From house to house, from hill to hill,
Till contemplation had her fill.

About his chequer'd sides I wind,
And leave his brooks and meads behind,
And groves and grottoes where I lay,
And vistas shooting beams of day:
Wide and wider spreads the vale,
As circles on a smooth canal;
The mountains round, unhappy fate!
Sooner or later, of all height,
Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lessen as the others rise;
Still the prospect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads;
Still it widens, widens still,
And sinks the newly-risen hill.

Now, I gain the mountain's brow;
What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapours intervene,
But the gay, the open scene
Does the face of Nature show,
In all the hues of Heaven's bow!
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.
Old castles on the cliffs arise,
Proudly tow'ring in the skies;
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires!
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads!
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks.

Below me trees unnumber'd rise,
Beautiful in various dyes:
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The slender fir, that taper grows,
The sturdy oak, with broad-spread boughs,
And beyond, the purple grove,
Haunt of Phillis, queen of love!!
Gaudy as the opening dawn,
Lies a long and level lawn,
On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wand'ring eye;
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,
His sides are clothed with waving wood
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That cast an awful look below;
Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps

So both a safety from the wind
In mutual dependence find.

'Tis now the raven's bleak abode;
'Tis now the apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds,
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Conceal'd in ruins, moss, and weeds:
While, ever and anon, there falls
Huge heaps of hoary moulder'd walls.
Yet time has been, that lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow,
Has seen the broken pile complete,
Big with the vanity of state:
But transient is the smile of fate;
A little rule, a little sway,
A sunbeam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.

And see the rivers how they run, Through woods and meads, in shade and sun, Sometimes swiftly, sometimes slow, Wave succeeding wave they go, A various journey to the deep, Like human life to endless sleep! Thus in Nature's vesture wrought, To instruct our wand'ring thought; Thus she dresses green and gay, To disperse our cares away. Ever charming, ever new, When will the landscape tire the view! The fountain's fall, the river's flow, The woody valleys warm and low; The windy summit, wild and high, Roughly rushing on the sky; The pleasant seat and ruin'd tow'r, The naked rock, the shady bow'r ; The town and village, dome and farm, Each gives each a double charm, As pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.

See on the mountain's southern side,
Where the prospect opens wide,
Where the evening gilds the tide,
How close and small the hedges lie!
What streaks of meadows cross the eye,
A step methinks may pass the stream;
So little distant dangers seem;
So we mistake the future's face,
Ey'd through Hope's deluding glass;
As yon summits soft and fair,
Clad in colours of the air,

Which to those who journey near,
Barren, brown, and rough appear;
Still we tread the same coarse way,
The present's still a cloudy day,

O may I with myself agree,
And never covet what I see!
Content me with an humble shade,
My passions tamed, my wishes laid;
For while our wishes wildly roll,
We banish quiet from the soul;
'Tis thus the busy beat the air;
And misers gather wealth and care.

Now, even now, my joys run high,
As on the mountain turf I lie;
While the wanton Zephyr sings,
And in the vale perfumes his wings;
While the waters murmur deep;
While the shepherd charms his sheep;
While the birds unbounded fly,
And with music fill the sky,
Now, even now, my joys run high.

Be full, ye courts, be great who will,
Search for peace with all your skill,
Open wide the lofty door,
Seek her on the marble floor;
In vain ye search, she is not there;
In vain ye search the domes of care.
Grass and flowers Quiet treads,
On the meads and mountains heads,
Along with Pleasure, close allied,
Ever by each other's side;
And often, by the murm'ring rill,
Hears the thrush, while all is still,
Within the groves of Grongars Hill.

Liberty and Slavery,

STERNE.

DISGUISE thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. It is thou, Liberty! thrice sweet and gracious goddess, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change; no tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron: with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happie than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. Graciou

eaven! grant me but health, thou great Bestower of it, and give e but this fair goddess as my companion; and shower down thy itres, if it seems good unto thy divine providence, upon those ads which are aching for them.

Pursuing these ideas, I sat down close by my table, and leaning y head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries

of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination.

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born to no inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it nearer me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me

I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take this picture.

I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish in thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood-he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time, nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed throug his lattice. His children

But here my heart began to bleed, and I was forced to go ou with another part of the portrait.

He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the farthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his char and bed a little calendar of small sticks was laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery, to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down-shook his head, an went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle. He gave a deep sigh-I saw the iron enter into his soul-I burst into tears-I could not sustain the picture of confinement, which my fancy had drawn.

The Death of Marmion,

WITH fruitless labour Clara bound,
And strove to stanch the gushing wound:
The monk, with unavailing cares,
Exhausted all the Church's prayers.
Ever, he said, that close and near,
A lady's voice was in his ear,
And that the priest he could not hear,
For that she ever sung-

"In the lost battle, borne down by the flying,

Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying!"

So the notes rung.

"Avoid thee, fiend! with cruel hand,
Shake not the dying sinner's sand!
Oh! look my son upon yon sign
Of the Redeemer's grace divine!

Oh! think on faith and bliss!
By many a death-bed I have been,
And many a sinner's parting seen,
But never aught like this."
The war that for a space did fail,
Now, trebly thundering, swell'd the gale,

SIR WALTER SCOTT.