rivers, the strong-sweeping Spey! Let Imagination
launch her canoe, and be thou a solitary steersman--for need is none of
oar or sail; keep the middle course while all the groves go by, and ere
the sun has sunk behind yon golden mountains--nay, mountains they are
not, but a transitory pomp of clouds--thou mayest list the roaring, and
behold the foaming of the Sea.

Was there ever such a descriptive dream of a coloured engraving of the
Cushat, Quest, or Ring-Dove, dreamt before? Poor worn-out and glimmering
candle!--whose wick of light and life in a few more flickerings will be
no more--what a contrast dost thou present with thyself of eight hours
ago! Then, truly, wert thou a shining light, and high aloft in the
room-gloaming burned thy clear crest like a star--during its midnight
silence, a _memento mori_ of which our spirit was not afraid. Now thou
art dying--dying--dead! Our cell is in darkness. But methinks we see
another--a purer--a clearer light--one more directly from Heaven. We
touch but a spring in a wooden shutter--and lo! the full blaze of day.
Oh! why should we mortal beings dread that night-prison--the Grave?

DR KITCHINER.

FIRST COURSE.

It greatly grieved us to think that Dr Kitchiner should have died before
our numerous avocations had allowed us an opportunity of dining with
him, and subjecting to the test-act of our experienced palate his claims
to immortality as a Cook and a Christian. The Doctor had, we know, a
dread of Us--not altogether unalloyed by delight; and on the dinner to
Us, which he had meditated for nearly a quarter of a century, he knew
and felt must have hung his reputation with posterity--his posthumous
fame. We understand that there is an unfinished sketch of that Dinner
among the Doctor's papers, and that the design is magnificent. Yet,
perhaps, it is better for his glory that Kitchiner should have died
without attempting to embody in forms the Idea of that Dinner. It might
have been a failure. How liable to imperfection the _materiel_ on which
he would have had to work! How defective the instruments!
Yes--yes!--happier far was it for the good old man that he should have
fallen asleep with the undimmed idea of that unattempted Dinner in his
imagination, than, vainly contending with the physical evil inherent in
matter, have detected the Bishop's foot in the first course, and died of
a broken heart!

"Travelling," it is remarked by our poor dear dead Doctor in his
"Trave