820 TIMEHRI. 
perfeétly at my command. But the beauties of the spot 
are themselves an interruption, my attention being called 
upon by these very myrtles, by a double row of grass 
pinks, just beginning to blossom, and by a bed of beans 
already in bloom.” And°so [I find it. Seated in the 
Botanic Gardens, for instance, I have tried to fix my 
attention on the pages of Elia or the Autocrat, but 
in vain. ‘‘ The beauties of the spot are themselves an 
interruption.” The rustle of the breeze in the trees, 
the flight of a bird, the passing of a wisp of cloud before 
the sun,-—these all distra€t my thoughts. Nature seems 
determined that so long as her book is open before us, 
nothing else shall usurp our attention. So I pocket Elia 
and the Autocrat, and later on, wend my way home 
again. 
*‘ Poetry,” in the words of SHELLEY, ‘‘ is the record of 
the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best 
minds,’ and of all kinds of composition is that which 
gives the greatest and most enduring pleasure. It is, 
therefore, regrettable that it should be so little read 
now-a-days. 
Here is a description of tropical scenery given in 
TENNYSON’S Enoch Arden, by the ship-wrecked sailor :— 
The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts, 
Among the palms and ferns and precipices ; 
The blaze upon the waters to the east, 
The blaze upon his island over head, 
Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven, 
The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again 
The scarlet shafts of sunrise—but no sail ! 
BROWNING’S well-known lines, composed while in 
Italy, will always appeal to those beyond the seas when 
Spring-time comes round ;— 
eee a ee 
