glorious old quadrangles. Yet I cannot pass, without paying a tribute to the unequalled chapels of Oxford. In that of New College, there is an alterpiece, by Westmacott, well worth perusingrepresenting, in successive pieces, the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Descent from the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. The varying expression in the countenance of the Virgin, is very striking and affecting. But the chapel of Magdalen College, the interior but just finished, is, in the substantial parts, the crowning beauty of all the chapels: the entire walls of polished stone -the screen of stone, most exquisitely carved; the whole wall over the altar, with three ranges of niches and canopies, and surmounted by a noli me tangere, all carved in the same manner.

There is a noli me tangere-" touch me not"by Mengs, in the All Souls' College chapel, about which I lingered for some time. The considerate, fixed, compassionate look of Jesus-superiority painted in the face, yet shaded by a human tenderness and, in Mary's countenance, as she kneels and stretches out her hand, something of surprise, great eagerness repressed by deep awe -the delicate suffusion of the eye--a suffusion, not with tears, but as if the blood were starting through every fine and invisible pore, in and about

the eye--it was something to gaze upon, and turn back to, for a last look.

I do not know that I shall find a more fit place than under the shadow of these college walls, to say some things that I wish to say on the subject of national health-for it especially concerns our students.

This subject drew my attention on landing in England, and has impressed me at every step. We have nothing among us like the aspect of health that prevails here--the solid, substantial, rotund, rubicund appearance of all classes. We are, in comparison, a thin, delicate, pale-faced people. We are, I am sometimes tempted to say, a nation of invalids in the comparison. The contrast is great and striking between the labouring classes of the two countries; but it is yet greater and more remarkable between the women, merchants, and men of study. I could scarcely have believed in the difference if I had not seen it. Besides, all health is relative, and "very well" in England must mean something, I think, considerably different from "very well" in America; not to say, also, that the "very well" of common parlance is frequently found, on more minute and friendly inquiry, to be quite distant from the truth.

Much, though not by any means all of this differ

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ence, is doubtless owing to our climate. When I was coming abroad I was desired by an eminent physician to inquire what it is, in the habits or circumstances of foreign students, that enables them to accomplish so much more study than we do, and at the same time to live longer and in the enjoyment of better health. I have inquired; and I certainly can find nothing in their habits that should give them such advantages over us. They are not more temperate and abstemious than we are; I should think the reverse is the fact. They seem to have no occasion for paying such regard to matters of regimen and diet as we do. They certainly talk less about them, and think less about them, than we do. There are no hardier or healthier students in the world than those of Germany; and it is well known that they are not remarkably cautious about their modes of living. But then, in Europe they do not experience the extremes of temperature, and especially the sudden changes, that we do in America. For myself, I have observed, that that temperature, whether hot or cold, which continues longest of an equable character, is most favourable to exertion. It is our autumn, and especially our spring, with its frequent and sudden alternations of sometimes twenty and thirty degrees in a day, that seems to tear the con

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stitution to pieces. I lately met with an observation of the celebrated Blumenbach, to the same purpose. He was asked what was the cause of the extraordinary health of the German students: and he answered that it was the equable climate which they either had, or, by means of the Russian stove made, for themselves the year round.

There are, indeed, other differences. All thinking in our country is brought into immediate connection with the actual interests of society, and is therefore apt to be more exciting, anxious, and exhausting. The mind of the country runs to politics, controversies, reforms. We have but few students among us, who are quietly engaged in the pursuits of abstract science, without a thought be yond them. We have none perhaps like Blumenbach himself, spending life in pleasing studies of insects, in calm and retired contemplations of holy and beautiful nature; else we possibly might have some like him, who could study sixteen hours a day, and find a green old age at eighty.

There are yet other differences which affect a wider circle of society among us. We are an anxious people. The paths of competition in our country are wide and free. Hence no man among us is satisfied with his condition. Every man is striving to rise. Every man is ambitious: and

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many are discontented and sad. These things weigh upon the heart, and wear upon the springs of life. I do not say that this is a bad condition; I think it favourable to improvement; but I say that it is trying both to health and virtue. At the same time we have fewer sports and holydays than any other people; and what we have, are falling into disrepute. The national mind wants buoyancy; and buoyancy of spirit is one of the most essential springs of health.

I am inclined, also, to impute something to our modes of living. The Bonapartean style of dining doubtless prevails among our busy citizens, more than the physician would advise. The silent and awful celerity with which our meals are despatched, is not altogether a steamboat or stagehouse horror. But this rapidity of eating does not arise, I imagine, from any peculiar voracity of the American genus. We are a very busy people; and as such, I think, we arrange our times of eating very unadvisedly. Dinner in our cities at present is unfortunately in a state of transition, from the old customs of the New World, to the new customs of the Old World. It has now arrived at the hour of three or four o'clock. It will be far better for health, when it has fairly reached the destined goal of six or seven; when the merchant or the student