light up the secrets of our souls again-never shall the parental hand be laid upon our own with the earnestness of experience, and the warmth of love-never shall the innocent prattle of those cherub lips now sealed in death awaken us from our morning slumbers-never shall the counsel of that long tried friend guide us again through the mazy paths of life. We might have lived, and perhaps we have, without their actual presence; seas might have rolled between us; and wide countries separated their home and ours: but to believe in their existence was enough—to think that they looked upon the same world with ourselves-that the same sun rose to them and to us-that we gazed upon the same moon-and that the same wind which breathed its spiritual intelligence into our ears, might in its wild and lawless wanderings, have sighed around their distant dwelling. But above all, that the time might come when we should yet meet to recognise the same features, though changed by time-the same voice, though altered in its language-and the same love, though long estranged, yet never totally extinguished. We must now satisfy ourselves that this can never be; and why? not from any cause which the power and ingenuity of man can remedy, or the casualty of after events avert; but simply because the vital principle which never can be revived, is extinct, the functions of humanity are destroyed, and the friend of our bosom is no more. It is true that religion points to the ethereal essence existing in a happier sphere, directs the attention of the mourner to the undying soul, and urges on his hope to an eternal union; but we have earthly feelings too frequently usurping the place where religion ought to reign; and love that is "strong as death," turns away from the Heavenly Comforter, and will not be consoled. Love holds a faithful record of the past, from which half the interest, and half the endearment must now be struck out, rendering the future barren, waste, and void. Love keeps an inventory of its secret treasures, where it notes down things of which the higher faculties of the soul take no cognizance the smiles-the tones of mutual happiness-the glowing cheek-the sunny hair-the gentle hand-the well-known step-and all that fills up and makes perfect the evidence of long cherished affection; exchanged for what? For the motionless and marble stillness of death, and the cold, unnatural gloom of that deep sepulchre which con ceals what even love itself has become willing to resign-for the sad return to the desolate home-the silent chamber-the absent voicethe window without its light-the familiar name unspoken-the relics unclaimed-the harp untouched-the task unfinished-the blank at the table unfilled up-the garden walks untrodden-the flowers untended-the favourite books closed up as with a seal-in short, the total rending away of that sweet chord, without which, the once harmonious strains of social intercourse are musical no more. The effect produced upon the mind by the contemplation of death, is of a character peculiarly refined and gentle. We necessarily forgive the dead, even though they may have been our enemies; and if our friends, we remember their virtues alone. They have lost the power to offend again, and therefore their faults are forgotten. It is true, there are associations with the bodily part of death which scarcely come under the denomination of refined, but from these our nature shrinks; even the common nurse performs her last sad office in silence, and delicacy shrouds in everlasting oblivion the mortal remains of the deceased. It is the task of the poet to record their noble actions their benevolence-their patient suffering their magnanimity-their self-denial; and while he performs this sacred duty, his bosom burns with enthusiasm to imitate the virtues he extols. currence. The loss of fortune is another cause of grief, not less severely felt for being of common ocThose who have never tasted the real bitterness of poverty, tell us in the language of philosophy, that the loss of fortune is a very insufficient cause for the grief of a wise man; that our nature is not degraded when our bodies are clad in homely garments; and that the friends whose esteem is worthy of our regard, will follow us as willingly to the clay cottage, as to the "courts of kings." This might be all very true, did reason alone govern the world; but we have another law-the law of feeling, more potent in its influence upon the affairs of mankind; and in this law the poet is often much better instructed. than the philosopher. The poet knows that to attempt to remove the pressure of the calamities of life, by reasoning, however plausibly, upon their transient or trifling nature, is not, in effect, to speak the language of common sense; because it does not adapt itself to the feelings of those to whom it is addressed, so as to render it available, or even intelligible. As well might we tell the victim of raging fever, that it is absurd to thirst again, because he has but lately moistened his lips, as endeavour to persuade him who suffers from the loss of worldly wealth, to be comforted, because it is vain to grieve. The poet's sphere being one of feeling, he has within himself so quick and clear an apprehension of all the sources of human pain or pleasure, that he sees and understands at once why the change of fortune, the deprivation of accustomed privileges and enjoyments, and the gradual sinking to a lower rank in social life, should occasion the deepest sorrow and regret. Were reason the sole regulator of our passions and propensities, we should never grieve; because we are taught by the experience of every day, that good may arise out of what we have blindly called evil; and because we are assured upon the highest evidence, that our worldly affairs, even when darkest and most perplexed, are under the government of a gracious and unerring Providence: but the experience of every day teaches us also, that these important truths |