Your fair lips utter forth the thought
"Thy being ends not here,"
Earth's noblest life by yours is taught
To look for life more dear.

And as with charms that satisfy
The outward sense of all,
But most to those who weary lie,
So, when the gloomy pall

Of sorrow doth our life surround,
The clearer mental sight

Of flowers from God's own garden-ground,
Will cheer the mourner's night.

Yea, all your time from bud to seed,
No moment but ye bear

Rich gifts that all our ken exceed,

All free for all to share.

So wisdom's flowers of heavenly truth
Exhale continual peace,

And pour sweet thoughts for age and youth,
In streams that never cease.

Thus by your voice, ye silent ones
My faith more living grows,

Rejoices in your heart-felt tones,

And blossoms as the rose.

J. B.

SLEEP.

WEARY in body and weary in mind man seeks after rest. Born with the seeds of dissolution embedded in his life, the infant begins to die when it begins to live. Each returning birthday is but another milestone on the road of life; another eminence gained from which to look back upon the way it has travelled, till, at last, is reached the last stage of all, and loving hands and tearful eyes perform the last offices to the dead, even as loving hands and joyful hearts welcomed the advent of its birth. In this journey from the cradle to the grave, how man frets alike his mind and body-with some, the greed of gain, with others, the attainment of honors and distinction spur them to unsparing exertions, and they reach the object of their struggle, unless, perforce, they be trampled underfoot by stronger competitors in the race.

This struggle necessitates much wear and tear, alike of body and of mind, which is partially counteracted by our daily food and nightly sleep; partially, I say, for the seeds of dissolution are all this time striking deeper into our bodies, and the sands of life, even as moments, are falling, falling, till the garland of death crowns our brow.

Of the various wise and beneficent earthly blessings, which an almighty and merciful Creator has bestowed upon His creatures, sleep may be reckoned amongst the greatest. What a mighty leveller is sleep!the sovereign in his bed of state often sighs in vain for that sweet and refreshing repose which his lowliest subject enjoys on his pallet of straw! -and in their dreams perchance the peasant becomes a king and the king a peasant. How beautifully has Shakespere expressed this in his celebrated soliloquy on sleep. The tired labourer, with contented mind, lies down to sleep, whilst many a sovereign knows too well, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."

Come to this little cot and see the tiny, rosy nestling that sleeps therein. The little rounded, chubby limbs, perchance tired out with play, lie here and there; the pretty curls rest on a brow as calm as breathless eve, or steel over cheeks as though they fain would take a kiss from those full lips. O happy, happy sleeper, with all thy frame at rest, thou art like a calm unruffled fountain, beautiful and bright! Or should

sorrow have filled and overflowed its little heart, so that it has cried itself to sleep, kiss away the tear which glistens like a dewdrop on an opening flower, and pray that your sleep may be as sound and sweet, and that round your bed may stand spirits as pure as those angels that encanopy the child!

And now look we on the recumbent forms of the warrior, the poet, the statesman, the man of letters, the man of business, the man of pleasure, the judge, and the criminal he has condemned to death. With limbs outstretched and features wonderfully alike as regards their placid repose, they all sleep. What to them, now is the roar of cannon-the lute's soft sigh, the destiny of nations, the adverse critique, popular favour, the broken word of honor, the rise and fall of funds, the majesty of law, or the dread presence of the executioner? All have bathed in Lethe; all is forgetfulness. And now step softly, very softly, for here lies one whose racking pain has rendered him and sweet sleep enemies. He has beholden sleep afar off and longed for it, but it has eluded his grasp-with fevered brow and parched palate he has turned restlessly on his bed and counted the passing weary hours, till tired nature, at last, by its weakness proved its strength, and the patient sleeps. Do we not all remember the blessed sleep we have enjoyed under circumstances as these?

Now come into this darkened room where all is silent as the grave. It may well be so, for here is death.

"Can this be death; there's bloom upon her cheek,

But now I see it is no living hue,

But a strange hectic, like the unnatural red
Which autumn plants upon the perish'd leaf."

What a sleep is here! a sleep that no mortal shall e'er disturb. We have a lesson of years compressed as it were into a moment when we gaze, thoughtfully, upon the form of a sleeping child, or the still, cold features of one who has gone to the last sleep. Sir Thomas Brown wrote "Sleep is death's elder brother, and so like him, that I never dare trust him without my prayers." Truly there is great mystery in sleep, for though the heart beats on, the lungs expand and contract, the organs of digestion perform their functions, and the whole wonderful machinery of man's existence ceaseth not; still the calm and placid repose of those who sleep soundly, is, especially, in the young, very like death.

Now let us enquire what sleep is, and what are the most favourable circumstances to ensure its happy and full enjoyment. Some Physiologists have stated that sleep is produced by pressure of blood upon the brain, and it is true that circumstances which produce an overflow of blood to the head tend to produce a listlessness and want of energy, but I think this feeling might more properly be considered stupor and not sleep. The more generally received opinion is that during sleep there is less pressure of blood upon the brain than during our waking hours. If we notice an infant's head ere the skull has become thoroughly firm and fixed, we shall perceive that during sleep that portion of the head which is still soft and which covers the brain is depressed and quiescent, but that during the time the infant is awake, and when excited, this same

part swells and throbs perceptibly and is much elevated. After a hearty meal, when the presence of food in the stomach excites a flow of blood to that region, a feeling of listlessness creeps over us, and we are strongly inclined to have "just forty winks." Why that arbitrary number has been fixed on I cannot tell, but that it is well to rest for a short time after taking our meals we know. But modern competition says no! put on the pressure, tax your energies past their strength, and when the machinery is worn out, and the sense of enjoyment has long since preternaturally waned, then think of rest. Too late, the overstrung bow breaks, and another victim has been offered to that moloch-Mammon. Think not I am decrying work, it is the overwork of which I complain, the doing that which "must be done," although by so doing we are overtaxing our strength. Man is oftentimes more merciful to his horse than he is to himself!

To stand, or to sit upright necessitates exertion, and therefore we cannot sleep so well sitting or standing, as in a recumbent position, although instances have been cited of soldiers sleeping as they marched, or even when surrounded by the din of artillery.

Our forefathers would seem to have lived in times when freer draughts of air were allowed in their sleeping apartments, and hence probably arose that majestic institution, the grand" four-poster," with its thick curtains drawn to exclude air, light, and the flies. When we add to this that the bed was stuffed with down, which completely engulphed the hapless sleeper, we can only marvel at the constitutional and physical strength which was able to exist under the infliction. I have always had a great horror of that family heirloom, the "best bed," at some well-to-do farmhouse, and would prefer taking my rest, like the ancient Egyptians, with a plank in lieu of the downy gathering, and a bent bar of iron in place of the too yielding pillow. Thanks to the genius who invented iron bedsteads, and hair mattresses. A calm and contented mind is a successful woer of sleep. To go to bed with a troubled mind worried and jaded with the cares of business, with a mind borne down, not only with the vexations of the day that has passed, but also full of misgivings for the morrow, is to go to an uneasy couch. As to the time required for sleep, no arbitrary rule can be laid down. Different constitutions and temperaments require different periods. Most people spend a longer time in bed than is either necessary or desirable. From seven to eight hours may be considered a fair average time to allot to sleep, and it would be well if the conventionalities of an artificial state of Society allowed this rest to be taken at more natural and reasonable hours than is generally the case. When we sleep we dream, and oftentimes we dream when we are awake too. For what is all our castle-building in the air, and the vain Phantasies which sweep across our minds in waking hours, but waking dreams? There is only this difference, that in the one case our judgment lies dormant, whilst in the other it soon dispels our misty musings and brings us back to the stern realities of life. In dreams, it would seem as though the colors of fancy were intermingled without the master-hand of judgment to give them shape and congruity and truth. Dryden has written

"Dreams are but interludes, which Fancy makes;
When monarch Reason sleeps, this mimic wakes;
Compounds a medley of disjointed things,
A mob of cobblers, and a court of kings.
Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad;
Both are the reasonable soul run mad;
And many monstrous forms in sleep we see,
That neither were, nor are, nor e'er can be ;
Sometimes forgotten things long cast behind
Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind."

We do not often remember our dreams; occasionally we wonder at some strange coincidence of an event happening of which we have previously dreamt, but when we consider the countless number of dreams that have no such corresponding coincidence we shall cease to wonder. Did space allow, I might refer to the sleep of animals and their dreams, for everything that is warm-blooded, both sleep and dream; of the winter stupor of other animals and birds, or of the winter rest of the vegetable world.

To me, nature on a calm, quiet night, seems to be all asleep. When the sky is studded with stars, and the leaves hang motionless as though Zephyrs and wind storms were things unknown. When no sound is heard save the fluttering of some fashionable moth, or the chirp of some convivial grasshopper, when the motionless clouds are very like sleeping whales or giants' couches, and the voiceless prayer of thankfulness seems to rise on swifter wings to God-then is rest.

J. C.

SCRAPS.

The May number of Hibernia, a Dublin monthly review, contains a very interesting article by Professor Mahaffy on "John Inglesant;" in which the writer pays an eloquent tribute to the ability and culture of our gifted townsman Mr. J. H. Shorthouse.

*

The high position which Mr. Shorthouse has so quickly and so deservedly attained in the literary world, has been well maintained by his subsequent efforts-viz: "The Platonism of Wordsworth; " (published by Cornish Brothers) and "The Agnostic in Church" which appeared in the April number of the Nineteenth Century.

To these must now be added another congenial work, being a prefatory essay to a fac-simile reprint of "The good George Herbert's " collection of poems, published in 1633, under the title of "The Temple."

An able and interesting review of this Essay appeared in the Birmingham Daily Gazette of June 19th.