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and gay forms of foliage mantling gray cliffs or waving from rocky ledges, give to the face of Nature that mixture of animation and softness which is equally fitted to soothe a wounded spirit or restore an overtasked mind. If one could only forget the existence of such words as "duty" and "progress," and step aside from the rushing stream of onward-moving life, and be content with being, merely, and not doing; if these lovely forms could fill all the claims and calls of one's nature, and all that we ask of sympathy and companionship could be found in mountain breezes and breaking waves; if days passed in communion with nature, in which decay is not hastened by anxions vigils or ambitious toils, made up the sum of life-where could a better retreat be found than along this enchanting coast? Here are the mountains, and there is the sea. Here is a climate of delicious softness, where no sharp extremes of heat and cold put strife between man and nature. Here is a smiling and good-natured population, among whom no question of religion, politics, science, literature, or humanity is ever discussed, and the surface of the placid hours is not ruffled by argument or contradiction. Here a man could hang and ripen, like an orange on the tree, and drop as gently out of life upon the bosom of the earth. There is a fine couplet of Virgil, which is full of that tenderness and sensibility which form the highest charm of his poetry as they probably did of his character, and they came to my mind in driving along this beautiful road :—

"Hic gelidi fontes; hic mollia prata, Lycori;

Hic nemus; hic ipso tecum consumerer ævo."

There is something in the musical flow of these lines which seems to express the movement of a quiet life, from which day after day loosens and falls, like leaf after leaf from a tree in a calm day of autumn. But Virgil's air-castle includes a Lycoris; that is, sympathy, affection, and the heart's daily food. With these, fountains, meadows, and groves may be dispensed with; and without them, they are not much better than a painted panorama. To have something to do and to do it, is the best appointment for us all. Nature, stern and coy, reserves her most dazzling smiles for those who have earned them by hard work and cheerful sacrifice. Planted on these shores and lapped in

"Here cooling fountains roll through flowing meads,
Here woods, Lycōris, lift their verdant heads,

Here could I wear my careless life away,

And in thy arms insensibly decay."

Virgil's Bucolics, x. 42, Wharton's version.

pleasurable sensations, man would turn into an indolent dreamer and a soft voluptuary. He is neither a fig nor an orange; and he thrives best in the sharp air of self-denial and on the rocks of toil.

THE ARTIST IN ROME.

Every young artist dreams of Rome as the spot where all his visions may be realized; and it would indeed seem that there, in a greater degree than anywhere else, were gathered those influences which expand the blossoms, and ripen the fruit of genius. Nothing can be more delicious than the first experiences of a dreamy and imaginative young man who comes from a busy and prosaic city to pursue the study of art in Rome. He finds himself transported into a new world where everything is touched with finer lights and softer shadows. The hurry and bustle to which he has been accustomed are no longer perceived. No sounds of active life break the silence of his studies, but the stillness of a Sabbath morning rests over the whole city. The figures whom he meets in the streets move leisurely, and no one has the air of being due at a certain place at a certain time. All his experiences, from his first waking moment till the close of the day, are calculated to quicken the imagination and train the eye. The first sound which he hears in the morning, mingling with his latest dreams, is the dash of a fountain in a neighboring square. When he opens his window, he sees the sun resting upon some dome or tower, gray with time and heavily freighted with traditions. He takes his breakfast in the ground-floor of an old palazzo, still bearing the stamp of faded splendor; and looks out upon a sheltered garden, in which orange and lemon-trees grow side by side with oleanders and roses. While he is sipping his coffee, a little girl glides in and lays a bunch of violets by the side of his plate, with an expression in her serious black eyes which would make his fortune if he could transfer it to canvas. During the day, his only difficulty is how to employ his boundless wealth of opportunity. There are the Vatican and the Capitol, with treasures of art enough to occupy a patriarchal life of observation and study. There are the palaces of the nobility, with their stately architecture, and their rich collections of painting and sculpture. Of the three hundred and sixty churches in Rome, there is not one which does not contain some picture, statue, mosaic or monumental structure, either of positive excellence or historical interest. And when the full mind can

receive no more impressions, and he comes into the open air for repose, he finds himself surrounded with objects which quicken and feed the sense of art. The dreary monotony of uniform brick walls, out of which doors and windows are cut at regular intervals, no longer disheartens the eye, but the view is everywhere varied by churches, palaces, public buildings, and monuments, not always of positive architectural merit, but each with a distinctive character of its own. The very fronts of the houses have as individual an expression as human faces in a crowd. His walks are full of exhilarating surprises. He comes unawares upon a fountain, a column, or an obelisk-a pine or a cypress a ruin or a statue. The living forms which he meets are such as he would gladly pause and transfer to his sketch-book-ecclesiastics with garments of flowing black, and shovel-hats upon their heads-capuchins in robes of brown-peasant girls from Albano, in their holiday bodices, with black hair lying in massive braids, large brown eyes, and broad low foreheads-beggars with white beards, whose rags flutter picturesquely in the breeze, and who ask alms with the dignity of Roman senators. Beyond the walls are the villas, with their grounds and gardens, like landscapes sitting for their pictures, and then the infinite, inexhaustible Campagna, set in its splendid frame of mountains, with its tombs and aqueducts, its skeleton cities and nameless ruins, its clouds and cloud-shadows, its memories and traditions. He sees the sun go down behind the dome of St. Peter's, and light up the windows of the drum with his red blaze, and the dusky veil of twilight gradually extend over the whole horizon. In the moonlight evenings, he walks to the Colosseum, or to the piazza of St. Peter's, or to the ruins of the Forum, and under a light which conceals all that is unsightly, and idealizes all that is impressive, may call up the spirit of the past, and bid the buried majesty of old Rome start from its tomb.

BOOKS.

In that most interesting and instructive book, Boswell's Life of Johnson, an incident is mentioned which I beg leave to quote in illustration of this part of my subject. The Doctor and his biographer were going down the Thames, in a boat, to Greenwich, and the conversation turned upon the benefits of learning, which Dr. Johnson maintained to be of use to all men. "And yet,' said Boswell, 'people go through the world very well, and

carry on the business of life to good advantage, without learning. Why, sir,' replied Dr. Johnson, that may be true in cases where learning cannot possibly be of any use; for instance. this boy rows us as well without learning as if he could sing the song of Orpheus to the Argonauts, who were the first sailors." He then called to the boy, 'What would you give, my lad, to know about the Argonauts?' 'Sir,' said the boy, 'I would give what I have.' Johnson was much pleased with this answer, and we gave him a double fare. Dr. Johnson then turning to me, 'Sir,' said he, 'a desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debanched, will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.'"

For the knowledge that comes from books I would claim no more than it is fairly entitled to. I am well aware that there is no inevitable connection between intellectual cultivation, on the one hand, and individual virtue or social well-being, on the other. "The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life." I admit that genius and learning are sometimes found in combination with gross vices, and not unfrequently with contemptible weaknesses, and that a community at once cultivated and corrupt, is no impossible monster. But it is no overstatement to say that, other things being equal, the man who has the greatest amount of intellectual resources is in the least danger from inferior temptations; if for no other reason, because he has fewer idle moments. The ruin of most men dates from some vacant hour. Occupation is the armor of the soul, and the train of Idleness is borne up by all the vices. I remember a satirical poem in which the Devil is represented as fishing for men, and adapting his baits to the taste and temperament of his prey; but the idler, he said, pleased him most, because he bit the naked hook. To a young man away from home, friendless and forlorn in a great city, the hours of peril are those between sunset and bedtime, for the moon and stars see more of evil in a single hour than the sun in his whole day's circuit. The poet's visions of evening are all compact of tender and soothing images. It brings the wanderer to his home, the child to his mother's arms, the ox to his stall, and the weary laborer to his rest. But to the gentle-hearted youth who is thrown upon the rocks of a pitiless city, and stands "homeless amid a thousand homes," the approach of evening brings with it an aching sense of loneliness and desolation, which comes down upon the spirit like darkness upon the earth. In this mood, his best impulses become a snare to him, and he

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is led astray because he is social, affectionate, sympathetic, and warm-hearted. If there be a young man thus circumstanced within the sound of my voice, let me say to him that books are the friends of the friendless, and that a library is the home of the homeless. A taste for reading will always carry you into the best possible company, and enable you to converse with men who will instruct you by their wisdom and charm you by their wit, who will soothe you when fretted, refresh you when weary, counsel you when perplexed, and sympathize with you at all times. Evil spirits, in the Middle Ages, were exorcised and driven away by bell, book, and candle; you want but two of these agents, the book and the candle.

EMMA C. EMBURY.

AMONG American female writers, Mrs. Embury takes no mean rank. She is the daughter of Dr. James R. Manly, a distinguished physician of New York, and in 1828 was married to Daniel Embury, a gentleman of wealth, residing in Brooklyn, and distinguished for his intellectual and social qualities-having the taste to appreciate the talents of his gifted wife, and the good sense to encourage and aid her in her literary pursuits. But these pursuits, happily, have never caused her to neglect the duties of a wife or a mother.

Mrs. Embury's published works are " "Guido, and other Poems, by Ianthe;" a volume on "Female Education;" "The Blind Girl, and other Tales;" "Pictures of Early Life;" "Glimpses of Home Life, or Causes and Consequences;" "Nature's Gems, or American Wild Flowers;" "Love's Token Flowers;" "The Waldorf Family, or Grandfather's Legends."

All her writings exhibit good sense, true cultivation, and healthy natural feeling, united to much refinement.

THE ONE FAULT.

"You are unhappy, Charles," said his mother, one day, when they were alone. "Will you not tell me the cause of your trouble? Is it your business?"

"No, mother; my business was never in a condition."

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