A LADY of San Francisco is said to have occupied a year in hunting up and fitting together the following thirty-eight lines from thirty-eight English-speaking poets. The names of the authors are given below:

• 1. Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour?
• 2. Life’s a short summer, man a flower;
• 3. By turns we catch the vital breath, and die;
• 4. The cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh.
• 5. To be is better far than not to be,
• 6. ’Though all man’s life may seem a tragedy;
• 7. But light cares speak when mighty cares are dumb,
• 8. The bottom is but shallow whence they come.
• 9. Your fate is but the common fate of all;
• 10. Unmingled joys here to no man befall.
• 11. Nature to each allots her proper sphere,
• 12. Fortune makes folly her peculiar care;
• 13. Custom does often reason overrule,
• 14. And throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.
• 15. Live well, how long, how short, permit to heaven,
• 16. They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.
• 17. Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its face—
• 18. Vile intercourse where virtue has not place;
• 19. Then keep each passion down, however dear;
• 20. Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear;
• 21. Her sensual snares, let faithless Pleasure lay
• 22. With craft and skill to ruin and betray;
• 23. Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise.
• 24. We masters grow of all that we despise.
• 25. Oh! then, renounce that impious self-esteem;
• 26. Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.
• 27. Think not ambition wise because ’tis brave,
• 28. The path of glory leads but to the grave.
• 29. What is ambition? ’Tis a glorious cheat,
• 30. Only destructive to the brave and great.
• 31. What’s all the gaudy glitter of a crown?
• 32. The way to bliss lies not on beds of down.
• 33. How long we live, not years, but actions tell;
• 34. That man lives twice who lives the first life well.
• 35. Make, then, while yet ye may, your God your friend,
• 36. Whom Christians worship, yet not comprehend.
• 37. The trust that’s given guard, and to yourself be just;
• 38. For, live we how we can, yet die we must.

1, Young; 2, Dr. Johnson; 3, Pope; 4, Prior; 5, Sewell; 6, Spenser; 7, Daniel; 8, Sir Walter Raleigh; 9, Longfellow; 10, Southwell; 11, Congreve; 12, Churchill; 13, Rochester; 14, Armstrong; 15, Milton; 16, Baily; 17, Trench; 18, Somerville; 19, Thompson; 20, Byron; 21, Smollett; 22, Crabbe; 23, Massinger; 24, Crowley; 25, Beattie; 26, Cowper; 27, Sir Walter Davenant; 28, Gray; 29, Willis; 30, Addison; 31, Dryden; 32, Francis Quarles; 33, Watkins; 34, Herrick; 35, William Mason; 36, Hill; 37, Dana; 38, Shakespeare.