It is also, friendly to the mole, by affording a powerful means of defence against his natural enemy, the dog, who is always hunting after him in the meadows: for if he eats of the colchica he is poisoned. for this that the colchica is called dog-bane. The mole finds food, then, and protection against his enemies in the colchica, as the bullfinch does in the white-thorn. These harmonies are not only agreeable objects of speculation; we may make them very useful: It follows, for example, from what we have said, that, to invite the bull-finch to a shrubbery, you should plant the white thorn; and that to drive away the moles from a meadow, you should destroy the bulbs of the colchica. If you add to each plant its elementary harmonies, such as, the season in which it appears, the site on which it grows, the effects of the dews, and the reflexes of the light upon its leaves, the motion to which it is liable from the action of the winds, the contrasts and consonances with other plants, and with the quadrupeds, the birds, and the insects which belong to them, you will see a delightful concert formed around, the accords of which are still unknown. This is the track, however, that we must follow, if we would have a glimpse of the immense and wonderful edifice of nature. I exhort naturalists, lovers of gardens, painters and poets, thus to study, and to take frequent draughts at this everlasting source of taste and pleasure. They will see new worlds presenting themselves. Without leaving their own horizon, they will make discoveries more curious than many of those which are contained in our books, and in our cabinets, where the productions of the universe are presented peace-meal, and placed by themselves in the little drawers and boxes of our mechanical systematisers. I do not know, now, what name I ought to give to the adaptations which these particular concerts have with man. It is certain that there is no work of nature but which strengthens its natural character by connecting itself with the habitation of man, and which does not add, in its tura, to that habitation, some expression of grandeur, gaity, terror, or majesty. There is no meadow which is not made more cheerful by a dance of shepherdesses, nor no tempest which is not rendered more terrible by the wreck of a vessel. Nature raises the physical character of her works into a sublime moral character, by uniting them round mankind. When nature means to express the maleficent character of a renomous plant, she assembles clashing oppositions of forms and colors, which are the signs of maleficence; such as retreating and bristly forms, livid colors, dark greens, with white and black spots, virulent odors. But, when she means to characterise whole districts which are unhealthy, she assembles a multitude of similar dissonances. The air is filled with thick fogs, the turbid waters exhale nauseous smells; no vegetable thrives on the putrid earth, except such as are disagreeable: the dragunculus, for instance, the flower of which exhibits the form, the color, and the smell of an ulcer. If any trees arise ia its cloudy atmosphere, it is the yew, whose red and smoky trunk, seems to have been in fire, and whose black foliage is the abode of the owl only. If some other animals are to be seen seeking refuge under its shades, they are the centipeds, of the color of blood, or 521 toads, crawling on the humid and rotten ground. It is by these signs, or others equivalent, that nature frightens man away from situations that are not fit for him. Would she give him warnings at sea of a tempest? As she has opposed, in ferocious beasts, the glare of the eyes to the thickness of the eye-brows, the stripes and marblings with which they are distinguished, to the yellow color of their skins; the silence of their motions to the roarings of their voices; so she collects in the sky, and on the waters, a multitude of clashing oppositions, which announce, in concert, the destruction. Dark clouds cross the air in the horrible forms of dragons. Here and there you see the paly fires of lightning bursting out. The noise of the thunder, which is carried in the clouds, resembles, as it were, the roarings of the celestial lion: the day-star, which can scarcely be seen through their rainy and numerous veils, sends forth long rays of a sickly light. The leaden surface of the sea, scoops and swells into large white foams. Dismal groans seem to arise from the waves. The black shallows whiten at a distance, and utter frightful noises, interrupted by as horrid silences. The sea, which covers, and now discovers them, shows to the light of day their cavernous foundations. The lom of Norway perches upon a point of the rocks, and you hear his alarming cries, and fancy that a man is drowning. The sea-ospray raises aloft in the air, and, fearful of abandoning herself to the impetuosity of the winds, she struggles, uttering plaintive cries, against the blast that bends her wings. The black procellaria flies along, grazing the foam of the billows, and seeking, in their transient valleys, shelter from the fury of the wind. If this small and feeble bird perceives a ship amid the ocean, she comes for refuge along its side, and, as a recompense for the asylum which she asks, she announces the tempest before it arrives. Nature always apportions the signs of destruction to the greatness of the danger. Thus, for example, the signs of a tempest off the coast of Good Hope, surpass, in many respects, these of our coasts. The celebrated Vernet, who has given us so many terrifying pictures of the sea, has not painted all its horrors. Every storm has its particular character in every latitude: those of the tempests of the Cape of Good Hope are not like those of Cape Horn, nor of the Bastic like the Mediterranean, nor the Bank of Newfoundland like the coast of Africa. They vary also with the seasons, and even with the hours of the day. Those of summer are not the same as those of winter; and the sea agitated, shining at noon-day, under the beams of the sun, is a different spectacle from that of the same sea illuminated in the middle of the night by a single flash of lightning. But in all you may observe the clashing oppositions which I have mentioned. I have remarked one particular respecting tempests of the Cape of Good Hope, which admirably supports all that I have heretofore advanced upon the principles of discord and harmony, and which may give birth to deep reflection in some one that is possessed of more infor mation than myself. It is, that nature often accompanies the signs of violent storms, that overturn the ocean, with agreeable expressions of harmony, which redoubles the horror. Thus, for example, in the two tempests which I have experienced, I have not seen the heavens obVOL. II. 67 No. 11. scured by dark clouds, nor the clouds broken by momentary flashes of lightning, nor a sea dirty and lead-colored, as in the tempests of our climates. The heavens, on the contrary, were of a fine blue, and the sea azure-colored; there were no other clouds in the air than little red vapors, dark in their centre, and illuminated at their edges with the yellow brilliance of polished copper. They came from a single point of the horizon, and traversed the air with the rapidity of a bird. When the lightning broke our mainmast in the middle of the night, it did not make any other noise than that of a cannon that seemed to be discharged close to our ship. Two other explosions which had preceded this, had made similar noises. This tempest happened in the month of June, that is to say, in the winter of the Cape of Good Hope. I experienced another in repassing it in January, that is, in the middle of its summer. The color of the sky was blue, as in the former instance; and I saw only five or six clouds on the horizon; but each was black, white, cavernous, and of enormous magnitude. They resembled a part of the Alps in the air. This tempest was much less violent than the other with its little red vapors. In both the sea was azure, like the sky; and on the vast billows, fringed with foam, tri-colored rainbows were formed. These tempests, in clear days, are more frightful than I can express them. The soul is perplexed to see the signs of fine weather mingled with those of the tempest: the azure in the heavens, and the rainbow on the waves. The principles of harmony seem destroyed; nature seems to clothe herself with treachery, and to cover her fury with the appearance of benevolence. TO PARENTS. The preposterous and pernicious practice of TIGHT LACING, which prevails so generally among the ladies of the present day, induces me to awaken your attention, by pointing out the many dreadful effects, which are daily occurring from this growing evil. Some of the brightest ornaments of their sex have already fallen victims to this darling fashion. Many are still trembling on the verge of the grave, while their anxious parents look with tender and mournful solicitude for their recovery; when neither art nor nature can afford relief. Others are closely following this phantom, with an infatuated zeal that cannot fail to produce the same result. How painful it is to see these young and delicate creatures in company, unable to bend their bodies, and hear their short and hurried respiration, which too plainly shows, that the lungs are so tightly compressed, they are unable to dilate, or perform their functions. The consequence of this violent and mechanical pressure is frequently a displacement of some of the internal vital organs, adhesions, or distortions. Sometimes the violence of pressure strangulates the external vessels of the organs; this overcharges the internal vessels with a redundant quantity of blood; and hence inflammation, congestion, difficulty of breathing, consumption, and a long train of nervous affections, which have already brought many beautiful and accom PRODIGAL BEGGAR.....PROFESSIONS PUT TO PROOF. 523 plished girls to an untimely grave, who otherwise might have lived an ornament to society, and a blessing to their friends. This prevailing fashion not only invites many fatal diseases, but disfigures the body, renders the person stiff and awkward, and destroys entirely the natural ease and elegance of the shape. Grace consists in a free and easy motion, and cannot bear restraint. Therefore, I hope you will exert yourselves, for the sake of the life of your daughters, as well as their accomplishments, to divest them of this pernicious practice. A FRIEND. FOR THE HALCYON LUMINARY. THE PRODIGAL BEGGAR. God of heaven, rich in treasure, Thou hast plenty, without measure, No presumptuous thoughts attend me, In vain with tatter'd rags of error, Hear the prodigal's petition, Hear me, Lord, thus humbly kneeling, PROFESSIONS PUT TO the proof. Thus with kind words a knight cajoled his friend : But never will I see my friend IN WANT." John soon, in jail, expects his friend will free him : *Rev. iii. 18. † Psalm xlii. 7, 8, 9, 10. Job xxx. 15. Mical vii. 7. 19. # Luke xv. 17, 18, 19, 20, THE WREATH OF LOVE. Let FAME her wreath for others twine, Let the shrill trumpet's hoarse alarms Bid LAURELS grace the victor's arms, Where HAVOC's blood-stain'd banners move; Be mine to wake the softer notes Where ACIDALIA's banner floats, And wear the gentler WREATH of Love. The balmy rose let stoics scorn, The floweret's balsam shall remove; And freshens still the WREATH OF LOVE. Give me contentment, peace and health, And friends such blessings to improve; Connubial bliss, unknown to strife, Be mine for many years to prove : Till call'd to heaven, through ages there A never-fading WREATH OF LOVE. SELIM. ENNUI Of all the contrivances to exclude this intruding demon from the mind of man, the most debasing and destructive is the use of intoxicating liquors: that pernicious habit blunts all desire of improvement, deadens emulation, obscures the understanding, sinks the soul into sluggishness, renders men insensible to the love of reputation, familiarizes them with the idea of contempt, and extinguishes every enjoyment but that maudlin delirium, excited by spirituous liquors, winien soon carries them to their graves. |