To thee I turn, to thee I gladly cling;
Support me, aid me, let me closely twine
Around thee and about thee, let me fling
Aloft my tender limbs upheld by thine!"
The old vine paused confounded: was it so
His aim had been conceived of? should he prove
Instead of trusted friend, malignant foe?
Bring murderous hate in lieu of help and love?
No! perish such a thought! henceforth his aim
Should be to lend the vigour of his arm
To rear the tender youngling, fan the flame
Of kindling life, protect him 'gainst all harm.

And thus they grew together, each enlacing
The other, mingling wreaths of tender leaves;
Supported by their mutual embracing
Each to the other strength and succour gives.
And so the years drew onward, ever bringing
Their meed of change; to youth maturity,
The young life into fuller life upspringing,
The aged feeling that the stern decree
That doomed it had gone forth: no more Spring's
blessing
Could kiss it into bud and scented bloom;
No longer summer's dear and warm caressing
Restore lost strength, or save it from its doom.

"Wife," said the dweller in the cottage (Time
Had gently dealt with him, a silver streak
Marked here and there brown locks, yet manhood's
prime
Still lingered in his frame; the matron's cheek
A ruddier bloom displayed; the husband's arm
Enclasped an ampler form in its embrace
Than that which in an evening still and warm
Reclined upon him in that self-same place)—
"Wife, see the young vine planted on the day
Our boy was born; 'tis twenty years ago;
How both have thriven since that blessed May!
A happy thought of mine, wife, was't not so,
To plant it then? Our dear old vine, I knew,
Hale though it was, could not much longer last,
Before the babe to early manhood grew,
Its fruiting days would all be gone and past.
And now 'tis dead and only fit to make
A fagot for the autumn evening hearth,
Fetch me my axe, this very day I'll take
Its sapless boughs and stem from off the earth."

He said, but said in vain. About, around
The rugged stem, the branches dead and dry,
The younger vine its limbs so close had wound,
'Twere scarcely possible e'en to descry
Where life and death united. Hate is strong,
But strong true love can conquer strongest hate;
Love's victories are as Truth's, bring right from
wrong,
And wage successful war with Time and Fate.

MR. WHELKS COMBINING INSTRUCTION
WITH AMUSEMENT.

WALKING down Regent-street one evening
lately, we noticed Mr. Whelks turning into the
Polytechnic Institution. He had cleaned himself
for the occasion, and wore his best Sunday-
going clothes, evidently in compliment to the
instructive character of the entertainment he
was about to witness. It did not appear to us
that Mr. Whelks was going joyfully or hopefully
to his evening's amusement. He looked
subdued and depressed, as if he were labouring
under a saddening sense of the grave respect
due to amusement when combined with instruction.
There was that constrained manner about
him which he exhibits in a marked degree when
by some rare combination of forces he is drawn
to church. He was not very sure about the
etiquette proper to the place and the occasion;
seemed to be doubtful about the propriety of
keeping his hat on, after crossing the threshold;
scraped and wiped his feet very much. It is
just possible that Mr. Whelks's constraint
was in some measure owing to the Sunday-
going suit, which did not sit upon him as
easily and gracefully as it might have done
had nature and art been more lavish of the
mould of form and the cut of cloth. Science is
in itself sufficiently embarrassing to the
untutored mind; but science, combined with a
furry hat, a size too small, put on wrong side
foremost, with the lining-string hanging down
over the forehead, and coat-sleeves a size
too long for the convenient exercise of the
hands, is calculated to produce paralysis of
the whole human system, physical as well as
mental.

Mr. Whelks was decidedly nervous until he
came in view of a refreshment counter, where
the sight of a person drinking bottled stout,
acting upon him like a touch of nature, gave
him assurance that, though he was among
scientific company, he was among kin. Cheering up
a little at this pleasing spectacle, Mr. Whelks
proceeded to view the "great geological model
of the earth's crust," which, as there was no one
at hand to offer any explanation of the subject,
and as no crumb was mentioned, may have led
Mr. Whelks to regard the earth in the light of
a loaf that had been over-baked. Then, in the
order of the programme, his attention was
directed to the terrestrial globe, drawing-room
fireworks, a "painting representing a group of
ten feathers drawn by the late Miss Biffin,
holding the pencil in her mouth," the cosmorama,
the glass-working, the taking of impressions
from fern-leaves by the new foliographic
machine, a brick-making machine, china and
glass mending by Mr. Davis, and the
machinery in motion. Mr. Whelks was allowed
exactly a quarter of an hour to make himself
acquainted with all these wonders of nature,
art, and science, including the small subject of
the earth's crust. His inspection of them was
necessarily hurried. With regard to the earth's
crust, a cursory glance at the strata seemed to
suggest nothing to Mr. Whelks except the, idea
which he expressed by saying that it was "rum,"
not in the substantive liquor sense, but in the
adjectival sense of strange. And certainly in
this view of the matter Mr. Whelks showed
himself no unappreciative student of the wonders
of nature. With regard to the cosmoramic
views, Mr. Whelks audibly declared that he had
seen something nearly as good in a halfpenny
peep-show, while as to the china and glass
mending, which was the most active operation
in progress, he thought he had frequently met
with professors of the art in the New Cut,