----, who, from sundry expressions which have occasionally fallen from him, I suspect to be rather well endowed with ideality. Reached home at half-past four. My father dined out. It was past ----'s dinner-time; so we invited him to stay and dine with us. After dinner, we fell somehow or another into a profound theological discussion; ---- suddenly proposing for my solution the mysterious doctrine of the inherent sin of our nature, and its accompanying doom, death,--inherited from one man's sin, and one man's punishment. I am not fond of discoursing upon these subjects. 'Tis long since I have arrived at the conviction that the less we suffer our thoughts to dwell upon what is vague and mysterious in our most mysterious faith, and the more we confine our attention and our efforts to that part of it which is practical and clear as the noon-day, the better it will be for our minds here, and our souls hereafter. Surely they are not wise who seek to penetrate the unfathomed counsels of God, whilst their own natures, moral, mental, nay, even physical, have depths beyond the sounding of their plummet line. ---- spoke in perfect sincerity and simplicity of the difficulty he found in believing that which was so "hard a saying;" and, as there was not the slightest particle of levity or ridicule in his manner, I spoke as earnestly as I felt and always feel upon this subject,--very strenuously advising him not to strain his comprehension upon matters which baffle human endeavour, which, after all our wanderings and weary explorings, still lead us back to the wide boundless waste of uncertainty; concluding by exhorting him to read his Bible, say his prayers, and go to church if he could,--or, if he could not, at all events to be as good as he could. While we were at tea, young ---- and Dr. ---- came in. They put me down to the piano, and I continued to sing until past eleven o'clock, when, somebody looking at a watch, there was a universal exclamation of surprise, the piano was shut down, the candles put out, the gentlemen vanished, and I came to bed. WINTER. I saw him on his throne, far in the north, Him ye call Winter, picturing him ever An aged man, whose frame, with palsied shiver, Bends o'er the fiery element, his foe. But him I saw was a young god, whose brow Was crown'd with jagged icicles, and forth From his keen spirit-like eyes there shone a light, Broad, glaring, and intensely cold and bright. His breath, like sharp-edged arrows, pierced the air; The naked earth crouch'd shuddering at his feet; His finger on all murmuring waters sweet Lay icily,--motion nor sound was there; Nature seem'd frozen--dead; and still and slow A winding-sheet fell o'er her features fair, Flaky and white, from his wide wings of snow.