less, the cruel boastings of the young carousers. "Well, I don't care now; I'm sixteen, and in 1847, I shall be twenty-one. Oh! wont I!" &c. None stop to consider how old their father will be at that dreary period! The young lady who was eighteen last week felicitates herself on being nineteen now; and the urchin whose birthday will not arrive until May, selfishly wishes it would come to-morrow. No, the consequences to the unfortunate and defenceless parent are never once thought of! As Master Walter in the play says in other words, so much for the instinct of filial love!

But a trouble deeper than all, or rather the concentration of all his troubles, now weighs upon the heart of the unhappy Dix the younger, and threatens to visit with at least one wrinkle his hitherto juvenile brow. Dix's daughter is deep in love, and the Honourable Mr. Phibb has sworn to adore her till death. Already has he demanded her in marriage, and already is Mr. Dix convicted of having no valid excuse for refusing. Good family, good character, good estate, crowned with a daughter's admitted and unalterable attachment! Dix the younger has none but the most inconsequential objections to urge when his daughter looks at him. "You are too young." "Mamma was younger !" "Phibb is not old enough." "He's older than you were, papa !” "But I don't want you to marry." "Phibb does."

Dix goes to bed upon the rack, and rises to walk over burning ploughshares. When his heart leaped at the news of a daughter born, he totally forgot that, by an unerring rule of nature, daughters come of daughters, and that as from the sublime to the ridiculous, so from the father to the grandfather, is but a step. Dix the younger knows instinctively, that although the word of consent be not yet spoken, spoken it must be; and he feels that the finishing blow to his youthful existence is already struck. The die is cast-it is all over with him. He sits down, and reads, for hours together, the "Young Man's best Companion," but finds no consolation. His thoughts are all NightThoughts-Young's.

There is, of course, a Dix the elder extant-the white-headed and unfidgetty parent of Dix the younger. He has been a grandfather long, and likes it. He is always rubbing one dry chip of a hand against the other, and saying to his son, as often as they meet, "Well, my boy, I'm seventy-one, and please God, next year I shall be seventytwo." He dates all recent events from the vicissitudes that have occurred to his grandchildren. "Ay, I remember-it was when poor Jasper had the cough ;-You're wrong, I tell you that happened while little Blue-eyes was knitting me my purse ;-True, true, I recollect; why it was the very same day that Sampson, the jolly villain, smashed my cucumber-frame." He feels that it would be still more glorious to be a grandfather, if the objects of his pride were rather more numerous. He is quite happy with the few he has quite; but secretly for he never breathed this sentiment to a soul-he thinks six a rather shabby allowance. "If there were but eight more, now," is the speculation that sometimes glances across his mind. He likes to read in the newspapers the pleasant stories about "united ages," and how old Mr. Nevergo left behind him eleven children, thirtyeight grandchildren, and about seventy great-grand ones. "Happy dog!" he mutters; and orders the newsman to send him that paper daily for the next three months.

What his silly boy can mean by setting his face against the proposed

marriage is to Dix the elder the most incomprehensible of mysteries. His feelings would be in turn equally incomprehensible to Dix the younger, if that juvenile personage did not recollect that when a man has once become a grandfather, his self-existence is at an end, and he is living not for his own sake but for that of others. He cannot include grandfathers in the present generation of men-they are but links between the past and present-wearers of pigtails, by which succeeding races hold on to connect themselves with the times gone byconveniences whereby Antiquity just contrives to retain a bird's eye view of Posterity. They are curiosities which, as he conceives, would be better preserved in the British Museum, with the other antediluvian remains. How they venture to walk about, perfectly well aware that everybody knows them to be sixty at the least, is to Juvenis Dix one of Time the Jester's riddle-me-rees.

That Juvenis should ever live to be a grandfather! The bare thought has given sharpness and action to his inherent abhorrence of everything "getting into years." He has taken, since the matter of the marriage was mooted, to drinking off, with unusual celerity, his stock of old port, merely to prevent it growing older. He has already had his collection of coins beautifully polished, and, the mould removed from their antique faces, they really look quite lively, fresh as new shillings from the Mint. He has had the celebrated ruins, which disfigured his place in Shropshire, entirely renovated and modernized; agreeing with Fielding's beau, who objects to the picturesque old buildings in Italy, "that they are so damnably out of repair." His time-worn pictures of the Destruction of the Armada, he has exchanged for the Battle of Navarino, by Mr. Huggins. Hitherto he has not flinched from acknowledging that he was born about the Trafalgar period, but he now entertains serious thoughts of altering the date to Waterloo. If his remorseless children will not allow him to take his stand at thirty-nineat that advanced age, of which his face furnishes no certificate-he is resolved, in self-defence, to drop down to a quarter of a century. He intends, in a year or two, to retain but a vague remembrance of the Reform Bill struggle; and to fix, with a graceful loyalty, his first firm recollection upon the coronation of Victoria.

Meantime, the eventful marriage is an engagement all but signed and sealed, and Miss Dix will become, long before Christmas, the Honourable Mrs. Phibb. Only last night, the youngest of the six, little Harriet, whom her papa (she being but eleven years old) can well afford at present to designate "his own darling," jumped upon his knee, and whispered something about her new white sash.

"And you, too," he murmured to himself, looking in the innocent face fondly, but reproachfully, "you, too, will turn against me; you will join the rest; you will grow tall, and rejoice in my misfortunes. Obscuring the last ray of the sunshine of youth, you, the latest and least of the conspirators, will spring up by rapid degrees, and drive me from the garden into the desert of time; strip me of every claim to a junior standing, of every pretension to the early bloom of life which is upon me; offer me up, by your altitude alone, a sacrifice on the altar of Middle-Age; and bring-yes, bring your father's brown locks in sorrow to a wig! Girl, you will help to make me what misery is in the word!-you will help to make your youthful parentVENERABLE!"

THE POET TO HIS WIFE.

BY J. PRICE.

BELOVED one! for years the only blessing

Of home, and hope, and heart-whose fond caressing
Has won my thoughts from many a dream of ill;
When woes, like spectres, round my hearthstone swarm'd,
And hollow friendships burst as soon as form'd,
And every joy grew chill that once had warm'd
This desolate heart, I felt you loved me still!

And in that feeling had a priceless treasure,
An ever-springing well of tranquil pleasure,
That care, misfortune, misery, or want,

Might never mar; for thou couldst still restore me
To hope and love, and pass life's sorrows o'er me
Lightly, as if its currents only bore me,

Sunlighted ever, to bright pleasure's haunt!

How can I utter all the love I bear thee!
With what devotion can I tend and care thee!
Oh! can I e'er repay the sweet excess

Of thy life's love, since, young, and fair, and blushing,
Thy modest neck, thy cheek, thy brow, all flushing,
Yet joy's bright tear-drops from thy dark eyes gushing,
I folded thee in my first fond caress!

When Pain, with visage hideous and repelling,
And pallid Sickness came within my dwelling,

And Death crush'd all the roses on my path;
When long and weary were the leaden hours,
Shut from the fields, the stream, the breeze, the flowers,
The golden sunlight, and the dancing showers,

And all the glories that sweet spring-time hath!

Thou camest then in woman's blandest beauty,
A being form'd of tenderness and duty,

All hope, obedience, patience, trust, and truth;
An Angel o'er my couch at midnight bending,
Thine earnest prayers in solitude ascending,
Till Heaven bless'd thee for thy pious tending,

And baffled Death released his grasp of youth!

Can an existence bound in thee, love, wholly-
A heart reflecting thy dear image solely-

One deep, continuous feeling of affection,
That grows with my growth, fuller, truer, vaster,
That time, or change, or sorrow, or disaster,
Can never alter, lessen, or o'ermaster,

Repay this fond and generous protection?

Oh! though earth's darkest woes come crowding hither, I have a garland, which they cannot wither,

Form'd of the deathless flowers of thy love! Whose summer freshness winter will not mar, Folded within my bosom as they are,

While Faith serenely, like a holy star,

Smiles bright approval from her throne above!

And when the bloom has vanish'd from our lives,
And feeble age with stealthy pace arrives,

And weary pilgrims upon earth we tarry,
As for the last dread change we both prepare,
Will we not lighten still each other's care,
And view without one feeling of despair

A single grave, our mutual sanctuary?

PURCHASING A PROPERTY.

BY MISS PARDOE.

TOWARDS the close of the last century, an elderly individual who had figured upon the Stock Exchange for upwards of thirty years, where he had been sufficiently successful to realize a comfortable little independence, resolved to retire from public life, and to enjoy, in dignified retirement, the fruits of his previous industry.

Mr. Launcelot Barham was a tall, thin, erect personage, of some sixty-five years of age. He wore a snuff-coloured coat, with plated buttons as large as half-crowns; a canary-coloured waistcoat, edged with silver twist; a very stiff and stainless white neckcloth; a cockedhat, and a clouded cane, with a gold head, on which his family crest was conspicuously engraved. Be it said, also, par parenthèse, that Mr. Launcelot Barham was extremely proud of his connexions; his grandfather had been the younger brother of a baronet, and his own mother was sister to a sheriff of the city of London; and there was a conscious importance in the mien and manner of the ex-stockbroker, which convinced all his acquaintance that he never suffered himself to forget the exact amount of dignity which, as the last of his race, had centered in himself.

After this description of the man, it need scarcely be added that he was a bachelor; he had never had either time or inclination to play the Strephon; and when, occasionally, a qualm of regret stole over him, as he remembered that in his person the blood of the Coggleton Barhams would become extinct, he dismissed the unpleasant feeling with a shrug; and consoled himself with the reflexion that, as his successors could not do anything for him, so there was no necessity for him to sacrifice his personal comfort and independence to a probable generation, who would never be led to believe in the extent of their obligation. His establishment consisted of a housekeeper, as old, as stiff, and, if possible, as dignified as himself; and a boy, who was her grand-nephew, and the fourth of the family who had, in turn, been fortunate enough to act as miniature valet to Mr. Launcelot Barham, until he outgrew that gentleman's particular standard; who being remarkably proud of his own height, of which, owing to his scrupulously erect carriage, even time had failed to deprive him of an inch, never kept about his person any male domestic who reached above his own shoulder; and thus, as boys will grow in spite of all the prayers of their prudent relatives, who would rather see them dwarfed in stature than in circumstances, so three of the Master Snaggs had successively lost their places by increasing their inches; and Bobby, the last of the family, a little stunted lad, who bid fair to keep all his life within the prescribed bounds, had in his turn succeeded to the vacant clothesbrushes, at the eventful epoch of Mr. Launcelot Barham's secession from the anxieties and bustle of his profession.

His residence he had obtained through the medium of a public journal, wherein an advertisement set forth that " a gentleman of respectability could be accommodated with convenient and airy apartments in a pleasant situation within five minutes' walk of the Bank." He was at the time located at Hampstead; but as he suffered great annoyance from the dust of the road on his daily progress into town

for then, be it remembered, that water-carts were not-he determined to reside absolutely in London, where he could reach the Exchange without being under the necessity, on his arrival, of dusting his cravat and gaiters, and then putting the sullied handkerchief into his coat pocket. The "convenient and airy apartments" consisted of a first floor over the shop of a portly widow, who kept a haberdasher's shop in Cheapside; and who, gradually growing old with her lodger, had been for so many years accustomed to take her tea with Mrs. Snaggs, and to supply her master with white neckcloths and doeskin gloves, that she was almost as much surprised, when the announcement of his quitting the Stock Exchange and her apartments was made to her, as though the Monument had walked up to her counter, and asked for six yards of black galloon to re-tie the pigtail of the mounted monarch at Charing Cross.

The fiat had gone forth, however, and without more delay Mr. Launcelot Barham proceeded to search for a fitting place of abode. The animation and companionship of the sounds and sights of Cheapside had lost their attraction; and as he would no longer be compelled to encounter either dust or mud when he should see it fitting to remain under his own roof, he determined finally to settle himself in some quiet spot, where he might see leaves and flowers, and be enabled to "babble of green fields" with precision and propriety, like one who understood his subject. Mrs. Snaggs, when consulted on the matter, had given it as her decided and deliberate opinion that the arrangement was a most judicious one, and the rest, of course, was easy.

Then commenced excursions in every direction round the metropolis, wherever public notice or private information led the stately old bachelor to believe, for the moment, that he had met with the very thing that would suit him; and every "snug box" on sale at Hampstead, Highgate, Notting-hill, Brixton, Streatham, and every other suburban village, was visited and inspected, in which a retired citizen may take his wine at an open window overlooking his own china-asters and hollyoaks, his own brass-plated gate and green paling, without losing altogether an occasional sniff of the peculiar atmosphere to which he has been for so many years accustomed.

All was in vain, however: go where he might, see what he would, there was always a drawback, either to the house itself, or to its situation. The water was bad, or the roofs were low, or the spot was damp, or the stairs were steep, or the kitchen was dark-or, in short, it had some defect of some description, and consequently, as the purchase of Mr. Launcelot Barham was to be perfection, they were all naturally out of the question.

Months wore on-months of perpetual worry and exertion, and still the ex-stockbroker, his housekeeper, and his boy Bobby, were domiciliated on the first floor of No., Cheapside, simply and solely because Mr. Launcelot Barham had failed to meet with an eligible purchase-when, on one occasion, during a morning saunter through the streets, he was overtaken by a sharp summer shower, which in two minutes made the pavement look like a succession of dingy mirrors, and drove every one under shelter, who was so fortunate as to be able to secure it. It is bad enough for lawyers' clerks, linen-drapers' apprentices, ginger-beer venders, and maids-of-all-work, to be drenched by one of these sudden down-pourings of an angry vapour; but for