With steady scorn be treated;
Nor by art's modish follies mar
The sweetest, loveliest work by far
That nature has completed:

For oh! if in the world's wide round
One peerless object may be found,

A something more than human;
The faultless paragon confessed,
May in one line be all expressed-

A WELL DRESS'D ENGLISH WOMAN.

A FATHER'S GOSSIP—A CHILD'S DEATH.

"O thou wilt come no moreNever, never, never, never, never!"

SHAKSPEARE.

A MOTHER'S affection for her infant is involuntary-a blind, unreasoning instinct, implanted by nature for the preservation of the species, and directed with additional energy towards those who would seem least to bespeak her tenderness-the mutilated in body or mind, the cripple or the idiot, precisely because they have most need of her protection. Compassion may influence men to the same good offices, but it does not, as with mothers, blind them to the defects of its object; there is no obliquity of judgment, no instinct, no preference, in their attentions: they are prompted by justice or humanity, rather than affection.

Abstractedly from the wide range of reflection it excites, I myself see nothing captivating in any infant. It is powerful in the silent appeal of its helplessness, rich in past and future suggestion; but there is little of present humanity in its powers and aspect. My own always appear ugly to me in this intermediate state. With more than an animal's debility, they have less of its substitutes for reason, and none of that faculty itself. There is "no speculation in those eyes that they do glare withal ;"

their movements are snatching and automatical, the functions that they exercise are by no means prepossessing, and their cry altogether feline and unmusical. I cannot feel with any intensity my relationship to beings whose nature exhibits so little similarity with my own. But when a moral sanction is given to the awakened tenderness that has hitherto been dormant-when the roses unfold their first transparent bloom in the cheek, when the eyes sparkle with expression, and the whole countenance, animated with intelligenee, flatters our vanity by its reputed resemblance to our own, or our love by its incipient development of the mother's beauty; when, in addition to these attractions, the expanding mind throws every day some new tendril around our heart-who but a parent can conceive the delight with which the existence of the child becomes gradually incorporated and interfused with his own? A passionate lover of the chace in my younger days, I have heard the gallant chiding of the dogs flung back from the woodlands and hollow hill sides with an ecstacy not inferior to his, who

was with Hercules and Cadmus once, When in the woods of Thrace they bay'd the boar."

In my morning rambles through the dewy meadows, I have often stopped short, and exclaimed with thrilling ear

"What matins like the larks', who heavenwards climb, And pour down lighted music from above?"

In the serene soothing moonlights of summer, I have been almost afraid to breathe, lest I should dissolve the enchantment, and have waited the dying away of the music before I have ventured to whisper to myself,

"What midnight serenades so rapturous

As the lone nightingale's, whose soul of love
Outgushes with her song?"

and beneath the mellowing dome of the largest theatre in the most musical capital in Europe, rich harmonies have melted into mine ear; dulcet female voices, as of angels, blending their sweetness with the symphonious swell of manly intonation, and organ and harp, and "instruments that made melodious chime:" but I protest, in all the sincerity of literal truth, that I never heard music so tuneful to the ear, so enchanting to the heart, so dissolving and overcoming to the whole soul, as the first prattlings of a beloved child. Does my reader recollect the story of Agesilaus, King of Sparta, surprised by embassadors when he was upon all-fours playing with his children! Is he himself a father? if so, I make no apology for continuing to. ride my hobby-horse.

Yes! it is indeed exquisite to watch the dawnings of reason, the blossoming and blowing of the intellect; but let every parent beware of the bitter rebuke which is impending over his paternal pride, if he possess a daughter of precious talent-as I did once! Flattering but fatal gift! resembling the hectic flush upon the cheek, the beautiful efflorescence that announces inward disease and decay. Twice did the grim King of Terrors stretch forth his abhorred hand-its shadow fell upon her still blooming features, like the passing cloud that throws its lurid frown upon a rose, and she bent in meek resignation: but our tears, or our unceasing vigils, or our prayers, prevailed; we drove the phantom away, and doated upon our reprieved child as if we had bestowed a new existence upon her, and the affections of three lives were concentrated in one. It seemed as if the knot that tied her to our hearts had been drawn tighter by every attempt to tear her away from us. Nothing is so endearing as to watch over those whom we have thus preserved. Pride and self-love are apt to impart a painful feeling to benefits received; gratitude is too often associated

with a sense of humiliation; but the pleasure arising from the favours we have conferred is pure, unalloyed, and perfect. We do not in general serve people because we love them, half so much as we love them because we have served them. By a beautiful provision of nature, beneficence is its own reward, and a double happiness emanates from a single virtue. Towards a beautiful and beloved child, whom our cares have twice snatched from the grave, our attachment becomes intense; the feelings can be sublimized no higher.

But the Insatiable would not be disappointed of his prey: he hovered over the head of the victim, meditating a third attack, and though we dared not trust our tongues with the avowal, we read deep apprehension and sad misgivings of the heart in one another's eyes. The patient too, (and never did a youthful sufferer better illustrate the meaning of the word!) with the fearful acuteness of her intellect, instantly interpreted our looks, and though resigned upon her own account, seemed resolved to make an effort to live-for our sakes. It was a soul-subdu-, ing sight to behold that fair, meek, and powerless child, struggling and wrestling with the dread and invincible king.

It was one of those delicious mornings when the spring is about to give up the green and beautiful earth to the guardianship of summer. The air wafted towards me the renovating breath of buds and blossoms: every thing seemed to be instinct with life; young leaves were fluttering above me; fresh flowers were nodding in the healthful breeze; new-born insects were buzzing about upon their busy wings; the birds were pursuing their twittering courtship; new birth was the universal purpose of nature; it appeared as if nothing could die. As my other children gambolled on the green before me, I sunk into complacent reveries, imagining that the invalid had actually derived benefit from the vi

tality of the season-that a change had really commenced, and I might soon hope to see her frisking with her companions--when a sudden and hideous shriek pierced through my ear and smote upon my heart. Rushing instinctively back to the chamber, I beheld the mother and the child stretched beside one another upon the bed, like a full blown flower and its declicate bud laid prostrate, in their pride of beauty, by some passing tempest. I bore my wife into the air; and leaving her, after she had recovered from her fit, in the hands of her attendants, I slowly and misgivingly went back to the chamber. I knew not what had happened, but an undefined dread of something terrible crept through my veins. My child was before me, exactly in the attitude I had left her; her eyes were wide open, and still bright, but they did not move; I rivetted mine for above a minute upon them with a fixed intensity; still they did not move; and all at once my heart sunk within me, and the truth flashed through me with an electric shock, and a harrowing awfulness took possession of me, for I felt that a mighty power had entered the chamber-I stood in the presence of Death!—I might indeed have exclaimed with Romeo,

"Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:

Thou art not conquered; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,

And death's pale flag is not advanced there :"

but so far from trusting my eyes with a second look, I covered my face with my hands and withdrew in a mute consternation.

The shutting out of the summer sun, and the other external signs of woe adopted upon these occasions, are too much in unison with benighted hearts to affect them with additional sadness; but there is a deeper oppression of the spirit when we see chil