and death comes to young men."

TRANSLATION OF THE 137TH PSALM.

WHENAS We sat all sad and desolate,

By Babylon upon the river's side,

Eased from the tasks which in our captive state
We were enforced daily to abide,

Our harps we had brought with us to the field,
Some solace to our heavy souls to yield.

But soon we found we failed of our account,
For when our minds some freedom did obtain,
Straightways the memory of Sion Mount
Did cause afresh our wounds to bleed again;

So that with present gifts, and future fears,
Our eyes burst forth into a stream of tears.

As for our harps, since sorrow struck them dumb,
We hanged them on the willow-trees were near;
Yet did our cruel masters to us come,

Asking of us some Hebrew songs to hear:
Taunting us rather in our misery,
Than much delighting in our melody.

Alas (said we) who can once force or frame
His grieved and oppressèd heart to sing
The praises of Jehovah's glorious name,
In banishment, under a foreign king?

In Sion is his seat and dwelling-place,
Thence doth he show the brightness of his face

Hierusalem, where God his throne hath set,
Shall any hour absent thee from my mind?

Then let my right hand quite her skill forget,
Then let my voice and words no passage find;
Nay, if I do not thee prefer in all

That in the compass of my thoughts can fall.

Remember thou, O Lord, the cruel cry

Of Eden's children, which did ring and sound, Inciting the Chaldean's cruelty,

"Down with it, down with it, even unto the ground." In that good day repay it unto them,

When thou shalt visit thy Hierusalem.

And thou, O Babylon, shalt have thy turn

By just revenge, and happy shall he be,

That thy proud walls and towers shall waste and burn,
And as thou didst by us, so do by thee.

Yea, happy he that takes thy children's bones,
And dasheth them against the pavement stones.

THE WORLD'S A BUBBLE.

THE world's a bubble, and the life of man

less than a span;

In his conception wretched, from the womb.

so to the tomb:

Curst from the cradle, and brought up to years

with cares and fears.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust,
But iimns the water, or but writes in dust.

Yet since with sorrow here we live opprest,

what life is best?

Courts are but only superficial schools

to dandle fools.

The rural parts are turned into a den

of savage men.

And where's the city from all vice so free,

But may be termed the worst of all the three?

Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed,

or pains his head.

Those that live single take it for a curse,

or do things worse.

Some would have children; those that have them moan,
or wish them gone.

What is it then to have or have no wife,
But single thraldom, or a double strife?

Our own affections still at home to please
is a disease:

To cross the seas to any foreign soil

perils and toil.

Wars with their noise affright us: when they cease,

we are worse in peace.

What then remains, but that we still should cry
Not to be born, or being born to die.

OF ADVERSITY.

Ir was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that "the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired." Certainly, if miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. The virtue of prosperity is Temperance; the virtue of adversity is Fortitude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; Adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and Adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks and embroideries it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground. Judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is life's precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for Prosperity doth best discover vice, but Adversity doth best discover virtue.

WALTER BAGEHOT.

BAGEHOT, WALTER, a celebrated English essayist, critic, and journalist, was born in Langport, Somersetshire, February 3, 1826, and died there March 24, 1877. He was educated at Bristol and at University College, London, graduating at the latter in 1848. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1852, but did not enter upon its practice, and soon after his admission associated himself in business with his father, a banker and shipowner in Langport. His first literary work was as a Paris correspondent of a London paper in 1851. In these letters he defended the coup d'état of Napoleon III. From 1860 until his death he was the editor of "The Economist," founded by his father-in-law, Hon. James Wilson. Among his most important works published while he was living are: “The English Constitution" (1867); "Physics and Politics" (1872); "Lombard Street" (1873). "Literary Studies" (1879), "Economic Studies" (1880), and "Biographical Studies" (1881) were pub lished after his death.

CAUSES OF THE STERILITY OF LITERATURE.

(From "Shakespeare, the Man.)

THE reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people that can write know anything. In general, an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum. The mental habits of Robert Southey, which about a year ago were so extensively praised in the public journals, are the type of literary existence, just as the praise bestowed on them shows the admiration excited by them among literary people. He wrote poetry (as if anybody could) before breakfast; he read during breakfast. He wrote history until dinner; he corrected proofsheets between dinner and tea; he wrote an essay for the

"Quarterly" afterwards; and after supper, by way of relaxation, composed "The Doctor" - a lengthy and elaborate jest. Now, what can any one think of such a life? except how clearly it shows that the habits best fitted for communicating information, formed with the best care, and daily regulated by the best motives, are exactly the habits which are likely to afford a man the least information to communicate. Southey had no events, no experiences. His wife kept house and allowed him pocket-money, just as if he had been a German professor devoted to accents, tobacco, and the dates of Horace's amours. . . .

The critic in the "Vicar of Wakefield" lays down that you should always say that the picture would have been better if the painter had taken more pains; but in the case of the practised literary man, you should often enough say that the writings would have been much better if the writer had taken less pains. He says he has devoted his life to the subject; the reply is, "Then you have taken the best way to prevent your making anything of it. Instead of reading studiously what Burgersdicius and Enesidemus said men were, you should have gone out yourself and seen (if you can see) what they are." But there is a whole class of minds which prefer the literary delineation of objects to the actual eyesight of them. Such a man would naturally think literature more instructive than life. Hazlitt said of Mackintosh, "He might like to read an account of India; but India itself, with its burning, shining face, would be a mere blank, an endless waste to him. Persons of this class have no more to say to a matter of fact staring them in the face, without a label in its mouth, than they would to a hippopotamus."

After all, the original way of writing books may turn out to be the best. The first author, it is plain, could not have taken anything from books, since there were no books for him to copy from; he looked at things for himself. Anyhow the modern system fails, for where are the amusing books from voracious. students and habitual writers?

Moreover, in general, it will perhaps be found that persons devoted to mere literature commonly become devoted to mere idleness. They wish to produce a great work, but they find they cannot. Having relinquished everything to devote themselves to this, they conclude on trial that this is impossible; they wish to write, but nothing occurs to them: therefore they write nothing and they do nothing. As has been said, they have noth