drawn down, and the clattering noise which his hoofs made in his heavy fall. Procumbit humi bos.

'I once witnessed the breaking of an immense herd of cattle coming from Weehawken down the hills to Hoboken. They tore through the streets of Jersey City with terrific violence, tossing up on their horns any stray child or old woman who could not get out of the way. Pedestrians hammered at the locked-up gates for admission, and nimbleness took possession of the knees which had bidden farewell to the springing elasticity of youth. It was a Sunday eve, when the population was all in motion, and women wore the most variegated colors on their way to church. Until mid-night I heard the hoofs of the horsemen clattering through the streets, and the echo of the herdsmen's voices among the hills, collecting the cattle with those well-known coaxing cries and objurgations known to them. In all other respects, the evening was invested with a sacred stillness.

'It has become a moot point whether we ought to feast upon the flesh of beasts. And never are we more inclined to take the negative of the question than when appetite begins to flag on the approach of summer, and the green and crisp things of the earth abound in gardens, and, one by one, the fruits for whose prosperity we have been so long praying, 'that in due time we may enjoy them,' appeal to the eye in the ruddy flush of their ripeness, to the smell by their pervading fragrance, and to the taste by their luscious flavor. Then do we turn away from the steaming kitchen with disgust, and abhor the greasy feast as we would the lapping of train-oil. Where the whole country is a vast ice-house, vegetation does not exist, and the body craves unguents; and even if roots and tender vegetables could be obtained, they would not suffice for its protection. While the summer lasts, we think it may possibly be sinful to consume flesh, but to feed upon it the year round is enough to turn men into brutes. Show us a tender-hearted butcher, and he shall have a gold cup, or ought to have one. Will he let the calves' heads hang out of the wagon, and their soft black eyes be extirpated by the grazing wheel? Will he not bear the lambs to slaughter in comfortable positions, and 'gently lead those which are with young?' Then may he

ask for the hand of the shepherd's daughter, and not till then.

'But I say that when the weather becomes hot, 'much meat I not desire.' It is the favorite roosting-place of flies, which make the very ointment of the apothecary to smell bad. Bread and butter is a theme, however homely, on which a volume might be written. Although the appetite may tire of other things, on this substantial ground it makes a stand. It must be trained to the liking of far-fetched cookery, while the taste acquired at so much pains, departs suddenly. Civilized men enjoy one kind of food, and cannibals another. Some are very simple in their habits, and like the boy, CYRUS, at the courtly table of his grand-father, wonder at the multitude of dishes. But no man, Christian or heathen, ever quarrels with his bread and butter. It is acceptable the year round, and the taste for it is universal, and never palls. You cannot eat it to a surfeit, or ever return to it with disgust. If it is of a bad quality, that does not destroy your affection. You blame the baker, but stick to the bread. Good bread and butter in the summer

time are peculiarly delicious,-the very staff of life. When the flour is of the finest wheat, the yeast of a buoyant nature, and the loaf, with its crust properly baked, has the whiteness of snow and lightness of a sponge; when the butter has the flavor of the fresh grass and the color of new-minted gold, eat to your heart's content, and desire nothing else. When you have come in at the noon-tide hour, wearied with your expedition to the mountain-top, your walk in the woods, your sail on the lake, or your botanizing in the meadows; when you have labored faithfully in the garden, rooting out the weeds from the cucumbers and green peas, the sweet-corn and cauliflowers, which are to grace your table, contracting a sharp appetite from the smell of the mould; when you have returned with wood-cock from the swamp, or have been 'a fishynge;' and then the golden butter and fresh bread are set before you, garnished perhaps with a well-dressed lettuce, or a few short-top scarlet radishes, each crackling and brittle as glass, well may you disdain the aid of cooks, for it is a feast which an anchorite might not refuse, and which an epicure might envy.'

'MAY 20.-At the close of a sultry day, it had rained copiously, and just as the violence of the storm abated into a soft and melting shower, the setting sun burst forth with brilliance, edging the dark clouds with a superb phylactery, and presently there sprang across the sky a rain-bow of surpassing beauty. Each time that it is newly bent, we welcome it anew-most precious emblem!--and almost fancy that we see the plumes of climbing angels on this JACOB's-ladder. For there it shines undimmed, unfaded in its primal light, as when it overarched the lessening flood, and the weary dove first nestled among the green olive-branches.

'I have stood by the mountain-stream, and day by day heard the sound of the chisel and ringing of the workman's hammer, and after a long time have seen the solid arch, a miracle of human art, thrown over the fearful gulf or over the very brows of the misty cataract. But now, while you cast down your eyes and lift them up again, the vacant chasm of the air is over-bridged with slabs of radiant colors, with not more sound than of the falling feather; for lo! you say, 'There is a rainbow in the sky!' All great things are done without noise, and the processes of Nature are all silent. Sitting at 'the gate of the Temple which is called Beautiful,' you see the great halls of the Creation festooned with glory, and yet you could not tell when the blade shot up, or when the plant bloomed, or when the tree budded. It is like the breaking out of the morning light, beam upon beam; it is like the declension of evening, shadow upon shadow. And so I thought while looking out upon the bursting vegetation. The wet grass sparkled; the cups of the flowers were brimming full; the streams fell with a tinkling sound into the cisterns at the house-corners; the trees dripped down the dews, all sweetened with the blossoms of the lilac and the apple; the birds trimmed their gay plumage, and the stems were lifted up, and all things wore a refreshed look, when suddenly out of the ink-black clouds, over-against the golden sun, I beheld the broad sweep of that celestial arc- - its beautiful beams laid deep down in the blue waters, and its splendid key-stone at the very zenith of the heavens!

1

'At such times, we think of the marvellous and exact analogy which there is between the moral and the physical, and that both without and within there is a succession of the like changes, contrasts, relations, movements. In sky, earth, sea, air, we follow these remarkable resemblances.

'In either province, lights and shadows make up all the pictures which we know. For there is a dark and lonesome winter of the soul, but soon we come again upon a belted space of more than vernal loveliness, when pleasant influences, graces of life, and all-abounding charities lie in our path, just like the sweet procession of the flowers; spring-times of youth and beauty, when all goes merry as a marriage-bell; and if at times we glide into the eclipse of sorrow, or struggle in the choking flood, once more the sun-shine breaks upon the scene and paints the sign of heavenly promise. Oh! when we think of what the rain-bow is the pledge, does it not seem appropriate that it should be the ideal of beauty?

"THE airy child of vapor and the sun,

Brought forth in purple, cradled in vermilion;
Baptized in molten gold, and swathed in dun.'

'It is because the Word of God can never fail, that those colors are never faded; and still they glow, and burn, and flicker from our sight, only to return again when the sky looks dark, with brighter promise. Thus, CHAMPOLLIONlike, we sit down to interpret the most beautiful hieroglyphics, because we must look upon every outward phenomenon as a transfer into symbol of some deep and spiritual truth. For the whole world is a myth, and every thing which it contains is an emblem. Oh! that picture-language of the sky, the air, the sea, the earth, the flowers! Oh! that matter-full page, so inscribed with eloquence and with inspired poem! From the high mountaintop I read onward to the horizon's edge, and the rocks stand like antiquated characters; and every water-fall is a silver dash; and every stream is like the transcription of a flowing pencil. In the enamelled mead I walk along as one who holds a volume in his hand, all thickly pencilled with mysterious characters, passing from leaf to leaf, from flower to painted flower, transferring each to some celestial grace, meeting at every step a benediction. It is the one language which all may read, and the dumb with astonishment, hold up his fingers. The soul of the rose flits in fragrance from its falling petals. All that is bright must fade; but, as the poet has it, the very 'ashes of the just

Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust.'

'The vine clambers to the highest point, but its supplicating tendrils still stretch upward. So the affections wind themselves about the strongest objects of the earth, while their tenderest fibres seek support from heaven. As in the unruffled stream I see the skies mirrored, tint for tint, and shadow for shadow, so there is no transcript of a better world, save in a tranquil bosom. Walk in the quiet woods at noon-tide, guided in your path by the faint hint of former footsteps, brushing from before you the briers which almost at every step encrown your head with thorns, as well as the silver thread of spider swaying in the breeze; and there too, you will find

'Books in the running brooks, sermons in stones,
And good in every thing.'

'If we view it in this light, the volume before us has multitudinous pages, and there is no end of our studies; but when I look upon a rain-bow in the sky, it appears the most speaking and exquisite of all emblems: the gempoem of the mythology of nature. Walking beneath that superb bridge, you may pick up pebbles, dip your feet in the running water-brook, and muse to your heart's content. Above you are all the several beams which, "blent together, make up limpid light, all being severally the correspondences of something which is divine. I have often thought, when the waters of the flood had well subsided, and the rivers rolled in their own channels, and the command had been given to the ocean waves, 'Hither shalt thou come, and no farther,' what must have been the feelings of the sons of men when, for the first time, they contemplated that "bow in the cloud;' and, as it appeared time after time, how fathers took their children by the hand to gaze at it. Yet it could not have been because the spectacle was new, but because it was now known to be an emblem. ADAM looked upon it before NOAH, for the principle of its formation existed already. Great facts, which are intended for the soul of man, are all represented in nature by signs of the utmost tenderness. Thus we have the resurrection of all Nature from its icy tumulus, the superabundant bloom and beauty of the spring. If there were not any refined state, then none of these outer forms could exist, as every type must have its antitype. The sun, the clouds, the dews, the vapor, are but the ministers of truth, and the rainbow is an arch-angel:

'To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language.'

'We may perceive the coloration of rays in the small dew-drop which fills up the cup of a lily; nay, in the very tears which have fallen from the eyes of some poor creature, as if a smile lit them before they were dashed away by kindness.

'I once saw Niagara. Once! -I ever see it; for the image of its greatness and majesty cannot ever pass away or cheat the memory for ever. If pastoral scenes are shifted from the view, and Alps may be forgotten, that picture, once impressed, remains indelible. Gazing upon the awful brink, where the late agitated waters become as placid as the unruffled lake, before they take the plunge, and where the very spirit of the cataract appears to dwell, I was impressed with the destructive force and fury of the element; for, except at that one momentous pause, it has no phase of gentleness, but is enveloped in vapor, and accompanied by the unresembled noise of the fall. The waves of the sea may be appeased and calm, but the thunder of Niagara is unintermitted; and ever above the gulf, where the mists rise like incense, while the earth shakes, and the face of nature speaks only of great convulsion, we gaze upon the perpetual halo of the bow; and lest the setting sun should take the spectacle away, by the moon's quiet beams it is seen arching an enchanted island. And tell me, have you never walked upon the margin of the sea itself when the storm lowered, and fled away from the breakers as they rolled shoreward, and afterward, when the dazzling sun came out, beheld the same arc in its ever complete formation, with one of its abutments on the solid land, and

one upon the deep waters? have sometimes seen a fragment of it, and the same luminous colors, on the hot breath of the engines as they rolled onward like a driven thunder-bolt: and as if to banish unbelief, wherever the power of the element is most manifest, and wherever Nature is enthroned in majesty, though clouds and darkness may hover near her, 'there is a rainbow round about her throne.'

'JUNE 10.-No blight, no drought, no sweltering heats, no potato-bugs, no grasshopper to be a burden. This is the gem-season of the century, the pearl of years. It runneth faster in its delightful progression, and wins the crown of flowers. How its car is decked! The twice-blooming roses are in its path. Every garden is a reservoir, every secret path-way a conduit of sweets. They gush into the open casement; they come upon the general air. All the waves clap their hands, and the little hills rejoice on every side. The other day we wandered up, up, up, where could be obtained an extensive 'eye-possession,' and encircled by the blue Kaätskills and kindred mountains, whose outlines were discerned at the distance of fifty miles, took in at a glance the whole gorgeous picture which lay between. We stood, for better observation, upon the top of a stone fence overrun with three-fingered ivy, while the pony, whose halter was tied to a branch of the oak above, pulled the leaves into his mouth, and champed the herbage with a relish. What vast estates lay between the sloping bases of those mountains! and yet on a space no larger than would be included by the circumference of a signet-ring, even upon the eye itself, was transcribed a most perfect representation of all the boasted acres which made a multitude of men rich. How the properties of the earth do dwindle when you look at them from a high point! for the boundaries of a nabob appeared to us like a railed-in space for the pasturage of a few cattle, and the cloud-shadows trooped over the area of a kingdom in the twinkling of an eye. And how variegated the subdivisions of the landscape! the meadow, and the mellow soil; the woods, the waving grain, the silver-stream and distant river.

'Sometimes the 'moneth' of May is chill and cheerless, and June opens, without monition, with wilting heat. The buds open and are full-blown, and fall to pieces; the herbage loses its vivid freshness, and the admirer of nature relapses into languor while the year is at its prime. Not so with this choice season, this most unexceptionable festive season. The pet month did not disappoint its promise, dearly associated as it is with youth and beauty, with memories of the May-pole, and the tender loves of 'BARBARA ALLEN.' The apple-orchards came out in due time, and the spectacle is most charming when the trees are in full bloom. Arranged at equal distances on the sloping, undulating ground, and in the hollows, with their low and spreading crowns all covered with pink and snow-white blossoms, they appear to me like big bushes in a garden, or like the nosegays of a giant. For I like to snuff their fragrance while sauntering by the road-side, or from an upper window to look down upon a long and gradual slope, on which an old orchard is freshly blooming, while the sweet leaves are wafted by the puff of every breeze, and the green germs of the fruit are forming underneath no larger