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It is no more than what, in sober sadness, every one of us seems to be conscious of, in that awful leave-taking. I am sure I felt it, and all felt it with me, last night; though some of my companions affected rather to manifest an exhilaration at the birth of the coming year, than any very tender regrets for the decease of its predecessor. But I am none of those who

"Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.”

I am naturally, beforehand, shy of novelties; new books, new faces, new years,-from some mental twist which makes it diffi cult in me to face the prospective. I have almost ceased to hope; and am sanguine only in the prospects of other (former) years. I plunge into foregone visions and conclusions. I encounter pell-mell with past disappointments. I am armor-proof against old discouragements. I forgive, or overcome in fancy, old adversaries. I play over again for love, as the gamester's phrase it, games for which I once paid so dear. I would scarce now have any of those untoward accidents and events of my life reversed. I would no more alter them than the incidents of some well contrived novel.

3. The elders, with whom I was brought up, were of a character not likely to let slip the sacred observance of any old institution; and the ringing out of the Old Year was kept by them with circumstances of peculiar ceremony. In those days the sound of those midnight chimes, though it seemed to raise hilarity in all around me, never failed to bring a train of pensive imagery into my fancy. Yet I then scarce conceived what it meant, or thought of it as a reckoning that concerned me.

4. Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels practically that he is mortal. He knows it, indeed, and, if need were, he could preach a homily on the fragility of life; but he brings it not home to himself, any more than, in a hot June, we can appropriate to our imagination the freezing days of December. But now, shall I confess a truth? I feel these audits but too powerfully. I begin to count the probabilities of my duration, and to grudge at the expenditure of moments and shortest periods, like miser's farthings. In proportion as the

years both lessen and shorten, I set more count upon their periods, and would fain lay my ineffectual finger upon the spoke of the great wheel.

EXERCISE LVII.

ALFRED TENNYSON, author of the following spirited verses, was born about the year 1810. He has written some things so true to nature, so simple, so touchingly pathetic,-as "The May Queen," for example,-as to entitle him to the praise of a true poetic inspiration. His father was a clergyman in Lincolnshire, England.

RING OUT THE OLD YEAR.

I.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die!

II.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true!

III.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind!

IV.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

V.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times:
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

TENNYSON.

VI.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

VII.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years cr peace.

VIII.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be

EXERCISE LVIII.

ROBERT POLLOK was born in Renfrewshire, Scotland, in the year 1799. He died near Southampton, in 1827, just after his entrance upon duty, as a minister in the Presbyterian Church. He was the author of several works both in prose and verse. That, however, which gave him his chief distinction, is his "Course of Time:" a work abounding in fine passages and noble sentiments, but clouded to excess with gloomy reflection, often deficient in care and polish, and oftener still inflated in style and diction. Had he lived, however, time might have cured these defects, and brought out to the highest advantage, what doubtless he had, a rare combination of natural endowments

PASSAGES FROM POLLOR

I.

FRIENDS.

Much beautiful, and excellent, and fair

Was seen beneath the sun; but naught was seen

More beautiful or excellent, or fair

Than face of faithful friend; fairest when seen

In darkest day. And many sounds were sweet,
Most ravishing, and pleasant to the ear;

But sweeter none than voice of faithful friend;
Sweet always, sweetest heard in loudest storm.

II.

THE MISER.

Of all God made upright,

And in their nostrils breathed a living soul,
Most fallen, most prone, most earthy, most debased.
Of all that sold Eternity for Time,

None bargained on so easy terms with death.
Illustrious fool! nay, most inhuman wretch!
He sat among his bags, and with a look
Which hell might be ashamed of, drove the poor
Away unalmsed; and midst abundance died-
Sorest of evils! died of utter want.

III.

FAME.

Of all the phantoms fleeting in the mist
Of Time, though meager all, and ghostly thin,
Most unsubstantial, unessential shade,

Was earthly Fame. She was a voice alone;
And dwelt upon the noisy tongues of men.
She never thought; but gabbled ever on;
Applauding most what least deserved applause;
The motive, the result, was naught to her:
The deed alone, though dyed in human gore,
And steeped in widows' tears, if it stood out
To prominent display, she talked of much,
And roared around it with a thousand tongues.
As changed the wind her organ, so she changed
Perpetually, and whom she praised to-day,
Vexing his ear with acclamation loud,

To-morrow blamed, and hissed him out of sight.

IV.

FATE OF BYRON.

Great man! the nations gazed, and wondered much,
And praised and many called his evil good.
Wits wrote in favor of his wickedness:
And kings to do him honor took delight
Thus full of titles, flattery, honor, fame;
Beyond desire, beyond ambition full,

He died. He died of what? of wretchedness.
Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump

Of fame; drank early, deeply drank, drank draughts
That common millions might have quenched-then died
Of thirst, because there was no more to drink.
His goddess, Nature, wooed, embraced, enjoyed,
Fell from his arms, abhorred; his passions died;
Died all, but dreary, solitary pride;

And all his sympathies in being died.

V.

THE WANT ABOVE ALL OTHER WANTS.

I.

There was another, large of understanding,
Of memory infinite, of judgment deep;
Who knew all learning, and all science knew;
And all phenomena, in heaven and earth,
Traced to their causes; traced the labyrinths
Of thought, association, passion, will;

And all the subtle nice affinities

Of matter traced; its virtues, motions, laws;
And most familiarly and deeply talked
Of mental, moral, natural, divine.

II.

Leaving the earth at will, he soared to heaven,
And read the glorious visions of the skies;
And to the music of the rolling spheres

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