is then most sacred; and sin itself loses its terrors in repentance, which, alas! is seldom perfect but in the near prospect of our graves. Temptation may intercept her within a few feet of her expected rest, nay, dash the dust from her hand that she has gathered from the burial-place to strew on her head; but youth sees flowery fields, and shining rivers far-stretching before her path, and cannot imagine for a moment that among life's golden mountains there is many a Place of Tombs. But let us speak only of this earth-this world—this life-and is not age the season of imagination? Imagination is Memory imbued with joy or sorrow with creative power over the past, till it becomes the present, and then, on that vision "far off the coming shines" of the future, till all the spiritual realm overflows with light. Therefore was it that, in illumined Greece, Memory was called the Mother of the Muses; and how divinely indeed they sang around her as she lay in the pensive shade! You know the words of Milton "Till old experience doth attain To something like prophetic strain; and you know, while reading them that Experience is consummate Memory, Imagination wide as the world, another name for Wisdom, all one with Genius, and in its "prophetic strain"-Inspiration. We would fain lower our tone-and on this theme speak like what we are, one of the humblest children of Mother Earth. We cannot leap now twenty-three feet on level ground (our utmost might be twenty three inches), nevertheless, we could "put a girdle round the globe in forty minutes,"-ay, in half an hour, were we not unwilling to dispirit Ariel. What are feats done in the flesh and by the muscle? At first-worms though we be-we cannot even crawl-disdainful next to that acquirement, we creep, and are distanced by the earwig-pretty lambs, we then totter to the terror of our deep-bosomed dams-till the welkin rings with admiration to behold, sans leadingstrings, the weanlings walk-like wildfire then we runfor we have found the use of our feet-like wildgeese then we fly-for we may not doubt we have wings-in car, ship, balloon, the lords of the earth, sea and sky, and universal nature. The car runs on a post-the ship on a rock-the "air hath bubbles as the water hath"-the balloon is one of them, and bursts like a bladder--and we become the prey of sharks, surgeons or sextons. Where, pray, in all this is there a single symptom or particle of imagination? It is of passion "all compact." True, this is not a finished picture-'tis but a slight sketch of the season of youth-but paint it as you will, and if faithful to nature you will find passion in plenty, and a dearth of imagination. Nor is the season of youth therefore to be pitied-for passion respires and expires in bliss ineffable, and so far from being eloquent as the unwise lecture, it is mute as a fish and merely gasps. In youth we are creatures-the slaves of the senses. But the bondage is borne exultingly in spite of its severity; for ere long we come to discern through the dust of our own raising, the pinnacles of towers and temples serenely ascending into the skies, high and holy places for rule, for rest, or for religion, where as kings we may reign, as priests minister, or as saints adore. We do not deny, excellent youth, that to your eyes and ears beautiful and sublime are the sights and words of Nature-and of Art her angel. Enjoy thy pupilage, as we enjoyed ours, and deliver thyself up withouten dread, or with a holy dread, to the gloom of woods, where night for ever dwells-to the glory of skies, where morn seems enthroned for ever. Coming and going a thousand and a thousand times, yet, in its familiar beauty, ever new as a dream-let thy soul span the heavens with the rainbow. Ask thy heart in the wilderness if that "thunder, heard remote," be from cloud or cataract; and ere it can reply, it may shudder at the shuddering moor, and your flesh creep upon your bones, as the heather seems to creep on the bent, with the awe of a passing carthquake. Let the seamew be thy guide up the glen, if thy delight be in peace profounder than ever sat with her on the lull of summer waves! For the inland loch seems but a vale overflow. ing with wondrous light-and realities they all lookthese trees and pastures, and rocks, and hills, and clouds -not softened images, as they are, of realities that are almost stern even in their beauty, and in their sublimity overawing;-look at that precipice that dwindles into pebbles the granite blocks that choke up the shore! Now all this, and a million times more than all this have we too done in our youth, and yet 'tis all nothing to what we do whenever we will it in our age. For almost all that is passion; spiritual passion indeed-and as all emotions are akin, they all work with and into one another's hands, and, however remotely related, recognise, and welcome one another, like Highland cousins, whenever they meet. Imagination is not the faculty to stand aloof from the rest, but gives one hand to Fancy and the other to Feeling, and sets to Passion, who is often so swallowed up in himself as to seem blind to their vis-à-vis, till all at once he hugs all the three, as if he were demented, and as suddenly sporting dos-à-dos-is off on a gollopade by himself right slick away over the mountain-tops. You still look incredulous and unconvinced of the truth of our position-but it was established in our first three paragraphs-and the rest, though proofs too, are intended merely for illustrations. Age alone understands the language of old Mother Earth-for age alone, from his own experience, can imagine its meanings in trouble or in rest -often mysterious enough even to him in all conscience -but intelligible though inarticulate-nor always inarticulate for though sobs and sighs are rife, and whispers and murmurs, and groans and gurgling, yea, sometimes yells and cries, as if the old Earth were undergoing a violent death-yet many a time and oft, within these few years, have we heard her slowly syllabling words out of the Bible, and as in listening we looked up to the sky, the fixed stars responded to their truth, and, like Mercy visiting Despair, the moon bore it into the heart of the stormy clouds. And are there, then, have there never been young poets? Many; for passion, so tossed as to leave, perhaps, to give the sufferer power to reflect on his ecstasy, grows poetical because creative, and loves to express itself in " prose or numerous verse," at once its nutriment and relief. Nay, Nature sometimes gifts her children with an imaginative spirit that, from slight experience of passion, rejoices to idealize intentions and incidents, and characters all coloured by it, or subject to its sway; and these are poets, not with old heads on young shoulders, but with old hearts in young bosoms, yet such premature genius seldom escapes blight, the very springs of life are troubled, and its possessor sinks, pines, fades and dies! So was it with Chatterton and Keates-" alike, but oh, how different!" It may be, after all, that we have only proved age to be the strongest season of imagination; and if so, we have proved all we wish, for we seek not to deny, but to vindicate. Knowledge is power to the poet as it is power to all men and indeed without art and science what is poetry? Without cultivation "the faculty divine" can have but imperfect "vision." "The inner eye which is the bliss of solitude" is dependent on the outward eye, long familiar with material objects-a finer sense, cognizant of spiritualities, but acquired by the soul from constant communion with shadows-innate the capacity, but awakened into power by gracious intercourse with nature. Thus Milton saw-after he became blind. But know that age is not made up of a multitude of years-though that be the vulgar reckoning-but of a multitude of experiences; and that a man at thirty, if good for much, must be old. How long he may continue in the prime of age, God decrees; many men of the most magnificent minds-for example, Michael Angelo-have been all-glorious in power and majesty at fourscore and upwards-but one drop of water on the brain can at any hour make it barren as desert dust.. Believe that this, the true creed, is as cheering to the young as consolatory to the old-and that in its spirit age looks on youth with delight and love, youth on age with reverence and gratitude. "The light that never was on earth or sea- it never was allowed very young eyes, of themselves, to see-very young hearts to conceive-very young lips to utter; but when shown to such eyes, and inspired into such hearts by the initiated, the neophyte sees and feels in the power of the priest, and ere long, his own lips may be touched with a coal from heaven. The love of poetry is almost universal-the poetic power, in such measure as to merit the name, rare; but the love, like the power, is divine, and the poet feels his strength in the sympathies of his kind-the source indeed of all his inspiration. His heart, all his lifelong has fed on theirs-and thus millions draw inspiration and delight from the genius of one-which embodies to each the emotions of all, and not merely "holds the mirror up to nature," but beautifies that nature's self into an ideal true as any individuality, and eternizes it here on earth in song. Genius is genius still, shining by its own light, be it like a star in the sky, or a glowworm on the sward. One often hears the "Minor Poets" spoken of with a sneer. Yet all who have ever sung are minor poets, compared with Homer and Milton, and Shakspeare and Spenser, and with about as many more; demigods are not dwindled by the side of gods, nor heroes confused with common men, though they draw not their birth from heaven. Friends, countrymen, and Romans, would you not lend us your ears, long as they are, to purchase a place among the poets any where between Pindar and Pomfret ? Last month we drew from "CLIO" not a few composi tions which, in our opinion, proved the author of CRYSTALS FROM A CAVERN, a poet. Yesternight a packet came to hand, with his superscription, and, though "OUR Two VASES" made mouths to devour it, we broke the seals with a resolution to make a leading article of it by itself; to-day we have spent delightfully in assorting the pages according to certain principles of selection; and never put your trust in us again, should you rise disappointed from what we now lay before you as a feastof which we may say with Milton— "Those are not fruits forbidden; no interdict |