THE AUTHOR.

You have heard me speak of Will Gradus? Poor Will! I loved him! for he was the companion of my youth: his eccentricity was amply compensated by the real goodness of his heart; and I estimated his virtues the more, because they were little noticed by the world. Alas, we die in our friends and associates long before we ourselves sleep in the dust.* I have this morning followed to the grave the remains of my old playmate: it is an obscure grave, and few will weep over it, for he died unregretted, as he lived unknown. Yet he was no common man, and under more fortunate circumstances he might have been the benefactor of his species.

We met a few months since, (and it was for the last time in this world,) to talk, as was our wont, of "auld lang syne." It was a melancholy meeting; for the disease of which he died, consumption, had already marked him for its victim: there was a hectic tinge on his pale cheek, and his always bright eye had acquired a morbid brilliancy which too clearly foreboded his approaching fate. I pressed his hand warmly as we met; he returned the pressure in silence. Will," said I, "have you forgot the mad freaks of our boyhood?" "How should I forget them," was his reply, "when I have so little else to remember that is agreeable?"

66

"You cannot want pleasing subjects for reflection, since your life has been as innocent as an infant's dream."

"If it has been void of positive guilt, it has been barren in virtue ; my days have passed away like shadows, and have left no trace behind them. My comfort is, that this vapid existence will soon be over; I shall at least be spared the misery of groaning under the burden of life, to a comfortless, unhonoured old age."

66

Pr'ythee now, Will, be cheerful; it is not so long since you were all frolic and gaiety."

"You say true, but then I was all hope; and when that fairy of the heart smiles upon us, the wilderness of the world becomes an Eden. When I was a lad, you knew me at school, but not at home, nor were you acquainted with the visions which then haunted me. Of my mere childhood I recollect nothing so vividly, as the unwearying kindness of my dear mother, and the playful love of my two elder sisters. My mother-may God bless her, and smooth the pillow of her gray hairs!—was, perhaps, too indulgent: I was a spoiled child, but I loved her almost to adoration; and when she kissed me to repose at night, it seemed as if an angel watched over my slumbers! My sisters they were my inseparable companions; we played, laughed, wept together. They made my childish wants and wishes their own; and our hearts seemed united by a chain of sympathy, which nothing could break. But what are these domestic details to you?"

"Oh, much; I enter fully into your feelings.'

"So soon as I could read, books became my passion. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and Hervey's Meditations, I remember, wrought

* Whom the Gods love die young, was said of yore;

And many deaths do they escape by this,

The death of friends.

BYRON.

powerfully on my imagination. When I was about eight years old, a volume of Shakspeare fell into my hands. I read it with avidity: I was Hamlet, Othello, Romeo, in my dreams; and from that moment I felt that I must be a poet. Even at this early period I blotted many a sheet of paper with my crude thoughts; and, as years rolled on, I fancied, in the folly of my heart, that I was destined to achieve great things."

66

Why, man, and so you may; you have yet a long race of honour to run.'

"It is kindly said, but you do not think so; I am drawing nigh to the goal of all my hopes and fears. In my twelfth year I left the paternal roof, to pursue a bustling and uncongenial occupation. The ruling passion, however, continued strong. I had access to a tolerably good library; and opening Pope's Homer by chance, it immediately engrossed all my leisure. I used to declaim from it with eager delight; and the character of Hector affected me so much, that I was at the pains of slaying him again in a Tragedy, which filled a whole quire of outside demy. I now grew of consequence, in my own esteem: I was an author, and plenteous was my harvest of visionary laurels. My anxiety to appear in print became quite unappeasable—it was the fever of my soul; for, why, I thought, should such genius be concealed? I had written some bombastical lines in praise of Shakspeare; I thought them sublime, and copying them as legibly as possible, dropped them with a trembling hand into the receiving box of a Magazine. Judge with what impatience I waited for the first of the next month: it came at last;-I was at the publisher's door before his shop was open; but oh, in what words can I describe my delight, when I found that W.'s poem was really in print! I seemed to move on air--This was the earnest of future renown; nothing could be too arduous for me-eternity appeared within my grasp. My mother, too, in her kind simplicity, praised and blessed me, while my sisters shed tears, and rejoiced over their aspiring brother! My life has not been happy, but I would live it over again, were it possible to enjoy the rapture of that moment once

"I can easily appreciate your feelings; the first triumphs of our youth are too exquisitely delightful ever to be forgotten."

My fate was decided, I became a confirmed scribbler. Many an editor did I pester with anonymous communications; many a theatrical manager did I persecute with bulky manuscripts: and when my applications were attended with slight or rejection, I retired within the fortress of self-conceit, and solaced myself in the consciousness of my own merit. I wrote something daily, and the labours of the week were well paid even in my opinion, with the pleasure they procured me on the Sunday. I used then to return home laden with my literary lumber, and never failed to find applauding auditors in the family circle. They were tender critics, you may be sure; and what can be dearer than the approbation of those we love? My sisters-with untiring patience, with smiles of encouragement and affection, would those dear beings listen to my idle rhymes; and when I ceased to read, thank me in tones of tenderness and sincerity which made all other praise worthless. I shall hear such applause no more. One of them, the eldest,

who loved me as never sister loved brother, has been called from this world of sin and sorrow before me. Thank God! she is spared the knowledge of my present afflictions; and yet, if disembodied souls can revisit the earth, I am confident that her gentle spirit still hovers around me, suffers with me, or is soothed by the joyful anticipation of our eternal re-union."

66

Nay, but my friend, this is too painful a subject: pursue your narrative, you have yet much to tell me."

"Of what should I speak? my history is told in one word-disappointment. Sometimes, indeed, the golden fruit of hope seemed within my grasp; but like the dead sea apples, however beautiful to the eye, it has turned to ashes on my lips. I am worn out with wishing. Fame has lost its value; for they are gone to whose ears it would have been pleasing."

86

Here our conversation ended. I would have talked on ordinary topics, but I saw it would be cruelty, and with a hurried but earnest farewell," we parted for ever. From this moment poor Will's disorder grew rapidly worse: the mind began to sink with the body; his books were neglected, even his pen was relinquished. He took the medicines prescribed for him with the docility of a child; but it was merely to satisfy others! He never complained: the present was annihilated to him for if he ever spoke, it was of the past, of the changed, or of the dead. This could not last long: he expired as peacefully as a babe sinks to slumber on the maternal bosom; and I have performed the last duty of a friend, at the grave of my old school-fellow, Will Gradus.

TWILIGHT MUSINGS.

THE folded flowers in shade are sleeping;
The trees are over them sighing and weeping:
Slowly the curtain of night descends,
And another day's pageant ends.

Twilight is hov'ring o'er yon round hill,
It lingers, and lingers, and lingers still,
Like an eye that is fondly gazing its fill
At some face beloved in death.

The light may linger, but earth's still dark;
And the eye may beam, but it kindles no spark
In that which lies quench'd beneath.

I know of few cheeks unblanch'd by sorrow,

Few lids that have oped not on some black morrow,
Few brows but some evil has dimm'd their shine,
Few ties but misfortune has rent their twine,-

And among those are not mine.

Then if Day, whose silvery train I see
Sweeping after her fast as fast may be,
Should return in her smiles, and not to me,

Why should my soul complain?

Laugh long as we may, there will come a tear;
For each joy earth cradles there waits a bier;
And from all we meet in our wanderings here
We must part, and quickly, again.

H.

A COMBINATION OF DISJOINTED THINGS.

THE fetters which a tyrant throws over his subjects will generally bind them together; and a people united among themselves, are not easily estranged from their government, however despotic. An officer, conducting his prisoners through the street, requires no other chain to prevent their escaping, than that which links them to each other.

The prospect of death can to no one be more dreadful than to him whose last hour is determined by an equitable sentence of the law. For, in addition to that natural horror of dissolution which embitters the dying moments of all erring mortals, the condemned malefactor has to languish in a gloom of despair more hopeless and unbroken than even the extremity of disease can produce; for that, however certain its effects, cannot fix the precise period of their occurrence, and may, in some measure, alleviate the sufferings of the mind, by diverting it to those of the body.

The present is the keystone of an arch formed by the past and future. The most lively of our thoughts have no relation to any words: at certain times, we think as if there were no such thing as lage.

A generous man will, in his treatment of an ene which pours light all around it,—even upon the clou lustre.

Thoughts are in the brain like flowers in their nat like exotics in a green-house,-probably maintaining but oftener killed by the transplanting.

resemble the sun, that strive to dim its

oil

on paper,. warfish existence,

Let the body have nothing to wish for, and the mind will be all you can desire.

How unjust is it, that fame is ever louder in the praise of those who recount or imagine great actions, than of those who perform them! Witness the comparative reputation of the hero and of the poet.

When the spirits run high, a very slight emotion will make them overflow into poetry.

An actor who has long been overcome by timidity, will not find it easy to relinquish that neutrality of tone which was the result of so heterogeneous a combination as that of histrionic spirit with bewildered bashfulness.

The assertion that love is but an intensity of friendship, reminds one of the Irishman who, being charged with the theft of a gun, declared it had been his ever since it was a pistol.

Beware of confiding in distant prospects of happiness, lest they be suddenly intercepted by the most trivial present vexation. A leaf in the foreground is large enough to conceal a forest on the far horizon.

The meaning which is commonly attached to the epithet cherub-faced, is rather inconsistent with the distinguishing attribute of the cherubic host. Wisdom is their peculiar characteristic, and is, of course, most likely to form the prevailing expression of their countenances; but our compound, cherub-faced, is nearly synonymous with chubby, meaning round, healthy, frank, and good-natured.

Time, as he runs his annual course, like a high-mettled racer, never stops at the winning-post.

Pain soonest vanishes, when participated :-Water, which when confined in one reservoir, will continue à long time without evaporating, soon dries up on being dispersed.

There can be no sensation without impression; no impression without motion; and no motion without decomposition. Decomposition is all that can be done towards annihilation.

To perpetuate by meditation the remembrance of woe, is to embalm a viper that has stung you.

Time, like a tread-mill, goes the quickest,

With those whose toil is laid on thickest.

For a woman to strike a man is even more cowardly than for a man to strike a woman; since, in the latter case all possible resistance, however weak it may be, is expected; but in the former, the aggressor takes advantage of the probable forbearance of him who receives the blow.

It is not difficult to content one's self with solitude, when it is known, that society may be had, if wished for.

Hardly any thing is more necessary to a poet than a thorough knowledge of his native vocabulary; for, however lucid may be his primitive ideas, yet the inversion of phrase, to which any but a perfect master of language must resort, will infallibly give them an air of obscurity and affectation, if

not of absolute dulness.

Not every fog is prejudicial to health; for the city of Xalappa, though situated on a mountain declivity at a height at which the clouds there generally rest, and hence, enveloped in almost perpetual mist, is (if the Quarterly Review, No. 59, may be credited) the place to which the wealthier citizens of Vera Cruz resort, to escape the pestiferous climate of that port, or to recover from diseases contracted in it.

A man's honesty is the only commodity whose true value is exactly the price at which the owner rates it.

The elevation of a mind in its maturity is valuable, most especially from the discriminative retrospect it commands over the fairy scenes of childhood.

Throughout the intricacies of logical deduction, the meaning of an author must be closely and constantly followed; for, if once out of sight, it is lost irrecoverably.

The possession of superior talent creates more wishes than it gratifies

Unnatural customs are to be eradicated only by artificial means. What has once been thrown out of the straight-forward track, requires an oblique impulse to replace it there.

It seems to be the opinion of those who are eternally plying their children with songs and affected tones of endearment, that life is, from its commencement, a burden, to lighten the weight of which, there is needed some amusement. Whereas, on the contrary, the very sense of existing, before its novelty has worn off, is a pleasure not often, indeed, surpassed by the factitious enjoyments of riper years. To accustom a child to receive attentions and indulgences from all who approach it, is to deprive it of any confidence in its own resources, and, consequently, to lessen them,-it might almost be said, to prevent its ever possessing such.

The sensations of joy felt on approaching the home of a beloved one, are like the twilight of morning before the sun has become visible.

He who would write a poem, must read the poetry of others; but, if his aim is originality, he ought, after reading any work, to let a considerable time elapse without his ever putting pen to paper; for, otherwise, he is in imminent danger of being led, though imperceptibly, into close imitation. The general style and effect of a piece are much longer remembered than its particular sentiments, images, and phrases; and these last must be forgot