dared to visit the churchyard, where my parents were interred. The cottage lay in2 my way. Margaret had chosen it for that very reason, to be near the church; for the old lady was regular in her attendance on public worship. I passed on, and in a moment found myself among the tombs. I had been present at my father's burial, and knew the spot again; my mother's funeral I was prevented by illness from attending: a plain stone was placed over the grave, with their initials carved upon it,5 for they both occupied one grave. I prostrated myself before the spot; I kissed the earth that covered them; I contemplated with gloomy delight the time when I should mingle my dust with theirs, and kneeled, with my arms incumbent on the grave-stone, in a kind of mental prayer: for I could not speak. Having performed these duties, I arose with quieter feelings, and felt leisure to attend to indifferent objects. Still I continued in the churchyard, reading the various inscriptions, and moralizing upon them with that kind of levity which will not unfrequently spring up in the mind in the midst of deep melancholy. I read of nothing but careful parents, loving husbands, and dutiful children. I said jestingly, where be all the bad people buried ?8 Bad parents, bad husbands, bad children, what cemeteries are 1 and it was only after that page 89 (the present case, however, that I dared to go.' is within the rule). The abovementioned exception with regard to 2 sur. 3 Je continuai ma route; or, Je tout, takes place:-1st, when tout is passai outre. 4 Remember that this construction is not French. 5 upon it,' dessus. 6 not unfrequently,' assez souvent.-'will;' see page 45, note *. 7 On n'y faisait mention que de. 10. 8 Où enterre-t-on donc toutes les mauvaises gens? See p. 89, n. When the adjective tout precedes gens, it sometimes forms, by being put in the masculine, an exception to the rule mentioned at the only adjective which precedes, as tous (masc.) les gens; and, 2nd, when tout, though not being the only adjective preceding, is coupled with another adjective which has the same termination for both genders, as tous (masc.) les habiles gens, tous (masc.) les jeunes gens ;-but we must say, as above, toutes (fem.) les mauvaises gens, as the adjective mauvais (masc.) has a different termination (mauvaise) in the feminine. appointed for these? do they not sleep in consecrated ground? or is it but a pious fiction, a generous oversight, in the survivors, which thus tricks out1 men's epitaphs when dead, who, in their life-time, discharged the offices. of life, perhaps, but lamely? Their failing, with their reproaches, now sleep with them in the grave. Man wars not with the dead. It is a trait of human nature, for which I love it.3-(CHARLES LAMB, Rosamund Gray.) ON FORMING A TASTE FOR SIMPLE THE simple and innocent satisfactions of nature are usually within reach; and, as they excite no violent perturbation in the pursuit, so are they enjoyed without tumult, and relinquished without long or painful regret. It will, then, render essential service, both to happiness and morality, if we can persuade men in general to taste and to contract an habitual relish for the genuine satisfactions of uncorrupted nature. The young mind is always delighted with rural scenery. The earliest poetry was pastoral, and every juvenile poet of the present day delights to indulge in the luxuriance of a rural description. A taste for these pleasures will render the morning walk at least as delightful as the evening assembly. The various forms which nature assumes 5 in the vicissitudes of the seasons constitute a source of complacency which can never be exhausted. How grateful to the senses is the freshness of the herbage, the fragrancy of the flowers, and all those simple delights of the field, which the poets have, from the earliest ages, no less justly than exuberantly described! "It is all mere fiction," exclaims the man of the world, "the painting of a visionary enthusiast." He feels not, he cannot feel, their truth.1 He sees no charms in herbs and blossoms; the melody of the grove is no music to his ear;2 and this happens because he has lost by his own fault those tender sensibilities which nature had bestowed. They are still daily perceived in all their perfection by the ingenuous and innocent, and they have been most truly described by feeling poets, as contributing to pure, real, and exalted delight. Yet the possessor of extensive lands, if he is a man of fashion and spirit, forsakes the sweet scenes of rural nature, and shuts himself up in a crowded metropolis, and leaves that liberal air, which breathes over his lawns and agitates his forests, to be inhaled by his menial rustics.3 He perverts the designs of nature and despises the hereditary blessings of Providence; he receives the adequate punishment in a restless life, perpetually seeking, and never finding, satisfaction. But the employments of agriculture, independently of their profit, are most congenial and pleasing to human nature. An uncorrupted mind sees, in the progress of vegetation, and in the manner and excellences of those animals which are destined to our immediate service, such charms and beauties as art can seldom produce. Husbandry may be superintended by an elegant mind; nor is it by any means necessary that they who engage in it should contract a coarseness of manners or a vulgarity of sentiment. It is most favourable to health, to plenty, to repose, and to innocence; and great, indeed, must be the objects which justify a reasonable creature in relinquishing these. Are plays, are balls, are nocturnal assemblies of whatever denomination, which tend to rob us of sleep, to lessen our patrimony, to injure our health, to render us selfish, vicious, thoughtless, and useless, equivalent to these? Reason replies in the negative; yet the almost universal departure from innocence 1 'the truth of these reflections.' 2 he is deaf. e., dead, insensible-(sourd) to the melody.. &c.' 3 Turn, and leaves to be in haled (à, and the infinitive active) by (a) his menial rustics that,' &c. 4 par une négation; or, négativement; or, par la négative. and simplicity will leave the affirmative established by a corrupt majority. It is not without a sigh that a thinking man can pass by a lordly mansion, some sweet retreat, deserted by its falsely refined possessor, who is stupidly carousing in a polluted city. When he sees the chimney without smoke in the venerable house where all the country was once welcomed to partake of1 princely hospitality, he cannot help 2 lamenting that progress of refinement which, in rendering the descendants of the great fine gentlemen, has left them something3 less than men through the defect of manly virtues. The superintendence of a garden might of itself occupy a life elegantly and pleasurably; nothing is better able to gratify the inherent love of novelty, for nature is always renewing her variegated appearance. She is infinite in productions, and the life of man may come to its close before he has seen half the pictures which she is able to display. The taste for gardening in England is at present pure. Nature is restored to her throne, and reigns majestically beautiful in rude magnificence. The country abounds with cultivated tracts truly paradisiacal. But as the contemplative observer roams over the lawn and enjoys the shade of the weeping willow, he is often led to inquire, "Where is now the owner of this wilderness of sweets?5 Happy man!" he exclaims, "to possess such a spot as this, and to be able at all times to taste the pleasure which I feel springing in my bosom." But, alas! the owner is engaged in other scenes. He is rattling over the streets of London, and pursuing all the sophisticated joys which succeed to supply the place where nature is relinquished. If he condescends to pay an annual visit to d. 1 prendre part à; or, participer. finitive, in this sense. Observe that participer followed by de means to participate,' in the sense of 'to be of the same nature;' whereas, when followed by à, it means 'to partake of,' 'to participate,' in the sense of 'to share (in).' 3 en quelque sorte. 4 qui en font un véritable paradis. 2 s'empêcher de, -with the in 5 profusion d'agréments. 6 Les roues de sa voiture résonnent sur le pavé (or, par les rues). 7where he pursues.' the retreat, he brings with him all his acquired inclinations; and while he sits at the card-table, or at the banquet, and thinks of little else than promoting his interest at the next election, he leaves the shrub to blossom and the rose to diffuse its sweets1 in unobserved solitude.—(KNOX, Essays.) ON THE FOLLY OF INCONSISTENT EXPECTATIONS. 3 THIS world may be considered as a great mart of commerce where fortune exposes to our view various commodities, riches, ease, tranquillity, fame, integrity, knowledge. Every thing is marked at a settled price. Our time, our labour, our ingenuity, is 2 so much ready money which we are to lay out to the best advantage. Examine, compare, choose, reject; but stand to your own judgment, and do not, like children, when you have purchased one thing, repine that you do not possess another which you did not purchase. Such is the force of well-regulated industry, that a steady and vigorous exertion of our faculties, directed to one end, will generally insure success. Would you, for instance, be rich? Do you think that single point worth the sacrificing every thing else to ?4 You may then be rich. Thousands have become so, from the lowest beginnings, by toil and patient diligence, and attention to the minutest articles of expense and profit. But you must give up the pleasures of leisure, of a vacant mind, of a free unsuspicious temper. If you preserve your integrity, it must be a coarse-spun and vulgar honesty. Those high and lofty notions of morals, which you brought with you from the schools, must be considerably lowered, and mixed with the baser alloy of a jealous 5 |