The Author of A Tradesman’s Lays.

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MASSENA’S TOMB.

PERE LA CHAISE, PARIS.

(For the Mirror.)

  “The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
  And all that beauty, all that wealth, ere gave,
    Await alike the inevitable hour,
  The paths of glory lead but to the grave!”
                                        GRAY.

  Rest Soldier! not the trumpet’s peal,
    Can break the hallow’d silence here;
  For ling’ring footsteps only steal,
    To weep the mourner’s bitter tear.

  Sad trophied “city of the dead!”
    Far around are night dews weeping;
  And cypresses their branches spread,
    Where the fair and brave are sleeping.

  Affection brings her wreath of willow,
    And fondly decks the funeral stone,
  The cold, damp earth she makes her pillow,
    And only hears the night-wind’s moan.

  And hoary age, hath laid him down,
    With the weary weight of years upon him! 
  And youth, in his spring morning flown,
    Ere life’s cold hues had shadow’d on him.

  Beauty, hath joined the assembly here,
    With marble brow, and close-shut eye,
  And pallid lip,—­while o’er her bier,
    The dirge was chanted mournfully.

  And roses bloom on many a grave,
    With lilies fair, and violets blue,
  And willows their green branches wave,
    Shedding pale evening’s tears of dew.

  Round many a tomb that flow’ret springs,
    “Forget me not”—­the tale it tells,
  Vainly the fond appeal it brings
    To Death’s domain, where silence dwells!

  Long years, “with all their deeds,” may roll,
    Ere the cold clay, its cell forsaking,
  Shall join the disembodied soul,
    When the last morning’s dawn is breaking!

  Kirton Lindsey. ANNE R.

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THE WRITINGS OF BURKE.

(For the Mirror.)

Of all the great men of his age, there were few who attained to the celebrity of Edmund Burke; there were many, however, who deserved it more and whom a more adverse fortune compelled to languish in comparative obscurity.  That Burke was a man of wonderful talent it would be in vain to deny, and indeed such denial would be only a proof of our own ignorance and bad taste; but his strength was that of imagination merely,—­his genius was not sufficiently counterbalanced by judgment, and he has been at all times ranked as an elegant rather than a nervous writer.  In his oratory, as well us his literary composition, he was too much addicted to a florid phraseology, and his hearers, during his lifetime, as well as his readers now, were often driven to consider his meaning, and not unfrequently to make