alone.

This is but to retreat from men, and fall

into the hands of devils."

And if sequesterment be necessary for our spiritual, it is equally needed by our intellectual nature. A bird is shut up and darkened before it learns a tune; trees and sun draw off its attention. The music of fancy is acquired in a similar manner. But the loneliness must be fed; and the kind of nourishment is soon discovered. The purple feather of the bird tells of the seed. So it is in literature. Demosthenes manifests in every oration the student of Thucydides; and violets of Colonos peep out under the hedges of Milton's Eden.

JULY 18th.-Most poetical readers know by heart Mr. Wordsworth's charming portraiture of womanly sweetness, which is able to cheer and bless us in all weathers of life. He has written nothing tenderer or truer―

I saw her, upon nearer view,

A spirit, yet a woman too.

Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;

A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet.
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,

For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

I have been amused in tracing back the pedigree of this description. First comes our excellent friend Goldsmith, introducing Dr. Primrose: "I had scarcely taken orders a year, before I began to think seriously of matrimony, and chose my wife as she did her wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but for such qualities as would wear well." Next appears Shenstone, in his Progress of Taste:

For humble ease, ye powers, I pray,
That plain warm suit for every day!
And pleasure and brocade bestow,
To flaunt it once a month or so.
The first for constant wear we want;
The first, ye powers! for ever grant.
But constant wear the last bespatters,
And turns the tissue into tatters.

The sentiment is briefly uttered in Much Ado About Nothing, (Act ii. sc. 5,) where Pedro asks Beatrice, "Will you have me, lady?" and she answers, "No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days. Your Grace is too To Mr. Wordsworth

costly to wear every day."

belongs the praise of cutting and setting the stone.

JULY 19th. I am almost weary of watching
The minute drops from off the eaves.

In a village, one is not prepared for a rainy day in July. You do not look for it—it is a winter

luxury. A cold, wet, hazy, blowing night in December, gates swinging, trees crashing, storm howling-that is enjoyable-it is the weather to finish Christabel in. How full of heat, light, and comfort everything is within-doors! The flickering fire, beaten into a blaze, the bubbling urn, the rustled book, and all the scenery of a thoughtful fireside, rise to the memory. Cowper describes the hour he delighted to lose in this waking dream, when he had drawn the chair up to the fender, and fastened the shutter, that still kept rattling. See him gazing earnestly into the sleepy fire!what is he looking at? In the parlour twilight, the history of his boyhood and youth lives again. The pleasant garden of the parsonage he was born in; the path the gardener, Robin, drew him along to school; and his mother, in that vesture of tissued flowers which he used to prick into Sometimes his gayer heart disported itself with other dreams :—

paper with a pin.

Me oft has fancy, ludicrous and wild,

Soothed with a waking dream of houses, towers,
Trees, churches, and strange visages, express'd
In the red cinders, while with poring eye
I gazed, myself creating what I saw.
Not less amused have I, quiescent, watch'd
The sooty films that play upon the bars
Pendulous, and foreboding in the view
Of superstition, prophesying still,

Though still deceived, some stranger's near approach.

I should like to see a catalogue of Hearth Literature, if the title may be compounded.

Bright winter fires, that summer's part supply,

is the pleasing line of Cowley. That parlour twilight is instead of the sun playing on leaves and grass. What visions have been created, books planned, pictures designed, cathedrals built, and countries discovered, over dying embers! Thoughts of eloquence and devotion, at this hour moving and shining over the world, were born in that glimmer. Ridley, watching out the last red coal in his cell, may have seen the church rising in her stateliness and purity; Raleigh have called up cities of gold, and forests of fruit-bearing trees; and Milton, in the chimney-corner at Horton, have sketched the dim outline of Comus. Therefore a wet winter evening is a very agreeable characteristic of the season. The wood-ashes are aids to reflection. But a rainy afternoon in summer is altogether different: it is the Faëry's dancing-hall, with the lights extinguished. A paper network is where a fire ought to be; a red cinder for the parish-clerk to disappear in would be worth its weight in silver. But the eye wanders up and down, and finds nothing to rest upon; the room itself wears a heavy, disconsolate expression; the

table and chairs are miserable; the large fly mopes on the damp glass; the flowers in the window look like mourners, just returned wet through from the funeral of Flora. Bamfylde has painted the sorrows of the season:

Mute is the mournful plain;

Silent the swallow sits beneath the thatch,
And vacant hind hangs pensive o'er his hatch,
Counting the frequent drop from reeded eaves.

JULY 20th.-Thanks to the Germans, we are beginning to be on visiting terms with the old Greek families. A scholar is now able to call on Pericles, and even to form a fair estimate of the domestic arrangements of the middle classes. The drawing-room and kitchen are being restored. Becker has done much for this branch of study. He sketches an Athenian lodginghouse with something of Flemish minuteness. A lasting value is given to his descriptions by the authority of the original authors, whose words he quotes. This is a feature of criticism not to be despised. He is a naturalist, looking off his lecture to point to the real specimens in glass

cases.

People are mistaken in supposing that Greek cities had no inns. In early times-the heroic ages-private hospitality entertained the way