CHRISTMAS OUT OF DOORS. The whole Lake of Ratzeburg is one mass of thick, transparent ice, a spotless mirror of nine miles in extent. The lowness of the hills, which rise from the shores of the lake, precludes the awful sublimity of alpine landscape, yet compensates for the want of it by beauties of which this very lowness is a necessary condition. Yester morning I saw the lesser lake completely hidden by mist; but, the moment the sun peeped over the hill, the mist broke in the middle, and in a few seconds stood divided, leaving a broad road all across the lake: and between these two walls of mist the sunlight burnt upon the ice, forming a road of golden fire, intolerably bright, and the mist-walls themselves partook of the blaze in a multitude of shining colours. This is our second frost. About a month ago, before the thaw came on, there was a storm of wind; and, during the whole night, such were the thunders and howlings of the breaking ice, that they have left a conviction on my mind that there are sounds more sublime than any sight can be, more absolutely suspending the power of comparison, and more utterly absorbing the mind's self-consciousness in its total attention to the object working upon it. Part of the ice, which the vehemence of the wind had shattered, was driven shoreward, and froze anew. On the evening of the next day, at sunset, the shattered ice thus frozen appeared of a deep blue, and in shape like an agitated sea; beyond this, the water, that ran up between the great islands of ice which had preserved their masses entire and smooth, shone of a yellow green; but all these scattered ice islands, themselves, were of an intensely bright blood colour-they seemed blood and light in union. On some of the largest of these islands the fishermen stood pulling out their immense nets through the holes made in the ice for this purpose; and the men, their net-poles, and their huge nets were a part of the glory-say rather, it appeared as if the rich crimson light had shaped itself into these forms, figures, and attitudes, to make a glorious vision in mockery of earthly things. The lower lake is now all alive with skaters, and with ladies driven onward by them in their ice cars. Mercury, surely, was the first maker of skates, and the wings at his feet are symbols of the invention. In skating there are three pleasing circumstances: the infinitely subtle particles of ice which the skate cuts up, and which creep and run be fore the skate like a low mist, and in sunrise or sunset become coloured; second, the shadow of the skater in the water, seen through the transparent ice; and, third, the melancholy undulating sound from the skate, not without variety; and, when very many are skating together, the sounds and the noises give an impulse to the icy trees, and the woods all round the lake tinkle. Here I stop, having in truth transcribed the preceding, in great measure, in order to present the lovers of poetry with a descriptive passage, extracted, with the author's permission, from an unpublished poem on the growth and revolutions of an individual mind by Wordsworth : an Orphic tale indeed, A tale divine of high and passionate thoughts, To their own music chaunted!" GROWTH OF GENIUS FROM THE INFLUENCES OF NATURAL OBJECTS ON THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. VOL. IV. Wisdom and spirit of the universe! Thou soul, that art the eternity of thought! Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me E E When, by the margin of the trembling lake, "T was mine among the fields both day and night, And by the waters all the summer long. And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and, visible for many a mile, The cottage-windows through the twilight blazed, I heeded not the summons. Happy time It was indeed for all of us, to me It was a time of rapture: clear and loud The village clock toll'd six;-I wheel'd about, And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn, Of melancholy-not unnoticed, while the stars, Not seldom from the uproar I retired Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, That gleam'd upon the ice: and oftentimes, Stopp'd short; yet still the solitary cliffs Behind me did they stretch in solemn train 333.-THE OLD AND YOUNG COURTIER. ANONYMOUS. [THE whole of the sixteenth century was marked by important changes of every kind-political, religious, and social. The wars with France, and the internal contests of the Roses were over, and the energy of the nation was directed to new objects. Trade and commerce were extended; fresh sources of wealth were developed; and new classes of society sprung up into importance, whose riches enabled them to outvie the old landed gentry, but who had few of their hereditary tastes and habits. Hence the innovation of old customs, and the decay of ancient manners, to which the gentry themselves were compelled to conform. The following old song, which is printed in the Percy Reliques,' from an ancient black-letter copy in the 'Pepys Collection,' is a lament over the changes which had taken place in the early part of the seventeenth century, as compared with the days of Queen Elizabeth.] An old song made by an aged old pate, Of an old worshipful gentleman, who had a great estate, That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate, And the queen's old courtier. With an old lady, whose anger one word assuages, But kept twenty old fellows with blue coats and badges ; Like an old courtier, &c. With an old study fill'd full of learned old books, With an old reverend chaplain, you might know him by his looks; And an old kitchen that maintain'd half-a-dozen old cooks; With an old hall hung about with pikes, guns, and bows, Like an old courtier, &c. With a good old fashion, when Christmas was come, With an old falconer, huntsman, and a kennel of hounds, But to his eldest son his house and lands he assign'd, And the king's young courtier. Like a flourishing young gallant, newly come to his land, With a new-fangled lady, that is dainty, nice, and spare, |