HAPPINESS.

WHAT is happiness? If every man were asked this question, what various definitions we should have! And yet there would be many who would unite in giving one description of that goal which all are striving for, but which few confess that they have attained,—I mean those who think, with me, that a great part of happiness consists in sympathy; in the society of, and "sweet communion" with those who have ideas and feelings like your own.

I would hope, (for the character of my species,) that not many would make this summum bonum to consist in merely sensual enjoyments, in the gratification of those appetites which belong to men and beasts in common. But I think many would call ease and freedom from all constrained work, the ne plus ultra of felicity. Yet old men, who have retired from business, and are just in the situation these people think so happy, are generally cross and irritable animals as any you meet with, and think themselves the most miserable men upon the face of the earth.

That which raises man above the level of the beasts, and makes him lord of the creation, is his mind; and it is to the mind he must look for real happiness. All those pleasures which consist in the gratification of the senses, are things which perish in the using; but the mind is a spring from which you may ever draw; it is a mine of rich ore, whose veins are inexhaustible, but for which you must dig.

The cultivation of the mind does not merely consist in acquiring a great quantity of knowledge, which may lie in your head, like the hidden talent, to no profit; nor only in acquiring the power of arranging in order those distinct facts which you may discover into a system. You may in this manner, indeed, build up a large and massive temple of science; but the walls will be bare, and the roof unadorned; and, while you stand in the edifice which your reason has raised, and contemplate the stores which your understanding has joined together, you will be cold and comfortless. The chaplets to the columns, and the fretwork to the roof, must be given by the imagination.

By imagination, I mean, that faculty of the mind by which it works upon the knowledge which it has acquired. When the

light of reason has shown, in the paths of science, the footsteps of the Creator, it is the imagination which harmonizes the music of the spheres, and modulates the voices of countless worlds to one full chorus of praise to the Almighty; and it is the imagination that, rising to the first great Cause of all the wonders of the universe, pictures to itself the abode of God, surrounded by myriads of bright beings, and listens to the songs of the angels. The knowledge that we acquire by our external senses, forms the foundation on which the imagination builds its superstructure of beautiful creations, the elements which it combines into new forms, thereby producing those lovely conceptions and ideas which constitute the charm of poetry.

Now, I think that happiness consists principally in the indulgence of these dreams of the imagination; and so forming for oneself an imaginary world, in which the spirit may wander, and search out all that is fair and holy and pure. I hate realities. All those pleasures which depend upon real, tangible things, are vanity and vexation of spirit; they perish in their using.

But when the spirit has thus formed for itself a world, in which all the beauties of the heavens and the earth are blended into one fair and lovely creation,-is there nothing more wanting to content

Can it wander through regions boundless as thought, and in which all that is fair and pure and holy, all things that the most fertile imagination can conceive, are collected, and be satisfied? Is man to live in this ideal world without any connexion with his fellow-men, uncaring and uncared for? And is his ear never to be charmed by that sweetest of earth's music, the voice of sympathy? Oh, no! Feelings which are unshared are almost unfelt. It is not good for man to be alone. As he wanders through this world of fancy, there should be another spirit that can share his joys, can feel what he feels, and love what he loves. Sympathy with others constitutes a great part of happiness. The charm of poetry consists in sympathy with the poet. Poetry creates nothing in our minds; it only combines elements which existed there before. But, to have perfect sympathy with one spirit, clothed in a beauteous form; to tread with her the paths of fancy, and to revel in the beautiful creations of the poet;—that is felicity indeed.

I know there are many who call all this a delusion; who say that when a man indulges in these pleasures of the imagination, he is building a temple to an unreal deity, and raising an altar on

which he himself will be sacrificed.

But is it true that, after

we have formed the temple, and fitted it for the shrine of the heavenly passion, the celestial power,-at the moment in which our fondest hopes are realised, when the bright one appears who answers to our ideal love, and by her presence makes all that was fair before more fair, all that was pure more pure, all that was holy more holy, then, when the fire of love begins to burn on our altar, must its flame consume the edifice? Must every creation and beauty of mortality be seared and crumbled to ashes by the intensity of that heavenly beam? Oh! I can never believe, that the power which, in the immensity of its perfection, accomplished the greatest wonder eternity ever saw, and saved millions of human beings from everlasting destruction, can, with its less perfect and less brilliant shining, only destroy the share of happiness which still remains to man on earth, that the same power which leads man to heaven can poison his existence here below.

Perfect happiness is a stranger to this world; it is a phantom which men through all their lives pursue, but ever, as they seem to have reached it, it eludes their grasp it lures them on through a rough and weary course, till it vanishes in the mists of disappointment and woe. But there is a world of happiness,-and that world is a spiritual world, and its pleasures are spiritual pleasures, and its God is a spiritual God; and when we enter that world, with our spirits purified and made holy, restored to their original likeness to the Almighty Spirit of their Creator, may not our happiness consist in a unison and harmony in the feelings of our minds with the Spirit of Him whose presence is the light and glory of heaven? And when we are all filled with the fulness of that eternal Spirit, we shall see in others but the reflection of that Spirit; so that, not only will those ties that connected us on earth be purified and strengthened, but our capacities will be so enlarged that we shall take into the same bond all the inhabitants of that bright world, and, forming one united family, our voices will rise in a full chorus of praise to the Father we love. There the philosopher will seek for the hand of the Creator in the wonders of the universe, with an intellect capable of understanding it all: there the poet will find all the creations of his earthly imagination embodied in the bright glories of heaven,-all that was fair and beautiful upon earth in its perfection, freed from the dross, the corruption, the pollution of sin.

The world of the imagination is a dangerous world; it is a sea, under the smooth surface of which lie hidden many dangerous rocks. But if we keep our vessel pointed to the pole-star of heaven, and take for our pilot the word of its God, we shall avoid those rocks and quicksands that would wreck our ship, and sink us into the abyss of despair, steering a clear course through a world of happiness to a haven of eternal joy.

PUCK.

HORACE.-LIB. III.

ODE XXIII.

IF, Phyllis, on thy votive hearth,
At silvery Luna's monthly birth,
Shall bleed the ravening swine;
While gifts from bounteous Ceres' store,
And incense from Arabia's shore,
O'erspread thy household shrine;

No arid blast shall smite thy vine,
Whose verdant tendrils closely twine
Around the lofty trees;

No blasting mildew sear thy crop;
Nor shall thy tender firstlings drop,
'Neath Autumn's sickening breeze.

Let the rich victims idly rove
In snow-capp'd Algidon's deep grove,
Far from all sounds of strife;
Or graze in rich Albania's plains,
Till their red blood the altar stains,
Beneath the pontiff's knife.

For thee no hecatomb must bleed;
Thy Gods no splendid victims need,
To sooth their wrath divine;
The wreath of fragile myrtle, twin'd
With fragrant herbs of every kind,
Suffice to crown their shrine.

The pious cake and crackling salt
Atone the humbler votary's fault,
When richer gifts would fail;
And off'rings of a stainless hand,
Appease th' inexorable band,

And woo the fav'ring gale.

d.

THE TREMBLING POPLAR.

A BOTANICAL LEGEND.

(Translated from the German of Weissflog.)

WOULD you know why the aspen trembles, when no breath is stirring in the sultry summer, and the other trees of the forest rest their thickly-leaved boughs, and spread cooling shadows? Hear its story.

In the awful hour when our Lord hung upon the cross, and the sun folded a veil of mourning around its brightness, there went forth a trembling through all living nature. Man, mute with horror, awaited, with a fearful spirit, the termination of the strange and unheard-of event; the beasts of the forest crept into their hiding-places, and dared not move out of their secure retreats; there was no sound heard of the humming of insects, or of the chirping of birds-all was dumb, oppressed, and mourning. Only the flowers, the shrubs, and the trees, murmured yet in their speech, and told the story of the holy time. The tall cedars of Lebanon faintly murmured their fearful chorus in the air, while a darkness, as that of the night, overshadowed the woods.

"Alas! now is it past," gently whispered the willow of Babylon, and bowed down her mourning branches into the Euphrates. The vine-dresser passed through his vineyard, and saw how the vine-branches wept. As the fruit was now ripe, and the juice was pressed, they called it the "tears of Christ."

But around Golgotha there arose a sweet perfume. The violet of the night sent it forth to cool the suffering Son of God; and the Iris Susiana said to her sister the Cypress," In mourning will I clothe myself from henceforth." "And I," answered the Cypress, "will dwell by the grave for a memorial of this hour." Then there was a light breeze through the sultry twilight. Astaroth, the angel of death, as he passed by to the cross. And when the voice now sounded from thence, "My God! My God! why hast thou forsaken me?" all the boughs, all the flowers, all the leaves trembled.

It was

But the Aspen, a proud, high, cold tree, stood unmoved at the foot of Golgotha. "What hath thine agony to do with us?" it spake. "We are yet free,-we trees, and blossoms, and plants; we have not sinned!"

Then Astaroth, the angel of death, took a black cup with the