A CHAT WITH COUSIN KATE.

"My heart is sick! my heart is sick!
And sad as heart can be ;

It pineth for the forest brook,

And for the forest tree;

It pineth for all gladsome things,

That haunt the wood-lands free."-MOTHERWELL.

Do you ask me, Kate, why I look so sad this bright morning? Ah! cousin mine, I am thinking of those grand old wood-lands so many weary miles away. I am thinking of their thousand tintsof that glorious flood of golden light which bathes them now-of that blue sky which bends so lovingly above them. O, the wood-lands of my home! Let me tell you of an autumn day amid their pleasant glades-a nutting ramble. I know you will then no longer wonder that "my pausing heart loves best the olden time." How the fresh breeze rustles in our old home trees, this glorious morning, and how the scarlet, gold and purple of the autumn woods, is painted brightly against the soft blue of the sky, on yonder hillside. We are first to go to a farm house, miles away amid the meadows. So come, cherry cheeked Harry, my bright eyed Louise, and our gentle Carrie, find your places in our dear old roomy carriage, and away, away over the hills and along the quiet roads, sometimes fringed with the gorgeous wood-lands, and again bordered by short grass, with the little path worn by the road-side, and the tall blackberry hedges, bending over the rail fence, with here and there a great bush of sweet-brier, laden with its brilliant scarlet berries. Ah! here is the gate of the grass-grown road which leads to the farm house. It is but little travelled, but duly once a week the sleek horses draw the old brown wagon slowly through the meadows, and the dwellers here go reverently up to the house of God in the distant village. They linger awhile in the churchyard beside loved graves, for Death came even to this sweet solitude. Years ago the hoary-headed old father entered into his rest; but now there is a fresh grave beside him, and we miss another sun-burned brow and stalwart form;

"Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke,
How jocund did they drive their team afield,

How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!"

But now they are laid cold-powerless-silent, and the farm is left to the old mother and her daughters.

We are in sight, now, of the homestead-a long, low, weatherstained building-its roof moss-grown, and the waving branches of an old silver-leaf willow sweeping around it. The green mea

dow before the door, spreads gently down to the little dancing brook, and there is the brown milk-house-the stream running through it, around the earthen vessels filled with rich milk, and great rolls of yellow butter. Little thickets of hazle bushes and wild raspberries are dotted all over the meadow, and, in June, there hide the frail blossoms of the convallaria, and there the spotted berries cluster now. And in the spring and summer days, there are thousands of blue violets, and star-grass, peeping out from the meadow-sweet by the water-side. Upon the slope above the brook lies the garden, rich in flowers. Worlds of hyacinths rise in that sunny spot, even amid the light snow-wreaths of March, and there are stores of the rare old English daffodil, and many quaint herbs mingled with great bunches of waving pinks and scented thyme. There below the meadow is a vista in the woods, and see what a glorious landscape is spread out beneath the bright heavens! The blue outlines of the distant hills bound the horizon, and nearer amid the gay woods and softened valleys, shine out the white walls of happy homes, all bathed in the misty light of an autumn day.

But here is kind Aunt Anne at the door, with her smile of welcome, and we pass up the worm-eaten stoop, with its benches on either side, where the family gather in the sweet summer twilight, through the wide hall, and into the great room, with its black oaken beams overhead, its high-backed wicker chairs, and its red cupboard with glass doors disclosing a store of gaily colored China. With reverent awe, we look up to the old mother, who in her ninetieth autumn is here patiently awaiting her last change. She sits beside a bright fire which is blazing on the wide hearth, with her snow-white locks parted beneath the full bordered cap, and her shrivelled hands clasped together. Upon a little old fashioned stand close beside her, is her Bible and Hymn book. Her dimmed eyes often look upon their pages, for they are in the dear language of her fatherland. A strange language is it to us, but in its full and sounding accents did the noble Luther speak those mighty words, which convulsed the nations and shook to its foundations the proud seven-hilled city-the mistress of the world!

How kindly do they welcome us here. They love us for his sake, to whose voice they have listened for so many years, in the village church. By countless memories, both of joy and sorrow, is he endeared to them. For many summers and winters has he broken unto them the bread of life, and mournfully have his tones been borne on the hushed air, in the solemn burial of their dead! How do they treasure up our childish sayings, and our pleasant sports, at each visit here. O! the truth of these warm, simplehearted natures! Do you wonder, Kate, that I am sick at heart of cold, false smiles, and freezing courtesy?

But the sun is high in heaven, and we must forth to the woods. With our kind guide, we tread the short orchard grass, beneath the tall pear trees bending with golden fruit, and the boughs laden

with red-cheeked apples. We climb the cross-rail fence, and are in the woods. How the withered stalks of summer flowers rustle around us. How the dry leaves are heaped in little mounds, through the trees, and how the wind sports merrily among them. Here and there a white or blue woodaster lingers still, with a tuft of fluted fern. The "bright-veined moss," still fresh and green, creeps among the gnarled roots and over the grey stones, and there upon the slope, just out of the shadow of that old beech, a single golden-rod lifts its brilliant spire. How have the fair wild flowers of the spring and summer passed away-but there is no time now to moralize, for Harry is assailing a tall hickory, and the nuts are crashing down, their brown husks falling in showers around them. Ah! see the leaf-sprays of that old butternut covering the ground. We shall find scores of dusky-hued nuts there. This last frost has opened well the chestnut burs, and now gaily to our task.

Ah! Louise, you have a bloom on your cheek like the heart of our velvet rose, and see how Carrie glides, a very woodsprite, among the trees! What, Harry, is your basket filled already? But I see the smoke curling from the chimney, and hark! the horn. We must hasten back.

Dinner over, we again place ourselves in our well-filled carriage, and amid kindly farewells, turn homeward. On we rattle merrily, and just as the autumn twilight is fading into darkness, we see the gleaming light through the curtained windows of our home, and we are soon seated around the open fire, telling of the adventures of the day, while the mild, sweet face of our own dear mother beams with happiness as she hears of her children's pleasure.

THE ORATORY OF CHALMERS.

It is difficult to define with precision what oratory really is. We might call it the art of speech-making, or of convincing and persuading by words; but this would be little better than to say that oratory is oratory. Demosthenes, although great in the practice of eloquence, has left but a questionable explanation of its essence. Some tell us that he affirmed action to be the first, second and third requisite in oratory; others that by action he meant delivery. We apprehend that the Grecian statesman did not mean to give a complete definition of oratory at all; but only to enforce, with extraordinary emphasis, the importance of appropriate gesture and elocution. If he intended more than this, he fell into the manifest mistake of describing an actor instead of an orator. It is true that a finished delivery will set off a speech or discourse which may exhibit few or none of the higher properties of eloquence; and

therefore delivery ought to be a matter of much care with him who aims at oratorical success. Yet elocution and gesture no more constitute eloquence than smooth versification constitutes poetry.

Oratory is not mere accurate and convincing ratiocination; for then Euclid's Elements would be the most eloquent of books, and Cicero would hide his diminished head at sight of Apollonius. Neither is oratory the simple power of stirring the passions; for a speech that proves nothing can only be effectual on rare occasions. Besides, if we should define eloquence to be the faculty of exciting emotion, we should not come a whit nearer a true and satisfactory account of its nature. The question would still remain unsolved; what is the secret of that power?

Many men have exercised their ingenuity in explaining the essence of poetry. What is poetry? Wherein does it differ from harmonious prose? Especially wherein does it differ from eloquence? Burke, in his parliamentary eulogium on Sheridan's speech against Warren Hastings, makes a distinction between eloquence and poetry; ranking the latter as inferior in point of merit to the former. We do not attempt to decide the question of inferiority or superiority in merit or rarity; but we recognize the distinction in the nature of the two gifts. From the days of Juve nal down to the present time, the hexameters of Marcus Tullius have been a standing literary joke; and we doubt whether Demosthenes could have amended in Greek the vain doggerel,

O! fortunatam natam me Consule Romam !

which Dryden has absurdly enough rendered,

Fortune fore-tuned the dying notes of Rome,
Till I, thy Consul sole, consoled thy doom.

We do not know of any great orator who was also a great poet,
or who even manifested the power of becoming so by the cultiva
tion of the Muse. History records no such name.
Milton appears
to have combined both the faculties of poetry and eloquence in
greater perfection than any other man. Nevertheless it is ques-
tionable how far he would have succeeded in the actual practice
of speech-making. We like to picture to ourselves that human
face divine,' before its glorious eyes were quenched, glowing with
the light of sublime thought; and that voice, which "voluntary
moved harmonious numbers," giving utterance to the same at the
altar or in the Senate; and that nobly graceful form speaking,
through every limb and motion, in harmony with some high theme.
It does not seem to be a pure fancy that in Milton's case this pic
ture might have been realised; and that along with triumph in
the loftiest oratory, he might also have won or worn the epic lau-
rel. Yet this did not happen in fact; so that we are yet without
an authentic instance of any human being who was at once a
consummate poet and a consummate orator. Byron's attempt in

the House of Lords was a failure; and deservedly; for it was rant and mouthing both in matter and delivery. Canring's poems were but occasional verses. Who reads the tragedies of Lord John Russell and Richard Lalor Shiel? In France and Germany, where literature is encouraged by the highest honors of the state, we hear not of any great bard who was or is a great speaker. Macaulay's oratorical eminence is conceded; but even his Roman lays, although as Homeric as Scott's border ballads, do not prove that he could produce an Æneid or even a Marmion.

Perhaps the most concise and the most precise definition of poetry is that it is "the union of the possible with the necessary." In painting we may have two portraits of the same person which are accurate likenesses, while only one of them displays the characteristic of genius in the artist. In the one we can trace all the features of the original. All the necessary is there; but none of the possible; no sublimation of the mere mortal into the immortal; no penetration of the inner man, no irradiation of its elements with the light of imagination, and no appearance on the painted countenance of aught save plain matter of fact existence. In the other we have more than matter of fact. Truth the whole truth is there; yet not simply the truth as it is, but likewise the truth as it ought to be an approximation, at least, to the portraiture of the body as it shall appear when, retaining all its features, it shall notwithstanding be raised "a glorious body." It is thus that genius anticipates heaven. The Apollo Belvidere is not merely a handsome statue, faultless in face and form. It is a divinity in marble- the Sun in human limbs an embodiment of beauty, grace, and power, which we almost think we could separate from the image, as if they were hovering around, or emanating from it. It shews all the necessary in member, joint and lineament, and all the possible in the ideal of our nature. It is poetry in stone.

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Poetry is not the incongruous addition of perfection to imperfection it is no mixture of iron with miry clay; but the etherialising of things that be, into things that may be, while yet they preserve their identity. To Wordsworth's Peter Bell the Potter,

A primrose by the river's brim -
A yellow primrose was to him,
A flower and nothing more.

It presented all the necessary of a flower. But a poetic mind would have invested it with poetry-sublimed it into such an object as it would have appeared to Eve in paradise or to an angel by the river'of life.

Now have we any thing like this process in oratory? No doubt we have. It is this which distinguishes it from common talk and pedestrian prosy description. Still oratory is not poetry. The celestial element is differently applied. In poetry earth is raised to heaven: in oratory heaven is brought down to earth. In the