Ye need na wonder then, and swell wi' pride,
Because I kindly welcome you as guide
To ane sa far your better!-Now a's tould,
Let us set out upo' our journey could;

Wi' næ vain boasts, nor vain regrets tormented,
We'll ee'n jog on the gate-QUIET and CONTENTED!

The recognition of EARLY DAYS is a source of gratification peculiar to individuals of advanced years, and long may they enjoy the refreshing sensation :

Be it A WEAKNESS, it deserves some praise,
We love the play-place of our early days;
The scene is touching, and the heart is stone,
That feels not at that sight, and feels at none;
The wall on which we tried our graving skill,
The very name we carv'd subsisting still;
The bench on which we sat while deep employ'd,
Though mangled, hack'd, and hew'd, not yet destroy'd;
The little ones unbutton'd, glowing hot,
Playing our games, and on the very spot,
As happy as we once, to kneel and draw
The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw;
To pitch the ball into the grounded hat,
Or drive it devious with a dexterous pat.
The pleasing spectacle at once excites
Such recollection of our own delights,
That, viewing it, we seem almost t' obtain
Our innocent, sweet, simple years again;
This fond attachment to the well known place
Whence first we started into Life's long race,
Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway,
We feel it 'ev'n in Age, and at our latest day!

COWPER.

As SOBER AGE is so much indebted to the retrospect of human life, an appropriate extract

may be found in the closing lines of one of the most elegant poems in the English language:

Hail, MEMORY, hail! in thy exhaustless mine,
From age to age unnumbered treasures shine;
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And Place and Time are subject to thy sway;
Thy pleasures most we feel when most alone,
The only pleasures we can call OUR OWN!
Lighter than air, Hope's summer visions die,
If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky;
If but a beam of sober Reason play,
Lo! Fancy's fairy frost-work melts away!
But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power,
Snatch the rich relics of a WELL-SPENT HOUR!
These when the trembling spirit wings her flight,
Pour round her path a stream of living light,
And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest,
Where VIRTUE triumphs, and her sons are blest!

ROGERS.

And thus, MY YOUNG READER, forget not to engrave upon the tablet of thine heart, these words: HONOURABLE AGE (Wisdom iv. 78, 79.) is not that which standeth in length of time, nor that is measured by number of years; but WISDOM is the grey hair unto men, and AN UNSPOTTED LIFE is old age.

These expressions, rendered more venerable by the sanction of antiquity, are endeared to us by the recollection of the premature decease of THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE, the most amiable and virtuous of her sex

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Scion of chiefs and monarchs-where art thou?

Fond hope of many nations-art thou dead?
Could not the Grave forget thee, and lay low
Some less majestic, less beloved head?
In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled,
The mother of a moment-o'er thy boy,

DEATH hush'd that pang for ever—with thee fled
The present happiness, and promis'd joy,

Which fill'd THE IMPERIAL ISIS so full-it seem'd to cloy!

And-Can it be,

O thou that wert so happy, so ador'd?

Those who weep not for kings, shall weep for thee;
And FREEDOM's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard
Her many griefs for ONE-for she had pour'd
Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head

Beheld her iris !-Thou too, LONELY LORD,
And DESOLATE CONSORT-vainly wert thou wed!
The husband of a year-the father of the dead!

BYRON.

But I must repress the inclination I feel to linger over the recital of her departed virtues. She was á kind, generous, and completely domesticated being. For her the blandishments of a court possessed no peculiar attractions. SHE sought, in conjunction with her endeared partner, the shade where, alas! she terminated her virtuous and peaceful life in an uncorrupting and uncorrupted retirement. The fear of the Lord (Ecclesiasticus) is the first step to be accepted of him, and WISDOM obtaineth his love-the knowledge of the commandments of the Lord is the doctrine of life, and they

that Do the things that please him shall receive the fruit of the tree of Immortality *.

The AGED, who are supposed to be withdrawn from the ordinary occupations of life, cannot employ their retirement to better purpose than in perusing THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. I have recommended them to young people upon their entrance into life, as the best guard against its snares and temptations. And I now deem it no less a duty to press them upon the attention of the old, persuaded that they are admirably calculated to smooth their descent towards the tomb-pregnant as the New Testament is in almost every page with the resplendent hope of IMMORTALITY.

"The SCRIPTURES contain," says that incomparable scholar, Sir William Jones, "independently of a Divine origin, more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains both of poetry and eloquence, than could be collected within the same compass from all other books that were ever composed in any age, or in any idiom! The two parts of which the SCRIPTURES consist, are connected by a chain of compositions which bear no resemblance in form or style to any that can be produced

* Vanity of Human Expectations: a TRIBUTE OF RESPECT to the beloved Memory of THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES, &c. &c. Delivered the Day of Interment, at Worship Street, Finsbury Square, Nov. 19, 1817. By JOHN EVANS. Second Edition.

from the stores of Grecian, Indian, Persian, or even Arabian learning. The antiquity of those compositions no man doubts, and the unrestrained application of them to events long subsequent to their publication, is a solid ground of belief that they were genuine predictions, and consequently inspired. There is not a book on earth so favourable to all the kind, and all the sublime affections; or so unfriendly to hatred and persecution, injustice, and every sort of malevolence, as THE GOSPEL! It breathes nothing throughout but mercy, benevolence, and peace!"

And these Scriptures contain that system of religion which is the alone guide of youth, and support in OLD AGE; it is thus well explained by a Divine, Dr. Samuel Clarke, who was the ornament of the times during which he lived:

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"The thus and design of all RELIGION, the proper effect and produce of good principles, the good fruit of a good tree, the ultimate view and the fundamental intention of all religious truths implanted in men, either by nature or by teaching, is-the practice of VIRTUE. For the word religion, in its very native and original meaning, signifies an obligation upon men, arising from the reason of things, and from the government of God, to do what is just, and virtuous, and good; to live in a constant and habitual sense and acknowledgment of God, in the practice of universal justice and charity towards men, and in a regular and sober