LEAR.

* * * * *

SEPULCHRAL ENIGMA.

(To the Editor of the Mirror.)

The following Sepulchral Enigma against Pride, is engraved on a stone, in the Cathedral Church of Hamburgh: 

  “O, Mors, cur, Deus, negat, vitam,
  be, se, bis, nos, his, nam.”

CANON.

  Ordine daprimam mediae? mediamqz sequenti,
    Debita sic nosces fala, superbe, tibi. 
  Quid mortalis homo jactas tot quidve superbis? 
    Cras forsan fies, pulvis et umbra levis,
  Quid tibi opes prosunt?  Quid nuuc tibi magna potesias? 
    Quidve honor?  Ant praestans quid tibi forma?  Nihil. 
  Vide Variorum in Europa itinerum deliciae, &c. 
      Nathane Chitreo, Editio Secunda, 1599.

The above inscription and Canon are from a very scarce book, me penes; if they are deemed worthy of a place in your entertaining miscellany, and no solution or English version should be offered to your notice for insertion, I will avail myself of your permission to send one for your approval.

Your’s, &c. [Greek:  S.]

* * * * *

THE VINE—­A FRAGMENT.

(For the Mirror.)

  See o’er the wall, the white-leav’d cluster-vine
  Shoots its redundant tendrils; and doth seem,
  Like the untam’d enthusiast’s glowing heart,
  Ready to clasp, with an abundant love,
  All nature in its arms!

C. COLE.

* * * * *

THE COSMOPOLITE.

* * * * *

ON LIBERTY.

  “I don’t hate the world, but I laugh at it;
  for none but fools can be in earnest about a trifle.”

So says Gay of the world, in one of his letters to Swift, and we have adapted the quotation to our idea of liberty.  True it is that Addison apostrophizes liberty as a

  Goddess, heavenly bright!

but we hope our laughter will not be considered as indecorous or profane.  Our great essayist has exalted her into a Deity, and invested her with a mythological charm, which makes us doubt her existence; so that to laugh at her can be no more irreverend than to sneer at the belief in apparitions, a joke which is very generally enjoyed in these good days of spick-and-span philosophy.  Whether Liberty ever existed or not, is to us a matter of little import, since it is certain that she belongs to the grand hoax which is the whole scheme of life.  The extension of liberty into concerns of every-day life is therefore reasonable enough, and to prove that we are happy in possessing this ideal blessing, seems to have been the aim of all who have written on the subject.  One, however, if we remember right, sets the matter in a grave light, when he says to man—­