Mark the following description, which for wild beauty and strange freshress of imagery, has scarcely its equal in modern poetry :

It was thus:

I said we were to part, but she said nothing.
There was no discord-it was music ceased-
Life's thrilling, bounding, bursting joy. She sate
Like a house-god, her hands fixed on her knee;
And her dark hair lay loose and long around her,
Through which her wild bright eye flashed like a flint.
She spake not, moved not, ut she looked the more,
As if her eye were action, speech and feeling.

I felt it all; and came and knelt beside her.
The electric touch solved both our souls together.
Then comes the feeling which unmakes, undoes;
Which tears the sealike soul up by the roots

And lashes it in scorn against the skies.

Twice did I madly swear to God, hand clenched,
That not even he nor death should tear her from me.

It is the saddest and the sorest sight

One's own love weeping;-but why call on God,
But that the feeling of the boundless bounds

All feeling, as the welkin doth the world?

It is this which ones us with the whole and God.

Then first we wept; then closed and clung together;
And my heart shook this building of my breast,
Like a live engine booming up and down.
She fell upon me like a snow-wreath thawing.
Never were bliss and beauty, love and woe,
Ravelled and twined together into madness,
As in that one wild hour; to which all else,
The past, is but a picture-that alone
Is real.

Bidding farewell to all old familiar scenes, Festus then walks about the world with Lucifer. During their perambulations they visit a country town-a market place at noon, and a funeral passes them-which Festus finds to be that of his Love. After some passionate expressions, he falls into a misanthropic vein; Lucifer encourages the feeling and comments upon the approach of the end of the world, and how deať mankind are to the voices which call them to repentance; in a devilish merry style he continues

They would not credit warning,

Or I would up and cry "Repent."-I will.
There is a fair gathering, and I feel moved.

Lucifer then preaches a remarkable but sarcastic sermon full of home truths. After this Festus delivers a prayer. Oh, words! what precious ones are here! Verily, here are eight pages for devotional beauty impassable-utterance worthy of an angel-sentiments which wing our souls to the very threshold of heaven. Love, worship, adoration, awe, reverence-every feeling ever named which man could ever feel for his Creator, find their expression here. It is the intellectualization of holy desire

made beautiful with philanthropy and love. Oh, that such prayers were in the mouths of our prayer-makers! This alone makes the book immortal. These eight pages are an octagonal monument, upon each side of which is written "immortality," and which shall point to heaven for ever, when spires and domes and material edifices shall have crumbled into the dust of time; and that dust shall have been washed by future rivers into the all swallowing sea.

Festus then, with the assistance of Lucifer, proceeds to examine all earthly scenes-then hell, and lastly heaven. During this wondrous journey passages which have all the fervid inspiration of prophecy occur, and thrill or charm us, elevate or depress us at the author's will, until the reader loses himself in the sybil-like wildness and strange beauty of the book. Earthly scenes of love intervene like brooks, with the freshness of whose quieter waters we can quench the thirst which ensues after the fiery rhymes which make hell almost seem palpable; and exquisite scenes of tenderness with inhabitants of earth relieve the awfully grand interviews which Festus seeks in the spirit-lands he visits. In the end Festus is saved, and saves his love who dies with him. The end of all things then comes, and God with his angels and archangels meet an angel enters amidst the change and wreck of time and things proclaiming a second attempt of hell against heaven, and the rout of the fallen angels in language worthy of Milton's poetic holiness. After the judgment of the Earth, the scene removes to "the Heaven of Heavens," where Festus and Lucifer are both judged and saved:

Here we lay down our pen, and conclude our notice of this wonderfully beautiful, and beautifully wonderful book. Sensible are we that we have only written half we could wish to write upon such a subject; and sensible that we have written but only unworthily of so great a writing.

Lege, lege aliguid hærebit.

FAREWELL.

Written when the Author was about to leave England, Feb. 27, 1843.

Farewell to joy, to happiness, to hope,

To love, to confidence, to peace-Farewell!
Ambition, courage, pride, and spirit droop,
To mourn the loss of all I loved so well.

Farewell to all, my country and my friends;
My honoured father and my sisters dear.
With these last murmurs the sad record ends
Of one whose only future is his bier.

I leave for ever all I know and love,

The thought-compelling haunts of early years,——
And forth upon the world alone I rove,

In hopeless banishment to hide my tears.

My world is shattered; and no longer spring
The fairy hopes were wont to deck my way,-
And what I loved deep agony will bring;

I cannot, if I would, among them stay.

Farewell to thee, whose beauty, like a dream,

Enslaved my thoughts and chained my heart to thine:
Whose charms, amidst the darkness of despair, will gleam,
And force devotion at thy faithless shrine.

A last" farewell" to thee, so wildly loved,—
To thee, whose name shall be a spell,-
To thee, whose faithlessness has sadly proved
The bitter meaning of the word-Farewell.

Oh! could I pour my life out in a word,
And syllable devotion in its knell,

My heart, in breaking, like the dying bird,*

Should speak its sweetest death-note in-Farewell!

J. B. LANGLEY.

*It was a beautiful superstition of the ancients, that the only musical note uttered by the swan was its "death-note," which was exquisitely melodious:

THE YOUNG POET'S COMPLAINT.

Athirst for glory and poetic fame,

How often is my heart thus dark and sad ;
How often do I sigh for that bright flame,

That Homer's melody immortal made:
Or tuned of old the string of Pindar's lyre,
Or gave to Sappho's liquid notes their fire.

THE repressive and coercive power by which men and nations have hitherto been governed is fast decaying. It ruled by addressing itself principally to the lowest feelings of human nature-the fear of punishment; hence, there has hardly ever been any sympathy or community of thought, between the governing and the governed. Their relations have been antagonistic. This has been the grand cause of aristocratical tyranny on the one hand, and democratical violence on the other.

Wherever, and whenever these exist, there is something wrong, and society must rest on a false basis. The history of humanity, from the most primitive times down to the present, is nothing else than the history of the different aspects, which the human mind has presented in its onward progress to complete developement. The history of any individual, whose mental and moral growth equals the greatest to which we have yet attained, is just an epitome of this grand history of entire humanity throughout the different ages of the world. We thus perceive, that in order to understand and appreciate the mental and moral history of the human species correctly, we must search in our own minds for an explanation of some of the darkest and most intricate passages in such history. We must take a retrospective view of our own thoughts, feelings, and opinions, in the different circumstances in which we have been placed throughout life. Natural endowment and outward circumstances form character, just as the inherent qualities of seed and soil combined determine crops. This holds true of man, both in his individual and collective capacity. A nation, however, in course of time forms its outward circumstances. These again react on the national mind; and, at particular crises, call to the surface of society for the fulfilment of some great end, individuals of a peculiar stamp, of mental and moral ability. Confining ourselves to modern times, Luther, Tell, Knox, Cromwell, Washington, and Bonaparte will suffice, as examples. Each of these men may be said to have embodied in action the great idea of the age in which he lived. Had their lot been cast at any other period of their nation's history, we every reason to believe that few of them would have been much known beyond the immediate circle of their acquaintance. In the onward progress of the human mind the most gifted individuals first discover some great physical or moral truths. This they do, either intuitively or by a rigid process of reasoning, from admitted facts. These newly-discovered truths, however, generally appear at first so startling, and contrary to common sense, and preconceived notions of the mass of men, that they meet with nothing but ridicule and opposition. Witness

Galileo's promulgation of the Copernican theory of Astronomy, Jenner's introduction of vaccination, and Fulton's application of steam for propelling ships and driving machinery. These grand discoveries in physical science have long ago become the common property of mankind, and, certainly, have been among the most powerful agents of modern civilization. The discoveries aud improvements too in mental and moral science have been equally great; but the highly gifted individuals who have written on these subjects, and in doing so have diverged from the common tract, have had to contend with much opprobrium and persecution-much more than those who have treated of physical science alone. The biography of Socrates in ancient, and Spinoza in modern times, prove this. In the present day, one gifted metaphysical writer is held up to the multitude, by those who think themselves competent to judge, as an infidel, and most dangerous enemy to the truth. Time will show whether he is or not. Truth is all powerful and will prevail. It is the only reality. It is God. It is the basis of the universe. A departure from it, physically or morally, is in the necessity of things accompanied with an equal compensation of bodily pain, or mental remorse. The inspired writer says, "Be sure your sin will find you out." What a depth of meaning is here! What a subject for a text! He only will expound it who is worthy. Each man of genius, who discovers physical or moral truths, contributes powerfully towards the progress and growth of the human mind. Some truths, at certain periods of a nation's history, clash so directly with the material interests and religious prepossessions of the dominant class, that ages elapse before the mass of the people become acquainted with, and appreciate them. Notwithstanding this, a knowledge of them goes on increasing. Many individuals meanwhile fall victims to the dominant power, in consequence of acknowledging these truths to have been part of their conviction. But in proportion to the strength and duration of the repressive power, by which great truths are opposed, will be the violence of the explosion with which they will vindicate themselves, in the re-organization of religious, social, and political institutions. The thirty years' religious war in Germany, consequent on the reformation, the civil war in England, and the war of American independence, are examples to the point. What a striking analogy there is between the physical growth of certain animals, and the gradual developement of the human mind. There are some animals, for instance, that change their skin many times, and others that undergo a complete transformation in their organs and mode of existence. Previous to, and during the time they are undergoing this transformation, they appear dying, but after it is completed they rally, and seem to possess and enjoy a much superior kind of existence to what they did before. So it is with nations in the course of their social and political developement. When certain great truths in religion, physical or social science, have penetrated the heart of a nation, and become the conviction of millions of men, reform will be demanded.

Institutions in accordance with the spirit of the age, and an arrangement of society more conducive to the happiness of man, in his advanced state of mental and moral growth, will be called for. In the majority of cases the governing power is reluctant to pay any attention to these demands. Instead of this, it frequently turns round and shows a determined front to oppose all change-to resist all progress. Notwithstanding the lessons which all history teach, it will not acknowledge mental and moral progress as a truth. It has no faith in any power, except physical power. As a matter of course it hedges itself round with drilled brute force, and dares the people to do battle for liberty and progress.

This is a great crisis. Society seems paralized, and law and order at an end. The conflict is dreadful, the victory doubtful, but right prevails. Great convulsions however, never accompany social or political reforms, except in countries where the national mind has not arrived at that point of mental development, which enables it to appreciate moral power, as the safest and most effective instrument for such purposes. England's great reforms since the civil war, have been mainly carried by national enlightenment and conviction. Moral power will yet reign supreme. The most powerful European nations have now acknowledged its omnipotence. In individuals of advanced mental growth, it has long ago been developed, but a considerable time must yet elapse, before nations and their governments shall have advanced up to this point. They are progressing favourably however. That they will yet arrive at it is certain; for it is the destiny of entire humanity. Can physical force stop progress? let history tell. Can man set bounds to the advancing tide, or dam up the impetuous torrent? The attempt is not only futile but dangerous. It is fighting