raven does not cry in vain,” nor is any thing abandoned by that power which called it into being. We all seem to love the ivy, “The wanton ivy wreath’d in amorous twines,” more than any other uncultured evergreen that we possess; yet it is difficult satisfactorily to answer why we have this regard for it. As a lover of the lone, the ivy-mantled ruin, I have often questioned with myself the cause and basis of my regard for that, which was but a fragment of what might have been formerly splendid, and intrinsically possessed but little to engage admiration, yet wreathed in the verdure of the ivy, was admired; but was never satisfied, perhaps unwilling to admit the answer that my mind seemed to give. The ivy is a dependent plant, and delights in waste and ruin. We do not often tolerate its growth when the building is in repair and perfect; but, if time dilapidate the edifice, the ivy takes possession of the fragment, and we call it beautiful; it adorns the castle, but is an indispensable requisite to the remains of the monastic pile. There is an abbey in the North of England, which has been venerated by all its late possessors. It is trimmed, made neat, and looks, perhaps, much as it did formerly, except being in ruins. The situation is exquisite, the remains are splendid, yet with many it fails to excite such interest as it should do. It is a bare reality. A ruin in the West of England once interested me greatly. The design of revisiting and drawing it was expressed at the time. A few days only elapsed; but the inhabitant of a neighboring cottage had most kindly labored hard in the interval, and pulled down “all the nasty ivy, that the gentleman might see the ruin.” He did see it, but every charm had departed. These two instances, from many that might be advanced, manifest that ivy most frequently gives to these ancient edifices the idea of beauty, and contributes chiefly to influence our feelings when viewing them. The ruins of a fortress, or warlike tower, may often historically interest us from the renown of its founder or its possessor, some scene transacted, some villain punished, hero triumphant, or cause promoted, to which we wished success: but the quiet, secluded, monastic cell, or chapel, has no tale to tell; history hardly stays to note even its founder’s name; and all the rest is doubt and darkness; yet, shrouded in its ivied folds, we reverence the remains, we call it picturesque, we draw, we engrave, we lithograph the ruin. We do not regard this ivy as a relic of ancient days; as having shadowed the religious recluse, and with it often, doubtless, piety and faith; for it did not hang around the building in old time, but is comparatively a modern upstart, a sharer of monastic spoils, a usurper of that which has been abandoned by another. The tendril pendent from the orient window, lightly defined in the ray which it excludes, twining with graceful ease round some slender shaft, or woven amid the tracery