in bolder forms and mellower tones, stood forth monastic tower and castled steep, the solemn ruin, the gay villa, and the mouldering arch! Could aught surpass the sublimities of such a scene?Yes. Its moral interest, as associated with the thoughts passing in that lonely mind. In every existence-even in those least varied by change-seasons and events have occurred, to which memory reverts with a solemn feeling of pleasure and regret:-pleasure, that such have once been enjoyed-regret, bitter indeed, that, not improved as they might have been, they are passed away in their freshness for ever. Upon like thoughts were the meditations of the traveller. The wish of his boyhood's early enthusiasm the sobered, but not less ardent, aspiration of maturer years had been gratified. He had traversed lands of glorious achievement; he had been where the great, the good, the wise, the fortunate, had been. He had visited the birth-place of much that is noblest-of still more that is most exquisite in the intellectual history of human kind "What charms in genius, and refines in art." A rich and ample page had been unrolled, and was now folded up for ever;-had he perused it as he fairly might? Alas! his own heart, which could not deceive, responded -No! First, he had neglected to come prepared for the study. He had next found or fancied the characters to be dimmed and difficult. Often had he been seduced by pleasure, often turned, in very recklesness, away from the instruction which it was his duty to have sought, and by which perseverance would have been rewarded. Yet had he seemed to himself busy for the moment; but now a mere nothing bounded his acquirements: how much had he forgotten, how much more never learned! Oh! could he return! But return he could not. a new horizon disclosed new prospects, and thoughts of home filled his bosom with unutterable things. Reader with whatever sentiments thou mayst have regarded the condition of the traveller, remember that such, at this moment, is thine own, in all the sublimities and pressing interests of thy moral position. These lines may haply be perused within a few hours of that dread point in duration, where time passing into eternity, mingles its sands with time that is to come. True, each instant of our lives bears the same mysterious relation. The present, however, is a season when the change is more marked-the transition more solemn. Like the traveller, therefore, on the Alpine height, whence extends one of the widest of terrestrial prospects, thou mayst seem now more especially to stand on a verge overlooking the receding course of the past, and the dim perspective of the future year. Our meditations, too, if we commune honestly with our own hearts, must, in no small degree, resemble the thoughts of the traveller. Well must we yet recollect, with what ardour of good intention we entered upon the year now passed away. Time has fulfilled all its promises to us. Its storied page, rich with the present moral, and ancient experience, has been fairly unrolled; opportunities have been afforded us; our prayers for life, health, and the capabilities of knowledge, have been graciously heard. Have we profited to the utmost, or even as we might readily have done? Alas! no. The year which, in anticipation, beheld our resolutions so fair, now, in the retrospect, gives back only a sad array of time misspent, exertion misapplied, disappointed hopes, unavailing cares, and empty pleasures. Truly may our course appear to have passed among mouldering things. Our joys, where are they? gone: they perished in the using. Where on our onward way is the goodly fabric of our virtuous actions-our high resolves, our active charities? They are not to be marked, or strew our path with the most unseemly of all decay-the works of good design unfinished or but begun. Vast and vainglorious piles do indeed indicate where we have been, reared to worldly ambition, selfish gratification, or perishable fame. These, unlike the heathen fanes, over whose noble proportions the traveller had mourned, show nothing real, save folly; but, too like those in their perverted use, ours have been dedicated to the service of unclean idols; polluted shrines they are, where we have given praise to the creature, unmindful of the glory of the Creator. We willingly escape from self-condemnation. A change comes over the spirit of his meditations. Had not the traveller been disappointed? What had he seen? A land of tombs, of names of perishing memorials of things that had perished. The mighty and the wise may have been there, but slavery, and ignorance, and degeneracy dwell where the Roman once ruled, and the haunts of ancient wisdom are doubtful or polluted. The proportioned column lies defaced, or has been filched from its station by ignoble cupidity, though guarding the memory of the hero -patriot-sage. Each glorious structure which taste and science reared, which nations dedicated, has become an Shall we then arraign the prospects and opportunities unseemly wreck the tomb, not only of its own beauty, of our pilgrimage, or despair of improvement? God forbat of genius also-burying the breathing marble, and bid. The retrospect of the past will convince us, that the speaking frieze. If bright forms and pure scenes if we have not reaped, it is because we have failed to aphave met his view, they are fled forever, and their part-preciate our advantages. This truth firmly established ing light casts but more dismal shadows over the solitudes of memory. But another change has been wrought in the meditations of the traveller. A holier flow has purified the course of feeling. The scarcely audible tones of the vesper bell, rising from these grey towers far below, have smote upon his ear, not in reproach, but to recall the warm sensibilities of the present, linked with the undescried interests of futurity. A truer tone chastened his musings. Much, indeed, he still found had been neglected on his part, and much had disappointed his awakened expectations and his ignorant hopes. But much, likewise, had been learned; and though he had beheld only vestiges of ages past, the footsteps of ancient virtue and ancient wisdom had impressed these remains with a hallowed character. Like the broken fragments of the vase in which has been stored some precious and abiding perfume, the monuments of past perfection, and reminiscences of moral greatness, had sent forth into his heart and understanding a sacred influence ;-he now found it had been good for him to have been there. Subdued and calm, the traveller arose to journey forward, ere the shadows of night should involve his mountain-path. Soon and where can a doubt find place?-will both direct and cheer us in the work of improvement. Salutary reflection on former errors, a last look not only to each year, but to each day, or each hour, will strengthen our judgment, and purify our practice for the future. From the very ruins of our past lives we shall thus erect the fair memorial of a virtuous fame. Thus had the traveller noted in the land of his journeying, that oft near the heathen fane had arisen the Christian temple, extracting its noblest ornaments from the fallen mass, and giving to primeval holiness of purpose the fruits of that genius which Heaven had bestowed, and man debased. A LOVE SONG. By John Malcolm. THE days of Mayhood, how bright and charming, stormy west; and as evening drew on, and a single Paulina was now thirteen; but the canker was busy within, and even her mother saw at last that she, too, was to be taken from her. It was a stern dispensation; the only child of her heart,-the only one whom her sleepless care had been able to fence in from the grasp of the spoiler, her meditation and her dream for thirteen years, the one only sad sunbeam whose watery and uncertain ray lighted up their solitude. But evil had followed them as a doom, nor was that doom yet com THE building was a solitary one, and had a cold and forbidding aspect. Its tenant, Adolphus Walstein, was a man whom few liked: not that they charged him with any crime, but he was of an unsocial temperament; and ever since he came to the neighbourhood, thinly inhabited as it was, he had contracted no friendship, formed no acquaintance. He seemed fond of wandering among the mountains; and his house stood far up in one of thepleted. wild valleys formed by the Rhætian Alps, which intersect Bohemia. He was married, and his wife had once been beautiful. She even yet bore the traces of that beauty, though somewhat faded. She must have been of high birth too, for her features and gait were patrician. She spoke little; but you could not look on her and fancy that her silence was for lack of thought. They had one only child-a daughter-a pale but beautiful girl. She was very young-not yet in her teens-but the natural mirth of childhood characterised her not. It seemed as if the gloom that had settled round her parents had affected her too; it seemed as if she had felt the full weight of their misfortunes, almost before she could have known what misfortune was. She smiled sometimes, but very faintly; yet it was a lovely smile, more lovely that it was melancholy. She was not strong; there was in her limbs none of the glowing vigour of health. She cared not for sporting in the fresh breeze on the hill-side. If ever she gathered wildflowers, it was only to bring them home, to lay them in her mother's lap, and wreathe them into withered garlands. Much did they love that gentle child: they had nothing else in the wide world to love, save an old domestic, and a huge Hungarian dog. Yet it was evident Paulina could not live; at least her life was a thing of uncertainty of breathless hope and fear. She was tall beyond her years; but she was fragile as the stalk of the whitecrowned lilly. She was very like her mother; though there was at times a shade upon her brow that reminded you strongly of the darker countenance of her father. It was said, that when he took his gun, and went out all day in search of the red-deer, far up among the rocky heights, he would forget his purpose for hours, and seating himself upon some Alpine promontory, would gaze upon his lonely house in the valley below, till the sun went down in the She died upon an autumn evening. She had been growing weaker for many a day, and they saw it, but spoke not of it. Nor did she; it seemed almost a pain for her to speak; and when she did, it was in a low soft tone, inaudible almost to all but the ear of affection. Yet was the mind within her busy with all the restless activity of feverish reverie. She had strange day-dreams; and life and the distant world often flashed upon her in far more than the brightness of reality. Often, too, all faded away; and though her eyes were still open, darkness fell around her, and she dwelt among the mysteries and immaterial shapes of some shadowy realm. It would be fearful to know all that passed in the depth of that lonely girl's spirit. It was an autumn evening-sunny, but not beautiful,-silent, but not serene. She had walked to the brook that came down the mountains, and which formed a pool and babbling cascade not a stonecast from the door. Perhaps she grew suddenly faint; for her mother, who stood at the window, saw her coming more hastily than usual across the field. went to meet her; she was within arm's-length, when her daughter gave a faint moan, and, falling forward, twined her cold arms round her mother's neck, and looked up into her face with a look of agony. a moment; her dark eye became fixed-it grew white with the whiteness of death, and the mother carried her child's body into its desolate home. She It was only for If her father wept-it was at night when there was no eye to see. The Hungarian dog howled over the dead body of its young mistress, and the old domestic sat by the unkindled hearth, and wept as for her own firstborn; but the father loaded his gun, as was his wont, and went away among the mountains. The priests came, and the coffin, and a few of the simple peasants. She was carried forth from her chamber, and her father followed. The procession winded down the valley. The tinkling of the holy bell mingled ! sadly with the funeral chant. At last the little train } disappeared; for the churchyard was among the hills, some miles distant. The mother was left alone. She fell upon her knees, and lifted up her eyes and her clasped hands to her God, and prayed-fervently prayed, from the depths of her soul-that he might never curse her with another child. The prayer was almost impious; but she was frantic in her deep despair, and we dare not judge her. A year has passed away, and that lonely house is still in the Bohemian valley, and its friendless inmates haunt it still. Walstein's wife bears him another child, and hope almost beats again in his bosom, as he asks, with somewhat of a father's pride, if he has now a son. But the child was a daughter, and his hopes were left unfulfilled. They christened the infant Paulina; and many a long day and dreary night did its mother hang over its cradle, and shed tears of bitterness, as she thought of her who lay unconscious in the churchyard away among the hills. The babe grew, but not in the rosiness of health. Yet it seldom suffered from acute pain; and when it wept, it was with a kind of suppressed grief, that seemed almost unnatural to one so young. It was long ere it could walk; when at last it did, it was without any previous effort. Time passed on without change and without incident. Paulina was ten years old. Often had Philippa, with maternal fondness, pointed out to her husband the resemblance which she alleged existed between their surviving child and her whom they had laid in the grave. Walstein, as he listened to his wife, fixed his dark penetrating eye upon his daughter, and spoke not. The resemblance was, indeed, a striking one,—it was almost supernatural. She was the same tall pale girl, with black, deep, sunk eyes, and long dark ebon hair. Her arms and hands were precisely of the same mould, and they had the same thrill ing coldness in their touch. Her manners, too, her disposition, the sound of her voice, her motions, her habits, and, above all, her expression of countenance—that cha racteristic and indescribable expression-were the very same. Her mother loved to dwell upon this resemblance; but her father, though he gazed and gazed upon her, yet ever and anon started, and walked with hasty strides across the room, and some times, even at night, rushed out into the darkness, as one oppressed with wild and fearful fancies. They had few of the comforts, and none of the luxuries of life, in that Bohemian valley, Philippa had carefully laid aside all the clothes that belonged to her dead daughter; and now that the last child of her age was growing up, and was so like her that was gone, she loved to dress her sometimes in her sister's dress; and the pale child wore the clothes, and talked of the lost Paulina, almost as if she had known her. One night her mother plied her needle beside her lamp, and at a little distance her daughter, in a simple white dress, which had once been another's, sat musing over the red embers of a dying fire. A thunder storm was gathering, and the rain was already falling heavily. Walstein entered; his eye rested on his daughter, and he almost shrieked; but he recovered himself, and with a quivering lip sat down in a distant corner of the room. His Hungarian dog was with him; it seemed to have caught the direction of his master's eye, and as its own rested keenly on Paulina, the animal uttered a low growl. It was strange that the dog never seemed to love the child. It is probable that she was hardly aware of her father's entrance, for she appeared absorbed in her own thoughts. As the blue and flickering flame fell upon her face, she smiled faintly. "O God! it is! it is!" cried Walstein, and fell senseless on the floor. His wife and daughter hurried to his assistance, and he recovered; but he pointed to Paulina, and said falteringly, “Philippa!-send her to bed." With a quiet | step, his daughter moved across the room; at the door, she was about to kiss her mother, but Walstein thundered out, "Forbear!" and rising, closed the door with trembling violence. Philippa had often seen her husband in his wilder moods, but seldom thus strangely agitated; yet, had she known the conviction that had arisen in his mind, she would have ceased to wonder. He had watched long and narrowly, and now he was unable to conceal longer from himself the fearful truth. It was not in her wan beauty alone that she resembled her sister-it was not merely in the external developement of her form;-he knew, he felt, that the second Paulina, born after her sister's death, was the same Paulina as she whom he had laid in the grave. There was horror in the idea, yet could it not be resisted. But even now he breathed it not to his wife, and silently they passed to their chamber. The secret of his soul, however, which he would never have told her by day and awake, the wretched Philippa gathered from him in his uncon. scious mutterings in the dead watches of the night. When the thought came upon her, it fell upon her heart like a weight of lead. Her maternal affection struggled with it, and with the thousand proofs that came crowding of themselves into her memory, to strengthen and to rivet it, and the struggle almost overturned her reason. The Paulina, in whom her heart was wrapped up twelve years ago, had frequently dreams of a mysterious meaning, which she used to repeat to her mother when no one else was by. A few days after the occurrences of the evening to which we have alluded, the living child, who had come in the place of the dead, told Philippa she had dreamt a dream. She recited it, and Philippa shuddered to hear an exact repetition of one she well remembered listening to long ago, and which she had ever since locked up in her own bosom. Even in sleep, it seemed that, by some awful mystery, Paulina was living over again. Time still passed on, and the pale child shot up into a girl. She was thirteen; though a stranger would have thought her some years older. It was manifest that she, too, was dying. (There was a dismal doubt haunted her father's mind whether she had ever lived.) She never spoke of her deceased sister; indeed, she seldom spoke at all; but when they asked if she were well, she shook her head, and stretched an arm towards the churchyard. To that churchyard her father went one moonlight night. It was a wild fancy, yet he resolved to open his daughter's grave, and look once more upon her mouldering remains. He had a reason for his curiosity, which he scarcely dared own even to himself. He told the sexton of his purpose; and, though the old man guessed not his object, he took his spade and his pickaxe, and speedily commenced his task. It was an uncertain night. wind came in gusts, and sometimes died away into strange silence. The dim moonlight fell upon the white tomb-stones, and the shadows of the passing clouds glided over them like spirits. The sexton pursued his work, and had already dug deep. Walstein stood by his side. The "I have not come to the coffin yet," said the old man, in a tone bordering upon wonder; "yet I could tell the very spot blindfold in which I put it with these hands thirteen years ago.” "Dig on, for the love of Heaven!" said Walstein, and his heart began to beat audibly. There was a short pause. "I am "My digging is of no use," said the sexton. past the place where I laid the coffin; and may the Holy Virgin protect me, for there is not a vestige either of it or the body left." "Paulina! just Heaven! what can have brought you so far from home?-at night, too, and weak as you are? it will be your destruction." She took no notice of the question, but fixing her quiet look upon the grave, she said—" Father, I shall soon lie there." It was the thirteenth anniversary of Paulina's death, and the swollen brook was brawling hoarsely down the mountains, for a tempestuous autumn had already anticipated winter. The shutters of the upper chamber were closed, and Philippa sat by the sick-bed of her last child. The sufferer raised her pale and languid head, and whilst her dark eye appeared to wander in the delirium of fever, she said, with a struggle,-" Mother, is it not a mysterious imagination,-but I feel as if I had lived before, and that my thoughts were happier and better than they are now?" Philippa shuddered, and gazed almost with terror upon her child. "It is a dream, Paulina; one of the waking dreams of over-watchfulness. Be still, sweet girl; an hour's sleep will refresh you." As she spoke, Paulina did sleep, but there was little to refresh in such slumber. Her whole frame was agitated convulsively; her bosom heaved with unnatural beating ;her hands alternately grasped the coverlid, as if to tear it into shreds, and were ever and anon lifted up to her head, where her fingers twined themselves among the tresses of her ebon hair; her lips moved incessantly; her teeth chattered; her breath came short and thick, as if it would have made itself palpable to the senses. Terrible gibberings succeeded, and her poor mother knew that the moment of dissolution was at hand. In an instant all was still, the grasp of the hand was relaxed,—the heaving and the beating ceased,—the lips were open, but the breath of life that had ebbed and flowed between them had finished its task, and was gone: a damp distillation stood upon the brow,-it was the last sign of agony which expiring nature gave. That night Walstein dreamed a dream. Paulina, wrapt in her winding-sheet, stood opposite his couch. Her face was pale and beautiful as in life, but under the folds of her shroud he discovered the hideous form of a skeleton. The vision became double: a grave opened as if spontaneously, and another Paulina burst the cerements asunder, and looked with her dead eye full upon her father. Walstein trembled, and awoke. A strange light glanced under his chamber door. Who was there stirring at the dead hour of night? He threw the curtains aside. The moon was still up; an indescribable impulse urged him to rush towards the room in which the body of his daughter lay. He passed along the lobby ;-the door of the chamber was open; the Hungarian dog lay dead at the threshold; the corpse was gone. And in its raving wild career, Now here, now there, in flank and rear, Dang wide the door. "Oh, grously Winter, auld, dour chiel, At your dread coming, nought I feel But dool and fear; Fell mower o' the human race, "What brings ye here, auld gousty carle, Making our banes wi' aches to dirl, Drawing our tears? In sooth, your reign we canna thole; "I hear there is an unco clatter Ye've frozen every pipe o' water— A bonny pliskie ! And if we havena soon a thaw, I dauner'd up to shut the door, As, help'd in by a rushing blast, Frae his auld shouthers down did fa' Like swandown tippet; Lang icicles hung frae his chin, His nose was red, his cheeks were blue, Were bare and blae. "Gudeman," said he, "as I gaed past, "Ye're just ane o' the thankless pack, Misca's me sair behint my back, Black be their fa'! Sae I've, to vindicate my fame, Thinks I, I maun the carle fleech, For weel, gude certie, can he preach, The cunning body! Says I," Auld sir, just take a waff O' that gude fire, we'll hae a laugh Ower a drap toddy." "Gudeman," said he, in tone sae snell, "Think not wi' sic as you I'll mell, Or drain a tumbler, Until I've shown baith far and wide, That ye deserve a weel-pay'd hide, Ye senseless grumbler ! "Wi' friendly hand and tender care, I send my storms to clear the air; And raging flood, To wisest purposes I tend; "I mind, alas, the days of old, Who would of snaw their pillow make, "Ye now have grown a feckless race, Ye are unlike these men of might, "I mind me well, how blythe and sweet, The leddies fear'dna me to meet On causeway's crown; "But now the misses look sae gaucy, As they sail by wi' air sae saucy, Smoor'd to the nose Wi' boas, tippets, cloaks, and muffs, Lang veils, and nicely crimpet ruffs, And Shetland hose. "Poets and lovers make a fraise And haver about buzzing bees, "But, certie, they would look gey queer, Were Sol to rule through a' the year, Their skins to roast; They'd glad exchange their trees and bowers, Their shrubs and plants, and fragrant flowers, For clinking frost. "Suppose, gudeman, I took the gee, And no set foot across the sea, Whare's a' your joys? Ay, whare would be your skating, curling, Your sliding, snawba's, and your hurling, And heartsome ploys? "From Arthur Seat I oft did watch, To see the merry curling match; Nay, at their dinners, I've seen the round of beef and greens "I mind that on the Calton Hill, I lang hae stood and laugh'd my fill, Till shook my shanks, To see the schoolboys at their play, And far too short my winter day For a' their pranks." Auld Winter, brimming wi' vexation, Was now cut short in his narration, For sic a din Got up, a perfect hobbleshew, Cauld Winter would nae langer sit; Is naething to a woman's tongue!" NUGE LITERARIE. By the Author of "Dialogues on Natural and Revealed Religion," &c. In ETHICS-The science of conduct and manners, considered more with a view to practice than theory. The term, Moral Philosophy, comprehends, farther, the metaphysical discussions concerning the principles of moral approbation, whether they belong to a particular faculty, or may be resolved into some more general fact in the human constitution. The ethical, or practical branch, was more exclusively the moral philosophy of ancient times. It is treated with much fulness, ability, and eloquence, in the writings of Aristotle and Cicero. modern times, ethics, properly so called, has necessarily been connected with religion; and the strongest motives to a virtuous life, and the laws by which it is regulated, have been derived from the sources of Divine revelation. Hence, except in the pulpit, or in treatises professedly religious, we seldom meet with ethical discussions. To separate morality from religion, is commonly looked upon with a suspicious eye. The one seems imperfect without the other; and accordingly, there are few modern books of mere morality, which are written with much glow and animation, or which find a ready sympathy in the reader. It is in the writings of the illustrious ancients that ethics appear in all their dignity; because, so far from being any thing inferior to the system of religion in those ages, they were evidently a great improvement upon it. The more professed ethical writers of modern times have generally exhibited the system of human duties under a more worldly and less elevated aspect than those of antiquity. Wishing to avoid as much as possible the topics and the tone of the pulpit, they have restricted their views to mere prudential considerations, or have even polluted the springs of morality by the corrupt maxims and fashions of the day. In the hands of Aristotle or Cicero, and perhaps still more in those of Xenophon and Plato, morality seems always to be rising above the present sphere of existence, and to be struggling to In the moralists of the break into some higher field. French school, lead is rather tied to its wings; or while they are painted with artificial colours, they beat and flutter amidst impurity and defilement. There are many important and lively observations on life and manners in Montagne, Rochefoucauld, and our own Chesterfield; but they do not produce that elevation of thought and feeling, which is so inspiring in the great writers of antiquity; and they often, on the contrary, mislead and debase. The finest moral writers of modern times are Fénélon and Addison, because they are at all times drawing their inspiration from the sources of Christianity, even while they profess to do little more than to moralize after the manner of Socrates. FILIAL PIETY.—It is a pleasing circumstance to observe in heathen times certain compensations for the gross If they corruption and follies of their religious system. could have no moral satisfaction in the worship of their deities, they enjoyed somewhat of the sublimity of the religious sentiment in their devotion to their country, and Filial Piety came in the room of the tenderness and submissiveness of that sentiment to which now the term |