The poets are our best interpreters of Time, and they seem never tired of referring to it and symbolising it by every possible figure, emblem, and trope.[1] Celerity of motion and brevity of duration are discovered to be its chief characteristics. Time is therefore depicted as flying,—fast, noiselessly, and uninterruptedly. It is a river, speeding on with imperceptible but resistless pace to the ocean of eternity. It is a stern vigorous old man—Time is already old—rushing by us with never-slackening strides, bearing blessings for each and all, but we must be upon the alert to strive with him for his gifts—'to seize Time by the forelock—'or he will forget to bestow them.

We too often charge upon Time the evil which is the result of our own lack of energy, and thus it happens that although in kindly moments our poets seem to delight in exalting and glorifying him for all manner of enjoyments, at others they can find no word too coarse or uncivil to apply to him. 'Time,' says Shakespeare, 'is a very bankrupt,' adding,

'Nay, he's a thief too; have you not heard men say That time comes stealing on by night and day?'

Time is, in proverbial philosophy, the most churlish and unaccommodating of acquaintances,—'Time and tide tarry for no man.' Time is always liable to be chided, as we have said, when one feels like Hamlet, 'The times are out of joint;' although our next door neighbour may, with as much or more reason, be blessing the self-same hour we are condemning. Time is indeed all things to all men, and 'travels divers paces with divers persons.' Sweet Rosalind described long ago 'who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, and who he stands still withal.' 'I prithee,' asks Orlando, 'who doth he trot withal?' and no matter how often we overhear her reply, we shall listen with delight to the quaint language of the pretty rejoinder,—'Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnized; if the interim be but a se'nnight, Time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven years.' 'And who ambles Time withal?' 'With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath not the gout; for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study; and the other lives merrily because he feels no pain; the one lacking the burthen of lean and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burthen of heavy tedious penury. These ambles Time withal.' 'Who doth he gallop withal?' 'With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.' 'Who stays Time still withal?' 'With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how Time wags.'

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Phœbus Apollo in Ovid's Metamorphoses claims that he is Time's special exponent:—

——'Per me, quod eritque, fuitque, Estque, patet; per me concordant carmina nervis.'

If Roger Bacon's Brazen-head could have repeated and continued his oracular utterances at fixed intervals he would have been a very sensational performer over some prominent public time-piece of the present day. If only once in twelve months, say at midnight, when the year ends, he could have pronounced his three important speeches, 'Time is; Time was; Time's past!' he might have rivalled some of our best actors or orators in attracting the multitude; unfortunately, however, our mechanical clockwork performers have never risen to the dignity of speech, and the secret of Friar Bacon's magic died with the inventor of gunpowder,—which last it is a pity, perhaps, did not also slip out of use and memory along with it. 'Time is,—time was,—time's past' seems to comprise a whole world of hopes, fears, and lost opportunities, and sounds like a little condensed history of all that ever has happened or ever can happen. Herein we may imagine we can observe the wonder-working qualities of Time, solving all mysteries, bringing everything whether of good or evil to fruition, testing friendship and love, solacing troubled and wounded hearts, and healing all manner of griefs; but then we also remark that he is the abaser of the proud as well as the uplifter of the humble. If he builds, he as surely destroys, being, indeed, the Great Spoiler, edax rerum, before whose breath myriads of living things through all generations have faded away, in regular sequence, and towns and cities and the several civilizations of the world have one after another decayed and perished with all their wondrous works, and glories, and aspirations.

'Who shall contend with Time—unvanquished Time, The conqueror of conquerors, and lord Of desolation?'