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SWIFTNESS OF TIME.

The heavens on high perpetually do move;
By minutes meal the hour doth steal away,
By hours the days, by days the months remove,
And then by months the years as fast decay;
Yea, Virgil's verse and Tully's truth do say,
That Time flieth, and never claps her wings;
But rides on clouds, and forward still she flings.

Gascoigne.

THE FRAGILITY OF INFANT LIFE.

There are sicknesses that walk in darkness, and there are exterminating angels, that fly wrapped up in the curtains of immateriality and an uncommunicating nature; whom we cannot see, but we feel their force, and sink under their sword, and from heaven the veil descends that wraps our heads in the fatal sentence. There is no age of man but it hath proper to itself some posterns and the outlets for death, besides those infinite and open ports out of which myriads of men and women every day pass into the dark, and the land of forgetfulness. Infancy hath life but in effigy, or like a spark dwelling in a pile of wood; the candle is so newly lighted, that every little shaking of the taper, and every ruder breath of air, puts it out and dies. Childhood is so tender, and yet so unwary; so soft to all the impressions of chance, and yet so forward to run into them, that God knew there could be no security without the care and vigilance of an angel keeper; and the

eyes of parents and the arms of nurses, the provisions of art and all the effects of human love and providence, are not sufficient to keep one child from horrid mischiefs, from strange and early calamities and deaths, unless a messenger be sent from heaven to stand sentinel, and watch the very playings and sleepings, the eatings and drinkings of the children; and it is a long time before nature makes them capable of help; for there are many deaths, and very many diseases to which poor babes are exposed; but they have but very few capacities for physic; to show that infancy is as liable to death as old age, and equally exposed to danger, and equally incapable of a remedy; with this only difference, that old age hath diseases incurable by nature, and the diseases of childhood are incurable by art; and both the states are the next heirs of death.

Jeremy Taylor.

CREDITOR TIME.

Even such is time, that takes on trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust,

Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wander'd all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days!

But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up I trust?

Sir W. Raleigh.

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Which we call death, the soul's release from wo,
The work which brings our bliss to happy frame:
Seldom arrests the body, but we find

Some notice of it written in our mind.

Markhan.

UPON TIME.

Time was upon

The wing, to fly away,

And I call'd on

Him but awhile to stay;

But he'd be gone,

For ought that I could say.

He held out then

A writing as he went,
And askt me, when

False man would be content

To pay again

What God and nature lent.

An hour-glass,

In which were sands but few,

As he did pass,

He show'd, and told me too,

Mine end near was,

And so away he flew.

Herrick.

OF MAN'S MORTALITY.

Like as the damask rose you see,
Or like the blossom on the tree,
Or like the dainty flower of May,
Or like the morning to the day,
Or like the sun, or like the shade,
Or like the gourd which Jonas had,
Even such is man; whose thread is spun,
Drawn out, and cut, and so is done:
The rose withers, the blossoms blasteth,
The flower fades, the morning hasteth,
The sun sets, the shadow flies,
The gourd consumes, and man he dies.

Like to the grass that's newly sprung,
Or like a tale that's new begun,
Or like the bird that's here to-day,
Or like the pearled dew of May;
Or like an hour, or like a span,
Or like the singing of a swan,

Even such is man: who lives by breath;
Is here, now there, in life and death.
The grass withers, the tale is ended,
The bird is flown, the dew's ascended,
The hour is short, the span not long,
The swan's near death, man's life is done.

Wastell.

TWO INTERESTING SIGHTS.

In our world there are two very interesting sights; the one is that of the young disciple entering the Church militant; the other is that of the old disciple about to join the Church triumphant.

VANITY-STILL VANITY.

I spake from vanity it seem'd to me;
Was silent-still I saw 'twas vanity:

I own'd my vainness-vanity took possession
Of that most sad confession.

I vow'd to kill the weed, and strove to do't,
And hew'd and hack'd down to the very root;
Alas! still seem'd vanity to be thriving,

And living even in that very striving!

Then fell I down and pray'd-Lord take my breath, And save me from the body of this death.

Henry Sutton.

MEMORY.

Memory is the treasure-house of the mind, wherein the monuments thereof are kept and preserved. Plato makes it the mother of the Muses. Aristotle sets it one degree farther, making experience the mother of art, memory the parent of experience. Philosophers place it in the rear of the head; and it seems the mine of memory lies there, because there men naturally dig for

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