caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. (Hebrews. xi, 32-40.

It was impossible for me, after having heard this quotation from the Hebrews, this exquisitely simple and beautiful enumeration of the sufferings and triumphs of the holy men of old, not to feel that I had never read any thing in the classical writings of antiquity equally touching. Nevertheless, I was in no humour to give up the contest, because I had been baffled in a single instance: I therefore replied, that thought the quotation very pleasing, but little to our present purpose; and the sun at that moment just darting his rays upon us from behind a cloud, I took occasion from thence to bring forward in the translation of Dryden, that fine description of the sun, and his progress through the heavens, which is found in the first Georgic, again expressing my regret that my little companion, by his ignorance of Latin, should be rendered incapable of reading such choice passages in the original.

"Through twelve bright signs Apollo guides
The year, and earth in several climes divides;
Five girdles bind the skies: the torrid zone
Glows with the passing and repassing sun;
Far on the right and left, the extremes of heaven,
To frosts and snows and bitter blasts are given;
Betwixt the midst and these, the gods assign'd
To habitable seats for human kind,

And, 'cross their limits, cut a sloping way,
Which the twelve signs in beauteous order sway.
Two poles turn round the globe; one seen to rise
O'er Scythian hills, and one in Libyan skies;
The first sublime in heaven, the last is whirl'd
Below the regions of the nether world.
Around our pole the spiry Dragon glides,
And, like a winding stream, the Bears divides,
The less and greater, who by Fate's decree
Abhor to dive beneath the northern sea."

The child looked earnestly at me while I was repeating this quotation, and then said, " By Apollo, aunt Ellen, do you mean the sun?"

"Yes, I said. Do you not know that Apollo was said by the ancients to have been the charioteer of the sun, VOL. III.

F

and to drive the sun in his course through the heavens every day?"

He made me no answer for a minute, and then replied"O! now I understand what is meant by the signs and the girdles."

"And do you not think, Alfred," I asked, "that these verses are very beautiful, and should you not like to read them in their original language?"

"Yes," he replied: "but if I had not learned about the zones, and the signs in the zodiac, and the poles, I should not have understood them."

"But you understand them now, Alfred?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, "some parts of them; but I can make out those verses in the Bible about the sun much better, and I like them much better."

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Indeed," I said, "and why so?"

To this he made no reply, for he had stooped down to pick up some pebbles: but I was resolved to make him speak, and therefore desired him to repeat these same verses, which he thought so fine.

"In Hebrew, aunt Ellen," he replied, blushing at the same time in a very pretty manner, "I cannot repeat them.” "Well," I said, "then let us have them in English. You know that I gave you my quotation in English."

He then without hesitation repeated the first part of the nineteenth Psalm; which, although so well known by those to whom this letter is addressed, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of giving at full length in this place.

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handy-work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof."

While the little boy was repeating this beautiful passage, I blushed, and was utterly confounded. To be so overcome by a babe was what I could not bear: I really felt indignant, and looked at the child to see if he was conscious of

his victory; but so far from that being the case, it seemed as if he had already forgotten the subject of our discourse, for having picked up some pebbles, he was now making ducks and drakes, as the children call them, in a smooth part of the brook, unmindful at the instant, not only of the sun himself, but of all things under him, excepting of the circles in the water made by his pebbles. So young, I thought, so truly child-like, and yet possessing a mind so clear, so luminous !-how is this? This child has been educated in no ordinary way. Was I his equal at his age? Am I even his equal now, although my education has been thus laboured. Can this be the effect of studying the Holy Word, simply and continually pursued from childhood? I knew not how to answer these questions, which had thus suggested themselves to my mind, and excited many uneasy thoughts. I walked on, and took the way directly leading to the valley of the water nymph, and having conducted my little companion through a shadowy and intertangled copse on the bank of the rivulet, we passed between two small hills into a narrow valley, where the tender herbage, enamelled with a thousand flowers, and the high and rugged rocks on each side, forming natural grottos, through whose cool recesses trickled several pellucid streams, of extraordinary coldness, suggested I know not what ideas of calm repose and untroubled. solitude

"Here," said I to the little boy; "here formerly dwelt the Ondine of whom I before spoke; and if you were to ask the country people round about, they would tell you a thousand traditions of her having attracted various persons to this spot by the charms of her voice, and then betrayed them into unknown snares and perils."

The little boy smiled. "Ah, aunt Ellen," he said, "you should not speak against fairy-tales and fables, for you love them very much: you have told me nothing else since we came out."

"And does your tutor never tell you fairy-tales or fables?" I replied.

"He often talks to me, when we walk, about my Hebrew he made me begin with the Psalms, and he tries to make me understand the types and emblems contained in the Bible."

"And pray what are these?" I said.

He looked at me again with some curiosity, and then smiled; but, without answering my question, he asked, "Shall I call the Ondine, and hear if she will answer me?" and, without waiting my reply, he exclaimed in a loud voice, “Lady of the woods or waters, whichever you be, you will surely answer me if you hear my voice."

The echo replied, at five different times, each repetition being more remote and softer than the last, "Hear my

voice."

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“I do! I do!" said the child, laughing heartily and clapping his hands; and then turning to me, There, aunt Ellen, there now; what do you think of that?—The lady answers me!"

"I think," said I, "that she must be no very dull lady who can answer you, Master Alfred;" and taking a little narrow path which wound its secret course up the side of the little valley of the water nymph, I went musing on, while my nephew followed me.

I began, during this walk, for the first time, to entertain some doubt as to the superiority of that education which is called classical, and to question the wisdom of presenting to the youthful mind such images as are false, however beautiful they may be, previous to its having received a knowledge of the truth. While meditating on these subjects, doubt after doubt rose in my mind; till I became completely bewildered.

In the mean time we were continually ascending; till, having passed through the wood, we came out upon a lofty pasture ground, such as in Swisserlard would be called an alp-a high and breezy lawn, fragrant with thyme and other aromatic herbs-from whence, as in a panorama, all the adjacent country became visible. Here was a shepherd in a russet coat, with his staff of office in his hand, watching his flock as he sat upon the grass, while the quiet sheep were feeding around him.

The view from these heights was so peculiarly beautiful, that this charming spot had many times previous to the present occasion been visited by me, sometimes alone, but oftener in company with my father; and I could not forget that my father had one day caused me to sit down in this place, while he read to me the famous passage, so full of pathos, in the Pastorals of Virgil, wherein the shepherd

bids adieu to his flock and the pastures in which he had been accustomed to feed his fleecy care.

"Farewell, my pastures, my paternal stock,
My fruitful fields, and my more fruitful flock!
No more, my goats, shall I behold you climb
The steepy cliffs, or crop the flowery thyme!
No more,
extended in the grot below,
Shall see you browzing on the mountain's brow
The prickly shrubs; and after on the bare,
Lean down the deep abyss, and hang in air!
No more my sheep shall sip the morning dew;
No more my song shall please the rural crew:

Adieu, my tuneful pipe! and all the world, adieu!"

It cannot therefore be a matter of surprise, if these verses, which I give you in their English garb, should have recurred to me in this very spot, on the occasion of my visiting it with little Alfred, and on my again beholding the very pastoral scene which had recalled them to my father's memory. But while I was considering them, and trying to recollect their order, my nephew exclaimed, "Aunt Ellen, I never saw a real shepherd with a crook till I left England; and I was very much pleased when I saw the first shepherd, though he was feeding his flock on darnel, by the side of the road. But this shepherd now before us looks like what I used to fancy of shepherds a great while ago."

"Why, what did you know or think about shepherds a great while ago?" I asked.

"O," replied the child, "I used to think a great deal about them when we were reading the Psalms in the Hebrew Bible, and when Mr. Gisborne showed me that chapter in Ezekiel, and the other in St. John, about the True Shepherd."

"The True Shepherd!" I answered; "and who is the True Shepherd ?"

The boy looked at me with an arch expression, and then exclaimed, "Now, aunt Ellen, I have found you out; you are pretending not to know that you may try me.' And he laughed so heartily, that, had we been in the valley of the echo, he would have made every grotto and every cavern to resound with his merriment.

I was vexed and ashamed; for my ignorance was not