‘Why, my dear, if you only look through it, And stand with your face to the light; Turn it gently (that’s just how to do it!), And you’ll see a remarkable sight.’ ‘O how beautiful!’ cried I, delighted, As I saw each fantastic device, The bright fragments now closely united, All falling apart in a trice. Times have passed, and new years will now find me, Each birthday, no longer a boy, Yet methinks that their turns may remind me Of the turns of my grandmother’s toy. For in all this world, with its beauties, Its pictures so bright and so fair, You may vary the pleasures and duties But still, the same pieces are there. From the time that the earth was first founded, There has never been anything new-- The same thoughts, the same things, have redounded Till the colours have pall’d on the view. But--though all that is old is returning, There is yet in this sameness a change; And new truths are the wise ever learning, For the patterns must always be strange. Shall we say that our days are all weary? All labour, and sorrow, and care, That its pleasures and joys are but dreary, Mere phantoms that vanish in air? Ah, no! there are some darker pieces, And others transparent and bright; But this, surely, the beauty increases,-- Only--_stand with your face to the light_. And the treasures for which we are yearning, Those joys, now succeeded by pain-- Are _but_ spangles, just hid in the turning; They will come to the surface again. B. So the old ideas, old myths, are turned and turned about, and form new combinations, and are ever evolving fresh beauties, and teaching fresh truths. Perhaps in the consideration of these ancient myths, and seeing their progressive modifications, their breaking up, their coalitions, we may find the fresh application of the old saw, that there is nothing new under the sun. THE END _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. FOOTNOTES: [1] Jones, _Trad. N. American Indians_ (1830), vol. iii. 175. [2] Original edition in Latin. A translation by John Campbell, LL.D., under the title of _Hermippus Redivivus_, London, 1743. A second edition much enlarged, under the title _Hermippus Redivivus, or the Sage’s Triumph over Old Age and the Grave_, London, 1749, 8vo. We have seen also an Italian translation. That from which we quote is the German edition. [3] It is possible that, by the engraver’s fault, the L in the last inscription may have been substituted for an X. [4] Ἔστρεψεν τὰ ταβλία τῶν πλακουνταρίων. [5] Εἷς φουσκάριος. [6] Εἷς Θεὸς, ἀββᾶ Συμεὼν, εἰς τὸν χεῖρα σου θυμιᾷς. [7] Τί ἐστιν ἔξηχε, ἴδε, οὐκ εἰμὶ ἐγὼ μόνος ἀπέργης.