promises of hope,-in these he finds his enjoyment. But the morning upon the hills, the sweet glories of the evening, the lonely water-fall, the dark ravine, the rugged mountain, and the wild lake of the woods, will ever give delight to youth. There is a period when these are the natural enjoyment of youth, as really and as certainly, as are the bounding leap, the fresh smile, and the joyous laugh. So in the taste for reading, for thought and meditation, there are different standards at different periods of life. We would not ask the man of sixty to sit down and read Robinson Crusoe, and expect him to be as much interested as his little Benjamin who has been all day poring over it with an interest so deep that time and food have been alike forgotten. We do not expect the man of fifty to admire Henry Kirke White as does his son of eighteen; and when we hear any one speak disparagingly of him, we are sure that he did not read him at the right age. There is a something,—no matter what we call it, in the writing of youth which will ever be popular with the young. We think therefore, that the mournful question which Henry in his ambition asked "fifty years hence, and who will think

of Henry ?"-may be answered, that multitudes will; and at this moment he stands more sure of the immortality for which he so ardently sighed, than ever before.

What man who has passed through the different stages of life, does not know that there are periods in which a peculiar kind of reading is most agreeable? There is, for example, the period for Magazines, when they are devoured with eagerness, and when it seems as if we could not subsist without new and constant supplies of this food, and rather than not have it, we are willing to swallow much that is unleavened, much that is unkneaded, and much that is unbaked. When we have passed through this period, we prefer reading of a graver cast, more undiluted and are well content to substitute close, original thought for the raciness or the flippancy of modern composition. Yet the Magazine period is not without its use. We there use the mind as we would a large unfinished chamber, into which we tumble all kinds of wares and furniture, marring, defacing, and breaking some, yet as a great storeroom out of which we may in after days draw materials that will be of great service. If the facts upon which the eye then falls, must

at once be poured out of the mind as Buonaparte used to shoot nails, all heads to points, it would be a sad calamity, and the stores of the mind, like the wild lands, on which we pay taxes in a new country, would make us poor in proportion to their abundance.

There is also the period of Novels. Would that with some it did not last through life! With what greediness and insatiable appetite does the votary pore over the vapid page! Through what monstrous swamps does he wade, what dry hills does he climb, ever following a phantom and yet never satisfied that he is chasing shadows! And it is well that to most people, if age does not bring wisdom, it brings an altered taste, and if the more wholesome appetite comes too late to allow them to pluck and feed on the fruit of wisdom, it comes in season to give bitter repentance for having wasted what was too precious to be lost.

There is also in the life of almost every man, a period when he reads and loves and quotes poetry. At first all that comes within his reach is food, but as he advances, his taste leads him to select with greater care and admit but little as worthy of his lasting ad

miration. It is to be regretted that poetry is not read more through life, especially by professional men. Poetry is a child of the skies. Non tetigit quod non ornavit. The appropriate quotation is not the only thing that is beautiful. The mind through which poetry passes, like the clear channel in which the mountain brook runs, seems to be beautified by the waters that pass through it. The young then in admitting and cultivating a taste for poetry, are becoming their own benefactors, and they are putting the soul under the guidance of a teacher, whose voice will ever be as sweet as the silver trumpet, and whose robes like those of the angel, will reflect the purity and drop the odors of heaven. It is not the rhythm, the cadence, the measure, nor the chosen words that thrill us, in the quotation of appropriate poetry, but it is, that we seem to be surrounded by a new light,-that in which the soul of the poet was constantly bathed. The glories of the rain-bow light are not probably, best adapted to our daily wants, else had our bountiful Father thrown them over the whole creation, and every object that meets the eye had been thus gorgeously painted, yet who does not feel that he has

known a pleasure indescribable, whenever he has seen them.

White too, will be read, because there will ever be a tender set of recollections grouped around his name. He has given us only a few drops of the first gushings of the vine. Goethe the poet of Germany, at the age of seventy or even eighty was great, and could pour forth song like a river immeasurably strong and deep and grand. Or to change the figure he stood like a tree, from which fruit, mature, large and delicious, dropped with wonderful profusion, but does this fact destroy the taste for that which grows upon the young tree,-too young to give any more than an earnest of what it may do. We admire the efforts of mature and trained genius, and feel that they have a claim upon our admiration. Perhaps we are in danger of witholding somewhat, lest we pay that homage to labor and art, which we intend for genius, but in the case of the youthful bard, we have no such fears, and we therefore delight to bestow our unaffected admiration on what we know must be the result of great talents, and these alone. The young poet on whom we are commenting, like a youthful orator, has our sympa