business it is to affect the passions." The distinc tion between the picturesque and the beautiful is stated in the same general manner, though with much interesting illustration, by Mr. Uredale Price, in his Essay on the Picturesque. "A temple or palace of Grecian architecture, in its perfect and entire state, and its surface and colour smooth and even, either in painting or reality, is beautiful; in ruin, it is picturesque. Observe the process by which time (the great author of such changes) converts a beautiful object into a picturesque one. First, by means of weather-stains, partial incrustations, mosses, &c.; it at the same time takes off from the uniformity of its surface and its colour; that is, gives it a degree of roughness and variety of tint. Next, the various accidents of weather loosen the stones themselves; they tumble in irregular masses upon what was perhaps smooth turf or pavement, or nicely-trimmed walks and shrubberies, now mixed and overgrown with wild plants and creepers, that crawl over and shoot among the fallen ruins. Sedums, wall-flowers, and other vegetables that bear drought, find nourishment in the decayed cement, from which the stones have been detached; birds convey their food into the chinks; and yew, elder, and other berried plants, project from the sides; while the ivy mantles over other parts, and crowns the top. The even, regular lines of the doors and windows are broken, and through their ivy-fringed openings is displayed the ruined interior of the edifice. In Gothic buildings, the outline of the summit presents such a variety of forms of turrets and pinnacles, some open, some fretted and variously enriched, that, even where there is an exact correspondence of parts, it is often disguised by an appearance of splendid

confusion and irregularity. In the doors and windows of Gothic churches, the pointed arch has as much variety as any regular figure can well have: the eye is not too strongly conducted from the top of the one to that of the other, as by the parallel lines of the Grecian; and every person must be struck with the extreme richness and intricacy of some of the principal windows of our cathedrals and ruined abbeys. In these last is displayed the triumph of the picturesque; and its charms to a painter's eye are often so great as to rival those of beauty itself. So in mills, such is the extreme intricacy of the wheels and the wood-work; such is the singular variety of forms, and of lights and shadows, of mosses and weather-stains from the constant moisture-of plants springing from the rough joints of the stones; such the assemblage of every thing which most conduces to picturesqueness, that, even without the addition of water, an old mill has the greatest charm for a painter. It is owing to the same causes, that a building with scaffolding has often a more picturesque appearance than the building itself when the scaffolding is taken away-that old, mossy, rough-hewn park pales of unequal heights are an ornament to landscapes, especially when they are partially concealed by thickets; while a neat post and rail, regularly continued round a field, and seen without any interruption, is one of the most unpicturesque, as being one of the most uniform, of all boundaries. Among trees, it is not the smooth young beech, or the fresh and tender ash, but the rugged old oak, or knotty wych elm, that are picturesque; nor is it necessary that they should be of great bulk; it is sufficient if they are rough, mossy, with a character of age, and with

sudden variations in their forms. The limbs of huge trees, shattered by lightning or tempestuous winds, are in the highest degree picturesque; but whatever is caused by those dreaded powers of destruction, must always have a tincture of the sublime.

'As when heaven's fire

Has scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines;

With singed top their stately growth, though bare,
Stand on the blasted heath.'

"If we next take a view of those animals that are called picturesque, the same qualities are found to prevail. The ass is eminently so, much more than the horse; and, among horses, it is the wild forester, with his rough coat, his mane and tail ragged and uneven, or the worn-out cart-horse with his staring bones, Among savage animals, the lion with his shaggy mane is much more picturesque than the lioness, though she is equally an object of terror. The effects of roughness and smoothness in producing the beautiful or the picturesque is again clearly exemplified in the plumage of birds. Nothing more beautiful than feathers in their smooth state, when the hand or eye glides over them without interruption; nothing more picturesque, as detached ornaments, or when ruffled by any accidental circumstance, by any sudden passion in the animal, or when they appear so from their natural arrangement. As all the effects of passion and of strong emotion on the human figure and countenance are picturesque, such likewise are their effects on the plumage of birds; when inflamed with anger, the first symptoms appear in their ruffled plumage. The gamecock, when he attacks his rival, raises the feathers of the neck, and the purple pheasant his crest,

Birds of prey have generally more of the picturesque, from the angular form of their beaks, the rough feathers on their legs, their crooked talons: all this counterbalances the general smoothness of the plumage on their backs and wings, which they have in common with the rest of the feathered creation. Lastly, among our own species, beggars, gypsies, and all such rough tattered figures as are merely picturesque, bear a close analogy, in all the qualities that make them so, to old hovels and mills, to the wild forest horse, and other objects of the same kind. More dignified characters, such as a Belisarius, or a Marius in age and exile, have the same mixture of picturesqueness and decayed grandeur as the venerable remains of past ages. If we ascend to the highest order of created beings, as painted by the grandest of our poets, they, in their state of glory and happiness, raise chiefly ideas of beauty and sublimity; like earthly objects, they become picturesque when ruinedwhen shadows have obscured their original brightness, and that uniform though angelic expression of pure love and joy has been destroyed by a variety of warring passions:

"Darkened so, yet shone

Above them all the archangel; but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care
Sat on his faded cheek; but under brows
Of dauntless courage and considerate pride
Waiting revenge; cruel his eye, but cast
Signs of remorse and passion.""

MY DAUGHTER'S BOOK.
19

LIGHT.

LOOK at that glassy wave, the light of which dazzles our eyes as if it came from a silvered mirror; where does that light originate? Oh, you will say, it is only the sunbeams. To be sure: you admit, then, that the light from the wave does not originate in the wave itself, but that it comes from the sun? Well, as it comes from the sun, let me ask what distance has it travelled? How far is the earth from the sun? Ninety-five millions one hundred and seventy-three thousand miles. A pretty long journey, you will confess; but is the light tardy in accomplishing it? No; it travels at the rate of nearly two hundred thousand miles in a second, and consequently, arrives at the earth from the sun in about eight minutes. Does it travel farther than the earth? For what we know,

may travel on for ever, till intercepted by some opaque or ponderable object; but we know for certain, that it reaches Herschell, the most distant planet of our system, which is no less than eighteen hundred millions of miles from the sun. Now, is light material? I have no knowledge of it but what is obtained through the medium of sight: no other sense recognizes it; we cannot taste it; we cannot smell it; and it makes no impression on the nerves of touch. But I can learn, that it is not only compounded of three primary coloured rays, but also of others not connected with colour at all; of calorific and of oxidising and deoxidising rays. I can see, that it is necessary to vegetation; that plants, deprived of its presence, lose their green colour; that it affects various chemical decompositions; and that it is subjected to certain fixed laws, which form the basis