When pansied turf was air to winged feet,
And circling forests, by etherial touch
Enchanted, wore the livery of the sky,
As if about to melt in golden light,

Shapes of one golden vision; and thy heart,
Enlarged by its new sympathies within,

Grew beautiful to all."

When, however, the poet is required to make beautiful a passage that he intends at the same time to be grand, the task becomes much more difficult. Innocent enjoyments naturally suggest sweetness of versification, but the expression of the violent emotions is likely to lead an author into a certain stern ruggedness of language. To preserve this beauty in violence, then, was his object, when the king, speaking of his own death, declares his intention to make, during his last hours, a revel, in the face of the grim destroyer.

"Have ye beheld a pine,

That clasp'd the mountain summit with a root,

As firm as its tough marble, and, apart

From the huge shade of undistinguished trees,

Lifted its head, as in delight to share

The evening glories of the sky, and taste

The wanton dalliance of the heavenly breeze

That no ignoble vapor from the vale
Could mingle with, smit by the flaming marl,
And lighted for destruction? How it stood,

One glorious moment fringed and wreathed within,
Which showed the inward graces of its shape,
Uncumbered now.

How-but now, forsooth, the gentle reader is gentle no more, and waxeth warm at the thoughts of more quotations. Be it so. We had intended to have given a long and most able dissertation upon the manners of the ancient Greeks, as developed in Ion. We had intended to have been subtle, nay, even witty, upon the subject of love, showing the why and wherefore Ion became enamored of Clemanthe, and why he did not "fall in love" with some one else before; and

this we had designed to illustrate by our own experience, cited in a note, for the benefit of our fair readers. But "Othello's occupation's gone," our candle (verily 'tis a lamp) curls its sickly flame at us contemptuously, and our pen, spattering savagely, refuses longer to indite nonsense for a sleepy reader.

X. A.

MY BOOKS.

"Not many; some few as thus."

JOHN WOODVIL.

I AM a lover of books.

And

Now when I say this, I do not signify that I love reading; that is quite another thing, and may come after. But all I wish to say now is, that all men have their whims, and mine is a love for books. that too by themselves considered, without regard immediately to their contents. I feel a deep reverence, almost amounting to a tendre, for what Crabbe describes as

"That weight of wood, with leathern coat o'erlaid ;
Those ample clasps of solid metal made;

The close-pressed leaves, unclosed for many an age,
The dull red edging of the well filled page."

All have their charms for me. But with the permission of Mr. Crabbe
let me leave the "red edging" to the stolid, dull, phlegmatic German,
to whom it now belongs, and give our more elegant taste, gilt edges,
or if not, the pure paper undefiled. As for the "weight," let them be
as heavy as they may, it will never sink them out of my good graces.
I like your giant folios, your huge tomes, whose Russia leather seems
redolent with age and erudition, whose heavily ribbed backs seem to
bar intrusion, who stand in none of your dèshabillé half-bindings, but in
full dress, erect, stiff and stately, as if monarchs waiting to grant an
audience. Not that we do not favor marble-papered covers for some
books, as we would advise undress costume for some ladies, were we
appointed arbiter elegantiarum. With octavos and duodecimos, it is
our favorite suit for every day books-with our favorites we stipulate
for full garb of Turkey morocco. But for your folios and quartos we
want nothing less than full dress, in cut at least, albeit the material
may be calf, Turkey or Russia at your pleasure. In the matter of colors
too as well as material is there great room for variety of tastes, yet
should we not fail to clothe the "Botanical Garden" in green;
"Gib-
bon," in a dignified russet brown, and "Fox's Martyrs" in blood red.
And while we speak of binding, we must not forget to mention what
the obliging and accomplished Librarian of our College once suggested
to us, that there can be no greater mistake for a large library than a
uniform binding. For, as he knew by experience, we, in looking for
any particular book in a variously bound collection, recall its general
appearance, and find it much sooner by that than by its title; but where

all are bound alike, we are compelled to pass from book to book with a careful glance at the lettering of each. And so much for externals. And now can we confess ourselves a lover of books and their contents. Not indiscriminately though. We are no great readers of small books; none of those who get learning by the cord, and devour so many square feet of literature per week. Procul! O procul! be such gormandizing habits from us. We read but few books, and those few, not too profound. We are not well informed. Our worst enemy could never fling that in our teeth. There at least we think our character is "armed, strong in its innocence," and bids defiance to aspersion. We are not of the number of those who aim to know something of every thing, and succeed in knowing little of any thing. Yet have we no pretensions to great depth. What little we do read, we understand, or if we do not, by the fourth or fifth perusal we probably shall do so. We say "fourth or fifth perusal," because a book that is worth reading at all, is worth reading more than once or twice or three times, and the work must be a dull one if you grow wearied at the dozenth trial.

Sua cuique voluptas, and every book lover has his tastes and favorites. Mine are for books that converse not about mankind generally, that are neither deeply metaphysical nor philosophical, that do not pretend to a knowledge of human nature, but rather for those which display individual characteristics, idiosyncracies and peculiarities. Egotistically disposed myself, I find the keenest pleasure in the works of those egotists who have made their own minds their study, and the theme of their discourse. Hence autobiographies, letters and essays are my delight, and hence on my bookshelves will be found-but let me introduce you to my library and you shall see for youself.

"Not many some few as thus." There at your right hand on that lower shelf are Walton's " Complete Angler” and his "Lives" standing side by side,

"All in a robe of darkest grain,”.

as Izaak and Charles Cotton used to stand, clad in sober black, upon the banks of the Dove, on some "fine, fresh May morning." It is bound, as you see, in Turkey morocco, with gilt edges, for it were hard if one who slept in his lifetime in "linen that looks white, and smells of lavender," should not find a comely resting place after death. Next to these, in invisible green, a color whose very name seems diplomatic, stands Machiavelli, the coolest and most philosophic of villains, with his "Prince" in its matchless rascality, and his "History of Florence," dignified and impartial. Strange neighbors are these, truly, the simple Izaak and the keen "Nick Machiavel," as Hudibras calls him, yet not stranger than the companions we see in life, so they can still hold their position. Farther on we see that" child of fancy," John Keats, in the rich sunny hue of the leaves and the grass he loved while living. Not his works only, though they teem with fancy and beauty, though you roam with Endymion through land and sea, amid woods and waters, amid leaves and flowers and waves and spray, though you sit with " gray haired Saturn,"

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,

Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star ;"

though with Porphyro on St. Agnes' Eve you watch over "thoughtful Madeline" as she sleeps

66

Clasped like a missal where swart Paynims pray

Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,

As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again,"

still his works are not all. In the same rich green and gold are his Letters and 'Life-that life that was

As your eye travels along that line of British Essayists, it rest upon Talfourd with the same pleasure that the wayfarer feels as he sees a grove of rich dense foliage amid the trackless wastes of a western prairie. A kindlier reviewer never graced an English periodical. Free from the envy which we are wont to attribute to genius, his encomiums breathe forth a warm-hearted encouragement to each who either is, or bids fair to be, worthy of it, and his Magazine brethren may thank him if the name of critic be no longer a bugbear to frighten children with. Milton, in imperial purple, befitting his high station in the temple of the Muses, Gibbon in the dignified and studious brown which we have before assigned him, and some half dozen nobodies, such as Campbell and Mrs. Hemans, presents, and hence remaining where they are by sufferance, fill up that shelf.

Let us ascend one story and continue the inspection. And first, if you begin at the right as before, you encounter a stout, burly looking duodecimo of 1633, gaping violently-as your thick old duodecimo of eight hundred and odd pages always will-without lettering on the back, and the leather torn away from one corner of the cover. Such are its outward charms; nor will you be surprised if, on opening, you discover it to be a Greek or Latin Lexicon to the New Testament; but skipping the dedication to "illustribus et praepotentibus Hollandiae et Westfrisiae Ordinibus" and turning the leaf, read the preface or address "lectori benevolo." Nay, friend, be not horror-stricken at the crabbed Greek—there is a translation on the opposite page, in Latin! It is an amusing production, being an essay on the true system of education for youth, wherein Homer and Hesiod, Virgil and Horace, are rebuked most scorchingly. As we owe three of those worthies a grudge, Georgius Pasor, for such is our author's name, shall have a " showing." In the very opening, with what pathos does our author exclaim, " Vah tempus, (he is speaking of youth,) cujus sumptus debebat, esse preciosissimus, ejusmodi fabulatores perdunt !" So say we, and a good many of our readers (an editor or so too perhaps) echo this righteous indignation. Our conscientious lexicographer goes on to remonstrate against the study of

the classics, and with a really delightful consciousness of the truth of what he utters, solemnly lays it down as a maxim, that the heathen of old times, ignorant of the true God, were not able to speak accurately concerning him, that Virgil was guilty of a monstrous impiety in saying "mista deo mulier," and that Homer "et socii ejus" clearly show "se atheos fuisse." You see it is quite an oddity-but it was standard authority in its own time, if constant republications for seventy-five years are any evidence of its reputation among its cotemporaries. It is a strange circumstance respecting this edition of 1633, that the most extensive and elaborate catalogues of books, published in Germany and England, giving, for the most part, extremely accurate and minute notices of all the editions of any work they may mention, contain no account of any edition of Pasor, prior to 1647, some fourteen years later than the date of this copy. It may therefore be unique, though this is improbable.

On the top of this is an old pamphlet of 1671, on Magnorum Corporum Mundi Magnestismus, a learned treatise enough, with a considerable degree of dullness, full of crude notions and subtle arguments, but of little value save as a 66 Curiosity of Literature."

Not so with its neighbor, Count de Grammont, as he stands in a gay maroon-colored dress, as lively, chatty, and satirical as when he dazzled and delighted the brilliant court of Charles II. Age has not dimmed his sprightliness, and we still see him as his own time saw him, at one time making love to the mistress of Louis, at another, setting Catherine of Portugal, Lady Castlemaine, and Miss Stewart by the ears, for the first ride in a new carriage; again playing cards and winning, making love and losing, now gaining conquests among the frail dames of the court by bon-bons, or winning the heart of the gay Charles with accounts of intrigues and adventures; a sharper, a blackleg, and the most elegant gentleman in England, and as the climax to the whole, sincerely and honorably enamored of Miss Hamilton, and actually forgetting to marry her!

But what have we here? The Emblems of Francis Quarles, with a villainous wood cut of the author. The oddest and most laughable book in the collection. It consists of a series of designs illustrative of certain passages of Holy Writ, with a series of poems illustrative of them. We can well believe the stories of pulpit puns and ministerial jokes in old times, when we look upon these caricatures, so pious in intention, and so laughable in effect. One that is particularly ridiculous I beg you will notice. It is near the end and illustrates "My soul melted while my beloved spake." The poor soul, as miserable and disconsolate in appearance as Mark Tapley could wish, stands in what seems a flannel night-gown, and while meekly receiving a beam of light from above, is melting and running down in huge drops from its influence!

Farther on, in a garb particularly appropriate to the sceptical state of its author's mind: viz, in a brown hesitating to be red, or a red half tempted to be brown, stand the Religio Medici, Urn Burial and Christian Morals. Whether we trace the delightful egotism and wild