'Bright summer beams along the sky,
And paints the glowing year;
Where'er we turn the raptured eye,
Her splendid tints appear.

Then, when so fit to lift the song
Of gratitude to Heaven,

To whom her purple charms belong,
By whom those charms are given?

Thee, thee, Almighty King of kings,
Man worships not alone;

Each budding flower its incense brings,
And wafts it to thy throne." "

"Thank you-thank you! I have very much enjoyed the ditch pictures that you have painted."

The old stone quarry in the wood at Binstead in the Isle of Wight-The river, the wood, the workmen, and the stone quarry-The enormous head-Toads said to be found in stones and trees-The stone quarry above the river-The plants and weeds-The spider, the ant, and the violet.

SOME little time had elapsed since Mr. Haughton had sketched his last picture, when Edwin ran up to him with what he thought an odd request. "I tell you what I want," said he, with a knowing air, "and I

do really think that I shall puzzle you: I want you to paint me some stone quarry pictures. You told me that all the stone with which the church was built came out of a stone quarry. Let me, then, have a picture of one, if you please."

"You shall have more than one: but let

me tell you first of a beautiful little cottage that stands in the hollow of an old stone quarry in a wood at Binstead in the Isle of Wight, out of which quarry the stone was taken, it is said, to build Winchester Cathedral. The cottage is neatly thatched, and looks so snug in the hollow of the quarry that almost every one who sees it wishes to enter it."

"I should, I am sure. Just as you describe the place, I can fancy it."

"Now for a picture. I am standing at the mouth of a large stone quarry with the wood far above it, and the river far below it, and huge fragments of stone lie about in all directions; some rough from the quarry, and others sawn and chiselled into shape. Here men are making holes to put in gunpowder, that parts of the rock may be blown up; there workmen are busy with their mallets, their chisels, and their saws; and yonder they are rolling large stones down towards the river, or dragging them on wheel-carriages to the upper road. The river, the

wood, the workmen, and the quarry, make no bad picture altogether."

"They make a very good one."

"In procuring the stone from quarries, and in excavating the ground for tunnels, canals, and railroads, curious discoveries are often made. I will read you a copy of a printed paper, which I saw some time since against a wall: Wonderful remains of an enormous head eighteen feet in length, seven feet in breadth, and weighing one thousand seven hundred pounds; the complete bones of which were discovered in excavating a passage for the purpose of a railway, at the depth of seventy-five feet from the surface of the ground in Louisiana, and at a distance of a hundred and sixty miles from the sea.'

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"But was it really true? Was there really such a great head found?"

"Oh yes, I have no doubt of that, as it was brought over to this country to be shown as a sight. Some said it was the head of a fish; but then how came it seventy-five feet deep in the ground, and a hundred and sixty miles from the sea? Some said it was the head of a large bird, or of a lizard; but a bird with such a head would have darkened the air with his wings, and a lizard of a size in proportion with it might soon have eaten up all the vegetable and animal food in the

neighbourhood. There is little doubt that the head was that of a fish; but how it came where it was found must remain a mystery."

"It was a very wonderful thing, however." "It is said that toads have sometimes been found in the very middle of large, solid stones, and also in the middle of trees. The whole creation around us is a mystery; and often are we called on to wonder and admire, when we cannot understand. But listen to my account of an old stone quarry, that I went into last summer."

"Yes, I will listen; for I dare say it will make a good picture."

"Many years must have passed since the stone had been taken away, for it was half grown over with pendant plants, wild flowers, and weeds. Oh, it was a sweet, wild, romantic place; and as I sat on a stone down in the deep hollow, shut out as it were from the world, I heard a trickling or gurgling of water that was no doubt running somewhere at no great distance. The sound was soothing.

'The noise as of a hidden brook,
In the leafy month of June,
That to the silent woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.'

The sides of the quarry were of many colours. In one part dry, in another wet;