avoided. He never fatigues us by learned antithesis, nor by the parallelism of proverbial grace, and picturesque effect. The vivacity of his youth never wholly deserted him; although he ceased writing humorous works, it served to animate his graver histories, and to give them a charm which the mere annalist could not attain. His life, on the whole, was fortunate; his fame came in season for him to enjoy it; his works brought him his bread, honestly earned, and not merely the monumental stone. Other authors may perhaps excite more of our wonder or reverence, but Irving will be remembered with delight and love. Irving's last years were spent at Sunnyside,' near Tarrytown, N. Y. He was never married. Miss Matilda Hoffman, the lady to whom he was betrothed, having died at the age of eighteen, he remained faithful to her memory; and her Bible, kept for so many years, was upon the table at his bedside when he died.”

The Grave.

Oh, the grave! the grave! It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies moldering before him? But the grave of those we loved,-what a place for meditation! There it is we call up, in long review, the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us, almost unheeded, in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene; the bed of death, with all its stifled griefs, its noiseless attendants, its mute, watchful assiduities; the last testimonies of expiring love; the feeble, fluttering, thrilling-oh, how thrilling!-pressure of the hand; the faint, faltering accents struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection; the last fond look of the glazing eye, turned upon us even from the threshold of existence! Aye, go to the grave of buried love and meditate! There settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited, every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being who can never, never, never return, to be soothed by thy contrition.

If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent, if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth, if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee, if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart which now lies cold and still beneath thy feet, then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle

action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at thy soul; then be sure that thou wilt lie down, sorrowing and repentant on the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear, more deep, more bitter because unheard and unavailing.

Rural Life in England.

The stranger who would form a correct opinion of the English character must not confine his observations to the metropolis. He must go forth into the country; he must sojourn in villages and hamlets; he must visit castles, villas, farmhouses, cottages; he must wander through parks and gardens, along hedges and green lanes; he must loiter about country churches, attend wakes and fairs, and other rural festivals, and cope with the people in all their conditions, and all their habits and humors.

In some countries, the large cities absorb the wealth and fashion of the nation; they are the only fixed abodes of elegant and intelligent society, and the country is inhabited almost entirely by boorish peasantry. In England, on the contrary, the metropolis is a mere gathering-place, or general rendezvous, of the polite classes, where they devote a small portion of the year to a hurry of gayety and dissipation, and having indulged this carnival, return again to the apparently more congenial habits of rural life. The various orders of society are therefore diffused over the whole surface of the kingdom, and the most retired neighborhoods afford specimens of the different ranks.

The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the rural feeling. They possess a quick sensibility to the beauties of nature, and a keen relish for the pleasures and employments of the country. This passion seems inherent in them. Even the inhabitants of cities, born and brought up among brick walls and bustling streets, enter

with facility into rural habits and evince a turn for rural occupation. The merchant has his snug retreat in the vicinity of the metropolis, where he often displays as much pride and zeal in the cultivation of his flower-garden and the maturing of his fruits as he does in the conduct of his business and the success of his commercial enterprises. Even those less fortunate individuals who are doomed to pass their lives in the midst of din and traffic, contrive to have something that shall remind them of the green aspect of nature. In the most dark and dingy quarters of the city, the drawing-room window resembles, frequently, a bank of flowers; every spot capable of vegetation has its grass plot and flower-bed and every square its mimic park, laid out with picturesque taste and gleaming with refreshing verdure.

Those who see the Englishman only in town are apt to form an unfavorable opinion of his social character. He is either absorbed in business or distracted by the thousand engagements that dissipate time, thought and feeling, in this huge metropolis; he has, therefore, too commonly, a look of hurry and abstraction. Wherever he happens to be he is on the point of going somewhere else; at the moment he is talking on one subject his mind is wandering to another; and while paying a friendly visit, he is calculating how he shall economize time so as to pay the other visits allotted to the morning. An immense metropolis like London is calculated to make men selfish and uninteresting. In their casual and transient meetings, they can but deal briefly in common places. They present but the cold superfices of character-its rich and genial qualities have no time to be warmed into a flow.

It is in the country that the Englishman gives scope to his natural feelings. He breaks loose gladly from the cold formalities and negative civilities of town; throws off his habits of shy reserve, and becomes joyous and free-hearted. He manages to collect around him all the conveniences and elegancies of polite life, and to banish its restraint. His country seat abounds with every requisite, either for studious retirement, tasteful gratification, or rural exercise. Books, paintings, music, horses, dogs, and sporting implements of

all kinds, are at hand. He puts no constraint either upon his guests or himself, but in the true spirit of hospitality provides the means of enjoyment, and leaves every one to partake according to his inclination.

The taste of the English in the cultivation of land, and in what is called landscape gardening, is unrivaled. They have studied nature intently, and discover an exquisite sense of her beautiful forms and harmonious combinations. Those charms, which in other countries she lavishes in wild solitudes, are here assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They seem to have caught her coy and furtive glances, and spread them, like witchery, about their rural abodes.

Nothing can be more imposing than the magnificence of English park scenery. Vast lawns that extend like sheets of vivid green, with here and there clumps of gigantic trees, heaping up rich piles of foliage. The solemn pomp of groves and woodland glades, with the deer trooping in silent herds across them; the hare, bounding away to the covert; or the pheasant, suddenly bursting upon the wing. The brook, taught to wind in the most natural meanderings, or expand into a glassy lake-the sequestered pool, reflecting the quivering trees, with the yellow leaf sleeping on its bosom, and the trout roaming fearlessly about its limpid waters; while some rustic temple or sylvan statue, grown green and dark with age, gives an air of classic sanctity to the seclusion. These are but a few of the features of park scenery; but what most delights me, is the creative talent with which the English decorate the unostentatious abodes of middle life. The rudest habitation, the most unpromising and scanty portion of land, in the hands of an Englishman of taste, becomes a little paradise. With a nicely discriminating eye he seizes at once upon its capabilities, and pictures in his mind the future landscape. The sterile spot grows into loveliness under his hand; and yet the operations of art which produce the effect are scarcely to be perceived. The cherishing and training of some trees; the cautious pruning of others; the nice distribution of flowers and plants of tender and graceful foliage; the