sweet season embodied; and the sight of it must have a tendency to awaken feelings of a hopeful and pleasurable nature. In the hey-day of youth, and health, and joy, the mind, as if by way of contrast to its general tone, is too apt to luxuriate in a sort of morbid melancholy, and "in these sullen fits" it seeks such scenes and associations as are most likely to promote it. A fading flower, a falling leaf, the sober sadness of an autumnal day, have then a charm far beyond the brightest and gayest trophies of spring. Not so in afterlife by that time the heart has generally become so well acquainted with real sorrow, that it has no room for such as is fictitious; and it rather turns from those objects which suggest images of gloom and decay, to such as resuscitate hope and gladness.

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Such were the feelings awakened in the mind of the author, when she received the spray of bird-cherry (whence the drawing is taken) from a kind contributor of botanical specimens for this work.

Time was, when shadowy eve

Was dearer to my heart than smiling morn, And than the lovely garlands Spring doth weave, The faded hues by pensive Autumn worn.

'Twas in my youthful prime,

When life itself put on the look of Spring; Ere Care, that ever tracks the steps of Time, Seem'd other than a visionary thing.

Untouch'd by real grief,

E'en from its own excess of joy, my heart In fancied ills would ofttimes seek relief,

And sport with Sorrow's yet unvenom'd dart :

But now, when every sigh

Is fraught, alas! with meaning full and deep;

When Hope resigns her seat to Memory,

And leaves me o'er her vanish'd dreams to weep;

Oh! now I turn away

From Autumn's sered wreaths to Spring's gay bloom;

Those all too sadly mind me of decay,

These bid sweet Hope once more her sway resume.

More chaste, indeed, her glow

Than erst it was in Youth's enchanting prime; Then were her dreams of earth alone- but now

She aids my spirit's flight o'er things of time.

THE CYPRESS.

CUPRESSUS SEMPERVIRENS.

Dark tree! still sad when other's grief is fled,
The only constant mourner o'er the dead.

"IN nature there is nothing melancholy," says Coleridge, an assertion which none can gainsay; yet it is an assertion we should have expected from the philosopher rather than the poet; for he whose magic spell invests inanimate objects with life and consciousness, might surely endow them with feelings, either" grave or gay, lively or severe," according as his own mind might dictate. If in nature there is nothing actually melancholy, there are both sounds and sights which appear so, and that, even independently of association, though doubtless this faculty greatly aids the impression. How different, for instance, the plaintive coo of the dove to the sprightly trill of the lark; the faded foliage of November to the vivid burst of vegetation in May: and if the mind be so disengaged as to be open to impressions from outward things, how different the emotions pro

S

duced by each! Who can view with similar sensations the birch and the hawthorn, the yew and the cypress? Do not the former awaken feelings of cheerfulness, the other of gloom?

The cypress is a dark, pyramidal evergreen, growing to a considerable size in a soil and climate favourable to its development. Its proper birthplace is the Levant, particularly the island of Candia, where it grew in such profusion, that the Romans, and after them the Venetians, obtained a considerable revenue from its timber. Though our easterly winds are very prejudicial to it, the cypress does not fear cold in the land of its nativity, for it is seen climbing the snowy top of Mount Ida. From Candia it was brought first to Italy, where "it was considered a mere stranger in Pliny's time." It is now, however, so completely naturalised there, and forms so prominent and acknowledged a feature in the sylva of that classic country, that, as a writer of fine taste observes, "no Italian scene is perfect without it.”

Bearing in mind the associations connected with this tree, what touching effect, what mournful grace, does it throw over the architectural remains of ancient Rome!

"come and see

The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way

O'er steps of broken thrones and temples."