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when he died by a fall down stairs in the dark. He was present at the battle of Preston Pans, which was fought close to his father's garden walls. For the last twenty years he lived chiefly on tea, using it three times aday; his pipe was his first companion in the morning and last at night. He never remembered to have taken a dose of physic in his life, prior to his last fatal accident, nor of having a day's illness but once.

The association of gardening with pastoral poetry, was exemplified in Shenstone's design of the Leasowes

as Mr. Whately observes-a perfect picture of his mind, simple, elegant, and amiable, and which will always suggest a doubt whether the spot inspired his verses, or whether in the scenes which he formed, he only realized the pastoral images which abound in his songs. That elegant trifler, Horace Walpole, was enthusiastically fond of gardening. One day telling his nurseryman that he would have his trees planted irregularly, he replied, "Yes, sir, I understand; you would have them hung down-somewhat poetical.”

VARIETIES.

"Come, let us stray

Where Chance or Fancy leads our roving walk."

NEW POST-OFFICE REGULATION.

It is said, that the Lords of the Treasury have issued, or intend to issue, an order to the postmaster-general, permitting the free transmission to authors residing in the country of the proof sheets of any work going through the press, and which may be sent to them for correction. For this purpose the proofs are, it is said, to be sent open to Mr. Francis Freeling, who will enclose them in a post-office cover, and forward them according to the address, and perform the same on their return. This arrangement, if carried into effect, will certainly be an accommodation, as far as it goes; and we think that other important concessions to the interests of literature might be made without injury to, and even to the advantage of, the revenue. In France all the new publications, except those of very great weight, are forwarded by the mail coaches at a trifling expense; so that persons who reside in the provinces may receive them with the greatest possible rapidity. If at a moderate rate per pound weight new works could be forwarded from London by the mail coaches, individuals who reside at a distance from the large towns to which parcels of newly published books are sent, or even in those towns,-for it does not

answer the purpose of a bookseller to have down one or two books in a parcel for a single customer,-would in such an arrangement find a great accommodation. An additional hundred weight to each of the mail coaches would be no drawback upon their speed or safety; and all new works of immediate interest might be thus circulated throughout the country. As in France the regulation alluded to was made exclusively in favor of literature, a method of preventing deception has been adopted. Persons sending books, are required to leave them open at the ends, a band with the address upon it being simply placed round the centre.

THE FATE OF HERETICS.

The following anecdote of Italian priest-craft is genuine. A worthy woman in Rome, who kept an hotel and boarding-house, having observed with wonder the correct morals and decorous habits of many English and German heretics, asked her confessor if it was really true, that all these poor foreigners would go into everlasting fire; as she could not understand why these heretics, whose virtuous and Christian lives were an example to many Romans, should perish everlastingly.

The priest reproved her folly and presumption, and thus explained :

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"Even in his mother's womb the heretic is already the indisputable property of the devil; for which reason he is not so frequently teased and tempted by the arch-enemy as we Christians are, who cannot be deprived of our claims on heaven, except by great wickedness and impiety. Rejoice not, therefore, at the good actions and good manners of those heretics, which are, indeed, the certain tokens of their irredeemable damnation; nor take offence at the elect, who so often stumble and fall in their struggles with the tempter. The favorites of God are those whom the devil incessantly seeks to entangle; but, being sure of the souls of heretics, he never tempts them more than once, and then only out of wantonness and pastime."

SPEED THE PLOUGH.

In China, agriculture is held in high honor. On a certain day in the spring, the Emperor appears in the character of a husbandman, and with two oxen which have their horns gilded, and with a varnished plough, he ploughs up several furrows, and afterwards sows them with his own hand. His principal lords do the like, till they have tilled the whole spot set apart for the purpose; and as Magelhaëns adds, the Empress, assisted by her ladies, then dresses a homely dinner, which the imperial mummers eat together.

STIQUIOTECHNY.

Under this musical and elegant title a work has been published at Paris, the object of which is to teach the art of learning to read in twenty or thirty lessons of an hour each, by analysing the sounds of words.

COLOSSAL NEWSPAPER.

The largest sheet of paper ever used by a newspaper was sent forth from the press of the Times on Monday last. Hitherto, when there was an accumulation of advertisements, or other matter, at the Time's office, a supplementary sheet was printed (each sheet bearing, by virtue of a recent

act of parliament, a two-penny stamp), and distributed, gratis, to the purchasers of the regular newspaper. By the new arrangement of printing the supplementary matter upon the same sheet, enlarged for that purpose to four feet in length, and a yard in width, a saving of about 701. for each supplementary number will be effected; as the sheet, being undetached, will not require an extra stamp. A writer in an evening paper calculates, that in the forty-eight columns of the Times of Monday there are nearly 150,000 words; and a calculating correspondent of our own tells us, that in the colossal sheet in question, there were nearly as many words as in all the morning and evening newspapers which were published on the same day in the French capital.

INEBRIETY IN SWEDEN.

It is a fact that this vice more effectually destroys the happiness of this country than any war ever did. The lists of births and of mortality of Stockholm present the most surprising phenomenon-that there died in the last year 1439 persons more than were born. This proportion is observed particularly amongst the garrison, and ascribed to drinking immoderately of brandy.

AMERICAN BULL.

A late Vandalia Intelligencer, calculating the increase of the population of Indiana in the last two years,' observes that, "allowing five souls to each voter, we have derived from emigration an accession of 20,000." "Five souls to each voter!" is rather more than falls to the lot of electors elsewhere.

The following distinguished individuals died in the month of April :— Oliver Goldsmith, April 4, 1774; Francis Bacon, April 9, 1626; George Frederick Handel, April 13, 1759; Benjamin Franklin, April 17, 1790; Miguel de Cervantes, April 23, 1616; William Shakspeare, April 23, 1616; William Cowper, April 25, 1800.

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"There are sweet scents about us; the violet hides
On that green bank; the primrose sparkles there :
The earth is grateful to the teeming clouds,
And yields a sudden freshness to their kisses."
"The first blossoms peep about our path,
The lambs are nibbling the short dripping grass,
And the birds are on the bushes."

WHERE the fell tyrant, Winter, so
lately held his reign, we now behold
rising beauty and tranquil peace, for
Spring has again returned. The month
of April is proverbial for its fickleness;
for its intermingling showers and flit-
ting gleams of sunshine; for all spe-
cies of weather in one day; for a
wild mixture of clear and cloudy
skies, greenness and nakedness, flying
hail, and abounding blossoms. But,
to the lover of nature, it is not the
less characterized by the spirit of ex-
pectation with which it embues the
mind. We are irresistibly led to look
forward; to anticipate, with a delight-
ful enthusiasm, the progress of the
season. It is one of the excellent
laws of Providence, that our minds
shall be insensibly moulded to a sym-
pathy with that season which is pass-
ing, and become deprived, in a certain
degree, of the power of recalling the
images of those which are gone by;
whence we reap the double advantage
of not being disgusted with the dead-
ness of the wintry landscape from a
comparison with the hilarity of spring;
and when spring itself appears, it
comes with a freshness of beauty
which charms us, at once, with novel-
ty, and a recognition of old delights.
Symptoms of spring now crowd thick-
6 ATHENEUM, VOL. 2, 3d series.

ly upon us.

However regular may

be our walks, we are daily surprised at the rapid march of vegetation; at the sudden increase of freshness, greenness and beauty: one old friend after another starts up before us in the shape of a flower. The violets, which came out in March in little delicate groups, now spread in myriads along the hedge-rows, and fill secluded lanes with fragrance.

April is, indeed, the moist and budding month, nourished with alternate rains and sunshine. Nature after the less unequivocal rigor of winter, seems to take delight in rendering herself more evident in this operation than in any other. Winter rains and summer suns may appear to the superficial observer to bring him nothing but cold and heat; but the watering the vegetation with light showers, then warming it, and then watering it again, seem to show to our very eyes her own sweet hand," divested of its "cunning." She dresses her plants visibly, like a lady at her window.

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This is truly the spring and youthfulness of the year. March was like an honest blustering servant, bringing home buds and flowers for his young mistress. April is she herself, issuing forth adorned with them.

The blossom of fruit-trees presents a splendid scene in the early part of the month, gardens and orchards being covered with a snowy profusion of plum-bloom; and the blackthorn and wild plum wreathe their sprays with such pure and clustering flowers, that they gleam in hedges and the shadowy depths of woods, as if their boughs radiated with sunshine. In the latter part of the month, the sweet and blushing blossoms of apples, and of the wilding, fill up the succession, harmonizing delightfully with the tender green of the expanding leaves, and continuing through part of May, recalling early recollections, and delightful thoughts of our "youthful days."

The fields and meadows, which a few weeks since were uninviting and desolate, are now all covered with a charming verdure of various hues, among which, however, the green, so refreshing to the eye after the sombre

tints of winter, mostly predominates. And now how truly delightful is the appearance of the little flower-garden. The crocus, the daisy, the polyanthus, and the dark violet, all rivalling each other in beauty, now excite our utmost attention; while the tulip, the hyacinth, and the carnation, scent the air with their sweetness.

All is harmony and joy, for the cheering rays of the sun have retur to gild the produce of the earth, to make merry the heart of every 1 ing thing. The feathered songster the grove are now busily employec collecting together materials for th little nests, and in providing food their young ones. In the plough field the rustic sower is engaged depositing the seed in the grou leaving to heaven the glorious task of completing the work :

"Laborious man

Has done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow!
Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend!
And temper all, thou world-reviving Sun."

FIRST AND LAST.

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the same moment. Happy would it be for us, sometimes, if we couldif we could behold the end of a course of action as certainly as we do the beginning: but oftener, far oftener, would it be our curse and torment, unless with the foresight or foreknowledge, we had the power to avert the end.

TAKE down from your shelves, gentle or be it short, no man sees at one and reader, your folio edition of Johnson's Dictionary, or, if you possess Todd's edition of Johnson, take down his four ponderous quartos, turn over every leaf; read every word from A to Z; and then confess, that, in the whole vocabulary, there are not any two words which awaken in your heart such a crowd of mixed and directly opposite emotions as the two which now stare you in the faceFIRST and LAST! In the abstract, they embrace the whole round of our existence in the detail, all its brightest hopes, its noblest enjoyments, and its most cherished recollections; all its loftiest enterprises, and all its smiles and tears; its pangs of guilt, its virtuous principles, its trials, its sorrows, and its rewards. They give you the dawn and the close of life; the beginning and the end of its countless busy scenes. They are the two extremities of a path, which, be it long,

But let me not anticipate my own intentions, which are to pourtray, in some eight or ten sketches, the links that hold together the first and last of the most momentous periods and undertakings of our lives; to trace the dawn, progress, and decline of many of the best feelings and motives of our nature; to touch, with a pensive coloring, the contrasts they present; to stimulate honorable enterprises by the examples they furnish; and to amuse by the form in which the truths they supply are embodied. I shall begin with a subject,

not exactly falling within the legitimate scope of my design; but it will

serve as an appropriate introduction; and I shall call it

THE FIRST AND LAST DINNER.

Twelve friends, much about the same age, and fixed, by their pursuits, their family connexions, and other local interests, as permanent inhabitants of the metropolis, agreed, one day when they were drinking their wine at the Star and Garter at Richmond, to institute an annual dinner among themselves, under the following regulations: That they should dine alternately at each other's houses on the first and last day of the year; that the first bottle of wine uncorked at the first dinner should be recorked and put away, to be drunk by him who should be the last of their number; that they should never admit a new member; that, when one died, eleven should meet, and when another died, ten should meet, and so on; and that, when only one remained, he should, on those two days, dine by himself, and sit the usual hours at his solitary table; but the first time he so dined alone, lest it should be the only one, he should then uncork the first bottle, and, in the first glass, drink to the memory of all who were gone.

There was something original and whimsical in the idea, and it was eagerly embraced. They were all in the prime of life, closely attached by reciprocal friendship, fond of social enjoyments, and looked forward to their future meetings with unalloyed anticipations of pleasure. The only thought, indeed, that could have darkened those anticipations was one not very likely to intrude itself at this moment, that of the hapless wight who was destined to uncork the first bottle at his lonely repast.

It was high summer when this frolic compact was entered into; and as their pleasure-yacht skimmed along the dark bosom of the Thames, on their return to London, they talked of nothing but their first and last feasts of ensuing years. Their imaginations ran riot with a thousand gay

predictions of festive merriment. They wantoned in conjectures of what changes time would operate; joked each other upon their appearance, when they should meet,—some hobbling upon crutches after a severe fit of the gout,-others poking about with purblind eyes, which even spectacles could hardly enable to distinguish the alderman's walk in a haunch of venison-some with portly round bellies and tidy little brown wigs, and others decently dressed out in a new suit of mourning for the death of a great-granddaughter or a great-greatgrandson. Palsies, wrinkles, toothless gums, stiff hams, and poker knees, were bandied about in sallies of exuberant mirth, and appropriated, first to one and then to another, as a group of merry children would have distributed golden palaces, flying chariots, diamond tables, and chairs of solid pearl, under the fancied possession of a magician's wand, which could transform plain brick, and timber, and humble mahogany, into such costly trea

sures.

"As for you, George," exclaimed one of the twelve, addressing his brother-in-law, "I expect I shall see you as dry, withered, and shrunken as an old eel-skin, you mere outside of a

man !" and he accompanied the words with a hearty slap on the shoulder.

George Fortescue was leaning carelessly over the side of the yacht, laughing the loudest of any at the conversation which had been carried on.

The sudden manual salutation of his brother-in-law threw him off his balance, and in a moment he was overboard. They heard the heavy splash of his fall, before they could be said to have seen him fall. The yacht was proceeding swiftly along; but it was instantly stopped.

The utmost consternation now prevailed. It was nearly dark, but For

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