and brae in the neighborhood. How many pretty little blossoming gardens does the Spring now in vain desiderate! Are there any such things nowa-days, we wonder, as retired citizens Old, decent, venerable husband and wife, living about a mile, or two miles even, out of town, always to be found at home when you stroll out to see how the worthy pair are getting on, either sitting each on an opposite arin-chair, with a bit sma' lassie, grandchild perhaps, or perhaps only an orphan servant girl, treated as if she were a grandchild, between them on a stool, and who was evidently reading the Bible as you entered; or the two, not far from one another in the garden-he pruning, it may be, the fruit-trees, for he is a great gardener, and rejoices in the Golden Pippin she busy with the flowers, among which we offer you a pound for every weed, so exquisitely fine the care that tends those gorgeous beds of anemones and polyanthuses, or pinks, and carnations, on which every dewy morning Flora descends from heaven to brighten the glory with her smiles! But we are relapsing into the pathe tic, so let us remark that a Capital should always be proportioned to a Country-and verily, Scotland carries hers, like a fine phrenological developement, on a broad back and shoulders, and looks stately among the nations. And never-never-this is our morning and evening prayernever may she need to hang down that head in shame, but may she lift it up, crested with glory, till the blue skies themselves shall be no more— till cease the ebbing and the flowing of that sun-bright sea! But never in all her annals were found together Shame and Scotland. Sir William Wallace has not left Shame one single dark cavern wherein to hide her head. Be thou Bold, Free, Patriotic, as of old, gathered up in thyself within thy native mountains, yet hospitable to the highsouled Southron, as thou wert ever wont to be even in the days of Bannockburn and Flodden!-To thine eye, as of old, be dear each slip of blue sky, glimpsing through the storm each cloud-cleaving hill-top, Bennevis, Cairn-gorm, Cruachan-Spire pointing to heaven through the dense city-cloud, or from the solitary braeBaronial hall or castle sternly dilapidating in slow decay-humble hut, that sinks an unregarded ruin, like some traditionless cairn-or shieling, that, like the nest of the small brown moorland bird, is renewed every spring, lasting but one summer in its remotest glen! To thine ears, as of old, be "Dear the wild music of the mountain wave, Breaking along the shores of liberty!" Dear the thunder of the cataract heard, when the sky is without a cloud, and the rain is over and goneheard by the deer-stalker, standing like a shadow, leagues off, or moving for hours slow as a shadow, guided by the antlers. Dear be the yell of the unseen eagle in the sky, and dear, where "no falcon is abroad for prey," the happy moaning of the cushat in the grove-the lilting of the lintwhite among broom and brier-the rustle of the wing of the lonesome Robin-redbreast in the summer-woods-his sweet pipe on the barn or byre-riggin' in autumn, through all winter long his peck at the casement, and his darkeyed hopping round the hearth! Be thine ever a native, not an alien spirit, and ever on thy lips, sweet Scotia ! may there hang the music of thy own Doric tongue. Nor vain the hope, for it is in heaven! A high philosophy has gone out from the sages of thy cities into the loneliest recesses of the hills. The student sits by the ingle of his father's straw-roofed shed, or lies in leisure, released from labor, among the broomy banks and braes of the wimpling burn, and pores and meditates over the pages of Reid, and Fergusson, and Stewart, and Brown,— wise benefactors of the race. Each vale" sings aloud old songs, the music of the heart,"-the poetry of Burns the deathless shall brighten forever the cottar's hearth-Campbell is by all the songs, mournful in their majesty, of the woe-denouncing, sin-dooming Prophets of old, of which the meanings are still profound to the ear of nations that listen to them aright-for there is a taint at the core of all their hearts, and not one single land on the face of the whole earth, strong as it may be in its simplicity, that hath not reason to dread that one day or other may be its own-the doom of the mighty Babylon! But lo! a soft sweet smile of showery sunshine-and our hearts are touched by a sudden mirth. “Then said I, Master, pleasant is this place." A pleasanter city is no where to be seen-neither sea-shore nor inland, but between the two, and uniting the restlessness of the one situation with the quietness of the other, there green waves leaping like Furies, here green hills fixed like Fate,-there white sails gliding, here white tents pitched, -there-you can hardly see it even with a telescopic eye-the far-off Bass, from whose cliffs, perhaps at this very moment, the flashing fowlingpiece has scared a yelling cloud of seabirds,-there the near Castle-Rock thundering a royal salute,-there masts unnumbered, here roofs multitudinous,-there Neptune, here Apollo,-together, sea, sun, earth, and heaven, all in one-a perfect Poem! Verily it is a pleasant place, and pleasant are the people who inhabit it, through all their grades. The students at the University are pleasantSO are the professors. The shopkeepers are pleasant-so are the citizens in general-pleasant are the advocates-pleasant every W. S.-are not the ministers of the city pleasant as they are pious ?-pleasant are the country gentlemen who come hither to educate their sons and daughters, forgetful of corn bills-and pleasant, O, Edina! are the strangers within thy gates! Up and down, down and up the various steps of thy society do we delight to crutch it; nor can we complain of a cold reception from the palace in Moray Place to the box at Newington. Yea, verily, Edinburgh is a pleasant place, and pleasant are its inhabitants. THE RUINED CITY.* SOME One beautifully says of Greece -"her very tombs are altars ;" and it is by their side the poet would choose his most efficient stand when he combats the worldly wise, armed with systems and pamphlets, who question the utility of poetry, and would have the world of imagination merged in the active and actual one. Many soils are as much summer's favorites'; all her natural advantages, green wood and shining river, are to be found even lovelier in other lands; but what country has a name that at once goes from the ear to the heart, and calls up all that is elevated in our nature-the noble hope of the patriot-the aspiring dream of the bard, who paints earth with the hues of heaven, for he draws from his own consciousness of immortality,-what country has so intellectual a memory as Greece? And to whom does she owe this mental eternity but to her poets? for her historians, her philosophers, were poets too; and every noble thought, every generous deed recorded of the past, stirs the feverish and troubled waves of the present as with an angel's wing, that heals and purifies wherever it touches. Nay, even the dark record of guilt has its benefit, startling our thoughtless today, like a warning such as was given by the skeleton at the Egyptian feast * The Ruined City: a Poem. By G. P. R. Jaines, Esq. 12mo. pp. 32. London, 1828. -at once sad and fearful. No marvel that a young poet, on visiting such a land, should find his thoughts, like the fountains of the fairy tale, leap forth in music. The author says: "A few years ago, a party of English gentlemen, travelling in the Morea, conceived the idea of visiting some of the ruins of ancient Greece by moonlight. This was executed accordingly, during one of the most splendid nights of eastern summer; and an account of the effect produced, given by one of the travellers to the author, suggested the following little poem.' Poetry was the only language which could speak of such scenes; and what praise do we not give Mr. James when we say he was worthy to have seen them ? We frankly own we have been delighted with this little poem: the elegant versification, which gives fitting utterance to thoughts touched with the beauty they seek to embody -the melancholy musing-the mingled memory of a glorious past, broken in upon by the striking realities of the present the vein of half sad and half bitter philosophy,-speak the truly poetic mind-one on whose lips alone should the name of Greece ever rest. But let our readers use their own judgment. "Parent of contemplation! Night sublime! Meanwhile, the sun's pale sister calmly shone On those memorials of the ages gone, Looking so placid on that soulless scene, So calmly sweet, so pensively serene, It seemed as if she mark'd a world's decay, Not feelingless; but poured her lucid ray Upon the remnants of the past, and drew Some comment, sweet and solemn, from the view. Beneath were column, sepulchre, and bust, Of thousands honor'd, and of thousands gone. How true the next extract! "We are mad gamesters in this world below, All hopes on one uncertain die to throw. To follow that which leaves us still behind! How vain is man's pursuit, with passion blind, Go! clasp the shadow, make it all thine own, Place on the flying breeze thine airy throne; Weave the thin sunbeams of the morning sky; Chase the bright sun unto the fading west, Catch the light April clouds before they fly; And wake him early from his golden rest; Seeking th' impossible, let life be past, But never dream of pleasure that shall last. Oft in my infancy, when joys were young, When rightly taught, to honor's shining meed; But shall he yet, when often thy deceit Has taught astray to roam his weary feet, "No! let man's epitaph be writ on hearts; Let me be mourned by gratitude and worth, We cannot neglect the annexed exquisite sketch. "Such once I knew; from cold earth past away, A flower that bloomed and withered in a day; Her voice was music, and a magic 'wile, That fill the bosom with enchanted dreams; stone. Her eyes, as April's morning skies, were blue, And rise like spirits from their wintry tomb. Fall to the autumn ground, and fading flowers hours; For shadowed forth through nature she would see Prophetic lines of human destiny. For infant poesy possessed her heart, But yet at times a something more than thought, Would hang upon her; and with silent glance her eye. She was not made for earth, a thing so fair It is perhaps a stretch of prerogative to make a work printed for private circulation the subject of public criticism; but we expect from our readers thanks; and to Mr. James we can only say, that poetry, like mercy, is twice blessed, it blesses him that gives and him that takes." The bard were no true poet who did but wake his music for himself." THE LOVE OF FLOWERS. THE love of flowers seems a naturally implanted passion, without any alloy or debasing object as a motive: the cottage has its pink, its rose, its polyanthus ; the villa its geranium, its dahlia, and its clematis; we cherish them in youth, we admire them in declining days; but, perhaps, it is the early flowers of spring that always bring with them the greatest degree of pleasure, and our affections seem immediately to expand at the sight of the first opening blossom under the sunny wall or sheltered bank, however humble its race may be. In the long and sombre months of winter our love of nature, like the buds of vegetation, seems closed and torpid; but, like them, it unfolds and reanimates with the opening year, and we welcome our long-lost associates with a cordiality that no other season can excite, as friends in a foreign clime. The violet of autumn is greeted with none of the love with which we hail the violet of spring it is unseasonable; perhaps it brings with it rather a thought of melancholy than of joy; we view it with curiosity, not affection; and thus the late is not like the early rose. It is not intrinsic beauty or splendor that so charms us; for the fair maids of spring cannot compete with the grander matrons of the advanced year; they would be unheeded, perhaps lost, in the rosy bowers of summer and of autumn: no; it is our first meeting with a long-lost friend, the reviving glow of a natural affection, that so warms us at this season. To maturity they give pleasure, as a harbinger of the renewal of life, a signal of awakening nature, or of a higher promise; to youth, they are expanding being, opening years, hilarity, and joy; and the child, let loose from the house, riots in the flowery mead, and is "Monarch of all he surveys." There is not a prettier emblem of spring than an infant sporting in the sunny field, with its osier-basket wreathed with butter-cups, orchises, and daisies. With summer flowers we seem to live as with our neighbors in harmony and good-will; but spring flowers are cherished as private friendships. LONGEVITY. There is now living at Penboyr, Carmarthenshire, a female of the patriarchal age of 108 years, in perfect possession of all her faculties, with the exception that her hearing is very slightly impaired. She frequently travels eight or even ten miles a day, generally barefooted, while her shoes and sandals are snugly lodged under her arm, until she approaches the precincts of a village, when her feelings of economy give way to her sense of propriety, and the aforesaid habiliments are transferred from under her arm to her feet. Two females died in that town within the last twelve months, whose united ages amounted to 208 years; and there are two women now living whose joint ages exceed 200 years. AURORA BOREALIS. A singular modification of the aurora borealis was observed in the vicinity of Hull, in the evening of the 26th of December. It wore the appearance of a broad belt of pale, but very vivid light, forining the segment of an immense circle. It was visible for nearly an hour. UTILITY OF TOADS IN GARDENS. Practical men have been long aware that toads live chiefly on insects, particularly beetles; some have even made it a point to place them on their hot-beds, for the purpose of destroying wood-lice, ear-wigs, &c. A correspondent, Mr. Reeve, who has long employed toads as guardians of his melon and cucumber frames, fully corroborates all that has been said respecting their usefulness in such situations, and is so attentive to them that when they have cleared his beds of insects, and he finds them uneasy in their confinement, he actually feeds them, in order to keep them there. He offers them the different insects which are considered noxious in gardens, all of which they devour; even slugs are eaten by them; and if so, this despised reptile must be a beneficial assistant to the gardener at times, and in a way he is at present but little acquainted with. GALL. Driven by ridicule from the mystical appellative "Craniology," and subsequently from the more imposing name of "Phrenology," the disciples of Gall have very lately adopted the word " Cephalology," as a title for their doctrine. Dr. Fossati, a very ingenious and skilful Italian anatomist settled in Paris, the pupil and intimate friend of the inventor of that doctrine, has lately announced, with the authority of government, and in his capacity of successor to Gall, a course of Lectures on Cephalologie. GENIUS DEFINED. A wit being asked what the word genius meant, replied, "If you had it in you, you would not ask the question; but as you have not, you will never know what it means." FIRES. M. Aldini, of Milan, has invented a dress which enables the wearer to traverse with impunity the flames of a large fire, for the purpose of rescuing those who may be exposed to their fury, or of saving property from destruction. This dress is composed of a tissue of asbestos, which it is well known is not combustible, covered with metallic gauze, through which it is also well known flame will not penetrate. The forms of the parts of which the dress consists, seem to have been suggested to M. Aldini by ancient armor. It is so contrived, however, as to leave the body and limbs at perfect liberty to make whatever efforts necessity may require. M. Aldini, with great liberality, has announced that if any government or academical body is desirous of profiting by his invention, and will address |