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in this deep tranquillity, When e'en the thistle's down is still, Trembles you towering aspen tree, Like one, whose by-gone deeds of ill At hush of night before him sweep, To scare his dreams and murder sleep.

TWAMLEY.

"The wood of these trees, especially of the abele, is very good to lay for floors, where it will last for many years, and for its exceeding whiteness is by many persons preferred to oak: it is also very proper for wainscotting of rooms, being less subject to shrink or swell than most other sorts of wood: but, for turnery ware, there is no wood equal to this for its exceeding whiteness; so that trays, bowls, and many other household utensils, are made of it; and the bellowsmakers prefer it for their use; as do also the shoemakers, not only for heels, but also for the soles of shoes. It is also very good to make light carts; the poles are very proper to support vines, hops, etc.; and the loppings will afford good fuel." Such is the testimony of "The Gardener's Dictionary," one of our best authorities on the subject of which it treats. The principal purpose to which poplar wood is now applied is that above alluded to, for the boards of floors. For these, it is far superior to deal, the more general material, not only from its colour, and the facility with which it can be scoured, but from the difficulty with which it takes fire, and the slowness with which it is

consumed. The boards and rollers on which mercers roll or fold their silks are

generally of abele wood, as light and not materially increasing the weight of the package, and for herring casks, milk pails, packing cases, butchers' trays, pack saddles, etc., the same quality commends it. From the ease with which it is propagated, the rapidity of its growth, and the facility with which it may be worked, it might prove in many districts, and for numerous purposes, an economical and useful timber. If preserved from the effects of damp, and not exposed to the air, it proves durable, and hence the old adage, said to have been inscribed on a plank of poplar .

Though heart of oak be e'er so stout,
Keep me dry, and I'll see him out.

The leaves, young shoots, and buds of all the species, are given as fodder to cattle and sheep; they are extremely fond of those of the aspen, especially when green, and even eat thein when dry. The bark of the black poplar is used in Russia for the same purpose as provender for sheep;

in England for tanning leather, and, being very thick and light, by the fishermen in some districts as floats for their nets. The buds of this tree, like those of the balsam poplar, are covered with a gummy balsam, which forms the basis, as Gerarde tells us, "of that profitable ointment, unguentum populeum, which is used as a soothing remedy against nervous dissubstance which encloses the seed, has eases and hemorrhoides." The cotton-like been manufactured on the continent into wadding, hats, paper, and cloth; but is found not to be worth the expense incurred.

The poplar was a favourite tree with the ancients, and is often alluded to in their writings. Pliny mentions three sorts, the black, the white, and that of Libya; to the vines, and that their wood was pehe says that they were cultivated as props and so soft as to receive a blow without culiarly suitable for bucklers, being light, cracking or splitting. According to the tales of mythology, the tree was consecrated to Hercules, who is said to have conquered one of his foes in a cavern near Mons Aventinus, which was overgrown with poplars, and in token of his victory, to have enwreathed his head with a branch of the tree.

The shade afforded by the foliage of all the poplars, and especially by the aspen,

of any other tree. It thrives in the centre of towns, even among coal smoke; and, from the rapidity of its growth, is often planted as a screen for concealing any unsightly objects. This last observation applies peculiarly to the Lombardy poplar, which "is admirably adapted for towns and villages, from the little space planting in streets, and among houses, in occupied by its branches, which are compressed about the trunk, so as not to interfere with the walls, nor to obstruct the access of light to the windows." Many of the broad streets in American towns are thus planted, forming avenues which refresh the passenger with their shade, while they shelter and protect singing birds. The abele, too, has been much cultivated in Europe as a road-side tree. It is recommended in preference to the elm or oak for such a purpose, as being clear of branches on the lower part of the trunk, and therefore admitting light and air more freely. The rapidity of its growth, also, eminently adapts it for thickening or filling up vacancies in already-formed avenues or plantations.

is considered more wholesome than that

Most of the public walks in Spain are planted with this tree, the name given to them in that language, alameda, being derived from alamo, the name of the tree. Some writers have considered the Latin name of the species as traceable to a similar cause, from populus, the people; being planted in the public places to which the citizens resorted. Others, again, have considered it as originating in the same way, but applied as a comparison of the variable and easily agitated nature of the popular feeling. In England, such plantations and avenues are less common than upon the continent; as here, our rich and verdant hedgerows supply both shelter and refreshment to the eye of the traveller, while the ever-varying surface of the ground, and the long-defined and well-kept public roads supersede such enclosure and boundaries. Yet one such spot has been immortalized by the pen of our poet, Cowper, as having afforded to himself a pleasant and beloved walk, and suggested by its fall a monody replete with feeling and beauty. "There was, some time since," says he, in a letter to lady Hesketh, "in a neighbouring parish called Lavendon, a field, one side of which formed a terrace, and the other was planted with poplars, at whose foot ran the Ouse, that I used to account a little paradise; but the poplars have been felled, and the scene has suffered so much by the loss, though still in point of prospect beautiful, it has not charms sufficient to attract me.

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The last stanza was substituted at a later period by the author for a somewhat similar one, in the original copy. How forcibly does it illustrate the brevity of life, and corroborate the inspired doctrine, "All is vanity." Even the purest and simplest pleasures of which the human mind can taste on earth, those derived from the contemplation of the wondrous and beautiful fabrics around him, which trace their origin to the hand of his Creator, even by them the solemn warning is annually sounded in man's ear, and he traces in their withering and decay the type of his own fleeting existence. But, mournful though the lesson may seem, the bitter drop is mingled with the unalloyed cup of sweets he would otherwise drink of in the works of nature, by the hand of One whose thoughts toward the children of men are of peace, and not of evil. If all around seems to say, "This is not your rest: it is polluted," the world passeth away, and all that is therein perisheth; the voice of inspiration whispers to us of a world above, where sorrow and decay are unknown, and urges us to arise and depart thither "in heart and in mind," knowing that there the reality of bliss will far surpass the most enlarged conceptions we can form of spiritual things through the medium of temporal, for " eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him," 1 Cor. ii. 9.

It

P. fastigiota, (the Lombardy poplar,) though but recently naturalized among us, is probably more generally known than any other species of this tree. appears to be a native of the east, and is not mentioned as planted in Europe till the middle of the last century. The first plantation of this tree of which we have an account is the avenue between Milan and Pavia, and that between Carlsruhe and Durlach was the earliest made in Germany. It was brought to England, in 1758, by the earl of Rochford, and planted, by him at St. Osyth, in Essex. None of our British trees can equal this in height, its average being from one hundred or one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty feet. The wood is inferior to that of the less lofty species, though, being abundant, it is used in Italy for domestic many purposes. Among ourselves, it is generally planted for variety and ornament, and although somewhat "fatiguing to the eye when it lines

agitation of the air, it could not have been more clearly solved. An engraving* will at once illustrate the difference between the leaf of the aspen and that of the elm, and render intelligible the trembling of the one and waving of the other. Yet light and fragile as the aspen leaf may seem, the sport of every breath that blows, and quivering beneath the slightest touch, does it not convey a lesson to thoughtless man of such great, such pre-eminent importance, that we may well conceive it as trembling beneath the weight of its mission. Hear it, as translated by one skilled in the mute language of nature, who now sleeps beneath an untimely grave in a far distant land, and may the God of nature apply to every heart the "still small voice" which in gentle, yet solemn energy suggests by it truths the weight of which eternity alone can rightly bal

the road for miles, as it does very gener- | that would quiver in the lightest possible ally in France, and frequently in Italy, it is often a very beautiful and natural accompaniment to buildings." It is a well-known rule in landscape composition, that horizontal lines should be counterbalanced by perpendicular ones. Hence in the neighbourhood of bridges, aqueducts, walls, roofs, etc., or even lengthened masses of building, the Lombardy poplar, introduced with taste and judgment, produces a good and picturesque effect. Among round-headed trees, too, or architectural scenes, it varies the monotony of the outline, and gives a character to the scene, while its elegant spiry form, quivering in every breath of air like a flame of molten silver, embellishes the landscape in no ordinary degree. Gilpin thus speaks of this tree, which in his days was but a stranger in our island: "One beauty the Italian poplar possesses, which is almost peculiar to itself; and that is, the waving line it forms when agitated by the wind. Most trees in this circumstance are partially agitated; one side is at rest, while the other is in motion; but the Italian poplar waves in one simple sweep from the top to the bottom, like an ostrich feather on a lady's head. All the branches coincide in the motion, and the least blast makes an impression on it when other trees are at rest." Many of our poets have alluded to the tree in a similar strain.

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The greenwoods moved, and the light poplar shook
Its silver pyramid of leaves.-CORNWALL.

While those lofty poplars gently wave

Their tops, between them comes and goes a sky,
Bright as the glimpses of eternity,
To saints accorded in their mortal hour.
WORDSWORTH.

The trembling vibration which we have just alluded to, as so peculiarly distinguishing the leaves of the aspen, is, though in a less degree, partaken of by all the other species of poplar, and is in every case to be attributed to the peculiar conformation of the petiole, or footstalk. This is not only large in proportion to the size of the leaf, and compressed in the upper part, but takes a different direction to that of the plane, or surface of the leaf. And herein, as in all the works of the Deity, we discern the simplicity and ease with which cause and effect are combined. Had it been proposed as a problem to find what should be the nature of a leaf

ance.

THE ASPEN LEAF.

I would not be, I would not be
A leaf on yonder aspen tree;
In every fickle breeze to play
Wildly, weakly, idly gay;

So feebly framed, so lightly hung,

By the wing of an insect stirred and swung;
Thrilling even to a redbreast's note,
Drooping if only a light mist float;
Brightened and dimmed, like a varying glass
As shadow or sunbeam chance to pass.

I would not be, I would not be
A leaf on yonder aspen tree :

It is not because the autumn sere
Would change my merry guise and cheer,-
That soon, full soon, nor leaf nor stem,
Sunlight would gladden, or dewdrop gem,-
That I with my fellows must fall to the earth
Forgotten, our beauty and breezy mirth,
Or else on the bough where all had grown,
Must linger on, and linger alone:

Might life be an endless summer's day,
And I be for ever green and gay,

I would not be, I would not be,
A leaf on yonder aspen tree.

Proudly spoken, heart of mine,

Yet weakness and change perchance are thine,
More and darker and sadder to see,

Than befall the leaves of yonder tree.
What if they flutter? their life is a dance;
Or toy with the sunbeam? they live in his glance;
To bird, breeze, or insect, rustle and thrill,
Ever the same, never mute, never still?
Emblems of all that is fickle and gay,
But leaves in their birth, but leaves in decay.
Chide them not, heed them not, spirit, away!
In to thyself, to thine own hidden shrine,
What there dost thou worship? What deem'st
thou divine?

Thy hopes, are they steadfast and holy and high?
Are they built on a rock? are they raised to the
sky?-

Thy deep secret yearnings-0 whither point they?

To the triumphs of earth? to the toys of a day? Thy friendships and feelings,-doth impulse prevail

used in the Visitor for 1835, page 6.
See engraving of an elm and an aspen leaf,

To make them and mar them, as wind swells the sail ?

Thy life's ruling passion, thy being's first aim,What are they? and yield they contentment or shame?

Spirit! proud spirit! ponder thy state;

If thine the leaf's lightness, not thine the leaf's fate :

It may flutter, and glisten, and wither, and die,
And heed not our pity, and ask not our sigh;
But for thee, the immortal, no winter may throw
Eternal repose on thy joy or thy woe.
Thou must live, and live ever, in glory or gloom,
Beyond the world's precincts, beyond the dark
tomb.

Look to thyself then, ere past is hope's reign,
And looking and longing alike are in vain;
Lest thou deem it a bliss to have been or to be
But a fluttering leaf on the aspen tree.

M. J. JEWSBURY.

SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM CHINESE CUSTOMS AND LITERATURE. No. II.

DELIGHTS OF THE SONS OF MEN.

"I GAT me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts," Eccles. ii. 8.

Solomon says, at the tenth verse, "I withheld not my heart from any joy," by which it is intimated, that there were no amusements known in his days among kings and great men, which he had not tried in their turn. And that we might not mistake his meaning, he says, at the third verse, that he laid hold on folly, that he might see what was good for the sons of men. At length he found that it was all vanity and vexation of spirit, a discovery he purchased at a very high price, losing his peace of mind, and preparing his heart for that sinful weakness which he betrayed in his old age.

But one object in citing the passage was, to offer a conjecture as to what these delights of the sons of men were, which the English version explains by musical instruments, and the Greek by male and female cup bearers. In the courts of Chinese princes, every kind of amusement was followed to delight the great man, who sat and looked on with an unsated desire after something new.

These amusements were exhibited in the open air, while the king was seated under a pavilion, surrounded by his fa- | vourites and grandees. In one spot a band of music was pouring forth its loud and deafening strains; in another a group of men were performing gymnastic feats with extraordinary agility; in another some juggler was deluding the eye with strange shifts and transformations; and, in a fourth, young men and maidens, se

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lected for their beauty, were performing a variety of movements in cadence to the song which they were singing, either in responsive parts or in full chorus.

The entertainment last mentioned was the peculiar delight of ancient princes in China, especially when much addicted to voluptuousness and pastime. The name for this, in the language of that country, has respect to a wilderness, a labyrinth of trees, where the unpractised traveller is sure to lose himself. The resemblance between this entertainment and a wilderness, lay in the mazy windings of both, in one produced by trees and shrubs; and, in the other, by young men and women, who crossed each other's tracts, and changed from side to side in an endless variety of evolution. Now, the word rendered "musical instrument" in the verse we have quoted, is from a root, denoting a wilderness, and hence we have presumptive reason for supposing that the "delights of the sons of men," were nearly identical with the entertainment in such estimation among the ancient Chinese.

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Kimchi, one of the oldest of the Jewish commentators, considers the word, translated "musical instrument," as referring to a symphonia or band of music, because in that equal and unequal voices, like and unlike sounds, break and waste each other by a pleasing mixture and temperament, so that from thence arise a harmony that is very sweetly compounded of chords and discords." In the Chinese court entertainment, the harmony consisted not merely of voices, and the tones of musical instruments, but in the movements of the body; while the waste was not occasioned by the conflict of sounds, but in the wildness of the changes in which the young men and women seemed to lose themselves.

The investigation of the original meaning of words, is sometimes a dry study; but it not unfrequently leads us to some result which is instructive as well as interesting. Two words, in the example before us, are met with while consulting the original of the Old Testament, about which commentators are not agreed. Yet while they differ as to the sense they bear in this passage, they coincide as to the meaning of the root from which they are derived; for one is merely the plural form of the other. They all say it means a wilderness, a waste, etc. If again we

look at the Chinese word for the court amusement we have been describing, we find it comes from a root, signifying a waste or wilderness. We know what the court amusement was among the Chinese from description, and, in a measure, from observation, as the writer saw specimens of it while in that country. By the help of this, and the aid of etymology, we draw an inference as to the nature of an amusement in the court of Solomon, while he was engaged in the unprofitable pursuit of happiness among the gratifications of sense.

There is every reason to believe that this was one of the most fascinating diversions ever invented by ingenious man, since it embraced at once all the charms of music, the song, the dance, and the drama. With the wit and the resources of Solomon, it must have been carried to the highest state of perfection, a perfection unrivalled in any other country; yet he has written this epitaph upon it, " Vanity of vanities."-G. T. L.

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the trade to sell off the tainted stock that cannot be sold at home; or perhaps he is in league with a poacher, or even with a worse character."

Now what business had I to cast such aspersions as these on any man's reputation; but I was in an ill temper, and so spake unadvisedly and unjustly. I would not, at that moment, have given him sixpence for the contents of his cart, or allowed a fowl of his to be placed on my table; and as for his tainted turkeys and filthy sausage meat, a day and a night could I have fasted, rather than taste them. The man was hastily dismissed.

After he was gone, I took myself to task for my hasty remarks, and felt some compunction for having ill-used one who was striving to get an honest livelihood. In what was I better than he! I held a conference with Betty, who told me that the man was very clean and very respectful, and never stopped a moment after an answer was given him, and that many of our neighbours dealt with him, and thought well of him.

The next time he came, I went to the door myself, and told him civilly that we wanted nothing. He made a respectful apology for having troubled me, and like the man: I liked his cleanliness and again took his departure. I began to his civility, and by degrees thought well even of his perseverance.

There could be no harm in giving him I ventured on a wild duck; it turned out a trial. I bought a fowl; it was good. excellent. He supplied me with a goose; it was capital! one of the best I had ever tasted. The man and I became better acquainted; I found him honest as well as industrious, and civil as well as persevering, and at this moment, a turkey, supplied by him, is hanging up by the heels in my larder, while a dish of his sausage meat is standing on the pantry

dresser.

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