The true love which needs not to be repented of, which endures the refining tests of later life, is thus described by Butler in Hudibras: – All love at first, like generous wine, Among the many excellent persons who in advancing age have enjoyed this unfading love was that great lawyer, Lord Chancellor Eldon, who, forty years after his marriage, pays this touching tribute of loving constancy to his wife, Elizabeth :— Can it, my lovely Bessy, be, That when near forty years are past, Dearer and dearer at the last? Nor time, nor years, nor age, nor care, In Scotland's climes I gave it thee, True, till an heaven we have gain'd. So true it is, as Campbell sings:- Is hallowed down to earth's profound, For time makes all but true love old; Until the heart itself be cold The poet Milton's father was probably entering on later life when this poem was addressed to him by his son, afterwards the author of "Paradise Lost." TO MY FATHER. Oh! that, descending from the two-fold hill, Poor would the muse with all her offerings prove— Show that he caught a sparkle from above; verse With thrilling force dire Tartarus can pierce; * * * * We, too, when raised to our celestial land, Attuning to the lyre the numerous strain: While the pleased stars, that gem the vaulted sky, Wheels the vast orb, and guides its proud career, I pass the endearing fatherly caress And in the greater kindness lose the less. The full sonorous accents of the Greek; Your love, persuasive, press'd me to advance, And glean the flowers that strew the path of France: To win Italia's modern Muse, who shows The base pollution of barbarian foes; And read the native-strains of hallow'd lore And know what earth and ocean's depths conceal, Since then, dear sire, my gratitude can find breast! The far-renowned Madame de Staël, the devoted daughter of M. Necker, died just after her 51st birthday. Shortly before her death she said, "I think I know what the passage is from this life to another; and I feel convinced that God, in His goodness, softens it for us. Our intellect becomes troubled, and the pain is not very great." Her last words were, "My father is waiting for me! my father is waiting for me!-there-he is calling me!" This reminds us of Mrs. Hemans' verses on following our departed friends who have gone before us into eternity. There have been sweet singing voices In your walks, that now are still; There are seats left void in your earthly homes Soft eyes are seen no more That made spring-time in your heart; We fear not now, we fear not! Though the way through darkness bends; Our souls are strong to follow them, Our own familiar friends! At the age of fifty-two, on the anniversary of St. George, the tutelar saint of England, died the poet of all time, Shakespeare, to whom his country owes so deep a debt of reverential love. The day of his death, April 23, 1616, was also his birthday. The same day was to be ever memorable for the death of Cervantes, who was seventeen years older than Shakespeare. It is one of the most striking things in all history, that two such men as our great dramatist and the author of "Don Quixote" should at the same time be sinking and expiring on the bed of death. Their closing years had been unlike in external fortune: Shakespeare had lived in calm and dignified retirement, in his native town of Stratford, during four years, wealthy and honoured, as " gentle Shakespeare, throned in all hearts;" while Cervantes, in Madrid, lingered in poverty and dependence. In one of Shakespeare's sonnets we have a beautiful picture of the birth of his own wonderful genius and its ascent to the "highmost pitch" of middle age, but that descent to feeble age, described in the closing lines, he was never to endure. Lo, in the orient when the gracious Light |