THE MONK OF FURNESS ABBEY.

DISJOINTED FRAGMENTS.

I.

WHEN from the world was lost that light sublime
Which Greece shed o'er it in the olden time,-
When mental darkness like a film o'erspread
All lands, and wisdom with the wise was dead,-

When Sense and Reason from their thrones were hurled
And made a moral desert of the world,—

Some pious Monarch built a holy fane

Where pure devotion as a Queen might reign-
Where in the mountain's bosom laid to rest,

Were stilled the waves of the o'erlaboured breast-
Where timid Sorrow's fluttering wings were furled
Safe from the tumults that convulsed the world.

II.

These were the blest retreats where Peace might dwell
Sweetly sequestered in Devotion's cell;

And while the lust of conquest or of crime
Was raging wild o'er each unhappy clime,
Here could the virtuous and the wise retire

And light their taper at the vestal fire

Where knowledge faintly burned, and, there enshrined, Preserve the precious life-blood of the mind ;—

Such were these temples, ere fanatic rage

Destroyed by grandeur left untouched by age;
But now their massive relics but declare-
The tide of life hath ebbed for ever there.

III.

It was the hour when dying day-light throws
A parting smile of kindness on the world,
When the fair sun, his race of beauty o'er,

Is in his robes of shadowy splendour furled-
Reflection reached the zenith of her pow'r
And silence was the Queen of that soft hour.
The wanderer walked abroad-his soul serene
Drank the deep beauty of that parting scene.
Sweet is the tone of music, when it flings
Back on the heart the memory of things
Buried for many a year in that lone cell,
Where long-long absent forms of beauty dwell;
Sweet is the voice of friendship, when its tone
Soothes on the bed of death the sick man's groan;

VOL. I.

P

And when from wandering over shores afar
We turn our footsteps homeward-then how sweet
A sister's first kind words of welcome are

Which fly-the wanderer on his way to greet.
Aye! sweet are these:-but sweeter far to hear
Devotion's whispered incense meet the ear,—
To hear the spirit's first faint accents rise
To meet its great Creator in the skies.-
The stranger prayed.-.

IV.

When distant worlds appear arrayed on high
And measure out the gemm'd expanse of sky,-
When through the ivy of that aged pile

The dim-seen stars just twinkle thro' the aisle,—
Oft would the murmur of the half-breathed prayer
Float on the stillness of the midnight air,--
Oft would the wanderer sit absorbed in thought,
Till the first twilight rays of morning brought
Remembrance of the world; oft would he trace
Thro' night's long hours the calm unconscious race
Of the cold moon, as tow'rds the beamy west
She journeyed onward to her home of rest;
Oft at the window of his latticed cell
He watched the dying sunbeams as they fell
Upon those aged walls and till again
They rose in splendour, he would there remain.
The moon still shines upon that ivied cell,—
But where is he who loved her beams so well?
Free as the dead-his soul unfettered roams
Where mightiest spirits find their destined homes,—
Where there is treasured, in a purer state,
A bright reversion for the good and great:-
O'er his lone tomb no cypress branches wave,
But all is dark and silent as the grave.

V.

Far to the East, where Syria's desert sands
Unbroken lie, one stately pillar stands,-
Columns and Temples ruined round it lie
In the bright gloom of fallen majesty.
This was Palmyra,-and where once the song
Of Virgin sweetness from the festal throng
Forth issued, borne upon the listening air,-
The owl and raven only gather there.—
And in those halls where erst Longinus stood
And poured upon the Queen a melting flood
Of pure, sublime and simple tenderness,
Such as we listen to in dreams of bliss,—

-

There glides the serpent, solitary, slow,
Monarch of all the desert can bestow
And fearful sounds the stranger's soul appal
As twilight darkens o'er the mouldering wall.

How like Palmyra now that desert shrine
Where late I viewed the dying sunbeams shine,-
Gilding the ruins with that ghastly smile
We trace at eve along the cloistered aisle !
It sleeps in grandeur. Time's undying sway
Hath reared a fearful Temple to decay,
Where death is lovely-a bright monument
Snatched from the wreck of ages-where shall toll
The knell of time, when nature shall be rent,
And earth shall vanish as a shrivelled scroll.

W. R. G.

A FLORA OF BERWICK-ON-TWEED. *

WE conceive it impossible for any one to look around him, and view the improvements which have of late years been effected in most of the sciences, without astonishment. Many of these were, till very lately, enveloped in such obscurity, and encumbered with such a load of technicalities, that the student frequently turned from them in disgust; or, if he happened to possess a sufficient share of patience to attain, after years of labour spent in poring over the writings of some fifty or sixty old authors, an acquaintance with the mere elements,—he had, even then, no more pretensions to the title of a Philosopher, or, in other words, no scientific attainments which qualified him to claim that rank, than might be acquired in as many months by a person of moderate abilities at the present day. Far indeed are we from wishing to depreciate the merits of our worthy forefathers, who with exemplary assiduity, now rarely to be met with, manfully encountered the serious obstacles opposed to their progress in knowledge; and still farther are we from meaning to insinuate that, had these difficulties stood in the way of the philosophical student of the nineteenth century, they would no sooner have met his "gifted eye" than, like a flake of snow under a sun-beam, they would have speedily dissolved. Such, however, is not our meaning, for we find in the superstition and bigotry which prevailed during the early ages,―in the circumstance, that the sciences were, in a manner, monopolized by a class of men who found it their interest to shut them up from the world at large, in the two frequent, though unintentional, substitution of theory for fact,-in the want of proper instruments for pro

• A Flora of Berwick-on-Tweed, by George Johnston, M. D. F. R. S.E. 2 vols 12mo. Longman and Co-London. Carfrae and Son-Edinburgh.

secuting discoveries, and in many other particulars which thwarted their advancement-quite enough to account satisfactorily for the slow progress of intellectual improvement, without impeaching the talents of the ancients in order to vindicate modern pre-eminence. The implicit adherence, which was over blindly paid to the dogmata of their predecessors, is especially worthy of notice; as by thus suppressing the sallies of original genius, and confining its investigations to one beaten track, an effectual barrier was erected against future movements. At last the human mind, too long enthralled, awoke from its apathy; and science, hitherto stern and forbidding, now attired herself in the simple robe of truth. Hence Botany, which had participated in the common gloom, assumed under the powerful hand of Linnæus a prominent place among its noble and delectable kindred. But though the very formidable obstacles, with which the Botanical student had previously to contend, have been in a great measure dissipated by the discovery of the Linnæan system of classification, and by the numerous subsequent improvements in vegetable physiology, yet it was reserved for the nineteenth century to impart to Botany such an agreeable and polished form as to attract even the ladies to the number of her votaries!

By no means do we consider the character of a Botanist estimable by the number and rarity of the plants he has examined; on the contrary, we are of opinion that, before any one can arrive at those correct and philosophical views of the vegetable world essential to the formation of a good Botanist, a previous minute and careful examination of the structure and peculiarities of numerous species as they affect different soils and elevations, and occupy different places in the arrangement of Linnæus and Jussieu, is totally indispensable. For the purpose, therefore, of facilitating the progress of individuals engaged in this pursuit, and not altogether with a view of satisfying curiosity, various works have successively appeared-exhibiting the number of genera and species supposed to be indigenous to a particular district, containing the characters by which they may be recognized, and recording the places where they have been found. By adverting to one of these the Botanist, who is anxious to examine the plants of a neighbourhood, is spared great labour, and is likewise enabled to traverse a much wider extent of ground than he could possibly overtake by his own unaided exertions. Of this kind is the work before us; which, in addition to the usual contents of such publications, contains a vast fund of other interesting matter.

Annexed to the preface at the beginning of the first volume is a very excellent sketch of the geology of Berwickshire, written by a friend of the author, and the first attempt, as we are told, yet made to investigate the structure of the county. Our limits prevent us from laying before our readers more than a few brief extracts illustrative of the style of the essay, the value of which is only diminished by the absence of an enquiry into the stratification of the coast, as the author himself remarks, "with any thing like minute attention."

ST. ABBS.

"Few parts of the kingdom can exhibit a finer and more splendid piece of coast-scenery than St. Abbs,-to him especially who surveys

it from the sea beneath, whether it be in the summer season when in calmness and security he sails over the peaceful and pellucid waters, amid gloomy caverns, rocky archways, and majestic cliffs-half-shattered by the storm and lightning, and shooting up aloft their giant greatness to the skies; or whether he visit it when the myriads of sea-fowl are clothing the lofty cliffs or darkening with their multitudes the noon-day sun, or filling all the surrounding echoes with their dissonant voices; or whether when the elements of sea and sky are mingled together, and the waves lashed up to foam, he sits securely on its mountain-top and eyes the maddening strife."

"But it is not for its mere natural scenery that St. Abbs is so interesting-it is, if possible, still more so in a geological point of view. In a sketch of this description it may be sufficient to describe St. Abbs as a huge insulated map of trap-rocks, of which the principal are trap-tuffa, amygdaloid and felspar porphyry. In the first of these rocks there is generally a basis of clay with imbedded portions of basalt, amygdaloid and porphyry. In the second rock there is also a distinct basis or ground, generally of a greenish coloured clay, containing amygdaloidal-shaped cavities filled with calcareous spar, zeolites, quartz nodules, and agates. In the last rock, the basis is generally felspar with imbedded chrystals of the same. When these rocks occur in the manner and with the characters now described, it is usual to consider them as subordinate to the old red sandstone; but where no formation of this kind is observable, and where the rocks within a few yards are evidently graywacke, as they are in the situation now before us, there seems no other way of describing the traprocks of St. Abbs but as subordinate to the transition graywacke and graywacke slate. We have described St. Abbs as an insulated mountain mass, it being completely cut off from the wide extent of high ground on the west by a deep valley, in the centre of which is a marsh of considerable botanical interest.'

"There are probably few places where the contrast, both in external aspect and in botanical phenomena, as well as in structure, is so remarkable as between the two sides of the valley, especially at the little inlet termed Pettycurwick. Standing by the sea-side at this small creek, and looking westward, we perceive, for many miles along the lofty coast, the most splendid displays of stratification, the strata being of all forms and in all positions, curved, zigzag, vertical, horizontal, &c.; but the outline both of the summits and the slope of the precipices we observe, in general, to be smooth and unbroken, and more like a vast sloping wall or mural defence, than a natural piece of rock scenery. Looking towards the east again, which consists of the high ground of St. Abbs, the outline is rugged, broken and highly picturesque, the sea in that direction being ranged with beetling crags and overhanging cliffs,-in one place hollowed out into magnificent caves and natural arches, and in another broken into wild and insulated pinnacles. In the botany of the two sides of the valley we have also mentioned that there is a difference, and this sufficient to attract the notice even of the most superficial observer. For instance, the Arenaria verna grows among the unstratified trap-rocks of " the head" in the most beautiful luxuriance, while on the opposite side of the valley, though the distance in one place be not more than a few yards,