HOME OF GODOLPHIN AND LUCILLA.--LUCILLA'S
MIND.--THE EFFECT OF HAPPY LOVE ON FEMALE TALENT.--THE EVE OF FAREWELL.
LUCILLA ALONE.--TEST OF A WOMAN'S AFFECTION.

0 much-abused and highly-slandered passion!--passion rather of the
soul than the heart: hateful to the pseudo-moralist, but viewed with
favouring, though not undiscriminating eyes by the true philosopher:
bright-winged and august ambition! It is well for fools to revile
thee, because thou art liable, like other utilities, to abuse! The wind
uproots the oak--but for every oak it uproots it scatters a thousand
acorns. Ixion embraced the cloud, but from the embrace sprang a hero.
Thou, too, hast thy fits of violence and storm; but without thee, life
would stagnate:---thou, too, embracest thy clouds; but even thy clouds
have the demigods for their offspring!

It was the great and prevailing misfortune of Godolphin's life, that
he had early taught himself to be superior to exertion. His talents,
therefore, only preyed on himself; and instead of the vigorous and
daring actor of the world, he was alternately the indolent sensualist or
the solitary dreamer. He did not view the stir of the great Babel as a
man with a wholesome mind should do; and thus from his infirmities we
draw a moral. The moral is not the worse, in that it opposes the trite
moralities of those who would take from action its motive: the men of
genius, who are not also men of ambition, are either humourists, or
visionaries, or hypochondriacs.

By the side of one of the Italian lakes, Godolphin and Lucilla fixed
their abode; and here the young idealist for some time imagined himself
happy. Never until now so fond of nature as of cities, he gave himself
up to the enchantment of the Eden around him. He spent the long sunny
hours of noon on the smooth lake, or among the sheltering trees by which
it was encircled. The scenes he had witnessed in the world became to
him the food of quiet meditation, and for the first time in his life,
thought did not weary him with its sameness.

When his steps turned homeward, the anxious form of Lucilla waited for
him: her eye brightened at his approach, her spirit escaped restraint
and bounded into joy: and Godolphin, touched by her delight, became
eager to witness it: he felt the magnet of a Home. Yet as the first
enthusiasm of passion died away, he could not but be sensible that
Lucilla was scarcely a companion. Her fancy was indeed lively, and her
capacity acute; bu