Long years, "with all their deeds," may roll,
Ere the cold clay, its cell forsaking,
Shall join the disembodied soul,
When the last morning's dawn is breaking!

_Kirton Lindsey._ ANNE R.

* * * * *


THE WRITINGS OF BURKE.

(_For the Mirror._)


Of all the great men of his age, there were few who attained to the
celebrity of Edmund Burke; there were many, however, who deserved it
more and whom a more adverse fortune compelled to languish in
comparative obscurity. That Burke was a man of wonderful talent it would
be in vain to deny, and indeed such denial would be only a proof of our
own ignorance and bad taste; but his strength was that of imagination
merely,--his genius was not sufficiently counterbalanced by judgment,
and he has been at all times ranked as an elegant rather than a nervous
writer. In his oratory, as well us his literary composition, he was too
much addicted to a florid phraseology, and his hearers, during his
lifetime, as well as his readers now, were often driven to consider his
meaning, and not unfrequently to make one out for themselves. This style
of declamation has been not unaptly called "splendid nonsense," and it
was after a display of this sort from Burke, that one of his audience
made this pithy exclamation: "It is all very well, but I should like to