316 ae TIMEHRI, 
took a pipe of tobacco a little before he went to the 
scaffold, which some formall persons were scandalized 
at, but I think ’twas well and properly donne to settle 
his spirits,” 
Poor Sir WALTER leaves us the following verse as his 
last. It was composed on the night preceding his exe- 
cution, Oétober, 1618 :— 
Even such is Time, that takes on trust 
Our youth, our joys, our all we have 
And pays us but with age and dust; 
Who in the dark and silent grave, 
When we have wander’d all our ways, 
Shuts up the story of our days. 
The rainy seasons take the place of winter to the 
book-lover out here. THOMSON in “ The Seasons” has 
given us an admirable picture of the pleasures of the 
baok-lover when “ Winter, ruler of the inverted year” 
has arrived, and, in the words of EMERSON : 
The housemates sit 
Around the radiant fire-place, enclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm. 
Here is THOMSON’S vignette :-— 
In the wild depths of Winter, while without 
The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat 
Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join 
To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit, 
And hold high converse with the Mighty Dead. 
Here, in place of the snow whitening the air, and 
seeming “ nowhere to alight,” we have the torrential 
downpour of rain. The result, however, is similar. Both 
snow and rain drive us indoors to seek the company of 
our books, and indoors, whether by the * ruddy fire” or 
otherwise, we “hold high converse with the Mighty 
