For a bolder and a sterner man Some ghastly news must bring, And their sons were with the king. And up then rose the provost : A brave old man was he, Of ancient name and knightly fame Oh, woeful now was the old man's look, Right bitter was the agony From the bravest of the land! Ay! ye may look upon it : It was guarded well and long As the archers laid them low, With their faces to the foe. "Ay! ye may well look upon it: There is more than honor there, Else be sure I had not brought it From the field of dark despair. JAMES AND HORACE SMITH. TAM in 1839; his brother Horace was born in 1779, and died in 1849. On the rebuilding of the Drury Lane Theatre, in London, in 1812, the gifted brothers conceived the idea of composing a set of "Rejected Addresses," purporting to have been written for the opening night by the principal poets of the day. The work was issued anonymously, and met with great success, from the verisimilitude of the parodies. Among them that of Wordsworth, here presented, was declared by the critic Jeffrey to be a flattering imitation of the poet's style in the Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth succeeded in discomfit ing his enemies, and rose to greater heights of poetry. Many of the abused ballads also became very popular. WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN. GIFTED Scotch poet, one of his finest poetical productions is "Edinburgh after Flodden," describing the reception of the news of that disastrous battle, which was fought in 1513, and in which the Scotch king, James IV., was killed. Professor Aytoun was born in the year At the 1813, and died August 4, 1865. time of his death he was professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres in the University of Edinburgh, which position he had held for twenty years. WHO ARE THE BLEST? WHO are the blest? THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. HAT very singular man old Dr. Heidegger once invited four venerable friends to meet him in his study. There were three white-bearded gentlemenMr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew and Mr. Gascoigne and a withered gentlewoman whose name was the Widow Wycherly. They were all melancholy old creatures who had been unfortunate in life, and whose greatest misfortune it was that they were not long ago in their graves. Mr. Medbourne, in the vigor of his age, had been a prosperous merchant, but had lost his all by a frantic speculation and was now little better than a mendicant. Colonel Killigrew had wasted his best years, and his health and substance, in the pursuit of sinful pleasures which had given birth to a brood of pains, such as the gout and divers other torments of soul and body. Mr. Gascoigne was a ruined politician, a man of evil fame, or at least had been so till time had buried him from the knowledge of the present generation and made him obscure instead of infamous. As for the Widow Wycherly, tradition tells us that she was a great beauty in her day; but for a long while past she had lived in deep seclusion on account of certain scandalous stories which had prejudiced the gentry of the town against her. It is a circumstance worth mentioning that all these three old gentlemen-Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew and Mr. Gascoigne were | early lovers of the Widow Wycherly, and had once been on the point of cutting each other's throats for her sake. And before proceeding farther I will merely hint that Dr. Heidegger and all his four guests were sometimes thought to be a little beside themselves, as is not unfrequently the case with old people when worried either by present troubles or woeful recollections. "My dear old friends," said Dr. Heidegger, motioning them to be seated, "I am desirous of your assistance in one of those little experiments with which I amuse myself here in my study." If all stories were true, Dr. Heidegger's study must have been a very curious place. It was a dim, old-fashioned chamber festooned with cobwebs and besprinkled with antique dust. Around the walls stood several oaken bookcases, the lower shelves of which were filled with rows of gigantic folios and black-leather quartos, and the upper with little parchment duodecimos. Over the central bookcase was a bronze bust of Hippocrates, with which, according to some authorities, Dr. Heidegger was accustomed to hold consultations in all difficult cases of his practice. In the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and narrow oaken closet with its door ajar, within which doubtfully appeared a skeleton. Between two of the bookcases hung a looking-glass, presenting its high and dusty plate within a tarnished gilt frame. Among many wonderful stories related of this mirror, it was fabled that the ment?" Now, Dr. Heidegger was a very strange old gentleman whose eccentricity had become the nucleus for a thousand fantastic stories. Some of these fables-to my shame be it spokenmight possibly be traced back to mine own veracious self; and if any passages of the present tale should startle the reader's faith, I must be content to bear the stigma of a fiction-monger. spirits of all the doctor's deceased patients | performing an exceedingly curious experidwelt within its verge and could stare him in the face whenever he looked thitherward. The opposite side of the chamber was ornamented with the full-length portrait of a young lady arrayed in the faded magnificence of silk, satin and brocade, and with a visage as faded as her dress. Above half a century ago Dr. Heidegger had been on the point of marriage with this young lady; but, being affected with some slight disorder, she had swallowed one of her lover's prescriptions and died on the bridal evening. The greatest curiosity of the study remains to be mentioned: it was a ponderous folio volume bound in black leather, with massive silver clasps. There were no letters on the back, and nobody could tell the title of the book. But it was well known to be a book of magic; and once, when a chambermaid had lifted it merely to brush away the dust, the skeleton had rattled in its closet, the picture of the young lady had stepped one foot upon the floor and several ghastly faces had peeped forth from the mirror; while the brazen head of Hippocrates frowned and said, "Forbear!" Dr. Heidegger's study. Such was On the summer afternoon of our tale a small round table as black as ebony stood in the centre of the room, sustaining a cutglass vase of beautiful form and elaborate workmanship. The sunshine came through the window between the heavy festoons of two faded damask curtains and fell directly across this vase; so that a wild splendor was reflected from it on the ashen visages of the five old people who sat around. Four champagne-glasses were also on the table. "My dear old friends," repeated Dr. Heidegger, "may I reckon on your aid in When the doctor's four guests heard him talk of his proposed experiment, they anticipated nothing more wonderful than the murder of a mouse in an air-pump or the examination of a cobweb by the microscope, or some similar nonsense, with which he was constantly in the habit of pestering his intimates; but without waiting for a reply Dr. Heidegger hobbled across the chamber and returned with the same ponderous folio bound in black leather which common report affirmed to be a book of magic. Undoing the silver clasps, he opened the volume and took from among its black-letter pages a rose, or what was once a rose, though now the green leaves and crimson petals had assumed one brownish hue, and the ancient flower seemed ready to crumble to dust in the doctor's hands. "This rose," said Dr. Heidegger, with a sigh-"this same withered and crumbling flower-blossomed five-and-fifty years ago. It was given me by Sylvia Ward, whose portrait hangs yonder, and I meant to wear it in my bosom at our wedding. Five-andfifty years it has been treasured between the leaves of this old volume. Now, would you deem it possible that this rose of half a century could ever bloom again?" "Nonsense!" said the Widow Wycherly, with a peevish toss of her head. might as well ask whether an old woman's wrinkled face could ever bloom again." "See!" answered Dr. Heidegger. "You water. An acquaintance of mine, knowing my curiosity in such matters, has sent me what you see in the vase.' He uncovered the vase and threw the faded rose into the water which it contained. At first it lay lightly on the surface of the fluid, appearing to imbibe none of its moisture. Soon, however, a singular change began to be visible. The crushed and dried petals stirred and assumed a deepening tinge of crimson, as if the flower were reviving from a death-like slumber; the slender stalks and twigs of foliage became green; and there was the rose of half a century looking as fresh as when Sylvia Ward had first given it to her lover. It was scarcely full-blown, for some of its delicate red leaves curled modestly around its moist bosom, within which two or three dewdrops were sparkling. "That is certainly a very pretty deception," said the doctor's friends-carelessly, however, for they had witnessed greater miracles at a conjurer's show. "Pray, how was it effected?" "Did you never hear of the Fountain of Youth," asked Dr. Heidegger, "which Ponce de Leon, the Spanish adventurer, went in search of two or three centuries ago?" "Ahem!" said Colonel Killigrew, who believed not a word of the doctor's story. "And what may be the effect of this fluid on the human frame?" "You shall judge for yourself, my dear colonel," replied Dr. Heidegger; "and all of you, my respected friends, are welcome to so much of this admirable fluid as may restore to you the bloom of youth. For my own part, having had much trouble in growing old, I am in no hurry to grow young again. With your permission, therefore, I will merely watch the progress of the experiment." While he spoke Dr. Heidegger had been filling the four champagne-glasses with the water of the Fountain of Youth. It was apparently impregnated with an effervescent gas, for little bubbles were continually ascending from the depths of the glasses and bursting in silvery spray at the surface. As the liquor diffused a pleasant perfume, the old people doubted not that it possessed cordial and comfortable properties; and, though utter sceptics as to its rejuvenescent power, they were inclined to swallow it at once. But Dr. Heidegger besought them to stay "But did Ponce de Leon ever find it?" said a moment. the Widow Wycherly. "No," answered Dr. Heidegger, "for he never sought it in the right place. The famous Fountain of Youth, if I am rightly informed, is situated in the southern part of the Floridian peninsula, not far from Lake Macaco. Its source is overshadowed by several gigantic magnolias, which, though numberless centuries old, have been kept as fresh as violets by the virtues of this wonderful "Before you drink, my respectable old friends," said he, "it would be well that, with the experience of a lifetime to direct you, you should draw up a few general rules for your guidance in passing a second time through the perils of youth. Think what a sin and shame it would be if, with your peculiar advantages, you should not become patterns of virtue and wisdom to all the young people of the age!" |