At length her husband and nurse tried to persuade her to be led away to another room; and so after a long and passionate kiss on the cold lips of her boy, she consented: but she would not leave the cottage; and he, still under the softening influence of the scene he had witnessed, consented she should remain, going himself to town to tell Mrs. Haward of their loss, and that they should remain at Haverley till after the funeral.

It was over! the little form was laid in the earth, and the mourners had departed. Mother, do not weep; thy child is in that land where there is "neither danger in the fields nor poison in the flowers." Do not think of him in that narrow grave; but above, in the star-gemmed sky, know that he dwells, where there is rest, and joy, and peace,-where "the children are clad in raiment of dazzling whiteness," where "the tears are wiped from all eyes."

HYMN TO THE NIGHT.

LONGFELLOW.

I HEARD the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls.

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
Stoop o'er me from above,

The calm majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold soft chimes,

That fill the haunted chambers of the Night
Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there—
From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before;

Thou layest thy finger on the lip of Care,
And they complain no more.

Peace, Peace! Orestes-like, I breathe this
Descend with broad-wing'd flight,

prayer,

The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,
The best-beloved Night.

GRANDEUR AND MAGNIFICENCE OF NATURE.

DR. WILLIAM ENFIELD was an eminent dissenting minister; born 1741, died 1797. His contributions to various departments of literature gave him great celebrity, He is best remembered by "The Speaker."

THE characters of grandeur and magnificence are so legibly inscribed upon the general face of Nature, that the most untaught eye cannot fail to read them, nor the most uncultivated imagination contemplate them without admiring. The surface of the earth, considered merely as a vast picture drawn by the hand of Nature, exhibits scenes adapted to excite emotions of sublimity. Plains, whose extent exceeds the limits of human vision; mountains, whose sides are embrowned with craggy rocks, and whose majestic summits hide themselves in the clouds; seas, whose spreading waters unite far-distant countries and oceans, which begird the vast globe itself; are objects at all times striking to the imagination.

If from the earth we lift our eyes upward, new scenes of magnificence demand our attentive admiration: the glorious sun, the eye and soul of this material world, possessing his seat amidst the vast expanse, and spreading light and heat through the universe; and, in their turn, the numberless lamps of night illuminating the firmament with their native fires.

Let the great powers of Nature be brought into action, and still more sublime and awful appearances rise to our view. Let woods and forests wave before the stormy winds; let ocean "heave from his extended bed," and roll his threatening billows to the sky; let volcanoes pour forth pillars of smoke and melted torrents from their fiery caverns; let lightnings dart their vivid fires through the sky, whilst thunders roar among the bursting clouds; what imagination shall remain unimpressed with emotions of admiration mingled with terror?

The man who is enlightened by the study of Nature, sees this earth as a globe of vast magnitude, moving perpetually round the sun with a degree of rapidity much greater than has ever been produced by human force or art; at the same time he sees other globes, some less, and others much larger, than the earth, revolving with inconceivable rapidity round the sun, as their common centre, at distances so great that, though they may be expressed in numbers, they far exceed the utmost stretch of the human imagination. This set of planets, which he knows to have, with our earth, a common relation to the sun, he very reasonably concludes to be a system of worlds, all peopled with suitable inhabitants, and all deriving supplies of light and heat from the same source.

Extending his views beyond this system, and finding, from observation, that the fixed stars are in themselves luminous bodies, and that their distance from the earth is so much greater than that of the planets or sun, as to be absolutely immeasurable, he concludes, upon the most probable grounds, that those sparkling gems which deck the robe of Night are not placed in the heavens merely for the convenience of this earth, but are, like our glorious luminary, suns to their respective systems of worlds.

To illustrate this subject, I might cull the choicest flowers which poetry or painting has gathered from the lap of Nature. I might lead you, in imagination, through some rich and varied landscape, where your eye should be delighted with verdant meads and flowery lawns, and your ear soothed with the murmur of streams, or enchanted with the music of the groves. I might represent before you, in succession, the diversified beauties of cheerful Spring, of fruitful Summer, of plenteous Autumn, and of Winter clothed in her silver robe of snow. I might conduct you through the leading classes of the vegetable and animal world, and call upon you to remark in each the distinct beauties of colour, form, proportion, animated motion, and grace. But this is a detail which your own imaginations will easily supply. Let it suffice, then, upon this head, to remark, in general, that the colouring of beauty, which is so liberally spread over the productions of Nature, is as real, though not perhaps so striking a proof of the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Great Creator, as are the lines of grandeur and sublimity.

The variety which appears in Nature, is the offspring, not of confusion, but of order. Though the forms of individual beings are finely diversified, so that it is perhaps impossible to find, in the whole compass of Nature, two organized bodies perfectly alike; yet amidst this boundless variety we may observe the most perfect regularity. This regularity is of two kinds, that of gradation, and that of arrangement. That of gradation chiefly appears in animated Nature, where beings possess different powers and faculties, through a long succession, each holding his proper place in the scale of excellence. That of arrangement prevails through the whole visible world; each individual possessing some qualities or characters, in common with some others, which enable the spectator to consider them as belonging to the same species or kind; and each species partaking with some others of common appearances, by means of which they may be classed under some general description; till at length we arrive at the three comprehensive divisions under which all the bodies which belong to this earth are commonly arranged-animals, vegetables, and minerals.

P

THE LADY MADELINE AT HER DEVOTIONS.

KEATS.

OUT went the taper as she hurried in ;
Its little smoke in pallid moonshine died:
She closed the door, she panted, all akin
To spirits of the air, and visions wide:
No utter'd syllable, or, woe betide!
But to her heart her heart was voluble,
Paining with eloquence her balmy side;

As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.
A casement high and triple-arch'd there was,
All garlanded with carven imageries

Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device
Innumerable, of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth's deep damask'd wings;
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,

A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.
Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules1 on Madeline's fair breast,
As down she knelt for Heaven's grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst.
And on her hair a glory like a saint:
She seem'd a splendid angel newly drest,

Save wings, for heaven :-Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

ON PROCRASTINATION.

JOHNSON.

THE folly of allowing ourselves to delay what we know cannot be finally escaped, is one of the general weaknesses which prevail to a greater or less degree in almost every mind.

It is, indeed, natural to have particular regard to the time present, and to be most solicitous for that which is, by its nearness, enabled to make the strongest impressions. When, there

(1) Red,-an heraldic term,