,
And to the open skies her eyes did shut.
The azure fields of Heaven were 'sembled right
In a large round, set with the flowers of light.
The flowers de luce, and the round sparks of dew.
That hung upon their azure leaves did shew
Like twinkling stars that sparkle in the evening blue.
Giles Fletcher.

FROM his cradle to his grave a gale of prosperity bore my friend Ellison
along. Nor do I use the word prosperity in its mere worldly sense. I
mean it as synonymous with happiness. The person of whom I speak seemed
born for the purpose of foreshadowing the doctrines of Turgot, Price,
Priestley, and Condorcet--of exemplifying by individual instance
what has been deemed the chimera of the perfectionists. In the brief
existence of Ellison I fancy that I have seen refuted the dogma, that in
man's very nature lies some hidden principle, the antagonist of bliss.
An anxious examination of his career has given me to understand that in
general, from the violation of a few simple laws of humanity arises the
wretchedness of mankind--that as a species we have in our possession the
as yet unwrought elements of content--and that, even now, in the present
darkness and madness of all thought on the great question of the social
condition, it is not impossible that man, the individual, under certain
unusual and highly fortuitous conditions, may be happy.

With opinions such as these my young friend, too, was fully imbued, and
thus it is worthy of observation that the uninterrupted enjoyment which
distinguished his life was, in great measure, the result of preconcert.
It is indeed evident that with less of the instinctive philosophy which,
now and then, stands so well in the stead of experience, Mr. Ellison
would have found himself precipitated, by the very extraordinary success
of his life, into the common vortex of unhappiness which yawns for those
of pre-eminent endowments. But it is by no means my object to pen an
essay on happiness. The ideas of my friend may be summed up in a few
words. He admitted but four elementary principles, or more strictly,
conditions of bliss. That which he considered chief was (strange to
say!) the simple and purely physical one of free exercise in the open
air. "The health," he said, "attainable by other means is scarcely worth
the name." He instanced the ecstasies of the fox-hunter, and pointed to
the tillers of the earth, the only people who, as a class, can be fairly
c