Though years have past, and time has strewn My raven locks with flakes of gray, Fond memory brings the hours Of birds and blossom-showers, When in girlhood I was crowned the Queen of May! * * * * * DREAMS OF THE LAND AND SEA. BY DR. REYNELL COATES. INTRODUCTORY. “’Tis all but a dream at the best!” Dreams of the Land and Sea! Why should I style them dreams? They are pictures of actual scenes, though some of them relate to events removed far back in the dimness of years, and the touches of the brush have felt the mellowing influence of time. While striving to avoid whatever is irrelevant or out of keeping, I have not endeavored to confine myself, in these sketches, within the limits of simple narrative, but have ventured occasionally to mingle facts with speculations on their causes, or to follow their consequences to probable results: nor have I totally discarded the imagination—although the scenes are invariably drawn from nature, and the principal personages are real characters—the accessory actors only are sometimes creatures of the brain. In many of the descriptions, the reader will perceive the evidences of a desire to place in prominent relief the works of nature and her God, while art, and all its vanities, is made to play a subordinate part; for nothing can be more impertinently obtrusive than the pigmy efforts of the ambitious, struggling for distinction by attempting either to mar or to perfect the plans of the Great Architect of Creation, or carve _a name_ upon the columns of his temple. Yet such is the social disposition of man, that no scene, however grand or beautiful, can awaken pleasurable emotion unless it is linked directly with humanity. There is deep oppression in the sense of total loneliness,—and few can bear the burden calmly, even for an hour! A solitary foot-print in the desert,—a broken oar upon the shelterless beach,—the tinkling of a cow-bell in the depth of the forest,—the crowing of the cock heard far off in the valley as we sink exhausted on the mountain side when the gloom of night settles heavily down upon our path-way,—who that has been a wanderer has not felt the heart-cheering effect of accidents like these! They tell us that, though our solitude be profound, there is sympathy near us, _or there has been recently_. In deference, then, to this universal feeling, I have selected for these articles such sketches only as are interwoven with enough of human life to awaken social interest, even while grappling with the tempest—riding the ocean wave, or watching the moon-beams as they struggle through the foliage of scarce trodden forests, and fall half quenched, upon the withered leaves below.