spect of his life, and sum up his moments of real pleasure, and he will soon discover how much he owes to this glorious faculty. It is to the freshness and fervour of imagination in the dawn of life that we are to attribute the radiance of early joy. All things sparkle in its light, like the dew-bespangled fields of morning.

Let such amongst us as are willing to be children again, if it be only for an hour, resign ourselves to the sweet enchantment that steals upon the spirit when it indulges in the memory of early and innocent enjoyment. Let us seek again each wellremembered haunt of happier years. Ah! then how many faces long since faded shall bloom again! The white shroud of winter may conceal the countenance of earth, but the shroud of mortality shall be parted. The spring of human nature shall return. The cerulean heaven of many a laughing eye shall shine as brightly and tenderly as ever, the voice of human merriment, more sweet than the song of birds, shall again respond to the music of the mind.

Even when this dream departs, we are not utterly forlorn. We return to this foreign shore-this distant exile-in sadness, but not despair. We have all of us either children or friends in our native land. Perhaps we may once again embrace them-to part no more! But should fate deny the consummation of this dearly cherished hope-should we never again revisit "in the flesh" that happy circle-we may at least sympathize in their enjoyments. Parents especially have reason to hail this festive season with peculiar interest. The fireside holidays, not less delightful than the sunny noons of summer, are enjoyed by their dear little offspring with the same zest and intensity as thrilled their own hearts of yore. Their small, ruddy faces are illumined by the flickering light of the burning logs so liberally heaped upon the grate. The firewood crackles cheerily, and the chesnuts are swelling and bursting on the hob with a startling sound. The glories of the hospitable board, are demolished with a spirit

and celerity that maturer mouths would in vain essay to rival. The good things that go untasted from our tables in this City of Palaces, are treated with more respect by our little representatives in Britain. Even the substantial Christmas turkey disappears like a dream before the attacks of these gallant though lilliputian gastronomists. As the peasants in Goldsmith's Deserted Village wondered how the school-master's one small head could contain such a load of learning, we are puzzled to conceive how each little stomach can make room for such large stores of Christmas luxuries. Dear boys-sweet girls-ye seem more provident than your age would warrant! Is it because Christmas comes but once a year that ye lay in so lavish a supply?

But there is a limit even to the appetite of healthy children, and the rich, delightful meal, interrupted only by irrepressible bursts of laughter at jests more rife with merriment than wit, like all earthly enjoyments must have an end. It is succeeded, however, by a variety of delightful gambols. The bunch of misletoe is suspended from the ceiling, and occasions

Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,

Nods and becks and wreathed smiles.

The little gay Lotharios and the flirts and coquettes in miniature, now present a scene that awakens a thousand exquisite recollections in the minds of the elder spectators. The boys betray a consciousness that they are doing a manly thing. The little misses think it necessary to appear coy and reluctant, yet seize sly occasions to look as killingly as they can, at their favorites of the bolder sex, and seem to recollect, as often as it suits their inclination, that under the green misletoe kissing is lawful, and "killing, no murder."

Then follow Blind-man's-buff, Hunt-the-slipper, and a round of accustomed games. After or before all these, according to the taste of the donors, come the Christmas presents, which are received by the happy little creatures with such grateful transports, and

exhibited with such innocent pride to their school-fellows when black Monday" returns. The triumphant display of these treasures, and a fresh store of pocket-money, are among the parting consolations when they quit the sweet indulgences of home for the rigid laws of school.

It is true that in this strange land the celebration of Christmas can be attended with but few of those social observances, and those pleasant festivities around the blazing fire, which contrast so delightfully with the dreary aspect of external nature during an English winter; but though the season has lost something of its mirth, we can still keep it sacred to the memory of the past.

If we cannot collect around our festal board the forms familiar to our childhood, we can think and talk of them with tenderness and rapture. Those of us who have children in our native land may cheer ourselves with the thought, that on this long and impatiently expected holiday their little hearts will bound with merriment, and that they will be called upon, in the midst of their innocent pleasures, to remember their distant parents, to wish them many happy seasons, and perhaps, also, a safe return to their native country. But, alas! I allude to the latter wish with a faint and trembling heart, when I recollect how many of our expatriated countrymen have been disappointed in this the sweetest prospect of an Indian exile's life. They cherished, perhaps, as firm and fond a hope as any that yet glows in a living breast, to pass the cheerful evening of existence in some pleasure-haunted spot in dear old England,-and now they are lying in their last long sleep on this foreign shore!

SONNET-YOUTH.

OH! there are green spots on the path of time
The morning traveller, passing gaily by,
Views with irreverent and careless eye,—

Till, with reverted gaze, when doomed to climb
With ceaseless toil adversity's rough steep,
He marks them in the shadowy distance lie
Like radiant clouds, that o'er an April sky,
'Mid gloom and strife, in silent beauty sleep.
Scenes of departed joy,-now mourned in vain!
To which my weary feet can ne'er return,
Farewell!-farewell!-Alas! how soon we learn,
Urged o'er Life's later paths of care and pain,
Where hang the shadows of the tempest stern,
That all is drear beyond Youth's flowery plain.

SONNET.

OUR paths are desolate, and far apart—

Our early dreams have vanished;—never more
May we together mingle as before,

Our fond, impassioned spirits. Quick tears start
As eager memories rush upon my heart,
And rend oblivion's veil. E'en now the store
Of star-like spells that softly glimmered o'er
The twilight maze of youth, a moment dart
Their clouded beams on Care's reverted eye.
Alas! the promise of the past hath been

A brief though dear delusion :—all things fly
My onward way, and mock the lengthening scene,
Through Life's dim mist thy form oft seemeth nigh,
Though lone and distant as the Night's fair Queen.

SONNETS TO DEATH.

I.

LORD of the silent tomb! relentless Death!

Fierce victor and destroyer of the world!

How stern thy power! The shafts of fate are hurled
By thine unerring arm; and swift as breath
Fades from the burnished mirror,—as the wreath
Of flaky smoke from cottage hearths upcurled
Melts in cerulean air,-as sear leaves whirled
Along autumnal floods,—as o'er the heath
The quick birds rise and vanish,—so depart,
Nor leave a trace of their delusive light,
The meteor-dreams of man! Awhile the heart,
Of eager Folly swells-his bubbles bright

Float on the stream of time-but ah! thy dart
Soon breaks each glittering spell-and all is night!

II.

Insatiate Fiend! at thy blood-dropping shrine,

In vain unnumbered victims wait thy will.

The life-streams of the earth thy thirst of ill
Shall never quench, 'till that bright morning shine
That bursts the sleep of ages. All repine

At thy dread mandates, and thy terrors thrill
The hero and the sage, though pride may still
The voice that would reveal them. Hopes divine,
Of faith and virtue born, alone may cheer
Mortality's inevitable hour.

Nor phrensied prayer, nor agonizing tear,
May check thine arm, or mitigate thy power.
Ruin's resistless sceptre is thy dower.

Thy throne, a world-thy couch, Creation's bier!