whole land is then an Arcadia, full of simple, healthful, and rejoicing spirits.

The shadows of the trees are particularly grateful, heavy, and still. The oaks, which are freshest because latest in leaf, form noble clumpy canopies; looking, as you lie un der them, of a strong and emulons green against the blue sky. The traveller delights to cut across the country through the fields and the leafy lanes, where, nevertheless, the flints sparkle with heat. The cattle get into the shade or stand in the water. The active and air-cuttingswallows, now beginning to assemble for migration, seek their prey about the shady places; where the insects, though of differently compounded natures, "fleshless and bloodless," seem to get for coolness, as they do at other times for warmth. The sound of insects is also the only audible thing now, increasing rather than lessening the sense of quiet by its gentle contrast. The bee now and then sweeps across the ear with his gravest tone. The gnats

"Their murmuring small trumpets sounden

wide:"

and here and there the little musician of the grass touches forth his tricksy note.

The poetry of earth is never dead;

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees. a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead :

That is the grasshopper's.

But whoever would taste all the sweetnees of July, let him go, in pleasant company, if possible, into heaths and woods; it is there, in her uncultured haunts, that summer now holds her court. There creep the various species of heath-berries, cranberries, bilberries, &c., furnishing the poor with a source of profit, and the rich of luxury. What a pleasure it is to throw ourselves down beneath the verdant screen of the beautiful fern, or the shade of a

venerable oak, in such a scene, and listen to the summer sounds of bees, grasshoppers, and ten thousand other insects, mingled with the more remote and solitary cries of the pe-wit and the curlew! Then, to think of the coach horse, urged on his sultry stage, or the plough-boy and his team, plunging in the depths of a burning fallow, or of our ancestors, in times of national famine, plucking up the wild fern-roots for bread, and what an enhancement of our own luxurious ease !*

But woods, the depths of woods, are the most delicious retreats dur ing the fiery noons of July.

The strong rains, which sometimes come down in summer-time, are a noble interruption to the drought and indolence of hot weather. They seem as if they had been collecting a supply of moisture equal to the want of it, and come drenching the earth with a mighty draught of freshúess, The rushing and tree-bowing winds that precede them, the dignity with which they rise in the west, the gathering darkness of their approach, the silence before their descent, the washing amplitude of their outpour ing, the suddenness with which they appear to leave off, taking up, as it were, their watery feet to sail onward, and then the sunny smile again of nature, accompanied by the "sparkling noise" of the birds, and those dripping diamonds the raindrops; there is a grandeur and a beauty in all this, which lend a glorious effect to each other; for though the sunshine appears more beautiful than grand, there is a power, not even to be looked upon, in the orb from which it flows; and though the storm is more grand than beautiful, there is always beauty where there is so much beneficence.

It is now the weather for bathing, a refreshment too little taken in this country, either summer or winter. We say in winter, because with very little care in placing it near a cistern,

and having a leathern pipe for it, a bath may be easily filled once or twice a week with warm water; and it is a vulgar error that the warm bath relaxes, An excess, either warm or cold, will relax. and so will any other excess; but the sole effect of the warm bath moderately taken is, that it throws off the bad humours of the body by opening and clearing the pores. As to summer bathing, a father may soon teach his children to swim, and thus perhaps may be the means of saving their lives some day or other, as well as health. Ladies also, though they cannot bathe in the open air, as they do in some of the West Indian islands and other countries, by means of natural basins among the rocks, might oftener make a substitute for it at home in tepid baths. The most beautiful aspects under which Venus has been painted or sculptured have been connected with bathing; and indeed there is perhaps no one thing that so equally contributes to the three graces of health, beauty, and good temper; to health, in putting the body into its best state; to beauty, in clearing and tinting the skin; and to good temper, in rescuing the spirits from the irritability occasioned by those formi dable personages, "the nerves," which nothing else allays in so quick and entire a manner.

Insects now take the place of the feathered tribe, and, being for the most part hatched in the spring, they are now in full vigour. It is a very amusing sight in some of our rural rambles, in a bright evening after a summer shower, to see the air filled throughout all its space with sportive organized creatures, the leaf, the branch, the bark of the tree, every mossy bank, the bare earth, the pool, the ditch, all teeming with animil life, and the mind that is ever framed for contemplation, must awaken now in viewing such a profusion and varie ty of existence. One of those poor little beings, the fragile gnat, becomes

our object of attention, whether we regard its form or peculiar designa tion in the insect world; we must admire the first, and innocently, perhaps, conjecture the latter. We know that Infinite Wisdom, which formed, declared it "to be very good ;" that it has its destination and settled course of action, admitting of no deviation or substitution': beyond this, perhaps, we can rarely proceed, or, if we sometimes advance a few steps more, we are then lost in the mystery with which the incomprehensible Architect has thought proper to surround it. So little is human nature permitted to see, (nor perhaps is it capable of comprehending much more than permitted,) that it is blind beyond thought as to secondary causes; and admiration, that pure fountain of intellectual pleasure, is almost the only power permitted to us. We see a wonderfully fabricat ed creature, decorated with a vest of glorious art and splendour, occupying almost its whole life in seeking for the most fitting station for its own necessities, exerting wiles and stratagems, and constructing a peculiar material to preserve its offspring against natural or occasional injury, with a fore-thought equivalent to reason-in a moment, perhaps, with all its splendour and instinct, it becomes the prey of some wandering bird! and human wisdom and conjecture are humbled to the dust. We can "see but in part," and the wisest of us is only, perhaps, something less ignorant than another. This sense of a perfection so infinitely above us, is the natural intimation of a Supreme Being; and as science improves, and inquiry is augmented, our imperfectious and ignorance will become more manifest, and all our aspirations after knowledge only increase in us the conviction of knowing nothing. Every deep investigator of nature can hardly be possessed of any other than a humble mind.

Lodins beneath

Altar.

BRIDE! upon thy marriage-day,
When thy gems in rich array
Made the glistening mirror seem
As a star-reflecting stream;
When the clustering pearls lay fair
Midst thy braids of sunny hair;
And the white veil o'er thee streaming,
Like a silvery halo gleaming,
Mellow'd all that pomp and light
Into something meekly bright;
Did the fluttering of thy breath,
Speak of joy or woe beneath?
And the hue that went and came
O'er thy cheek, like wavering flame,
Flow'd that crimson from the unrest,
Or the gladness of thy breast?
-Who shall tell us?-from thy bower
Brightly didst thou pass that hour;
With the many-glancing oar,
And the cheer along the shore,
And the wealth of summer-flowers
On thy fair head cast in showers,
And the breath of song and flute,
And the clarion's glad salute,
Swiftly o'er the Adrian tide

Wert thou borne in pomp, young Bride!
Mirth and music, sun and sky,
Welcomed thee triumphantly!
-Yet perchance a chastening thought
In some deeper spirit wrought,
Whispering, as untold it blent
With the sounds of merriment,

"From the Home of Childhood's glee,
From the Days of Laughter free,
From the Love of many Years,
Thou art gone to cares and fears,
To another path and guide,
To a bosom yet untried!
Bright one! oh! there well may be
Trembling midst our joy for thee !"

Bride! when through the stately fane, Circled with thy nuptial train, Midst the banners hung on high By thy warlike ancestry, Midst thy mighty fathers dead, In soft beauty thou wert led; When before the shrine thy form

Quiver'd to some bosom-storm;
When, like harp-strings with a sigh,
Breaking in mid-harmony,
On thy lip the murmurs low
Died with Love's unfinished vow,
When, like scatter'd rose-leaves, fled
From thy cheek each tint of red;
And the light forsook thine eye,
And thy head sank heavily;

Was that drooping but th' excess, and
Of thy spirit's blessedness?

Or did some deep feeling's might,
Folded in thy heart from sight,

With a sudden tempest shower um aðla
Earthward bear thy life's young flower?
-Who shall tell us?-on thy tongue
Silence, and for ever, hung!

Never to thy lip and cheek

Rush'd again the crimson streak,

Never to thine eye return'd

That which there had beam'd and burn'd,

With the secret none might know,

With thy rapture or thy woe,

With thy marriage-robe and wreath,

Thou wert fled-young Bride of Death! One, one lightning-moment there, Struck down Triumph to Despair, Beauty, Splendour, Hope and Trust, Into Darkness, Terror-Dust!

There were sounds of weeping o'er thee, Bride! as forth thy kindred bore thee, Shrouded in thy gleaming veil, Deaf to that wild funeral wail. -Yet perchance a chastening thought In some deeper spirit wrought, Whispering, while the stern sad knell On the air's bright stillness fell, -"From the power of chill and change, Souls to sever and estrange; From Love's wane-a death in life, But to watch a mortal strife; From the secret fevers, known To the burden'd heart alone; Thou art fled-afar-away, Where those blights no more have sway Bright one! oh! there well may be Comfort midst our tears for thee!"

J

W

THEY tell us of an Indian shore,
Where gold is wash'd by every wave jins
Where neither winds nor breakers roar,
To mar the peace which plenty gave.

And

some other design. Miss Edgeworth always has some one definite moral aim; and we read her works, not as specimens of ideal creation, but as lectures on matters of social convenience. She wishes to instruct and improve the world; and, with this view, she has written tales for children of various ages, for persons of the more ignorant classes, and for ladies and gentlemen. Of all the persouages whom she brings upon the stage in these narratives, the most real and lively are the Irish poor. The three great describers of the lower orders of Irishmen are, Miss Edgeworth, Lady Morgan, and the Author of the Nowlans. The portraits of the last named author, perhaps, in some degree exaggerate the energy, and those of Lady Morgan the oddity, of their countrymen. The fault of Miss Edgeworth is of another kind. Her figures are too much detached, and filed to fit the niche. They are framed and glaz ed, or dried and pressed, like specimens in a hortus siccus. There is evidently much about these descriptions which results from long and accurate observation. But there is also something which comes from the resolution to embody an abstract idea. She has philosophised upon irregularity, till she has made it almost systematic. The potatoe is served, not only with the coat off, (itself an abomination to all true Milesians,) but after having been subjected to some process of French cookery. Yet we thank her for this part of her works. She was the first writer who gave us an idea of an Irishman, as aught else than a compound of thick legs and bold blunders; and cried down the brass money which had so long been passing in foreign countries for the genuine national coin. Herein she rendered a great service; for the Irishman is not only an admirable addition to our list of personages, but a being whom it especially behoves us to study and to understand. To comprehend him thoroughly, to know with how many splendid gifts the

A

varied influence of natural circumstances supplied him, and to how deep a criminality he has been dri ven by that British Constitution, which stepped in, like the malignant fairy, in the fable, to render all those gifts of uo avail.-to acquire this knowledge, it will not be sufficient to read Miss Edgeworth. But she will, undoubtedly, give large assistance, provided we remember always, that her own philosophy is com pletely one of calculation, and that she is not, therefore, the best judge of a being of impulse, any more than a painter whose eye has been entire ly educated for form, can be trusted in delineating colour. But it is not the same with regard to her gentle men and ladies. In most of her por traits of this kind, nothing is valuable but the system which they embody, She makes the elements and essence of her personages consist of certain principles of morals, and, in the at tempt to invest them with life and individuality, she exaggerate's some accidental differences, makes them stiff with elaborate ease, and, while she endeavours to keep them in per petual motion, breaks the very spring which impels the automatons. As her single figures are not "portraits," nor any of her novels that ideal whole, which we commonly call an "historical picture," we can only consider them as manifestations of a system; and to this system we ́inust direct our attention.

The main tendency of her opin ions is to exalt the understanding over the feelings, and to direct it to the one object of procuring happi ness for the individual. Herein she seems, to us, to be wrong. If we cultivate the understanding, and make it the guide and master of the feelings, their natural goodness will be entirely stifled or perverted; and it is only in the full development of these, that happiness and virtue are to be found. But if we cherish, in the first place, all the better im pulses, and let them govern both the understanding and the reason, ar their instruments, the intellectual