Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1858-02-13

Ell lie moins prccoyant est ioyours le plus sage"
Boswell one day mentioned to DR.. johnson that
he had seen the execution of several convicts at
Tyburn, two days before and that none of them
seemed to be under any concern. The doctor
said. "Most of them, sir, have never thought at
ALL" "But," reioins Boswell. 'is not the fear of
death natural to man ?" $50 much so, sir" re-
piled the sage, that the whole of life is but keep.
ing away the thoughts of it," DoswelPs Tyburn
experience reminds us of what Thomas Hood says,
towards the tragic close Of one of his trsgi comic
poems, 1.-THE longest Of them and the best y
"But life is sweet, and ~mortally blind,
And youth is hopeful, and fate is kind
In concsaling the day of sorrow;
And enough is the present tense of toll
For this world is, to all, a stifish soil
And the miud flies back with a glad recoil
From the debts not due tomorrow.
Wherefore else does the spirit fly
And bid its daily cares good bye,
Along with its daily clothing?
Just as the felon condemned to die
With a very natural loathing-
Leaving the sheriff to dream of ropes,
From his gloomy cell in a vision elopes,
To caper on sunny greens and slopes,
Instead Of the dance upon nothing"
Charles Lamb, again, enumerating, in a letter
to Southey, the familiar homo associations to
which his home-lovipg spirit chung, cxclaims, in
his ingenious was God help me when | come
TO put off these snug relations. and to get abroad
into the world to come! l shall be like the crow
on the sand, as Wadsworth has it Int 1 oon't
think Of IL, no need, | hope, yet" Need or not,
he will follow Mrs. Q~uickly's counsel, and won't
think vi it," will ignore the presence that is not
TO be put by. If it cannot be put by, at least let
- H. x-E nR Nnt 0,ara, AL 49,. I.-l II 49,.
Outstanding that when he has a more convenient
season he will send for 1t. IL will send for him,
before ever that day dawns, Writing to another
correspondent about his sisters recurring attacks,
be mournfully observes: 1T cuts great slices
out of the time, the little time, we shall have to
live together. | don't know but the recurrence of
these illnesses might help mt to sustain her death
better than if we had no partial separations. But
/ won't talk of death. l will imagine US immor-
tai, or forget that We are otherwise" Mankind
at large make a practical study of this art of for
getting.
How exquisitely true to nature is Shakspeare's
preseutiment of Justice Shallow, in the scene
where that fussy ancient talks away with good
cousin Silence about the days that are past, and
the friends that are gone. 80, the mad days that
| have spent and to see how many Of mine old
acquaintance are dead !" Silence appositcly re-
marks, in his stolid way, 1--WE shall all follow,
cousin" Briskly the Justice responds, Certain,
Ills certain very sure, very sure ueatu, rs tue
Psalmist says, is certain to all all shall die
Hon., a good yoke Of bullock at Stamford fair"
"Sil.-Truly, cousin l was not there.
"Shni,-peat is certain.-ls old Double OF
your town living yet?
"Sil.-Dead, sir.
~Shal.-Dead See, see he drew a good bow!
And dead he shot Il fine shoot John Of Gaunt
loved him well, and betted much money upon his
head. Dead he would have clapped 1.-THE clout
af twelve scores Var1s and carripi Won a. TDra.
hand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and n half,
that it would have done q mans heart good to see.
l Hoo, a score epes now d?
"Sil.-Thercafter as they be q score of good
ewes may be worth ten pound.
"Shal.-And is old Double dead !"
0 Aud anon the Justice might have sought another
t diversion by inquiring the price of poultry, or the
t market value Of breadstuffs, but for the entrance
q of Sir John Falstaff, which conveniently and very
summary disposes of Death and old Double.
. Scott, 10 "Guy Mannering," has a sort of par
= allel passage, longo interrdlo, in one of the hinty
y speeches Of the poor laird of Ellangowan, com
/ planning Of his tenants -"Luc&ie Finniston sen
up three kahn hens IA sort Of rent in kind tina
were a shame TO be seen only last week, and ye
she has twelve bows sowing of v%ictual indeed
her goodman, Duncan Fi~nnistun-that' him that
Conceive must all die, Mr.. Mannering that
over true)-and speaking of that, let US live il
the meanwhile, for here's breakfast on the table
and the domino ready to say the grace"
Forever in the neighborhood of an inevitable
h Death, man can forget, says Carlyle, 'that he j
born to die Of his life, which, strictly meditated
n contains in it AN imnensity and an eternity, b.
g can conceive lightly, as Of a simple i'm plemen
= wherewith to do day labor and earn wages. S
cunningly does Nature, the mother of all highes
Art. which only apes her from afar, body fortl
the Finite from the Infinite , and guide maj
safe on his wonderous path, not more by eudow
irg him with vision, than, at the right place wit
blindness! Under all her works, chiefly unde
le her noblest work, Life. lies a basis of Darkness.
which he benignantly conceals ; in Life, too, tn
roots and inward circulations which stretch dow
il fearfully to the regions of Death and Night, snal
d. not hint of their existence, and only the fair stem
Ut with its leaves and flowers, shone on by the fai
lie sun, shall disclose itself, and %joyfully grow"
being our philosophers doctrine, in effect, tina
III this same Nature strives, like a kind mother, I
ly hide from us her darksome mystery-that SD
is would have US rest on her beautiful and awfr
if bosom as it it were on our secure home-an
or would have us build and walk on the bottomles,
ID b~oundless Deep, as if the film which supported U
ne there (which any scratch Of a bare bodkin wi
o. rend asunder, any splitter of a pistol-shot insta,
tn eously burn up) were no film. but q solid roc
foundation.
ut ONE HUNDRED YEARS ago."