a vice which makes men appear monstrous and irrational.

DRUNKENNESS is a voluntary madness. How many warlike nations, and strong cities that have stood invincible to attacks and sieges, has Drunkenness overcome.

One cup for health,
And two for pleasure;
A third for sleep,-

But the fourth measure

Foul Luxury and Dishonour fill,

To pledge before they waste and kill!

1557.

When Bigot-Mary England's sceptre sway'd, Bottles and drinking-cups of GLASS were made.

ON THE

UNCERTAINTY OF LIFE.

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs.

SHAKSPEARE.

****

within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a King,
Keeps DEATH his court; and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,

To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,—
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and humour'd thus

Comes at the last, and with a little pin

Bores through his castle wall, and-farewell

King!

SHAKSPEARE.

Each moment has its sickle, emulous

Of Time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep Strikes empires from the root; each moment plays

His little weapon in the narrower sphere
Of sweet domestic comfort, and cuts down
The fairest bloom of sublunary bliss!

YOUNG.

Life! What is life? A shadow;

Its date is but the immediate breath we draw,

Nor have we surety for a second gale:

Ten thousand accidents in ambush lie

For the embody'd dream.

A frail and fickle tenement it is,

Which, like the brittle glass that measures time,

Is often broke ere half its sands be run.

H. JONES.

Consider to what perils vain life is daily exposed. "In the midst of life we are in death." Some, and great ones too, have fallen suddenly by an Ehud's dagger, a Ravilliac's or a Felton's knife. Fabius, surnamed the Painter, was choked with a hair in a mess of milk. Adrian the Fourth with a fly. Anacreon with a grape-stone. Tarquinius Priscus with a fishbone. A little bruise on the toe is said to have killed Æmilius Lepidus. Bæbius, after he had reprieved a criminal for eight days only, was himself condemned to die, and his own term of life expired first. Whilst Caius Julius, the physician, was anointing the eyes of a patient, his own were

closed in death. Several have died by the cutting of a corn upon the toe, a place so remote from the heart. A splinter in the hand, or the paring of the nails into the quick, has likewise occasioned death. Many have died in the midst of excessive laughter, and several under excessive anger and worldly sorrow. We are in danger of perishing by water or by fire; by the falling of a house, or a single tile or slate from the roof of a house; by the overturning of a coach; by the falling of a horse, or by a fall from a horse. A vein may burst, and let out our blood and our life together. An ague

may shake us to death,

us to death, a dropsy

may drown us, a fever burn