of Providence to redeem me from the evil was of old. Happier, because remorse has which stormy passions uncontrolled must been followed by repentance, and by the have brought upon me for ever. The hope, that through that repentance not only change in my temper has cast a light over shall I be forgiven, but that the "sins of my household, which, even in my days of the father may not be visited upon the chilmourning and remorse, is happier than it dren."

It was a summer's eventide,

Soft, swert, and silent, warm and bright,
And all the glorious landscape wide,
The lowly thorn, the tree of pride
The grass blades marshall'd side by side,
Wore, thicker than the cope of night,
Innumerable drops of light

Shed from a passing cloud and dun,
That journeyed towards the sinking sun
On the upper wind's impatient wing,

And blushed as it drew near the presence of its king.

That brilliant baptism cool and brief,
Flung from the font of summer skies,
Came with a fresh and full relief

To all the countless shapes and dyes
That sprang from earth's prolific veins,
And drank the rich and genial rains.
For all the languid leaves and flowers,
In tangled brakes and cultured bowers,
In level fields and hollow dells,
By woodside walks and mossy wells;-
The fair and many-folded rose,
Reclining in a proud repose;

The wallflower's mass of cloudy fire,
The limber bine ar d blooming briar,
The clover filled with honey-dew,
Things of familiar form and hue,
Sent such a gush of incense up

From bell and boss, from crown and cup,
As seemed to burden all the air
With nature's breath of silent prayer,
And send that joyous draught of rain
In sublimated sweets back to the skies again!

From Sharpe's Magazine.
"ANOTHER MAN!"

"By all means save some."-1 Corinthians ix. 23.

POETRY.

MARRIAGES A TEST OF NATIONAL PROSPERITY.-minish in hard times. The general character of We have two independent and infallible gages of the people for caution and thrift, aided by some parnational prosperity,-two markets, by the activity tial observation of facts, would easily suggest such and depression of which the rise and fall of for- an opinion. These returns demonstrate it. The tune, the ebb and flow of hope and fear in the com- coincidence of the fluctuation is constant. When munity, may be fairly measured,—namely, the Mo- men fancy that prosperity is seized, they incline to ney-market and the matrimonial market. These wed, and commence a family, just as they do to take are our certain social barometers. No instrument a shop, a mill, a mine, and begin a business. Gothat was ever invented could register the state of the verned by prudential considerations, the Englishatmosphere with fidelity like these. The two, far man rarely marries, except when he believes in the apart as they may seem, are closely connected in security of his prospects. This may seem a small the nature of the influences to which they are sub- affair; but it is really a most valuable trait in the ject. The bad times of the one are the bad times of character of a nation and tells greatly in its results. the other. Few smiles are at the second when dole- As a matter of course, the number of marriages ful faces are at the first. Marriages, in fact, are re-annually, notwithstanding some fluctuations, has gulated by the same laws as govern the rise and fall gradually increased during these ninety years. In of funds. When brokers smile upon you, maids 1756 they numbered 96,600; in 1845 they had inare also kind; when Bank Directors woo you to creased to 287,486. These figures are about as 1 to take credit, parents and guardians woo you to take 3, and they are respectively the lowest and highest wives. Love weaves his witcheries with the Three in the series. The average of the 10 years 1756-65 per Cents.; suits militant at 88 are sure to be trium- was 112,549; that of the 10 years 1837-46 was 248,phant at 98. But let the Bank grow coy, and the 050, or more than double. But within these terms maids, the fickle ones!-grow coy as well. When the fluctuations are numerous, corresponding most gold is plentiful wedding-rings are as cheap in remarkably with the rise and fall of the country's England as crosses of the Legion of Honor in prosperity. For example, during the three years France. But when bills are scarce, banns are also 1788, 89, 90, the weddings were almost stationary, scarce, and licenses not to be thought of. The al- the numbers being 140,064, 141,392, 141,296. In tars lose their attractions when discounts are heavy. 1791 they rose to 145, 186, and in 1792 to 149,838Who would think of marrying when quotations run nearly 10,000 in five years. This fact at once sughigh at Mark lane? It would be madness to think gests some extraordinary change of fortunes. Turn of it. Cupid, though but a bungler, is too acute for to the historical records, and we see the mystery that. It is only after a fruitful summer that the im- cleared up. From 1790 to 1792 the price of wheat mortal urchin ventures to gather in his harvest. fell from 55s. a quarter to 43s. a quarter; the Three Only when the sun shines will he undertake to per Cents. rose from 77 to 90. Through the recent make hay. Wise and prudent youth! He shuns introduction of manufacturing power, the capital of dark days,-avoids misfortune, veils his sunny face the country was rapidly increasing. The interest in hard, unprosperous times, to re-appear and return of money, both in the funds and in ordinary investto his mischief only on the dawn of brighter pro- ments, was low. Brindley had introduced the canal mises. Such is the grave and important proposi- system; canals became the rage. Companies were tion,-stript of its scientific expression,-which is formed, schemes projected, funds subscribed. Every enunciated, and, so far as the data yet collected will kind of money was plentiful, and matrimony admit, demonstrated in the "Eighth Annual Report amongst the rest. But a change soon crossed the of the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths, and spirit of that dream. People began to suspect the Marriages in England," just published and laid be- value of their investments. Re-action commenced. fore Parliament. On the 1st of February, 1793, France declared war against England. Then followed a terrible crisis. In April a commission was appointed by Pitt to inquire into the causes of commercial distress. Thousands were ruined.

A history of England, illustrated by the facts of the marriage register, is a curious and interesting subject. No one can overrate the value of correct statistics in tracing the progress and development of nations. It has for a long time been known, or at least suspected, that in this country marriages are most frequent in days of prosperity and greatly di

Brides and bridegrooms were now at a discount. They were a drug in the market. For some years the registers record a sad tale of domestic calamity.

In 1795 the weddings had fallen to 137,594-less than they had been since 1783!

EASY WAY OF GAINING OR LOSING FIVE YEARS OF LIFE.-Early rising has been often extolled, and The fluctuations in the general returns embrace extolled in vain; for people think that an hour's adthe whole of the nation; but sometimes a high ditional sleep is very comfortable, and can make average year presented a low average in particular very little difference after all. But an hour gained places; thus Manchester was often, on account of or wasted every day makes a great difference in the the tremendous impetus recently given to its in- length of our lives, which we may see by a very sim dustrial energies, given to "weddings and rejoic-ple calculation. First, we will say that the average of ings," when the remainder of the land was reduced mankind spend 16 hours of every 24 awake and emto a state of comparative "single blessedness." It ployed, and 8 in bed. Now, each year having 365 was the same with Liverpool, Birmingham, and other days, if a diligent person abstract from sleep 1 hour great towns. Sometimes the picture was reversed. daily, he lengthens his year 365 hours, or 23 days of Thus in 1789, a bad year for the whole nation, the 16 hours each, the length of a waking day, which marriages in Birmingham were 903; but in 1792, is what we call a day in these calculations. We so prosperous to the kingdom, they amounted to will take a period of 40 years, and see how it may only 606! The political riots of the time will rea- be decreased or added to by sloth or energy. A dily occur to the reader in explanation of the cir- person sleeping 8 hours a-day has his full average cumstance. But the truth is, the decline was not of 365 days in the year, and may therefore be said caused by the riots; for the increase of disorder and to enjoy complete his 40 years. celibacy were equally the effects of causes lying open to appreciation. At that time a considerable number of workmen in the iron districts depended for their prosperity upon the manufacture of shoebuckles. In one of her caprices, Fashion had placed her ban upon buckles; henceforth, she said, let shoes be fastened with laces! The manufacturers of Birmingham, Walsall, and Wolverhampton, appealed, by petition, to the Prince Regent. He proinised his influence aud example. On the strength of this promise hundreds of persons invested their fortunes in buckles. There was to be a state procession in London on the recovery of George III., and buckles were expected to beat strings out of the field, and become again the rage. But, alas for all these hopes! the King went to St. Paul's in ties, buckles were non-plussed, and the manufacturers ruined. Herein, probably, lies the secret of the political disorders in the midland counties in 17912, &c.-Daily News.

Let him take 9 hours' sleep, and his year
has but 342 days, so that he lives only 37
With 10 hours in bed, he has 319 days,

and his life is

In like manner, if the sleep is limited to 7
hours, our year has 388 days, and instead
of 40, we live

And if 6 hours is our allowance of slum-
ber, we have 411 days in the year and
live

35

421

-45

By this we see that in 40 years, 2 hours daily occasion either a loss or gain of five years! How much might be done in this space! What would we not give at the close of life for another lease of 5 years! And how bitter the reflection would be at such a time, if we reflected at all, that we had wilfully given up this portion of our existence merely that we might lie a little longer in bed in the morning.

ANECDOTE OF NAPOLEON.-During the rapid sojourn that he had made in Belgium, in 1810, NapoROMANTICISTS. It may not be altogether superflu-leon, according to his habit, went one morning, very ous to explain what Strauss and the Germans mean plainly dressed, to walk in the gardens of the Lackby a Romanticist (Romantiker). The Romanticist en Palace, accompanied by an aide-de-camp, where is one who, in literature, in the arts, in religion, or he met a young man who was occupied in arrangin politics, endeavors to revive the dead past; one ing some flowers. He was pleased with the frank who refuses to accept the fiat of history; refuses to and prepossessing features of the young botanist, acknowledge that the past is past, that it has grown and began a conversation with him. The young old and obsolete; one who regards the present age man who was the son of the head-gardener-he had as in a state of chronic malady, curable only by a studied with great care and economy the history of reproduction of some distant age, of which the pre- the vegetable world-he could name, without hesisent is not the child, but the abortion. Poets, who tation, the foreign and complicated names that the see poetry only in the Middle Ages, who look upon over-learned have given, often in so ridiculous a fairy tales and legends as treasures of the deepest manner, to the most graceful productions of nature. wisdom; painters, who can see nothing pictorial in He spoke of the Sedosanthe, the Aristoloche, the the world around them; theologians, who can see Rahoa, the Sceroxilion, the Hydrochardee, and no recognition of the Unspeakable except in super- thousands of plants with difficult names, as another stition, who acknowledge no form of worship but would have talked of spinach and parsley. He the ceremonies of the early church; politicians, who knew the nature and property of each plant-in would bring back "merrie England" into our own short, it was botany personified, in a young man of sad times by means of ancient pastimes and white twenty-two. waistcoats-these are all Romanticists. It is quite clear that, however modern the name, the Romanticist is not a new phenomenon. There have ever been-will ever be-men who escaping from our baffling struggle with the Present, dream of a splendid Future, where circumstance is plastic to their theories, or turn themselves lovingly towards the Past, in whose darkness they discern some streaks of light, made all the more brilliant from the contrast-this light being to them the only beacon by which to steer. Antiquity had its Utopists and Romanticists, as we have our Humanitarians and Puseyites.-Edinburgh Review.

"Are you comfortable in your situation here?" says the Emperor, speaking with interest. "Yes, Sir," replied the young artist, who was far from supposing the rank of the person who interrogated him. "I live in the midst of what I love, but I am only an assistant to the head gardener." Napoleon never disapproved of ambitious ideas. He had remarked in the young florist his profound study, and the interest he took in his profession. would you like ?" says he. "Oh," said the young Belgian, "what It would like is madness." "But still let me know," says the Emperor. "It would require a fairy to realize the dream that has often

"What