And soon we may, within an age, expire.

Though grey our heads, our thoughts and aims are green; Like damag'd clocks, whose hand and bell dissent;

Folly sings six, while Nature points at twelve.

Absurd longevity! More, more, it cries:

More life, more wealth, more trash of

every kind:
And wherefore mad for more, when relish fails?
Object and appetite must club for joy;
Shall folly labour hard to mend the bow-
Baubles, I mean, that strike us from without,
While Nature is relaxing every string?

Ask thought for joy, grow rich, and hoard within.
Think you the soul, when this life's rattles cease,
Has nothing of more manly to succeed?
Contract the taste immortal; learn e'en now
To relish what alone subsists hereafter.
Divine, or none, henceforth your joys for ever.
Of age the glory is, to wish to die:

That wish is praise, and promise; it applauds
Past life, and promises our future bliss.
What weakness see not children in their sires!
Grand climacterical absurdities!

Grey-haired authority, to faults of youth
How shocking! it makes folly thrice a fool,
And our first childhood might our last despise.
Peace and esteem is all that age can hope:
Nothing but wisdom gives the first; the last,
Nothing but the repute of being wise.
Folly bars both-our age is quite undone.

THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN FIELD.

Sir Walter Scott.

“But see! look up! on Flodden bent,

The Scottish foe has fixed his tent,"
And sudden, as he spoke,
From the sharp ridges of the hill,
All downward to the banks of Till,
Was wreathed in sable smoke.
Volumed and vast, and rolling far,
The cloud enveloped Scotland's war,
As down the hill they broke;
Nor martial shout, nor minstrel tone,
Announced their march; their tread alone,
At times one warning trumpet blown,
At times a stifled hum,

Told England, from his mountain throne,
King James did rushing come.

Scarce could they hear, or see their foes,
Until at weapon-point they close
With sword-sway, and with lance's thrust;
And such a yell was there,

Of sudden and portentous birth,
As if men fought upon the earth,
And fiends in upper air;

O, life and death were in the shout,
Recoil and rally, charge and rout,
And triumph and despair.

Long looked the anxious squires; their eye
Could in the darkness nought descry.
At length the freshening western blast,
Aside the shroud of battle cast;
And, first, the ridge of mingled spears,
Above the brightening cloud appears;
And in the smoke the pennons flew,
As in the storm the white sea-mew.
Then marked they, dashing broad and far,
The broken billows of the war,

And plumèd crests of chieftains brave,
Floating like foam upon the wave ;
But nought distinct they see.

Wide raged the battle on the plain;

Spears shook, and faulchions flashed amain:

Fell England's arrow-flight like rain;

Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again,
Wild and disorderly.

Amid the scene of tumult, high

They saw Lord Marmion's falcon fly:
And stainless Tunstall's banner white
And Edmund Howard's lion brigh*
Still bear them bravely in the fight,
Although against them come,
Of gallant Gordons many a one,
And many a stubborn Highlandman,
And many a rugged border clan,

With Huntley and with Home.
Far on the left, unseen the while,
Stanley broke Lennox and Argyle;
Though there the western mountaineer,
Rushed with bare bosom on the spear,
And flung the feeble targe aside,

And with both hands the broad-sword plied:
'Twas vain.-But fortune, on the right,
With fickle smile, cheered Scotland's fight;
Then fell that spotless banner white-

The Howard's lion fell:

Yet still Lord Marmion's falcon flew

With wavering flight, while fiercer grew
Around the battle yell.

The border slogan rent the sky!

I

A Home! a Gordon! was the cry;
Loud were the clanging blows;
Advanced-forced back-now low, now high,
The pennon sunk and rose;

As bends the bark's mast in the gale,
When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail,
It wavered 'mid the foes.

No longer Blount the view could bear :—
By heaven, and all its saints, I swear,

66

I will not see it lost!

Fitz-Eustace, you with Lady Clare,
May bid your beads, and patter prayer―
I gallop to the host."

And to the fray he rode amain,
Followed by all the archer train;

The fiery youth, with desperate charge,
Made for a space, an opening large-
The rescued banner rose:

But darkly closed the war around;
Like pine-tree rooted from the ground,
It sunk among the foes.

Then Eustace mounted too;—yet staid,
As loth to leave the helpless maid,
When, fast as shaft can fly,

Blood-shot his eyes, his nostrils spread,
The loose reign dangling from his head,
Housing and saddle bloody-red,

Lord Marmion's steed rushed by.
And Eustace maddening at the sight,
A look and sign to Clará cast,

To mark he would return in haste,
Then plunged into the fight.

By this, though deep the evening fell,
Still rose the battle's deadly swell;
For still the Scots, around their king,
Unbroken, fought in desperate ring.
But as they left the dark'ning heath,
More desperate grew the strife of death:
The English shafts in vollies hailed,
In headlong charge their horse assailed;
Front, flank, and rear, their squadrons sweep,
To break the Scottish circle deep,
That fought around their king;

But yet, though thick the shafts as snow,
Though charging knights like whirlwinds go,
Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow,
Unbroken was the ring:

The stubborn spearmen still made good
Their dark impenetrable wood,

Each stepping where his comrade stood,
The instant that he fell,

No thought was there of dastard flight;

Link'd in the serried phalanx tight,

Groom fought like noble, squire like knight-
As fearlessly and well;

Till utter darkness clos'd her wing
O'er their thin host and wounded king;
Then skilful Surrey's sage commands
Led back from strife his shatter'd bands;
And from the charge they drew,
As mountain waves, from wasted lands,
Sweep back to ocean blue.

THE BASHFUL MAN.

I LABOUR under a species of distress, which, I fear, will at length drive me utterly from that society in which I am most ambitious to appear; but I shall give you a short sketch of my origin and present situation, by which you will be enabled to judge of my difficulties.

My father was a farmer of no great property, and with no other learning than what he had acquired at a charity school; but my mother being dead, and I an only child, he determined to give me that advantage which he fancied would have made me happy-that is, a learned education. I was sent to a country grammar-school, and from thence to the university, with a view of qualifying me for holy orders. Here, having but a small allowance from my father, and being naturally of a timid and bashful disposition, I had no opportunity of rubbing off that native awkwardness which is the fatal cause of all my unhappiness. You must know, that in my person I am tall and thin, but of such extreme susceptibility of shame, that on the smallest subject of confusion, my blood all rushes into my cheeks, and I appear a perfect full-blown rose.

And, now, behold me, at the age of twenty-five, well stocked with Latin, Greek, and mathematics, possessed of an ample fortune, but so awkward, that I am pointed at by all who see me, as the wealthy learned clown.

I have lately purchased an estate in the country, which abounds with what is called a fashionable neighbourhood; and when you reflect on my parentage and uncouth manners, you will hardly think how much my company is courted by the surrounding families, especially by those who have marriageable daughters. From these gentlemen I have received. familiar calls, and the most pressing invitations; and though I wished to accept their offered friendship, I have repeatedly excused myself, under the pretence of not being quite settled'; for the truth is, that when I have rode, or walked, with full intention to return their several visits, my heart has failed me as I approached their gates, and I have frequently returned homewards, resolving to try again to-morrow.

However, I at length determined to conquer my timidity, and three days ago, accepted an invitation to dine this day with one, whose open, easy manner, left me no room to doubt a cordial welcome. Sir Thomas Friendly, who lives about two miles distaut, is a baronet, with an estate

of about two thousand pounds a year, adjoining to that which I purchased. He has two sons and five daughters, all grown up, and living with their mother, at Friendly Hall, dependent on their father. Conscious of my unpolished gait, I have for some time past taken private lessons from a professor, who teaches" grown-up gentlemen to dance."

Having now acquired the art of walking without tottering, and learned to make a bow, I boldly ventured to accept the baronet's invitation to a family dinner, not doubting but my new acquirements would enable me to see the ladies with tolerable intrepidity; but, alas! how vain are all the hopes of theory when unsupported by habitual practice! As I approached the house, a dinner-bell alarmed my fears lest I had spoiled the dinner by want of punctuality. Impressed with this idea, I blushed the deepest crimson, as my name was repeatedly announced by the several servants who ushered me into the library, hardly knowing whom, or what I saw. At my first entrance I summoned all my fortitude, and made my new-learned bow to Lady Friendly; but, unfortunately bringing back my left foot into the third position, I trod upon the gouty toe of poor Sir Thomas, who had followed close at my heels to be the nomenclator of the family. The Baronet's politeness, by degrees, dissipated my concern; and I was astonished to see how far good-breeding could enable him to suppress his feelings, and to appear with perfect ease after so painful an accident.

The cheerfulness of her ladyship, and the familiar chat of the young ladies, insensibly led me to throw off my reserve and sheepishness, till at length I ventured to join in the conversation, and even to start fresh subjects of discourse. The library being very richly furnished with books in elegant bindings, I conceived Sir Thomas to be a man of literature; and ventured to give my opinion concerning the several editions of the Greek classics, in which the Baronet's ideas exactly coincided with my own. To this subject I was led by observing an edition of Xenophon, in sixteen volumes, which, (as I had never before heard of such a thing,) greatly excited my curiosity, and I rose up to examine what it could be. Sir Thomas saw what I was about, and willing to save me the trouble, rose to take down the book, which made me more eager to prevent him, and hastily laying my hand on the first volume, I pulled it forcibly; but lo! instead of books, a board, which, by leather and gilding, had been made to look like sixteen volumes, came tumbling down, and unluckily pitched upon a Wedgwood ink-stand on the table under it. In vain did Sir Thomas assure me there was no harm. I saw the ink streaming from an inlaid table on the Turkey carpet, and scarce knowing what I did, attempted to stop its progress with my cambric handkerchief. In the height of this confusion we were informed that dinner was served up.

In walking through the hall and suite of apartments to the diningroom, I had time to collect my scattered senses, and was desired to take my seat betwixt Lady Friendly and her eldest daughter. Since the fall of the wooden Xenophon, my face had been continually burning like a firebrand, and I was just beginning to recover myself, and to feel comfortably cool, when an unlooked-for accident rekindled all my heat and blushes. Having set my plate of soup too near the edge of the table, in bowing to miss Dinah, who politely complimented the pattern of my waistcoat, I tumbled the whole scalding contents into my lap. In spite