ning of the 17th century, and was buried near Tasso and, I believe, under the same oak. JULY 15th.-Most people know the soothing influence of a walk Beneath th' umbrageous multitude of leaves, Where The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard. It was the only rural sensation which Johnson acknowledged. But there is another woodland pleasure he would have been insensible to; that of stooping in calm reverie over a running brook, and watching the reflections of trees in the water. I have spent the sunny fragments of a sweet afternoon in this visionary enjoyment, not without endeavouring to moralize what I saw. These leaves in the stream seemed to be images of slight circumstances in life-little things that influence our hopes, successes, consolations, and pains. We are not only pleased, but turned by a feather. The history of a man is a calendar of straws. If the nose of Cleopatra had been shorter, said Pascal in his brilliant way, Antony might have kept the world. The Mohammedans have a tradition, that when their Prophet concealed himself in Mount Shur, his pursuers were baffled by a spider's web over the mouth of the cave. me The shadows of leaves in water, then, are to so many lessons of life. I call to mind Demosthenes, rushing from the Athenian assembly, burning with shame, and in the moment of degradation encountered by Satyrus. It was the apparition of his good spirit, and changed his fortune. The hisses of his countrymen melted into distance. He learns the art of Elocution; and, when he next ascended the bema, his lip was roughened by no grit of the pebble. Again: Socrates, meeting Xenophon in a narrow gateway, stopped him, by extending his stick across the path, and inquiring, "How a man might attain to virtue and honour?" Xenophon could not answer; and the philosopher, bidding him follow, became thenceforward his master in Ethics. These incidents were shadows of leaves on the stream; but they conducted Demosthenes into the temple of eloquence, and placed Xenophon by the side of Livy. We have pleasing examples nearer home. Evelyn, sauntering along a meadow near Says Court, loitered to look in at the window of a lonely thatched house, where a young man was carving a cartoon of Tintoret. He requested permission to enter, and soon recommended the artist to Charles II. From that day, the name of Gibbins belonged to his country. Gibbon walks by night among the ruins of Roman grandeur, and conceives his prose epic; Thorwaldsen sees a boy sitting on the steps of a house, and goes home to model Mercury. Opie bends over the shoulder of a companion drawing a butterfly, and rises up a painter; Giotto sketches a sheep on a stone, which attracts the notice of Cimabue, passing by that way; and the rude shepherd-boy is immortalized by Dante. Milton retires to Chalfont; and that refuge from the plague gives to us Paradise Regained. Lady Austin points to a Sofa; and Cowper creates the Task. A dispute about a music-desk awakens the humour of the Lutrin; and an apothecary's quarrel produces the Dispensary. The chancellor's Installation was approaching, and Gray had promised to compose the ode; but he could not think of a beginning. A friend calls at his rooms, and is received with the startling salutation— Hence, avaunt! 'tis holy ground: The visitor is alarmed, but the poem is commenced. That slight circumstance—a knock at the door-was the key to a splendid chamber of imagery. Slight circumstances are the texts of science. Pascal heard a common dinner-plate ring, and wrote a tract upon sound. While Galileo studied medicine in the University of Pisa, the regular oscillation of a lamp suspended from the roof of the cathedral attracted his observation, and led him to consider the vibrations of pendulums. Kepler determined to fill his cellars from the Austrian vineyards; but, disputing the accuracy of the seller's measurement, he worked out one of the "earliest specimens of what is now called the modern analysis." Cuvier dissects a cuttle-fish; and the mystery of the whole animal kingdom unfolds itself before him. A sheet of paper sent from the press, with the letters accidentally raised, suggests the embossed alphabet for the blind; and a physician, lying awake and listening to the beating of his heart, contributes the most learned book upon the diseases of that organ. Thus, in life and science, the strange intricacies and unions of things small and splendid are clearly discerned. Causes and effects wind into each other. "By this most astonishing connexion-these reciprocal correspondences and mutual relations-everything which we see in the course of nature is actually brought about; and things, seemingly the most insignificant imaginable, are perpetually observed to be necessary conditions to other things of the greatest importance." History is a commentary on the wisdom of Butler. A proclamation furls the sails of a ship; and Cromwell, instead of plying his axe in a forest-clearing of America, blasphemes God, and beheads his sovereign at home. Bruce raises his eyes to the ceiling, where a spider was struggling to fix a line for his web; and instead of a crusader, we have the hero of Bannockburn. No fountain of beauty is unshadowed by leaves. Slight circumstances in books, pictures, or statues, often make the strongest impression upon the memory. I recollect an instance in the Faëry Queen:-Una, wandering in search of the Red-Cross Knight, after traversing uninhabited wildernesses, discovers a pathway of beaten grass In which the track of people's footing was. Again, in the Italy of Mr. Rogers:-Twilight began to close round the poet after a day at Pompeii; and as he stood by the house of Pansa, Bright and yet brighter, on the pavement glanc'd, |