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of vapour-they alone are seen flying mountains high-dashing, but howling not-and in their silent ascension, all held together by the same spirit, but perpetually changing its beautiful array, where order seems ever and anon to come in among disorder, there is a grandeur that settles down in the soul of youthful poet roaming in delirium among the mountain glooms, and "pacifies the fever of his heart."

Call not now these vapours waves; for movement there is none among the ledges, and ridges, and roads, and avenues, and galleries, and groves, and houses, and churches, and castles, and fairy palaces-all framed of mist. Far up among and above that wondrous region, through which you hear voices of waterfalls deepening the silence, behold hundreds of mountain-tops-blue, purple, violet,-for the sun is shining straight on some and aslant on others--and on those not at all; nor can the shepherd at your side, though he has lived among them all his life, till after long pondering tell you the names of those most familiar to him; for they seem to have all interchanged sites and altitudes, and Black Benhun himself, the Eagle-breeder, looks so serenely in his rainbow, that you might almost mistake him for Ben Louey or the Hill of Hinds.

as if we belonged to them and not they to us forgetting that they are made to perish, we to live for ever!

But let us descend the mountain by the side of this torrent. What a splendid series of translucent pools! We carry the Excursion in our pocket, for the use of our friends; but our presentation copy is here--we have gotten it by heart. And it does our heart good to hear ourselves recite. Listen ye Naiads to the famous picture of the Ram:

"Thus having reach'd a bridge, that overarch'd
The hasty rivulet, where it lay becalm'd
In a deep pool, by happy chance we saw
A twofold image; on a grassy bank
A snow-white Ram, and in the crystal flood
Another and the same! Most beautiful
On the green turf, with his imperial front
Shaggy and bold, and wreathed horns superb,
The breathing creature stood; as beautiful
Beneath him, show'd his shadowy counterpart;
Each had his glowing mountains, each his sky,
And each seem'd centre of his own fair world."
Antipodes unconscious of each other,
Yet, in partition, with their several spheres,
Blended in perfect stillness to our sight.
Ah! what a pity were it to disperse
Or to disturb so fair a spectacle,
And yet a breath can do it.'

Oh! that the Solitary, and the Pedlar, and the Poet, and the Priest and his Lady, were here to see a sight more glorious far than that illustrious and visionary Ram. Two Christopher Norths-as Highland chieftains-in the Royal Tartan-one burning in the air-the other in the water-two stationary meteors, each seeming native to its own element! This setting the heather, that the linn on fire-this a-blaze with war, that tempered into truce; while the Sun, astonied at the spectacle, nor knowing the refulgent substance from the resplendent shadow, bids the clouds lie still in heaven, and the winds all hold their breath, that exulting nature may be permitted for a little while to enjoy the miracle she unawares has wrought-alas! gone as she gazes, and gone for ever? Our bonnet has tumbled into the Pool--and Christopher-like the Ram in the Excursion-stands shorn of his beams-no better worth looking at than the late Laird

Have you not seen sunsets in which the mountains were embedded in masses of clouds all burning and blazing—yes, blazing-with unimaginable mixtures of all the colours that ever were born-intensifying into a glory that absolutely became insupportable to the soul as insufferable to the eyes-and that left the eyes for hours after you had retreated from the supernatural scene, even when shut, all filled with floating films of cross-lights, cutting the sky imagery into gorgeous fragments? And were not the mountains of such sunsets, whether they were of land or of cloud, sufficiently vast for your utmost capacities and powers of delight and joy longing to commune with the Region then felt to be in very truth Heaven? Nor could the spirit, entranced in admiration, conceive at that moment any Heaven beyond-of Macnab. while the senses themselves seemed to have had given them a revelation, that as it was created could be felt but by an immortal spirit. It elevates our being to be in the body near the sky-at once on earth and in Heaven. In the body? Yes-we feel at once fettered and free. In Time we wear our fetters, and heavy though to be, and painfully riveted on, seldom do we welcome Death coming to strike them off-but groan at sight of the executioner. In eternity we believe that all is spiritual-and in that belief, which doubt sometimes shakes but to prove that its foundation lies rooted far down below all earthquakes, endurable is the sound of dust to dust. Poets speak of the spirit, while yet in the flesh, blending, mingling, being absorbed in the great forms of the outward universe, and they speak as if such absorption were celestial and divine. But is not this a material creed? Let Imagination beware how she seeks to glo.ify the objects of the senses, and having glorified them, to elevate them into a kindred being with our own, exalting them that we may claim with them that kindred being,

Now, since the truth must be told, that was but a Flight of Fancy--and our apparel is more like that of a Lowland Quaker than a Highland chief. "Tis all of a snuffy brownan excellent colour for hiding the dirt. Single-breasted our coatee-and we are in shorts. Were our name to be imposed by our hat, it would be Sir Cloudesly Shovel. On our back a wallet--and in our hand the Crutch. And thus, not without occasional alarm to the cattle, though we hurry no man's, we go stalking along the sward and swinging across the stream, and leaping over the quagmires-by no means unlike that extraordinary pedestrian who has been accompanying us for the last half hour, far overhead up-by yonder, as if he meant mischief; but he will find that we are up to a trick or two, and not easily to be done brown by a native, a Cockney of Cloud-Land, a long-legged awkward fellow with a head like a dragon, and proud of his red plush, in that country called thunder-and-lightning breeches, hot very, one would think, in such sultry weather-but confound us if he has

not this moment stript them off, and be not pursuing his journey in puris naturalibus-yes, as naked as the minute he was born-our Shadow on the Clouds!

The Picture of the Ram has been declared by sumphs in search of the sublime to border on the Burlesque. They forget that a sumph may just as truly be said to border on a sage. All things in heaven and on earth, mediately and immediately, border on one another-much depends on the way you look at them-and Poets, who are strange creatures, often love to enjoy and display their power by bringing the burlesque into the region of the sublime. Of what breed was the Tup? Cheviot, Leicester, Southdown? Had he gained the Cup at the Great North Show? We believe not, and that his owner saw in him simply a fine specimen of an ordinary breed-a shapely and useful animal. In size he was not to be named on the same day with the famous Ram of Derby, "whose tail was made a rope, sir, to toll the market-bell." Jason would have thought nothing of him compared with the Golden Fleece. The Sun sees a superior sire of flocks as he enters Aries. Sorry are we to say it, but the truth must be spoken, he was somewhat bandy-legged, and rather coarse in wool. But heaven, earth, air, and water conspired to glorify him, as the Poet and his friends chanced to come upon him at the Pool, and, more than them all united, the Poet's own soul; and a sheep that would not have sold for fifty shillings, became Lord Paramount of two worlds, his regal mind all the time unconscious of its empiry, and engrossed with the thought of a few score silly ewes.

Seldom have we seen so serene a day. It seems to have lain in one and the same spirit over all the Highlands. We have been wandering since sunrise, and 'tis now near sunset; yet not an hour without a visible heaven in all the Lochs. In the pure element overflowing so many spacious vales and glens profound, the great and stern objects of nature have all day long been looking more sublime or more beautiful in the reflected shadows, invested with one universal peace. The momentary evanescence of all that imagery at a breath touches us with the thought that all it represents, steadfast as seems its endurance, will as utterly pass away. Such visions when gazed on in that wondrous depth and purity on a still slow-moving day, always inspire some such feeling as this; and we sigh to think how transitory must be all things, when the setting sun is seen to sink behind the mountain, and a. the golden pomp at the same instant to evanish from the Loch.

Evening is preparing to let fall her shadesand Nature, cool, fresh, and unwearied, is laying herself down for a few hours' sleep. There had been a long strong summer drought, and a week ago you would have pitied-absolutely pitied the poor Highlands. You missed the cottage-girl with her pitcher at the well in the brae, for the spring scarcely trickled, and the water-cresses were yellow before their time. Many a dancing hill-stream was dead-only here and there one stronger than her sisters attempted a pas-seul over the shelving rocks;

but all choral movements and melodies for sook the mountains, still and silent as so much painted canvas. Waterfalls first tamed their thunder, then listened alarmed to their own echoes, wailed themselves away into diminutive murmurs, gasped for life, died, and were buried at the feet of the green slippery preci pices. Tarns sank into moors; and there was the voice of weeping heard and low lament among the water-lilies. Ay, millions of pretty flowrets died in their infancy, even on their mother's breast; the bee fainted in the desert for want of the honey-dew, and the groundcells of industry were hushed below the hea ther. Cattle lay lean on the brownness of a hundred hills, and the hoof of the red-deer lost its fleetness. Along the shores of lochs great stones appeared within what for centuries had been the lowest water-mark; and whole bays, once bright and beautiful with reed-pointed wavelets, became swamps, cracked and seamed, or rustling in the aridity with a useless crop, to the sugh of the passing wind. On the shore of the sea alone you beheld no change. The tides ebbed and flowed as before-the small billows racing over the silver sands to the same goal of shells, or climbing up to the same wild-flowers that bathe the foundation of some old castle belonging to the ocean.

But the windows of heaven were openedand, like giants refreshed with mountain-dew, the rivers flung themselves over the cliffs with roars of thunder. The autumnal woods are fresher than those of summer. The mild harvest-moon will yet repair the evil done by the outrageous sun; and, in the gracious aftergrowth, the green earth far and wide rejoices as in spring. Like people that have hidden themselves in caves when their native land was oppressed, out gush the torrents, and descend with songs to the plain. The hill-country is itself again when it hears the voice of streams. Magnificent army of mists! whose array encompasses islands of the sea, and who still, as thy glorious vanguard keeps deploying among the glens, rollest on in silence more sublime than the trampling of the feet of horses, or the sound of the wheels of chariots, to the heath-covered mountains of Scotland, we bid thee hail!

In all our wanderings through the Highlands, towards night we have always found ourselves at home. What though no human dwelling was at hand? We cared not-for we could find a bed-room among the casual inclinations of rocks, and of all curtains the wild-br.er forms itself into the most gracefully-festooned draperies, letting in green light alone from the intercepted stars. Many a cave we know ofcool by day, and warm by night-how they happen to be so, we cannot tell-where no man but ourselves ever slept or ever will sleep; and sometimes, on startling a doe at evening in her thicket, we have lain down in her lair, and in our slumbers heard the rain pattering on the roofing birk-tree, but felt not one drop on our face, till at dawning we struck a shower of diamonds from the fragrant tresses. But to-night we shall not need to sleep among the sylvans; for our Tail has pitched our Tent on the Moor-and is now sweeping

FLIGHT FIRST.-GLEN-ETIVE.

the mountain with telescope for sight of our | wrong with this planet of ours, and creation descending feet. Hark! signal-gun and bag- were falling back into chaos. But we love pipe hail our advent, and the Pyramid bright- scenes of beautiful repose too profoundly ever ens in its joy, independent of the sunlight, that to dream of "transferring them to canvas." has left but one streak in the sky. Such employment would be felt by us to be desecration--though we look with delight on the work when done by others-the picture without the process-the product of genius without thought of its mortal instruments. We work in words, and words are, in good truth, images, feelings, thoughts; and of these the outer world, as well as the inner, is composed, let materialists say what they will. Prose is poetry-we have proved that to the satisfaction of all mankind. Look! we beseech you-how a little Loch seems to rise up with its tall he. ronry-a central isle-and all its silvan braes, till it lies almost on a level with the floor of our Cave, from which in three minutes we could hobble on our crutch down the inclining greensward to the Bay of Waterlilies, and in that canoe be afloat among the Swans. All birches

pines, on whose tops the large nests reposeand here and there a still bird standing as if asleep. What a place for Roes!

The great masters, were their eyes to fall on our idle words, might haply smile-not contemptuously-on our ignorance of artbut graciously on our knowledge of nature. All we have to do, then, is to learn the theory and practice of art-and assuredly we should forthwith set about doing so, had we any reasonable prospect of living long enough to open an exhibition of pictures from our own easel. As it is, we must be contented with that Gallery, richer than the Louvre, which our imagination has furnished with masterpieces beyond all price or purchase-many of them touched with her own golden finger, the rest the work of high but not superior hands. Imagination, who limns in air, has none of those difficulties to contend with that always beset, and often baffle, artists in oils or waters. At a breath she can modify, alter, obliterate, or restore; at a breath she can colour vacuity with rainbow huescrown the cliff with its castle-swing the drawbridge over the gulf profound-through a night of woods roll the river along on its moonlit reach-by fragmentary cinctures of mist and cloud, so girdle one mountain that it has the power of a hundred-giant rising above giant, far and wide, as if the mighty multitude, magnificent and triumphant disorder, were indeed scaling heaven.

YES! all we have to do is to let down their lids-to will that our eyes shall see-and, lo! there it is a creation! Day dawns, and for our delight in soft illumination from the dim obscure floats slowly up a visionary lochisland after island evolving itself into settled stateliness above its trembling shadow, till, from the overpowering beauty of the wide confusion of woods and waters, we seek relief, but find none, in gazing on the sky; for the east is in all the glory of sunrise, and the heads and the names of the mountains are uncertain-not any other kind of tree-except a few among the gorgeous colouring of the clouds. Would that we were a painter! Oh! how we should dash on the day and interlace it with night! That chasm should be filled with enduring gloom, thicker and thicker, nor the sun himself suffered to assuage the sullen spirit, now lowering and threatening there, as if portentous of earthquake. Danger and fear should be made to hang together for ever on those cliffs, and halfway up the precipice be fixed the restless cloud ascending from the abyss, so that in imagination you could not choose but hear the cataract. The Shadows should seem to be stalking away like evil spirits before angels of light-for at our bidding the Splendours should prevail against them, deploying from the gates of Heaven beneath the banners of morn. Yet the whole picture should be harmonious as a hymn-as a hymn at once sublime and sweet-serene and solemn-nor should it not be felt as even cheerful-and sometimes as if there were about to be merriment in Nature's heart-for the multitude of the isles should rejoice-and the new-woke waters look as if they were waiting for the breezes to enliven them into waves, and wearied of rest to be longing for the motion already beginning to rustle by fits along the silvan shores. Perhaps a deer or two-but we have opened a corner of the fringed curtains of our eyes-the idea is gone-and Turner or Thom-in son must transfer from our paper to his canvas the imperfect out-line-for it is no more To speak more prosaically, every true and -and make us a present of the finished pic-accepted lover of nature regards her with a painter's as well as a poet's eye. He breaks Strange that with all our love of nature, and not down any scene rudely, and with "many of art, we never were a Painter. True that an oft-repeated stroke;" but unconsciously and in boyhood we were no contemptible hand at insensibly he transfigures into Wholes, and all a Lion or a Tiger-and sketches by us of such day long, from morn till dewy eve, he is pre cats springing or preparing to spring in keela- ceded, as he walks along, by landscapes retir vine, dashed off some fifty or sixty years ago, ing in their perfection, one and all of them the might well make Edwin Landseer stare. Even birth of his own inspired spirit. All non-esyet we are a sort of Salvator Rosa at a savage sentials do of themselves drop off and disap scene, and our black-lead pencil heaps up con- pear-all the characteristics of the scenery fused shatterings of rocks, and flings a moun- range themselves round a centre recognised tainous region into convulsions, as if an earth- by the inner sense that cannot err-and thus quake heaved, in a way that is no canny, making it is that "beauty pitches her tents before him" people shudder as if something had gone-that sublimity companions the pilgrim in the

ture.

AWFUL THRISSIL all the health and happinesɛ that are in the wholesome stars.

waste wilderness—and grandeur for his sake | Fairies be, they pray heaven to let fall on the keeps slowly sailing or settling in the clouds. With such pictures has our Gallery been so thickly hung round for many years, that we have often thought there was not room for one other single frame; yet a vacant space has always been found for every new chef-d'œuvre that came to add itself to our collection-and the light from that cupola so distributes itself that it falls wherever it is wanted-wherever it is wanted not how tender the shadow! or how solemn th⚫ gloom!

Why, we are now in Glen-Etive-and sitting with our sketch book at the mouth of our Tent. Our oft-repeated passionate prayer,

"Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness!" has once more, after more than twenty years' absence, in this haunt of our fanciful youth and imaginative manhood, been granted, and Christopher, he thinks, could again bound along these cliffs like a deer. Ay, wellnigh quarter of a century has elapsed since we pitched this selfsame snow-white Tent amid the purple heather, by the Linn of Dee. How fleetly goes, winnowing on the air, even the weariest waving of Time's care-laden wings! A few yellow weather-stains are on the canvas-but the pole is yet sound-or call it rather mast-for we have hoisted our topgallant,

"And lo! the silver cross, to Scotland dear," languidly lifts itself up, an ineffectual streamer, in the fitful morning breezes!

Bold son, or bright daughter of England! hast thou ever seen a SCOTTISH THRISSIL? What height are you-Captain of the Grenadier Guards? "Six feet four on my stocking soles." Poo-a dwarf! Stand up with your back to that stalk. Your head does not reach above his waist-he hangs high over you"his radious croun of rubies." There's a Flower! dear to Lady Nature above all others, saving and excepting the Rose, and he is the Rose's husband-the Guardian Genii of the land consecrated the Union, and it has been blest. Eyeing the sun like an angry star that will not suffer eclipse either from light or shadow-but burns proudly-fiercely-in its native lustre-storm-brightened, and undishevelled by the tempest in which it swings. See, it stoops beneath the blast within reach of your hand. Grasp it ere it recoil aloft; and your hand will be as if it had crushed a sleeping wasp-swarm. But you cannot crush itto do that would require a giant with an iron glove. Then let it alone to dally with the wind, and the sun, and the rain, and the snow-all alike dear to its spears and rubies; and as you look at the armed lustre, you will see a beautiful emblem and a stately of a people's warlike peace. The stalk indeed is slender, but it sways without danger of breaking in the blast; in the calm it reposes as gently as the gowan at its root. The softest leaf that enfolds in silk the sweetest flower of the garden, not greener than those that sting not if but tenderly you touch them, for they are green as the garments of the Fairies that dance by noonlight round the Symbol of old Scotland, and unchristened creatures though they the

The dawn is softly-slowly-stealing upon day; for the uprisen sun, though here the edge of his disc as yet be invisible, is diffusing abroad "the sweet hour of prime," and all the eastern region is tinged with crimson, faint and fine as that which sleeps within the wreaths of the sea-sounding shells. Hark! the eagle's earliest cry, yet in his eyry. Another hour, and he and his giant mate will be seen spirally ascending the skies, in many a glorious gyration, tutoring their offspring to dally with the sunshine, that when their plumes are stronger, they may dally with the storm. Hundreds of red-deer are now lying halfO Forest of Dalness! how sweet is thy name! asleep among the fern and heather, with their antlers, could our eyes now behold them, motionless as the birch-tree branches with which they are blended in their lair. At the signal-belling of their king, a hero uncon quered in a hundred fights, the whole herd rises at once like a grove, and with their statesnuff the sweet scent of the morning air, far ly heads lifted aloft on the weather-gleam, and wide surcharged with the honey-dew yet unmelting on the heather, and eye with the looks of liberty the glad daylight that mantles the Black Mount with a many-coloured gar rent. Ha! the first plunge of the salmon in the Rowan-tree Pool. There again he shoots into the air, white as silver, fresh run from the sea! For Loch-Etive, you must know, is one of the many million arms of Ocean, and bright now are rolling in the billows of the far-heaving tide. Music meet for such a morn and such mountains. Straight stretches the glen for leagues, and then bending through the blue gloom, seems to wind away with one sweep into infinitude. The Great Glen of Scotland-Glen-More itself-is not grander. But the Great Glen of Scotland is yet a living forest. Glen-Etive has few woods or noneand the want of them is sublime. For cen turies ago pines and oaks in the course of nature all perished; and they exist now but in tradition wavering on the tongues of old bards, or deep down in the mosses show their black trunks to the light, when the torrents join the river in spate, and the moor divulges its secrets as in an earthquake. Sweetly sung, thou small, brown, moorland bird, though thy song be but a twitter! And true to thy timeeven to a balmy minute-art thou, with thy velvet tunic of black striped with yellow, as thou windest thy small but not sullen hornby us called in our pride HUMBLE BEE-but not, methinks, so very humble, while booming high in air in oft-repeated circles, wondering at our Tent, and at the flag that now unfolds its gaudy length like a burnished serpent, as if the smell of some far-off darling heather-bed had touched thy finest instinct, away thou fliest straight southward to that rich flower store, unerringly as the carrier-pigeon wafting to distant lands some love-message on its wings. Yet humble after all thou art; for all day long, making thy industry thy delight, thou returnest at shut of day, cheerful even in

thy weariness, to thy ground-cell within the knoll, where as Fancy dreams the Fairies dwell -a Silent People in the Land of Peace.

And why hast thou, wild singing spirit of the Highland Glenorchy, that cheerest the longwithdrawing vale from Inveruren to Dalmally, and from Dalmally Church-tower to the Old Castle of Kilchurn, round whose mouldering turrets thou sweepest with more pensive murmur, till thy name and existence are lost in that noble loch-why hast thou never had thy Bard? "A hundred bards have I had in bygone ages," is thy reply; "but the Sassenach understands not the traditionary strains, and the music of the Gaelic poetry is wasted on his ear." Songs of war and of love are yet awakened by the shepherds among these lonely braes; and often when the moon rises over Ben Cruachan, and counts her attendant stars in soft reflection beneath the still waters of that long inland sea, she hears the echoes of harps chiming through the silence of departed years. Tradition tells, that on no other banks did the fairies so love to thread the mazes of their mystic dance, as on the heathy, and brackeny, and oaken banks of the Orchy, during the long summer nights when the thick-falling dews perceptibly swelled the stream, and lent a livelier music to every waterfall.

enthralled Orchy began to rejoice as before through all her streams and falls; and at the sudden leaping of the waters and outbursting of the moon, we awoke.

Age is the season of Imagination, youth of Passion; and having been long young, shall we repine that we are now old? They alone are rich who are full of years-the Lords of Time's Treasury are all on the staff of Wisdom; their commissions are enclosed in furrows on their foreheads, and secured to them for life. Fearless of fate, and far above fortune, they hold their heritage by the great charter of nature for behoof of all her children who have not, like impatient heirs, to wait for their decease; for every hour dispenses their wealth, and their bounty is not a late bequest but a perpetual benefaction. Death but sanctifies their gifts to gratitude; and their worth is more clearly seen and profoundly felt within the solemn gloom of the grave.

Ex

And said we truly that Age is the season of Imagination? That Youth is the season of Passion your own beating and bounding hearts now tell you-your own boiling blood. Intensity is its characteristic; and it burns like a flame of fire, too often but to consume. pansion of the soul is ours, with all its feelings and all its "thoughts, that wander through eternity;" nor needeth then the spirit to have wings, for power is given her, beyond the dove's or the eagle's, and no weariness can touch her on that heavenward flight.

Yet we are all of "the earth earthy," and young and old alike, must we love and honour our home. Your eyes are bright-ours are dim; but "it is the soul that sees," and "this diurnal sphere" is visible through the mist of tears. In that light how more than beautiful-how holy-appears even this world! All sadness, save of sin, is then most sacred; and sin itself loses its terrors in repentance, which alas! is seldom perfect but in the near prospect of dissolution. For temptation may intercept her within a few feet of her expected rest, nay, dash the dust from her hand that she has gathered from the burial-place to strew on her head; but Youth sees flowery fields and shining rivers far-stretching before her path, and cannot imagine for a moment that among life's golden mountains there is many a Place of Tombs!

There it was, on a little river island, that once, whether sleeping or waking we know not, we saw celebrated a Fairy's Funeral. First we heard small pipes playing, as if no bigger than hollow rushes that whisper to the night winds; and more piteous than aught that trills from earthly instrument was the scarce audible dirge! It seemed to float over the stream, every foam-bell emitting a plaintive note, till the airy anthem came floating over our couch, and then alighted without footsteps among the heather. The pattering of little feet was then heard, as if living creatures were arranging themselves in order, and then there was nothing but a more ordered hymn. The harmony was like the melting of musical dewdrops, and sang, without words, of sorrow and death. We opened our eyes, or rather sight came to them when closed, and dream was vision! Hundreds of creatures, no taller than the crest of the lapwing, and all hanging down their veiled heads, stood in a circle on a green plat among the rocks; and in the midst was a bier, framed as it seemed of flowers unknown to the Highland hills; and on the bier a Fairy, lying with uncovered face, pale as the lily, and motionless as the snow. The dirge grew fainter and fainter, and then died quite away; when two of the creatures came from the circle, and took their station, one at the head and the other at the foot of the bier. They sang alternate measures, not louder than the twittering of the awakened wood-lark before it goes up the dewy air, but dolorous and full of the desolation of death. The flower-bier stirred; for the spot on which it lay sank slowly down, and in "Till old experience doth attain a few moments the greensward was smooth as To something like prophetic strain ;" ever the very dews glittering above the buried and you know, while reading them, that ExpeFairy. A cloud passed over the moon; and.rience is consummate Memory, Imagination with a choral lament, the funeral troop sailed wide as the world, another name for Wisdom, duskily away, heard afar off, so still was the all one with Genius, and in its "prophetic midnight solitude of the glen. Then the dis- strain"-Inspiration.

But let us speak only of this earth-this world-this life-and is not Age the season of Imagination? Imagination is Memory imbued by joy or sorrow with creative power over the past, till it becomes the present, and then, on that vision "far off the coming shines" of the future, till all the spiritual realm overflows with light. Therefore was it that, in illumined Greece, Memory was called the Mother of the Muses; and how divinely indeed they sang around her as she lay in the pensive shade! You know the words of Milton

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