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GUY MANNERING.

CHAPTER XIV.

The bell strikes one,—we take no note of time
But from its loss. To give it then a tongue
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
I feel the solemn sound———

Young.

The moral, which the poet has rather quaintly deduced from the necessary mode of measuring time, may be well applied to our feelings respecting that portion of it which constitutes human life. We observe the aged, the infirm, and those engaged in occupations of immediate hazard, trembling as it were upon the very brink of non-existence, but we derive no lesson from the precariousness of their tenure until it has altogether failed. Then, for a moment at least,

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