While the youth bends down to hear, O'er the flush'd cheek cluster down; Fresh the scene comes o'er us still! When my child, whose marble brow It laughs and prattles on my knee, Shall be old, and frail, and faded, Each charm by years and sorrow shadedStill shall men of future days On the unfading picture gaze, And while youth and wit can charm At the wild romance shall warm- To Celia and her Rosalind ! PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. "There is a kind of character in thy life, that, to the observer, doth thy history fully unfold." SHAKESPEARE. WHEN we reflect on the numberless trifles which form matter for the consideration of the reflective, it is surprising that an event of hourly occurrence should have hitherto escaped notice, and that, in this autograph-collecting, bump-seeking, and trait-discerning age, that the signal for admission, vulgate, the knock at the door, should be excluded from the long list of nothings, which are considered personal characteristics. In the scrawl of the sloven we discover a totally distinct character from the precisely neat hand of the petit-maître; nor do we find it more difficult to trace the difference between the carefully formed letters of the cold, phlegmatic calculator of fractions, and the half-formed hieroglyphics of the ardent enthusiast. But does not every act of the enthusiast betray his character, even in the veriest trifles? An earnest ness and precipitancy is evident in all his actions; nay, he walks, he eats, he talks, and even when silent he looks his character-then why should it not be as much shown by the manner in which he knocks at a door? If by a little attention to the knock of those with whom we live, it is possible to determine the feelings by which they are influenced at their return; and, being thus prepared, it is easy to make such little concessions as may check the first burst of unkindness, surely the subject is not undeserving of attention. This part of the theory is, it must be confessed, more likely to be useful, and more easily discernible, in a man of sanguine temperament, such only being governed by the impulse of the moment. Thus, if he has indulged hopes, when they were injudicious and disappointment inevitable, he returns to his home discontented with the world, angry with himself and all around him, and makes known his desire to gain the seclusion of his own room by a slovenly rap-tap, or rather, the knocker drops from his nerveless hand before the completion of the three notes which form his usual summons. With such a signal to warn them, let all beware how they approach the temporary misanthrope :-like Allan M'Aulay, "the shade is then upon him," and, without the magic power of "Annot Lyle," who may venture near with impunity? But "on what trifles great events depend;" the warning voice rendered audible by a a few inches of metal struck with a tremulous hand, makes known the true state of the feelings, so that it is not wise to intrude upon him until good humour regains her place, and he begins to wish for "that gentle breast Where the tempest-beaten soul may safely rest.” Thus may a domestic feud be averted, and the tranquillity of a family preserved. But let us picture the sanguine man, after he has passed a few hours in the sunshine of greatness, overwhelmed by fallacious promises, and flattered by lovely lips, for "Flattery direct Rarely disgusts. They little know mankind And opes the wicket of the human heart:" the encomiums still vibrating in his ears, with what a light step does he bound over the pavement which intervenes between himself and his home-his sober reason is entranced, while his lively fancy portrays his anticipated happiness in the worlds of ambition just opened to his view; and, wholly absorbed in his elysian reveries, he communicates a part of his animation to the senseless iron which echoes through the hall with a cheerful, joyous sound. The odiousness of pride and its attendant evils are too well known to need recapitulation; perhaps there is no other affection of the mind so blended with |