ping.

Affection brings her wreath of willow,
And fondly decks the funeral stone,
The cold, damp earth she makes her pillow,
And only hears the night-wind's moan.

And hoary age, hath laid him down,
With the weary weight of years upon him!
And youth, in his spring morning flown,
Ere life's cold hues had shadow'd on him.

Beauty, hath joined the assembly here,
With marble brow, and close-shut eye,
And pallid lip,--while o'er her bier,
The dirge was chanted mournfully.

And roses bloom on many a grave,
With lilies fair, and violets blue,
And willows their green branches wave,
Shedding pale evening's tears of dew.

Round many a tomb _that_ flow'ret springs,
"Forget me not"--the tale it tells,
Vainly the fond appeal it brings
To Death's domain, where silence dwells!

Long years, "with all their deeds," may roll,
Ere the cold clay, its cell forsaking,
Shall join the disembodied soul,
When the last morning's dawn is breaking!

_Kirton Lindsey._ ANNE R.

* * * * *

THE WRITINGS OF BURKE.

(_For the Mirror._)

Of all the great men of his age, there were few who attained to the
celebrity of Edmund Burke; there were many, however, who deserved it
more and whom a more adverse fortune compelled to languish in
comparative obscurity. That Burke was a man of wonderful talent it would
be in vain to deny, and indeed such denial would be only a proof of our
own ignorance and bad taste; but his strength was that of imagination
merely,--his genius was not sufficiently counterbalanced by judgment,
and he has been at all times ranked as an elegant rather than a nervous
writer. In his oratory, as well us his literary composition, he was too
much addicted to a florid phraseology, and his hearers, during his
lifetime, as well as his readers now, were often driven to consider his
meaning, and not unfrequently to make one out for themselves. This style
of declamation has been not unaptly called "splendid nonsense," and it
was after a display of this sort from Burke, that one of his audience
made this pithy exclamation: "It is all very well, but I should like to
hear it over again, that I might consider the _sense_." Burke also dealt
in paradoxes occasionally; in short, he will seldom satisfy a careful
reader, and his most ardent admirers have been known to confess
themselves rather pleased than edified b