The dithyrambics composed by many of our contemporaries for New
Year's Day were of a most impressive character. Even the Standard, which sometimes mimics " The Gaily Bellowgraph" so well, became lyrical itself, and did the trick commonly known on the stage as "tears in the voice," or in a writer, "tears in the ink." " Not all," it said, "at the commencement of 1867 have expiated the crimes or the follies of 1866. The great connecting force of the moral life of the human race welds these atoms of eternity together, and makes them, after all, one for us,—though we may scratch upon the surface figures, and dates, and reminiscent lines." A reminiscent line scratched on the surface of an atom of eternity ! How much is that ? Does it mean a Letts' diary with the memorandum pages filled up ? "Books neatly prepared for scratching lines on atoms of eternity," would certainly be a most telling advertisement for Mr. Letts. The Telegraph, however, is greater still. 'The man who called the 'meteors the other day "baby stars perishing of teething," and who a year or so ago spoke thus of some stables, Augean we think,—" though the rack might be of beaten gold, and the corn of diamond dust, there was' certainly to be found somewhere a loose-box in which was tethered a pale
Horse whose name was Death," has been put on to "the NewYear," and has produced this :—" Or we may say that the commencing year is like a volume of events to be, with leaves uncut,—with leaves, indeed, to which Old Time's scythe alone can act as paper-knife." What a free, dashing spirit that man has ! with what a master hand he dashes together the grand and the familiar. Putnam Smif, with his "Every alligator basking in his slime is in himself an epic self-contained," is nothing to this man—a mere "baby star who died of teething" in the comparison.
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