else she has not, has sunshine of as good a quality as that which streams through our window. The beautiful things that God makes are the gift of all alike. You will see that my little rose will be as well and merry in Mrs. Stephen's room as in ours."

"Well, after all, how odd! When one gives to poor people one wants to give them something useful-a bushel of potatos, or a ham, for example."

"Why, certainly potatos and ham must be had, but having ministered to the first and most craving wants, why not add any little pleasure or gratification that we may have in our power to give? I know there are many of the poor who have fine feelings, and a keen sense of the beautiful, which rusts out and dies because they are too hard pressed to procure it one gratification. Poor Mrs. Stephens, for example; I know she would enjoy birds, and flowers, and music as much as I do. I have seen her eyes kindle as she has looked on these things in our drawing-room. From necessity, her room, her clothing, all that she has must be coarse and plain. You should have seen the almost rapture that she and Mary felt, when I offered them my rose.'

"Dear me, all of this may be true, but I never thought that these hard-working people had any idea of taste."

"Then why do you see often the geranium or rose carefully nursed in an old cracked teapot in the poorest room, or the morning-glories planted in a box, or made to twine around the window. Do not all these show how every human heart yearns after the beautiful? You remember how Mary, our washerwoman, sat up a whole night, after a hard day's work, that she might make her first baby a pretty little dress to be baptised in."

"Yes, I remember, and how I laughed at you for making such a tasty, neat, little cap for it."

"Well, Katty, I think that the look of perfect delight and satisfaction with which the poor girl regarded her baby in its new dress and cap, was something quite worth

creating. I do believe she could not have thanked me nore, if I had sent her a barrel of flour."

"Well I never thought of giving to the poor anything but what they really needed, and I have always been villing to do that when I could without going far out of ny way."

"Well, cousin, if our Heavenly Father gave to us as we often give, we should have only coarse, shapeless ples of provision, lying about the world, instead of all the beautiful variety of trees, fruits, and flowers which now delight us.'

"Well, well, cousin, I suppose you are right, but pray have mercy on my poor head; it is too small to hold so miny new ideas at once; even go on your way;" and the litle lady began practicing a waltzing step before the glass with great satisfaction.

(To be continued.)

LETTERS TO THE YOUNG.

NO. XV. THE POETRY OF MILTON.

(Continued from page 139.)

Having thus pointed out what I conceive to be some of the most distinguishing characteristics of the poetry of Milton, I proceed to consider briefly, the influence which the study thereof is calculated to exert in the cultivation and levelopment of a susceptible mind. I might have alluded to other features of his poetry, such as its harmony of versification-its musical rhythm-but I need not do so. We may, my young friends, regard it as calculated to develope and expand the intellect-inspire high and pure moral feelings-and aid in the promotion of elevated and manly piety. In each of these most important respects it is peculiarly adapted to be useful. On how many

intellects has our great poet exerted a quickening and invigorating influence ! There are some writers that simply inform the mind, and add to our stock of know

ledge. There are others who, in addition to increasing our fund of information, at the same time stimulate, invigorate, and strengthen the mental powers. They corstrain us to think. They infuse into us a measure of their own vigour of soul. This is pre-eminently the case with Milton. Many of the most eloquent and powerful writers, thinkers, and orators, who have lived since Milton's poetry was published, have been laid under the deepest obligation to "the old man eloquent." Edmund Burke, one of the greatest orators and most vigorous thinkers of any age, was an early student and enthusiastic admirer of the poetry of Milton; and Todd, in his life of Milton, and Prior, in his life of Burke, each intimate that the great parliamentary orator was, probably, much indebted, forhis ultimate power and popularity, to the early influence of Milton's inspiring poetry. Robert Hall, the most eloquent pulpit orator of his time, literally "revelled in Milton." John Foster, whom Sir James Mackintosh pronounced one of the most eloquent and powerful writers that this country has produced, was, from a very early age, a most warm and admiring student of Milton's poetry. In his very celebrated Essays he pays the following tribute to the great bard:- "Milton's consecrated genius might harmoniously have mingled with the angels that announced the Messiah to be come, or that on the spot, at the moment of his departure, predicted his coming again; might have shamed to silence the muses of pa ganism; or softened the pains of a Christian martyr.” Lord Brougham, in his portrait of the celebrated forensic orator Lord Erskine, speaks of Erskine's acquaintance with Greek as being so imperfect as to unfit him for enjoying and benefiting by the model orators of Greece. But he was a most enthusiastic student of Milton; had read his great poem so often as to have almost committed it to memory; and Brougham, a most competent judge, says, that the speeches in Paradise Lost are the very best substitutes for the orations, in their original state, of Demosthenes, and the other famous Greek orators. The great American orator and statesman, Daniel Web

ster, was also an early admiring student of Milton. Macaulay-who began his brilliant career as a writer for the "Edinburgh Review," by contributing a very eloquent aricle on Milton, from which I have made several quotations in these Letters-thus speaks in that paper on the infuence that Milton exerted over his own, richly gifted, mind—“The sight of his books, the sound of his name, aré refreshing to us. His thoughts resemble those celestial fruts and flowers which the virgin martyr of Massinger sent down from Paradise to the earth, distinguished from the productions of other soils, not only by their superior bloom and sweetness, but by their miraculous efficacy to invigorate and to heal. They are powerful not only to delight, but to purify." And in his recently published "History of England,” he has thus beautifully spoken of Milton "A mightier spirit, unsubdued by pain, danger, poverty, obloquy, and blindness, meditated, undisturbed by the obscure tumult which raged all around, a song so sublime and so holy, that it could not have misbecome those ethereal beings which he saw, with that inner eye which no calamity could darken, flinging down on the jasper pavement their crowns of amaranth and gold." I may also add to these the testimony of the poet Campbell; he says, The powers of Milton's Hell are godlike shapes and forms; their appearance dwarfs every other poetical conception. When we turn our delighted eyes from contemplating them, it is not their external attributes alone that expand the imagination, but their souls, which are as colossal as their stature-their thoughts, that wander through eternity-the mind, that burns beneath the ruins of their divine natures-and their genius, that feels with the ardour and debates with the eloquence of Heaven." These eloquent words suggest to my mind the following remarkable passage from the first book of Paradise Lost, which I shall here transcribe

Thus far these beyond

Compare of mortal prowess, yet observed
Their dread commander: he, above the rest

In shape and gesture proudly eminent,

Stood like a tower; his form had yet not lost
All her original brightness; nor appear'd
Less than archangel ruin'd, and the excess
Of glory obscured: as when the sun, new risen,
Looks through the horizontal misty air
Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds

On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs. Darken'd so, yet shone
Above them all the archangel: but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd; and care
Sat on his faded cheek; but under brows
Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride
Waiting revenge: cruel his eye, but cast
Signs of remorse and passion, to behold
The fellows of his crime, the followers rather
(Far other once beheld in bliss), condemn'd
For ever now to have their lot in pain :
Millions of spirits for his fault amerced
Of heaven, and from eternal splendours flung
For his revolt; yet faithful how they stood,
Their glory wither'd: as when heaven's fire
Hath scathed the forest oaks, or mountain pines,
With singed top their stately growth, though bare,
Stands on the blasted heath. He now prepared
To speak; whereat their doubled ranks they bend
From wing to wing, and half enclose him round
With all his peers: attention held them mute.
Thrice he assay'd, and thrice, in spite of scorn,
Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth: at last,
Words, interwove with sighs, found out their way.

I need not say, my young friends, that this is a most
powerful and sublime passage. Every reader feels it to
be so.
And the repeated perusal of such poetry, which
abounds in Milton, will tend both to invigorate, enlarge,
and expand young minds.

The poetry of Milton is as calculated to inspire the