O ye mountains! for the mighty have fallen. Rejoice, ye blood-stained streams! for the Sons of Battle are low.

"Raise the song, ye Bards, for the fallen-for those who have passed away in their renown. Their fame shall last. They have smitten the mighty behind their heaps. Their fame shall last for ever; for the Sons of Battle are scattered on our fields."

THE DESIRE OF HAPPINESS THE INCENTIVE TO

HUMAN ACTION.

THE ideas entertained by different individuals as to what constitute Happiness, are so varied, that he who pursues it must despair of ever attaining its unalloyed enjoyment. The attainment of a favourite object, with many, is, to their minds, the sure means of entering on a state of existence that will be undisturbed by sorrow. Some look for Happiness in the possession of wealth; and the desire of its acquirement may arise from higher and holier motives than the mere thirst for sensual indulgence. It may be desired for the purpose of blessing the poor estate of sin and misery in which millions are left to be pests to society, and curses to themselves. It may be for the purpose of study and retirement in declining days; and that the blessed, the glorious hope, of happiness may be consummated in rural retirement; for, with the poet, he may think that

"Happy the man whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound!
Content to breathe his native air,
On his own ground."

And the individual may reason that if "paternal acres" be a source of Happiness, how much more sweet must that felicity be, derived from acres, the produce of a life of honourable toil and exertion! It may be, that, with high religious feelings, and impressed with obligations which man owes to God and his fellows, he seeks Happiness as the fruits of his exertions in teaching, or having taught, to others the doctrines of that faith he has received for himself, and which leads him to believe that all beyond its influence are in a condition, the consequences of which are fearfully important.

Others again-the rare spirits of the human race-the prodigies of the God-imaged creature, man-within whose clayey tenement there is lodged a larger portion of deity or of demon than in other men-be it for good or ill to their fellows, they leave the beaten tracks of human routine. To the common world, their thoughts are madness-insanity. Like the lightning's flash, the scintillations of their souls move in no direct course-zig-zag, eccentric. It cannot be told by the observer whither their bolts are shot; but, nevertheless, they meet their objectthey destroy the wisdom of venerated and vaunted generations--they annihilate customs, and break up systems upon which men have acted, and have believed in for long centuries. The work of a demon or a god is surely there; but the world receives their thoughts as madmen's ravings, flashing but to destroy-their actions burst upon it like crashes of thunder, or the dread convulsions of an earthquake. Nothing is seen but desolation and ruin. Men fear for systems; they seem to believe that truth will fail at last; they are startled and alarmed with doubt, fear, indignation. Those restless beings, tossed by the inner spirit, struggling with

the mightiest objects, grappling with the boldest aims, are denounced, anathematized, often given over to the "bigot's ready hell;" at the least, the world frequently scorns them, laughs at them. Do these men court unhappiness? possessed, as they generally are, of the acutest feelings, and the keenest sensibilities that Nature can bestow. It would be against all experience to believe so. They seek for enjoyment in the exercise of those rare faculties with which Nature has so endowed them.

The austere monk, caverned in his gloomy cell, with self-imposed penances and lacerated body, seeks, from his own voluntary torments, to derive a source of Happiness. The soldier on the battle-field, smarting with pain from the wounds inflicted by his foes, "seeking his reputation at the cannon's mouth," wades through scenes of blood and carnage, in the eager search of Happiness. How varied all human pursuit!-how different are human tastes! But, in all their paths and aims, there is but one object ever before their view-one question at every turn they make "Who will show us any good?" Behold the miser on his bed of pain-the conqueror and destroyer of all flesh glazing his faded eye till its last flash has been expended; with the expiring throb of his mammon-adoring heart, he clutches his money-bags-his long-cherished idol-in his embrace, and feels that, dying thus, he would be happy. Look to the devotee, whose life has been passed in acts of faith, devotion, charity, prayers, meekness, and forbearance towards men; his soul is unsatisfied with the things of time and the life that now is;—with his last breath he declares the vanity and unsatisfying nature of human things; and, amid the wreck and dissolution of his mortal frame, his imagination kindles at the thought of other worlds, and he hails the grisly spectre, Death, as the kindly usher to a happier and a better state.

What, then, is Happiness? Has it ever been attained in time? If ever you found a happy and a contented man, who had no other wish to satisfy, no other virtue to attain, then, indeed, these questions might be easily answered. Happiness, we conceive, must result from a perfect satisfaction with ourselves, our own character, our circumstances in life, our attainments, our bodily health and enjoyments. It belongs to no circumstance, no station, no amount of the wealth of this world, but with our perfect acquiescence, not in word alone, but in feeling, that all that regards ourselves, and those connected with us, is right and well ordered. And he who is so must either be as insensible to feeling as a clod, or pure in spirit as an angel; and his conversation and connexions must be with those as pure and happy as himself.

What then?-are men to be told that this life, being a gloomy state, is to be voted a horrid bore?—that because Happiness, that glorious idea which is the undoubted mainspring of all human action, and which is ever in the future of man's expectation, and never in the enjoyment of the present hour-that, therefore, the human race are to become a set of whining, drivelling, miserable hypochondriacs? Surely not. The desire of Happiness we firmly believe to be the instigating cause to all religious belief, and to all acts of faith. But, as regards this world, how useful is the feeling to the human race! All improvement, all exertion, works of art, of charity, of benevolence, discoveries in science, poets' visions, ro

mancists' dreams, all human action is, and must be, performed by the instigating influence of that noblest of all incentives, the feeling of satisfaction in carrying out a cherished design, and the hope of attaining Happiness from the applause of our own consciences, or by sincerely improving the condition of ourselves and others. Pleasure differs so far from Happiness, in our apprehension, that the former is momentary, or, at the best, of a fleeting nature, and the latter a lasting state, without desire of further enjoyment. So far as this world and our constitutions are concerned, Happiness is a thing not to be expected ever to be attained; and yet the Author of our being, wise in all his plans, who formed this world for man, and man for himself, has implanted the thirst of Happiness within the human breast as the highest and the strongest incentive, not only of obedience to his revealed, but to his organic laws. Some men are more unhappy than others; and those gifted with the highest attainments are often, if not generally, " of all men most miserable." It is, and must be, a natural consequence. He who knows the perfection of beauty in virtue, knowledge, order-he must keenly feel the infringement of their requirements in himself or in those around him. It is the duty of man to call in the aid of judgment and of reason to sober down the disappointments and jarrings that meet and jostle him in his earthly career of existence. That existence was given him to be useful to himself and others; and that end can only be gained by the infliction of misery hanging over a guilty or an imperfect step. We are none of us immaculate: Heaven knows, none of us are perfect. Crosses, cares, troubles, anxieties, are to be met with, and must be looked for in this life. It is our duty to avoid them as much as possible, and to acquire as much Happiness as our situations will permit. These ends can alone be gained by constantly acting under the guidance of calm reflection, and in doing good.

SONNET.

OH! 'tis a cutting thought that Man must feel—
Must feel the pressure of the thousand woes
That hover round his being, fixing throes

Within his bosom that no time can heal.
Philosophy is weak, though nerved like steel,

To cure the heart-ache. Sickening as Man goes
Along this vale of tears, around him throws
A thousand vain illusions every ill,

From hopes that perish ere they well have shown
Themselves on Fancy's promise-cherished fields;
And on such hopes full many a spirit builds

Its love of being. The foundations gone,
Life is a bitter draught—a load of care,
By sorrow stifled, struggling 'gainst despair.

WANDERINGS OF A NATURALIST IN RENFREWSHIRE.

BOTANY.

CRUIKSTON CASTLE-WAUKMILL GLEN-FERENEZE AND GLENIFFER

BRAES.

In a literary miscellany such as our Magazine, it may probably not be considered out of place, the introduction of some notices from a Correspondent of the fauna of Renfrewshire-not strictly in the dry style of scientific naturalists, but, if possible, in imitation of Goldsmith, who, as Johnson said, wrote his "Animated Nature" in the view of rendering a technical science more attractive than it had hitherto been to general readers, without presuming any approach to comparison with that eminent author.

Should this first sample of our Correspondent's excursions be considered of any interest, they may, if continued, include the Zoology and Botany of the County, as well as its Geology and Mineralogy, from Kelly Bridge to the furthest limits of the parish of Eaglesham.

Botany, in the meantime, presents itself as a favourite subject. Where was there ever, or where is now, the human being so dead to the beauties of Nature, as not to admire plants? Flowers are favourites with all, from the child emerging from infancy to the senile florist, eyeing, with "spectacles on nose," his favourite tulips, pansies, or auriculas. It is not with the florist, the garden, or the greenhouse, that we are now at work. Nature, uncultivated and unassisted Nature, without especial regard to splendour or speciosity, is our theme, having more in admiration the "gowan" which even peeps round the fox's den," than that pretty plant's cultivated self-the daisy of our gardens.

Let us, then, have excursions, making our remarks as we go along; and let it be seen that in the vicinity of Paisley are to be found a fair amount of the rarer plants indigenous to the "North Countrie."

The banks of the Canal, as one goes towards Glasgow, are redolent of a variety of plants; but crossing the bridge at Rosshill, and making a passing visit to the ruins of Cruikston Castle, a few minutes might be spent there. The historical recollections of the place, and the fate of its once royal inhabitant, must, in the first instance, absorb all minor feelings. But these evanished, just take a detour to the eastern side of the ruins; and in fraternity with the nettle, the dog's-mercury, and other forbid. ding plants, under the umbrageous protection of the trees, and upon what appears at one time to have been a moat, you will find that truly remarkable plant the cuckoo-pint or "wake robin" (Arum Maculatum.) It is a plant which affects solitary and secluded places; and its peculiar form of flowering and fructification, and its arrow-shaped maculated leaves, of a sombre green, associate it with gloom and melancholy, so as to cause it to form an appropriate appanage to the famed and time-worn edifice of Cruikston. The plant is rare in Scotland. It is found at Inch Mona, in the Lake of Monteith, Perthshire; but the locality of the