There is not much of this in the amatory or convivial poetry of the moderns. Waller has some traces of it; but a modern prose writer hath most beautifully, and with greater boldness than any of his predecessors, represented not merely the thoughts, but the actual image of mortality and decay, as exciting to a more full and rapid grasp at tangible enjoyments. Anastasius, while journeying amid the tombs of Scutari, breathing the damp deadly effluvia, and treading on a swelling soil, ready to burst with its festering contents, asks himself,—“Shall I, creature of clay like those here buried—I, who travel through life as I do on this road, with the remains of past generations strewed around me—I, who, whether my journey last a few hours, more or less, must still, like those here deposited, in a short time rejoin the silent tenants of a cluster of tombs—be stretched out by the side of some already sleeping corpse—and be left to rest, for the remainder of time, with all my hopes and fears, all my faculties and prospects, consigned to a cold couch of clammy earth—Shall I leave the rose to blush along my path unheeded—the purple grape to wither unculled over my head * * *? Far from my thoughts be such folly! Whatever tempts, let me take—whatever bears the name of enjoyment henceforth, let me, while I can, make my own(479).”—The French writers, like Chaulieu and Gresset, who paint themselves as finding in philosophy and the Muses sufficient compensation for the dissatisfaction attending worldly pleasures, frequently urge the shortness of life, not as an argument for indulging in wantonness or wine, but for enjoying, to the utmost, the innocent delights of rural tranquillity— “Fontenay, lieu délicieux, Ou je vis d’abord la lumiere, Bientôt au bout de ma carriere Chez toi je joindrai mes ayeux. “Muses, qui dans ce lieu champêtre Avec soin me fites nourrir— Beaux arbres qui m’avez vu naître Bientôt vous me verrez mourir: “Cependant du frais de votre ombre Il faut sagement profiter, Sans regret pret a vous quitter Pour ce Manoir terrible et sombre.”—_Chaulieu._ The united sentiment of enjoying the delights of love, and beauties of nature, as suggested by the shortness of the period allotted for their possession, has been happily expressed by Mallet, in his celebrated song to the Scotch tune, _The Birks of Invermay_: “Let us, Amanda, timely wise, Like _them_ improve the hour that flies; For soon the winter of the year, And Age, life’s winter, will appear. At this thy living bloom must fade, As that will strip the verdant shade: Our taste of pleasure then is o’er— The feathered songsters love no more: And when they droop, and we decay, Adieu, the shades of Invermay!”