contemplate at all, were it not a modification

of his own being.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a Mothers's mind,
And no unworthy aim,

The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.

O joy that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive !

The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benedictions: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:-
Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;

But for those obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things,

Fallings from us, vanishings;

Blank misgivings of a Creature

Moving about in worlds not realized,

High instincts, before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprized!
But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,

Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain light of all our day,

Are yet a master light of all our seeing;

Uphold us-cherish-and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never;

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence, in a season of calm weather,

Though inland far we be,

Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea

Which brought us hither;

Can in a moment travel thither

And see the Children sport upon the shore, -And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

WORDSWORTH."

• During my residence in Rome I had the pleasure of reciting this sublime ode to the illustrious Baron Von Humboldt, then the Prussian minister at the papal court,

Long indeed will man strive to satisfy the inward querist with the phrase, laws of nature. But though the individual may rest content with the seemly metaphor, the race cannot. If a law of nature be a mere generalization, it is included in the above as an act of the mind. But if it be other and more, and yet manifestable only in and to an intelligent spirit, it must in act and

and now at the court of St. James's. By those who knew and honored both the brothers, the talents of the plenipotentiary were held equal to those of the scientific traveller, his judgment superior. I can only say, that I know few Englishmen, whom I could compare with him in the extensive knowledge and just appreciation of English literature and its various epochs. He listened to the ode with evident delight, and as evidently not without surprise, and at the close of the recitation exclaimed, "And is this the work of a living English poet? I should have attributed it to the age of Elizabeth, not that I recollect any writer, whose style it resembles ; but rather with wonder, that so great and original a poet should have escaped my notice."-Often as I repeat passages from it to myself, I recur to the words of DANTE:

Canzon! io credo, che saranno radi
Che tua ragione bene intenderanno :
Tanto lor sei faticoso ed alto.

substance be itself spiritual: for things utterly heterogeneous can have no intercommunion. In order therefore to the recognition of himself in nature man must first learn to comprehend nature in himself, and its laws in the ground of his own existence. Then only can he reduce Phænomena to Principles-then only will he have achieved the METHOD, the self-unravelling clue, which alone can securely guide him to the conquest of the former-when he has discovered in the basis of their union the necessity of their differences; in the principle of their continuance the solution of their changes. It is the idea of the common centre, of the universal law, by which all power manifests itself in opposite yet interdependent forces (η γαρ ΔΥΑΣ αει παρα Μοναδι καθηται, και νοεραις aspartei roμais) that enlightening inquiry, multiplying experiment, and at once inspiring humility and perseverance will lead him to comprehend gradually and progressively the relation of each to the other, of each to all, and of all to each.

Such is the second of the two possible directions in which the activity of man propels

itself: and either in one or other of these channels or in some one of the rivulets which notwithstanding their occasional refluence (and though, as in successive schematisms of Becher, Stahl, and Lavoisier, the varying stream may for a time appear to comprehend and inisle some particular department of knowledge which even then it only peninsulates) are yet flowing towards this mid channel, and will ultimately fall into it-all intellectual METHOD has its bed, its banks, and its line of progression. For be it not forgotten, that this discourse is confined to the evolutions and ordonnance of knowledge, as prescribed by the constitution of the human intellect. Whether there be a correspondent reality, whether the Know ing of the Mind has its correlative in the Being of Nature, doubts may be felt. Never to have felt them, would indeed betray an unconscious unbelief, which traced to its extreme roots will be seen grounded in a latent disbelief. How 'should it not be so? if to conquer these doubts, and out of the confused multiplicity of seeing with which" the films of corruption" bewilder us, and out of the unsubstantial shows of ex