not inquire who gathered and placed it there: though while his hand was employed, his heart breathed the prayer, that it might be the only thorn he should ever plant in her bosom. She could tell you if she would; nay, look at her happy face, and you may know without her telling you, how much of calm delight and peaceful pleasure may be crowded into the petals of a flower.

The poor aged widow in the almshouse must also have her flower. Old, and poor, and lonely as she is, she has not forgotten the time when she had a garden of her own; and now she sticks a bunch of gilliflowers in her broken blue jug, and placing it in the window, looks upon it with satisfaction. And why should she not? May her flowers bloom, and her hopes of heaven brighten!

The aged labourer too, who held the plough in his boyhood, and who now has near fourscore years on his forehead, when his blue Sunday coat, with the broad skirts and big buttons, is taken out of the oaken coffer, cannot wear it in peace to the house of God unless it has a sprig of sweet william and old man in the button hole. Gentle and simple both delight in flowers.

The new-made grave in the country churchyard, that is filled up in the morning, is in the

*

afternoon stuck over with flowers, that manifest the respect and affection of the living for the dead; there they bloom awhile, and there they 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 knoweth it no more," Psa. ciii. 15. 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.

IF 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 deference 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 in. troducing 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. 1 did thus:" "I agreed to that," and "I felt resolved to prevent the other."

66

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 workThere 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

men.