THE INNOCENCE OF CHILDHOOD. be bribed to good behavior, like many of their elders; they insist upon fingering When Heaven and angels, earth and earthly things, your watch, and spoiling what they do not Do leave the guilty in their guiltiness,- Where I will hide; nor hear the trump of doom. MATURIN. Oh, life! how pleasant is thy morning! HILDREN ROGERS. ARE BUT LITTLE PEOPLE, YET they form a very important part of society, expend much of our capital, employ a great portion of our population in their service, and occupy half the literati of our day in labors for their instruction and amusement. They cause more trouble and anxiety than the national debt; the loveliest of women in her maturity of charms breaks not so many slumbers, nor occasions so many sighs as she did in her cradle; and the handsomest of men, with full-grown mustachios and Stultz for his tailor, must not flatter himself that he is half so much admired as he was when in petticoats. Without any reference to their being our future statesmen, philosophers, and magistrates in miniature disguise, children form, in their present state of pigmy existence, a most influential class of beings; and the arrival of a mewling infant who can scarcely open its eyes, and only opens its mouth, like an unfledged bird, for food, will effect the most extraordinary alteration in a whole household; substitute affection for coldness, duty for dissipation, cheerfulness for gravity, bustle for formality; unite hearts which time had divided, soften feelings which the world had hardened, teach women of fashion to criticise pap, and grave metaphysicians to crawl upon all fours. It is not only to their parents and near connexions that children are interesting and delightful; they are general favorites, and their caresses are slighted by none but the strange, the affected, or the morose. Even men may condescend to sport with children without fear of contempt; and for those who like to shelter themselves under authority, and cannot venture to be wise and happy their own way, we have plenty of splendid examples, ancient and modern, living and dead, to adduce, which may sanction a love for these pigmy playthings. Statesmen have romped with them; orators told them stories; conquerors submitted to their blows; judges, divines, and philosophers listened to their prattle and joined in their sports. Spoiled children (Legion !) are, however, excepted from this partiality. Every one joins in visiting the faults of others upon their heads, and hating these unfortunate victims of their parents' folly. They must understand. Like numbers of the patrons Another description of children deservedly unpopular, is the over-educated and super-excellent, who despise dolls and drums, read only for instruction, have no wish for a holiday, no fancy for a fairy-tale. They are the representatives of the old-fashioned, extinct class, who used to blunder through Norval's speech, or Satan's address to the Sun; but far more perseveringly tiresome, more unintermittingly dull than their prede cessors. The latter excited your compassion by bearing the manner of victims; and when their task was over, were ready for a ride upon your foot, a noisy game at play, or a story about an ogress. But the modern class appear to have a natural taste for pedantry and precision; their wisdom never indulges in a nap, at least before company; they have learned the Pestalozzi system, and weary you with questions. They require you to prove everything you assert, and are always on the watch to detect you in a verbal inaccuracy, or a slight mistake in a date. Indeed, it is not a little annoying, when you are whiling away the time before dinner in that irritable state which precedes an Englishman's afternoon meal, tired perhaps by business or study, and wishing for a few minutes' relaxation preparatory to the important tasks of repletion and digestion, to find your attempts at playfulness and trifling baffled in all directions. Turning from the gentlemen to avoid the Funds, Nero Napoleon the French Emperor, or the New Ministry; driven from your refuge among the ladies by phrenology, or the lectures at the Royal Institution, you fly to a group of children, in hopes of a game at play, or an interchange of nonsense, and find yourself beset by critics and examiners, required to attend to Lindley Murray's rules, to brush up your geographical and chronological knowledge; and, instead of a demand upon your imagination for a story, or your foot for a ride, you are called upon to give an account of the Copernican system or the Peloponnesian war. VOL. III.-18. T I love a children's ball-that is, a ball for very young children; for when they approach their teens, they begin gradually to throw off their angelic disguise, preparatory to becoming men and women; the germs of vanity, dissimulation, and pride, are visible; the young eye roves for admiration, the head is held high on contact with vulgarity; the lips speak a different language from the less deceitful brow. If the object of entertainments were really to entertain, we ought only to invite children; because, if not quite sure of succeeding in our aim, we at least can discover whether or not we have attained it. In the uniform polite satisfaction and measured mirth of a grown-up party-the cold smiles, the joyless laughter, the languid dance, one tale only is told. Satiety, contempt, anger, and mortification may lurk beneath, no clue is afforded to the poor host by which he may discover the quantity of pleasure his efforts and his money have produced; a heart or two may be breaking beside him, but he knows nothing of the matter; a duel or two arranging at his elbow, but he sees only bows and politeness; and he may send away half his guests affronted by his neglect, and the other half ridiculing his hospitality, while he has fatigued and impoverished himself to please them. In these assemblies, There's sic parade, sic pomp an' art, The joy can scarcely reach the heart; while, in a party for children, ninety-nine out of a hundred consider themselves at the summit of human felicity, and take no care to conceal their sentiments; and if the unlucky hundredth happens to fall down, or to be affronted, a few tears and a little outcry show you where your assistance is required, and allow you to set matters right again by coaxing and sugar-plums. These occasional eccentric movements in the polka, proceeding from the exuberance of spirits and of joy; those shouts of merriment which sometimes defy the lessons of politeness and the frowns of a smiling mamma; those peals of young laughter so thrilling and so infectious; those animated voices and bright faces--assure the donors of the feast that they have conferred a few hours of exquisite happiness on the dear little beings around them, afforded them food for chattering and mirth for many days, and perhaps planted in their grateful memories one of those sunny spots to which the man looks back with pleasure and wonder, when sated, wearied, and disappointed, he sees with surprise how easily and how keenly he was once delighted. Little girls are my favorites; boys, though sufficiently interesting and amusing, are apt to be infected, as soon as they assume the manly garb, with a little of that masculine violence and obstinacy, which, when they grow up, they will call spirit and firmness; and lose earlier in life that docility, tenderness, and ignorance of evil, which are their sisters' peculiar charms. In all the range of visible creation there is no object to me so attractive and delightful as a lovely, intelligent, gentle little girl, of eight or nine years old. This is the point at which may be witnessed the greatest improvement of intellect compatible with that lily-like purity of mind, to which taint is incomprehensible, danger unsuspected; which wants not only the vocabulary, but the very idea of sin. It is true that Evil into the mind of God or man May come and go, so unapproved, and leave But to those who have lived long, and observed what constant sweeping and cleaning their house within requires, what clouds of dust fly in at every neglected cranny, and how often they have omitted to brush it off till it has injured the gloss of their furniture to these there is something wonderful, dazzling, and precious, in the spotless innocence of childhood, from which the slightest particle of impurity has not been wiped away. Woe to those who by a single word help to shorten this beautiful period! That man was never born whose secret soul, With all its motley treasure of dark thoughts, Foul fantasies, vain musings, and wild dreams, Was ever open'd to another's scan. Even the best and purest of women would shrink from displaying her heart to our gaze, while lovely childhood allows us to read its every thought and fancy. Its sincerity, indeed, is occasionally very inconvenient; and let that person be quite sure that he has nothing remarkably odd, ugly, or disagreeable about his appearance, who ventures to ask a child-what it thinks of him? Amidst the frowns and blushes of the family, amidst a thousand efforts to prevent or to drown the answer, “truth," in all the horrors of nakedness, will generally appear in the surprised assembly; and he who has hitherto thought, in spite of his mirror, that his eyes had merely a slight and not unpleasing cast, will now learn for the first time that "everybody says he has a terrible squint." I cannot approve of the modern practice of dressing little girls in accordance with the prevailing fashion, with scrupulous imitation of their elders. When I look at a child, I do not wish to feel doubtful whether it is not an unfortunate dwarf who is standing before me, attired in a costume suited to its age. Extreme simplicity of attire, and a dress sacred to themselves only, are most fitted to these "fresh female buds;" and it vexes me to see them disguised in the newest fashions of Le Follet, or practising the graces and courtesies of maturer life. Will there not be years enough, from thirteen to seventy, for ornamenting or disfiguring the person at the fiat of French milliners-for checking laughter and forcing smiles, for reducing all varieties of intellect, all gradations of feeling to one uniform tint? Is there not already a sufficient sameness in the aspect and tone of polished life? Oh, leave children as they are, to relieve by their "wild freshness elegant insipidity; leave their "hair loosely flowing, robes as free," to refresh the eyes that love simplicity; and leave their eagerness, their warmth, their unreflecting sincerity, their unschooled expressions of joy or regret, to amuse and delight us, when we are a little tired by the politeness, the caution, the wisdom, and the coldness of the grown-up world. Our ing fancies of his young mind, and owns that "l'erreur a son mérite;" he now reads history till he doubts everything, and sighs for the time when he felt comfortably convinced that Romulus was suckled by a wolf, and Richard the Third a monster of iniquity-his mind is now full of perplexities and cares for the future. Oh! for the days when the present was a scene sufficiently wide to satisfy him! Q. THE VALUE OF LIGHT FULL DEVELOPMENT OF PLANTS. THE IMPORTANCE OF LIGHT, as an agent in the full development of plants, has so often been insisted on, and is now so fully appreciated by all who have the slightest claim to a knowledge of the science of gardening-in so far as it applies to and elucidates its practical details-that it might seem almost superfluous to say anything more on the subject. But our acquaintance with garden practice, in the aggregate, forces upon us the conviction, that though the higher principles of the art are acknowledged and practised in numberless establishments, there still lingers among us something more than a spice of the practice prevalent in what may be justly termed the dark age of horticulture. That the period to which we refer does not essentially belong to antiquity, but that the practices which characterise it are still healthful and vigorous, and not merely stumbled upon like fossils embedded in an ancient geological formation, many of our readers know well enough. Children may teach us one blessed, one enviable art, the heart of being easily happy. Kind nature has given to them that useful power of accommodation to circumstances, which compensates for so many external disadvantages; and it is only by injudicious management that it is lost. "Give him but a moderate portion of food and kindness, and the peasant's child is happier far than the duke's. Free from artificial wants, unsated by indulgence, all nature ministers to his pleasures; he can carve out felicity from a bit of hazel twig, or fish for it successfully in a puddle." I love to hear the boisterous joy of a troop of ragged urchins whose cheap playthings are nothing more than mud, snow, sticks, or oyster-shells; or to watch the quiet enjoyment of a half-clothed, halfwashed fellow of four or five years old, who We have no intention of penning a dry sits with a large rusty knife and a lump of dissertation on the influence of light; but bread and bacon at his father's door, and believing that to teach by example is far sumight move the envy of a London alderman. perior to dogmatising, as a means of eluciHe must have been singularly unfortunate dating any given subject, we shall, in illustrain childhood, or singularly the reverse in tion of our position, give some particulars after life, who does not look back upon its that but two or three years since fell under scenes, its sports and pleasures, with fond our notice. In one of the southern counties regret; who does not "wish for e'en its of England, a lady-who was an enthusiastic sorrows back again." The wisest and hap-lover of horticulture--possessed an establishpiest of us may occasionally detect this feeling in our bosoms. There is something unreasonably dear to the man in the recollection of the follies, the whims, the petty cares, and exaggerated delights of his childhood. Perhaps he is engaged in schemes of soaring ambition, but fancies sometimes that there was once a greater charm in flying a kite-perhaps, after many a hard lesson, he has acquired a power of discernment and spirit of caution which defies deception, but he now and then wishes for the boyish confidence which venerated every old beggar, and wept at every tale of woe. He is now deep read in philosophy and science, yet he looks back with regret on the wild and pleas ment where every branch of the" art and mystery" of gardening was pursued: we do not say successfully, "for thereby hangs a tale," and all enthusiasts commit errors, and often gross ones, too. But we should always respect, rather than ridicule the mistakes of an enthusiast; for they will often be found to resemble, in intrinsic value, the ore of a precious metal. While the real gold remains mixed with baser matter, it can influence little the well-being of mankind; but when extracted, refined, and rendered subservient to the wants of society, it extends its benefits a thousand ways. So an enthusiast strikes out new theories, it may be, of little value in themselves, but from which, every-day, plod ding, matter of fact practice can extract much that is precious. But to return. In the establishment we speak of, there were, for the accommodation of the heterogeneous mass of plants congregated, a host of structures stoves, wet and dry, orchidhouses, greenhouses, pits, frames, and a whole legion of nondescript articles: not forgetting glass walls. As might be expected, there was no arrangement in placing the buildings: they jostled each other, whichever way you turned. Conservatory and potting-shed stood side by side; and if you set out with the intention of visiting the orchid-house, you stood a pretty good chance of stumbling into the stoke hole. A guide, verbal or otherwise, was absolutely necessary for a successful perambulation. But as intricacy is held as an essential in garden arrangement, perhaps this might be considered a beauty. The exterior gave one a correct idea of what was to be expected within. Every available nook in every house was laid under contribution as a receptacle for plants. Shelves above you, shelves below you-on the left hand, on the right hand, plants were crowded -nay, crammed together; and, to crown the whole, vines from borders without darkened the roof, and, in the forcing season, others in pots usurped the few rays that would otherwise have struggled through the front lights. And under such circumstances as these, plants were expected to thrive, too-and develop their real beauties; and so many of them did. The conditions were congenial to numerous species, but the majority were sorry things. Long, watery shoots, with many leaves and few flowers, in place of sturdy growths and brilliant blossoms, met the eye in all directions. Most of the plants were one-sided; and mildew, and scale, and bug, were apparent in the axils of nearly every leaf, and among the few heads of flowers that were produced. We had the honor of being accompanied through the houses and grounds by the proprietress herself, who, we must in justice to other parties concerned observe, was "her own gardener." Often she stopped before some fine species, and lamented that they did not prove more satisfactory under the treatment. Every cause but the right one was assigned as a reason for her failure. "Water was not given as she directed;"" the soil was not properly mixed;"" the loam was not of the best quality;"" her directions were not followed out in her absence," and so forth; while the true cause was apparent enough. We ventured to suggest that a deficiency of light had something to do with the matter; that too many plants were attempted to be grown in such a limited space; but our cicerone had an opinion of her own on those points, and we were met with a decided ob jection as to such an explanation being even remotely probable. We must now beg the reader (after the manner of the play-bills) to imagine the lapse of a year. We are again in the grounds, and strolling through the houses. The proprietress has quitted the scene of her labors; and the accumulated treasures are about to be dispersed by the wand of the auctioneer. There is a large assembly of buyers; for here are many rare plants. Representatives of the Floras of almost every region of the globe are congregated in the space of a few roods. Many of the finer plants are destined to occupy some newly-built plant-houses but a few miles distant. These are of the best construction, and a due regard to an uninterrupted transmission of light is provided for: and, within, the plants are well cared for, and ample space is permitted each specimen for the display of its true character. Another season has passed, and again we visit our old acquaintances. How would their former mistress rejoice at the change apparent in them! Scarcely do we recognise them in their improved appearance. It is the season for many of them to be in bloom, and so they are: not as they will be in a season or two hence, certainly, but yet very beautiful. Amongst them is one that we especially remember as having been lamented over by its owner on our first acquaintance with it, as never having afforded a solitary blossom. It is a fine plant of Inga pulcherrima, covered with bunches of its scarlet filaments, a very mass of beauty. "Truly," we exclaimed, apostrophising the lovely object, "what a powerful lesson dost thou teach on the influence of light!" [From the Gardeners' Journal.] WHAT I LOVE. BY JOHN CLARE. I love to see the forest maid And like the lily blooming; And showed a cleanly stocking; The flowers made curtsies all the way, Against her ancles knocking. She stoop'd to get the fox-glove bells That grew among the bushes, And, careless, set her basket down, And tied them up with rushes. Her face was ever in a smile, And brown and softly blooming;I often meet the scorn of man, But welcome lives with women! THE VALUE OF SLEEP. HABIT influences in some degree the amount of sleep that is required. It should be said, however, that it is never well to withhold any of the revenue that is justly due to the drowsy god. A man may accustom himself to take so little sleep, as to be greatly the loser thereby in his waking moments. It may be commonly observed, that those persons who spend less time in sleep than is usually found needful by others of the same age and strength, and occupation, consume a much larger portion of their days than others do, in a kind of dreamy vacancy, a virtual inactivity of mind and body. The hours expended in sleep are not the only hours that might be justifiably deducted from the sum total of the life, as having been lost to it; numbers of moments are daily spent in an absolute inaction of mind and body; and sleep cannot be robbed of its dues, without adding largely, and in greater proportion than the time habitually stolen from the sleep, to that which is wasted in such waking reveries. In order that the mind may have the power of undergoing trying and exhausting labor, that it may continue in the full possession of its capabilities, that it may continue to be undulled and unblunted by such wear and such use-an amount of sleep must be allowed which is proportionate to the severity of such work, to the engrossing and expending nature of the mind's employment. The nights may be robbed of the hours of sleep; and the time so stolen may be devoted to toil of mind or of body; but the endurance by the system of the undue waste and imperfectly restored balance of the vital force, even if somewhat protracted by the strength of the constitution, or if prolonged somewhat by the energy of a determined will, or by the spur of a great necessity, or by the desired goal of a great ambition or daring hope, must be shortlived. The system cannot be robbed of its sleep, says Dr. Robertson, without a corresponding disturbance and derangement of the func tions; the power and the equilibrium of the vital forces will become so far affected as to involve disordered action; and thus indirectly by forming part of the common organism, and directly by the diminished tension of the vital forces which supply the sensorium itself, the mind will become unable to continue its exertions. Many an ardent and hopeful aspirant for collegiate distinctions, many an anxious laborer for professional eminence, has thrown away his hopes in thus vainly struggling to cheat the system of this great requirement. SPARE MY FLOWER. BY THE REV. H. T. LYTE. O, spare my flower, my gentle flower, Too soon its fleeting charms must lie Too like thine own! The breeze will roam this way to-morrow, O spare! and let it still outspread O, spare my flower! Thou know'st not what Not Solomon in all his state, Was clad like Nature's simplest child; Crown of the Year, how bright thou shinest! We who stand round about thee see it. |