As if her trinkets Nature chose to hide

Where nought invaded but the flowing tide.' One regrets that Miss Taylor did not more frequently employ her delicate pencil in such sketches as this. The lines serve to introduce the imaginary character of whose auto-biographical narrative the poem was designed to consist, -the misanthropist who has chosen this gloomy spot as his congenial dwelling, where one servant forms his whole establishment.

Peggy, his sole domestic, slowly grew
To be in fact his sole companion too.
When first she came, she never thought-nor he
With her odd master she could make so free ;-
She was not pert:-he wish'd not to confer
With any living-doubtless not with her.
But man is social, e'en against his will ;
And woman kind, whatever rank she fill.
Her master came a lonely stranger here,
Feeble, dejected, friendless—’twould appear.
She pitied; woman does; nor pitied less
For knowing not the cause of his distress.
She was not young, and had her troubles known,
So that she felt his sorrows with her own,
And soon resolved to labour, all she could,
To cheer his spirits and to do him good.
* Though few and mean th' attainments she could boast,
Peggy had pass'd her life upon the coast ;
And she could thoughts and sentiments disclose,
Such as the inland peasant rarely knows.
On squally nights, or when it blew a gale,
Long she would stand, recounting tale on tale
Of wreck or danger, or of rescue bold
That she had witness'd, or her kindred told,
Bringing each long-lost circumstance to mind :
And genuine feeling taught her where to find
Terms more expressive, though of vulgar use,
Than hours of patient study will produce.
Her native eloquence would place in view
The very scene, and all its terrors too.
Meantime, t'excuse her stay, she us’d to stand,
The tidy hearth still trimming, brush in hand ;
Till he, with kind, though not familiar air,
Would interrupt with—“ Peggy take a chair.”

• So pass'd their evenings oft; but now and then,
As the mood seiz'd him, he would take a pen,
Wherewith, though slowly, into form was cast
A brief, unfinish'd record of the past.
Whene'er for this her master gave the word,
His faithful Peggy neither spoke nor stirr’d.
She took her knitting-chose a distant seat,
And there she sat so still, and look'd so neat,
'Twas quite a picture ;—there was e'en a grace
In the trim border round her placid face.
• When Philip wrote, he never seem'd so well,
Was startled even if a cinder fell,
And quickly worried ;-Peggy saw it all,
And felt the shock herself, if one did fall.
Of knowledge, she had little in her head;
But a nice feeling often serves instead ;
And she had more than many better bred.
• But now he felt, like men of greater note,
The harmless wish of reading what he wrote ;
Not to the world ;-no, that he could not bear;
But here sat candid Peggy, in her chair :
And so it was, that he whose inward woe
Was much too sacred for mankind to know,
He-so refined, mysterious, and so proud
To a poor servant read his life aloud.
How weak is man, amused with things like these!
Or else, how vain are writers ! which you please.
• All Peggy heard, she deem'd exceeding good,
But chiefly prais'd the parts sbe understood.
At these, by turns, she used to smile or sigh,
And, with full credit, pass'd the other by:
While he, like men and wits of modern days,
Felt inly flatter'd by her humble praise.
Yet, vigour fail'd to accomplish the design;
And was but seldom he would add a line.
But when he died—some years ago, at Lea,

Old Peggy sent the manuscript to me.' The narrative itself is a truly affecting picture of a lad with mind and manncrs above his fortunes, timid, bashful, and oppressed. It is only too brief. We should have been delighted to see how his character would have been developed. One of the latest, if not the last poetical effusion, and, in our opinion, one of the most touching and beautiful poems in the volume, though marked by perfect simplicity, and having all the character of a private record of feeling, is the following hymn, with which we close our extracts.

" THE THINGS THAT ARE UNSEEN ARE ETERNAL.'

• There is a state unknown, unseen,

Where parted souls must be ;
And but a step may be between

That world of souls and me.
• The friend I loved has thither fled,

With whom I sojourned here :
I see no sight-I hear no tread ;
But
may

she not be near?
• I see no light-I hear no sound,

When midnight shades are spread;
Yet angels pitch their tents around,

And guard my quiet bed.
•Jesus was rapt from mortal gaze,

And clouds conveyed him hence ;
Enthron'd amid the sapphire blaze,

Beyond our feeble sense.
• Yet say not—who shall mount on high,

To bring him from above ?
For lo ! the Lord is always nigh

The children of his love.
• The Saviour whom I long have sought,

And would, but cannot see-
And is he here? O wondrous thought !

And will he dwell with me?
. I ask not with

my
mortal

eye
To view the vision bright;
I dare not see Thee, lest I die;

Yet Lord, restore my sight!
• Give me to see Thee, and to feel

The mental vision clear:
The things unseen reveal! reveal!

And let me know them near.
• I seek not fancy's glittering height,

That charmed my ardent youth;
But in thy light would see the light,

And learn thy perfect truth,
• The gathering clouds of sense d i sp

That wrapt my soul around;
In heavenly places make me dwell,

While treading earthly ground.
Illume this shadowy soul of mine,

That still in darkness lies;
O let the light in darkness shine,

And bid the day-star rise !

Impart the faith that soars on high,

Beyond this earthly strife,
That holds sweet converse with the sky,

And lives Eternal Life! For a full delineation of Miss Taylor's religious sentiments and feelings, we must refer our readers to the volumes before us. There is one passage in the memoir, however, on which we could wish that a remark or two had been added by the Biographer, to guard young persons more especially from mistaking Miss Taylor's sentiments on the subject. She represents herself as having been suddenly relieved from the cloud of discomfort and perplexity which had long rested on her mind prior to the year 1817, when the circumstance referred to took place, by a burst of light which disclosed to her, with a cleai ess and vividness in which she had never before viewed it, the pardoning mercy and love of God, The effect was so * powerful,' she says, that I was almost dissolved by it.' She considered the change in her feelings thus produced, ' as a * most kind and timely preparation for what, but a few weeks • before, would have overwhelmed' her with consternation * and distress,'-alluding to the first communication made to her by the London surgeons respecting the alarming nature of her complaint. It enabled her, too, so far to overcome the extreme reserve of her temper as to make that public profession of faith in Christ by becoming a member of her father's church, from which she had only been withheld by diffidence and the fear of self-deception. The religious world is in so much greater danger in the present day on the side of a Sadducean philosophy, than on that of enthusiasm, that few persons require to be admonished not to lay an undue stress on frames, impressions, and emotions, as a test of religious character or condition. Miss Taylor's own sentiments on this point are expressed in one of the letters, of an earlier date than the occurrence above mentioned.

I have heard the most judicious Christians reply, that a holy walk with God, a humble consciousness of preferring him and his service to any other thing, is a better and safer evidence of a real change of heart, than a reference to the most remarkable emotions of mind at any particular time.?

There is nothing, we make no doubt, that she would more strongly have deprecated, than a reliance upon extraordinary impressions, by which physical alternations are confounded with the genuine exercise of the religious affections, and the accidents of fancy, perhaps, are mistaken for the act of faith. There is no great danger, however, of being misled by impres

sions, in whatever manner they originate, so long as they consist of revealed truth; for it is in such impressions, conveyed with more or less force, that saving faith and all true consolation originate. A declaration, heard a thousand times with indifference, shall arrest the mind with a power, and distinctness, and authority, as a truth of personal interest, which it never carried with it before. A familiar passage of Scripture shall, as by a sudden ray of light falling upon the words, disclose itself in all the fulness of its meaning, so that it shall seem never to have been read or at least understood till now. In these cases, there is nothing vague or imaginary, and there can be no delusion in the impression. The cause is real, and the effect is rational, and corresponds to it. And all that seems unaccountable to the individual is, that the same truth should not long ago have made its due impression. Sometimes, however, the understanding receives a real accession of light, by the actual development of what had hitherto appeared enigmatical ; and there are moral problems and perplexities of the heart, the solution of which will produce a transport not inferior to that of the ancient Geometrician when he exclaimed, • I have found it.' In such cases, the thought which succeeds to the joy of discovery is, ' Why did I not see this before ?? Persuasions, then, that correspond to truths in themselves certain, cannot be unreal; nor can the strong emotions which their strength or suddenness occasions, be justly charged with enthusiasm.

The cause by which we mean the instrumental cause-is, we say, real; it is truth; that by which alone a rational mind can be rationally operated upon, the only instrument by which the Divine Spirit works on the heart of man. And by this unfailing test, all genuine religious impressions, whether sudden, violent, or of an ordinary character, are distinguished from indefinite, imaginary, and fanatical ones. But, in speaking of the instrumental cause, we cannot be understood as excluding a supernatural cause, imparting to it all its efficiency. The reason why truth acts on different minds, or on the same mind at different times, so differently, is not that its certainty varics even to the apprehension of the individual. The variation, therefore, must be in the subject of its influence--in the mind or heart itself. Responsible, however, as man is, for the government of his thoughts, their origin is alike beyond his knowledge and control. That sensible objects and physical emotions ordinarily set the machinery of thought in motion, is certain; but often the thoughts seem as spontaneous and uncaused as they are involuntary, although every thought, not less than every pulsation and every mechanical movement,