Page:Monthly scrap book, for April.pdf/10

10 are curved in the wrinkles of despair. Again the combatants meet, strike, and retreat; at last they come against each other with a shock, the impetus of which lays them both lifeless on the floor. Bets are still laid, not on the victor, but that they will yet rise and renew the horrid carnage.-It cannot be, for

The vital sparks have fled, and they who just. before seemed inspired with interminable rage, now lie stretched beside each other in lasting repose, and far more calmly than ever they slumbered on the roost with the favourite females of their seraglios.

So must the proudest hero of the human species rest. A few feet more of earth will serve for his peaceful bed—his laurels may flourish a little longer-the trumpet of Fame, as it repeats his name, may waken echoes at a greater distance: -his deeds of devastation and human carnage may shine in song, and his name be blazoned on a page, that shall live when the heroes of my humble tale are forgotten. But on the theatre of the universe, amidst the immensity of Nature, how trivial is the difference between the cock-pit and the plains of Austerlitz! and how unimportant are a few centuries, more or less, of sublunary fame, when compared with Eternity.