reappear the wonders which, formerly, so attracted your attention.

7. "Just here, for instance, where the marks appear confused, rise the Alps, crowned with their coronets of snow. That dark spot there melts into a lake, reflecting, as in a magic mirror, all the changes of the sky; farther on, these meandering lines transform themselves into mighty rivers, into mysterious forests, or long valleys, which disappear beneath the overhanging mountains; farther on again, you see those radiating lines, beyond which all is blank; there is the sea, with its waves and foaming billows, its boundless horizon, and its pulsations listened to by both worlds.

8. "There is scarcely a single point or a name in the whole map which does not recall to mind some terrible or some delightful impression. But the journeyman who engraved these confused and intermingled lines, did not for an instant suspect the fairy power that his work possessed.

9. "As for myself, I regarded these hieroglyphics for a long time, in my youthful days, with as much indifference. as I did those on the Egyptian obelisks in the Muscum: maps seemed to me much like the result of a spider crawling with inky feet over some manuscripts containing geographical names. Time alone has given a meaning to the riddle, and raised the veil that hid from me a thousand panoramas.

"To a school-boy, who has seen nothing of the world, an atlas is only a book for the class: to an old man, it is a magic lantern."

10. "I think I can somewhat appreciate this latter view of it," said Frank Wilmot, "when I look on a map of a country that I have visited. Then cities, villages, roads, lakes, rivers, and mountains, seem to start out from the map, and stand forth in all the realities that they represent."

11. "And children can best understand the meaning of

maps, when they begin with maps of localities that are quite familiar to them," said Uncle Philip.

12. "And that is why Mr. Agnew began to teach us geography from a map of Lake-View," said Lulu, turning and bowing to the teacher, who bowed in return.

III. The Pleasures of Music.

Mr. Bardou's reading having been interrupted by a call, after a short interval he resumed as follows:—

1. "Just now three travelling musicians stopped before my windows. They were three Germans, who played portions of a symphony," with marvellous accuracy and effect.

2. "I have always felt that music supplies a deficiency in language. It gives rise to certain sensations which speech would leave unawakened, and expresses peculiar shades of sentiment for which our dictionaries have no words. It is like the clouds of an autumnal sky, in which we discover, one after another, every image that corresponds to our fancy. Each one conceives his own poem during those transient melodies. The notes seem insensibly to take a visible form, and to glide before us like visions.

3. "Sometimes it is a fairy landscape that is evolved slowly out of the harmonious chords. We see the distant horizon spread itself out, the marble columns rise in order, and the crystal fountains sparkle in the sun: we hear the wind blow through the perfumed heather; the sun shines, the birds warble, and a thousand graceful forms glance forth from between the foliage. We are in the gardens of Armida, or the palaces of the Arabian Nights.

a

Symphony, a harmony of sounds, in a musical composition, agreeable to the ear.

1 Armi'da (Ar-me'da) is one of the most prominent female characters in Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered ;" and her gardens and pleasuregrounds were the most delightful that ever regaled the senses. See page 320.

Arabian Nights.-In the stories of the "Arabian Nights" the

4. "Then, on a sudden, the whole vanishes, a martial strain breaks upon the ear, and a Swiss scene opens before us. Behold now rugged mountains reaching to the clouds, vast lakes sleeping at their feet, then the Alpine horn prolonging its notes down into the ravine; night descends, and the wind murmurs mournfully through the pines. Three men advance from three different paths toward the 'Grütli.' They are the Swiss heroes of liberty; they meet; they swear to effect the deliverance of their country.

5. "The heroic vision vanishes in its turn; now sweeter strains of music fall upon the ear; joyous shouts reply; the village dance begins; we see the rhythmic steps, we hear the shouts of laughter ever on the increase, till, in a moment, the air becomes heavy, the sky grows black, and the thunder is heard in the distance. It comes ncarer; it bursts, and scatters the affrighted dancers. Do you not recognize the pastoral symphony of Beethoven ?

6. "Charming and ever fresh dreams, which age cannot dissipate! for, if other joys depart, this, at least, remains to us undiminished. It is, in fact, in our declining years that the pleasures selected in youth become to us a never

palaces to which the reader is introduced, are the most beautiful and gorgeous that the imagination can conceive. The charms of music are here represented as transporting us to such fairy scenes.

a Grut'li (groot'lě), a famous locality in Switzerland-a small meadow in the canton of Uri, celebrated as the cradle of Swiss liberty, and as the spot where Stauffacher, Walter Fürst, and Arnold of Melchthal, met, according to tradition, on the night of November 7-8, 1307, with thirty followers, and formed a Swiss league against Austrian tyranny.

Beethoven (Beet-ho'ven), one of the greatest of musical composers, born at Bonn, in Prussia, December 17, 1770, died at Vienna March 26, 1827. He painted character as no other master had done in music, and, in the flight of his genius, surpassed all composers of his own or of any other time.

failing source either of enjoyment or of punishment. Whilst gross indulgences lose their zest, refined enjoyments acquire new strength, and are perfected by repetition.

7. "I have just had a little experience of the latter, while listening to the symphony performed under my window. Leaning back in my chair, with my eyes closed, I listened in tranquil rapture. The violin, the tenor, and the violoncello commenced at first a moderately quick movement, full of chords harmoniously grouped. It seemed to me like three friends starting together with equal steps on some morning's walk.

8. "Very soon the violin became more rapid, and its tones louder. It grew enthusiastic, no doubt, at the grandeur of the scene; it pointed out the sun lighting up the horizon as with fire-the mists rent asunder like a veiland creation, surprised from its sleep, appearing before the eyes in all the grace of its immortal beauty.

9. "The tenor assented, from time to time, with an admiring exclamation; and the violoncello added a few words, with the gravity of old age. All three reached the summit of a hill. There the violoncello burst into a sacred anthem, sustained by the voices of his two companions.

10. "During this time the sun had risen and inundated the landscape with his golden beams. The hum of bees was heard around, and the brook bubbling through the glades. The three friends seated themselves for an interesting chat, while I remained, my forehead resting in my hand, my elbow on the table, and my mind still absorbed in the harmonies to which I had listened.

11. "I only recovered from my revery on hearing the plate of the Germans jingling with the pence dropped into it by the street listeners. I willingly added my gift to theirs; and the three musicians appeared so delighted with the amount that they departed playing a Hungarian dance-tune, which thrilled every fibre in my frame.

12. "How well I knew that air! It was the one played that evening-when I saw, for the first time, her who was to be my life's happiness. It revived old recollections, sacred memories, departed joys, over which I love to linger, not with mournful regrets as for lost treasures, but with a delicious enjoyment as of musical harmonies gently dying away on the senses, while all their sweetness remains.

13. "Such recollections are, indeed, an old man's joys; but they are such that their very sacredness forbids me to obtrude them upon others. So I close the window, and retire to my writing-desk in an inner apartment. Sitting there, in my old familiar seat, memory slowly remounts. the stream of forty years, which has borne away on its bosom so many relics of myself. Visions of the past flit before me, like the zephyrs of spring across the frozen earth. I feel my heart revive and soften; I open my writing-desk, and, from a secret drawer, known only to myself, take out a little mother-of-pearl casket, which exhales an odor of roses.

14. "I feel as if I were breathing an atmosphere that had encircled my youth. But, courage! Let me not shrink from facing these souvenirs of happiness; let me walk without a shudder amidst these fairy palaces which time has trampled into ruins! But let us be careful to double-lock the door, so that none may interrupt us in our examination."

15. Then, in closing his diary, where tender remembrances seemed almost to overcome him, Mr. Bardou remarked that it is well that there are always, here, some breaks in the otherwise even tenor of the happiest lives,some drawbacks to perfect happiness. "There is a joy," said he, "even in incompleteness, so that, though one may have a great share of worldly gratification, yet the eye of faith ́ and hope has something better to look forward to, beyond."