to behold him take his last gaze for ever and for ever on the sky, the green earth, the river, the light. How strange it has seemed that he, that being, that breathing, living creature, formed as I am, who speaks, and thinks, and utters requests, and walks, and takes me by the hand to say farewell; how difficult to conceive, how awful, how deeply thrilling to reflect that, in one minute more, he will not exist! That which addresses you now, will not be. Its semblance only will remain, to mock you, with a vivid recollection of the original nature you had held communion with. I once formed a vague resolution of suicide, and I thus strengthened it. I wished to become familiar with death. I would gaze quietly on him, and apply what I saw concerning him to myself. I strained my fancy to conceive how I should feel, and act, and appear in such a crisis. I have held a loaded pistol to my brain sometimes, or a vial of poison to my lips; or I have stood leaning over the edge of a dizzy height; or I have looked down into the clear ocean billows, and goaded myself on to pass the dreadful gulf. Alas! coward that I was, I feared to die as well as to live, and have turned to my lonely walk with a relief, and put off till some other period the execution of the design.

One day I met a fine fellow, from whom I had been separated many years. He was a scholar and an observer, and, some how or other, he had the art to draw from me an account of the true state of my feelings.

"Pray," said he, when I had finished pretty much what I have related above; "pray, what time do you rise?"

"At ten," said I, rather surprised at the oddity of the question.

"And what time do you retire to bed?"

"At one, two, or three o'clock," said I, "just as it happens."

“And how is your appetite?”

"Enormous.”

"And you gratify it to -?" “The full extent.”

"What do you drink?"

"Brandy and water, gin and water, &c."

He laughed heartily, although it made me angry ; also, I confess, it made me excessively ashamed to have talked about suicide.

"Do you know what ails you?" said he.
"Yes," I replied, "I have a broken heart.”

"Broken fiddiestick," said he, "you have the dyspepsy. Diet yourself; go to bed early; rise early; exercise much."

I have done so; I am now a healthy and a happy I smile to think I was going to blow my brains out, because I had the dyspepsy.

man.

5

THE OLD WORLD.

BY GEORGE LUNT.

THERE was once a world, and a brave old world, Away in the ancient time,

When the men were brave and the women fair,

And the world was in its prime;

And the priest he had his book,

And the scholar had his gown,

And the old knight stout, he walked about,
With his broad sword hanging down.

Ye may see this world was a brave old world,
In the days long past and gone,

And the sun it shone, and the rain it rained,
And the world went merrily on.

The shepherd kept his sheep,

And the milkmaid milked the kine,

And the serving man was a sturdy loon,

In a cap and a doublet fine.

And I've been told in this brave old world,

There were jolly times and free,

And they danced and sung, till the welkin rung, All under the greenwood tree.

The sexton chimed his sweet, sweet bells,
And the huntsinan blew his horn,

And the hunt went out with a merry shout,
Beneath the jovial morn.

Oh! the golden days of the brave old world
Made hall and cottage shine;

The squire he sat in his oaken chair,
And quaffed the good red wine;
The lovely village maiden,

She was the village queen,

And, by the mass, tript through the grass
To the May-pole on the green.

When trumpets roused this brave old world,
And the banners flaunted wide,

The knight bestrode the stalwart steed,

The page rode by his side;

And plumes and pennons tossing bright,
Dashed through the wild melee,

And he who prest amid them best
Was lord of all, that day.

And ladies fair, in the brave old world,
They ruled with wondrous sway;

But the stoutest knight was lord of right,
As the strongest is to-day.

The baron bold he kept his hold,

Her bower his bright ladye,

But the forester kept the good greenwood,

All under the greenwood tree.

Oh, how they laughed in the brave old world, And flung grim care away!

And when they were tired of working,

They held it time to play.

The bookman was a reverend wight,

With a studious face so pale,

And the curfew bell, with its sullen swell,
Broke duly on the gale.

And so passed on, in the brave old world,

Those merry days and free;

The king drank wine, and the clown drank ale, Each man in his degree.

And some ruled well, and some ruled ill,

And thus passed on the time,

With jolly ways in those brave old days,

When the world was in its prime.