"And when with envy time transporte d, It is possible, very possible, that half the hopes thus formed may disappoint us; the child that now looks so blooming, may die before those whose locks are already grey; the fortunes of the wealthy merchant may be wrecked on the sea or on the land, the smiling bride may turn out a frowning wife-all, all may belie their early promise, and deny our expectations; but let us go on hoping nevertheless, 'till the night closes upon our little day of life, and then will come a brighter hope than any that have faded the hope of a glorious immortality. In the meanwhile using the privilege of the season to indulge in visions of the future, we will look at Spring in her two coming months. Her dress grows gayer, and its colours brighter every hour, for the fair damsel is rather inconstant in her fashions, having almost as many changes of attire as the month has days. Now she wreaths her head with marigolds or anemones, and puts on the ladies'-smock, while in her bosom she wears heart's-ease. Now she is garlanded with the nodding cowslips, and carries in her hand tulips of all colours, the rubies and the sapphires and the topazes of the floral world. And now again she flings aside the buds of which she was before so fond, and tissues her green robe with greener leaves, and girdles herself with woodbine or with lilies, or is downright flaunting with crimson peonies, poppies, and rhododendrons. Nay, she does not disdain to wear bachelor's buttons, and plays with a branch of white-thorn, from which she shakes the flowers till the earth looks as if it had been raining blossoms. A hundred other fashions she has, yet amidst all her changes her kirtle is ever green, more or less dark, more or less vivid-but still green-always green, so that we shall do her no great wrong in supposing she is one of the fairy tribe. And when did fairy work greater wonders; she but touches the earth with her foot, and straightway start up a thousand flowers as if its light pressure had sown them; she but breathes upon the snows and they disappear-upon the ice-bound river, and instantly it is set free; she smiles upon the gloomy sky, and it throws off its clouds and its sullenness, and puts on its bluest mantle. It may seem an odd fancy, but I cannot help thinking that the churchyard itself has another and more pleasing aspect when visited by the Spring. New aspirations start up with the grass and the flowers. A few weeks ago the whole area was a field of snow; the dead appeared to be buried a second time, and buried more effectually than when the light dust was first thrown upon them-buried, never to rise again to earthly eyes. It was as if the angel of desolation sat brooding over it, flapping his iron wings in the blast, while the elms and lindens moaned and rattled their leafless branches, fit emblems of itself-the dead by the dead-the sapless trees by the bloodless bodies. Now, how altered is everything. The entire church-yard has become a green garden, where "Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck the hallowed mould, A young butterfly too, the earliest of its tribe, is flitting about from shrub to shrub, for the place has many such graceful tributes of affection. Ah! now I feel-which is better than comprehending-what the Greeks meant when they typified the soul of the newly departed by the butterfly emerging from its chrysalis! It is but fancy-I know that as well as my sage reprovers; but still it is a pleasing one, to imagine for the moment, only for the moment-that a spirit has risen from the grave into light and life in the shape of that painted butterfly. But out upon those graceless little urchins, with their almost white locks and sunburnt cheeks! a whole troop of them are playing and shouting amongst the tomb-stones as unconcernedly as if they had never heard of such a thing as death; the sexton himself could not care less for the dark unsightly roots that are festering beneath the earth without a chance of reproduction. They drove away my visions and the butterfly at the same time, exciting no little indignation in a beggar-man, who stood muttering to himself as he looked on, and angrily shook the few grey locks that time had left him. The whole scene reminded me so strongly of a similar picture in a popular modern ballad that I could hardly help expecting a like catastrophe; at least, it would not have surprised me, had I suddenly heard the bell toll, and seen a child's funeral advancing to the very spot where the curly-headed varlets played so merrily. Let the balladwriter speak for me : "The old man lean'd on his oaken staff Where the village fathers sleep, As slumber the blest who have gone to rest He lean'd on his staff, while the children's laugh Rang out 'midst the tombstones, free; And his eye grew bright with an angry light- "He smote the ground with his oaken staff, And he curs'd the child who with spirits wild Yes, he curs'd the boy whose smile of joy Was the light of his father's cot; For his spirit burn'd, and his heart was turn'd, "Three months went round, and the old man stood While the funeral bell peal'd a heavy knell Then his spirit was quell'd that he had so rebell'd 'I dream'd not of this; 'twere better, I wis, The catastrophe predicated in the ballad would no doubt have lent a tragic dignity to my waking dreams, but the fates had settled it otherwise; they brought the affair to a conclusion most prosaically, but much more in character with the joyous feelings of spring, by sending forth the parish beadle, cane in hand, at sight of whom the conscience-stricken rogues fled as if they had been quicksilver. As luck would have it the parochial dignity was one who loved and cherished his stomach, which had thriven to such a degree upon fat bacon and father ale, with other kindred aliments, that his best speed was no better than a snail's, in comparison with that of his light-footed adversaries. Many and dire were his ejaculations, but they helped him just as little; he had not learnt the art of catching the birds by sprinkling salt upon their tails, though in his case the metaphor would no doubt have been peculiarly applicable. There is, as we are told by high authority, a season for everything. Now I take it the season for building castles in the air is spring, when by some unaccountable sympathy between ourselves and the external world, our hopes bud and burgeon like the trees around us. And what may we not hope after the things we have seen of late years actually carried into effect?-things so wild that the dreams of night could hardly have been wilder. If we expressed a belief that perpetual motion would be discovered, the national debt wiped out, war grow obsolete and out of fashion, or the jails become untenanted-has not the world seen greater miracles? has it not seen railway-carriages travelling at forty or fifty miles an hour, and messages flying from London to Edinburgh in a few minutes? Why then should the course of improvement stop here? why should we not ourselves fly along by the help of some electric agent, while— "Panting time toils after us in vain." There is no such thing as impossibility, except to ignorance, and, as we would not willingly plead guilty to such an indictment, we do most potently believe that the St. James's Magazine will go on like any other plant of the season, putting forth fresh buds every month, and fresh leaves, till it presents one mass of the greenest and freshest foliage, under which thousands of readers may be seated, much to their own satisfaction. Not that we pretend to the gift of prophecy either. We cannot, like Francis Moore, philomoth, predict what weather we shall have, nor have we the remotest conception whether the Czar means to take up his summer residence at Constantinople, or the Sublime Porte intends passing the winter at St. Petersburgh; neither have we the slightest idea, what hitherto unheard of form of government our excellent neighbours, the good citizens of Paris, may next choose to establish for themselves; perhaps, like the frogs in the fable, they may elect another King Stork, another Napoleon, if they can light upon such an animal, to devour them; or they may revive sans-cullotism, with improvements, no one being allowed to take office, against whom it can be proved, that either he, or the father before him, wore a whole pair of breeks; which, I imagine, would be as good as the old Salique law in excluding the ladies from all ministerial employments; for what woman of any spirit would consent to give up her undoubted prerogative of wearing the breeches, even though by so doing, she might gain for herself the robes of a queen? Not one, I'll answer for them; or, if she did, she would be sent to Coventry by the rest of the sex as a traitress to the rights and privileges of womankind. Let the reader laugh at such speculations if he will-and surely it is better laughing than crying any day of the week-but they are well adapted to spring, nevertheless; or they will be when April comes, and she puts on the gayest cap from Folly's wardrobe, and borrows Folly's bauble for the nonce. Then hey for mirth and merry-making! little urchins doing their best to make fools of their seniors, and thinking, no doubt, with folly in the song Very true, Master Thomas Moore-very true indeed; you never in your life better proved your title to the character of a Vates a prophet, that is a poet, for are they not all one? Oh, there is nothing half so delightful as playing the fool, so it be in season-" dulce est desipere in loco; and not to offend any grave professors of wisdom by the insinuation, there is not one-no, not the gravest and wisest-but sometimes wears the cap though he is unconscious of it, and fancies all the while that he has the judge's wig on his head, or the bishop's mitre. And God help us if it were not so; it would be a sad world indeed if Folly did not now and then cheer us up with the jingling of his bells-so sad that it would be hardly worth the living in. But, thank Heaven, things are as they are; Folly walks abroad as common as the common air; he harangues with the statesman; he writes prescriptions in dog-Latin with the doctor; he is "full of wise saws and modern instances" with the judge; he talks soft nonsense with the maiden; he whispers in the ear of the author while penning his next new novel-in short, go where we will, "The bells on his cap ring merrily out," as any one may convince himself if he will only turn over a few pages of the historic roll. Socrates, the ugliest of philosophers, and most henpecked of husbands, was no very wise man in being so much wiser than his neighbours that it provoked them to get rid of him by a dose of hemlock; Alexander the Great shewed himself very little when he wept because no more worlds were left for him to conquer; our own King James the Second, though a well-meaning man in his own way, was yet not much better than a mooncalf, when, as Louis said of him, he lost three kingdoms for a mass; Napoleon, when he marched to Moscow, might have been a good soldier, but he evidently had not wit enough for an almanack-maker; and when he ran away from Elba, it is plain that the moon must have been at the fullest, let your ephemerides say what they will to the contrary. Then the prodigal is a fool to waste his substance for the benefit of the usurer; the usurer is a fool that he does not enjoy the gold when he has got it, but hoards up all for the benefit of an heir, whom he loves not half so well as he loves himself; his heir is a fool in not having some touch of his father's folly; and the soldier, who risks what few brains he may have for eighteen-pence a-day, is a fool positive. And now having fooled the reader no doubt " to the top of his bent," we bid him, her, or them, as the case may be, "To one and all a fair good night, And pleasant dreams and slumbers light." GATHERINGS FOR A GARLAND OF BISHOPRICK AUTHOR OF BLOSSOMS. BY WM. HYLTON LONGSTAFFE, Esq. "DARLINGTON, ITS ANNALS AND CHARACTERISTICS, &c." "A voice of uttermost joy brake out : The transport was rolled down the river of Were, And Durham, the time-honoured Durham did hear, And the Towers of Saint Cuthbert were stirred by the shout." A LEAF FROM THE FEMININE HISTORY OF THE RISING OF THE NORTH. THE last Countess of Westmoreland who graced the long halls of Raby, was a learned lady in a learned age. Greek and Latin are now but studied by the blues, but, like her more celebrated namesake Jane Grey, Jane Neville lost none of her feminine modesty and attractions by her abstruse studies. She came indeed, of an elegant and learned but unfortunate race, for she was the eldest daughter of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the poet, beheaded in 1547, at the early age of 29, and sister to the Duke of Norfolk, who died on the scaffold in 1572. During her father's confinement in the Tower, his children were placed under the charge of the Duchess of Richmond, their aunt, to be brought up and educated; and Fox (the martyrologist), their instructor, says, that the young Lady Jane profited so wondrously in the Greek and Latin tongues "that she might well stand in competition with the most learned of that time, for the praise of elegancy in both kinds." It may be that the enchanting authors then introduced to her, formed her amusement in many a sad hour of loneliness and sorrow in later days. It is difficult to say whether the alliance with the house of Howard was any inducement to her luckless husband Charles Neville, to join in the rash Rising of the North, as according to Northumberland's confession, the Duke entreated Westmoreland for all the brotherly love that was between them not to stir, as it would only endanger his (the Duke's) head. It is also improbable that in a rising for religion's sake, the Countess would give her husband a different counsel, as in after proceedings she continually advised submission. Besides, she was a zealous Protestant, for it is stated that she used earnest endeavours to "dehort" her niece the Countess of Surrey, from the Romish religion, and that the Lord Henry Howard "did always maintaine and defend the Catholick religion, against his sister of Westmerland." Indeed, the comparative kindness of the Queen to her after the rebellion, inclines me to the belief that she did not credit Northumberland's statements about her influence. Lord Hunsdon gathered from that nobleman that "the rebellyon was one of the |