kissed his sweet eyelids, and the finch and the linnet waked him merrily with their morning songs, he arose, and went out into the green meadow. And he begged flour of the primrose, and sugar of the violet, and butter of the buttercup; he shook dew-drops from the cowslip into the cup of a harebell; spread out a large lime leaf, set his little breakfast upon it, and feasted daintily. Sometimes he invited a humming-bee, often a gay butterfly, to partake his feast; but his favourite guest was the blue dragon fly. The bee murmured a great deal, in a solemn tone, about his riches; but the child thought that if he were a bee, heaps of treasure would not make him gay and happy; and that it must be much more delightful and glorious to float about in the free and fresh breezes of spring, and to hum joyously in the web of the sunbeams, than with heavy feet and heavy heart, to stow the silver wax and the golden honey into

cells.

To this the butterfly assented; and he told how, once on a time, he too had been greedy and sordid; how he had thought of nothing but eating, and had never once turned his eyes upwards to the blue heavens. At length, however, a complete change had come over him; and instead of crawling spiritless about the dirty earth, half dreaming, he all at once awaked as out of a deep sleep. And now he would rise into the air; and it was his greatest joy sometimes to play with the light, and to reflect the heavens in the bright eyes of his wings; sometimes to listen to the soft language of the flowers and catch their secrets. Such talk delighted the child, and his breakfast was the sweeter to him, and the sunshine on leaf and flower seemed to him more bright and cheering.

But when the bee had flown off to beg from flower to flower, and the butterfly had fluttered away to his playfellows, the dragon-fly still remained, poised on a blade of grass. Her slender and burnished body, more brightly and deeply blue than the deep blue sky, glistened in the sunbeam; and her net-like wings laughed at the flowers because they could not fly, but must stand still and abide the wind and the rain. The dragon-fly sipped a little of the child's clear dew-drops and blue violet honey, and then whispered her winged words. And the child made an end of his repast, closed his dark blue eyes, and listened to the sweet prattle.'-p. 9-14.

If the book be a good book for children, it is a better book for men: we mean grown up men both in body and in mind. When the day's toils are over, in mart or study, court or senate; when wisdom is so wise, and folly is so foolish, that it palls upon or irritates the jaded mind; when strong faculties have been on the stretch for many hours, in the strife of business, politics, or philanthropy ;

When the hurly burly's done,
When the battle's lost and won,'

then let them take this book for the soul's refreshment and revival; and each will have the sweeter rest, and rise, the morrow's morn, a purer, wiser, better, happier man. They will feel as if they had been unconsciously transported a thousand leagues from London, into a lovely, lonely, happy valley, and laid gently down on a bed of the softest moss, a transparent rill murmuring

hile all the birds are at their vespers nd the setting sun looks as if his in tenderness within him, while he g benediction.

d's book, it must be for such a child nade perfect becomes, in order to Only aright can it be understood, nursery of the soul's regeneration. retty fancies, and objective realities, hey generate in the little first-form deeper poetry and philosophy, not ulus of satiric allegory, and overmantle of loveliness, which may ing boys who are struggling through are only the outer covering; and ssom, and within the leafy texture x, there is the inmost kernel of a d and adorned with various subal hints or developements, hieroy visions which are oracular to the neek and holy countenance to the

t chapter, and now if only following anscribe the second also, showing gling brook, talking to the little e they came; and how, while they her without stopping to reply, a nd a piece of rock, telling strange ystic purification which the Grecian Egyptian Sethos,' for she told him he depths of the mountains: and ld dreamt of gloomy caverns, and tching lambs of mist and vapour, a his eyelids; while she lingered window, and went slowly away to some sick person. And the fourth a their airs, and the child justifying ulips speaking their love in bright ng hers in fragrant words:' and the the wood, which fills the child's m, where the little birds warbled opped about, and the delicate wood and their odours, and every sound. and and thus walked through the , and held a joyous nuptial dance himself down, and almost thought there and live for ever among the so become a true sharer in all their

gentle pleasures. Or the sixth chapter, of the mouse and lizard, where the one thinks, that because he is grey the bright flowers should throw away their handsome clothes, and the other, while severely reproving him, cannot, for his part, imagine of what use birds are in the world: and the seventh and eighth chapters, where the child is benighted, and the dragon-fly finds for him a 'local habitation' in a cave, where let him rest, for the leaves have already beaten the tattoo in the evening breeze,' and the flowers had welcomed him with their music, the tone of the blue bells deep and rich, and that of the white high and clear; and hanging on the edge of the cave, strawberries which had drunk so deep of the evening red, that they bowed their heavy heads down to his touch: and the ninth chapter, the legend of the fire-flies-but stop here-we must have this.

And when he had eaten his fill, he sat down on the soft moss, crossed one little leg over the other, and began to gossip with the fire-flies. And as he so often thought on his unknown parents, he asked them who were their parents. Then the one nearest to him gave him answer: and he told how that they were formerly flowers, but none of those who thrust their rooty hands greedily into the ground, and draw nourishment from the dingy earth only to make themselves fat and large withal; but that the light was dearer to them than any thing, even at night; and while the other flowers slept, they gazed unwearied on the light, and drank it in with eager adoration-sun and moon and starlight. And the light had so thoroughly purified them, that they had not sucked in poisonous juices like the yellow flowers of the earth, but sweet odours for sick and fainting hearts, and oil of potent, ethereal virtue for the weak and wounded; and, at length, when their autumn came, they did not, like the others, wither and sink down, leaf and flower, to be swallowed up by the darksome earth, but shook off their earthly garment, and mounted aloft into the clear air. But there it was so wondrously bright, that sight failed them; and when they came to themselves again, they were fire-flies, each sitting on a withered flower-stalk.'

And now the child liked the bright-eyed flies better than ever; and he talked a little longer with them, and inquired why they showed themselves so much more in spring. They did it, they said, in the hope that their gold-green radiance might allure their cousins, the flowers, to the pure love of light.'-p. 77-80.

And now we could go on with the 10th chapter, where the spiders weave their curtain before the mouth of the cave, and the moss had grown joyfully for a couch, and the wood became stiller and stiller, while here and there fell a dry leaf which had been driven from its old dwelling-place by a fresh one; and the child in his loneliness looked up at the stars, which were indeed 'far, far away, yet he knew them, and they knew him, for they looked into his eyes.' But, dear daughter of Mrs. Austin, do ask your mother not to allow, in the next edition, the spider to creep tip-toe along his web, and give the gnat that gripe in the wind-pipe which soon spoilt his trumpeting. And even the 11th

chapter, though perhaps we like this the least, we could transcribe, moralizing on those disagreeable Wills o'the wisp, the vain glozing Willy, and the envious Willy: and the 12th chapter, which comes brightening upon us, like the morning it announces, —a chapter, that when we heard it after the other, fell on us like its own dew-drop, that trembled, sparkling and twinkling on a blade of grass, and knew not that beneath him stood a little moss that was thirsting after him.' And the 13th chapter, where the lark sings a lyric rich as those of Coleridge, or of Tennyson; but we can only make room for the critical comments of the cornpoppies, when the dingy little bird had fulfilled her mission of carrying the earth's thankfulness up to the sun; and from the pure element dropped suddenly to the ground.

Then the red corn-poppies laughed at the homely looking bird, and cried to one another, and to the surrounding blades of corn, in a shrill voice, "Now, indeed, you may see what comes of flying so high, and striving and straining after mere air; people only lose their time, and bring back nothing but weary wings and an empty stomach. That vulgar-looking, ill-dressed little creature would fain raise herself above us all, and has kept up a mighty noise. And now there she lies on the ground, and can hardly breathe, while we have stood still where we are sure of a good meal, and have staid like people of sense where there is something substantial to be had; and in the time she has been fluttering and singing, we have grown a good deal taller and fatter."

The other little red-caps chattered and screamed their assent so loud, that the child's ears tingled, and he wished he could chastise them for their spiteful jeers; when a cyane said in a soft voice, to her younger playmates, "Dear friends, be not led astray by outward show, nor by discourse which regards only outward show. The lark is indeed weary, and the space into which she has soared is void; but the void is not what the lark sought; nor is the seeker returned empty home. She strove after light and freedom, and light and freedom has she proclaimed. She left the earth and its enjoyments, but she has drunk of the pure air of heaven, and has seen that it is not the earth, but the sun that is stedfast. And if earth has called her back, it can keep nothing of her but what is its own. Her sweet voice and her soaring wings belong to the sun, and will enter into light and freedom, long after the foolish praters shall have sunk and been buried in the dark prison of the earth."

And the lark heard her wise and friendly discourse, and with renewed strength she sprang once more into the clear and beautiful blue.

Then the child clapped his little hands for joy, that the sweet bird had flown up again, and that the red-caps must hold their tongues for shame.'-pp. 113. 117.

But we must close this little book, which is as much without an end, as the world is without an end; and is no more without an end, than the world is without an end; and we must look away from the illustrations, so full of pencilled poetry and truth, always excepting the little old-man-ish face which envizors the child's features: but let us take its last moral lesson as we go,

and carry it with us and treasure it up, and make it useful, and not quarrel with it, because we may think that a time will come, when the child must cease to care nothing at all about the lookingglass which hung in a dark corner in his little hut; for after that season must come another, when that inner gazing shall have ceased, and the glass have done its duty.

And the child was become happy and joyful, and breathed freely again, and thought no more of returning to his hut, for he saw that nothing returned inwards, but rather that all strove outwards into the free air; the rosy apple-blossoms from their narrow buds, and the gurgling notes from the narrow breast of the lark. The germs burst open the folding doors of the seeds, and broke through the heavy pressure of the earth in order to get at the light; the grasses tore asunder their bands, and their slender blades sprung upwards. Even the rocks were become gentle, and allowed little mosses to peep out from their sides, as a sign that they would not remain impenetrably closed for ever. And the flowers sent out colour and fragrance into the whole world, for they kept not their best for themselves, but would imitate the sun and the stars, which poured their warmth and radiance over the spring. And many a little gnat and beetle burst the narrow cell in which it was enclosed, and crept out slowly, and, half asleep, unfolded, and shook its tender wings, and soon gained strength, and flew off to untried delights. And as the butterflies came forth from their chrysalids in all their gaiety and splendour, so did every humble and suppressed aspiration and hope free itself, and boldly launch into the open and flowing sea of spring.'-p. 121-123.

VARIORUM NOTES ON THE NEWSPAPERS.

Macready's Coriolanus.-If the reader go to see this drama acted, it is very likely that he will carry with him his recollections of the great Kemble in the chief character. I would ask such an auditor to sit patiently, if he go to see Macready, till the third act, for till then the reflections of his memory will flit across his thoughts and incline him to comparisons which may not induce him to yield the palm of superiority, nor, perhaps, the meed of equality, to Macready. I am here supposing the auditor neither to have studied the character deeply, nor read it intently, independent of the opinions which he has imbibed from others. The man who has so read and so studied, before the end of the second act, will think as I did on seeing Macready on Monday evening, Dec. 16, though, with myself, till then the visions of Kemble repeatedly intruded; and I had, for many-years, thought that with his retirement Coriolanus was banished from the stage and hopeless of return. Such is not my thought now, as I know that he is not only restored, but lives with more truth and vigour than ever in Macready.

There were many glorious and superior touches in the earlier scenes that would shake the faith of any thinking auditor; for instance, when the expostulation of Menenius touches him to unbending from his angry scorn of the citizens, in solicitation of their votes, his reply

What must I say?

I pray sir-Plague upon't! I cannot bring

My tongue to such a pace-Look, sir, my wounds,' &c.