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 Hollinger Corp. 
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^PS 2583 
 
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 Copy 1 
 
 §h %^t mi^ its llliseries. 
 
 Senectus si digna, felix est et utilis, 
 Si non digna infelix etf utilis. — Anon. 
 
 BYjfcKpiCKETT, 
 P. 0. Department; Lieut, of Artillery in the War of 1812; 
 Fourth Auditor of the Treasury, 1835-38; Plenipoten- 
 tiary to Ecuador, (Quito,) 1838; Charged' Affaires 
 to Peru, 1839-45, &c., &e. 
 
®h ^gc nifih its ||li$crics. 
 
 I. 
 
 I now return your book:^ its vein is good, 
 
 And rightly read and rightly understood, 
 
 Instruction gives, and consolation too. 
 
 To those who 've pass'd life's hurly-burly through, 
 
 As I have. done — an asseveration true; 
 
 The proof — I have 74 now close in view ; 
 
 An age at which, all illusions past, 
 
 Sober, sad reality has come at last, 
 
 I can't agree in ail the author says 
 Of senile age, its beauties and its pleasant ways ; 
 The reverence paid it by admiring youth. 
 Who take its teaching for transcendent truth, 
 And seem to think that knowledge and old age 
 Are synonyms for what is good and sage. 
 Not always so, for many a hoary head 
 Contains a brain obtuse, its functions dead, 
 Or if alive, as dim and dull as lead. 
 Old Chaucer said what may be said again : 
 "The greatest clerks ben not the wisest men ;"^ 
 That he who knows much may be still not good : 
 Thus this terse line is to be understood. 
 But when old age is wise, and good as wise, 
 And ever shows itself in virtue's guise, 
 'T is then an oracle of Delphic worth. 
 And more than all the oracles on earth 
 That chve to heathen gods their origin, 
 Products of fraud and enginery of sin.' 
 But to be old, unteachable, untaught. 
 Incapable of great and generous thought ; 
 Exemplary in naught but vice and sin. 
 No grace without, no instincts good within ; 
 
"'^\m. 
 
 Lejeu ne vaut pas la chandelle,'*' as say 
 The French, nor worth the purchase of a day ; 
 Than to be this, better not have been at all ; 
 And though annihilation must appall 
 All who think thereon, all who think can 
 Will say 't is worse to be a bad old man. 
 But to be high-minded, fair, generous, just, 
 In whom all place unhesitating trust ; 
 Well-principled and sincere, upright, good, 
 Is better far than wealth or rank or blood 5 
 Better than to be as wise as Solomon, 
 Or greater even than the great Napoleon.^ 
 
 II. 
 
 At best old age is burdensome and drear, 
 
 A magazine of miseries and of care. 
 
 The author of the book says not all he knows. 
 
 Is rather eulogistic and verbose ; 
 
 Says much in praise of what he has not felt, 
 
 And might have dealt some blows he has not dealt 
 
 At the calamities of poor senility. 
 
 Its helpless status and its imbecility. 
 
 Which has no hope, that " hope which comes to all," 
 
 To rich and poor, good, bad, and free and thrall. 
 
 Spring comes to nature, but the frozen state 
 
 Of an old man no spring will renovate. 
 
 Downward, down his tendency ; th' ev'ning's close 
 
 Finds him yet worse than when at morn he rose ; 
 
 And rising from his sleepless, weary bed. 
 
 Yet worse than when he gave to rest his head. 
 
 No pleasant dreams had he, couleur de rose, 
 
 But drear and dismal, as each ancient knows. 
 
 Sleep is not for him repose and blessing, 
 
 And scarcely pays the trouble of undressing. 
 
 His dreams are terrible beyond compare ; 
 
 '' Black bulls then toss him and black devils tear,"** 
 
 Mad dogs worry, plagues of Egypt vex him, 
 
 And all conspires to torment and perplex him ; 
 
 Cramps torture him, the nightmare suffocates. 
 
 He writhes and struggles, groans and swears and sweats ; 
 
 Vain are his appeals for mercy, vain his threats ! 
 
 Bills of unpaid tailors flaunt before him, 
 
Of bakers, grocers, plague, harass, and bore him ; 
 
 Fiends mock, infuriate duns assail him, 
 
 The constable is on the watch to nail him ; 
 
 Boas^ strive to squeeze out his vitalit)^ ; 
 
 He wakes — thanks God 't is not reality. 
 
 To the old fogy who can but crawl and creep, 
 
 This is '* nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." 
 
 "Blest be the man," said Sancho Panza, 
 
 The famous squire of the Knight of Mancha — 
 
 " Blest be the man who first invented sleep, 
 
 Which serves as well as any cloak to keep 
 
 One snug and warm."* Well said and witty, 
 
 But useless to the old, " 't is true, 'tis pity." 
 
 The sleep to them the most worth taking, 
 
 Is that long snooze from which there is no waking. 
 
 IIL 
 
 Philosophers, and poets t6o, have said 
 Fine things of age, and were not at all afraid 
 To give it a preference over youth, 
 As though they spoke a quintessential truth ; 
 'Mong these were Avon's bard and Cicero,' 
 Both great and world-renown' d as we all know; 
 Profoundly wise were both, and always wise. 
 And deathless are their names till nature dies. 
 The latter thought old age the finish-finiaP 
 Of all that appertains to moral life and social ; 
 And writes, dejucunda senectute, 
 As though it were a thing of peerless beauty ; 
 Was pleas' d that he was old and soon would die, 
 And join his Cato in eternity.^^ 
 He thought so, doubtlessly, and yet he fled 
 From his assassins when they sought his head ; 
 But fled in vain. 'T was not well done to fly, 
 But well redeem' d when came the hour to die ; 
 Calm and courageously he met his fate ; 
 And thus succumb' d the glory of the state. 
 He was a heathen ; true, yet was he great, 
 And, for a heathen, noble, without a trait 
 Of aught ignoble, base, or bad, or low ; 
 A little vain, but who might not be so 
 Who could pretensions so unequal' d show? 
 
'y^i^_ 
 
 6 
 
 Above all men he was wise and eloquent, 
 
 On patriot objects ever firmly bent. 
 
 To save again bis country, often sav'd, 
 
 The hate of Fulvia and her lord^^ he brav'd ; 
 
 But sad and useless was his martyrdom — 
 
 The gods had judg'd and doom' d to slavery Rome, 
 
 The pater patrice then could only die ; 
 
 He died, and gave his name to immortality. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Shakspeare was never old, died in his prime, 
 
 And left the world before the normal time. 
 
 He tells us of the "honor, love, obedience. 
 
 Troops of friends," respect, and deference 
 
 Due to old age. All these he had, whilst young. 
 
 Won by his pen's eloquence, not his tongue. 
 
 Like a skill' d advocate he changes sides. 
 
 Laughs at old age, and humorously derides. 
 
 Just see how graphic his delineation 
 
 Of an old man's piteous situation : 
 
 "Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everythyjg |^' 
 
 Which he believ'd or could not so truly sing. 
 
 And then his " lean and slipper' d pantaloon," 
 
 And the " shrunk shank," to be more shrunk soon j 
 
 The "treble pipe and spectacles on nose," 
 
 Abundantly the poet's thoughts disclose — 
 
 That he held old age in no great reverence, 
 
 Though to others recommending deference. 
 
 Nor did Chaucer much admire the senile state, 
 
 As these two lines would seem to indicate : 
 
 " Full longe were his legges and full lene, 
 
 Y like a staffe there was no calfe y seen.'^ 
 
 From age and ineffectual nutrition 
 
 Lean and calfless is my own condition ; 
 
 But use reconciles, and I do but laugh 
 
 At my own want of pinguitude and calf. 
 
 Obesity is but a doubtful blessing — 
 
 A fact that very few decline confessing. 
 
 And as for calf, fine animals have none, 
 
 But man of all that live beneath the sun. 
 
 The noble horse, the faithful dog have none. 
 
 And yet full many a geu'rous deed they 've done.^^ 
 
V&t on the leg is well, but on the brainy 
 For the possessor is esteem' d no gain ; 
 Of that accumulation let us all beware ; 
 In the same category fat and fatuous are. 
 As some do think and some do boldly say; 
 I decide neither the one nor other way, 
 But do opine there is no certain rule— 
 The fat man may be wise, the lean a fool. 
 "'T is no small consolation for the obese 
 That they will rise without superfluous grease 
 On the day of general resurrection, 
 Improved in symmetry and in complexion. 
 If this is fiction I have not made it ; 
 John Wicliff, the great reformer, said it.** 
 
 T. 
 
 ''Age is unnecessary," says King Lear 
 
 To Goneril his child, who, though near 
 
 To him in blood, was very far remov'd 
 
 In reverence, and yet by him belov'd. 
 
 She wa's an ingrate, bold, bad, profligate, 
 
 Apd met a fearful and deserved fate. 
 
 Age is unnecessary, and so I somewhat think ; 
 
 And when we find ourselves upon the brink 
 
 Of evanescence, soon to be resolv'd 
 
 Into that dust from which we were evolv'd, 
 
 Inept, unapt, lethargic, frigid, slow, 
 
 'T is just as well to make our bow and go. 
 
 ""Ay! but to die, and go we know not where" — ^^ 
 
 'T is this makes life, so worthless, seem so dear. 
 
 It was a saying of the Greeks of old. 
 The middle-ag'd for counsel; for action bold 
 The young; the old for prayer and piety,^^ 
 Which they might practice to satiety, 
 With formulas of all variety. 
 If with decorum and propriety, 
 From the dark mysteries of Eleusis^' down 
 To creeds and worship of the least renown. 
 The Eleusinian rites were high, exclusive, 
 But all fantastical, all illusive. 
 We know not what they really were, nor need 
 To know ; which may be said of many a creed. 
 
VI. 
 
 Old age is Eonorable, as we're toM, 
 But it is not enough merely to be old f 
 Without virtue, to be old is a disgrace, 
 And makes a serious, sad, and piteous case". 
 But to be. old and good, and virtue's friendy 
 This is a consummation and an end 
 *' Devoutly to be wish'd." Who can achieve? 
 It all, the crown of honor shall receive; 
 But if old only there is no recompense, 
 And the old sinner can't too' soon go hence; 
 Or let him else repent and fructify, 
 Learn how to live, and, better, how to die ;• 
 If not, no occupation has he here. 
 Nor fix his hopes on heaven can he dare ; 
 He has no refuge and no ark of safety save 
 In blank oblivion and the silent grave. 
 Yet there is balm in Gilead, balm for all 
 Who on Him, all pow'rfu-1 to save, will call. 
 None, then, need despair or faint ; should not,: 
 When grace for contrite seeking can be got. 
 For when contritely sought 'tis ever given, 
 And all that v/ish m'ay get to heaven 
 Through Him, beginning, center, pivot, end,^^' 
 The Friend of all, the sinner's greatest Friend. 
 
 A great, good bishop said long time ago, 
 What all should realize as well as know. 
 That in settling our great and last account/ 
 'T will not be asked of us to say the amount 
 Of years, or months, or days, we've lived, but Jtoio well } 
 And on this question hangs or heaven or hell. 
 That good man was Bishop Taylor— his name 
 Baptismal, Jeremy — well known to fame; 
 Much lov'd. His Holy Living and his Dying 
 Is an excellent book and edifying; 
 To myriads it has consolation giv'n. 
 Makes smooth our path on earth and points to heaven, 
 
 VII. 
 
 A wise, good man said, two centuries ago,^® 
 Death comes to young men, to death old men go ; 
 They go, 't is trive, but go l>ecausc they must. 
 
Not that they wish to be return' d to dust. 
 The old love life as much as do the young, 
 As has been often said and now is sung 
 In my pretensionless and unskill'd verse, 
 Which might be better and not easily worse- 
 I am no poet; ne'er drank of Hippocrene.; 
 Nor Mount Parnassus have I climb' d or seen; 
 Know not Apollo, nor one of all the Nine ; 
 Ne'er mounted Pegasus, nor shall, as I opine— 
 Such Steeds are not for old men's riding. 
 And those who, in their vanity confiding, 
 Essay the feat are tumbled in the dirt, 
 Cur'd of their ambition and not much hurt. 
 The horse flings them as he flung Belleroi^hon 
 The bold, then wing'd his flight to Helicon. 
 
 Again I say, I surely am no poet, 
 And care not if all the world should know it ; 
 My rhymes are halting, feeble, and ephemeral, 
 Just worthy to be quick forgotten all. 
 Could I build up the noble verse Miltonic, 
 Or emulate the glowing strains Byronic ; 
 Of Pope, Cowper, Campbell, Crabbe, Coleridge, Scott, 
 Dryden, Southey, Wordsworth, Moore, and a large lot 
 Besides, whom for want of room I name not, 
 Although Mrs. Hemans must not be forgot ; 
 And here at home many of great and growing farae^ 
 Many a*rever'd and highly honor' d name; 
 Sigouruey, Bryant, Halleck, Whittier, Brake, 
 With many more that a galaxy make, 
 In which galaxy I should place Janvier, 
 Of sweetest singers the confest compeer. 
 In it too is Longus Comes, ^^ as the Times 
 Of London calls that builder of grand rhymes 
 Whom his compatriots Longfellow call— 
 Among the first, some think the first of all. 
 But mention must be made of Tennyson, 
 Whose name rhymes well with the word "benison." 
 Judah P. Benjamin, the Confederate,^^ 
 Asserted of the British laureate, 
 (Tennyson.) that he was God's own poet, 
 Which if he is all mankind should know it. 
 
10 
 
 Sucli phrase as this is hyperbolical, 
 
 And little merited or not at all ; 
 
 It seems to be tant soif peu irreverent, 
 
 And from Judah toto ccelo I dissent, 
 
 If what he said in this behalf he meant. 
 
 God leaves the bard to his own inspiration, 
 
 To make or mar his bardic reputation ; 
 
 Which, if he makes, 't is his ; if not, then he 
 
 Is but a poet damn'd/eZo de se. 
 
 I add the peasant bard, the Scottish plowman, ^^^ 
 
 Of whom for pregnant wit and pathos no man 
 
 Can be pronounced the superior. 
 
 Whilst legion is the name of the inferior: — 
 
 Could I like these construct the glorious rhyme, 
 
 My name might then survive to after time ; 
 
 They all are denizens of Mount Parnassus, 
 
 Where many a pauper but ne'er an ass is ; 
 
 But cui bono f These great names all must die 5 
 
 On earth can be no immortality. 
 
 To none will that Krfjua eis aei^* be giv'n 
 
 But those whose names are register' d in heaven. 
 
 I can't leave out the admirable Gray, 
 
 And for a rhyme I name the ingenious Gay. 
 
 The Elegy is worth ten tomes of trash 
 
 Like mine, or any poetaster's mish-mash : 
 
 This for Gray ; and all the reading Britons say 
 
 No Fables read equal are to those of Gay ; 
 
 Whilst all the French adhere to Lafontaine, 
 
 Who wrote Ms Fables in Louis Fourteenth's reign; 
 
 And they for grace and beauty, ease and wit. 
 
 To none are second that were ever writ. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 For what is an old man fit? For the " big wars?" 
 The least of all. Minerva and stern Mars 
 Eschew him both. No place has he in life ; 
 No children it may be, nor friends, nor wife ; 
 And thus he scrambles and he flounders on. 
 Till all the blandishments of life are gone — 
 Goes hapless, helpless, hopeless to the tomb, 
 There to.await the final day of doom. 
 What there his status none can surely know ; 
 
11 
 
 Some say 'tis thus, and others say 't is so. 
 Two theories there are, but which is true 
 I know not, not yet do kind reader you. 
 The soul, goes it at once to Paradise, 
 Or goes it othergates and otherwise ?-'^ 
 Or does it wait quiescent with its clay 
 To be resuscitated at that day. 
 That awful day, dies tree, dies illa,^^ 
 When earth shall be but scoria and favilla. 
 We cannot know, for none returns to tell 
 If he 's a saint in heaven or fiend in hell. 
 
 Here should I close my twaddle and ray rhyme, 
 Which to write or read is but a waste of time ; 
 But we all waste in this or in that way — 
 Much have I wasted with remorse I say. 
 My evening 's past, and now the gloomy night 
 Is on me, bringing no prospects blest or bright ] 
 Yet hope I will, and strive to do my best. 
 And then to God's great mercy leave the rest. 
 *'To be resign' d when ills betide," I trust . 
 May help me on ; it should,, it will, it must. 
 All that God commands and does is 'rightly done,^° 
 A poet says, which I believe, for one. 
 And with faith firmly fix'd in this belief, 
 I humbly trust I may not come to grief. ^^ 
 
 I now close my song and peroration 
 With a brief and pertinent quotation — 
 Four lines from Pope, worth well a thousand fold 
 Their weight in diamonds or refined gold ; 
 Which, if consider' d with meet ponderation, • 
 Will soothe and tranquillize all perturbation 
 Of the soul ; give peace without and peace within 
 To men of sorrow and to men of sin ; 
 Read, then, read again, pray, reflect, digest, 
 Leaving to God's large mercy all the rest. 
 
 FROM POPE. 
 
 "Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar, 
 Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore ; 
 AVhat future bliss He gives not thee to knpw, 
 But gives that hope to be thy blessing now."^^ 
 
12 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 ^ A friend lent the author of this poem, if such it can be 
 called, The Evening of Life, which he read, and Old Age 
 was the result of the reading. The author is in his 74th 
 year, is no poet, but rhymes a little now and then pour 
 passer le temps, or to kill time, rather, though not often. 
 He is not among the wise men of the country, but has 
 more discretion than to think of making a poetical repu- 
 tation when his discourse should be of other things not 
 belonging to the "visible, diurnal sphere," but of far more 
 important things, relating to eternity and not to time. In Old 
 Age there are a few good lines, a few mediocral, and a good 
 many below mediocrity. 
 
 ^ Chaucer's line is slightly changed, not the sense, however. 
 
 ^ Sophocles, in one of his tragedies written twenty-three 
 hundred years ago, makes Neoptolemus say that it is better 
 
 to be just than wise — dW cl SiKaia twv (xo<p(,iv K^eiaao} TaSe. Also, 
 
 that he would rather fail with honor than succeed without 
 it. Noble ideas, these, for an old heathen ! Is the world 
 governed by such now ? Was it ever? 
 
 * The French proverb, ^^Lejeu ne vautpas la chandelle^' — ■ 
 the sport is not worth the candle. 
 
 ^ The great Napoleon. Not Napoleon the Third, but the 
 First—'' mon oncle." 
 
 ® ''^ Black hulls then toss him and black devils tear.''"' This 
 line is from Dryden's fable of the Cock and the Fox. 
 
 "^ Boa constrictors are common in South America, but do 
 not reach the length or size given them by early Spanish 
 authors. Calana says they swallow crocodile's eggs, which 
 cannot be digested Avithout being first crushed. To do this 
 the boa coils himself about a tree and crushes them by 
 pressure, during which operation the report is like volleys of 
 musketry. 
 
 ^ Sancho Panza said that sleep '■'■ encierra a uno como una 
 capa. ' ' 
 Lope de Vega, the great Spanish dramatist, says : 
 
 ' * Que el grande y el pequeno 
 Son iguales que duran el sueno ;" 
 
 "In sleep the great and the humble are equal." He does 
 not say the old and the young. 
 
 ^ Shakspeare was 52 years old when he died ; Cicero G4. 
 Too early a death for such men. 
 
 '^'^ Finish-finial. This is a term of Gothic architecture — an 
 ornanaent on tlie top of a pinnacle is a finish-finial. 
 
 ^^ Cicero says: '''■Levis est seneclus nee solum non molesta 
 
18 
 
 sedjuninda." I do not find it so. He said he would leave 
 life as if he went out of an inn, and not from his own house 
 — tanqiiam ex hottjntio, non tanqvam ex domo. Still he was 
 willing; to remain in the inn a little longer when called on to 
 leave it. And so are we all. Cicero says concerning Cato : 
 ^^ Projicisciw ad Catonem mewn quo nemo vir melior natus 
 est. ' ■ 
 
 " Fulma and her lord. — The lord was Mark Anthony, one 
 of the worst characters of the bad age in which he lived. 
 They both finally came to griefs and richly deserved to come. 
 
 " Ami yet full many a gen'' rous deed they 'ye doJie. Horses 
 and dogs, especially the latter. The most famous dogs are 
 those of Saint Bernard, in the Alps, who are trained to find per- 
 sons buried in the snow — a duty they perform with astonish- 
 ing sagacity and success. One had saved forty persons, and 
 was then pensioned. The Spaniards made a very effective 
 use of dogs in their wars with the Indians in South America. 
 They were enrolled as soldiers, were very large and fierce — 
 called alano. 
 
 " John Wicliff, the great reformer, said it. What he said 
 was this : that "fat and gross persons would rise at the res- 
 urrection less incumbered with matter." Instead of fat, I 
 say grease. Sense the same. 
 
 ^^ ' * Ay ! hut to die, and go ive knoio not where. ' ' This line, 
 as all will know, is in Measure for Measure. 
 
 ^^The Greeks had' a saying, ''The young for labor and 
 action, the middle-aged for counsel, the old for prayer" — 
 e^ya veoiv, povXai Se fieaoiv, ev^at 6e yepovTcov. We say, the old for 
 counsel. The Greeks were wiser, perhaps. 
 
 " The Eleusinian Mysteries lasted as a worship about eight- 
 een hundred years; were abolished by the Emperor Theo- 
 dosius in the fourth century. The worship is dead and the 
 key to it lost, and is not worth finding, probably. 
 
 ^^ Through Him, beginning, center, pivot, end. M. Fargues, 
 a Protestant French minister, says of Christ: '^ Jesus Christ 
 en effet est le centre du christianisme, le pivot sur lequel roule 
 touies les v&rites de la religion. II est le cominencement, le 
 milieu,^ ^ &c. 
 
 M. Renan, a French savant, wrote a "Life of Jesus," 
 two or three years ago, which has been much read and much 
 criticised. It is ultra skeptical, rejects the divinity of Christ, 
 but bestows on him a great amount of eulogy, says he was a 
 "charming teacher," "serene and mighty soul," his "reli- 
 gion everlasting," "sublime person," "incomparable hero 
 of the Passion," &c., &c. Renan rejects all miracles, not 
 as being impossible, but as not proved. 
 
 " A wise, goodmansaid, two centuries ago. George Herbert, 
 celebrated for his learning and piety. He wrote English, 
 Greek, and Latin poetry and prose. His description of war in 
 
u 
 
 Latin, if read by all statesmen and those who get up wars, every 
 day, that "pious pastime" might be less frequent. He says : 
 ' ' Ecce lanienas omnimodas, truncata corpora mutilatam 
 imaginem Dei pauxiUum vitce, urhium incendia, fragores^ 
 direptio7ies, stupratas virgines, prcegnmites Ms intersectas, 
 effigies imo umbras hominum, fame, frigore, illuvie eiiectas, 
 contusas, debilitatas.''^ Any minister of the Gospel might 
 read Herbert's Priest to the Temple, with profit. 
 
 The great Erasmus said truly of war, '•^Bellum didceinex- 
 pertis^^ — war is relished by those who know not what it is. 
 
 ^° The London Times, in a poetical and satirical critique 
 of Hiawatha, latinizes Longfellow's name with the words 
 Longus Comes, and asks whether the poem is hosh or bunkum. 
 Bosh is East Indian for nofisense. What bunkum (Buncombe) 
 means everybody knows. 
 
 21 Judah P. Benjamin, the Confederate, said of Tennyson, 
 in a speech in the Senate in 1858: "God created that man a 
 poet. His inspiration is his — his songs are his by divine 
 right." This is Judah' s opinion, not mine. 
 
 '^ The peas antba.rd, the Scottish plowman. — Robert Burns, 
 of course. He is one of Carlyle's heroic men. Edward 
 Irving generously defends him against Dr. Chalmers and 
 others. He says : " The Cottar^ s Saturday/ Night redeemed 
 half his frailties and made the cause of religion his debtor; 
 a debt which it seems to me the religious have little thought 
 of in their persecution of his name and cruel exposure of all 
 his faults." The Cottar's Saturday Night will be read long 
 after the names of Burns' s persecutors will be utterly and 
 irrecoverably forgotten. 
 
 23 Krrj^a ds aciy a posscssiou forcver. 
 
 ^* The soul, goes it at once to Paradise, 
 Or goes it othergates and otherwise ? 
 
 The celebrated Edward Irving says: "An initiatory judg- 
 ment [at death] has us in its hold; a first paradise or a first 
 hell instantly ensueth. The soul remains in a kind of trance 
 of misery or ecstacy till the resurrection morn." 
 
 But where v/as or where is hell, which Dante calls the 
 valle buia, citta roggia — the red city — terra sconsolata, &c.? 
 He says he saw over a gate this inscription : ^^Voi ch^entrate 
 qui lasciate ogni speranza^'' — you that enter here leave all 
 hope behind. 
 
 The great and good Jeremy Taylor says: "Neither does 
 hell nor states in hell infer all those torments which school- 
 men signify by a pcena sensus. Neither they nor we nor any 
 man else can tell whether hell is a place or no." 
 
 Burns calls the red city the loicin heugh, (the flaming pit,) 
 where the refreshment was "brimstone drink red reeking 
 het." 
 
 JohnWesley believed in the poena se7isus and in material fire. 
 
15 
 
 Wicliff placed hell at the center of the earth, without light 
 or comfort. About this no one knows anything. 
 
 " Dies iro'., dies ilia — the first line of a famous Latin poera 
 written four or five hundred years ago. 
 
 2^ All that God commands and does is rightly done. From 
 Blirgher, in his Lenore, the best ghost story ever written. 
 w'iCad (>3t»lt tt}ut, ba^ i(i wot)[ flett)Rn !" 
 
 " Coyne to grief. — This phrase has come to be ludicrous by 
 the ludicrous use constantly made of it. The prophet Isaiah 
 . says ^^ put to grief'' in a very solemn passage. 
 
 ^® The four lines from Pope are to be found in the Essay on 
 Man — a poem much read, much praised, and i^iuch criticised. 
 The critics have not yet settled the controversy about the 
 poet's object in writing it. It is probable that he only aimed 
 at making a fine poem, without any theological or sectarian 
 bias whatever. Some discovered skepticism in it, a thing 
 that the poet certainly never thought of putting in it, for he 
 lived all his life a Roman Catholic, and died one, and there 
 was no reason to doubt his sincerity. That he was used by 
 Bolingbroke, as some alleged, as an instrument for giving to 
 the world his own deistical views, is very improbable. He 
 was not a man to be used — was more likely to use others. 
 Dr. Johnson says that many regarded the Essayns a "manual 
 of piety," and there are undoubtedly in it many things that 
 the most pious will accept, and but few that any one would 
 reject. What better than to hope humbly, not to attempt 
 any ambitious spiritual soarings, to wait death resignedly, 
 and to adore God devoutly? 
 
 Washington City, September, 18G6. 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
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