A THING OF BEAUTY. 



"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever."— Keats. 



E ! and before winter 

 ms quite passed away, 

 we repeat the line, 

 so oft repeated, that 

 it would long since 

 have been worn 

 threadbare, had it 

 not recorded a truth which 

 never grows old, and thus 

 proves its own veracity. It 

 has been said, that if one 

 should repeat ever such an 

 absurdity to a man every 

 morning before breakfast, he 

 would come to believe in it 

 at last. Yet there is no ab- 

 surdity in the creed, that the 

 beautiful is a never -failing 

 source of pleasure, which 

 Keats has told in a line as terse and beautiful as the 

 sentiment it conveys, whilst many act as though 

 they believed it not. Inquire of your own heart 

 what is its greatest joy, what gives it the most un- 

 mistakable thrill of pleasure, what vibrates most 

 deeply to its core, and it will be confessed that the 

 power dwells in some small deed or thought which 

 verifies the maxim, that " a thing of beauty is a joy 

 for ever." 



If in some deed done or accepted, in some kind 

 •word heard or spoken, the power is felt, or the echo 

 recognized, through the long vista of years, how 

 much more is the mind affected through the medium 

 •of the eye with the influences of beauty. It matters 

 not that taste varies, and that the standard is not one 

 of weight and measure : to him who recognizes beauty 

 H becomes the joy which is unknown to those who 

 fail to see or appreciate it. We will but advert 

 to the scenes of boyhood, or even of maturity, 

 that have left their impress photographed upou the 

 memory, though not revisited since — scenes which 

 are always recalled with delight, and associated witli 

 friendships and affections, not unmingled, perhaps, 

 No. 16. 



with a sigh ; yet deeper than that lurks the truism, 

 that " a thing of beauty is a joy for ever." 



The song of the nightingale, the lark, and; the 

 linnet, has doubtless been the same for thousands 

 of years. 



The swan that on St. Mary's lake 

 Floats double,— swan and shadow, 



glides as gracefully as on the rivers that ran through 

 the garden of Eden. The wagtail bobbing about 

 the puddle by the road-side still jerks his caudal 

 appendage as vigorously as of yore. The swallow 

 skims the surface of the brook, or sails mid-air with 

 the same fairy-like motion as when Solomon ruled 

 and Homer sang. Yet these have all the same 

 charm for the lover of Nature now as they had 

 thousands of years ago. Whether in the poetry of 

 motion or melody, the influence is unimpaired, and 

 prince or peasant still pauses at the sight or sound, 

 and acknowledges by silence that "a thing of 

 beauty is a joy for ever." 



If we descend in the scale of existence, and recall 

 to mind the notable things of insect life, those only 

 which are known to every schoolboy need be cited 

 on our behalf. The peacock butterfly, with his 

 gorgeous wings expanded in the sun ; the more 

 modestly-tinted fritillaries, or the little " chalk 

 blue," are beauties which the untutored mind 

 recognizes, and the uncouth boor admires ; dragon - 

 flies with their gauzy wings, and beetles with their 

 drowsy hum; those favourites of childhood, the 

 ladybird and the grasshopper ; the spider, imitating 

 in tints the flower in which it conceals itself; the 

 lace-wing, iridescent in the sun-light ; the myriads 

 of ephemera that flit like phantoms into the dusk ; 

 —these are all eloquent preachers from the same 

 text :— " A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." 



When Mungo Park gathered his little tuft of 

 moss in Africa, far away from home and friends ; 

 when a " roving Englishman " in America clapped 

 his hands with delight to see a daisy cherished in a 

 conservatory ; when Dr. Hooker in India welcomed 

 the shepherd's purse ;— it was the association of 



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