antics on the forest-tree; and all the showy and varied tribes of butterflies, moths, dragon-flies, beetles, wasps, and warriorhornets, bees and cockchafers,-whither have they fled? Some, no doubt, have lived out their little term of being, and their bodies, lately so splendid, active, and alive to a thousand instincts, feelings and propensities, are become part and parcel of the dull and wintry soil; but the greater portion have shrunk into the hollows of trees and rocks, and into the bosom of their mother earth itself; where, with millions of seeds, and roots, and buds, they live in the great treasury of Nature, ready at the call of a more auspicious season, to people the world, once more, with beauty and delight.

The heavens present one of the most prominent and splendid beauties of winter. The long and total absence of the sun's light, and the transparent purity of a frosty atmosphere, give an apparent elevation to the celestial concave, and a rich depth and intensity of azure, in which the stars burn with resplendent beauty; the galaxy stretches its albescent glow athwart the northern sky; and the moon, in her monthly track, sails amongst the glittering constellations, with a more queenly grace; sometimes, without the visitation of a single. cloud, and, at others, seeming to catch, from their wind-winged speed, an accelerated motion of her own. It is a spectacle of which the contemplative eye is never weary; though it is one, beyond all others, which fills the mind with feelings of the immensity of the universe, the tremendous power of its Creator, and of the insignificance of self.

A breathing atom, a speck even, upon the surface of a world which is itself a speck in the universal world, we send our imagination forth amongst innumerable orbs, all stupendous in magnitude, all swarming with existence, vainly striving to reach the boundaries of space, till, astonished and confounded, it recoils from the hopeless task, aching, dazzled, and humbled to the dust. What a weary sense attends the attempt of a finite being to grasp infinity! -Space beyond space! space beyond space, still! There is nothing for the mind to rest its weary wing upon; and it shrinks back into its material cell, in adoration and humility.

Such are the feelings and speculations which have attended the human spirit in all ages, in contemplating this magnificent spectacle. The awful vastness of the power of the Deity, evinced in the scenes which night reveals, is sure to abase the pride of our intellect, and to shake the overgrowth of our self-love. But these influences are not without their benefit;

come to

and the beauty and beneficence equally conspicuous in every object of creation, - whether a world or an atom, our aid, to reassure our confidence, and to animate us with the proud prospect of an eternity of still perfecting and ennobling existence.

But the year draws to a close. I see symptoms of its speedy exit. And this awakes in me the consciousness of how little we have thought of man and his toils, and anxieties, as from day to day, and month to month, we have gone wandering over the glorious face of the earth, and drinking in its peaceful pleasures; and yet what a mighty sum of events has been consummated! — what a tide of passions and affections has flowed, what lives and deaths have alternately arrived, what destinies have been fixed forever, while we have loitered on a violet-path, and watched the passing splendours of the seasons! Once more our planet has completed one of those journeys in the heavens, which perfect all the fruitful changes of its peopled surface, and mete out the few stages of our existence; and every day, every hour of that progress, has, in all her wide lands, in all her million hearts, left traces that eternity shall behold.

seasons,

Yet, if we have not been burdened with man's cares, we have not forgotten him; but many a time have we thanked God for his bounties to him, and rejoiced in the fellowship of our nature. If there be a scene to stir in our souls all our thankfulness to God, and all our love for man, it is that of Nature. When we behold the beautiful progression of the when we see how leaves and flowers burst forth, and spread themselves over the earth, by myriads in spring, how summer and autumn fill the world with loveliness and fragrance, with corn and wine; it is impossible not to feel our hearts "breathe perpetual benedictions" to the great Founder and Provider of the world, and warm with sympathetic affection towards our own race, for whom He has thought fit to prepare all this happiness. There is no time in which I feel these sentiments more strongly, than when I behold the moon rising over a solitary summer landscape. The repose of all creatures on the earth, makes more sensibly felt the incessant care of Him who thus sends up "his great light to rule the night," and to shine softly and silently above millions of sleeping creatures, that take no thought for themselves.

Thy song is sorrowful as winds
That wander o'er the plain,

And ask for summer's vanished flowers,
And ask for them in vain.

Ah! dearly purchased is the gift,
The gift of song like thine!
A fated doom is hers who stands
The priestess of the shrine.
The crowd-they only see the crown,
They only hear the hymn,

They mark not that the cheek is pale,
And that the eye is dim.

Wound to a pitch too exquisite,

The soul's fine chords are wrung:

With misery and melody

They are too highly strung.
The heart is made too sensitive
Life's daily pain to bear:
It beats in music; but it beats
Beneath a deep despair.

It never meets the love it paints,
The love for which it pines:
Too much of heaven is in the faith
That such a heart enshrines.
The meteor wreath the poet wears
Must make a lonely lot;

It dazzles, only to divide

From those who wear it not.

Didst thou not tremble at thy fame,

And loathe its bitter prize, While what to others triumph secmed, To thee was sacrifice?

O Flower brought from paradise

To this cold world of ours, Shadows of beauty such as thine Recall thy native bowers!

Let others thank thee, 'twas for them Thy soft leaves thou didst wreathe;

romance, by a poetical imagination; in Isabel, it is intellect, elevated by religious principle; in Beatrice, intellect, animated by spirit; in Rosalind, intellect, softened by sensibility.

The wit which is lavished on each, is profound, or pointed, or sparkling, or playful, but always feminine. Like spirits distilled from flowers, it always reminds us of its origin it is a volatile essence, sweet as powerful; and,—to pursue the comparison a step farther, the wit of Portia is like attar of roses, - rich and concentrated; that of Rosalind, like cotton dipped in aromatic vinegar; the wit of Beatrice is like sal volatile; and that of Isabel, like the incense wafted to heaven.

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Of these four exquisite characters, considered as dramatic and poetical conceptions, it is difficult to pronounce which is most perfect in its way, most admirably drawn, most highly finished. But if considered in another point of view, as women and individuals, as breathing realities, clothed in flesh and blood, I believe we must assign the first rank to Portia,

as uniting in herself, in a more eminent degree than the others, all the noblest and most lovable qualities that ever met together in woman.

It is singular, that hitherto no critical justice has been done to the character of Portia : it is yet more wonderful, that one of the finest writers on the eternal subject of Shakspeare and his perfections, should accuse Portia of pedantry and affectation, and confess she is not a great favourite of his. * Schlegel, who has given several pages to a rapturous eulogy on the Merchant of Venice, simply designates Portia, as "a rich, beautiful, clever heiress."-If Portia had been created as a mere instrument to bring about a dramatic catastrophe, if she had merely detected the flaw in Antonio's bond, and used it as a means to baffle the Jew, she might have been pronounced a clever woman. But what Portia does, is forgotten in what she is. The rare and harmonious blending of energy, gentleness, wisdom, and feeling, in her fine character, make, the epithet clever sound like a discord, as applied to her, and places her infinitely beyond the slight praise of Richardson and Schlegel, neither of whom appears to have fully comprehended her.t

* Pronounced, Shlaygel.

I find that Schlegel's own word, is, literally, rich in soul or spirit, -a strong and beautiful expression, and just as it is beautiful. Would it not be well if this common and comprehensive word, clever,

two

These and other critics have been apparently so dazzled and engrossed by the amazing character of Shylock, that Portia has received less than justice at their hands; while the fact is, that Shylock is not a finer or more finished character in his way, than Portia in hers. These splendid figures are worthy of each other; worthy of being placed together within the same rich frame-work of enchanting poetry, and glorious and graceful forms. She hangs beside the terrible, the inexorable Jew, the brilliant lights of her character set off by the shadowy power of his, - like a magnificent beauty-breathing Titian by the side of a gorgeous Rembrandt.

Portia is endued with her own share of those delightful qualities which Shakspeare has lavished on many of his female characters; but, besides the dignity, the sweetness, and tenderness which should distinguish her sex generally, she is individualized by qualities peculiar to herself; by her high mental powers, her enthusiasm of temperament, her decision of purpose, and her buoyancy of spirit. These are innate she has other distinguishing qualities, more external, and which are the result of the circumstances in which she is placed. Thus she is the heiress of a princely name and countless wealth: a train of obedient pleasures have ever waited round her; and from infancy she has breathed an atmosphere redolent of perfume and blandishment.

Accordingly, there is a commanding grace, a high-bred, airy elegance, a spirit of magnificence, in all that she does and says, as one to whom splendour had been familiar, from her very birth. She treads as though her footsteps had been among marble palaces, beneath roofs of fretted gold, o'er cedar floors and pavements of jasper and porphyry, · amid

It

were more accurately defined, or, at least, more accurately used? signifies, properly, not so much the possession of high powers, as dexterity in the adaptation of certain faculties, (not necessarily of a high order,) to a certain end or aim,- not always the worthiest. It implies something common-place, inasmuch as it speaks the presence of the active and perceptive, with a deficiency of the feeling and reflective powers; and, applied to a woman, does it not almost invariably suggest the idea of something we should distrust or shrink from,

if not allied to a higher nature? The profligate French women, who ruled the councils of Europe, in the middle of the last century, were clever women; and Madame Du Chatelet, who managed, at one and the same moment, the thread of an intrigue, her cards at piquet, ɛnd a calculation in algebra, was a very clever woman.