spirit of the bride. He, too, would be in a towering passion if he heard me and yet neither of you have cause.

You do not understand me; nor will you, nor can you, till you come to be yourself a mother.

The riddle is out. I mean that you were a person of much more consequence in the eyes of two others eh, old dame ? that you were the object of a more profound love than you ever can be again; long, long before you knew how delightful a thing it is to repay love with love. You have been admired, and have been told that you were admired; and, though I your father say it, who ought not to say it, you are worthy to be admired. And you have been flattered - flattered by admiration; never deny it, girl, it is human nature, and sits prettily upon a young woman. But you were welcomed home, and admired, and watched over with far more solicitude before you were twelve months old, than ever you will be again. Strange it is, but it seems to be the unwavering rule of Providence, that the warmest affection should ever be squandered upon those who are unaware of the wealth which is being heaped upon them.

It was a proud and happy day that of your birth. The ways were mud, and keen hail-showers, alternating with sleet, were borne on the wind, that howled and thumped round the house, as if seeking to force its way in. And the bodily suffering of your mother scarcely exceeded the mental anxiety of the rest of the household. It was a heavenly summertime when all was over wind or weather, what did we heed them, when she looked proudly up at me, as I looked at you lying in her arms?

After all, any disinterested person must have thought you a strange-looking creature. You had not learned how to make use of your eyes one was turned up to your eyebrows, and the other down to your mouth

Now, papa

Fact, fact; ask the old woman there, if you won't believe

me.

But you were beautiful in our eyes, and in those of your good grandmother. She had been passing backward and forward,

the whole morning, between your mother's apartment and the parlour, thinking to keep up our spirits, but sinking them rather by her agitated looks. But when she came to tell me that all was well, she could not find her voice, and she did not need to find it, for her face was radiant. You were

a lamp set down amongst us to enlighten all our faces. We had lived together, and thought we loved each other; but when you were added to the family group, it was as a new revelation; and it seemed as if we had been living coldly and heartlessly with each other. A cord was around us, drawing us into closer relationship; and you, little unconscious elf, were the talisman that worked all these wonders.

I could write a big book about the first year of your life, and yet not contrive to say all I have to say, to show how much more important a baby is, than any grown or growing person possibly can be.

You will scarcely recollect the day of your christening. That, too, was a memorable day. Mother, nurse, grandmother I cannot well say which looked most consequential; while you, the real heroine of the occasion, took it with unparalleled sang froid: you did not even seem to mind the beautiful rich lace cap, of which there is a family tradition that your mother was christened in it too: you positively slept through the ceremony, to the great consternation of the nurse, who held it a bad omen that you did not squall. But if you thought little, I thought the more; for when I turned from the marble font to the altar window, where was painted the dove hovering over the cloudy chaos it was commissioned to impregnate with light and love, I felt awed and subdued, and anxious for my baby, and yet consoled; I felt that it was your inauguration into the sorrows of life. The mystic rite was the herald of the sufferings to which humanity is heir; but it was, at the same time, the pledge that God would temper the wind to the shorn lamb.

I will not tell you how we for she, there, went foot for foot in feeling all my joys, cares, hopes, and fears about you; as, indeed, she has been the mirror of my life for I will not say how many years, bearing half my sorrows, and redoubling all

my joys. I would not have said so much for fear of making her vain. Never praise people to their faces, girl; it spoils them; but you see she is asleep, and can't hear me. What makes the old woman's head keep nudging at that rate behind her handkerchief? Has she been listening to us all this time?

I will say nothing of our care for you even in trifles, of the long happy walk we had one day from bazaar to bazaar, to choose playthings fit for so very young a baby,- of the utter forgetfulness of my personal dignity, with which I used to bring biscuits to the baby from town, in my great-coat pocket. You would think I was wishing to bribe you by these recollections, not to forget the old folks when you leave them. It would be unkind to do so; it would look as if I thought you could forget them.

Every day

You grew up among us like an opening flower. we saw something new to love and praise in you. To hear us talk, one would have thought there never had been such a baby. A strange thing it is, a child! There is a delicate beauty about its soft eyes, and rosy cheeks, and tiny mouth.

It was so pretty to see the little monkey examine our hands, one after the other, to see if they contained sugar or biscuit. And it was so engaging when it held out its little mouth to be kissed. And it was sparkling, when it dived down into its nurse's arms, and hid its face in her bosom, when playfully minded. But strangest, loveliest of all, was its appearance when it seemed to be trying to think when the expression of thought beamed through its infant lineaments when the consciousness of reason and eternity seemed to be dawning upon God's own image shrinking abashed from the glories of its own nature.

-

And yet, my daughter, în moments of depression, and such moments come to all, there was something terrible in thy childish glee. When I reflected how trifling the cause of thy delight, the absence of any reason why it should give thee delight, the transitory nature of the delight itself, -I was tempted to think that all human happiness was alike unreasonable and unnatural. Life seemed to be a succession

:

of brief bursts of ecstasy, at long intervals, gradually growing duller and duller, till it ended in inane apathy. I will not dwell on the thought. It is one which mocks us in our happiest hour, and which not reason, faith alone can dispel. But more desolate and dangerous emotions were awakened when illness came upon thee. There is nothing on earth so painful as to witness the sufferings of a child. We cannot Idivine their cause or nature, and it cannot tell the impotency of human desire so give relief, is never so painfully felt. The innocence and weakness, too, of the sufferer, conjure up rebellious thoughts. My God! I know that my own sufferings are the consequences of my own sins, but what has this innocent done? It is not alone when the little creature writhes in torture that we feel these misgivings its uncomplaining languor goes with more deadly certainty to the heart. Oh, what a relief it has been, after such a visitation, to see my child's eye brighten again, and hear its blessed, clear, soft, voice breathing of happiness!

:

It were hard to say whether thy sufferings or thy enjoyments most endeared you to me. You have been a dear good daughter to your father, and you understand the playful exaggeration of this nursery legend. And yet it is not all exaggeration.

But go! my tears are under my eyelids, and I shall make a fool of myself if I go on. You will understand me better when you repeat to a child of your own the tale your father told you the night before your marriage.

(TAIT'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.)

When the British historian of the next century sits down to write an account of our present war with China, although all the triumphs had attended it which our arms could obtain in such a contest, and although territorial aggrandizement and commercial prosperity should have been its fruits, we fear that his honest judgment will pronounce these advantages no compensation for the stain which our national charater will derive from the unrighteousness of its origin. If, on the other hand-an event we sincerely deprecate-the climate of China should sweep away our soldiers and sailors, and leave our ships of war an easy conquest to the petty prowess of the Chinese, none but a very sturdy disbeliever in the direct intervention of Providence will refuse to see in such a calamity one of its justest visitations.

It is not a fitting occasion, in noticing a work like that before us, avowedly of a hasty and flimsy character, to go

(') Six Months with the Chinese Expedition; or Leaves from a Soldier's Note-Book. By LORD JOCELYN, late Military Secretary to the China Mission. London; 1841. Murray.