THE ASPEN TREE.

Oh! surely it is a lovely sight

When the brow of heaven wears a smile of light,

And the breeze is in his hermit cell,

Where he slumbers, to us invisible;

And their plumage of mist round the hill-tops is curled,
And a pulse of extacy thrills through the world:

Then sweet 'tis to see the aspen leaves quiver,

Like the busy ripple of some bright river:
Or the sparkling clouds of thin black spray,
Rained back to the sky when the waters play.
Ye lonely dancers of the air!
Within your forms so gay and fair
Some spirit finds a shrine:
For ever, with a foot of feather,
In harmony ye dance together,
In storm or in sunshine.

Ye flutter still-although the breeze
Bendeth not the hardier trees,

Nor bids the oak-leaves move :
Thus, some hearts stir not, save i' the storm
Of adverse things—some in the warm
And silent beam of love.

Ye vegetable stars of earth!
So full of light-so full of mirth,

In beauty blossoming ;

Although nor bloom, nor fruit, ye bear,
To me as sweet-to me as fair,

As promise of the spring.

In autumn's hour ye are a dream

Of spring-tide; for your bright leaves seem

A busy nimble throng

Of small birds nestling merrily:

And oft your rustling seem to me
To be the small-birds' song.

Yes, ye fitfully gleam, in the autumn hour;
Or twinkling on trees, or borne in the shower
Of dry punctured foliage, that sportively flies,
Like birds bent to find some kindlier skies.
Then your leaves are of light; and many a streak
Doth herald your fall,-as when creeping decay
Lays his hot heavy hand on the brow of a meek
And beautiful woman-her flushed rosy cheek
Is more smooth and bright, as her heart becomes clay,
And her beauty grows strong as her strength wears away.

G. J. F.

A YOUNG AUTHOR'S DEFENCE OF THEFT.

TO PLEASE, and to ASTONISH, is the object propounded to himself by an author, whensoever, and for whatsoever purpose he takes up his pen. Now as I am not yet an author complete, nor even an author professed, but merely a flower in the bud, a chicken in the shell, I should be well contented to fulfil the last half of the proposition. But a difficult task, I wot, is it even to astonish a modish reader; squeeze your brain till it is as dry as a sponge, in the invention of scenes and circumstances the most unnatural; describe things which are neither on the earth, nor off it,—sink, swim, or soar in the heights and depths of imagination; the obstinate caitiff will not be moved to wonder, except perchance at-his own patience. 'Exhaust whole worlds, and then imagine new.'

Why that has been done so often, that, to adopt the belief of some philosophers as to the formation of our globe, we, the present race of writers, can only make new worlds out of the wrecks of old ones, and be original by the aid of a good memory. In common with pickpockets, we have great cause of complaint against the times. So much light is thrown upon our proceedings, our expedients, our researches, and our resources, that if we do appropriate a little snug booty, before we have time to enjoy it, or even to congratulate ourselves on our success, a hue and cry is heard in all directions, and the how, and the when, we obtained possession of the article, is instantly known to every reader of periodicals and police reports. A tiger-hearted race are modern readers; too well taught to allow themselves to be ill fed-spurning with indignant paw the delicate morsels we young writers may humbly offer-suffering none to teaze them with impunity, and few to coax them into good humour!

Never in the annals of pen, ink, and paper, was there known such an awful period for a young literary debutant! He is surrounded by a countless multitude possessing talent and pretensions equal with his own,—while he is preceded by another countless multitude, possessing talent and pretensions far greater. Like a youthful knight of old, tilting in the melée— if he is a victor, his conquest is hidden by the crowd; if he falls, that crowd tramples him to death.

'Pity the sorrows of a poor old man.'

Pity the sorrows of a poor young author, ought to have been the reading-turned out with but a scanty portion of original ideas, every page he writes makes that little less;-he has but one resourse-theft,-and theft has but one consequence-punishment. I would, however, candidly

argue this point with the reader, in the hope, that I may prove to him, that theft ought not to be made a capital crime. To put a case, a home one. A youth, like myself, very anxious for the honour of wearing literary laurels, but not quite certain, either as to his capability, or the best mode of winning them, sits down to read. What ensues? He shortly finds that every thing he has to say has been better said before, and all he thinks better thought. He discovers that his original ideas originated in the brains of others; that his novelties are as old as the hills, and that what appeared inventions of his own had been invented long before he was born. Each author diminishes his little store of intellectual riches; like Sancho's dinner in Barataria, every dish is removed the instant it

appears, and he is left at last to preside over an empty table. In this sad state, how, when he has no ideas of his own, is he to refrain from coveting his neighbour's? How keep his hands from picking and stealing, when those ideas are as temptingly exposed in books as articles placed at the outside of shop doors? If necessity be admitted as a palliating plea in favour of him who steals from the latter place, why may not the same plea equally palliate the guilt of him who steals from the former? Why should not the abstracter of ideas be placed on a level with the abstracter of cheese and bacon? Let not timid spirits be startled by this doctrine; bold as it is, it holds out no encouragement for idleness. All those minor dishonesties which require little exertion of art and industry, ought to be punished with the utmost rigour; only great offenders, the Macheaths and Byrons of the profession, deserve consideration; for so much 'foresight, strength, and skill,' is exhibited in their delinquencies, that it requires an equal degree to detect them. Even after you have traced the stolen goods, you find them so artfully wrought up into new, and perhaps more beautiful forms, that you half doubt their personal identity. An author, who thus steals, is a thief of genius, and had Sparta been a literary nation, would have ranked as her chief star.' · Not, however, to weary the reader with more than enough, if he be one of the majority who take up books as an amusement, not a study, I would ask him one simple question:—' Do you care the pith of a goose quill about the origin, or origination of an idea that pleases you?' and he, being doubtless a person of sense, will reply by asking me another question :- Does a lady value her silk gown a whit the less, because the material was plagiarised from some hundred silk worms ?' An unanswerable illustration. Besides, ideas are immaterial things; they can neither be vested in the funds, nor laid out in land; nor can a man make them over to his heirs and assigns for ever. They are personal property, of an impersonal nature;-seeds that may be wafted to the farthest verge of the earth-that any one is free to sow, and as free to reap. They are gifts to the world, and their very author might as well attempt to retain exclusive possession of them, as to inclose the air for his own private breathing.

The

But necessity-necessity-is my grand, my golden argument. the locust left the caterpillar hath eaten ;-the ground unoccupied by the writers of the past ages is covered over with the tribes of the present; and, like the angels in one of the Mahometan heavens, they are so numerous, that there is scarcely room to place a needle between their ranks! Lastly, I prognosticate, (foresight is better than second sight), that, in another century, authors will merely compile, and composers transcribe. works of the next age will simply consist of extracts and selections from the works of the present. Without a doubt, that will be a very impudent generation, stealers en masse;—one will appropriate the Scotch Novels to himself, another Wordsworth's Poems,-nay, how do I know but this very article may be claimed by a young author in the year 1925! Very wonderful things do come to pass,-this would be one!

Wherefore, since our children will inevitably steal from us, we do per fectly right in stealing from our fathers! Q. E. D.

THE AMERICAN HUNTER.

BY MRS. HOWITT.

From an unpublished Poem.

WILD and unkempt, in sooth, was he
Who found him under the forest tree.
That dreadful hunter, whose thick hair
Was given to the tempest's tending care.
Whose giant frame, and whose flashing eye
Seemed made but to bid a foeman die.
His step, his gestures, fierce and bold
Of dangers, and foes he feared not, told.
His daily life had long been won
By his toils, his watchings, and his gun.
And his raiment, in grotesque array,
Was made of the wild pelts of his prey.
By wintry fires, in drenching storms,
His hand had wrought them to their forms.
His mantle waved,—a panther's hide,
With thongs and tassels all quaintly tied.
The buckskin belt, which round him met,
Was his armoury and his cabinet.
For there his wealth was all arrayed,
His arms, and the rude tools of his trade.
His knives, and pouches, and powder borne
In flask of a crooked bison's horn.

His fire-case swung securely free,
With tinder made of the mouldering tree.

So traversed the woods this uncouth man ;
And of him a dark fame there ran;
The hunter, who crossed him in the chase,
Recoiled from the hater of his race;
And whispers, in shuddering ears, were told
Of deeds done in his mountain hold.

In early life it had been his lot
To trust, to suffer,-and who has not?
He fled from his native land, and yet
His burning spirit could not forget.
His wrongs still roused his musing mind,
And he hated, but,-'twas not his kind.

And now, so long his life had been
In the wintry wilderness and the green,
He had learned with Nature to converse,
And his heart was moulded anew to hers.
And there, in her vast and awful wild,
She fed with her wonders her noblest child.
The river rushed in its might for him;
And in mountain hollows, and chambers dim
Of the hovering cloud, and the storm-wind drear,
She nurtured the fearless in her fear.

Till a life in each silent thing he found,

And his heart owned the language of each sound
Which in mossy and manless wilds are bred,
And strike on the pilgrim's ear with dread.
And oh! what a soul of delight was there,
As he ran in the strength of the desert air;
In the bounding limb, and the glorying flow
Of spirits, in healthful hearts that flow.
The ravening wolf, and the surly bear

He dragged from the dark swamp's reedy lair.
"Twas joy in the locust-tree to hide
Watching the wild-deer in their pride.

He went, where the hurricane in its mirth
Had crushed the forest trees to the earth.
Away-away for leagues he speeds

Where the giant oaks strew the earth like reeds.
He went, where the beech-woods burning bright,
'Neath the canopied oak, and the pitchy night,
Mid dolorous sounds and sighs aspire,
Ten thousands spectral pillars of fire.
His summer-night's rest he was wont to take
On the beach of a lonely and whispering lake;
His bed from the hemlock bough was riven;
His canopy-oh! twas the broad blue heaven;
• When the stars, as they solemnly traced the skies,
Seemed gazing upon him with thoughtful eyes;
And the moon, in her monthly flight, threw down
On the leafy forest a silvery crown.

And wildering and wild was the life of his dreams,
Mid the night-wood's moan and the echo of streams.

LINES,

ON READING IN THE NEWSPAPER, THAT A YOUNG LADY OF GREAT MUSICAL CELEBRITY, HAD STIPULATED. WITH THE MANAGER, THAT SHE SHOULD NEVER BE REQUIRED TO APPEAR ON THE STAGE IN MALE ATTIRE.

THAT Paton, whose enchanting voice

The admiring town bewitches,
Should of her own free-will and choice,
Refuse to wear the breeches,

Seems rather strange, and at first sight,
Might very well surprise one;
Though, if you judge the matter right,
You'll think her scheme a wise one.

For surely every modest belle,
Of wedded joys ambitious,
Must say that Paton acted well,

And think her plan judicious:
For manly brogues 'tis best to wait
Till one great point is carried;
Then Paton lay your tempting bait,
Nor wear them till you're married.

C. J. D