Chapters on the Common Things of the Sea-side

"For there, by sea-dews nursed and airs marine,
The Chelidonium blows in glaucous green;
Each refluent tide the thorn'd Eryngium laves,
And its pale leaves seem tinctured by the waves;
And half way up the cliff, whose rugged brow
Hangs o'er the ever-toiling surge below,
Springs the light Tamarisk; the summit bare
Is tufted by the Statice; and there,
Crush'd by the fisher, as he stands to mark
Some distant signal or approaching bark,
The Saltwort's starry stalks are thickly sown,
Like humble worth, unheeded and unknown."

Ir is delightful on some fine summer's morning to wake up to the loud continuous sounds of the waves, and to stray along the shore, with eye. and heart alive to the natural beauty of this world. When the calm airs seem, as the poet describes them,

"Like Music slumbering on its instrument,"

they are to the listener both sweet and soothing, and serve we know not how nor why-to awaken memories of the past, and so to identify themselves with our own being, that scenes far away, and long absent friends, gradually mingle in the daydreams begotten by their tones.

The glorious ocean! Can we wonder that lingering groups gather daily close by its boundaries, gazing hour after hour upon the silver waves? Call them not idlers. They may have come from scenes of busy toil for needful repose, and while listening to sweet sounds, and looking on lovely objects, they are getting treasures of memory for other days, and store of health and strength for future duty.

What thoughtful person ever listened to the ocean's murmurs without thinking over what a mass of contents its waters roll:

"Bones of dead men, that made

A hidden Golgotha where they had fall'n,
Unseen, unsepulchred, but not unwept
By lover, friend, relation far away,

Long waiting their return to home and country,
And going down into their fathers' graves,

With their grey hairs or youthful locks, in sorrow,

To meet no more till seas give up their dead;

Some, too,-ay, thousands,-whom no living mourn'd,
None miss'd, waifs in the universe, the last
Lorn links of kindred chains for ever sunder'd."

We have often thought, on looking on the multitudes of invalids who with their companions crowd our shores in summer, that they would possess a great advantage if they had some outdoor pursuit with which to beguile the time. Dr. Cullen used to say that he had cured weak stomachs by engaging his patients in the study of botany, and particularly in the investigation of wild plants; and many a head-ache, and a heartache too, would be relieved if its owner could be brought to feel an interest in the shells or seaweeds which are strewed on the beach, or in the sweet wild blossom which smiles on the side of

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