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THE CON NOU LOT.

ONCE in the flight of ages past,

There lived a man! and who was he?

Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast,
That man resembled thee.

Unknown the region of his birth,
The land in which he died unknown:
His name has perished from the earth,
This truth survives alone!

That joy, and grief, and hope, and fear,
Alternate triumphed in his breast;
His bless and woe-a smile, a tear!
Oblivion hides the rest.

The bounding pulse, the languid limb, The changing spirits' rise and fall; We know that these were felt by him, For these are felt by all.

He suffered—but his pangs are o'er;

Enjoyed-but his delights are fled; Had friends his friends are now no more, And foes-his foes are dead.

He loved-but whom he loved the grave
Hath lost in its unconscious womb:
O, she was fair! but nought could save
Her beauty from the tomb.

He saw whatever thou hast seen;
Encountered all that troubles thee;
He was whatever thou hast been;
He is what thou shalt be.

The rolling seasons, day and night,

Sun, moon, and stars, the earth and main,

Erewhile his portion, life and light,

To him exist in vain.

The clouds and sunbeams o'er his eye That once their shades and glory threw,

Have left in yonder silent sky

No vestige where they flew.

The annals of the human race,

Their ruins, since the world began,

Of him afford no other trace

Than this-there lived a man.

AVD

LOVE OF CO ULTRY AND HOWE.

THERE is a land, of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside;
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons emparadise the night;-
There is a spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest,
Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride,
While in his softened looks benignly blend
The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend;-
"Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?"
Art thou a man?-a patriot ?-look around!
O, thou shalt find, howe'er, thy footsteps roam,
That land thy country, and that spot thy home!
On Greenland's rocks, o'er rude Kamschatka's plains,
In pale Siberia's desolate domains;

When the wild hunter takes his lonely way,
Tracks through tempestuous snows his savage prey,
Or, wrestling with the might of raging seas,
Where round the Pole the eternal billows freeze,
Plucks from their jaws the stricken whale, in vain
Plunging down headlong through the whirling main,

His wastes of snow are lovelier in his eye
Than all the flowery vales beneath the sky;
And dearer far than Cæsar's palace-dome,
His cavern-shelter, and his cottage-home.
O'er China's garden-fields and peopled floods,
In California's pathless world of woods;
Round Andes' heights, where Winter, from his throne,
Looks down in scorn upon the summer zone;
By the gay borders of Bermuda's isles,
Where Spring with everlasting verdure smiles;
On pure Madeira's vine-robed hills of health;
In Java's swamps of pestilence and wealth;
Where Babel stood, where wolves and jackals drink,
'Midst weeping willows, on Euphrates' brink;
On Carmel's crest; by Jordan's reverend stream,
Where Canaan's glories vanished like a dream;
Where Greece, a spectre, haunts her heroes' graves,
And Rome's vast ruins darken Tiber's waves;
Where broken-hearted Switzerland bewails
Her subject mountains and dishonored vales;
Where Albion's rocks exult amid the sea,
Around the beauteous isle of Liberty;-
Man, through all ages of revolving time,
Unchanging man, in every varying clime,
Deems his own land of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside;
His home the spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.

JOHN WILSON.

PROFESSOR WILSON, so long the distinguished occupant of the chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, earned his first laurels by his poetry.

He was born in the year 1788, in the town of Paisley, where his father carried on business and attained to opulence as a manufacturer. At thirteen he entered Glasgow University, from which in due time he was transferred to Magdalene College, Oxford. A notable capacity for knowledge and remarkable literary powers were at the same time united to a singular taste for Gymnastic exercises and rural sports. After four years' residence at Oxford, the poet purchased a small but beautiful estate on the banks of Lake Windermere. He married-built a house and a yacht-enjoyed himself among the magnificent scenery of the lakes-wrote poetry-and cultivated the society of Wordsworth. These must have been happy days. With youth, robust health, fortune, and an exhaustless imagination, Wilson must, in such a spot, have been blest even up to the dreams of a poet. Some reverses, however, came, and, after entering himself of the Scottish bar, he sought and obtained his Moral Philosophy chair.

He connected himself with Blackwood's Magazine, and in this miscellany poured forth the riches of his fancy, learning, and taste. The poetical works of Wilson have been collected in two volumes. They consist of the "Isle of Palms," "City of the Plague," and several smaller pieces.

His prose works have been more popular than his poems. "The Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," a collection of beautiful stories

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