attributed the rural feeling that runs through British literature ; the frequent use of illustrations from rural life: those incomparable descriptions of nature which abound in the British poets, that have continued down from "The Flower and the Leaf" of Chaucer, and have brought into our closets all the freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape. The pastoral writers of other countries appear as if they had paid Nature an occasional visit, and become acquainted with her general charms; but the British poets have lived and revelled with her-they have wooed her in her most secret haunts-they have watched her minutest caprices. A spray could not tremble in the breeze-a leaf could not rustle to the ground-a diamond drop could not patter in the streama fragrance could not exhale from the humble violet, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the morning, but it has been noticed by these impassioned and delicate observers, and wrought up into some beautiful morality.

The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rural occupations has been wonderful on the face of the country. A great part of the island is level, and would be monotonous were it not for the charms of culture; but it is studded and gemmed, as it were, with castles and palaces, and embroidered with parks and gardens. It does not abound in grand and sublime prospects, but rather in little home-scenes of rural repose and sheltered quiet. Every antique farm-house and moss-grown cottage is a picture; and as the roads are continually winding, and the view is shut in by groves and hedges, the eye is delighted by a continual succession of small landscapes of captivating loveliness.

The great charm, however, of English scenery is the moral feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in the mind with ideas of order, of quiet, of sober well-established principles, of hoary usage and reverend custom. Everything seems to be the growth of ages, of regular and peaceful existence. The old church of remote architecture, with its low massive portal; its Gothic tower; its windows rich with tracery and painted glass; its stately monuments of warriors and worthies of the olden time, ancestors of the present lords of the soil; its tombstones, recording suc

cessive generations of sturdy yeomanry, whose progeny still plough the same fields, and kneel at the same altar. The parsonage, a quaint irregular pile, partly antiquated, but repaired and altered in the taste of various ages and occupants-the stile and footpath leading from the churchyard, across pleasant fields, and along shady hedgerows, according to an immemorable right of way— the neighbouring village, with its venerable cottages, its public green sheltered by trees, under which the forefathers of the pre sent race have sported-the antique family mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a protecting air on the surrounding scene; all these common features of English landscape evince a calm and settled security, an hereditary transmission of home-bred virtues and local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character of the nation.

It is a pleasing sight on a Sunday morning, when the bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to behold the peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces, and modest cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to church; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the evenings, gathering about their cottage doors, and appearing to exult in the humble comforts and embellishments which their own hands have spread around them.

The Passage of the Red Sea.

HEBER.

[REGINALD HEBER, Bishop of Calcutta, was born in 1783, at Malpas, in Cheshire. In 1800 he was entered at Brazenose College, Oxford. His univer sity career was one series of successes. His prize poem of "Palestine," writ ten in 1803, unlike the majority of academical compositions, has taken its rank among our best English poems. In 1807 he took orders, and entered upon the discharge of his duties of parish priest in the family living of Hodnet. Never were the high duties of his sacred office fulfilled with greater zeal thar by this most amiable and gifted scholar. His eminence as a preacher, his reputation for the highest talent, must have led to the first preferments in the

Church. The Bishopric of Calcutta was offered to him: he twice refused it; but eventually he saw in that appointment a wide career of usefulness, and he sacrificed every other consideration to the prospects which this apostolical mission opened to his view. He embarked for India on the 15th of June 1823. On the 3d of April 1826, he suddenly died at Trichinopoly, having spent the short period of his sojourn in the East in labour such as few men have undergone. Dying thus at the early age of forty-three, his memory is hallowed in India by European and native; and his example will continue to animate many a man with the conviction that the talents which God has intrusted to us find their best and their happiest employment in an unremitting course of endeavour to leave the world better than we found it. Bishop Heber's "Journey through India" is one of our most interesting books of travels. There are three volumes of his sermons; and his poems, from which we extract the "Passage of the Red Sea," form a volume of themselves.]

With heat o'erlabour'd, and the length of way,
On Ethan's beach the bands of Israel lay.
'Twas silence all, the sparkling sands along;
Save where the locust trill'd her feeble song,
Or blendes soft in drowsy cadence fell

The wave's low whisper or the camel's bell.
'Twas silence all!-The flocks for shelter fly
Where, waving light, the acacia shadows lie;
Or where, from far, the flattering vapours make
The noontide semblance of a misty lake:
While the mute swain, in careless safety spread,
With arms enfolded, and dejected head,
Dreams o'er his wondrous call, his lineage high,
And, late reveal'd, his children's destiny.
For, not in vain, in thraldom's darkest hour,
Had sped from Amram's sons the word of power;
Nor fail'd the dreadful wand, whose god-like sway
Could lure the locust from her airy way;
With reptile war assail their proud abodes,
And mar the giant pomp of Egypt's gods.
O helpless gods! who nought avail'd to shield
From fiery rain your Zoan's favour'd field!
O helpless gods! who saw the curdled blood
Taint the pure lotus of your ancient flood,

And fourfold night the wondering earth enchain,
While Memnon's orient harp was heard in vain!
Such musings held the tribes, till now the west
With milder influence on their temples prest;
And that portentous cloud which, all the day,
Hung its dark curtain o'er their weary way,
(A cloud by day, a friendly flame by night,)
Roll'd back its misty veil, and kindled into light!
Soft fell the eve :-but, ere the day was done,
Tall waving banners streak'd the level sun;
And wide and dark along the horizon red,
In sandy surge the rising desert spread.

"Mark, Israel, mark!"-On that strange sight intent,
In breathless terror, every eye was bent;

And busy faction's fast-increasing hum,

And female voices, shriek, "They come, they come !"
They come, they come! In scintillating show,
O'er the dark mass the brazen lances glow;
And sandy clouds in countless shapes combine,
As deepens or extends the long tumultuous line;
And fancy's keener glance e'en now can trace
The threatening aspects of each mingled race:
For many a coal-black tribe and cany spear,
The hireling guards of Misraim's throne, were there,
From distant Cush they troop'd, a warrior train,
Sinah's green isle, and Sennaar's marly plain:
On either wing their fiery coursers check,
The parch'd and sinewy sons of Amalek,
While close behind, inured to feast on blood,
Deck'd in Behemoth's spoils, the tall Shangalla strode.
'Mid blazing helms, and bucklers rough with gold,
Saw ye how swift the scythed chariots roll'd?

Lo, these are they whom, lords of Afric's fates,

Old Thebes hath pour'd through all her hundred gates, Mother of armies!-How the emeralds glow'd,

Where, flush'd with power and vengeance, Pharaoh rode!

And stoled in white, those brazen wheels before,
Aziris' ark his swarthy wizards bore;
And still responsive to the trumpet's cry,
The priestly sistrum murmur'd-Victory!

Why swell these shouts that rend the desert's gloom?
Whom come ye forth to combat Warriors, whom?
These flocks and herds-this faint and weary train-
Red from the scourge, and recent from the chain?
God of the poor, the poor and friendless save!
Giver and Lord of freedom, help the slave!-
North, south, and west, the sandy whirlwinds fly,
The circling horns of Egypt's chivalry.

On earth's last margin throng the weeping train:
Their cloudy guide moves on:-"And must we swim the
main?"

'Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood,
Nor bathed a fetlock in the nauseous flood.

He comes-their leader comes !-The man of God
O'er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod,

And onward treads.-The circling waves retreat,
In hoarse, deep murmurs, from his holy feet;
And the chased surges, inly roaring, show

The hard, wet sand, and coral hills below.

With limbs that falter, and with hearts that swell,
Down, down, they pass-a steep and slippery dell.
Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurl'd,

The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world;
And flowers that blush beneath the ocean green,
And caves, the sea-calves' low-roof'd haunt, are seen.
Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread;
The beetling waters storm above their head;
While far behind retires the sinking day,
And fades on Edom's hills its latest ray.

Yet not from Israel fled the friendly light,
Or dark to them, or cheerless came the night.
Still in their van, along that dreadful road,