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looking discolored wall on every side of it. There was no catching a glimpse of the sky without going out in the rain. The scene was so forlorn and dismal indoors that I preferred catching a consumptive cold without, to dying of the horrors within. The people in the street presented a truly melancholy spectacle. Most of them were so wrapped up that they were clothes than men." They seemed exhausted with the weight of their wet garments. Their faces were pale, haggard, anxious. To use a vulgar but expressive phrase, they looked as if they could not help themselves. The streets were covered with a thin, black, slashy mud that spirted up to the walker's middle at every tread. The poor hackney coach horses, with their forlorn down-hanging heads, had their bellies completely coated with it, as if they had swam through that London compound element of earth and water. A more miserable place than England then appeared to me in reality, I never even dreamed of after the most indigestible of suppers.

C.This conversation is an illustration of Milton's axiom, “The mind is its own place,” and “ can make a hell of heaven, a heaven of hell.” The character of a country depends greatly upon the character of the observer, or his particular mood at the time of observation. What contradictory accounts do different travellers give us of the same places. Some can go from Dan to Beersheba, and find all barren ; while others scatter around them the flowers of their own fancy, let them go where they will.

SONNETS,

WRITTEN IN EXILE.

I.

Man's heart may change, but Nature's glory never ;-
And while the soul's internal cell is bright,
The cloudless eye lets in the bloom and light
Of earth and heaven to charm and cheer us ever.
Though youth hath vanished, like a winding river
Lost in the shadowy woods; and the dear sight
Of native hill and nest-like cottage white,
'Mid breeze-stirred boughs whose crisp leaves gleam and quiver,
And murmur sea-like sounds, perchance no more
My homeward step shall hasten cheerily ;
Yet still I feel as I have felt of yore,
And love this radiant world. Yon clear blue sky-
These gorgeous groves--this flower-enamelled floor-
Have deep enchantments for my

heart and eye.

II.

Man's heart may change, but Nature's glory never ;-
Though to the sullen gaze of grief the sight
Of sun-illumined skies may seem less bright,
Or gathering clouds less grand, yet she, as ever,
Is lovely or majestic. Though fate sever
The long-linked bands of love, and all delight
Be lost as in a sudden starless night,
The radiance may return, if He, the giver
Of peace on earth, vouchsafe the storm to still.
This breast once shaken with the strife of care
Is touched with silent joy. The cot—the hill
Beyond the broad blue wave and faces fair,
Are pictured in my dreams; yet scenes that fill
My waking eye can save me from despair.

III.

Man's heart may change, but Nature's glory never ;
Strange features throng around me, and the shore
Is not my father-land. Yet why deplore
This varied doom? All mortal ties must sever.-
The pang is past ;-and now with blest endeavor
I check the rising sigh, and weep no more.
The common earth is here—these crowds adore
That earth's Creator; and how high soever
O'er other tribes proud England's hosts may seem,
God's children, fair or sable, equal find
A father's love. Then learn, O man, to deem
All difference idle save of heart or mind.
Thy duty, love-each cause of strife, a dream-
Thy home, the world—thy family, mankind.

Cossipore, 1839.

SONNET_WRITTEN IN A LADY'S ALBUM.

The page is laid before me, and a voice
That none could well resist, its soft command
Is breathing in my ear ;--my ready hand
Obeys, and proudly would my soul rejoice
If the coy Muse were subject to my call
As I to thine ; but, Lady, happier bards
Than he who now would claim thy kind regards,
Oft vainly at her sacred altars fall.
Her mood is changeful ever, and her dreams
May mock the mental eye. As brief as bright,
O'er life’s dim land they flash their floods of light,
To leave a denser gloom. The steady beams
Of small dull stars shine through the weary night,
While fitfully the Muse's lightning gleams.

SONNET-ON TWO LOVERS. Theirs was a hallowed flame; for they had met In childhood's sunny path, ere tempest-showers Had passed their shadows o'er the glittering hours Of Life's fresh morn ;-ere came one vain regret, Or grief's malignant dews could coldly wet The blooms of early joy,—when in the bowers Of innocence and love, 'mid fair spring-flowers They little dreamed the sun of hope would set ! Oh! sweet and brief delusion ! Fierce and soon The bleak storm howled; the gathering clouds were rife; With death and desolation ; in the noon Of life and love, amid the gloom and strife, Those fond impassioned lovers wildly parted; She in the cold grave sleeps-He lingers broken-hearted!

NOON.

WRITTEN IN INDIA.

The lord of day, with fierce resistless might,
Clad in his robes of glory, reigned on high,
And checked the timid gaze of mortal eye
With the refulgence of his forehead bright.
I marked with fevered brow his form of light
Glare on the silver wave that slumbered nigh,
And sought the dryad's haunt, where zephyr's sigh
Came like a hallowed tone of sad delight
To soothe the wanderer's soul.-Beneath the shade
Of wide root-dropping banians, fit to be,
At such a time, the dreaming minstrel's bower,
On bright-winged visions flew the noon-tide hour ;
While Fancy's hand those dear home-scenes pourtrayed
Whose living charms I never more may see !

POETRY AND UTILITARIANISM.

Prejudice apart, the game of Pushpin is of equal value with the arts of music and poetry. If the game of Pushpin furnish more pleasure, it is more valuable than either. Every body can play at Pushpin ; poetry and music are relished only by a few. The game of Pushpin is always innocent ; it would be well if the same could always be asserted of poetry. Indeed between poetry and truth there is a natural opposition; false morals; fictitious nature. The poet always stands in need of something false.-Bentham.

Touchstone.-Truly I would the gods had made thee poetical.

Audrey.-1 do not know what poetical is : Is it honest in deed and word? Is it a true thing?-As You like it.

It is lamentable when philosophers are enemies to poetry.- Voltaire.

The coincidence of Mr. Bentham's school with the ancient Epicureans in the disregard of the pleasures of taste and of the arts dependent on imagination, is a proof both of the inevitable adherence of much of the popular sense of the words interest and pleasure, to the same words in their philosophical acceptation, and of the pernicious influence of narrowing “utility" to mere visible and tangible objects, to the exclusion of those which form the larger part of human enjoyments.—Sir James Mackintosh.

Do they (the Utilitarians) not abuse Poetry, Painting and Music :-Hazlitt.
For song is but the eloquence of truth.-Campbell.
Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge.-Wordsworth.

Truth may dwell more clearly in an allegory or a moralled fable than in a bare narration.-Feltham's Resolves.

It is very wrong to represent it (philosophy) to youth as a thing inaccessible, and with such a frowning, grim, and terrible aspect. Who is it that has put this pule and hideous mask upon it ?--Montaigne.

BENTHAM has asserted that “ there is a natural opposition between poetry and truth.” The case is directly the reverse; for truth is the soul of poetry. As well might it be said that there is a natural opposition between a portrait and the living model. Poetry, like painting, is an imitative art : the latter, however, is more limited in its range and tendency than the former. Poetry is not conversant with external forms alone, but with the mind of

Fiction is but one of the means by which the poet conveys his truths. Poetry is the image of human nature and the mate. rial world ; fiction is the glass of which the poet's mirror is composed. The reflection of an object in a mirror is not the less true, because a child might touch the glass with his hand,