A man of eighty years was planting trees:-- “Ha! ha!” laughed out three striplings from the village, “Planting at eighty!--Had his task been tillage, Or building houses, or aught else you please, The folly might have passed as less worth noting. But--planting trees! He must indeed be doting! Why, in the name of all that’s odd, old neighbour, What fruit can such as you expect to gather From this ridiculous and driftless labour? You, who already are a great-grandfather! What! do you think to rival in his years Methuselah? For shame! Do penance rather For your past errors! Mourn your sins with tears! Abandon hopes and plans that so ill suit your Age and grey hairs! Give over looking wildly Out through the vista of a boundless future! All these are but for us, and such as we.” “They are not even for you,” replied the Old Man mildly. “Youth may be just as nigh Eternity As Age. What though the pitfalls of Existence Be covered o’er with flowers in lieu of snows, Who shall foremeasure the brief distance Between this dim dream’s birth and close? The wingéd bolts of Death are swift to strike Life in its dawning as decline; The pallid Parcæ play their game alike With your days and with mine. Who knows which of us four shall be the one To gaze last on the glory of the sun? Molest me not, then. Leave me to employ The hours that yet remain to me. I love To think my great-grandchildren will enjoy The shade and shelter of this embryo grove. Meantime I live, I breathe, and I may even Share for some years to come the gifts of Heaven. Alas! even I may see the morning-light Shine more than once, young men! upon your graves!” The Old Man spake a truth which Time revealed:-- Boating soon after, on a stormy night, One of these youths was buried in the waves-- A second was cut off upon the battle-field-- The third fell ill, and in four fleeting weeks His bier was dressed with Death’s pale plumes;-- So died the Three--thus early fated! And while the tears rolled down his cheeks, The Old Man sculptured on their tombs The story I have here narrated. M. * * * * * Learning, it has been said, may be an instrument of fraud: so may bread, if discharged from the mouth of a cannon, be an instrument of death.--_Bentham._ THE SNUFF SHOP.