For this lone hour must be thy last!
Thou must depart! where none may know—
The sun for thee hath ever set,
The star of morn, the silver bow,
No more shall gem thy coronet
And give thee glory; but the sky
Shall shine on thy posterity!...
So there's an end of 1828; "all its great and glorious transactions are now nothing more than mere matter of history!" What wars of arms and words! what lots of changes and secessions! what debates on "guarantee," "stipulations," and "untoward" events! what "piles of legislation!" what a fund of speculation for the denizens of the stock-exchange, and newspaper press!—all may now be embodied in that little word—the past; and only serve to fill up and figure in the pages of the next "Annual Register!"—sic transit gloria—"but the proverb is somewhat musty." One, two, three.... ten, eleven, twelve, and now "methinks my soul hath elbow room."
Those versed in the lore of Francis Moore, physician, which must doubtless include most of our readers, are aware that our veteran friend, eighteen hundred and twenty-eight, has been for some time in what is called a "galloping" consumption, and it is certain cannot possibly survive after the bells "chime twelve" on Wednesday night, the thirty-first of December,—
"—as if an angel spoke,