I saw thee SMILE; the sapphire's blaze It could not match the living rays That filled that glance of thine." Thus sung LORD BYRON in his Hebrew Melodies; and such a passage leads us the more to lament that he who sung them was at last fated to confess, "That if he laughed at any living thing, Some writers insist that man is the only animal that weeps. Others have supposed that seals, the camel, the small American monkey, doves, deer, and giraffes shed tears; the two latter being furnished with two spiracula, analogous to the puncta lachrymalia in the human head. It would have been fortunate for animals if they could weep like men; for then, perhaps, we should pity them more, and use them better. Pliny calls man a weeping animal; and Pope argues that compassion is exclusively the property of man. This, however, may perhaps one day be questioned. Tears are very eloquent. When the King of Prussia and the Emperor Alexander met after the disasters of the French at Moscow, the king wept. "Courage, my brother," exclaimed the emperor, "these are the last tears Napoleon shall cause you to shed." Even HENRY VIII. was not entirely insensible. When, therefore, he read QUEEN CATHARINE's last letter, in which she said, "I make this vow, that my heart desire you above all things," the savage melted into tears; and the DUKE of NORFOLK exhibited a similar feeling when, as lord-high-steward, he passed sentence upon BUCKINGHAM. NAPOLEON gave way occasionally to sorrow. When on his way, therefore, to St. Helena, he was sometimes seen by CAPTAIN MAITLAND totally absorbed in grief; and once, when gazing on a portrait of his son, the tears stood in his eyes. When the lord-high-steward told the EARL of STRAFFORD, Who was condemned in 1641, that the lords designed to petition the king to remit the more ignominious part of his sentence, STRAFFORD burst into tears, and exclaimed, "My lords, your justice does not make me do this, but your goodness." Many men weep at unexpected relaxations of fortune, who would not, and could not, have wept had they been led to execution. Nothing is more subduing to our nature than the ingratitude of children; and Shakspeare has represented its effect with sublime precision: "You see me here, ye gods, a poor old man, JAMES II. bore all the instances of defection which his imprudent counsels had entailed upon him, with a resolution allied to fortitude; but when he heard that his own daughter (the PRINCESS ANNE) had joined the party of his adversary, he burst into tears, and exclaimed, "God help me! my own children have forsaken me." COLUMBUS, when overwhelmed by the violence and ingratitude of men, would retire to his cabin, burst into tears of sorrow, and relieve his heart by sighs and groans; and when, after years of suffering, he was admitted to the presence of his sovereign, his long-suppressed feelings, we are told by an elegant and accomplished historian,* burst forth: "he threw * Irving, vol. iii., 137. himself upon his knees, and for some time was unable to utter a word for the violence of his tears and sobbings." When HOWARD, the philanthropist, remonstrated with the lord-provost of Edinburgh on the impropriety of the prisoners having no clergyman to attend them, the lord-provost replied to his exhortations and remonstrances, that all attempts to reclaim them would have no effect. "So far from being so," answered Mr. Howard, "I do assure your lordship that, after conversing with them for a few minutes, I saw tears in their eyes." MESSIER wept when, after having watched for the return of Halley's comet for many months, and being obliged to withdraw from the observatory on account of the illness and death of his wife, the discovery was anticipated by Montagne de Limoges. His were tears of disappointment: HANDEL's were those arising from the pathos of his art. "I have heard it related," says Shield, "that when Handel's servant used to take him his chocolate of a morning, he has often stood in silent astonishment till it was cold, to see his master's tears mixing with the ink as he penned his divine notes, which are surely as much the picture of a sublime mind as Milton's words." BALZAC says of M. DE SCUDERY, that he moved the passions of the mind so strongly that he frequently shed tears in reading him, and that, too, in spite of himself. There must be, also, something very affecting in DE THOU's dedication of his history to HENRY the FOURTH, since LORD MANSFIELD read it every year, and never without shedding tears at many of the passages. Johnson, too, could shed tears of sympathy; and so alive was he (sometimes) to poetic beauty, that tears came into his eyes when he first read Beattie's stanza, beginning with C c “”Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more.” The tears of children and of old men are beautifully characterized by Des Cartes: "Old men often weep from affection and for joy: children rarely from delight, though often from sadness, even when unaccompanied by love." Deep grief is never clamorous: the man of sorrows, therefore, is sacred; and that we ought to be susceptible of sympathizing with him is implied by Nature having endued us with tears.* "The glandula lachrymales," says WOLLASTON, “are not given for nothing." But some griefs are too profound for tears. The friend we have lost has gained by the change : we only have been the losers. Who would desire to outlive the last of his friends? To fear death is characteristic of knowledge as well as of ignorance: the one from the abundance of our information, the other from the abundance of our ignorance. There is, however, a difference in the result. Ignorance always fears: the fear arising from knowledge is often converted into a desire for repose. After faith in the ultimate justice of Heaven, the best resource in affliction is activity: sorrow grows too luxuriantly in solitude. Those whom "The modest wants of every day seem to mourn over the loss of parents or children only for a short time. The cause, perhaps, arises out of the reflection that a change for those they have lost must necessarily be for the better. The measure of grief is different in different persons. This measure never can be stated, because the depths of the heart cannot be sounded. The period of grief for some is but an hour; for others, * "Compassion proper to mankind appears, a day, a week, a year, or a longer period, according to the intensity or durability of each one's emotions and passions. Men of the world grieve for no one, except some portion of interest is lost; and then they grieve for the interest, and not for the person. PLEASURE AND PAIN. AN excellent work might be written on the illusions of youth, the perturbations of manhood, and the recollections, wishes, and anticipations of age; and this reminds me of MICHAEL ANGELO's design of the old man in a go-cart. He has a long beard, and wears the cap of a woman, over which is a hat. With one hand he rests himself; the other is on the bottom of an hourglass; the motto of the whole being "Anchora imparo." The pleasures of youth have exaggerated existences in the poetry of most men's imagination; but they want many advantages belonging to manhood, for manhood does not anticipate with so ardent an intensity, nor does it brood so deeply as in age. We are fated, however, to know that in no season of life do the passions cease to operate for many days together; and in the midst of this—so uncertain are all things we are frequently doomed to find that it matters little "Whether we put into the world's vast sea, If the old can justly reproach the young with being slaves to pleasure and a love of novelty, the young can, with still greater propriety, accuse the old of being martyrs to custom and avarice, of vainly regretting the past, and dreading the future. If it be melancholy to see the bloom and tenderness of youth, and the energy and vigour of man |