"Is, is there nothing cann withstand The hand Of Time: but that it must Be shaken into dust? Then poore, poore Israelites are wee Who see, But cannot shunn the Graue's captivitie. "Alas, good Browne! that Nature hath No bath, Or virtuous herbes to strayne, To boyle[2] thee yong againe; Yet could she (kind) but back command Thy brand, Herself would dye thou should'st be unman'd. "But (ah!) the golden Ewer by [a] stroke, Is broke, And now the Almond Tree With teares, with teares, we see, Doth lowly lye, and with its fall Do all The daughters dye, that once were musicall. "Thus yf weake builded man cann saye, A day He lives, 'tis all, for why? He's sure at night to dye, For fading man in fleshly lome[3] Doth rome Till he his graue find, His eternall home. "Then farewell, farewell, man of men, Till when (For us the morners meet Pal'd visag'd in the street, To seale up this our britle birth In earth,) We meet with thee triumphant in our mirth." _Trinitaell Hall's Exequies._ Now, to what does Hall refer in the third stanza, in his mention of the almond-tree? Is it a classical allusion, as in the preceding stanza, or has it some reference to any botanical fact? I send the ballad, trusting that as an inedited morsel you will receive it. KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE. [We do not take _Hall_ here to be the name of a man, but Trinity Hall at Cambridge.] [Footnote 2: The reader will recognise the classical allusion.] [Footnote 3: Loam, earth; roam.] * * * * * ON A PASSAGE IN MARMION. I venture for the first time to trespass upon the attention of your readers in making the following remarks upon a passage in _Marmion_, which, as far as I know, has escaped the notice of all the critical writers whose comments upon that celebrated poem have hitherto been published. It will probably be remembered, that long after the main action of the poem and interest of the story have been brought to a close by the death of the hero on the field of Flodden, the following incident is thus pointedly described:-- Short is my tale:--Fitz-Eustace' care A pierced and mangled body bare To moated Lichfield's lofty pile: And there, beneath the southern aisle, A tomb, with Gothic sculpture fair Did long Lord Marmion's image bear, &c. &c. &c. "There erst was martial Marmion found, His feet upon a couchant hound, His hands to Heaven upraised: And all around on scutcheon rich, And tablet carved, and fretted niche, His arms and feats were blazed. And yet, though all was carved so fair, And priest for Marmion breathed the prayer, _The last Lord Marmion lay not there._ From Ettrick woods a peasant swain Follow'd his lord to Flodden plain,-- &c. &c. &c.