Hark! deep down the silent dell,
The daughters of the Night-Wind bear
The stream of tuneful Hydromel,

That music poured upon the air!
Faintly how it falls away,

A cascade of sweet sighs to rest, Almost as noiseless as the day

Dies in the valleys of the west!

As they finished their hymn, the flowers closed
themselves up in their "green convent," and left
me once more alone with my reflections. A twi-
light vista through an aperture in a "bosky dell,"
gave me a faint view of a distant sea-shore, which
seemed so lonely, grey, and desolate, that it in-
stantly accorded with my soul's sadness. So,
heedless of other temptations that saluted me by
the way, I rudely trode on, trampling many a
fair blossom in my eagerness to arrive at what
to me is the ecstasy, both in situation and time,
of all melancholy pleasure, a lonely walk along
an unfrequented shore on a windy evening, in the
close of the autumn, when the deciduous trees
make their shrill whistlings and complaints against
the relentless blast, and the beach-wave of the
"desert sea" (as Homer beautifully calls it) keeps
up a constant diapason of restlessness and sighs.
The sun was fast sinking behind the glorious
architecture that he had been for some time con-
structing with the western clouds; evening-grey
evening-was coming slowly on, and I fancied I
should have a delirium of enjoyment in this my
most favorable solitude. But, alas! I was soon
deprived of this anticipation, for a melancholy
whisper soon convinced me that I was not alone
in my grief; and as it breathed its sorrows in such
gentle words, I stood still and heard-

THE SONG OF THE EVENING PRIMROSE.+
Hour beloved, e'en by the cold moon,
Is thy calm beauty coming soon?
Why does the sunbeam's noisy light
Linger so long o'er the mountain's height?
Hither! come hither, my vesper grey!
I've many a sweet, sad thing to say,
Evening! Evening! hasten to me;
'Tis thy own Flower that's singing to thee!
Hither! come hither!
Hither! hither!

away, I had retraced my steps to the deepest recesses of the wood. Here, again, I imagined I should be free to ruminate; but a series of small sounds, resembling the jangling of sweet bells, awoke the moment I sat down; and though in despair of being ever again left to my own disturbed communion, I listened with a forced pati

ence to

THE SONG OF THE HAREBELL.

List! list! my blue bells are ringing,
Ye day-flowers round me that lie;
List! list! their low sweet singing

Now tells you the evening is nigh!
Droop your fair heads, close your bright eyes,
Every young blossom that loves sunny skies;
Did not your Queen tell you last night,
Flowers of the day should not see the moonlight?
Lullaby! lullaby!

List! list! my blue bells are ringing,
Ye day-flowers, sleep o'er the plain;
At morn with low sweet singing

I'll call you from slumber again :
Have you not heard that beauty's fair sleep
Is ere the dews of the midnight can weep?
Rest then! when flowers that love the night
Look pale and wan, you'll be blooming and bright!
Lullaby lullaby!

fused and hurried rustling noise of closing leaves
The singer had scarcely ceased, when a con-
convinced me that he had sufficient dominion
wick. His bells continued to ring on with an
over the vassals under his jurisdiction or baili-
impertinent impatience; and I was just on the
point of remonstrating with him for his tyranny
and oppression, when my indignation was soothed
into perfect tranquillity and attention by

THE CURFEW SONG OF THE DAY-FLOWERS.
Hark! 'tis our curfew bell;-
Dew-dropping hour,

Stilly and calm,
O'er leaf and flower
Breathing balm,—

Last blush of day, farewell!
Sisters! good night!

Sweet be your dreams,
While the moonlight

Over you beams!

Good night! good night!

A haunch of venison upon credit is cheaper than a mutton-chop that you have to pay ready money for.

Borrow much, and lend little. This maxim may be called the Height of Economy. Practise it largely, and you are sure to grow rich.

Being expected at a pic-nic to do all the work, because everybody knows you're "such a goodnatured fellow."

One should lead an upright life for very many reasons; but especially for this-that you may be able to despise your servants' tongues.

Poverty, bitter though it be, has no sharper pang than this, that it makes men ridiculous.

We are too apt to rate ourselves by our for tunes, rather than our virtues.

A POLITICAL ALLEGORY.

their lofty mountains, she became a signal for the cessation of labor, and the approach of pleasure. Those nights of the month, when she shone in her fullest beauty, were dedicated to social amusement, mixed with religious rites. Songs of praise and the harmony of musical instruments expressed and elevated their gratitude. The wide expanse of heavens formed the temple of the goddess, illuminated only by the chaste and silvery flood of light which she poured upon her votaries. These nights were passed in processions, in festivity, in dancing. Devotion was mingled with their amusement, and piety was a portion of their joy. They had a religious establishment which enjoin. ed these rites, and cultivated these feelings. The rules of morality were inculcated by their preachers, and corroborated by the sanction of religion; and the habits of the youth were formed to a love of peace, order, and virtue. But neither the power nor the happiness of a nation can endure for ever. After many ages of unexampled prosperity-the admiration and envy of the worldthe harmony of this people began to be disturbed by a sect of dissenters from the worship of the sun. At the first, these were but few in number, and had only declared a preference for the moon as the purest object of adoration. The unmixed delight which she gave, the habitual pleasure and gaiety that accompanied her periodical splendour, were the first allurements of these her votaries towards their new heresy. At length, by the incessant practice of extolling her superior claims, and directing their devotions to her, the religious admiration and fervour which she excited began to be extravagant and exclusive. Her beauty, her charms, her power, her virtues, were their constant themes of celebration and praise, till she began to rob the true deity of worship, and her partisans ventured openly to deny the divinity of the sun.

as preserve; and they were filled with reverence and fear when they sought to propitiate a god at "AT the base of an extensive chain of mountains, once incomprehensible and unapproachable. Not whose summits touched the skies, once dwelt a with less reverence; but with less fear, they people celebrated for wisdom, piety and valor. worshipped the moon. In her they contemplated Time, which destroys all things, has obliterated chiefly the attribute of benevolence, which spread their original name. Divided from the rest of a mild lustre over her countenance, and adorned mankind, on the one side by inaccessible moun-it with ineffable grace. As she rose from behind tains, and on all other sides by the ocean, it was upon that element only that they held any commerce with other nations. Their geographical position, fortified by naval defences, secured them from foreign invasion. Whilst other countries were ravaged by hostile armies, and famine and pestilence, which follow in their track, this happy people read of the calamities of war only in their gazettes. The song of triumph was often sung at their festivals, but the shout of victory was never heard in their fields. In these were seen only the traces of agriculture and abundance, whilst their cities resounded with the busy hum of industry, or the cheerful tones of amusement. Their institutions, founded in great antiquity, had been prudently accommodated to the change of circumstances, and improved gradually by time, and a constant attention to preserve their true spirit and practical advantages. They were always mending, but never reforming. In the true spirit of patriotism, they loved their laws and institutions not only for their intrinsic value, but because they had inherited them from their fathers, had been imbued with them from their infancy, and found them moulded up with, and grafted into, their language, their manners, and their habits. Ideal forms of government they treated as the amusement of conversation, not as the practical business of life. They considered them as the statesmen of Rome considered the various systems of philosophy taught by the Greeks, worthy of being studies 'disputandi causa, non ita vivendi.' They acknowledged nothing abstract, either in virtue, or liberty, or law. Habit, practice, and experience, they looked upon as the true sources of attachment, and the surest foundations of knowledge. They were not less remarkable for devotion to their religion. Before revelation had shed its light amongst men, the constellations of the heavens were the most natural objects of wonder and veneration. This people worshipped the sun and the moon. To the first they ascribed the powers of life and fertility. To his influence they acknowledged their obligations for the blessings of corn, and wine, and oil, and all the fruits of the earth by which man is nourished, and all the flowers of the field by which his senses are delighted. Their hearts swelled with gratitude, and their lips sounded with praise, when they bent towards his rising orb as the author of these inestimable gifts. But when ascended above the horizon, he darted his beams through the misty clouds of morning and melted them from before him, they found his face too bright to be looked at; they averted their eyes from a radiance they coull no longer endure and sought refuge in the temple dedicated to his worship, where they adored, in silent awe, the surpassing splendor of his meridian glory. A sense of unbounded power was mingled with their devotion; they felt conscious of an influence that could destroy as well

Whilst their numbers were inconsider. able, they gave no alarm to the government or the church, and were allowed to preach their new doctrine without molestation or controversy. But as this doctrine was founded on the mixture of pleasure with devotion, and appealed for its truth to the senses, it possessed a charm for the multitude which engrossed their passions and inflamed their zeal. The proselites increased, and their numbers encouraged the boldness of the preachers. It was in vain that the regular clergy endeavoured to call the people back from their frenzy by appealing to the past, by reminding them of all the blessings they had enjoyed for so many years under the united worship of the sun and the moon; by admonishing them that the theories of their new instructors, however specious, were not founded on experience nor capable of proof. The arguments of the church served but to kindle new zeal in her opponents. They treated her defenders as actuated by a sense of personal interest, or as governed by antiquated prejudices; they ridiculed experience as the test

of reasoning; and treated the wisdom of past of the moon; they destroyed the temples erected ages as a mere topic to delude the present, to to the sun, and made it penal to offer any homthrow a mist of prejudice over the eye of reason, age to him, or to profess any respect for him. and to fetter the freedom of inquiry. They re- Those who still adhered to the ancient religion, sented the aid which the government afforded to could no longer testify their creed by their conthe national worship as an unjust interference with duct: the greater part were obliged to conform the rights of man; and they denounced as intol- to the established discipline; some were banished erance the support of one form of worship and by public authority; and others sought freedom the encouragement of one system of religious in voluntary exile, and became the founders of opinions. They published pamphlets, without religion in other countries, where they taught number, to prove that all mildness, charity, and the worship of the sun. No sooner had the fol benevolence, flowed from the moon; that the sun lowers of the moon thus gained the power of the was rather an object of terror; that his influence state, than they in their turn were disturbed was malignant; that his burning rays would dry by a new sect, which improved upon their docup and consume the earth, but for the kindly rain trines. This new sect was founded upon the and refreshing dews, which they ascribed to the admitted basis of the first,-that all true felicity labours of the moon. They taught that between was derived from the moon. But they deduced these two luminaries there was a constant strug from this, as a necessary consequence, that it gle, in which the moon prevailed; that she was was the duty and the interest of all true believers engaged, during her recess, in throwing darkness to come as near to the moon as possible, and to over the night, to counteract the effect of the dwell in her perpetual light. They pointed out that excessive light with which he dazzled the eyes of notwithstanding the happy change which had remen in the day; that when she appeared in the cently taken place in the banishment of a false firmament with him, it was to mitigate the fervour worship, and the establishment of exclusive of his rays; and when she beamed in her soft power in the true believers, yet the moon hath glories-the sovereign of the night-it was to neither shone more brightly, nor increased the give to the world a foretaste of the undying rap- number of nights in the month when she blazed ture which would attend her sole dominion. From in the fulness of her majesty; that the nation these premises they deduced, by plain reasoning, was in no respect happier, nor wiser, nor richer, that the safety, as well as the happiness of man, than before; on the contrary, they had lost cerdepended on the moon; and a corresponding tain temporal advantages in the absence of many duty on their part to worship her alone, and by wealthy citizens who, preferring exile to the abansacrifice and prayer to propitiate her and encou- donment of the worship of their ancestors, had rage her to shine the brighter and the longer transferred themselves and their subtance to forfor their benefit. They gained many proselytes eign countries. It was manifest, therefore, that by their reasoning, but more by their eloquence something yet remained to be done for the attainin preaching. This, they practised chiefly dur- ment of true happiness, and to carry out the prin ing the full of the moon, to vast cougregations ciples of the late revolution. They shewed to assembled under the canopy of the heavens, made the people that, when the moon rose from behind resplendent by the orb which the preachers in- the mountain, she always touched it; that, when voked, to which the eyes of all the audience she was at the full, she rested for several moments were turned, and from which they imbibed at upon the summit before she ascended into the once an impression of the truth and of the delight heavens; and that, during such time, her orb of their religion. Then the preachers trium- was dilated with apparent satisfaction, if not with phantly declaimed against the bigotry of the reluctance to quit the mountain. From these Sunnites, who persevered in their infatuated signs, and from the principles already established worship even at the very moment when they they deduced, as a natural consequence, the duty were driven by the fury of their god to hide of the people to sacrifice every other pursuit in their faces from his view in temples and in cav-life to the grand object of approaching and toucherns, where his scorching beams could not pene-ing the moon. It was true that the mountain, trate. Lastly, they denounced the government, in unmeasured language, for giving countenance to the established worship, and for allowing any worship, whatever to be established. So great was the enthusiasm excited by these means, and 80 vast the multitude which shared it, that, for three or four nights in every month, the author ities of the state were in danger: and it became a question whether a sudden and immense revolution would not be effected by the popular fury. When the leaders of the new sect had advanced thus far, they thought it better to aim at the power they sought by more constitutional means. They gradually established their influence in the primary assemblies of the people; and finally obtained a majority in the grand council of the nation. When they had accomplished this, they no longer disguised their intention of destroying all religions and all literature but their own. They prohibited, by law, any worship but that

beyond a certain height, had been deemed inae cessible, but nothing could resist enthusiasm aided by the divine influence; that when the whole nation should arrive at the summit of the mountain, the moon might very possibly resolve to remain there, and dwell with them forever: but, at all events, those who desired it would enjoy the inestimable privilege of touching her and be gainers of immortal life and felicity, whether they became absorbed in her substance, or were allowed, retaining their present forms, to accompany her eternal course in the paradise of her beams. It is incredible with what rapidity this new sect gained credit with the people. Their old attachments once broken, they yielded the more readily to the last novelty. The aeknowledged disappointment of their late hope combined, with the desire of consistency, to make them adopt the new theory. The leaders of the late revolution, in order to retain their power,

were compelled to place themselves at the head of the new movement, and to increase the impetuosity with which the popular tide overwhelmed all judgment and prudence. The resolution, suggested by the new preachers, was at length adopted, after much debate and various expedients of delay. By a solemn convention and decree, the whole nation was bound to desert their dwellings and their occupations, and to assemble at the foot of the mountain at a period appointed for the purpose, being the night before the full of the moon: thence they were to proceed, in a mass, to ascend by all practicable means. An inconceivable multitude-some furnished with musical instruments, some with scaling ladders, some with sacks and baskets of provisions-as. sembled accordingly, and began their march. Many, worn out and exhausted by the labour, died in their progress; many perished by falling between the clefts of the mountain: many, disappointed and disgusted, would have turned back, but were pushed forward by the multitude moving from below. Repentance came too late to save them. Their footsteps could not be retraced they were borne upwards, till in their turn they ceased to exist. Thus this great and famous nation perished by its own frenzy. The small number, which, by incredible exertion and fanaticism, reached the summit of the mountain, were mortified and disgusted beyond expression, to find that they were no nearer to the moon than before. They cast themselves down, and wept in despair. Those who recovered wandered away from each other, and became dispersed amongst the nations of the earth, without the name which distinguished them as a people. They appeared to have lost their powers of reason, and of just perception; and gave birth to a tradition which long prevailed-that the wits of man, when lost, were to be found in the moon. The remnant of this people, scattered over the face of the earth, is still known by an appellation connected with their fate. Their number is inconsiderable, in comparison with the mass of any nation amongst whom they dwell. But it has, of late, been much on the increase; and there is reason to fear that, if they should become the majority, they would exercise the power and the sight, which a majority is admitted to have, of locking up the minority in bedlams and lunatic asylums for it is one of their most inveterate maxims that reason resides with the multitude, and that the majority can never do wrong."

THE STUDENT'S BRIDE.

་

A YEAR ago-a year ago-now will I make you confess,' said Blanche; can you remember a year ago?'

Perfectly,' replied the Student.

This very night?'

This very night. I remember it more per-
fectly because it was my birthday.'
What were you doing?
What were you

saying? What were you thinking?
Doing nothing. Saying nothing.'
'Thinking?'

'Yes, I was thinking. Nothing, dear Blanche could be more unlike my last birthday than the present. For a moment I had gone back to that joyless existence when your voice recalled me to my present happiness. I was alone in my solitary dwelling-alone in my quiet chamber. You do not know what it is to have a home which you enter without welcome, and leave without regret. The charities of life warmed not for me. My chamber looked into a burial ground. The very grass feeds on the mortal part of the immortal. Nay, do not shudder.'

·

'I have never seen death,' said Blanche. 'And to me the dying and the dead are as familiar and daily things,' said the Student. Yet since I have known you, I confess that I cannot approach them with the same calm and undisturbed spirit that I was wont to carry.'

'Do not mention them,' exclaimed she; 'they are but shadows over our happiness.' 'Picture me there in my dismal chamber. My Dust aclamp burning-my books around me. cumulating over my manuscripts, and my manu scripts accumulating too, for he who does not speak his thoughts must write them. I was always more lonely in the summer than the winter, because my fire is in some sense a companion, not for its comfort, but for its inscrutable origin, its mysterious existence, and its mighty power.Well, dearest, there sat I until weil nigh overcome by a sense of oppression, of suffocation, by the torment of a parched tongue, and heated brain. Oh, Blanche! believe me that I rejoice to see that smooth brow unruffled and unwrinkled by the toil of thought.'

'Nay,' said Blanche, 'is not that so doubtful a compliment that I am almost bounden to let you see it ruffled by a frown.' 'Indeed no. Men arrive at right conclusions through a long train of wearying argument-women, by an instantaneous and just conviction.And indeed, dear Blanche, the toil of the slave Money lost is deplored with genuine tears. beneath the torrid zone, with the lash at his back, It is dangerous for mean minds to venture Through the whole of that last birthday had I is as nothing to the stretch of mental labour.themselves within the sphere of greatness. been taxing this poor intellect to the uttermost. Nothing is more irksome than the forced airi-I had scarcely tasted food, nor exchanged word mass and jocularity of a man bred to severe science with any human being, when the clock of the and solitary meditation. cathedral warned me of the solemn and witching hour of night.'

"Let not sleep," says Pythagoras, "fall upon thine eyes till thou hast thrice reviewed the transactions of the past day. Where have I turned aside from rectitude? What have I been doing? What have I left undone that I ought to have done? Begin thus from the first act, and proceed; and in conclusion, at the ill which thou hast done be troubled, and rejoice for the good."

'And then you went to your pillow to dream ?' 'I did not,'

'Then whither?
'Do not ask me.'

'I must know,' she answered with pretty waywardness.

'Ask me some other question.'