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EVERY n hath two birth-days; two days, at least, in eery year, which set hiupon reoling the pse of ti, as it affects his rtal duration. The one is that whi an especial nner he terth his. In the gradual desuetude of old obserahis of soleizing our proper birth-day hath nearly passed away, or is left to children, who refleothing at all about the tter, nor uand any thing in it beyond cake and e. But the birth of a New Year is of an ioo wide to be pretertted by king obbler. No one eer regarded the First of January with indiffere is that frowhich all date their ti, and t upon what is left. It is the natiity of our on Ada
Of all sounds of all bell -- (bells, the siighest b upon heaen) -- st sole and toug is the peal which rings out the Old Year. I neer hear it without a gathering-up of nd to a tration of all the iges that hae been diffused oer the past twelenth; all I hae done or suffered, perford lected in that regretted ti. I begin to know its worth, as when a person dies. It takes a personalour; nor was it a poetical flight in a porary, when he ecid
I saw the skirts of the departing Year.
It is han what in sober sadness eery one of us see to he scious of, in that awful leae-taking. I asure I fe it, and all fe it with , st night; though so of  anions. affected rather to an ehiration at the birth of the ing year, than aender regrets for the decease of its predecessor. But I anone of those who -
Wele the ing, speed the parting guest.
I anaturally, beforehand, shy of ies: new books, new faces, new years, -- froso ntal twist which kes it difficu. io face the prospectie. I hae alst ceased to hope; and asanguine only in the prospects of other (forr) years. I pluone isions and clusions. I enter pell-ll with past disappois. I aarur-proof against old dists. I fie, or oere in fancy, old adersaries. I py ain for loe, as the gasters phrase it, gas, for whi99ｌib.ch I once paid so dear. I would scarow hae any of those untoward acts as of life reersed. I would no re aer thethan the is of so well-tried noel. Methinks, it is better that I should hae pined away seen of golde years, when I was thrall to the fair hair, and fairer eyes, of Alice W--n , than that so passionate a loe-adenture should be lost. It was better that our faly should hae ssed that legacy, which old Dorrell cheated us of, than that I should hae at this nt two thousand pounds in b, ahout the idea of that specious ue.
In a degree beh nhood, it is infirty to look back upon those early days. Do I adance a parado, when I say, that, skippihe iion of forty years, a n y hae leae to loe hielf, without the iutation of self-loe?
If I know aught of self, no one whose nd is introspectie -- and ne is painfully so -- hae a less respect for his present identity, than I hae for the n Elia. I know hito be light, and ain, and hurso; a notorious * * * addicted to * * * * : aerse frosel, her taking it, nor it: -- * * * besides; a staering buffoon; what you will; y it on, and spare not: I subscribe to it all, and ch re, than thou st be willing to y at his door -- -- -- but for the child Elia -- that quot;other ,quot; there, in the back-ground -- I st take leae to cherish the rerance of that young ster -- with as little reference, I protest, to this stupid geling of fie-and-forty, as if it had been a child of so other house, and not of  arents. I cry oer its patient sll-po at fie, and rougher dits. I y its poor feered head upon the sick pillow at Christs, and wake with it in surprise at the gentle posture of ternal tenderness hangi, that unknown had watched its sleep. I know how it shrank froany the leaslour of falsehood. -- God help thee, Elia, how art thou ged! Thou art sophisticated. -- I know how ho, how ceous (for a weakling) it was -- hious, how iginatie, how hopeful! Frowhat hae I not fallen, if the child I reer was indeed self, -- and not so disseling guardian, presenting a false identity, to gie the rule to unpractised steps, ae the tone of ral being!
That I afond of indulging, beyond a hope of syathy, in such retrospeay be the sytoof so sickly idiosyncrasy. Or is it owing to another cause; sily, that being without wife or faly, I hae not learo project self enough out of self: and haing no offspring of own to daily with, I turn back upon ry, and adopt own early idea, as heir and faourite If these specutions seefantastical to thee, reader -- (a busy n, perce), if I tread out of the way of thy syathy, and asingurly-ceited only, I retire, ierable to ridicule, uhe phantocloud of Elia.
The elders, with whoI was brought up, were of a character not likely to let slip the sacred obserance of any old institution; and the ringing out of the Old Year was kept by thewith circes of peculiar y. -- In those days the sound of those dnight chis, though it seed to raise hirity in all around , neer failed t a train of pensie igery into fancy. Yet I then scarce ceied what it ant, or thought of it as a reing that ed . Not childhood alone, but the young n till thirty, neer feels practically that he is rtal. He knows it indeed, and, if need were, huld preach a holy on the fragility of life; but he brings it not ho to hielf, ahan in a hot June propriate tination the freezing days of Deceer. But now, shall I fess a truth ? -- I feel these audits but too powerfully. I begin to t the probabilities of duration, a the ependiture of nts and shortest periods, like sers farthings. In proportion as the years both lessen and shorten, I set re t upon their periods, and would fain y iual finger upon the spoke of the great wheel. I anot tent to pass away quot;like a weaers shuttle.quot; Those taphors sobsp; not, nor sweeten the unpatable draught of rtality. I care not to be carried with the tide, that sothly bears hun life to eternity: a at the iablurse of destiny. I aih this greeh; the face of town and try; the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the sweet security of streets. I would set up tabernacle here. I atent to stand still at the age to which I aarried; I, and friends: to be no younger, no richer, no handsor. I do not want to be weaned by age; or drop, like llow fruit, as they say, into the grae. -- Aion, on this earth of ne, i９9lｉｂ? or in lodging, puzzles and disposes . My household gods pnt a terrible fied foot, and are not rooted up without blood. They do not willingly seek Lainian shores. A ate of being staggers .
Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and suer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juieats and fishes and society, and the cheerful gss, and dle-light, and fireside ersations, and i anities, as, and irony itself -- these things go out with life?
a ghost ugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you are pleasant with hi
And you, dnight darlings, Folios! st I part with the intense delight of haing you (huge aruls) in eraces? Must knowledge e to , if it e at all, by so awkward eperint of intuition, and no longer by this faliar process of reading?
Shall I enjoy friendships there, wanting the sling indications which poio thehere, -- the reisable face -- the quot;sweet assurance of a lookquot; -- ?
In wihis intolerable disination to dying -- to gie it its ldest na -- does re especially haunt a . In a genial August nooh a sweering sky, death is alst probletic. At those tis do such poor snakes as self enjoy an iortality. Then we epand and burgeon. Then are we as strong again, as aliant again, as wise again, and a great deal taller. The bst that nips and shrinks , puts in thoughts of death. All things allied to the insubstantial, wait upon that ster feelingld, nuness, drea, perpleity; onlight itself, with its shadowy and spectral appearances, -- thald ghost of the sun, or Phoebus sickly sister, like that innutritious one denounced iicles : -- I anone of her nions -- I hold with the Persian.
Whatsoeer thwarts, or puts out of way, brings death into nd. All partial eils, like huurs, run into that capital pgue-sore. -- I hae heard so profess an indiffereo life. Such hail the end of their eistence as a port e; and speak of the grae as of so soft ar, in which they y sluer as on a pillow. So hae wooed death -- -- -- but out upon thee, I say, thou foul, ugly phanto I detest, abhor, eecrate, and (with Friar John) gie thee to sire thousand deils, as in no instao be ecused or tolerated, but shunned as a uniersal iper; to be branded, proscribed, and spoken eil of! In no way I be brought to digest thee, thou thin, ncholy Priation, or re frightful and founding Positie!
Those antidotes, prescribed against the fear of thee, are aogether frigid and insuing, like thyself. For what satisfa hath a n, that he shall quot;lie down with kings and eerors ih,quot; who in his life-ti neer greatleted the society of such bed-fellows ? -- or, forsooth, that quot;so shall the fairest face appear? quot; -- why, to e, st Alice W--n be a goblin? More than all, I ceie disgust at those ierti9９liｂ? and sbeing faliarities, inscribed upon your ordinary tostones. Eery dead n st take upoo be lecturih his odious truis that quot;such as he now is, I st shortly he.quot; Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou igi. In the an-ti I aalie. I e about. I aworth twenty of thee. Know thy betters! Thy New Years Days are past. I surie, a jolly didate for 1821. Another cup of wine -- and while that turat bell, that just now urnfully ted the obsequies of 1820 departed, with ged notes lustily rings in a suessor, let us attuo its peal the song de on a like oasion, by hearty, cheerful Mr. tton. -
THE NEW YEAR.
Hark, thck crows, and yht star
Tells us, the day hielfs not far;
And see where, breaking frothe night,
He gilds the western hills with light.
With hiold Janus doth appear,
Peeping into the future year,
With such a look as see to say,
The prospect is not good that way.
Thus do we rise ill sights to see,
And `gainst ourseles to prophesy;
When the prophetic fear of things
A re tornting schief brings,
More full of soul-tornting gall,
Than direst schiefs befall.
But stay ! but stay! thinks sight,
Better infor by clearer light
Diss sereneness in that brow,
That all tracted see but now.
His reersd face y show distaste,
And frown upon the ills are past;
But that which this way looks is clear,
And sles upon the New-born Year.
He looks too froa pce so high,
The Year lies open to his eye;
And all the nts open are
To the eact derer.
Yet re and re he sles upon
The happy reolution.
Why should we then suspect or fear
The influences of a year,
So sles upon us the first rn,
And speaks us good so soon as born?
Pgue ont! the st was ill enough,
This ot but ke better proof;
Or, at the worst, as we brushd through
The st, why so we y this too;
And then the in reason shoud
Be superecellently good:
For the worst ills (we daily see)
Hae no re perpetuity,
Than the best fortuhat do fall;
Which als us wherewithal
Loheir being to support,
Than those do of the other sort:
And who has one good year in three,
A repi destiny, [p 32]
Appears ungrateful in the case,
As not the good he has.
The us wele the New Guest
With lusty briers of the best;
Mirth always should Good Fortu,
And renders een Disaster sweet:
And though the Priurn her back,
Let us but line ourseles with sack,
We better shall by far hold out,
Till the Year she face about.
How say you, reader -- do not these erses sck of the rough gnanity of the old English ein? Do they not fortify like rdial; enrging the heart, and productie of sweet blood, and generous spirits, in th? Where be those puling fears of death, just now epressed or affected ? --passed like a cloud -- absorbed in the purging sunlight of clear poetry -- washed away by a wae of genuine Heli, your only Spa for these hypodries -- And now another cup of the generous! and a rry New Year, and ny of the to you all, sters!
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