On ourselves, the Summer sun is shining, glowing—robing in gold the declining days of July, and taking her starry jewels from the crown of Night—nay, lifting the diadem from her sable brow, and invading the skies of midnight with his lingering beams. Oh, what a glory in those evening skies! The sun, just set, brings out the summits of the far-off hills sharp and black against his amber light: Nature is dreaming; yonder sea is calm as if it had never known a storm. It is the hour of Reverie: old memories, half-forgotten poetry, come floating like dreams into the soul. We wander in thought to the lonely Greek Isle, where Juan and Haidee are roaming with encircling arms upon the silvery sands, or gaze in love’s reverie from the deserted banquet-room upon the slumbering waters of the Ægean. We see the mariner resting on his oars within the shadow of Ætna, and hear the “Ave Sanctissima” rising in solemn cadence from the waveless sea. We stand beneath the lovely skies of Italy—we rest on the woody slopes of the Apennines, where the bell of some distant convent is proclaiming sundown, and the vesper hymn floats on the rosy stillness, a vocal prayer. “Ave Maria! blessed be the hour, The time, the clime, the spot where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o’er the earth so beautiful and soft; While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, And the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft; While not a breath stole through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seem’d stirr’d with prayer!” Study is impossible in the Summer evenings—those long, clear, mellow nights, when the Evening Star hangs like a diamond lamp in the amber skies of the West, and the hushed air seems waiting for serenades. The very charm of our Study is then our ruin. Whenever we lift our eyes from the page, we look clear away, as from a lofty turret, upon the ever-shifting glories of sunset, where far-off mountains form the magic horizon, and a wide arm of the sea sleeps calmly between, reflecting the skyey splendours. Our heart is not in our task. There is a vague yearning within us, for happiness more ethereal than any we have yet beheld, a happiness which the eye cannot figure, which only the soul can feel—it is the Spirit dreaming of its immortal home. Now and then we pause—the beauty without, half-unconsciously fixes upon itself our dreamy gaze. “Oh, Summer night! So soft and bright!”