Glittered each ice-incrusted bar
Beneath the moon like shaft of war.-
And there a lovely tracery

Of branch and twig, that naked tree
From shadow soft and dim has wove,
And spread so gently, that above

The pure
white snow it seems to float
Lighter than that celestial boat,
The silver-beaked moon, on air,
Lighter than feathery gossamer;
As if its dark'ning touch, through fear,
Is held from thing so saintly clear.

Thus nature threw her beauties round me ;
Thus from the gloom in which she found me,
She won me by her simple graces,
She wooed me with her happy faces.

The day is closed, and I refrain

But if my desultory strain,

Has whiled away an hour of pain;

If to my desert mind, have come

Serener thoughts, and made their home

Awhile, as from the summer sky,

Drops the fresh shower when earth is dry ;—
I fain would have my friends partake
The passing cheerfulness they wake.

LAW SCHOOL AT NORTHAMPTON.

THE Law School at Northampton, Massachusetts, has been established for several years, and has enjoyed a very liberal patronage; but until very lately there has been published no particular statement of the course of study pursued at that institution. The public seem to have been too well satisfied of the ability and learning of Messrs. Mills and Howe, its principals, to demand of them any very strict account of their mode of instruction. Within a few weeks, however, these gentlemen have published a sort of prospectus, detailing what seems to us a very excellent and judicious plan of study. As the school is rapidly rising into notice and favor, and as the whole community is interested that those who profess the complicated and difficult science of the law, should be sound and ripe scholars in their way, we have been induced to say something of this plan, and the advantages with which we suppose it to be attended.

Lectures of an hour are delivered at this institution three times a week. These lectures are intended to embrace most

of the important titles of the law, and to treat in a particular manner of those in which the greatest alterations have been made in our own country, and those also which have been less fully discussed by elementary writers. An extensive and valuable law library is open at all times to the pupil, and he is directed in his reading by the particular advice of the principals, regard being always had, in the selection of books, to his capacity and attainments, to the progress he has made in the studies of his profession, and to the time he expects to devote to them. Recitations from these books take place three times a week. This is, perhaps, the most important feature in the plan of instruction pursued at this school. Not only are recitations exceedingly important, as helps to the memory, but they give an opportunity for the removal of mistakes and misapprehensions, and for the explication of those abstruse doctrines, and nice distinctions which abound in our law, and which are not always apprehended with the same readiness and clearness as self evident propositions. The common law of this country is principally learned from English books-from elementary works, compiled with great industry, and in many instances, digested with great skill, and from the reports of decisions in English courts of law. These works, besides that they give no information of the changes which we have made in the English law, contain much that it is not important that the pupil should particularly study and remember. So many alterations have been made in the common law by the statutes of this country; so many, in some of the states, have crept in from mere custom; so much of it has grown obsolete by lapse of time, and so much is inapplicable to our peculiar condition, or incompatible with our institutions, that an able and learned guide is indispensable to the student in his researches. He who should undertake to prepare himself for the pursuit of this profession, by the aid of books alone, without observation of the practice in our courts, or inquiry of experienced lawyers, besides having wasted a great deal of time in unnecessary labours, would find himself, on his entrance into the profession, in a pitiable state of uncertainty and embarrasment.

In addition to these recitations, and to the conversations to which they give rise, upon the subject of their studies, great pains are taken by the principals, one of whom is a judge in one of the Massachusetts courts, and the other an advocate in extensive practice, to state to their pupils the cases which occur on the circuits, the questions raised, and arguments urged on the trial, and the way in which these are finally settled. This part of the instructions is also of no small importance, as it gives

the pupil a certain acquaintance with the ordinary details of practice, and in some sort supplies the want of experience. This familiar way of reporting cotemporary litigations and decisions, interests the mind far more strongly, and leaves a much deeper impression, than the reading of printed reports. Among the multitude of things which we remember, how many are there, whose only hold upon our recollections is, that they happened in our own time, and our own neighborhood.

According to the plan laid down in the prospectus, a discussion of some legal question by the students, takes place every week. Readiness in applying the principles of law, skill, self possession, and fluency in debate, are qualities of great importance to the legal profession. They are as much so to the youngest as to the oldest of its members-and yet they are things of habit, the fruit of frequent exercise. It is as unreasonable to expect them of him who has had no opportunity to improve his natural powers by practice, as it is to expect of a child that he will go alone at the moment of his birth. There is no reason why these acquisitions should not be made a part of a legal education. A good general is not satisfied with merely providing keen and bright weapons for his recruits; he will not push them into battle till they have become dexterous in their

use.

In short, the school of Messrs. Howe and Mills combines every advantage which can arise from a term of study in the office of a Counsellor, with all those of an academic institution. The fine village in which it is situated, the beauty of the surrounding country, and the agreeable manners and cultivated minds of the inhabitants, are of themselves strong recommendations in its favour, and we learn that the principals are about to place it in a still more classic atmosphere, by removing it to a retired part of the town, in the immediate vicinity of the celebrated school of Messrs. Cogswell and Bancroft.

THE CLOUD BRIDGE.

A REMEMBERED VISION.

"I long to tread that golden path of rays,

"And think 'twould lead to some bright isle of rest."

SAW ye that cloud which arose in the west,
As the burning sun sank down to his rest,
How it spread so wide, and towered so high
O'er the molten gold of that glowing sky,
That it seemed-Oh! it seemed, like
some arched
As it beamed, and gleamed, in that glorious ray,

way,

Where the spirit freed
From its earthly weed,
And robed in the white

Of the saints in light,

Might pass from the waves of sin and wo,
To that world where ceaseless pleasures flow!

Ye saw that cloud, how it towered alone,
Like an arched path o'er the billows thrown ;
How its pillars of azure and purple stood,
And mock'd at the dash of the angry flood,

While it beamed-oh! it beamed from its battlements high,
As it gleamed and streamed in that western sky,
Such a flood of mellow and golden light

As charmed and fixed the ravished sight,
And poured along our darkening way
The peace and joy of celestial day.

Such, as we haste to our heavenly home,
SAVIOUR! Such be the sights that come-
Thus, while the visions of time flit by,

And the fashion of earth grows dim to our eye,
Thus, let the light-oh! the light of thy love
Beam bright on our sight from the mansions above,
Rending the gloom

Which enwraps the tomb,

And guiding our eye

To that world on high,

Where the people who love Thee, forever shall share
The rest thou hast purchased, and gone to prepare !

When they are nearer; then, adjure them by

That love which is their lord, and they will come.

Venturi tells us, that ei is here taken in the sense of eglino; but yet, he adds with great gravity, you cannot say eino instead

Vol. I.

42

of eglino; whereupon he utters maledictions against the absurdities of grammar. Volpi, I believe, has closed his eyes upon this passage, as well as the Avignon editor, who on more occasions than one, shows himself marvellously clever in getting round a difficulty. Lombardi has recourse to a ridiculous paraphrasis, and Biagioli thinks ch' ei mena means ch' ei mena insieme, which might answer, if we make ei the nominative case singular, referring to amore. It is certainly very singular, that amidst such a variety of explanation, not a commentator among them all appears to have suspected the interpretation which I take to be undoubtedly the true one, and which one would think is almost as obvious as it is completely satisfactory. To have the right reading, it is not necessary to alter a letter or a stop; in the word ei detach the i from the e, and every thing is clear.

E tu gli prega

Per quell' amor che i mena, e quei verranno.

The pronoun i is then in the objective case plural, for li or gli, and this is so far from being a harsh construction, that we have the authority of Dante himself for this identical license. La sconoscente vita che i fe sozzi.

Inf. Cant. VII. v. 53. In the same way, another sentence which has been considered an obscure one, is made perfectly intelligible. Let the eighteenth verse of the eighteenth canto of the Inferno be printed thus ;

Infino al pozzo che i tronca e raccogli ; and all the forced and far-fetched explanations of the commentators fall to the ground as useless or absurd.

INF. CANT. IX. v. 7, 8.

Pure a noi converrà vincer la pugna,

Cominciò ei-se non-tal ne s' offerse.

The commentators, without exception, consider the pronoun tal as referring here to Beatrice. With all due respect to that "donna gentile," I cannot help thinking that the angel is the person here alluded to, and that for these three reasons: First, because the lady Beatrice did not offer any personal assistance to Dante, but merely solicited in his behalf the services of Virgil; and after having thus addressed him,

Or muovi, e con la tua parola ornata,

E con ciò ch'è mestieri al suo campare
L'ajuta sì ch' io ne sia consolata ;

she then told him her name, and her desire to return to the