SEVEN AGES.

All the World's a Stage,
And all the Men and WOMEN mere.y Players ;
They have their exits, and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His Acts being SEVEN AGES!

The Life of Man is a most important period of existence. It is important to the individual himself, and important in the relations which it bears to society. Considered as the gift of God, it should be regarded as the precious boon of Heaven. Viewed as the groundwork of enjoyment, it is susceptible either of exquisite pleasure, or of the most distressing sensations. Formed in the image of his MAKER, man assumes a dignified aspect, and his ambition should be to render the impress of Heaven the source of rational enjoyments. When the human faculties and passions are regarded as leading, by proper culture and appropriate management, to the elevated joys of a future life, the present period of existence terminates in a BLESSED IMMORTALITY

There wanted yet a creature; who, not prone
And brute as other creatures, but endued
With sanctity of reason, might erect

His stature, and upright with front serene
Govern the rest, SELF-KNOWING; and from thence
Magnanimous to correspond with Heaven,
But grateful to acknowledge whence his good
Descends; thither with heart, and voice, and eyes
Directed in devotion, to adore

And worship GOD SUPREME, who made him chief
Of all his works!

MILTON.

The progressive nature of the Life of Man has induced the moralist to resolve it into certain constituent parts. Whether judgment or fancy dictates these divisions, there is something pleasing in the contemplation of them. Hence our favourite Poet marks the period assigned to man, by the four successive seasons of the year, with his usual justness and delicacy.

Behold! FOND MAN

See here thy pictur'd life; pass some few years,
Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent heat,
Thy sober Autumn, fading into age;

And pale concluding Winter comes at last

And shuts the scene!

THOMSON.

The bard, however, not content with this picturesque delineation, moralizes on the subject:

Ye good distrest!

Ye noble few, who here unbending stand
Beneath LIFE's pressure, yet bear up awhile;
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deemed evil, is no more!

The storms of WINTRY TIME will quickly pass,
And one unbounded SPRING encircle ALL!

"Wherever, in fact,” says Mr. Alison, "the eye of Man opens upon any sublime or any beautiful scene of nature, the first impression is to consider it as designed, as the effect or workmanship of the Author of nature, and as significant of his power, his wisdom, or his goodness. And perhaps it is chiefly for this fine issue, that the heart of man is thus finely touched; that DEVOTION may spring from delight; that the imagination, in the midst of its highest enjoyment, may be led to terminate in the only object in which it finally can repose; and that all the noblest convictions and confidences of religion may be acquired in the simple school of nature, and amid the scenes which perpetually surround us! Wherever we observe, accordingly, the workings of the human mind, whether in its rudest or in its most improved appearances, we every where see this union of devotional sentiment, with sensibility to the expressions of natural scenery. It calls forth the hymn of the infant bard, as well as the antherns of the poet of classic times. It prompts the nursery tale of superstition, as well as the demonstration of the school of philosophy. There is no era so barbarous in which Man has existed, in which the traces are not to be seen of the alliance which he has felt between Earth and Heaven; or of the conviction he has acquired of the Mind that created nature by the signs which it exhibits. The

funeral urn, and the inscription to the dead, present themselves every where as the most interesting incidents in the scenes of ornamented nature. In the landscape of the painter, the columns of the temple, or the spire of the church, rise amid the ceaseless luxuriance of vegetable life; and by their contrast, give the mighty moral to the scene we love, even while we dread it; the powers of music have reached only their highest perfection when they have been devoted to the services of religion; and the description of the genuine poet has seldom concluded without some hymn to the Author of the universe, or some warm appeal to the devotional sensibility of mankind."

Infancy, Youth, Manhood, and Old Age, are the Four periods into which Human Life is divided by the moderns, without any reference to the seasons of the year. But the more ancient writers are inclined to the distribution of it into seven portions. More particularly Proclus, a philosopher and ma. thematician, who flourished in the four hundredth year of the Christian era, considered the period of mortal life divisible into seven parts; over each of which a planet was deemed to preside! Thus the first age, containing four years, he denominated Infancy. In the second age, or Childhood, he included TEN years.

Eight years constituted the third age, and was called Youth. The fourth age was not attained till man had completed FORTYTwo years, termed Young Manhood. The fifth

age, or Mature Manhood, continued FIFTEEN years. The sixth, or Old Age, reached from this period to the end of sixty-EIGHT years. The seventh, and last, continued from this time till FOURSCORE and EIGHT years; which was very properly termed declining and decrepit Age! Hippocrates, the celebrated physician, who flourished previous to the birth of Christ, is said to have made a similar number of divisions in human life, but different as to the duration of the several portions.

It is impossible, at this distance of time, to assign the reasons which induced these ancient writers to make these seven divisions of the period of human existence. SEVEN we know is a favourite Sabbatical number, and is frequently occurring in the Sacred Records. We are informed by Moses, that six days were employed by the Supreme Being in the creation of the world; and the seventh day was enjoined for the observance of the Jews as a day of hallowed rest. But we are not authorized to suppose that the distribution of life by Proclus and Hippocrates, into seven portions, was suggested by any consideration of this kind. It is indeed a curious circumstance that, according to rabbinical tradition, the world itself is to last seven thousand years! For it is said that four thousand years passed away under the law of Moses, two thousand years were assigned it under the new dispensation of Jesus Christ; and the last final thousand years, constituted the MILLENNIUM, the period of entire rest,