When the cypress-tree is weeping With the bright rose o'er the tomb. And the sunny orb is sleeping On the mountain's brow of gloom. Sweet mother at thy shrine Our spirits melt in prayer, Beneath the loveliness divine, Which art has pictured there. Or when the crystal star of Even Is mirror'd in the silent sea, And we can almost deem that heaven Derives its calmest smile from thee. Oh, virgin, if the lute Invokes thy name in song, Be thine the only voice that's mute, Amid the tuneful throng. When battle waves her falchion gory, Over the dead on sea or land, And one proud heart receives the glory, Won by the blood of many a band, If the hero's prayer to thee, From his fading lips be given, Awake his heart to ecstacy, With brightest hopes of heaven. Madonna! on whose bosom slumber'd, The infant, Christ, with sunny brow, The viewless hours have pass'd unnumber'd, Since we adored thy shrine as now; But not the gorgeous sky, Nor the blue expansive sea, To us such beauty could supply, As that which hallow'd thee! And when the scenes of life are faded From our dim eyes like phantom-things, When gentlest hearts with gloom are shaded, And cease to thrill at Fancy's strings, Thou, like the rainbow's form, When summer skies are dark, Shalt give thy light amid the storm, And guide the Wanderer's bark!

G.R. CARTER.

ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE FOOD

"For my part I do much admire, with what soul or with what appetite the first man, with his mouth touched slaughter, and reached to his lips the flesh of a dead animate."—PLUTARCH.

We ought not perhaps to insist too much on the opinions of the heathen philosophers, because the extension of knowledge, and a more matured experience, has shown the fallacy of many of their notions; but if we were permitted to lay any stress on the authority of these celebrated men, we might bring forward a mine of classical learning in commendation of a vegetable diet; we might point to the life of a Pythagoras, or a Seneca, as well as to the works of a Plato, and show how the wisest among the ancients lived, as well as thought, with regard to this subject.

But we shall be contented, as far as authority is concerned, to rest our claims to attention, rather upon that which bears a more modern date, and to bring forward the evidence of facts instead of the theories of ingenuity. The subject itself we may venture to hope, though a little homely, is not without interest, and certainly not unimportant. It is somewhat scientific from its very nature, and so far from being a matter confined to the medical faculty, it is one on which every man exerts, every day of his existence, his own free choice, as far indeed as custom has allowed him the exercise of that freedom.

But, though we will not go back to the dreams of our forefathers, (who, if they had more genius, had fewer materials for it to work upon than their servile children,) yet we must always make the Bible an exception, and in the present case we find it expedient as well as becoming, to refer to that oldest and most valuable of records. We have there no express mention of eating flesh before the Flood; but, on the contrary, a direct command that man should subsist on the fruits of the earth. ("Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat"—Gen. i. 29.)

After the Flood, when the Israelites were distressed for want of food in the Wilderness, we find that it was sent to them from heaven in a vegetable form, and to denote its divine origin and its superior excellency, it is called in the Scriptures "the corn of heaven," and "angels' food," &c. Oftener than once this favoured but ungrateful people despised and loathed this miraculous provision; they called out for animal food, and accordingly quails were sent them, but they were punished with destruction by the flesh which they desired; ("And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague."—Numb. xi. 33.)

Thus in the first ages of the world, and during the shepherd state of society, men lived upon berries, and such fruits as the earth spontaneously produced; we have mentioned generally how the philosophers of Greece and Rome preferred to live, and there are not wanting instances of men bred up in the sensuality of modern times who have followed their example. The philosopher, Franklin, who reached a great age, for a considerable portion of his life kept entirely to a vegetable diet; and Abernethy, a name yet more familiar in our ears, has left us this maxim, that "a vegetable diet and abstinence from fermented liquors tends more than anything else to tranquillize the system."—(vide the Abernethian Code.) Another popular and scientific writer of the present day makes a similar confession, which coming from such an unexpected quarter carries weight: "Although professedly friends to gastronomy, moderated by a decided aversion to anything like sensuality, we are of opinion that man is less fit to feed upon carnal than vegetable substance." (Accum's Culinary Chemistry.)

The author of The Art of Improving Health, has also a passage in point: "An animal diet, especially in temperate climates, is more wasting than a vegetable; because it excites by its stimulating qualities a fever after every meal, by which the springs of life are urged into constant and weakening exertions: on the contrary, a vegetable diet tends to preserve a delicacy of feeling, a liveliness of imagination, and an acuteness of judgment, seldom enjoyed by those who live principally on meat." Thus we might go on multiplying authorities on this subject, but we shall content ourselves with referring briefly to one or two authors of a more literary stamp, and have done with quotation. The eloquent Shelley, in his notes to Queen Mab, pretty roundly assures us, that "according to comparative anatomy, man resembles frugivorous animals in everything, carnivorous in nothing;" and the famous author of the Anatomy of Melancholy, has quaintly but nervously observed, "As a lamp is choked with over much oil, or a fire with too much wood, so is the natural heat strangled in the body by the superfluous use of flesh; thus men wilfully pervert the good temperature of their bodies, stifle their wits, strangle nature, and degenerate into beasts." The somewhat visionary but fascinating Rousseau, has also in his Treatise of Education, to which we refer our readers, most powerfully condemned the use of flesh, and he humorously attributes the proverbial boorishness of Englishmen to their fondness for roast beef!

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 558, July 21, 1832

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ITALIAN HYMN TO THE MADONNA

ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE FOOD

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