50 



KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



voice, like a thread of gold, sometimes min- 

 gled with the praises of the rest. At last Sir 

 Joshua spoke. Stanfield listened intently. 

 He heard his picture condemned. Still lie 

 listened, his heart beating against his side 

 almost audibly. There might be some 

 redeeming points ! Like an i exorable judge, 

 the old painter heaped objection upon objec- 

 tion ; and that, too, in tones, it seemed, of 

 peculiar asperity. Poor Stanfield felt as if 

 the icy hand of death were laid upon his 

 heart ; and then, with a sickening shudder, 

 fell senseless upon the floor. 



They raised him — he recovered — was re- 

 stored to life ; but what was life to him? 



From that time he drooped daily. At 

 last, his kind patron sent him to Rome. 

 There, amid the eternal monuments of art, — 

 avoiding all companions, immured in his little 

 studio, he busied himself steadily, but feebly, 

 with a work which proved to be his last. 



It represented a precipitous cliff, to the 

 brink of which a little child had crept. One 

 tiny hand stretched out over the abyss ; and 

 its baby face was turned, with a smile, to- 

 wards its mother, from whose arms it had 

 evidently just escaped. That playful look 

 was a challenge for her to advance ; and she, 

 poor mother! with that deep, dumb despair in 

 her face, saw the heedless innocent just poised 

 upon the brink, — beyond her reach ; and 

 knew that if she moved towards it a single 

 step it too would move — to certain death. But 

 with Heaven-taught instinct, she had torn 

 the drapery from her breast, and exposed the 

 sweet fountain of life to her infant. Spite of 

 its peril, you felt it would be saved. 



Such was the picture ! Day after day, 

 when the artists, his friends, gathered at 

 their customary meals, his poor, pale face 

 was seen among them, — listless, without a 

 smile ; and seemingly wistful of the end, 

 when he might retire again to his secluded 

 studio. One day he was missing. The 

 second followed ; but he came not. The 

 third arrived, — still absent. A presentiment 

 of his fate seemed to have infused itself in 

 every mind. They went to his room. There, 

 seated in a chair before his unfinished picture, 

 they found him dead — his pencil in his hand. 



MUSIC AND SLEEP. 



Come then, — a Song ! A winding, gentle song, 

 To lead me into sleep. Let it be low 

 As Zephyr, telling secrets to his Rose ; 

 For I would hear the murmuring of my thoughts, 

 And more of voice, than of that other music 

 Which grows around the strings of quivering lutes. 

 But most of Thought. 'Tis with my mind I listen ; 

 And when the leaves of sound are shed upon it, 

 If there is no sound, remembrance grows not there. 

 So Life; so Death, — a song, and then a dream ! 

 Come, — sing; before another dew-drop fall. 



Beddoes. 



"LOVE AND CEERISH ONE ANOTHER." 



Ckeation will he incomplete, 



Never will it reach perfection, 

 "While the poor from rich men meet 



Cold and feelingless rejection. 

 Nature's aim will ne'er be gained, 



Till each practise with his brother 

 The law by God himself ordained, — 



" Love and cherish one another! " 



Heart with heart must join in peace, 



Envious state must disappear; 

 War and tumult then will cease 



To rack the human breast with fear: 

 Pride must he dismissed the soul, 



Man all angry feelings smother ; 

 And these words his heart control, — 



"Love and cherish one another ! " 



And unanimity must reign 



Both in the palace and the cot ; — 

 It will not govern men in vain, 



For 'tis by mutual love begot. 

 Nature to her children cries, 

 (Oh ! obey the general mother,) 

 " Men, the law of Heaven prize, — 

 Love and cherish one another ! " 



F. N. 



LUXURIES OF THE SEASON. 



SNOW-BALLS. 



There is, if we err not, a statute (or a 

 clause in a statute), against throwing snow- 

 balls. A great tyranny this ; albeit the 

 public wrong may have hitherto escaped the 

 indignation of the patriotic. Painful is it for 

 the philanthropic and benevolent mind to 

 reflect upon the misdoings of lawgivers ! To 

 consider their ignorance, their persevering 

 waste of golden time, their stubborn, stiff- 

 necked despotism ! They, in. the hopeless 

 hebetude of what they deem their souls, 

 consider snow as merely a natural substance, 

 ordained to do a certain good to the earth 

 that feeds us ; being altogether unmindful 

 of its moral uses. 



Now, — snow was made to be rolled into 

 balls : the best instincts of our nature prove 

 it. True it is, that as we grow older we 

 lose somewhat of that ecstatic zest which, in 

 the days of boyhood, made us rejoice in 

 snow-balls. Nevertheless, we cannot wholly 

 subdue the best impulses of our being. No ! 

 Sure we are that all men — at least all not 

 wholly lost to natural promptings — do, in 

 some hilarious moments, feel a strong and 

 almost invincible desire to snow-ball their 

 fellow-creatures.* The impulse may now 

 and then lie dormant ; but very sure we are 

 it exists in the large heart of the human kind. 



* In evidence whereof, we refer to the late 

 extraordinary gamhols on the Liverpool Stock 

 Exchange. — Ed. K. J. 



