plicity, its firm reliance, are all glowing with the divinest poetry; the throbbing feelings, the watchful care, the thousand sacrifices of the parental love, are equally embued with the spirit of ethereal grace; the endearments of an affianced pair, their devoted and clinging attachment, their resolve never to part from each other; their cherishing regard, their innumerable acts of fondness, their chiding the anticipation, their readings, their twilight hours, their evening vespers, are each and all characterized with the purest light: all that is homeborn is unutterably fair and good; the open-hearted child, the yearning mother, the kind father, the young wife, the tender husband, are all poetical objects. Oh! how much beauty, and loveliness, and glory circle the domestic abode; and thus it is that we delight to see the expression of this truth embodying itself in the description of poet and the work of painter, for the soul that never thought before may be led to prize it now, and the heart that never throbbed when gazing on such holy scenes, may be bound once and for ever by its pure and powerful influence.

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'Children," says the Scottish poet, are as dewdrops at day-spring on a seraph's locks, roses that bathe about the well of life;" and the Oracles, using another simile, have proclaimed, in the deep intonations of their music, "happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them." And, indeed, no one can look upon a child without an inexpressible joy: they are comparatively innocent and untainted by sin; they exhibit so much openness and confiding affection. If they love, they will come and throw their little arms around your neck, and kiss again and again; they act from

feeling; hence they so often judge correctly. They are bound by no fashion but the fashion of affection, bound by no tie but the tie of souls ; their very glances bring Eden in all its unfading beauty before us, their very talk is more than the sweetest melody; their eye is undimmed, their countenance unclouded. Bursts of glorious sunshine seem ever and anon to break from their free and lovely faces: we deem again that earth is without a sorrow, earth without a thorn. It is true they sometimes quarrel, but it is a quarrel quickly ending in love and tenderness; some passing shadow, soon to be lost in the brightness of a clear blue firmament.

Their domain is home; they are the pledges of a true and holy faith; the cup of labour becomes then the cup of blessing; the curse of sin falls less heavily, the bitterness of our rebellion sinks less deeply; mercy is mixed with judgment; the domestic hearth is Paradise regained, is Eden restored: children are its loveliest, fairest flowers. They are smiled on each day by the sun of love; they are breathed on by the breath of love: morning, noon, and night, they are carried to the throne, and blessings sought: they learn "the truth as it is in Jesus;" it refines, expands, exalts them; they become more divinely bright, more divinely beautiful: "Of such is the kingdom of heaven:"

What were the grove without the wild
And merry warbler in the trees?
What were the home without the child,
Whose laughter speaks his ecstasies?

The minstrel may describe the one;
But would ye rightly know the other,
Go, ask the father, who hath done

His toil, and hastes to child and mother.

Or rather for the words of men
Feebly from swelling hearts arise-
Go, mark the gladsome child, and then
Look up into the mother's eyes.

O, sweet it is in woods to roam
And list the merry warblers wild!
But sweeter far to hear at home

The dancing, laughing, joyous child!

Such is the delight children yield-yields the rose a sweeter? such the happiness they give-give the stars a greater? Flowers are emblematical of their beauty; the stars significant of their brightness. They, indeed, are far more beautiful and bright than either: their little prattle, their beaming countenance, their confiding truth, their open-hearted affection, their looks of thrilling tenderness, their light and joyous step, their candour, their honesties, their aspirations after something higher and nobler, their tears for the distress of the poor, their blushings of heroic purpose, their kindling souls at the tale of self-sacrifice, their gratitude, their deep remembrance, their free and boisterous mirth, their sincerity, their fervent prayers, their ardent affection, are all so many silken cords or golden chains which bind us to children. The creature is ever the most exquisite of God's workmanship: the soul, as it issues from the Creator, is ever thus his most resplendent jewel: it is as the May-day of our hopes, the dawn of our bliss.

Our poet has thus sweetly written on all subjects connected with the domestic affections. His poems scent of the rich incense of a happy home; they breathe the softness, and peace, and tenderness of that holy retreat his talents are suited to portray its worth and beauty. To those who love their fireside will this work be acceptable. The verses to his Own

Beloved, to their First-born, to their Daughter, are redolent with these feelings. "The Dewdrop," and the lines on " Evening," show strongly his deep-rooted love of Nature; but it is to home that he clings and cleaves; it is his element, his earthly Paradise. And God hath cast thereon the sunshine of his favour, and the bright radiance of his countenance, and the unutterable blessings of his mercy. The smile of heaven is on it—the beams of the Holy One are there.

EMILY.

"Of the great number to whom it has been my painful professional duty to have administered in the last hours of their lives, I have sometimes felt surprised that so few have appeared reluctant to go to the undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller returns.' Many, we may easily suppose, have manifested this willingness to die, from an impatience of suffering, or from that passive indifference which is sometimes the result of debility and extreme bodily exhaustion. But I have seen those who have arrived at a fearless contemplation of the future, from faith in the doctrine which our religion teaches. Such men were not only calm and supported, but even cheerful in the hour of death; and I never quitted such a sick chamber without a wish that my last end might be like theirs.'"-SIR HENRY HALFOrd.

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In the year 1759, there came a poem bearing the handwriting of one Emily to the adjudicators of the Seatonian prize. It spoke of death; but another was thought to speak in bolder and finer tones, and it was returned. Who he was, what he was, whence he came, whither he went, we know not; whether the son of wealthy parents, fondled on the breast of beauty, courted by the great, or whether the child of poverty, and who had by struggles obtained an university education, we cannot tell; whether born amid some wild, mountainous scenery, with nothing but rocks, and pines, and wild goats, and waters, and the blue heavens to look upon, or whether brought forth beneath some