all alike steeped in the same unvarying hue of mystery-its towers and pinnacles rising like a grove of quiet poplars on its crest-the whole as colourless as if the sun had never shone there, as silent as if no voice of man had ever disturbed the echoes of the solemn scene. Overhead, the sky is all one breathless canopy of lucid crystal blue-here and there a small bright star twinkling in the depth of æther-and full in the midst the Moon walking in her vestal glory, pursuing, as from the bosom of eternity, her calm and destined way-and pouring down the silver of her smiles upon all of lovely and sublime that nature and art could heap together, to do homage to her radiance. How poor, how tame, how worthless, does the converse even of the best and wisest of men appear, when faintly and dimly remembered amidst the sober tranquillity of this heavenly hour! How deep the gulph that divides the tongue from the heart-the communication of companionship from the solitude of man! How soft, yet how awful, the beauty and the silence of the hour of spirits.

I think it was one of the noblest conceptions that ever entered into the breast of a poet, which made Göethe open his Faustus with a scene of moonlight. The restlessness of an intellect wea

ried with the vanity of knowledge, and tormented with the sleepless agonies of doubt the sickness of a heart bruised and buffeted by all the demons of presumption-the wild and wandering throbs of a soul parched among plenty, by the blind cruelty of its own dead affectionsthese dark and depressing mysteries all maddening within the brain of the Hermit Student, might have suggested other accompaniments to one who had looked less deeply into the nature of Man-who had felt less in his own person of that which he might have been ambitious to describe. But this great master of intellect was well aware to what thoughts, and what feelings, the perplexed and the bewildered are most anxious to return. He well knew where it is, that Nature has placed the best balm for the wounds of the spirit-by what indissoluble links She has twined her own eternal influences around the dry and chafed heart-strings that have most neglected her tenderness. It is thus, that this weary and melancholy sceptic speaks-his phial of poison is not yet mingled on his table-but the tempter is already listening at his ear, that would not allow him to leave the world until he should have plunged yet deeper into his snares, and added sins against his neighbour, to sins against

God, and against himself. I wish I could do justice to his words in a translation, or rather that I had Coleridge nearer me.

Would thou wert gazing now thy last

Upon my troubles, Glorious Harvest Moon!
Well canst thou tell how all my nights have past,
Wearing away, how slow, and yet how soon!
Alas! alas! sweet Queen of Stars,
Through dreary dim monastic bars,
To me thy silver radiance passes,
Illuminating round me masses
Of dusty books, and mouldy paper,
That are not worthy of so fair a taper.
O might I once again go forth,

To see thee gliding through thy fields of blue,
Along the hill-tops of the north ;-

O might I go, as when I nothing knew,
Where meadows drink thy softening gleam,
And happy spirits twinkle in the beam,

To steep my heart in thy most healing dew.

END OF VOLUME FIRST.

Printed by Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh.

ENGLISH

XFORD

LIBRARY