ineffable love, and joy, and peace. Now the sky, the pale, delicate, sapphire sky, the soft, tender, inviting, enfolding, and immeasurable sky, appears to image the mercy of its maker. Let us yet gaze upon the sky, for it also admonishes us of other delightful things; it is silent—it is awful—it is holy; but its silence is beautiful, and with wordless eloquence it speaks unto our enraptured bosoms of deep, eternal, unimaginable repose! it infuses into our breasts undefinable ideas and sensations; it appears to our enchanted imaginations an emblem meet of the grand dream of eternity, and our spirits seem on the verge of quitting earth, in thrilling contemplations on the islands of that infinite abyss, and their immortal inhabitants! We gaze in hope, adoration, and rapture on the blue expanse, varied by delicate vapours, sailing calmly, wondrously through it; and then occur to our memories spontaneously, the exquisite lines translated from a morceau, by Gluck, (a German poet;) and our hearts respond as each of us sighs:

Then do our delighted eyes wander downward; then doth earth appear a glorious, though but a temporary palace, the gift of a gracious God to man! then do we feel an unaccountable assurance that angels visit the beautiful domain; then that (though viewlessly) they rejoice with, they sorrow for, (if angels can sorrow) and they minister unto "the heirs of salvation," as they did in the days of old, and as they will do, to the end of time. Were we not assured of this blessed fact in the book of books, reason would assert, that for a thankless, graceless generation alone, earth should not have been formed so divinely fair; but it is heavenly, that the immortal servitors of man may even here find records of the divinity, and themes for undying thanksgiving. Are we indeed visited, watched, and ministered unto, by beatific essences? Oh, reason and revelation, both loudly proclaim the fact; those beneficent beings may be with us then, when we deem ourselves alone; they may be our society in the solitude of our chambers; they may pass us in the breeze, and they may wander beside us in our loneliest walks. Such meditations are calculated to inspire our bosoms with new life; to brighten all nature around us, and to unite us to the invisible world by ties, of the existence of which we were never previously sensible; ties, at once so sweet and so sacred, that we almost crave the blessing of death, in order more surely to strengthen them! Then doth the beauty of "the vale of tears" confound us; then doth it infuse into our bosoms such unalterable fore-tastes; such mysterious and undefinable sensations of the blessedness of "the isles of joy," that our very souls seem to have become but one prayer, one fervent, wordless, agonizing prayer, for divine repose, and unimaginable blessedness; and then doth the mere suggestion of final reprobation amount to insufferable torture! Oh, that such heavenly imaginings, such divine intimations of a transcendent futurity, were more frequently vouchsafed to us, and were less evanescent. They are glimpses of everlasting day, shining on wanderers in "the valley of the shadow of death;" they are droppings from the overflowing and ineffable cup of mercy; they are presciences of eternity, inestimable, unutterable! and the pen that would describe indescribable perceptions, droops in shame and sorrow at its own imbecility. Such perceptions have visited, do visit us, on this most rapturous of Christmas Days? Is it not a golden day? does it not remove us for a little space from earth, into the society of the holiest sentient beings, and to the beauty of a celestial, surpassing, world? Does it not bestow on our souls their long-lost ethereal wings? and do not the delighted strangers soar for a little while above the grossest realms of matter? Alas! even but for a little while; now do they drop, for now flag and droop those angelic pinions which are too humid and heavy with that atmosphere, from whence they could not wholly disengage themselves; the golden harps of heaven murmur in their entranced ears no longer; the smiles of the Sons of Peace fade from their enchanted sight; and the clouds of this nether world retain from their enamoured gaze, the treasures of infinity!

Perhaps we have enjoyed a very enthusiastic, a very poetical, Christmas Day! we pretend not to deny it, though steadfastly believing it was neither an anti-Christian, nor an utterly unprofitable one; nay, we even venture to hope, that the beatitude of spirit just feebly portrayed was not unpleasing in His sight, unto whom, for His gift of immortal life, we upon Christmas Day render our peculiar thanksgivings!

M.L.B.

THE FALL OF ZARAGOZA.

(For the Mirror.)

Deal.

REGINALD AUGUSTINE.

THE BANQUETTING HOUSE, WHITEHALL.¹

(For the Mirror.)

Many persons who have visited this chapel may not have noticed or been aware of the splendid painted ceiling by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, which was executed by him when ambassador at the court of James I. This beautiful performance represents the apotheosis of that peaceful monarch, he being seated on his throne, and turning towards the deities of peace and commerce, having rejected the gods of war and discord. It is painted on canvass, and is in excellent preservation; the original painter had £3,000. for his labour; it has been retouched more than once, and the last time was by Cipriani, who had £2,000. for his repairs.

Ralph, in his Critical Review of Public Buildings, observes, "that this picture is not so generally known as one could wish, but