A sliding car, indebted to no wheels,
But urged by storms along its slippery way,
I love thee all unlovely as thou seem'et,

And dreaded as thou art! Thon hold'st the sun
A prisoner in the yet undawning east,
Shortening his journey between morn and noon,
And hurrying him, impatient of his stay,
Down to the rosy west, but kindly still
Compensating his loss with added hours
Of social converse and instructive ease,
And gathering at short notice, in one group,
The family dispersed, and fixing thought,
Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares.
I crown thee king of intimate delights,
Fireside enjoyments, homeborn happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturbed Retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted evening know."

I call this a good human bit of writing, imaginative, too-not so flushed, not so . . . highfaluting (let me dare the odious word!) as the modern style since poets have got hold of a theory that imagination is common-sense turned inside out, and not common-sense sublimed-but wholesome, masculine, and strong in the simplicity of a mind wholly occupied with its theme. To me Cowper is still the best of our descriptive poets for every-day wear. And what unobtrusive skill he has! How he heightens, for example, your sense of winter evening seclusion, by the twanging horn of the postman on the bridge! That horn has rung in my ears ever since I first heard it, during the consulate of the second Adams. Words worth strikes a deeper note; but does it not sometimes come over one (just the least in the world) that one would give anything for a bit of nature pure and simple, without quite so strong a flavour of W. W.? W. W. is, of course, sublime and all that-but! For my part, I will make a clean breast of it, and confess that I can't look at a mountain without fancying the late laureate's gigantic Roman nose thrust between me and it, and thinking of Dean Swift's profane version of Romanos rerum dominos into Roman nose! a rare un! dom your nose!

But do I judge verses, then, by the impression made on me by the man who wrote them? Not so fast, my good friend, but, for good or evil, the character and its intellectual product are inextricably interfused.

If I remember aright, Wordsworth himself (except in his magnificent skating-scene in the Prelude) has not much to say for winter out of doors. I cannot recall any picture by him of a snow-storm. The reason may possibly be that in the Lake country even the winter storms bring rain rather than snow. thankful for the Christmas visits of Crabb Robinson, because they "helped him through

He was

the winter." His only hearty praise of winter is when, as Général Février, he defeats the French:

"Humanity, delighting to behold

A foud reflection of her own decay,

Hath painted Winter like a traveller old,
Propped on a staff, and, through the sullen day,
In hooded mantle, limping o'er the plain
As though his weakness were disturbed by pain:
Or, if a juster fancy should allow
An undisputed symbol of command,
The chosen sceptre is a withered bow
Infirmly grasped within a withered hand.
These emblems suit the helpless and forlorn;
But mighty Winter the device shall scorn."

The Scottish poet Grahame, in his Sabbath, says manfully:

"Now is the time To visit Nature in her grand attire;"

and he has one little picture which no other poet has surpassed:

"High-ridged the whirled drift has almost reached The powdered keystone of the churchyard porch: Mute hangs the hooded bell; the tombs lie buried." Even in our own climate, where the sun shows his winter face as long and as brightly as in Central Italy, the seduction of the chimneycorner is apt to predominate in the mind over the severer satisfactions of muffled fields and penitential woods. The very title of Whittier's delightful Snow-Bound shows what he was thinking of, though he does not vapour a little about digging out paths. The verses of Emerson, perfect as a Greek fragment (despite the archaism of a dissyllabic fire), which he has chosen for his epigraph, tell us too how the

"Housemates sit

Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm."

They are all in a tale. It is always the tristis hiems of Virgil. Catch one of then having a kind word for old Barbe Fleurie. unless he whines through some cranny, like a beggar, to heighten their enjoyment while they toast their slippered toes. I grant there is a keen relish of contrast about the bickering flame as it gives an emphasis beyond Gherardo della Notte to loved faces, or kindles the gloomy gold of volumes scarce less friendly, especially when a tempest is blundering round the house. Wordsworth has a fine touch that brings home to us the comfortable contrast of without and within, during a storm at night, and the passage is highly characteristic of a poet whose inspiration always has an undertone of bourgeois:

"How touching, when, at midnight, sweep
Snow-muffled winds, and all is dark,
To hear, and sink again to sleep."

J. H., one of those choice poets who will not tarnish their bright fancies by publication, always insists on a snow-storm as essential to the true atmosphere of whist. Mrs. Battles, in her famous rule for the game, implies winter, and would doubtless have added tempest, if it could be had for the asking. For a good solid read also, into the small hours, there is nothing like that sense of safety against having your evening laid waste, which Euroclydon brings, as he bellows down the chimney, making your fire gasp, or rustles snow-flakes against the pane with a sound more soothing than silence. Emerson, as he is apt to do, not only hit the nail on the head, but drove it home, in that last phrase of the "tumultuous privacy." But I would exchange this, and give something to boot, for the privilege of walking out into the vast blur of a north-north-east snowstorm, and getting a strong draught on the furnace within, by drawing the first furrows through its sandy drifts. I love those

"Noontide twilights which snow makes With tempest of the blinding flakes."

If the wind veer too much toward the east, you get the heavy snow that gives a true Alpine slope to the boughs of your evergreens, and traces a skeleton of your elms in white; but you must have plenty of north in your gale if you want those driving nettles of frost that sting the cheeks to a crimson manlier than that of fire. During the great storm of two winters ago, the most robustious periwig-pated fellow of late years, I waded and floundered a couple of miles through the whispering night, and brought home that feeling of expansion we have after being in good company. "Great things doeth He which we cannot comprehend: for He saith to the snow, 'Be thou on the earth.""

There is admirable snow scenery in Judd's Margaret, but some one has confiscated my copy of that admirable book, and perhaps Homer's picture of a snow-storm is the best yet in its large simplicity:—

“And as in winter-time, when Jove his cold sharp javelins throws

Amongst us mortals, and is moved to white the earth with snows,

The winds asleep, he freely pours till highest prominents,

Hill-tops, low meadows, and the fields that crown with most contents

The toils of men, seaports and shores, are lid, and every place,

But floods, that fair snow's tender flakes, as their own brood, embrace."

66

Chapman, after all, though he makes very free with him, comes nearer Homer than anybody else. There is nothing in the original of that fair snow's tender flakes, but neither Pope nor Cowper could get out of their heads the psalmist's tender phrase, He giveth his snow like wool," for which also Homer affords no hint. Pope talks of dissolving fleeces," and Cowper of a fleecy mantle." But David is nobly simple, while Pope is simply nonsensical, and Cowper pretty. If they must have prettiness, Martial would have supplied them with it in his

"Densum tacitarum vellus aquarum,"

which is too pretty, though I fear it would have pleased Dr. Donne. Eustathius of Thessalonica calls snow towp èpiwdes, woolly water, which a poor old French poet, Godeau, has amplified into this:

Lorsque la froidure inhumaine

De leur verd ornement depouille les forêts
Sous une neige épaisse il couvre les guérets,

Et la neige a pour eux la chaleur de la laine." In this, as in Pope's version of the passage in Homer, there is, at least, a sort of suggestion But, on the whole, if one would know what of snow storm in the blinding drift of words. snow is, I should advise him not to hunt up what the poets have said about it, but to look at the sweet miracle itself.

THE SOLDIER'S HOME.

My untried muse shall no high tone assume, Nor strut in arms;-farewell my cap and plume Brief be my verse, a task within my power,

I tell my feelings in one happy hour:

But what an hour was that! when from the main
I reach'd this lovely valley once again!
A glorious harvest fill'd my eager sight,
Half shock'd, half-waving in a flood of light;
On that poor coltage roof where I was born
The sun look d down as in life's early morn.
I gazed around, but not a soul appear'd,
I listen'd on the threshold, nothing heard;
I call'd my father thrice, but no one came;
It was not fear or grief that shook my frame,
But an o'erpowering sense of peace and home,
Of toils gone by, perhaps of joys to come.
The door invitingly stood open wide,

I shook my dust, and set my staff aside.

How sweet it was to breathe that cooler air,

And take possession of my father's chair!

Beneath my elbow, on the solid frame,
Appear'd the rough initials of my name,
Cut forty years before!—the same old clock
Struck the same bell, and gave my heart a shock
I never can forget. A short breeze sprung,
And while a sigh was trembling on my tongue,
Caught the old dangling almanacs behind,
And up they flew, like banners in the wind;
Then gently, singly, down, down, down, they went,
And told of twenty years that I had spent
Far from my native land :-that instant came
A robin on the threshold; though so tame,
At first he look'd distrustful, almost shy,
And cast on me his coal-black steadfast eye,
And seem'd to say (past friendship to renew),
"Ah ha! old worn-out soldier, is it you?"
Through the room ranged the imprison'd humble-bee,
And bomb'd and bounced, and struggled to be free.
Dashing against the panes with sullen roar,

That threw their diamond sunlight on the floor;
That floor, clean sanded, where my fancy stray'd
O'er undulating waves the broom had made,
Reminding me of those of hideous forms
That met us as we pass'd the Cape of Storms,
Where high and loud they break, and peace comes never;
They roll and foam, and roll and foam for ever.
But here was peace, that peace which home can yield;
The grasshopper, the partridge in the field,
And ticking clock, were all at once become
The substitutes for clarion, fife, and drum.
While thus I mused, still gazing, gazing still
On beds of moss that spread the window-sill,
I deem'd no moss my eyes had ever seen
Had been so lovely, brilliant, fresh, and green,
And guess'd some infant hand had placed it there,
And prized its hue, so exquisite, so rare.
Feelings on feelings mingling, doubling rose,
My heart felt everything but calm repose;
I could not reckon minutes, hours, nor years,
But rose at once, and bursted into tears;
Then, like a fool, confused, sat down again,
And thought upon the past with shame and pain;
I raved at war and all its horrid cost,
And glory's quagmire, where the brave are lost.
On carnage, fire, and plunder, long I mused,
And cursed the murdering weapons I had used.

Two shadows then I saw, two voices heard,
One bespoke age, and one a child's appear'd.—
In stepp'd my father with convulsive start,
And in an instant clasp'd me to his heart.
Close by him stood a little blue eyed maid,
And, stooping to the child, the old man said,
"Come hither, Nancy, kiss me once again,
This is your uncle Charles, come home from Spain."
The child approach'd, and with her fingers light
Stroked my old eyes, almost deprived of sight.
But why thus spin my tale, thus tedious be?
Happy old soldier! what's the world to me?

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.

THE GREAT STORM OF 1703.

In Little Wild Street Chapel, Lincoln's-Inn Fields, a sermon is annually preached on the 27th of November, in commemoration of the "GREAT STORM" in 1703.

This fearful tempest was preceded by a strong west wind, which set in about the middle of the month; and every day, and almost every hour, increased in force until the 24th, when it blew furiously, occasioned much alarm, and some damage was sustained. On the 25th, and through the night following, it continued with unusual violence. On the morning of Friday, the 26th, it raged so fearfully that only few people had courage to venture abroad. Towards evening it rose still higher; the night setting in with excessive darkness added general horror to the scene, and prevented any from seeking security abroad from their homes, had that been possible. The extraordinary power of the wind created a noise, hoarse and dreadful, like thunder, which carried terror to every ear, and appalled every heart. There were also appearances in the heavens that resembled lightning. "The air," says a writer at the time, was full of meteors and fiery vapours; yet," he adds, "I am of opinion that there was really no lightning, in the common acceptation of the term; for the clouds that flew with such violence through the air, were not to my observation such as are usually freighted with thunder and lightning; the hurries nature was then in do not consist with the system of thunder." Some imagined the tempest was accompanied with an earthquake. "Horror and confusion seized upon all, whether on shore or at sea; no pen can describe it, no tongue can express it, no thought can conceive it, unless theirs who were in the extremity of it; and who, being touched with a due sense of the sparing mercy of their Maker, retain the deep impressions of his goodness upon their minds though the danger be past. To venture abroad was to rush into instant death, and to stay within afforded no other prospect than that of being buried under the ruins of a falling habitation. Some in their distraction did the former, and met death in the streets; others, the latter, and in their own houses received their final doom." One hundred and twenty-three persons were killed by the falling of dwellings; amongst these were the Bishop of Bath and Wells (Dr. Richard Kidder) and his lady, by the fall of part of the episcopal palace of Wells; and Lady Penelope Nicholas, sister to the Bishop of