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With the faint rill just oozing through,
And vanishing again from view,—
Except where, here and there, a pool
Spreads 'neath some cliff its mirror cool,
Girt by the palmite's1 verdant screen,
Or shaded by the rock-ash green,
Whose slender sprays above the flood
Suspend the loxia's callow brood
In cradle-nests2, with porch below,
Secure from winged or creeping foe,
(Weasel, or hawk, or writhing snake),
Wild waving as the breezes wake,
Like ripe fruit, hanging fair to see
Upon the rich pomegranate-tree.

But lo! the sun has stooped his head
Behind yon granite peaks of red;
And now along the dusky vale
The homeward herds and flocks I hail,
Returning from their pastures dry
Amid the stony uplands high.-
First, the swart shepherd with his flock
Comes winding round my hermit rock
All unlike, in gait or mien,

Fair Scotland's jocund swains, I ween:
For shepherd's crook, the gun he bears,
For plaid, the sheep-skin mantle wears;
Slow sauntering languidly along;
Nor flute has he, nor merry song,
Nor book, nor tale, nor rustic lay,
To cheer him through the listless day.
His look is dull; his soul is dark;
He knows not hope's electric spark;
But, born the white man's servile thrall,
Feels that he cannot farther fall.

1 Acorus palmita.

*

2 Several varieties of the lo.xia, or finch tribe, in South Africa, suspend their nests from the branches of trees, especially where they happen to impend over a river or precipice. The object of this precaution, is obviously to secure their offspring from the assaults of their numerous enemies, particularly the serpent-race. To increase the difficulty of access to these tree-rocked cradles,' the entrance is always from below, and frequently through a cylindrical passage of ten or twelve inches in length, projecting from the spherical nest, exactly like the tube of a chemist's retort. The whole fabric is, most ingeniously and elegantly, woven of a species of very tough grass; and the wonderful instinct or foresight (or whatever else we may choose to call it) displayed by the little architect in its construction, is calculated to excite the highest admiration.

Now wizard Twilight slowly sails,
With murky wing, adown the vales,
Warning with his mystic rod
The owl and bat to come abroad,
With things that hate the gairish sun,
To frolic now when day is done.
Now along the meadows damp
Th' enamoured fire-fly lights his lamp-
Link-boy fit for Elfin Queen

'Midst fair Avon's woodlands green;-
Here, I ween, more wont to shine,
To light the thievish porcupine
Plundering my melon-bed;

Or villain lynx, whose stealthy tread
Rouses not the wakeful hound,
As he creeps the folds around.

But lo! the night-bird's boding scream
Breaks abrupt my twilight dream,
And warns me it is time to haste
My homeward walk across the waste;
Lest my rash tread provoke the wrath
Of nachtslang, coiled across the path,—
Or tempt the leopard in the wood,
Prowling round, athirst for blood.

London Weekly Review.

AUGUST.

THIS month received its name in honour of Augustus. Its sign is Virgo.

Remarkable Days

In AUGUST 1828.

1.-LAMMAS DAY.

THIS was anciently loaf-mass, it being customary for the Saxons to offer an oblation of new bread on this day, as the first fruits of the harvest.

6.—TRANSFIGURATION.

The festival, in remembrance of our Lord's transfiguration on the Mount, was instituted by Pope Calixtus in 1455.

The night-adder.

7.-NAME OF Jesus.

This day, previously to the reformation, was assigned to Donatus: our reformers gave it its present appropriation.

*8.1827.—RT. HON. GEORGE CANNING Died, Æt.57.

This great man was a poet by nature, an orator by education, a statesman by accident or habit. His inclinations led him to the more elegant studies; to politics he never attended beyond the necessities of the moment; and he would always rather apply his literary reading to the confutation of a political antagonist, than make political argument a substitute and an excuse for the want of literary ornament. He was, however, better informed than many persons, who, because they are nothing else, set up for men of information; and, if his political knowledge were measured, not against the brightness of his own oratorical talent, but the ignorance of others, he would justly be deemed a great man. He was, in

short, a man with a lively strength-a vivida vis of intellect and wit; a man of ardour, boldness, and warmth; always possessed with an animated love of fame, high sense of his own honour, and a sensitive anxiety for the happiness and dignity of his country. As a statesman, Mr. Canning displayed views at once liberal and profound. As an orator, his speeches were always distinguished by their purity of language, and bursts of extemporaneous energy; while his vast command of metaphor, which he never used inappropriately, or without effect, frequently mingled all parties in one common admiration. Lord Byron, whose opposite politics prevented all suspicion of an undue bias in favour of Mr. Canning, has, in more than one of his works, paid the highest compliment to him. 'Canning,' said he, is a genius, almost an universal one; an orator a wit, a pret, and a statesman;' and in one of his Lordsh's latest poems,

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speaking of the British Administration, he thus notices the subject of this memoir :

Yet something may remain, perchance, to chime
With reason, and, what's stranger still, with rhyme;
E'en this thy genius, Canning! may permit,
Who, bred a statesman, still was born a wit,
And never, e'en in that dull house, could'st tame
To unleavened prose thine own poetic flame;
Our last, our best, our only orator,

E'en I can praise thee?

A summary of what Mr. Canning has accomplished during the short time since the Marquess of Londonderry's death, will best demonstrate the claims he has left to the world's gratitude, and best pourtray the blank which his loss has occasioned. He detached England from the cruel chariot-wheels of the Holy Alliance, almost before the familiars of that body could look around them, and discover the hand which set her free. The invasion of Spain was rendered, by Mr. Canning's dexterity and spirit, little more noxious in its result, than it was defensible in its origin; and the world saw contrasted an outrage by France on the Spaniards, with a blessing conferred by England on the Americans. Constitutional Portugal has been upheld against the House of Bourbon by diplomatic skill and military energy, so directed and justified as to protect the civil rights of the people of that kingdom. The spirit through which the whole South of Europe must one day vindicate the liberties of man, has been kept alive, and ready for seasonable exercise, by the mere notoriety that Mr. Canning was Minister. At home, the principles which he would have realized, had life been granted, were those under which the poor man's food would have been increased, and the national expenses considerably economized.

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As an author,' says a recent writer, Mr. Canning will not probably reap his full measure of fame in his lifetime; for, with the exception of his juvenile efforts in "The Microcosm," and his political satires

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in the "Anti-Jacobin," he has furnished few opportunities of identifying him.'

The satires of Mr. Canning are now only considered as brilliant effusions of wit and humour; but when they first appeared, they possessed considerable political importance; and while they rendered a few grave politicians extremely ridiculous, they combated with great force a more formidable enemy-French jacobinism.

In all the relations of domestic life, Mr. C. is allowed to have been one of the most amiable of men. In person he was tall and well made-his step quick and firm-his voice harmonious-his utterance quick but distinct, his emphasis strong without effort; and, as a contemporary writer has well observed, he had a set of features, every one of which performed its part in telling what was passing in his mind: his habits of sobriety gave him vigour, and his whole appearance was well calculated to impress the beholder with an idea that he was destined for long life.'

10. SAINT LAWRENCE.

Saint Lawrence was by birth a Spaniard, and flourished about the middle of the third century. He was laid upon a gridiron, and broiled till he died, August 10th, 258.

12. 1762.-King George EV born.

15.-ASSUMPTION OF B. V. M.

This is a festival, in the Greek and Romish churches, in honour of the supposed miraculous ascension of the Virgin Mary into heaven.-See an account of a splendid pageant formerly exhibited at Dieppe in honour of this day, in T.T. for 1823, pp. 224-227.

At Bonneval, on the day of the Assumption, a bunch of ripe, black grapes is put into the hand of the figure of the Virgin in the churches; and the same ceremony is used in the little chapel of St. Lawrence,

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