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was irremediably destroyed by the more powerful odour of " them damned stinking violets!"

And yet think not, O gentlest of all gentle readers, as perchance thou mightest be induced to think were we not to undeceive thee, that we are ever to be found daundering along the same green lane, reposing ourselves upon the same moss-cushioned bank, or singing the same song upon the same eternal stile: nay, we are restless in spirit as well as in body; we have in us a spice of the adventurous; and to us "fresh fields and pastures new" are a source of supreme delight. We love nothing better than to issue forth, with the world "all before us where to choose," on one of our miniature journeys of discovery. All the enterprising spirits of past time, the ploughers of the unknown deep, the wanderers of the unexplored desert, rise in bright array before our mental eye; and we envy not their triumphs, for ours, to us, are as glorious. Archimedes himself, when the solution of his problem flashed upon his soul, felt not more pleasure than we, when we have tracked some yet unvisited streamlet to its spring, some yet untrodden woodpath to its bower. Joyous are we as the old Sicilian; but we, O all-but-blushing reader, we are decent in our gladness. A stark-naked philosopher, dripping from his bath, running at the top of his speed down the fashionable street of the metropolis, and shouting at the top of his voice, may have been an exhibition tolerated in an early age and a sultry climate; but here, thank heaven! we are in no danger of such an escapade: with us the public eye is amply protected from such a scandalous spectacle; we, thrice happy we! have frosts, modesty, and the new police! But the indecent old villain has made us digress.

We love to be impartial in our wanderings, and some

thing have we for all. A smile for the trees and the flowers and the brooks; and a chirrup and a crumb for the birds; and a laugh or a shout or a whistle or a song for the echo; and a kindly word or greeting for all we meet right slender stock truly! yet ample for a rambler like ourselves. The gold of Croesus on the hill-side or in the forest's solitude would be a dead weight in our breeches' pocket; the founder of the family of the Alcmæonidæ in the hour of his sudden wealth, would have been but a slow companion in a morning walk.

And what book, saidst thou, gentle reader, do we take with us to our favourite nooks and well-beloved corners? Not a volume we! Books for rainy days, and books for winter evenings, and books for the bed of sickness; but not for health and strength and fine weather! Nature for us, against all the libraries that ever were collected, burned, or sold! In this, our only manual, at every step do we turn a fresh page,-from every line we learn a fresh lesson, at every lesson do we thirst for more, and, though we were to live to the age of Methuselah, we should die unsatisfied! Nature is our poet, our philosopher, our preacher: could she be our historian as well, we need never open book more, save one.

"Thank Heaven! that last grandiloquent sentence has wound up this rambling effusion." Sorry are we for that exclamation of yours, O weary reader, for much more could we have poured forth in praise of the stroller: but you are tired, and we are merciful. We will but sing you a verse or two of our stroller's song, and so bid you farewell. Our song, said we? nay, not ours, though we would give something to have written it. It came from the heart of the Shepherd of Ettrick, and he has called it " a boy's song;" but we take no shame to our

selves to sing it, and it is now some time since we were Listen to us but for one moment, as we

a chicken.

troll forth

"Where the pools are bright and deep,

Where the grey trout lies asleep,
Up the river and o'er the lea,-
That's the way for Billy and me!

"Where the blackbird sings the latest,
Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest,
Where the nestlings chirp and flee,—
That's the way for Billy and me!

"Where the mowers mow the cleanest,
Where the hay lies thick and greenest,
There to trace the homeward bee,-
That's the way for Billy and me!

“ Where the hazel bank is steepest,
Where the shadow falls the deepest,
Where the clustering nuts fall free,-
That's the way for Billy and me!"

And now we will be off for our day's ramble.

SOUND AND SENSE.*

"The sound must seem an echo to the sense."

Pope.

THE motto that I have adopted is one of universal applicability. True in criticism, it may be extended with equal propriety to the common affairs of life. Who that listens to the lisping drawl of Miss Julia Mawlish is not convinced that her tongue echoes the tone of her mind? Can any one hear from the further end of the parlour the prattle of little Kitty Beckett, or the bluster of Major O'Crashit, without feeling at once perfectly acquainted with the subject in debate, and the temper with which it is debated? Do I require to be told the character of the speaker's judgment, when I hear from the extreme corner of the strangers' gallery the measured periods of Robert Peel, or the impetuous declamation of Richard Lalor of Tipperary? Do I detect more of the spirit of Christian charity in the energetic anathemas of Mr. Ebenezer Wilks, or in the mild accents of my own dear pastor? And, oh most lovely, most musical Emily! do not the trills and gushings of thy melodious voice embody, as far as aught earthly can, the perfect harmony of thy inward spirit?

* I can only offer the accompanying paper as a hurried and imperfect amplification of some pages of my note-book, in which most of the examples will not be new to many of your readers. Not till I had almost finished my transcript, was a paper, with a similar title, in Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, put before me by your indefatigable publisher. Though the title is the same, a reference to the paper (No. 222) will show that there is little treated of by us in common. The only singular coincidence is, that the writer adds just such a note as this, with reference to the same subject being similarly handled by Blair, and quotes also Wallis's Grammar, the knowledge of which came to me from a totally different source.

How much of language is formed upon this principle, of the sense being echoed by the sound, though it would take a volume fully to illustrate, requires, from its general admission, but few words here.

There is scarce a Greek word expressing sound that is not imitative; and though the Latin is less expressive on this point, the English and the German abound with examples. In a curious English Grammar, written many years ago, by Dr. Wallis, almost the whole language was attempted to be reduced to this one principle of imitation. Be that as it may, no one can doubt the origin of such words as buzz, whirl, coo, mew, cuckoo, and a thousand others of the same kind.

There can be little less doubt of the origin of other words, though not so directly imitative, as, bubble, splash, patter, screw, hum; and perhaps also, bustle, moan, soup (from the noise in eating), &c.

That there is also a connexion of sense as well as of sound between large classes of words having the same double consonants or syllable in them, can hardly be questioned. It is of this fact that Wallis, in his Grammar, gives us so many examples.

Thus, words containing the syllable wнI seem to have a sort of relationship among themselves, e. g., whistle, whiz, whirl, whisper, whist! whine, whisk; through all which seems to run one and the same idea, though it may be hard to define what that idea exactly is.

Again, in words unconnected with sound, the same relation seems to exist. Take words beginning with ST, stout, sturdy, steady, stately, stand, stable, (adj.), stanch, staid, stake, staff, stalk, stay, stem, stern, stiff, stubborn, stock, &c., without mentioning their compounds. It can hardly be denied that there is a something firm and fixed,

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