that banished fear, and made you feel she would yet reach the port, and weather many another storm. I also found in the ocean other aspects less definite, but to me not less impressive,--the desolate and the bleak, when the wide waters of a dull green hue rolled sluggishly along or heavily beat the sandy beach, whilst fleecy clouds slowly passed over a misty sky where grey melted into paler grey, giving that sense of vague and melancholy infinite which can only be felt on the wild northern shores. I delighted in this wild and lonely life, and seldom felt the utter solitude of my daily haunts. Sometimes indeed, when I chanced to meet in the sand the mark of my own footprints, which no other steps had crossed since I had passed there, which the wind alone would efface or the tide wash away, a sense of sudden sadness came over me. It seemed as if a friend, whom I never could meet or overtake, had made and left that track for me to see. I felt vaguely that she who had passed there was not quite the same who passed now. Only a few days perhaps had gone by: but of those few days, unseen and unfelt as they speed on, is made up not only the sum, but also the ceaseless change of this our earthly life. Dearly as I have loved solitude, I hold it no unmixed good. Woe to the communion with nature that is only a brooding over self, and not a mingling of the soul with the Almighty Creator of all we behold; that seeks in her loveliness none save the images of voluptuous indulgence, and leaves by unread her purer teaching! Rightly even in innocent things have we been warned to guard our senses and our hearts. For this I hold ye dangerous, ye sheltered valleys, with quiet rivers gliding through, with green woods and lovely paths leading we know not where, with peaceful dwellings embosomed in the shade, and looking like so many abodes of love and happiness. What though we know that the golden age was all a fable and pastoral bliss the dream of poets, that innocence and peace dwell not here, though here passion and satiety can penetrate as surely as in the crowded city? Yet who, on beholding you, has not for a moment wished to live and die on your quiet bosom? Who has not felt that the thoughts you waken melt and subdue the heart, and haunt it vaguely for many a day, and enervate it with longing dreams and desires that savour too much of earth. Not these the feelings which thou awakenest, thou austere sea,--austere in thy very beauty, in thy calmest and most unruffled moods. More true and honest are thy promises, which thou at least keepest faithfully,--the long, arduous strife against wind and storm, the tardy return of weatherbeaten mariners,--ay, and often too the wreck,--the wreck which may appal the weak, but never yet dismayed a brave heart;--these are the hopes thou holdest forth--these the promises which life, whom thou imagest, will fulfil, until her waves, calm or troubled, rough or smooth,