fairy creation of some fond enthusi ast. I have looked in vain for her prototype among the inhabitants of a world of dissimulation and sorrow. I had an uncle who resided at some distance in the country, and was seldom in my father's house, but who, it was confidently expected, was to make me his heir. He dined with us regularly every Christmas. There was always a family-party assembled on the occasion; but my uncle made his appearance commonly an hour or two earlier than the rest, and employed himself, till dinner-time, in distributing sweetmeats among my younger brothers and sisters, of whom there was a pretty numerous, and annually increasing tribe. His present, however, to the eldest girl, Sarah, and myself, was more substantial;-it was a bright golden guinea, clear and unsullied as when it issued from the mint; to us it seemed as valuable as the talisman of Oromanes, or the philosopher's stone; there was nothing which science had ever discovered, or art adorned, or luxury improved, which it did not seem to place within our reach; the lamp of Aladdin was a spell of insignificant power, compared with that little piece of burnished metal. On the occasion to which I now allude, I had fixed, at least a couple of months before, how part of my Christmas gift was to be expended. I had resolved upon purchasing my favourite picture,-I had driven a nail into the wall of my bed-room, immediately opposite my bed, on which it was to be hung ;-it was to be the first thing on which I should open my eyes in the morning, and the last I should see at night. The face it contained was that by which I was to ascertain the standard of beauty, and the soul beaming in that face was to be the model to which I should constantly refer in judging of intellectual loveliness. Christmas at length arrived, and brought with it my uncle and his guinea. I had an hour to spare before dinner, and with a bounding step, the natural motion of a merry heart, I took my way to the printshop. The old man to whom it belonged sat behind his counter in a little brown wig, studying demurely with his spectacles, properly adjusted on his nose, the important news of the day. "I am going to buy the picture," said I, laying my guinea triumphantly before him. His eye glanced first at the money and then at me. "What picture are you go ing to buy, young gentleman?" said he, pushing his spectacles over his brow, and laying down the newspaper. "Oh! that picture, to be sure," cried I, pointing to the one in question; "there is no other in the window for which I care." "Well, I believe you are right," said the shopkeeper; "this is indeed a picture. Rubens himself never did any thing finer." How my eyes sparkled, and how impatient I was till the purchase should be completed! "Give it me! give it me!" I exclaimed, "and keep the whole guinea, if you please." The whole guinea!" cried the old virtuoso, drawing back, as he spoke, with an air of offended dignity; "why, Sir, this is not a picture to be sold for a guinea-no, nor for two guineas either. Look here, Sir; here is the very lowest price at which you can have it." So saying, he turned up the back of it, and showed me, written in very legible characters, the awful words, “Four pounds ten!” I was never in my life so shocked, either before or since. Belshazzar looked at the mysterious hieroglyphics on the wall with far less horror than I at this simple but blasting sentence-Four pounds ten! It was a sum which would exhaust the richest mines of Peru. I might live to the age of Methusalem, and never be able to amass so great a hoard. It was beyond the compass of my most extravagant hopes. The days of Croesus were past, and Pactolus rolled no longer over golden sands. I know not how I found my way home, but I recollect pulling the nail out of my bed-room wall with feelings as much of anger as of sorrow. I was inclined to believe I had been used ill. The guinea had misled me, and I cast it down upon the table with contempt. My disappointment was not long concealed from my uncle. My looks and manners betrayed at once that all was not right, and the history of my sorrow was soon told. To my astonishment, every body seemed more inclined to laugh than to weep. My father was the first to assume an air of gravity. "My dear Edward," said he, "this little incident, if properly considered, affords a useful moral lesson. In your future journey through life, when you have gone abroad into the world, and cast your eyes upon the various scenes around you, always recollect that there are two sides to the picture,-one fair and inviting, the other dark and repulsive. Be not too much dazzled by the former, nor too much depressed by the latter. Let not the mere resemblance of virtue lull you into the dangerous security of thoughtless philanthropy; nor the momentary prosperity of vice harden your heart into the callous indifference of the misanthrope. Never forget to examine both sides of the picture." When I grew up, I did not fail to profit by this advice. It has been of no little use to me, in preventing me from judging too hastily, either of apparent good or apparent evil, apparent happiness or apparent grief. When I looked, for example, on the statesman, on him who could "read his history in a nation's eyes," who found himself at the helm of a great and powerful kingdom, directing, according to his will, its fleets, its armies, and its inexhaustible revenues; and when I saw him the boast and darling of the country, the being to whom all turned in admiration, whose word was law, and whose smile was sunshine-I might perhaps have allowed some foolish sentiments of envy to have got possession of my heart; but I had a remedy at hand; I watched this idol of the people a little longer, and I saw him struggling with difficulties beyond the reach of human power to overcome. Rivals thronged around him,-jea lousy and dissension rendered his councils abortive,-unforeseen accidents blasted many of his best-concerted schemes,-every domestic comfort was resigned, he lived not for himself, but others, his influence began to diminish,-white hairs gather ed on his brow, the sun of his glory set, he retired into solitude, and died forgotten. "Alas!" said I to myself, "here are two sides to the picture." Again, when I met with Youth and Beauty glittering in the crowded drawing-room, or fixing the gaze of the enraptured theatre, or moving in the light of her loveliness through the graceful dance, when the festive wreath of health and happiness that bloomed upon her brow seemed to be composed of immortal flowers,when the perpetual halo of good humour played round her lips, and when they were opened but to give utterance to the melodious tones of joy,-was it not hard to have the discovery forced upon you, that in all this there was something unreal?— that there were solitary hours of fatigue, and vexation, and pain,-that the lips could relinquish those smiles for the bitter sneer of contempt and hatred, that the melody of gentleness could be exchanged for the harsh accents of reproach and anger, -that, under the heavenly exterior which bounteous Nature had bestowed, lurked all the evil passions of the human heart, that vice had yielded to virtue its customary homage of hypocrisy, but that the mask could be only too easily removed, and that then might be seen at once the two sides of the picture! When, turning to different scenes, I contemplated the holy servant of religion, guiding a multitude to heaven by the force of his precepts and instructions, comforting the afflicted, re-assuring the wretched, encouraging the humble, rebuking the presumptuous, assisting the contrite, and raising, like a ministering angel, the standard of human excellence,-how could I help saying within myself, who could stand a comparison with a man like this? A little further investigation, however, dissolved the charm. I discovered that religion was too often assumed as the cloak of knavery; that it was easy to talk of heaven and the joys of eternity, when the heart was all the time devoted to the enjoyments of sense, and every hope was connected with the present existence; that it was no difficult task to preach to others, in pompous and indignant terms, of the necessity of subduing the passions, and keeping the heart with all diligence, whilst he who thus declaimed laughed his own doctrine to scorn by the daily practice of his life. In short, I was able to say with the Italian poet: Sotto un velo sagrosanto ognora, Frammischiando, si attenta anco ministra It is indeed melancholy, but it is nevertheless true, that even here there are two sides to the picture. Frequently and ardently have I longed for fame, the fame, not of an Alexander or a Cæsar, but of that far nobler sort by which the efforts of genius, in unravelling the mysteries of mind, or extending the boundaries of science, or opening the fountains of imagination, are ever sure to be hallowed. I followed with my eye the triumphant career of the poet. I saw him at first contending with difficulties under which spirits of a meaner order would have sunk; but, conscious of his innate strength, he despised the critic's power, or turned his own weapons against him. Proceeding resolutely in the course he had himself chalked out, the effulgence of his mind burst at length upon the astonished world, and shining far off, in its own unclouded beauty, among the highest stars of the galaxy, was worshipped from the distance by thousands of admiring votaries. Is there nothing enviable in a fate like this? Let the undying voice of Byron answer you the question. That voice has winded over the earth, and its echo is still heard in the most distant nations. It was the voice which ventured to rise, alone and unsupported, against the mysticism of bigotry, the prejudice of ignorance, and the hy pocrisy of guilt. It was the voice that roused the dormant energies of the soul, and dared to laugh at the mighty heavings, and hideous contortions, and gigantic throes of swollen and bloated greatness,-the voice that knew how to annihilate the impotent vanity of titled power, and exalt the genuine majesty of unambitious vir tue! Yet who asks if Byron was fortunate? Who knows not his unhappy story? Crossed and disap pointed in his domestic affections, neglected by those to whom the ties of blood ought to have endeared him, an exiled wanderer over the earth,unpossessed of a single spot he could call his home, the object against whom were unsparingly directed the poisoned arrows of scandal, and malice, and envy;-and now that he has died-died in his youth, and in a foreign land, and in the cause of liberty-his glorious memory is polluted by the scribbling of newspaper hirelings; and they who have barely sufficient talents to write an intelligible sentence on the petty politics of the day, presume to offer criticisms on the productions of a mind which they never understood, and to damn, with their faint praise, the efforts of a genius whose sublime powers have shed additional lustre over human nature, and added another argument in favour of the immortality of the human soul! Look, then, to the poet, and, as you look, confess that there are two sides to the picture. The same truth extends to every condition and rank of life; nor is it confined in its application merely to the insulated circumstances of an individual; it will be found to apply, with equal certainty, to the moral and political state of nations. Nay, philosophers who have contemplated the universe, and investigated the laws of nature, have sufficiently proved, by the widely different results to which their discoveries have led, that, even in considering the universe, they have seen different sides of the picture. Happiest he, whose well-regulated mind, or natural cheerfulness of disposition, induces him to look with a lenient eye on the errors, and with a placid com→ posure on the misfortunes, which, as long as he inhabits the earth, will stare him in the face wherever he turns. His eye loves to rest on that which is fair and pleasing; and whatever he does not find in unison with his own benevolence and good humour, he softens down into a shade less sombre, arraying the dark and the gloomy in hues of brightness they never knew before. To him it is of little consequence what side of the picture presents itself. He can look at either with complacency, and find beauty in both. H. G. B. Poetical Epistle to G. M. DEAR M., our landscapes faded lie, How better may I pass the hour There autumn's brief, but brilliant day, Where Fingal fought, and Ossian sung; At that sweet hour, when fades the day When on the hearth the blazing pile Such as the voice each lay that mourns, Along the deathless page of Burns. Ye sons of song! whose strains are fraught With broken heart and wounded mind: Oft, when on high the harvest moon Above the sheer and foaming fall; Oh! there doth Superstition gray There take awhile her latest stand, Alas! that from the march of truth, To thee, my Friend, 'twere vain to say We left such lovely forms as ne'er CLASSICAL REVERIES. No. VI. THE difference of termination which prevails in the various inflections of the Latin nouns, arises, as is well known, from the conjunction, or complete uniting and incorpora tion, of suffixes, which modify the signification of the original word. These suffixes becoming, from the very circumstance of their union, stationary, are, of necessity, greatly generalized, in order to answer the various purposes for which, as auxiliaries, they were originally adopted. Hence, we find the terminations is, i, m, and e, used in a very general sense, so as to render it necessary, in translating them into English, to make use of a great variety of English auxiliaries," with, from, in, or by." Ruddiman's equivalent of the ablative termination might be greatly extended; and the same process of extension might, with equal propriety, be applied to the rest of the cases. Hence there originates, as may readily be supposed, a certain ambiguity of sense in the use and application of the Latin cases. One is often at a loss whether to resolve the termination by one or by another of our English auxiliaries, or, as they are termed, signs. "With a sword,' is quite a different thing from "in a sword," or even "from a sword;" and yet all these notions are couched in the one Latin expression "gladio.' It is quite true that the generalized notion lands us in "concomitancy;" but how, in our translation of this abstract idea, are we to be conducted with certainty, and directly, to that particular modification of the general sense which was meant to be expressed? In many instances, the context, in other words, the manifest meaning of the sentence, will guide us; but in a vast number of cases, we shall still be at a loss, without some further indication of the modified meaning than what the generalized termination can convey. In this situation it is that we see "prepositions" employed with the view of fixing down clearly, and closely, the meaning of all cases, properly so called; that is to say, of all cases where any change of termination is visible*. "Úrbe" may either signify "in a city" or "with a city;" but "in urbe❞ fixes the meaning at once. In our efforts to express in English the import of the Latin cases, prepositions are employed; and the same means are adopted by the Latins, whenever the idea is not distinctly made out by the termination, in other words, by the preposition already suffixed and generalized. But the use of Latin prepositions is not even limited to such instances as would be uncertain without them; it is extended to cases where their presence is felt as a redundancy, in other words, where the signification could be readily made out without their assistance. "Ivit Romam," for example, in consequence of the generalized import of the termination "m," intimates the • We find prepositions governing, as it is termed, or conjoined with all cases, except the vocative and nominative; the dative and ablative being assumed as one. |