and the storms that trouble them, that beauty | by those habits of reflection
will be unbearable, till regret become remorse, forms, when pursued under
and remorse penitence, and penitence restore
thee to those intuitions of the truth that illu-
mine his sacred pages, and thou knowest and
feelest once more that

"The primal duties that shine aloft-like stars," that life's best pleasures grow like flowers all around and beneath thy feet.

not.

thoughtful peace.
Why, if it were
we beg pardon-imm
LAKES, and all that,
our own-jure
parent to the

"Sole K

But Wordsw
and so we
our due de
ly treato
est mo
selve

divi

improves the more poetical and the happiness of consag

STROLL TO GRASSMERE.

times more numerous than plants of Paradise-This wa

the moment it becomes ing in the light of admirua
ttle like verse as along the western shore of By
Then, the connect Finding our way back a weig
passages in verse, cottage, we cross the wondes to BANG

by, pray, not sition, and craggy coppices with warning green fields shelving down to the lake day

Loglish

Hablime I is a small lake, not much more than a m
The Kemirable cottage only, as far as we rece
preund, and of a very peculiar character. The
- deze are the ruins of another on & s
trees, a nalaman's pleasant dwe gi
in its shore from a gros d
open end the circle of the garde

any has a quiet bad

wx and the bleat

Nor are we not privileged to cherish a better feeling than pride in the belief, or rather knowledge, that We have helped to diffuse Wordsworth's poetry not only over this island, but the furthest dependencies of the British empire, and throughout the United States of America. Many thousands have owed to us their emancipation from the prejudices against it, under which they had wilfully remained ignorant of it during many years; and we have instructed as many more, whose hearts we free, how to look on it with those eyes of I which alone can discover the Beautiful. munications have been made to us from the Atlantic, and from the heart of India the Occident and the Orient-thankir having vindicated and extended the f best of our living bards, till th Wordsworth has become a house? the banks of the Mississippi ar It would have been so had we not so soon; and many a noble shipped his genius, as displ not in fragments but in pe panied with our commen in those distant regions lumes, whereas Maga uttermost parts of the

walks ly and aven lawn, of the horsethere are clusnightingale might ce-windows reaching d-sill, so sheltered that open in storm and rain, and

As for our own sake, with all her sweet to our ey were not twent were ten-of

critics say, you see the mountains in maglama a a

..ached

~s; that he re bowls, shows

er curiosities in his ne passing pilgrim with spring, if he insists upon

out will first offer him a glass cowslip-wine, the cooling claret.

parkling champagne.

erhaps we are all beginning to get a little angry, but it is too soon to breakfast; so, leaving the village of Grassmere on the right, keep your eye on Helm-crag, while we are finding, without seeking, our way up Easdale. Easdale is an arm of Grassmere, and in the words of Mr. Green the artist, "it is in places profusely wooded, and charmingly sequestered among the mountains." Here you may hunt the waterfalls, in rainy weather easily run down, but difficult of detection in a drought. Several pretty rustic bridges cross and recross

land of the amneys, shaped almost like the the main stream and its tributaries; the cot

tages, in nook and on hillside, are among the most picturesque and engaging in the whole country; the vale widens into spacious and noble meadow-grounds, on which might suit

sweet seclusion, breathes, "Oh! that ably stand the mansion of any nobleman in

ere my

thing

keep

cell, and that I were a hermit!"

England-as you near its head, every thing

Fou soon see that the proprietor is not a gets wild and broken, with a slight touch of as traces of that elegance and refinement might reach Easdale-tarn in less than an

everywhere you discern unosten- dreariness, and by no very difficult ascent, we

belong

rude

their

to social and cultivated life; no-hour's walking from Grassmere—a lonely and and rough-hewn, yet nothing prim impressive scene, and the haunt of the angler

own places; and among the flowers

How far can we enjoy the beauty of exter

and precise. Snails and spiders are taught to almost as frequently as of the shepherd. of that hanging garden on a sunny slope, not a nal nature under a sharp appetite for breakfast weed is to be seen, for weeds are beautiful or dinner? On our imagination the effect of only by the wayside, in the matting of hedgeroots, by the mossy stone, and the brink of the well in the brae-and are offensive only when they intrude into society above their own rank, and where they have the air and accent of aliens. By pretty pebbled steps of stairs you mount up from platform to piatform of the sloping woodland banks-the prospect widening as you ascend, till from a bridge that spans a leaping rivulet, you behold in full blow all Cirassmere Vale, Village, Church-tower, and Lake, the whole of the inountains, and a noble

hunger is somewhat singular. We no longer regard sheep, for instance, as the fleecy or the bleating flock. Their wool or their baaing is nothing to us-we think of necks, and gigots, and saddles of mutton; and even the lamb frisking on the sunny bank is eaten by us in the shape of steaks and fry. If it is in the morning, we see no part of the cow but her udder, distilling richest milkiness. Instead of ascending to heaven on the smoke of a cottage chimney, we put our arms round the column, and descend on the lid of the great pan pre

mily breakfast. Every interest- this, where all is steadfast but the clouds landscape seems edible-our whose very being is change, and the flow of ver the vale-as the village waters that have been in motion since the • involuntarily say grace, Flood. *uresque gives way to

Ha! a splendid equipage with a coronet. And out steps, handed by her elated husband, a n Inn, Grassmere, high-born, beautiful and graceful bride. They woman in Eng- are making a tour of the Lakes, and the honeybread-firm, moon hath not yet filled her horns. If there rusted, and be indeed such a ning as happiness on this earth, here it is-youth, elegance, health, rank, riches, and love-all united in ties that death alone can sunder. How they hang towards each other-the blissful pair! Blind in their spassion to all the scenery they came to admire, or beholding it but by fits and snatches, with ves that can see only one object. She hath ady learnt to forget father and mother, ister and brother, and all the young creae herself-every one-that shared the and the confidence of her virgin d. With her, as with Genevieve"All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

as dis

rom a full

the summer

nem to build and nb-Palace. No bad

shows the owner has occasionally been work. ing in the spirit of fancy, almost caprice; the tool-house in the garden is not without its orna ments-the barn seems habitable, and the byre has somewhat the appearance of a chapel. You see at once that the man who lives here, instead of being sick of the world, is attached to all elegant socialties and amities; that he uses silver cups instead of maple bowls, shows his scallop-shell among other curiosities in his cabinet, and will treat the passing pilgrim with pure water from the spring, if he insists upon that beverage, but will first offer him a glass of the yellow cowslip-wine, the cooling claret, or the sparkling champagne.

nations with the varying mountain-ridges and | arch of sky, the circumference of that little ranges, that show top over top in bewildering world of peace. succession, and give hints of other valleys Circumscribed as are the boundaries of this beyond, and of Tarns rarely visited, among the place, yet the grounds are so artfully, while one moorland wastes. A single long dim shadow, thinks so artlessly, laid out, that, wandering falling across the water, alters the whole physi- through their labyrinthine recesses, you might ognomy of the scene-nor less a single bright believe yourself in an extensive wilderness. streak of sunshine, brightening up some fea- Here you come out upon a green open glade→→ ture formerly hidden, and giving animation (you see by the sundial it is past seven o'clock) and expression to the whole face of the Lake. -there the arms of an immense tree overshaAbout a short mile from the Village Inn, you dow what is in itself a scene-yonder you have will pass by, without seeing it-unless warned an alley that serpentizes into gloom and ob not to do so-one of the most singularly beau- scurity-and from that cliff you doubtless tiful habitations in the world. It belongs to a would see over the tree-tops into the outer and gentleman of the name of Barber, and, we be- airy world. With all its natural beauties is lieve, has been almost entirely built by him-intermingled an agreeable quaintness, that the original hut on which his taste has worked having been a mere shell. The spirit of the place seems to us to be that of Shadowy Silence. Its bounds are small; but it is an indivisible part of a hillside so secret and silvan, that it might be the haunt of the roe. You hear the tinkle of a rill, invisible among the hazels-a bird sings or flutters-a bee hums his way through the bewildering woods-but no louder sound. Some fine old forest-trees extend widely their cool and glimmering shade; and a few stumps or armless trunks, whose bulk is increased by a load of ivy that hides the hollow wherein the owls have their domicile, give an air of antiquity to the spot, that, but for other accompaniments, would almost be melancholy. As it is, the scene has a pensive character. As yet you have seen no house, and wonder whither the gravel-walks are to conduct you, winding fancifully and fantastically through the smooth-shaven lawn, bestrewed by a few large leaves of the horsechestnut or sycamore. But there are clustered verandas where the nightingale might woo the rose, and lattice-windows reaching from eaves to ground-sill, so sheltered that they might stand open in storm and rain, and tall circular chimneys, shaped almost like the stems of the trees that overshadow the roof irregular, and over all a gleam of blue sky and a few motionless clouds. The noisy world ceases to be, and the tranquil heart, delighted with the sweet seclusion, breathes, "Oh! that this were my cell, and that I were a hermit!"

But you soon see that the proprietor is not a hermit; for everywhere you discern unostentatious traces of that elegance and refinement that belong to social and cultivated life; nothing rude and rough-hewn, yet nothing prim and precise. Snails and spiders are taught to keep their own places; and among the flowers of that hanging garden on a sunny slope, not a weed is to be seen, for weeds are beautiful only by the wayside, in the matting of hedgeroots, by the mossy stone, and the brink of the well in the brae-and are offensive only when they intrude into society above their own rank, and where they have the air and accent of aliens. By pretty pebbled steps of stairs you mount up from platform to platform of the sloping woodland banks-the prospect widening as you ascend, till from a bridge that spans a leaping rivulet, you behold in full blow all (irassmere Vale, Village, Church-tower, and Lake, the whole of the inountains, and a noble

Perhaps we are all beginning to get a little hungry, but it is too soon to breakfast; so, leaving the village of Grassmere on the right, keep your eye on Helm-crag, while we re finding, without seeking, our way up Easdale. Easdale is an arm of Grassmere, and in the words of Mr. Green the artist, "it is in places profusely wooded, and charmingly sequestered among the mountains." Here you may hunt the waterfalls, in rainy weather easily run down, but difficult of detection in a drought. Several pretty rustic bridges cross and recross the main stream and its tributaries; the cottages, in nook and on hillside, are among the most picturesque and engaging in the whole country; the vale widens into spacious and noble meadow-grounds, on which might suit ably stand the mansion of any nobleman in England-as you near its head, every thing gets wild and broken, with a slight touch of dreariness, and by no very difficult ascent, we might reach Easdale-tarn in less than an hour's walking from Grassmere-a lonely and impressive scene, and the haunt of the angler almost as frequently as of the shepherd.

How far can we enjoy the beauty of exter nal nature under a sharp appetite for breakfast or dinner? On our imagination the effect of hunger is somewhat singular. We no longer regard sheep, for instance, as the fleecy or the bleating flock. Their wool or their baaing is nothing to us-we think of necks, and gigots, and saddles of mutton; and even the lamb frisking on the sunny bank is eaten by us in the shape of steaks and fry. If it is in the morning, we see no part of the cow but her udder, distilling richest milkiness. Instead of ascending to heaven on the smoke of a cottage chimney, we put our arms round the column, and descend on the lid of the great pan pre

paring the family breakfast. Every interest- this, where all is steadfast but the clouds ing object in the landscape seems edible-our whose very being is change, and the flow of mouth waters all over the vale-as the village waters that have been in motion since the clock tolls eight, we involuntarily say grace, Flood. and Price on the Picturesque gives way to Meg Dods's Cookery.

Mrs. Bell of the Red Lion Inn, Grassmere, can give a breakfast with any woman in England. She bakes incomparable bread-firm, close, compact, and white, thin-crusted, and admirably raised. Her yeast always works well. What butter! Before it a primrose must hide its unyellowed head. Then jam of the finest quality, goose, rasp, and strawberry! and as the jam is, so are her jellies. Hens cackle that the eggs are fresh-and these shrimps were scraping the sand last night in the Whitehaven sea. What glorious bannocks of barley-meal! Crisp wheaten cakes, too, no thicker than a wafer. Do not, our good sir, appropriate that cut of pickled salmon; it is heavier than it looks, and will weigh about four pounds. One might live a thousand years, yet never weary of such mutton-ham. Virgin honey, indeed! Let us hope that the bees were not smothered, but by some gracious disciple of Bonar or Huber decoyed from a full hive into an empty one, with half the summer and all the autumn before them to build and saturate their new Comb-Palace. No bad thing is a cold pigeon pie, especially of cushats. To hear them cooing in the centre of a wood is one thing, and to see them lying at the bottom of a pie is another-which is the better, depends entirely on time, place, and circum stance. Well, a beef-steak at breakfast is rather startling-but let us try a bit with these fine ingenuous youthful potatoes, from a light sandy soil on a warm slope. Next to the country clergy, smugglers are the most spiritual of characters; and we verily believe that to be "sma' still." Our dear sir-you are in orders, we believe-will you have the goodness to return thanks? Yes, now you may ring the bell for the bill. Moderate indeed! With a day's work before one, there is nothing like the deep broad basis of breakfast.

SECOND SAUNTER.

Ir is yet only ten o'clock-and what a multitude of thoughts and feelings, sights and sounds, lights and shadows have been ours since sunrise! Had we been in bed, all would have remained unfelt and unknown. But, to be sure, one dream might have been worth them all. Dreams, however, when they are over, are gone, be they of bliss or bale, heaven or the shades. No one weeps over a dream. With such tears no one would sympathize. Give us reality," the sober certainty of waking bliss," and to it memory shall cling. Let the object of our sorrow belong to the living world, and, transient though it be, its power may be immortal. Away then, as of little worth, all the unsubstantial and wavering world of dreams, and in their place give us the very humblest humanities, so much the better if enjoyed in some beautiful scene of nature like

Ha! a splendid equipage with a coronet. And out steps, handed by her elated husband, a high-born, beautiful and graceful bride. They are making a tour of the Lakes, and the honeymoon hath not yet filled her horns. If there be indeed such a ning as happiness on this earth, here it is-youth, elegance, health, rank, riches, and love-all united in ties that death alone can sunder. How they hang towards each other-the blissful pair! Blind in their passion to all the scenery they came to admire, or beholding it but by fits and snatches, with eyes that can see only one object. She hath already learnt to forget father and mother, and sister and brother, and all the young creatures like herself-every one-that shared the pastimes and the confidence of her virgin youthhood. With her, as with Genevieve

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame!"

And will this holy state of the spirit en ure? No it will fade, and fade, and fade away, so imperceptibly, so unconsciously, (so like the shortening of the long summer days, that lose minute after minute of the light, till again we hear the yellow leaves rustling in autumnal twilight,) that the heart within that snow-drifted bosom will know not how great has been the change, till at last it shall be told the truth, and know that all mortal emotion, however paradisiacal, is born to die.

Fain would we believe that forebodings like

these are, on all such occasions, whispered by a blind and ignorant misanthropy, and that of wedded life it may generally be said,

"O, happy state, where souls together draw, Where love is liberty, and nature law!" What profound powers of affection, grief, pity, sympathy, delight, and religion belong, by its constitution, to the frame of every human soul! And if the courses of life have not greatly thwarted the divine dispensations of nature, will they not all rise into genial play within bosoms consecrated to each other's happiness, till comes between them the cold hand of death? It would seem that every thing fair and good must flourish under that holy necessity-every thing foul and bad fade away; and that no quarrel or unkindness could ever be between pilgrims travelling together through time to eternity, whether their path lead through an Eden or a waste. Habit itself comes with humble hearts to be gracious and benign; they who have once loved, will not, for that very reason, cease to love; memory shall brighten when hope decays; and if the present be not now so blissful, so thrilling, so steeped in rap ture as it was in the golden prime, yet shall it without repining suffice to them whose thoughts borrow unconsciously sweet comforts from the past and future, and have been taught by mutual cares and sorrows to indulge tempered expectations of the best earthly felicity. And is it not so? How much tranquillity and con tentment in human homes! Calm onflowings

of life shaded in domestic privacy, and seen | yet is, it irritatingly expensive when a great but at times coming out into the open light! Northern Nursery sends out its hordes, and What brave patience under poverty! What gawky hoydens and hobble-te-hoys are getting beautiful resignation in grief! Riches take themselves accomplished in the foreign lan wings to themselves and flee away-yet with- guages, music, drawing, geography, the use of out and within the door there is the decency the globes, and the dumb-bells. of a changed, not an unhappy lot—The clouds "Let observation, with extensive view, of adversity darken men's characters even as Survey mankind from China to Peru." if they were the shadows of dishonour, but con- (Two bad lines by the way, though written by science quails not in the gloom-The well out Dr. Johnson)-and observation will find the of which humility hath her daily drink, is literature of all countries filled with sarcasms nearly dried up to the very spring, but she up- against the marriage-life. Our old Scottish braideth not Heaven-Children, those flowers songs and ballads, especially, delight in repre that make the hovel's earthen floor delightful senting it as a state of ludicrous misery and as the glades of Paradise, wither in a day, but discomfort. There is little or no talk of horns there is holy comfort in the mother's tears; the dilemma of English wit; but every innor are the groans of the father altogether with-dividual moment of every individual minute, out relief-for they have gone whither they came, and are blooming now in the bowers of Heaven.

of every individual hour, of every individual day, and so on, has its peculiar, appropri ate, characteristic, and incurable wretchedness. Yet the delightful thing is, that in spite of all this jeering and gibing, and grinning and hissing, and pointing with the finger-marrying and giving in marriage, births and christenings, continue their career of prosperity; and the legitimate population doubles itself some where about every thirty-five years. Single houses rise out of the earth-double houses become villages-villages towns-towns cities. and our Metropolis is itself a world!

Reverse the picture-and tremble for the fate of those whom God hath made one, and whom no man must put asunder. In common natures, what hot and sensual passions, whose gratification ends in indifference, disgust, loathing, or hatred! What a power of misery, from fretting to madness, lies in that mean but mighty word-Temper! The face, to whose meek beauty smiles seemed native during the days of virgin love, shows now but a sneer, a scowl, a frown, or a glare of scorn. The shape While the lyrical poetry of Scotland is thus of those features is still fine-the eye of the rife with reproach against wedlock, it is equalgazelle-the Grecian nose and forehead-the ly rife with panegyric on the tender passion ivory teeth, so small and regular-and thin that leads into its toils. In one page you line of ruby lips breathing Circassian luxury-shudder in a cold sweat over the mean miseries the snow-drifts of the bosom still heave there -a lovelier waist Apollo never encircled stepping from the chariot of the sun-nor limbs more graceful did ever Diana veil beneath the shadows of Mount Latmos. But she is a fiend -a devil incarnate, and the sovereign beauty of three counties has made your house a hell. But suppose that you have had the sense and sagacity to marry a homely wife or one comely at the best-nay, even that you have sought to secure your peace by admitted ugliness—or wedded a woman whom all tongues call-plain; then may an insurance-ticket, indeed, flame like the sun in miniature on the front of your house-but what Joint-Stock Company can undertake to repay the loss incurred by the perpetual singeing of the smouldering flames of strife, that blaze up without warning at bed and board, and keep you in an everlasting alarm of fire? We defy you to utter the most glaring truth that shall not be instantly contradicted. The most rational proposals for a day or hour of pleasure, at home or abroad, are on the nail negatived as absurd. If you dine at home every day for a month, she wonder, why nobody asks you out, and fears you take no trouble to make yourself agreeable. If you dine from home one day in a month, then are you charged with being addicted to tavern-clubs. Children are perpetual bones of contention there is hatred and sorrow in house-bills-rent and taxes are productive of endless grievances; and although education be an excellent thing-indeed quite a fortune in itself-especially to a poor Scotsman going to England, where all the people are barbarous

of the poor "gudeman;" in the next you see, unconscious of the same approaching destiny, the enamoured youth lying on his Mary's bosom beneath the milkwhite thorn. The pastoral pipe is tuned under a fate that hurries on all living creatures to love; and not one lawful embrace is shunned from any other fears than those which themselves spring up in the poor man's thoughtful heart. The wicked betray, and the weak fall-bitter tears are shed at midnight from eyes once bright as the day-fair faces never smile again, and many a hut has its broken heart-hope comes and goes, finally vanquishing, or yielding to despair-crowned passion dies the sated death, or, with increase of appetite, grows by what it feeds on-wide, but unseen, over all the regions of the land, are cheated hopes, vain desires, gnawing jealousy, dispirited fear, and swarthy-souled revenge-beseechings, seduc tions, suicides, and insanities-and all, all spring from the root of Love; yet all the nations of the earth call the Tree blest, and long as time endures, will continue to flock thither panting to devour the fruitage, of which every other golden globe is poison and death.

Smile away then, with all thy most irresisti ble blandishments, thou young and happy Bride! What business have we to prophesy bedimming tears to those resplendent eyes? or that the talisman of that witching smile can ever lose its magic? Are not the high-born daughters of England also the high-souled And hath not honour and virtue, and charity and religion, guarded for centuries the lofty line of thy pure and unpolluted blood? Jov