yellow. But her prejudice in favour of that colour might not be so purely disinterested as that of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. In what, by courtesy, is styled the drawing-room at Walmer Castle, just opposite the Duke's habitual after-dinner seat, is a beautiful Indian cabinet; the doors are wide open, but the interior displays nothing save a miniature ivory figure the size of your finger. On examining it, you perceive a finely carved model of Napoleon, in a position rather peculiar, but we should fancy very comfortable, from its frequent adoption by the "nobler gender" in their "hours of ease." The ex-Emperor is seated astride on a chair, his chin resting on his hands, which are crossed on the back of the chair. Thus seated, he confronts his immortal foe. SO "But let it whistle as it will, We'll keep our Christmas merry still."1 It was ever a blithe time, this Christmas season, in England-dear old England! They may talk of their soft skies in the south; but fair as they are, who would change for them our warm firesides, and warmer hearts? and then, if it be a gloomy time, "Little we heed the tempest drear While music, mirth, and social cheer, Speed on their wings the passing year." "2 hearth is all the dearer. If it be drear without, and dark, and cold, the glowing like the great world itself, that greets us with hard And after all, it is only from it to some warm, fond heart, which is all the looks, and cold, cheerless indifference, till we turn more loved and valued for the contrast. Dark skies, What may be the Duke's thoughts, as in his quiet, solitary, reflective hours he thus looks on the effigy of the extraordinary man whose destinies were strangely interwoven with his own, but who, whilst he is enjoying a green and honoured old age, has long lain mouldering and half-forgotten in the silent grave! and frowning without, but bright looks within, and We must not forget the garden, abounding in flow-smiles; oh! it is a pleasant time! Home! sweet ers not rare nor recherché, but rich, luxuriant, and home!' when is it half as sweet as now? when young abundant; and the pride of the lawn, a noble lime- and old meet together, and childhood's little troubles tree, which the Duke declares is the finest in the are away, and youth forgets its fears, and cherishes world, and which, just bursting into flower when we saw it, will now be flinging its luxuriant aroma far its hopes alone, in all their brightest colours, and age for awhile ceases from its cares, and laughs away the and wide. Still less must we forget the gardenerthe Duke's own especial gardener, for so he certainly cheek, and the sorrows that press beavily and coldly griefs that make the hair grow grey and furrow the is-a fine, portly, healthy, happy, handsome, elderly upon the heart. And they are all linked together man. He was at the battle of Waterloo, and his regiment was disbanded afterwards, and the Duke, to man,-through all seasons the same, through all with love,—that holy bond,—that most blessed boon for reasons good doubtless, proposed to him to take the situation of head-gardener at Walmer. He de- changes; but now brighter, and more glowing, for murred as much as a true soldier could presume to though the times may change,-it wanes not with it is brought into one common focus. It changes not, do at the decree of his commanding officer-for by the waning moon;-though the months pass away, and his own especial declaration he did not know a mossthe year dieth out, it liveth on, and groweth stronger rose from a cabbage; but the Duke was peremptory, and more perfect. It cannot change, for it is a beam and he could but obey orders. "But now," he said, coming down from that place where there is no "I get on pretty well." change, except that of greater perfection. "Love is not love, "And like it?" "Oh yes." "But suppose war were to break out, should you be a soldier again? "Why, that would depend on the Duke; if he said I must go, of course I must." "But how did you manage when you first came here?" "Why, as well as I could; but it was rather awkward." "Perhaps you studied hard-read a good deal?" No, I didn't read at all." Why, yes; but I'm plagued sometimes; the names of the flowers puzzle me sadly." "And what does the Duke say to that?" Which alters when it alteration finds, That looks on tempests, and is never shaken : It is the star to every wandering bark, And now is Love's high holyday, Love's greatest, "Happy night That to the cottage as the crown, But in all our gladness, all our lightness of heart, "Oh, I have him there, for he doesn't know them let us not forget that there is still sadness in the himself." THOUGHTS FOR THE SEASON. BY F. B. He is here again-old Winter, with his cold and dreariness, his driving snow-storms, and his nipping frosts. And what then? he brings us the glad, light laugh of childhood-careless, happy time, and playful smiles of maidens, and the glow of the cheerful fireside. He is here, crowned with green holly, and the world,-aye, even at our very doors. Amid our (1) Marmion, Introduction to Canto VI. (2) Ibid. Let us From afflicted, lest we also have an evil end. Let us think | still it is not so:-man was not made to live alone, on those who have none to care for them, lest the for all his interests are bound up with the good of golden cords of our own love be broken, and we be left others. He who rightly loves himself is the true lover alone in the world; lest we see the grave close over of his kind. He who loveth well his neighbour, those who have twined around our hearts, and dark loveth wisely,-his is true self-love, but yet he is no clouds gather about our fairest prospects. Let us bid selfish man. Charity, indeed, begins at home, but let others share in our joy, and be glad in our gladness, it stay and centre there, and it is no longer charity. so may we also be one day requited in like sort. Let The good that is to benefit ourselves must be reflected our joy be chastened, even as the joy of men who back upon us from others. He who would be warm know not what the morrow shall bring forth, and even must first, indeed, kindle the fire, and setting it in our rejoicing let more serious thoughts find room. where it will diffuse warmth, he will himself be a Yes! Winter is here again-a few more days, and sharer of it; but if he hold it within his own hand, or the year will be counted among the past;-added to press it to his own bosom, instead of cheering it shall the long list of those before it:-gone with its burden burn him, instead of a restorer and a quickener of account for many souls;—its good deeds, and its of life it shall become to him as a destroyer. bad, its tale of what might have been, but is not, the life of the selfish man one part has been blotted of what is, but should not have been. Alas! for out, in time, at least,-and yet not so,-nothing that misspent hours, to be repented of, but not recalled. man does shall be blotted out; and he is always Think of it as we will, "might have been" makes no doing, even from the moment when he first begins to small item in our lives. Time "might have been" act. Even in inaction he has acted; in omitting to better spent, talents "might have been used for do right, he has done wrong. The man who spends more good,―sins "might have been "avoided, for we a day without benefiting his fellows has injured have free will, power to do, and power to leave them, even though not immediately, yet remotely, undone; we might have cast away many an evil for he has done injury to his own spirit-has sown thing, and chosen many a good,-moments of idleness the first seed of indifference to others; and who can "might have been" moments of action, and when tell how soon indifference may become hardness of doing nothing, we might have brought many things to heart, and he who wished not harm, but did not good, pass. We live in a world of life, a world of action, may see harm done without feeling pain, and at every atom has some influence on the things around length be himself an agent in working out the it, and nothing stands alone. We have all power to wretchedness of others. The drying up of the drop benefit one another if we will; some in great things, from the stream has not diminished its fulness, for some in small; and he who has seen twenty-four in place thereof it has received a new current,-a hours go by without having done so, may well say foul one for a pure;-one which will thicken and with him of old, "I have lost a day." Yes, though the obscure its waters for much, perhaps all its future stream of his life may still to all appearance flow on course. May it not be so with us, nor with the friends with an undiminished fulness, he may be sure that it we love! Sin we must, for we are men,-resist we has suffered loss. One of the drops that should have can, for we have a more holy element within us, and swelled its course, has been dried up for all time, has bear upon our foreheads the mark of Him whose existed for nothing:-for nothing? ah, no! it shall be soldiers we have sworn to be. May the course of our demanded again, when the stream flows into the vast lives be ever tranquil, running, as it were, among ocean of eternity, and then shall it be missed indeed! pleasant fields and fresh green woods, with blue, Alas for wasted hours, and talents wrongly used! for clear skies above us, and sweet voices all around; and the dark picture which must be too often drawn by the when the autumn of our life is past, and its winter is pencil of memory! at hand, and we go to our home to meet again with those whom we have long lost, but loved not the less, may we go with joy into our Father's presence, and begin a new year of bliss,—a year that shall have no end! "Oh! that our lives, which flee so fast, In purity were such ; That not an image of the past Should fear that pencil's touch. Contented and serene. With heart as calm as lakes that sleep To their own far-off murmurs listening."! In the bustle of the city, with all its busy crowds, and amid all its varied pursuits, in the quiet country, in the hall of the noble, in the peasant's cot,-aye, even in the silence and solitude of the closet, man may do something to advance the interests of his race; and if his own thoughts have supplied him with no means by which he may benefit another, then have they been lost, even to himself. For we are not mere units in the social scale. Though our sky may sometimes darken around us, and in the sadness of our hearts we may deem the world Poetry. [In Original Poetry, the Name, real or assumed, of the Author, is printed in Small Capitals, under the title; in Selections, it is printed in Italics at the end.] WOMAN'S LOVE, DR. JOHNS. "THY home is not so bright, Ladye, Down cheeks so young and pale! Thou wert not once so sad and strange ;Oh! what has wrought this wondrous change?" "Mine eyes are like the moon, Pilgrim, They shone with borrowed light; My cheek, like flowers of noon, Pilgrim, "A crowded loneliness, Where ever-moving myriads seem to say, Go-thou art nought to us, nor we to thee-away!" My voice is like the bird (1) Wordsworth. (2) Christian Year.-St. Matthew's Day. 2 That greets the op'ning day; " My laugh is only heard When this poor heart is gay: Oh! when the sun has left the sky, The earth is dark,—and so am I! "The sun is shining bright, Ladye, Down from the summer skies; Why dost not thou rejoice? Look up, and greet the sun's bright beam,Feel that of night thou dost but dream." "That dream is in my heart, Pilgrim, It lieth there so deep, Of love so fond-so vain; THE OLD YEAR. BY F. B. ANOTHER year is borne adown the tide Where days are not, and years have ceased to glide. SONNET ON IRELAND. BY CHARLES INGHAM BLACK, S.T.C.D., C.C. SEE where she sits, wan and disconɛolate, EDITOR'S POSTSCRIPT. From our Writing Desk. WELL, dear Readers, how are you all? With the November Part to amuse and interest you, and a snug fireside by which to sit and read it, I trust you have contrived to exist through fogs, and survive the Panic. If you have neither " failed," nor "smashed," nor 'stopped," nor-worst fate of all-been obliged, from a temporary pressure," to give up taking in Sharpe's London Magazine, you may reckon yourselves very fortunate; and we, in our sympathizing friendship, congratulate you thereupon, and mentally shake hands with you. And now, let us see, what have we (Editors are always plural, why, we have not the most distant notion, unless it be supposed that it requires the heads and hands of two men to do the work, the judgment of two men to select articles suited to every taste, the tact of two men to manage a large staff of contributors, each of whom is anxious to write the whole Magazine single handed, and the good temper of two stout, jolly, thickskinned men, pleasant fellows, with rosy cheeks, and little laughing eyes, to receive complacently the attacks of every individual connected with the concern, from the smallest printer's devil, up to that awful and mysterious personage-the Chief Contributor.) What a fearful parenthesis! it has treated the sentence from which it sprang with as little ceremony as the interloping cuckoo treats the progeny of the weak-minded, but amiable sparrow, who has tended its callow infancy. Never mind, we will make it up to the sentence, by beginning it de novo. We were then, when we were suddenly stricken with a sense of our own duality, about to inquire of ourselves what we had particularly to say to you, dear readers, this time, and we remember that we have something very particular to say; but, as the ladies always know what is best, we will adopt their fashion, and leave the most important thing to the last, calling your attention in the meanwhile to one or two interesting little facts. In the first place, our Critic has broken down with us; instead of joyfully accepting his appointment, and turning to rend us,--as a true critic should do,--Savage Growler, (no mistake about his name this time, for he signs it so plainly, that he who runs may read:) who professes himself proprietor of the Pig and Whistle Hotel, a hostelrie which must have arisen in Cambridge since our time, owns to the soft impeachment of being a family man, and pleads sixteen little Savage Growlers (many of them twins) in excuse for declining the honourable and lucrative post of standing critic to Sharpe's London Magazine. By way of additional reason, he goes on to impart to us the curious and interesting fact, that, his time is fully taken up in suckling fools and chronicling small beer" of his own. If this assertion be indeed literally true, we can only leave such a treasure to his family to fulfil his singular destiny in peace, and may joy go with him. We do not intend to fill up the vacant post immediately, but shall place the office of critic in commission pro tem.,-appointing Lord Brougham chairman, and Mr. Disraeli secretary. In the next place, it will be seen that we have inserted two short poems by a gentleman signing himself Dr. Johns; our reason for inserting them was two-fold: first, we considered them pretty, sprightly lines; and secondly, we were anxious that such abominable seep66 Man's ticism in regard to the depth and sincerity of Love" should be ably refuted. We do not "do" poetry ourselves, (except a little thing now and then in the Ingoldsby line,) and we therefore hereby offer A PRIZE of the January Part-free gratis for nothing--to whoever shall furnish us with the best poetical refutation of the lamentable heresy into which Dr. Johns has fallen. And now, before we say good-bye for another month, we would add half-a-dozen words on a subject in which, as Editor, we naturally feel a strong interest. It has been determined to enlarge and improve the Magazine, which, in a literary point of view, we have every facility for doing. It is, in our opinion, a wise and right of our friends to support an honest man in doing a measure, and we trust to the good sense and liberality sensible thing, and thereby to secure to themselves an undeniable advantage. PRICE THREE HALF-FENCE. |