his poultry-yard, his rabbits or his singing-birds, and the thousand other harmless amusements and employments which used to make a long summer's day seem only one hour of enjoyment. Nor will it be necessary to mention the names of those ancient games on which the very learned Martinus Scriblerus has left so

full a commentary-the Apodidascinda, or puss in the corner, the game of chuck-farthing, which Julius Pollux calls Omilla, and the building of houses and riding upon sticks, Edificare casas, Equitare in arundine longa, which, says the same learned author, have been used by children in all ages; though he doubts whether the riding on sticks did not come into use after the age of the

Centaurs.

Of our next recollection, the highest, and heavenliest of any, we know not whether we can or ought to speak in dull prose; and yet should we touch our lyre, the harping of its strings would, we are afraid, be sadly unworthy of the theme, and, we hope, of the taste of our readers. It is not however a subject which suits with the solid and grave appearance which a closely-printed page of prose wears; and we must therefore entreat pardon if the symmetry of our next page or two should be broken with the number of beautiful quotations which even now begin to hasten from our pen. The "soote season," the May of our life, the time

"When passion first waked a new life through our frame,

And our soul, like the wood that grows precious in burning,

Gave out all its sweets to Love's exquisite flame," is the true food for reverie, as the French call it, and always continues to be, until the spirit is blighted in the atmosphere of the world, and the world's crimes have "brushed from the grape 'its soft hue," and left in the place of the purest feelings of our nature vanity, 'and anguish, and ashes. The writer to whom the above lines belong, is the true poet of youth, with much or most of its follies and giddy-headedness, but with all its sparkling enchantment and bounding life. He knows the windings of a young heart as well as any one, and he tells us that the hallowed form of a first love

"Lingering haunts the greenest spot In memory's waste.”

It is indeed a relic of Eden, an organic remain of that former world in which innocence and happiness were the portion of humanity. This recollection is NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No. 81.

the sweetest of our life. It was not well in a fair authoress to say

"Time steals on in silence to efface Of early love each pure and holy trace." But it is vain in us to attempt to describe those feelings of which the human heart and the works of our best

poets are full.

us,

Mr. Godwin says that a man's relations ought to find no more favour in his eyes than any one else. For our own part we must say, and we think our readers will with agree that there is a something in the heart, call it affection, habit, or prejudice, with which we regard those who have given us life, and those with whom we have enjoyed it, that we are neither able nor willing to transfer to the first man or woman we may happen to meet in Fleet-street; and we must confess that were our father and the archbishop of Canterbury upset in a boat, we should feel very much inclined to save the former at the expense of the latter, even though his Grace's life were of infinitely has not given us such feelings in vain, more importance to the state. Nature and we may safely follow them as the true guides to virtue and happiness. In the indulgence of them indeed some of the finest and purest pleasures of life are remember with tender regret the circle

to be found. The man who does not

of well-known and cheerful faces which used to assemble round his father's fireside the man who has forgotten the countenances of his own kindred, should look well to his heart, for he may depend upon it, that if his memory fail him in this point, all is not well within. The parental and the filial affections are perhaps the most enduring of our nature, embracing as they do all the strong holds, which benefits conferred and received without any worldly sense of obligation to rouse pride or jealousy, are the means of securing. It is an unfortunate feeling of our nature, that we cannot with unmixed pleasure look on the face of a benefactor; the integrity of man revolts at the idea of receiving an obligation which he has not deserved; his pride, his just pride, is roused at enjoying benefits to which his merits have not entitled him; and it is in vain that his generous friend assures him that he does not seek, and will not receive, a return. No high and honourable man can feel a pleasure in reaping where he has not sown; and the most delicately conferred favours are nothing more than VOL. XIV. 3 C

the donations of charity, where the person benefitted is incapable of making a return. But none of these feelings, which are so favourable to independence of character, have place between a father and a son, or where a brother receives a kindness at the hand of a brother. The receiver then accepts it freely, because he knows and feels that he should be equally ready to bestow, and the gift itself is made, in the language of the lawyers, "in consideration of natural love and affection." All the ties of friendship may be dissolved by unkindness or forgetfulness; but the bonds of relationship, however they may be loosened by time or circumstance, can never be wholly broken. We scarcely remember any where a finer picture of maternal tenderness than the story of the Widow and her Son (in the first volume of the Sketch-Book)*, which is a fine portraiture of these beautiful affections of our existence. There is indeed

"No sanctity of touch like that Wherewith a father blesses the bent head Of an affectionate and gentle child.—”

The recollections of ancient friendship give rise to some of the pleasantest feelings which we are capable of experiencing. Friendship arises out of the resemblance of characters and circumstances, and in general where these are incompatible no true affection can exist. If the truth were to be told, perhaps it might be said that friendship is only an extension of the principle of self-love, and that we are attached to others only because in many points they resemble ourselves. But whatever may be the truth of the case, we shall not enter into a disquisition on the subject at present, or attempt to pass off upon such of our readers as have not been recently at school, a few pages of Cicero de Amicitia as our own composition. We only mean to talk about the pleasures which the memory of long-past friendship is

This is decidedly one of the best works which we have received from the other side of the Atlantic, though, by the way, we believe the author of it, Mr. Washington Irvine, has long been, and still is, a resident in this country. His reputation as a writer stands very high in America, and it bids fair to do the same in England. There is much both of fine feeling and fine writing in his compositions, although they may perhaps be thought by some rather too flowery. The Sketch-Book is one of the liveliest and pleasantest periodical publications which have been written in the English language for many years.

capable of affording, the existence of which fact there are few whose heads are as grey as ours that can doubt. How feelingly Cowley speaks of the pursuits of his young days, which he enjoyed in the company of a friend—

Say, for ye saw us, ye immortal lights,

How oft unwearied we have passed the nights!
We spent them not in mirth, or lust, or wine,
But search of deep philosophy,
Wit, eloquence, and poetry,

Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were
thine.

It was a king of Spain, we believe, who is reported to have said that there were four things to which he was particularly attached, old wine to drink, old wood to burn, old books to read, and old friends to converse with. There certainly is no trusting the characters of others without the test of long experience; and it is impossible that we can feel that sure reliance on the friendship of a new acquaintance which we do when we grasp the hand of an old friend. Time tries all kinds of stability, and none more than that of friendship. He is a rarely fortunate man who can pass through life without check or change of any kind, and he is still more fortunate who finds that every mutation of life serves but to strengthen those bonds of affection which the earnest guilelessness of youth has formed. When we are young, the conviction which we feel in the virtues of others makes us easily trust every semblance of goodness and kindness; and in the hour of youthful enthusiasm we too often swear "an eternal friendship," which evaporates ere the sun goes down. In the lightness of our own volatility we forget our vow, or in the unworthiness of the object we are absolved from it, and we turn with the same trusting simplicity again to offer our heart and to be again deceived. There is no remedy for this misfortune but Time, which teaches us too truly that it is not in every breast that we can repose our gladness and our suffering, and that we are fortunate indeed if we can find one bosom which we can make the sure depository of our own heart. It is only upon a friendship like this that the mind few are there to whom fortune has given can look back with pleasure; and how indeed at one's side, who has shared such a retrospect! With such a friend every sorrow, and doubled every joy, who has been a light to our feet and a comforter to our spirit, how sweet is it to trace back the path of perils and dis

quietude which we have trodden together, and to muse over pleasures which were more delightful because we both enjoyed them. How sweet it is to think that our friend's worth and virtues have been cherished and promoted by our means, while we acknowledge the reciprocal benefit which studying so pure a heart has conferred upon our own. There can be no friendship amongst the wicked; the bond which holds them together is of sand; and the same abasing self-love which united them, will break the chain of their union whenever the prospect of a greater gratification tempts them to desert their ally. What images does the memory of such friendships present-disgust, and disquiet, and repentance. But in a virtuous friendship, even if death deprives us of the participator of our best feelings, how very sweet are the recollections which in dying he bequeaths to us-of days passed in the activity of virtuous exertion, and in the pure emulation of virtuous purposes, of high aspirations after excellence mutually inspired and cherished, and of one unvarying sentiment of deep but useful affection which could only be extinguished by death.

How fresh and how delightful are the recollections of those scenes in which we have passed hours of innocence and happiness! This attachment to local objects, wound round the heart by a thousand tender associations, gives rise to trains of thought in which melancholy and pleasure are sometimes beautifully blended. The slightest thing-a leaf a simple flower-a low-breathed air, can raise a creation before our eyes, which we thought had passed away for ever. St. Pierre heard a Frenchman in the Isle of France, sighing over the desolate scene, exclaim, "Could I see but one violet I should die happy!” He remembered amid the blight of nature the verdure of his own flower-clad vallies. The attachment of the Swiss to their country is known to every one, and how at the sound of the "Rans des Vaches," the memory of their native mountains overpowers every other feeling. This air, says Rousseau in his Dictionary of Music, was so dear to the Swiss, that it was forbidden under pain of death to be played to the troops; for it made those that listened to it melt into floods of tears, and either desert, or languish till they died, such an ardent desire did it excite in them to return to their native plains. A similar effect is attributed to a Moorish ballad, which

used to cause such immoderate sorrow in all that heard it, that at length it was prohibited. It is said that the Rans des Vaches, to the ear of a stranger, possesses very few charms, and that it resembles, in ruggedness, the mountainous country where it had its birth.

There are higher, but not sweeter associations than those which we feel in visiting scenes which have been endeared to us by the gladness or the sorrowing which we have experienced within their precincts-these more dignified associations are connected with the highest moral feelings of our nature, such, for instance, as we feel when we visit the places where the great benefactors of mankind have wrought their works, or where those noble struggles have taken place which are immortal in the hearts of mankind. Such is the plain of Runnymede, where the great charter of our liberties was signed-such is the field of Marathon, and the pass in which the Spartan stood and perished-such are the thousand venerable ruins which Rome presents to the eye of the traveller. " I can neither forget nor express," says Gibbon, "the strong emotions which agitated my breast, as I first approached the Eternal City. After a sleepless night I trod, with a lofty step, the ruins of the Forum; each spot where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, was present to my sight." It is in associations like these that almost all others are combined; they recal the days of our childhood, when we studied the virtues and the actions of those illustrious men, whose ashes have long been mingled with the common dust, and whose characters have become so familiar to our minds, that a sentiment almost like friendship animates us when we think of them.

What does Alison, in his excellent Essay on Taste, say as to these associations? "There is no man who has not some interesting associations with particular scenes, or airs, or books, and who does not feel their beauty or sublimity enhanced to him by such connections. The view of the house where one was born, of the school where one was educated, and where the gay years of infancy were passed, is indifferent to no man. They recall so many images of past happiness and past affections; they are connected with so many strong or interesting emotions, and lead altogether to so long a train of feelings and recollections, that there is hardly any scene which one ever beholds with so much

rapture. There are songs also which we have heard in our infancy, which, when brought to our remembrance in after years, raise emotions for which we cannot well account, and which, though perhaps very indifferent in themselves, still continue from this association and from the variety of conceptions which they kindle in our minds, to be our favourites through life. The scenes which have been distinguished by the residence of any person, whose memory we admire, produce a similar effect. Movemur enim, nescio quo pacto, locis ipsis in quibus eorum, quos diligimus, aut admiramur, adsunt vestigia.' The scenes themselves may be little beautiful; but the delight with which we recollect the traces of their lives, blends itself insensibly with the emotions which the scenery excites; and the admiration which these recollections afford, seems to give a kind of sanctity to the place where they dwelt, and converts every thing into beauty which appears to have been connected with them."*

There is a great deal both of beauty and truth in this extract. Every one of common sensibility must acknowledge this. And many people must have found, as Alison says, even in the scent of a flower, the memory of happier days. More frequently, however, these sensations are so dim, that we only experience a vague idea of pleasure-a sort of sentiment of a former existence, which we are not able to analyze into any remnant of past circumstance.

We wish we could get Mr. Rogers and Mr. Campbell together, and make them argue the point whether the Pleasures of Memory or Hope are greater, face to face, in verses like the shepherds

in some of Virgil's eclogues. For our parts, we should be staunch supporters of Mr. Rogers, and for a variety of good reasons, In the first place, Hope is almost sure to disappoint you, for when the object is at length obtained, which has so long been the subject of your contemplation, the reality is sure to be inferior to the mind's beautiful conception of it at a distance; on this account it is very wrong to read descriptions of fine scenery before you visit it, as you cannot help letting your fancy run on it, which will, ten to one, draw a finer picture than the original. Now Memory, on the contrary, throws a hue of beauty. over objects which, when we were near them, were, perhaps, little better than disagreeable. With what pleasure do we remember past scenes, even though we may have suffered in them, and how pleasing do even our afflictions and griefs become when they are softened and shadowed by the power of memory. And besides we are sure of memory, but the visions of hope may all deceive and forsake us. The past cannot be annihilated, but what we anticipate for the future may never arrive; and then again, if it does, we know it is but too probable it will bring disappointment with it. The mind also easily forgets past cares, and remembers only what is delightful and pleasant; while if we look forwards to a mixed scene of joy and sorrow, our eyes commonly rest on the latter. In short, the one is a reality, the other a vision-the one is irrevocably our's, the other never may be so-ten thousand casualties may destroy the "frost-work" of our hopes, but death alone can deprive us of the pleasures which memory gives.

lutionary Spain may differ from Revolutionary France. Guided by the contrast which they have on all great points, and to this hour displayed, we must in the future expect as wide a dis tinction; and as a sort of data on which

to reckon, it may not be uninteresting to trace some of the strongly opposing features in the characters of the two nations. To account for such contrarieties, on abstract principles, has baffled the speculation of many a philosopher; and if Hippocrates with regard to the Scythians, and Strabo as respecting the Medes and Armenians, laid it down as fact that climate alone produced the wonderous differences or similitudes which are found in various people, we cannot be surprised that weaker reasoners have fallen into the same belief. But Bayle was an observer of a different stamp. He treated the theory as a chimera; and attributed to political interests, and institutions of state, that difference in the characters of nations, which every one can now account for from these same influences.*

Never, perhaps, was there so striking a contrast between neighbouring states as between those of France and Spain. This is so singular and so forcible, as to have obtained, from some writers, the stronger epithet of antipathy. A Spanish doctor, named Carlos Garcia, published, in 1627, a book entitled Antipatia de los Franceses y Espagnoles. This work is little flattering to the author's nation, but we must remark that it was printed at Rouen. La Mothe le Vayer, availing himself of this publication, produced a treatise on the same subject, which he gave to the world as a translation from the Italian of Fabricio Campolini; but he afterwards avowed himself the author, and it is to be found in the folio edition of his works, printed in 1662, tom. 1. A pamphlet appeared at Paris in 1809, in which this treatise is republished, but its doctrine denied. The object, however, was sufficiently clear to keep alive the antipathy, if it really existed, or to create one if that was but imaginary. The diffuse and negligent La Mothe has been by some of his countrymen compared to Plutarch. His claim to this distinction finds however little support from the particular work before us, which, as we have mentioned, can be scarcely said to be his own.

He sets out by stating, that, as in the physical world first principles are always opposed one to the other, and that for the common good of the universe, so it was decreed by Divine Providence that the two nations, being the first

Bayle, vol. iii p. 523. edition de la Haye, 1727.

principles in the political world, (that is, the chief movers in European affairs,) as France and Spain then were, should experience the same kind of mutual opposition, in order to secure the wellbeing of empires. Among the alleged proofs of natural repugnances are those remarked between various minerals and metals. The diamond is in dissention with the loadstone, and many others are found to refuse all kind of alliance. Vegetables display their enmities, as well as attachments: the vine shrinks from the cabbage; and, finally, to destroy the fern, it is said that you have only to fix a rush to the shock of your plough-such is the antipathy of those plants, regarded when together as emblems of interminable war. In animals these feelings are less questionable. It is not only with regard to the amount of relative ill which they are enabled to inflict on each other, or the common interests which nature has given them; but it is clear that something concealed from our observation produces unaccountable effects. It is easily understood why the sheep flies from the wolf, or why the sparrow is averse to the hawk; but how are we to explain why the lion trembles at the voice of the cock? why the elephant runs before the ram? or why the horse shudders at the smell of the camel? It is these extraordinary facts that have driven many a great mind to the mysteries of occult research, and to the theory of natural sympathies and dislikes. This is all amusing and instructive both, when confined to the lower scales of nature; but when man becomes the object of speculation, and is attempted to be reduced to this level, it is something more grave than ludicrous; and in the present stage of the world can be scarcely pardoned, even in an author of two centuries back, or rather in the age for which he wrote.

La Mothe, taking his theory for fact, lays it down as such, that between the French and Spanish nations there is the same kind of natural antipathy as between the various objects before-mentioned; and such as he says individual men are prone to with regard to other men, in spite of themselves, and in opposition to the strongest efforts of reason. Without stopping to combat this monstrous, degrading, and, it is to be hoped, exploded doctrine, we shall look to the statements, and pass the reasoning, of this writer.

He says, that if we remark the reciprocal positions of France and Spain,