branch, but forms, to eyes thus enlightened, a picture. What rich combinations of sights and sounds arrest the attention at every step! The sky flecked with gold and purple clouds—the deep translucent river, or the tinkling brook; the one reflecting, like a mirror, every object upon its margin, the other making sweet music as it flows -the azure air-tints, the mellow middle distance the sombre shadows, and strong foreground lights. And then the mysterious whispering of ancient groves, vocal too with the notes of birds, redolent of innumerable wild flowers. The heart is full, the satisfied soul lifted in adoration to the great Creator. What pleasure has the world to offer, of the many that dissipate time and fortune, consume health and corrupt the heart, that can compare with the exquisite bliss of such moments! Yet is this one of the cheapest, as well as the most innocent of recreations; accessible to the poor as well as to the rich; the sole thing requisite being a mind prepared by education to appreciate it.

USEFULNESS.

To feel that we are usefully employed-that the occupation in which we are engaged will be profitable either to ourselves or others-is often, though it may cost us some labour, productive of more real pleasure than we derive from the pursuit of mere amusement. In middling life, the occasions for useful female avocations are frequent; in high life, we may presume that if they ever occur

at all, it is is very seldom; and it were hardly going too far to attribute to this circumstance much of the ennui complained of in aristocratic circles.

To the female of small fortune, surrounded by petty domestic cares, which often fatigue and annoy her, it may seem very enviable, very delightful, to have no business in life but to kill time in any way most agreeable to her fancy, especially if she be a woman of refined taste and cultivated talents. Nevertheless, I conceive such a notion to be founded in error. Even those accomplishments which she thinks would afford her, under more propitious circumstances, untiring delight, are productive of more gratification to her from being interrupted by the housewifely avocations she is called upon to perform. "Duty well done, is fame well earned;" it is also pleasure well earned. There is pure satisfaction in reflecting that we have well performed any requisite task; that we have by skill and economy turned limited resources to the best account; that our individual labour has contributed to the comfort and enjoyment of those we love. I venture to assert, that the pleasure arising from such a reflection is ample compensation, even where the circumstances are very humble indeed, for the unattainable brilliancies of high life. I can conceive no malady to be more insupportable than ennui. Now, could we obtain a candid statement from fashionable physicians relative to their fine lady patients, I fancy we should

find that ennui is the disease from which ninetenths of them are suffering.

The habits of children prove that occupation is a necessity with most of them. They love to be busy, even about nothing, still more to be usefully employed. With some children it is a strongly developed physical necessity, and if not turned to good account will be productive of positive evil, thus verifying the old adage, that "Idleness is the mother of mischief."

Children should be encouraged, or, if indolently disinclined to it, should be disciplined into performing for themselves every little office relative to the toilet, which they are capable of performing. They should also keep their own clothes and other possessions in neat order, and fetch for themselves whatever they want; in short, they should learn to be as independent of the services of others as possible, fitting them alike to make a good use of prosperity, and to meet with fortitude any reverse of fortune that may befal them. I know of no rank, however exalted, in which such a system would not prove beneficial.

It was the system pursued by Madame de Genlis with her royal pupils, the children of the Duke of Orleans. Its happy results, in one illustrious instance at least, is now manifest to the whole civilized world. To borrow an expression from the eulogy pronounced over the grave of that talented lady, "son éloge est sur le trône de France."

Louis Philippe is said upon good authority, to

have alluded with noble simplicity to his practical experience of the humble offices imposed upon him, by a lowly and straitened condition, while familiarly conversing with an Englishman of political eminence. "Do you know," said he, "why I am perhaps the man best qualified to wear a crown of all who now reign in Europe?" This question, seemingly so vain-glorious, was a perplexing one to answer; but his majesty relieved his guest from the difficulty by adding, "Kings, you know, have not the easy situations they once had; now no one can be so prepared for any fortune that may betide as myself; for I am the only man amongst them, I presume, that has brushed his own boots, and could do it again, if necessary."

It were wholly superfluous to remark of a monarch universally admitted to be one of the ablest characters of the age, that the menial act to which his necessities compelled him, and to which none but a truly great man would choose to revert, has, in no respect, unfitted him for the exalted station he now fills.

The history of conventional helplessness would be almost as curious as the history of ostentation; tracing it, as we might do, through all its gradations and variations, from the barbaric courts of the Asiatic and African despots, where to be borne on men's shoulders, fed like an infant, and lulled by the exertions of slaves into brute lethargy, is considered the ne plus ultra of kingly dignity, to the more refined, but scarcely more rational etiquette

of some of the royal palaces of civilized Europe, during the past and present centuries.* But we need not restrict our observations to royal palaces; we might carry our investigation into the boudoir and the drawing-room of the modern fine lady of fashion; nay, into the dressing-room of the modern fine gentleman also; and there we should probably find personal helplessness, instead of being considered, as it ought to be, a matter of humiliation, viewed as a distinctive mark and privilege of high caste. However weak in themselves, these privileged individuals fancy that they are strong in the strength of others; and the more they can multiply their hired attendants, and the more skill and ability those hired attendants display in their vocation, the more apparent do their employers conceive their own superiority and consequence to be.

The sick, the infirm, and the aged, with whom helplessness is involuntary and a misfortune, may be allowed the comfort of personal attendants. Affliction and the inevitable decay of nature render them dependant upon the good offices of others. Their case is pitable, not reprehensible: but when the young and the healthy, through sheer pride or indolence, voluntarily reduce themselves to the condition of physical imbecility, and call upon their fellow creatures to assist them in put

See, for example, Madame Campan's account of the etiquette of the French Queen's toilet, in her Memoirs of the unfortunate Marie Antoniette.