Of sylvan melody, whether of birds

Intent on song, or bees mingling their music
With their keen labour; but the twittering voice
Of chaffinch, or the wild unfrequent note
Of the lone woodlark, or the minstrelsy
Of the blest robin, have a potent spell
Chirping away the silence: not the perfume
Of violet scents the gale, nor apple-blossom,
Nor satiating bean flower; the fresh breeze
Itself is purest fragrance. Light and air
Are ministers of gladness; where these spread,
Beauty abides and joy: where'er Life is

There is no melancholy.

ANON.

The February of England has its bright mornings and its sunny noons, but they are rare. Did Shelley describe our February, or the February of Italy, when he so beautifuily tracked the steps of

"the halcyon morn

To hoar February born?"

To the rough year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.

The brightest hour of unborn spring,
Through the winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon morn,
To hoar February born;

Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,

And bade the frozen streams be free;
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
And like a prophetess of May,
Strewed flours upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear

Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs-

To the silent wilderness

Where the soul need not repress

Its music, lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,

While the touch of nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart.
I leave this notice on my door
For each accustomed visitor:-

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I am gone into the fields

To take what this sweet hour yields;-
Reflection, you may come to-morrow,
Sit by the fireside of sorrow.―
You with the unpaid bill, Despair,
You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care,
I will pay you in the grave,
Death will listen to your stave.—
Expectation too, be off!
To-day is for itself enough;
Hope, in pity mock not wo

With smiles, nor follow where I go;
Long having lived on thy sweet food,
At length I find one moment good,
After long pain-with all your love,
This you never told me of."

Radiant sister of the day, Awake! arise! and come away To the wild woods and the plains, To the pools where winter rains Image all their roof of leaves; Where the pine its garland weaves Of sapless green, and ivy dun, Round stems that never kiss the sun, Where the lawn and pastures be, And the sandhills of the sea, Where the melting hoar-frost wets The daisy star that never sets, The wind flowers and violets

Which yet join not scent to hue,
Crown the pale year weak and new.
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dim and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,
And the multitudinous

Billows murmur at our feet,

Where the earth and ocean meet;

And all things seem only one

In the universal sun.

SHELLEY.

In the gorgeous personations of the Months by the most imagina tive of Poets, March leads the train :

First, sturdy March, with brows full sternly bent
And armed strongly, rode upon a Ram,

The same which over Hellespontus swam;
Yet in his hand a spade he also hent,
And in a bag all sorts of seeds ysame,

Which on the earth he strewed as he went,

And fill'd her womb with fruitful hope of nourishment.

SPENSER.

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Here is the March of rough winds-the "sturdy March”—the March of the bent brow, -with weapon and armour. But he is also the March of gifts and of hope, in whose "sternest frown" there is a look of kindly promise." So he is described by one of a band of poets, whose native voice is heard over that mighty continent which our forefathers peopled. The cultivation of the same literature-for that literature is the common property of all " who speak the tongue which Shakspere spake"-ought, amongst other influences, to bind America and England in eternal peace and good fellowship :

The stormy March is come at last,

With wind, and cloud, and changing skies;

I hear the rushing of the blast,

That through the snowy valley flies.

Ah, passing few are they who speak,
Wild stormy month! in praise of thee;
Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak,
Thou art a welcome month to me.

For thou to northern lands again
The glad and glorious sun dost bring,
And thou hast joined the gentle train
And wear'st the gentle name of Spring.
And, in thy reign of blast and storm,

Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day,
When the changed winds are soft and warm,
And heaven puts on the blue of May.

Then sing along the gushing rills,

And the full springs, from frost set free,
That, brightly leaping down the hills,
Are just set out to meet the sea.

The year's departing beauty hides
Of wintry storms the sullen threat;
But in thy sternest frown abides

A look of kindly promise yet.

Thou bring'st the hope of those calm skies,

And that soft time of sunny showers, When the wide bloom on earth that lies

Seems of a brighter world than ours.

BRYANT.

8.-Sermon upon the Government of the Tongue.

BUTLER.

[JOSEPH BUTLER, Bishop of Durham, was born in 1692, and died in 1752. He was the son of a shopkeeper at Wantage, in Berkshire, who was a dissenter of the Presbyterian denomination. Joseph Butler was brought up in a dissenting academy at Tewkesbury. In 1714 he conformed to the established church, having been led to this determination by the result of his own anxious inquiries. He accordingly entered Oriel College, Oxford, and subsequently was admitted into holy orders. The most remarkable of his writings is 'The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the constituition and course of Nature'- —a work of somewhat abstruse reasoning, requiring a diligent study, but admirably calculated to fix the religion of an inquiring mind upon the most solid foundation. His Sermons,' fifteen in number, were preached at the Rolls Chapel, in London, and were first published in 1726.]

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JAMES i. 26.

If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.”

The translation in this text would be more determinate if it were rendered more literally thus: “If any man among you seemeth to be religious, not bridling his tongue, but deceiving his own heart, this man's religion is vain." This determines that the words, "but deceiveth his own heart," are not put in opposition to "seemeth to be religious," but to "bridleth not his tongue." The certain determinate meaning of the text then being that he who seemeth to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but in that particular deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain; we may observe somewhat very forcible and expressive in these words of St. James: as if the Apostle had said, no man surely can make any pretences to religion, who does not at least believe that he bridleth his tongue; if he puts on any appearance or face of religion, and yet does not govern his tongue, he must surely deceive himself in that particular, and think he does; and whoever is so unhappy as to deceive himself in this, to imagine he keeps that unruly faculty in due subjection, when indeed he does. not, whatever the other part of his life be, his religion is vain; the