caritates patria una complexa est." But the composite feeling thus produced soon ceases to reveal to our observation its elementary parts, and becomes a new, homogeneous, and in. dependent passion of the heart. Our affection is at last fixed directly on the soil and scene itself, with even, perhaps, a warmer love and longing than is ordinarily inspired by any, or all, of the living beings through, and for whom, the lifeless locality became at first a source of interest. Our affec

tions have a tendency to concentrate themselves in objects which fill and satisfy the senses, and especially the sight; and visible objects are, in absence, more easily than others, conjured up and contemplated by the imagination. It is chiefly on some image in the landscape of his native land that the mind of the exile delights to dwell. What does Homer tell us of the home-sick Ithacan's desires amid the allurements of Calypso's isle?

Αιει δε μαλακοισι και αἱμυλιοισι λογοισι
θελγει, όπως Ιθακης επιλησίται· αυταρ Οδυσσευς,
ἱεμενος ΚΑΙ ΚΑΠΝΟΝ ΑΠΟΘΡΩΣΚΟΝΤΑ νοησ
ἧς γαιης, θανεειν ἱμειρεται.

"Successless all her soft caresses prove

To banish from his breast his country's love :
To see the smoke from his loved palace rise,
While the dear isle in distant prospect lies,
With what contentment would he close his eyes!"

What is the momentary reverie of poor Susan, when roused to recollection by the song of the thrush, like herself a native of the woods and plains, though now, like her too, a captive of the city.

"'Tis a note of enchantment: what ails her? She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

"Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
Down which she so often has tripp'd with her pail;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.

"She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade:
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all pass'd away from her eyes."

Byron, indeed, has beautifully peopled the picture that rises before the soul of the dying Goth, when he falls amidst the shouts of the gazing amphitheatre:

"He heard it, but he heeded not his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck'd not of the life he lost, nor prize:
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday."

But not less true or touching is the
vision of the falling Argive in the
Æneid, who has time but to fix on one
simple thought, but one that is a type
to him of all other joys and endear-

ments :

"Sternitur infelix alieno vulnere, cœlum-
que

Adspicit, et dulces moriens reminiscitur
Argos."

"Now falling by another's wound, his eyes
He casts to heaven, on Argos thinks, and

Such being the source and history of the emotions we are now considering, in which the affections originally due to living and moral objects are transferred to the earth that we first trode, or the abode with which our life has been identified, it follows naturally that these inanimate existences should seem themselves to have borrowed an answering sensibility from the objects to which they owe their charms. Is not our native land as a mother to us? Are not the halls and bowers, the hills and streams of a long or early residence, as kindred and companions? Such are undoubtedly our feelings towards them when absence, or danger, or triumph, or any other excitement, gives a spur to the imagination. It were idle to multiply examples of such personifications, with which every one is familiar, whether in the pages of

poetry or in ordinary speech; yet we may be forgiven for inserting some illustrations of the subject, which, trite as they are, will still recommend themselves by their untiring excellence. See how the calm majesty of the Mantuan Swan at last rises upon the wing as he sounds the praises of his native plains:

"Sed neque Medorum silvæ, ditissima terra,
Nec pulcher Ganges, atque auro turbidus Hermus
Laudibus Italiæ certent; non Bactra, neque Indi,
Totaque turiferis Panchaïa pinguis arenis.-
Sed gravidæ fruges et Bacchi Massicus humor
Implevere; tenent oleæque, armentaque læta.
Hinc bellator equus campo sese arduus infert,
Hine albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima taurus
Victima, sæpe tuo perfusi flumine sacro,
Romanos ad templa deûm duxere triumphos.
Hic ver assiduum atque alienis mensibus æstas;
Bis gravidæ pecudes, bis pomis utilis arbor.

"Adde tot egregias urbes operumque laborem,
Tot congesta manu præruptis oppida saxis,
Fluminaque antiquos subterlabentia muros.
An mare, quod suprà, memorem, quodque alluit infrà ?
Anne lacus tantos? te, Lari, maxime, teque
Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens, Benace, marino?-
Hæc genus acre virûm, Marsos, pubemque Sabellam,
Assuetumque malo Ligurem, Volscosque verutos,
Extulit; hæc Decios, Marios, magnosque Camillos,
Scipiadas duros bello, et te, maxime Cæsar,
Qui nunc extremis Asiæ jam victor in oris
Imbellem avertis Romanis arcibus Indum.
Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus,
Magna virûm!"-

"But neither Median woods, (a plenteous land,)
Fair Ganges, Hermus, rolling golden sand,
Nor Bactria, nor the richer Indian fields,
Nor all the gummy stores Arabia yields;
Nor any foreign earth of greater name,
Can with sweet Italy contend in fame.-
But fruitful vines, and the fat olive's freight,
And harvests heavy with their fruitful weight,
Adorn our fields; and on the cheerful green
The grazing flocks and lowing herds are seen.
The warrior horse, here bred, is taught to train:
Here flows Clitumnus through the flowery plain,
Whose waves, for triumphs after prosperous war,
The victim ox and snowy sheep prepare.
Perpetual spring our happy climate sees;
Twice breed the cattle, and twice bear the trees;
And summer suns recede by slow degrees.

"Next add our cities of illustrious name,
Their costly labour and stupendous frame:
Our forts on steepy hills that far below
See wanton streams in winding valleys flow.
Our twofold seas, that, washing either side,
A rich recruit of foreign stores provide.
Our spacious lakes; thee, Larius, first, and next
Benacus, with tempestuous billows vext.-
The inhabitants themselves their country grace;
Hence rose the Marsian and Sabellian race,

To farthest Asia carry fierce alarms,
Avert unwarlike Indians from his Rome,
Triumph abroad, secure our peace at home.
Hail, sweet Saturnian soil! of fruitful grain
Great parent, greater of illustrious men!"

Different in its character, yet not very different in its source, is the patriotic apostrophe wrung from the modern Italian by mingled feelings of shame, pity, and pride.

"Italia, Italia, o tu cui feo la sorte

Dono infelice di bellezza, ond 'hai

Funesta dote d'infiniti guai,

Che in fronte scritti per gran doglia porte;

Deh! fossi tu men bella, o almen più forte,
Onde assai più ti paventasse, o assai
T'amasse men, chi del tuo bello ai rai
Par che si strugga, e pur ti sfida a morte !

Che or giù dall' Alpi non vedrei torrenti
Scender d'armati, nè di sangue tinta
Bever l'onda del Po Gallici armenti;
Nè te vedrei, del non tuo ferro cinta,
Pugnar col braccio di straniere genti,
Per servir sempre o vincitrice o vinta."

Of which we subjoin the version of our own Mrs Hemans:

"Italia! oh, Italia! thou so graced

With ill-starr'd beauty, which to thee hath been
A dower, whose fatal splendour may be traced
In the deep-graven sorrows of thy mien;

Oh! that more strength, or fewer charms were thine,
That those might fear thee more, or love thee less,
Who seem to worship at thy radiant shrine,
Then pierce thee with the death-pang's bitterness!
Not then would foreign hosts have drain'd the tide
Of that Eridanus thy blood hath dyed;

Nor from the Alps would legions, still renew'd,
Pour down; nor would'st thou wield an alien brand,
And fight thy battles with the stranger's hand;
Still, still a slave, victorious or subdued!"

As a companion or contrast to these passages, let us connect together t others from a poet of our own land, which, we think, breathe as much dignity and tenderness as the verses either of the ancient Mantuan or of the modern Tuscan.

"England, with all thy faults, I love thee still-
My country! and, while yet a nook is left,
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year most part deform'd
With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost,
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies,
And fields without a flower, for warmer France
With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves
Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bowers.

"My native nook of earth! Thy clime is rude,
Replete with vapours, and disposes much
All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine,
Thine unadulterate manners are less soft

And plausible than social life requires;
And thou hast need of discipline and art,
To give thee what politer France receives
From Nature's bounty-that humane address
And sweetness, without which no pleasure is
In converse; either starved by cold reserve,
Or flush'd with fierce dispute and senseless brawl.
Yet, being free, I love thee for the sake
Of that one feature; can be well content,
Disgraced as thou hast been, poor as thou art,
To seek no sublunary rest beside.
But, once enslaved, farewell! I could endure
Chains nowhere patiently; and chains at home,
Where I am free by birthright, not at all."

In a more humble and domestic style, the cheerful happiness of a return to home after an irksome, yet not a miserable absence, has never been better depicted than in Catullus's verses to his beloved Sirmio, in which we see how naturally the power of personification breaks forth :

"Peninsularum, Sirmio, insularumque
Ocelle, quascunque in liquentibus stagnis,
Marique vasto fert uterque Neptunus;
Quàm te libenter, quàmque lætus inviso!
Vix mi ipse credens Thyniam, atque

Bithynos

Ye peals of household laughter, ring

A separation from the soil of our nativity and the scene of long-remembered happiness, will easily be supposed still more strongly to excite the imagination than occasions like that which Catullus has here represented: for grief is, in general, a more powerful agent than even joy. Who does not understand and feel the poetical, and even the human, truth of Eve's farewell to the inanimate objects of her solicitude in Eden ?

"Oh, unexpected stroke-worse than of death!

Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave

Nor is it only our home and our country, or the objects with which they are filled, that become thus personified when our love for them is excited. Every inanimate thing which may connect us with them, will, by the same feeling, be exalted at once into importance, and into the rank of animated life. Remove us to a distance, and the winds that seem to blow from our native land, or the clouds that travel towards her mountains, may become to our quickened feelings as partakers in the interest that excites us, or as mutual

"Oh, move, thou cottage, from behind that oak! Or let the aged tree uprooted lie,

That in some other way yon smoke

May mount into the sky!

"Roll back, sweet rill, back to thy mountain bounds,

And there for ever be thy waters chain'd!

For thou dost haunt the air with sounds

That cannot be sustain'd;

If still beneath that pine-tree's ragged bough

Headlong yon waterfall must come,

Oh, let it then be dumb

Be any thing, sweet rill, but that which thou art now."