wards on the reckless wind, with those dizzy and convulsive movements which are wont to precede an irrevocable fall; from amongst the cheerful songsters of the grove, it singles out the bird with wounded wing; it perceives the rifled nest, and knows by the scattered plumage that the spoiler has been there; throughout the flowery wilderness of the fields, or the gorgeous bloom of the cultivated garden, it sees only the blighted blossom, the broken stem, or the fatal ravages of the cankerworm ; in the heavens, it beholds only the setting sun, the waning moon, or the feeble star that glitters in a world of gloom; in the animal kingdom, it selects those species which prey upon each other, and turns from the sportive gambols of the lamb, to the kite that hovers over the feathery brood, or the tiger and the cat that torture ere they devour their victims; in the city, it is sensible only of poverty, disease, and accumulated crime; and in the social circle, it sees only the lip of scorn, the pale cheek, or the averted eye. Over the calendar of births, marriages, and deaths, the melancholy hold themselves peculiarly privileged to mourn, because, in the first instance, another sentient and responsible being is added

to the dark catalogue of those who come into the world to sin and suffer; in the second, an additional proof is about to be exhibited before the world of the fallacy of human hopes, and the disappointment which inevitably attends our pursuit of earthly happiness; and the third is an awful evidence of that fatal doom to which we are all hastening. In short, there is nothing natural or familiar, sweet or soothing, good or great, which does not set the gloomy and morbid imagination afloat upon "a sea of troubles" and it is this exuberance of fancy, this illimitable range of thought, this fertility of the mind in producing objects of mournful association, which constitutes the poetry of melancholy.

"I have of late," says Hamlet, "(but wherefore I know not,) lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises: and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of

work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties in form, and moving, how express, and admirable in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me, -nor woman neither,"

We now come to the consideration of grief as a passion, under which character there is one peculiarity to be remarked, tending powerfully to invest it with the poetical charm it unquestionably possesses—it is the peculiar force and vividness of some of our perceptions while the mind is under the immediate influence of grief. It is true we cannot reason, nor calculate, nor detect the weakness of sophistry, because the mind in this state is incapable of action. The only faculty awakened in it, is that of receiving impressions; a power considerably heightened and increased by the total suspension of its active operations. But it is to trifles alone that this power is applied to things of no importance, and such as hold no relative connection with the cause of grief. Thus the criminal at the bar, though wholly incapacitated for taking into consideration the nature of the laws by which he is tried, looks round upon the judge, the witnesses, and the whole court; and with an acuteness and vividness of perception which seem actually to be the means of forcing every unwelcome object upon his sight, he beholds the breathless and expectant multitude around him, from amongst whom he is able to distinguish, and single out particular faces, which if

he is happy enough to escape the dreaded doom, will remain impressed upon his memory till his latest day. The messenger who brings us evil tidings, is, for any thought or interest that we bestow upon him individually, a mere intelligence, a voice, a breath of air; and yet we find afterwards that we have involuntarily noted down in characters never to be obliterated, his countenance, his dress, his manner, and the tones in which his errand was delivered. We watch by the bedside of the dying, our very souls absorbed by the near prospect of that fearful dissolution which is about to deprive us of a child, a parent, a friend, or a brother, unconscious that our thoughts have wandered for one moment from what was most important or impressive in that awful scene; yet in after life, even when the heavy wheels of time have have rolled over us, laden with other accidents, and other griefs, we are able to recall with a distinctness almost incredible to those who have never known it, the particular aspect of that sick chamber-the folded curtains-the pillow without rest-the wild delirious wanderings-the countenance of the nurse-the voice of the physician-and all the other minutia of that mournful scene.

It is with the tide of feeling as with a swollen river. The violent and overwhelming force of the torrent bears along with it innumerable fragments from the desolated shore. While the stream rushes on, swollen and tumultuous, these fragments are scarcely distinguishable amongst the whirlpools, and rapids, and roaring falls; but when it subsides and again glides calmly within its natural boundaries, they rise to the surface and afford clear and palpable evidence of the tremendous strength and violence of the overwhelming flood.

Lord Byron has described with his wonted power and pathos this capability of the mind, when under the influence of grief, in that most affecting (I might almost say most beautiful) of his poems "The Dream." In the melancholy scene so forcibly exhibiting the deep but silent anguish of plighting the hand without the heart, how naturally do the thoughts of the gloomy being he has chosen to represent, rush back to the season of his first-his only love, and settle upon the last agonizing moment of separation, which life has now no power to equal by any future suffering. A minor poet, or a less experienced reasoner, would have centred all the recollections of the