THE FLIGHT OF TIM E.

That Time is ever flying over the heads of all," the bore of getting through the day." Yet you young and old, is as certain as life is uncertain. Really, he is proceeding onward at one uniform pace, neither slackening nor hurrying. On, on, on, throwing the present into the dreamy past; spreading his sombre shadow over our brightest memories of other days; wafting us into unfore-logue of good deeds to reckon up, no bright seen difficulties, and raising us often from the slough of despair to happiness and tranquillity, with the same untiring motion of his eternal wing. Yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, are continually changing places-moments become minutes, minutes gather into hours, hours into days, days into weeks, weeks swell to months, and months produce years, without stay or ceasing. All this we see and feel--our hearts whisper it to us-our eyes convince us that such is the real state of things. But is it so in imagination? Candidly it is not. The artificer may boast of his matchless chronometer, to tell Time as he flies; yet what avail is this, when the mind and the minute-hand keep not together?

never hear him complain that life is too long; on the contrary, he is foremost to grumble at its brevity; for when he does take the trouble to reflect on the past, what does he contemplate? a blank, a miserable waste! He has no cataspots for his eye to rest upon, no food for thought- no living over again of the past; and so the days which appeared to him so tedious as they travelled through the present, seem then, heaven knows, too-too brief. He might have slept his existence away, and the result would have been but the same. Sleep, a dreamless sleep, is the aptest image we can find of an idler's life. From the period we cease to have the power of thought, to the moment we recover our faculties in waking, whatever length it may be by the artificial calculation of time, its length to the mind is-what is it? nothing! Not so in dreaming; what we should style perhaps a long dream, would most likely be the occupation of a minute. It is now usually believed, that the movement of a chair, or the introduction of a light, or some other trivial occurrence in the sleeper's room, is the whole and sole point to which the mind, in its dormant method of thinking, rapidly guides its chaos of ideas, the event being in itself the commencement and completion of an apparently prolonged train of thought. Be this as it may, Time manifestly proceeds at a railway and snailway pace (to use a late witty punster's expression) during our slumbers as it does in our wakeful hours, and the mind still retains the power of advancing or retarding the flying moments.

Nay, startle not, philosophical reader! In spite of a legion of argumentative facts, we assert that the flight of Time is and must be regulated by imagination. It is also very convenient to have one's watch by one's side, to tell the exact hour of the day; but as far as regards the meting out of a certain period of time, for man's nobler part to employ itself in, the clever little piece of mechanism serves no better than did Alfred's candles of old. No-imagination has the wonderful power of prolonging or shortening the passing moment to almost any extent. Every one of us surely has experienced this. That existence must have been a most monotonous Surrounding circumstances have not a little unvarying one, which never knew what it was to to do with the regulation of his progress. Ask have the passing hour slip too swiftly by, or lag the sighing swain whether the hours seem long heavily on its way. It is this ideal measurement or short till the happy period of rendezvous of Time that imparts to life its greatest charm, arrives. Ask him again, when the meeting takes and enables the man of genius to enjoy a longer place, whether the lapse be long or short. Ask and happier mortality in a score of years than the poor sufferer on the bed of sickness, the unthe idler or sluggard in “ threescore years and fortunate in prison, the busy official at his desk, ten." How is this? cries the quibbler; does not the lonely wife watching for her truant husthe learned man think down hours to moments? band. Some will tell a sad tale of the tedious Very true, we reply; but, we ask, what are those heart-aching pace at which the hands move round moments when reviewed in retrospect? Have the clock-face; others will complain of the celethey not been all, or at least the greater num-rity with which they make the circuit. Perhaps ber, usefully and profitably employed? Do at the moment one is listening with wearied ear, they not show some fruit? and in counting them over, does not the industrious mind feel that it has made the most of its allotted space, and by this means materially lengthened it? Truly yes; as the spectator says, "The time we live ought not to be computed by the number of years, but by the use we make of it." The idler may feel, indeed does feel, the difficulty of what is called "killing time," more than any one else. He is ever making complaints of "the age it will be till such and such a thing takes place;" or of

fancying every tick a minute, another is allowing time to proceed unreckoned, and to his astonishment perceives the departure of an hour, where he imagined scarcely half one had elapsed.

Time, Time, Time, what tricks then dost thou play with mortals, thus sporting with him as the fisherman does with the poor little creature he has hooked, now gently enticing him towards the shore, now yielding a little, and at length landing the victim suddenly in the haven of

But here the subject is getting too serious LINES ON THE DEATH OF MY COUSIN. for our present purpose; and so, reader, we humbly make our obeisance, trusting that the few moments employed in the perusal hereof have not been very materially prolonged by the infliction.

THE LATE GRACE AGUILAR.

BY CAMILLA TOULMIN.

edited by the Countess of Blessington up to the present time. When in the spring of 1844 the editorship of this magazine was committed to us, one of the very first coadjutors we endeavoured to enlist was Grace Aguilar; how successfully our readers know. Our first number contained the beautiful paper from her pen, entitled "An Exposition of Zanoni," which not only delighted every appreciator of the genius of that production, but elicited the approval of Sir Bulwer Lytton himself, and is mentioned by him in the introduction to a new edition of the work. The novel of "Florence; or, Woman's Friendship," published in parts, and occupying twelve numbers; the historical romance of "The Martyr," already mentioned, and several short stories and poems, appeared in these pages in the space of three years; while we felt it alike a duty and a pleasure to record among our literary notices the various works by Miss Aguilar, which meanwhile issued from the press. In this manner "The Records of Israel," "The Women of Israel," "The Jewish Faith," and the domestic story of "Home Influence" were introduced to our readers. Little did we think, when in the January number of the present year, and again in that for May, her latest, and, as we think, her very best works in their respective styles (The Jewish Faith and Home Influence), were reviewed, that so melancholy an office as the present would be ours before the year closed in, and that her labours in this world were indeed then almost concluded! We believe she had scarcely touched a pen for many months preceding her demise.

with their beloved mother, beside her to the last. May his own increasing fame be some consolation for his loss! He is the young musician so well known as full of the highest promise throughout musical Germany.

She, whose loss we are deploring, was sensible of her approaching dissolution, and met it in that trustful, hopeful, humble spirit, which we are accustomed to designate Christian fortitude. Remarkable too it is, and a circumstance which ought to teach professing Christians Christian charity, that her works illustrate most forcibly the very ethics which were taught by the Redeemer, and therefore are they valuable to every sect. Often has the press lauded her efforts; but of all the journals which have praised her works, none has been warmer than the usually calm and cautious "Athenæum." The writer in its columns evidently does justice to the spirit of them, and to the thoroughly loving, gentle, yet high-toned nature of her mind. It may be worth recording that once in conversation with her she mentioned that it had been suggested to her to write a history of the persecutions of the Jews; and on our asking the reason of her declining a promising speculation, she replied that "it would be an ungrate ful return to Protestant England, which now treated the Jews with such kindness and liberality, to revive the half-forgotten story of their wrongs." And every reader of one of " Chambers' Miscellany of Tracts," entitled the "History of the Jews in England"-which, though unacknowledged, is by Grace Aguilar-must feel impressed by the right spirit which prevails throughout.

"Nation." Alas, the recipient was already in the shadow of death; and yet we can believe she was not insensible to the feelings of regard the

donation evinced.

Always of a delicate constitution, and of the temperament which so often belongs to the gifted, But though she won the esteem and admira"the sword wore out the scabbard." tion of a large body of Christian friends, she The death of her beloved father, Mr. Aguilar, some two or three years ago, was a severe shock did not remain unappreciated by her own people. to her sensitive and affectionate nature. Yet Only last summer she received a graceful and she seemed to have rallied from it, and as fame gratifying tribute from a band of ladies, “Women of Israel"-in the form of a testimonialopened apparently a bright path before her, she pursued her literary avocations with even rea splendid silver inkstand, with an appropriate newed ardour. But about this time twelve-inscription, recognizing her services to their month her friends became distressed, though not at first alarmed, by the illness which seized her, and which stealthily crept on, leaving only her bright mind unimpaired. When too feeble to walk or stand without support, we saw her, propped by pillows, pen in hand-with eye as bright, and manner almost as cheerful, as we had ever known them. This was last winter: in the spring she rallied a little; and the visit to Frankfort, where one of her beloved brothers had been resident for two or three years, was looked forward to with delight, and a confident hope, that the change of scene, and the German baths which had been recommended, would effect a cure. Incidentally we may mention that one of the many beautiful traits of Grace Aguilar's character was her something more than sisterly regard for her brothers, both many years younger than herself. One, in a different hemisphere, will, it is but too probable, first learn his loss from the public prints; the other had the melancholy satisfaction of watching,

Gradually. whatever hope of her recovery might have lingered in the hearts of those who watched beside her died away; for many days she was speechless, but her mind never wandered: she made known all that language might have expressed by her fingers-using the method of the deaf and dumb; and in this manner, in the hour of extreme bodily anguish, her last words were, " THOUGH HE SLAY ME, YET WILL I TRUST IN HIM."

Her ashes rest at Frankfort, but her memory will live for many a day, not only in her "land's language," but in the hearts of her bereaved relatives, and of that large circle of friends and acquaintances who loved her for qualities yet higher than her talents.

London, Oct. 20, 1847.

Life.

THE OLD MAN OF THE CHURCH-YARD. He walketh with a tottering pace, his foot falls

And steals to one dim corner where a cypress sheds its gloom.

There is a nameless narrow grave in this sequestered spot,

Where summer sunshine never falls, and summer flowers spring not;

None know who sleeps beneath that sod, there is no stone to tell,

Yet ne'ertheless the good folk say the old man knows

He sits for hours as wrapt in thought beside that grassy bed,

And when the starlight smiles on high, thereon he rests his head;

No rank weed dares to lift a leaf above the neighbouring soil

Or feeble as his fingers are, the old man's delve and toil.

The winter snow may never hide the green grass of that bed,

For he with jealous care removes the flakes, as they are shed.