week-day has still to her something of a Sabbath feelinga solemnity that sweetly yields to the gladness and gaiety of life's human hours, whether the sunlight be astir in every room of the busy house, or the " or the "parlour-twilight illumined by the fitful hearth, that seems ever and anon to be blinking lovingly on the domestic circle. Humble in her happiness-fearful of offence to the Being from whom it is all felt to flow-affectionate to her earthly parents, as if she were yet a little child-pensive often as evening, yet oftener cheerful as dawn-what fears need you have for your Theodora, or why should her smiles sometimes affect you more than any tears?

Can a creature so young and fair have any duties to perform? Or will not all good deeds rather flow from her as unconsciously as the rays from her dewy eyes? Noshe is not the mere child of impulse. In her bosomsecret and shady as is that sacred recess-feeling has grown up in the light of thought. Simple, indeed, is her heart, but wise in its simplicity; innocence sees far and clear with her dove-like eyes; unfaltering where'er they go, be it even among the haunts of sin and sorrow, may well be the feet of her who duly bends her knees in prayer to the Almighty Guide through this life's most mortal darkness; and "greater far than she knows herself to be," is the young Christian lady, who sees a sister in the poor sinner that in her hovel has ceased even to hope; but who all at once on some gracious hour, beholds, as if it were an angel from heaven, the face of one coming in her charity to comfort and to reclaim the guilty, and to save both soul and body from death.

Yes, Theodora has her duties; on them she meditates both day and night; seldom for more than an hour or two, are they entirely out of her thoughts; and sometimes does a faint shadow fall on the brightness of her countenance, even during the mirth which heaven allows to innocence, the blameless mirth that emanates in the voice of song from her breast,- -even as a bird in spring, that warbles thick and fast from the top-spray of a tree in the sunshine, all at once drops down in silence to its nest. A life of duty is the only cheerful life; for all joy springs from the affections; and 'tis the great law of nature, that without

good deeds, all good affection dies, and the heart becomes utterly desolate. The external world, too, then loses all its beauty; poetry fades away from the earth; for what is poetry, but the reflection of all pure and sweet, all high and holy thoughts? But where duty is,

"Flowers laugh beneath her in their beds, And fragrance in her footing treads;— She doth preserve the stars from wrong,

And the eternal heavens, through her, are fresh and strong."

And what other books, besides her Bible, doth Theodora read? History, to be sure, and romances, and voyages and travels, and-POETRY. Preaching and praying is not the whole of religion. Sermons, certainly, are very spiritual, especially Jeremy Taylor's; but so is Spenser's Fairy Queen, if we mistake not, and Milton's Paradise Lost. What a body of divinity in those two poems! This our Theodora knows, nor fears to read them,-even on the Sabbath day. Not often so, perhaps; but as often as the pious spirit of delight may prompt her to worship her Creator through the glorious genius of his creatures!

And what may be the amusements of our Theodora ? Whatever her own heart-thus instructed and guardedmay desire. No nun is she-no veil hath she takenbut the veil which nature weaves of mantling blushes, and modesty sometimes lets drop, but for a few moments, over the reddening rose-glow on the virgin's cheeks. All round. and round her own home, as the centre, expand before her happy eyes, the many concentric circles of social life. She regards them all with liking or with love, and has showers of smiles and of tears too to scatter, at the touch of joys or sorrows that come not too near her heart, while yet they touch its strings. Of many of the festivities of this world-ay, even of this wicked world-she partakes with a gladsome sympathy-and, would you believe it?Theodora sometimes dances, and goes to concerts and plays, and sings herself like St. Cecilia, till a drawingroom in a city, with a hundred living people, is as hushed as a tomb full of skeletons in some far-off forest beyond the reach of the voice of river or sea!

Now, were you to meet our Theodora in company,

ten to one you would not know it was she; possibly you might not see any thing very beautiful about her; for the beauty we love strikes not by a sudden and single blow,— but-allow us another simile-is like the vernal sunshine, still steal, steal, stealing through a dim, tender, pensive sky, and even when it has reached its brightest, tempered and subdued by a fleecy veil of clouds. To some eyes such a spring-day has but little loveliness, and passes away unregarded over the earth; but to others it seemeth a day indeed born in heaven, nor is it ever forgotten in the calendar kept in common by the imagination and the heart.

Would you believe it?—our Theodora is fond of dress! Rising up from her morning prayer, she goes to her mirror; and the beauty of her own face-though she is not philosopher enough to know the causes of effects-makes her happy as day-dawn. Ten minutes at the least-and never was time better employed-has the fair creature been busy with her ten delicate fingers and thumbs in tricking her hair;-ten more in arranging the simple adornment of her person; and a final ten in giving, ever and anon, somotimes before the mirror, and sometimes away from it, those skilful little airy touches to the toute-ensemble, which a natural sense of grace and elegance can alone bestow-of which never was so consummate a mistress-and of which Minerva knew no more than a modern Blue. Down she comes to the breakfast-table; for a spring-shower has prevented her from taking her morning walk;-down she comes to the breakfast-table, and her presence diffuses a new light over the room, as if a shutter had been suddenly opened to the east.

DESCRIPTIVE POETRY.

(Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1830.)

DESCRIPTIVE poetry is either the most dull or the most delightful thing in the united kingdoms of art and nature. To write it well, you must see with your eyes shut-no such easy operation. But to enable you to see with your eyes shut, you must begin with seeing with your eyes open-an operation, also, of much greater difficulty than is generally imagined-and indeed not to be well performed by one man in a thousand. Seeing with your eyes open is a very complicated concern--as it obviously must be, when perhaps fifty church-spires, and as many more barns, some millions of trees, and hay-stacks innumerable, hills and plains without end, not to mention some scores of cities, towns, villages, and hamlets, are all impressed-tiny images-on each retina-which tiny images the mind must see as in reflection within these miraculous mirrors. She is apt to get confused amidst that bewildering conglomeration--to mistake one object for another-to displace and disarrange to the destruction of all harmonies and proportions-and finally, to get, if not stone-at least, what is perhaps worse, sand-blind. The moment she opens her mouth to discourse of these her perceptions, the old lady is apt to wax so confused, that you unjustly suspect her of a bad habit; and as soon as she winks, or shuts her eyes, begins prosing away from memory, till you lose all belief in the existence of the external world. Chaos is come again— and old John Nox introduces you to Somnus. The poem falls out of your hand-for we shall suppose a poem-a composing draft of a descriptive poem to have been in itbut not till you have swallowed sufficient of one dose to produce another doze that threatens to last till doomsday.

We really cannot take it upon ourselves to say what is the best mode of composition for a gentleman or lady of poetical propensities to adopt with respect to a descriptive poem-whether to sketch it, and lay the colours on-absolutely to finish it off entirely-in the open air, sitting under the shade of an elm, or an umbrella; or from a mere outline, drawn sub dio, to work up the picture to perfect beauty, in a room with one window, looking into a backcourt inhabited by a couple of cockless hens, innocent of cackle. Both modes are dangerous-full of peril. In the one, some great Gothic cathedral is apt to get into the foreground, to the exclusion of the whole country; in the other, the scenery too often retires away back by much too far into the distance the groves look small, and the rivers sing small—and all nature is like a drowned rat.

The truth is-and it will out-that the poet alone sees this world. Nor does it make the slightest difference to him whether his eyes are open or shut-in or out-bright as stars, or "with dim suffusion veiled"—provided only the iris of each " particular orb" has, through tears of love and joy, been permitted for some twenty years, or thereabouts, to span heaven and earth, like seeing rainbows. All the imagery it ever knows has been gathered up by the perceiving soul during that period of time-afterwards 'tis the divining soul that works-and it matters not then whether the material organ be covered with day or with night. Milton saw without eyes more of the beauty and sublimity of the heavens than any man has ever done since with eyes-except Wordsworth;-and were Wordsworth to lose his eyes-which heaven forbid—still would he

"Walk in glory and in joy,

Following his soul upon the mountain side."

The sole cause of all this power possessed by the poet over nature, is the spirit of delight, the sense of beauty, in which, from the dawning of moral and intellectual thought, he has gazed upon all her aspects. He has always felt towards her "as a lover or a child"-she hath ever been his mother-his sister-his bride-his wife-all in one