and simple pleasures which solace me. It is not while the mind is agitated by the eager interests of youth, nor while it is occupied and cumbered by the busy concerns of middle life, that pleasures of this kind are most enjoyed. But childhood revels, and age reposes, amid these quiet scenes. Yes, and a part of the pleasure which now in my old age I derive from my flowers arises, I am conscious, from the distant yet vivid remembrance they recall of similar scenes and pleasures of my childhood. My paternal garden seems still to me like enchanted ground, and its flowers like the flowers of Paradise. I shall never see the like again, vain as I am of my gardening!—Those were poetry, these are botany. How much has passed since I sported in that pleasant garden! All the ordinary events of life have chequered mine. I have, like other men, been awakened from the dreams of youth by the sober realities of maturity. The cares and comforts of social life have been experienced; schemes have been laid; I have been as anxious, as busy, as diligent in the pursuit of these different objects as other people; and with about the usual proportion of disappointment and success. During this period of my life, to have derived any thing like happiness-that is, to have felt an interest in such objects as now, I most candidly confess, really interest me, would have. appeared impossible. Nay, I can remember smiling and wondering to see how much my old friends were engrossed in such trifles. But now I wonder no longer. "He who openeth his hand and satis

fieth the desire of all living," has, in his boundless benevolence, provided appropriate enjoyment to solace the feelings, and suit the tastes of every different condition of humanity: and, thanks to His goodness, sweet are the flowers that bloom in the valley of years. To return then to the thought with which I set out, when I considered how many, on this sunny morning, were deriving a wholesome and innocent gratification from the same sources with myself, in circumstances almost exactly similar, I found that the reflection, while it expanded my bosom with a pleasing sympathy, raised it also in gratitude to the Author of all good; and I thanked Him, I hope devoutly, for having (if I may so express myself) taken such pains to please us; such exquisite pains as seem to be bestowed upon flowers especially, so that "Solomon in all his glory" could by no means compare with them. Our Lord himself by inviting us thus to "behold the flowers of the field," sanctions a taste for the beauties of nature, when sanctified by a due recollection and acknowledgment of their Creator. For without this it is but a species of idolatry: and a strange and miserable sight it is to see old people, and many such I fear there are, grovelling rather than reposing in these things, admiring indeed, and enjoying them, but with nothing more than a cold and general acknowledgment of their Maker. Nor could they truly say that they love Him "more than these." There is a sublime interest in His works when indeed we see the finger of God in them, and behold them with a vivid recollection of their being

-“His workmanship," which can only be felt by those who know Him too as the God of grace.

And now that I am in such a moralizing mood, I · shall go on to say, that the satisfaction I derive from my flower garden, and other equally simple pleasures, reads me a lesson upon life which I would fain read to those of my young friends who may take the trouble to peruse an old man's epistle. Does it all come to this then?-All my eager and busy pursuits and schemes, by which I was often so engrossed as to find neither time nor inclination for calm and serious thought!-Do all my hopes and exertions, and does all my ambition end in these flowers?-Surely "I have been disquieted in vain!" How many of my schemes do I now see were vain or useless! how much has the fulfilment of any of them disappointed my expectations! I can now calmly smile at those anxieties which then racked me with restless uneasiness. I can look tranquilly at least, upon my severest trials, and see the emptiness of my warmest wishes. And I now feel a quiet satisfaction in the ordinary comforts and regularly returning enjoyments of a retired and monotonous life, and an interest in the few tranquil pleasures it affords, which, however different in kind, equal I believe as to the degree of real happiness, what I have ever derived from things which are regarded as the chief pleasures of life.

As I said before, I am aware of, for I can remember, the feeling of wonder and pity, and something not unlike contempt, with which the regular habits and sober enjoyments of old people are regarded by

the young and it must be granted too, that some elderly people have their odd ways, which give a little occasion for such remarks (though as for my wife and I, nobody can say that we are any thing more than a little particular not to be put out of ou old customs.) Nevertheless, however dissatisfied any young readers may be with the prospect, 1 cannot predict, nor even wish any thing better for them, than that, after the cares and vicissitudes of active life, they may be indulged with a season of repose and tranquillity, in some such quiet retreat as my own; that they may then be able to look back upon the past as not wholly devoted to worldly schemes and pursuits, but marked also by a course of activity and usefulness in the cause of God and their neighbour; and that the sublime hopes of another life may be the support and solace of their declining years. And as for their amusements, I

shall wish nothing better for them than that they may be able to taste an innocent and salutary delight in the good, gay, and well dressed company which a little flower garden displays to view on a fine spring morning.

XXXV

CONVERSATION IN A LIBRARY.

A FATHER and his son having passed some hours very agreeably in surveying the various magnificent apartments of a nobleman's seat, sat down to rest

awhile in the spacious and well-furnished library, which was celebrated as containing as complete a collection of ancient and modern literature as any private one in the country. As their eyes wandered leisurely over this curious congregated mass of human thought, reflections natural on such an occasion passed silently in the mind of each; and at length gave rise to the following conversation; which, should it prove somewhat desultory, the candid reader will please to remember that the speakers were fatigued.

FATHER. What think you, Arthur-should such a sight as this impress us most forcibly with the greatness or the littleness of the mind of man?

ARTHUR. With its greatness, surely, should it not? for what an immense number of clever men must have lived in the world to write such a number of books, and how very clever some of them were !

FATHER. They were so indeed, compared with other men-but the question is, whether the united ingenuity and cleverness of all mankind does not rather tend to expose the narrow bounds of human knowledge, and the feeble powers of the human intellect, than to exalt them. It is indeed the con

clusion which the wisest of men, and the most profound philosophers have come to, as the result of their most laborious researches in the pursuit of truth and knowledge, that the more they know, the more they discover how little can be known.

ARTHUR. But still what very useful and ingenious discoveries have been made in science and philosophy.