wither. And now shall we try to dismiss the subject of flowers, with some new and striking application? No; for we all rather want old admonitions to be revived in our hearts, than new notions to be imparted to our heads. The beauty of a flower ought to make us glad and grateful, and its frailty ought to excite reflection. We should never gaze on a withered rose, or fading lily, without the sad, yet salutary remembrance, that, "as for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more," Psa. ciii. 15, 16. Yet though our bodies be frail as the frailest flower, though they perish, yet again shall they arise from the dust. The ransomed soul, triumphing in the grace of the Redeemer, will claim its earthly companion. This corruptible shall put on incorruption, this mortal shall put on immortality, this body shall rise from the grave, and death be swallowed up in victory.

THE

LETTER I BY ITSELF I

Ir the letter I by itself I be not the tallest letter in the alphabet, sure I am that no letter lifts its head above it. It occupies the least space, I will admit, of all capital letters; but take it for its fair proportions, enlarged significations, and great pretensions altogether, and you will find it to be, by far, the most important of the whole six and twenty.

There is hardly any other single letter that is clothed with the dignity of a word. We sometimes exclaim O! either when in pain, or affected with sudden surprise; but what are the povertystricken significations of the letter O, even when inflated into a word, when compared to those of I by itself I?

When it is considered how universally mankind allow this letter to take the lead of all others, both in writing and speaking, one almost wonders why it was not made a little bigger than the rest. It is unquestionably the proudest letter of the alphabet, and no marvel that it should be so

while we all treat the coxcomb with such defer

ence and respect.

When an author takes up his pen, his dear darling, I by itself I, is directly introduced to the reader. "I have long thought such a work wanted:" "I felt determined to supply the deficiency:" "I trust that I have done my part in introducing this volume to the public." And when a speaker rises to address an assembly, it is very often I by myself I, from beginning to end. "I did thus:" "I agreed to that," and "I felt resolved to prevent the other."

It is not in the alphabet only, and printed books, and public and private speeches, that I by itself I is to be found. No; it is to be seen living and moving in all ranks and stations of life, from the monarch to the mountebank.

It is an every-day error, when speaking or thinking of vanity and pride, for us to look towards the great folks of the earth, as though pride and vanity had taken up their abode with them alone, while, in fact, they dwell with the low as well as with the high, and sometimes. puff up the heart of a cobbler as much as that of a king.

A writer, I have said, is almost always an I by itself I. He plumes himself on giving information to his readers, and imagines that he has outdone

those who have written on the same subject. Then, when his book comes out, with what vanity does he regard it! He persuades himself that it will be very popular, and that hundreds, and perhaps thousands, will admire the taste and the talent that he has displayed.

Oftentimes, too, the reader is as much an I by itself I, as the writer, for he sits in judgment on the book, points out its manifold defects, suggests numberless improvements, and thinks how much better the work would have been executed, had he taken the pen in hand, or benefited the writer with his valuable observations.

It was but yesterday, that I stopped to exchange a word with some bricklayers who were building a wall near some large houses. In a short time, a good-looking, broad-shouldered man, whose bones were well-covered with flesh, and whose flesh was well-covered with a good suit of clothes, came up, and gave directions to the workmen. There was an elevation of the eye, and a consciousness of power, visibly stereotyped in his features. He pointed with his cane as he spoke, and raised his voice as one having authority; as one whose word was law, and whose law was no more to be disputed than that of the Medes and Persians. Old Humphrey

saw at a glance, that he was an I by itself I, and found, on inquiry, that he was the wealthy landlord of all the houses around.

It was not more than half an hour after, that I met a thin stripling of a young fellow, whom I knew to be a draper's apprentice. He had a ring on his finger, a chain across his breast, and a sparkling pin stuck in his bosom. The way in which he walked, with his hat a little on one side, amused me; for the springing up of his heel, and the lifting up of his elbow, told me that, whatever he might be in the opinion of others, he was an I by itself I in his own.

There is a neighbour of mine who is the leader of a concert, and I am told that when he presides, he has an air of as much importance as though the welfare of the four quarters of the world depended, solely, on the sounds that he produces from his fiddle-strings. Next door to him lives one skilled in the mathematics, who utterly despises the musician, and laments that a man having a head on his shoulders, should be content with fiddling his way through the world. Nothing like mathematical knowledge in his estimation. I overheard him the other day say to a friend of his, "Some people take our neighbour Old Humphrey to be a wise man; but, poor creature, he knows no more of mathe