us, or we may bask alone in the sun, until we seem to ripen with the fruits overhead, or sit in the breathless hush of midnight, looking at the pale moon, and the few intensely bright stars around her. It is not every one who can reach the solitudes of nature, there to commune with his own heart; but almost every one may have a garden, where he can lock out the dense crowd that jostles him in the streets. And if at times his thoughts be interrupted by the laugh from some neighbouring garden, or by the small happy voices of children, this will but give a heartier and more human turn to his musings, teaching him how many thousands are unconsciously sympathising with his happiness.

MY DAUGHTER'S BOOK.

ANCIENT ROME.

UNFORTUNATELY, very few travellers approach Rome, in the first instance, with the moderate expectations of Virgil's shepherd; prepared for nothing more splendid than what they had been accustomed to see at their own country-towns on a market-day. They have taken on trust the descriptions of the poets, and orators, and historians, of a country fertile in such characters; and the Queen of Cities, throned upon her seven hills in marble majesty, the mistress of a world conquered by the valour of her sons, holds up to them a picture, the effect of which they are perhaps unwil ling to spoil by filling up all its parts with too curious accuracy; otherwise it is certain that information enough is to be obtained from Roman

authors to prepare them for a scene of much more moderate splendour in the capital of Italy. From them they might have learned, before they put themselves on board the packet, that all those points upon which the imagination reposes with so much complacency, are perfectly consistent with disorder, and misery, and filth: they might have learned, that the Tiber was of old but a torpid and muddy stream; that heretofore the streets of Rome were dark and narrow, and crooked; that carriages of pleasure, (of which, by the by, the carpentum, one of the most common, probably very little surpassed our tilting and jolting tax-cart) were by law prohibited from entering them except on certain days, so little space was there for driv. ing; that the sedans, which were used in their stead, put the people to infinite confusion; that there were few scavengers, and no lamps; that when a Roman returned home from a supper-party, he had to pick his way along with a horn lantern, and bless himself if he reached his own door without a shower from an attic alighting on his cap of liberty; that the porticoes and approaches to the baths were subject to every species of defilement, so that even the symbols of religion were enlisted for their protection; that the statues with which the city was peopled were treated with that contempt which Launce would have rebuked even in his dog; that the images of the gods were disfigured by painted faces and gilded beards; and that though the Venus de' Medici never appeared in a hooped petticoat, nor the Apollo Belvidere in a blue swallow-tailed coat with metal buttons, yet that the costume of the day, whatever it was, was very generally bestowed on the representatives of Heaven; that the houses were for the most part brick,

many of them crazy, and supported upon props, and that such as belonged to a patrician himself, had often the ground-floor assigned to a huckster or a dealer in oil; that in the windows (which were few in number) glass was seldom, if ever, to be seen, but, in its stead, a dimly transparent stone, or shutter of wood; that, from a want of chimneys, the rooms were full of smoke, which was left to make its escape by the tiles, the windows, and the door; that on this account Vitruvius expressly forbade carved work or mouldings, except in the summer apartments, where no fire was admitted, because in the others they would be covered with soot; that, amongst the accomplishments of a cook, it was expected that he should be skilful in detecting which way the wind blew, lest, if he opened the wrong kitchen-window, the smoke should be driven into the broth;-that, under these circumstances, the ancestors of a Roman gentleman, when they had occupied the niches of his hall for a few years, bore a very striking resemblance to modern chimney-sweepers; that the Romans made as much use of their fingers at a meal as Englishmen do of their forks; and that Ovid, in his Art of Love, gives it as a piece of Chesterfield advice to the young gallants of his time, "not to smear their mouths with their greasy hands" more than necessary; that a mappa, or napkin, for each individual, was thus absolutely requisite; that every guest brought his own, and, lest the gravy and sauceboats overturned should not do it full justice, it was made further serviceable as a pocket-handkerchief! They might have learned, moreover, from the same authorities, that the middle ranks of the citizens were clad in white woollen vestures, which were, of course, as habitually dirty as might be expected

from the general poverty of the wearers, whilst the baser plebeians, not able to affect this shabby gentility, contented themselves with garments of the colour, and quality, and neatness, of a mendicant friar's; that their shirts, too, were composed of the same material; and that from these causes, aided by the blessing of a warm climate, and the plentiful use of garlic, the effluvium of their public assemblies was so offensive, that, even in a roofless theatre, the emperor found it expedient to sprinkle his faithful subjects with showers of rose-water; -and, having duly weighed these, and similar points of minute history, they might certainly have brought themselves to adopt more sober views of the magnificence of ancient Rome, and an ancient Roman, and have advanced to the Porta del Popolo with the reasonable chance of having their anticipations, in many respects at least, completely fulfilled.

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES OF MILTON.

IN speaking of the intellectual qualities of Milton, we may begin with observing, that the very splendour of his poetic fame has tended to obscure or conceal the extent of his mind, and the variety of its energies and attainments. To many he seems only a poet; when in truth he was a profound scholar, a man of vast compass of thought, imbued thoroughly with all ancient and modern learning, and able to master, to mould, to impregnate with his own intellectual power, his great and various acquisitions.

He had not learned the superficial doctrine of a later day, that poetry flourishes most in an uncultivated soil, and that imagination shapes its brightest visions from the mists of a superstitious age; and he had no dread of accumulating knowledge, lest it should oppress and smother his genius. He was conscious of that within him, which could quicken all knowledge, and wield it with ease and might; which could give freshness to old truths, and harmony to discordant thoughts; which could bind together, by living ties and mysterious affinities, the most remote discoveries, and rear fabrics of glory and beauty from the rude materials which other minds had collected.

Milton had that universality which marks the highest order of intellect. Though accustomed, almost from infancy, to drink at the fountains of classical literature, he had nothing of the pedantry and fastidiousness which disdain all other draughts. His healthy mind delighted in genius, on whatever soil, or in whatever age, it burst forth and poured out its fullness. He understood too well the rights, and dignity, and pride, of creative imagination, to lay on it the laws of the Greek or Roman schools. Parnassus was not to him the only holy ground of genius.

He felt that poetry was as a universal presence. Great minds were everywhere his kindred. He felt the enchantment of oriental fiction, surrendered himself to the strange creations of "Araby the Blest," and delighted still more in the romantic spirit of chivalry, and in the tales of wonder in which it was embodied. Accordingly, his poetry reminds us of the ocean, which adds to its own boundlessness contributions from all regions under heaven. Nor was it only in the department of