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ditations of the wife disclose the sorrow that is wearing her away :

"He is too good for me, I weak for him.
Yet if he put his arms round me once,
And held me fast as then, and kissed me so,
My soul, I think, would come again to me,
And go from me in trembling love to him.
But now I am repelled. He loves me true,
Because I am his wife: he ought to love me;
I am the hook to hang his duty on.
Sometimes he waits upon me like a maid,
Silent with watchful eyes."

Lilia, in a moment of weakness, is about to yield to the love of Lord Seaford; but she resists, and flies from London. The character of Julian comes out finely under the trial of his wife's desertion and supposed infidelity -indignation, sorrow, humble resignation, and love still enduring through all. The father wanders incessantly about with his little child in his arms, seeking his wife. The child dies, and the father buries her in a country churchyard, and again seeks his wife, and wanders back to his own poor apartment. He lies down on the floor, and is found by the repentant Lord Seaford, who tends him gently. A letter is brought as the Count is dying:

"Lord S. It is a letter from the Countess. Julian. (Feebly.) What!

A letter from my Lilia! Bury it with me— I'll read it in my chamber, by-and-bye; Dear words should not be read with others

near.

Lilia, my wife! I have gone home to God.

Lord S. (Bending over him.) Your wife is innocent."

The last part of the drama deals with the preternatural. The wife is on her knees before a crucifix, the husband, with the child in his arms, are spiritually present. The remorseful prayers of the woman are heard by them, and they suggest consolatory thoughts to her. The child whispers to her

"Lily. O mother, there are blue skies here, and flowers,

And blowing winds, and kisses, mother dear;
And every time my father kisses me,
It is not father only, but another.
Make haste and come — - your head will not
ache here."

Then comes the last scene. Julian stands on the summit of a mountain in the light of the stars. The earth

beneath is involved in vapour. Lily is looking over a ledge of cloud upon the sea-fog below, from which rises the form of the wife floating towards Julian. We will give the rest in the author's words:

"Lily. O mother, I could go much faster. Lilia. Wait, Wait, darling, for a little. By-and-bye I shall be able too. O God, my Julian! Julian. I may not help her. She must climb and come.

Up and up the rock they climb, the mother and the child. At last Julian reaches his hand. They stand beside him, and the three are clasped in one infinite embrace.

"Julian. O God, thy thoughts, thy ways,

are not as ours;

Yet fill our longing hearts up to the brim."

There is something too fantastic about the latter part of this drama, and the real mingles with the supernatural somewhat incongruously, as the distempered dreams of a sick man. Still, however faulty as an entire composition, this volume contains a great many beauties, and a great deal that is vigorous as well as pathetic. There are some half-dozen songs here and there thrown in, many of which are very charming; while the tone of religious feeling pervading the whole is lofty and impressive. We hope when next Mr. MacDonald writes, his physical state will be stronger; and we doubt not his genius will exhibit itself more healthily.

We close the volume, and rise from our couch. Let us draw back the sunblinds and take a look into the metropolitan world outside us. Our window, which is at the rear, looks out due east, across intervening gardens, to the rear of the next street. Already we are projecting a long, deep shadow over the brown burnt-up grass of our own civic appurtenances, wherein we practise horticulture upon a very modest and limited scale, experimenting upon certain asthmatic shrubs and evergreens in a state of asphyxia, with one or two creeping plants that have been pinioned to the walls heaven knows how many years ago, and seem ever since to be in a mesmeric trance, without the power of either living or dying. We trace upon the adust greensward the picturesque outline of our roof, in strong shade, in which we

recognise the chimney-crock of the kitchen flue all awry, and a pole thrust out of the back attic window, bearing a fantastic resemblance to the spout of a mighty teapot. We raise our eyes upward, and lo! there is a glorious illumination! The sun has gone half down the heavens on his westward course, and has just attained the proper elevation to pour a whole broadside of solar glory upon the windows of the opposing houses. Every pane is lit up with a crimson flush, that is glinted from it in a thousand splinters of diverging brightness, as one sees the light flash

ing off bayonets and breastplates at a military review; or from the dripping oar-blades when raised into the sunshine, or from the gilded crosses above church domes; or from anything else that will flash back the light of heaven as lustrously as it receives it. Come now, we have got something in the city, after all. Show us such a sunset

in the country. You may boast your green fields and gleaming rivers, but have you got such gay red-brick moun tains stuck over with blazing reflectors? We fancy not.

FOREST TREES.

A SUMMER hour of leisure, a bright warm hour; no clouds in the sky or on the mind-just such an hour as we can enjoy with a congenial friend, to whom we can pour out our thoughts in full tide, or drop them in desultory words, or with whom we can muse in that silence which is still companionship between minds that sympathise with each other. And where shall we spend this hour? It is too hot for the sunny garden, or the open plain, or the toilsome hill, or even for the yellow sea-beach. Let us to the forest - the green, cool, shady forest, that offers the most charming retreat to those who love (as who does not ?) the "delicious do-nothing "* of the Italians. Here,

while the sun warms the air around us, we can rest secure from his full power, but rejoicing in his benign influence, under a wide-spread canopy of boughs. We can sit against the trunk of some noble old tree, or recline upon its upheaved roots, lie prone upon the soft moss at its foot, and search into the stores of fancy and memory in a mood of placid dreaminess.

Let us choose our lair beneath these venerable oaks, where we have shade enough above and around us, but where the broad and pleasant opening before us gives a far extended view of the landscape, with its fields, and groves, and streams, and cots, and distant hills, basking in the noontide re

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fulgence. How beautiful by day is the merry green wood" merry with the small birds singing, and the wild pigeons cooing, and the insects humming, and the squirrels gambolling among the branches, and the leaves gently rustling in a low-toned chorus! How beautiful is the thick, deep velvet grass, enamelled with starry flowers; and the masses of shadow, and freaks of playful light; and here and there long sunny avenues leading to some enchanting vista! And there is so much variety among the trees: their trunks, some gnarled and brown, some smooth and silvery; the stiff and sturdy boughs, the graceful, flexible branches, and the foliage of all tints of ver dure, from the blue and the yellow green to the emerald, and of all stylesthe heavy, the feathery, the arrowy. Let us gather a few leaves from each different species of tree, and bring them to our seat, and lay them down beside us; not one of them but has some old association connected with history or poetic fable.

The OAK (quercus robur), magnifi cent, strong, and long-lived, is confessedly the monarch of the forest. The ancients believed that it was the first created of trees, and dedicated it to Jupiter, whose most celebrated oracle. that of Dodona was among a group of venerable oaks, said to be endowed with the faculty of speech

* "Il dilizioso far niente."

(doubtless the oracles were uttered by a human speaker concealed in the hollow of the trunk). The mast of the ship Argo was made of one of these vocal oaks, and was fabled to have pronounced oracles to the Argonauts.

The oak wreathed the brows of the Flamininiæ, or wives of the priests of Jupiter (as it crowned the druidesses), of the Fates and Hecate (as emblem of strength), and of the venerable Goddess Rhea, in memory of acorns having been the first food of man; not our harsh, common acorns, but those of the oak, called æsculus by Virgil, who names it with the chestnut, and with the tree of the Greek oracle

"Ut altæ

Castanem, nemorumque Jovi quæ maxima frondet Esculus, atque habita Graiis oracula quercus." Georgica ii.

The acorns of the æsculus were sweet, like the large Spanish kind called bellotas, which, however, require to be kept a few days before eating.

Near Priene, a city of Ionia, was a large oak, which marked the scene of a sanguinary battle between the Prienians and the Sanians. It became customary with the women of Priene, on solemn occasions, to swear "by the darkness of the oak," within whose shadow their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons had fallen-an expressive and pathetic adjuration.

Jupiter and Mercury, travelling in disguise through Phrygia, and being refused shelter by all, save Philemon and Baucis, an aged and poor couple, on discovering themselves to their hosts, promised to grant them whatever favour they desired. The wish expressed by the loving couple was, that neither might have the pain of surviving the other, but both die at the same moment. Jupiter, to reward their piety, changed their hut into a temple, Baucis into a lime-tree, and her husband Philemon into an oak, which thenceforward became the emblem of hospitality.

On the plain of Mamre stood a large oak, popularly called "Abraham's oak," and pointed out by tradition as the

tree under whose shade he was accustomed to sit. It was still extant in the time of Constantine the Great; and Christians, Jews, and Mahometans held an annual meeting under its boughs, and performed the rites of their respective religions in the open air, in peace, though not in union. But the Emperor, offended at a toleration which he considered unedifying, cut down the tree, built a church on the site, destroyed the antiquities of the place, and put an end to the yearly assembly.

The oak was worshipped by the ancient Germans as their god, under the name of Teut. The pagan Prussians maintained a perpetual fire (like that of the Vestals) of oak-wood, in honour of their divinity, Percunus. The Hessians dedicated the oak to Thor. There was a very large one at Guismar, venerated as Thor's image. St. Boniface, who, in the eighth century, went to convert the Hessians, determined on felling their idol. They made no resistance, firmly believing that the sacred tree would defy the axe; but when they saw "Thor's image" prostrate before the missionary, they were convinced of their errors, and embraced Christianity.

It were trite to speak of the_connexion of the oak with Druids. Long after the extinction of the latter, a traditional veneration for the mistletoe, as the offspring of the oak, was continued. In England, boys, on New Year's morning, ran through the streets, striking the doors and windows with mistletoe boughs, and crying "Yule, waes-hail," like the Danes of old. Even to this day the Christmas bush is reckoned incomplete in England without the white-berried mistletoe. In the French provinces of Picardy and Burgundy, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, the children in towns were accustomed to run about the streets with mistletoe boughs, crying "Aquilaneuf" (a corruption of la gui de l'an neuf-i.e., the mistletoe of the new year), as a wood productive of good fortune.† The name of Aquilaneuf was

He was an Englishman, originally named Wilfred. After his successful mission to the Hessians, he was made Archbishop of Mentz, which See he resigned, after sixteen years, to become Bishop of Utrecht. He went to preach to the heathen Frisons, by whom he was put to death, A.D. 754.

† Ovid recommends the speaking of auspicious words at the new year:

"Prospera lux oritur: linguisque, animisque favete :
Nunc dicenda bono sunt bona verba die."-FASTI, L.

VOL. XLVI.-NO. CCLXXII.

R

given to a kind of festal quest made by young people of both sexes on New Year's Day, to buy wax candles for the churches. But the festival degenerated into riot and licentiousness, and at the end of the sixteenth century it was abolished by an ordinance of a synod.

The mistletoe was deemed by the Celts to be an antidote for poison, and also a plant of good omen; but it was the reverse in the Scandinavian mythology, having caused great grief to the gods of the nothern creed. Balder, a beautiful and amiable youth (answering to the classic Apollo), the second son of Odin, or Woden, and Frigga (answering to Venus), had a presentiment of approaching death. His parents, full of anxiety for him, went through all the realms of nature, exacting an oath from every created thing, of every description, never to injure Balder. Lok, the evil genius, however, disguising himself as an old woman, learned from Frigga that no oath had been exacted from the mistletoe, because it seemed so weak and helpless. At a feast of the gods, Balder goodhumouredly stood as a mark for them to throw darts and quoits at, persuaded that nothing could harm him on account of the universal oath. Lok prepared a strong branch of mistletoe, which he sharpened into a keen dart, and gave it to a brother of Balder, named Hoder, who was blind. Hoder threw his missile, and it transfixed and slew Balder, to the great grief of his parents, and all their fellow-deities. Frigga hastened to the lower sphere, to represent to Hela,* goddess of death, how universally beloved and mourned was Balder, and to implore his restoration. Hela consented to give him back, if all creation, animate and inanimate, would weep for him. The afflicted parents went throughout all the world as before, conjuring all things to weep for their beloved Balder, that the tears of the world might ransom him. Their moving supplications were everywhere successful, till they came to a cave, wherein they found a wrinked hag, who inflexibly refused to shed one tear of pity. It was Lok, in that form, who thus prevented the restoration of Bal

der, as maliciously as he had caused his death. This story, which critics consider more pathetic than any in the classic mythology, is thought to be allegorical, typifying the successful opposition of the Druids to the religion of Odin.

It is singular that the mistletoe has now deserted the oak; it is found on the apple, the hawthorn, and some other trees; but so rarely on the oak, that an instance, when discovered, is considered as a very curious circum

stance.

When William Rufus was building Westminster Hall, he was permitted by the then King of Munster, grandson of Brien Boru, to cut timber for the work in Ireland; and the once famous forest oak of Shillelagh, in the County Wexford, furnished the wood for the roofing.t

The oak, with its living canopy of leafy boughs, has served in olden times as a temple, a place of convocation, and a hall of justice. St. Louis (Louis IX. of France) was accustomed, after hearing mass, in the summer to lie down on the grass under a large oak in the forest of Vincennes, and to give permission for all persons who had business to come and speak to him, and he heard and judged their causes on the spot.

The oldest oak in England is (we hope it still is) in Clipstone Park (Duke of Portland's), which is the oldest park in England, having been a park before the Conquest. This tree is called the " Parliament Oak." Tradition says that Edward I. once assembled a Parliament beneath its branches.

Augustine, the Missionary of England, held a conference under an oak in Worcestershire, with the Welsh Bishops, vainly endeavouring to effect a conformity of rites and discipline.

There are many historical oaks still standing in England; but many, very many, have of late years ceased to exist. Amongst these is the tree called St. Edmund's Oak, in Hoxne Wood, near Bury St. Edmunds, which fell in 1848. Edmund, King of East Anglia (afterwards canonised as a martyr), being defeated in battle, and taken

* Hela is poetically characterised by the Northern Scalds : her place is Anguish ; her table, Famine; her bed, Leanness; her threshold, Precipice; her waiters, Expectation and Delay. †The timber in the roof has been supposed to be chestnut, but on closer inspection it has been found to be oak.

prisoner by the pagan Danes, they determined to slay him on his refusing to renounce Christianity; and binding him to an oak in Hoxne Wood, they shot him to death with their arrows. His remains were interred at Bury St. Edmunds. When the oak pointed out by unvarying tradition as St. Edmund's fell, the trunk, up to its parting into branches, was twelve feet high, and five feet in diameter. When it was cut up, an iron arrow-head was found embedded in the wood, by Mr. Smithies, agent to Sir Edward Kerrison, the proprietor. It was buried a foot deep in the bark, and about five feet up from the ground. There can be no doubt that it was the head of one of the arrows shot at the martyred king, which stuck in the tree, and was covered by the subsequent growth of the wood.

Ever since the British Druids venerated the oak in their primitive forests, it has been the national tree of England, whose soil it seems to love, for there it attains a greater degree of perfection than elsewhere. Its attributes of strength and endurance, its fitness for affording shelter and for defence, its many valuable qualities, its heartsoundness, combined with its external roughness, are characteristic of the people among whom it delights to Hlourish. In English history, the Royal Oak (which hid Charles II. from his pursuers), commemorated on the 29th of May, is associated with the restoration of the monarchy after the frenzy of Republicanism had subsided. But it is pre-eminently the tutelary tree in supplying those "wooden walls" which have so long kept the foot of the invader from its native shores

"Hearts of oak are our ships,

Hearts of oak are our men."

To the English classicist the oak is the tree (not of Jupiter, but) of Neptune. Noble, valuable, and admired as it is on land, its peculiar scene of triumph and glory is on the waves. Let us hang, then, upon its branches, as an offering ex voto, a lay of the sea :

GOING OUT OF PORT.

M. E. M.

The vessel moves along the tide, Aloft her pennant streaming; And all her canvas floating wide, White in the sun-ray gleaming.

From bow to stern the busy crew
In various toils are vieing;
To well-known sign, or loud halloo,
Obedient prompt replying.

Now seems the harbour to retire
(The ship to sea advancing),
At distance seen tower, dome, and spire
Still faint and fainter glancing.

And now recede the rural bands,
With hill, and wood, and dingle;
And wider still the sea expands,
And bursting billows mingle.

Now wider spread the sails to waft

Us from the port we're leaving; And now the ship's boat, following aft, Stout hands aboard are heaving.

He leaves the helm, the pilot bluff, No more his needful station; And speaks in sailor accents rough His parting salutation.

And those who from the shore had come
Thus far for last leave-taking,
Now quit their lov'd ones-there are some
'Mong those with hearts half breaking.

And in the pilot's skiff below

(O'er the ship's side descending) They take their place, for they must go Back to the harbour wending.

That dark-eyed stripling, who is he,

From two lone females parting ?He goes, and dares not turn to see

Their tears so vainly starting.

He's gone but leaning o'er the stern
That lonely pair are straining
Their eyes the small boat to discern
That fast from sight is waning.

And who are they the boat that watch?—
A sister and a mother;

And he whose last glimpse thus they catch? Sole son, and only brother.

His fate with theirs until this day
Had been united ever;
Now first he wends a different way,

Now first their fortunes sever.

Then fare thee well, thou Soldier's Son!
The eye of Heaven be o'er thee;
That noble path thou'rt entering on
Thy father trod before thee.

Young Soldier! take our heart's fond sighs; Though Fate of home bereft thee,

Forget not us, the only ties

Thy sire in dying left thee!

Let us contrast with the broad, bluff leaves of the oak the light and arrowy

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