Down the soomth stream to glide, and see it tinged
Upon each brink with all the gorgeous hues,
The yellow, red, or purple of the trees,
That, singly, or in tufts, or forests thick,
Adorn the shores; to see, perhaps, the side
Of some high mount reflected far below
With its bright colors, intermixed with spots
Of darker green. Yes, it were sweetly sad
To wander in the open fields, and hear,
E'en at this hour, the noon-day hardly past,
The lulling insects of the summer's night;
To hear, where lately buzzing swarms were heard,
A lonely bee long roving here and there
To find a single flower, but all in vain;
Then, rising quick, and with a louder hum,
In widening circles round and round his head,
Straight by the listener flying clear away,
As if to bid the fields a last adieu;

To hear, within the woodland's sunny side,
Late full of music, nothing, save, perhaps,

The sound of nut-shells, by the squirrel dropped
From some tall beech, fast falling through the leaves.'

pp. 77, 78.

'Soft twilight of the slow-declining year,' is an exquisite line, and the lonely bee' and the 'nutshells by the squirrel dropped,' could only have been introduced by one who looked on nature with the eyes of a poet.

Now that we are upon the subject of autumn, and squirrels, and bees, we cannot refrain from quoting, though we know that almost every body has read it, Mr. Bryant's 'Death of the Flowers.' Here is description, here is feeling, and here is music too, music of the most tender, soul-subduing kind. Ever since it first was published by its author, the woods and flowers of autumn have seemed to sing it to us every time the season came round, and we could walk out into the country to enjoy it.

"The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and

sere.

Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the wither'd leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy

day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprung

and stood

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain
Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perish'd long ago,
And the wild-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls the plague

on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen.

'And now, when comes the calm, mild day, as still such days

will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home, When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he

bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.
'And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side:
In the cold moist earth we laid her when the forest cast the
leaf,

And wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief;
Yet not unmeet it was, that one, like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.'

pp. 35, 36.

This could not, of course, have been omitted in Mr. Cheever's collection. Of this collection we would repeat our hearty recommendation, observing as we close, that the same pure taste which is shown in its pages, is exhibited in two former works of a similar description, his 'Studies in Poetry,' and his American Common-Place Book of Prose.'

[For the Christian Examiner.]

ART. VIII.-A Second Letter, in which the Investigation of the Meanings of Aiov in Ancient Greek is continued.*

DESIROUS of investigating the habits of air in ancient Greek, so far as I might, I have now pursued the inquiry through the entire works of Aristotle and Plato, together with the short treatise of Timæus Locrus on the 'Soul of the World.' I have endeavoured to detect every instance of this word and airios in these writings, and hope to have succeeded in so doing. It is my present purpose to exhibit these instances, with such remarks as may seem appropriate; and with the reservation of the right of being corrected in any involuntary error, I now bear witness to the following facts.

In all the works of Aristotle, excepting those named in my former communication as having been examined, there are only two instances of air as used by him originally; none of αἰώνιος. The two instances are as follow,— viz.

De Part. Animal. Lib. i. cap. 5. Vol. 1. p. 974. D. Τῶν οὐσιῶν ὅσαι φύσει συνεστᾶσι, τὰς μὲν ἀγενήτους καὶ ἀφθάρτους εἶναι τὸν ἅπαντα αἰῶνα, τὰς δὲ μετέχειν γενέσεως καὶ φθορᾶς.

Of those substances which consist by nature, some are ungenerated and incorruptible, through (or with respect to) the en- tire EXISTENCE; but some partake of generation and corruption. Rhetor. Lib. i. cap. 13. Vol. 11. p. 542. B.

Speaking of laws, he remarks, in substance, that they are deficient from necessity; seeing duties are so many and various, that legislators are sometimes unwilling to enumerate them all; and sometimes they do not perceive them all; and some things cannot be accurately enumerated on account of their infinity; and he adds,

ὑπολείποι γὰρ δὴ ὁ αἰὼν διαριθμοῦντας.

'For EXISTENCE would indeed forsake them enumerating.' These two instances, after all the former, are of little further use, than as they finish the inquiry in regard to this one author. In the first; aior may possibly signify term of existence; but, it appears to me, that Aristotle intended to represent by it the integrity, or wholeness, of the existence in question; 'the completeness of a vital principle.

* See No. 44, for May, 1831.

VOL. XII. N. S. VOL. VII. NO. I.

13

In the the second instance, also, the sense of term of existence is admissible, with a different translation of inoksiл but, that of simple life, or principle of existence, seems rather more consonant to the state of the case. I produce them, more because they complete the inquiry so far Aristotle is concerned, than for any special weight they bear in establishing the meaning of this word; although they do their part for this purpose, among the rest.

Every instance of aiov in Aristotle has now been produced. There is no need of any further comment upon them than has already been made. Simple EXISTENCE is the prevailing meaning of this word, both in his definition and usage; and more commonly than otherwise, it signifies an existence which lives, or partakes of vitality; viewing his expressions with proper reference to the ideas of spiritual existences prevalent in his day. It is not improbable, also, that, in some instances of this word, he had reference to the entire sum of spiritual being, existing as a whole in the Divine Mind. In which case, aior would represent spirituality, in the most extensive sense. On this meaning of the word, more will be said, in commenting on its usage in Plato.

In Aristotle's Physic. Lib. viii. cap. 1., he introduces an extract from Empedocles, containing this word. Aristotle is discussing the question; Whether motion be eternal [«ïdios]. ' He introduces the opinion of Empedocles, that things are sometimes moved, and again are at rest. That they are moved indeed when love makes one from many, or strife makes many from one; and they rest in the intermediate times; speaking thus:

ἢ μὲν ἓν ἐκ πλεόνων μεμάθηκε φύεσθαι·
Η δὲ πάλιν διαφύντος ἑνὸς, πλέον ἐκτελέθουσι,

Τῇ μὲν γίγνονται τε, καὶ οὔ σφισιν ἔμπεδος αἰών.

'Either, indeed, one attains to be born from many; or again, one being produced, many are completed; and thus they are generated; and EXISTENCE is not permanent in them.'

The air [existence] of Empedocles, is evidently the same principle of being, as is that of Aristotle, to siraite xaì ¿ñv.

There is also a short poem of 168 lines, called The Sphere, attributed to Empedocles by many, although the author is doubtful. It is however a very ancient work. It contains one instance of the word in question; and in connexion with the extract just quoted from Empedocles, it may be well to

introduce it. The writer, after having described the constellations, says: Whether, therefore, motherless Pallas provides for mortals; or whether the Sun ordained the disposition of the stars, it is the workmanship of Gods; and a human mind is not able to describe it compendiously. Consider then how well nature, her own artificer, hath pervadingly distributed the course of the world and of EXISTENCE.' Αθρει δὲ κόσμου τοῦ δέ τ' αἰῶνος δρόμον ̔Ως εὖ διεστάθμησεν αὐτουργὸς φύσις.

Certainly air is any thing else than eternity here; be the work that of whomsoever, and of whatever age, it may. In all the works of Plato, I have discovered eight instances only of αιών, and five only of αἰώνιος. Διαιώνιος occurs once, and uaxgaior twice. After a careful examination of every μακραίων line, I have not detected any other instance of αἰὼν or αἰώνιος, either alone, or in composition; and do not believe there are any more.

In further discussion, I pass by the instances of μaxçaior, with the single remark, that they mean long-existent, in both cases. They occur, the one in De Repub. Lib. ii. Vol ii. p. 383. B.-The other in Epinomis, (Vol. ii. p. 982. A.,) published among Plato's works, although it was probably writtenby one of his disciples.

Of the thirteen instances of air and aiaivios, seven are in the Timæus, together with the one of diarios, and within the compass of seventy pages.

It is my desire, and will be my endeavour, to present these words so, that an English reader may be able to form an accurate estimate of their meaning in the use of the Athenian Sage. I know not how to do this more fairly in regard to alov, than by uniformly translating it EXISTENCE, the word which corresponds with it in an overwhelming majority of the instances already produced, giving, at the same time, an exhibition of the connexion in which it occurs, as nearly as may be. I shall thus leave each reader to judge what kind of existence is signified in each particular instance; claiming, also, the liberty of expressing my own opinion as I may.

But what shall we do with aivios? Here, to all appearance, is a new word. It has not occurred in any one of the consulted writers; although they range through a period of about 600 years of Grecian literature. It is clear, however,