to the marchings
and counter-marchings of the House of Commons, in which we are deeply
interested.

With such a course of study before us, we are disposed to make the most
of our holiday; and should we chance to be a little too frisky, it must
be borne in mind that retribution is at hand, and that we shall speedily
become as solemn as ever a fool in the land, as dull as an owl bathing
its eyes in the morning sunshine, which--having overslept itself--it
takes for the full moon, and dismal enough to satisfy the most ardent
advocate of the religious duty of being miserable,--eschewing laughter
as we would the tax-gatherer, and refreshing our oppressed spirits alone
with serious jokes, and such merriment as may be presented to us under
the sanction and recommendation of a college of dissenting divines!

But our harp will be a mingled one, for so is our theme; having a
sympathy alike for our mirthful and sorrowful moments, which it alike
spiritualizes; striking the light, gleesome chord to the one, and
attuning the soul to more ethereal joy; while by its soft influence it
tones down the harshness of bitter, _unavailing_ sorrow, and woos the
heart, misanthropizing under the pangs of grief or unrequited love--pent
up in its own solitude, unpitied and uncared for--and filled with dark
thoughts, and sad sounds, and tones of plaintive winds, sighing through
the cypress and doleful yew with mournful melody around the
resting-place of the loved and lost, to submissive lamentings, and slow
stealing tears that assuage its aching anguish and tranquillize the
spirit, leading it to the hope of a brighter future, in whose dawning
beams it will, ere-long, show like "the tender grass, clear-shining
after rain"--more glistening and beautiful for the invigorating dews of
the cloud which had overhung it, and beneath whose gloom its beauty
faded away--for very trouble!

How often have we found that hard, _bitter_ mood into which the mind
under the pressure of suffering which is irremediable, and which has to
be borne alone, is so apt to decline--feeling the harder and the
bitterer for the careless, galling gaiety of all around--softened,
subdued, yea, utterly broken up by the sweet notes of "some old familiar
strain," that steal on the willing ear, freshening and exhilarating the
spirit like a breezy morning in June, when it seems a sin to be
wretched; the twittering birds on dancing boughs crying shame on us, for
what is not only wrong, bu