twenty-nine are monosyllables. Then there is the gradual way in which the crowning phantasy is introduced. It comes upon us at once, and yet not wholly unexpected; it 'sweetly creeps' into our 'study of imagination;' it lives and moves, but it is a moving that is 'delicate;' it flows in upon us incredibili lenitate. 'Evening' is a matter of fact, and its stillness too-a time of the day; and 'twilight' is little more. We feel the first touch of spiritual life in her sober livery,' and bolder and deeper in 'all things clad.' Still we are not deep, the real is not yet transfigured and transformed, and we are brought back into it after being told that 'Silence accompanied,' by the explanatory 'for,' and the bit of sweet natural history of the beasts and birds. The mind dilates and is moved, its eye detained over the picture; and then comes that rich, 'thick warbled note'—' all but the wakeful nightingale;' this fills and informs the ear, making it also of apprehension more quick,' and we are prepared now for the great idea coming into the eye and prospect of our soul'

-SILENCE WAS PLEASED! There is nothing in all poetry above this. Still evening and twilight grey are now Beings, coming on, and walking over the earth like queens, 'with Silence,'

'Admiration's speaking'st tongue,'

as their pleased companion. All is 'calm and free,' and 'full of life;' it is a 'Holy Time.' What a pic

ture!—what simplicity of means! what largeness and perfectness of effect! what knowledge and love of nature! what supreme art !-what modesty and submission! what self-possession !-what plainness, what selectness of speech! As is the height, so is the depth. The intensities must be at once opposite and equal. As the liberty, so the reverence for law. As the independence, so must be the seeing and the service, and the submission to the Supreme Will. As the ideal genius and the originality, so must be the resignation to the real world, the sympathy and the intercommunion with Nature.'-Coleridge's Posthumous Tract, 'The Idea of Life.

Since writing the above, our friend 'E.V.K.' has shown himself curiously unaffected by 'that last infirmity of noble minds,'-his 'clear spirit' heeds all too little its urgent 'spur.' The following sonnets are all we can pilfer from him. They are worth the stealing :

AN ARGUMENT IN RHYME.

I.

'Things that now are beget the things to be,
As they themselves were gotten by things past;
Thou art a sire, who yesterday but wast

A child like him now prattling on thy knee;
And he in turn ere long shall offspring see.
Effects at first, seem causes at the last,
Yet only seem; when off their veil is cast,
All speak alike of mightier energy,
Received and pass'd along. The life that flows
Through space and time, bursts in a loftier source.

What's spaced and timed is bounded, therefore shows A power beyond, a timeless, spaceless force,

Templed in that infinitude, before

Whose light-veil'd porch men wonder and adore.

II.

Wonder! but for we cannot comprehend

Dare not to doubt. Man, know thyself! and know
That, being what thou art, it must be so.
We creatures are, and it were to transcend
The limits of our being, and ascend

Above the Infinite, if we could show

All that He is, and how things from Him flow.
Things and their laws by Man are grasp'd and kenn'd,
But creatures must no more; and Nature's must

Is Reason's choice; for could we all reveal
Of God and acts creative, doubt were just.
Were these conceivable, they were not real.
Here, ignorance man's sphere of being suits,
'Tis knowledge self, or of her richest fruits.

III.

Then rest here, brother! and within the veil
Boldly thine anchor cast. What though thy boat
No shoreland sees, but undulates afloat

On soundless depths? securely fold thy sail.
Ah! not by daring prow and favouring gale
Man threads the gulfs of doubting and despond,
And gains a rest in being unbeyond.
Who roams the furthest, surest is to fail ;
Knowing nor what to seek, nor how to find.
Not far but near, about us, yea within,
Lieth the infinite life. The pure in mind
Dwell in the Presence, to themselves akin;
And lo! thou sick and health-imploring soul,
He stands beside thee-touch, and thou art whole.'

EXCURSUS ETHICUS.

Verius cogitatur Deus quam dicitur, et verius est quam cogitatur.-AUGUSTINE.

In these two things, viz., an equal indifferency for all truthI mean the receiving it in the love of it as truth, but not loving it for any other reason before we know it to be true; and in the examination of our principles, and not receiving any for such, nor building on them, until we are fully convinced, as rational creatures, of their solidity, truth, and certainty-consists that freedom of the understanding which is necessary to a rational creature, and without which it is not truly an understanding.

JOHN LOCKE.