o.

But though first love's impassioned blindness
Has passed away in colder light,
I still have thought of you with kindness,
And shall do, till our last good-night.
The ever-rolling silent hours
Will bring a time we shall not know,
When our young days of gathering flowers
Will be an hundred years ago.

_Miss Ilex._ That is a melancholy song. But of how many first loves is
it the true tale! And how many are far less happy!

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ It is simple, and well sung, with a distinctness
of articulation not often heard.

_Miss Ilex._ That young lady's voice is a perfect contralto. It is
singularly beautiful, and I applaud her for keeping within her natural
compass, and not destroying her voice by forcing it upwards, as too many
do.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Forcing, forcing seems to be the rule of life. A
young lady who forces her voice into _altissimo_, and a young gentleman
who forces his mind into a receptacle for a chaos of crudities, are
pretty much on a par. Both do ill, where, if they were contented with
attainments within the limits of natural taste and natural capacity,
they might both do well. As to the poor young men, many of them become
mere crammed fowls, with the same result as Hermogenes, who, after
astonishing the world with his attainments at seventeen, came to a
sudden end at the age of twenty-five, and spent the rest of a long life
in hopeless imbecility.

_Miss Ilex._ The poor young men can scarcely help themselves. They are
not held qualified for a profession unless they have overloaded their
understanding with things of no use in it; incongruous things too, which
could never be combined into the pursuits of natural taste.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Very true. Brindley would not have passed as a
canal-maker, nor Edward Williams{1} as a bridge-builder. I saw the
other day some examination papers which would have infallibly excluded
Marlborough from the army and Nelson from the navy. I doubt if Haydn
would have passed as a composer before a committee of lords like one of
his pupils, who insisted on demonstrating to him that he was continually
sinning against the rules of counterpoint; on which Haydn said to him,
'I thought I was to teach you, but it seems you are to teach me, and
I do not want a preceptor,' and thereon he wished his lordship a
good-morning. Fancy Watt being asked how much Joan of Naples got