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We will take a passage from the essay on Summer and Winter, which we have quoted some pages back. The author has been describing the several delights of these seasons in our own country. He then turns his thoughts towards India, and in a fine spirit of cheerful philosophy, endeavours to reconcile his readers to their lot of exile in this land of the stranger. We need not say how cordially we concur in the sentiments herein expressed :

As happiness then depends upon the right direction and employment of our faculties and not on worldly goods or mere localities, our countrymen might be cheerful enough even in this foreign land, if they would only accustom themselves to a proper train of thinking, and be ready on every occasion to look on the brighter side of all things. In reverting to home-scenes we should regard them for their intrinsic charms, and not turn them into a source of disquiet by mournfully comparing them with those around us. India, let Englishmen murmur as they will, has many attractions and enjoyments. The princely and generous style in which we live in this country, the frank and familiar tone of our little society, and the general mildness and equality of the climate, can hardly be denied by the most determined malcontent. It is true that the weather is often, in the summer months, a great deal warmer than we like it; but if" the extreme heat" did not form a convenient subject for complaint and conversation, it is perhaps doubtful if it so often would be thought of or alluded to. And what climate is without its evils?

From a triumphant vindication of poetry against the attacks of the Utilitarians, we select the following brief passage, which is, we think, remarkable for its truth:

Matter-of-fact people conceive poetry to be opposed to truth; because it is chiefly conversant with that order of things and thoughts, which is beyond the range of their own minds. Whenever they attempt to be poetical themselves, they invariably do violence to nature and common sense. If they attempt to paint human passion they are merely bombastic; their want of imagination renders them at once blind and cold. Nothing can be more false and extravagant than the verses of a literal-minded man.

Nothing could be more strikingly just than these observations, nor more illustrative of the causes, which conduce to the Utilitarians' contempt of poetry. It is one of the most notable tricks, which our self-love plays upon us, to make us despise those qualities in others which we do not possess in ourselves. Α lame man will call a dancer a mountebank and say that a puppet can beat him hollow in these merry-andrew accomplishments. The man who has no ear for music will profess an utter contempt for it, and tell an accomplished songster that he would not give much to be endowed with a faculty, which birds of the air possess in a far greater degree than human beings." A scholar despises a man of the world, knowing himself to be unfit for society; and the man of the world despises a scholar, knowing himself to be an ass. And the Benthamite feeling conscious that he could not write a couplet of poetry for his life, is pleased to think that it must be a very contemptible accomplishment, because he is unable to arrive at it himself. He is asked if he can write poetry and he replies, in the true spirit of the coxcombical Greek, "No, Sir, I can't write poetry, but I can compose a rationale of education." The truly wise man despises nothing; petits maitres are the most full of contempt.

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The following passage is from the Essay " On Children" and very beautiful

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The changing looks and attitudes of children afford a perpetual feast to every eye that has a true perception of grace and beauty they surpass the sweetest creations of the poet or the painter. They are prompted by maternal Nature, who keeps an incessant watch over her infant favorites, and directs their minutest movements, and their most evanescent thoughts. Beneath such holy tutorage they can never err. They throw their sleek and pliant limbs into every variety of posture, and still preserve the true line of beauty, as surely as a ball preserves its roundness. They live in an atmosphere of loveliness, and, like moving clouds, are ever changing their ethereal aspects, and yet, always catch the light. Even the moral defects of maturer years are often beautiful in childhood and bear a different character. The cunning of the man is innocent archness in the child. Ignorance in the one, is a gross and miserable condition; in the other, it is purity and bliss. The

"I was ever more disposed," says Hume, "to see the favorable than the unfavorable side of things; a turn of mind which it is more happy to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten

imperfections that are ludicrous or offensive in manhood, in infancy are inexpressibly engaging. The stammering of an adult, or his mistakes in acquiring a new language, are unpleasing to the most friendly ear, and even lower him in some degree in his own estimation. But the first imperfect sounds and broken words of a child, are as sweet as the irregular music of interrupted rivulets. They stir the heart like magic, and impel us, as it were, in the sudden wantonness of affection, to shut the little rosy portals of the cherub's soul with a shower of impetuous kisses. The garrulity of age is not like the eager prattling of infancy. The child's artless talk can never weary us. Our ears are as tireless as his tongue.

E'en thrice-told tales are sweet
That cheerful children tell,
On sounds their rosy lips repeat
The soul for aye could dwell;
Unlike all other things of earth,
Their winning ways and sinless mirth,
Still hold us as a spell ;

In every mood, in every hour,

They bear the same enchanting power.

Timidity in manhood is degrading, but in a little child it is interesting and lovely, whether he flies from the object of alarm like a startled fawn, or nestles closer in his mother's lap. The coquetry of a woman is vanity and deceit, but in a child it is mere playfulness and innocent hilarity. Every thing connected with childhood changes its nature. Words of abuse become words of endearment. Imp and rogue when applied to an infant, are soft and fund expressions that fall gracefully from the fairest lips.

The drums and rattles of the child are objects of unalloyed delight, but the playthings of the man are grave and terrible delusions. They goad him with secret thorns that rankle in his heart for ever. Envy, avarice, and ambition, mingle their poison in his sweetest cup. Even his superior knowledge is but a source of evil. It surrounds him with temptations, while it throws a shadow upon all his hopes, and takes off the bloom from life. It is too little for his mind and too much for his heart.

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The child, on the other hand, revels in his happy consciousness of present good, and foresees no future ill. He knows neither weariness nor discontent. Solitude' to him is sometimes blithe society,' and in the thickest crowds, he is as free and unconstrained as in his loneliest haunts. His ingenuous heart is never chilled by the glance of a human eye, nor can he fashion his innocent features into a false expression. His own eye is as lucid as the breeze-bared heavens. If he reads no' sermons in stones,' he sees good in every thing.' He has universal faith. He discovers nothing evil, and sees none but friends. He gives up his whole being to gentle affections, and a sense of unequivocal enjoyment. He is not what cold age would make him, nothing, if not critical.' To him the rise of the green curtain at the theatre reveals a real world. He has ever a tear for the distresses of the heroine, and breathes harder as he gazes, with all his soul in his eyes, on the hero's adventurous exploits. The tricks and conundrums of the clown are never flat, or stale, or unprofitable to him, and he fitly testifies to their merit, when holding his lovely head aside (his cheek as round and blooming as a sun-kissed peach,) he claps his little palms together in an ecstacy of admiration and then turns to the maternal face, as if assured of her hearty sympathy in his delight.

It is a sweet employment to watch the first glimmering of the human mind, and to greet the first signs of joy that give life and animation to the passive beauty of an infant's face, like the earliest streaks of sunshine upon opening flowers. But, alas! this pleasure is too often interrupted by the sad reflection, that the bright dawn of existence is succeeded by a comparatively clouded noon, and an almost starless night. Each year of our life is a step lower on the radiant ladder that leads to hea ven, and when we at last descend into the horrible vault of death, our best hope is that we may rise again to a state resembling the happy purity of our childhood.

From a delightful essay on Physiognomy we must quote the fine burst of enthusiasm, with which the article so eloquently concludes:

How delightful is the study of the human head! It is a mystery and a glory! It at once perplexes the reason and kindles the imagination! What a wondrous treasury of knowledge-what a vast world of thought is contained within its ivory walls! In that small citadel of the soul what a host of mighty and immortal images are ranged uncrouded! What floods of external light and what an endless variety of sounds are admitted to the busy world within, through those small but beautiful apertures, the eye and the ear! Those delicately penciled arches that hang their lines of loveliness above the mental heaven, are more full of grace and glory than the rainbow! Those blue windows of the mind expose a sight more lovely and profound than the azure depths of the sea or

"winged words" that steal into the lover's heart or the sage's mind, or fly to the uttermost cor. ners of the earth and live for ever, surpass in beauty the orient cloud-gates of the dawn! To trace ia such exquisite outworks the state of the interior is an occupation almost worthy of a God!

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We have never had the good fortune to hear D. L. R. in his new capacity of lecturer at the Hindoo College; but well-knowing the fertility of his imagination, the copiousness of his illustrative knowledge, the truth of his critical canons, and the readiness, with which he can bring his extensive reading to bear upon the elucidation of any question, we should think that he is eminently fitted for the responsible situation, which he holds. D. L. R.'s conversational powers are of no ordinary excellence; he can talk, when it pleases him to do so, in a strain, which would stamp him at once in a stranger's mind, as a man of genius and a great reader. Upon a favorite author, a picture, or an engraving, he is often-times delightfully eloquent and, when speaking of home-scenes and home associations, he is charmingly natural and graceful. He is very little ambitious of display; he does not aim at being thought a wit; and he can play with his children, or row in his boat, or talk upon indifferent subjects with as much delight as any body else who has never seen Wertenburg, never read book." Indeed, we believe, that at the present time, he would rather do anything in the world than write essays or He is the idlest of all idle authors, and it is at all times a difficult task to tempt him into composition. What he has done is nothing in comparison with what he might have done. We doubt whether he has energy of character, and enduring perseverance enough to carry him through a long sustained work. What he does, he does fitfully-it is impossible to keep him "up to his work;" a sudden thought may cause him to take up his pen, but it is soon thrown away in disgust. Physical causes, more than anything else, have conduced to this instability. He has suffered much from ill-health, and the lassitude of frame which ever accompanies frequent attacks of corporeal pain, produces a corresponding lassitude of mind, which makes us revolt from intellectual exertion. Moreover, there are few occupations in life, of which a man is so soon tired as of writing for the periodical press; it is, as we well know, from our own experience, one of the most toilsome, the most wearying, the most thankless of all offices. When a man ceases to derive pleasure from "seeing himself in print," all the charms of authorship are gone; he may enjoy the after-fruits, but he hates the present labour; he likes to have written-but writing he detests.

poems.

D. L. R. has great satirical powers, but, to his honour be it spoken, he rarely, very rarely indulges them. He has a giant's strength but he uses it not like a giant. Few people have been so long connected with the public press and made so few enemies. He is a good actor, though we do not know that he has ever trod the boards of a theatre. But we have heard him improvise "imaginary conversations" and imitate not only the tone of another's sentiments, but also his style of language and his mode of speaking to the life. He is an excellent judge of paintings and was himself once no mean proficient of the art. Most of the criticisms on the fine-arts in the Weekly Review are by D. L. R., and they are admirable for their discrimination and truth. When in England he was intimately associated with many of our most eminent writers and artists, but here he goes little into society. He does not like the trouble of it. He is hospitable himself and would much rather meet his friends in his own house than any where else. He is uniformly kind and courteous, and all who know him, must love and esteem him for his amiable qualities and his moral worth. As a man, his character is unimpeachable. No one has breathed a syllable against it. In all the domestic relations of life he is every-thing that a man ought to be. And with this we conclude our attempt to do justice to D. L. R. Others might have done it better, but we have done our best; and whatever may be our faults of commission or omission, what we have written is, at all

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