where sea and air and heat and light combine and concentrate the conditions of intensest animality, amid which becomes developed a most beautiful and marvellous fauna; where Medusa and Siphonophores wander at their own wild will, propelled through the clear blue waters by the pulsations of crystal bell, or of broad many-coloured disc, or in vast fleets are floating over the sea with sail extended to the breeze; where Pteropods flit on wings through the water like butterflies through the air; where Beroes catch the sunlight on their sides and flash it back in all the brightest hues of the rainbow; where Salpæ play in long undulating chains of crystal, and Tyrosoma, no less clear by day, becomes a cylinder of fire by night. What exuberance of life! What intensity of happiness! What unnumbered hosts basking beneath the tropic sky, or breaking the mirror of the sea with their gambols, or yielding to the impulse of the trade wind, or lighting up at night with phosphorescent gleam the dark blue waters of the deep." "It is scarcely

possible to conceive of anything more lovely than one of these Lagoon Islands with its graceful palm trees and its groves of Pisonia, the still quiet lake within, the restless landless ocean without and the glowing sky of the tropics stretching over all, where

'Droops the heavy blossomed bower: hangs the heavy fruited tree,

Summer isles of Eden lying in dark purple spheres of sea.'

Within the upper portions of this area the coral fauna may be witnessed in all the perfection of its

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highest development and life; for there the sea is transparent as the purest beryl, and down fathoms deep below the boat the eye can penetrate through the liquid crystal to where the coral bank spreads below and around, and there a scene of marvellous beauty becomes revealed. For there beneath the sea is a garden of carnations, asters, anemones and gorgeous cactus-flowers seem there to expand their glowing petals; flexible shrubs root themselves in the crevices of the rocks, and envelope their branches in bright clusters of flowers, like the mezereon bush in the month of March. What profusion of forms! What richness of colouring! Crimson, golden, purple, emerald-green and snowy white;-no garden of the upper air can surpass that garden of the sea in loveliness. But, stranger than all! every petal is replete with sense; every flower and every shrub is an animated being:-touch it, and it shrinks: feed it, and it digests: it rejoices in the warm sunlight and is happy in the caress of the ocean tide. Now, the animated flowers of that wonderful seagarden spend no life of idleness-day after day, night after night, they are at their work! They are the builders of coral, the architects of islands, the ceaseless labourers by whose untiring energy have been rescued from ocean thousands of miles of habitable land."

Writing on the Isthmus of Panama, my friend W. Vivian, Esq., gives the following glowing description :-"We left the old bamboo-built town of Chagres in an open boat and ploughed our way through still water, tangled with mangrove trees

and other water-growing plants of great luxuriance, the river winding its devious way. After some hours we cleared the swampy lowlands and entered another field of tropical vegetable life. On the river's banks grew trees of considerable height, some of them bending their branches to the water; and around and through these grew varied plants of richest growth, gracefully curving their leafy lengths and spreading out their gorgeous flowers. From the tree-tops hung varieties of giant convolvulus in red, white and purple festoons; over and through these flitted and hovered hummingbirds of varied hues, showing their rapid and phantom-like movements only by the brilliant reflections which now and again glanced from their tiny burnished breasts. On we went, exhilarated by the sight of these glorious surroundings, beating time with glowing hearts to the boatmen's oars and singing snatches of sacred song. Other objects and others again appeared at every turn of the head in this natural conservatory of life. Parrots and toucans came and went in flocks overhead. Kingfishers were there plying their calling; and large green water-lizards, basking in the sunshine on the overhanging branches of the trees, and startled by our approach plunged into the rippling flood. Steering through this scene of living beauty on we went, till suddenly rounding a sharp bend of the river we saw before us a small, delicately-formed snow-white crane standing at ease in the water, and dipping his elegantly-curved head and neck into the water in search of food. My heart bounded at the

sight, and his snowy whiteness, his graceful form and attitude so impressed themselves on my memory that whenever I think of a tropical paradise that crane stands there before me in earthly beatitude surrounded with humming birds as his angels."

Though, philosophically, beauty may be said to consist in the qualities of bodies; yet the perception of the beautiful depends on vision, association, the intellectual faculties, and the moral sentiments. The late Lord Jeffrey thought, and Mr. Ruskin, the eminent art-critic, thinks with him, that the power of a landscape depends on human emotion, and that it is not in quality or form. It is very difficult, indeed to explain beauty in few words; but we are inclined to the belief that, even separate from emotion, some things are intrinsically beautiful, as an English rose, or the pink tint on a snow-clad Alp. Such things are beautiful in themselves, although associations, we admit, may make them more beautiful; as when we know that the eyes of those we love have gazed on the same flower or been transported into ecstasy with the same Alpine glory.

These views are confirmed by an able writer in Chambers's Encyclopædia. Referring to Payne Knight, who differed from Lord Jeffrey, he says, "This writer (Payne Knight) maintains that colours possess a primitive and original beauty, which may be enriched by association, but does not depend upon it. Jeffery denies this, and attempts to prove that our perception of the beauty of colour, instead of being a mere organic sensation,' arises from association alone. In the same way, he refuses to

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believe that there is any independent or intrinsic beauty in form; and conceives that architecture owes its beauty, not to the essential, harmony of its proportions, but to a variety of curious considerations on our part. He considers Alison's analysis of this beauty, with special reference to Greek architecture, 'perfectly satisfactory.' It arises, first, from the association of utility; second, of security; third, of the skill of the architect; fourth, of magnificence; fifth, of antiquity; sixth, of Grecian greatness ! To this it may be replied, that such associations increase, but do not create, our perception of the beauty of Greek architecture."

Professor Blackie is said to be a Platonist in theory; but his elaboration of the theory is modern. "Beauty," he says, "does not consist in one element, or in one power, or in one proportion, but in many elements, powers, and proportions ;" and then refers to order, congruity (or harmony), actuality, perfection (in the Platonic sense, viz., the full result of a creative energy), expressiveness, smoothness, delicacy, and curvature.

The late Sir William Hamilton, in his Lectures on Metaphysics, distinguishes beauty into absolute and relative. "In the former case," he says, "it is not necessary to have a notion of what the object ought to be, before we pronounce it beautiful or not; in the latter case, such a previous notion is required. Flowers, shells, arabesques, &c., are freely or absolutely beautiful. We judge, for example, a flower to be beautiful, though unaware of its destination, and that it contains a complex apparatus of