moonlight along the yellow sands. Be that as it may, we are partial to pearls, even though they be but paste-provided all the rest of the fair creature's adornments be chaste and cheap, and especially if you know that her parents are not rich,—that she is a nurse to several small sisters, and that her brothers are breeding up to the army, navy, bar, and

church.

Nothing in art more beautiful than-Lace!

"A web of woven air!"

as it has been charmingly called by one who knows how to let it float charmingly over brow or bosom. How perfectly simple it always seems, even in its utmost richness! So does a web of dew veiling a lily or a rose! It imparts delicacy to the delicate forehead, from whose ample gleam it receives a more softening fineness in return; it alone seems privileged, in its exquisite tenuity, to float over the virgin bosom, whose moving beauty it veils, without hiding, from Love's unprofaning eyes!

So much—yet but little, indeed-for head and breast. The whole figure has yet to be arrayed; but has old Christopher North become a tirewoman, even to his own Theodora? What then? Corporeal-spiritual!—Oh, heaven! and oh, earth! which is which, asketh something, as we gaze on and down the clear wells of Theodora's eyes! Materialism-Immaterialism! What mean words like these? Does clay think, feel, sigh, smile, weep, agonise in bliss and bale, go mad, and die? Be it even so, or be the thought called impious,—what then? For, is not Virtue the beauty of our being; and are we not all-the children of Heaven!

We verily believe, that of all pleasures on this earth, the most innocent is that which flows from the love of dress. A weak young woman, who has neither husband nor children, but much time on her hands, would weary her own life out in solitude, and the lives of others in society, were it not for

What would be the use of needles and pins, thimbles, scissors, &c., but for dress? The weak young woman in question is perpetually fingering away at some article or other of wearing apparel, from cap to petticoat; and thus has a refuge from idleness, the most dangerous of all conditions, in which she can be left alone with even a militia officer.

Young ladies, with intelligent and well-cultivated minds, again, draw the same delight from dress as from poetry, or painting, or sculpture. It is by far the finest of the Fine Arts. One young lady is distinguished for taste, another for feeling, and another for genius; and now and then, one gifted being possesses them all three in union irresistible. Her happiness must be perfect. Wherever she moves, her steps, noiseless though they be, are yet heard through the hush of admiration. She feels that she wins all hearts, and charms all eyes; and for that feeling do you think it at all probable, that Satan will get her into his clutches, and off with her to the bottomless pit?

Only think of a Slattern! Nay, do not shudder: we are not going to describe one,—but do just for a moment let one glide greasily before your imagination, along with the thought of-marriage. Would you not rather marry twenty tidy girls than one single slattern? Yet, perhaps, she sits with a religious tract in her hand—a whity-brown religious tract on regeneration, almost as nasty as her own flannel petticoat,— and is on the way to heaven,—so she has been assured,—impervious to a shower, as if in an oil-skin wrapper. Who preaches against dirt? Nobody in Scotland. But the virgin who, morning, noon, and night, is arrayed like the lily of the field, to which Solomon in all his glory was indeed a most absurd-looking animal, is preached at from many pulpits as on the road to perdition; whereas, after adorning the earth for a few fleeting years, she goes, as certainly as that the Bible is true, straight up to heaven. Where the Slattern goes it would be improper to mention to ears polite; but if a Catholic, at the very least to purgatory. And you, who preach against the vanity of female decorations-gloating all the while on bib and tucker, with a peculiar expression of eye, so sly and sinister, how long were you occupied, sir, this very Sabbath morning, with these whiskers? Ay, whiskers! What do you mean to insinuate by them, sir? Why are they not shaved? Are they wholly senseless, or have you an aim, object, and end in cherishing that loathsome lair? A ring, too, amidst the hair of your red fingers! and a brooch on your breast, broad and brawny enough for a Leith porter! Your whole body stinks of the most odious personal vanity-vulgar hound though you obviously and obtrusively be -and yet you

rail at Theodora's self in drapery bright and beautiful as ever Iris wore, yet chaste and simple too as the cloud-robes of Diana!

A young lady consists of body and of soul. Now the soul -such is its divine origin-can take care of itself; but the body-such is its earthly origin-cannot, but requires frequent purification and perpetual adornment. Forget itslight it-despise it-cut it-and it will have its revenge. The soul will soon rue the day it insulted the body; for the body will lose no opportunity, before the world and in the face of day, of grievously and grossly insulting the soul-till the soul prays that its sickness may end in death. To spite the soul, the body grows ugly as sin. Its dirt and its diseases eat into the soul; and the seven senses enter into a horrid conspiracy against her, for they are corporeal, and feel the wrong done by the spirit to the flesh.

Dress, therefore, is a religious duty. But young ladies may be religious overmuch. They ought to be at their toilette at least one hour every day—at serious needlework two-and their thoughts chiefly occupied by dress threethat is to say, mentally devising various pretty fancies wherewithal to beautify their persons, and now and then producing a pattern into practice. Plenty of time left in the twentyfour hours for reading and writing, and also for thinking about the next world. Whatever you do with the next world, never forget this; you were placed here to be pleasant and pretty, neat and tidy, to dance and sing, paint and embroider. Also, "still the house affairs will call you hence, which, ever as you can, with speed perform. You'll come again, and, with a greedy ear, devour up my discourse;" that is to say, "read Blackwood's Magazine;" in which, Heaven forbid that any maiden should ever let fall her eye on one single syllable that may awake a painful blush; on many, Heaven grant that it may bring round the dear little cosy corners of her yet untasted lips the mantling of an inexpressible smile!

And now แ sweets to the sweet," a short farewell. We fear not for our article, for its spirit is ethereal, though gliding along the earth, nor fearing to touch the daisies with the playful tip of its wings, even like a swallow hunting insects above a pool. Be not, after all, too much given up to dress, any more than to any other decoration. 'Gay, but not gaudy," is an admirable rule both for soul and body-only to

แ

be equalled by another, "Grave, but not gloomy." Get a copy of The Young Lady's Book, for it is a perennial-a manual of many innocent and useful arts;—and when you have mistressed all that it gives instructions about, why, then in feminine accomplishments you may almost take your place side by side on the same sofa with our own Theodora.

In conclusion of this little rambling article, let us beseech the Editors of those Annuals, which time and space prevented us from comprehending in the Review in our December Number, not for one moment to dream that we intended any slight to them, or to their works. In proof of the contrary, we now disclose our determination to speak of their next Christmas Presents-first in order. Meanwhile, be our Public assured, that The Gem is indeed a gem of the first water,-"of purest ray serene;" that The Winter's Wreath is beautiful, with its evergreens and its Christmas roses, and fit to adorn the brows of the Lancashire witches; that The Bijou may grace the most elegant drawing-room, the most ornamental library in England; and that The Comic Annual is out of all sight the most witty in all our "Neighbour Hood," so distinguished for wit. As for the four Juvenile Annuals, they run in beautiful quaternion. Mrs Watts's is all that might have been expected from a poet's wife, and breathes throughout a true maternal spirit, which, above all other emotions, "the high and tender muses love." Mr Hall seems equally happy in a spouse whose taste and feeling are often coloured by the hues of genius. Mr Shoberl has, we hope, children of his own growing up into boyhood and girlhood, for so amiable and enlightened a man deserves a happy household, ringing with merry voices from morn to dewy eve. As for Thomas Roscoe, his little book will be loved even for his father's sake, who, in his honoured old age, must enjoy the purest of all delights in contemplating the virtues and genius of his sons. Thomas Roscoe, we know, possesses in private life the love and esteem of many friends; and his powers as a writer have made a most favourable impression on the public mind. The Landscape Annual, edited by him, is indeed a most splendid work-and better than splendid; for in it the exquisite genius of Prout has pencilled to the eye and to the imagination many of the noblest scenes in nature and in art; and the written illustrations are worthy of the son of the author of Leo and Lorenzo.

DAYS DEPARTED, OR BANWELL HILL.

FEBRUARY 1830.

DESCRIPTIVE Poetry is either the most dull or the most de lightful thing in the united kingdoms of Art and Nature. To write it well you must see with your eyes shut-no such easy operation. But to enable you to see with your eyes shut, you must begin with seeing with your eyes open-an operation, also, of much greater difficulty than is generally imagined —and indeed not to be well performed by one man in a thousand. Seeing with your eyes open is a very complicated concern as it obviously must be, when perhaps fifty churchspires, and as many more barns, some millions of trees, and haystacks innumerable, hills and plains without end, not to mention some scores of cities, towns, villages, and hamlets, are all impressed-tiny images-on each retina,-which tiny images the mind must see as in reflection within these miraculous mirrors. She is apt to get confused amidst that bewildering conglomeration-to mistake one object for another-to displace and disarrange to the destruction of all harmonies and proportions—and finally to get, if not stone—at least, what is perhaps worse, sand-blind. The moment she opens her mouth to discourse of these her perceptions, the old lady is apt to wax so confused, that you unjustly suspect her of a bad habit; and as soon as she winks, or shuts her eyes, begins prosing away from memory, till you lose all belief in the existence of the external world. Chaos is come again— and old John Nox introduces you to Somnus. The poem falls out of your hand-for we shall suppose a poem-a composing draft of a Descriptive Poem to have been in it—but not till

1 Days Departed, or Banwell Hill; a Lay of the Severn Sea: including the Tale of the Maid of Cornwall, or Spectre and Prayer-Book. By the Rev. WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES.