rook, the scream of the sea-gull, or the bleating of the lamb?

There is poetry in the low-roofed cottage standing on the skirts of the wood, beneath the overshadowing oak, around which the children of many generations have gambolled, while the wreathing smoke coils up amongst the dark green foliage, and the grey thatch is contrasted with golden moss and glittering ivy. We stand and gaze, delighted with this picture of rural peace and privileged seclusion. We long to shake off the shackles of artificial society, the wearying cares of life, the imperative control of fashion, or the toil and traffic of the busy world, and to dwell for the remainder of our days in a quiet spot like this, where affection, that is too often lost in the game of life, might unfold her store of fire-side comforts, and where we and ours might constitute one unbroken chain of social fellowship, under the shelter of security and peace. But let us enter this privileged abode. Our ears are first saluted by the sharp voice of the matron, calling in her tattered rebels from the common. They are dragged in by violence, and a scene of wrath and contention ensues. The fragments of the last meal are scattered on the

floor. That beautifully curling smoke, before it found a way to escape so gracefully, has made many a circuit round the dark and crumbling walls of the apartment; and smoke within the house is any thing but poetical, whatever it may be without. Need I say the charm is broken? Even after having made good our retreat, if we turn and look again, the low-roofed cottage does not appear the same as when we first beheld it. The associations are changed the charm is indeed broken. May not this be the reason why fine ladies and gentlemen talk so much more about the poetry of a cottage, than those who know no other home comforts than a cottage affords? Even poverty itself may be poetical to those who merely regard it from a distance, or as a picture; but the vision is dispelled for ever by the first gripe of that iron hand, that spares neither the young, the helpless, nor the old.

There is poetry in the mouldering pile, upon which the alternate suns and storms of a thousand years have smiled and spent their fury the old grey ruin hung over with festoons of ivy, while around its broken turrets a garland of wild plants is growing, from seeds

which the wandering winds have scattered. We behold the imperishable materials of the natural world collected together, shaped out and formed by the art of man into that beautiful and majestic edifice: but where are the ready hands that laboured in that work of time and patience? The busy feet that trod those stately courts the laughter that echoed through those halls-the sighs that were breathed in those secret cells-the many generations that came and went without leaving a record or a name-where are they? Scarcely can there be found an imagination so dull, but the contemplation of a ruin will awaken it to some dim and dreamy associations with past ages-scarcely a heart so callous, but it will feel, in connection with such a scene, some touch of that melancholy which inspired the memorable exclamation, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit!"

But let the ingenuity of man erect a modern ruin, or mock monastery, arch for arch, and pillar for pillar-nay, let him, if possible, plant weed for weed. The fancy will not be cheated into illusion-this mushroom toy of yesterday will remain a mockery still."

Amongst the labours of man's ingenuity and

skill, there are few things more poetical than the aspect of a ship at sea, whether she goes forth with swelling sails before the wind, or lies becalmed upon a quiet shore. Even the simplest or rudest vessels floating on the surface of the water-from the lazy barge that glides along the smooth canal, to the light gondola that sports among the glowing waters of more classic shores-from the simple craft that ply upon our own rivers, to the rude canoe of the savage darting among reefs of coral; afford choice subjects for the painter's pencil, and the poet's song. Who has not watched with intense interest a little speck upon the ocean, that neared, and neared, until human forms at length were visible, and then the splash of the oar was heard at regular intervals, and at last, on the crest of a foaming wave, the boat seemed to bound triumphant on the shore, where a little band of the longtried and the faithful, amongst whom woman is never found wanting, welcome the mariners home, safe from the storms and the dangers of the sea? Who has not stood upon the beach, a silent, but deeply-interested spectator, while a crew of hardy and weather-beaten sailors launched forth their little bark amongst

the roaring breakers, battling their way through foam and surge, now dipping into the dark hollows between every swell, and then rising unharmed upon the snowy crest of the raging billows. A few moments more of determined struggle, and the difficulty is overcome; and now they have hoisted sail and are gone bounding over the dark blue waters, perhaps never to return. Who has not marked, while gazing on the surface of the silent lake when the moon was shining, that long line of trembling light that looks like a pathway to a better world, suddenly broken by the intervention of some object that proves to be a boat, in which human forms are discernible, though distant yet marked out with a momentary distinctness, which affords imagination a fund of associations, connecting those unknown objects so quickly seen, and then lost for ever, with vague speculations about what they are or have been, from whence they have so suddenly emerged, to what unseen point of illimitable space they may be destined, and what may be the darkness, or the radiance of their future course. Or who has ever witnessed the departure of a gallant vessel under favouring skies, bound on a distant and uncertain