L'ENVOY.

PERIODICAL literature is a type of many of the most beautiful things and interesting events in nature; or say, rather, that they are types of it-the Flowers and the Stars. As to Flowers, they are the prettiest periodicals ever published in folio-the leaves are wire-wove and hot-pressed by Nature's self; their circulation is wide over all the land; from castle to cottage they are regularly taken in; as old age bends over them, his youth is renewed; and you see childhood poring upon them pressed close to its very bosom. Some of them are ephemeral their contents are exhaled between the rising and setting sun. Once a-week others break through their green, pink, or crimson cover; and how delightful, on the seventh day, smiles in the sunshine the Sabbath Flower-a Sunday publication perused without blame by the most religious -even before morning prayer! Each month, indeed, throughout the whole year, has its own Flower periodical. Some are annual, some biennial, some triennial, and there are perennials that seem to live for ever—and yet are still periodical— though our love will not allow us to know when they die, and phoenix-like reappear from their own ashes. So much for Flowers-typifying or typified;-leaves emblematical of pages-buds of binding-dew-veils of covers-and the wafting away of bloom and fragrance like the dissemination of fine feelings, bright fancies, and winged thoughts.

The Flowers are the periodicals of the earth-the Stars are the periodicals of heaven. With what unfailing regularity do the numbers issue forth! Hesperus and Lucifer! ye are one concern. The Pole-star is studied by all nations. How popular the poetry of the Moon! On what subject does not the Sun throw light? No fear of hurting your eyes by reading

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that fine clear large type on that softened page. As you turn them over, one blue, another yellow, and another green, all are alike delightful to the pupil, dear as the very apple of his eye. Yes, the great Periodical Press of heaven is unceasingly at work-night and day; the only free power all over the world— 'tis indeed like the air we breathe-if we have it not, we die. Look, then, at all paper periodicals with pleasure, for sake of the Flowers and the Stars. Suppose them all extinct, and life would be like a flowerless earth, a starless heaven. We should soon forget the Seasons. The periodicals of the External would soon all lose their meaning, were there no longer any periodicals of the Internal. These are the lights and shadows of life, merrily dancing or gravely stealing over the dial; remembrancers of the past-teachers of the presentprophets of the future hours. Were they all dead, Spring would in vain renew her promise-wearisome would be the interminable summer days-the fruits of autumn tastelessthe winter ingle blink mournfully round the hearth. What are the blessed Seasons themselves, in nature and in Thomson, but periodicals of a larger growth? We should doubt the goodness of that man's heart, who loved not the periodical literature of earth and sky-who would not weep to see one of its flowers wither-one of its stars fall-one beauty die on its humble bed-one glory drop from its lofty sphere. Let them bloom and burn on-flowers in which there is no poison, stars in which there is no disease-whose blossoms are all sweet, and whose rays are all sanative—both alike steeped in dew, and both, to the fine ear of nature's worshipper, bathed in music.

Pomposo never reads Magazine poetry-nor, we presume, ever looks at a field or wayside flower. He studies only the standard authors. He walks only in gardens with high brick walls-and then admires only at a hint from the head-gardener. Pomposo does not know that many of the finest poems of our day first appeared in magazines-or, worse still, in newspapers; and that in our periodicals, daily and weekly, equally with the monthlies and quarterlies, is to be found the best criticism of poetry anywhere extant, superior far, in that unpretending form, to nine-tenths of the learned lucubrations of Germany-though some of it, too, is good-almost as one's heart could desire. What is the circulation even of a popular

volume of verses-if any such there be-to that of a number of Maga? Hundreds of thousands at home peruse it before it is a week old—as many abroad ere the moon has thrice renewed her horns; and the Series ceases not-regular as the Seasons that make up the perfect year. Our periodical literature-say of it what you will-gives light to the heads and heat to the hearts of millions of our race. The greatest and best men of the age have not disdained to belong to the brotherhood; and thus the hovel holds what must not be missing in the hall-the furniture of the cot is the same as that of the palace—and duke and ditcher read their lessons from the same page.

Good people have said, and it would be misanthropical to disbelieve or discredit their judgment, that our Prose is original -nay, has created a new era in the history of Periodical Literature. Only think of that, Christopher, and up with your Tail like a Peacock! Why, there is some comfort in that reflection, while we sit rubbing our withered hands up and down on these shrivelled shanks. Our feet are on the fender, and that fire is felt on our face; but we verily believe our ice-cold shanks would not shrink from the application of the red-hot poker. Peter has a notion that but for that red-hot poker the fire would go out; so to humour him we let it remain in the ribs, and occasionally brandish it round our head in moments of enthusiasm when the Crutch looks tame, and the Knout a silken leash for Italian Greyhound.

Old Simonides-old Mimnermus-old Theognis-old Solon -old Anacreon-old Sophocles-old Pindar-old Hesiod-old Homer and old Methuselah! What mean we by the word old? All these men are old in three lights-they lived to a raven age-long long ago-and we heard tell of them in our youth. Their glory dawned on us in a dream of life's golden prime-and far away seems now that dawn, as if in another world beyond a million seas! In that use of the word "old," far from us is all thought of dotage or decay. Old are those. great personages as the stars are old; a heaven there is in which are seen shining, for ever young, all the most ancient spiritual" orbs of Song."

In our delight, too, we love to speak of old Venus and of old Cupid-of old Eve and of old Cleopatra-of old Helen and of old Dalilah; yea, of old Psyche, though her aerial wings

are as rainbow bright as the first hour she waved them in the eye of the youthful Sun.

How full of endearment "old boy!"- "old girl!" "Old Christopher North!"—" old Maga!" To our simplest sayings age seems to give a consecration which youth reveres. And why may not our hand, withered somewhat though it be, but yet unpalsied, point out aloft to heedless eyes single light or constellation, or lily by herself or in groups unsuspected along the waysides of our mortal pilgrimage?

Age like ours is even more lovable than venerable; and, thinking on ourselves, were we a young woman, we should assuredly marry an old man. Indeed, no man ought to marry before thirty, forty, fifty, or sixty; and, were it not that life is so short, soon enough at threescore and ten. At seventy you are sager than ever, though scarcely so strong. You and life. love each other as well as ever; yet 'tis unpleasant, when sailing on Windermere or Lochlomond with your bride, to observe the Man in the Honeymoon looking at you with a congratulatory grin of condolence, to fear that the old villain will smile over your grave in the Season of Kirns and Harvest Homes, when the fiddle is heard in every farmhouse, and the bagpipes are lowing like cattle on a thousand hills. Fain would he insure his life on the Tipperary Tables. But the enamoured annuitant is haunted with visions of his own Funeral deploying in a long line of chariots-one at the head of all armed with scythes-through the city, into the wide gates of the Greyfriars. Lovely is his bride in white, nor less so his widow in black- —more so in grey, portentous of a great change. Sad, too, to the Sage the thought of leaving his first-born as yet unborn-or if born, haply an elfish creature with a precocious countenance, looking as if he had begun life with borrowing ten years at least from his own father— auld-farrant as a Fairy, and gash as the Last of the Lairds. Dearly do we love the young-yea, the young of all animals -the young swallows twittering from their straw-built shed -the young lambs bleating on the lea-the young bees, God bless them! on their first flight away off to the heather—the young butterflies, who, born in the morning, will die of old age ere night-the young salmon-fry glorying in the gravel at the first feeling of their fins-the young adders basking, ere they can bite, in the sun, as yet unconscious, like sucking

satirists, of their stings-young pigs, pretty dears! all a-squeak with their curled tails after prolific grumphie-young lions and tigers, charming cubs! like very Christian children nuzzling in their nurse's breast-young devils, ere Satan has sent them to Sin, who keeps a fashionable boarding-school in Hades, and sends up into the world above-ground only her finished scholars."

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Oh! lad of the lightsome forehead! Thou art smiling at Us; and for the sake of our own Past we enjoy thy Present, and pardon the contumely with which thou silently insultest our thin grey hairs. Just such another" were we at Ravensburg." Carpe Diem" was then our motto, as now it is yours; no fear that dinner cool," for we fed then, as you feed now, on flowers and fruits of Eden. We lived then under the reign of the Seven Senses; Imagination was Prime Minister, and Reason, as Lord-Chancellor, had the keeping of the Royal Conscience; and they were kings, not tyrants-we subjects, not slaves. Supercilious as thou art, Puer, art thou as well read in Greek as we were at thy flowering age? Come close that we may whisper in thine ear-while we lean our left shoulder on thine-our right on the Crutch. The time will come when thou wilt be, O Son of the Morning! even like unto the shadow by thy side! Was he not once a mountaineer? If he be a vainglorious boaster, give him the lie, Ben-y-glo and thy brotherhood-ye who so often heard our shouts mixed with the red-deer's belling-tossed back in exultation by Echo, Omnipresent Auditress on youth's golden hills.

Know, all ye Neophytes, that three lovely Sisters often visit the old man's solitude-Memory, Imagination, Hope. It would be hard to say which is the most beautiful. Memory has deep, dark, quiet eyes, and when she closes their light, the long eyelashes lie like shadows on her pensive cheeks, that smile faintly as if the dreamer were half asleep-a visionary slumber, which sometimes the dewdrop melting on the leaf will break, sometimes not the thunder-peal with all its echoes. Imagination is a brighter and bolder Beauty, with large lamping eyes of uncertain colour, as if fluctuating with rainbow light, and with features fine as those which Grecian genius gave to the Muses in the Parian Marble, yet in their daring delicacy defined like the face of Apollo. As for Hope