had been sitting upon his nose ever since the morning. The remainder of this narrative must of course be brief. Job Doolittle, after passing a long, brilliant, and highly useful career, went the way of all flesh, and was gathered to his fathers, at the age of fifty-seven.

Posterity will do him justice. Nothing remains for me but to give a sketch of his character, manners, and opinions. His character is best illustrated by the acts of his life. He was a good citizen, and a good neighbor, for his political principles never endangered the tranquillity of the state, and his daily life never disturbed the repose of the neighborhood. How few great men can say this of themselves! His manners displayed all the regularity and simplicity of a man of genius. He never missed going to bed at night, and never injured his health by going abroad too early in the morning. He was fond of exercise, and generally turned over twice in his bed every morning, for the purpose. More than this he rarely allowed himself. He thought combing his head a great waste of time; and, for the most part, dispensed with the use of buttons in his dress, from the needless labor they occasion every morning and night. His favorite food was small potatoes, placed very few in a pile. Toothpicks he never used.

His opinions bear the stamp of genius, and are, moreover, strongly characteristic of the man. He was often importuned by his friends to engage in a more active course of life, but always replied, with a sagacious look, that it would be all the same a hundred years hence.' How profound, and yet how true! When told that a certain individual was trying to discover the perpetual motion, he fell into a deep reverie, and then replied, wisely shaking his head, that he guessed he would n't;' a prediction most remarkably justified by the event. On being informed that the earth moved round the sun, he looked hard at the speaker, and asked what was 'the use of it; a question which, though it may appear simple, will be found very difficult to answer. He never believed in rail-roads, and always wondered why people could not be content to stay at home. When intelligence arrived, week after week, that the French were marching into Russia, he inquired, very earnestly, 'how long before they -meant to stop, and set down.' The whole character of Napoleon was a perfect enigma to him. He had no decided admiration, in fact, for any great conqueror, except King Log.

Such was Job Doolittle; a man, take him for all in all, we ne'er shall look upon his like again. His example shows how much may be accomplished by undeviating principle, and firmness of purpose. His chief aim appears to have been, not to trouble the world, and not to let the world trouble him; a maxim worthy the sages of antiquity. This was his aim, and with a noble fortitude did he pursue it, through all the vicissitudes of his eventful career. The glory that rests upon his memory must be his reward. In the classic regions of Lubberland, altars would have smoked in his praise; but I fear the bustling, rantipole times we are now cast upon, will allow him no more lasting monument than a page of the KNICKERBOCKER. Valeat quantum !

Merry-Go-nimble Court, Boston.

T. T.

SHAKSPEARE'S SEVEN AGES.

AGE SECOND.

'AND then the whining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail,
Unwillingly to school.'

WHEN people have much to say, they say little. When men utter great truths, they use few words. All remarkable compositions, those that have sunk deep into the common ear, and gained universal consent, have been short. The Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Parables of Christ, the Christian Armor, Gray's Elegy, and the Declaration of American Independence, are perhaps the most full words ever uttered; to which we beg leave to add these 'sayings' of the immortal Shakspeare. The imperative form of speech is the shortest. In the 'fitness of things,' it is ordered that our necessary knowledge should be conveyed, possibly, in few terms. Our imperative duties may be summed up in a phrase, and the whole Christian religion is often embodied by the sacred writers in a single verse. The writer who is filling volumes, will often delight to condense his subject in an aphorism. The story-teller, who writes his tale to illustrate a single principle, will frequently sum up his moral in a sentence, and then spread it out over an hundred pages; as children play with sand, and cards, and putty. There is great use in this manner; because we best apprehend a part, by seeing the whole, and the whole, too, by seeing it piecemeal.

The most influential men in a town or village, are rarely great talkers; on the contrary, they are remarkable for their taciturnity and sententiousness. People mistrust both the soundness and sincerity of word-pilers. The maxim, that a barking dog will not bite, here finds a meaning. If a man have a bad cause, he generally makes a long speech, more in the hope that he may say something, than because he knows he has any thing to say, satisfactory. This is not written to condemn all lengthiness; but to find the philosophy of conciseness: otherwise, how could we have the face to proceed in our 'reading?'

From the history of infancy, our author turns gladly. He lingered an 'age' with its pains, and its story being told, he refreshes his spirit with contemplations of boyhood. The muling infant' vanishes, and the boy, with his shining face, leaps out. With all his restraints, jacket covered with buttons, stiff shirt collar, and pantaloons, (unnatural! if tight, oh! horrible!) he cannot help bearing about him the marks of joy. The blood mantles in his cheeks; and those locks which the sun curls, as it curls the tendrils of the vine, hang about his dewy forehead, and cluster on his head, with a grace that defies the skill of art. 'He creeps like snail to school.' He makes little progress onward, but his sideway excursions are numerous. He stops to listen to the song of birds, or he chases the butterfly with his hat. His eyes, liquid with health and pleasure, are turned on every side. He seems to drink the morning.' The flowers beckon him; the shadows court him; sunlight, air, and fragrant breeze, entice him. His boat is on the stream, or his feet are on the ice. Summer or 30

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He catches

winter, he is at home with his freedom under the sky. the snow-flakes as they fall, or bares his head to the warm shower. What does he care for his new jacket, and clean white trowsers, on the green grass! He hates to go to school. All nature is talking to him, with her thousand voices, and he goes unwillingly' from such delightful conversation. See the little chip-birds cock their eyes at him from the stone-wall, and the squirrel peep out to see who whistled. They know their man; they will not be caught, but only just keep out of his way as they run along, as if to challenge him to a frolic. Who would love to go to school from such delightful playmates!

But go he must. He whines as he swings his green satchel over his shoulder, and thinks of the severe brow that will reprove his tardiness; but his face shines; he cannot help it. And here we would sympathize, retrospectively, with the poor victims of the old regimen. Oh, thou old tyrant; thou executioner; thou ear-twister till the blood ran; thou cruel-pated schoolmaster, thou! Yes, thou wert all these, and many more hard names; and yet a tear drops for thee, too. Thy duty was to whip. It was the spirit of thy age. Kings whipped their subjects; the clergy whipped their people. Fear governed in the court, the church, and in the school. Liberty had not dawned. Man did not know his dignity. How many gentle minds were crushed, how many bosoms torn, under that lachrymal system! What disgust for books, what black revenge and bursting rage, did that whining school-boy with his satchel' feel? The seed was sown. Perhaps he whipped his fag; beat his dog; in a rage, wrung the neck of his pet robin. Lord Byron kept a bear in college. This was a cutting satire. The conceit he got at school. Those were days when every school could boast its bully, and setfights were recreation. Young lords drove the stage-coach, and squirted tobacco-juice through their front teeth; horse-jockeys grew rich, and high example made every vice appear respectable, as the world goes. These were the fruits of the iron age of school-masters. Then followed the age of bronze of brass and pretension. Young masters and misses were flattered into being spoiled, and their parents cajoled into permitting it. This was the time of the French revolution; a time that turned at large into the world a set of men and women, who, having proved that they had not sense to maintain a government of their own, undertook the task of directing and governing the rising generations of other countries. Short petticoats, bare bosoms, high heels, flaring bonnets, false hair, false teeth, et id omne genus, followed, as a natural consequence. To these were added, for variety, impassioned correspondence upon blue paper; sudden marriages and births; platonic attachments, and atheism. Still, the youth went unwillingly to school.' There was no heart, no soul, in all this.

Now is the age of simplicity. Learning has put off its wig, and ostentation is ridiculous. All men, whether pupils or professors, acknowledge their ignorance. Humility has exalted the human mind, and a practical illustration is given to the text, that, he who humbleth himself shall be exalted.' Man has, by this path, gained the height whence he may survey the wide ocean of Truth; and like the

great Copernicus, he feels that he has, as yet, only been playing with the pebbles on its margin.

He who dwells in the valley, has a narrow scope, and all things seem near and familiar; but as he climbs the mountain, his vision widens; he sees distant and unknown objects, and is soon lost in infinity. He returns to his valley wiser and better than before. What before seemed far, is now comparatively nothing. The distance between himself and those he thought his inferiors is removed. And this is the philosophy of human equality and true democracy. The greatest man in a republic feels himself the friend and brother of the poorest and weakest.

The true teacher, then, is the companion, the friend, the learner, with his pupil. He impresses him with the boundlessness of knowledge, and the infinite capacities of the human soul; and not forgetting to point to the Source of all wisdom, and our dependence upon Him for this privilege of using this great power of understanding his creation, there grows in the young mind a religion of the intellect, which habit will, in time, convert into a religion of the heart. And now the boy goes not so unwillingly to school.'

Still, all children go unwillingly' to the school our Shakspeare meant, though many never see the inside of a school-house. All go 'unwillingly' about set tasks. Boyhood is always longing to pursue the bent of its own bright fancies. They love to clan together for excursions in the woods, where they may lay along,' and tell stories of fairies and genii; or indulge in dreams about the future, when they shall be men and women; feel natural wonder at the world they inhabit, by a mystery, or in the wild consciousness of life, play such antics before high heaven, as make the angels smile.

'Behold the child among his new-born blisses!
See where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
With light upon him from his father's eyes!
See at his feet some little plan or chart,
Some fragment of his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learnéd art:
And this hath now his heart,

And unto this he frames his song:

Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And, with new joy and pride,

The little actor cons another part,

Filling from time to time his humorous stage,'

With all the persons down to palsied age,

That life brings with her in her equipage:

As if his whole vocation

Were endless imitation.'

The boy comes, trailing clouds of glory.' He is the bearer of a spirit newly lighted by his Maker. He is 'nature's priest,' and he surrenders not willingly the duties of his order. The plan, the arrangement, of the social fabric is not understood by him. He is for worshipping at another shrine than the world's idols. He loves nature, not with a sickly and strained sentimentality, like a would-be poet, nor seeks her for relief from the palling sensualities of dissipation. He does not bring to her a heart broken by pictures of human