Of such redundant natures can it be possible that any can at last be narrowed down to the bier? Yes, die, and in a sense, intestate, too, as leaving no intellectual estate? Nothing indeed but an imperfect memory that ages avow, and is gone? Is this the end of that splendour? But why not? According to authoritative interpreters, the evanescence, the nothingness of things glorious, redounds to the glory of Omnipotence. And with what other aim in view, the theologians would like to know, did the Magnanimous call out the worlds? Two or three hundred years ago, to the amazement of the telescopes, a strange star appeared in the constellation of Cassiopeia, and shining there like a planet for a brief term, abruptly disappeared, and was seen no more. Nor was any star-dust left to tell of the fleet passage. True, out of the same Unknown or Nothing, and back into it again, millions of small meteors come and go; but extinction is signalised in the instance of stars of magnitude; and in corresponding degree the glory of God is magnified, who can work such wonders, to whom the planets are of even less consideration than to the Grand Mogul his golden buttons. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FRAGMENTS FROM A WRITING-DESK CLIPPING FROM THE ‘DEMOCRATIC PRESS AND LANSINGBURGH ADVERTISER’ No. 1 LANSINGBURGH, N.Y., _Saturday, May 4, 1839_. MY DEAR M----, I can imagine you seated on that dear, delightful, old-fashioned sofa, your head supported by its luxurious padding, and with feet aloft on the aspiring back of that straight-limbed, stiff-necked, quaint old chair, which, as our facetious W---- assured me, was the identical seat in which old Burton composed his _Anatomy of Melancholy_. I see you reluctantly raise your optics from the ugh-clasped [_sic_] quarto which encumbers your lap, to receive the package which the servant hands you, and can almost imagine that I see those beloved features illumined for a moment with an expression of joy, as you read the superscription of your gentle protégé. Lay down, I beseech you, that odious black-lettered volume and let not its musty and withered leaves sully the virgin purity and whiteness of the sheet which is the vehicle of so much good sense, sterling thought, and chaste and elegant sentiment. You remember how you used to rate me for my hang-dog modesty, my _mauvaise honte_, as my Lord Chesterfield would style it. Well! I have determined that hereafter you shall not have occasion again to inflict upon me those flattering appellations of ‘Fool!’ ‘Dolt!’ ‘Sheep!’ which in your indignation you used to shower upon me, with a vigour and a facility which excited my wonder, while it provoked my resentment.