This mechanical moving on of things may aid the politician, but will not benefit the man. To the mathematician, who holds the daily cares and heart-helping relations of life as so many interruptions to the solution of his problem, it may be pleasant visioning to suppose himself moved about without the aid of his troublesome but faithful beast, and his within-door concerns carried on by well-ordered machinery, and not selfwilled servants; to think that his only perplexities in his domestic establishment would be the grating of a wheel or breaking of a cord:- Not rusty, like "my father's hinge," but well oiled, how smoothly all would go on! But to the man of heart and poetry this would be like the house of the dead, where the cold and stiffened bodies of the departed were raised up and charmed into careful and silent motion, acting unknowing, and obeying without sense.

In old times it was not so. Artificial aids were few and uncouth. Worked out in the rough and cumbrous, and requiring strength in the handling, they drew the attention; and lasting long, they became a part of the family, and held their place in the still and kindly-working associations of our homes. The old chair, in the very character of the age, looking so companionable and easy, yet with its comfortable arms protecting its good-natured occupier from the too near and familiar approach of his neighbour, stood in the snug corner of the ample fire-place, as by prescriptive right. It was no new-fangled thing, bought yesterday because in fashion, and set up for the gibes of the smart auctioneer to-day because out. It had been adorned by the patient industry and quaint fancy of our mothers, and had the honour of having sustained the weight of our ancestors for a century or more. Putting it away would have

been neglecting our fathers, and the unkindly cutting off of remembrances that had taken root and grown up in the heart. Each piece of furniture had its story to tell, and every room in the antique mansion made the mind serious and busy with the past, and threw a sentiment and feeling, softening but cheerful, over present times. This converse with the inanimate kept the heart warm and the imagination quick; and the inly-workings, various and constant, found much to study everywhere, and something to love in all things.

The better feelings were kept in motion by the old relations of master and servant; the servant watchful of the master's wishes, humble in demeanour, yet proud in his fidelity; the master trustful in the other's goodfaith and careful of his comforts in the reposing time of age. This long-tried service brought about a mixed but delightful sensation, when he who had tended us in our playing days had gone down into the still vale of years, while we stood on the open hill-top in our vigour and prime. It was a kind of filial reverence, touched by the sense of the humble and dependent state of him whom we protected and upon whom we looked down. "But we have bid farewell

To all the virtues of those better days,

And all their honest pleasures. Mansions once
Knew their own masters, and laborious hinds,
Who had survived the father, served the son."

Along with such softening influences, there was much of the wild and adventurous starting up in the midst of the common objects of life; at one time throwing over them mysterious shadows, and casting them into strange and awful forms; at another, pouring upon them a dazzling light, in which they flitted gay and fantastic. Surrounded by ideal shapes and untamed na

ture, the imagination was constantly widening and ever creative. Men could not leave their homes, the proper dwellings of the heart, without travelling into the regions of the fancy. Moving on alone through silent and unpeopled paths, winding round dusky rocks, and through tangling brush-wood, and overhung by gloomy woods, the traveller held converse with some spirit of the air, or, in the superstitious workings of his mind, saw some being of evil, darker than the night that had gathered round him.

Journeying far on horse or afoot, common to the times, fording rapid streams, toiling over rugged mountains and through wet low-lands, begat perseverance, healthful spirits, ready, cheerful, and self-trusting minds, acquainted with difficulties and used to overcoming them. Diversions, too, partook of the violent and daring; so that with all there was a combination of the natural and tender, the imaginative and the manly, in the characters of former days, which calls up within us an intense and restless desire to know them entirely, to live back amongst them, to warm us in their cheerful sunshine, to sit by their fireside, listen to their stories, mingle in their domestic games, and learn of their

stern sense.

This is an exhaustless theme; but I have talked long enough, perhaps too long; for to many it may all seem childish conceit, or the strange fancies of a tired spirit impatient of reality. But he of wide and deep thought will not so look upon it, or hold this view of things false because it is sad. Now that every thing rude and irregular is cut down, and all that remains is trimmed up and made to look set and orderly, he will not forget how much there was of exquisite beauty, of loftiness and strength, in the one, how tame and unsatisfying is

the other. Though there was a deep and subduing tenderness, an ardour and sway of passion, in the men of former days, sometimes uncontrolled and not always aimed aright, yet he will see that, with little of softness, man is still weak, and, without the extravagance of feeling, still erring:- The absence of passion is not always reason, nor coldness judgment.

THE PAST AND THE PRESENT.

"O that he were thus pervaded
With the Past! were thus persuaded
Of his proper sphere and

powers!"

It will secure you from the narrow idolatry of the present times and fashions, and create the noblest kind of imaginative power in your soul, that of living in past ages;wholly devoid of which power, a man can neither anticipate the future, nor even live a truly human life, a life of reason, in the present.

COLERIDGE.

THAT distinguished divine, John Owen, said, long ago," The world is at present in a mighty hurry, and being in many places cast off from all foundations of steadfastness, it makes the minds of men giddy with its revolutions, and disorderly in the expectations of them."

If this was a truth in the days of Owen, it is equally a truth now; if men in his time tore themselves violently off from old associations, and went wild after change, no less are they ridding themselves of all that is old, and quite as wild are they after alteration, in our day.

There is nothing new under the sun, said Solomon. Men seem resolved upon bringing the time speedily about, when they may look around them, and, reversing