little essays, clear as wells and deep as taras, that so far from their being any thing in the constitution of genius naturally kindred either to vice or misery, it is framed of light and love and happiness, and that its sins and sufferings come not from the spirit but from the flesh. Yet is its flesh as firm, and perhaps somewhat finer than that of the common clay; but still it is clay-for all men are dust.

the fate, perhaps, of Henry Kirke White. His fine moral and intellectual being was not left to pine away neglected; and if, in gratitude and ambition, twin-births in that noble heart, he laid down his life for sake of the lore he loved, let us lament the dead with no passionate ejaculations over injustice by none committed, console ourselves with the thought, in noways unkind to his merits, that he died in a mild bright spring that might have been suc- But what if they who, on the ground of geceeded by no very glorious summer; and that, nius, claim exemption from our blame, and fading away as he did among the tears of the inclusion within our sympathies, even when good and great, his memory has been em- seen suffering from their own sins, have no balmed, not only in his own gentle inspirations, genius at all, but are mere ordinary men, and but in the immortal eulogy of Southey. But, but for the fumes of some physical excitement, alas! many thus endowed by nature "have which they mistake for the airs of inspiration, waged with fortune an unequal war;" and are absolutely stupider than people generally pining away in poverty and disappointment, go, and even without any tolerable abilities for have died broken-hearted-and been buried-alphabetical education? Many such run versome in unhonoured-some even in unwept graves! And how many have had a far more dismal lot, because their life was not so innocent! The children of misfortune, but of error too-of frailty, vice, and sin. Once gone astray, with much to tempt them on, and no voice, no hand, to draw them back, theirs has been at first a flowery descent to death, but soon sorely beset with thorns, lacerating the friendless wretches, till, with shame and remorse their sole attendants, they have tottered into uncoffined holes and found peace.

With sorrows and sufferings like these, it would be hardly fair to blame society at large for having little or no sympathy; for they are, in the most affecting cases, borne in silence, and are unknown even to the generous and humane in their own neighbourhood, who might have done something or much to afford encouragement or relief. Nor has Charity always neglected those who so well deserved her open hand, and in their virtuous poverty might, without abatement of honourable pride in themselves, have accepted silent succour to silent distress. Pity that her blessings should be so often intercepted by worthless applicants, on their way, it may be said, to the magnanimous who have not applied at all, but spoken to her heart in a silent language, which was not meant even to express the penury it betrayed. But we shall never believe that dew twice blessed seldom descends, in such a land as ours, on the noble young head that else had sunk like a chance flower in some dank shade, left to wither among weeds. We almost venture to say, that much of such unpitied, because often unsuspected suffering, cannot cease to be without a change in the moral government of the world.

Nor has Genius a right to claim from Conscience what is due but to Virtue. None who love humanity can wish to speak harshly of its mere frailties or errors-but none who revere morality can allow privilege to its sins. All who sin suffer, with or without genius; and we are nowhere taught in the New Testament, that remorse in its agony, and penitence in its sorrow, visit men's imaginations only; but whatever way they enter, their rueful dwelling is in the heart. Poets shed no bitterer tears than ordinary men; and Fonblanque finely showed us, in one of his late

sifying about, and will not try to settle down into an easy sedentary trade, till getting thirsty through perpetual perspiration, they take to drinking, come to you with subscription-papers for poetry, with a cock in their eye that tells of low tippling houses, and, accepting your halfcrown, slander you when melting it in the purling purlieus of their own donkey-browsed Parnassus.

Can this age be fairly charged-we speak of England and Scotland-with a shameful indifference-or worse-a cruel scorn-or worse still-a barbarous persecution of young persons of humble birth, in whom there may appear a promise of talent, or of genius? Many are the scholars in whom their early benefactors have had reason to be proud of themselves, while they have been happy to send their sons to be instructed in the noblest lore, by men whose boyhood they had rescued from the darkness of despair, and clothed it with the warmth and light of hope. And were we to speak of endowments in schools and colleges, in which so many fine scholars have been brought up from among the humbler classes, who but for them had been bred to some mean handicraft, we should show better reason still for believing that moral and intellectual worth is not overlooked, or left to pine neglected in obscure places, as it is too much the fashion with a certain set of discontented declaimers to give out; but that in no other country has such provision been made for the meritorious children of the enlightened poor as in England. But we fear that the talent and the genius which, according to them, have been so often left or sent to beggary, to the great reproach even of our national character, have not been of a kind which a thoughtful humanity wonld in its benefactions have recognised; for it looks not with very hopeful eyes on mere irregular sallies of fancy, least of all when spurning prudence and propriety, and symptomatic of a mental constitution easily excited, but averse to labour, and insensible to the delight labour brings with it, when the faculties are all devoted in steadfastness of purpose to the acquisition of knowledge and the attainment of truth.

"Tis not easy to know, seeing it so difficult to define it, whether this or that youth who thinks he has genius, has it or not; the only

proof he may have given of it is perhaps a few copies of verses, which breathe the animal gladness of young life, and are tinged with tints of the beautiful, which joy itself, more imaginative than it ever again will be, steals from the sunset; but sound sense, and judgment, and taste, which is sense and judgment of all finest feelings and thoughts, and the love of light dawning on the intellect, and ability to gather into knowledge facts near and from afar, till the mind sees systems, and in them understands the phenomena which, when looked at singly, perplexed the pleasure of the sight-these, and aptitudes and capacities and powers such as these, are indeed of promise, and more than promise; they are already performance, and justify in minds thus gifted, and in those who watch their workings, hopes of a wiser and happier future when the boy shall be a man.

Perhaps too much honour, rather than too little, has been shown by his age to mediocre poetry and other works of fiction. A few gleams of genius have given some writers of little worth a considerable reputation; and great waxed the pride of poetasters. But true poetry burst in beauty over the land, and we became intolerant of "false glitter." Fresh sprang its flowers from the "dædal earth," or seemed, they were so surpassingly beautiful, as if spring had indeed descended from heaven, "veiled in a shower of shadowing roses," and Do longer could we suffer young gentlemen and ladies, treading among the profusion, to gather the glorious scatterings, and weaving them into fantastic or even tasteful garlands, to present them to us, as if they had been raised from the seed of their own genius, and entitled therefore "to bear their name in the wild woods." This flower-gathering, pretty pastime though it be, and altogether innocent, fell into disrepute; and then all such florists began to complain of being neglected, or despised, or persecuted, and their friends to lament over their fate, the fate of all genius, "in amorous ditties all a summer's day."

and are happy in the sight of "the beauty still more beauteous" revealed to their fine perceptions, though to them was not given the faculty that by combining in spiritual passion creates. But what has thither brought the self-deceived, who will not be convinced of their delusion, even were Homer or Milton's very self to frown on them with eyes no longer dim, but angry in their brightness like lowering stars?

But we must beware-perhaps too late-of growing unintelligible, and ask you, in plainer terms, if you do not think that by far the greatest number of all those who raise an outcry against the injustice of the world to men of genius, are persons of the meanest abilities, who have all their lives been foolishly fighting with their stars? Their demons have not whispered to them "have a taste," but "you have genius," and the world gives the demons the lie. Thence anger, spite, rancour, and envy eat their hearts, and they "rail against the Lord's anointed." They set up idols of clay, and fall down and worship them-or idols of brass, more worthless than clay; or they perversely, and in hatred, not in love, pretend reverence for the Fair and Good, because, forsooth, placed by man's ingratitude too far in the shade, whereas man's pity has, in deep compassion, removed the objects of their love, because of their imperfections not blameless, back in among that veiling shade, that their beauty might still be visible, while their deformities were hidden in "a dim religious light."

Let none of the sons or daughters of genius hearken to such outcry but with contemptand at all times with suspicion, when they find themselves the objects of such lamentations. The world is not-at least does not wish to be, an unkind, ungenerous, and unjust world. Many who think themselves neglected, are far more thought of than they suppose; just as many, who imagine the world ringing with their name, are in the world's ears nearly anonymous. Only one edition or two of your poems have sold but is it not pretty well that five hundred or a thousand copies have been read, or glanced over, or looked at, or skimmed, or skipped, or fondled, or petted, or tossed aside, "between malice and true love," by ten times that number of your fellow-creatures, not one of whom ever saw your face; while many millions of men, nearly your equals, and not a few millions your superiors far, have contentedly dropt into the grave, at the close of a long life, without having once "invoked the Muse," and who would have laughed in your face had you talked to them, even in their greatest glee, about their genius.

Besides the living poets of highest rank, are there not many whose claims to join the sacred band have been allowed, because their lips, too, have sometimes been touched with a fire from heaven? Second-rate indeed! Ay, well for those who are third, fourth, or fifthrate knowing where sit Homer, Shakspeare, and Milton. Round about Parnassus run many parallel roads, with forests "of cedar and branching palm between," overshadowing the sunshine on each magnificent level with a sense of something more sublime still nearer the forked summit; and each band, so that they be not ambitious overmuch, in their own There is a glen in the Highlands (dearly beregion may wander or repose in grateful bliss. loved Southrons, call on us, on your way Thousands look up with envy from "the low-through Edinburgh, and we shall delight to lying fields of the beautiful land" immediately instruct you how to walk our mountains) without the line that goes wavingly asweep round the base of the holy mountain, separating it from the common earth. What clamour and what din from the excluded crowd! Many are heard there to whom nature has been kind, but they have not yet learned "to know themselves," or they would retire, but not afar off, and in silence adore. And so they do erelong,

called Glencro-very unlike Glenco. A good road winds up the steep ascent, and at the summit there is a stone seat, on which you read, "Rest and be thankful." You do so-and are not a little proud-if pedestrians-of you achievement. Looking up, you see cliffs high above your head, (not the Cobbler,) and in the clear sky, as far above them, a balanced hird.

You envy him his seemingly motionless wings, | soar,"-and wish you were a great Poet. But and wonder at his air-supporters. Down he darts, or aside he shoots, or right up he soars, and you wish you were an Eagle. You have reached Rest-and-be-thankful, yet rest you will not, and thankful you will not be, and you scorn the mean inscription, which many a worthier wayfarer has blessed, while sitting on that stone he has said, "give us this day our daily bread," eat his crust, and then walked away contented down to Cairndow. Just so it has been with you sitting at your appointed place -pretty high up-on the road to the summit of the Biforked Hill. You look up and see Byron-there "sitting where you may not

you are no more a great Poet than an Eagle
eight feet from wing-tip to wing-tip-and will
not rest-and-be-thankful that you are a man
and a Christian. Nay, you are more, an author
of no mean repute; and your prose is allowed
to be excellent, better far than the best para-
graph in this our Morning Monologue. But
you are sick of walking, and nothing will sa-
tisfy you but to fly. Be contented, as we are,
with feet, and weep not for wings; and let us
take comfort together from a cheering quota-
tion from the philosophic Gray-
"For they that creep, and they that fly,
Just end where they began."

THE FIELD OF FLOWERS.

of the Lake with all its ranges of mountainsevery single tree, every grove, and all the woods seeming to show or to conceal the scene at the bidding of the Spirit of Beauty-reclined two Figures-the one almost rustic, but venerable in the simplicity of old age-the other no longer young, but still in the prime of life

bearing such as are pointed out in cities, because belonging to distinguished men. The old man behaved towards him with deference but not humility; and between them too-in many things unlike-it was clear even from their silence that there was Friendship.

A MAY-MORNING on Ulswater and the banks of Ulswater-commingled earth and heaven! Spring is many-coloured as Autumn; but now Joy scatters the hues daily brightening into greener life, then Melancholy dropt them daily dimming into yellower death. The fear of Winter then-but now the hope of Summer; and Nature rings with hymns hailing the visi-and though plainly apparelled, with form and ble advent of the perfect year. If for a moment the woods are silent, it is but to burst forth anew into louder song. The rain is over and gone-but the showery sky speaks in the streams on a hundred hills; and the wide mountain gloom opens its heart to the sunshine, that on many a dripping precipice burns A little way off, and sometimes almost runlike fire. Nothing seems inanimate. The ning, now up and now down the slopes and very clouds and their shadows look alive-the hollows, was a girl about eight years oldtrees, never dead, are wide-awakened from whether beautiful or not you could not know, their sleep-families of flowers are frequenting for her face was either half-hidden in golden all the dewy places-old walls are splendid hair, or when she tossed the tresses from her with the light of lichens-and birch-crowned brow, it was so bright in the sunshine that you cliffs up among the coves send down their fine saw no features, only a gleam of joy. Now fragrance to the Lake on every bolder breath she was chasing the butterflies, not to hurt that whitens with breaking wavelets the blue them, but to get a nearer sight of their delicate of its breezy bosom. Nor mute the voice of gauze wings-the first that had come-she man. The shepherd is whooping on the hill wondered whence-to waver and wanton for a -the ploughman calling to his team some-little while in the spring-sunshine, and then, where among the furrows in some small late field, won from the woods; and you hear the laughter and the echoes of the laughter-one sound-of children busied in half-work, halfplay; for what else in vernal sunshine is the occupation of young rustic life? "Tis no Arcadia-no golden age. But a lovelier scene -in the midst of all its grandeur-is not in merry and majestic England; nor did the hills of this earth ever circumscribe a pleasanter dwelling for a nobler peasantry, than these Cumbrian ranges of rocks and pastures, where the raven croaks in his own region, unregarded in theirs by the fleecy flocks. How beautiful the Church Tower!

she felt, as wondrously, one and all as by consent, to vanish. And now she stooped as if to pull some little wild-flower, her hand for a moment withheld by a loving sense of its loveliness, but ever and anon adding some new colour to the blended bloom intended to glad den her father's eyes-though the happy child knew full well, and sometimes wept to know, that she herself had his entire heart. Yet gliding, or tripping, or dancing along, she touched not with fairy foot one white cloverflower on which she saw working the silent bee. Her father looked too often sad, and she feared-though what it was, she imagined not even in dreams-that some great misery must On a knoll not far from the shore, and not have befallen him before they came to live in high above the water, yet by an especial feli- the glen. And such, too, she had heard from city of plase gently commarding ali that reach | a chance whisper, was the belief of their neigh

bours. But momentary the shadows on the | times, for great part of a day, by ourselves light of childhood! Nor was she insensible to two, over long tracts of uninhabited moors, her own beauty, that with the innocence it en- and yet never once from my lips escaped one shrined combined to make her happy; and first word about my fates or fortunes-so frozen met her own eyes every morning, when most was the secret in my heart. Often have I beautiful, awakening from the hushed awe of heard the sound of your voice, as if it were ber prayers. She was clad in russet, like a that of the idle wind; and often the words I cottager's child; but her air spoke of finer did hear seemed, in the confusion, to have no breeding than may be met with among those relation to us, to be strange syllablings in the mountains-though natural grace accompanies wilderness, as from the hauntings of some evil there many a maiden going with her pitcher to spirit instigating me to self-destruction." the well-and gentle blood and old flows there in the veins of now humble men-who, but for the decay of families once high, might have lived in halls, now dilapidated, and scarcely distinguished through masses of ivy from the circumjacent rocks!

"I saw that your life was oppressed by some perpetual burden; but God darkened not your mind while your heart was disturbed so grievously; and well pleased were we all to think, that in caring so kindly for the griefs of others, you might come at last to forget your own; or The child stole close behind her father, and if that were impossible, to feel, that with the kissing his cheek, said, “Were there ever such alleviations of time, and sympathy, and relovely flowers seen on Ulswater before, father?ligion, yours was no more than the common I do not believe that they will ever die." And lot of sorrow."

she put them in his breast. Not a smile came They rose-and continued to walk in silence to his countenance-no look of love-no faint-but not apart-up and down that small silvan recognition-no gratitude for the gift which at enclosure overlooked but by rocks. The child other times might haply have drawn a tear. saw her father's distraction-no unusual sight She stood abashed in the sternness of his eyes, to her; yet on each recurrence as mournful which, though fixed on her, seemed to see her and full of fear as if seen for the first time— not; and feeling that her glee was mistimed- and pretended to be playing aloof with her for with such gloom she was not unfamiliar face pale in tears. the child felt as if her own happiness had been sin, and, retiring into a glade among the broom, sat down and wept.

"Poor wretch, better far that she never had been born!"

The old man looked on his friend with compassion, but with no surprise; and only said, "God will dry up her tears."

These few simple words, uttered in a solemn voice, but without one tone of reproach, seemed somewhat to calm the other's trouble, who first looking towards the spot where his child was sobbing to herself, though he heard it not, and then looking up to heaven, ejaculated for her sake a broken prayer. He then would have fain called her to him; but he was ashamed that even she should see him in such a passion of grief-and the old man went to her of his own accord, and bade her, as from her father, again to take her pastime among the flowers. Soon was she dancing in her happiness as before; and, that her father might hear she was obeying him, singing a song.

"For five years every Sabbath have I attended divine service in your chapel-yet dare I not call myself a Christian. I have prayed for faith-nor, wretch that I am, am I an unbeliever. But I fear to fling myself at the foot of the cross. God be merciful to me a sinner!"

The old man opened not his lips; for he felt that there was about to be made some confession. Yet he doubted not that the sufferer had been more sinned against than sinning; for the goodness of the stranger-so called still after five years' residence among the mountains-was known in many a vale-and the Pastor knew that charity covereth a multitude of sins-and even as a moral virtue prepares the heart for heaven. So sacred a thing is solace in this woful world.

"We have walked together, many hundred

"That child's mother is not dead. Where she is now I know not-perhaps in a foreign country hiding her guilt and her shame. All say that a lovelier child was never seen than that wretch-God bless her-how beautiful is the poor creature now in her happiness singing over her flowers! Just such another must her mother have been at her age. She is now an outcast-and an adulteress."

The pastor turned away his face, for in the silence he heard groans, and the hollow voice again spoke :—

Through many dismal days and nights have I striven to forgive her, but never for many hours together have I been enabled to repent my curse. For on my knees I implored God to curse her-her head-her eyes-her breast-her body-mind, heart, and soul-and that she might go down a loathsome leper to the grave."

"Remember what He said to the womanGo, and sin no more!" "

"The words have haunted me all up and down the hills-his words and mine; but mine have always sounded liker justice at last-for my nature was created human-and human are all the passions that pronounced that holy or unholy curse!"

"Yet you would not curse her now-were she laying here at your feet-or if you were standing by her death-bed?"

"Lying here at my feet! Even here-on this very spot-not blasted, but green through all the year-within the shelter of these two rocks-she did lie at my feet in her beautyand as I thought her innocence-my own happy bride! Hither I brought her to be blestand blest I was even up to the measure of my misery. This world is hell to me now-but then it was heaven!"

"These awful names are of the mysteries beyond the grave."

“Hear me and judge. She was an orphan; all her father's and mother's relations were dead, but a few who were very poor. I married her, and secured her life against this heartless and wicked world. That child was born-and while it grew like a flower-she left it-and its father-we who loved her beyond light and life, and would have given up both for her sake."

"And have not yet found heart to forgive her-miserable as she needs must be-seeing she has been a great sinner!"

day it was forsaken-she abandoned it and me on its birth-day! Twice had that day been observed by us-as the sweetest-the most sacred of holydays; and now that it had again come round-but I not present-for I was on foreign service-thus did she observe it-and disappeared with her paramour. It so happened that we went that day into action -and I committed her and our child to the mercy of God in fervent prayers; for love made me religious-and for their sakes I feared though I shunned not death. I lay all night among the wounded on the field of battle

from sleep, but I saw them as distinctly as in a dream-the mother lying with her child in her bosom in our own bed. Was not that vision mockery enough to drive me mad? After a few weeks a letter came to me from herself—and I kissed it and pressed it to my heart; for no black seal was there-and I knew that little Lucy was alive. No meaning for a while seemed to be in the words-and then they began to blacken into ghastly cha

"Who forgives? The father his profligate son, or disobedient daughter? No; he disin--and it was a severe frost. Pain kept me herits his first-born, and suffers him to perish, perhaps by an ignominious death. He leaves his only daughter to drag out her days in penury-a widow with orphans. The world may condemn, but is silent; he goes to church every Sabbath, but no preacher denounces punishment on the unrelenting, the unforgiving parent. Yet how easily might be have taken them both back to his heart, and loved them better than ever! But she poisoned my cup of life when it seemed to overflow with hea-racters-till at last I gathered from the horrid ven. Had God dashed it from my lips, I could revelation that she was sunk in sin and have borne my doom. But with her own hand shame, steeped for evermore in utmost pollu which I had clasped at the altar-and with our tion. Lucy at her knees-she gave me that loath- "A friend was with me-and I gave it to some draught of shame and sorrow;—I drank him to read-for in my anguish at first I felt it to the dregs-and it is burning all through no shame-and I watched his face as he read my being-now-as if it had been hell-fire it, that I might see corroboration of the increfrom the hands of a fiend in the shape of andible truth, which continued to look like falseangel. In what page of the New Testament hood, even while it pierced my heart with am I told to forgive her? Let me see the verse agonizing pangs. It may be a forgery,' was -and then shall I know that Christianity is all he could utter-after long agitation; but an imposture; for the voice of God within me the shape of each letter was too familiar to -the conscience which is his still small voice my eyes-the way in which the paper was -commands me never from my memory to folded-and I knew my doom was sealed. obliterate that curse-never to forgive her, Hours must have passed, for the room grew and her wickedness-not even if we should dark-and I asked him to leave me for the see each other's shadows in a future state, night. He kissed my forehead-for we had after the day of judgment." been as brothers. I saw him next morningdead-cut nearly in two-yet had he left a paper for me, written an hour before he fell, so filled with holiest friendship, that oh! how even in my agony I wept for him, now but a lump of cold clay and blood, and envied him at the same time a soldier's grave!

His countenance grew ghastly-and staggering to a stone, he sat down and eyed the skies with a vacant stare, like a man whom dreams carry about in his sleep. His face was like ashes -and he gasped like one about to fall into a fit. "Bring me water"-and the old man motioned on the child, who, giving ear to him for a moment, flew away to the Lake-side with an urn she had brought with her for flowers; and held it to her father's lips. His eyes saw it not-there was her sweet pale face all wet with tears, almost touching his own-her innocent mouth breathing that pure balm that seems to a father's soul to be inhaled from the bowers of paradise. He took her into his bosom -and kissed her dewy eyes-and begged her to cease her sobbing-to smile-to laugh-to sing-to dance away into the sunshine-to be happy! And Lucy afraid, not of her father, but of his kindness-for the simple creature was not able to understand his wild utterance of blessings-returned to the glade but not to her pastime, and couching like a fawn among the fern, kept her eyes on her father, and left her flowers to fade unheeded beside her empty

urn.

"Unintelligible mystery of wickedness! That child was just three years old the very

"And has the time indeed come that I can thus speak calmly of all that horror! The body was brought into my room, and it lay all day and all night close to my bed. But false was I to all our life-long friendshipand almost with indifference I looked upon the corpse. Momentary starts of affection seized me-but I cared little or nothing for the death of him, the tender and the true, the gentle and the brave, the pious and the noblehearted; my anguish was all for her, the cruel and the faithless, dead to honour, to religion dead-dead to all the sanctities of nature-for her, and for her alone, I suffered all ghastliest agonies-nor any comfort came to me in my despair, from the conviction that she was worthless; for desperately wicked as she had shown herself to be-oh! crowding came back upon me all our hours of happinessall her sweet smiles-all her loving looksall her affectionate words-all her conjugal and maternal tendernesses; and the loss of