cawing to their nests, while a flock of sheep, attended by the shepherd and his dog, are slowly withdrawing to the fold. Every thing seems to breathe of death,— to remind me that my sun too is setting, and that I must shortly go to my long home, for the night is approaching. And here, methinks, if my appointed time were come, with the grass for my bed of death, the earth and sky sole witnesses of my exit, I could contentedly commit my last breath to the air, that it might be wafted to Him who gave it.

Life is at all times precarious;-there are but a few feet of earth between the stoutest of us and the grave, and at my age we should not be too sanguine in our calculations; yet, if I were to judge from my own unbroken health and inward feelings, as well as from the opinions of others more competent to pronounce, I have yet ten years at least, perhaps many more, of happiness in store for me. Should the former period be consummated, I pledge myself again to commune with the public. Should it be otherwise, I may, perhaps, be enabled to realize the wish of the celebrated Dr. Hunter, who half an hour before his death exclaimed, "Had I a pen, and were able to write, I would describe how easy and pleasant a thing it is to die!" In either alternative, gentle reader, if my example shall have assisted in teaching thee how to live grateful and happy, and to look upon death with resignation, the object of this Memoir will be attained, and thou wilt have no cause to regret perusing this sketch of

A. SEPTUAGENARY.

ADDRESS TO THE ALABASTER SARCOPHAGUS,

LATELY DEPOSITED IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

THOU alabaster relic! while I hold

My hand upon thy sculptured margin thrown,
Let me recall the scenes thou couldst unfold,
Mightst thou relate the changes thou hast known,
For thou wert primitive in thy formation,
Launch'd from th' Almighty's hand at the Creation.
Yes-thou wert present when the stars and skies
And worlds unnumber'd roll'd into their places;
When God from Chaos bade the spheres arise,

And fix'd the blazing sun upon its basis,
And with his finger on the bounds of space
Mark'd out each planet's everlasting race.

How many thousand ages from thy birth

Thou sleptst in darkness, it were vain to ask,
Till Egypt's sons upheaved thee from the earth,
And year by year pursued their patient task;
Till thou wert carved and decorated thus,
Worthy to be a King's Sarcophagus.

What time Elijah to the skies ascended,
Or David reign'd in holy Palestine,
Some ancient Theban Monarch was extended
Beneath the lid of this emblazon'd shrine,
And to that subterranean palace borne
Which toiling ages in the rock had worn.

Thebes from her hundred portals fill'd the plain
To see the car on which thou wert upheld
What funeral pomps extended in thy train,

What banners waved, what mighty music swell'd,

ADDRESS TO THE ALABASTER SARCOPHAGUS. 223

As armies, priests, and crowds, bewail'd in chorus
Their King-their God-their Serapis-their Orus!

Thus to thy second quarry did they trust

Thee and the Lord of all the nations round.

Grim King of Silence! Monarch of the dust! Embalm'd-anointed-jewell'd-scepter'd-crown'd,

Here did he lie in state, cold, stiff, and stark,

A leathern Pharaoh grinning in the dark.

Thus ages

roll'd—but their dissolving breath
Could only blacken that imprison'd thing,
Which wore a ghastly royalty in death,
As if it struggled still to be a King;
And each revolving century, like the last,
Just dropp'd its dust upon thy lid—and pass’d.

The Persian conqueror o'er Egypt pour'd
His devastating host-a motley crew;

The steel-clad horsemen-the barbarian horde-
Music and men of every sound and hue—
Priests, archers, eunuchs, concubines and brutes-
Gongs, trumpets, cymbals, dulcimers and lutes.

Then did the fierce Cambyses tear away

The ponderous rock that seal'd the sacred tomb; Then did the slowly penetrating ray

Redeem thee from long centuries of gloom,
And lower'd torches flash'd against thy side
As Asia's king thy blazon'd trophies eyed.

Pluck'd from his grave, with sacrilegious taunt,
The features of the royal corpse they scann'd :-
Dashing the diadem from his temple gaunt,

They tore the sceptre from his graspless hand,
And on those fields, where once his will was law,
Left him for winds to waste, and beasts to gnaw.

Some pious Thebans, when the storm was past,
Unclosed the sepulchre with cunning skill,
And nature, aiding their devotion, cast
Over its entrance a concealing rill.

Then thy third darkness came, and thou didst sleep
Twenty-three centuries in silence deep.

But he from whom nor pyramid nor sphinx

Can hide its secrecies, Belzoni, came;

From the tomb's mouth unloosed the granite links,
Gave thee again to light, and life, and fame,
And brought thee from the sands and desert forth
To charm the pallid children of the North.

Thou art in London, which, when thou wert new,
Was, what Thebes is, a wilderness and waste,
Where savage beasts more savage men pursue,—
A scene by Nature cursed-by man disgraced.
Now 'tis the world's metropolis—the high
Queen of arms, learning, arts, and luxury.

Here, where I hold my hand, 'tis strange to think
What other hands perchance preceded mine;
Others have also stood beside thy brink,

And vainly conn'd the moralizing line.

Kings, sages, chiefs, that touch'd this stone, like me, Where are ye now ?-where all must shortly be !

All is mutation;he within this stone

Was once the greatest monarch of the hour :-
His bones are dust his very name unknown.
Go-learn from him the vanity of power:
Seek not the frame's corruption to control,
But build a lasting mansion for thy soul.

THE OBLIGING ASSASSIN.

FROM THE FRENCH.

ONCE sleeping in an Inn at Dover,
Dreaming of thieves-my passage over—
And murderous hands that grasp'd a trigger,
The door flew open-I awoke,

When a pale heteroclite figuré,

With dusty shoes, stalk'd in and spoke:
"You see what 'tis I want-make haste!
Dress!-you've no moment's time to waste."

Trembling all over with the notion
Of being suddenly dispatch'd,

I huddled on my clothes, and snatch'd
My hat-prepared for locomotion;
But thrust into a chair, he put

Round me a winding-sheet, or shroud:
Behold me pinion'd hand and foot,

What horrors to my fancy crowd!
While no resistance could be plann'd
To one with instrument in hand,
Who with a grin began to seize and
Grasp me firmly by the wesand,

In this alarming plight compell'd
To keep as silent as a fish,
Some compound to my lips he held,
Mixing it in a brazen dish;

And when I winced, and made grimace,
He dash'd it foaming in my face.
Fuming and fretting, white as snow,
Expecting some terrific death,

Drops from my face began to flow,

I clench'd my teeth and pump'd my breath.