and the few liquid notes which thrill around, are only as the prelude to that enraptured fullvoiced strain which is destined to charm the ear of night, and to render mute and breathless silence, brooding over the peaceful scene, perfectly enraptured. So says Chaucer, in the Romance of the Rose :

"In many places snugge were nightingale,
Alpes, finches, and woodwales,

That in her swete song deliten,

In thilke place as they habiten."

-Hold !—A flood of richly mellowed radiance is streaming across the onward path: it comes up the opening of one of those magnificent avenues with which the wood abounds. In glancing down this stream of light, the eye is almost dazzled with its lustre; but, in the midst of this mass of glory, may be distinguished a form, more than the common tall of perfect beauty, of surpassing loveliness. Her name is unknown-her lineage untold-her life a scene of sorrow and disappointment. Yet benevolence is said to inhabit her heart-charity to fall from her hand. Comes she from parsonage, or hall, or grange? No one knows. She is a stranger among strangers-yet the greatest beauty in a troop of beauties. And although

forty summers have left their

traces, faint

withal, upon her fair brow, yet is she lovelymatchless; has woven about her a web of unravelled mystery, and spread abroad a spell, which none can dissolve. As her silent foot presses the pansied turf, she stoops to pluck a flower; and throwing back her flowing tresses, vanishes in the thick foliage, and is seen no more. The very air is charmed with beauty and with a mystery :

"The woody nymphes, faire Hama dryades,

Her to beholde doe thither runne apace;

And all the troope of light-foot Naiades,
Flock all about to see her lovely face.

*

The wood-borne people fall before her flat,
And worship her a goddess of the wood;
And old Sylvanus self bethinks not what,
To thinke of wight so faire, but gazing stood,

In dougt to deeme her borne of earthly brood."*

The vision is gone. Amazement stands

mute, and motionless; and many minutes are crowded into one. The sun has sunk below the horizon's verge; and the shades of evening are descending upon the earth. The flower has closed its smiling eye;-the bat is upon the wing; and the "beetle with his drowsy hum

hath rung night's yawning peal." Tired labour has sought the pillow; and the child hath found its mother's breast ;-and as the prayer of praise and thanksgiving mounts upwards to the throne of the Eternal, the cherub-sleepthe innocent sleep-descends on noiseless wing, and rests on countless eyelids--the wicked and the good-the just and the unjust.

THE VILLAGE STILE.

But let us leave Queen Mab awhile,
Through many a gate, o'er many a stile,
That now had gotten by this while.

DRAYTON. Nymphydia.

HAS life, at the present day, no music in it? It is said by the lip of eloquence and the pen of truth and of power, that it has not. There is a great, an insurmountable truth lurking in that saying. We hear that it has not; we see that it has not; we feel that it has not. Why? Look around. It is apparent in every sphere of existence, from the highest to the lowest. The present day is a day of contention, of struggle, and strife, and grasping, and selfishness-malice, hatred, revenge, slander, tyranny. Eternal drudgery, on the one hand, to the many;-pampered idleness and impotent sloth, on the other, to the few. Throughout the whole framework of society, from the

splendour of the palace, to the misery of the roofless hovel, the propensity of the tiger is at work. "Tis all alike. The same spirit, the same artificial state of society, pervades and leavens the whole lump. Universal good, bringing with it, as it should do, under the wise administration of wise laws, sweet peace, and smiling contentment, and unalloyed happiness, is lost in the whirl of party strife, and the promotion of party interests. The light of reason and common sense is dimned-but, not extinguished. Patriotism droops her pinion. Liberty sits silent, and weeps.

But, if there be no music in human existence at the present day-if all be engulphed in the vortex of self-interest, to the entire loss of all those nobler qualities which throw a beauty and a grace even around the common frailties of humanity-the spirit of harmony has not spread her wings, and, buoyant upon the breeze, sought other lands—the spirit of harmony has not departed from this fair country, with its countless attractive scenes and its many more associations. No! There are numerous spots on which, dove-like, she can yet rest her foot, and, furling her radiant wings, brood in peace and security.