to a cherry. If there be any old maids still extant, while mysogonists are so rare, the fault must be attributable to themselves, and they must incur all the responsibility of their single blessedness.

In the connubial lottery ugly women possess an advantage to which sufficient importance has not been attached. It is a common observation that husband and wife frequently resemble one another, and many ingenious theorists, attempting to solve the problem by attributing it to sympathy, contemplation of one another's features, congeniality of habits and modes of life, &c., have fallen into the very common error of substituting the cause for the effect. This mutual likeness is the occasion, not the result of marriage. Every man, like Narcissus, becomes enamoured of the reflection of himself, only choosing a substance instead of a shadow. His love for any particular woman is self-love at second hand, vanity reflected, compound egotism. When he sees himself in the mirror of a female face, he exclaims, "How intelligent, how amiable, how interesting!-how admirably adapted for a wife!" and forthwith makes his proposals to the personage so expressly and literally calculated to keep him in countenance. The uglier he is, the more need he has of this consolation; he forms a romantic attachment to the "fascinating creature with the snub nose," or the "betwitching girl with the roguish leer" (Anglice-squint,) without once suspecting that he is paying his addresses to himself, and playing the innamorato before a looking-glass. Take self-love from love, and very little remains it is taking the flame from Hymen's torch and leaving the smoke. The same feeling extends to his progeny: he would rather see them resemble himself, particularly in his defects, than be modelled after the chubbiest Cherubs or Cupids that ever emanated from the studio of Canova. One sometimes encounters a man of a most unqualified hideousness, who obviously considers himself an Adonis; and when such a one has to seek a congenial Venus, it is evident that her value will be in the inverse ratio of her charms. Upon this principle ugly women will be converted into belles, perfect frights will become irresistible, and none need despair of conquests if they have but the happiness to be sufficiently plain.

the

The best part of beauty, says Bacon, is that which a statue or painting cannot express. As to symmetry of form and superficial grace, sculpture is exquisitely perfect, but the countenance is of too subtle and intangible a character to be arrested by any modification of marble. Busts, especially where the pupil of the eye is unmarked, have appearance of mere masks, and are representations of little more than blindness and death. Painting supplies by colouring and shade much that sculpture wants; but, on the other hand, it is deficient in what its rival possesses-fidelity of superficial form. Nothing can compensate for our inability to walk round a picture, and choose various points of view. Facility of production, meanness of material, and vulgarity of association, have induced us to look down with unmerited contempt upon those waxen busts in the perfumers' shops, which, as simple representations of female nature, have attained a perfection that positively amounts to the kissable. That delicacy of tint and material, which so admirably adapts itself to female beauty, forms, however, but a milk-maidish representation of virility, and the men have, consequently, as epicene and androgynous an aspect as if they had just been bathing in the Salmacian fountain.

Countenance, however, is not within the reach of any of these substances or combinations. It is a species of moral beauty, as superior to mere charm of surface as mind is to matter. It is, in fact, visible spirit, legible intellect, diffusing itself over the features, and enabling minds to commune with each other by some secret sympathy unconnected with the senses. The heart has a silent echo in the face, which frequently carries to us a conviction diametrically opposite to the audible expressions of the mouth; and we see, through the eyes, into the understanding of the man, long before it can communicate with us by utterance. This emanation of character is the light of a soul destined to the skies, shining through its tegument of clay, and irradiating the countenance, as the sun illuminates the face of nature before it rises above the earth to commence its heavenly career. Of this indefinable charm, all women are alike susceptible: it is to them what gunpowder is to warriors, it levels all distinctions, and gives to the plain and the pretty, to the timid and the brave, an equal chance of making conquests. It is, in fine, one among a thousand proofs of that system of compensation, both physical and moral, by which a Superior Power is perpetually evincing his benignity; affording to every human being a commensurate chance of happiness, and inculcating upon all, that when they turn their faces towards heaven, they should reflect the light from above, and be animated by one uniform expression of love, resignation, and gratitude.

THE VOICE OF SPRING.

I COME, I come! ye have call'd me long,
I come o'er the mountains with light and song!
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.

I have breathed on the South, and the chesnut-flowers

By thousands have burst from the forest-bowers,
And the ancient graves, and the fallen fanes,

Are veil'd with wreaths on Italian plains.
-But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb!

I have pass'd o'er the hills of the stormy North,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth,
The fisher is out on the sunny sea,

And the rein-deer bounds through the pasture free,
And the pine has a fringe of softer green,

And the moss looks bright where my step has been.

I have sent through the wood-paths a gentle sigh,
And call'd out each voice of the deep blue sky,
From the night-bird's lay through the starry time,
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,
To the swan's wild note by the Iceland lakes,
When the dark fir-bough into verdure breaks.

From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain;
They are sweeping on to the silvery main,

They are flashing down from the mountain-brows,
They are flinging spray on the forest boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves.
Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come!
Where the violets lie may be now your home.
Ye of the rose-cheek and dew-bright eye,
And the hounding footstep, to meet me fly,
With the lyre, and the wreath, and the joyous lay,
Come forth to the sunshine, I may not stay!
Away from the dwellings of care-worn men,
The waters are sparkling in wood and glen,
Away from the chamber and dusky hearth,
The
young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth,
Their light stems thrill to the wild-wood strains,
And Youth is abroad in my green domains.
But yeye are changed since ye met me last;
A shade of earth has been round you cast!
There is that come over your brow and eye
Which speaks of a world where the flowers must die!
Ye smile!-but your smile hath a dimness yet-
-Oh! what have ye look'd on since last we met?
Ye are changed, ye are changed!-and I see not here
All whom I saw in the vanish'd year!

There were graceful heads, with their ringlets bright,
Which toss'd in the breeze with a play of light;
There were eyes, in whose glistening laughter lay,
No faint remembrance of dull decay.

There were steps, that flew o'er the cowslip's head,
As if for a banquet all earth were spread;
There were voices that rung through the sapphire sky,
And had not a sound of mortality!

-Are they gone?-is their mirth from the green hills
-Ye have look'd on Death since ye met me last!

I know whence the shadow comes o'er ye now,
Ye have strewn the dust on the sunny brow!
Ye have given the lovely to the earth's embrace,
She hath taken the fairest of Beauty's race!
With their laughing eyes and their festal crown,
They are gone from amongst you in silence down.
They are gone from amongst you, the bright and fair,
Ye have lost the gleam of their shining hair!

-But I know of a world where there falls no blight,
I shall find them there, with their eyes of light!

pass'd ?

Where Death 'midst the blooms of the morn may dwell,
I tarry no longer,-farewell, farewell!

The summer is hastening, on soft winds borne,
Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn!
For me, I depart to a brighter shore,

Ye are mark'd by care, ye are mine no more.
1 go where the loved who have left you dwell,

And the flowers are not Death's ;-fare ye well, farewell!.

F. H.

A LONDON SPRING.

Of all seasons the season of Spring is my favourite, and of all places the neighbourhood of London is the place in which I best love to enjoy it. It is impossible, I believe, for any one to know how pleasant an English Spring may be, if he has never happened to spend that season in London and its environs. While the inhabitants of other parts of the kingdom are cringing over their fires, or creeping out in their wintry habiliments, the Londoners are enjoying an early summer. Their country villas are gay with flowers; their meadows are as green as the eye can desire; their hedgerows are full of bud and bloom. It is a curious reflection, that they are thus enabled to beat the country people at their own game; but so it is. The empire of fashion, we know, is speedily extended. A few days will enable a country milliner, dress-maker, or tailor, to transport the most exquisite novelties from London to the remotest parts of the kingdom. The bonnet that attracted all eyes and won all hearts in Bond-street on Wednesday, may grace the head of some belle at the Land's End on the following Sunday. But of the garb of Nature it may be said that no power can enable the inhabitants of the country thus speedily to clothe their landscapes in the bright liveries every where visible around the metropolis. They must wait patiently till the hour of their revivification comes.

I am no Londoner myself, yet I have felt like one during occasional Spring visits to the busy world; and the days thus added to existence were some of the sweetest in my life. Never at any time did the meadows look so green, the aspect of Nature so beautiful, as when from time to time, a few days generally intervening, I marked her progress in excursions from London to the neighbouring country. The rapidity with which vegetation appeared to advance, the new creations every where taking place, beheld in contrast with the eternal sameness of our city dwellings, -all this gave me a greater relish for the country than I had ever experienced before.

They, indeed, are not the most observing of mortals who expect to find the lovers of Nature among country residents. From experience I have learned to look for them in "populous cities." The gentlemen of the Lakes may smile, and whisper "Grub-street;" but sure I am, that few of those who spend their lives in the midst of rural beauty know any thing of the deep delight that fills a Londoner's heart, and dances in his eye, when, after a week of ceaseless toil, he catches a glimpse of his rural villa at Hampstead,-when, after long familiarity with the dingy and murky atmosphere of the metropolis, his eye rests upon the short green turf, the scattered trees, and the undulating hill,-lovely in themselves, loveliest of all when we consider how near their refreshing beauties are brought to the ken of the inhabitants of this mighty city. Yes! smile as you please, gentlemen of the Lakes! you know not much of this. You that talk in raptures of childish purity and heavenly intercourses that think you can look directly from your own lakes and mountains into the mansions of the blest-you know not what it is for a man that has spent his long day toiling for no unworthy purpose, in the heat and turmoil of London, who has seen in that "mighty heart" something to hate, but something to pity, to pardon, and to love,you know not what it is for such a man, after doing what he can to make that world better, to go and repose himself in the pleasant shades

of his country dwelling. How is it possible that such a man should view what he there sees of Nature with a dull and stupid eye? He may be too busy to write sonnets; but depend upon it he has a poetical spirit within him. He carries into his retirement a daily portion of rational concern in the interests of society. He has the hopes, the fears, the thoughts, and purposes of a man among men. This is the food upon which sense, talent, public spirit, and soundness of intellect have ever been nourished. And he is a good man too, full of kind projects, mild and just designs, yet not avenging the disappointments his benevolence may have met with in one quarter by callous misanthropy in another. I say such a man as this will love the country the better for his love of society. He is the man

"to drink at every pore

The spirit of the season."

-And let no one scoff when I speak of country within a very few miles of Temple-bar. What! are aristocrats to deny us the credit of enjoying the country, because we have it not in solitary lordly enjoyment? Are we to see no beauty in our flowers and trees, the meadow, and the hill behind our dwelling, because our front windows present to our view many edifices like our own-in other words, because our fellowcreatures have a fellow-sentiment, and come like us to breathe untainted air, without any of that troublesome fastidiousness which makes children quarrel with their pudding because it is not pie?

But Spring is pleasant in London also. To say nothing of our more equivocal sources of amusement, our plays, our exhibitions, our various resorts of fashion and gaiety, there is something very exhilarating in a London morning's walk in Spring. You are sure to meet with some country friend or other; one, perhaps, whom you had not seen since your childish years, and never might have met again but for the overwhelming attractions of this "resort and mart of all the earth." And this is also the season of London benevolence. Every society formed for the relief of suffering humanity is holding its meetings; and our excellent and gentle-minded friends, the Quakers, are abroad, pouring in upon us, to remind us of our debts of charity, and open our hearts and purses to the relief of our brethren. A true member of the Society of Friends may be regarded as a second conscience on these occasions. The very sight of these gentle beings, who seem to have stepped into a world with which they have no fellowship, to remind us of our duties, has a happy influence on the mind. It may be feeling, no doubt-it may be fancy; but this apparition of Friends always makes me breathe more cautiously, walk more circumspectly. How is it possible to look at the rigid simplicity of their costume, and not repress the rising desire to make one's self the proud possessor of some new and fashionably indispensable article of personal expenditure? When we think, too, that so many pure feet are treading our polluted ways, it touches the heart, and makes us anxious at least to do what we can to put away evil from their walk. Primitive times-primitive feelings thoughts that claim kindred with Heaven, gather about us. Well, peace be with the Quakers! and as long as London remains, so long may they continue their annual visitations.

I will mention but one more among the sources of attraction with which the metropolis is filled at this season of the year; and that is so