18421

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1841, by CAREY AND HART, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

C. Sherman & Co. Printers,

19 St. James Street.

ས་

་

WILSON'S MISCELLANIES.

CHRISTOPHER AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

(Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1838.)

FORGIVE US, thou most beautiful of mornings! for having overslept the assignation hour, and allowed thee to remain all by thyself in the solitude, wondering why thy worshipper could prefer to thy presence the fairest phantoms that ever visited a dream. And thou hast forgiven us— for not clouds of displeasure these that have settled on thy forehead-the unreproaching light of thy countenance is upon us a loving murmur steals into our heart from thine-and pure and holy as a child's, or an angel's, daughter of Heaven! is thy breath.

In the spirit of that invocation we look around us, and as the idea of morning dies, sufficient for our happiness is "the light of common day"—the imagery of common earth. There has been rain during the night-enough, and no more, to enliven the burn, and to brighten its banks-the mists are ascending composedly, with promise of gentle weather-and the sun, so mild that we can look him in the face with unwinking eyes, gives assurance, that as he has risen, so will he reign, and so will he set in peace.

Yestreen we came into this glen at gloaming,—and rather felt than saw that it was beautiful-we lay down at dark, and let the moon and stars canopy our sleep. Therefore it is almost altogether new to us; yet so con2

VOL. III.

genial its quiet to the longings of our heart, that all at once it is familiar to us as if we had been sojourning here for many days-as if this cottage were indeed our dwelling-place-and we had retired hither to await the closing of our life. Were we never here before-in the olden and golden time? Those dips in the summits of the mountains seem to recall from oblivion memories of a morning all the same as this, enjoyed by us with a different joy, almost as if then we were a different being, joy then the very element in which we drew our breath, satisfied now to live in the atmosphere of sadness often thick. ened with grief. 'Tis thus that there grows a confusion among the past times in the dormitory-call it not the burial-place-overshadowed by sweet or solemn imagery -in the inland regions of our soul: nor can we question the recollections as they rise-being ghosts, they are silent-their coming and their going alike a mysterybut sometimes-as now-they are happy hauntings-and age is almost gladdened into illusion of returning youth.

'Tis a lovely little glen as in all the Highlands—yet we know not that a painter would see in it the subject of a picture-for the sprinklings of young trees seem to have been sown capriciously by nature, and there seems no reason why on that hillside, and not on any other, should survive the remains of an old wood. Among the multitude of knolls a few are eminent with rocks and shrubs, but there is no central assemblage, and the green wilderness wantons in such disorder that you might believe the pools there to be, not belonging as they are to the same running water, but each itself a small separate lakelet fed by its own spring. True, that above its homehills there are mountains-and these are cliffs on which the eagle might not disdain to build-but the range wheels away in its grandeur to face a loftier region, of which we see here but the summits swimming in the distant clouds.

God bless this hut! and have its inmates in his holy keeping! They are but few-an aged couple-and their grandchild-a pretty creature and a good-and happy as a bird Four or five hours' sleep is all we need. This night it was deep-and our thoughts, refreshed by its dew, have unfolded themselves of their own accord, along