ls.
Earth glitters with the drops the night distils.
The sun obedient at her call appears
To fling his glories o'er the robe she wears,
... to proclaim
His happiness, her dear, her only aim."

"The Thracians," says Cicero, "wept when a child was born, and feasted
and made merry when a man went out of the world, and with reason. Show
me the man who knows what life is, and dreads death, and I'll show
thee a prisoner who dreads his liberty."

Of the misery of human life, Gray speaks in similar terms:

"To all their sufferings all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan,
The feeling for another's pain,
The unfeeling for his own."

Audi alteram partem:

"It's a happy world after all."--_Paley_.

And Gray himself:

"For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This careful, anxious being e'er resigned,
E'er left the precincts of the _cheerful day_
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind."

And another popular author:

"A world of pleasure is continually streaming in on every side. It
only depends on man to be a demi-god, and to convert this world
into Elysium."--_Gaieties and Gravities_.

It is doubtless wise to incline to the latter sentiment.

Of the instability of human happiness and glory, a fine picture is
drawn by Appian, who represents Scipio weeping over the destruction of
Carthage. "When he saw this famous city, which had flourished seven
hundred years, and might have been compared to the greatest empires,
on account of the extent of its dominions, both by sea and land,
its mighty armies, its fleets, elephants and riches; and that the
Carthaginians were even superior to other nations, by their courage
and greatness of soul, as, notwithstanding their being deprived of
arms and ships, they had sustained for three whole years, all the
hardships and calamities of a long siege; seeing, I say, this city
entirely ruined, historians relate that he could not refuse his tears
to the unhappy fate of Carthage. He reflected that cities, nations,
and empires are liable to revolutions, no less than particular men;
that the like sad fate had befallen Troy, once so powerful; and in
later times, the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, whose dominions were
once of so great an extent; and lastly, the Macedonians, whose empire
had been so glorious throughout the world." Full of these mournful
ideas, he repeated the following verse of Homer:

"The day shall come, t