foam-bells upon a mighty current, floating silently on towards the orifice of some prodigious sea-cave. It was like the whirlpool of Maelstrom, every thing that comes within the vortex of which, for miles round, is sure of being caught, inextricably involved, whirled round, and round, and round, and then down, down that monstrous gulf--that mouth of the mighty ocean, the lips of which are overwhelming waves, whose teeth are prodigious rocks, and whose belly is the great abyss! Here I grew dizzy, fainted, and--I never saw the Mouth again. [ROBERT CHAMBERS.] [Illustration: 043] STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM. Hail to thee, loveliest June! Thy smile awaited me at my birth; may it rest upon me at the hour of death--may it cast its sunshine into my grave as my coffin descends into the earth, and the few who loved me look upon it for the last time! The fruits--the luscious ruby fruits--are swelling into ripeness. I know nothing of the fruits of the south--I talk of those of my own country. I have a thorough contempt for Italy with its grapes!--I detest Spain with its oranges!--I should be happy to annihilate Turkey and Asia with their olives and citrons!--I am writing and thinking only of England. I was a child once;--Reader! so were you. Do you recollect the day and the hour when the blessed influence of strawberries and cream first flashed on your awakened mind, and you felt that life had not been given you in vain? I was just seven years old--my previous existence is a blank in memory--when I spent a June in the country. I may have picked before in the blind ignorance of infancy, some little red pulpy balls, which may have been presented to me on a little blue plate by my aunt or grandmother--but never--never till my seventh year was I aware that in the melting luxuriance of one mouthful, so large a share of human happiness might be comprised. Sugar, cream, and strawberries! Epicurean compound of unimaginable ecstasy! trinity of excellence! producing the only harmonious whole known to me in all the annals of taste! The fresh vigour of my youthful palate may have yielded somewhat to the deadening effect of time, but the glorious recollections of those profound emotions, excited by my first intoxicating feast on strawberries and cream, is worth every other thought that memory can conjure up. Breathes there the man who presumes to smile at my enthusiasm? Believe me, he is destined to pass away and be forgotten, as the insect upon which you tread. He is a measurer of broad-cloth or a scribbler of juridical technicalities.