ARIA.

(Sotto Voce.)

We used to spend the opening Year in the country-but for a good many seasons have been tied to town by fetters as fine as frost-work filigree, which we could not break, without destroying a whole world of endearment. That seems an obscure image-but it means what the Germans would call in English-our Winter Environment.-We are imprisoned in a net of our own weaving-an invisible net-yet we can see it when we choose--just as a bird can see, when he chooses, the wires of his cage, that are invisible in his happiness, as he keeps hopping and fluttering about all day long, or haply dreaming on his perch with his poll under his plumes-as free in confinement as if let loose into the boundless sky.-That seems an obscure image too; but we mean what Wordsworth says, that the prison to which we doom ourselves is in truth no prison at all-and we have improved on that idea, for we have built our own-and are prisoner, turnkey, and jailer all in one, and 'tis noiseless as the house of sleep.-Or what if we declare that Christopher North is a king in his palace, with no subjects but his own thoughts-his rule peaceful over those lights and shadows-and undisputed to reign over them his right divine.

The opening Year in a town, now, answers in all things to our heart's desire. How beautiful the smoky air! The clouds have a homely look as they hang over the happy families of houses, and seem as if they loved their birthplace;-all unlike those heartless clouds that keep stravaiging over mountain tops, and have no domicile in the sky!-Poets speak of living rocks, but what is their life to that of houses? Who ever saw a rock with eyesthat is, with windows? Stone-blind all, and stone-deaf, and with hearts of stone; whereas who ever saw a house without eyes-that is, windows? Our own is an Argus; yet the good old Conservative grudges not the assessed taxes, his optics are as cheerful as the day that lends them light, and they love to salute the setting sun, as if a hundred beacons, level above level, were kindled along a mountain side. He might safely be pronounced a madman who preferred an avenue of trees to a street. Why, trees have no chimneys; and, were you to kindle a fire in the hollow of an oak, you would soon be as dead as a Druid. It won't do to talk to us of sap, and the circulation of sap. A grove in winter, bole and branch-leaves it has none-is as dry as a volume of sermons. But a street, or a square, is full of" vital sparks of heavenly flame" as a volume of poetry, and the heart'sblood circulates through the system like rosy wine.

But a truce to comparisons; for we are beginning to feel contrition for our crime against the country, and, with humbled head and heart, we beseech you to pardon us-ye Rocks of Pavey-Ark, the pillared palace of the Storms -ye Clouds, now wreathing a diadem for the forehead of Helvellyn—ye Trees, that hang the shadows of your undying beauty over the "one perfect chrysolite" of blessed Windermere !

Our meaning is transparent now as the hand of an Apparition waving peace and goodwill to all dwellers in the land of dreams. In plainer but not simpler words, (for words are like flowers, often radiant in their simplicity witness the Lily, and Solomon's Song,) Contributors, and Subscribers, and Readers, all, we wish you a happy New Year, in Town or in Country-or in Ships at Sea!

A happy New Year!-Ah! e'er this ARIA, sung sotto voce, reach your ears, (eyes are ears, and ears eyes,) the Week of all Weeks will be over and gone, and the New Year will seem growing out of the Old Year's ashes! For the Year is your only Phoenix. But what with Time to do has a Wish -a Hope, a Prayer? Their power is in the Spirit that gives them birth, and there they are immortal-for Spirit never dies. And what is Spirit but the Well-head of Thoughts and Feelings flowing and overflowing all life, yet leaving the Well-head full of water as ever-so lucid, that on your gazing intently into its depths, it seems to become a large soft spiritual Eye, re

flecting the heavens and the earth! And no one knows what the heavens and the earth are, till he has seen them there-for that God made the heavens and the earth we feel from that beautiful revelation-and where feeling is not, knowledge is dead, and a blank the universe. Love is Life. The unloving merely breathe. A single sweet beat of the heart is token of something spiritual that will be with us again in Paradise. " O, bliss and beauty! are these Our Feelings"-thought we once in a dream-" all circling in the sunshine-fair-plumed in a flight of doves!" The vision kept sailing on the sky-to and fro for our delight-no sound on their wings more than on their breasts-and they melted away in light as if they were composed of light-and in the hush we heard high-up and far-off musicas of an angel's song.

That was a dream of the mysterious night; but now we are broadawake and see no emblematical phantoms, but the mere sights of the common day. But sufficient for the day is the beauty thereof and it inspires us with affection for all beneath the skies. Will the whole world, then, promise henceforth to love us and we will promise henceforth to love the whole world?

It seems the easiest of all easy things to be kind and good-and then it is so pleasant!" Self-love and social are the same," beyond all question; and in that lies the nobility of our nature. The intensest feeling of Self is that of belonging to a brotherhood. All Selves then know they have Duties which are in truth Loves-and Loves are Joys-whether breathed in silence, or uttered in words, or embodied in actions-and if they filled all Life, then all Life would be good-and heaven would be no more than a better earth. And how may all men go to heaven? By making for themselves a heaven on earth, and thus preparing their spirits to breathe empyreal air, when they have dropped the dust. And how may they make for themselves a heaven on earth? By building up a happy HOME FOR THE HEART. Much, but not all-oh! not nearly all-is in the Site. But it must be within the precincts of the Holy Ground-and within hearing of the Waters of Life.

Pleasures of Imagination! Pleasures of Memory! Pleasures of Hope! All three most delightful Poems-yet all the Thoughts and all the Feelings that inspired them-etherealized-will not make-FAITH! "The day-spring from on high hath visited us !" Blessed is he who feels the beauty and the glory of that one line-nor need his heart die within him, were a voice to be heard at midnight saying-" This New-Year's Day shall be thy last!" Singing? One voice-one young voice-all by its sweet, sad, solitary self, singing a Christmas Hymn! Listening to that music is like looking at the sky with all its stars!

Was it a Spirit?

"Millions of spiritual creatures walk unseen,

Sole, or responsive to each other's voice,
Hymning their great Creator."

But that singer, like ourselves, is mortal; and in that thought, to our hearts, lies the pathos of her prayers. The angels, veiling their faces with their wings, sing, in their bliss, hallelujahs round the throne of heaven; but she, a poor child of clay, with her face veiled but with the shades of humility and contrition, while

"Some natural tears she drops, but wipes them soon,".

sings, in her sorrow, supplications to be suffered to see afar-off its everlasting gates-opening not surely for her own sake-for all of woman born are sinful-and even she-in what love calls her innocence-feels that her fallen being does of itself deserve but to die! The hymn is fading-and fading away, liker and liker an echo, and our spirit having lost it in the distance returns back holier to the heart-hush of Home!

"Sad

Again! and with the voice of a lute, "One of old Scotland's songs so sad and slow!" Her heart is now blamelessly with things of earth. and slow!" and most purely sweet! Almost mournful although it be, it breathes of happiness-for the joy dearest to the soul has ever a faint

tinge of grief! O innocent enchantress! thou encirclest us with wavering haze of beautiful imagery, by the spell of that voice awaking after a mood of awe, but for thy own delight. From the long dim tracts of the past come strangely-blended recognitions of woe and bliss, undistinguishable now to our own heart-nor knows that heart if it be a dream of imagination or of memory. Yet why should we wonder? In our happiest hours there may have been something in common with our most sorrowful-some shade of sadness cast over them by a passing cloud, that now allies them in retrospect with the sombre spirit of grief; and in our unhappiest hours there may have been gleams of gladness, that seem now to give the return the calm character of peace! Do not all thoughts and feelings, almost all events, seem to resemble each other-when they are dreamt of as all past? All receive a sort of sanctification in the stillness of the time that has gone by-just like the human beings whom they adorned or degraded-when they too are at last buried together in the bosom of the same earth.

We are all of us getting old or older; nor would we, for our own parts -if we could-renew our youth. Methinks the river of life is nobler as it nears the sea. The young are dancing in their skiffs on the pellucid shallows near the source on the Sacred Mountains of the Golden East. They whose lot it is to be in, their prime, are dropping down the longer and wider reaches, that seem wheeling by with their silvan amphitheatres, as if the beauty were moving mornwards, while the voyagers are stationary among the shadows, or slowly descending the stream to meet the meridian day. Many forget

"The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below! "

and are lost in the roaring whirlpool. Under Providence we see ourselves on the river expanded into a sea-like lake, or arm of the sea-and for all our soul has escaped and suffered, we look up to the stars in gratitudeand down to the stars-for the water too is full of stars as well as the sky -faint and dim indeed-but blended, by the pervading spirit of beauty, with the brighter and bolder luminaries reposing on infinitude!

And may we even have a thought now of the labours of our leisure-of but small avail perhaps for others' instruction or delight, yet blameless at least -and not altogether without a salutary influence on our own life, thus sometimes saved from "thoughts that make the heart sink," and to our own imagination enveloped in no unlovely light-such as from clear or clouded moon sleeps quietly or fitfully on a river seeming subdued by the radiance, and forgetful of all its own native noise. Maga surely is no ungentle Being-and her countenance at this moment wears something of the sweetness of Calypso's smile. We have begun again, you see, to turn over the leaves of old Homer. Yet we confess it is with sadness-for Sotheby, the accomplished, the kind, the good, and the venerable, is dead-and at the thought

"Drops a sad serious tear upon our playful pen."

Our commentaries on the Iliad were approved by him the noblest of all its translators-his praise was far pleasanter to us than ours could be to him -and shall be treasured up among our most friendly remembrances of the gifted spirits with whom we have held converse here below, and who have now gone to their reward. In the Iliad, Homer's genius was said by Longinus to resemble the rising-in the Odyssey, the setting sun. And the image is as true as it is magnificent; for who can say when lost in gazing on the luminary-or thinking of him in the East or in the West, in which season and which region he is the more beautiful and sublime? It is gratifying to us to know that along with us thousands have studied Homer -who, being no Greek scholars, had read him before with unaroused spirits. Nor have we not been cheered by the commendations of not a few of the most illustrious in classical literature in all the land. Fair fields lie yet before us, and we shall take many a travel yet through the god-haunted regions of old heroic Greece. The Greek Drama! And from the high pas

sions kindling or expiring there, we shall find sweet relief among the shepherds of Sicily and with Theocritus list to them piping among the rocks all a summer's day.

Some of our friends seem to think that our articles on the Greek Anthology are at an end-but it is not so; and like a flush of flowers they will be seen brightening the banks and braes of Spring. Thanks in thousands to our numberless contributors won by the novel beauty of those lovely little poems; But oh! would they but in their kindness think how impossible 'tis for us to return upon our steps, however rich the region, when so many sweetest spots are wooing us to their untrodden dews! Let them precede us as guides through the yet unvisited scenery before us-if they will-or accompany us as new companions; but pleasant as are their presents, we fear we cannot accept them, when composed of the same flowers we ourselves have gathered, and have woven into many a garland of no transient bloom. What has become—it has been asked by many-of our promised papers upon Spencer? We have feared to enter the haunts of Faery, and have remained long sitting on the edge of the Wood of Wonders. Erelong we shall venture in; but have you not been charmed with the Hindu Drama? And remember though the world of poetry is boundless, not so our Numbers, and that our promises must wait their accomplishment in the fulness of time, which they continue to brighten as it sails by on dusky wings. Now and then a few of the feeble-nay, one or two of the strong-long to persuade themselves that sometimes our articles are -too long! So, no doubt, thinks a wren or a tom-tit, perched between an eagle's wings, as in high far flight he soars the sky or sweeps the sea. But there lies the secret of our success; avail yourselves of it all ye who can; but never could we have gained the ascendency it is universally acknowledged we possess over so many strong monthly competitors, and so swayed the mind of our country, but by such putting forth of our own power and that of our noble coadjutors, without whom we could not have won and worn the crown; and by the same means by which we have ascended our throne will we keep it and seated firmly there, look graciously around us upon the flourishing Republic of Letters.

January, 1834,
99, Moray Place,
Edinburgh.

Printed by Ballantyne and Company, Paul's Work, Canongate.