"January 20th, 1821.
"To-morrow is my birthday—that is to say, at twelve o' the clock, midnight, i.e. in twelve minutes, I shall have completed thirty and three years of age!!!—and I go to my bed with a heaviness of heart at having lived so long, and to so little purpose.
"It is three minutes past twelve.—''Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, and I am now thirty-three!
'Eheu, fugaces, Posthume, Posthume,
Labuntur anni;—'
but I don't regret them so much for what I have done, as for what I might have done.
"Through life's road, so dim and dirty,
I have dragg'd to three-and-thirty.
What have these years left to me?
Nothing—except thirty-three.