GOLD CANNOT LENGTHEN LIFE.
If hoarded gold possess'd the power
To lengthen life's too fleeting hour,
And purchase from the hand of death
A little span, a moment's breath,
How would I love the precious ore
And every hour should swell my store;
That when Death came, with shadowy pinion,
To waft me to his bleak dominion,

I might, by bribes, my doom delay,
And bid him call some distant day.
But since, not all earth's golden store,
Can buy for us one bright hour more,
Why should we vainly mourn our fate,
Or sigh at life's uncertain date?
Nor wealth nor grandeur can illume
The silent midnight of the tomb.

SPRING.

Behold! the young, the rosy spring,
Gives to the breeze her scented wing;
While virgin graces, warm with May,
Fling roses o'er her dewy way.
The murmuring billows of the deep
Have languish'd into silent sleep;
And mark! the flitting sea-birds lave
Their plumes in the reflecting wave;
While cranes from hoary winter fly,
To flutter in a kinder sky.

Now the genial star of day
Dissolves the murky clouds away;
And cultur'd field, and winding stream,
Are freshly glittering in his beam.

Now the earth prolific swells
With leafy buds and flowery bells;
Gemming shoots the olive twine,
Clusters ripe festoon the vine;
All along the branches creeping,
Through the velvet foliage peeping,
Little infant fruits we see,
Nursing into luxury.

THE DANCE.

When I behold the festive train

Of dancing youth, I'm young again.
Memory wakes her magic trance,

And wings me lightly through the dance.
Come, Cybeba, smiling maid!

Cull the flower and twine the braid;
Bid the blush of summer's rose
Burn upon my forehead's snows;
And let me, while the wild and young
Trip the mazy dance along,
Fling my heap of years away,

And be as wild, as young as they.

While Moore was preparing Anacreon for the press he published a volume of poems, under an assumed name. This volume (though proving that its author possessed considerable poetical talent,) was most properly considered very objectionable, and the only excuse ever put forward for it was, the youth of the writer. Moore in recent editions of his works, omitted the songs which were most open to severely just criticism, and there is every reason to believe that he deeply deplored having ever written them. The Edinburgh Review condemned these poems with such cutting reproof, that the author considered the critic to have overstepped the limits of just criticism. The critique, which will be found in the eighth volume of the Edinburgh Review, is certainly a specimen of severity. Moore challenged the editor (the late Lord Jeffrey,) and a hostile meeting took place at Chalk Farm, near London. The duel was, however, prevented by the interference of the police, and on examining the pistols, it was found that they did not contain balls.

This circumstance led to much sportive remark at the time, at the expense of the parties concerned. Moore always denied that he knew of the harmless condition of his opponent's pistol, and there is of course no reason to doubt his word. Moore and Jeffrey were afterwards very good friends. The circumstance would be unworthy of notice, were it not for the fact, that the friendship between Moore and Byron arose from a meeting brought about to obtain from Byron an apology for using the words, "leadless pistol," in the "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." It is a curious coincidence, that the two greatest poets of the present century, Byron and Moore, were both severely handled in the Edinburgh Review at the outset of their career, They both, however, triumphed over what (as in the case of Keats, whom criticism killed) would have disheartened men of less energy. They lived (not to prove their censor wrong, but) to extort admiration from the sternest critic of modern times. In the Edinburgh Review of November, 1817, we find the following passage respecting the early criticism. The passage is equally honourable to the critic and to the poet.

"In an early number of this work we reproved Mr. Moore, perhaps with unnecessary severity, for what appeared to us, the licentiousness of some of his youthful productions. We think it a duty to say, that he has long ago redeemed that error; and that in all his later works that have come under our observation, he appears as the eloquent champion of purity, fidelity, and delicacy, not less than of justice, liberty, and honour."

POEMS ON AMERICA.

In 1803, through the friendship of Lord Moira, Moore was appointed Admiralty Registrar at Bermuda. He sailed in the Phaeton frigate, for the scene of his duties, on the 25th September, 1803. The scenic beauties of Somers' Isles delighted Moore, and in his poetical descriptions of Bermuda -pronounced by Basil Hall to be strikingly accurate he has left some of his most exquisite lines. He soon, however, grew tired of the social dulness of official life in a distant land, and having left a deputy (whose defalcations afterwards involved him in heavy loss) to discharge his duties for a share of the income, he proceeded to America. He was

long remembered in Bermuda, and there is a Calabash tree, still known as "Moore's tree," from the fact of his having alluded to it in one of his poems.

On leaving Bermuda, Moore took a tour through the United States. He mentions his having attended the levee of President Jefferson, and observes, that it was an event not to be forgotten, to see and speak with the man who drew up the Declaration of Independence. Moore's impressions of America were not favourable, a circumstance which he traces to the influence of the feelings and prejudices of those with whom he mingled, who were principally officers of the British navy. "The good will," writes Moore," which I have received from more than one distinguished American, sufficiently assures me that any injustice I may have done to that land of freemen, if not long since wholly forgotten, is now remembered only to be forgiven."

Moore, of course, visited Niagara, and the prose account he gives of his visit (which we subjoin), contains very sublime ideas. He went among the Tuscarora Indians, whose manly forms and natural courtesy he much admired. Having crossed Lake Ontario, he passed down the St. Lawrence to Quebec, and returned to England. In his voyage down the St. Lawrence, Moore wrote on the fly-leaf of a copy of Priestley's Lectures, his well-known "Canadian Boat song." He gave the book to a friend named Harkness, and when it was shown to him in 1835, by Miss Maconchy, of Edenmore, near Dublin, the poet authenticated the circumstance in an autograph statement subjoined to the lines.

NIAGARA.

"When we arrived, at length, at the inn, in the neighbourhood of the Falls, it was too late to think of visiting them that evening, and I lay awake almost the whole night, with the sound of the cataract in my ears. The day following I consider as a sort of era in my life; and the first glimpse I caught of that wonderful cataract gave me a feeling which nothing in the world can awaken again. It was through an opening among the trees, as we approached the spot where the full view of the Falls was to burst upon us, that I caught this glimpse of the mighty mass of waters folding smoothly over the edge of the precipice; and so overwhelming was the notion it gave me of the awful spectacle I was approaching, that, during the short interval that followed, imagination had far outrun the reality; and, vast and wonderful as was the scene that then