appeal from the unbreathing things of nature with an ever faithful voice, that fills the spirit with lofty aspirings, until it struggles to cast off the chains which this earthly has thrown around her giant, though infant energies, and soar away beyond the influence of the cold sluggish atmosphere of sense--to attain something etherial and thrilling--something which shall satisfy her large desires, and open to the imagination a world of spiritual beauty and holiness. And he, who reads the volume of nature’s works, a stranger to this blessed influence, does not read aright. He is blind to that peculiar grace and loveliness which characterize them as a part of the great system of universal order and harmony. It is to the imagination, chastened and elevated by moral feeling alone, that nature makes her choicest revelations. Indeed it is a libel upon the Author of the human mind to suppose that He has endowed it with powers that are to receive their most exquisite gratification without the pale of virtue. We are of those, who believe that the intellect of man is to receive its highest and noblest, as well as purest energies, in its nearest moral conformity to the first, infinite and eternal Intellect. And if the character of this creating Mind is impressed on the visible creation, he who sees the most excellence in the former will feel the strongest love for the latter. Those aspects of nature, which to the unsanctified taste are without form or comeliness, are to him invested with a most religious charm. “Not a breeze Flies o’er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes The setting sun’s effulgence, not a strain From all the tenants of the warbling shade Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake Fresh pleasure unreproved.” C. A MISANTHROPE’S FAREWELL TO THE WORLD. “Ferte per extremos gentes, et ferte per undas, Qua non ulla meum femina norit iter. * * * * * Hoc, moneo, vitate malum.” _Propertius._ To distant climes of earth I flee, Mid savage wilds my home to make, Away beyond the raging sea, Where man my quiet ne’er shall break. For now my hardened heart to feeling steeled, No more to human sympathy will yield. No more shall woman’s witching smile E’er haunt the recess of my cell; No more my trusting heart beguile, Which now has learned these tricks--too well: For I have found her fickle, false, and vain, And once deceived, will never be again. Nor shall she in my summer bower, When day has sped with all its care, E’er greet me--at soft twilight’s hour, In love to hold sweet converse there. For passions rage and burn without control, Where love, like poisoned daggers, stings the soul.