lakes, mists, and clouds, are mingled together, and dread and wonder take possession of the mind.

If you will go to Mount Hecla, set off as soon as you like, and choose what companion you please to accompany you, so that you do not choose me; for if you wait till my trunks are packed up ready, you will wait till Mount Hecla is covered with cocoa-nuts.

It may be a good thing to be near Iceland, but I am decidedly of opinion that it is a much better thing to be at a great distance from it. I have no relish for the promenades of Mount Hecla, where you put one leg up to your knee in snow, and the other into a spring of boiling water; and where, when you open your mouth, you know not whether it will be filled with cold sleet or hot ashes.

When I ascended the three summits of Hecla, I looked about me. Sometimes the sun shone delightfully, and its golden rays were thrown back in all places by ten thousand reflecting rocks of ice and lava. At other times the gathering clouds rolled to my very feet, while I stood on a ridge not more than a yard wide, with a precipice of many hundred feet on each side of me. I had a strong desire to descend the craters; but it struck me, that though there could be no impediment in my way down, there might possibly be a difficulty in my getting up: whether I was right or wrong in my reasoning, I must leave to succeeding travellers to determine.

Though I have all my plans ready by me for the erection of a handsome country-house, I have not yet absolutely decided on the spot where it

is to be built.

However, though I do not

know where the spot is to be, I know very well

where it is not to be, for it shall never be on Mount Hecla.

A PUZZLING QUESTION.

Come riddle me right, thou ruddy-faced boy,
A question I put to thee:

As vast as the frame of this wonderful world,
And as deep as the fathomless sea.

"AND what, think you, is the noblest, and the most useful invention that ever presented itself to the mind of man?" This question was put to me by a watchmaker of the City Road, London, while I stood talking with him on different subjects, and examining a watch which he had just repaired for me. The question was so vast, that it set my ideas afloat. I began to enumerate and amplify in my mind the splendid achievements of human intellect and ingenuity. I thought of

languages, of printing, of the mariner's compass, of gravity, of the steam-engine, of the watch, the telescope, and the microscope; but, no! none of these were allowed by the watchmaker to be proper answers, and then he told me it was a pair of spectacles.

At first I laughed heartily at so mouse-like an answer to so mountainous a question; but was soon convinced, that a pair of spectacles communicates the faculties of youth to the wisdom of age, and enables a man to commit to posterity the experience of his whole life.

I will not absolutely say that the watchmaker was right, but I will say that I never thought so highly of a pair of spectacles before that time as I have done since; and that, for some very pleasant speculations on this and other matters, I am much indebted to my good friend the watchmaker.