THE PAINTED WINDOW.

A casement high and triple-arch'd it 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-damasked 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 gules on Madeline's fair breast,
As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon;
Rose-bloom felt on her hands, together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,

And on her hair a glory like a saint;
She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings for Heaven.-

DAINTIES.

And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,
In blanched linen, smooth and lavender'd,
While he from forth the closet brought a heap
Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;
With jellies soother than the creamy curd,
And lucent syrups, tinct with cinnamon;

Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd
From Fez; and spiced dainties every one,

From silken Sarmacand to cedar'd Lebanon.

H. All these are exquisite indeed-the very essence of genuine poetry. But as you have been so good as to give me this treat, I will not say good-night until I have read you a few similar specimens of Coleridge. He is a very unequal poet, but as true a one as ever lived. He has sometimes a stilted and sometimes a slovenly style. But in the whole range of British poetry there is nothing more tender, delicate, and refined than the little tale of Genevieve. It is "exceedingly beautiful."

A.-Coleridge was a wretched prose writer. His Friend is the most awkward and unintelligible prose that was ever written.

But he was a genuine poet, an original thinker, and a profound

scholar.

H.-Well-take my specimens, and then we must positively say good-night

A SHIP IN A DEAD CALM.

Day after day-day after day.

We stuck, nor breath nor motion :

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

NIGHT-FALL.

The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out :

At one stride comes the dark;

With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea

Off shot the spectre-bark.

A MUSICAL BROOK.

A hidden brook

In the leafy month of June;

That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.

A MYSTICAL RIVER.

Five miles, meandering with a mazy motion,
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;

And mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war

GENEVIEVE.

She wept with pity and delight,

She blushed with love and virgin shame,
And, like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved-she stept aside,

As conscious of my look she stept

Then suddenly, with timorous eye,
She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me in her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace,
And, bending bach her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.

A NIGHTINGALE.

-Tis the merry nightingale,

That crowds and hurries and precipitates,

With fast thick warble, his delicious notes.

SOLITUDE.

O, wedding guest! this soul hath been

Alone on a wide wide sea,

So lonely 'twas, that God himself

Scarce seemed there to be.

A CALM.

There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of his clan,
That dances, as often as dance it can.
Playing so light, and hanging so high,
On the top-most twig that looks up at the sky,

No. XXVI.

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.

H.-No man who is acquainted with human nature looks any. where for perfection, except in the heroes of poems and romances. The wisest man amongst us presents many points of ridicule to an observant eye. Hence the old proverb, that familiarity breeds contempt. A too close and severe inspection of the best specimens of humanity inevitably leads to the discovery of a flaw. No man is a hero to his valet de chambre, or a sage to his familiar associates. A prophet has no honor in his own country. There is some truth in these old saws. Contrary to the laws of perspective in the physical world, our moral or intellectual nature is magnified by distance, and dwarfed by proximity.

L.-Walter Scott's own family, it is said, used to wonder why the world so highly reverenced him, and could not suppress their acknowledgment that they thought him overrated. "What," said a smart young barrister to whom Thomas Campbell had been pointed out at a literary party," is that little fellow the author of the Battle of the Baltic ?'”

H.-There was a report in the newspapers, that the late Colonel Sir Walter Scott not only never read his father's novels, but would not admit them into his house. This report, however, was positively contradicted by a writer, who seemed to speak from a personal knowledge of the gentleman so calumniated.

L.-The disrespect for genius generally excited by too near an approach, or by too close a personal intimacy, is not so surprizing as the contrary error of an indiscriminate admiration of every thing that has been uttered by the intellectual idols of mankind, especially of those who are far removed from the reach of envy. Nothing can be more eggregiously absurd, than much of the conduct, and many of the maxims and observations, of the ancient sages of Greece and Rome, who have been regarded as oracles almost divine. I fell in the other day with a prettily-printed edition of a translation of the Lives of the Ancient Philosophers, attributed to Fenelon. The book seems intended for young persons, but anything more foolish than what is called the wisdom of the sages of old, I never met with. Let me point out a few specimens of their sagacity. Solon, though not generally averse to amusements, was shocked, we are told in this book, at theatrical performances, and after seeing Thespis one day act in a tragedy of his own composition, he asked the actor " if he was not ashamed to utter so many falsities in the face of the world?"

H.-Why, a school-boy ought to be whipped for so shallow a mistake, for a child, old enough to see that a picture is not Nature herself, but an imitation of Nature, would not call a representation of life on the stage, or on the canvass, a shameful lie.

L.-When Pisistratus had recourse to the stratagem of presenting himself wounded and bleeding to the people, the wise Solon swore that it was exclusively to be attributed to the

"foolish fictions" that he had condemned. Heraclitus, the weeping philosopher, insisted that the sun was no larger than it appeared to be, and yet the most ignorant numskull of his time, must have known enough of the laws of perspective to correct such a silly blunder. The philosopher must have seen, whenever he opened his eyes, that the objects presented to them were diminished by distance. This ancient sage, when he found himself afflicted with the dropsy, chose to speak to his physicians in enigmas, so that they could not penetrate his meaning, and, rather than condescend to explain himself in common language, he declined their aid, and buried himself in a dunghill, in order to evaporate, by its heat, the water which was the origin of his disease. Some writers say that he sunk so deep into the loathsome mass, that in his feeble condition he could not extricate himself, but was speedily suffocated; and that his dead body was devoured by the dogs. Was this the end of a wise man? Was this a philosopher to be venerated and followed? Should not we call one of our own contemporaries, were he to act in this manner, a mad-man or a fool?

H.-I think so.

L.-But the weeping philosopher, in his weaker hours, was not more ridiculous and contemptible than Democritus, the laugher. It is said that the latter was so devoted to study, that he deprived himself of sight, in order that he might not turn his attention to any other pursuit! The manner in which he accomplished his design, was by exposing a plate of burnished brass to the sun, the rays of which, being flashed from the brass mirror on his eyes, by degrees deprived him of vision !

H.-A mighty pleasant and effective way of facilitating study, to have "knowledge at one entrance quite shut out!"

L.-The end of Pythagoras was just as silly as that of Heraclitus. Being pursued by his enemies, he fled a considerable distance; but, arriving at a field of beans, certain peculiar notions of his regarding that vegetable, would not permit him to pass over it. "It is better," said he, to die here, than to destroy all these poor beans."! He, therefore, awaited the foe, who