scribing; in this garden Taglioni, freed from her terrestrial form, gives full play to her sweet inspirations. I do not know of what material the flowers are composed, but you see the divine dancer pass over camelias, lilies, jonquils, without their so much as trembling at her touch. You remember M❜lle. Taglioni in the Fille du Danube, and the Sylphide; you thought then, like everybody else, that it was not possible for the human body to attain a greater lightness, yet this miracle is now accomplished. It is no more a nymph, a sylph who dances, but a shade, a soul, and the white feather that the wind wafts away, as it falls from the neck of the swan, would scarcely do it justice by the comparison. Nothing that approaches the least in the world to reality, can give an idea of this wonder. Imagine, if you can, a shadowy form, who, withdrawing slowly from the scene where she has hovered long without touching the earth, vanishes at last on the horizon like a celestial being, passing over the water as she goes. This spectacle affects one like a dream. Have you sometimes remarked in a clear and calm night, those long threads of gold that go and come on the tops of the trees, which play capriciously, rapid, and impalpable on the dark front of some silent church, these may give you some idea of the unmaterial dance invented on this occasion, by M'lle. Taglioni. I say nothing of the Pas de Trois, where she dances in the last act, and during which she cannot be seized by her lover, to whose eyes only she is perceptible. This dance is of the same kind as those preceding, and executed with the same perfection.

The next day the emperor, in token of his satisfaction, sent M. Taglioni a fine ring, and a magnificent set of diamonds and turquoises to M'lle. Taglioni. The dilettanti of St. Petersburg know now where they shall pass the greater number of their evenings this winter.

Dec. 1839.

And now, to wind up with a word to the scorner in the style of a moral to one of Pilpay's fables. Does any one look on beauty with the bodily eye alone? that degrades ; it is the lust of the eye, brings sin and death. But to him who looks with the eye of the soul also, every form in which beauty appears is religious, and casts some flower upon the altar of intelligence.

We wish to refer here to the last of a course of lectures on the Natural History of Man, by that free and generous thinker, Alexander Kinmont, who, if he had lived, would have cast broad lights on the course of things in this age

and country, for excellent views on the subject of amusement. We make a brief extract which refers to the present time.

"I speak of the new state of society, to which we are tending, as characterized and to be marked more with the features of stern and uncompromising truth, light, and positive assurance, than any that have preceeded it; but, although I believe and see that such a condition of things will not admit of those peculiar kinds of romantic pleasures, derived from poetry and the fine arts, which have before existed, yet I by no means think that there are not other sources of rational and pure delight, of an analogous kind, still in reserve for mankind. Mankind cannot exist, the sweet charities of society cannot be maintained, without some such enjoyments; but what I maintain is that new fountains of poetry and art must be unsealed, which are to correspond with this new state of our social condition. I say they must be unsealed, for that they have not been opened yet in this nation, is certain. But I doubt not these fountains of feeling are to be found. O when will the magician go out with his divining rod, and find them, that they may gush forth, and refresh the parched land; for I believe that the souls of the people want song and poetry, or what is analogous thereto, they need a healthy excitement,- a nation cannot live without excitement. Good music, good songs, good paintings, which were all new, and truly native, would do more to cure the fanaticism, and intemperance of the land, than all those artificial societies instituted for such purposes. There is a blank in the public mind, which requires to be filled up. Would society burst forth so frequently into those superstitious ebullitions called Revivals, if the chords of genuine feeling were struck in the human heart, if the pure tones of devotion were regularly, and calmly, and sweetly elicited by the divine touch of art, whether the poetical, the musical, or the graphical? They should be as original, and native, and as consistent with the genius of the new era, as were the political acts of the worthies of the Revolution, the ends, the thoughts and expressions of a Hamilton, a Jefferson, and a Madison.'

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Injustice is done by giving a single extract, for Kinmont is not one of those who shine in detached thoughts or finished passages, but a large and living tract of thought, which needs to be seen as a whole, for any part to be seen as it ought. But his enthusiasm on this subject, or any other, was no sudden gleam from a vaporous atmosphere, but the glow of a fire built on a broad hearth, and fed

with the growths of ancient forests. His mind was still immature when he left us, for it was one of those plenteous urns that filter its waters slowly, but it was a mind capable of severe training, and great leadings.

It governs the planet,

Church and State it will sway;

It has no to-morrow,

It ends with to-day.

HOLIDAYS.

FROM fall to spring the russet acorn,
Fruit beloved of maid and boy,
Lent itself beneath the forest

To be the children's toy.

Pluck it now; in vain: thou canst not;

It has shot its rootlet down'rd:

Toy no longer, it has duties,
It is anchored in the ground.

Year by year the rose-lipped maiden,
Playfellow of young and old,

Was frolic sunshine, dear to all men,
More dear to one than mines of gold;

Where is now the lovely hoyden?
Disappeared in blessed wife,
Servant to a wooden cradle,
Living in a baby's life.

Still thou playest; - short vacation
Fate grants each to stand aside;
Now must thou be man and artist;
'Tis the turning of the tide.

VOL. III.

THE AMULET.

YOUR picture smiles as first it smiled,
The ring you gave is still the same,
Your letter tells, O changing child,
No tidings since it came.

NO. I.

10

Give me an amulet

That keeps intelligence with you,

Red when you love, and rosier red, And when you love not, pale and blue.

Alas, that neither bonds nor vows
Can certify possession;

Torments me still the fear that love

Died in its last expression.

FROM UHLAND.

THE CASTLE BY THE SEA.

"SAW'ST thou a castle fair?
Yon castle by the sea?
Golden and rosy, there,

The clouds float gorgeously.

And fain it would descend

Into the wave below:

And fain it would soar and blend

With the evening's crimson glow."

Yon castle I have viewed,

Yon castle by the sea :

The moon above it stood,

And the mists hung heavily.

"The wind and the heaving sea,
Sounded they fresh and strong?
From the hall came notes of glee
Harping and festive song?"

The winds and the waters all
Rested in slumber deep,

And I heard from the moaning hall

Music that made me weep.