rong there; and so I will
trouble Miss Prowley for a bit more of the steak, and----No, thank you,
no beer for me; I am a water-drinker of twenty years' standing."

"The toast I am about to propose," observed Colonel Prowley, "may, with
exceeding propriety, be drunk in water,--that is, whenever
milk-and-water is not to be had:--

_"Our spiritual demagogues, much weaker than our political ones, may
they not be as much worse!"_

"And there is one other sentiment," said good Dr. Burge, brimming over
with an honest hilarity,--"a toast which I should be willing to drink in
pretty strong--coffee."

"I have not forgotten that," exclaimed our host, proffering a hearty
shake of the hand to the High Senior Governour and Primitive Patriarch
of All Sextons,--

_"Health and a long life to Sir Joseph Barley!"_

PROSPICE.

Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that Death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace, then a joy,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!

WASHINGTON IRVING.

We have, at last, a full story of the life of Mr. Irving. It is from the
hand of a near relative, who has brought to the task an almost filial
reverence, with a modest reserve of language, and a delicacy of
treatment, which, while they disarm criticism, would of themselves
suffice to attest the kinship of the writer with the distinguished
subject of his biography. It is a quiet and tranquil picture t