"Fluxit-Domine !" The sand in the hourglass is still. "To-morrow for severer thought"— '-as old Crewe has it at the conclusion of his Lewesdon Hill-but now for bedas he was then "for breakfast"-yet not till we have said our prayers. Let no man hope to sleep soundly-for many nights on end-who forgets that knees were given along with many other purposes-for genuflection-and that among all mankind is the natural posture of thanksgiving. Eugete et valete, amica! formosissima!

MORNING MONOLOGUES.

BY AN EARLY RISER.

(Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1833.)

KNOWLEDGE is Power. So is Talent-so is Geniusso is Virtue. Which is the greatest? It might seem hard to tell; but united, they go forth conquering and to conquer. Nor is that union rare. Kindred in nature, they love to dwell together in the same "palace of the soul." Remember Milton. But too often they are disunited; and then, though still powers, they are but feeble, and their defeats are frequent as their triumphs. What! is it so even with Virtue? It is, and it is not. Virtue may reign without the support of Talent and Genius; but her counsellor is Conscience, and what is Conscience but Reason rich by birthright in knowledge directly derived from the heaven of heavens beyond all the stars?

And may Genius and Talent indeed be, conceive, and execute, without the support of Virtue? You will find that question answered in the following lines, which deserve the name of philosophical poetry-and are divine.

Talents, 'tis true, quick, various, bright, has God
To Virtue oft denied, on Vice bestow'd;
Just as fond Nature lovelier colours brings
To deck the insects than the eagle's wings.
But then of man the high-born nobler part,
The ethereal energies that touch the heart,
Creative Fancy, labouring Thought intense,
Imagination's wild magnificence,

And all the dread sublimities of Song-
These, Virtue! these, to Thee alone belong!

Such is the natural constitution of humanity; and in the

happiest states of social life, all its noblest faculties would bear legitimate sway, each in its own province, within the spirit's ample domains. There, Genius would be honoured; and Poetry another name for religion. But to such a state there can, under the most favouring skies, be no more than an approximation; and the time never was, when Virtue suffered no persecution, Honour no shame, Genius no neglect, nor fetters were not imposed by tyrannous power on the feet of the free. The age of Homer, the age of Solon, the age of Pericles, the age of Numa, the age of Augustus, the age of Alfred, the age of Leo, the age of Elizabeth, the age of Anne, the age of Scott, Wordsworth, and Byron, have they not been all bright and great ages? Yet had they been faithfully chronicled, over the misery and madness of how many despairing spirits fraught with heavenly fire, might we not have been called to pour forth our unavailing indignations and griefs!

Under despotic governments, again, such as have sunk deep their roots into Oriental soils, and beneath Oriental skies prosperously expanded their long-enduring umbrage, where might is right, and submission virtue, noble-minded men-for sake of that peace which is ever dearest to the human heart, and if it descend not a glad and gracious gift from heaven, will yet not ungratefully be accepted, when breathed somewhat sadly from the quieted bosom of earth by tyranny saved from trouble-have submitted, almost without mourning, to sing "many a lovely lay," that perished like the flowers around them, in praise of the power at whose footstool they "stooped their anointed heads as low as death." Even then has Genius been honoured, because though it ceased to be august, still it was beautiful; it seemed to change fetters of iron into bands of roses; and to halo with a glory the brows of slaves. The wine-cup mantled in its light; and Love forgot in the bower Poetry built for bliss, that the bride might be torn from the bridegroom's bosom on her bridal night by a tyrant's lust. Even there Genius was happy, and diffused happiness; at its bidding was heard pipe, tabor, and dulcimer; and to its lips "warbling melody" life floated by, in the midst of all oppression, a not undelightful dream!

But how has it been with us in our Green Island of the

1

West! Some people are afraid of revolutions. Heavens pity them! we have had a hundred since the Roman bridged our rivers, and led his highways over our mountains. And what the worse have we been of being thus revolved? We are no radicals; but we dearly love a revolution-like that of the stars. No two nights are the heavens the same- -all the luminaries are revolving to the music of their own spheres-look, we beseech you, on that new-risen star. He is elected by universal suffrage-a glorious representative of a million lesser lights-and on dissolution of that Parliament-how silent but how eloquent he is sure of his return. Why, we should dearly love the late revolution we have seen below--it is no longer called Reform-were it to fling up to free light from fettered darkness a few fine bold original spirits who might give the whole world a new character, and a more majestic aspect to crouching life. But we look abroad and see strutting to and fro the sons of little men blown up with vanity, in a land where tradition not yet old tells of a race of giants. We are ashamed of ourselves to think we feared the throes of the times, seeing not portentous but pitiable births. Brush these away; and let us think of the great dead-let us look on the great living-and strong in me. mory and hope, be confident in the cause of Freedom. "Great men have been among us-better none;" and can it be said that now there is "a want of books and men,' or that those we have are mere dwarfs and duodecimos? Is there no energy, no spirit of adventure and enterprise, no passion in the character of our country? Has not wide over earth

“England sent her men, of men the chief,

To plant the Tree of Life, to plant fair Freedom's Tree!"

Has not she, the Heart of Europe and the Queen, kindled America into life, and raised up in the New World a power to balance the Old, star steadying star in their unconflicting courses? You can scarce see her shores for ships; her inland groves are crested with towers and temples; and mists brooding at intervals over her far-extended plains, tell of towns and cities, their hum unheard by the gazer

from her glorious hills. Of such a land it would need a gifted eye to look into all that is passing within the mighty heart; but it needs no gifted eye, no gifted ear, to see and hear the glare and the groaning of great anguish, as of lurid breakers tumbling in and out of the caves of the sea. But is it or is it not a land where all the faculties of the soul are free as they ever were since the Fall? Grant that there are tremendous abuses in all departments of public and private life; that rulers and legislators have often been as deaf to the "still small voice" as to the cry of the million; that they whom they have ruled and for whom they have legislated often so unwisely or wickedly, have been as often untrue to themselves, and in self-imposed idolatry

"Have bowed their knees To despicable gods ;"

Yet base, blind, and deaf (and better dumb) must be he who would deny, that here genius has had, and now has her noblest triumphs; that poetry has here kindled purer fires on loftier altars than ever sent up their incense to . Grecian skies; that philosophy has sounded depths in which her torch was not extinguished, but, though bright, could pierce not the "heart of the mystery" into which it sent some faint illuminations; that virtue here has had chosen champions victorious in their martyrdom; and religion her ministers and her servants not unworthy of her whose title is heaven.

Causes there have been, are, and ever will be, why often, even here, the very highest faculties "rot in cold obstruction." But in all the ordinary affairs of life, have not the best the best chance to win the day? Who, in general, achieve competence, wealth, splendour, magnificence in their condition as citizens? The feeble, the ignorant, and the base, or the strong, the instructed, and the bold? Would you, at the offstart, back mediocrity with alien influence, against high talent with none but its own-the native "might that slumbers in a peasant's arm," or, nobler far, that which neither sleeps nor slumbers in a peasant's heart? There is something abhorrent from every sentiment in man's breast, to see, as we too often