I was in the midst of one of the most impassioned scenes, the language was full of eloquence and beauty, yet my cheek burned as I pursued the theme. My eye glanced timidly down the page in advance of my voice, as if I feared to give utterance to all that might come, and, at length, with some plausible excuse, in order to avoid exciting curiosity by my sudden change of purpose, I closed the book. I well knew that the spotless mind of my child could not be sullied by the burning words which she could not comprehend, but the presence of purity was a reproach to passion, and I dared not insult the dignity of unconscious innocence."

What a commentary upon the book! What an example to those who know naught of the respect due to childhood!

But the right which most closely appertains to these little people, and one which most materially affects their after life, is one which, strange to say, is often least regarded. It is the right of enjoying a happy childhood. You look surprised, gentle reader. Did you labour under the mistake of supposing all children happy? You were never more deceived. Gay and thoughtless and merry they may be, for there is a sense of animal enjoyment in their young life which ever utters its voice in mirthfulness, but how few can you find in whom is a fountain of pure, deep joy, ever bubbling up from the heart to the lips! How few are there who are habitually cheerful without the excitements of amusement and companionship! We take great pains to procure pleasures for our children, but rarely do we study the art of making them happy. Regard, for instance, the children of those fond and indulgent parents who seem to forget that there are any other claims upon them than those of parental love. Look into the nursery, strewed with fragments of costly toys, remnants of the whim of yesterday; observe the varied appliances which nurture them into feebleness, the delicate food which pampers diseased appetite, the rich attire which awakens selfish vanity, and the unlimited devotion to their caprices which governs the whole household. Every day brings a new pleasure, something is constantly in prospect for their gratification, and the time, the wealth and the talents of those fond parents are lavished to confer happiness upon their idols. But how do they succeed? Let the fragile health, the dissatisfied temper, the peevish indifference, the revolting selfishness of the indulged and sated creatures answer. Their happiness has been sought through the medium of the senses alone. They have been gratified in every appetite, but the moral sources of enjoyment have never been opened to them. Selfish desires have been forced into premature development, and the result is satiety and discontent. The childish voluptuary must suffer the same penalty which awaits sensual indulgence in later life; but, woe unto those who hang so fearful a weight upon the wings of a pure and sinless spirit! Let us reverse the picture, and look into the domestic circle of one of those mistaken men, who finds sin in every thing beautiful or joyful in the world, and "seeks to merit Heaven, by making earth a Hell." Carefully, conscientiously, aye, with deep agony of spirit, has he unfolded to his

children the sinfulness of their hearts, the utter depravity of their natures, and the certainty of their eternal condemnation. The God whom his children ought to address as their Father in Heaven, wears to them the semblance of a stern and vindictive Judge. This beautiful world they are taught to regard but as a field of snares and pitfalls, while the resources of intellectual life are to them but so many temptations of the Evil One. Self-denial, not the voluntary surrender of selfish wishes to the impulses of a noble and generous soul, but the self-denial of a mean calculation, which by a sacrifice now hopes to secure a reward in future; a truckling, bargaining disposition, which would fain buy God to favour by bodily penance, together with the carefulness of the steward who hid in a napkin the talent which should have been used to his Master's honour, are enjoined upon them by every threat and promise. They are taught that just in proportion to their obstinate rejection of all pleasures now, will be their fruition of heavenly joys, and the fearful words of Scripture, which might well appal the stoutest heart," He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all," is written as in letters of blood upon the doorposts of their houses.

Oh! if there be a deep and damning sin, next in blackness only to the guilt of deliberately seducing youth into vice, it is that of turning into such a bitter draught of gall and wormwood the pure upspringings of early devotion. There is an instinctive impulsive sense of religion in every young, pure heart, an innate reverence for the good, an intuitive perception of the beauty of holiness; and woe unto those who check the spontaneous effusions of gratitude by depicting to the mental view a God of judgment rather than of mercy.

Happiness is ever allied with goodness, and the happiest child is that one who has been fully disciplined in every duty. Obedience, deference, a subjection of the will to the gentle governance of affection, are all requisite to a sense of happiness in childhood. Let a child be taught the religion of love, and not of fear; let every day afford him a new lesson of forbearance towards others, and control over himself; let every selfish impulse be repressed by noble motives of action; let his mind be enlightened by knowledge best adapted to his faculties, and then let him be surrounded by every thing that can make life bright and beautiful. Send him out into the woods and fields to study the works of God, and to acquire health of body, and vigour of mind, beneath the blessed influences of the free air and the glad sunshine. Let him enjoy to the very utmost all the simple pleasures which nature affords to the unpolluted heart; and thus, amid all things joyous, will he acquire the elasticity of mind and cheerfulness of temper which are such effectual aids in life to after sorrows.

Salutary, indeed, in later years are the influences of a happy childhood. Sorrow may cloud each coming day, and fear may haunt the distant future, guilt may have stained the hand, and vice may have blackened the heart, but, from the depths of degredation and sorrow and crime will men look back to the scenes of their earliest youth with a yearning tenderness. And if those scenes are clad

in the sunshine of happiness, if they can behold there ever the good, the beautiful and the true, who can tell with what saving power such remembrances may come to the world-wearied and sinstained soul? It is not for us to guard from life's manifold ills the precious beings entrusted to our care, but we can at least impart the blessing of happiness in those years when impressions are most easily fixed in unchangeable truthfulness. We can make them happy in childhood, happy, not in pampered indulgence, not in unrestrained license, not in ascetic penance, but in the daily exercise of duties, in the consciousness of moral dignity, in the enjoyment of all pure pleasures. Let us look upon them as rational and responsible beings, never forgetting that their immature reason requires the guidance of experience and truth, and that their responsibility, as moral agents, imposes a double duly upon those whose privilege it is to lead their faltering steps from the threshold of life to the portal of eternity.

PARTING FROM HOME.

Gather once more round our father's hearth,
The trysting-place of our childish mirth;
And join our hands in a loving chain,
Whose links, though broken, may meet again.

I go as a bird on its hopeful wing,
But my soul is bound with a silken string;
It shall draw me back, with a gentle might,
To my home belov’d, and your tears to-night.

But what shall I leave, as a parting sign
Upon your hearts, of the love of mine?
What charm that, through absence and change,
may keep

Wakeful the love that will sometimes sleep?

Shall it be jewel of precious stone

Circle of gold for your dark hair's zone

Tear-like drops of the summer rain,
Chang'd to pearl 'neath the Indian main?

Shall these recall me when I am gone,
And my voice 'midst your laughter finds no tone?
And they answer, "Brother, these may not tell
Aught of thy love but this sad farewell.

There are other fairer and dearer things
That shall find the depths of affection's springs-
The skimmering leaves of the dewy lime,
Whose shade was our palace in childhood's time-

The bees, in their hurryings to and fro,
Shaking the boughs with their murmurs low-
The noon's bright sunshine, that came and play'd,
With the snatches of shadow upon it laid-

All we have look'd on, and lov'd with thee,
Like the amber beads of a rosary,
Shall bring thee back to each prayerful heart:
Only in presence, dear brother, we part."

CAROLINE WHITE.

SPRING'S FAREWELL TO EARTH. (A Song for June.)

(BY GRACE AGUILAR.)
I leave thee, lovely earth;

My loving task is done.
See, radiant from his birth,

Sweet Summer hurrieth on!
I sought thee in thy sadness,
I lov'd thee in thy gloom;
And cloth'd thee with my gladness,
My beauty, and my bloom!
My verdant robe I cast

O'er rocks and forests hoar,
And chain'd the chilling blast

Till life was strong once more.
I freed thy frost-bound bow'rs—
Thy ice-clad streams from death,
And bade my best-lov'd flow'rs
Revive thee with their breath.

I fill'd the air with song,
With glowing light the sky;
Till now the human throng
Unto my voice reply.
For many a secret sorrow

I've lighten'd with my smile;
And fears, that dread the morrow,
My sunny looks beguile.

For pleasant tasks I've given

The old man and the child;
And Want's dull fetters riven,
Till Poverty hath smil'd!
And seeds of promise stor'd

Where silently they'll rest,
Till treasures rich are pour'd,
Fair Earth, upon thy breast.
And so I leave thee, Earth:

Thou dost not need me now;
But when the sunny mirth

Hath vanish'd from thy brow,
And Winter chills thy gladness,
With his all-obscuring gloom-
I'll seek thee in thy sadness,

And kiss thee back to bloom!

ADVICE. Discourse may wound by advicegiving, involving in it the appearance of reprehension, or exhibiting itself in a shape implying the possession of an authority not recognized by the hearer. Even the giving good advice is the assumption of authority on the score of wisdom. It is Mr. Godwin who has remarked, that advice is not disliked for its own sake, but because so few people know how to give it. Perhaps the art of giving advice may be summed up in few words, as consisting in accompanying it with a confession of our own imperfections, and an enumeration of the good qualities of the person advised. But we may have no imperfections to confess, nor the person any good qualities to enumerate. Oh then, in neither case, we may rest assured, will our advice do any good.-BENTHAM,

LITERATURE.

THE TWINS. A Domestic Novel. By Martin Farquhar Tupper, author of "Proverbial Philosophy." 1 vol. 8vo. (Bentley.)-A charming book; reminding us-if we may use the phraseof its elder brother, "The Crock of Gold," from which we had the pleasure of making an extract or two last month-reminding us, because, though the stories are as distinct in plot and character as possible, we find in both the same earnestness of purpose, which kindling thought into glowing words passes from the writer's to the reader's heart. Mr. Tupper is undoubtedly one of the most original authors of the day-one who, seeking for truth, does not find his "mind's eye" droop beneath its beams when its dazzling light appears. His ideal personages (who are truths idealized) have all the individuality of living characters; and we speak of them and think of them rather as we do of actual acquaintances, than of heroes and heroines of romance. Yet their features are strongly marked who shall say caricatured? Scarcely those who, sending forth their sympathies in the world around them, thus learn to understand as well as witness, the deep, disastrous tragedies, which owe their reality to the strife and struggle of human passions. A hasty, ill-assorted marriage-surely a common-place incident enough - a husband's willing desertion, call it courteously a sacrifice at the shrine of expediency-and the wife's placid consent, call it a prudent resolve to watch beside a rich old relative (who, however, seems determined not to die)—then the "silly mother," who, heedless of a wife's duties, does not recognize the maternal ones, and her twin sons, whose different characters she is wholly unable to understand. Enough we think of sturdy groundwork for a story-if human emotion, and the consequences of human error, be the themes to be illustrated.

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The old relation does not die for more than twenty years, meanwhile the Anglo-Indian father wins gold, and fame, and promotion in the burning east, and also loves a certain adopted daughter, who" is not what he thinks her." In more than twenty years the twins grow up, the one trained by a silly," selfish mother, the other finding his best security in neglect; but better and purer the wild field flower, than the rank, but cultured poison shrub. And so, after more than twenty years, the some time young lieutenant, "who went forth a good-looking, good-tempered man, destitute neither of kind feelings nor masculine beauty"-returns with his "adopted daughter"-" bloated, bilious, irascible, entirely selfish, and decidedly ill-favoured." Sweet Emily Warren, with your simple heart and truthful nature, you work wild mischief in the hearts of the twin brothers, and almost drive that erring old man to madness and despair; but you bring him to the confessional; and, better than this-than confession to human ears-you wake the slumbering chords of feeling, and prove he has a heart through all. Uplifted, too, on the pinions of your purity, the author skims lightly over all dangerous ground, to land

himself in the haven of peace and gladness. We have said enough to show how simple is the plot -far too simple to be criticised; but herein, to our mind, lies the beauty of the story. We make an extract, containing some beautiful truths, eloquently expressed.

"How far sundry discoveries made in the unknown regions of each other's temper, reconciled him to this retrograding bachelorship, and her to widowhood bewitched, I will not undertake to say; but I will hazard the remark, anti-poor-law though it seemeth, that the separation of man aud wife, however convenient, lucrative, or even mutually pleasant, is a derilection of duty, which always deserves, and generally meets, its proper and discriminative punishment. Had the young wife faithfully performed her Maker's bidding, and left all other ties unstrung to cleave unto her lord-had she considered a husband's true affections before all other wealth, and resolved to share his dangers, to solace his cares, to be his blessing through life, and his partner even unto death, rather than selfishly to seek her own comfort, and consult her own interest, the tale of crime and sadness, which it is my lot to tell, would never have had truth for its foundation.

"Ill-matched for happiness though they were, however well-matched as to mutual merit, the common man of pleasure and the frivolous woman of fashion, still the wisest way to fuse their minds to union, the likeliest receipt for moral good and social comfort, would have been this course of foreign scenes, of new faces, sprinkled with a seasoning of admixture, hardship, danger in a distant land. Gradually would they have learned to bear and forbear-the petty quarrel would have been forgotten in the frequent kindness-the rougher edges of temper and opinion would insensibly have smoothed away-new circumstances would have brought out better feelings under happier skies

old acquaintances, false friends forgotten, would have neutralized old feuds; and, by long living together, though it were, perhaps, amid various worries and many cares, they might still have come to a good old age, with more than average happiness, and more than the common run of love. Patience in dutiful enduring brings a sure reward; and marriage, however irksome a constraint to the foolish and the gay, is still so wise an ordinance, that the most ill-assorted couple imaginable will unconsciously grow happy, if they only remain true to one-another, and will learn the wisdom always to hope, and often to forgive."

We should add that the "regulation pages" of the volume are filled up with some "dainty" poesy, and two quizzical prose sketches.

SKETCHES FROM THE ANTIQUE, AND OTHER POEMS. By Mrs. James Gray. (Curry, Dublin; Longman, London.)-Better known as Mary Anne Browne than Mrs. Gray, this charming poetess has won for herself so high and general a reputation, that the mere announcement of a volume from her pen, was a promise of excellence. Nor have we been disappointed. In her Sketches from the Antique, she has seized upon some of the richest and most poetical subjects in the Mytho

logy; dexterously selecting from the dross their ore-that wealth of poesy which Christian Europe is not too proud to accept as a legacy from Pagan Greece. No one will dispute the sisterhood of the arts; it is, therefore, not surprising that many of these Sketches (which we would rather call studies) remind us of a statue or a picture; but, after all, words can point a moral more neatly than the silent eloquence of marble or canvas. Let us quote, for instance, the conclusion of "Narcissus," which, though one of the most beautiful poems in the volume, is too long to extract entire.

"His golden dreams of love are fled,

Henceforth, how coarse and cold
Will seem the maidens he might wed,

And all of earthly mould;

What though he sees their brighest charms,
His memory all their power disarms;
His longing spirit turneth ever
Unto the image in the river;
And there his patient watch he keeps,
And oft in hopeless passion weeps.

"And so he died; but in his stead,

A spotless flower doth grow,
And gazeth still with drooping head,
Into the stream below.
It was not idle vanity

That bade Narcissus droop and die;
So many a young and ardent breast
Doth terminate its hopeless quest,
And hath in useless sorrow pined,
That no perfection it could find;
No heart whose fond and fervent tone
Was not exceeded by his own."

And does not the following shine out like some wondrous Titian, in the mellow, softened light of a picture gallery?

THE INFANT BACCHUS CARESSED BY NYMPHS.

"In the recesses of an ancient wood

There was a vista, a rich grassy lawnThe thickly foliaged trees around it stood, With heavy drooping boughs, as if withdrawn By nature's hand, like curtains; every fold Of a luxuriant green, with fringe of gold Wrought of the living sunshine, and within That natural tent, a group of forms, too fair

And perfect to proclaim a mortal kin, Kept their glad revelry. Beyond compare, Amidst earth's children was the child, who there Laid his round limbs upon a leopard's skinThe infant Bacchus. Merry maidens, three, Surrounded him. One sate, so that his head Upon her lap found a luxurious bed; And bending over him, her hands did twine Red roses, and the tendrils of the vine

Amidst his yellow curls, and ever turned Towards hers the melting beauty of his eyes; Within whose liquid blue there would arise Flashes of that glad sunny mirth, that yearned For utterance in his heart. And by his side, Half veiled in her bright tresses floating wide,

Reclined the second. Her left hand did hold
Firmly upon the grass, a cup of gold;
And from the right there flowed the purple stream
Of the pressed grapes. The third sate by his feet,
And her red lip drew music, low and sweet,
From a small Äute; and that entranced boy,
Thus drinking from the mingled fount of joy,
Music, and love, and wine, turned not to see
Where by a fountain, bending mournfully,
Sate a pale maiden. We know not her tale-
Whether that fountain 'wakened up some
thought

Of happiness, that was as bright and frail
As that of mortals. Bacchus never sought
To know her history, and the past is dumb

Of who she was, or what she mourned; the
hour

When he should wake, for lonely maid, the power
Of a new love to soothe her, had not come.
Perhaps that hour when every joy was new,

He felt the glory of his being more
Than when he came in godlike pomp to woo
Lone Ariadne on the Cretan shore."

These Sketches comprise upwards of twenty poems, forming about half of rather a thick volume: and though ladies, with their "little Latin and no Greek," are supposed to be incompetent judges of the classics, a lady has, certainly, stepped forward to illustrate classical subjects most delightfully. Though certainly, for aught we know, Mrs. Gray may be a "scholar;" yet we almost hope not--it would destroy a little theory we have about poets and poetry.

The pieces, called Miscellaneous, are in their way as exquisite as the Sketches-the intellect speaking through the affections. We have been especially delighted with "The Letter to the Dead" The Embroideress at Midnight”—and "Isambert and Edith;" from the latter we make a brief extract.

"Who are the parted? Those whom seas and rolling floods divide?

Betwixt whose dwellings mountains stand, and deserts lone and wide?

Or those, whose hearts, once twined as they could ne'er in love be changed,

Some sudden storm, some hasty word, in anger hath estranged?

Not these the ocean may be past, the desert may be crossed,

And time and counsel may recall the friends that folly lost;

Not these where dwells one dawning beam of hope her noon may spreadOn earth, the truly parted, are the living and the dead!"

FACTS AND FANCIES: A COLLECTION OF TALES AND SKETCHES. By George Godwin, F. R. S.(Nickisson.)—An agreeable volume of light and pleasant reading, such as its title implies. The author seems to us to possess very considerable talent, somewhat too of a dramatic character.

OLTREMONTE ED OLTREMARE. CANTI DI UN PELLEGRINO DATI IN LUCE DA LIUGI MARIOTTI. (Rolandi.)—It must be admitted that the modern

est models of the Italian poetry of days gone by, are apt to be merciless critics. Upon whom in these later days has descended the mantle, of heaven's own dye, that wrapped the sweet singer of the "Jerusalem Delivered?" Where are we to find a ray of genius like that of the brilliant Ariosto? And who now can take up the pastoral reed so sweetly piped upon by Guarini, that "we too are of Arcadia," while we accompany his "Faithful Shepherd" through his exquisite tale of rural devotion, purity, and love? Metastasio is still unrivalled in those elegant classical dramas, each scene of which closes with a gem of poetic conception, containing the germs of many poems; notwithstanding that our own day can boast a Silvio Pellico-that saint, so truly sublimated through suffering-the author of the tragedy of the heart, Francesca da Rimini.

Despite these great models, with which the mind involuntarily compares all recent productions, the little volume before us, edited by M. Luigi Mariotti from a manuscript bequest of a young friend, an Italian-who died in America, and did not wish his name to appear to the world-contains some canzonets, and other poems in the ottava rima of great tenderness and beauty. The author's conceptions are truly poetic, but we cannot think that his musical ear has kept pace with his inward imaginings. The ductility of the Italian language leads us to expect a song in every poem; we find one in the felicitous Anacreontic metre in this little collection, named "Evelina di Belgirate," so fascinating in its versification that we would fain pronounce it altogether charming. We must not, however, be betrayed by its harmony into a forgetfulness as to the highest object and aim of all poetry, which we esteem to be-purity. Verse is peculiarly delightful to the youthful mind, and it may indeed be said, that the Muse takes refuge from the sneers of adults in this utilitarian age, in the warm hearts of childhood and youth. Should we not then take especial care that the fountain of poesy be kept clear, untainted by the poison of sensuality, and that the lyre should only resound to such subjects as those with which the female heart, in its youth and purity, can sympathize? Nay, more; such as should ennoble her sentiments, and strengthen her virtues, while it leads her fancy captive by its sweet strains? We must therefore lament that some of these effusions can scarcely claim relationship with the exquisite little ode, "Il delerio del dolore," and others, whose pious breathings would lead us to hope bright and holy things of the gifted spirit that so early passed away from a world of exile and sorrow to, we trust, an eternal home in heaven.

We are happy to be able to give unmixed praise to the two fragments which conclude the little book, and which have been so ably translated that we long to become better acquainted with the entire of the poems from whence they are extracted.

ful little poems before the public; and yet, we must repeat, that a freer use of the editor's pruningknife would have served the memory of his friend.

FINE ARTS.

THE EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY.To begin at the beginning is, in most cases, the shortest method of arriving at the end; wherefore do we always resolutely make our way to the last room, and arrive at No. 1 in the catalogue, without suffering ourselves to turn aside-no, not even to look at one of Landseer's dogs. Probably however, most courteous reader, you have been before us; for a month has passed, with the doors invitingly open? If so, we can still have a gossip about "The Exhibition." After looking at the pretty ladies, who have the post of honour over the door, did your eye fall to the finished portrait of Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, by Maclise? and did it then glance to a neighbouring "madness" of Turner? Is his present style, the transcendental school of art transcendentalized? He has defenders; perhaps we are only ignorant. Did you then pass to Swinton's radiant portrait of the Marchioness of Douro, remarkable for many merits, not the smallest in our estimation being the rare taste displayed in the appointments of dress; which, without an affectation of singularity, an absurdity of fashion, or the studied effects of fancy costume, is yet precisely of that character which never can become a caricature. Did you then bask in J. J. Chalon's sunny "Balcony," above the bright foliage-or turn to his fine picture of "John Knox reproving the ladies of Queen Mary's court:" the stern reformer crushing a rose under his foot, and the lovely "Maries" half frightened from their pastime-half loath to leave it? But we must not pass by Eastlake's "Heloise" (his only picture), an embodiment of pensive and intellectual beauty, that seems to breathe before one; nor Webster's" let seller," nor his interesting portraits of " Mr. and Mrs. Webster, painted to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of their wedding;" nor Leslie's Moonlight at Sea," where the leaden, not silver, light is exquisitely given. And now we come to a gem of Edwin Landseer's, called " Disappointment;" without the dogs, we should pause to gaze on the beautiful, tearful face, whose story would be told even without the letter which peeps from her boddice; but her mute consolers rivet admiration, even more than her lovely self--the waking one does all but bark his inquiries and entreaties-the cozy sleeping one does all but snore. This artist's animals always recall to us the story of the vizier, or caliph, or some such person, who understood the languages of the brutes; surely Landseer must have found them out, and conversed in the different dialects. Witness his other picture of "Shoeing;" the fidelity with which he copies nature seems the secret of his wondrous pictures, but there is a soul of expression beyond

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Vio