wretchedness or ignominy. Thus their young minds are reared in the pleasing expectation of constant affection and ultimate happiness, however the one may be attacked by force, disappointment, or interest, or the other overclouded in its course by casual misfortune, or chequered by unforeseen sorrow.

With these feelings, with these illusions of virtuous sentiments, they pass forward into life, a life which teems with

"Schemes foil'd, hearts broken, happiness destroyed."

To their hearts, it is passing from the gay clime of Eastern indolence, to the frozen region of Northern barbarity. The promised fidelity and friendship which their own hearts had vowed, are met only by deceitfulness and ingratitude. The cherished schemes of mutual affection, which fancy had formed so strong, are broken by vanity, or punctilious pique of pride." And thus all their anticipated joys

"Go out by one and one,"

some

and the high swell of visionary pleasure sinks into the aching throb of cheerless misanthropy. Here again we find the heart run into the extreme of apprehension, as far from the real gloominess of life, as their former anticipations had overleaped the mark of rational enjoyment. A gloom settles upon their minds, which the efforts of time, nor the maturity of experience, cannot dispel: their former ideas, though falsified as to the world, they still believe true as to themselves; they still think themselves capable of all the extremes of virtue, generosity, and truth, which they had vainly expected to find in others; they hang over the enchanted illusion, until their very senses shrink back in the contemplation of the beings with whom they must hold communion for life; and, at last, find but one object which their hopes and wishes dare contemplate with expectation of relief, and that is-death. Thus, in society, it is no uncommon occurrence to find youthfulness, whose social hours should be hours of vivacity, and those of retirement, of mirthful remembrance, or lively anticipation, become hours of self-imposed reserve, or of sombre reflection on the insincerity of life, and delusive wishes for its speedy close. And this, not to be accounted for upon the score of that rational philosophy which induced Young to say,

"There's not a day, but to the man of thought
Betrays some secret, throws a new reproach
On life, and makes him sick of seeing more;"

but proceeding, we are convinced, alone, from the sudden obstruction of all their long-cherished ideas of life. When the new current of life sets in upon them, they give themselves credit for having seen a world of sorrow and disappointment; grow more sullen on the belief of their own unequalled experience; and mistake for philosophy, what at best is but churlish misanthropy. These characters are to be found strewed thickly through life; and where one proceeds from real experience, or true philosophical knowledge and reasoning, there are ten which proceed from the disappointment of unreasonable hopes. Let it not be sup

posed, that the latter are entitled to no compassion; on the contrary, perhaps they merit the more; but sufficient for us is it, that it strengthens what we have ventured to assert respecting romances.

If we might be allowed to trace further this silently operating cause, we should see the discontent of the mind preying upon the health of the body, until consumption lays its withering hand upon its youthful victims.-Then, when too late, they feel the full impression of their own error-see at once how much they have lost of true life in their visionary enjoyment of it. They learn at last to live, when pressed with the full conviction that they must die; and thus quit a world, which they too much loved at first, and at last too much despised.

These are the great evils of Romance reading; and when we see how directly they strike at the root of happiness, and sow the seeds of human suffering, all the benefit of superficial blandishments, or the polish of social manners, always doubtful, and often insincere, resulting from this source, sink into comparative insignificance; and we are forced to confess, that to the inexperienced mind there are few things more dangerous in the perusal than the Romance. To those, indeed, who have

"In the original perused mankind,"

such works can be of little importance; they are content to read them as works of fancy, and smile, yet sometimes sigh, at the contrast of their scenes, with those of real life; they take them up as a relaxation from severer studies-permit their minds a moment to wander into their ideal regions then close up the book; and, as contentedly as before, descend to the mundane sphere of poor humanity.

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If, unfortunately, almost every family did not supply an example of what we have been advancing, we might produce the character of the unfortunate, or at least unhappy, Rousseau. We learn, from his own work, which": never had an example, and the execution of which will have no imitator," that the first works he was accustomed to read were romances; and when we consider this with relation to the whole tenor of his life, and the romantic nature of his own Confessions," can we doubt the influence that circumstance had on his course of life? But were this less apparent than it is, or could. we have a doubt of such influence, let the misanthropist speak for himself: "In a short time, I acquired, by that dangerous habit, not only an extreme facility of reading and understanding, but a knowledge of the passions singular for my age. I had no ideas of things, but sentiments were already known to me. I had conceived nothing-I had felt all. These confused emotions, which I experienced one by one, did not bring forth my reason, which as yet I had not, but formed another of a different cast; and gave me singular and romantic notions of human life, of which experience and reflection have never been able to cure me."

He afterwards says, that he "became the person whose life he was reading;" and through the whole memoir the same character is plainly discernible. In one part, indeed, he tells us, "The only thing that interested me in the bustle of the court was, to see if there were any princess worthy of my homage, and with whom I might act a romance.”

That Rousseau was the victim of an extreme sensibility, no one who has read his works can for a moment doubt. It is too much, perhaps, to assert, that Romance reading was the original cause of that sensibility, yet we may, without fear of contradiction, assert, that that fatal disorder was fostered and nourished by this early habit. He himself, speaking of romances, says, "My father and I read them after supper. At first the only object was, to exercise me in reading by amusing books, but the interest became so lively, that we read in turns without rest, and passed the night in that occupation. We could never leave off but at the end of a volume. Sometimes, my father, hearing the swallows in the morning, said, quite ashamed, "Let us go to bed, I am more a child than you.”

We have said enough, we conceive, to support our objection to Romance reading, and backed by such an authority we say, that parents will do well to take heed of putting them into the hands of their children, before their minds have been prepared by reading, and some little experience, to repel their pernicious effects; and we shall only add, that although romances only have been mentioned, all our observations apply as strictly to Novels, which are, indeed, romances of a less excursive nature; and which, as they approach a little nearer to real life, may, on that account, be the more dangerous. We wish not to destroy the illusions of boyhood, provided they affect not our future happiness; but, when the misery of after years is the consequence of the fairy visions which surround us in the spring-time of our existence, it is proper to prepare the young and enthusiastic mind for the knowledge of the truth, which it must, one day, inevitably discover, that the world in which it has "lived, moved, and had its being," is built upon the baseless fabric of its own fancies.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH was at the theatre one evening, during the representation of one of his comedies; at a certain part, in which the audience expressed considerable disapprobation, "Ah," said Oliver, turning to a friend who was near him, "they've found out that, have they? well, I knew it was bad long before they did," and began to hiss most heartily.

DISCOVERY IN SCIENCE.

Two boys were lately sitting beside each other at school, working sums in the Rule of Three. The one had to find, how many persons could perform a piece of work in a certain time; and the other, what sum of money was to be given for a certain quantity of cloth. The latter found his quotient came out "pounds," whilst the quotient of the former men." He, whose quotient was pounds, multiplied the remainder by twenty, to bring it into shillings; whilst the other multiplied his answer by nine, to bring it, as he said, into tailors, and actually carried his answer to the master, 26 men, 7 tailors.

was

up

66

THE LADY ISABELLE.

WHERE yon huge tower its shadow flings,
Across the sunny wave,

Lord Albert dwelt in courtly pomp,
'Mong Knights and Barons brave.

There many a Knight in youthful glee,
Hied at the trumpet's swell;

In the torney's joust to gain a smile,
From the Lady Isabelle.

The Lady looked on the gorgeous show,
She looked-but smiled not once,

Till the nodding plumes were all borne down,
Before young Edwin's lance.

Then a smile lit up her dewy eye,

And a burning blush her cheek;

And the glance was like the sunbeam bright,
And as the moonlight meek.

For Edwin was her own true love,
And she loved him passing well;
And nought to him was half so dear,
As the Lady Isabelle.

But with her smile there came a tear,
And in her glance was grief,

To think that true love's joys should be
So bright, and yet so brief.

For Edwin to the Holy Land

Was bound, with helm and spear;

To fight against the Infidel,

And earn his Knighthood there.

At the altar's foot the lovers met,
To weep a long farewell;

And breathe their vows and parting sighs,

To the long and fretted aisle.

Then the rose forsook her drooping cheek,

And her heart grew cold and dead,

And a faint farewell rose to her lips,
And died before 'twas said.

But Edwin brought her hopes anew,
By many a well told strain

Of future love, when from the wars
He should return again.

And pledged his word, when winters three,
Saint Agnes' Eve had brought,

To come again to that altar's foot,
And kneel at the holy spot.

And there with priestly benison,
And his true love at his side,
'Mid festal pomp and beauty's smile,
To hail her as his bride.

And the Knight is in his bounding bark,
And the bark has left the shore,

And the lady's eye upon the sea,
The white sail meets no more.

At time's slow step long did she pine,
Long did in secret mourn;

When circling suns at last brought near
The day of her love's return.

Then she looked from her castle wall, aye

Upon the distant waves,

Where the stormy sky in the crested sea
His angry forehead laves.

But her straining gaze was all in vain,

No lover's bark drew nigh;
Though the skiff of the lonely fisherman,
Oft mocked her tearful eye.

And thrice St. Agnes' Eve has come, Which love had marked as her own, And the sun his farewell glance hath shone, And to the caves of ocean gone.

The lady looked on his setting beam,
With the soft tear in her eye,
And aye she watched the misty wave,
Where it joined the evening sky.

But her soul grew sad, and dim her eye,
When the clouds of evening rolled,
And the curfew bell its hollow knell
Across the night-wave tolled.