EVENING IN JUNE. SEE! how the glories of the sinking day To drink fresh pearl-drops from the ocean's breast. The violet-colored atmosphere is rife With twice ten thousand perfumes, like a bee, Whose loaded pinions bear away the life Of bud, and flower, and rose, and incense tree, That mingle sweetly in a loving strife With the luxurious winds of Araby; And thoughts of bliss upon the senses creep, Cool and delicious as the kissing stream To the spent doe, when the far-dying strain To the parched leaves, or as a morning dream From the green forest aisles and woven bowers In floating ecstasy, would lean to hear; And now the wing of a most sweet repose And the light waves that on its margin break, But lo! the stars are gazing through the deep To smooth the fringes of the drooping eye. P. B. THE EDITOR'S TABLE. JUNE-lavish June! the prodigal of the months-the carnival of nature—the season for all things animate and inanimate to glory-leafy and beautiful June-welcome! It is true we are a poor, confined worshipper of thine-shut up and tasked ingloriously, with scarce more than the recollection of the idle-time in which our heart first grew to thee, to remind us of thy presence-yet we know thy breath as it comes in at our window, and in the straggling elm we planted in our boyhood, flinging out now its pale leaves broadly over the side-walk, we recognize thy rich workmanship, and remember thee with a leaping heart, and a devotion as fervent as thy freest minion's, to thy love and service! Nature is never perfect in our northern latitude till the middle of June. The leaves are all unfolded in May; but (why, or whether it is a general fact, we are not naturalist enough to know,) there is always, after this, a period of from one to three weeks, when the growth is quite checked, or so slight as to be imperceptible. The pale glossy green of the foliage remains day after day without deepening a shade, and the thin and translucent leaves seem only to lose the curve of the bud, as the wind fans them open. The red shoots of the maple show the same feathery edges, and the late catalpas do not even start their germs till this pause is over. may be the providence of Nature against the unseasonable frosts-preserving her juices to replenish the shrunk veins that have been touched by the cold; but whether it is this, or only a caprice of vegetation, it is to us one of the most delightful phenomena of Spring. That delicious season always seems too brief; and to have it arrested, with all its mild beauty and tenderness, is an answer to one of the most yearning and impatient feelings of the soul. If life could be so checked!-If childhood could be so stayed ! It The warm months will soon put all the world in motion, and by the end of June, the idle and wealthy of the whole country are met at the different watering-places. The Springs -Lebanon, and Saratoga, and Ballston-are perhaps the liveliest; and Niagara must be seen at least once; and Lake George, for a two days' scenery-hunting, is the most exquisite spot in nature; but for a month-for a summer campaign—for a place to go and be quietly and serenely happy and healthyfor a spot, in short, which combines every means for pleasure with the greatest varieties of natural scenery-Nahant against the world! It is within an hour's sail of Boston, (two steamers running constantly through one of the most beautiful bays on the Atlantic,) or a twelve miles' drive by land, in from one hour to two, (our old horse Thalaba shall set you down at Pulpit Rock in less time,) part of the way over a beachwhich is too fine to be described in the tail of a paragraph. Nahant is a bold, rocky promontory, jutting far out into the ocean, and forming the northern arm to the Bay of Boston. It is, at some states of the tide, an island, and even at ordinary high water, the narrow ridge of sand thrown up by the swell which meets around it, is only passable for pedestrians when the tide begins to ebb. The beach, which slants out from this ridge to the sea, at so slight a declivity as to look almost level to the eye, is soon left bare, and a surface of sand is presented, broad enough for fifty carriages abreast, without a pebble, and beaten so hard by the constant break of the sea, that the wheel leaves no trace upon its face as it passes over. It is like driving on polished marble. For an hour after the tide has left it, the hard sand retains water enough among its close particles to make a perfect mirror.* We have watched Thalaba's clean fetlocks striking up at every step, as if from a spirit horse traversing the air beneath -the mane of the unreal shadow flowing out with his from : * The Beach is very well described in the popular Nahant SONG :- And the beach is bared like a floor of stone. There's not a shell on its breadth of sand, The lifted hoof is mirrored there, And the sand gives back, like a breathless tide, The flying wheel leaves not a trace, In your noiseless speed, as with wings of wind. Away! away! the gull walks down To the verge last seen when the tide is gone; the sea-wind, and the expanded nostril and high-bred action pictured as perfectly as if it were painted on the bottom of the sea. It is glorious to ride there. For two miles the broad unbroken floor stretches away into the finest trotting ground conceivable, and the invigorating breeze, added to the fear of the waves, excites your horse to his utmost spirit and speed. There are only two or three hours in the twenty-four, when you have not room enough for a race upon the beach, and of course it forms a constant amusement for the gay parties who crowd the hotels. There is room for all. The slow carry-all of the invalid is undisturbed on the high sand, and the stately phaeton of Mr. Million keeps its way just below, and the four crack Stanhopes, trotting for Champagne, between that and the sea, shoot rapidly by, (Thalaba ahead,) one wheel just touching the water, and the thin and gliding sheet of the tide-edge sweeping up occasionally from a "tenth wave," and giving us the appearance of racers upon the surface of the deep. If there is anything more exhilaratingmore like magic-pleasure than this, we have not heard of it. Then for the wonders of Nahant-" the Lions," as they are profanely called-there is no one place in this country of natural wonders, where they are in greater abundance or grandeur. To those who have never taken a voyage particularly, it is curiously interesting. You will sit hours and watch the "ground-swell" of the sea-the rising and falling, not of the waves, for this is when the ocean's face is like a mirror, but of an immense plain, broad enough for a hundred ships to ride upon its bosom, heaving up slowly and majestically into the horizon, and falling again, as if the foundations of the sea were giving way. Or you will go out upon the rocks and sit at the mouth of some one of the many caverns, listening to the various music of the coming and retreating tides a compass to which that of the wind is a child's breath -from the deep thundering of the tenth wave, to the low gurgle and shell-like cadences of the first. Or you will go to the "Spouting Horn," if the wind is East, and the tide coming strongly in, and sit upon the jutting precipice above, to watch the white bow of the spray forced up through its subterranean channel, and appearing as if it shot from the bosom of the rock. Or you will join the music party in the "Grotto" at low tide; or explore the dark recesses of the "Swallows' Cave;" or, with a book and a pleasant companion, lounge away a still afternoon in the cool cavern beneath the Natural Bridge, the Pulpit Rock towering above, and the waters rushing hoarsely about its base. The rising of the moon over the sea is another wonder-the shadowy sail crossing and heaving in its golden path with the long, measured swell, and the topmasts, as its orb lifts above the horizon, laid sometimes like dial-hands upon its face-and the sunsets, glorious as visions of heaven, leaving their red glow upon the white topsails in the distance, long after the western hills look dark, and the sea-birds have disappeared from the sky. Then the air is never sultry there, and never chill; and the company, from the nature of the place, is select and rational; the parties at the private cottages are free and delightful; and the tables are supplied from the sea at their very feet, and the daily markets of the city. The Epicurist of beauties and Burgundies-the lovers of sentiment and sea-shores-the cognoscenti of scenery and Sauterne, may all be gratified here. For fishing swimming or driving, for sailing or shooting, for eating or sleeping cool, for clear spirits and excitement strong enough to take a city," and constant enough to foil the foul fiend by the week together-Nahant against the world! 66 Perhaps the most startling circumstance that has ever occurred in the annals of literary tilting, is the late appearance of Mr. Thomas Campbell in the lists to break a lance for Lady Byron. We scarce knew at first what to think of it. The critics so trumpeted his chivalry, and the "aside" people so quoted and lauded it, that it was a calendar month at least, before we had courage to make up our mind-a process which, spite of our reverence for the author, has resulted in the opinion, that it is the most absurd piece of Quixotism that has astonished the world since the time of Cervantes. How the writer of the most pure and exquisite poetry of the age-the delightful author of Gertrude and the Pleasures of Hope-he who has been, however others may have excelled him in power, the allowed oracle of taste-how he could have done such a thing at all, and done it so clumsily too-is an enigma which, supposing him sane, our poor philosophy in vain endeavors to unravel. The attempt and the manner are, we cannot but think, both discreditable to him. He has lowered Lady Byron by the first, and he has surely infringed upon the almost sacred reputation he enjoyed, by the last. The impression after reading Moore's Byron was eminently favorable to the wife of the poet. No woman in England would have been met by an impartial reader with more respect, more deep interest than she. The very fact that she has hitherto maintained a dignified silence-that, through all the years of calumny, and what is more, through all the opportunities, not |