ing d'être vif, at which I had indulged a laugh, was forgotten in the seriousness with which these last sentences were uttered. The story and the bottle were now ended, and coffee coming in, put an end for the present to our pleasant conversation.

The after-dinner stroll now came on, for Manners was one of the first who had emancipated himself from the custom, so subversive of all good-feeling and all rational enjoyment, which in those days prevailed, of exciting, and therefore deteriorating both the mind and constitution by more wine than nature required. We talk of our good old forefathers! Surely they were good old brutes, worshippers of the baneful cup of Comus,

"Whose pleasing poison

The visage quite transforms of him who drinks,
And the inglorious likeness of a beast

Fixes instead, unmoulding reason's mintage."

We talk of modern amusements, rail-roads and steam-how far more beneficial to our happiness is the improvement in our manners, which makes it now a reproach instead of a glory for a gentleman to be drunk.

It was not yet quite evening (for fifty years ago we did not dine at eight o'clock in the country), but the sun was approaching his final declension :

"Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant :
Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbræ." *

The air was balmy, and the scent of the flowers seemed to perfectionate our sensual enjoyments. We

*"And now in the distance the cottage chimneys begin to smoke, and a lengthened shade falls from the lofty hills."

had approached the opening into the fields, where half-a-dozen beautiful cows were winding in a waving line from the milking byre to their night pasture, and made the air resound with their lowing.

My classical host, after contemplating them a few minutes, broke out with—

"Aut in reducta valle mugientium

Prospectat errantes greges."

"This," said he, "is the most soothing time of the day, and this the most soothing of sights. It gives you the idea of a delicious plenty afforded by nature, accompanied with independence and perfect innocence, insuring rest and tranquillity. How happy when the evening of life resembles it."

"It is superior to the morning," said I, “in pleasurable sensations."

"Not quite," observed he, smiling; "for content as I am with my evening, I perhaps should have no objection to a little of your youth. And yet I am not sure; for one would not willingly go out again to sea when the haven is in sight. I am not a Lord Ligonier.”

I asked his allusion, and he told me that Lord Ligonier, when at eighty, found himself still a man of pleasure, and was asked for promotion by his relation, the present General Lascelles. "I am threeand-twenty," said Lascelles, "and yet I am but a cornet." “Be thankful, you young dog," said Ligonier. "I am Commander-in-chief, but would change with to-morrow." "Now this I am not prepared you to say, even to you."

"I don't know why you should," said I, "for you seem the picture of happiness, and deserve to be so. Virgil, in the eclogue you quoted just now, must certainly have seen you and this retreat in a vision, when he wrote the lines,

'Fortunate senex, ergo tua rura manebunt ;
Fortunate senex, hic inter flumina nota,

Et fontes sacros, frigus captabis opacum.'

Mr. Manners nodded his head, and seemed by no means ill-pleased with the allusion.

"I know not," said he, "if I have a right to be addressed by the epithet of Fortunatus; but if a capability, in my old age, of enjoying such a scene as this, and being alive in a summer evening to the pleasures of sacred fountains and the cool shade, will justify the appellation, perhaps it may belong to me. The situation, prospects, hopes, and fears of an old man, particularly in reference to and comparison with youth, have not, as you may suppose, passed unexamined by me."

"The result," said I, "must be edifying, and much I doubt if you, at least, can justify the character of

"Thanking you for the compliment," returned he, "I know not if that character is a fair one, for it is our own fault if we are not as happy as you; though the happiness of youth, from the exuberance, nay, the

*Fortunate old man, whose farm is preserved to you, and who, amidst your well-known streams and sacred fountains, enjoyest the cool shade.'

riot of its hopes, is so great, that if we had not even still richer, though not such riotous hope, there would be no sort of comparison between us. With this richer hope, I would not yield you one jot of happiness more than a healthy old man might enjoy."

"This is very charming,” said I, “and I quite long to be enlightened on so interesting a subject."

Why, it is not," replied he, "the loss of youth, in regard to its sensual enjoyments, that forms the regrets of old age; for the latter may have quite as much positive enjoyment as the former."

Seeing me look surprised, "Nay, start not," said he, "for I must tell you what perhaps you must be old before you know. Quiet, rest, and tranquillity, are quite as happy, if not happier things than excitement. It is the less and less prospect of the happiness continuing that embitters the last years of those who are quitting the world, if they have no consolation in doing so. Could a man of seventy, at ease in body and mind, look forward to fifty years more in the same condition he is in, as you young men do, (though far from being sure of it), he would be quite as happy, perhaps happier, in his arm-chair, than you in a fox chase."

"Rather a tame sort of happiness," said I.

"But still happiness," answered he, "and of the most demonstrable kind. For, let me ask you, in your late journeys on foot, how many miles did you make in a day?"

"Sometimes twenty."

"And when you came to your inn of an evening, what did you do?"

Nothing, for I was too tired, and sought repose. "Just so; and you found that the repose of doing nothing after a long journey was a great pleasure. So says Milton:

'Refreshment after toil, ease after pain.'”

"I see what you mean,” said I.

"I am glad of it,” replied he, " for you now see that my arm-chair in the evening of life is as great a pleasure as your evening repose after a long day's journey. But even in youth, healthy existence-that is, a tranquil enjoyment of it in the simple act of breathing— is (thanks to Him who so ordained it !) positive enjoyment, and in itself enough. Besides, as I once heard one old man, an ex-cabinet minister, say to another, who was lamenting that there was nothing left in the world worth enjoying,-- You forget that we can eat our dinners and sleep on our beds.'

"Of the efficiency of one of these sources you will perhaps need no conviction, after what you witnessed in me two hours ago. This I own is rather unsentimental; but add to it what I am supposing in the case, the power of meditation, reading, and agreeable conversation, and do not flatter yourself that an old man is not as happy as a young one. If he has fewer desires, he has fewer mortifications, for most innocent nature never meant

'As if her children should be riotous with her abundance.'

"All that is beautifully true," observed I;

"but