VII.

And yet who would change the old dream for new treasure?
Make not youth's sourest grapes the best wine of our life?
Need he reckon his date by the Almanac's measure
Who is twenty life-long in the eyes of his wife?
Ah, Fate, should I live to be nonagenarian,
Let me still take Hope's frail I.O.U.s upon trust,
Still talk of a trip to the Islands Macarian,
And still climb the dream-tree for--ashes and dust!

* * * * *


MR. BUCKLE AS A THINKER.


The recent death of Henry Thomas Buckle calls a new attention to his
published works. Pathetic it will seem to all that he should be cut off
in the midst of labors so large, so assiduous and adventurous; and there
are few who will not feel inclined to make up, as it were, to his memory
for this untimely interruption of his pursuits, by assigning the highest
possible value to his actual performance. Additional strength will
be given to these dispositions by the impressions of his personal
character. This was, indeed, such as to conciliate the utmost good-will.
If we except occasional touches of self-complacency, which betray,
perhaps, a trifling foible, it may be said that everything is pleasing
which is known concerning him. His devotion, wellnigh heroic, to
scholarly aims; his quiet studiousness; his filial virtue; his genial
sociability, graced by, and gracing, the self-supporting habit of his