coast of Spitzbergen, to the great danger of the shipping employed in the Greenland fishery. In the midst of these tremendous masses, navigators have been arrested in their career and frozen to death. The forms assumed by the ice in this chilling climate are pleasing to the most incurious

eye.

The surface of that which is congealed from the sea-water is flat, even, hard, and opaque, resembling white sugar, and incapable of being slidden on. The greater pieces, or fields, are many leagues in length; the lesser are the meadows of the seals, on which, at times, those animals frolic by hundreds. The approximation of two great fields produces a most singular phenomenon; they force smaller pieces out of the water, and add them to their own surface, till at length, the whole forms an aggregate of tremendous height. They float in the sea like so many rugged mountains, and are sometimes five or six hundred yards thick, the far greater part of which is concealed beneath the water. Those which remain in this frozen climate receive continual growth; others are by degrees wafted into southern latitudes, and melt gradually by the heat of the sun, till they waste away, and disappear in the boundless element. The collision of the great fields of ice in high latitudes, is often attended with a noise that, for a time, takes away the sense of hearing anything else, and that of the smaller, with a grinding of unspeakable horror. The water which dashes against the mountainous ice, freezes into an infinite variety of forms, and

gives the voyager ideal towns, streets, churches, steeples, and every shape which imagination can frame.

Besides the fields of ice in high latitudes, there are icebergs, as they are called, or large bodies of ice, that fill the valleys between the high mountains in northern latitudes. Among the most remarkable are those of the east coast of Spitzbergen. They are seven in number, at considerable distances from each other: each fills the valleys, for tracts unknown in a region totally inaccessible in the interior parts. The first exhibits a front three hundred feet high, emulating the emerald in its green colour: cataracts of melted snow precipitate down various parts, and blocked spiry mountains, streaked with white, bound the sides, and rise, crag above crag, as far as the eye can reach in the back ground.

LESSON XI.

THE LOCUST.

GOLDSMITH.

THE locust is that destructive insect whose rava

ges are proverbial-whose approach, from the in

numerable myriads that compose their squadrons, is announced in prophetic language as a day of darkness and gloominess—a day of clouds and of thick darkness; and whose desolating march is thus described: "The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them." The visitation of a few minutes destroys the husbandman's hope of the year, and a famine is always the inevitable consequence. In the tropical climates, however, their presence is not attended with such lamentable consequences as in the south of Europe: there the power of vegetation is so rapid and strong, that a comparatively short interval only is required to repair the damage; but in Europe, a year at least is requisite to obliterate their footsteps. Sometimes a strong wind brings deliverance from the pest, and the shores of the Mediterranean have been covered for miles with their dead carcasses; but even then they are not innoxious, for the stench arising from their putrefaction is apt to occasion contagious diseases.

The locust is about three inches long, and has two feelers, each an inch in length; the upper wings are brown, with small dusky spots; the under side purple. The natives of the countries where they most frequently appear, roast and eat them, and in some cases pickle and preserve them, as a small wretched substitute for the better provisions they have destroyed. There are reckoned upwards of two hundred species, of which several are used by the natives of Africa and India as ordinary food, and are said, not to be unpalatable.

LESSON XII.

THE BUTTERFLY'S BIRTH-DAY.

THE shades of night were scarcely fled; The air was mild, the winds were still; And slow the slanting sunbeams spread O'er wood and lawn, o'er heath and hill.

From fleecy clouds of pearly hue

Had dropt a short but balmy shower, That hung like gems of morning dew On ev'ry tree and ev'ry flower.

And from the blackbird's mellow throat
Was pour'd so loud and long a swell,
As echoed with responsive note

From mountain side and shadowy dell:

When bursting forth to life and light,
The offspring of enraptur'd May,
The butterfly, on pinions bright,

Launch'd in full splendour on the day.

Unconscious of a mother's care,

No infant wretchedness she knew;

But as she felt the vernal air,

At once to full perfection grew.

Her slender form, ethereal light,
Her velvet-textur'd wings unfold;
With all the rainbow's colours bright,
And tipt with spots of burnish'd gold.

Trembling with joy awhile she stood,
And felt the sun's enlivening ray;
Drank from the skies the vital flood,

And wonder'd at her plumage gay!

And balanc'd oft her 'broider'd wings, Through fields of air prepar'd to sail, Then on her vent'rous journey springs, And floats along the rising gale.

Go, child of pleasure, range the fields, Taste all the joys that spring can give, Partake what bounteous summer yields, And live whilst yet 'tis thine to live.

Go, sip the rose's fragrant dew,

The lily's honey'd cup explore, From flower to flower the search renew, And rifle all the woodbine's store.

And let me trace thy vagrant flight,

Thy moments too of short repose, And mark thee then with fresh delight, Thy golden pinions ope and close.

But hark! whilst thus I musing stand,
Pours on the gale an airy note,
And breathing from a viewless band,
Soft silv'ry tones around me float!

They cease-but still a voice I hear,

A whisper'd voice of hope and joy, "Thy hour of rest approaches near, Prepare thee, mortal!-thou must die!