reality, it seemed to us that the hour struck here more slowly than in France, and it is ushered into life with a song. The carillons produce, at a certain distance, and on the water, an effect difficult to describe. The whole character of Old Holland is found in these solemn peals, in these Æolian voices, which the fathers heard, and their sons will hear after them. At Utrecht, a thoroughly Protestant town, the chimes play a hymn according to the reformed ritual. This puritan gentleness, these notes which the bells clash out in the air, harmonize with the calm and reposed hues of the scenery. The gardens that border the water are kept up, gravelled, and raked with extreme care, and trees loaded with fruit offer a pleasing variety to the slightly monotonous character of the verdure.

In Holland the horticultural art has created a season which nature did not indicate. Man has made an autumn here by introducing the productions which are the ornament and crown of that season. In South Holland especially, grapes flourish, the fruit of which is destined for England. The Netherlands gardeners have ever excelled in the art of accelerating the ripening of fruit, and they are even said to have taught other people the management of hothouses. The Dutch autumn under glass is rich in melons, and all sorts of fruits and vegetables of which Batavia was ignorant.

The

In Holland the towns and villages touch one another, and this is a consequence of the slight extent of territory. The houses are small, discreet, and circumspect; you notice in the habitations, as in the character of the inhabitants, that moderation of tastes and desires which is the philosophy of happiness. Dutch do not suffer like the Belgians from the whitewashing malady; they leave their houses the pleasant colour of the bricks. This red colour, combined with the verdure of the trees, the dark blue of the canals, and the gold of the sun, gives the towns, and often the villages, in the Netherlands a holiday aspect. A widely spread taste, especially among the women, is that for flowers, for here home life is a poem, and all means are sought to idealize it. We had already noticed in Flanders that moral habits were trained with the love of flowers; in the Netherlands it is an inclination which is becoming general. A rose expanding behind a clean and thoroughly transparent Dutch window resembles the perfumed soul of the house. These domestic gardens are sometimes perfect conservatories, so rich and varied does the flora appear. One of the most admired plants in Holland is the hyacinth, and there is 2D SERIES, VOL. II.

any quantity of varieties; the Sephrane (white), the Unique Rose, the Jenny Lind, the Mind your Eyes (red), the Amiable Shepherdess, the Othello, which latter is of a dark and tragic colour, as suiting the Moor of Venice. If transplanted to other countries, these bulbs degenerate; true children of Batavia, they only find pleasure in Holland.

Behind the curtain of flowers a young maiden face may be glimpsed, which hides itself, though after having been seen. The women of the Netherlands are curious as all the daughters of Eve, but it is a curiosity which is hidden behind a species of green frame work, called in Dutch horritje. It is the habit to look at what is going on the street, not in the street itself, but in two mirrors set at an angle, which reflect objects, and deserve the name the local idiom has given them, that of "spies." A blonde Hollandaise, or even a brunette (for black hair is not rare in the Netherlands), will sit for hours gazing on what is going on outside. This silent image of movement and life harmonizes with their character. Dutch beauties are timid and diaphanous, and their faces resemble the waters of the canal sleeping before their windows. We all know the repu

tation of still waters, but here internal passions are kept in check, as we were told, by the regularity of life and simplicity of manners.

Nothing is lacking to the peaceful and contemplative joy of the houses in the small towns or villages of Holland when the stork by chance builds its nest upon them.

In this country the same naïve and touching respect is shown the stork as in other places is shown to the swallow. The stork, in fact, is a swallow on a large scale; it wages war with frogs, toads, rats, and lizards, that useful war which the guest of our chimney-pots and old châteaux carries on with insects. Storks are, moreover, regarded as birds of good omen, and you need have no fear as to them being killed. Happy the roof near which they deign to settle, happier still the one they select as their domicile! Perches and artificial shelter are even constructed to attract them, for a stork's nest is the crown of the house. In some parts of Holland if a stork breaks its leg by any accident, it is supplied with a wooden one.

The abundance of water ever ready to hand necessarily produced habits of cleanliness in Holland. Without speaking of Broek, that curious village which seems detached from a Chinese vase, we found everywhere, even among the poor, articles of tin or copper which cleaning had converted into silver and gold. In Belgium a few prizes for cleanliness were

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instituted, but in Holland people are cleanly without knowing why, and do not require the interferences of a Monthyon. The general toilet of the houses is performed on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday; on these days of schoonmaking (general cleaning), the street belongs to the servants, and they may be seen drawing and emptying buckets of water with a species of exaltation. These girls, generally so calm, suddenly change their character, and they might be called the Bacchantes of cleanliness. In Holland the walls are brushed, as a coat is brushed elsewhere; both the out and in sides of the houses are washed, rubbed, and dried with peculiar care.

A HYMN.

[James Thomson, born at Ednam, on the Tweed, 11th September, 1700; died at Richmond, near London, 27th August, 1748. Educated for the ministry, but adopted literature as a profession. Author of The Seasons: The Castle of Indolence; Liberty; Britannia; and other poems. He also wrote several plays: Sophonisba; Agamemnon; Tancred and Sigismunda; Edward and Eleanora: Coriolanus; and, in conjunction with Mallet, The Masque of Alfred, which contained the still popular song of "Rule Britannia." "Thomson is the best of our descriptive poets; for he gives most of the poetry of natural description."-Wm. Hazlitt.]

These, as they change, Almighty Father, these,
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense, and every heart, is joy.
Then comes thy glory in the summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year;
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks-
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In winter, awful thou! with clouds and storms
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, thou bidd'st the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined;
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole;
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand

That, ever-busy, wheels the silent spheres ;
Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! join every living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join; and, ardent, raise
One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,
Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes:
Oh talk of him in solitary glooms!

Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,
Who shake the astonish'd world, lift high to heaven
The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;
And let me catch it as I muse along.

Ye headlong torrents, rapid, and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound his stupendous praise-whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Soft-roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to him-whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil painta
Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to Him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On nature write with every beam his praise.
The thunder rolls: be hush'd the prostrate world;
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills; ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound: the broad responsive low,
Ye valleys, raise; for the great Shepherd reigns;
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song
Burst from the groves; and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm
The listening shades, and teach the night his praise.
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast,
Assembled men, to the deep organ join
The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling base;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour rise to heaven.
Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove;

There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay, The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre, Still sing the God of seasons, as they roll. For me, when I forget the darling theme, Whether the blossom blows, the summer ray Russets the plain, inspiring autumn gleams, Or winter rises in the blackening east, Be my tongue mute-my fancy paint no more, And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat! Should fate command me to the farthest verge Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, Rivers unknown to song-where first the sun Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam Flames on the Atlantic isles-'tis nought to me: Since God is ever present, ever felt, In the void waste as in the city full; And where he vital spreads there must be joy. When even at last the solemn hour shall come, And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers, Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go Where universal love not smiles around, Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their sons; From seeming evil still educing good, And better thence again, and better still, In infinite progression.-But I lose Myself in Him, in light ineffable! Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise.

AN ODE.

BY JOSEPH ADDISON.

The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
Th' unweary'd sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator's power display;
And publishes to every land

The work of an almighty hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale;
And nightly, to the listening earth,
Repeats the story of her birth:
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets, in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though, in solemn silence, all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball;
What though no real voice, nor sound,
Amidst their radiant orbs be found?
In Reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
For ever singing as they shine,
"The hand that made us is divine."

THE COUSINS.

A COUNTRY TALE.-BY MISS MITFORD.

Towards the middle of the principal street in my native town of Cranley, stands, or did stand, for I speak of things that happened many years back, a very long-fronted, very regular, very ugly brick house, whose large gravelled court, flanked on each side by offices reaching to the street, was divided from the pavement by iron gates and palisades, and a row of Lombardy poplars, rearing their slender columns so as to veil, without shading, a mansion which evidently considered itself, and was considered by its neighbours, as holding the first rank in the place. That mansion, indisputably the best in the town, belonged, of course, to the lawyer; and that lawyer was, as may not unfrequently be found in small places, one of the most eminent solicitors in the county.

Richard Molesworth, the individual in question, was a person obscurely born and slenderly educated, who, by dint of prudence, industry, integrity, tact, and luck, had risen through the various gradations of writing clerk, managing clerk, and junior partner, to be himself the head of a great office, and a man of no small property or slight importance. Half of Cranley belonged to him, for he had the passion for brick and mortar often observed amongst those who have accumulated large fortunes in totally different pursuits, and liked nothing better than running up rows and terraces, repairing villas, and rebuilding farm-houses. The better half of Cranley called him master, to say nothing of six or seven snug farms in the neighbourhood, of the goodly estate and manor of Hinton, famous for its preserves and fisheries, or of a command of floating capital which borrowers, who came to him with good securities in their hands, found almost inexhaustible. In short, he was one of those men with whom everything had prospered through life; and, in spite of a profession too often obnoxious to an unjust, because sweeping, prejudice, there was a pretty universal feeling amongst all who knew him that his prosperity was deserved. A kind temper, a moderate use of power and influence, a splendid hospitality, and that judicious liberality which shows itself in small things as well as in great ones (for it is by twopenny savings that men get an ill name), served to insure his popularity with high and low.

dear mother to Agnes Molesworth! Although six years had passed between her death and the period at which our little story begins, the affectionate daughter had never ceased to lament her loss.

It was to his charming daughters that Mr. Molesworth's pleasant house owed its chief attraction. Conscious of his own deficient education, no pains or money had been spared in accomplishing them to the utmost height of fashion.

So accomplished, both in what he was and in what he was not, our lawyer, at the time of which we write, had been for many years the oracle of the country gentlemen, held all public offices not inconsistent with each other, which their patronage could bestow, and in the shape of stewardships, trusts, and agencies, managed half the landed estates in the county. He was even admitted into visiting intercourse, on a footing of equality very uncommon in the aristocratic circles of country society-a society which is, for the most part, quite as exclusive as that of London, though in a different way. For this he was well suited, not merely by his own unaffected manners, high animal spirits, and nicety of tact, but by the circumstances of his domestic arrangements. After having been twice married, Mr. Molesworth found himself, at nearly sixty, a second time a widower.

His first wife had been a homely, frugal, managing woman, whose few hundred pounds and her saving habits had, at that period of his life, for they were early united, conduced in their several ways to enrich and benefit her equally thrifty but far more aspiring husband. She never had a child; and, after doing him all possible good in her lifetime, was so kind as to die just as his interest and his ambition required more liberal housekeeping and higher connection, each of which, as he well knew, would repay its cost. For connection accordingly he married, choosing the elegant though portionless sister of a poor baronet, by whom he had two daughters, at intervals of seven years; the eldest being just of sufficient age to succeed her mother as mistress of the family, when she had the irreparable misfortune to lose the earliest, the tenderest, and the most inestimable friend that a young woman can have. Very precious was the memory of her

disposed to put himself thoroughly at ease at his solicitor's table, and not at all shaken in his purpose by the sight of the pretty Jessy,a short, light, airy girl, with a bright sparkling countenance, all lilies and roses, and dimples and smiles, sitting, exquisitely dressed, in an elegant morning room, with her guitar in her lap, her harp at her side, and her drawing table before her, has suddenly felt himself awed into his best and most respectful breeding, when introduced to her retiring but self-possessed elder sister, dressed with an almost matronly simplicity, and evidently full not of her own airs and graces, but of the modest and serious courtesy which beseemed her station as the youthful mistress of the house.

Dignity, a mild and gentle, but still a most striking dignity, was the prime characteristic of Agnes Molesworth in look and in mind. Her beauty was the beauty of sculpture, as contradistinguished from that of painting; depending mainly on form and expression, and little on colour. There could hardly be a stronger contrast than existed between the marble purity of her finely-grained complexion, the softness of her deep gray eye, the calm composure of her exquisitely-moulded features, and the rosy cheeks, the brilliant glances, and the playful animation of Jessy. In a word, Jessy was a pretty girl, and Agnes was a beautiful woman. Of these several facts both sisters were of course perfectly aware; Jessy, because everybody told her so, and she must have been deaf to have escaped the knowledge; Agnes, from some process equally certain, but less direct; for few would have ventured to take the liberty of addressing a personal compliment to one evidently too proud to find pleasure in anything so nearly resembling flattery as praise.

Few, excepting her looking-glass and her father, had ever told Agnes that she was handsome, and yet she was as conscious of her