he stood a blasted piece of mortality-withering, withering away, amid the universal flush and bloom of rejoicing nature! There was something anomalous in this—a want of sympathy with the season, which spoke, in every leaf and blade of grass, of life and vitality. What must have been his thoughts, as he looked at the surpassingly bright and beautiful creations around him, which were so soon to be seen dimly and indistinctly through the gathering mists of death? How busy must memory have been at such a moment! How hot and feverish must have seemed his midnight revels! And where were his friends-his boon companions-his hailfellows-well-met? Leading the life he had ledcarousing, hunting, enjoying themselves, with all the untamed vehemence of youth-and he was dying!

"Tush!" whispered Selfishness in my ear," that is no concern of yours; pursue and enjoy your walk;" and, like most other people, I followed that most plausible personage's advice, until the windings of the lane brought me out to the open common.

I like an old common. It bears no impress of man or his handiwork. It has not been dug, or ploughed, or manured, or drained, or diked, or divided, or planted, or otherwise scientifically improved. The air is freer there-the turf firmer. It is as nature made it. There is a careless wildness about it which is mighty agreeable after leaving a highly cultivated country, where hedges, ditches, gates, and sign-posts are continually reminding you

of the jealous "rights of property." There is no valuable "stock" to call for the farmer's watchful interference; and it is untenanted, save by the hardy moorland sheep, or wandering gipsey's ass; or the still more independent animals, hares, rabbits, foxes, etc., which man has been unable to decoy into servitude. You may roam for days without seeing "the cut of a coat or the fashion of a doublet," and that is a great consolation. Moore says,

"We know how the charms of Nature improve,

When we see them reflected from looks that we love."

Sometimes; the company of a friend is, occasionally, pleasant enough; indeed very pleasant when you cannot be utterly alone. But though at most times gregariously disposed, I, for one, hold it best in the country to be alone, with no company save your own thoughts and "the birds of the air and the beasts of the field." You are neither obliged to talk, nor to listen, or to coincide in opinion. Any thing that wears small-clothes, even in the distance, becomes a blot-an interruption-destroying the harmony and peaceful quietude of the scene, and reminding you of the tailor and the town, and things you wish to forget. It is good to wend your solitary way to some lonely hill-side, and there lie down, a man emancipated for a time from all the cares, bustle, and business of life-from all the passions, prejudices, forms, ceremonies and proper behavior of society, with no sound to break the stillness save the music of the wild and happy birds that flutter unscared around, or the hum of the bee extracting honey

from the heather-blossom, or the low murmur of the wind among the broom; and there to lie for hours pondering over the checkered past, or shaping pleasant visions of the future; or recalling your early aspirations after what was good and pure and beautiful, since perchance sneered and scoffed at ; or thinking of old companions and distant friends; or losing yourself in the regions of poetry and romance; or humming old tunes;-until, refreshed in body and mind, you arise, go home, and get laughed at by inveterate men of business for wasting your time. Let them laugh, the bond-slaves of Mammon! They at least cannot "go and do likewise."

ASTRONOMICAL SPECULATIONS.

BY WILLIAM COX.

"ASTRONOMY, geography, and the use of the globes." Every card or circular of every schoolmaster or schoolmistress, advertiseth the willingness and capability of the said master and mistress, for a reasonable stipend, to infuse the aforesaid particles of knowledge, with innumerable other particles, together with all sorts of classical information, to say nothing of morals, manners, accomplishments, and the inculcation of the "observance of the strictest cleanliness," into the head of every juvenile of whatever capabilities, that may be consigned to their charge. This is undoubtedly desirable, and the only drawback is its utter impossibility. Indeed the professions of this species of the human race have always appeared to me as wildly extravagant as those of a romantic lover partially intoxicated, and their undertakings about as feasible as those of the worthy knight of La Mancha. Did they propose to give the mere sketch or outline-the technicalities of those sciences, one or two of which it takes the life of man to master-it would make

the thing appear more probable, more decent, more conscientious; but perhaps their familiarity with the arithmetic may have the effect of expanding the imaginative faculty in an outrageous degree, and hence the riotous and unchecked flights of fancy in which they indulge in their advertisements and other lucubrations for the cajolement of softhearted mothers and softer-headed fathers. Ay, cajolement! I fearlessly repeat the word. What care I for them? I am "grown up" now-free, emancipated—" they shall never whip me more!"

I cannot say that I ever liked or felt attracted toward the (par excellence) sublime study of astronomy; at least not further than was barely necessary for the comprehension of its more attractive neighbor, geography. It is too vast, too stupendous a study for a mind of moderate caliber, requiring one of a somewhat Miltonic cast and dimensions thoroughly to comprehend its grandeur and its glories. I get (like Robert Montgomery) out of my latitude amid infinite space, and experience a puzzling and uncomfortable feeling of vasty vagueness which I cannot possibly mistake for the essence of the "true sublime." I can admire and feel the beauty of the quiet night with her multitudes of stars or worlds, and our world's lamp-the moon-hanging in the midst. I can invest them with kindly influences and attributes, imagining how they are gladdening the route of the way worn wanderer over the solitary waste, or glittering on the path of the home-bound mariner. I can imagine the thousand lovely dells,