in St. Pancras churchyard, reading the epitaphs, and not perceiving a grave which was just dug, he fell into it. His friend coming to his aid, and helping him out, said playfully, that he was happy to see the rising of genius. Chatterton smiled, and taking the arm of his companion, replied: “I feel the sting of a speedy dissolution; I have been at war with the grave for some time, and find it not so easy to vanquish as I imagined. We can find an asylum from every creditor but that." I learn yet another lesson from these branches, which already begin to grow dim in the mirror. The road to home-happiness lies over small stepping-stones. Slight circumstances are the stumbling-blocks of families. The prick of a pin, says a proverb collected by Fuller, is enough to make an empire insipid. The tenderer the heart is, the painfuller is the wound. An unkind word withers the blossom of love, as the most delicate rings of the vine are troubled by the faintest breeze. The misery of a life is born of a chance observation. If the true history of quarrels, public and private, were honestly written, it would be silenced by an uproar of derision. The retainers of a Norman monastery fought and hated one another, during a hundred and forty years, for the right of hunting rabbits. There is a Tree, of which every leaf casts a healing shade; I shall not have lost this balmy summer evening, if the mossy bridge, and the gilded brook, and the rustling boughs remind me of it. Slight circumstances compose the life of the Christian, whose blessings, like his wishes, are on the ground, and call him to stoop and gather them. Only let me remember that all things work together for good to the true pilgrim. Even in dark times the beauty of Hope was felt. The antique finger drew her in the attitude of motion; her garments drawn aside. She was always hastening forward! Sweet traveller and guide to heaven! take the lily of Eden in thy hand, and lead me whithersoever thou goest! JULY THE SIXTEENTH. RYDEN may be backed with Pope against any un-rhyming author in the language. His prose would make a reputation, with the poetry left out. After all, the admiration of Fox is not so unaccountable. What flexibility! what vigour! what harmony! what fulness! His language is an organ, with nearly all the stops. I have been reading, for the twentieth time, his parallel between poetry and painting. In reference to the scene in the Eneid, where the storm drives Eneas and Dido into the cavern, Dryden makes this remark:-"I suppose that a painter would not be much commended who should pick out this cavern from the whole Æneis, when he had better leave them in their obscurity, than let in a flash of lightning to clear the natural darkness of the place, by which he must discover himself as much as them." An illustrious contemporary of Dryden-even Poussin has selected this episode, and managed it with admirable taste. The composition of the picture is full of grandeur; although the dark ground has communicated an excessive blackness to the colouring. But the effect is surprising. The sudden gloom is relieved by light in the distant horizon, from which the tempest rushes before the wind. A white horse, a purple cloth upon it, is held by a Cupid with coloured wings, while the sun streams down from the clearing sky. Unfortunately, the horse is coarse and Flemish. Virgil mentions two horses-Dido's and that on which the young Ascanius exults along the valley. Poussin gives only the horse of the Carthaginian queen, and leaves out the ornaments: The "fulsere ignes," he translates very prettily into fluttering Loves. JULY THE SEVENTEENTH. EMINDED this evening of that beautiful expression of Milton, about pluming the wings of thought, after being ruffled in the crowd. The mind revives in solitude. Fresh airs blow down upon it from the green hills and gardens of fancy. It gets its health and colour again. But I would not quite recommend the advice of Cowley, for he considered that man the happiest, who had not only quitted the metropolis, but abstained from visiting the next market-town of his county. We owe a debt to our brethren; and, however fierce the lions may be in the wilderness, we are not to surround ourselves with a wall of fire, and go to sleep in the centre. Let me be just to this most delightful writer. He knew how few people are fit for the solitariness which he loved. In his essay on Solitude he says:-"They must have enough knowledge of the world to see the vanity of it, and enough virtue to despise all vanity; if the mind be possessed with any lust or passions, a man had better be in a fair, than in a wood alone. They may, like petty thieves, cheat us, perhaps, and pick our pockets in the midst of company; but, like robbers, they use to strip, and bind, or murder us, when they catch us alone. This is but to retreat from men, and fall into the hands of devils." But some sequesterment is needful for our intellectual, as for our spiritual nature. A bird is shut up and darkened before it learns a tune; trees and sun draw off its attention. The music of fancy is taught in a similar manner. The loneliness, however, must be fed; and the kind of nourishment is soon discovered. The purple feather of the bird tells us of the seed. So it is in literature. The violets of Colonos peep out under the hedges of Milton's Eden. JULY THE EIGHTEENTH. OST poetical readers know by heart Mr. Wordsworth's charming portraiture of womanly sweetness, which is able to cheer and bless us in all weathers of life. He has written nothing tenderer or truer— "I saw her, upon nearer view, A spirit, yet a woman too. Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin liberty; A countenance in which did meet Sweet records, promises as sweet. For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles." |