tion. He was facilitating and prolonging the enjoyment of light, enlarging the avenues of science, and conferring the highest and most lasting pleasures; he was enabling the student to contemplate nature, and the beauty to behold herself.

Johnson.

SLEEP.

HUSHED is the world in night and sleep;
Earth, sea, and air are still as death;
Too rude to break a calm so deep,

Were music's faintest breath.

No voice is on the air of night,

Through folded leaves no murmurs creep,

Nor star, nor moonbeam's trembling light
Falls on the placid brow of sleep.

Descend, bright visions, from your airy bower,
Dark, silent, solemn is your favourite hour.

Mrs. Hemans.

BIRTH OF ART.

PEOPLE may say what they please about the gradual improvement of the Arts. It is not true of the substance, The Arts and the Muses both spring forth in the youth of nations, like Minerva from the front of Jupiter, all armed; manual dexterity may, indeed, be improved by practice. S. T. Coleridge.

FANCY.

COME, Fancy! with thy soul-enrapturing power,

And lead me through the fairy haunts, where dwell Thy magic influences;

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Where'er thou art, I woo thee from thy cell, And give to thee the visions of this hour.

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O, dip thy pencil in the Iris' hues,

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And paint thy dwelling place-twin sister of the Muse! P. M. Wetmore.

DELICACY OF TASTE.

WHATEVER Connexion there may be originally between these two species of delicacy, I am persuaded, that nothing is so proper to cure us of this delicacy of passion, as the cultivating of that higher and more refined taste, which enables us to judge of the characters of men, of compositions of genius, and of the productions of the nobler arts. A greater or less relish for those obvious beauties, which strike the senses, depends entirely upon the greater or less sensibility of the temper; but with regard to the sciences and liberal arts, a fine taste is, in some measure, the same with strong sense, or at least, depends so much upon it that they are inseparable. In order to judge aright of a composition of genius, there are so many views to be taken in, so many circumstances to be compared, and such a knowledge of human nature

requisite, that no man, who is not possessed of the soundest judgment, will ever make a tolerable critic in such performances. And this is a new reason for cultivating a relish in the liberal arts. Our judgment will strengthen by this exercise. We shall form juster notions of life. Many things which please or afflict others will appear to us too frivolous to engage our attentions; and we shall lose by degrees that sensibility and delicacy of passion which is so incommodious. * * * Nothing is so improving to the temper as the study of the beauties of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting. They give a certain elegance of sentiment to which the rest of mankind are strangers. The emotions which they excite are soft and tender. They draw off the mind from the hurry of business and interest; cherish reflection; dispose to tranquillity; and produce an agreeable melancholy, which, of all dispositions of the mind, is the best suited to love and friendship.

Hume.

ADAM AND EVE.

Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall,
Godlike erect! with native honour clad,

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* seemed lords of all,
And worthy seemed; for in their looks divine
The image of their glorious Maker shone,
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure;

For contemplation he, and valour formed;
For softness she, and sweet attractive grace;

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His fair large front and eye sublime declared
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks

Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad:
She, as a veil, down to the slender waist,
Her unadorned golden tresses wore,

Dishevelled; but in ✶ ✶ ✶ ringlets waved,
As the vine curls her tendrils.

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So passed they * * * on, nor shunned the sight
Of God or angel, for they thought no ill.
So hand in hand they passed;

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Adam, the goodliest man of men, since born,
His sons; the fairest of her daughters, Eve.

Milton.

SENTIMENT OF BEAUTY.

SOME there are, who contend that the laws of taste are not primitive, but secondary; that our admiration of beauty in material objects is resolvable into other and original emotions, and, more especially, by means of the associating principle, into our admiration of moral excellence. Let the justness of this doctrine be admitted, and its only effect on our peculiar argument is, that the benevolence of God, in thus multiplying our enjoyments, instead of being indicated by a distinct law for suiting the human mind to the objects which surround it, is indicated both by the distribution of those objects, and by their investment with such qualities as suit them to the previous constitution of the mind-that he hath pencilled them with the very colours, or moulded them into the

very shapes which suggest either the graceful or the noble of human character; that he hath imparted to the violet its hue of modesty, and clothed the lily in its robe of purest innocence, and given to the trees of the forest their respective attitudes of strength or delicacy; and made the whole face of nature one bright reflection of those virtues which the mind and character of man had originally radiated. If it be not the implantation of a peculiar law in mind, it is, at least, by a peculiar disposition of tints and forms in external nature, that he hath spread so diversified a loveliness over the panorama of visible things; and thrown so many walks of enchantment around us; and turned the sights and the sounds of rural scenery into the ministers of so much and such exquisite enjoyment; and caused the outer world of matter to image forth in such profusion those various qualities, which at first had pleased or powerfully affected us in the inner world of consciousness and thought.

Chalmers.

HEBREW MAIDEN.

SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies:
And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

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