One of the ancient philosophies maintained that all Nature is but the phantasm of our senses. Had it, after first granting that the senses themselves were evidences of matter and motion, maintained that Nature was only evident to us through them, it would have been simple truth. Our perceptions of Nature are limited to the capacity of our nervous structure. We frequently make the mistake of endowing matter with attributes which it does not possess, and which are resident only in the impression communicated to us by forces emanating from it, the forces being we know not what. And we can understand that there may be forces in nature as powerful as those which we perceive by our senses, but which are utterly unrecognized by them. We can understand that it were possible for organized beings to possess fifty instead of five senses, which might receive from nature other impressions and awaken other emotions as beautiful and as beneficent as those arising from sight and hearing. SONNET. Rather, my people, let thy youths parade Their woolly flocks before the rising sun; With curds and oat-cakes, when their work is done, By frugal handmaids let the board be laid; Let them refresh their vigor in the shade, Or deem their straw as down to lie upon, Ere the great nation which our sires begun Be rent asunder by hell's minion, Trade! If jarring interests and the greed of gold, The corn-rick's envy of the minéd hill, The steamer's grudge against the spindle's skill,-- If things so mean our country's fate can mould, O, let me hear again the shepherds trill Their reedy music to the drowsing fold! LITERATURE AS AN ART. As one looks forward to the America of fifty years hence, the main source of anxiety appears to be in a probable excess of prosperity, and in the want of a good grievance. We seem nearly at the end of those great public wrongs which require a special moral earthquake to end them. Except to secure the ballot for woman,--a contest which is thus far advancing very peaceably,--there seems nothing left which need be absolutely fought for; no great influence to keep us from a commonplace and perhaps debasing success. There will, no doubt, be still need of the statesman to adjust the details of government, and of the clergyman to keep an eye on private morals, including his own. There will also be social and religious changes, perhaps great ones; but there are no omens of any very fierce upheaval. And seeing the educational value to this generation of the reforms for which it has contended, and especially of the antislavery enterprise, one must feel an impulse of pity for our successors, who seem likely to have no convictions that they can honestly be mobbed for.