mother-loving; whom some god, less generous than thyself, would keep for his own jealous doating. Would we might see her in thine arms! We would willingly die for the sight; would willingly die with the only pleasure which thou hast left wanting to us."

The goddess would weep at these twilight hymns, consoling herself for the absence of Proserpina by thinking how many daughters she had made happy. Triptolemus shed weaker tears at them in his secret bed, but they were happier ones than before, I shall die," thought he, "merely from the bitter-sweet joy of seeing the growth of a happiness which I must never taste; but the days I longed for have arrived. Would that my father would only speak to the goddess, that my passage to the grave might be a little easier !”

The father doubted whether he should speak to the goddess. He loved his son warmly, though he did not well understand him; and the mother, in spite of all the goddess's kindness, was afraid lest in telling her of a child whom they were about to lose, they should remind her too forcibly of her own. Yet the mother, in an agony of alarm one day, at a fainting fit of her son's, was the first to resolve to speak to her; and the king and she with pale and agitated faces, went and prostrated themselves at her feet. "What is this, kind hosts?” said Ceres, have ye too lost a daughter ?” “No; but we shall lose a son," answered the parents, "but for the help of heaven." "A son!" replied Ceres: "why did you not tell me your son was living?I had heard of him, and wished to see him; but never finding him among ye, I guessed that he was no more, and I would not trouble you with such a memory. But why did ye fear mine, when I could do good? Did your son fear it ???"No indeed," said the parents; "he urged us to tell thee."-" He is the being I took him for," returned the goddess: "lead me to where he lies."

They came to his chamber, and found him kneeling up on the bed, his face and joined hands bending towards the door. He had felt the approach of the deity; and though he shook in every limb, it was a transport beyond fear that made him rise: it was love and gratitude. The goddess saw it; and bent on him a look that put composure in his shattered nerves. "What wantest thou," said she, 66 struggler with great thoughts ?" "Nothing," answered Triptolemus, if thou thinkest it good, but a shorter and easier death." "What? Before thy task is done?" Fate," he replied, seems to tell me that I was not fitted for my task, and it is more than done since thou art here. I pray thee, let me die; that I may not see every one around me weeping in the midst of joy at my disease, and yet not have strength enough left in my hands to wipe away their tears."" Not so, my child," said the goddess," and her grand harmonions voice had tears in it, as she spoke; "not so, Triptolemus; for my task is thy task; and even gods work with instruments. Thou hast not gone through all thy trials yet; but thou shalt have a better covering to bear them yet still by degrees, Gradual sorrow, gradual joy."

So saying, she put her hand to his heart, and pressed it; and the agitation of his spirit was further allayed, though he returned to his

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1 reclining posture for weakness. From that time, the bed of Triptolemus was removed into the temple, and Ceres herself became his second mother. But nobody knew how she nourished him. It was said, that she summoned milk into her bosom, and nourished him at her immortal heart, as though he had been newly born in heaven. But he did not grow taller in stature, as men expected. His health was restored; his joints were knit again, and stronger than ever; but he continued the same small, though graceful youth; only the sicklier particles which he had received from his parents withdrew their wasting influence.

At last however, his very figure began to grow and expand. Up to this moment, he had only been an interesting mortal, in whom the stoutest and best-made of his father's subjects recognized something mentally superior. Now, he began to look in person as well as in mind a demigod. The curiosity of the parents was roused at this appearance; and it was heightened by the report of a domestic, who said that in passing the door of the temple one night, she heard a sound as of a mighty fire. But their parental feelings were also excited by: the behaviour of Triptolemus, who, while he seemed to rise with double cheerfulness in the morning, always began to look melancholy towards nightfall. For some hours before he retired to rest, he grew silent,' and looked more and more thoughtful; though nothing could be kinder in his manners to every body, and the hour no sooner approached for his retiring, than he went instantly and even chearfully.

His parents resolved to watch. They knew not what they were about, or they would have abstained: for Ceres was every night at her enchantments to render their son immortal in being as well as fame; and interruption would be fatal. At midnight, they listened at the temple-door.

The first thing they heard was the roaring noise of fire, as had been reported. It was deep and fierce. They were about to retire for fear; but curiosity and parental feeling prevailed. They listened again; but for some time heard nothing but the fire. At last, a voice, resembling their child's, gave a deep groan. "It was a strong trial, my son," said another, in which they recognized the melancholy sweetness of the goddess. The grandeur and exceeding novelty of these visions," said the fainter voice, press upon me, as though they would bear down my brain." "But they do not," returned the deity, and they have not. I will summon the next.' "Nay, not yet," rejoined the mortal; "yet be it as thou wilt. I know what thou tellest me, great and kind mother."- "Thou dost know," said the goddess, "and thou knowest in the very heart of thy knowledge, which is in the sympathy of it and the love. Thou seest that difference is not difference, and yet is so; that the same is not the same, and yet must be ; that what is, is but what we see, and as we see it; and yet that which we see, is. Thou shalt prove it finally; and this is the last trial but. Vision, come forth." A noise here took place, as of the entrance of something exceeding hurried and agonized, but which

one.

remained fixed with equal stillness. A brief pause took place, at the end of which the listeners heard their son speak, but in a voice of exceeding toil and loathing, and as if he turned away his head :"It is," said he, gasping for breath, "utmost deformity." "Only to thine habitual eyes, and when alone," said the goddess, in a soothing and earnest manner:- "look again!" "Oh my heart!" said the same voice, gasping as if with transport, "they are perfect beauty and humanity." 66 They are only two of the same," said the goddess, "each going out of itself. Deformity to the eyes of habit is nothing but analysis; in essence it is nothing but one-ness, if such a thing there be. The touch and the result is every thing. See what a goddess knows, and see nevertheless what she feels:in this only greater then mortals, that she lives for ever to do good. Now comes the last and greatest trial: now shalt thou see the real worlds as they are; now shalt thou behold them lapsing in reflected splendour about the blackness of space; now shalt thou dip thine ears into the mighty ocean of their harmonies, and be able to be touched with the concentrated love of the universe. Roar heavier, fire; endure, endure, thou immortalizing frame." "Yes, now, now," said the other voice, in a superhumam tone, which the listeners knew not whether to think joy or anguish; but their minds were so much more full of the latter, that they opened a place from which the priestess used to speak at the lintel, and looked in. The mother beheld her son, stretched, with a face of bright agony, upon burning coals. She shrieked; and pitch darkness fell upon the temple, and all about it. "A little while," said the mournful voice of the goddess" and heaven had had another life. Oh Fear! what does thou not do! Oh may all but divine boy," continued she, now plunged again into physical darkness, thou canst not do good so long as thou woulder have done, but thou shalt have a life almost as long as the commonest sons of men, and and times more useful and glorious. Thou must change away the rest of thy particies, do; and in the process of time, they may meet again under some nature worthy of thee, and give thee another chance for yearning into immortality; but at present, the pain is done; the pleasure must not arrive."

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The fright they had undergone, slew the weak parents. Triptolemus, strong in body, chearful to all in show, chearful to himself in many things, retained nevertheless a certain melancholy from his recollections; but it did not hinder him from sowing joy wherever he The success of others went. It incited him but the more to do so. stood him instead of his own. Ceres gave him the first seeds of the corn that makes bread, and sent him in her chariot round the world to 66 but teach men how to use it. "I am not immortal myself," said he, let the good I do be so, and I shall yet die happy."

1

RETURN OF AUTUMN.

The autumn is now confirmed. The harvest is over; the summer birds are gone or going; heavy rains have swept the air of its warmth, and prepared the earth for the impressions of winter.

And the author's season changes likewise. We can no longer persuade ourselves that it is summer, by dint of resolving to think so. We cannot warm ourselves at the look of the sunshine. Instead of sitting at the window, "hindering" ourselves, as people say, with enjoying the sight of Nature, we find our knees turned round to the fire-place, our face opposite a pictured instead of a real landscape, and our feet toasting upon a fender. This reminds us that we began our first volume of the INDICATOR at the same season; and that it is now verg ing to a close. We hope and indeed believe, from what our readers both say and do, that they have been as much pleased with encountering its "shining morning face" every week, as we have been in sending It forth; a great deal more so, we trust, occasionally. Half as much so will have done at some other times, when we have been in high spirits, and flattered ourselves that we made the school-boy urchin look handsome.

When some enjoyments go, others come. The boys will now be gathering their nuts. The trees will put forth, in their bravely-dying leaves, all the colours of heaven and earth which they have received from sun, and ain, and soil. Nature, in her heaps of grain and berries, will set before the animal creatione protave and luxurious a rary palates have received from tart and desert.

foast as a

Nature with the help of a very little art, can put forth a prettier bill of fare, than most persons, if people will but persuade each other that cheapness is as good as dearness; a discovery, we think, to which the tax-gather might easily help us. Let us see what she says this autumn. Imagine us seated at the bar of a fashionable harbour, or boxed in a sylvan scene of considerable resort. Enter, a waiter, the September of Spenser, that ingenious and oddly-dressed rogue, cf whom we are told, that when he appeared before the poet, he was

Heavy laden with the spoil

Of harvest's richer, which he made his boot.

At present, he assumes a more modest
leaves under his arm by way of duster.
a west wind through his teeth genteelly,
ing bill of entertainment :-

aspect, with a bunch of ashHe bows like a poplar, draws and lays before us the follow

Fish, infinite and cheap.

Fruit, dittoditto.

Nuts, ditto-ditto.es

Bread, ditto-taxed.

Fresh airs, ditto-taxed if in doors—not out.

Light, ditto-ditto.

Wine, in its unadulterated shape, as grapes, or sunshine, or wellfermenter blood.

Cyder and Perry,

The Arbours of ivy, wild honey-suckle, arbutus, &c. all in flower. Other flowers on table.

The anti-room, with a view into it, immense, with a sky-blue cupola, and hung round with with landscapes confessedly inimitable. Towards the conclusion, a vocal concert among the trees.

At night, falling stars, and a striking panoramic view of the heavens; on which occasion for a few nights only, the same moon will be introduced, that was admired by the "immortal Shakspeare!!!"

N. B. It is reported by some malignant persons, that the birdconcert is not artificial: whereas it will be found, upon the smallest inspection, to beat even the most elaborate inventions of the justly admired Signor Mecanical Fello.

Ah, dear friend, as valued a one as thou art a poet,-John Keats,we cannot, after all, find it in our hearts to be glad, now thou art gone away with the swallows to seek a kindlier clime. The rains began to fall heavlly, the moment thou wast to go;-we do not say, poetlike, for thy departure. One tear in an honest eye is more precious to thy sight, than all the metaphorical weepings in the universe; and thou didst leave many starting to think how many months it would be till they saw thee again. And yet thou didst love metaphorical tears too, in their way; and couldst always liken every thing in nature to something great or small; and the rains that beat against thy cabinwindow will set, we fear, thy over-working wits upon many comparisons that ought to be much more painful to others than thyself;Heaven- mend their envious and ignorant numskulls. But thou hast 46 a mighty soul in a little body;" and the kind cares of the former for all about thee shall no longer subject the latter to the chance of impressions which it scorns; and the soft skies of Italy shall breathe balm upon it; and thou shalt return with thy friend the nightingale,