The chance and change of human ill
Affect ye not-nor stain of crime;
But here ye shine in beauty still,
Unsullied by the wing of time.

The earth has much to lift us up
Beyond its scenes of care and strife,
And mingle in our bitter cup

The foretaste of a happier life;
But nought of all created things

Hath power like yonder starry sky

To lend the soul ethereal wings,

And lift the chainless thought on high.

SUNSET THOUGHTS.

How beautiful the setting sun reposes o'er the wave!
Like virtue, life's drear warfare done, descending to the grave;
Yet smiling with a brow of love, benignant, pure, and kind,
And blessing, ere she soars above the realms she leaves behind.

The cloudlets, edged with crimson light, veil o'er the blue serene,
While swift the legions of the night are shadowing o'er the scene;
The sea-gull with a wailing moan up starting, turns to seek
Its lonely dwelling-place, upon the promontory's peak.

The heaving sea-the distant hill-the waning sky-the woods--
With melancholy musing fill the swelling heart that broods
Upon the light of other days, whose glories now are dull,
And on the visions Hope could raise, vacant, but beautiful!

Where are the bright illusions vain, that fancy boded forth!
Sunk to their silent caves again, Aurora of the North?

Oh! who would live those visions o'er, all brilliant though they

seem,

Since Earth is but a desert shore, and Life a weary dream!

MIND.

Wo to those who trample o'er a mind!

A deathless thing.--They know not what they do,
Or what they deal with!-Man perchance may bind
The flower his step hath bruised; or light anew
The torch he quenches, or to music wind
Again the lyre-string from his torch that flew
But for the soul!-oh! tremble and beware
To lay rude hands upon God's mysteries there.

meet a- gain? Oft shall glow-ing hope as - pire,

sor-row reign, Ere we all shall meet a - gain.

The city of Quebec, the capital of Lower Canada, is situated on a promontory on the north-west side of the St. Lawrence, formed by that river, and the St. Charles. The ridge of land which terminates in this promontory runs from east to west, and separates the two rivers above named. Its general breadth is from one to two miles. Quebec is divided into two distinct parts by the peculiarity of its site. The upper town is situated above the steep cliffs, which rise from one to two hundred feet perpendicularly from the level of the shores of the St. Lawrence and the Charles rivers, on which the lower town is built. The citadel is an enclosure of about forty acres on the summit of the rock, surrounded by walls, bastions, embankments, and batteries of immense strength. The upper town is entirely surrounded by walls, and can be entered from the lower town only through the embrasures of five gates-that on the side of the St. Lawrence being called the Prescott gate; on the northern side, where the eminence is not as high as elsewhere, there are two entrances, Hope gate, and Palace gate. These gates are on the quarter which is washed by the river Charles. On the land side of the city, leading from the plains of Abraham, the two avenues to the upper town, are named Louis gate and John's gate. Half a mile in advance of the upper town and the bastions of the citadel, along the further bounds of the plains of Abraham, are four Martello towers of great strength, as the outer defences of the citadel; they are so constructed, that if they should fall into the hands of a besieging force, they may be easily demolished by the batteries of the citadel,