334 BALANCE OF VITALITY. 



Which are the lamps of clay found, commonly, to be the 

 soonest broken, and most early committed to their congenial 

 soil ? Common observation answers, Those, certainly, in which 

 a brilliant flame has served to exhaust most speedily the animal 

 oil whereon it fed. George Herbert said of himself, that he 

 had "a wit, like a penknife in too narrow a sheath, too sharp 

 for his body ;" and the remark is of general application. 



In the case of our old poet and divine, the " sheath," indeed, 

 proved of tougher material than he seemed to anticipate, for 

 long afterwards, writing about spring flowers (those favourite 

 emblems of fragility) he says beautifully and devoutly 



'* And now in age I bud again, 

 After so many deaths I live and write ; 

 I once more smell the dew and rain, 

 And relish versing. Oh, my only Light ! 

 It cannot be that I am he 

 On whom thy tempests fell all night. 



" These are thy wonders, Lord of love ! 

 To make us see we are but flowers that glide, 

 Which, when we once can find and prove, 

 Thou hast a garden for us where to bide." 



Opposed to those who, whether their span of life may have 

 been short or protracted, have lived, like the active May-fly, 

 all through their day, there are multitudes over whose remains 

 the well-known epitaph or epigram (from Camden) which heads 

 our observations might seem appropriately placed. 



"Here lies the man was born, and cried, 

 Lived sixty years fell sick, and died." 



Yet is even this, on our present principle of reckoning, a me- 

 morial by far too eulogistic. " Lived sixty years ! " Why 

 this crawling creature, who ate and slept away existence, did 

 not live sixty years, nor a sixtieth part of them. Only com- 

 pare the weary grub-like stage of such a creeping dullard, 

 with the winged career of a Chatterton, a Kirke White, a 

 Shelley, a Keats, and other brilliant Ephemera of a poetic sky, 



