seems to connect the living with the dead. It may be "a modern upstart, a usurper," (hard terms, Mr Naturalist,) but it links the present to the past with its glossy tendrils. Then, as to its effect upon the imagination. Think of the similes it has furnished: -the broken heart concealed by a smiling face; all green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath; Constancy, faithful in misfortune dying where she entwines herself; Benevolence casting a mantle over distress; Gratitude repaying the support it has received by the support it bestows, &c. &c. &c. What signifies a pin our knowing that the ivy delights in waste and ruin," and is harmful to our trees, when we feel that it is beautiful? Pray, Mr Naturalist, how long, or in how many particulars, have our likes and dislikes been governed by reason? In common gratitude for my having set your mind at rest upon this painful topic, I trust that you will resolve to me a darker riddle, which puzzles even my organs of ratiocination. Since the line of beauty is a curve, and as acute angles are almost unknown in nature, why should the form of the pointed gable, employed in old buildings, be so agreeable to the eye? A letter addressed to me at -Hall, near will be sure to find me, or, if you shape your reply in the form of an article to Mr Blackwood, I dare say that he and the public will be equally delighted. Pray lose no time, for soon, I imagine, neither ivy nor gables will be left to please or to perplex you or myself. Ivy is too wanton, too rambling, too picturesque for this generation. It is disorderly enough to come under the late Police Act, and is surely too much of a vagrant to be suffered to wander abroad over the tabula rasa of civilised England. With what perseverance we labour to subdue nature, the very success of our efforts sufficiently indicates. For she hath a rebellious will, a reclaiming force within herself, an antidotal power, whereby, if at all left to her own operations, she repairs the ravages of man. See how she enamels even the formal stone wall with her many-coloured lichens; how her rains, her winds, displace a stone here, and a stone there, until she has in some sort assimilated it to her doVOL. XXVII, NO. CLXII. A minion! See how she hangs her ivy veil over the shame of the lopped tree, and persists in thrusting out her boughs, in defiance to allˇrule, with the dews of each returning spring! spring! Observe how she scatters her principles of life wherever a seed can float, or a root can cling, and adds a plume to the helmeted rock, or a banner to the roofless ruin! Yet man continues to counteract her! Even her gushing, bounding heritage of waters is not her freehold. The indignant stream, that leaps from crag to crag in the wildest and most sequestered glen, may be tasked to turn the dizzying wheels of some polluted and polluting manufactory. Nay, the loveliest spots are most frequently so profaned, as if man delighted, with his own hand, to fulfil the original curse upon this earth and upon himself, and to prevent the eye or heart from forgetting, for a moment, the primal malediction. mongst the modern deformities that disfigure the pure element of water, the steam-boat claims pre-eminence. Every variety of ship, boat, or vessel, is beautiful, except this. There is no grander object than a leviathan of the brine, with all her sails set, and her spars and rigging in the exquisite order of naval discipline: the power of man appears in none of his works more conspicuously; such mighty daring is there in the very thought of subduing the tremendous ocean to his purposes, and of making his path upon the unfathomed deep. Beautiful, again, is the light symmetry of the vessels that skim before the gale, and catch the summer sunshine upon their glancing wings; glad and joyous are the little boats that dance, like sea-birds, from wave to wave. But what beauty, what gladness, is there in yonder shapeless hulk that carries the smoke, together with the vulgarity of the metropolis, into the dominion of the awful ocean? What vision of grace or grandeur can such a moving St Giles's raise in the mind? What thoughts but those of a culinary nature can the savour of the passengers' beef and cabbage, wafted on shore-while "Sicken'd by the smell, many a league old ocean frowns,”produce in the most imaginative ? It is a pity that our recent improvements upon old inventions should all S most universally be unpleasing to the eye, especially since a little attention to outward appearance might have obviated this defect. For instance, in substituting the Semaphor for the Telegraph, it would have been easy to have given its tower and pointed rod a picturesque effect. Crowning the distant hill, and often rising from a mass of woods, it would, if built in the Saxon or Gothic style of architecture, impart to a landscape that peculiar charm with which an appropriate work of man invests the tranquillity of nature. But, as it is, the light fabric of wood, which used to hang its moving panes against the tinted sky, has been ill-exchanged for the stumpy brick column whereby modern dispatches are conveyed from hill to hill. A stage-coach and four horses, spanking along, may not exactly come under the head of the picturesque, but at any rate they are more glorious to behold than a steamcoach with its boiler, if one may be permitted to judge by the engravings of that invention. The poet Wordsworth has likened the smoking horses of a waggon to Apollo in a cloud; but unto what should he liken the smoking tubes of a steam-coach? There has been a whisper of a steamplough. How future commentators will rack their brains over the first stanza of Gray's Elegy in a Churchyard! "The ploughman homeward plods his weary way!" What in the world could that mysterious personage, "the ploughman,' have been? There is, moreover, the Omnibus-but I abstain. Enough has been said to convince the most incredulous that the inevitable hour is on its way, which shall consummate the triumph of Art over Nature, of Deformity over Beauty. Then shall the horse, becoming useless, betake himself to the forests. I forget myself, we have no forests. Cranbourne Chase (the last true forest) is disfranchised; and as the deer there have been wantonly slaughtered, and sold for five shillings a-head, so shall our horses be all put to death as cumber-grounds, and broiled down for dog's meat. Then shall every relic of antiquity utterly disappear. Our cathedrals will mend the roads, and our ancient buildings help to erect snug villas. Then shall every road be laid bare, every hill shall be made low, and all the rough places plain. Every glen shall be Macadam ized, every stream turned into a New River,-every lake drained into marshy meadow land. And then shall the Picturesque vanish entirely from the dwellings and scenery of England! To avert so dire a catastrophe, I, Timothy Crusty, Esq., A.M. and F.P.S.propose that Parliament should appoint a select committee, to be called the Board of Taste; (they will be at no loss to find members amongst their own body;)-that this committee should again elect sub-committees in every county of England ;-that the functions of these corporate bodies should be,-Imprimis, (as nothing can be done without money,) to raise subscriptions for a fund, and, in the next place, to see that this fund be applied to the following purposes. First, to purchase, standing, such trees as are public ornaments, or conduce to public enjoyment. [It often happens, that a group of trees is as much a feature in a country, as the everlasting rocks themselves. Should not such be preserved, and, by timely planting, perpetuated? There is a law in France, that whoever cuts down one tree, must plant two. As laws that are framed for the public benefit can never be called despotic, I (though a friend to liberty) propose that the Board of Taste should petition Parliament for a similar enactment, and not to mind the stuff about "free-born Englishmen," &c.] In the second place, the Board should buy up such land as is necessary for the preservation of such remains as the giant stones of Avebury. They should also apply a part of the fund to the purchase or repair of fine old buildings, such as the Hall of Altham Palace in Kent, or Tonbridge Castle, which was actually on sale a short time since. They should redeem the towering rocks of Clifton from being trampled under foot, in the shape of turnpike roads. In short, they should cater in every possible way, for the taste and the imagination, as zealously as the board of aldermen provide for the grosser appetites. And each society should have a secretary, as well as treasurer, to report the proceedings of the committee, to convince the sceptical that the funds are properly appropriated, and to publish to an admiring world, the taste, the judgment, the munificence of our Isle. THE YOUNG LADY'S BOOK.* It must be a heavenly life-wedlock-with one wife and one daughter. Not that people may not be happy with a series of spouses, and five-and-twenty children all in a row. But we prefer still to stirring lifeand therefore, oh! for one wife and one daughter! What a dear delightful girl would she not have been by this time, if born in the famous vintage of 1811-the year, too, of the no less famous comet! But then-in spite of all her filial affection, speaking in silvery sound, and smiling in golden light, she would, in all human probability, have been forsaking her old father this very month; without compunction or remorse, forgetting her mother; and even like a fair cloud on the mountain's breast, cleaving unto her husband! Such separation would to us have been insupportable. Talk not of grand-children, for they come but to toddle over your grave;-as for sons-in-law, they are sulky about settlements, and wish you dead;-every Man of Feeling and every Man of the World, too, knows that his last day of perfect happiness is that on which he sees his only daughter a bride. But let us not run into the melancholics. We wish-notwithstanding all this that we had now-one wife -one single wife-and one only daughter. Ourselves about fiftyMy Dear some six summers farther off heaven-and My Darling, "beautiful exceedingly," on the brink of her expiring teens! Aye, we would have shewn the world "how divine a thing a woman might be made." Our child would have seemed-alternately-Una-Juliet-Desdemona-Imogen; for those bright creatures were all kith and kin, and the angelical family expression would, after a sleep of centuries, have broken out in beauty over the countenance of their fair cousin, Theodora North! "And pray, sir, may I ask how you would have educated your sweet scion of the rising sun?"-whispers a dowager now at her third husband, and therefore at present somewhat sarcastically inclined towards bachelors of a certain age. We answer susurringly. "Think not, madam, though we have hitherto been the most barren, and you the most prolific of the children of men, that, therefore, were a daughter yet to be borne to us, we should shew ourselves ignorant of the principles of female education. There was Miss Hamilton-and there is Miss Edgeworth, who never had a child in their lives-though you have had a score and upwards-yet each of them writes about children as well or better than if she had had bantling after bantling annually, ever since the short peace of 1802. So are we to our shame be it spoken-childless; that is, in the flesh, but not in the spirit. In the spirit we have had for nearly twenty years-an only daughter— and her Christian and Scriptural name is Theodora-the gift of God!" Some day or other we intend publishing a poem with that title, which has been lying by us for several years-but meanwhile, let us, gentle reader, as if in a "twa-haun'd crack," chit-chat away together about those ideal daughters, of whom almost every man has one-two-or three —as it happens-and whose education he conducts, after a dreamy mode it is true, yet not untrue to the genial processes of Nature, in the school-room of Imagination. Yet, The great thing is, to keep them out of harm's way. Now, surely that is not hard to do, even in a wicked world. There is a good deal of thieving and robbing going on, all round about villages, towns, and cities, especially of flowers and vegetables. look at those pretty smiling suburban gardens, where rose-tree and peartree are all in full blossom or bearing, not a stalk or branch broken;nor has the enormous Newfoundlander in yonder kennel been heard barking, except in sport, for a twelve The Young Lady's Book; or, Manual of Elegant Recreations, Exercises; and Pursuits. London: Vizetelly, Branston, and Co., Fleet street, 1829. month. Just so with the living Flower beneath your eye in your own Eden No need for you to growl, Not a hair of her head shall be touched by evil; it is guarded by the halo of its own innocence; and you will feel that every evening when you press it to your heart, and dismiss the pretty creature to her bed with a parental prayer. It is, then, the easiest of all things to keep your rose or your lily out of harm's way; for thither the dewy gales of gladness will not carry her; in sunlight, and moonlight, and in utter darkness, her beauty is safe-if you but knew what holy duties descended upon you from Heaven the moment she was born, and that the Godgiven must be God-restored out of your own hand at the Last Day! But we are getting rather too serious-so let us be merry as well as wise-yet still keep chatting about Theodora. She has, indeed, a fine temper. Then, we defy Fate and Fortune to make her miserable, for as long a time as is necessary to boil an egg-neither hard nor soft-three minutes and a half; for Fate and Fortune are formidable only to a female in the sulks ; and the smile in a serene eye scares them away to their own dominions. Temper is the atmosphere of the soul. When it is mild, pure, fresh, clear, and bright, the soul breathes happiness; when it is hot and troubled, as if there were thunder in the air, the soul inhales misery, and is aweary of very life. Yet there are times and places, seasons and scenes, when and where the atmosphere, the Temper of every human soul, is like the foul air or damp in a coal-pit. The soul at work sets fire to it, by a single spark of passion; and there is explosion and death. But Religion puts into the hand of the soul her safety-lamp; and, so guarded, she comes uninjured out of the darkest and deepest pit of Erebus. You have kept your Theodora, we hope, out of harm's way; and cherished in her a heavenly temper. The creature is most religious; of all books she loves best her Bible; of all days most blessed to her is the Sabbath. She goeth but to one church. That one pew is a pleasant place, hung round by holy thoughts, as with garlands of flowers, whose bloom is perennial, and whose balm breathes of a purer region. The morning and the evening of each week-day has still to her something of a Sabbatlı feeling-a solemnity that sweetly yields to the gladness and gaiety of life's human hours, whether the sunlight be astir in every room of the busy house, or the "parlour-twilight" illumined by the fitful hearth, that seems ever and anon to be blinking lovingly on the domestic circle. Humble in her happiness-fearful of offence to the Being from whom it is all felt to flow-affectionate to her earthly parents, as if she were yet a little child-pensive often as evening, yet oftener cheerful as dawn-what fears need you have for your Theodora, or why should her smiles sometimes affect you more than any tears? Can a creature so young and fair have any duties to perform? Or will not all good deeds rather flow from her as unconsciously as the rays from her dewy eyes? No-she is not the mere child of impulse. In her bosom -secret and shady as is that sacred recess-feeling has grown up in the light of thought. Simple, indeed, is her heart, but wise in its simplicity; innocence sees far and clear with her dove-like eyes; unfaltering where'er they go, be it even among the haunts of sin and sorrow, may well be the feet of her who duly bends her knees in prayer to the Almighty Guide through this life's most mortal darkness; and "greater far than she knows herself to be," is the young Christian Lady, who sees a sister in the poor sinner that in her hovel has ceased even to hope; but who all at once on some gracious hour, beholds, as if it were an angel from heaven, the face of one coming in her charity to comfort and to reclaim the guilty, and to save both soul and body from death. Yes, Theodora has her duties; on them she meditates both day and night; seldom for more than an hour or two, are they entirely out of her thoughts; and sometimes does a faint shadow fall on the brightness of her countenance, even during the mirth which heaven allows to innocence, the blameless mirth that emanates in the voice of song from her breast,-even as a bird in Spring, that hundred living people, is as hushed as a tomb full of skeletons in some far-off forest beyond the reach of the voice of river or sea! warbles thick and fast from the topspray of a tree in the sunshine, all at once drops down in silence to its nest. A life of duty is the only cheerful life; for all joy springs from the affections; and 'tis the great law of Nature, that without good deeds, all good affection dies, and the heart becomes utterly desolate. The external world, too, then loses all its beauty; poetry fades away from the earth; for what is poetry, but the reflection of all pure and sweet, all high and holy thoughts? But where duty is, "Flowers laugh beneath her in their beds, And fragrance in her footing treads ;— She doth preserve the stars from wrong, And the eternal heavens, through her, are fresh and strong." And what other books, besides her Bible, doth Theodora read? History, to be sure, and Romances, and Voyages and Travels, and-POETRY. Preaching and praying is not the whole of Religion. Sermons, certainly, are very spiritual, especially Jeremy Taylor's; but so is Spenser's Fairy Queen, if we mistake not, and Milton's Paradise Lost. What a body of divinity in those two poems! This our Theodora knows, nor fears to read them,-even on the Sabbath day. Not often so, perhaps; but as often as the pious spirit of delight may prompt her to worship her Creator through the glorious genius of his creatures! And what may be the amusements of our Theodora? Whatever her own heart-thus instructed and guarded -may desire. No Nun is she-no veil hath she taken-but the veil which nature weaves of mantling blushes, and modesty sometimes lets drop, but for a few moments, over the reddening rose-glow on the virgin's cheeks. All round and round her own home, as the centre, expand before her happy eyes, the many concentric circles of social life. She regards them all with liking or with love, and has showers of siniles and of tears too to scatter, at the touch of joys or sorrows that come not too near her heart, while yet they touch its strings. Of many of the festivities of this world-aye, even of this wicked world—she partakes with a gladsome sympathy-and, would you believe it-Theodora sometimes dances, and goes to concerts and plays, and sings herself like St Cecilia, till a drawing-room in a city, with a Now, were you to meet our Theodora in company, ten to one you would not know it was she; possibly you might not see any thing very beautiful about her; for the beauty we love strikes not by a sudden and single blow,-but-allow us another simile-is like the vernal sunshine, still steal, steal, stealing through a dim, tender, pensive sky, and even when it has reached its brightest, tempered and subdued by a fleecy veil of clouds. To some eyes such a spring-day has but little loveliness, and passes away unregarded over the earth; but to others it seemeth a day indeed born in heaven, nor is it ever forgotten in the calendar kept in common by the Imagination and the Heart. Would you believe it?-our Theodora is fond of dress! Rising up from her morning prayer, she goes to her mirror; and the beauty of her own face-though she is not philosopher enough to know the causes of effects-makes her happy as daydawn. Ten minutes at the leastand never was time better employed has the fair creature been busy with her ten delicate fingers and thumbs in tricking her hair;—ten more in arranging the simple adornment of her person; and a final ten in giving, ever and anon, sometimes before the mirror, and sometimes away from it, those skilful little airy touches to the toute-ensemble, which a natural sense of grace and elegance can alone bestow-of which never was so consummate a mistress-and of which Minerva knew no more than a modern Blue. Down she comes to the breakfast-table; for a spring-shower has prevented her from taking her morning walk;-down she comes to the breakfast-table, and her presence diffuses a new light over the room, as if a shutter had been suddenly opened to the East. "And pray, Theodora, what book have you got in your hand?"—" The Young Lady's Book, sir." And the old gentleman, putting on his spectacles, peruses the contents, while the urn keeps simmering its matin song, and his watch lies yellow on the white cloth, by which, to a nicety, he boils the gallinis. "The Young |