from the simplest food, (for even that is to him expensive,) as to check all those natural yearnings of the heart which are as necessary to the enjoyment of existence as any purely physical gratification. They forget too, how the thought of his wife and children nerves the labourer's arm, and how when the daily task is over he is soothed and cheered by their evening welcome. His home is home, however homely.' If the husband and the father has a heavy task, his reward is great. The Cottar's Saturday Night's' enjoyments are cheaply purchased by a week of labour. Children are not less precious to the English peasant than they were to the Roman matron. They are alike the jewels' of the high-born and

the humble.

But even in a political point of view, marriage is commendable, for it puts a man in the way of becoming a quiet, a useful, and an industrious citizen. They who marry, says Bishop Atterbury, give hostages to the public that they will not attempt the ruin of society or disturb its peace. The American Franklin, who can hardly be suspected of a romantic enthusiasm or a want of prudence, expresses his disapproval of the unnatural state of celibacy for life, and maintains that it makes a man of less value than he ought to be. In a moral sense, marriage is especially advantageous. 'Certainly,' says Lord Bacon, wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; and single men, though they may be many times more charitable, because their means are less exhaust, yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hard-hearted, (good to make severe inquisitors,) because their tenderness is not so often called upon.'

'The best thing I can wish you,' said Sir Walter Scott to Washington Irving, is that when you return to your own country you may get married, and have a family of young bairns about you. If you are happy, there they are to share your happiness; and if you are otherwise-there they are to comfort you.'

No parent can be wholly wretched, let his fate be what it may,

F

if his children are about him, with their cheeks tinged with health. It is sweet to be surrounded by those whom we dearly love, and who love us in return beyond all the world. There is no music so delightful as the sound of a child's affectionate voice—and no sight so cheering as its little happy face. But alas! in this comfortless and uncongenial clime*, the forlorn English exile must too generally forego these domestic pleasures. It is indeed a terrible deprivation. This is the unkindest cut of all. It is the stroke that goes most directly to the heart.

In

It is not the mere absence alone that constitutes the bitter trial, but a consciousness of the vast intervening distance. The parent and the child are divided from each other by a world of waters. They live in different spheres. The death of a child would scarcely seem a heavier doom than such a separation. the one case there is an end of all doubt, suspense and fear; but in the other there are feverish hopes, and hideous apprehensions. The mother dreams incessantly of her distant child, for whom she anticipates every ill that flesh is heir to. If sometimes in a happier moment she soothes her soul with brighter fancies, and sees her dear offspring wandering in careless happiness about the same green spots that are hallowed by her own earliest associations, the delight is neither lasting nor unalloyed.

"Oh! there is e'en a happiness that makes the heart afraid."

This sweet picture of the imagination is soon contrasted with the drear reality of her own position, and the possible difference of her child's actual fate, from that presented by her flattering dreams. The re-action of the mind is fearful. That way madness lies.' A state of exile is every way unnatural, and breaks humanity's divinest links. The spirit of domestic happiness rarely wanders far from her native hearth.

* India.

The generous and chivalric protection which men bestow upon the feebler but fairer sex, is allied in some degree to the feeling which we cherish towards a child. The graceful and trusting helplessness of both is flattering to our pride, and is an appeal to our love that is utterly irresistible. He who has a large family of children, is necessarily conscious of an agreeable self-importance. If he has the means of supporting them, they cannot be too His children are so many re-creations of himself. They are ties that must bind his affections to the world, and yet solace him in his latest hour, for a man cannot wholly die while his children live. He has spread out his existence into different channels. When he looks upon his little divided lives, he feels not the effect of age so palpably as he who is solitary and childless. He beholds in them the lovely April of his prime.'

numerous.

'This is to be new made when he is old,

And see his blood warm when he feels it cold.'

When the wedded lose a partner, the dead parent is still present in the child. It is a living miniature of the departed. It is pleasant, when we become conscious of the defiling influence of the world, and feel the cold blasts of care, to see ourselves reflected in a fairer form in the bright faces of our children. They suggest the purest and sweetest thoughts. They are beautiful in themselves, and like the fresh buds of spring are full of precious promise of blossoms and of shelter. He whose evening of life is cherished and adorned by a lovely cluster of kindred faces, may well exult in his latter state, whatever may have been the trials and deprivations of his earlier hours.

WOMAN.

THE day-god sitting on his western throne
With all his gorgeous company of clouds'—
The gentle moon that meekly disenshrouds
Her beauty when the solar glare is gone-
The myriad eyes of night—the pleasant tone
Of truant rills when o'er the pebbled ground
Their silver voices tremble-the calm sound
Of rustling leaves in noon-tide forests lone-
The cheerful song of birds-the hum of bees—
The zephyrs' dance that like the footing fine
Of moonlight fays scarce prints the glassy seas,—
Are all enchantments! But Oh, what are these
When music, poetry, and love combine

In WOMAN's voice and lineaments divine!

SONNET.

ON HEARING CAPTAIN JAMES GLENCAIRN BURNS SING (IN INDIA) HIS FATHER'S SONGS.

How dream-like is the sound of native song

Heard on a foreign shore! The wanderer's ear
Drinks wild enchantment,-swiftly fade the drear
And cold realities that round him throng,
While in the sweet delirium, deep and strong,

The past is present and the distant near!

Such sound is sacred ever,-doubly dear

When heard by patriot exiles parted long
From all that love hath hallowed. But a spell

Ev'n yet more holy breathes in every note
Now trembling on my heart. A proud Son sings
The lay of BURNS! Oh! what imaginings

Awake, as o'er a foreign region float

These filial echoes of the father's shell!

Calcutta, August 7, 1833.

CONSOLATIONS OF EXILE.

[OR AN EXILE'S ADDRESS TO HIS DISTANT CHILDREN.]

I.

O'ER the vast realm of tempest-troubled Ocean

O'er the parched lands that vainly thirst for showers— Through the long night—or when nor sound nor motion Stirs in the noon of day the sultry bowersNot all un'companied by pleasant dreams My weary spirit panteth on the way; Still on mine inward sight the subtle gleams

That mock the fleshly vision brightly play.

Oh! the heart's links nor time nor change may sever,
Nor Fate's destructive hand, if life remain ;
O'er hill, and vale, and plain, and sea, and river,
The wanderer draws the inseparable chain !

II.

Fair children still, like phantoms of delight,

Ye haunt my soul on this strange distant shore, As the same stars shine through the tropic night That charmed me at my own sweet cottage door. Though I have left ye long, I love not less;

I watch away,

ye

still;

Though ye are far
Though I can ne'er embrace ye, I may bless,
And e'en though absent, guard ye from each ill!
Still the full interchange of soul is ours,

A silent converse o'er the waters wide,

And Fancy's spell can speed the lingering hours,
And fill the space that yearning hearts divide.