A lowly one of neglected worth.

And Venus, the queen star, that tempts, at eve,
Young hearts to worship in the west, and weave
Soft thoughts into soft songs,

Musing upon the love of woman—
Sweet dream that most belongs

To the melting hour of gloaming:

Or when, like spirit rising from the sea,

She comes at morn to wake the sleeping earth
And breathe her sweet breath o'er the drowsy lea,
While waken'd mountains pant with hope, as forth
She comes to tell them of the breaking day,
And larks are up and carolling in her ray ;—
They love her, for their green earth loved she,
Waking it in the morn, and, in the even,
Putting it to sleep; most lovingly

Their little throats sing to the queen of heaven.
Oh beauteous, glorious star! we have not room
Of soul to take thee in-of mind to put thee
Within us wholly; and, striving to consume
In draughts, we are drown'd in a flood of beauty.

Good orbs, we cannot love enough your light!
It bathes our gazing eyes till their thick sight
Sees God; and then we know, or dream,
Of higher being and closer life with Him:

And seeing ye, so silent and serene,

O'erwatching us, we wonder what can mean
Our earth, our life, our little history,

So full of bustle, so unlike to ye.

We who are tied to earth see only part,

Which seems confusion: when the unbound heart

Gets into higher place, then more is seen:

Among the stars, we'll see what earth doth mean.

Light draws unto it Darkness-we are dark

And while our eyes draw to the stars and mark

This fascination in. the face of Night,

Our souls draw to a light within star-light,

And Darkness drawn to Light grows Light; our eyes,
Our souls grow light, and all that near them lies,
Is drawn within the lustre of their light,

Till earth and life grew beautifully bright.

PROVINCIAL LITERATURE.

THE truth of the proverbial expression that " Paris is France," whether as the test of political power, or the source of intellectual developement, involves no small reproach to our neighbours. But, with reference to the influence of the press, we must admit the application of the adage to ourselves; for in the world of literature, London is England, and our provincial nonentity is an undeniable fact.

When our towns possessed a comparatively scanty and illiterate population-and when authors were the mere creatures of patronage, or the hungry hangers on of a luxurious court, such a state of things might easily be accounted for. But when popular intelligence is advancing more rapidly in our towns than in the metropolis itself—when our men of science and literature pursue their avocations, for the most part aloof from its turmoil and dissipation-while, on every hand, the springs of poetic inspiration gush most freely amidst the solitudes of nature, there appears no reason why the stores of intellectual wealth, accessible almost

wherever they are sought for, should be regarded as valueless, unless assayed by some metropolitan critic, or stamped with the superscription of Paternoster Row.

If the wholesale trade in books must be concentrated in London or Edinburgh, the production and publication of a healthful and improving literature may, nevertheless, be looked for elsewhere. The man who is able to write anything worthy of perusal, will, in all probability, obtain the most ready attention, and excite the warmest interest among his own neighbours. The periodical intelligence of London is supplied from a thousand widely separated sources in the length and breadth of the country, converging into its mighty reservoir of information. The experiments of a chemist in one place, the inspiration of a poet in a another, the achievments of an engineer in a third, and the selfdenying labours of a Christian philanthropist in a fourth, furnish the themes of its periodical criticism, and the substance of its most permament literature. But the streams which tend toward the ocean have something to do on their way thither. They freshen and fertilize the secluded haunts to which their origin may be traced. They bless the country, while they satisfy the town; and the writer, whose intelligence enables him to benefit his fellow-man, fails to fulfil the obligations of his social position, if, in his eagerness to convert mind into money, he thinks only of the metropolitan market, in which such an exchange can most readily be accomplished. If the men of practical science and elegant literature, the physicians, the philosophers, the poets, and the divines of our provincial towns, were to avail themselves to a far wider extent than at present, of local channels for the diffusion of their mental opulence, they would assuredly be none the poorer in their ultimate acquisition of reputation, or of any honourable return for their labours. The fame achieved in the village or the town would be chronicled in the city, and its tidings would speedily reverberate in the all-hearing metropolis.

As every locality possesses some features of interest peculiar to itself, it invites a closeness of observation, and an amplitude of description, from those whose residence renders them most familiar with the objects it presents on the themes that it suggests. The results of such study will in many cases be more interesting and important to the population of the immediate neighborhood than to any persons elsewhere. If, for example, the geological characteristics of this vicinity had furnished a frequent and familiar subject of discussion in any of our local journals, and if the inductive observations of the many had been assisted by the scientific experience of the few, in the periodical interchange of public correspondence, we should, while furnishing an acceptable contribution to the general fund of knowledge, have reaped some substantial advantages for ourselves, in ensuring an abundant and economical supply of a chief necessary of life. Ignorance is the chief element in that vulgar rancour which disgraces our municipal controversies upon this and upon some other subjects.

Those citizens who visit some fashionable watering-place for the pleasures of healthful relaxation, sometimes complain that the chief aim in such localities is to make the country as much as possible like the town. The public amusements, and all the accessories of social life, are but a tawdy and feeble imitation of metropolitan refinement. Something of

the same tendency may be traced in our provincial journals Some country newspapers, instead of affording a concentrated expression of the intelligence of the local mind, fill their columns with the veriest twaddle that can be gleaned from the gossip of the metropolis; and practical men of business, who have an instinctive contempt for a listless and loitering life in any other place, apparently regard the frivolities of London fashionables with an ambitious envy as childish as that which disturbs the serenity of a servant girl at the sight of a new bonnet on a neighbour's head. The conductors of other journals regard the leading organs of metropolitan intelligence with somewhat of that emulation which levelled the frog towards the size of the bull. The Times is copious-therefore, they are prosy. The Examiner is caustic--they are course. The Standard glories in constitutional fidelity-their echo is the utterance of the most narrow-minded bigotry. Others, with the humble desire of pleasing all parties, mistake indifference for impartiality; and the spiritless rapidity of their pages renders them a sort of illustrated news without the pictures. With others, again, an attempt at fine writing induces exaggerations and bombast; and the editorial staff, in its incompetence to exhibit principles in a clear and attentive style, has recourse to personalities, frequently of the most discreditable character, to garnish the poverty-stricken materials of the hebdomadal feast. That indignation with which the servile and libellous portion of the American press is regarded by Englishmen, may be underrated by the recollection that among ourselves a great deal of spiteful vituperation passes current for plain spoken English feeling-a large share of ferocious blackguardism for manly independence.

Provincial efforts in the establishment of monthly or quarterly periodicals have become almost proverbially abortive. The existence of such publications must evidently depend upon a certain amount of instrinsic literary merit; whereas a decent_country newspaper may be put together by a printer's apprentice. In proportion to the progress of education and refinement, the multiplication of literary institutions in our towns, it may however be expected that the fructifying influence of mental cultivation will induce some of the many who delight in the labours of others, to attempt something for themselves, on a scale com mensurate with the grasp of their ability. If Liverpool cannot furnish a half-crown Magazine, a sixpenny one is surely not beyond her achiev ment. Her educated sons are no longer children, whose best behaviour in the company of their seinors and superiors is a silent and respectful attention. Their experience entitles them to make their voices heard in the circles of literature as well as in those of trade. The time has arrived when it is deemed eligible that our good old town should have a Chamber of Commerce. Is she not equally worthy of a Chamber of Criticism? Shall we justify the stale calumny that the pursuits of literature are incompatible with the avocations of trade, and that those who seek to thrive in the one, must abandon the other? Among the myriads who toil within sight of our Exchange, are there none whose thoughts rise higher than the counting-houses that surround it? If such, in the hours of leisure, frame their ideas into a public utterance, and a permanent form, let them not be rebuked for ambitious intrusiveness, but rather welcomed as indications of a hopeful developement. When Infinite Wisdom declared that "a prophet hath no honour in his own

country," how keen was the rebuke to an undiscerning and ungrateful people!

The production of a literary work of any magnitude in a country town is as great a rarity as a greenhouse plant in a labourer's garden.There are, doubtless, commercial reasons why the authors of such must rely chiefly on the instrumentality of London publishers for the disposal of their works, and also be guided, in the preparation of these, by their suggestions. But there is a wide field for the developement of literary ability in the provinces, apart from such centralization. Local topics can be ably and amply discussed, in connexion with local opinions and subjects of more extended interest, without metropolitan assistance.

Whatever may be the despotism of prejudice, or the oligarchy of private interests, let the "republic of letters" in every sense be free.

Woodside.

THE NOVICE.

ONCE more, once more that foreign air!
Oh! sing it once again for me;
And let me dream that I am where

My soul first learned its melody!
Link'd with the music of the lute,

It came soft stealing on mine ear,
And held me listening, breathless, mute-
Still as the marble statues near.

Those statues and the stately trees
Were burnish'd with the sun-set light,
And fragrance floated on the breeze
From flowers in sculptured vases bright,-
And the fresh fountain's playful stream
In myriad drops, like diamonds, fell
With silvery music, that might seem
The far-heard chimes of many a bell.

Oh, ne'er did lovelier evening throw
Its glories on that garden fair!
Oh, ne'er did virgin beauty glow

Like her's who sang that plaintive air!
Young-gifted far beyond her years-
She sang, because her friends desired;
They stood around her, and their tears
Told the keen feelings she inspired.
They wept;-but did that thrilling air
Alone thus agitate each heart?
Ah no!—the loved, the young, the fair,
Was from her fondest friends to part:
The cloister and the cell, her choice,

Would hold her e'er the morrow past.-
Well might those weep to hear her voice,
Who knew for them she sang her last!

********

W. S.

THREE thousand years ago, say the scholars, a horde of barbarous Greeks paddled across the sea to Asia Minor, and in revenge for an affront put upon one of them, they assailed, and sieged, and finally took the town of Troy. That done, they laid it waste, in old savage fashion, and so paddled back, with various fate, towards their several homes. Almost exactly one hundred years ago, a handful of English traders, thinly sown along the Indian seabord, snatched up arms, being forced to it, and have since, with head and hand, been conquering, and now keep, in pretty orderly subjection and industrious repose, that vast Hindostan, the mere thought of which dismayed the ready hosts of Alexander of Macedon.How is it that while the details and heroes of that small Grecian feat live radiant in the memories of all, transmitted thither by the clear music of Homer,-how is it that no poet yet has sung the deeds of the English in India? I believe Robert Clive to have been as brave a man as any Achilles that ever wore greaves; and what was the slaying of poor Hector to the conquest of Bengal? I believe Warren Hastings to have been as wise and mellifluous, as subtle and dexterous a man as Ulysses himself; a greater traveller, too, than he; and the taking of a Troy is but a small thing to the consolidation of an Indian empire.— There arises in England a man of powerful poetic genius, Lord Byron, with a professed taste for all sorts of wild and strong, of haughty and tumultuous things, with a studious love for the glowing East. One keeps fancying what a poem, in his hands, the biographies of Clive and Hastings might have become. But traditionary poetics, and the critics, and Harrow and Cambridge, told Lord Byron that poetry meant the jingling of fictions! So Clive and Hastings, and our Indian empire, were left to shift for themselves; and our one poet betook himself to jingling of what he would have done, had he been a Giaour, or a Cor

* From a Lecture lately delive ed in the Mechanics' Institution, Manchester.