to be able to sing a good song. It is equally dangerous, we think, to be known as a good talker. The gift of rapid, brilliant, mirth-moving speech, is a perilous possession. The dullards, for whose amusement this gift is so often invoked, know well that to ply its possessor with wine is the readiest way to bring out its power. But in the end the wine destroys the intellect, and the man of wit degenerates into a buffoon, and dies a drunkard. Such is the brief life and history of many a young man, who, behind the stained-glass windows of the fashionable restaurant, or in the mirrored and cushioned rooms of the club-house, was hailed as the "prince of good fellows," and the rarest of wits. The laughing applauders pass on, each in his own way, and he who made them sport is left to struggle in solitude with the enemy they have helped to fasten upon him. Let every young man who longs for these gifts, and envies their possessors, remember "poor Hartley Coleridge." Let them be warned by the fate of one who was caught in the toils they are weaving around themselves, and perished therein, leaving behind him the record of a life of unfulfilled purposes, and of great departures from the path of duty and peace.
After remaining a short time, and reading the epitaphs of the departed, we again returned to "The Knoll." Nothing can be more imposing than the beauty of English park scenery, and especially in the vicinity of the Lakes. Magnificent lawns that extend like sheets of vivid green, with here and there a sprinkling of fine
