which the evening hour is peculiarly interesting

in youth and old age. In youth we love it for its mellow moonlight, its million stars, its then rich and soothing shades, its still serenity; amid these we can commune with our loves, or twine the wreaths of friends, while there is none to bear us witness but the heavens and the spirits that hold their endless Sabbath there or look into the bosom of creation, and look and listen till we can almost see and hear the waving wings and melting songs of other worlds. To youth the evening is delightful. It accords with the flow of his light spirits, the fervor of his fancy, and the softness of his heart. Evening is also the delight of virtuous age; it affords hours of undisturbed contemplation; it seems an emblem of the calm and tranquil close of busy life; serene, placid, and mild, the impress of its great Creator stamped upon it, it spreads its quiet wings over the grave, and seems to promise that all shall be peace beyond it.

Eventide is also the pleasant time for silent study or social reading; the brief but beautiful season sacred to bodily repose and mental refreshment. The expressive lines of Longfellow, addressed to a gifted poetess, are susceptible of application to all who wisely "make merchandise of time," by bartering it for intellectual wealth:

"Oh, precious evenings! all too swiftly sped!
Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages

Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages,
And giving tongues unto the silent dead!
How our hearts glowed and trembled as she read,
Interpreting by tones the wondrous pages

Of the great poet who foreruns the ages,
Anticipating all that shall be said!

Oh, happy reader! having for thy text

The magic book, whose Sibylline leaves have caught
The rarest essence of all human thought!"

It is worthy of note that the Greek poets gave to night that beautiful name Euphrone-indicating the season of good feeling-the hour of hope, of calm, yet joyous contemplation. It is true, the inspired description of the heavenly state says, "There shall be no night there." But in our present imperfect condition of being, the idea of the highest earthly bliss would be marred by its absence from the picture. As yet we cannot dispense with the shade.

With the following beautiful lines, we leave the reader to the inspirations of this stilly hour, to its sweet visions. its vigils, and its vespers:

"Yon pale cloud

Is tinting with the sunset's hectic flush,
So is the distant tor now glory-browed;
And now a solemn hush

Steals from the skies adown the mountain-side;
'Tis the deep stillness of the eventide.

"The white moon

Grows golden in the grey dome of the sky;
Brighter she climbs the dark'ning steep, and soon
Will lighten radiantly.

Now in the shifting purple hues of even
Earth, air, and sea, seem blending into heaven.

"The tall trees

Throw now no shades, for all is dusk around;
The star is splendid o'er the seas, the breeze

Is dead with every sound

But the sweet streams. Myriads of loving eyes Yearn on the earth from out the blending skies.

"The brown tint

Has faded into gloom on the sharp crest
Of the far mountain. Only starlight's glint,
On the stream's heaving breast.

The lark and bee are quiet-the warm glow
Has left the cloud and the hill's frowning brow.

"Heavy dews

Pearl the soft eyelids of night-cradled flowers,
That opening, smile but when the warm sun woos
In daylight's golden hours.

Sadness comes on me with the twilight grey,
And with the day my rhyme is laid away." *

*Dublin Univ. Mag.

FAME.

Though fame is smoke,

Its fumes are frankincense to human thoughts.

BYRON.

WILBERFORCE being asked what constituted

the purest of human pleasures, replied-to do an act of charity in secret, and afterwards to have it discovered. Such an instance seems to invest fame with something of tangibility. The quintessence of Fame, according to the estimate of a modern author, consists in the loving admiration of one's own family circle; yet in the popular acceptation, such a limitation is too contracted for the vaulting ambition of the majority of mankind. It is

"Fame's loud clarion that most bewitches men;

O popular applause! what heart of man

Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?"

This love of human applause exhibits itself in Protæan forms; it enters into all conditions of society, the rude and the refined, the rich and the poor, the young and the old. Indeed, it is seen to bud forth with the blossoms of childhood-for even prattling infancy

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delights to bask in the sunshine of a mother's smile; it ripens with the maturity of life, and acquires a sturdy growth with age, and is not unfrequently the masterpassion to the very close of life. Limited by no geographical boundaries, it rules with potent sway men of every clime and color, the red men of our forests, the sable sons of Africa, and the tawny race of the "celestials," as well as the polished Caucasian.

It is sometimes the incentive to the noblest virtues; it is also the occasion of the most stupendous crimes. Its history is coeval with the birth of man, stretching over the long centuries of Time; nor will its chronicles be completed till the records of the past, the present, and the future shall themselves pass away like the "baseless fabric of a vision." Fame has been defined "the prevailing desire among men to assert a powerful ascendency over the attention of mankind." But what is fame really worth to the few who not only live for it, but gain it? In the strife to attain the fancied bauble, a man often perils his interests in the life to come; for if the passion obtain the mastery over him, he will sacrifice every other consideration for its attainment. The record of most historic characters is, it must be admitted, rather that of vices, than virtues. What, moreover, is all the laudation of the living worth to the inanimate body in the tomb? Fame, indeed, has been compared to "an undertaker, who pays but little attention to the living, but bedizens the dead, furnishes out their funerals, follows them to the grave, and then bequeathes to them a fulsome epitaph."* Charles

* Colton.