Star.
London, England, 1823-11-01 00:00:00

The gods I 'd thank to pass, dear Frank, .

.
With thee a blithe October.
BM from her brink new rocks may sink,

The next time blow: the wind bad:
And I below her chalky brow
Be sepulchred like Sindbad !
" Thus, billowy god, my muse has trod
Thy forelands, creeks, -and mountains,
And, could I boot as light a foot,
I 'el seek thy briny tountains.
But ;out requires more inland shires,
'I be limb, that last-night felt numb,
Instinctive chugs to mineral springs—
Adiou, I'm off for Chelenham !"

FREE MASO N 11 Y.

Extract from an Address to the Members of Solomon's Lodge,
No. 6,. of Poughkeepsie, on the Anniversary of St. John the
Baptist, June 24, A. L. 58'25; by James G. Brooks, Esq. •
" It is now nearly three thousand years since the.
'foundation of Masonry ; as yet it has resisted the de.'
stroying hand of time. Kingdoms have arisen, flou-
rished, and fallen—the rock of poWer, the adamant of
Ferlios have crumbled—moral earthquakes have dashed
in ruin the strongest, the fairest fabric of human enter-
prise and of human wisdom : Masonry hai "remained
unbroken—it leas not bent to the storm, nor bath it
died in the sluggish.. calm.. If we examine the nature
and progress of man's institutions, we shall find them
all partaking of that mutability which characterises
bts own strange and fitful and feverish existence : perish-,
able himself, how can he confer eternity upon his
*mks? Ile erects his statue Of
.brass, the Colossus of
ages—triumphant 'lintel thou hurlest it to the dust!
True, he can ascend the eie' .during arch of Fame, and
inscribe there letters of his immortality—he can kindfe
the fire of his renown, which blazes forages a beacon
to the universe: but he cannot recall the last faint sigh
Of existence, nor protect his troops against the scythe
of destruction. Go, and learn this truth from the me-
lancholy picture of History I Go, and moral* amidst
the ruins of Thebes, and ask where are her hundred gates,
her thousands of chariots, and her millions of warriors !
'Ah ! three in desolation cold • -
Thy desert sespentAwells alone,
Whets grass o'ergrows each nsoLld'ring stone, .
And stones themselves to ruin grown, •
Are trey and deatb.like old.' . •
Go and learn wisdom from solitary Tyre, and ask
where are her golden, palaces • and her mimbei less na-
tives ? Go ard, ask of Egypt where are her twenty thou-
sand cities, hitt Trxmile of .the Sun, her Oracle of Aut-
umn, and her sacred fountain.; there the sun now shines
on a bleak waste, the voice of the Oincte bath been Silent
for a&es, and the wild weed bath long waved in the bed
of its fountais! Let Macedon produce the trophies of
her conqUering son—let Persia shew 'the diadem-of
Cyrus, and the spear of Oambyses; they are snveleped
by the oblivious ,pall, and the mournful voice of His-
tory tells only that 'hey have hee:‘ .So it is with man,
and with the wolfs of man—child of doubt and danger
—the spectre of uncertainty bends over his cradled
slumber, darkens the warm noon of. manhood, and
extends the dusky arm over.the evening of his decline—
he walks forth in his majesty, the image of Gon, and
the Lord of creation—his path is on the mighty deep
.—his footsteps are on the lofty mountain—he stands on•
his proud eminence, and looks down on a subject world.
" Look once again, and where is he? The myste-•
riots fire of his existence is extinguished—foe cold clod
...
presses'on his colder bosom—the dull worm banquets-on
, than where once sparkled genius and beauty—and
the charnel-shroud - enwraps that form where once
glowed the star of honour and the purple of dominion I
" Siiicerthea,instahility is inherent in the very nature
of man, and spreads itself over all his works, we can
best judge of the value of all institutions by.their longer
or shorter resistance to subduing time. We are safe in
the "assertion that no society can compete with ours in
duration—it has resistedevery change and braved every
tempest--it hatb stood &mind lOheld the wide-spread-
ing peneof Assyria street:Ow the earth with its branches,
in tiiv].and gigantic ruinit bath seen the rising flood
of mtightylrosts desolate imperial Babylon--it bath seen
!the starry throne of just Haronn broken down—it bath
seen the majestic eagle of the Romans extending its
darkifettntver battle fields— ' • l' -•_

ileheririteittfa meet *ls Tinaddatest,
- And-the battles wreak by r.

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