And 'mid the waters led the magic ring

Those mighty nymphs, that slumber not nor sleep.
Soft-eyed Nychea, like the hues of spring,

Whose rites the awe-struck rustics duly keep,
And Malis and Eunice rulers of the deep.

7.

Down bent unto the stream that peerless boy,
Hasting to fill his weighty urn-they all
Put forth their pearled wrists with eager joy,
And clung unto his hand: Love's mighty thrall
Shook through each tender heart, to cause his fall.
Headlong he fell, with one resounding wail,
Headlong, as from the pole some fiery ball,
Into the darkling wave-" Trim every sail !"
Th' impatient seamen cried-"A favourable gale!"

8.

Fondling upon their knees the weeping child,
The Nymphs with kindly words consoled his woe;
But stern Amphitryon's son, with sorrow wild,
Set forth with his well-bent Mæotic bow,
And club, wherewith he ever crushed his foe.
Thrice "Hylas" cried he-thrice did Hylas hear
His high deep tonéd voice-and dim and low
A murmur reached him from those waters drear-
Alas! it seemed far off, although it was but near.
9.

As when some lion of majestic mane,
Some famished lion heareth far away

The cry of mountain fawn, and springs amain
Out of his lair to seize the ready prey :

So Hercules, lamenting bitterly

For the lost boy, through many a thorny glen

In madness raved, a long and weary way.

Wretched are they that love !-Through brake and den How toiled he! What to him were all his glories then?

10.

The lofty vessel stood upon the strand-
At night the seamen to the fav'ring breeze
Trimmed all her sails, eager to leave the land.
He careless fled, gnawed by that dire disease,
Which ruthless Venus bade his heartstrings seize.
So Greece fair Hylas as a God adores:
But slanderous tongues defamed Hercules,
Who, leaving Argo of the sixty oars,

By land to Colchos came, and Phasis' barren shores.

If there is one thing more important than another, one brought under our notice repeatedly and under circumstances seldom forgotten, one that calls up more than another all that is warm, affectionate, and sympathetic in our nature, stifling at the same time all petty rancour and jealousy, it is that of Death. No feature stands forth more prominently in our existence than its close; when it will come-how it will come-in what position it will find us. And yet very few give it that attention it deserves, nay, imperatively demands. For it is a matter in which we can have no choice; be we mighty or insignificant, rich or poor, good or bad, we-all human beings-must yield sooner or later to

the King of Terrors. How awfully true is this descrip

tion of his stealthy approach

"Death rides in every passing breeze,

"He lurks in every flower;

"Each season has its own disease,

"Its peril every hour.

"Our eyes have seen the very light
"Of youth's soft cheek decay,
"And fate descend in sudden night
"On manhood's middle day.

"Our eyes have seen the steps of age

"Halt feebly to the tomb;

"And yet shall earth our thoughts engage,

"And dreams of things to come."-HEBER.

Since then all allow that Death is a necessary evil, though many would reject all ideas of its unseen approach at any moment of time,

ἢ ἠὼς, ἢ δειλῆς, ἢ μέσον ἦμαρ,

how comes it that beings, who acknowledge their final responsibility, assume an invincible repugnance to such unfashionable meditations? I am in hopes that the solemn way in which this subject has recently forced itself on the minds of my younger readers will incline them to a more favourable attention than otherwise I might expect from their boyish spirits, and their natural recklessness "of ills to come, and care beyond to-day."

To my mind nothing is more profitable than this sort of reflection, however awful it may appear; and more especially so, if we institute a comparison between

our views with regard to Death and Immortality with those of the ancients.

Much as we respect the exalted (I had almost said Christian) sentiments and high morality of many of the primary writers of Antiquity, we must admit that, from the want of explicit revelation, their ideas were not only not the Truth, but not even like the Truth. Take the complaint of that most exquisite of all the Roman poets, Catullus,

"Soles accidere et redire possunt,

"Nobis quum semel occidit brevis lux,

"Nox est perpetua una dormienda.”

Take the well-known passage, aἶ, αλ, ταὶ μαλάχαι, κ. τ. λ. in which a comparison is formed between the fate of the vegetable with that of the animal creation, a comparison, which seems to a Christian to shew of itself (and that most emphatically) the doctrine of a Resurrection. Open any ancient writer, and you will find the same chilling belief of a total annihilation of soul and body after death.

Again, in the works of their boasted philosophers, who professed themselves able to interpret the essence of a Being, to them and in their age imperceptible, where shall we find any approach, any faint glimmerings of the right notion on this point? In the doctrines of the Stoics, who believed that the soul was a subtilized fiery being, and could not long survive the body? In those of the Epicureans, whose Coryphæus boldly avows

"Quare, corpus ubi interiit, periisse necesse est
"Confiteare animam"- ? LUCRET. III. 799.

Or those of the Pythagoreans, who affirmed that the soul passed from one body to another in perpetual

μɛroínos or transition? Assuredly in none of them! μετοίκησις -Some few there may indeed have been, blessed with an intuitive perception of the soul's immortality; mighty Geniuses, who could not brook the thought of being annihilated for ever, and of having spent a life of virtue in vain. Such were the views of Socrates, "wisest of all men," who, in that incomparable address to his judges, tells them whither he hopes to go after death, a future companion of all the great and good of antiquity, and assures them that the prospect of such bliss made him pant for death even at their hands. Listen again to the whole declaration of that most vain, inconsistent Roman, Cicero-who in his writings soars infinitely above the apathy and cold indifferentism of his private practice :-"Quod si in hoc erro, quod "animos hominum immortales esse credam, lubenter "erro; nec mihi hunc errorem, quo delector, dum vivo, "extorqueri volo."-Even in such a sentiment as this, especially coming from such a quarter, the wretched uncertainty of that small hope must strike every one.

But these degrees of happiness, whether placed in the Elysian fields of Heathenism, or the Houris of Mahomet, happiness of which the voluptuous man may have drunk to satiety even in this life, must seem contemptible to the Christian, who has been taught by Revelation to place the rλos of a blessed immortality in intellectual enjoyment; in the realization of pleasures far beyond the conception of the most daring visionary; in the full comprehension of those mysteries,