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they are, glorious faults which true critics would not mend nor have mended. If they offend, they likewise transcend. It is, however, only as abstractions that they err; but admirably, for the flight they soar is lofty. What seek they but to deliver man from the body of this death? With Promethean audacity, he rises up in rebellion against the tyranny of Nature. If he recognises in the laws by which she is governed a spiritual influence, this discovery only increases his resentment;-alas! not always acknowledging that, unless with the concurrence of his own, there is no other will capable of prevailing against its inherent liberty. Not until itself enslaved by sin, it recognises the (then needful) antagonism of nature's evil. But amidst it all, Hope, the last ingredient of Pandora's box, "springs eternal in the human breast," and he feels the day of deliverance at hand, in the ever present power of deliverance that is consciously enshrined (the yet unfallen image of God) in the adyta of the soul! It was this, perhaps, which Shelley understood by the sudden radiance that, in his Prometheus Unbound, invests the form of Asia, and gives occasion for the most beautiful of sentiments, and the exquisite lyrics that follow it:-Common as light is love,

And its familiar voice wearies not ever.

Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air,
It makes the reptile equal to the God:
They who inspire it most are fortunate,
As I am now; but those who feel it most
Are happier still, after long sufferings,
As I shall soon become.

Panthea. List! Spirits speak.

Voices in the air, singing.

Life of Life! thy lips enkindle

With their love the breath between them ;

And thy smiles before they dwindle

Make the cold air fire; then screen them

In those looks, where whoso gazes

Faints, entangled in their mazes.

Child of Light! thy lips are burning

Through the vest which seems to hide them;

As the radiant lines of morning

Through the clouds ere they divide them ;

And this atmosphere divinest

Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.

Fair are others; nore beholds thee,

But thy voice sounds low and tender,

Like the fairest; for it folds thee

From the sight, that liquid splendour,
And all feel, yet see thee never,
As I feel now, lost for ever!

Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest,

Its dim shapes are clad with brightness,

And the souls of whom thou lovest

Walk upon the winds with lightness,
Till they fail, as I am failing,

Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!

Asia. My soul is an enchanted boat,

Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float

Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit

Beside the helm conducting it,

Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever,
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A Paradise of wildernesses !
Till, like one in slumber bound,

Borne to the ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound of ever-spreading sound.
Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions

In music's most serene dominions,
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven;
And we sail on, away, afar,

Without a course, without a star,
But by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets
By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,
The boat of my desire is guided;
Realms where the air we breathe is love,

Which in the winds on the waves doth move,
Harmonising this earth with what we feel above.
We have pass'd Age's icy caves,

And Manhood's dark and tossing waves,
And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray:
Beyond the glassy gulphs we flee

Of shadow-peopled Infancy,

Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day;
A paradise of vaulted bowers,

Lit by downward-gazing flowers,

And watery paths that wind between
Wildernesses calm and green,

Peopled by shapes too bright to see,

And rest having beheld-somewhat like thee,

Which walk upon the sea, and chaunt melodiously."

REMEMBRANCES OF A MONTHLY NURSE.*

SECOND SERIES.

WHERE in all conscience have you been so long?" said one of my lady visitors to me the other day, at my pleasant house in Kensington. "I have called here more than once, and found you had let this pretty domicile of your's; but where you were gone I could not learn. What have you been doing, Mrs. Griffiths?"

"You may well enquire," I answered, smiling; "but I can scarcely

The first series of these remarkable tales appeared, some twelve months since, in Fraser's Magazine, where they acquired great popularity. The publication of the second series in this Magazine is due to the personal friendship of the talented author for its present editor.-J. A. H.

believe it myself. I have actually crossed the Atlantic to visit our cousin Jonathan; but more especially, the son of General Harcourt. You remember the story I told you, many months ago, concerning him. I consider him almost as my own. He has been alarmingly ill; and I thought I might render the dear young gentleman some service: so off I set, without informing any one; and have left my young friend quite recovered, and returned home in the Great Western as blithe as a lark."

"So that is the reason that we have had no more of your amusing tales;" said Lady P, "but now you are returned, I trust you mean to resume them."

"I have not got half way through my note-book yet," said I; "but I have transcribed one memorandum on my passage home; I think it good, and mean to send it to the Printer's immediately. There it is; entitled

Isabel Deane.

THE lady of the Rev. Francis Talbot called one morning at my house in Kensington, when the following short dialogue passed between us. It happened some years ago.

"I much fear, Mrs. Griffiths, that I must dispense with your kind attentions to me this time," said this lady; "which I assure you I am very sorry for: but I am going with Mr. Talbot and my little Fanny to stay all the remainder of the summer at Southamptom; for my father has given us an invitation: and as Mr. Talbot has at present no clerical duty, we mean to avail ourselves of it, the more especially as we are not over rich, as you know, and a confinement is rather an expensive matter."

"What is your difficulty, Madam ?" replied I: "respecting myself? I have no objection, if we can make clear arrangements, of attending you, since you so strongly wish it, even at the distance of Southampton."

"You are a kind, good creature, I am sure," returned the lady: "but I was apprehensive that such a step would have completely thrown you out in your plans, and been attended with much sacrifice and expense. If I were richer than I am, indeed—”

"Never mind that, Madam; I am not of a very covetous disposition," I answered. "I should like to see Southampton again, and have a little change of air into the bargain: so I will pay my own expenses down and up, if you cannot well afford it, and attend you on the same terms as formerly."

"O no! my Francis would not allow that, I am sure," said the lady. "Suppose we say that I will frank you down there, and if you like to take your chance about coming back, or will cram in with Mr. Talbot, Fanny and me, the baby and the nursemaid, in a post-chaise, why I shall hold you engaged to come to me in August: you had better make it the beginning of the month. We will send Sir William's carriage to meet you at the inn where the coach stops (for my father lives a little out of the town), and I shall expect you by the 6th of August at the latest:-yes, we will say, if you please, the 6th."

"You may depend, Madam, on my punctuality: I will be with you

on that day;" and Mrs. Talbot arose to take her leave: but, seating herself again, thus resumed :—

"I must not forget to tell you, that my father, Sir William Ogilvie, is somewhat of an oddity; you must not mind if he should speak a little roughly and gruffly at first: you will soon be accustomed to his manner. He is very fond of his magisterial duties; and speaks as if he were ever on the bench, and suspected all about him of being rogues and vagabonds."

I laughed at this, and asked, “If there would be any danger of his committing me to the House of Correction as a vagrant?”

"No," said his daughter; “but he considers all nurses and nursingbusinesses, I believe, as dreadful nuisances; so perhaps he may be able to get at and punish you that way: but, at any rate, come and see. If he should ship us all over to Van Diemen's Land, we will take some of his fine old Madeira with us, and cattle enough to stock us a farm there when we get to that colony."

"How did your mother manage with him when her nursing concerns were about?" I enquired. "I believe she has had a large family."

"Too many, I assure you, Mrs. Griffiths,” replied the lady; “and those young unmarried girls, my sisters, contrive to get all his ready cash from him; he very seldom thinks of us poor married ones. You will soon see the sad misrule of the house, and how his younger children turn and twist him about which ever way they like; but I am to meet Mr. Talbot here in the Gardens, and he will be quite impatient. Good morning; I shall depend upon you;" and she stepped into a one-horse vehicle she had hired for the occasion, known by the name of " a fly," and departed.

My trusty Bridget was soon informed of my engagement; and I made what arrangements I thought necessary, not forgetting the usual purchase of a little good millinery at my namesake's (at least, the same as my assumed one), Griffiths, in the Quadrant; and after calling and taking leave of several of my friends, amongst whom the Merediths and the Lascelles were not forgotten, I took my place in the coach, packed up my wardrobe, and departed in high health and spirits in "The Regulus," then the favorite vehicle on that road.

So at Southampton I duly arrived, and found the carriage of Sir William Ogilvie, and two of his younger daughters in it, waiting my arrival near the Portland Hotel (above-bar as they call it), ready to convey me to his residence, a beautiful stone-built house, not far from the celebrated ruins of Netley Abbey. The two young ladies, Miss Ogilvie and Miss Caroline Ogilvie, told me, on our ride home, that they had not yet quite finished their education at Bath, but they hoped in another year, with the assistance of masters when they left school, that this important business would be over. All the way home they were full of the project, I found, of trying to coax their papa to let them invite for the present vacation, which commenced in August, their favorite school-fellow, Isabel Deane, a young Indian girl, who they said would otherwise be mewed up in the old school-room at Bath, all that time, with no companions but Mrs. P, their precise old governess, and her pet poodle.

"How dreadful it must have been for her," said Miss Ogilvie, "to

see us all go away, one after another, and no kind relative or friend to come for her! I promised her I would ask papa to invite her, poor dear! but he looks so glum, I have not had the courage yet to do it, especially as-" and she hesitated and stopped.

He is, I fear, going to have another fit of the gout; he seems so irritable," interrupted the younger lady of the two, "and now my sister Talbot is here, and her husband, and little Fanny, and this expected nursing business to boot, I fear he will never consent to poor Isabel's coming."

"I will try that, however, to-morrow, I am determined," said the elder sister. "What room will poor Isabel take up? She can have half my bed, or the little green room close to your's-she shall come. What right have married sisters to come down and make a hospital of papa's house?"

"Hush, Matty, for heaven's sake!" interrupted the more prudent Caroline, glancing at me, "I am sure we are most happy to see Mr. and Mrs. Talbot at all times: he is an especial favorite of mine; he writes such pretty poetry, only a little too serious; and he rides out with us, and all that; and as for little Fanny, she is absolutely a darling.” "They are all very well," cried the pertinacious Miss Ogilvie, “but I love Isabel Deane better than the whole set of them." There was another admonitory hint from Miss Caroline; and then there was a long silence, but which was at length broken by the elder one saying, as she fixed her eyes on Netley Abbey, now full in our sight,-“ Ó how Isabel Deane would enjoy to sketch yonder ruin! and then what delicious verses she would make on it; and on our Trissanton-bay; and our pretty Woodmills; and our river Itchen, and--she shall positively come, Carry, and there's an end of it! Hetty always had some young friend or other staying with her, and so had Jane and Fanny, and so will we." With this firm resolve, supported by an approving nod on the part of the more cautious younger sister, we drove up to "The Plantations," as the seat of Sir William Ogilvie was called.

Mr. and Mrs. Talbot, and their little girl (" one of my own children," as I usually called those I had first clothed and fed), were at the large white entrance gate ready to receive us. The child petitioned for a ride, and was put in at the window to me by her father, when I proceeded on to the house in the carriage, being both tired and hungry; besides, I wanted to put my dress into proper trim after so long a journey, before I chose to be seen by the master of the house, or any of the company that might be staying there. The two young ladies chose also to be driven up to the hall door with me, and there we all got out. I could not help smiling to hear how very soon the young Miss Ogilvie began her tactics with her papa, who peeped out of his library door on hearing the carriage stop. I was attending to my luggage, and playing with little Fanny, so heard every word.

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My dear papa, you know how fond I am of sketching! and the scenery is so beautiful all around this place! If Isabel Deane were but here, she could teach us how to take such lovely views; could not she, Caroline?"

O certainly!" said the younger sister, "Nobody sketches so well as Isabel Deane."

N. S. VOL. I.

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