Of mountains, stretching on from east to west,
So massive, yet so shadowy, so ethereal,

As to belong rather to heaven than earth—
But instantly receives into his soul

A sense, a feeling that he loses not;

A something that informs him 'tis a moment Whence he may date henceforward and for ever? Rogers, Italy.

ALPS.

'Twas at this instant-while there glowed
This last, intensest gleam of light—
Suddenly, through the opening road,
The valley burst upon my sight!
That glorious valley, with its lake,
And Alps on Alps in clusters swelling,
Mighty and pure, and fit to make
The ramparts of a Godhead's dwelling.

I stood entranced-as Rabbins say
This whole assembled, gazing world
Will stand, upon that awful day,

When the Ark's Light, aloft unfurled,
Amid the opening clouds shall shine
Divinity's own radiant sign!

Mighty Mont Blanc, thou wert to me,
That minute, with thy brow in heaven,

As sure a sign of Deity

As e'er to mortal gaze was given.

Nor ever, were I destined yet

To live my life twice o'er again,

Can I the deep-felt awe forget,

The dream, the trance that rapt me then!

Moore, Rhymes on the Road.

ALPS AT SUNRISE.

SUCH a sunrise! The giant Alps seemed literally to rise from their purple beds, and putting on their crowns of gold, to send up hallelujahs almost audible.

Washington Allston, Letters.

ALPS AT SUNSET.

ON our return saw Mont Blanc, with its attendant mountains, in the fullest glory, the rosy light shed on them by the setting sun, and their peaks rising so brightly behind the dark rocks in front, as if they belonged to some better world, or as if Astræa was just then leaving the glory of her last footsteps on their summits: nothing was ever so grand and beautiful. Moore, Letters.

ANGEL.

'Twas then, as slumbering on my couch I lay,
A sudden splendour seemed to kindle day,
A breeze came breathing in: a sweet perfume,
Blown from eternal gardens filled the room;
And in a void of blue, that clouds invest,
Appeared a daughter of the realms of rest.
Her head a ring of golden glory wore,
Her honoured hand the sacred volume bore,
Her raiment glittering seemed a silver white,
And all her sweet companions sons of light.

The scene moves off, while all its ambient sky
Is turned to wondrous music as they fly;
And soft the swelling sounds of music grow,
And faint their softness, till they fail below.
Parnell, Piety or the Vision.

ANGEL.

FAIR rounds of radiant points invest his hair;
Celestial odours breathe through purpled air,
And wings, whose colours glittered on the day,
Wide at his back their gradual plumes display.
The form ethereal bursts upon his sight,
And moves in all the majesty of light.

MINISTERING ANGELS.

AND is there care in heaven?

Parnell, The Hermit.

And is there love

In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,

That may compassion of their evils move?

:

There is else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts. But O, the exceeding grace

Of highest God that loves his creatures so,

And all his works with mercy doth embrace,

That blessed Angels he sends to and fro,

To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe!

How oft do they their silver bowers leave

To come to succour us that succour want! How oft do they with golden pinions cleave The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant, Against foul fiends, to aid us militant! They for us fight, they watch and duly ward,

And their bright squadrons round about us plant;

And all for love, and nothing for reward;

O, why should heavenly God to men have such regard !

Spenser, Faerie Queene, b. ii. c. viii. 1, 2.

APOCALYPSE.

THE Apocalypse of St. John is the majestic image of a high and stately tragedy, shutting up and intermingling her solemn scenes and acts with a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies.

Milton, Reason of Church Government.

ROMAN AQUEDUCTS.

SEE distant mountains leave their valleys dry,
And o'er the proud arcade their tribute pour,
To lave imperial Rome.
Thomson, Liberty, pt. i.

ROMAN AQUEDUCTS.

I Do not know anything more striking than these endless arches of Roman Aqueducts, pursuing with great strides their irregular course over the desert. They suggest the idea of immensity, of durability, of simplicity, of boundless power, reckless of cost and labour, all for a useful purpose, and regardless of beauty. A river in mid-air, which had been flowing on ceaselessly for fifteen or eighteen hundred or two thousand years, poured its cataracts into the streets and public squares of Rome when she was mistress and also when she was the slave of nations; and quenched the thirst of Attila and of Genseric as it had before quenched that of Brutus and Cæsar, and as it has since quenched that of beggars and of popes.

Simond.

ARCHITECTURE.

THE Supreme excellence of the ancient architecture has never once been called in question, and is abundantly testified by the awful ruins of amphitheatres, aqueducts, arches and columns, that are the daily objects of veneration, though not of imitation. This art, it is observable, has never been improved in later ages in one single instance; but every just and legitimate edifice is still formed according to the five old established orders, to which human wit has never been able to add a sixth of equal symmetry and strength.

Dr. Joseph Warton. Adventurer, No. 127.

ORDERS OF ARCHITECTURE.

First, unadorned,

And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose ;
The Ionic then, with decent matron grace,
Her airy pillar heaved; luxuriant, last,

The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath.

Thomson, Liberty.

ORDERS OF ARCHITECTURE.

THE history of architecture, like that of other arts, marks out the progression of manners. Among the Dorians it carried with it the austerity of their national character, which displayed itself in their language and music. The Ionians added to its original simplicity an elegance which has excited the universal admiration of posterity. The Corinthians, a rich and luxurious people, not contented with former improvements, extended the art to the very verge of vicious refinement; and thus (so connected in their origin are the arts, so similar in their progress and revolutions) the same genius produced those three characters of style in architecture which Dionysius of Halicarnassus, one of the most judicious critics of Greece, remarked in its language.

The Dorians exhibited an order of building like the style of their Pindar-like Æschylus-like Thucydides. The Corinthians gave their architecture that appearance of delicacy and effeminate refinement which characterises the But the Ionians struck out the language of Isocrates.

happy line of beauty, which, partaking of the one without its harshness, and the elegance of the other without its luxuriance, exhibited that perfection of style which is adjudged to Homer and his best imitators.

Burgess, Bishop of Salisbury, On the Study of Antiquities.