and by the act of suicide renounces earth to forfeit heaven." Colton published several poems, of which we give the best. His "Modern Antiquity, and other Lyrical Pieces," appeared after his death.

LIFE.

How long shall man's imprisoned spirit groan "Twixt doubt of heaven and deep disgust of earth? Where all worth knowing never can be known,

And all that can be known, alas! is nothing worth.

Untaught by saint, by cynic, or by sage,

And all the spoils of time that load their shelves, We do not quit, but change our joys in ageJoys framed to stifle thought, and lead us from ourselves.

The drug, the cord, the steel, the flood, the flame, Turmoil of action, tedium of rest,

And lust of change, though for the worst, proclaim How dull life's banquet is-how ill at ease the guest.

Known were the bill of fare before we taste,

Who would not spurn the banquet and the boardPrefer the eternal but oblivious fast

To life's frail-fretted thread, and death's suspended sword?

He that the topmost stone of Babel planned,

And he that braved the crater's boiling bed— Did these a clearer, closer view command

Of heaven or hell, we ask, than the blind herd they led?

Or he that in Valdarno did prolong

The night her rich star-studded page to readCould he point out, 'mid all that brilliant throng, His fixed and final home, from fleshy thraldom freed?

Minds that have scanned creation's vast domain, And secrets solved, till then to sages sealed, While nature owned their intellectual reign Extinct, have nothing known or nothing have revealed.

Devouring grave! we might the less deplore

The extinguished lights that in thy darkness dwell, Wouldst thou, from that last zodiac, one restore, That might the enigma solve, and doubt, man's tyrant, quell.

To live in darkness-in despair to die--

Is this, indeed, the boon to mortals given? Is there no port-no rock of refuge nigh? There is to those who fix their anchor-hope in heaven.

Turn then, O man! and cast all else aside;
Direct thy wandering thoughts to things above:
Low at the cross bow down-in that confide,
Till doubt be lost in faith, and bliss secured in love.

Horace Smith.

Horace Smith (1779-1849), a native of London, and son of an eminent lawyer, was a more voluminous writer than his brother James. He was the author of "Brambletye House," and some dozen other novelsno one of marked merit. As a poet, he was more successful. His "Address to the Mummy," "Hymn to the Flowers," and some smaller poems, have attained a merited celebrity. Shelley once said of Horace Smith: "Is it not odd that the only truly generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stock-broker?" Shelley also wrote these lines, more truthful than poetical, in his praise:

SONNET.

Eternal and Omnipotent Unseen!

Who bad'st the world, with all its lives complete,
Start from the void and thrill beneath thy feet,
Thee I adore with reverence serene:

Here in the fields, thine own cathedral meet,
Built by thyself, star-roofed, and hung with green,
Wherein all breathing things, in concord sweet,
Organed by winds, perpetual hymns repeat-
Here hast thou spread that Book to every eye,
Whose tongue and truth all, all may read and
prove,

On whose three blesséd leaves, Earth, Ocean, Sky, Thine own right hand hath stamped might, justice, love:

Grand Trinity, which binds in due degree
God, man, and brute in social unity.

The vivifying spell has been felt beneath the wave,

By the dormouse in its cell, and the mole within its cave;

And the summer tribes that creep, or in air expand their wing

Have started from their sleep at the summous of the spring.

The cattle lift their voices from the valleys and the hills,

And the feathered race rejoices with a gush of tuneful bills;

And if this cloudless arch fill the poet's song with

glee,

Oh thou sunny First of March, be it dedicate to thee!

Is commissioned to remark whether Winter holds

his sway:

Go back, thou dove of peace, with the myrtle on thy wing;

Say that floods and tempests cease, and the world is ripe for spring.

Thou hast fanned the sleeping Earth till her dreams

are all of flowers,

swingeth,

And tolls its perfume on the passing air, Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth A call for prayer!

Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column
Attest the feebleness of mortal hand;
But to that fane, most catholic and solemn,
Which God hath planned;

ing bowers;

The forest seems to listen for the rustle of its leaves, And the very skies to glisten in the hope of sum

mer eves.

Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply-

Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder,

Its dome the sky!

There, as in solitude and shade I wander

Through the green aisles, or stretched upon the sod, Awed by the silence, reverently ponder

The ways of God

Your voiceless lips, O flowers, are living preachers,
Each cup a pulpit, and each leaf a book,
Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers
From loneliest nook.

Floral apostles! that in dewy splendor

"Weep without woe, and blush without a crime," Oh, may I deeply learn and ne'er surrender Your lore sublime!

"Thou wert not, Solomon, in all thy glory, Arrayed," the lilies cry, "in robes like ours: How vain your grandeur! ah, how transitory Are human flowers!"

In the sweet-scented pictures, Heavenly Artist! With which thou paintest Nature's wide-spread hall,

What a delightful lesson thou impartest
Of love to all!

Not useless are ye, flowers, though made for pleasure, Blooming o'er field and wave, by day and night; From every source your sanction bids me treasure Harmless delight!

Ephemeral sages! what instructors hoary

For such a world of thought could furnish scope? Each fading calyx a memento mori,

Yet fount of hope!

Posthumous glories! angel-like collection! Upraised from seed or bulb interred in earth, Ye are to me a type of resurrection

And second birth.

Were I, O God! in churchless lands remaining, Far from all voice of teachers and divines, My soul would find, in flowers of thy ordaining, Priests, sermons, shrines!

Paul Moon James.

James (1780-1854), who owes his fame to one brief lyric, which has been often claimed for Moore, was for many years a banker in Birmingham, England. "Though quite a man of business," writes his niece, Miss Lloyd

(1878), "my uncle never allowed it to interfere with his domestic engagements. In the early morning his garden, conservatory, and pet birds, and in the evening reading and drawing, were among the pleasant resources of his leisure hours." His earliest poems were published in 1798; "The Beacon" in 1810.

THE BEACON.

The scene was more beautiful, far, to the eye,
Than if day in its pride had arrayed it:
The land-breeze blew mild, and the azure-arched sky
Looked pure as the spirit that made it.

The murmur rose soft, as I silently gazed

On the shadowy waves' playful motion, From the dim, distant isle, till the light-house fire blazed

Like a star in the midst of the ocean.

No longer the joy of the sailor-boy's breast
Was heard in his wildly-breathed numbers;
The sea-bird had flown to her wave-girdled nest,
The fisherman sunk to his slumbers.
One moment I looked from the hill's gentle slope,
All hushed was the billows' commotion;

And o'er them the light-house looked lovely as hope,―

That star of life's tremulous ocean.

The time is long past, and the scene is afar,
Yet, when my head rests on its pillow,
Will memory sometimes rekindle the star

That blazed on the breast of the billow:

In life's closing hour, when the trembling soul flies,
And death stills the heart's last emotion,
Oh, then may the seraph of Mercy arise,
Like a star on eternity's ocean!

William Dimond.

Dimond was born about the year 1780, at Bath, England, where his father was a patentee of the Theatre Royal. William had a good education, and was entered a student of the Inner Temple, with a view to the Bar. He wrote dramas, of which "The Foundling of the Forest" (1809) seems to have been the last. He published, besides, a volume entitled "Petrarchal Sonnets." His poem of "The Mariner's Dream" is the only one of his productions that seems to be held in remembrance. Ile was living in 1812, but is believed to have died soon after. Among his pieces for the stage are "A Sea-side Story," an operatic drama (1801); "The Hero of the North," an historical play (1803); "The Hunter of the Alps" (1804); "Youth, Love, and Folly," a comic opera (1805); "The Young Hussar," an operatic piece (1807).