Lathesis, who seems to have spun the sublime brains of Eschylus out of thunder-clouds, has made mine of earth-my nature is to walk, not soar. But, tell me, Eschylus, for although I cannot conceive, I would desire to know, how do you inspire yourself to produce such mighty conceptions— what art do you use?"

"Art ?" returned the old poet, his great vague eyes filled with a wondering light within their cavernous sockets. "Art-none. I cannot tell how I compose. Conceptions come to me like lightning in flashes across the dark, midnight sea, and filling my soul, compel me to give them form. To me it seems a divine life and work to paint the thoughts and actions of the old gods and heroes, to purify humanity by pictures of pity and terror. When at such hours I abandon my soul to the power of the muses, it seems to rise and expand into a sphere of deitific existence."

"Thus," said Hiero," while you, Ecshylus, are a king of Terror, and you, Epicharmus, one of Laughter, I am but one of Men. Wherever your poems are read, even to the remotest generations, your empire will extend, whereas mine will end with my life."

"Not so," exclaimed Pindar; " to found and to civilize a people is to create a living and everlasting poem.'

"But meanwhile, as Eschylus and I have been speaking of our different turn for composition," said Epicharmus, "Simonides has remained silent, though he could, doubtless, be eloquent, if he pleased, on the description of poetry in which his genius delights."

Upon this, Simonides, raising his pale brow, which had been declined in a listening attitude, and glancing at the old poet-masters with melancholy, beautiful eyes, said:

"To me the human mind, in its various forms and powers, seems to resemble the natural world and sky. Some souls are like the mountains, which, rising to heaven, throw their majestic shadows across the earth, some are gifted with the power of the thunder, which at once terrifies the heart, and purifies the atmosphere, such is Eschylus; while others resemble the sun, which illumines, warms, and, while rendering productive, beautifies all things. One may fancy that the poets of love owe the birth of their genius to the influence of this orb, as those of sorrow to the cold, melancholy moon. But all such forms of poetry are divine, nay, even the comic no less, which improves mankind, by laughing away absurdity. As, however, what we name as poetic genius, is a power of feeling, seeing, and creating what is beautiful and terrible, more than ordinary minds are capable of, so the object of the poet is to perpetuate in language, such supreme insights and imaginings, by which the minds of mortals may be purified and beautified. Thus an erotic poem or elegy, embodying the divinest feelings of life-love and sorrow, happiness and affectionate regret—no loss than tragedy, or heroic rhapsody, becomes, when eternised by art, a perpetual possession, to elevate, purify, beautify and felicitate all intelligent souls. For me, having loved and suffered, I sing best that which I best understand. But you, oh Pindar, whose genius is of the same grand order as that of Eschylus,-how came you, child of Homer, to sing the praises

of Olympic combatants, rather than chaunt the achievements of ancient heroes, or shake the stage with a tragic fable?"

"Thou seest Etna yonder," said Pindar, pointing to the stupendous form of the mountain, whose fiery head flamed remote in the blue darkness of the evening. "So stands Homer, supreme among poets. To rival him is impossible, and the poet who would shape a little Iliad, like the god who would heave a little hill beside that great work of the Titans, would become but ridiculous by the contrast. It therefore, seemed more appropriate in me to sing of the Olympic games, than of the wars of the past, especially as living heroism, no less than that of tradition, demands an immortal memorial poetic song."

LAST.

Many years have rolled by, and the life of Simonides, which has been passed in the exercise of those bright poetic powers, which had endeared his imagination and heart among all people to whom his verses have reached, is drawing to a close. It is his death day.

The Sicilian autumn sun beams goldenly on a garden attached to a small marble-pillared mansion, which stands at some distance from Syracuse, on the slope of the southern promontory, overlooking the beach and blue sea. It is noon, and the old poet, assisted by a slave, pac s feebly toward his favourite seat by a spring of crystal water, over whose mossy rocks the leaves of a few old pine trees, rooted in the sides of the declivity, waver their trembling shadows. As the slave, according to custom, leaves him to his meditations, Simondides looks with sad eyes on the beautiful earth, and sea, and sky, from whose presence he feels he is about to depart for ever.

His soul, nevertheless, is bright and calm as the day, whose air is without a cloud, and without a sound, save, at intervals, when the song of some halcyon unseen, rippling the stillness, melodious faint, from the azure waters beneath. Sometimes his memory reverts to his past life-its scenes of love and sorrow, of patriotic battle, of poetic contest.* As at times old songs and elegies, worked out in happy moments of inspiration, come breathing their music in his ears, his aged heart seems re-animated with a second youth, and he seems to breathe the air of immortality. Then these harmonies fade away, and in the bubbling play of the spring anear he seems to listen

*Both Eschylus and Simonides fought at the battle of Salamis, (480 B.C) four years after which, Hiero, who had distinguished himself as a general. in wars between the Sicilians and Carthagenians ascended the throne of Syracuse. Both Aschylus and Simonides also died in Sicily, the former, 24 years after the great victory achieved by the Greeks over the hosts of Persia, which Herodotus has described in his history, and Eschylus in his tragic drama of the " Persians." Simonides, in the interval between his first and second visit to Sicily, had passed many years in the cities of Asia and of Greece, where he became famous for his odes, composed in celebration of the victors of the Olympic games; but if we are to judge from the allusions of ancient writers, his finest works are his elegies, in which the pathetic genius which he manifested had no parallel among ancient poets. Catullus, who has possibly imitated his style, in some of his carmina," refers to the melancholy tone which characterised his best poetry.

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to the wordless language of its nymph, whispering him happy omens; and passing fancies, gay and sad, are called into being from the murmur of the leaves around him, rustling gently in the soft sea wind, and changing in trembling lights and shadows as they move.

As the orb begins to round westward, throwing the shadow of the rocky declivity upon the garden, Simonides, beckoning the slave, asks him to assist him to the sands at the end of the promontory, where he can enjoy a last look of the setting sun. And presently they reach the desired point, where the sea, near which the splendid sphere is descending, opens with its innumerable golden-smiled waves, flowing from it like the endless years of a life brightened by some benignant Destiny.

Nearer and nearer sinks the sun to the bright remote ocean line, beneath which it enters the realms of Hades; and fainter and fainter the pulses of Simonides seem to beat in harmony with the descending luminary. The wind, too, which had breathed freshly across the ocean, waving the gray locks around the brow of the old man, has slowly ebbed into silence; and, as the sun now sinking, has half dipped into the sea, feeling his heart grow faint, and the final hour approaching, he is seen to raise his hand a moment, as though appealing to the earth, the while he murmurs some inaudible invocation.

As he does so, suddenly a shadow, on whose countenance a bright smile beams, seems to rise before him, and beckons him, advancing with outstretched arm, while, with the other, it points toward the sun, whose golden rim still lingers a second above the wave.

The next moment the head of Simonides slowly sinks on his breast, and his eyes, still fixed on the departing light, slowly close; his last sigh mingles with the sea wind; and, in the solemn, divine silence which reigns around-hark! from the distant ocean, still tinged with the gold of the sunken sun, the sound of the waves floats in soft cadences around him, like the voice of a melancholy glory.

THE CURE OF LA VENDÉE.

No person is ignorant of the topography of La Vendée. Its eventfu history has so interested the world in everything connected with it, that it is unnecessary for me to enter into any descriptive particulars. When first its scenic beauty met my youthful eyes, I thought it surpassed any place I had previously seen. That part of it which is called Le Bocage, or "the thicket," is particularly interesting; the surface, though in general level, is yet sufficiently irregular to afford a most picturesque and diversified landscape, gently swelling hills, and extensive plains, innumerable woods, and groves, dense as the recesses of a forest, and a thousand streams and canals traversing the meadows in every direction, and clothing them with a verdure of the most luxuriant green, all unite in the scene.

It

seemed to me impossible that any artist could convey to his canvass Nature as I saw it here spread before me. It was such as the delusive imagination would people with the nymphs and swains of the olden poets, rather than contemplate as the theatre of the melancholy and inhuman scenes which had been enacted there some forty years before I visited it.

Traces of that barbarous warfare were still everywhere visible, the ruins of churches and hamlets, and the wild, uncultivated gardens and orchards bore ample testimony to the footsteps of war and desolation.

During my short stay at Chantonay, I became intimate with the Curè, a venerable and intelligent old man. He often accompanied me through the country, and pointed out those gloomy monuments I have alluded to. He took a mournful pleasure in indicating those places made remarkable by the victories won by the brave Vendeans, in their well-contested struggles, but which were afterwards blotted out by the blood that flowed in the massacres of Thurreau.

One day feeling fatigued in our excursion-for the sun's heat was oppressive-the good old man led me some distance from the path, to a shady grove, with which he seemed familiar.

Here a large square stone had been converted into a seat, at the base of which ran the waters of a crystalline brook, whose low murmurings seemed like mystic music, as it glided through the sombre shade beneath the spreading trees.

Soon after we had entered this delightful retreat my venerable companion became silent and gloomy. In vain I endeavoured to direct his attention to the various objects of beauty, by which we were surrounded ; he did not seem to heed them, and to my incessant and kindly-meant questions he merely nodded, or answered in monosyllables. His eyes, which were fixed on an opening vista in the grove, I perceived were moistened, and feeling that some painful associations must be connected with the place; I rose hoping to lead him from the spot. He was conscious of my intention, and immediately commenced to excuse his emotion, and to apologize for his want of attention to me.

On my expressing anxiety to learn what it was that thus affected him, he said, with some embarrassment, "there were circumstances connected with the place of a very gloomy character, and which could never recur to his memory without throwing a shade of sorrow over his mind. As they form," continued he, "the principal features in the story of my life, and may serve to satisfy the curiosity which my conduct must have excited, the relation of them may, perhaps, be interesting to you."

I expressed my sense of his kindness and the pleasure it would afford me to hear the events of his past life; and now I give these to the reader as accurately as I possibly can from memory.

"My story, sir," said the old man, "varies but little from that of thousands of my countrymen, as the bloody pages of history will tell you; auy particular traits of misfortune in my tale of Vendean woe, having, perhaps, for their origin, merely sentiment and feeling.

My father's cottage stood a few hundred paces from that ruined

village, where just now I have been pointing out to you the traces of civil war. There was I born, and there I passed the happy moments of my childhood, and the still more delightful ones of early youth, when opening life is capable of mingling the sweets of rational pleasure with the simplicity of innocence. Now I look almost in vain for a vestige of those dear by-gone scenes. My native fields are trampled down, the orchard and the garden have quite disappeared, and the flocks of the stranger are folded at night 'neath the once happy, happy home. Yet there my father and my most loving mother once stood. I venerate the spot; each little blade of grass which has sprung up in their footsteps are to me so many dear monuments of nature, sacred to their memory! But, pardon me; such outbursts of feeling in one of my years, and in one professing such mild principles of Christian philosophy must astonish you. Alas! when the evening of life is chilled with wind and rain, and exhibits nothing but a bleak, cheerless gloom, we cannot recall without regret the glow of sunshine which warmed us in the morning!

"In addition to the fond caresses of my parents, and the many endearments which usually accompany the first years of youth, my happiness received an exquisite relish from the company of a young man, with whom, at a very early age, I entered into the strictest ties of friendship. His name was Lariviére.

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Our acquaintance commenced at school, where our course of studies brought us closely together. His taste, together with the wishes of his family, induced him to adopt the study of medicine, while my inclination led me to the choice of the ecclesiastical profession; but this diversity of object, as regarded our future career, did not in any way interfere with the tendencies of our friendly feelings.

"Philosophers say, that to constitute a permanent friendship, the opinions and interests of the parties should never be at variance, and that a certain degree of similarity in views and feelings should exist. Lariviére and I were almost twin-born in thought and action. Our ages, literary attainments, and tastes were similar; both acted as if moved by one impulse.

"The emotion which I exhibited some moments since, is accounted for when I tell you, that here, where we now rest, we had a bower, which was our constant resort. We called it the grotto of Egeria. The unfailing hand of time has been busy with it since last he and I sat here. In that lapse of years, many a branch has decayed on the beeches and elms, and over our romantic nook luxuriate tall weeds, brambles, and encrusted moss.

"This place, as I before said, was our retreat; here we used to retire after the toils of study to enjoy the pleasure of rational conversation; this rock was our couch, this rivulet our mirror, the rays of evening's crimson sun our fitful torch. Here, with my arm flung carelessly over Lariviére's shoulder, would I read aloud the most pathetic passages of history, the finest pieces from the ancient poets, and the most beautiful and imaginative romance. My friend, in silent rapture, would listen, his head reclining lovingly on my bosom, his hand now and then holding the book along with