-we find

three offices, her graceful task of cup-bearer-a task of only gaiety, and blitheness, and delight-her usefulness in a practical action, and her care and sympathy in a work of mercy,the highest ideal of woman's nature, an ideal more perfect than Athene, for she wanted the love, the gentleness, the softened beauty, and the grace, which this daughter of the gods possessed.

Hebe was beautiful-so was Aphrodite; and both were of a beauty eminently feminine; yet how different! In the one, a vigour with all her girlish bashfulness, a fresh and hearty glow with all her gentle refinement of bearing, a palpable life in spite of her ethereal nature, a practicality through all her æsthetic grace; in the other, a languor even in her first-awakened innocence, a full sensation of love, as if her whole being was framed for that and that alone, a yielding softness, rather than Hebe's childish caresses, a sleepy dreamy voluptuousness that loved heavyscented flowers, warm airs, and sunny skies, that loved the darkened glades and groves, and thought no worshipper were well unless he were beautiful to be loved.

Yet all these different impersonations, how truly they set forth the Hellenic nature! Volumes may be written in explanation; but the most unerring text for the people is the gods. Nowhere have the gods such distinct human characters as among the Olympiads-nowhere was the future race more fully told of than in that heaven. The Mohammedan hourîs, the Persian jinns and peris, can scarcely bear comparison with the Grecian gods. True, they are spiritual essences incorporate in human forms; but they lack both the ideality and the individuality which the Kronids possessed so eminently; above all they, and every other of mythology, no matter what, lack that intense influence upon the character of the nation which formed one distinguishing feature in the Greek religion. Nothing is so beautiful as this; nothing fulfils its intention so entirely. Other climes may bring forth other idealities, and the further development of the human mind may demand further and more spiritual conceptions; but we need never hope to see any religion which shall have so much effect upon the education, rather than the spirit, of its votaries. If it left the deeper mind untouched, it formed the temper; if the thoughts were unwarped, the feelings were all its own. And this is the distinction between the present and the past; in the first it was more the intellect, in the last it is the soul; in the first the temper, in the last, spiritual morality. Man has

progressed, slowly but steadily; and from a child pleased with the surface rather than with the reality, he has become a man who cannot find his image in an infant's puppet, nor yet his god in even the most splendid of lifeless statues! He needs truth, and a reality more real than he has yet attained; he needs that the great thing of life should be definitively marked, if it be necessary to be definitively understood; else let the Pantheism of the past still be of the present-let nature still be the sole instructress— let there be universal tolerance, not only as a state question, a political decree that gives an equal right of tenure or of sufferance, but let there be in the faith of every man an all-embracing belief in the universality of Truth and Good. Let not one who worships his God in fasting, penitence, and abasement, say to him who sees his truth in love and harmony, "Stand off, I am holier than thou; let not the lowliest faith be slighted, the oldest superstition be despised. For sure as the course of the eternal stars, is the course of men's minds; and true as the return of the seasons with their fruits, is the revolution and production of the same, but differing, truths. Again and again we repeat it; in our faith, our mythology, our education, our creeds, do we find transcripts of the original in the bygone-do we find the universal laws of mind reproduced. Be reverent, then, to the past: be gentle even to its errors, for in them do we censure our own.

SONNET.

Ir were a happy lot, if, every day,

One had the power some act of grace to do

Some pious hope, or effort to renew,

Where hope had swoon'd, and strength been swept away

By suffering or grief! Oh, who can say

That he is wretched who hath still the power

To soothe one sorrow, or to make one hour

Of pain or poverty seem briefer? They

Who pass thro' life, nor wish to shed the flower
They pluck upon a brother's path, be sure

Have not the blessed privilege to feel

The very chiefest bliss in Life's great dower! He who one sore doth salve, one hurt doth heal, Hath founts of joy no world can make impure! Glamorgan.

EWAN GWYN.

230

A SHORT AND TRUE STORY.

Ir was upon the 7th of October, 182-, a merry party started from Calcutta, to spend the day pic-nicking under the umbrageous shade of the great banyan-tree, at the Company's Horticultural Garden in Garden Reach. The day was propitious, and after enjoying themselves, the budgerow was ordered in the evening, just after sunset, when they all embarked. A strong "fresh" being in the river, and the tide running down, the boat was pulled close up on the larboard side to keep out of the strength of the stream; it had got so far as the island opposite the "Cooly Bazaar," and whilst the ladies were chatting and singing, that Miss in rising from her chair, by some accident stumbled, and with it went overboard. Unfortunately falling over the starboard side, she went at once into the mighty current; all was hurry and confusion, and the men, mistaking the orders of the Mangee, pulled the starboard oars, which at once shot the boat upon the mud! My friend Tom, who was lying half asleep on the top of the round-house, worn out with the fatigues of the day, (having been laid up with fever and ague for three months) no sooner saw what had occurred, than he plunged into the river and swam towards the unhappy lady, who was by this time far down the stream-her head just visible! A few seconds, and both were out of sight! The feelings of those in the boat may be imagined, but not described. I must here pause, and use my friend's description of what took place. Reader, have you any idea of the Hooghly? If not, ask of those who know it, and you will find few that got into it ever came back to tell the tale! And if you can imagine a poor devil just recovered from the ague, which had beset him for three of the worst months in the year, with a thermometer ranging about 96o, drinking hot lime juice and water four blankets, a large counterpane, and four "palkee bearers" on the "top of all," when the shivering fit came on you may conceive what strength my poor friend had, to contend against a fine buxom damsel of twenty-eight.

"When I got up to her," said Tom, "her head was just

6

above the ripple, and the tide running like a sluice. I held out my arm, and was about saying, Allow me to get hold of you,' when, seizing it, she rose immediately and clung around me with desperate energy. We sank struggling. I got clear and came to the surface; again I caught her; still she confined my efforts, and a second time we went down! Once more we rose together, and almost instantly went under; finding my strength failing, and feeling the eddy whirling us round, I made one more arduous struggle towards the shore-this time it was for life! By great good fortune I felt my toes just touchone more rush, and I was comparatively safe on the mud, she with her arms around my neck! How they got there I cannot tell. Struggling further, I was obliged to go upon my knees, and upon looking about could discover nothing but the dark shade of the trees at Garden Reach, and the lights in the houses upon the opposite side; no sound save the rushing waters, and the cry of the jackall upon the shore. I found we were abreast of Kyd's Dockyard, and just opposite the place where two pet alligators used to frequent!—not mentioning the sharks. My gentle companion had by this come a little to her senses, and began something about her 'preserver.' I besought her to compose herself and keep quiet. After recovering my own wind I tried to make our situation known, but no answer came for some time; and then I discovered the two boatmen wading inshore in search of us. With the assistance of the others we were carried up to the boat-you know the rest.' Such was the daring, perilous feat of an invalid, and if ever a man deserved a medal, Tom did; but beyond that small circle it was little known; medals were not given in those days, and 'tis too late now. Yet, there lives one, who, if ever she sees this little history, will recollect, amid the blessings that now surround her, the waters of the Hooghly and the evening of the 7th of October! Some of the party may also be yet spared, but few must be their number, to testify to the truth of this tale. To resume we got them on board, and the moon, by this time risen, showing a sickly, clouded light, we pulled with all speed to Calcutta. The ladies soon rigged out Miss and a leetle brandy paunee " put all to rights; but what was to be done with my friend? 'Tis true there was "a change" in the gentlemen's wardrobe; but, alas! being none of the shortest-considerably above six feet-the "smalls" only reached Tom's knees, and the jacket very little below his arms, that reached beyond the sleeves into " empty

space" a long way! With a white handkerchief about his head he landed at "Colvin's Ghaut," a ghastly figure; but no ill effects ensued from his gallant action!

In my latter days I have often thought of the scene; and upon reading the record of many "gallant things," conceive I am only doing justice to one I was an eye-witness of in the "Far East.' 0.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN HOUSEHOLD ART.

STATUARY PORCELAIN.-PARIAN.-CAST IRON.

It has been our reproach among the nations that we are not an artistic people. We may, if we please, mutter the name of Flaxman, and declare this a slander; or we may invent new canons of criticism, to prove that there has been no legitimate development of Art out of our own country. But a more candid course will be to admit that we are not an artistic people; or, if we be potentially, yet that "it hath not appeared. We may find some solace under the mortification incident to such an avowal, in considering the disadvantages under which Art has laboured in this country. They have been many; but the most important has been the difficulty of popularising it, owing to certain conditions of our climate, religion, and social habitudes. In Greece and in Italy, manners, religion, climate, all combined to give popular interest to Art. If the metopes of the Parthenon had suffered from no other cause than exposure to the atmosphere for two thousand years, upon the Acropolis of Athens, they would appear in a much more perfect state than we find them in now; and frescoes on the fronts of Italian palaces have borne the rains of three or four centuries, yet are fresh at this day. Greek temples were, as Italian churches are, shrines where the people bowed down and worshipped the work of the chisel or the pencil; and the streets, the squares of Rome and Florence, are, as those of Athens were, galleries of Art in its various developments.

In our own climate, marble and fresco do not bear exposure to the weather; and to introduce a picture into a church is regarded as a "removing of the landmarks" of purified Christianity. Art, therefore, is driven to asylums where it must be sought out: it