He next shews how an artist may, by stretch of imagination, paint a landscape in a London garret, taking fleas for goats and sheep, legs of a joint stool for trees, &c. but ends in Claude painted in the open air, Where scenes of true magnificence you'll find. The " Bumpkin and the Razor," as well as the " Pilgrim and the Peas," also in these Odes, almost every one knows. The finish is Peter's own style, of which the last line is too often repeated, even in the present day : Finish'd a disappointed artist cries, With open mouth and straining eyes, Gaping for praise, like a young crow for meat : Mention thee! Thy impudence hath put me in a sweat. What rage for fame attends both great and small; (To be concluded in our next.) THE OLD AND NEW YEAR. AT one and the same moment, there will shortly be a season of farewell and welcome! A farewell to the months which are now, but for one short hour, so solemnly stealing by, sunk already into the darkened past, and a welcome to the new era,-dare we call it epoch,—which comes forward to the wise, the good, the happy and the miserable,— a harbinger of benefit or evil. The time itself common to all: all that breathe claim it; but the conditions, the circumstances, the effects, alas! alas! how various, how contradictory. Here a bright, hopegiving presence; there an experience whose sky is black, whose vista is unbroken sadness. We have been watchers, many a time, in this our quiet study, till midnight has told its hour, and sunk all but ourselves at rest. Some volume, written by fingers that a great soul guided, to place immortal words upon the glorious pages that were guerdons of their writer's imperishable fame have held us long, and charmed our soul with its eloquence or melody. Or, perhaps, in an idle mood, our own thoughts have driven us to dilate on some passage in our own lives; or led us, as in noonday wanderings, over the scenes we have long and ardently, in glorious boyhood and sober manhood, loved and admired. But at all these times there was a continuity of feeling; an individuality of thought, so to speak; a oneness of mind; sensations and perceptions of kindred things; ideas without change, save that of uniform connexion. Why now, then, is it not so? Why is there in the soul-the sense-a tumult, as of a wavy, rolling sea; the black billows heaving themselves up, and lightened but at the foamy tops by the breaking effulgence that only shews more truly the natural blackness of the troubled masses? Why is there a chaotic heap which we can not yet reduce to order? Why are hopes and fears, remembrances and anticipations, past agonies and coming sorrows,-all struggling in that small space we give to the abode of intellect? Some in the form in which they have met us joyfully or sorrowfully, and others clad in the misty shroud that experience tells us may hide much of their existent horror? Why? Simply because the soul identifies itself with the hour in which the present drops away irrevocably into the past, and hesitates to trust itself without some emotion to the opening future. Sit with us, will you, through the solitude of these minutes, and give up yourselves, as we will, to their spiritual influences; for they are full to overflowing of the shadows that cling round a common humanity; and as we trace them in our words, we fear not but that the hearts of others will feel the same string vibrating, under the thrill of affection, or sorrow, or dismay. But, see! our room is suddenly brightened; and, for a moment, we know not why. Can it be? Yes, it is even so; for the spirit of Memory, she who is so beautifully fabled by the older poets, to be the mother of all the muses,—is leading forward, in a long train, the stillremembered, still wept-over, still rejoiced-in shadows of the past year. As the crowds thicken,-bright in their sunny look, as children's faces, or dark, even in the shrouds in which death has so roughly and tyrannically bound them,-the room itself enlarges, and the walls recede, till, like residents in a palace-hall, we are surrounded with shapes, and faces, and circumstances, with which we all have held communion. Stop, glorious vision, till the painter's hand has fixed you on the immortal canvas; or the poet's page, not less immortal, has shrined you in melodious verse. Poet nor painter have we here; but we mustnay, we cannot dare omit the task-limn you with a weak pencil, or trace you with a hand that trembles in its very joy to find itself in such a glorious company. The vision obeys our bidding, and with all this crowd, as it were, of newly-embodied memories will we commune, till they avoid our speech. Where all is bright, it is hard to point out the brightest spots; yet, around us, to our keener sight, there are glowing spots, in which it seems a purer light, like its essence, centres. Such is that now clothing an infant form, known by the happy smile to be our own. Come forth, our child, and in thy father's arms, let us, warmed by thy happy presence, speak of that look which once, in its brightness of expression and joyousness of eye, told that our smiles and faces were recognized long before the period at which others give this witness. Thou art beautiful as thou wert the morning the heaven received thee, and beautiful too as we saw thee last, in thy small coffin, ere the visible form was shut from our gaze. And why? Because when the cold hand was laid on thy little heart and stopped its throbbing, the smile was too far from that troubled centre to be disturbed, so it rested still on the pale cheek, cold even as marble; and there it dwells now, as eternal as its peaceful home. Long we wept for thee; and grief had always tears for thy early fate; till we remembered that thy existence, in fadeless beauty, such as thou now shewest us, was a nobler, more joyous life, than if this cold world, in that case, more omnipotent than death, had forced, by the tyranny of its cruel chances, the brightness from thy looks. This is not the only visit we have had from thee, since that sad hour; for when, in the dim twilight, there come wavy forms about us; or when, in dreams, the soul regains the buried objects of its love, we meet thee, and heaven comes over us with thy face. But thou art gone, and our unengaged arms are conscious that that seeming form was the treasured shadow of a once well-greeted child. And thou wilt come again; nay, never art thou far from us; for faith believes that there are guardian spirits; and who so fitted for the charge, as those who, loving us, have fled to heaven, but to accompany, in spiritual presence, our earthly wanderings! At this solemn hour do the living mix with the dead, and in shadowy resemblance come to greet us? Yes; for, lo, your friends and mine look on us as they were wont to do; ay, and as they would do too, if they were in real bodily companionship with us. In the sober light which friendship as well as memory furnishes, we can trace the features that are still so well known. Some bear in their persons the pressure of another year; some still seem the bold, the generous, the unchanged companions; and from all eyes-would that words were theirs alsobeam welcomes and recognitions; as if they, in the same dream of the fancy in which we now indulge, saw us, the spectators of themselves, among the visitors that the last night of the year brings to their dwellings. These recollections, friend, whether of good or evil, still have lost much of the true character of the real visitation. Time, the soother,―time, the comforter,—has given to all nearly the same resemblance, and we sit and gaze, you on your picture, we on ours, and but one feeling is predominant in all our hearts; too joyous to be altogether sorrowful; too mournful to be altogether glad. There let the shadows pause, still under the quiet conduct of their goddess' guide. No fear lest the shifting minutes should dissipate the airy, but delightful picture. Say, shall we look into our own hearts, now, and bring up, from that common centre, the many changes that have passed over us since this day twelvemonth? With arithmetical skill and truthful calculation, shall we compute from the tablets of memory, the whole of the year's impressions, and arrange them, not in order of occurrence, but in kindred masses? Try, if you will, to do so! Well, you cannot? Neither can we; for joys short, yet long-lived in their shortness, as if they were eternal; and sorrows, wearisomely drawn out, to judge by our endurance, yet short in their real existence, have been so mixed and twisted in all the threads of life, and they have become so party-coloured, that you cannot, even by an anatomist's subtle art, unravel the delicate tracery. Enough to say, you have borne both; and joy and sorrow, passing through your heart, have made you gay or sad; and brought with them, even in the tyranny of their oppression,-for both are despots,-causes for gratitude; for by these extremes of feeling, you have been able to look into the very secrets of your own mysterious constitution. But there are other themes, that well may win us at an hour like this. We have had dates in the last year, days that we thought must be remembered; but they are now forgotten. We have had eras, too, some few, that linger round us still, and testify that they have a home whence they have not yet departed. What say you to epochs? Few of these come to any; when they do, never leaves the impression the seat it first chose. And what are these? Nay, answer for yourselves. Motley as men are, so motley are their epochs. Love, hate, knowledge, power, misery, gladness, claim them for their effects, in the minds in which each reigns predominant. A smile, a look of scorn, the seizing at the certainty of truth, a triumph! Say, have you felt these? Fix then the epoch. A shadowy something, like a voiceless whisper, steals into your ear or heart, and you feel the denizen has power for something yet unknown. It haunts you, and your words and thoughts are marked by its potency, till, by-and-bye, the shadow grows into a fixed materiality, and some truth,-perchance, unseen, unfelt by you before as truth, but now fixed by your reason on an adamantine throne, claims kindred with the mind it has long accompanied; and from that hour,-ay, from that slender truth, the agency within you acts upon yourself or others,-mind upon mind,—in a myriad ways of benefit and blessing, unknown, perchance unperceived; but omnipotently, for such is Truth's mission. These, and such like, are epochs. But come, the minutes are passing; and our vision has but "an appointed time." In our looking back, we may hear ourselves at one time uttering the sad cry, "O that our head were fountains and our eyes rivers of waters,"-and at another our voice has been dumb in the very exquisiteness of our joy. Then the realities were present; now are their shadows here, and why not now the same effects? To you they are past; and Memory, with a merciful hand, sobers down the high, dazzling, torturing colours of all our feelings, lest life, as one sad present, should be intolerable and destroying. But, hark! the iron tongue of Time speaks the Year's death, and we enter now on other scenes, and look for other aids and other ministers to help us forward in this new career. Our late companions have left us to ourselves, and all are hidden in the " wide sepulchre that Memory guards.' But for a short season are we thus again within the narrow walls, that first enclosed us. Have we anything in common, think you, with the hour that ushers in another year of life's inheritance? Much, much more than the first glimpse, or the first imagination, may convey to us. How different yonder scene, opening at first in dreariness; vales and mountains, rivers whose sound, speaks of the thundering cataracts, and gentle streams, "whose every word is music;" a sky with clouds that hide the rays that should enliven us, and give to all the feeling of indistinctness, that would make the steps totter and the eye deceive, did we attempt the darkness. At the first glance from the point upon which you and we are elevated, we look down upon a chaos, not only of objects, but of sounds. No longer gaze we on the palace hall, but on a wide expanse of prospect, through which a path seems to pass. Here and there a slight gleam of light breaks upon the road, and we perceive its course is onward, undeviating, and in some parts of the distance, masses like mountains, and broken surfaces from which we know the vallies descend, shew themselves; and our path, for a portion of the future, is over these. Shall we at once attempt, warmed by the powers of memory we have so long communed with, the dangerous, toilsome career? Or can we not, even by experience, call upon hope, in the full energy of her heavenly character-another sky-born, but earthdwelling minister-to yield us the illumination of her presence. Even while we speak, the mist and uncertainty which before daunted us are in motion. Hill-tops shew themselves clearly, and through the valleys is streaming a joyous light, that will shew the oft-wearied step the safe path to its limit. And now see, friend, our whole vista assumes a different aspect, and the fearless spirit-fearless under the protection of its guide is already longing to be on the way. What say you now to the light that throws its own brightness over the prospect,-not like the sunbeam, dazzling to the wildered eye,-but mild as the summer moonbeam, when the soft gleam of evening and the softer ray commingle so sweetly together. Out upon fear while thus we journey. Even now, though we see many a hill-side lying before us, whispering of evil and weariness; yet the rough tracks are all softened, as they lie silvered over with Hope's own gentle covering. Listen! So clearly does that bit of barren moor in your route, friend, and mine, come to our mental vision, that in the blue sky above we seek the lark, and in our inward ear thrills the melodious noonday song of the untired minstrel; and on some of the distant peaks-now clouded, for the future dwells there-breaks out from the merciful parting mists, a ray-like sunshine, cheating the dull prospect of its gloom, and bringing even the summer into our very souls. Before us is an extended landscape, made up of parts, on each of which we could fain dwell for an hour or more, till something like a page of life's volume had grown from our pen; but now, as the early hours are bringing on the day, let us take but one,-yours and ours, perchance, ere many such seasons as this have added their numbers to our increasing calendar. Afar, do you see one sunny spot at the foot of a mountain, where now it seems all the sunshine of a glorious day is centred. There is a peaceful home-we have seen it often-dropped, as it were, by some gentle spirit-architect, in such a nook as the man who had loved nature through boyhood, manhood, ay, even to old age, would wish it to be placed. Woods behind are tinted as the breezes alone can tint them; and because the inhabitants, now in their weary years, dare not climb to the summit, though they still love to watch the clouds and the trees as they aspire to heaven; so before them, more suited to the foot that cannot wander far, are meads and shady places, streams and groves, where song, and flower, and leaf may minister to their wishes and their delights. Can we not see an aged man, too, looking on the sports of those merry youths and maidens, whose joyous laugh sounds in his ear with more heartfelt melody than all the music of art. Or if he pause not to watch the mirth of the younger, we err not when we say that he is listening to the words of one who by his looks is still his son,-words, while they speak of nature, which find an echo in the old man's breast, testifying that his first love is still undimmed by the pressure of years. Or, perchance, his daughters quietly and timidly are recounting to him their experience of the world, in the gleesome converse with themselves or their friends. And where shall we find the portraits of all these promises of happiness in our and your old age? Where? In their little couches in our own homes, where even now, in their uneasy sleep, their tongues are repeating the innocent and loving welcomes with which all will rush to greet their father, when they shall wish him, in the morning, |