Never here, for ever there, Where all parting, pain, and care, And death and time shall disappear-- For ever there, but never here! The horologe of Eternity Sayeth this incessantly-- 'For ever--never! Never--for ever!'" Mr Longfellow has not treated Jacques Bridaine fairly--certainly not happily. The pious writer intended that his clock, which represents the voice of Eternity, or the Eternal Destiny of each man, should, by the solemn ticking of its pendulum, utter to the ear of every mortal, according to his conscience, the happy "Toujours!" or the mournful "Jamais!" for the joys of Heaven are either "Always" or "Never." But no clock could utter to the conscience of any man a word of _three_ syllables, and by translating the "Tou-jours!--Ja-mais!" into "For ever!--Never!" we lose the voice of the pendulum. The point of the passage is the same, in this respect, as that of the well-known story of the Dutch widow who consulted her pastor whether she should marry again or not. Her pastor, knowing well that, in these cases, there is but one advice which has the least chance of being followed, referred her to the bells of the church, and bade her listen to them, and mark what they said upon the subject. They said very distinctly, "Kempt ein mann!"--"Take a husband!" Thereupon the pastor re-echoed the same advice. Jacques Bridaine intended that, according to the conscience which the listener brought, the swinging pendulum of his eternal clock would welcome him with the "Toujours!" or utter the knell of "Jamais!" This _conceit_ Mr Longfellow does not preserve. But, what is of far more importance, he preserves no one distinct sentiment in his piece; nor is it possible to detect, in all cases, what _his_ clock means by the solemn refrain, "For ever--never! Never--for ever!" When at the last verse the pendulum explains itself distinctly, the sentiment is diluted into what Jacques Bridaine would have thought, and what we think too, a very tame commentary on human life. At the fifth verse, as it stands in our quotation, the old clock quite forgets his character of monitor, and occupies himself with registering the happy hours of infancy. Very amiable on its part; but, if endowed with this variety of sentiment, it should be allowed to repeat something else than its "ever--never." "Even as a miser counts his gold, Those hours the ancient time-piece told-- 'For ever--never! Never--for ever!'" These remarks may seem very gravely analytical for the occasion that calls them forth. But if it were worth while to adopt a _conceit_ of this description as the text of his poem, it was worth the author's pains to carry it out with a certain distinctness and unity.