nurse the tender bud into life, nor cover the earth with verdure and fruit. This is left to the genial sunshine and the warm summer rains. In private intercourse, Mr. Bryant is what all his writings, poetical as well as prose, indicate. His life is that of a student of elegant and lofty literature. He is reserved in his manner, almost to repulsiveness, yet in the social circle is witty, amiable, and affectionate. When his sympathies are interested, the spirit of tenderness and benevolence gleams like a flame from his eyes, and plays around his features in a beautiful radiance. In his opinions of men, he endeavors to be just; but when he is not just, the leaning is towards the side of mercy. A strong natural irritability has been disciplined by stern effort into the subjection of reason; and his tastes and habits, though refined by careful culture, are as simple as those of a child. Those who know him best are at a loss which most to admire, the superiority of his faculties, or the modesty of his deportment. SLIDING SCALES OF DESPAIR. The London _Morning Chronicle_, after an observation that a hurriedly written epitaph always appears, in the course of time, to require revisal, expresses its admiration for the good sense of a Parisian sculptor, who, when he took his instructions for a monument, insisted upon the _veuve inconsolable_ or the heartstricken husband penning the intended inscription, and even signing the holograph, as a further authority to him for immortalizing so much utter despair. "The day before the record was actually to be cut for eternity, his habit was to send the inscription book to the mourner's house, lest any correction should be desired. The havoc which, upon receiving back the volume, he usually found made among laudatory adjectives and adverbs of infinity, was, to a good man, a delightful evidence of the cooling and healing powers of time." DEATH IN YOUTH. WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE. BY H. W. PARKER. 'Tis sad to leave the lovely world, The blazoned banner of the sky, And all the Earth's sublimity, Are, day by day, in light unfurled, In glory float before the eye. The practised ear and eye are clearer, The heart is deeper, Nature dearer, From year to year: 'tis sad to die. 'Tis hard to leave the busy world-- To feel our courage mounting high On thoughts that just begin to fly, Then arrow-struck and swiftly hurled Downward to dim obscurity. Our life is always a beginning, A hope of honor worth the winning; We hope to do, and hoping, die. 'Tis hard to leave a stormy world, When every watcher may descry A happy Future drawing nigh, And all the nations, onward whirled, Behold the sunny shores that lie Beyond that ever-heaving ocean-- The Present, with its wild commotion; Alas, to see, to sink, to die.