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Title: The Portland Sketch Book

Editor: Ann S. Stephens

Release date: March 27, 2012 [eBook #39278]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
PORTLAND SKETCH BOOK ***

Transcriber's Note:
In "Descriptions of the Divine Being," P. 96, the block quote inside ~ (tilde)
marks is a transliteration of the Hebrew. The transliteration was not present

in the original and has been added by the transcriber; [h.] is used for Het, to
distinguish it from h for Hey. The UTF8 and HTML versions also have the
Hebrew script shown in the original.
Remaining transcriber's notes are at the end of the text.

THE

PORTLAND SKETCH BOOK.

EDITED BY

MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.

PORTLAND:
COLMAN & CHISHOLM.

Arthur Shirley, Printer.

1836.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by Edward
Stephens, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Maine.

PREFACE.
The object of the Portland Sketch-Book, is to collect in a small compass,
literary specimens from such authors as have a just claim to be styled
Portland writers. The list might have been extended to a much greater
length, had all been included who have made our city a place of transient
residence; but no writer has a place in this volume who is not, or has not
been, a citizen of Portland, either by birth or a long residence. Therefore, all
the names contained in these pages are emphatically those of Portland
authors. Among those who were actually born here and either wholly, or in
part educated here, will be found the following names, most of which are
already known to the world of literature.
S. B. Beckett—James Brooks—William Cutter—Charles S. Daveis—
Nathaniel Deering—P. H. Greenleaf—Charles P. Ilsley—Joseph Ingraham
—Geo. W. Light—Henry W. Longfellow—Grenville Mellen—Frederick
Mellen—Isaac McLellan, Jr.—John Neal—Elizabeth Smith—William
Willis—N. P. Willis.
Considering the population of our city—hardly fifteen thousand at this time
—the list itself we apprehend will be considered as not the least remarkable
part of the book.
It was the design of the Publishers to furnish a book composed of original
articles from all our living authors, and to select only from those who have
been lost to us; but though great exertions were made, the editor found
much difficulty in collecting original materials, even after they had been
promised by almost every individual to whom she applied. According to the
original design, each living author was to have contributed a limited
number of pages; but after frequent disappointments, all restrictions were
taken off; each writer furnished as many original pages as suited his
pleasure, and the deficiency was supplied by selected articles. In her
selections, the editor has endeavored to do impartial justice to our authors,
and, in almost every instance, she has been guided by them in her choice. If
in any case she has been obliged to exercise her own judgment, in

contradiction to theirs, it was because the publishers had restricted her to a
certain number of pages, and the articles proposed would have swelled the
volume beyond the prescribed limits. Original papers are inserted exactly as
they were supplied by their separate authors. A general invitation was
extended; therefore it should give no offence, if those who have contributed
largely fill the greater portion of the Book, to the exclusion of much
excellent matter, which might have been selected. Several writers who did
not forward their contributions as expected, have been omitted altogether,
as the editor could find nothing of theirs extant which was adapted to a
work strictly literary.
In order to avoid all appearance of partiality, it has been thought advisable
to make an alphabetical arrangement of names, and to let chance decide the
position of each author in the Book.
The compiler has a word of apology to offer, before she consigns her little
book to the public. Reasons which will be easily understood would have
prevented her appropriating any considerable portion to herself; but she had
contracted with the publishers to furnish a volume, which should be at least
two thirds original, and when the pages forwarded to her were found
insufficient for her object, she was obliged, however unwillingly, to supply
the deficiency.
The Editor now submits her Portland Book to the public, with much
solicitude that it may meet with approbation—feeling certain that
indulgence would be extended to her, could it be known how much labor
and difficulty have attended her slender exertions, in the literature of a city
she has never ceased to love.
P. S. Among the papers omitted from necessity, is one by the Rev. Dr.
Nichols, which, owing to accident, did not arrive till the arrangements for
the work were entirely completed. In the absence of the Editor, whose own
leading article arrived almost too late for insertion, we have taken the
liberty to state the facts, that our readers may understand the cause of an
omission so extraordinary.

CONTENTS.
Preface iii
Diamond Cove—By S. B. Beckett 9
Our Own Country—By James Brooks 13
The Cruise of The Dart—By S. B. Beckett 21

To M—, on her Birth-Day,—By William Cutter 59
Religious Obligation in Rulers—By John W. Chickering 60
A New-England Winter Scene—By William Cutter 74
Loch Katrine—By N. H. Carter 78
Worship—By Asa Cummings 82
The Valley of Silence—By William Cutter 86
Descriptions of The Divine Being—By Gershom F. Cox 88

The French Revolution—By Charles S. Daveis 98
Mrs. Sykes—From the papers of Dr. Tonic, recently brought to light—
102
By Nathaniel Deering

Old and Young—By James Furbish 115

Autumnal Days—By P. H. Greenleaf 119

The Plague—By Charles P. Ilsley 123
'Oh, This is not My Home'—By Charles P. Ilsley 125
The Village Prize—By Joseph Ingraham 126

Indifference to Study—By George W. Light 134
The Village of Auteuil—By Henry W. Longfellow 138

The Past and The New Year—By Prentiss Mellen 145
The Ruin of a Night—By Grenville Mellen 150

Courtship—By William L. McClintock 152
Venetian Moonlight—By Frederick Mellen 158
Ballooning—By I. McLellan, Jr. 160
Ode—By Grenville Mellen 166
The Boy's Mountain Song—By I. McLellan, Jr. 167

The Unchangeable Jew—By John Neal 168
A War-Song of The Revolution—By John Neal 183

Musings on Music—By James F. Otis 185

Sin estimated by the Light of Heaven—By Edward Payson 194
The Way of the Soul—By L. S. P. 200
Fragments of An Address on Music—By Edward Payson 206

The Blush—By Mrs. Elizabeth Smith 212
The Widowed Bride—By Mrs. Ann S. Stephens 216
Jack Downing's Visit to Portland—By Seba Smith 227
The Deserted Wife—By Mrs. Ann S. Stephens 272

Portland as it Was—By William Willis 231
The Cherokee's Threat—By N. P. Willis 239
Grecian and Roman Eloquence—By Ashur Ware 256
Religion—By Jason Whitman 269

THE
PORTLAND SKETCH BOOK.

DIAMOND COVE.
A beauteous Cove, amid the
isles
That sprinkle Casco's winding
bay,
Where, like an Eden, nature
smiles
In all her wild and rich array.
'Tis sheltered from the ocean's
roar
By beetling crags and foam-
girt rifts,
And mossy trees, that ages
hoar
Have braved the sea-gales on
its cliffs!
The broad-armed oak, the
beech and pine,
And elm, their branches
intertwine
Above its tranquil, glassy
face,
So that the sun finds scarcely
space
At mid-day, for his fervid
beam
To shimmer on the limpid
stream;
And in its rugged, sparry
caves,
Worn by the winter's tempest
waves,

Gleams many a crystal wildly
bright
Like diamonds, flashing
radiant light,
And hence the fairy spot is
'hight.'

The forests far extending
round,
Ne'er to the spoiler's axe
resound;
Nor is man's toil or traces
there;
But resteth all as lone and fair
—
The sunny slopes, the rocks
and trees,
As desert isles in Indian seas,
That sometimes rise upon the
view
Of some far-wandering, wind-
bound crew,
Sleeping alone mid ocean's
blue.

The lonely ospray rears her
brood
Deep in the forest-solitude;
And through the long, bright
summer day,
When ocean, calm as
mountain lake,
Bears not a breath its hush to
break,
The snow-winged sea-gull
tilts away

Upon the long, smooth swell,
that sweeps,
In curving, wide, unbroken
reach,
Into the cove from outer
deeps,
Unwinding up the pebbly
beach.

Oft blithly ring the wide
old woods,
Within their loneliest
solitudes,
To youthful shout, and song,
and glee,
And viol's merry minstrelsy,
When summer's stirless,
sultry air
Pervades the city's
thoroughfare,
And drives the throng to seek
the shades
Of these green, zephyr-
breathing glades!
The dance goes round; the
trunks so tall—
Rough columns of the festal
hall—
Sustain a broad and lofty roof
Of nature's greenest, loveliest
woof!
The maiden weaves, in lieu of
wreath,
The bending fern-plumes in
her hair,
And the wild flowers with
scented breath,

That spring to blossom every
where
Around; the forest's dream-
like rest
Drives care and sorrow from
each breast,
And makes the worn and
weary blest!

And when the broad, dim
waters blush
Beneath the tints of ebbing
day,
When comes the moon out in
the hush
Of eve, with mellow, timid
ray,
And twilight lingers far away
On the blue waste, the fisher's
skiff
Comes dancing in, and 'neath
the cliff
Is moored to rest, till
morning's train
Beams with fresh beauty o'er
the main,
And wakes him to his toil
again!

O, lovely there is sunset-
hour!
When twilight falls with
soothing power
Along the forest-windings
dim,
And from the thicket, sweet
and low,

The red-breast tunes a
farewell hymn
To daylight's latest, lingering
glow—
When slope, and rock, and
wood around,
In all their dreamy, hushed
repose,
Are glassed adown the bright
profound—
And passing fair is evening's
close!
When from the bright,
cerulean dome,
The sea-fowl, that have all the
day
Wheeled o'er the far, lone
billows' spray,
Come thronging to their
eyries home;
When over rock and wave,
remote,
From yon dim fort, the bugle's
note
Along the listening air doth
creep,
Seeming to steal down from
the sky,
Or with out-bursting, martial
sweep
Rings through the forests,
clanging high,
While echo waked bears on
the strain,
Till faint, beyond the trackless
main,

In realms of space it seems to
die.
But lovelier still is night's
calm noon!
When like a sea-nymph's fairy
bark,
The mirrored crescent of the
moon
Swings on the waters
weltering dark;
And in her solitary beam,
Upon each bald, storm-beaten
height,
The quartz and mica wildly
gleam,
Spangling the rocks with
magic light;
And when a silvery
minstrelsy
Is swelling o'er the dim-lit
sea,
As of some wandering fairy
throng,
Passing on viewless wing
along,
Tuning their spirit-lyres to
song;
And when the night's soft
breeze comes out,
And for a moment breathes
about,
Shaking a burst of fresh
perfume
From every honied bell and
bloom,
Startling the tall pine from its
rest,

And sleeping wood-bird in
her nest,
Or kissing the bright water's
breast;
Then stealing off into the
shade,
As if it were a thing afraid!

The Indian prized this
beauteous spot
Of old; beneath the
embowering shade
He reared his rude and simple
cot;
And round these wild shores
where they played
In youth, still—pilgrims from
the bourn
Of far Penobscot's sinuous
stream,
Aged and bowed, and weary
worn—
Lingering they love to stray,
and dream
O'er the proud hopes
possessed of yore,
When forest, isle and
mainland shore,
For many a league, owned but
their sway;
When, on the labyrinthine
bay,
Now checkered o'er with
many a sail,
Alone his lightsome birch
canoe

Fast, by the bright, green
islets flew,
Nor bark spread canvas to the
gale.

Matchless retreat! mayst
aye remain
As wild, as natural and free
As now thou art; nor hope of
gain,
Nor enterprize a motive be
To lay thy hoary forests low;
Gold ne'er can make thy
beauties glow,
Nor enterprize restore thy
pride,
When once the monarchs
round thy tide,
Have felt the exterminating
blow.

OUR OWN COUNTRY.
By James Brooks.

What nation presents such a spectacle as ours, of a confederated
government, so complicated, so full of checks and balances, over such a
vast extent of territory, with so many varied interests, and yet moving so
harmoniously! I go within the walls of the capitol at Washington, and there,
under the star-spangled banners that wave amid its domes, I find the
representatives of three territories, and of twenty-four nations, nations in
many senses they may be called, that have within them all the germ and
sinew to raise a greater people than many of the proud principalities of
Europe, all speaking one language—all acting with one heart, and all
burning with the same enthusiasm—the love and glory of our common
country,—even if parties do exist, and bitter domestic quarrels now and
then arise. I take my map, and I mark from whence they come. What a
breadth of latitude, and of longitude, too,—in the fairest portion of North-
America! What a variety of climate,—and then what a variety of
production! What a stretch of sea-coast, on two oceans—with harbors
enough for all the commerce of the world! What an immense national
domain, surveyed, and unsurveyed, of extinguished, and unextinguished
Indian titles within the States and Territories, and without, estimated, in the
aggregate, to be 1,090,871,753 acres, and to be worth the immense sum of
$1,363,589,69,—750,000,000 acres of which are without the bounds of the
States and the territories, and are yet to make new States and to be admitted
into the Union! Our annual revenue, now, from the sales, is over three
millions of dollars. Our national debt, too, is already more than
extinguished,—and yet within fifty-eight years, starting with a population
of about three millions, we have fought the War of Independence, again not
ingloriously struggled with the greatest naval power in the world, fresh with
laurels won on sea and land,—and now we have a population of over
thirteen millions of souls. One cannot feel the grandeur of our Republic,
unless he surveys it in detail. For example, a Senator in Congress, from
Louisiana, has just arrived in Washington. Twenty days of his journey he

passed in a steam-boat on inland waters,—moving not so rapidly, perhaps,
as other steam-boats sometimes move, in deeper waters,—but constantly
moving, at a quick pace too, day and night. I never shall forget the rapture
of a traveller, who left the green parks of New Orleans early in March,—
that land of the orange and the olive, then teeming with verdure, freshness
and life, and, as it were, mocking him with the mid-summer of his own
northern home. He journeyed leisurely toward the region of ice and snow,
to watch the budding of the young flowers, and to catch the breeze of the
Spring. He crossed the Lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne; he ascended the
big Tombeckbee in a comfortable steam-boat. From Tuscaloosa, he shot
athwart the wilds of Alabama, over Indian grounds, that bloody battles have
rendered ever memorable. He traversed Georgia, the Carolinas, ranged
along the base of the mountains of Virginia,—and for three months and
more, he enjoyed one perpetual, one unvarying, ever-coming Spring,—that
most delicious season of the year,—till, by the middle of June, he found
himself in the fogs of the Passamaquoddy, where tardy summer was even
then hesitating whether it was time to come. And yet he had not been off the
soil of his own country! The flag that he saw on the summit of the fortress,
on the lakes near New Orleans, was the like of that which floated from the
staff on the hills of Fort Sullivan, in the easternmost extremity of Maine;—
and the morning gun that startled his slumbers, among the rocky
battlements that defy the wild tides of the Bay of Fundy, was not answered
till many minutes after, on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. The swamps,
the embankments, the cane-brakes of the Father of Waters, on whose muddy
banks the croaking alligator displayed his ponderous jaws,—the cotton-
fields, the rice-grounds of the low southern country,—and the vast fields of
wheat and corn in the regions of the mountains, were far, far behind him:—
and he was now, in a Hyperborean land—where nature wore a rough and
surly aspect, and a cold soil and a cold clime, drove man to launch his bark
upon the ocean, to dare wind and wave, and to seek from the deep, in
fisheries, and from freights, the treasures his own home will not give him.
Indeed, such a journey as this, in one's own country, to an inquisitive mind,
is worth all 'the tours of Europe.' If a young American, then, wishes to feel
the full importance of an American Congress, let him make such a journey.
Let him stand on the levee at New Orleans and count the number and the
tiers of American vessels that there lie, four, five and six thick, on its long
embankment. Let him hear the puff, puff, puff, of the high-pressure steam-

boats, that come sweeping in almost every hour, perhaps from a port two
thousand miles off,—from the then frozen winter of the North, to the full
burning summer of the South,—all inland navigation,—fleets of them under
his eye,—splendid boats, too, many of them, as the world can show,—with
elegant rooms, neat berths, spacious saloons, and a costly piano, it may be,
—so that travellers of both sexes can dance or sing their way to Louisville,
as if they were on a party of pleasure. Let him survey all these, as they
come in with products from the Red River, twelve hundred miles in one
direction, or from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, two thousand miles in another
direction, from the western tributaries of the vast Mississippi, the thickets of
the Arkansas, or White River,—from the muddy, far-reaching Missouri, and
its hundreds of branches:—and then in the east, from the Illinois, the Ohio,
and its numerous tributaries—such as the Tennessee, the Cumberland, or
the meanest of which, such as the Sandy River, on the borders of Kentucky
—that will in a freshet fret and roar, and dash, as if it were the Father of
Floods, till it sinks into nothing, when embosomed in the greater stream,
and there acknowledges its own insignificance. Let him see 'the Broad
Horns,' the adventurous flatboats of western waters, on which—frail bark!
—the daring backwoodsman sallies forth from the Wabash, or rivers
hundreds of miles above, on a voyage of atlantic distance, with hogs—
horses—oxen and cattle of all kinds on board—corn, flour, wheat, all the
products of rich western lands—and let him see them, too, as he stems the
strong current of the Mississippi, as if the wood on which he floated was
realizing the fable of the Nymphs of Ida—goddesses, instead of pines. Take
the young traveller where the clear, silvery waters of the Ohio become
tinged with the mud from the Missouri, and where the currents of the
mighty rivers run apart for miles, as if indignant at the strange embrace.
Ascend with him farther, to St. Louis, where, if he looks upon the map he
will find that he is about as near the east as the west, and that soon, the
emigrant, who is borne on the wave of population that now beats at the base
of the Rocky Mountains, and anon will overleap its summits—will speak of
him as he now speaks of New-England, as far in the east. And then tell him
that far west as he is, he is but at the beginning of steam navigation—that
the Mississippi itself is navigable six or seven hundred miles upward—and
that steam-boats have actually gone on the Missouri two thousand one
hundred miles above its mouth, and that they can go five hundred miles
farther still! Take him, then, from this land where the woodsman is leveling

the forest every hour, across the rich prairies of Illinois, where civilization
is throwing up towns and villages, pointed with the spire of the church, and
adorned with the college and the school,—then athwart the flourishing
fields of Indiana, to Cincinnati,—well called 'the Queen of the West,'—a
city of thirty thousand inhabitants, with paved streets, numerous churches,
flourishing manufactories, and an intelligent society too,—and this in a
State with a million of souls in it now, that has undertaken gigantic public
works,—where the fierce savages, even within the memory of the young
men, made the hearts of their parents quake with fear,—roaming over the
forests, as they did, in unbridled triumph,—wielding the tomahawk in
terror, and ringing the war-hoop like demons of vengeance let loose from
below! Show him our immense inland seas, from Green Bay to Lake
Ontario,—not inconsiderable oceans,—encompassed with fertile fields.
Show him the public works of the Empire State, as well as those of
Pennsylvania,—works the wonder of the world,—such as no people in
modern times have ever equalled. And then introduce him to the busy,
humming, thriving population of New-England, from the Green Mountains
of Vermont, the Switzerland of America, to the northern lakes and wide sea-
coast of Maine. Show him the industry, energy, skill and ingenuity of these
hardy people, who let not a rivulet run, nor a puff of wind blow, without
turning it to some account,—who mingle in every thing, speculate in every
thing, and dare every thing wherever a cent of money is to be earned—
whose lumbermen are found not only in the deepest woods of the snowy
and fearful wilds of Maine, throwing up sawmills on the lone waterfalls,
and making the woods ring with their hissing music—but found, too, on the
banks of the St. Lawrence, and coming also on mighty rafts of deal from
every eastern tributary of the wild St. John, Meduxnekeag and Aroostook,
streams whose names geographers hardly know. And then too, as if this
were not enough, they turn their enterprize and form companies 'to log and
lumber,' even on the Ocmulgee and Oconee of the State of Georgia—and on
this day they are actually found in the Floridas, there planning similar
schemes, and as there are no waterfalls, making steam impel their saws.
Show him the banks of the Penobscot, now studded with superb villages—
jewels of places, that have sprung up like magic—the magnificent military
road that leads to the United States' garrison at Houlton, a fairy spot in the
wilderness, but approached by as excellent a road as the United States can
boast of.

Show him the hundreds and hundreds of coasters that run up every creek
and inlet of tide-water there, at times left high and dry, as if the ocean
would never float them more: and then lift him above considerations of a
mercenary character, and show him how New-England men are
perpetuating their high character and holy love of liberty,—and how, by
neat and elegant churches, that adorn every village,—by comfortable
school-houses, that appear every two miles, or oftener, upon almost every
road, free for every body,—high-born, and low-born,—by academies and
colleges, that thicken even to an inconvenience; by asylums and
institutions, munificently endowed, for the benefit of the poor:—and see,
too, with what generous pride their bosoms swell when they go within the
consecrated walls of Faneuil Hall, or point out the heights of Bunker Hill,
or speak of Concord, or Lexington.
Give any young man such a tour as this—the best he can make—and I am
sure his heart will beat quick, when he sees the proud spectacle of the
assemblage of the representatives of all these people, and all these interests,
within a single hall. He will more and more revere the residue of those
revolutionary patriots, who not only left us such a heritage, won by their
sufferings and their blood, but such a constitution—such a government here
in Washington, regulating all our national concerns—but who have also, in
effect, left us twenty-four other governments, with territory enough to
double them by-and-by—that regulate all the minor concerns of the people,
acting within their own sphere; now, in the winter, assembling within their
various capitols, from Jefferson city, on Missouri, to Augusta, on the
Kennebec;—from the capitol on the Hudson, to the government house on
the Mississippi. Show me a spectacle more glorious, more encouraging,
than this, even in the pages of all history; such a constellation of free States,
with no public force, but public opinion—moving by well regulated law—
each in its own proper orbit, around the brighter star in Washington,—thus
realizing, as it were, on earth, almost practically, the beautiful display of
infinite wisdom, that fixed the sun in the centre, and sent the revolving
planets on their errands. God grant it may end as with them!

THE CRUISE OF THE DART.
By S. B. Beckett.

"There was an old and quiet
man,
And by the fire sat he;
And now, said he, to you I'll
tell
Things passing strange that
once befell
A ship upon the sea."—
Mary Howitt.

"There she is, Ricardo," said I to my friend, as we reached the end of the
pier, in Havana, while the Dart lay about half a mile off the shore,—"what
think you of her?"
"Beautiful!—a more symmetrical craft never passed the Moro!"
So thought I, and my heart responded with a thrill of pride to the sentiment.
How saucy she looked, with her gay streamers abroad upon the winds, and
the red-striped flag of the Union floating jauntily at the main peak—with
her lofty masts tapering away, till, relieved against the blue abyss, they were
apparently diminished to the size of willow wands, while the slight ropes
that supported the upper spars seemed, from the pier, like the fairy tracery
of the spider. Although surrounded by ships, xebecs, brigantines, polacres,
galleys and galliots from almost every clime in christendom, she stood up
conspicuously among them all, an apt representative of the land whence she
came! But let us take a nearer view of the beauty. The hull was long, low,
and at the bows almost as sharp as the missile after which she was named.
From the waist to the stern she tapered away in the most graceful
proportions, and she had as lovely a run as ever slid over the dancing
billows. Light and graceful as a sea-bird, she rocked on the undulating
water. But her rig!—herein, to my thinking, was her chiefest beauty—every

thing pertaining to it was so exact, so even and so tanto. Besides the sail
usually carried by man-of-war schooners, she had the requisite
appertenances for a royal and flying kite, or sky-sail, which, now that she
was in port, were all rigged up. Not another vessel of her class in the navy
could spread so much canvas to the influence of old Boreas as the Dart.
Her armament consisted of one long brass twenty-four pounder, mounted
on a revolving carriage midships, and six twelve-pound carronades. Add to
this a picked crew of ninety men, with the redoubtable Jonathan West as our
captain, Mr. Dacre Dacres as first, and your humble servant, Ahasuerus
Hackinsack, as second lieutenant, besides a posse of minor officers and
middies,—and you may form a faint idea of the Dart.
Bidding adieu to my friend, I jumped into the pinnace waiting, and in a few
minutes stood on her quarter deck.
But it will be necessary for me to explain for what purpose the Dart was
here. She had been dispatched by government to cruise among the Leeward
Islands, and about Cape St. Antonio, in quest of a daring band of pirates,
who, trusting to their superior prowess and the fleetness of their vessel, a
schooner called the Sea-Sprite, had long scourged the merchantmen of the
Indian seas with impunity. Cruiser after cruiser had been sent out to attack
them in vain. She had invariably escaped, until at length, in reality, they
were left for awhile, the undisputed 'rulers of the waves,' as they vauntingly
styled themselves. It was said of the Sea-Sprite, that she was as fleet as the
winds, and as mysterious in her movements; and her master spirit, the fierce
Juan Piesta, was as wily and fierce a robber, as ever prowled upon the
western waters. Indeed, so wonderful and various had been his escapes, that
many of the Spaniards, and the lower orders of seamen in general, believed
him to be leagued with the Powers of Darkness!
But the Dart had been fitted up for the present cruise expressly on account
of her matchless speed, and our captain, generally known in the service by
the significant appellation of Old Satan West, was, in situations where
fighting or peril formed any part of the story, a full match for his namesake.

After cruising about the western extremity of Cuba, for nearly a month, to
no purpose, we bore away for the southern coast of St. Domingo, and at the
time my story opens, were off Jacquemel. The morning was heralded
onward by troops of clouds, of the most brilliant and burning hues—deep
crimson ridges—fire-fringed volumes of purple, hanging far in the depths
of the mild and beautiful heaven—long, rose-tinted and golden plumes,
stretching up from the horizon to the zenith,—forming altogether a most
gorgeous and magnificent spectacle, while, to complete the pageant, the
sun, just rising from his ocean lair, shed a flood of glaring light far over the
restless expanse toward us, and every rope and spar of our vessel,
begemmed with bright dew-drops, flashed and twinkled in his beams, like
the jeweled robes of a princely bride.
"Fore top there! what's that away in the wake o' the sun?" called out Mr.
Dacres.
"A drifting spar, I believe, Sir—but the sun throws such a glare on the water
I cannot see plainly."
I looked in the direction pointed out, and saw a dark object tumbling about
on the fiery swell, like an evil spirit in torment. We altered our course and
stood away toward it. It turned out to be a boat, apparently empty, but on a
nearer inspection we perceived a man lying under its thwarts, whose pale,
lank features and sunken eye bespoke him as suffering the last pangs of
starvation. My surprise can better be imagined than described, on
discovering in the unfortunate man a highly loved companion of my
boyhood, Frederick Percy! He was transferred from his miserable quarters
to a snug berth on board of the Dart, and in a few hours, by the judicious
management of our surgeon, was resuscitated, so as to be able to come on
deck.
His story may be told in a few words. He had been travelling in England—
while there had married a beautiful, but friendless orphan. Soon after this
occurrence he embarked in one of his father's ships for Philadelphia,
intending to touch at St. Domingo city, and take in a freight. But, three days
before, when within a few hours' sail of their destined port, they had fallen
in with a piratical schooner, which, after a short struggle, succeeded in
capturing them. While protecting his wife from the insults of the bucaneers,

he received a blow in the temple, which deprived him of his senses; and
when he awoke to consciousness it was night, wild and dark, and he was
tossing on the lone sea, without provisions, sail or oars, as we had found
him. For three days he had not tasted food. Poor fellow! his anxiety as to
the fate of his wife almost drove him to distraction.
This circumstance assured us that we were on the right trail of the marauder
whom we sought. We continued beating up the coast till noon, when the
breeze died away into a stark calm, and we lay rolling on the long glassy
swell, about ten leagues from the St. Domingo shore. The sun was intensely
powerful, glowing through the hazy atmosphere, directly over our heads,
like a red-hot cannon ball; and the far-stretching main was as sultry and
arid as the sands of an African desert. To the north, the cloud-topped
mountains of St. Domingo obstructed our view, looming through the blue
haze to an immense height—presenting to as the aspect of huge, flat,
shadowy walls; and one need have taxed his imagination but lightly, to
fancy them the boundaries dividing us from a brighter and a better clime.
The depths of the ocean were as translucent as an unobscured summer sky,
and far beneath us we could distinguish the dolphins and king-fish, roaming
leisurely about, or darting hither and thither as some object attracted their
pursuit; while nearer its surface the blue element was alive with myriads of
minor nondescripts, riggling, flouncing and lazily moving up and down,—
probably attracted by the shade of our dark hull.
The men having little else to do, obtained from the captain permission to
fish. Directly they had hauled in a dozen or more of the most ill-favored,
shapeless, unchristian-looking articles I ever clapped eyes on, which, when
I came from aft, were dancing their death jigs on the forecastle-deck, much
to the diversion of the captain's black waiter, Essequibo.
"Halloo!—this way, blackey!" shouted an old tar to the merry African, who,
by the way, was a kind of reference table for the whole crew—"Egad! Billy,
look here,—what do you call this comical looking devil that has helped
himself to my hook? Why! his body is as long as the articles of discipline,
and his mouth almost as long as his body!—your own main-hatch-way is
not a circumstance to it!"

"Him be one gar fish—ocium gar!—he no good for eat," answered the
black with a grin that drew the corners of his mouth almost back to his ears,
so that, to appearance, small was the hinge that kept brain and body
together.
At the sight the querist dropped the fish, exclaiming with feigned wonder,
"By all that's crooked, an even bet!—ar'n't your mouth made ov injy rubber,
Billy!"
"Good ting to hab de larsh mout, Misser Mongo,—eat de more—lib de
longer," said Billy.
"Screw your blinkers this way, Jack Simpson, there's a prize for you," said
another, as he dragged a huge lump-headed, bull-eyed, tail-less mass out of
the water, with fins protruding, like thorns, from every part of his body!
—"Guess he's one of the fighting cocks down below, seeing his spurs!—any
how, he's well armed,—I'll be keel-hauled, if he don't look like the beauty
that we saw carved out on the Frencher's stern, with the Neptune bestride it,
in Havana, barin' he wants a tail! Han't he a queer un?—but how in natur do
you suppose he makes out to steer without a rudder?"
"Steer wid he head turn behin' him!" answered Seignor Essequibo, bursting
into a chuckling laugh—mightily tickled with the struggles of the ungainly
monster,—"Che, che, che!—him sea-dragum—catch um plenty on de cos
ob Barbado. Take care ob him horn!"
"Yo, heave, ho! Shaint Pathrick, an' it's me what's caught a whale!" drawled
out a brawny Patlander, while he tugged and sweated to heave in his prize.
"My gorra! you hook one barracouter!" cried Billy, as his eye caught a
glimpse of the big fish curveting in the water at the end of Paddy's line,
—"Bes' fish in de worl'!—good for make um chowder—good for fry—for
ebery ting,—me help you pull him in, Massa Coulan," and without further
ado, he laid hold of the line. The beautiful fish was hauled in, and
consigned to the custody of the cook.
"Stave in my bulwarks, if this 'ere dragon-fish ha'n't stuck one of his horns
into my foot an inch deep!" roared an old marine,—"Hand me that sarving
mallet, snow ball, I'll see if I can't give him a hint to behave better!"

"Hurrah!—here comes an owl-fish, I reckon;" shouted a merry wight of a
tar, from the land of wooden nutmegs,—"specimen of the salt-water owl!
Lord, look at his teeth—how he grins!—What are you laughing at, my
beauty?"
"Le diable! une chouette dans la mer?" exclaimed a little wizen-pated
Frenchman, who had seated himself astraddle of the cathead.—"Vel,
Monsieur Vagastafsh, comment nommez vous dish petit poisson?"
"Poison! No, Monsheer, I rather guess there han't the least bit o' poison in
natur about that ere young shark!" replied Wagstaff, "though for that matter
a shark's worse'n poison."
"I not mean poison—I say poisson—fish."
"O, poison fish—yes, I know—you'll find plenty of them on the Bahamy
copper banks. I always gets the cook to put a piece of silver in the boilers,
when we grub on fish in them ere parts."
"O, mon dieu! le rashcalle hash bitez mon vum almos' off! Sacré, vous
ingrat, to treatez me so like, when I am feed you wis de bon dîner!"
My attention was called away from this scene of hilarity, by the voice of the
watch in the fore-top, announcing a sail in sight.
A faint indefinable speck could be seen in the quarter designated, fluttering
on the bosom of the blue sea like a drift of foam. With the aid of the glass
we made it out to be the topsail of a schooner, so distant that her hull and
lower sails were below the brim of the horizon. Her canvas had probably
just been unloosed to the breeze, which was directly after seen roughening
the face of the broad, smooth expanse as it swept down toward us.
"That glass, Mr. Waters—she is standing toward us, and by the gods of war!
the cut of her narrow flying royal, looks marvellously like that of our friend,
the Sea-Sprite!" said the captain, while the blood flashed over his bald
forehead, like 'heat lightning' over a summer cloud; "Mr. Hackinsack, see
that every thing is ready for a chase."
The broad sails were unloosed and sheeted close home. Directly the wind
was with us, and we were bowling along under a press of canvas.

"Now, quartermaster, look to your sails as closely, as you would watch one
seeking your life." Another squint through the glass. "Ha! they have
suspected us, and are standing in toward the land, jam on the wind;—let
them look to it sharply; it must be a fleet pair of heels that can keep pace
with the Dart,—though to say the least of yonder cruiser, she is no laggard!"
After pacing the deck some ten minutes, he again hove short and lifted the
glass to his eye.
"By heavens! the little witch still holds her way with us!—Have the skysail
set, and rig out the top-gallant-studd'n'sail!"
Every one on board was now eager in the chase. The orders were obeyed
almost as soon as given. Our proud vessel, under the press of sail,
absolutely flew over the water, haughtily tossing the rampant surges from
her sides, while her bows were buried in a roaring and swirling sheet of
foam, and a broad band of snow stretched far over the dark blue waste
astern, showing a wake as strait as an arrow. She was careened down to the
breeze, so that her lower studd'n'sail-boom every moment dashed a cloud of
spray from the romping billows, and her lee rail was at times under water.
Her masts curved and whiffled beneath the immense piles of canvas, like a
stringed bow.
"She walks the waters bravely," said the captain, casting a glance of
exultation at the distended sails and bending spars, and then at our arrowy
wake.—"But, by Jupiter, the chase still almost holds her way with us. We
need more sail aft. Bear a hand, my men, and run up the ringtail."
"That will answer,—a dolphin would have a sweat to beat us in this trim!"
"Well, Mr Percy, is yonder dasher the craft that pillaged your ship, and sent
you cruising about the ocean in that bit of a cockle-shell, think you?"
"That is the pirate schooner—I cannot mistake her," replied Percy, who
stood with his flashing eyes rivetted on the vessel, and his fingers
impatiently working about the hilt of his cutlass, while his brow was
darkened with an intense desire of revenge.
Three hours passed, and we had gained within a league of the noble looking
craft. She was heeled down to the breeze, so that owing to the 'bagging' of

her lower sails, her hull was almost hidden from sight. Like a snowy cloud,
she darted along the revelling waters, the sunbeams basking on her wide-
spread wings, and the sprightly billows flashing and surging around her
bows. Never saw I an object more beautiful.
The land was now fully in sight—a stern and rock-bound coast, against
which the breakers dashed with maddening violence, and for half a mile
from the shore, the water was one conflicting waste of snowy surf and
billow. No signs of inhabitants, on either hand, as far as the eye could view,
were discernible. The long range of stern, solitary mountains arose from the
waves, and towered away till lost in the clouds. Their sides, save where
some splintered cliff lifted its gray peaks in the day, were clothed with thick
forests, among which the tufted palm and wild cinnamon stood up
conspicuously, like sentinels looking afar over the wide waste of blue. Here
and there a torrent could be traced, leaping from crag to cliff, seeming, as it
blazed in the fierce sun-light, to run liquid fire; and gorgeous masses of
wild creepers and tangled undergrowth hung down over the embattled
heights, swaying and flaunting in the gale, like the banners and streamers of
an encamped army.
Not the slightest chance for harbor or anchorage could be discovered along
the whole iron-bound coast, yet the gallant little Sea-sprite held steadily on
her course, steering broad for the base of the mountains.
"Why, in the name of madness, is the fellow driving in among the
breakers?" muttered our captain;—"Thinks he to escape by running into
danger? By Mars, and if I mistake not, he shall have peril to his heart's
content, ere nightfall!"
But fate willed that we should be disappointed; for just as every thing had
been arranged to treat the bucaneer with a fist full of grape and canister, one
of those sudden tempests, so common to the West Indies in the autumn
months, was upon us. A vast, black, conglomerated volume of vapor swung
against the mountain summits, and curled heavily down over the cliffs.
Brilliant scintillations were darting from its shadowy borders, and the
zigzag lightnings were playing about it, and licking its ragged folds like the
tongues of an evil spirit! Suddenly it burst asunder, and a burning gleam—a
wide conflagration, as if the very earth had exploded—flashed over the

hills, accompanied with a peal of thunder that made the broad ocean
tremble, and our deck quiver under us, like a harpooned grampus in his
death gasp! The electric fluid upheaved and hurled to fragments an
immense peak near the summit of the mountains, and huge masses of rock,
with thunderous din, and amid clouds of dust, smoke and fire, came
bounding and racing down from crag to crag, uprooting the tall cedars, and
dashing to splinters the firm iron-wood trees, as though they had been but
reeds—sweeping a wide path of ruin through the thick forests, and
shivering to atoms and dust the loose rocks that obstructed their career, till,
with a whirring bound, they plunged from a beetling cliff into the sea,
causing the tortured water to send up a cloud of mist and spray. All on
board were struck aghast at the blinding brilliancy of the flash and its
terrible effects.
We were aroused to a sense of our situation, by the clear, sonorous voice of
Satan West, whom nothing pertaining to earth could daunt, calling all hands
to take in sail.
Instantly the trade-wind ceased, and a fearful, death-like silence ensued.
This was of short duration; hardly were our sails stowed close, when we
saw the trees on shore drawn upwards, twisted off and rent to pieces, while
a dense mass of leaves and broken branches whirled over the land; and a
wild, deep, wailing sound, as of rushing wings, filled the air, foretelling the
onset of the whirlwind.
"The hurricane is upon us!—helm hard aweather!" thundered the captain.
But the Dart was already lying on her beam-ends, heaving, groaning and
quivering throughout every timber, in the fierce embrace of the tremendous
blast! After its first overpowering shock, however, the gallant craft slowly
recovered, and by dint of the strenuous exertions of our men, she was got
before the gale. Away she sprang, like a frighted thing, over the tormented
and whitening surges, completely shrouded in foam and spray. A dense
cloud, murky as midnight, spread over the face of the heavens, where a
moment before, naught met the gazer's eye, save the fleecy mackerel-
clouds, drifting afar through its cerulean halls. The blue lightnings gleamed,
the thunder boomed and rattled, the black billows shook their flashing
manes, the whole firmament was in an uproar; and amid the wild rout, our

little Dart, as a dry leaf in the autumn winds, was borne about, a very
plaything in the eddying whirls of the frantic elements.
The tempest was as short lived as it was sudden, and, as the schooner had
sustained no material injury, directly after it had abated she was under sail
again. When the rain cleared up in shore, every eye sought eagerly for the
pirate craft.
She had vanished!
Nothing met our view but the tossing and tumbling surges, and the breaker-
beaten coast. If ever old Satan West was taken aback, it was then. His brow
darkened, and a shadow of unutterable disappointment passed over his
countenance.
"Gone!—By all that is mysterious and wonderful—gone!" he muttered to
himself,—"escaped from my very grasp! Can there be truth in the wild tales
told of her? No, no!—idiot to harbor the thought for a moment—she has
foundered!"
But this was hardly probable, as not the slightest vestige of her remained
about the spot.
Poor Percy, too, was the picture of despair. His hat had been blown away by
the hurricane; and his hair tossed rudely in the wind, as he stood in the
main-chains, gazing with the wildness of a maniac over the uproarous
waters.
"The lovers of the marvelous would here find enough to fatten upon, I
ween," said Dacres, composedly helping himself to a quid of tobacco.
"What think you is to come next? for I hardly think the play ends with
actors and all being spirited away in a thunder gust!"
I was interrupted in my reply by the energetic exclamations of the captain,
who had been gazing seaward, over the quarter-rail.
"Yes, by all the imps in purgatory, it is that devil-leagued pirate," burst from
his lips; and at the same moment the cry of Sail O! was heard from the
forward watch.

A long-sparred vessel could be seen, relieved against the black bank of
clouds, that were crowding down the horizon. Surprise was imaged on
every countenance, and when the order was passed to crowd on all sail in
pursuit, a murmur of disapprobation ran through the whole crew. However,
such was their respect for the regulations of the service, and so great their
dread of old Satan West, that no one dared demur openly. Again the Dart
was bounding over the waves in pursuit of the stranger, which had
confirmed our suspicions as to her character, by hoisting all sail and
endeavoring to escape us.
But here likewise we were disappointed. She proved to be a Baltimore
clipper, and had endeavored to run away from us, taking us for the same
craft we had supposed her to be.
After parting from the Baltimorean, we ran in; and as the evening fell,
anchored under the land, sheltered from the waves by a little rocky
promontory. It was my turn to take the evening watch. Our wearied crew
were soon lost in sleep, and all was hushed into repose, if I except the shrill,
rasping voices of the green lizards, the buzzing and humming of the
numerous insects on shore, and the occasional, long-drawn creak, creak of
the cable, as the schooner swung at her anchor. The evening was mild and
beautiful. The moon, attended by one bright, beautiful planet, was on her
wonted round through the heavens, and the far expanse of ocean, reflecting
her effulgence, seemed to roll in billows of molten silver beneath the gentle
night-wind, which swept from the land, fragrant with the breath of wild-
flowers and spicy shrubs.
Little Ponto, the royal reefer, lay on a gun carriage near me. This boy,
whom, when on a former cruise, I had rescued from a Turkish Trader, was a
favorite with all on board. Although, in person, effeminate and beautiful as
a girl, and possessing the strong affections of the weaker sex, he still was
not wanting in that high courage and energy which constitutes the pride of
manhood. He was an orphan, and with the exception of a sister and aunt,
who were living together in England, there was not, in the wide world, one
being with whom he could claim relationship. When very young, he had
been entrusted to the charge of the friendly captain of a merchant ship,
bound to Smyrna, for the purpose of improving his health. But the vessel
never reached her destined port. She was captured by an Algerine rover, and

the boy made prisoner. It was from the worst of slavery that I had rescued
him, and ever after the occurrence his gratitude toward me knew no bounds.
He appeared to be contented and happy in his present situation, save when
his thoughts reverted to his lone sister. Then the tears would spring into his
eyes, and he would talk to me of her beauty and goodness, till I was almost
in love with the pure being which his glowing descriptions had conjured to
my mind. I loved that boy as a brother, and he returned my affection with a
fervor, equalling that of a trusting woman.
As I leaned against the companion-way, absorbed in pleasant dreams of my
far home, a touch on the shoulder aroused me. I turned and Percy stood by
my side. The beauty of the evening had soothed his wild and agitated
feelings. He spoke of his wife with touching regret, as if certain that she
was lost to him forever. For nearly an hour he stood gazing on the moon's
bright attendant, as if he fancied it her home.
At length he disappeared below, and again Ponto, who seemed to be
wrapped in a deep revery, was my only companion. We had remained
several minutes in silence, when suddenly, as if it had dropped from the
clouds, a female form appeared far above us, on a precipitous bluff that
leaned out over the deep, on which the solitary moonlight slept in
unobstructed brightness. The form advanced so near the brink of the fearful
crag, that we could even distinguish the color of her drapery as it fluttered
in the wind. By the motion of her arms she seemed beckoning us on shore;
then, as if despairing to attract our attention, she looked fearfully about, and
the next moment a strain of exquisite melody came floating down to us, like
a voice from heaven. We remained breathless, and could almost distinguish
the words.
The strain terminated in a startling cry, and with a frantic gesture the figure
tore a crimson scarf from her neck, and shook it wildly on the winds; at the
same moment the dark form of a man leaped out on the cliff. There was a
short struggle, with reiterated shrieks of 'help! help! help!' in a voice of
agony, and all disappeared in the deep shadow of another rock.
Ponto, who at the first burst of the song, had started up and grasped my arm
with a degree of wild energy I had never witnessed in him before, now
suddenly released his hold, and with a single bound plunged into the sea. So

lost was I in amazement at the whole scene, that for a moment I remained
undecided what course to pursue; then, not wishing to alarm the ship, I
ordered Waters, the midshipman of the watch, to jump into the boat with a
few of the men, and pull after him.
The head of my little favorite soon became visible in the moonlight. With a
vigorous arm he struck out for the shore, and was immediately hid in the
deep shadow of its mural cliffs. A moment, and I again saw him on the
beetling rocks, whence the female had just disappeared; then he, too, was
lost in the darkness.
Waters, after being absent in the boat about half an hour, returned without
having discovered the least sign of the fugitive. Hour after hour I awaited
the return of my adventurous boy, filled with painful anxiety.
As the night deepened, the clouds, which during the day had slumbered on
the mountain battlements, as if held in awe by the majesty of the burning
sun, rolled slowly down the steeps and gradually spread out on the sea,
enveloping us in their humid embrace. A denser mist I never saw; my thin
clothing was soon wet through and clinging to me like steel to a magnet,
and we were completely lost in darkness. As I paced the deck, not willing to
go below while my young favorite was in peril, Waters tapped me on the
shoulder.
"Did you notice any thing then, Mr. Hackinsack? I thought I heard a splash
in the water, like the dip of an oar."
"Some fish, I suppose, Waters."
"I think not, Sir; besides, just now I saw a dark object gliding slowly across
our bow in the mist, which I then took for a drifting log."
I walked round the deck and peered into the fog on every side, but could
discover nothing. I listened; all was silent save the tweet, tweet, of the
lizards and the roar of the surf, as it beat on the rocks astern. Presently old
Benjamin Ramrod, the gunner, came aft.
"I wish this infernal fog would clear up!" said he, "for the last half hour, I
have heard strange noises about us! I am much mistaken, or we are
surrounded by enemies of some sort or other. When that shining apparition

arose from the bluff there, and began to beckon to us, I said to myself, some
accident is going to happen before many hours, and you see if my
pro'nostics ar'n't true. Minded you how, by her sweet voice, she lured that
poor boy, Ponto, overboard?—and even I, who may say I've had some
experience in such matters, began to feel a queerish sensation, as I harkened
to her witchery. Many a poor sailor has lost his life by listening to their
lonesome-like songs. I remember once when I was on the coast of Africa, in
a gold-dust and ivory trader, we heard the water-wraiths and mermaids
singing to each other all night long, and the very next day our ship was
driven upon the rocks in a white squall, and wrecked, and only myself and a
Congo nigger escaped alive, out of a crew of twenty-three!—It strikes me,
too," he continued, after listening a moment, "that we shall have a storm
before morning; the fog seems to be brushing by us, and the noise of the
breakers on shore grows terribly loud. I would give all the prize-money I
ever gained to be out of the place, with good sea-room, a flowing sheet, and
our bows turned toward home—no good ever came of fighting these pirate
imps.—Heaven help us! what is that?" he exclaimed with a start, as a tall,
white form shot up, a few rods under our stern, seen but dimly through the
fog.
The fact flashed upon me at once; our cable had been cut; it was the spray
of the breakers rebounding from the shore. The best bower anchor was
instantly let go, which brought us up; not however till we had drifted within
a cable's length of the breakers, which ramped and roared all the night with
maddening violence, as if eager to engulf us. The alarm was given, and in a
few minutes every thing was prepared for any emergency that might occur.
I ordered Ramrod to clap a charge of grape into one of the bow-chasers and
let drive at the first object that came in sight. As I gave the order the dip of
oars could be plainly distinguished, receding from our bows. Benjamin did
not wait to see the marauders, but fired in the direction of the sound. The
fog was swept away before the mouth of the gun, to some distance, and I
caught a glimpse of a boat filled with men. A deep groan told that the gun
had been rightly directed.
There was now no doubt that we were surrounded by enemies. It was only
by the foreboding watchfulness of the gunner that we were prevented from

going ashore, where, doubtless, the pirates expected to have obtained an
easy victory over us.
About ten minutes after this incident I was startled by the faint voice of
Ponto, hailing me from under the schooner's side. I joyfully lowered the
man-ropes, and immediately had the adventurous boy beside me, on the
quarter-deck. He grasped my hand, and I felt him tremble all over with
eagerness.
"You heard that song; the voice was that of my own sister! That shriek, too,
was hers; do you wonder that I leaped overboard? I scarcely know how I
reached the rock from which she was dragged. I climbed up and up, in the
direction I supposed they must have taken, until I gained the very summit of
one of the hills. I looked down, and as it were floating in the haze, many
feet below me, saw the face of a rock reddened by the blaze of a fire
opposite. I clambered from cliff to cliff, clinging to the branches of the
trees, and letting myself down by the mountain creepers that hung like thick
drapery over the descent, till all at once I dropped over the very mouth of a
deep cavern. A massy vine fell in heavy festoons down over the rugged
pillars that formed its portal. Securing a foothold among its tendrils,
concealed by its luxuriant foliage, I bent over and looked in. A large party
of fierce-looking men, with pistols in their belts and cutlasses lying by
them, were seated round a rude table, feasting and making merry over their
wine beakers. I paid little attention to them, for against the rough wall was
an old woman, and leaning upon her—as I live, it is true—was my own, my
beautiful sister, she whom I had left in England! I thought my heart would
have choked me, as I looked upon her pale, sorrowful face, and heard her
low sobs. In my tremor the vine shook; some loose stones were started, and
went clattering down into the very mouth of the cavern. Two of the pirates
sprang up, and seizing a flaming brand, rushed out. The red blaze flashed
over her face as they passed, and I heard them threaten her with a terrible
fate, if they were discovered through her means. At the first start of the
rocks I drew back into the vines, where I remained breathless and still,
while they scanned the recesses of the crag. 'We were mistaken, Jacopo,' at
length said one of them, 'it was probably a guana, drawn hither by the fire.'
Satisfied that no one was near, they returned to their comrades, who
ridiculed them for their temerity.

"Again I listened, and heard them plan to cut the cable of the Dart, and run
her into the breakers. If they failed in this attempt, they were to haul the
Sea-Sprite out of her hiding place and leave the coast, trusting, with the aid
of the fresh land-breeze, to get beyond pursuit before day-break.—The mist
had come on, and knowing it impossible to reach the Dart over the rough
precipices in time to give you warning, I remained in my concealment,
undecided what course to pursue, when I saw a party of the pirates leave the
cavern to go to their boats. Perceiving beneath me, on the bough of a wild
tamarind, sundry articles of clothing, similar to those worn by the
bucaneers, a bold thought occurred to me. When they had gone beyond the
light from the cave, I cautiously lowered myself down, and drawing on a
jacket and one of the caps, jumped with them into the boat, no one in the
darkness suspecting me.
"To appearance we were in the very heart of the mountains. I am certain
that rocks and foliage were piled up all around us.—After a short row we
passed through what seemed to be a deep chasm, between two crags, which
must have been very high, as the darkness between them was almost
palpable, and in a few moments we were riding over the long swell of the
open sea. We groped about in the mist for some time, till the position of the
Dart was ascertained by the chafing noise of one of her booms, when,
gliding softly up, with their sharp knives they cut her cable, and she began
to drift astern. The strictest silence was enjoined upon us all, so that had I
moved or made the least noise, as I had intended, my life had been the
forfeit. However, I had just made up my mind to run all hazards, when the
flame of the gun gleamed through the fog. One of the pirates fell dead in the
bottom of the boat, and in the hurried stir which this produced, I contrived
to slip into the water.
"Now let me conjure you to take measures for the rescue of my poor sister.
How she came into their power is a mystery. But my heart will break if she
is not soon freed from these lawless men."
I informed the captain of Ponto's discovery, but he saw at once that it would
be madness to attempt any thing in our present situation, with sunken rocks
around us, the breakers astern, and a thick mist wrapping all in obscurity.

At last, after a night of the most wearisome watching, the day dawned, and
the mists returned to their mountain fastnesses. Burning for a brush with the
desperadoes, we towed the Dart out of her critical situation and got her
under sail. The launch and cutter were ordered out, but here we were at
fault. The morning sunlight slept calmly on the forest clad ridges and gray
cliffs, and every irregularity and indentation of the shore were strongly
shadowed forth; but not the least sign of harbor or anchorage could be seen,
except under the rocky promontory we had just left, and every thing looked
as forsaken and solitary as a creation's birth. However, not doubting that we
should be able to sift the mystery, the boats put off, with full and well-
armed crews, and on nearing the shore discovered a narrow inlet, that
wound in between the two lofty cliffs, the one projecting out with a
magnificent curve, so as entirely to conceal the channel until we
approached within a few rods of the shore.
"We've got on the right scent of the old fox now, I think," said Waters.
"Speak low, gentlemen; if discovered we may meet with a reception here
not altogether so agreeable—I don't like the appearance of those grave
looking fellows, yonder," said Dacres, pointing to four cannon mounted on
a low parapet, with their muzzles bearing directly toward us.
"Why, the place is as silent as a grave-yard," muttered the old cockswain of
the cutter.
We advanced softly up the inlet, and found it to branch out into a broad
basin. Here was explained the mystery of the Sea-Sprite's sudden
disappearance; this was the Pirate's Retreat, and from their escaping hither
and into similar resorts known only to themselves, arose the many wild
stories that were abroad respecting their supernatural prowess. Fifty well
armed men might have defended the place against five hundred assailants,
as there was only one point, the inlet, susceptible of an attack. The entrance
was not more than thirty feet in width—only sufficient for one vessel to
enter at a time; but the water was bold and deep, with a sandy bottom. An
enormous cavern yawned at the farther extremity of the basin, which Ponto
immediately recognized as that where the pirates held their revel the
previous night. But now the place was evidently deserted; the Sea-Sprite
had made her escape.

The crew of the barge were despatched on shore to explore the premises,
while we, as a corps-de-reserve, lay on our oars, with fire-arms loaded,
ready for any emergency. While waiting I had an opportunity of surveying
the magnificent scene around me. We lay in the deep shadow of a beetling
precipice of such immense altitude, that the snow-white morning clouds, as
they floated onward, like messengers from heaven, swept its summit.
Thousands of gray sea-birds were sailing around their eyries, along its dark
craggy sides far above us, while its hollow recesses reverberated their shrill
cries, till to our ears they sounded like one continued scream. The cliffs all
around were tumbled about in the most chaotic confusion, as if they had
been upheaved by some tremendous throe of nature. Stinted forest trees and
brush wood, with here and there a wild locust or banana, had gained a
footing in the seams and fissures of the crags, and thick masses of the lusty
mountain creepers, intertwined with wild flowering jessamin and
grenadilla, fell in gorgeous festoons down the embattled heights, draping
their rough projections in robes of the most magnificent woof. Nearly
opposite was a yawning ravine, filled with myriads of huge, shattered trees,
ragged stumps, loose stones and gravel, which probably had been swept
from the mountains, by the foaming torrents that rush down to the sea in the
rainy months. The desolation of this scene was in a measure relieved by the
quick springing vegetation that had found sustenance among the decayed
trunks, and in the black earth that still adhered to the matted roots; so that
green foliage, and wild flowers of the most brilliant dies in sumptuous
profusion, were waving and nodding over prostrate trees, which perchance
a year before, had stood up in the pride of primeval lustihood, on the
mountain ridges. Further back, beyond this gorge, the sloping steeps were
clothed with dark waving forests, stretching up their sides, till they faded
into the blue haze resting on the mountain summits. The freshness of early
day had not yet been dissipated. Among the undergrowth and brakes, on the
tips of the tall, sweeping guinea grass, and in the cups of the wild flowers,
the pure dews hung in glittering globules, sparkling with brilliant prismatic
tints, as they flashed back the glances of the rising sun. Calmness and
repose reigned over the unequalled sublimities of the place; and although
the billows were madly beating and roaring against the outer base of the
crescent-like promontory, within, the water was silent and unruffled by a
breath, reflecting in its depths the wild and gorgeous array of rock and
verdure around, almost as unwavering as reality itself; and had it not been

for the tiny wavelets that rippled up a small sandy beach, adorning the
water's edge with a narrow frill of foam, its likeness to a broad sheet of
glass had been perfect.
At length, after the premises had been thoroughly reconnoitered, the crew
of the cutter were permitted to go on shore. They were soon revelling
amidst the costly merchandize and the luxuries, with which the cavern was
gorged.
"Holloa, Price!" said Waters to a fellow mid, as he came out of the cave,
dragging an old hag of a woman after him, apparently much against her
will; "I've found the presiding goddess of the place. Isn't she a Venus?"
"Wenus indeed!" echoed the old beldame, "take that, young madcap, and
larn better how to treat a lady!" administering a thwack on his ear that sent
him staggering a rod from her.
Waters gathered himself together, and a general laugh took place at his
expense.
"A fair representative of the amorous goddess—quite liberal with her love
pats!" said Price in a tantalizing tone.
"Confound the old hag," muttered the discomfited mid, "if it were not a
waste of good powder and ball, I'd make a riddle of her in the twinkling of a
grog-can!"
This female and one man, found wounded and languishing on his pallet,
were the only denizens of the place.
"Croesus! what hav'nt we here?" exclaimed Price, glancing over the medley
of rich merchandize heaped together in one of the apartments of the huge
cavern; "boxes of silks and satins, sashes, ribbons, lace, tortoise shell!—
whew!—I say, Waters, what heathen are these pirates to let such a profusion
of pretty gewgaws lay here, which ought to be setting off the fairy forms of
the Spanish lasses! Now there's as handsome a piece of trumpery as one
often sees," tying a delicate crimson silk manta about him—"as I'm a sinner
I'll carry that home to Nell Gray!—Ha! Burgundy wine?

Inspiring—divine

Is the gush of bright wine;
'Tis the life, 'tis the breath of the soul,
'Tis the—the—
"Odds! but I must quicken my memory, and clear my pipes with a can of
the critter to get into the spirit of song!"
He drew a beaker from the cask and took a deep draught.
"Capital, by Bacchus!" he exclaimed, smacking his lips,—"Try it, Waters,
these fellows fare like princes."
"Bear a hand, Mr. Price, and don't set the men a bad example," thundered
the first lieutenant, who had stationed himself as a sentinel outside.
In the meantime the men had not been idle. The sight of such a profusion of
riches, all at their own mercy, had turned their brains, and the confusion that
prevailed among the silks and finery would have rivalled that of a London
milliner's shop on a gala day.
But the voice of the lieutenant, as if by magic, restored them to order, and
Waters ordered the most costly of the goods to be carried to the boats.
"An 'ai'nt it Roary McGran 'as found a nest o 'the shiners," exclaimed a son
of Erin, as he emerged, covered with dirt, from a small, deep cavity at the
inmost extremity of the cavern, dragging after him a large bag of
doubloons,—"'Ai'nt them the beauties, Misther Waters?—its what they're as
plenty there as paraites in a parson's cellar."
Half a dozen similar bags were brought to light; besides which more than a
score of boxes containing rix dollars, and a great many parcels of coin of
different nations, silver and gold, tied up in old pieces of canvas, were
discovered.
"Some sport in sacking such a fortress as this," observed Price,—"no blood
and plenty of booty! By Jove, though, what a confounded pity it is we
hav'nt a ship of some size, that we might load her with these silken goods?
Our share of the prize money would be a fortune to us."
While the men were ransacking the cavern, I had climbed by a narrow foot-
path to the top of a lofty bluff. A small telescope, found in a hollow that had

been worked in the rock, assured me that this served as a look-out station. It
commanded a wide view of the surrounding ocean, now tenanted only by
the sun-beam and solitude, if I except the presence of the Dart, which sat
lilting on the glittering swell, with her white wings outspread, like a huge
sea-bird stretching his pinions for flight.

The boats shoved off, loaded gunwale deep with gold and silver, ivory,
tortoise-shell and the most choice of the merchandise found in the cavern,
and in fifteen minutes all was safely secured on board the schooner. After a
short consultation it was agreed to run the Dart into the Pirates' Retreat, and
there await the return of the Sea-Sprite, deeming that the bucaneers would
scarcely be long absent from the chief depository of their treasures. She was
soon safely anchored in the basin. A lookout was stationed at the mouth of
the inlet, while Ponto and Percy undertook, with the consent of the captain,
the task of watching from the cliff. Waters was then sent with a party of the
men to explore the cavern more thoroughly, and before noon there was not
a chink nor cranny of the place which had not been thrice overhauled.
Immense treasures, in gold, silver and jewelry, were brought to light.
Toward the latter part of the afternoon, Percy gave the signal agreed upon
for an approaching vessel, and directly after made his appearance on the
beach, informing us that they had examined her carefully, and that there
could be no mistaking her—it was the Sea-Sprite.
"Strange!" said the captain; "I knew that they were brave—fearless to
desperation, but I did not expect to see them show such fool-hardiness.
However, they shall meet with a welcome reception. Mr. Dacres, see that all
the men are on board, and have things put to rights for a brush. If I mistake
not, there will be desperate work ere the rascal receives his deserts."
In a few minutes every thing was ready; the boats were got out forward, and
the Dart was towed to the mouth of the inlet, remaining concealed.
The Sea-Sprite, which could be seen from the outer edge of the rocks, stood
gallantly in, driving a drift of snow before her, till within about a mile of the
shore; when, as if she had discovered some signs of our presence, she wore

round, hoisted her studd'n'sails, and stood away in a south-westerly
direction.
"Pull away cheerily," said the captain to the men in the boats, who had lain
on their oars in readiness.
Slowly the Dart emerged from her hiding place—the sails were squared
round so as to present their broad surfaces to the wind, and away she darted
in swift pursuit, like an eagle in quest of his prey. A stern chase is
proverbially a long one; so it proved in this instance. The wind was light,
and although we hung out every rag of sail, the sun was sinking beyond the
sea when we approached within gun-shot of the rover. Not a soul could be
seen on her decks,—she was worked as if by magic.
"Mr. Ramrod," said the captain, "clap a round shot into the long-tom, and
let us see if we cannot make them show some signs of life."
Benjamin loaded the gun, and having got it poised to his fancy, applied the
match. Away whizzed the iron messenger. The chips flew from the stern of
the rover, and a swarm of grizzly heads, belonging to bona fide bodies,
popped up above the bulwarks, and then settled down again, like so many
wild sea-fowl disturbed in their nests.
"Well done, Benjamin!—I see you have not lost any of your skill for lack of
practice."
The pirate, at length finding it impossible to escape us, shortened sail.
"Now my men," said the captain, "to your duty!—let every gun be double-
shotted—a round shot and grape!"
By a well-timed manoeuvre, we ranged up under her stern. Our men stood
with their arms extended, ready to apply their lighted matches.
"Fire!" thundered Satan West.
A storm of flame burst from our side, and the Dart reeled half out of water
under the recoil of the overloaded guns. The iron shower raked the pirate
fore and aft, hurling those deadly missiles, the splinters, in every direction,
and doing terrible execution on their decks. Two more such broad-sides
would have sent her to the bottom.

"Helm aweather—jam hard!" roared the captain.
"Ay, ay, sir!"—and we wore round so as to present our other broad-side to
the enemy.
While this manoeuvre was going on, the bows of the Sea-Sprite had fallen
off in the wind, so as to bring us side by side, within half pistol shot. She
returned the fire with a vengeance, and several of our brave tars fell
wounded or slain to the deck.
"Ready! blaze away!"—but the sound of our captain's voice was lost in the
thunder of the heavy ordnance.
The battle now commenced in real earnest. The cannon bellowed, small
arms rattled, the combatants yelled, the dying groaned, the iron thunder-bolt
crashed, riving the vessel's oaken timbers, and a dense sulphur-cloud
overspread the scene of furious commotion, so that we fought with an
invisible enemy. We could see nothing save the streaming lightning of the
cannon, or the fiend-like figures that worked our aftermost guns,
begrimmed with powder and blood, stripped nearly naked, and sweltering
in their eager toil. As the smoke occasionally lifted, however, the battered
bulwarks of the enemy, and the glimmering streaks along her black waist,
showed that our fire had been rightly directed; and the irregularity with
which it was returned, told the confusion that prevailed on her decks.
Several times we attempted to run her aboard, but they discovered our
intentions in time to avoid us.
At length a discharge from the well-directed gun of old Benjamin, took
effect in her fore-top. The topmast came thundering down with all its
rigging, over the foresail. Having thus lost the benefit of her head sail, she
rounded to, and her jib-boom came in contact with our fore rigging.
"Now is our time!—into her, boarders!" roared Dacres, leaping upon the
pirate's forecastle deck.
But the order was useless—they were already hard on his track. A close and
desperate struggle now took place. Pistols cracked, sabres gleamed, and
deadly blows were dealt on either side, till a rampart of the slain and
wounded was raised high between the furious combatants. Gloomy and
dark as an arch-fiend, the pirate leader raged among his men, urging them

on with threats and curses, in a voice of thunder, and sweeping down all
opposition before his dripping blade. But Dacres, backed by his well-
trained boarders, received them on the points of their pikes, with a coolness
and bravery that made them recoil upon each other, like surges from a rock-
ribbed coast. Thus the fight continued with various success, till the attention
of the bucaneers was arrested by an unearthly shout in the rear, and the tall
figure of Percy was seen, laying about him with whirlwind impetuosity, his
long, untrimmed hair flying wildly in the commotion of the atmosphere, his
features working with the madness that controlled him, and his dilated eyes
flashing with a fierce, unnatural fire upon his opponents. All quailed before
him. Wherever his merciless arm fell there was an instant vacancy.
Although a score of cutlasses were glancing, meteor-like, around his
person, as if by a spell, he remained uninjured. At length his eye detected
the pirate leader. Dashing aside all before him, with one bound he was at his
side. The fierce chief started in amazement at the sight of him whom he
supposed many a league from the spot, if not dead, but quickly recovered
his stern and gloomy bearing.
"Monster! where is she?" shouted Percy.
"Ask the sharks!" replied the captain, lunging at him with his sabre.
These were his last words. Percy, quick as thought, drew a pistol from his
belt and fired into his face! He fell heavily to the deck, and the combatants
closed around him, as tempest-waves close over a foundering ship!
The pirates, now that their leader was slain, fought with less spirit, and the
victory was soon decided in our favor. Sooth to say, it was dearly earned;
and many who sought the battle with a quickened pulse, and eager for the
strife, were that evening consigned to the waves. Of all the pirate's crew,
consisting of nearly a hundred men, but thirteen remained unharmed.
Heavens!—what a ghastly spectacle her decks presented! Fifty stalwart
forms lay there, stiffened in death, or writhing in the agony of their deep
wounds, severed and mangled in every way imaginable; and so slippery
was the main deck that we could hardly cross it, while the sea all around
was died with the red waters of life, that gushed in a continuous stream
from her scuppers.

On the forecastle deck, where the last desperate struggle had taken place, I
recognized many of our own crew among the lifeless heaps. Poor old
Ramrod, the gunner, lay there, with the black blood trickling over his
swarthy brow, from a bullet hole in his temple. He had died while the might
of battle was yet upon him—and the fierce scowl which he darted at his
foes, still remained on his rigid features. His hand, even in the agonies of
death, had not relinquished its firm grasp on his cutlass, and the gigantic
form of a swart pirate, with his skull cloven down, close at hand, showed
that it had been swayed to some purpose. Poor Benjamin! I could have wept
over him. He had been in the service from his earliest days, and the scars of
many a sanguinary fight were visible upon his muscular arms, and on his
bronzed and powerful chest. My brave boy, Ponto, was there also, hanging
pale and wounded over the britch of the bow gun. He had followed me
when we boarded, like a young tiger robbed of his mate. Although faint and
helpless with the loss of blood, which belched at every heave of his bosom,
from a deep sabre wound in his shoulder, and which had completely
saturated his checked shirt and his duck pantaloons, yet his firmness was
unshaken. I ordered one of our men to take charge of him, until he could be
looked to by the surgeon. "Not yet," faintly exclaimed the generous child,
pointing to Mengs, the boatswain, who lay wounded over a coil of the
cable, with three or four grim looking bucaneers stretched dead across his
chest, the blood from their wounds streaming into his face and neck,
—"look to him first, he may be suffocated."
"No, no, youngster," murmured the hardy Briton, "I'd do very well till my
turn comes, if I had this ugly looking craft cast off from my gun-deck, and a
can of water stowed away in my cable tier!"
After the prisoners were secured, I sought the cabin, where I had ordered
Ponto to be carried. It was a richly garnished room, with berth hangings of
crimson damask and amber colored silk, a gorgeous carpet from the looms
of Brussels, and furniture in keeping. Opposite the companion-way hung a
superb picture of the virgin mother and her infant, and over it a golden
crucifix, while beneath, on a rose wood table, lay a guitar, implements for
sketching, and various articles for female employ and amusement. Indeed,
one might have supposed himself entering the boudoir of a delicate Spanish
belle, rather than the domicil of a lawless rover. This I remember but from
the glance of a moment. My attention was drawn to the occupants of the

place. There lay my wounded boy, by the side of a silken sofa-couch, his
face buried in the garments of a female stretched lifeless upon it, and over
them bent the tall form of Percy, gazing upon the group with a fixed, vacant
stare, which told that suffering could wring his soul no longer—desolation
and madness had come upon him. His attitude, the expression of his
features, and the low, convulsive sobs and broken murmurs of the boy, at
once explained the scene. The one had found a wife, the other a sister, in
that inanimate form. I advanced nearer, in hopes that life might not be
altogether extinct. The sight was appalling, but beautiful. The pale, dead
face, upon which the mellow radiance of sunset streamed through the sky-
light, was lovely as a seraph's. Her eyes were closed as if in sleep; the long
braids of her bright hair lay undisturbed upon her marble forehead, and
there was no appearance of violence, save where the dress of sea-green silk
had been torn back from her bosom, as if in her dying agonies, displaying a
dark puncture, as of a grape-shot, just below the snowy swell of the throat,
from which the crimson blood oozed, slowly trickling down over her white
and rounded shoulder. She had probably been killed by our first raking
broad-side.
"Fire! fire!" shouted a dozen voices on deck. I sprang up the companion-
way. The fore-hatch had been removed, and a dense volume of smoke was
rolling up from below. A glance was sufficient to show that no effort of ours
could save the vessel, and preparations were speedily made to rescue the
wounded, and abandon her to her fate. It being impossible for me to leave
my duty on deck, I sent a trusty Hibernian to rescue my helpless boy and to
inform Percy of our situation. He returned with a rueful countenance.
"Ochone! Mr. Hackinsack," said the tender hearted fellow, "it almost made
the salt wather come intil my een, to see the poor man and the beautiful kilt
leddy,—an' whin I tould 'em as how the schooner was burnin' and would be
blown to Jerico in a twinklin' all he said was to give me a terrible,
ferocious-like scowl and point with a loaded pistol to the companion; so I
took his mainin' an' left 'em."
Two other messengers, sent to take him away by force, met with no better
success.

The flames were ready to burst out on every side, and from each chink and
crevice around the hatches—which had been replaced and barred down—
the smoke was darting up with the force of vapour from a steam engine.
The deck had become so heated that it was painful to stand upon it—the fire
was fast progressing towards the run, where the magazine was situated.
Thrice had the order been given to quit the burning vessel, but I could not
forsake my friend without one more effort to rescue him from the terrible
fate that awaited him, if left behind. He still held the loaded pistol in his
hand and sternly forbade my approach. Poor Ponto had fainted from grief
and loss of blood, and lay across his sister's body. I sprang forward and
raised him in my arms, regardless of the maniac's threats. The pistol banged
in my ear, but fortunately the ball passed over me as I stooped, and I
regained the companion-way without injury. By this time, he had drawn
another from his belt.
"Put away the pistol, and come with me," I urged,—"the vessel is on fire
and will soon be blown to atoms."
He looked at me with a grim stare for a moment, then burst into an idiotic
laugh. That wild laugh is still ringing in my brain. "Ha! ha! ha!—Fire? fire?
here it is, wreathing and coiling!—here! here!" dashing his hand against his
forehead.
Perceiving that it was vain to reason with his madness, and fearing for the
life of the wounded boy in my arms, I reluctantly left the hapless man to his
fate.
The boat had already put off for the last time, but I succeeded in prevailing
upon them to return, and leaping in, soon reached the Dart in safety.
The night set in wild and black as Death. Disparted and ragged masses of
cloud were rushing over the face of the heavens, where once and again, the
soaring moon, and that same bright, solitary star, would show their calm
faces through the reeling rack, apparently flying from this scene of turmoil
and death. The increasing wind howled mournfully through the rigging, and
our battered hull staggered along the inky main writhing and shuddering on
the heave of the surge like a weary, wounded thing.

We followed in the track of the burning vessel as she fled along before the
gale, awaiting in breathless suspense the consummation of her wild career.
The black smoke, interfulgent with tortuous tongues of lurid fire, rolled in
immense volumes over her!—the red flames darted up her masts, along the
spars and rigging, and gushed in swirling sheets from her ports and
bulwarks, while in their fierce gleams, the billows that ramped and raved
about her, glowed like a huge seething cauldron of molten iron, and the
gloomy clouds that lowered above were tinged in their ragged borders, as
with blood. Occasionally the jarring thunder of her cannon, as they became
heated to explosion, announced to us the progress of the insidious destroyer.
But a still more thrilling spectacle awaited us. In the height of the
conflagration, the hapless Percy, bearing his dead wife in his arms, emerged
as it were from the very midst of the flames, and took a stand on the
companion-way. So strongly was the tall, dark-figure relieved against the
glowing element, that his slightest gesture could not escape our scrutiny.
While with one arm he spanned the waist of the supple corse, which
apparently struggled to escape from his grasp, he waved the other on high
as if exulting in the whirl and commotion around him. He seemed like the
minister of some dark rite of heathenism, preparing to offer up a victim to
the Moloch of his superstition.
At length arrived the dreadful moment! The black hull seemed to be lifted
bodily out of the water. A volume of smoke burst over her like the first
eruption of a volcano! A spire of flame shot up to the heavens, filling the
firmament with burning fragments, while the clouds that overhung the sea,
were torn and scattered by the tremendous concussion. A crash followed—a
deep, bellowing boom, as if the solid globe had split asunder!—then all was
darkness—dreary, void, silent as death!

TO M***, ON HER BIRTH-DAY.
By William Cutter.

What though the skies of
winter
Look cold and cheerless
now!
What though earth wears no
mantle
But that of ice and snow!
Though trees, all bare and
leafless,
Stretch up their naked
arms,
In sad and mournful silence,
To brave the wintry storms!
There is enough of sunshine,
Fond memory will say,
Around this morning
clustered—
This is thy natal day!

What though the birds of
summer,
Flown far and long away,
In gentler climes are
warbling,
Their loved and grateful
lay!
What though, in field and
garden,
No fragrant incense pours

From nature's thousand altars
—
Her blossoms and her
flowers!
There's music sweet as
angels',
And fragrance sweet as
May,
In the thoughts that breathe
and blossom
Around thy natal day!

To me, the skies above us
Are bright as summer's
noon!
And trees, in crystal
blossoms,
More brilliant than in June!
There's music in the wintry
blast—
There's fragrance in the
snow—
And a garb of glorious beauty
On every thing below!
For oh! affection, wakened
With morning's earliest ray,
Has never ceased to whisper
—
This is thy natal day!

RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION IN RULERS.
By John W. Chickering.

It is a great truth, and worthy of a place among the few grand principles
which lie at the foundation of all wise and just government, that 'the Most
High ruleth in the kingdom of men.' This may be understood de jure, or de
facto; and in either sense must be believed, not only by those who admit, on
the authority of the prophet, that it was spoken by a divine voice, but by all
who do not deny the whole theory of an overruling Providence.
That the almighty Ruler retains both a right and an agency in the
management of terrestrial governments, is undisputed by all who recognize
his right and his agency in any thing. It is the atheist alone who would
insulate the kingdoms of the earth from the kingdom of heaven. None
would banish Jehovah from the smaller empires his providence has
organized and sustained, but those who banish him from the universe his
power has created.
Thus atheism in philosophy is sole progenitor of atheism in politics; and it
should not excite our surprise, that he who 'sees' not 'God in clouds nor
hears him in the wind,'—who beholds in the great things of the earth, the air
and the sea, no footsteps of divine power, and no finger-prints of divine
wisdom, should be equally blind concerning the progress of civil affairs,
and should so have perverted his mind, and so tortured the moral sense
which God gave him, as to believe, and to rejoice, that without God,
kingdoms rise and fall, and that it is not 'by him' that 'kings reign, and
princes decree justice.'
But with the atheist, that moral monster,'—— horrendum, informe, ingens,
cui lumen ademptum,' we are not now concerned. We leave him to the
darkness he has brought upon himself through his 'philosophy and vain
deceit,' and to the enjoyment, if enjoyment it be, of his dreary cavern, more
dreary than that of Polyphemus,—a godless world.

We come to inquire, by way of preparation for the more direct prosecution
of the object of this article, concerning the views entertained by the great
mass of mankind who believe in the existence and providence of Jehovah,
as to his particular connection with the subordinate governments on earth,
and the station which it is his holy pleasure to occupy in their control and
management. And here we find at once, wide and hurtful mistakes;
occupying relatively, such is man's tendency to extremes, the position of
antipodes. Some, overlooking the twofold agency, partly civil, partly
ecclesiastical, by which the Most High promotes his own ends and the well
being of his creatures, have resolved each into the other, making religion an
affair of the state, and civil government a matter for ecclesiastical influence;
producing in practice the unseemly compound, commonly called "church
and state," but which might be more accurately characterized as the ruin of
both.
As the fruits of this mistake, the world has seen profane monarchs invested
with titles of religion and piety. In some countries, aided by ambition and
intrigue, it has brought kings to kiss the feet of the professed ambassadors
of Jesus Christ; and gained for them honors and power, which their divine
but humble master declined for himself. This mistake has been confirmed,
if it was not originated, by the organization of the great Jewish theocracy.
This was, indeed, church and state. But it was under a divine
administration.—And although the fact that the Deity not only attested and
ratified the alliance, but condescended to be legislator, judge, and executive,
might at once have prevented the inference; yet men have inferred that the
civil and ecclesiastical powers ought always to be thus commingled. The
consequences might have been anticipated. The history both of Christianity
and of the world, is darkened by their melancholy shade. Religion,
unguarded by the miraculous intervention of Him who, under a former
dispensation, smote the offerers of strange fire, has been corrupted by those
who would do her honor, and crushed by the embraces of false friends;—
and her splendid sojourn in the halls of power, has been met by reverses not
less striking, and far more disastrous, than Moses met after being the
protege of royalty; while the civil rights of men, invaded by ambition and
avarice, under the name of religion, and with the sanction of God's name,
have been yielded up without a struggle, under the impression, that
resistance would be "fighting against God." What would not have been

demanded in the name of man, has been freely given in the name of God;—
men who in defence of their rights, would have ventured cheerfully upon
treason, have shrunk with horror from sacrilege.
Thus religion and liberty have well-nigh perished together, and their present
resting-place on earth resembles rather the one found by Noah's dove on her
second flight, than the broad home, illimitable but by the world's
circumference, which as philanthropists we hope, and as Christians we pray,
they may soon enjoy.
Others again, warned, perhaps, by the disasters consequent upon the policy
last described, have gone to the extreme, not less hurtful, and far more
presumptuous, of excluding religious motives and religious principles from
all influence in the affairs of the commonwealth. They have thus become
quoad hoc, practical atheists. Content indeed, that the Deity should keep
our planet in motion, and regulate its seasons and its tides; and surround
and cover it with the blessings of Providence, nor careful to forbid him a
participation even in the internal concerns of Jupiter, or Herschell,—
perhaps even willing to admit in theory, the truth of the statement from the
inspired record with which this article commenced,—they yet deem it best
for man, considered either as a governing or as a governed being, that the
notion of a presiding Deity should be as much as possible excluded from his
mind. The mere juxtaposition of the words "religion" and "politics," or any
of their correlates, is sufficient to excite the fears of these scrupulous
alarmists; and if they do not imitate the example of the French, who were
seen near the close of the last century, rushing madly with the pendulum-
like oscillation of human nature, from the bonds of religious despotism, into
the very wilderness of atheism, and denounce Jehovah as a usurper, and his
adherents as rebels against "the powers that be," they strive to separate all
questions and acts of government from God and his laws, as if there were
no God; thus making, if not an atheistic people, an atheistic government.
Far otherwise, we cannot but pause here to remark, acted the noble men, the
sifted wheat of three kingdoms, who were thrown by God's providence
through ecclesiastical tyranny, upon these shores. If they for a time, with a
strange tenacity of old habits, which showed that principle, not passion, led
them, clung to the very usages respecting toleration, which had exiled them,
they at least preserved the nation which they founded, from the character

and the curse of a nation which despises God. Heaven grant, that the
pendulum may not even now be swinging to the other extreme!
While we would have the affairs of the nation managed as if there were no
church in the world, we would not have them managed as if there were no
God in the world. Could our voices reach the millions of our countrymen,
as Joshua's voice reached the thousands of Israel, we would say as he said,
'If the Lord be God, serve him.' In a word, while we believe that the civil
and ecclesiastical departments ought to be distinct, and that their union is a
departure from the intention of Him who formed both, and that it is fraught
with the most disastrous consequences to both, we do not believe that the
almighty Ruler has excluded himself from the control of either, or given the
least permission that either should be managed on any other principles than
the eternal principles of right, which are embodied in his character, and laid
down in his word.
When we speak of a sense of religious obligation, we mean more than a
general undefined belief that such an obligation exists. Such a belief is
withheld, we trust, by comparatively few who hold important places in our
national and State governments. But can it be doubted by any man who has
accustomed himself to contemplate the distinction between mere
intellectual assent, and the warm, practical conviction which reaches the
heart, and controls the conduct, that this belief may coexist with as total an
insensibility to the claims of Jehovah, as if it were William IV., or Nicholas
of Russia, who performed them, instead of the Most High God?
Is it too much to desire, nay to infer, as a duty, from what has already been
said, that our rulers in the executive, legislative, and judicial departments,
both in the general and State governments, should have an abiding
consciousness of accountability—should live under a felt pressure of
obligation—to the Sovereign of the universe, which should assume, as it
must where it exists at all, a practical, binding force? Is it too much to ask,
that they should remember that they are the servants of God for good to this
great people, and that to their own Master they stand or fall? That they rule
by God's permission, and for his ends; and that a higher tribunal than any
on earth awaits the termination of their responsibility to man? That they
should remember their obligation, in common with those who elevated
them to office, "whatever they do, to do all to the glory of God;" and the

solemn truth, that a sin against God or man, whether of omission or of
commission, whether committed in private, in the family circle, or in the
high places of authority, is no less a sin, when committed by a judge, or a
legislator, or a chief magistrate of a State or nation, than by the humblest of
his constituents? In a word, do we claim too prominent a place for religious
principle in the administration of public affairs, when we avow our desire
that the rulers of a people, who are the nominal, and in a free government
the real, representatives of the people, should be daily and practically
aware, that they are accountable to a higher Power, thus realizing, if not in
the highest and most Christian sense, yet in the literal signification, the
picture of a good ruler drawn by the prophet, who, in the name of the
almighty Ruler, declares, "He that ruleth over men, must be just—ruling in
the fear of God!"
We cannot reflect without occasion for the deepest gratitude, that in
contemplating the advantages of such a state of mind and of heart, as
possessed by men in authority, we are not confined to a priori reasoning.
England has had her Alfred, her Edward VI., and her Matthew Hale;
Sweden her Gustavus Adolphus; our own most cherished and beloved
country, a Washington, and a Wirt, with many others among the dead, and
not a few among the living, to whom our readers may recur as we proceed,
both for illustration of our meaning, and proof of our assertions.
Among the effects of this sense of obligation, which go to show its
importance to every man in public life, we mention first, its influence in
checking the love and pride of power. It will not be said by any man, who
has acquired even a smattering of the science of human nature, that the
simplicity of our republican institutions excludes all danger from this
source. It is the great weakness of man, to desire power; and, having it, to
be proud of it; and, in his pride, to abuse it. It matters not whether it be the
power of a monarch on his throne, or of the humblest village functionary. If
it be power, or even the semblance of power, it charms the eye of the
expectant, and, too often, turns the head of the possessor.
True, in this land, power walks in humble guise. She rides in no gilded
chariot—is clothed with no robes of state—is preceded by no heralds with
announcement of noble titles—is decorated with no ribbons and stars. Nor
is there an office worth seeking, as a matter of gain, except in some special

cases, growing rather out of individual character and circumstances, than
from design on the part of legislators. But who will deny, that rank, here, as
elsewhere throughout the wide world, has its attractions? And who, that has
thought upon the subject carefully, doubts that they are as strong, as if it
were hereditary? As far as pride of heart in the possessor is concerned,
undoubtedly the temptation is even greater. That rank is not hereditary, and
is therefore attainable by individual effort, opens a fountain of ambition in a
thousand hearts, which, under another constitution of society, would never
have known ambition, but as a strange word, while the fact that it is
ordinarily the prize of talent, attaches to it an additional power to tempt and
seduce the mind. It need not be said, that so far as this love and pride of
power exists, it tends to subvert all the true ends of government.
That the influence of a sense of subordination and accountableness to the
Supreme Being, will be direct and strong in checking these tendencies of
human nature, is so plain as to command assent without argument. Who can
be proud in the perceived presence of infinite splendor and worth? How can
ambition thrive under the overshadowing greatness of almighty Power?
It is recorded of Gustavus Adolphus, that being surprised one day by his
officers in secret prayer in his tent, he said: "Persons of my rank are
answerable to God alone for their actions; this gives the enemy of mankind
a peculiar advantage over us; an advantage which can be resisted only by
prayer and reading the Scriptures." This remark, though it does not specify
the moral dangers to which the royal worshipper was exposed, has
reference, undoubtedly, in part, if not mainly, to that pride and loftiness of
heart, which are the unrestrained denizens of those high regions in the
social atmosphere, which lie above the common walks of life. Let a man in
one of the high places of the earth, be accustomed only to look down, and
he is ready like Herod of old, to fancy the flattery, truth, which tells him he
is a god;—let him look up;—there Jehovah sitteth above the water floods
and remaineth king forever!
Another important effect of such views of religious obligation, will be seen
in restraining the blind and ruinous excess of party feeling. He is a short-
sighted politician indeed, who utters a sweeping denunciation of party
distinctions. And if they may be harmless, and even in some cases form the
very safety of the nation, then party feeling, without which parties could not

exist, is, in some of its degrees and developements right and desirable. But
like the lightning of heaven, while it purifies the political atmosphere, how
easily and how quickly may it desolate and destroy! In its healthful action,
it is like the gentle breeze, which refreshes man and fertilizes the earth; in
its excess, like the tornado, which sweeps away every green thing, and even
upturns the foundations of many generations.
When it is a modification of true-hearted patriotism, seeking the public
good by party organizations, it is right and safe; but when it is the offspring
of the wicked selfishness, already described, it is restrained by no bounds,
and directed to no good end. When a public officer, of whatever rank,
becomes the servant of a party, instead of being a servant of God, for good
to the people, it is not difficult to foresee the consequences.
No argument is necessary to show that he who feels himself accountable to
God, will be but slightly constrained by the bonds of party influence. So far
as he regards the ends of a party as accordant with the true ends of
government, which in some cases may be nothing more than the truth, and
in others nothing less—his sense of religious obligation will of course not
interfere with his diligent prosecution of those ends. But at that critical
point, where ends zeal for party, for the sake of the common weal, and
begins zeal for party, for the party's sake, and for ambition's sake, there a
sense of paramount obligation, like the magnetic power, will still the
whispers of selfishness, and counteract the tendencies of party commitment.
The Christian politician knows no party but the party of patriots, or, if that
party be divided, he seeks not the building up of either fragment for its own
sake—but the building up on the best and most hopeful, or if need be, on
the ruins of both, the great fabric of public welfare. Who does not desire to
see a deep sense of allegiance to one who is our Master, pervading the
leaders and the adherents of the great political parties, into which it is so
common and perhaps necessary, for nations to be divided?—under such an
influence, how might excesses be restrained, needless repellances be
neutralized, and how soon, instead of fierce bands of brethren gathered in
distinct and opposing array, like the dark clouds of summer, meeting over
our heads, might we see the beauty and the strength of party organization,
without its wide severance and its deadly hate, like the rainbow, which is
not more beautiful in the variety of its colors, than in the grace with which
the divine Painter has blended them.

It will be denied by none, of whatever religious or political faith, that public
morals are, under a government like ours, the life-blood of national strength
and safety. The day that shall behold us a nation of gamblers, or duelists, or
profane swearers or drunkards, or Sabbath-breakers—will be the day of our
political death. Armies, and navies, and enterprise, and numbers, with a
sound hereditary government, may for a time give prosperity to a dissolute
immoral people. But in a government like ours, where the laws and the
administration of law, are as quickly and as certainly affected by the
popular sentiment, owing to frequent elections, as the sunbeams are
reflected from the summer clouds, prosperity cannot survive morality a
single day. And who can tell how important, in this view, it is, that our
public men should be public models of private virtue!
Oh, when, our hearts exclaim, when shall the evil example be unknown in
the high places of power; and purity, truth, high-toned Christian morality,
beam like another sun, from the seats of influence? The true answer to this
question would afford another argument for the importance of that sense of
religious obligation which has now been considered. The command of God
is the only mandate in the universe which can effectually restrain human
passions and desires. The voice which comes attended by the sanction,
"Thus saith the Lord," is the only voice which can successfully say, "peace!
be still," to the winds and the waves of wrong inclination. When our rulers
shall "all be taught of God,"—and yield themselves to a constraining sense
of his dominion, and their own accountableness—then, and not till then,
will they as a body, be such models of private correctness and virtue, as
many of them, both among the dead and among the living, have been, for
the imitation of the young men, the hope and glory of our land.
Again, and it is the last consideration we shall present, how powerful a
tendency would such views on the part of our rulers, possess, to awaken the
utmost vigilance in the guardianship of their sacred trust, and to elevate the
mind and heart to the purest feelings, and the noblest efforts.
A sense of accountability, in some manner and to some tribunal, is essential
to ensure fidelity under all temptations to indolence or perversion, in every
case in which men are the recipients of any trust. Apply this principle to the
case of him who holds some political station of high importance. He feels
himself responsible, not only to men, but to God. He knows and remembers

that he is the servant of God for good, to the people. This remembrance and
impression is the sheet anchor of his steadfastness. Other principles might
hold him amidst the storms and commotions of the popular sea, and of his
own heart; this must. With what care will he watch the precious trust, which
comes to him under the seal of heaven! How sedulously will he guard the
doors of the temple of liberty, when he perceives within it the altar of God,
and finds his sentinel's commission countersigned with the handwriting of
Jehovah! His heart, too, will be filled with the purest and most exalted
sentiments.
The fountain from which such a man daily drinks, sparkles with the
elements of all that is grateful and refreshing.
The purest patriotism, the sweetest charities of domestic life, the most
expansive and wise benevolence, all spring up in the heart together, the
consentaneous and harmonious fruits of the love and fear of God. It was in
the same school that Wilberforce learned to love the slave—Howard to love
the prisoner—Wirt to love his country—and all to love the world. They
feared and obeyed God—and all noble and generous emotions grow
spontaneously in the soil of the heart thus prepared and enriched.
Nor is the effort less marked or less salutary upon the mind. Its thoughts are
loftier, and its purposes deeper and more steadfast, for being conversant
with the great subject of divine obligation. No man can think much of the
Deity, and realize strongly His constant presence and inspection, without an
elevation of views, and a growing consciousness of that mental power, for
the right use of which he is accountable to Him who bestowed it. We were
not made to inhabit a godless world, and we cannot make it so, in
speculation and in practice, without a deterioration analogous to the
dwarfish tendency of emigration to a region colder than our native clime.
"God is a sun," to the mental as well as to the moral powers; and in the
frozen zone of practical atheism, both degenerate and die. The noble motto,
"Bene orasse est bene studisse," applies with hardly less force to secular,
than to sacred studies.
With what energy must it arm the soul of the patriot statesman struggling
against wrong counsels, and discredited dangers, to know that the God of
truth and of right, sees and approves his course! With what new power does

his mind grasp a difficult and embarrassed subject, when he feels that the
Former of that mind, now demands from him an exertion of its highest
powers! What exciting power, to call forth the most thrilling eloquence, can
be found in the crowded senate-chamber, compared with the consciousness
that for every word he must give account to Him, whose applause, if he
fulfils his high behest, will surpass in value the shouts of an enraptured
universe besides!

A NEW-ENGLAND WINTER-SCENE.
EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO A FRIEND IN ONE OF
THE WEST INDIA ISLANDS.

By William Cutter.

I have sometimes almost envied you the perpetual summer you enjoy. You
have none of the bleak, dark wastes of Winter around you, and have never
to look, with aching heart, upon all fair, bright, beautiful things, withering
before your eyes, in the severe frown of frosty Autumn. It is always green,
and fresh, and fragrant, in your Islands of eternal June. Your gardens are
always gardens, gay and redolent with sweet blossoms, and rich with ripe
fruits, mingling like youth and manhood vying with each other, "from
laughing morning up to sober prime," pursuing, without blight or dimness,
the same gay round—blooming and ripening—ripening and blooming, but
never falling, through all generations. Through all seasons, you have only to
reach forth your hands, and there are bright bouquets, and mellow, delicious
fruits, ready to fill them. Your trees have always a shade to spread over you;
and they cast off their gorgeous blossoms, and their luxuriant load, as if
they were conscious of immortal youth and energy—as if they knew they
should never fade, become fruitless, or die. There is no frail, bending,
withering age, in any thing of nature you look upon—no blasting of the
unripened bud by untimely frosts—no falling prematurely of all that is
beautiful and rare, to remind you daily that time is on his flight, and that
you will not always be young. I wonder you do not think yourselves
immortal in those everlasting gardens! Oh! that perpetual youth and
maturity of every thing lovely!—how I have sometimes envied you the
possession!
But I shall never envy you again. No—delightful as summer is, soft as its
breezes, and sweet as its music, I would not lose the unutterable glory of
this scene, that is now before me, for all the riches of your Island,—its
unfading summer, and everlasting sweets. I wish I could describe it to you

—could give you some faint idea of its celestial splendor. But, to do it any
justice, I should have travelled through the fields of those glittering
constellations above me, to borrow images from the host of heaven. The
attempt will be vain—presumptuous—but I will try to tell you as much of it
as I can.
The day has been dark, cold, and stormy. The snow has been falling lightly,
mingled with rain, which, freezing as it fell, has formed a perfect covering
of ice upon every object. The trees and shrubbery, even to their minutest
branches, are all perfectly encased in this transparent drapery. Nothing
could look more bleak and melancholy while the storm continued. But, just
as evening closed in, the storm ceased, and the clouds rolled swiftly away.
Never was a clearer, a more spotless sky. The moon is in the zenith of her
march, with her multitude of bright attendants, pouring their mild radiance,
like living light, upon the sea of glass that is all around us. Oh! how it
kindles me to look at it! how it maddens me that I have no language to tell it
to you! Do but imagine—The fields blazing out, like oceans of molten
silver!—every tree and shrub, as far as the eye can reach, of pure
transparent glass—a perfect garden of moving, waving breathing chrystals,
lighted into unearthly splendor by a full, unclouded moon, and scattering
undimmed, in every direction, the beams that are poured upon them. The
air, all around, seems alive with illuminated gems. Every tree is a diamond
chandelier, with a whole constellation of stars clustering to every socket—
and, as they wave and tremble in the light breeze that is passing, I think of
the dance of the morning stars, while they sang together on the birth-day of
creation. Earth is a mirror of heaven. I can almost imagine myself borne up
among the spheres, and looking through their vast theatre of lights. There
are stars of every magnitude—from the humble twig, that glows and
sparkles on the very bosom of the glassy earth, and the delicate thorn that
points its glittering needle to the light, to the gorgeous, stately tree, that lifts
loftily its crowned head and stretches its gemmed and almost overborne
arms, proudly and gloriously to the heavens—all glowing—glittering—
flashing—blazing—like—but why do I attempt it? As well might I begin to
paint the noon-day sun. Give a loose to your imagination. Think of gardens
and forests, hung with myriads of diamonds—nay, every tree, every branch,
every stem and twig, a perfect, polished crystal, and the full, glorious moon,
and all the host of evening, down in the very midst of them—and you will

know what I am looking at. I am all eye and thought, but have no voice, no
words to convey to you an impression of what I see and feel—No, I'll not
envy you again! What a picture for mortal eyes to look on undimmed! The
eagle, that goes up at noon-day to the sun, would be amazed in its
effulgence. It is the coronation-eve of winter—and nature has opened her
casket, and poured out every dazzling gem, and brilliant in her keeping, and
hung out all her rain-bow drops, and lighted up every lamp, and they are all
glowing, twinkling, sparkling, flashing together, like legions of spiritual
eyes, glancing from world to world, in such unearthly rivalry, that the eye,
even of the mind, turns away from it, pained and weary with beholding.
There—look—but I can say no more, my words are consumed, drunk up in
this unutterable glory, like morning mist when the sun looks on it!

LOCH KATRINE.
By N. H. Carter.

An eminence in the road afforded us the first view of Loch Katrine, a blue
and bright expanse of water, cradled among lofty hills, though moderate
both in point of altitude and boldness, when contrasted with those which
had already been seen. The first feature that arrested attention, was the
peculiar complexion of the water, which is cerulean, and differs several
shades from that of the other Scotish lakes. Its hue is probably modified by
the verdure upon the shores, as well as by the geological structure of its
bed, in which there is little or no mud. Like some of our own pellucid
waters, it is a Naiad of the purest kind, sleeping on coral and crystal
couches. Its blue tinge was doubtless in some degree heightened by the
distance whence it was first descried, as well as by the deep azure of the
skies after the late storm.
Hastening to the shore, we waited some time for the oarsmen, who
accompanied us from Loch Lomond, to bring out their boat from behind a
little promontory, which for aught I know, was the very place where Rob
Roy and Ellen Douglas used to hide their canoes. There is no house within
several miles of the landing. The only building of any kind is a small
temporary hut, of rude construction, serving as a poor shelter in case of
rain. As this lake has become a fashionable resort, one would suppose the
number of travellers would justify the expense of a boatman's house, which
would relieve the oarsmen from the trouble of walking half a dozen miles,
and the tourist from the vexation of paying for it.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, seven of us, including the boat's crew,
embarked, and commenced a voyage to the foot of the lake, a distance of
nine miles in a south-eastern direction. Winds and waves both conspired to
accelerate our progress, and no Highland bark probably ever bounded more
merrily over the blue billows. The cone of Ben-Lomond rapidly receded,
and Ben-venue and Ben-an, on opposite sides of the outlet, came more fully
in view. At the head, Glengyle opens prettily from the north-west, with

serrated hills forming the lofty ramparts of the pass, in the entrance of
which is a seat belonging to one of the descendants of Rob Roy M'Gregor.
The width of the lake is about two miles, with deeply indented shores,
which are generally bold and romantic, exhibiting occasionally scattered
houses and patches of cultivation, particularly on the north-eastern borders.
Our course was nearest the south-western side, touching at one little
desolate promontory, to exchange boats, and often approaching so close, as
to enable us to examine the scanty growth upon the margin.
In about two hours from the time of embarkation, we reached Ellen's Island,
near the outlet; and half encircling the green eminence, rising beautifully
from the bosom of the lake, our Highland mariners made a port in the
identical little bay, where the far-famed heroine was wont to moor her skiff,
fastening it to an oak, which still hangs its aged arms over the flood. This
miniature harbor is also signalized, as the place where Helen Stuart cut off
the head of one of Cromwell's soldiers. As the story goes, all the women
and children fled hither for refuge. After a decisive victory, one of the
veterans of the Protector attempted to swim to the island for a boat, with an
intention of pillaging and laying waste the asylum; but as he approached the
shore the above mentioned heroine, stepped from her ambuscade, and with
one stroke of her dirk decapitated the marauder, thus rescuing her narrow
dominion with its tenants from destruction.
The Island is small and rises perhaps fifty feet above the water. It rests on a
basis of granite, covered with a thin coat of earth, through which the rocks
occasionally appear, and which affords scanty nutriment to a growth of oak,
birch, and mountain ash. The red berries of the latter hung gracefully over
the cliffs, in many places shaded with brown heath. A winding pathway
leads to the summit, which is beautifully tufted, and affords a charming
view of the surrounding hills and waters.
In a little secluded copse near the top stands Ellen's Bower, fashioned
exactly according to the description of the same object in the Lady of the
Lake. Those who are curious to form a minute and accurate image of it,
have only to turn to that picture. The exterior is composed of unhewn logs
or sticks of fir, fantastically arranged, with a thatched, moss-covered roof,
and skins of beasts converted into semi-transparent parchment for windows.
Every thing within is in rustic style. A living aspen grows in the centre, and

supports the ceiling. Upon its branches hangs a great variety of ancient
armor, with trophies of the chase. Here may be seen the Lochaber axe, Rob
Roy's dirk, and sundry other curiosities. A table strewed with leaves extends
nearly the whole length of the bower. The walls are hung with shields, and
the skins of various animals. Chairs and sofas woven of osiers fill the
apartment. The chimney is formed of sticks, and the head of a stag with his
branching horns decorates the mantlepiece. Half an hour was passed in
lolling upon Ellen's sofas, and in examining her domestic arrangements.
Bidding a lingering farewell to the sweet little island, we again embarked
and soon completed the residue of our voyage. The foot of Loch Katrine is
very romantic and beautiful. Innumerable hills of moderate elevation raise
their grey, pointed peaks around and above a deeply wooded glen, opening
towards the south-east and forming the outlet of the lake. The highest of
these are Ben-venue and Ben-an, rising on each side of the pass. Both are
fine mountains, something like two thousand feet in height, with naked
masses of granite overhanging wild and woody bases. From the great
number of peaks or pikes which are crowded into this narrow district, it has
been called the Trosachs, or bristled region. The lake is here reduced to less
than half a mile in width, sheltered on all sides from the winds by high
promontories, jutting so far into the water, as to appear like a group of
islands.
Towards the north-west, the eye looks up the glen of Strathgartney, in which
tradition says that the grey charger of Fitz-James fell. The boatman gravely
informed us, that his bones are to be seen to this day! Such stories, and the
sketches of certain topographers, have afforded us an infinite fund of
amusement.
We landed at the foot of Loch Katrine, and after walking a mile and a half
reached our hotel.

WORSHIP.
By Asa Cummings.

That heart must be desolate indeed, which is a stranger to devotion. Were it
possible to remain undevout, and at the same time not be criminal, it were
still a state of mind most earnestly to be deprecated. It is a joyless
condition, to live without God in the world; to be unsusceptible to the
attractions of his moral excellence; to pass the time of our sojourning in a
world of trial, without ever communing with the Father of our spirits, or
voluntarily casting ourselves on an Almighty arm for support, and breathing
forth to the Author of our being, the language of supplication and praise.
And how is the effect of devotion heightened by the junction of numbers in
the same service—even of the "multitude who keep holy day!" A scene, so
honorable to Him "who inhabiteth the praises of Israel," so fit in itself, so
congruous to man's social nature and dependant condition, so impressive on
the actors and spectators, and so salutary in its influence,—awakened in the
"sweet singer of Israel," the most ardent longings for the courts of the Lord,
and constituted the glowing theme of more than one of his unrivalled songs.
Nay, under the influence of that inspiration which prompted his thoughts
and guided his pen, he does not hesitate to affirm:—"The Lord loveth the
gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob."[1]
Far from us be the thought of casting upon the Psalmist the imputation of
undervaluing himself, or of designing to lead his fellow-men to undervalue
domestic or private worship. Every contrite heart is an abode where God
delights to dwell—a temple where he abides and operates—a chosen
habitation, where he reveals his love and displays his grace. It is a
complacent sight to the Father of spirits, to behold one prodigal returning,
to see an individual prostrate before him, and lifting up his cry for pardon
and spiritual strength. It is pleasing in his eyes to see a family at their
morning and evening devotions, pouring out their souls with all the
workings of pious affection, and the various pleadings of faith. No sweeter
incense than this, ever ascends to heaven. When, therefore, God expresses

his preference for the worship of the sanctuary, it is not the quality which he
regards, but the degree; not the kind of influence exerted, but the amount. In
the sanctuary is the concentrated devotion of many hearts. Here are more
minds to be wrought upon; here is a wider scope for the operation of truth;
here a light is raised which is seen from afar, and attracts the gaze of distant
beholders, as the temple on the summit of Moriah, "fretted with golden
fires," arrested the eye of the distant traveller. Here is a public, practical
declaration to all the world, that there is a God, and that adoration and
service are his due.
In the sanctuary the Creator and the creature are brought near to each other.
The character and perfections of God, his law and government, the wonders
of his providence, the riches of his grace, the duty and destiny of man, are
brought directly before the mind by the "lively oracles." "Beholding, as in a
glass, the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image." Truth,
enforced by the energies of the life-giving Spirit, "is quick and powerful."
God "pours water on them that are thirsty;" and in fulfilment of the
prophetic word, "young men and maidens, old men and children,"
awakened to "newness of life," spring up "as willows by the water-courses,"
and flock to the Refuge of souls, "as doves to their windows." A spectacle
this, well pleasing to God, and cheering to the hearts of his friends on earth
—none more so this side heaven. None produces such a commingling of
wonder, love, humility, and gratitude; none calls forth such adoring
thankfulness; none makes the songs of the temple below so like that new
song of Moses and the Lamb, which is perpetually sung before the throne
above. Heaven is brought down to earth—eternity takes hold on time; this
world yields its usurped throne in the hearts of men, and Jehovah reigns
triumphant, the Lord of their affections. "The power and glory of God are
seen in the sanctuary."
Here, too, are ample provisions to meet all future wants—moral means to
restore the wandering, to recover the spiritually faint, to refresh and fortify
their souls to sustain the conflict with temptation, to inspire the heart with
religious joy, to nourish that spiritual life which has dawned in their souls.
Here is the "sincere milk of the word," on which they may "grow;" the
significant ordinances, so quickening to the affections, so invigorating to
man's spiritual nature. The Baptismal water affects the heart through the
medium of the eye, and enforces the worshipper's obligation to abjure the

world, and to be pure as Christ is pure. The Emblematic Feast, exhibiting
"Jesus Christ set forth crucified before his eyes,"—while it affectingly
reminds him of his lost condition as a sinner, contains an impressive
demonstration of the power and grace of his Deliverer, "in whom we have
redemption through his blood." His faith fastens itself on this sacrifice. He
is loosed from the bondage of sin; his "soul is satisfied as with marrow and
fatness." His fellowship is with the Father, and with the Son. He has
communion with the saints. He derives new support to his fainting faith,
and goes on his pilgrimage rejoicing.
The entire exercises and scenes of the house of worship—the reading of the
scriptures, the confessions, prayers, and praises, the songs of the temple—
for "as well the singers as the players on instruments" are there[2]—the
preaching of the gospel, the celebration of the sacraments,—all combine
their aid to strengthen pious principle, holy purpose, virtuous habit, and to
render the children of God "perfect, thoroughly furnished to every good
work." The place, the day, the multitude, the power of sympathy, all
conspire to give effect to truth, and to rouse them up to labor for God, for
their species, for eternity: all combine to render the house of God "the gate
of heaven," the image of heaven, and a precious antepast of the enjoyments
of heaven!

"My willing soul would stay
In such a frame as this,
And sit, and sing herself away
To everlasting bliss."

THE VALLEY OF SILENCE.
By William Cutter.

It was a perfect Eden for beauty. The scent of flowers came up on the
gale, the swift stream sparkled like a flow of diamonds in the sun, and
a smile of soft light glistened on every leaf and blade, as they drank in
the life-giving ray. Its significant loveliness was eloquent to the eye
and the heart—but a strange deep silence reigned over it all. So perfect
was the unearthly stillness, you could almost hear yourself think.—
Katahdin.

Has thy foot ever trod that silent dell?
'Tis a place for the voiceless thought to swell
And the eloquent song to go up unspoken,
Like the incense of flowers whose urns are
broken;
And the unveiled heart may look in, and see,
In that deep strange silence, its motions free,
And learn how the pure in spirit feel
That unseen Presence to which they kneel.

No sound goes up from the quivering trees,
When they spread their arms to the welcome
breeze;
They wave in the Zephyr—they bow to the
blast—
But they breathe not a word of the power that
passed;
And their leaves come down on the turf and
the stream,
With as noiseless a fall as the step of a
dream;

And the breath that is bending the grass and
the flowers,
Moves o'er them as lightly as evening hours.

The merry bird lights down on that dell,
And, hushing his breath, lest the song should
swell,
Sits with folded wing in the balmy shade,
Like a musical thought in the soul unsaid.
And they of strong pinion and loftier flight,
Pass over that valley, like clouds in the night
—
They move not a wing in that solemn sky,
But sail in a reverent silence by.

The deer, in his flight, has passed that way,
And felt the deep spell's mysterious sway—
He hears not the rush of the path he cleaves,
Nor his bounding step on the trampled
leaves.
The hare goes up on that sunny hill,
And the footsteps of morning are not more
still,
And the wild, and the fierce, and the mighty
are there,
Unheard in the hush of that slumbering air.

The stream rolls down in that valley serene,
Content in its beautiful flow to be seen,
And its fresh flowery banks, and its pebbly
bed
Were never yet told of its fountain head;
And it still rushes on—but they ask not why,
With its smile of light, it is hurrying by;
Still, gliding, or leaping, unwhispered,
unsung,

Like the flow of bright fancies, it flashes
along.

The wind sweeps by, and the leaves are
stirred,
But never a whisper or sigh is heard;
And when its strong rush laid low the oak,
Not a murmur the eloquent stillness broke.
And the gay young echoes—those mockers
that lie
In the dark mountain-sides—make no reply,
But, hushed in their caves, they are listening
still
For the songs of that valley to burst o'er the
hill.

I love society;—I am o'erblest to hear
The mingling voices of a world; mine ear
Drinks in their music with a spiritual taste;
I love companionship on life's dark waste,
And could not live unheard;—yet that still
vale—
It had no fearful mystery in its tale;—
Its hush was grand, not awful, as if there
The voice of nature were a breathing prayer.
'Twas like a holy temple, where the pure
Might blend in their heart-worship, and be
sure
No sound of earth could come—a soul kept
still,
In faith's unanswering meekness, for heaven's
will,
Its eloquent thoughts sent upward and
abroad,
But all its deep hushed voices kept for God!

DESCRIPTIONS OF THE DIVINE BEING.
By Gershom F. Cox.

It is a difficult task to shadow forth spirit. The best emblems of the earth
can give but faint and distant views of its incomprehensible nature. Our
own consciousness, too, must fail to give us adequate notions of the
mysterious traits of its character. Aided by the brightest images of earth, or
the most subtle principles of philosophy, who can bring to view any
tolerably good picture of a human soul!—who can draw the outlines of
thought!—thought that is as immeasurable as the universe!—thought that
could encompass, with more than the quickness of the lightning's flash, all
that God has made!—thought that gives to us, at once, the gravity of the
merest atom, the beauties and properties of the petal of a single flower, or
the structure, density, size and weight of the worlds that border on the
outskirts of our own universe; and when it has done its noble work, as if
plumed for fresh conquests, stretches itself far beyond the material
universe, into the deep solitudes of eternity, in quest of something more!
Who, we ask again, can give the outlines of thought? Who can tell us of its
yet hidden resources; or of a mind like that of Newton, or of Bacon, which,
after they had taken from the arcana of nature some of her most hidden
principles, "entered the secret place of the Most High, and lodged beneath
the shadow of the Almighty?" How much less, then, can we give just
descriptions of the Deity! How can we describe Him "who covereth himself
with light as with a garment,"—whom no man hath seen, nor can see.
We are aware that every thing speaks of a God. All nature has its language;
and however dark the alphabet, it still speaks, and speaks every where; for
there is no place where he has not "left a witness." We acknowledge, too,
that the only reason why the deep tones of nature are not more audible, may
be found in the imbecilities or transgressions of man. But, while the
babbling brook hath its story to tell of its Maker, and the willow that bends
and sighs by its side, and the pebble o'er which the streamlet rolls;—while
the glorious dew-drop has its power of speech—the soft south breeze, and
"the hoar-frost of heaven;" while the deep vale may offer its chorus to the

waving corn, or to the lofty summit by its side; while often may be heard
the full notes of the angry tempest, and of the tornado as it sweeps by us,
carrying fearful desolation in its path; although these may all speak forcibly
of the power, of the goodness, of the wisdom, of the terrible justice of God;
yet, without divine revelation, like the inscription at Athens, they only point
to a God unknown. The awful precipice, where
"Leaps the live thunder,"
in the hour of the tempest, doth but stun the intellect of man with its
overhanging and dizzy heights. And "the sound of many waters," or "the
deep, lifting up his hands on high,"—although they may arouse every
passion of the spirit, and address it as with the voice of God; yet, to man,
these all want an interpreter. Lo! these are but "parts of his ways." But what
a mere "whisper of the matter is heard in it, and the thunder of his power
who can understand!"
Nature speaks—we repeat it—but her language, to us, is often indefinite;
like the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, it may arouse the spirit to inquiry—
agitate every passion to consternation; but without a Daniel to interpret her
admonitions, "the thing is passed from us." Else why this gross ignorance of
the character of God among even the enlightened, or rather civilized,
nations of antiquity? Why did not Egypt, when all the "wisdom of the east"
was concentrated in her sons, have some notions of the Deity that would
have raised their minds above the serpent or crocodile, or some
insignificant article of the vegetable creation? Why did not the savage,
roaming in the freedom of his interminable forests, have some correct views
of God? He had talked with the sun, and heard the roar of the tempest; the
evening sky in its grandeur was an everlasting map spread out before him,
and the broad lake mirrored back to him its glories. But how confused—
how degraded were the loftiest notions of the Deity, among the most
powerful of Indian minds!
But I have already strayed from my purpose. I intended only to give a
specimen or two, of attempted descriptions of the Deity, for the purpose of
showing the infinite superiority of those contained in the bible, above every
other in the world.

It ought, however, to be recollected, that the descriptions we find among
heathen authors, are doubtless more or less indebted to sentiments borrowed
from the Jewish scriptures; although we believe the contrast will show that
they have passed through heathen hands. One of the most sublime to be met
with in the world, out of the bible, was engraved in hieroglyphics upon the
temple of Neith, the Egyptian Minerva. It is as follows:
"I am that which is, was, and shall be: no mortal hath lifted up my veil: the
offspring of my power is the sun."
A similar inscription still remains at Capua, on the temple of Isis:
"Thou art one, and from thee all things proceed."
In the above, evident traces are to be seen of the Hebrew term Jehovah.
Some of Homer's descriptions have their excellencies; but they all suffer
from the fact, that he clothes the deities he describes, not only with human
passions, but with human appetites of the most degrading character. And he
never seems more satisfied with himself than when he represents them
heated for war! "Warring gods," when placed at the foot of Calvary, or
contrasted with any just description of the true God, is certainly a revolting
idea; and it is still worse to introduce them as does Homer, with the
shuddering thought that,
"Gods on gods exert eternal rage!"
And our impressions are scarcely more favorable when he presents us with
an unincarnate, and yet "bleeding god," retiring from the field of battle,
"pierced with Grecian darts," "though fatal, not to die." The following from
this author is singular indeed:

"Of lawless force shall lawless MARS
complain?
Of all the most unjust, most odious in our
eyes!
In human discord is thy dire delight,
The waste of slaughter, and the rage of fight.
No bound, no law thy fiery temper quells,

And all thy mother in thy soul rebels!"—
Illiad, Book 5.
The following is far less exceptionable:

"And know, the Almighty is the God of gods.
League all your forces then, ye powers
above,
Join all, and try the omnipotence of Jove;
Let down our golden everlasting chain,
Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and
earth and main:
Strive all, of mortal or immortal birth,
To draw, by this, the thunderer down to earth:
Ye strive in vain! If I but stretch this hand,
I heave the gods, the ocean, and the land;
I fix the chain to great Olympus' height,
And the vast world hangs trembling in my
sight!
For such I reign unbounded and above;
And such are men, and gods, compared to
Jove."—Ill. b. vi.

Some of the above ideas are certainly sublime, and considering the age that
produced them, they have no superior but the bible.
As the koran has attained considerable celebrity, we should hardly be
pardoned should we not notice it. The passage on which the Mohammedan
rests his whole faith, for sublimity, and which is confessedly unapproached
by any thing else in the koran, is the following:
"God! There is no God but he; the living, the self-subsisting; neither
slumber nor sleep seizeth him; to him belongeth whatsoever is in heaven,
and on earth. Who is he that can intercede with him but through his good
pleasure? He knoweth that which is past, and that which is to come. His
throne is extended over heaven and earth, and the preservation of both is to
him no burden. He is the High, the Mighty."

If the above passage contained a single original thought, it might entitle it
to higher praise than it can now receive. But as there is no thought
expressed, but may be found in the book of Job, or among the inimitable
Psalms of David, written from sixteen hundred to two thousand years
before Mohammed, and which this pretended prophet had before him—and
as we can hardly allow their originality of expression—the only praise that
can be bestowed upon its author is, that of having studied the Jewish
scriptures pretty closely, a fact that is exhibited throughout his famous
production. But while we acknowledge that this is a brilliant passage, it
evidently does not surpass, nor even equal, either of the following, selected
from our own times.

"Eternal Spirit! God of truth! to whom
All things seem as they are. Thou who of old
The prophet's eye unsealed, that nightly saw
While heavy sleep fell down on other men,
In holy vision tranced, the future pass
Before him, and to Judah's harp attuned
Burdens which make the pagan mountains
shake,
And Zion's cedars bow,—inspire my song;
My eye unscale; me what is substance teach,
And shadow what, while I of things to come,
As past rehearsing, sing the course of time.
—Hold my right hand, Almighty! and me
teach
To strike the lyre——to notes
Which wake the echoes of Eternity."—
Pollok.

In the above extracts there is this remarkable difference: Mohammed, in his
description of Deity, has no thought that refers to a moral perfection of
God! And indeed gross sensuality, and a destitution of high and spiritual
views, characterize his whole work.
But with Pollok, the first thought is spirit—a second, truth. And aside from
this peculiarity, although you turn over every leaf of the koran, we affirm
that you cannot find so sublime a conception as the following:

"Hold my right hand, Almighty! and me
teach
To strike the lyre,——to notes
That wake the echoes of eternity."

But how infinitely, both in grandeur and simplicity, do all these fall short of
the inimitable original of most of these, penned by David of the Old, or
Paul of the New Testament.
"O, my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are
throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the
earth, and the heavens are the work of thine hands. They shall perish, but
thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a
vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art
the same, and thy years shall have no end."

"Who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and the Lord of
lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in Light which no man can
approach unto,—whom no man hath seen, nor can see!"
Or as in another place, "The King eternal, immortal, invisible,—the only
wise God."
In the above specimens, there is a grandeur and simplicity not to be found
in any merely human composition.
The following is very fine, from Habakkuk:

"God came from Teman,
The Holy One from Mount Paran.
His glory covered the heavens,
And his praise filled the earth.
His brightness was like the sun,
Out of his hand [or side] came flashes of
lightning,
And there was only the veil of his might.
Before him walked the pestilence,
And burning coals went forth at his feet.
He stood, and the earth was moved;

He looked, and caused the nations to quake.
And the everlasting mountains were broken
in pieces,
And the perpetual hills did bow.
His goings are from everlasting."
We scarcely know which to admire most, the above or the following from
the same author:

"The mountains saw THEE and trembled,
The overflowing waters passed away.
The deep uttered his voice,
And lifted up his hands on high.
The sun and moon stood still in their
habitations.
At the shining of thine arrows, (i. e. the
lightnings,) they disappeared—
At the brightness of thy glittering spear!"

The following paraphrastic reference may be regarded as barren in some
respects, compared with others that might be selected from the same living
fountain.
The Eye of the Supreme Being is regarded as so piercing as to pervade
heaven, earth and hell, and the awful depths of eternity. His countenance is
as the sun shining in his strength. The wind, in its endless whirl, is but his
breath or breathing. His hand is represented so immense, that even its
"hollow" will "contain the waters of the great deep,"—and, when
"spanned," he "measures with it the whole heavens." While "sitting in the
circle of the heavens," the earth is represented as the place where his feet
rest. So rapid in his motion, that "He walks upon the wings of the wind." Of
such awful strength, "that the earth," with its countless inhabitants, are "less
than the dust" that accumulates "upon the balance." At one time "He
covereth himself with light as with a garment,"—and at another, "He
maketh darkness his pavilion, and the thick clouds of the skies."
These however are images all borrowed from sensible objects, and,
magnificent as they may be, they fail of throwing upon the mind a full

image of Him who hath "no likeness in the heavens above, nor in the earth
beneath." And, besides, these glowing pictures present to the mind none of
his moral attributes. For a description of these, we must look either to the
events of his providence, or a more particular disclosure in the bible. And it
may well astonish us, that, after the lapse of more than three thousand
years, we may look in vain for a fuller or more perfect description of the
Divine Being, in words, than is given by Moses in that memorable moment
upon Mount Sinai—
"Whose grey tops did tremble, when God ordained their laws."
A description that is like the sun rising upon the chaos that surrounded him
in the Egyptian mythology, which at that time was so gross that no object in
nature was too mean for a deity. But "in the midst of this darkness that
might be felt," God was pleased to reveal himself in the following language,
at once sufficiently grave and impressive to afford irrefragable proof of its
high origin.

‫ויעבור יהוה על־פניו ויקרא יהוה יהוה‬
‫אל רחום וחנון ארך אפים ורב־חסד‬
‫ואמת׃ נצר חסד לאלפים נשא עון‬
‫ופשע וחטאה ונקה לא ינקה פקד עון‬
‫בנים‬ ‫ועל־בני‬ ‫על־בנים‬ ‫אבות‬
‫על־שלשים ועל־רבעים׃‬
~Vay'avor Adonai 'al panav vaykra Adonai
Adonai El ra[h.]um ve[h.]anun erekh apayim
verav [h.]esed veemeth. Notzer [h.]esed laalafim
nose 'avon vafesha ve [h.]atah venakeh lo
yinakeh poked 'avon avoth 'al banim ve'al bnei
vanim 'al shileshim ve'al ribe'im.~
"And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord
God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and

sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third
and to the fourth generation."
Or, as these striking appellatives of the Divine Being might be translated,
without offering any violation to the Hebrew,—the Jehovah, the strong and
mighty God, the merciful One, the gracious One, the long-suffering One,
the great and mighty One, the Bountiful Being, the True One, or Truth,
the Preserver of Bountifulness, the Redeemer, or Pardoner, the Righteous
Judge, and He who visits iniquity.
This is a remarkable description indeed to come from one educated in the
midst of Egyptian mythology; and the awful names by which the Supreme
Being is designated, can only be accounted for, under such circumstances,
on the supposition that Moses received them directly from the Almighty
himself.
But to close our article. The Divine Being is nowhere so perfectly, so
interestingly described as in the character of Christ. Here love is
unbosomed as it could not be by language. Here heaven drops down to
earth; and the otherwise invisible beauties of the invisible God, are made
tangible even to the eye. The arm of mercy, outstretched to the sinner—the
eye of justice softened by the tear of mercy—the heart of love beating
intensely with benignity, as well as every perfection of the divine nature;
are all laid open to the view of sinful, helpless man, and we become "eye
witness of his glorious majesty." Here the tears of mercy may be seen
dropping upon its wretched objects of commiseration; and the most secret
emotions of the divine mind, we may behold, heaving in the bosom of the
immaculate Jesus. Here indeed "God tabernacles and walks with man." And
as a confirmation of the glorious truth, at beholding Him, "the sun stood
still in his habitation." "The sea saw him, and was afraid." The earth
trembled at his presence, and gave back the dead at his voice. Well indeed
might one exclaim, to behold such a personage, "My Lord and my God."

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
By Charles S. Daveis.

Never—since the period that Cæsar conquered Gaul, when the inhabitants
enjoyed a barbarian license under their native chiefs and druids, had the
voice of liberty been heard in France, till the 14th of July, 1789. Never
before did such a note of exultation spread over the vine-covered hills,—
and echo among the beautiful valleys, of that fair country. Never perhaps
before was there such a burden lifted from the minds of men. In the
unwonted consciousness of power, they seemed to tread a new earth. In the
intoxication of triumph they burst from the bonds of morality and humanity.
So very singular, and strange, indeed, was the position in which the people
of France were placed by the revolution, that their vernacular language was
found deficient in the appropriate phraseology of freedom; and they were
obliged to resort to a foreign idiom, and to the customs of other climes, and
the usages of other nations, and to ransack the regions of fancy and
invention, for the vocabulary, as well as the drapery, of their new republic.
It is remarkable, that the revolution in France, beginning in fact, with the
destruction of the Bastile, should end in the re-establishment of despotism.
It was a revolution indeed not more remarkable for the original character of
its cause, than its catastrophe; for the astonishing contrast it exhibits
between the splendor of its talents and the atrocity of its crimes: for the
reverence which it professed for antiquity, and the mischief it produced to
posterity; for adopting the most enormous maxims, and enforcing them by
the most audacious means; for the use which it made of its own freedom to
enslave other nations to its law, for erecting the empire of Rome upon the
democracy of Athens, for the adoption of a model of colossal grandeur, and
establishing the most tremendous system of policy, that ever convulsed
human kind:—a revolution, conspicuous also for the sudden appearance of
a race of men springing up from the earth, as though it had been sown with
dragons' teeth, and its monstrous fruits produced with hydras' heads and
tigers' hearts;—resounding, together, with the tribune, and the guillotine;—
not merely remarkable for tearing the priest from the altar, but for rasing the

altar likewise to the ground; and distinguished for the successive
destruction of some of the most ancient thrones and crowns in Europe;—for
the ignominious death of the last in a royal line of seventy sovereigns, who,
at any former period of the monarchy, would have been blessed as the father
of his people, and canonized as the true descendant of St. Louis,—and the
most affecting example on record of an anointed queen, not more famed for
her charms than for her sorrows,—her errors more than atoned by her
sufferings, perishing without a tear, in a land of ancient renown for chivalry,
upon the scaffold! The revolution in France was a scene at which sensibility
sinks. It seemed to extinguish the hopes of its friends in the blood of its
martyrs; and it was hardly relieved by the virtues of its purest patriot,
educated in the schools of America, banished from the air of France, and
doomed to breathe the dungeons of despotism.
To what are we indebted again for our escape from that wild turmoil, which
involved the elements of society and government in Europe with an
overwhelming violence? Why was it, that while the storm, that shook the
continent abroad, beat against our iron-bound shore, its fury was expended
at our feet; and we heard it howl along our agitated coast and die away at a
distance? Why did we enjoy a light, like the children of Israel, in our
dwellings, while Egyptian darkness brooded around? Why, in this universal
chaos, had we such reason to congratulate ourselves on the good providence
of God, in ordaining us to be a world by ourselves?—It was certainly not,
that we did not enter into the cause of liberty in France with enthusiasm; for
our hearts were in it as warmly as they were in our own. Our sympathy was
with it as long as it could be sustained; our regret pursued it in dishonor,—
and our affection followed it into misfortune. We lamented to see, that all
the results of that amazing movement of the human mind, contemplating
the happiness of millions, and looking to the improvement of ages, should
follow the fortune of foreign war; and that they should centre in a single
individual, carried away into captivity, and doomed to end his days upon a
solitary rock. We grieved to behold the beautiful and brilliant star of the
French Revolution sink at last into mid-ocean, the mere meteor of military
glory.—Feeling all the disappointment of its friends, we cannot but contrast
it with the deep repose, which our own illustrious and honored patriots
enjoy, in the land which gave them birth, beneath the mighty shadows of
our happy political revolution.

Although, as Americans, we cease to cling to the cause of revolutionary
liberty in France with the lingering fondness of early affection, we continue
to follow its dying light, as though we could not believe it had entirely sunk
in darkness and despair. If it be not possible to regard it uninfluenced by its
unfortunate termination, if we can borrow nothing from its origin to relieve
its mournful catastrophe, it behoves us still to embalm the wounds of liberty
with its healing spirit, and it concerns us also, that all its sacrifices and
services for the sake of man should not have perished with its victims. The
vices of the ancient government rendered it unfit for the happiness of
France, without essential alterations; and while we reflect with pain upon
the results of the revolution, we must bear in mind that they were the
excesses of men like ourselves, transported by hopes excited by our
example, and exalted by a more ardent temper, untrained by the same
favorable habits and beneficial institutions;—and although its transient
violence may shock and repel our sympathy, it ought not to disgust us with
its principles, or to alienate our attachment from its rational objects. Let us
not fail to perceive, as we shall, if we are attentive to the facts, that what
was good was in the cause; and what was evil was the effect of that long
oppression by which it was corrupted. In this wonderful dispensation to
mankind we may not perhaps pretend to scan the ways of providence; yet in
common with the christian world we cannot fail to behold the dealing of a
divine and overruling hand. Where the seed of liberty has been sown, and
watered with the blood, as well as tears, of patriots, that seed is yet in the
earth; and whether it spring up before our eyes or not, it may be the will of
Him, to whom no eye is raised in vain, that nothing shall be lost!

MRS. SYKES.
By Nathaniel Deering.

One dark, stormy night in the summer of —— finding my system had lost
much of its humidum radicale, or radical moisture, in truth a very alarming
premonitory, I directed Mrs. Tonic in preparing my warm aqua fontana to
infuse a quantum sufficit of Hollands; of which having taken a somewhat
copious draught, I sought my cubiculum. Let no one imagine however, that
I give the least countenance to the free use of alcoholic mixtures. They are
undoubtedly poisonous, and like other poisons, which hold a high rank in
our pharmacopeia, it is only when taken under the direction of those
deemed cunning in our art, that they exert a healing power, and as one
Shakspeare happily expresses it, "ascend me to the brain." Now as the
radical moisture is essential to vitality and as this moisture is promoted in a
wonderful degree by potations of Hollands, we of the Faculty hold with
Horatius Flaccus "omnes eodem cogimur"—we may all cogue it. But to
return to my narratio or story as it may be called. I had hardly "steep'd my
senses in forgetfulness" as some one quaintly says, when I was effectually
aroused by a loud knocking at the window. The blows were so heavy and
frequent that Mrs. Tonic though somewhat unadorned, it being her hour for
retiring, yet fearful of fractured glass, hurried to the door. I might here
mention, in order to show the reason of Mrs. Tonic's fears, that my parlor
front-window had been lately beautified with an enlarged sash containing
not seven by nine, the size generally used, but eight by ten—panes certainly
of a rare and costly size and which Mrs. Tonic had the honor of introducing.
The cause of this unseasonable disturbance proved to be a messenger from
Deacon Sykes stating that good Mrs. Sykes was alarmingly ill and desiring
my immediate attendance. Now in the whole range of my practice there was
no one whose call was sooner heeded than Mrs. Sykes's; for besides being
an ailing woman and of course a profitable patient, she had much influence
in our village as the wife of Deacon Sykes. But I must confess that on this
occasion I did feel an unwillingness to resume my habiliments, that night as
I before remarked, being uncommonly stormy and myself feeling sensibly

the effects of the sudorific I had just taken. Still I should willingly have
exposed myself had not Mrs. Tonic gathered from the messenger that it was
only a return of Mrs. Sykes's old complaint, that excruciating pain, the
colic; for Mrs. Sykes was flatulent. As the medicine I had hitherto
prescribed for her in such aliments had been wonderfully blessed, I directed
Mrs. Tonic to bring my saddle-bags, from which having prepared a
somewhat smart dose of tinct. rhei. with carb. soda, I gave it to the
messenger bidding him return with all speed. In the belief that this would
prove efficacious, I again turned to woo the not reluctant Somnus, but
scarcely had an hour elapsed when I was again alarmed by repeated blows
first at the door and then at the window. In a moment I sat bolt upright, in
which attitude I was soon imitated by Mrs. Tonic, on hearing the crash of
one of her eight by tens. Through the aperture I now distinctly recognized
the voice of Sam Saunders, who had hired with the Deacon, stating that
good Mrs. Sykes was absolutely in extremis, or as Sam himself expressed it,
"at her last gasp." On hearing this, you may be assured I was not long in
naturalibus; but drawing on my nether integuments, I departed despite the
remonstrances of Mrs. Tonic, without my wrapper and without any thing in
fact except a renewed draught of my philo humidum radicale. My journey
to the Deacon's was made with such an accelerated movement that it was
accomplished as it were per saltum. This was owing to my great anxiety
about Mrs. Sykes, though possibly in a small degree I might have dreaded
an obstruction of the pores in my own person. Howbeit, on arriving at the
Deacon's, I saw at once that she was beyond the healing art. There lay all
that remained of Mrs. Sykes—the disjecta membra, the fragmenta—the
casket! But the gem, the mens divinior was gone and forever. There she lay,
regardless of the elongated visage of Deacon Sykes on the one side, and of
the no less elongated visage of the widow Dobble on the other side, who
had been some time visiting there, and who now hung over her departed
friend in an agony of woe. "Doctor," cried the Deacon, "is there no hope?"
"Is there no hope?" echoed the widow Dobble. I grasped the wrist of Mrs.
Sykes, but pulsation had ceased; the eye was glazed and the countenance
livid. "A caput mortuum, Deacon! defuncta! the wick of vitality is snuffed
out." The bereaved husband groaned deeply; the widow Dobble groaned an
octave higher.

On my way home my mind was much exercised with this sudden and
mysterious dispensation. Had Sam Saunders blundered in his statement of
her complaint? Had I myself—good Heavens! it could'nt be possible! I
opened my bags—horresco referens! it was but too palpable! Owing either
to the agitation of the moment when so suddenly awakened, or to the deep
solicitude of Mrs. Tonic, who, in preparing my philo humidum radicale, had
infused an undue portion of the Hollands—to one of these the lamented
Mrs. Sykes might charge her untimely exit; for there was the vial of tinct.
rhei. full to the stopple, while the vial marked "laudanum," was as dry as a
throat in fever. I hesitate not to record that at this discovery, I lost some of
that self-possession which has ever been characteristic of the Tonics. I was
not only standing on the brow of a precipice, but my centre of gravity
seemed a little beyond it. There were rivals in the vicinity jealous of my
rising reputation. The sudden death might cause a post mortem examination,
and the result would be as fatal to me as was the laudanum to Mrs. Sykes. A
thought, occurring, doubtless through a special Providence, suddenly
relieved my mind. At break of day I retraced my footsteps to the chamber of
the deceased. Accompanied by the Deacon I approached to gaze upon the
corpse; when, suddenly starting back, I placed one hand upon my
olfactories and grasping with the other the alarmed mourner, I hurried
towards the door. "In the name of heaven!" cried the Deacon, "what is the
matter?" "The matter!" I replied, "the matter! Deacon, listen. In all cases of
mortality where the radical moisture has not been lessened by long disease,
putrefaction commences on the cessation of the organic functions and a
miasma fatal to the living is in a moment generated. This is the case even in
cold weather, and it being now July, I cannot answer for your own life if the
burial be deferred; the last sad offices must be at once attended to." Deacon
Sykes consented. Not, he remarked, on his own account, for, as to himself,
life had lost its charms, but there were others near on whom many were
dependent, and he could not think of gratifying his own feelings at their
expense—sufficient, says he, for the day is the evil thereof. I hardly need
add, that, when my advice to the Deacon got wind, the neighbors with one
accord rallied to assist in preparing Mrs. Sykes for her last home; and their
labors were not a little quickened by the fumes of tar and vinegar which I
directed to be burnt on this melancholy occasion. Much as I cherished Mrs.
Sykes, still I confess that my feelings were much akin to those called

pleasurable, when I heard the rattle of those terrene particles which covered
at the same time my lamented friend and my professional lapsus.
But after all, as I sat meditating on the ups and downs of life during the
evening of the funeral, the question arose in my mind, is all safe? May not
some unfledged Galens remove the body for the purpose of dissection?—
Worse than all, may not some malignant rival have already meditated a
similar expedition? The more I reflected on this matter and its probable
consequences, the more my fears increased, till at last they became too
great for my frail tenement. There was at this period a boarder in my family,
one Job Sparrow, who having spent about thirty years of his pilgrimage in
the "singing of anthems," concluded at length to devote the residue thereof
to the study of the human frame, to which he was the more inclined,
probably, as he could have the benefit of my deep investigations. His
outward man, though somewhat ungainly, was exceedingly muscular, and
he had a firmness of nerve which would make him willingly engage in any
enterprise that would aid him in his calling. Conducting him to my sanctum
or study, a retired chamber in my domicil, "Job," I remarked, "I have long
noticed your engagedness in the healing art, and I have lamented my
inability of late to further your progress in the study of anatomy from the
difficulty of procuring subjects. An opportunity, however, is at length
afforded, and I shall not fail to embrace it though at the sacrifice of my best
feelings. The subject I mean, is the lamented Mrs. Sykes. Bring her remains
at night to this chamber, and I with my venerable friend Dr. Grizzle will
exhibit what, though often described, are seldom visible, those wonderful
absorbents, the lacteals.—It is only in very recent subjects, my dear Job,
that it is possible to point them out." My pupil grinned complacently at this
manifestation of kindly feelings towards him in one so much his superior,
and hastened to prepare himself for the expedition. It was about nine of the
clock when the venerable Dr. Grizzle, whom I had notified of my intended
operations through Job, came stealthily in. Dr. Grizzle, though from his
appearance one would conclude that he was about to "shuffle off this mortal
coil," was a rara avis as to his knowledge of the corporeal functions. There
were certain gainsayers, indeed, who asserted that his intellectual candle
was just glimmering in its socket; but it will show to a demonstration how
little such statements are to be regarded when I assert that the like slanders
had been thrown out touching my own person. The profound Grizzle, above

such malignant feelings, always coincided with my own opinion, both as to
the nature of the disease we were called to counteract, and as to the mode of
treatment; and so highly did I value him, that he was the only one whom I
called to a consultation when that course was deemed expedient. We had
prepared our instruments and were refreshing our minds with the pages of
Chesselden, a luminous writer, when to my great satisfaction the signal of
my pupil was heard below. Hitherto our labors seemed to have been blest;
but a difficulty occurred in this stage of our progress which threatened not
only to render these labors useless, but to retard, if I may so say, the
advance of anatomical science. It was this; the stairway was uncommonly
narrow, and the lamented Mrs. Sykes was uncommonly large. As it was
impossible, then, for Job to pass up at the same time with the defunct, it was
settled after mature deliberation, that he and myself, should occupy a post at
each extreme, while Grizzle assisted near the lumbar region. "Now," cried
Job, "heave together;" but the words were hardly uttered, when a shreak
from Grizzle, paralized our exertions. Our muscular efforts had wedged my
venerable friend so completely between Mrs. Sykes and the wall, that his
lungs wheezed like a pair of decayed bellows; and had it not been for the
Herculean strength of Job, who rushed as it were in medias res, the number
of the dead would have equalled that of the living. At length, after repeated
trials, we effected, as I facetiously remarked, our "passage of the Alps;" an
historical allusion which tended much to the divertisement of Grizzle and
obliterated in no small measure, the memory of his recent peril. And now,
having directed Job to go down and secure the door, Grizzle and myself
advanced to remove the bandages that confined her arms, previous to
dissection. But scarcely was the work accomplished when a sepulchral
groan burst from the defunct, the eyes glared, and the loosened arm was
slowly lifted from the body. That I am not of that class who can be charged
with any thing like timidity, is, I think well proved by my consenting to act
for several years as regimental surgeon in our militia, a post undoubtedly of
danger. But I must concede that at this unexpected movement, both Grizzle
and myself were somewhat agitated. From the table to the stair-way, we
leaped, as it were by instinct, and with a velocity at which even now I
greatly marvel. This sudden evidence of vitality in my lamented friend, or I
might say rather an unwillingness to be found alone with her in such a
peculiar situation, also induced me to prevent if possible the retreat of
Grizzle, and I fastened with some degree of violence upon his projecting

queue. It was fortunate, in so far as regarded Grizzle, that art in this instance
had supplanted nature. His wig, of which the queue formed no
inconsiderable portion, was all that my hand retained. Had it been
otherwise, such was the tenacity of my grasp on the one hand, and such his
momentum on the other, that Grizzle must have left the natural ornament of
his cerebrum, while I, though unjustly, must have been charged with
imitating our heathenish Aborigines. As it was, his bald pate shot out from
beneath it with the velocity of a discharged ball; nor was the similitude to
that engine of carnage at all lessened when I heard its rebounds upon the
stairs. How long I remained overwhelmed by the wonderful scenes which I
had just witnessed, I cannot tell; but on recovering, I found that Mrs. Sykes
had been removed to my best chamber, and Job and Mrs. Tonic both busily
engaged about her person. They had, as I afterwards ascertained, by bathing
her feet and rubbing her with hot flannels, wrought a change almost
miraculous; and the effects of the laudanum having happily subsided she
appeared, when I entered, as in her pristine state. At that moment they were
about administering a composing draught, which undoubtedly she needed,
having received several severe contusions on the stairway in our endeavors
to extricate Grizzle. But rushing forward, I exclaimed, "thanks to Heaven
that I again see that cherished face! thanks that I have been the instrument
under Providence of restoring to society its brightest ornament! Be
composed, my dear Mrs. Sykes, ask no questions to night, unless you would
frustrate all my labors." Then presenting to her lips an opiate, in a short
time I had the satisfaction of seeing her sink into a tranquil slumber.
As I considered it all important that the matter should be kept a profound
secret till I had arranged my plans; and as Mrs. Tonic had in a remarkable
degree that propensity which distinguishes woman—I was under the
necessity of making her privy to the whole transaction; trusting that the
probable ruin to my reputation consequent on an exposure would effectually
bridle her unruly member. My venerable friend too, I invited for a few days
to my own mansion lest the bruises he received during his exodus from the
dissecting room might have deprived him of his customary caution. The last
and most difficult step was to prepare the mind of Mrs. Sykes, who was yet
in nubibus as to her new location. With great caution I gradually unfolded
the strange event that had just transpired,—her sudden apparent death, the
alarm of the village touching the miasma, and the consequent sudden

interment. 'Your exit, my dear Mrs. Sykes,' I continued, 'seemed like a
dream—I could not realize it. Such an irreparable loss! I thought of all the
remedies that had been applied in such cases. Had any thing been omitted
that had a tendency to increase the circulation of the radical fluid! There
was the Galvanic battery,—it had been entirely overlooked, and yet what
wonders it had performed! No sooner had this occurred to my mind than I
was impressed with the conviction that you were to revisit this mundane
sphere, and that I was the chosen instrument to enkindle the vital spark. No
time was lost in obeying this mysterious impulse. The grave was opened,
the battery was applied secundem artem—and the result is the restoration to
society of our beloved Mrs. Sykes.' In proportion to her horror at the idea,
that she must have rested from her labors but for my skill, was her gratitude
for this timely rescue. She fell on my neck and clung like one demented, till
a gathering frown on the face of my spouse warned me of the necessity of
repelling her embraces. Mrs. Sykes was now desirous of returning
immediately home, to restore as it were to life her bereaved consort, who
was no doubt mourning at his desolation, and refusing to be comforted. But
here I felt it my duty to interpose. 'My dear Mrs. Sykes,' said I, 'your return
at this moment would overwhelm him. The sudden change from the lowest
depths of woe to a state of ecstacy, would consign him to the tenement you
have just quitted. No! this extraordinary Providence must be gradually
unfolded.' She yielded at last to my sage councils and consented to wait till
the violence of his grief had somewhat abated, and his mind had become
sufficiently tranquil to hear that tale which I was cautiously to relate. On the
following day however, her anxiety to return had risen to a high pitch, and
truly by evening it was beyond my control. She was firm in the belief that I
could make the disclosure without essential injury to the Deacon; 'besides,'
as she remarked, 'there was no knowing how much waste there had been in
the kitchen.' It was settled at last that I should immediately walk over to the
Deacon's, and by a judicious train of reflection, for which I was admirably
fitted, prepare the way for this joyous meeting. When I arrived at the house
of mourning, though perhaps the last person in the world entitled to the
name of evesdropper, yet as my eye was somewhat askance as I passed the
window, I observed a spectacle that for a time arrested my footsteps. There
sat the Deacon, recounting probably the virtues of the deceased partner, and
there, not far apart, sat the widow Dobble sympathizing in his sorrows. It
struck me that Deacon Sykes was not ungrateful for her consolatory efforts;

for he took her hand with a gentle pressure and held it to his bosom.
Perhaps it was the unusual mode of dress now exhibited by the widow
Dobble, that led him to this act; for she was decked out in Mrs. Sykes's best
frilled cap, and such is the waywardness of fancy, he might for the moment
have imagined that his help-mate was beside him. Be that as it may, while I
was thus complacently regarding this interchange of friendly feelings, the
cry of 'you vile hussy' suddenly rang in my very ear, and the next instant, the
door having been burst open, who should stand before the astonished
couple but the veritable Mrs. Sykes. The Deacon leaped as if touched in the
pericardium, and essayed to gain the door; but in his transit his knees
denied their office, and he sank gibbering as his hand was upon the latch.
As to the terrified widow Dobble, I might say with Virgilius, steteruntque
comae, her combs stood up; for the frilled cap was displaced with no little
violence, and with an agonizing shriek she fell, apparently in articulo
mortis, on the body of the Deacon. What a lamentable scene! and all in
consequence of the rashness and imprudence of Mrs. Sykes. No sooner had
I left my own domicil than Mrs. Sykes, regardless of my admonitions,
resolved on following my steps, and was actually peeping over my shoulder
at the moment the Deacon's hand came in contact with the widow Dobble's.
It was truly fortunate for all concerned that a distinguished member of the
faculty was near at this dreadful crisis. In ordinary hands nothing could
have prevented a quietus. Their spirits were taking wing, and it was only by
extraordinary skill that I effected what lawyer Snoodles said was a complete
'stoppage in transitu.' I regret to state that this was my last visit to Deacon
Sykes's. Unmindful of my services in resuscitating Mrs. Sykes, he remarked
that my neglect to prepare him for the exceeding joy that was in store, had
so far shattered his nervous system that his usefulness was over; and in fine,
had built up between us a wall of separation not to be broken down. I
always opined, however, and of this opinion was Mrs. Tonic, that the
Deacon's coldness arose in part from an incipient warmth for Mrs. Dobble,
which was thus checked in its first stages. It was even hinted that on her
departure, which took place immediately, he manifested less of resignation
than at the burial of Mrs. Sykes. The coldness of the widow Dobble towards
me, certainly unmerited, was also no less apparent, till I brought about what
I had much at heart, viz: a match between her and Major Popkin. He was a
discreet, forehanded man, a Representative to our General Court, and kept

the Variety Store in that part of our town that was named in honor of him,
'Popkins's Corner.'[3]

OLD AND YOUNG.
By James Furbish.

Give me ripe fruit with the
green—
Fresh leaves mingling with
the sear;
As in tropic climes are seen
Blending through the
deathless year.

I am alarmed at the changes which are taking place in society. While many
are lauding the spirit of the age and holding up to my gaze the picture of
forth-coming improvements—opening broad and charming vistas into the
almost present future of mental and moral perfection, I cannot help casting
a lingering look upon the past. Time was when old age and infancy,
manhood and youth, walked the path of life together; when the strength of
young limbs aided the feebleness of the old, and the joyousness of youth
enlivened the gravity of age. But the son has now left the father to totter on
alone, and the daughter has outstripped the mother in the race. Beauty and
strength have separated from decrepitude and weakness. The vine has
uncoiled from its natural support, and the ivy has ceased to entwine the oak.
There is an increasing disposition on the part of the young and the old to
classify their pleasures according to their age. Those pastimes which used to
be enjoyed by both together, are now separated. This is an evil of too
serious a character to pass unfelt, unlamented or unrebuked. It is easy to
refer back to days when parents were more happy with their children, and
children more honorable and useful to parents than at present. It is not long
since the old and the young were to be seen together in the blithesome
dance and the merry play. And why this change? Why do we find that,
within a few years, the old have abandoned amusements to the young? Is it
that they think their children can profit more by their amusements than if
they were present? If this be the impression it is to be regretted. No course

could they possibly adopt so injurious to the character of their children. For
youth need the direction and the advice of age, and age requires the
exhilaration and cheerfulness of youth. How many lonely evenings would
be enlivened—how many dark visions of the future would be dissipated,
and how many hours of gloom and despondency would be put to flight, if
fathers would keep pace with their sons, and mothers with their daughters,
in the innocent pleasures of life. Here, as it appears to me, is the grand
secret of happiness for the young and the old. For the old, who are too apt
to dwell on the glories of the past and to see nothing that is lovely in the
present; and for the young, who throw too strong and gaudy a light upon the
present and the future. Nature did not so intend it. So long as there is life,
she intended we should innocently enjoy it. And the barrier which has, by
some unaccountable mishap, been thrown between the young and the old is,
therefore, greatly to be lamented. But how shall it be removed? How shall
we get back again to the good old times of the merry husking, the joyous
dance, the happy commingling in the same company, of the priest and his
deacon, the father and his child, the husband and his wife?
It would not be difficult to trace directly to the discontinuance of the
practice of joining with the young in their amusements, the great increase of
youthful dissipation of every description. By being removed from the
advice, restraint and example of the old and experienced, they have, by
degrees, fallen into usages which were almost unknown in years gone by.
When accompanied by parents, the hours of pleasure were seasonable.
Daughters were under the inspection of mothers, and sons were guided by
the wisdom of fathers. Homes were happier, the community more virtuous,
and the world at large a gainer by such judicious customs. We now hear the
complaint that sons have gone astray, that daughters have behaved
indiscreetly, and that families have been disgraced. But can there be a
doubt, if the practice were general of accompanying our children in those
pastimes in which they ought to be reasonably indulged, that many of these
evils would be prevented? Here then must begin the reform. Complain not
that your son is out late, if you might have been with him to bring him to
your fire-side at a seasonable hour. Complain not that your daughter has
formed an unsuitable or untimely connexion, if a mother's care might have
avoided the evil. Youth will go astray without the protection of age. And it
is a crying sin that these old-fashioned moral restraints have been removed.

What, I ask, can be your object in thus leaving your children to their own
direction? Do they love you the better for it? Are their manners more
agreeable—their conduct more respectful while at home? Is not rather the
reverse of this the case? Do they not give you more trouble at home? Are
they not every day incurring new and useless expenses in consequence of
allowing them to legislate and plan for themselves? Rashness is the
characteristic of youth. But allowing them to be capable of governing
themselves, you are a great loser by drawing this strong division line
between their pleasures and your own. Your own years are less in number
and in happiness. Your children are dead to you, though alive to themselves.
Your sympathies are not linked with theirs step by step in life; and thus,
although surrounded by children, you go childless, unhappy and gloomy to
the grave. Reform then, I say, reform at once. Annihilate this classification
of junior and senior pleasures. Join with your children in the dance, the
song and the play. Enjoy with them every harmless pleasure and sport of
life. Encompass yourself as often as possible with the gay faces of the
young. Teach them by example, to be happy like rational beings, and to
enjoy life without abusing it. Let the ripe fruit be seen with the green—the
blossom with the bud—the green with the fading leaf and the vine with its
natural support:

Show the ripe fruit with the
green—
Fresh leaves twining with the
sear;
As in tropic climes are seen
Harmonizing through the
year.

AUTUMNAL DAYS.
By P. H. Greenleaf.

"The melancholy days are come—the saddest
of the year,
Of wailing winds and naked woods, and
meadows brown and sear;
Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the
summer leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying wind, and to the
rabbit's tread:
The robin and the wren are flown, and from
the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow, thro'
all the gloomy day."

Stern and forbidding as are the general features of our northern climate—
cold and chilling as the gay Southron may deem, even the very air we
breathe,—we have still some characteristics of climate peculiar to
ourselves, and none the less pleasing to us from this fact. Our hearts must
indeed be as hard and as cold as the very granite of our craggy shores, did
they not glow with delight in the possession of that, (be it what it may)
which is peculiar to and markedly characteristic of our native home. And of
all these peculiarities not one is so delightful—not one finds us so rich in
New England feeling, as that beautiful season called the Indian Summer. It
occurs in October, and is characterized by a soft, hazy atmosphere—by
those quiet, and balmy days, which seem so like the last whisperings of a
Spring morning. The appearance of the landscape is like any thing, but the
fresh and lively scenery of Spring; and yet the delicious softness of the
atmosphere is so like it, that it brings back fresh to the mind all the beautiful
associations connected with a vernal day. Our forests too, at this season are,
for a brief space, clothed in the most gorgeous and magnificent array; their
brilliant and changing hues, and the magnificence of their whole

appearance, almost give their rich and mellow tint to the atmosphere itself;
and render this period unrivalled in beauty, and unequalled in the more
equable climes of our western neighbors. The calm sobriety of the scenery
—the splendid variety of the forest coloring, from deep scarlet to russet
gray, and the quiet and dreamy expression of the autumnal atmosphere
make a deeper impression on the mind than all the verdant promises of
spring, or the luxuriant possession of summer. The aspen birch in its pallid
white—the walnut in its deep yellow—the brilliant maple in its scarlet
drapery—and the magical colors of the whole vegetable world, from the
aster by the brook to the vine on the trellis, combine to render the autumnal
scenery of New-England the most splendid and magnificent in the world.
But we cannot forget, if we would, that this beautiful magnificence of the
forests is but the livery of death; and the changing hues of the leaves,
beautiful though they are, still are but indications of the sure, but gradual
progress of decay.

'Lightly falls the foot of death
Whene'er he treads on
flowers:'

and though he has breathed beauty on the clustered trees of the forest—it is
to them the breath of the Sirocco.
We have in the wasting consumption a parallel to this splendid decay of the
leaves and flowers of Summer. Day by day we see its victim with the seal
of death upon him—failing and decaying in strength—increasing in beauty.
While the brilliant and intellectual glances of the eye speak, in language too
plain for the sceptic's denial, the immortality of the soul. The changing and
brilliant hues of the forest trees give to us the most lively type of the frailty
of beauty and the brevity of human existence, while their death and burial
during the winter and their resurrection in the springtime, are almost an
assured pledge of our own immortality and resurrection to an eternity.
Truly 'the melancholy days are come'—Death annually lifts up his solemn
hymn, and the rustling of the dying leaves and the certainty of their speedy
death afford to us all 'eloquent teachings.' The gay and exhilarating spring
has long since passed away—the genial and joyous warmth of summer is no

more; and the grateful abundance and varied scenes of Autumn are about
yielding to the inclemency of hoary winter. The gay variety of nature has at
length departed—the countless throng of the gaudy flowerets of summer are
all returned to their native dust—the light of the sun himself is often veiled;
and the bright livery of earth is hidden from our sight by the gray mantle of
the iron-bound surface, or the unbroken whiteness of a snowy covering.
Reading thus the language of decay written by the finger of God upon all
the works of nature—reminded too of the rapid flight of time by the
ceaseless revolution of seasons, we naturally turn our thoughts from the
contemplation of external objects to that of the soul, and of unseen worlds.
The appearances of other seasons lead our thoughts to the world we inhabit,
and by the variety of objects presented to our view rather confine them to
sensible things, and matters immediately connected with them. But the
buried flowers and the eddying leaves of this season teach us nobler
lessons; and the mind expands, while it loses itself in the infinity of being;
and the gloom of the natural world shows us the splendors of other worlds,
and other states of being;

'As darkness shows us worlds
of light
We never saw by day.'

They tell us, that in the magnificent system of the government of God there
exists no evil; and the mighty resurrections annually accomplished in the
multitude of by gone years assure us, that the gloom of the night is but the
prelude to the brightness of the day—that the funeral pall of autumnal and
wintry days is the harbinger of a glorious, joyous and life-giving spring; and
to that man the gates of the dark valley of the shadow of death are designed
as the crystal portals of an eternity of bliss.
'Of the innumerable eyes, that open upon nature, none but those of man, see
its author and its end.' This solemn privilege is the birth-right of the beings
of immortality—of those, who perish not in time, but were formed, in some
greater hour, to be companions in eternity. The mighty Being, who watches
the revolutions of the material world, opens in this manner to our eyes the
laws of his government; and tells us, that it is not the momentary state, but
the final issue, which is to disclose its eternal design. Indeed the whole
volume of nature is a natural revelation to man, often overlooked—often

misused—seldom understood—but plain and solemn in its language, and
full of the wisdom, justice and mercy of its author.
While, then, all inferior nature shrinks instinctively from the winds of
Autumn and the storms of winter, to the high intellect of man they teach
ennobling lessons. To him the inclemency of winter is no less eloquent than
the abundance of Autumn, or the joyous promise of Spring. He knows, that
the fair and beautiful of nature now buried in an icy covering, have still a
principle of life within them; and that the gay tendrils of the vine and the
blushing buds of the rose will soon be put forth in the breath of summer.
The stiffened earth, he knows, will soon send forth her children in renewed
beauty, and he believes, that he himself, leaving the chrysalis form of
earthly clay will wing his flight in the regions of eternity.

THE PLAGUE.
By Charles P. Ilsley.

"And they that took the disease died suddenly; and immediately their
bodies became covered with spots; and they were hurried away to the
grave without delay: And the men who bore the corpse, as they went
their way, cried with a loud voice, "Room for the dead!" and
whosoever heard the cry, fled from the sound thereof with great fear
and trembling."
Anon.

"Room for the dead!"—a cry
went forth—
"A grave—a grave
prepare!"
The solemn words rose
fearfully
Up through the stilly air:
"Room for the dead!"—and a
corse was borne
And laid within the pit;
But a mother's voice was
sadly heard—
And a breaking heart was in
each word—
"Oh, bury him not yet!"

The mother knelt beside the
grave,
And prayed to see her son;
'Twas death to stop—but by
her prayers

The wretched boon was
won,
And they raised the coffin
from the pit,
And then afar they fled—
For the once fair face was
spotted now—
But the mother pressed her
dead child's brow,
And in a faint voice said—

"Nor plague nor spots shall
hinder me
From kissing thee, lost one!
For what, alas! is life or death
Since thou art gone, my
son!"
And she bent and kissed the
livid brow,
While tearless was her eye;
Then her voice rang wildly in
the air—
"Widow and childless!—God,
is there
Aught left me but—to die!"

The words were said, and
there uprose
A low and stifled moan—
Then all was still—The spirit
of
That stricken one had
flown!

They widened the pit, and
side by side
Mother and son were laid;
No mourning train to the
grave went forth,
Nor prayer was said as they
heaped the earth
Above the plague-struck
dead!

"OH, THIS IS NOT MY HOME!"
By Charles P. Ilsley.

Oh, this is not my home—
I miss the glorious sea,
Its white and sparkling foam,
And lofty melody.

All things seem strange to me
—
I miss the rocky shore,
Where broke so sullenly
The waves with deaf'ning
roar:

The sands that shone like gold
Beneath the blazing sun,
O'er which the waters roll'd,
Soft chanting as they run:

And oh, the glorious sight!
Ships moving to and fro,
Like birds upon their flight,
So silently they go!

I climb the mountain's height,
And sadly gaze around,
No waters meet my sight,
I hear no rushing sound.

Oh, would I were at home,
Beside the glorious sea,
To bathe within its foam
And list its melody!

THE VILLAGE PRIZE.
By Joseph Ingraham.

In one of the loveliest villages of old Virginia there lived, in the year 175–
and odd, an old man, whose daughter was declared, by universal consent, to
be the loveliest maiden in all the country round. The veteran, in his youth,
had been athletic and muscular above all his fellows; and his breast, where
he always wore them, could show the adornment of three medals, received
for his victories in gymnastic feats when a young man. His daughter was
now eighteen, and had been sought in marriage by many suitors. One
brought wealth—another, a fine person—another, industry—another,
military talents—another this, and another that. But they were all refused by
the old man, who became at last a by-word for his obstinacy among the
young men of the village and neighborhood. At length, the nineteenth
birthday of Annette, his charming daughter, who was as amiable and
modest as she was beautiful, arrived. The morning of that day, her father
invited all the youth of the country to a hay-making frolic. Seventeen
handsome and industrious young men assembled. They came not only to
make hay, but also to make love to the fair Annette. In three hours they had
filled the father's barns with the newly dried grass, and their own hearts
with love. Annette, by her father's command, had brought them malt liquor
of her own brewing, which she presented to each enamored swain with her
own fair hands.
"Now my boys," said the old keeper of the jewel they all coveted, as leaning
on their pitch-forks they assembled around his door in the cool of the
evening—"Now my lads, you have nearly all of you made proposals for my
Annette. Now you see, I don't care any thing about money nor talents, book
larning nor soldier larning—I can do as well by my gal as any man in the
county. But I want her to marry a man of my own grit. Now, you know, or
ought to know, when I was a youngster, I could beat any thing in all
Virginny in the way o' leaping. I got my old woman by beating the smartest
man on the Eastern Shore, and I have took the oath and sworn it, that no
man shall marry my daughter without jumping for it. You understand me

boys. There's the green, and here's Annette," he added, taking his daughter,
who stood timidly behind him, by the hand, "Now the one that jumps the
furthest on a 'dead level,' shall marry Annette this very night."
This unique address was received by the young men with applause. And
many a youth as he bounded gaily forward to the arena of trial, cast a
glance of anticipated victory back upon the lovely object of village chivalry.
The maidens left their looms and quilting frames, the children their noisy
sports, the slaves their labors, and the old men their arm-chairs and long
pipes, to witness and triumph in the success of the victor. All prophesied
and many wished that it would be young Carroll. He was the handsomest
and best-humored youth in the county, and all knew that a strong and
mutual attachment existed between him and the fair Annette. Carroll had
won the reputation of being the "best leaper," and in a country where such
athletic achievements were the sine qua non of a man's cleverness, this was
no ordinary honor. In a contest like the present, he had therefore every
advantage over his fellow athletæ.
The arena allotted for this hymeneal contest, was a level space in front of
the village-inn, and near the centre of a grass-plat, reserved in the midst of
the village denominated "the green." The verdure was quite worn off at this
place by previous exercises of a similar kind, and a hard surface of sand
more befittingly for the purpose to which it was to be used, supplied its
place.
The father of the lovely, blushing, and withal happy prize, (for she well
knew who would win,) with three other patriarchal villagers were the
judges appointed to decide upon the claims of the several competitors. The
last time Carroll tried his skill in this exercise, he "cleared"—to use the
leaper's phraseology—twenty-one feet and one inch.
The signal was given, and by lot the young men stepped into the arena.
"Edward Grayson, seventeen feet," cried one of the judges. The youth had
done his utmost. He was a pale, intellectual student. But what had intellect
to do in such an arena? Without looking at the maiden he slowly left the
ground.

"Dick Boulden, nineteen feet." Dick with a laugh turned away, and replaced
his coat.
"Harry Preston, nineteen feet and three inches." "Well done Harry Preston,"
shouted the spectators, "you have tried hard for the acres and homestead."
Harry also laughed and swore he only "jumped for the fun of the thing."
Harry was a rattle-brained fellow, but never thought of matrimony. He
loved to walk and talk, and laugh and romp with Annette, but sober
marriage never came into his head. He only jumped "for the fun of the
thing." He would not have said so, if sure of winning.
"Charley Simms, fifteen feet and a half." "Hurrah for Charley! Charley'll
win!" cried the crowd good-humoredly. Charley Simms was the cleverest
fellow in the world. His mother had advised him to stay at home, and told
him if he ever won a wife, she would fall in love with his good temper,
rather than his legs. Charley however made the trial of the latter's
capabilities and lost. Many refused to enter the lists altogether. Others made
the trial, and only one of the leapers had yet cleared twenty feet.
"Now," cried the villagers, "let's see Henry Carroll. He ought to beat this,"
and every one appeared, as they called to mind the mutual love of the last
competitor and the sweet Annette, as if they heartily wished his success.
Henry stepped to his post with a firm tread. His eye glanced with
confidence around upon the villagers and rested, before he bounded
forward, upon the face of Annette, as if to catch therefrom that spirit and
assurance which the occasion called for. Returning the encouraging glance
with which she met his own, with a proud smile upon his lip, he bounded
forward.
"Twenty-one feet and a half!" shouted the multitude, repeating the
announcement of one of the judges, "twenty-one feet and a half. Harry
Carroll forever. Annette and Harry." Hands, caps, and kerchiefs waved over
the heads of the spectators, and the eyes of the delighted Annette sparkled
with joy.
When Harry Carroll moved to his station to strive for the prize, a tall,
gentlemanly young man in a military undress frock-coat, who had rode up
to the inn, dismounted and joined the spectators, unperceived, while the

contest was going on, stepped suddenly forward, and with a "knowing eye,"
measured deliberately the space accomplished by the last leaper. He was a
stranger in the village. His handsome face and easy address attracted the
eyes of the village maidens, and his manly and sinewy frame, in which
symmetry and strength were happily united, called forth the admiration of
the young men.
"Mayhap, sir stranger, you think you can beat that," said one of the by-
standers, remarking the manner in which the eye of the stranger scanned the
area. "If you can leap beyond Harry Carroll, you'll beat the best man in the
colonies." The truth of this observation was assented to by a general
murmur.
"Is it for mere amusement you are pursuing this pastime?" inquired the
youthful stranger, "or is there a prize for the winner?"
"Annette, the loveliest and wealthiest of our village-maidens, is to be the
reward of the victor," cried one of the judges.
"Are the lists open to all?"
"All, young sir!" replied the father of Annette, with interest,—his youthful
ardour rising as he surveyed the proportions of the straight-limbed young
stranger. "She is the bride of him who out-leaps Henry Carroll. If you will
try, you are free to do so. But let me tell you, Harry Carroll has no rival in
Virginny. Here is my daughter, sir, look at her and make your trial."
The young officer glanced upon the trembling maiden about to be offered
on the altar of her father's unconquerable monomania, with an admiring
eye. The poor girl looked at Harry, who stood near with a troubled brow and
angry eye, and then cast upon the new competitor an imploring glance.
Placing his coat in the hands of one of the judges, he drew a sash he wore
beneath it tighter around his waist, and taking the appointed stand, made,
apparently without effort, the bound that was to decide the happiness or
misery of Henry and Annette.
"Twenty two feet one inch!" shouted the judge. The announcement was
repeated with surprise by the spectators, who crowded around the victor,
filling the air with congratulations, not unmingled, however, with loud

murmurs from those who were more nearly interested in the happiness of
the lovers.
The old man approached, and grasping his hand exultingly, called him his
son, and said he felt prouder of him than if he were a prince. Physical
activity and strength were the old leaper's true patents of nobility.
Resuming his coat, the victor sought with his eye the fair prize he had,
although nameless and unknown, so fairly won. She leaned upon her
father's arm, pale and distressed.
Her lover stood aloof, gloomy and mortified, admiring the superiority of the
stranger in an exercise in which he prided himself as unrivalled, while he
hated him for his success.
"Annette, my pretty prize," said the victor, taking her passive hand—"I have
won you fairly." Annette's cheek became paler than marble; she trembled
like an aspen-leaf, and clung closer to her father, while her drooping eye
sought the form of her lover. His brow grew dark at the stranger's language.
"I have won you, my pretty flower, to make you a bride!—tremble not so
violently—I mean not for myself, however proud I might be," he added
with gallantry, "to wear so fair a gem next my heart. Perhaps," and he cast
his eyes around inquiringly, while the current of life leaped joyfully to her
brow, and a murmur of surprise run through the crowd—"perhaps there is
some favored youth among the competitors, who has a higher claim to this
jewel. Young Sir," he continued, turning to the surprised Henry, "methinks
you were victor in the lists before me,—I strove not for the maiden, though
one could not well strive for a fairer—but from love for the manly sport in
which I saw you engaged. You are the victor, and as such, with the
permission of this worthy assembly, receive from my hands the prize you
have so well and honorably won."
The youth sprung forward and grasped his hand with gratitude; and the next
moment, Annette was weeping from pure joy upon his shoulders. The
welkin rung with the acclamations of the delighted villagers, and amid the
temporary excitement produced by this act, the stranger withdrew from the
crowd, mounted his horse, and spurred at a brisk trot through the village.

That night, Henry and Annette were married, and the health of the
mysterious and noble-hearted stranger, was drunk in over-flowing bumpers
of rustic beverage.
In process of time, there were born unto the married pair, sons and
daughters, and Harry Carroll had become Colonel Henry Carroll, of the
Revolutionary army.
One evening, having just returned home after a hard campaign, he was
sitting with his family on the gallery of his handsome country-house, when
an advance courier rode up and announced the approach of General
Washington and suite, informing him that he should crave his hospitality for
the night. The necessary directions were given in reference to the household
preparations, and Col. Carroll, ordering his horse, rode forward to meet and
escort to his house the distinguished guest, whom he had never yet seen,
although serving in the same widely-extended army.
That evening at the table, Annette, now become the dignified, matronly and
still handsome Mrs. Carroll, could not keep her eyes from the face of her
illustrious visitor. Every moment or two she would steal a glance at his
commanding features, and half-doubtingly, half-assumedly, shake her head
and look again and again, to be still more puzzled. Her absence of mind and
embarrassment at length became evident to her husband who, inquired
affectionately if she were ill?
"I suspect, Colonel," said the General, who had been some time, with a
quiet, meaning smile, observing the lady's curious and puzzled survey of his
features—"that Mrs. Carroll thinks she recognizes in me an old
acquaintance." And he smiled with a mysterious air, as he gazed upon both
alternately.
The Colonel stared, and a faint memory of the past seemed to be revived, as
he gazed, while the lady rose impulsively from her chair, and bending
eagerly forward over the tea-urn, with clasped hands and an eye of intense,
eager inquiry, fixed full upon him, stood for a moment with her lips parted
as if she would speak.
"Pardon me, my dear madam—pardon me, Colonel, I must put an end to
this scene. I have become, by dint of camp-fare and hard usage, too

unwieldy to leap again twenty-two feet one inch, even for so fair a bride as
one I wot of."
The recognition, with the surprise, delight and happiness that followed, are
left to the imagination of the reader.
General Washington was indeed the handsome young "leaper," whose
mysterious appearance and disappearance in the native village of the lovers,
is still traditionary, and whose claim to a substantial body of bona fide flesh
and blood, was stoutly contested by the village story-tellers, until the happy
denouement which took place at the hospitable mansion of Col. Carroll.

INDIFFERENCE TO STUDY.
By George W. Light.

We only find out what we have a sincere desire to know. All men have
in themselves nearly the same fund of primitive ideas; they have
especially the same moral fund; the difference which there is in men,
comes from the fact, that some improve this fund, while others neglect
it.
Degerando.

No argument ought to be required at the present day, to prove that all men,
however their capacities may differ in kind or degree, possess the natural
ability to make considerable progress in some useful study. The principles
of our government proceed upon this ground, and place every man under
strong moral obligation to make the most of himself, that he may be able to
bear the responsibility that rests upon him. The protestant principle, that all
men have the right to judge for themselves in matters relating to religion, is
founded on the same basis. Even the principles of trade—which every body
is supposed to be able to know—call for the exercise of no small amount of
intellect, to understand and apply them to their full extent. The intimate
connection between the arts and sciences proves conclusively, that those
who are engaged in the one, ought to be acquainted with the other. We are
aware of the common belief, that the study of the sciences is not necessary
with the mass of the community who are engaged in the various active
pursuits. But this narrow view is fast going out of date. The progress of
steam, if nothing else, will ere long convince the most incredulous, by its
abridgment of human labor, that the great body of mankind were intended
for something besides mere machines. The sciences of law and medicine are
no more closely connected with the practice of the lawyer and physician,
than mechanical and agricultural science with the business of the mechanic
and farmer. The same may be said of other sciences, as, for instance, of
Political Economy, in its application to mercantile affairs. In accordance

with the spirit of these views, opportunities for instruction are provided, and
means of self-education are multiplied, to an unparalleled degree.
Notwithstanding, however, the general admission of the truth under
consideration, not a few persons who think the improvement of their minds
a matter of little importance, undertake to excuse themselves, by modestly
confessing that they have no natural taste for study—that they cannot study.
But it is difficult to understand how they can be so blinded to the resources
they have within them, under the light which this day of civilization is
pouring upon them. Where do they suppose themselves to be? Are they in
some dark domain, shut out from all the soul-stirring influences of a
boundless universe, dragging out an existence as hopeless as it is degraded?
—or do they dwell in the midst of a glorious creation, with no
understanding to unravel its divine mysteries, and no heart to be moved by
the eloquence of its inspiration? One of these things must be true, if we may
reason from their own language. If they do possess the high faculties of the
soul, and can do nothing for their cultivation, it cannot be that they have
their dwelling-place upon a world belonging to the magnificent empire of
God. There can be no sun blazing down upon them, flooding the earth with
his glory, and giving fresh life and beauty to every living thing. The evening
can reveal to them no myriads of stars, burning with holy lustre beyond the
clouds of heaven. They can see no mountains towering to the skies; no
green valleys, spangled with the flowers of the earth, smiling around them.
They can hear no anthem sounding from the depths of the ocean. They can
see no lightnings flashing in the broad expanse,—nor hear the artillery of
heaven thundering over the firmament, as if it would shake the very pillars
of the universe. If they could see and hear this, with minds awake to the
most noble objects of contemplation, and hearts susceptible of the loftiest
impulses, they would inquire about the earth they tread upon, the beautiful
things scattered in such profusion around them, and the sun and the ever-
burning stars above them. And they would not stop here. They would search
into the mysteries of their own nature. They would look into the wonders of
that upper life, where the sun of an eternal kingdom burns in its lofty
arches, where the rivers of life flow from the everlasting mountains, and
where the pure spirits of the earth shall shine like the stars forever.
But, however paradoxical it may seem, these men do dwell in the grand
universe of God—and they do possess inexhaustible minds: and they have

been compelled to quench the brightest flames and to prevent the swelling
of the purest fountains of their existence, in order to descend to the
condition of which they complain. The Creator doomed them to no such
degradation. The truth is, they know nothing of themselves. They do not
understand their relations to the creation that surrounds them. They do not
comprehend the great purpose to which all their labors should tend. They
waste those hours which might be devoted to the elevation of their being, in
practices that render them insensible to the glories of the universe in which
they dwell, and to the sublime destiny for which they were created. They
deny themselves to be the workmanship of God.

THE VILLAGE OF AUTEUIL.
By Henry W. Longfellow.

The sultry heat of summer always brings with it, to the idler and the man of
leisure, a longing for the leafy shade and the green luxuriance of the
country. It is pleasant to interchange the din of the city, the movement of the
crowd, and the gossip of society, with the silence of the hamlet, the quiet
seclusion of the grove, and the gossip of a woodland brook.
It was a feeling of this kind that prompted me, during my residence in the
north of France, to pass one of the summer months at Auteuil—the
pleasantest of the many little villages that lie in the immediate vicinity of
the metropolis. It is situated on the outskirts of the Bois de Boulogne—a
wood of some extent, in whose green alleys the dusty cit enjoys the luxury
of an evening drive, and gentlemen meet in the morning to give each other
satisfaction in the usual way. A cross-road, skirted with green hedge-rows,
and over-shadowed by tall poplars, leads you from the noisy highway of St.
Cloud and Versailles to the still retirement of this suburban hamlet. On
either side the eye discovers old chateaux amid the trees, and green parks,
whose pleasant shades recall a thousand images of La Fontaine, Racine, and
Moliere; and on an eminence, overlooking the windings of the Seine, and
giving a beautiful though distant view of the domes and gardens of Paris,
rises the village of Passy, long the residence of our countrymen Franklin
and Count Rumford.
I took up my abode at a Maison de Sante; not that I was a valetudinarian,—
but because I there found some one to whom I could whisper, "How sweet
is solitude!" Behind the house was a garden filled with fruit-trees of various
kinds, and adorned with gravel-walks and green arbours, furnished with
tables and rustic seats, for the repose of the invalid and the sleep of the
indolent. Here the inmates of the rural hospital met on common ground, to
breathe the invigorating air of morning, and while away the lazy noon or
vacant evening with tales of the sick chamber.

The establishment was kept by Dr. Dent-de-lion, a dried up little fellow,
with red hair, a sandy complexion, and the physiognomy and gestures of a
monkey. His character corresponded to his outward lineaments; for he had
all a monkey's busy and curious impertinence. Nevertheless, such as he
was, the village Æsculapius strutted forth the little great man of Auteuil.
The peasants looked up to him as to an oracle,—he contrived to be at the
head of every thing, and laid claim to the credit of all public improvements
in the village: in fine, he was a great man on a small scale.
It was within the dingy walls of this little potentate's imperial palace that I
chose my country residence. I had a chamber in the second story, with a
solitary window, which looked upon the street, and gave me a peep into a
neighbor's garden. This I esteemed a great privilege; for, as a stranger, I
desired to see all that was passing out of doors; and the sight of green trees,
though growing on another man's ground, is always a blessing. Within
doors—had I been disposed to quarrel with my household gods—I might
have taken some objection to my neighborhood; for, on one side of me was
a consumptive patient, whose graveyard cough drove me from my chamber
by day; and on the other, an English colonel, whose incoherent ravings, in
the delirium of a high and obstinate fever, often broke my slumbers by
night: but I found ample amends for these inconveniences in the society of
those who were so little indisposed as hardly to know what ailed them, and
those who, in health themselves, had accompanied a friend or relative to the
shades of the country in pursuit of it. To these I am indebted for much
courtesy; and particularly to one who, if these pages should ever meet her
eye, will not, I hope, be unwilling to accept this slight memorial of a former
friendship.
It was, however, to the Bois de Boulogne that I looked for my principal
recreation. There I took my solitary walk, morning and evening; or,
mounted on a little mouse-colored donkey, paced demurely along the
woodland pathway. I had a favorite seat beneath the shadow of a venerable
oak, one of the few hoary patriarchs of the wood which had survived the
bivouacs of the allied armies. It stood upon the brink of a little glassy pool,
whose tranquil bosom was the image of a quiet and secluded life, and
stretched its parental arms over a rustic bench, that had been constructed
beneath it for the accommodation of the foot-traveller, or, perchance, some
idle dreamer like myself. It seemed to look round with a lordly air upon its

old hereditary domain, whose stillness was no longer broken by the tap of
the martial drum, nor the discordant clang of arms; and, as the breeze
whispered among its branches, it seemed to be holding friendly colloquies
with a few of its venerable contemporaries, who stooped from the opposite
bank of the pool, nodding gravely now and then, and ogling themselves
with a sigh in the mirror below.
In this quiet haunt of rural repose I used to sit at noon, hear the birds sing,
and "possess myself in much quietness." Just at my feet lay the little silver
pool, with the sky and the woods painted in its mimic vault, and
occasionally the image of a bird, or the soft watery outline of a cloud,
floating silently through its sunny hollows. The water-lily spread its broad
green leaves on the surface, and rocked to sleep a little world of insect life
in its golden cradle. Sometimes a wandering leaf came floating and
wavering downward, and settled on the water; then a vagabond insect
would break the smooth surface into a thousand ripples, or a green-coated
frog slide from the bank, and plump! dive headlong to the bottom.
I entered, too, with some enthusiasm, into all the rural sports and
merrimakes of the village. The holy-days were so many little eras of mirth
and good feeling; for the French have that happy and sunshine temperament
—that merry-go-mad character—which makes all their social meetings
scenes of enjoyment and hilarity. I made it a point never to miss any of the
Fetes Champetres, or rural dances, at the wood of Boulogne; though I
confess it sometimes gave me a momentary uneasiness to see my rustic
throne beneath the oak usurped by a noisy group of girls, the silence and
decorum of my imaginary realm broken by music and laughter, and, in a
word, my whole kingdom turned topsyturvy, with romping, fiddling, and
dancing. But I am naturally, and from principle, too, a lover of all those
innocent amusements which cheer the laborers' toil, and, as it were, put
their shoulders to the wheel of life, and help the poor man along with his
load of cares. Hence I saw with no small delight the rustic swain astride the
wooden horse of the carrousal, and the village maiden whirling round and
round in its dizzy car; or took my stand on a rising ground that overlooked
the dance, an idle spectator in a busy throng. It was just where the village
touched the outward border of the wood. There a little area had been
levelled beneath the trees, surrounded by a painted rail, with a row of
benches inside. The music was placed in a slight balcony, built around the

trunk of a large tree in the centre, and the lamps, hanging from the branches
above, gave a gay, fantastic, and fairy look to the scene. How often in such
moments did I recall the lines of Goldsmith, describing those "kinder
skies," beneath which "France displays her bright domain," and feel how
true and masterly the sketch,—

Alike all ages; dames of
ancient days
Have led their children
through the mirthful
maze,
And the gay grandsire, skilled
in gestic lore,
Has frisked beneath the
burden of threescore.

I was one morning called to my window by the sound of rustic music. I
looked out, and beheld a procession of villagers advancing along the road,
attired in gay dresses, and marching merrily on in the direction of the
church. I soon perceived that it was a marriage festival. The procession was
led by a long orangoutang of a man, in a straw hat and white dimity bob-
coat, playing on an asthmatic clarionet, from which he contrived to blow
unearthly sounds, ever and anon squeaking off at right angles from his tune,
and winding up with a grand flourish on the guttural notes. Behind him, led
by his little boy, came the blind fiddler, his honest features glowing with all
the hilarity of a rustic bridal, and, as he stumbled along, sawing away upon
his fiddle till he made all crack again. Then came the happy bridegroom,
dressed in his Sunday suit of blue, with a large nosegay in his button-hole,
and close beside him his blushing bride, with downcast eyes, clad in a white
robe and slippers, and wearing a wreath of white roses in her hair. The
friends and relatives brought up the procession; and a troop of village
urchins came shouting along in the rear, scrambling among themselves for
the largess of sous and sugar-plums that now and then issued in large
handfuls from the pockets of a lean man in black, who seemed to officiate
as master of ceremonies on the occasion. I gazed on the procession till it

was out of sight; and when the last wheeze of the clarionet died upon my
ear, I could not help thinking how happy were they who were thus to dwell
together in the peaceful bosom of their native village, far from the gilded
misery and the pestilential vices of the town.
On the evening of the same day, I was sitting by the window, enjoying the
freshness of the air and the beauty and stillness of the hour, when I heard
the distant and solemn hymn of the Catholic burial-service, at first so faint
and indistinct that it seemed an illusion. It rose mournfully on the hush of
evening—died gradually away—then ceased. Then it rose again, nearer and
more distinct, and soon after a funeral procession appeared, and passed
directly beneath my window. It was led by a priest, bearing the banner of
the church, and followed by two boys, holding long flambeaux in their
hands. Next came a double file of priests in white surplices, with a missal in
one hand and a lighted wax taper in the other, chanting the funeral dirge at
intervals,—now pausing, and then again taking up the mournful burden of
their lamentation, accompanied by others, who played upon a rude kind of
horn, with a dismal and wailing sound. Then followed various symbols of
the church, and the bier borne on the shoulders of four men. The coffin was
covered with a black velvet pall, and a chaplet of white flowers lay upon it,
indicating that the deceased was unmarried. A few of the villagers came
behind, clad in mourning robes, and bearing lighted tapers. The procession
passed slowly along the same street that in the morning had been thronged
by the gay bridal company. A melancholy train of thought forced itself
home upon my mind. The joys and sorrows of this world are so strikingly
mingled! Our mirth and grief are brought so mournfully in contact! We
laugh while others weep, and others rejoice when we are sad! The light
heart and the heavy walk side by side, and go about together! Beneath the
same roof are spread the wedding feast and the funeral pall! The bridal song
mingles with the burial hymn! One goes to the marriage bed, another to the
grave; and all is mutable, uncertain, and transitory.

THE PAST AND THE NEW YEAR.
By Prentiss Mellen.

The close of the year, whose last knell has just been heard, amid the chills
and gloom of winter, when all around reminds us of our departed friends
and the loss we have sustained, is peculiarly adapted to arouse us from our
inattention to the lapse of time, and impress on our hearts the solemn truth
that life itself is but a vapor. Many, it is true, when they look into the grave
of the year, may experience a rush of bitter feeling, as they fondly recollect
how many cherished hopes they have been called upon to bury in the tomb,
during the lapse of the year: how many friends have proved false or
ungrateful—how many of their suns have gone down in the gloom of
solitude, or amidst scenes of sickness and poverty, or of sighing and sorrow.
All this is true, and such ever has been and ever will be the complexion of
human life. But though thousands are thus educated in a school where such
is the salutary discipline, yet millions have been spending the year in peace
and joy—in health and abundance. Their journey has been gladdened with
sunshine, and their course has been through fields of beauty and beside "the
still waters of comfort." It is useful—it is a species of gratitude thus to look
back and trace the course we have been pursuing. If it has been delightful or
smooth and peaceful, our hearts should melt in tenderness while we look to
the fountain of all our blessings. If our course has been wearisome through
fields of sterility, or melancholy and companionless, we should remember
that Wisdom and Goodness preside over our destinies, whether we are
breasting the storm, or calmly beholding the rainbow of promise. The year
that has bidden us adieu, was pleasant in its course, and its decline gradual
and beautiful. An unusual degree of softness distinguished its autumn,
resembling the last years of the life of man, when the agitation of the
passions has in a great measure subsided; when his feelings have become
tranquilized, and all around him peaceful and serene, if he has been careful
to regulate his conduct, on life's journey, by the principles of justice and the
commands of duty—if in his social intercourse his passions have been

preserved in due subjection to the gentle influences of a benevolent heart,
displaying itself in acts of mercy like the good Samaritan.

"Sure the last end
Of the good man is peace. How calm his
exit!
Night dews fall not more gently on the
ground
Nor weary, worn-out winds expire so soft."

The new year to which we have just been introduced is, in one sense, a
perfect stranger, though we have long been intimate with the family to
which it belongs, and of course have some general acquaintance with
certain features of its character, leading us to anticipate its promises and its
failure to perform them in many instances,—its smiles and its tears—its
flatteries and its frowns—its gaieties and hopes—its gradual decline—
decay and dissolution:—but we have abundant reason too for indulging the
belief that we may enjoy thousands of blessings, if we are disposed to
cherish proper feelings—to be kind and courteous and obliging, and ever on
our guard to avoid unnecessarily wounding the feelings of others; ever
ready to acknowledge the favors we receive, and render a suitable return.
How easily all this may be done! How often is it grossly neglected! He who
consults his own ease and comfort cannot in any manner attain the desired
result so readily and certainly, as by habitually consulting the ease and
comfort of others, with whom he is in the habit of associating: and this is
true politeness also. A man who is dissatisfied with himself and those
around him, and laboring under the darkening influence of disturbed or
morose feelings "may travel from Dan to Beersheba and say it is all
barren;"—to him it will appear so; and the effect would be the same if his
journey lay amidst the most delightful scenes of rural beauty. The seasons
of the year all give their annual lessons for instruction: It is our wisdom to
regard them carefully. Spring summons us all to cheerful activity, with
assurances that our labor will not be in vain. Summer performs what Spring
had promised, and shews us the advantage of listening to early instruction
and wisely improving it. Ten thousand songsters are filling the branches
with their animating strains of music and gratitude, and teaching us to
enjoy, as they do, the countless blessings and bounties of nature; their

music is never failing—nor do we see it ending in discords. Let us all, as
we journey onward together through the year, learn to tune our hearts as
they do their voices, and pass the fleeting period in harmony, and in that
cheerfulness which the excellent Addison has honored with the name of a
continual expression of gratitude to Heaven. In Germany the study and
practice of music are general among the people. Besides other advantages
resulting from making music a part of common education, it is not romantic
or utopian to observe that it teaches how easily music—pure and surpassing
music—may be made on the same instrument, which under an ignorant or
purposed touch will send forth discords in prodigious varieties. He who has
become acquainted with the instrument, though not a master of it, well
knows how to avoid those combinations of sound which are painful to the
ear, and often tend to disturb feelings and passions. What tones are sweeter
than those produced by the gentle breeze of heaven in passing over the
strings of the Æolian Harp? The reason is, those strings are so attuned as
that their vibrations will not respond except in notes of harmony: but only
disorder the strings, by increasing the tension of some and decreasing that
of others, and the sweetest zephyr will produce nothing but the vilest
discords, resembling angry passions. Let us then, in our journey through the
year on which we have entered, acquire as much as possible a knowledge of
the science and the art of social and domestic moral music. Let us learn to
measure our time with care, to cultivate our voices, that they may lose all
harshness: let each attend to his own part, and strive to excel in that. Let us
consider our feelings, passions and dispositions, as the strings of the Harp;
and the ordinary events of life as the breezes which give vibration to the
strings: if these strings—our feelings, passions and dispositions—are in
proper tune—under due regulation, and preserving a just relation, each to
all the others, we have then all the elements of moral music, domestic and
social, and in a few weeks, by due regard to all the principles and
arrangement above mentioned, we shall soon be good scholars, giving and
receiving all that pleasure which harmony can afford; and as the sober
autumn advances, our tastes for this kind of music will be more and more
ripened towards perfection; and when the cold decemberly evenings shall
arrive, we can listen to the angry music of the elements abroad, full of
discordant strains, sweeping by our peaceful homes, while within them all
may be the music of the heart, in its gentlest movements.

It is a melancholy truth that we ourselves manufacture seven eighths of
what we are disposed to term our misfortunes in this world. Want of
precaution mars our arrangements: want of prudence exposes us to dangers
which we might easily have avoided—want of patience often hurries us into
difficulties, and disqualifies us to bear them with calmness or decency.
Indulgence in follies and fashions often plants the seeds of wasting disease.
Intemperance in our passions always is followed by unwelcome sensations,
and sometimes with a sense of shame. Stimulants are succeeded by debility,
and when they are used to excess, we know and daily witness the dreadful
results—if death is not one of them—either the death of the offender, or of
some other destroyed by his hand in the tempest of infuriated passions—we
are too often compelled to mourn over the desolation they occasion—
presenting in one view,
"Hate—grief—despair—the family of pain."

THE RUIN OF A NIGHT.
STANZAS SUGGESTED ON VIEWING THE GROUND OF
THE GREAT FIRE IN NEW-YORK.

By Grenville Mellen.

It was still noon—and Sabbath. The pale
air
Hung over the great city like a shroud—
And echo answer'd to a footstep there,
Where late went up the thunder of a
crowd!
I wander'd like a pilgrim round the piles
That Ruin heap'd about the wildering way
—
And as I pass'd, I saw the withering smiles
That did on faces of dull gazers play,
As they stood round the ashes of that grave
Of all that yesterday rose there, so broad and
brave!

I mus'd as I went thro' the shadowy path
Of broken, blacken'd walls, and pillars
high,
Which had surviv'd that visiting of wrath,
And now lean'd dim against the lurid sky
—
I heard the rude laugh break from ruder
hearts,
Those ruffian exclamations of lost souls,
At which a better spirit wakes and starts—
The revelry of demons o'er their bowls—
Until I felt how faint rebuke may fall

Over a people, tho' it come in sword and pall!

There was no lesson in that mighty pyre—
Or, if it rose, it faded with the flame;
And crime, relentless, from that
smouldering fire
Would lift, at night, its stealthy arm the
same
On the lone wanderer, as, amid the crowd,
It glided oft before, to filch its gold,
When the great voice of rivalry was loud,
And onward the deep tide of commerce
roll'd!
I thought how idle was the darkest ban,
Fate, in her fiercest eloquence, can pour on
man!

I thought how quick the seal of
nothingness
Is set on man's best glory—and how deep!
How soon the Greatest grovels with the
Less,
And they who shouted bravest, bow to
weep!
How quick the veriest triumph of our
years,
Fulfill'd by a dim life of toil and pain,
Is chang'd to one sad festival of tears—
When Time is but a storm—and visions
wane!
How quick Destruction can make classical
The crowded, golden ground, where her fell
footsteps fall!

The ground that yesterday was consecrate
To the wild spirit-power of Gold and Gain
—

Where riches, like some thing of worship
sate,
And Worth of Wealth ask'd precedence in
vain!
Where the hard hand was busy with the
dust
With which it soon must mingle—though
it gleam
Often with jewels—splendid, but accurst,
That make the trappings of this Life's poor
dream!
And where, too, Bounty, like a fountain,
sprung,
In streams, though not unfelt, in shadow, and
unsung!

Alas! that pillar'd pile! how, as I gaz'd
Upon the blacken'd shafts, did I recall
The sculptur'd marble there, whose brow
was rais'd
So like a god's, within that shadowy hall!
Immortal Hamilton!—though crumbled
deep
In the red chaos of that billowy night,
It needs no chisel's memory to keep
Thy spirit's nobler outline vast and bright!
No Time—no element can mar the fame,
Gather'd, like fadeless sunlight, round thy
spotless name!

COURTSHIP.
By Wm. L. McClintock.

After my sleighride, last winter, and the slippery trick I was served by Patty
Bean, nobody would suspect me of hankering after the women again in a
hurry. To hear me curse and swear and rail out against the whole feminine
gender, you would have taken it for granted that I should never so much as
look at one again, to all eternity—O, but I was wicked. "Darn and blast
their eyes"—says I.—"Blame their skins—torment their hearts and darn
them to darnation." Finally I took an oath and swore that if I ever meddled
or had any dealings with them again (in the sparking line I mean) I wish I
might be hung and choked.
But swearing off from women, and then going into a meeting house chock
full of gals, all shining and glistening in their Sunday clothes and clean
faces, is like swearing off from liquor and going into a grog shop. It's all
smoke.
I held out and kept firm to my oath for three whole Sundays. Forenoons,
a'ternoons and intermissions complete. On the fourth, there were strong
symptoms of a change of weather. A chap, about my size was seen on the
way to the meeting house, with a new patent hat on; his head hung by the
ears upon a shirt collar; his cravat had a pudding in it and branched out in
front, into a double bow knot. He carried a straight back and a stiff neck, as
a man ought to, when he has his best clothes on; and every time he spit, he
sprung his body forward, like a jack-knife, in order to shoot clear of the
ruffles.
Squire Jones' pew is next but two to mine; and when I stand up to prayers
and take my coat tail under my arm, and turn my back to the minister, I
naturally look right straight at Sally Jones. Now Sally has got a face not to
be grinned at, in a fog. Indeed, as regards beauty, some folks think she can
pull an even yoke with Patty Bean. For my part, I think there is not much

boot between them. Any how, they are so nigh matched that they have hated
and despised each other, like rank poison, ever since they were school-girls.
Squire Jones had got his evening fire on, and set himself down to reading
the great bible, when he heard a rap at his door. "Walk in.—Well, John, how
der do? Git out, Pompey."—"Pretty well, I thank ye, Squire, and how do
you do?"—"Why, so as to be crawling—ye ugly beast, will ye hold yer yop
—haul up a chair and set down, John."
"How do you do, Mrs. Jones?" "O, middlin', how's yer marm? Don't forget
the mat, there, Mr. Beedle." This put me in mind that I had been off
soundings several times, in the long muddy lane; and my boots were in a
sweet pickle.
It was now old Captain Jones' turn, the grandfather. Being roused from a
doze, by the bustle and racket, he opened both his eyes, at first with wonder
and astonishment. At last he began to halloo so loud that you might hear
him a mile; for he takes it for granted that every body is just exactly as deaf
as he is.
"Who is it? I say, who in the world is it?" Mrs. Jones going close to his ear,
screamed out, "it's Johnny Beedle."—"Ho—Johnny Beedle. I remember, he
was one summer at the siege of Boston."—"No, no, father, bless your heart,
that was his grandfather, that's been dead and gone this twenty year."—"Ho,
—But where does he come from?"—"Daown taown."—"Ho.—And what
does he follow for a livin'?"—And he did not stop asking questions, after
this sort, till all the particulars of the Beedle family were published and
proclaimed in Mrs. Jones' last screech. He then sunk back into his doze
again.
The dog stretched himself before one andiron; the cat squat down before the
other. Silence came on by degrees, like a calm snow storm, till nothing was
heard but a cricket under the hearth, keeping tune with a sappy yellow birch
forestick. Sally sat up prim, as if she were pinned to the chair-back; her
hands crossed genteelly upon her lap, and her eyes looking straight into the
fire. Mammy Jones tried to straighten herself too, and laid her hands across
in her lap. But they would not lay still. It was full twenty-four hours since
they had done any work, and they were out of all patience with keeping
Sunday.—Do what she would to keep them quiet, they would bounce up,

now and then, and go through the motions, in spite of the fourth
commandment. For my part I sat looking very much like a fool. The more I
tried to say something the more my tongue stuck fast. I put my right leg
over the left and said "hem." Then I changed, and put the left leg over the
right. It was no use; the silence kept coming on thicker and thicker. The
drops of sweat began to crawl all over me. I got my eye upon my hat,
hanging on a peg, on the road to the door; and then I eyed the door. At this
moment, the old Captain, all at once sung out "Johnny Beedle!" It sounded
like a clap of thunder, and I started right up an eend.
"Johnny Beedle, you'll never handle sich a drumstick as your father did, if
yer live to the age of Methusaler. He would toss up his drumstick, and while
it was whirlin' in the air, take off a gill er rum, and then ketch it as it come
down, without losin' a stroke in the tune. What d'ye think of that, ha? But
scull your chair round, close along side er me, so yer can hear.—Now, what
have you come a'ter?"—"I—a'ter? O, jest takin' a walk. Pleasant walkin' I
guess. I mean jest to see how ye all do." "Ho.—That's another lie. You've
come a courtin', Johnny Beedle; you're a'ter our Sal. Say now, d'ye want to
marry, or only to court?"
This is what I call a choker. Poor Sally made but one jump and landed in the
middle of the kitchen; and then she skulked in the dark corner, till the old
man, after laughing himself into a whooping cough, was put to bed.
Then came apples and cider; and, the ice being broke, plenty chat with
mammy Jones about the minister and the 'sarmon.' I agreed with her to a
nicety, upon all the points of doctrine; but I had forgot the text and all the
heads of the discourse, but six. Then she teazed and tormented me to tell
who I accounted the best singer in the gallery, that day. But, mum—there
was no getting that out of me. "Praise to the face is often disgrace" says I,
throwing a sly squint at Sally.
At last, Mrs. Jones lighted t'other candle; and after charging Sally to look
well to the fire, she led the way to bed, and the Squire gathered up his shoes
and stockings and followed.
Sally and I were left sitting a good yard apart, honest measure. For fear of
getting tongue-tied again, I set right in, with a steady stream of talk. I told
her all the particulars about the weather that was past, and also made some

pretty cute guesses at what it was like to be in future. At first, I gave a hitch
up with my chair at every full stop. Then growing saucy, I repeated it at
every comma, and semicolon; and at last, it was hitch, hitch, hitch, and I
planted myself fast by the side of her.
"I swow, Sally, you looked so plaguy handsome to day, that I wanted to eat
you up."—"Pshaw, get along you," says she. My hand had crept along,
somehow, upon its fingers, and begun to scrape acquaintance with hers. She
sent it home again, with a desperate jerk. "Try it agin"—no better luck.
"Why, Miss Jones you're gettin' upstropulous, a little old madish, I guess."
"Hands off is fair play, Mr. Beedle."
It is a good sign to find a girl sulkey. I knew where the shoe pinched. It was
that are Patty Bean business. So I went to work to persuade her that I had
never had any notion after Patty, and to prove it I fell to running her down
at a great rate. Sally could not help chiming in with me, and I rather guess
Miss Patty suffered a few. I, now, not only got hold of her hand without
opposition, but managed to slip an arm round her waist. But there was no
satisfying me; so I must go to poking out my lips after a buss. I guess I rued
it. She fetched me a slap in the face that made me see stars, and my ears
rung like a brass kettle for a quarter of an hour. I was forced to laugh at the
joke, tho' out of the wrong side of my mouth, which gave my face
something the look of a gridiron. The battle now began in the regular way.
"Ah, Sally, give me a kiss, and ha' done with it, now."—"I won't, so there,
nor tech to."—"I'll take it, whether or no."—"Do it, if you dare."—And at it
we went, rough and tumble. An odd destruction of starch now commenced.
The bow of my cravat was squat up in half a shake. At the next bout, smash
went shirt collar, and, at the same time, some of the head fastenings gave
way, and down came Sally's hair in a flood, like a mill dam broke loose,—
carrying away half a dozen combs. One dig of Sally's elbow, and my
blooming ruffles wilted down to a dish-cloth. But she had no time to boast.
Soon her neck tackling began to shiver. It parted at the throat, and, whorah,
came a whole school of blue and white beads, scampering and running
races every which way, about the floor.
By the Hokey; if Sally Jones is'nt real grit, there's no snakes. She fought
fair, however, I must own, and neither tried to bite nor scratch; and when
she could fight no longer, for want of breath, she yielded handsomely. Her

arms fell down by her sides, her head back over her chair, her eyes closed
and there lay her little plump mouth, all in the air. Lord! did ye ever see a
hawk pounce upon a young robin? Or a bumblebee upon a clover-top?—I
say nothing.
Consarn it, how a buss will crack, of a still frosty night. Mrs. Jones was
about half way between asleep and awake. "There goes my yeast bottle,"
says she to herself—"burst into twenty hundred pieces, and my bread is all
dough agin."
The upshot of the matter is, I fell in love with Sally Jones, head over ears.
Every Sunday night, rain or shine, finds me rapping at 'Squire Jones' door,
and twenty times have I been within a hair's breadth of popping the
question. But now I have made a final resolve; and if I live till next Sunday
night, and I don't get choked in the trial, Sally Jones will hear thunder.

VENETIAN MOONLIGHT.
By Frederick Mellen.

The midnight chime had tolled from Marco's
towers;
O'er Adria's wave the trembling echo
swept;
The gondolieri paused upon their oars,
Mutt'ring their prayers as through the still
night crept.

Far on the wave the knell of time sped on,
Till the sound died upon its tranquil breast;
The sea-boy startled as the peal rolled on;
Gazed at his star, and turned himself to
rest.

The throbbing heart, that late had said
farewell,
Still lingering on the wave that bore it
home,
At that bright hour sigh'd o'er the dying
swell,
And thought on years of absence yet to
come.

'T was moonlight on Venetia's sea,
And every fragrant bower and tree
Smiled in the golden light;
The thousand eyes that clustered there
Ne'er in their life looked half so fair
As on that happy night.

A thousand sparkling lights were set

On every dome and minaret;
While through the marble halls,
The gush of cooling fountains came,
And crystal lamps sent far their flame
Upon the high-arched walls.

But sweeter far on Adria's sea,
The gondolier's wild minstrelsy
In accents low began;
While sounding harp and martial zel
Their music joined, until the swell
Seemed heaven's broad arch to
span.

Then faintly ceasing—one by one,
That plaintive voice sung on alone
Its wild, heart-soothing lay;
And then again that moonlight band
Started, as if by magic wand,
In one bold burst away.

The joyous laugh came on the breeze,
And, 'mid the bright o'erhanging trees,
The mazy dance went round;
And as in joyous ring they flew,
The smiling nymphs the wild flowers
threw
That clustered on the ground.

Soft as a summer evening's sigh,
From each o'erhanging balcony
Low fervent whisperings fell;
And many a heart upon that night
On fancy's pinion sped its flight,
Where holier beings dwell.

Each lovely form the eye might see,
The dark-browed maid of Italy

With love's own sparkling eyes;
The fairy Swiss—all, all that night,
Smiled in the moonbeam's silvery light,
Fair as their native skies.

The moon went down, and o'er that glowing
sea,
With darkness, Silence spread abroad her
wing,
Nor dash of oars, nor harp's wild minstrelsy
Came o'er the waters in that mighty ring.
All nature slept—and, save the far-off moan
Of ocean surges, Silence reigned alone.

BALLOONING.
By I. McLellan, Jr.

The clear sun of a fine September day, was glittering on roof and steeple,
and the cheerful breeze of early autumn breathing its harp-like melody over
woods and waters. A vast multitude stood around me, attentively watching
the expanding folds of my balloon, as it swayed to and fro in the unsteady
air. As I prepared to take my place in its car, I noticed an involuntary
shudder run through the assemblage, and anxious glances pass from face to
face. At length, the process of inflation was completed, the music sounded,
the gun was discharged, the ropes were loosened, and the beautiful machine
arose in the air, amid the resounding cheers of thousands. As it ascended, I
cast a hasty look on the sea of upturned heads, and thought I read one
general expression of anxiety, in the faces of the multitudinous throng, and
my heart warmed with the consciousness, that many kind wishes and secret
hopes were wafted with me on my heavenward flight. But very soon, mine
eye ceased to distinguish features and forms, and the collected throng
became blended in one confused mass, and the green common itself had
dwindled into a mere garden-plat, and the magnificent old Elm in its centre
to a stunted bush, waving on the hill-side.
Upward, upward! my flying car mounted and mounted, into the yet
untraversed highways of the air, swifter than pinion-borne bird, or canvas-
borne vessel, yet all without sound of revolving wheel, or clatter of
thundering hoof or straining of bellying sail, or rustle of flapping wing. I
felt that I was indeed alone, in the upper wastes of the liquid element, a
solitary voyager of the sky, careering onward like the spectral "Ship of the
Sea," with no murmur of bubbling billow under the prow, and no gush of
whirling ripple beneath the keel. But how can my pen describe the
sublimity of the scene above, below and around! At one moment, my car
would plunge into silvery seas of vapor and rolling billows of mist, through
which the dim-seen sun did but feebly glimmer, like the struggling flame of
the torch cast in the dungeon's gloom. But soon that shadowy veil dissolved
away, and again I would emerge into the blaze of the golden sun, and the

effulgence of the blue heavens. How then did I covet the painter's art, to be
able to imprint on the eternal canvas, those gorgeous clouds piled up around
me, like hills and mountains, from whose sides hoary cataracts seemed to
be falling, and foamy streams leaping into the vallies, that rested in lovely
repose at their base. Never did the dull world below present on its
diversified bosom, such grand or such enchanting objects, as those beautiful
and evanescent creatures of the air, shining and shifting in the levelled
sunbeams around. At times, my whole horizon would be bounded by those
mountainous regions of cloud-land, cliff lifting over cliff, pinnacle above
pinnacle, Alps above Alps. On their sides and tops, the reflected light
painted all the hues of the rainbow, in commingled azure and crimson,
purple and gold. In those stupendous masses of vapor, mine eye, with little
aid of fancy, could trace out resemblances of wild and desolate forests, of
sombre fir and yew, the lordly oak and the melancholy pine, whispering in
the breeze. Anon, a green, happy valley, would smile out from some hollow
of the hills, and the white church-spire would peep from the embosoming
grove, and the rustic parsonage, the rural farm-house, and the village-inn,
with its swinging sign, and the chestnut waiving its twinkling foliage at the
door would appear. Anon, the shifting vapor would assume the shape of an
old baronial fortress, green with the mosses of centuries, and overspread
with the flexile creeper, the gadding vine, and the glossy ivy, and wearing
many a dull-weather stain, imprinted by wintry gale and autumnal rain. On
its grey towers would seem to float the broad standard, around which the
knights and vassals had mustered so often, when the armies thundered
beneath the leagured walls, or its brave folds were displayed in distant
lands, on the tented fields of war.
Onward, onward! I looked forth, and saw that I was again wafted along the
lower currents of air, and could easily distinguish the sights and sounds of
earth. I passed over green pastures, where the brindled cattle and snowy
sheep were feeding, and, under a spreading oak, that towered aloft like a
verdant hill, reclined a young girl, watching her father's flocks, attended by
a pet lamb, cropping the fair flowers at her feet. As I gazed, I thought of
"the fair Una with her milk-white lamb," and of all the happiness of the
shepherd's life, who, sitting upon the grassy hill-side beneath the sacred
locust, and piping entrancing melodies in praise of his love, on the mellow
oaten reed, is all unmindful of the cankering care and the poisonous hatred,

that embitter human life. Great was the surprise that agitated that lonesome
spot, as mine air-borne pageant fluttered over it, with its silken fold and
colored streamer. The cattle cast upward their wondering eyes, and galloped
away to the forests, and I could long hear the tinkling bell on the horn of the
bull and heifer, sounding in the inner sanctuary of the wood, where, on a
twisted root or a moss-covered stone, by the brink of the gushing brook,
reclined that grey-beard recluse, Solitude, and his nun-like sister, Silence,
revolving their lonely meditations.
Onward, still onward! Beneath me I beheld a solemn spot, where the linden,
the ash, the sycamore, the cypress, the cedar, the beech, the church-yard
yew and hemlock, were clustered together in one mournful company. I
knew by the stone altars, by the sculptured urn, the graceful obelisk, the
foam-white pyramid, the funereal cenotaph, the marble mausoleum, which
glimmered amid the groves and bowers, that I looked upon a sanctuary,
consecrated by the living to the repose of the dead. A sweet sabbath-like
calm seemed to hover about the place, and even the very birds that were
flitting from branch to branch, and the breeze that was sighing its hollow
dirge along the wood-tops, appeared to know that the spot was holy. As I
looked, I beheld a slow procession winding along this highway of the
departed, and bearing a new tenant to the narrow house. Some sweet infant,
perhaps, was there cut down in the dewy bloom of its innocence,—some
beautiful bud of beauty severed from its stem, and torn away from its
blossoming mates, in the garden of youth,—or, haply, some silver-haired
sire, gathered like the shock of corn, fully ripe, into the vast granary of
death.
As I passed from this interesting spot, I was attracted by a merry train of
riders, whose loud and cheerful voices resounded along the road, seeming
to mock the sacred silence of the place I had so lately left. As the gay array
of youth and beauty dashed away from my sight, with foamy bridle and
gory spur, I could not but be reminded of the close juxta-position on earth,
of joy and sorrow, life and death.
Onward, onward! over winding streams, that glittered like twisting serpents
on the green surface of the earth, over the broad bay, that rested in smooth
and glassy repose in the arms of the far-extending shore, and over the
dashing billows of the ocean, my route continued. Birds of the briny sea,

whose strong wings had borne them safely and surely from the frosty
atmosphere that sparkles around the pole, or the ice-cold waters of some
far-away lagoon, now darted around me with discordant cry and affrighted
pinion. In those hovering flocks I discerned the duck, the goose, the coot,
the loon, the curlew, the green-winged teal, the dusky duck, the sooty tern,
the yellow-winged gadwale, the golden eye, and the gaudy mallard, proudly
vain of that lovely plumage, whose intense hues rival the glory of the
breaking dawn, the autumnal sunset, or the intermingled dyes which tinge
the stripes of the showery bow. On an iron-bound promontory, whose
jutting crags waved an eternal strife with the rolling billows, I saw the
thick-scattered cottages of wealth and taste, seeming no bigger than the
nest, which the tropical bird constructs in the sands of the desert, while
around, on the tumbling expanse of waters, were glancing a thousand
receding and approaching sails, bearing the riches of the orient or the
occident, from shore to shore.
Downward, downward! A thrill of horror shot through my veins, as I felt
that the rough ocean breeze had shivered my silken vessel to shreds and
tatters, and that I was falling with the speed of lightning, through the hollow
abyss of the air, into the sea. The jaws of the fretting ocean, gnashing their
white teeth in anger, seemed to gape open to devour me, and the black rocks
uplifted their jagged spears, to impale my devoted body! But my time had
not yet come. A gentle tap on the shoulder aroused me from the profound
reverie in which I had been plunged, and I was very glad to recognize, in
the visitor who had broken the spell, my good friend Durant, who called to
invite me to attend his grand ascension, the following day.

ODE,
ON OCCASION OF JUDGE STORY'S EULOGY ON CHIEF
JUSTICE MARSHALL AT THE ODEON.

By Grenville Mellen.

Again—the voice of
God!
How breaks it round!
O'er consecrated sod,
With locks unbound,
Grief in her marble brow
appears
And bows amid her veil—in
tears!

That mandate from on
high—
The clarion call,
That rung through earth
and sky
His rayless fall,
In accents, "thou shalt die,"
again
Proclaims man's dream of
years—how vain!

We veil not in its grave
Ambition's brow—
It is not o'er the brave
We gather now!
But one who reach'd man's
loftier fate.
Good without fault—and
nobly great.

A sceptre was his own,
Drawn from the sky—
He fill'd a holier throne
Than royalty:
He sat with deathless Justice
crown'd,

While Truth, like sunlight,
flash'd around!

His life to all the earth
Proud record bore,
Man yet might spring to
birth,
With angel power!
His death, that as the "grass,"
to-day
Robes him in glory—and
decay!

Oh! well, with spirit
bow'd,
Above his bier
May a broad empire
crowd,
With prayer and tear!
—His be its requiem—deep
and far—
A nation's heart his sepulchre!

THE BOY'S MOUNTAIN SONG.
FROM THE GERMAN.

By I. McLellan, Jr.

I am the mountain boy!
Forth o'er an hundred halls I
gaze.
Here morn his earliest light
displays,
Here linger his declining rays,
—
I am the mountain boy!

Here is the mountain-source,
Of the cold water-course—
And at sultry noon I dip,
In its wave my glowing lip.
I am the mountain boy!

When the awful lightnings
glare,
Flashes on the midnight air,
On the rocking cliff I kneel,
Answering back each
thunder-peal.
I am the mountain boy!

When the quickly-pealing
bell,
Calls to arms in every dell,
In the mustered ranks I stand,

Swinging wide my mountain-
brand
And sing my mountain-
song!

THE UNCHANGEABLE JEW.
By John Neal.

'Who views with equal eye as
God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow
fall?
Atoms and systems into ruin
hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and
now a world?'

A great multitude were gathered together: on the right a huge fortress
thundering to the sky—on the left a scaffold—a white fog—the open sea—
and a mighty ship tumbling to the swell. The flat roofs and gorgeous
balconies were covered with scarlet cloth, and thronged with women of all
ages—their lips writhing and their eyes flashing. Underneath were a mute
soldiery, with banners that moved not, and spears that glimmered not—a
vast, rich and motionless pageant. Not a leaf stirred—not a finger was lifted
—all eyes were fixed upon something afar off. The Grave alone had a
voice, and the footstep of approaching Death grew audible, with the
everlasting beat of the Ocean. The stagnant atmosphere burned with a
lustreless, unchangeable and smouldering warmth. As the impatient and
sluggish breathing of the Destroyer drew near, with a sound as of
Earthquake and Pestilence laboring afar off, there appeared upon the
outermost verge of the scaffold, near the fortress, a man of a simple and
majestic presence, wearing no symbol of power, no badge of authority,
before whom the multitude gave way with headlong precipitation, as though
but to touch the hem of his garment were death itself, or something yet
worse than death.
After communicating with those about him in a low whisper, too low to be
understood by others almost within his reach, one of the soldiers lifted a
spear, at the point of which fluttered a blood-red banner, tufted and fringed

with snow-white feathers, and pointed in silence toward a large opening,
which appeared to command a view of the whole interior. The stranger
drew near, and grasping one of the bars with a powerful hand, lifted himself
up, and after looking awhile, turned away with a sick impatient shudder,
and wiped his eyes; and then lifting himself up again, he made a signal to
somebody within, and straightway a large tent-like awning was quietly
withdrawn, so as to reveal the interior of a court-yard, with cells opening
into it—in the nearest of which sat a princely-looking middle-aged man,
half-buried and apparently half asleep or lost in thought, in a large, heavy,
old-fashioned chair, with a curiously carved table before him, on which
there lay, side by side with writing materials, a lamp and a letter evidently
unfinished, two or three illuminated manuscripts, a dagger and a map; a
massive goblet richly chased, the rough gold tinged and sweltering with the
hot blood of the southern grape, a variety of strange mathematical
instruments—a copy of Zoroaster—and a Hebrew Bible, with clasps of the
costliest workmanship, and a cover of black velvet frosted with seed pearls
—a crushed and trampled coronet—and a lighted pipe, ornamented with
precious stones, the shaft a twisted serpent and the bowl a burning
carbuncle—a live coal—from the core of which, as out of the midst of a
perpetual, unextinguishable fire, issued a delicate perfume, filling the whole
neighborhood, as with the smoke of a censer; and leaving the eye to make
out—by little and little—through the fragrant vapor, first a pair of
embroidered Persian slippers, then a magnificent robe, flowered all over as
with the sunshine of the sea, and weltering in the changeable light of the
open window, then a prodigious quantity of lustrous black hair flowing
down over the shoulders, from underneath a crimson velvet cap with a
diamond buckle and clasp, and a tassel of spun gold, strung with sapphire,
ruby, amethyst and pearl—and a pomp of black feathers overshadowing an
ample forehead of surpassing power, and eyes of untroubled splendor; and
then, after a long while, a heap of black shadow lying coiled up underneath
the table, from the midst of which an occasional flash, as of a serpent's
tongue, or an angry sparkle—as of a serpent's eye, would appear—and at
last the whole proportions of a superb-looking personage, who had been
trying, hour after hour, with a compressed lip and a thoughtful determined
eye—to snap what appeared to be a handful of seed pearl, one by one,
through the grated window before him, without touching the bars—hour

after hour—and always in vain! The passage way was too narrow—the bars
too near together.
Behold! murmured he at last, while the shadow of another—and yet another
stranger, shot along the lighted floor, as he stole about the room a-tiptoe,
and gathering up the pearls, if pearls they were, that lay in heaps underneath
the window, and flinging aside the magnificent robe he wore, prepared
himself anew and with more determination than ever, for the work he had
evidently set his heart upon, if not his life, by measuring the elevation with
a steadier eye, and poising every pearl with a more delicate touch, before he
projected it toward the window. Behold! how the Ancient of Days
delighteth in counteracting the purposes of Man?
The other started back and threw up his arms with a look of horror and
amazement, and all who were about him began whispering together and
shaking their heads.
At this moment the slow jarring vibration of a great bell was heard from the
topmost tower—the cannon of the fortress thundered forth, and were
answered, peal after peal, from the lighted mountains—a volume of white
smoke rolled heavily toward the earth and covered the people—the sea-fog
trembled—parted—and slowly drifted away in patches and fragments,
through which the blue sky appeared, and the hot sunshine flashed with an
arrowy brightness, while the mighty ship swung round with her broadside
to the shore, and lighted matches were seen moving about hither and thither,
like wandering meteors, through the damp hazy atmosphere; and instantly
there went up a slow half-smothered wail from the multitude, with a weight
and volume like the unutterable and growing earnestness of the Great Deep,
when it begins to heave with a pre-appointed and irresistible change; and all
eyes were upturned, and all arms outstretched with a troubled expression
toward the stranger, who walked forward a few steps to the verge of the
scaffold—and looking about him, on every side, called out with a loud
voice,—Of such are the Gods of the Unconverted! and of such their
followers!
The answering roar of the multitude reached the prisoner, who lifting his
head and listening for a moment with a placid smile, asked what more they
would have?—and whether they were not yet satisfied?—and then

straightway began balancing another of the glittering seeds and eyeing the
window—
Most pitiable! cried the other, covering his face with his hands, moving afar
off, and appearing to be entirely overcome by what he saw.
And why pitiable, I pray thee! shouted the former, with a voice like a
trumpet, lifting his calm forehead to the sky and gathering his magnificent
robe about him as he spoke.
Art thou of a truth Adonijah the Jew—the unconverted Jew?
Of a truth am I—the unconverted, the unconvertable Jew; and thou! art thou
not he that was my brother according to the flesh—even Zorobabel, the
converted Jew and the preacher of a new faith?
Yea; of a new faith to such as thou; but a faith older than the Hebrew
prophets to them that believe, Adonijah.
But why pitiable I pray thee?
How are the mighty fallen! For three whole months have I journied afoot
and alone, by night and by day, through the deep of the wilderness, and
along by the sea-shore—afoot and alone, my brother!—after hearing of thy
great overthrow—the wreck of thy vast possessions about me whithersoever
I went—thy magnificent household scattered, thy princes banished from
their high places, and wandering over all the earth and hiding themselves in
the holes of the rocks—with no city of refuge in their path—even thy
youngest and fairest a bondwoman, toiling for that which sustaineth not;
and thy own fast-approaching death, a theme with every people and kindred
and tongue—and not a theme of sorrow! And all this, O my brother and my
prince! only that I might be near thee in thy unutterable bereavement and
humiliation, only that I might look upon thee once more alive, and see thee
unchangeable as ever, though stripped of power and trampled under the
hoofs of the multitude—only that I might reason with thee, face to face,
before a great people, who, after watching and worshipping thee for many
years, have come up together as with one heart, to see thee—thee! their idol
and their benefactor—perish upon a scaffold, as only the fool or the scoffer
perisheth!—to cry out upon thee as the unconquerable Jew, that having

once abjured the faith of his fathers and gone back to it anew, cannot be
reached but by the law, nor purified but with fire!
Say on.
Alas, my brother! Alas that it should fall upon me to afflict thy proud spirit
with reproaches at a time like this! But there is no other hope. Awake,
therefore! awake! and gird up thy loins like a man. I will demand of thee,
saith the Lord of Hosts, and thou shalt answer me, even as my servant Job
answered me of yore. Awake, therefore, and stand up, that I may reason
with thee for the last time touching the faith of our mighty fathers, the
consolations of philosophy, and the splendor and power of earthly Wisdom
—of Death and Judgment—while thou art on thy way to the grave in the
fulness of thy strength and majesty; and not with the clangor of trumpets,
the neigh of steeds, the flow of drapery, and the uproar of battle!—No!—
not as the High Priest, or the champion of a lofty and venerable faith,
standing up like a pillar of fire in a cloudy sky, and pointing to Jerusalem as
to the great gathering place of buried nations, about to reappear, with all
eyes fixed upon thee and all hearts heaving with exultation! To thy grave,
my brother! and not as a martyr! but as a wretch abandoned of all the earth
—a twofold apostate!—a rebel and a traitor! Hark! hearest thou not a faint
stirring afar off, along the shore of that multitude—a living wilderness of
threatening eyes and parched lips—and ah! another moan from that huge,
heavy, disheartening bell, which never stops till the sacrifice of a fiery death
is over, and the object of its boding prophecy gone to the world of spirits.
But the prisoner heeded not his adjuration—he never lifted his eyes, and the
same quiet smile rested forever upon his countenance; and he still gathered
up the pearls and continued aiming them at the window.
Awake, Adonijah! awake, I say! Thy pearls are counted to thee. Thy pulses
are about to stand still forever—thy proud heart to stop forever! A moment,
and the headsman will be here—already do I see him afar off, stealing with
a noiseless movement along the skirts of the affrighted people, like
smouldering fire through the blackness of a thunder-cloud. Awake, thou
man of sorrow and acquainted with grief, awake that I may pray with thee!

With me!

Yea, my brother—even with thee.
And wherefore shouldst thou pray with me? and wherefore should I pray?
Wherefore! Have I not heard thee, purified by that old peculiar faith, charge
even thy Creator, the Ancient of Days, the Lord God of Heaven and Earth,
Jehovah! with diverting thy pearls from their appointed path!
True, and therefore why should I pray? Of what avail these prayers with the
unchangeable God? Can aught that we do, or fail to do, disturb the
everlasting tranquillity of our Creator—change his purpose—or in any way
move to pleasure or displeasure the Lord God of Heaven and Earth? With
him before whom all things are alike, with whom there is neither great nor
small—what he hath determined to do, that will he not do? whether we
importune him or not with prayer? Go to, my poor brother! go to! will not
the Judge of all the Earth do right? and if he will not—how are we to help
ourselves?
Unhappy man! Though he were unchangeable; and though supplications
were of no avail, why should the children of men, the creatures of his
bounty withhold their thanksgiving?
That would I never withhold, for that I could offer up any where—at all
times and under all circumstances, without dishonoring him, our Creator
and our Father, or his image, and without contradicting our ancient faith.
But why wrestle in prayer with him, for that which, if it be proper for us, we
shall be sure to have, as we have the dew and the sunshine, the seed-time
and the harvest.—The very hairs of our head, are they not numbered? Are
not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten
before God!
Yea my brother! But what saith the same scripture? Ye are of more value
than many sparrows.
True—true—I had forgotten a part of my lesson.
Believest thou, O my brother, canst thou believe then, that in His eyes, all
the cherubim and seraphim are equal and alike? that He is, of a truth, no
respecter of persons among the Hierarchy of heaven?

But wherefore pray to Him that knoweth all our wants, before they are
uttered or felt? to Him that feedeth the young raven—laying his hand
reverentially upon the Great Book before him, and lifting his forehead to
the sky, as if he could see through it.
Wherefore? Because we have been urged to pray—entreated to pray—
commanded to pray. Because every thing desirable hath been promised to
prayer.
Not in the Hebrew scriptures, however it may be with the Greek. To
thanksgiving and submission, there may be vouchsafed a continual to favor;
but to importunity, as urged upon you in your scripture, my poor brother,
nothing.
Lo! the headsman touches the foot of the scaffold! Wilt thou not pray with
me, oh Adonijah! my brother and my prince!
No! my brother that was—no! The Lion of Judah hath not yet learned to
lick the uplifted hand of mortal man. Get thee behind me Zorobabel, my
brother! Go thy way, and leave me to my trust in the God of our fathers.
Why should I pray with thee—with thee! an apostate from the sepulchre of
kings and prophets—I that never have prayed but with the princes, and the
Judges and the High-Priest of our people? Get thee gone, my brother! It is
not for such as I to tempt the Lord of Hosts, or to persuade the Ancient of
Days. Do not thou tempt me.
Stay, brother—stay! Did not Jacob wrestle in prayer with the angel of the
Lord, all the night long?
With the angel of the Lord?—yea—But never with the Lord himself, as
thou wouldst have me. And saying this, he gathered up his robe and shook
it, and turned away from his brother sorrowing.
Man! thou art beside thyself—much learning hath made thee mad—cried
his brother, reaching forth his arms to Adonijah. The whole Hebrew
scriptures are against thee—what are they all but a Book of prayer and
supplication? Prophets and Bards and Kings and Judges, yea, even the High
Priesthood, are against thee! Why shouldst thou pray, thou unconquerable
Hebrew?—why!—that thy proud heart may be made human—that thy
understanding may be enlightened—that thou mayst be made to know and

believe that there is another and a better Scripture. Pray to thy Father, which
is in Heaven, as thou wouldst that thy children should pray to thee, even for
that which thou hast already determined to grant them—oh, pray to Him!
that He may see the disposition of thy heart, as thou wouldst see theirs.
What though thou art mindful of their wants, and well acquainted with their
hearts and purposes, and always ready to gratify them, is it not a condition
with thee—even with thee, Adonijah, that they should acknowledge their
dependence upon thee, and their utter helplessness of themselves? And why
should it not be so with our Heavenly Father? with Him whose angels are
about thee and above thee, a perpetual atmosphere of warmth and light. Ha!
the multitude are breaking up!—they are coming this way! I hear the tramp
of horsemen—a moment more and we are apart forever. A flash!—The
Philistines are upon thee, O my brother!
That brother looked up and smiled.
Wilt thou not pray with me?
No—once for all—no! Never with a converted Jew—never with a christian!
—never with thee, thou but half a christian!
Farewell then!—farewell forever.
Another flash! attended with a loud burst of thunder among the hills.
Nay, let us part in peace, my brother, although I cannot pray with thee, I can
for thee! The God of our Fathers! of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, have thee in
his holy keeping!
The stranger threw up his arms in a transport of joy. The unconverted, the
unconvertable Jew had prayed for him with the temper of a christian; and
straightway he fell upon his knees and called upon the God of the Hebrews,
in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, to spare the Jew and change his
heart.
The huge gate swung open. The drawbridge fell—a fierce angry light broke
forth suddenly from underneath the scaffold—a black banner floated all at
once from the battlements over the passage-way—a troop of horsemen,
with flashing spears and iron helmets, wheeled slowly into the court-yard,
and drew up in dead silence along the outer barrier. The headsman

appeared. A signal was made from a far window, and lo! the coronet and the
robe, with all the glittering insignia of departed power and extinguished
glory, were torn away, and trampled under foot by the hoofs of the
multitude. A white smoke rolled forth from below, and when it cleared
away, the Jew appeared standing bareheaded between two gigantic mutes,
one of whom bore a naked cimetar, while the other stood watching his
countenance. It continued unaltered—unalterable—nor would he vouchsafe
the slightest token of submission or terror, though the flames roared, and the
white smoke rolled thitherward like the white sea-fog before a coming
storm; but haughtily, steadfastly, and with a majestic mildness which awed
the very soldiery more than all the pomp they were accustomed to, he
pointed to the multitude, lowering about him with a tempestuous blackness
—to the pyre with its covering of blood-red cloth dripping with recent
moisture—to the flames roaring far below among the dry faggots, and
signified a wish to proceed.
Once more shouted a voice from the barrier—My brother! oh my brother!
wilt thou not be prevailed upon, if not for thine own sake, for the sake of
thy beloved wife and thy youngest born—about to perish with thee—even
with thee, my brother, in their marvellous beauty and most abundant
strength.
Away!—and let me die in peace!
Another step thou unconquerable man! But another step—thou apostate
Jew!—and thou art in the world of spirits! Wilt thou not say? canst thou
not, with lowliness and fervor, Our Father which art in Heaven! thy will and
not mine be done!
Yea, brother—if that will comfort thee in thy desolation. Yea! Yea! with all
the hoarded and concentrated fervor of a long life accustomed to no other
language, even while I took upon me the outer garb of a christian—Yea!—
and saying this, he fell upon his knees, and cried out with a loud voice,
while a triumphant brightness overspread his uplifted countenance with a
visible exaltation, Our Father and our Judge! I do not pray to thee as the
God of the christians did, that this cup may be spared to me; for I have put
my whole hope and trust in thee, and am satisfied with whatsoever I may
receive at thy hands! But I would bless thee, I would praise thee, I would

magnify thy great name, oh God of my Fathers, for all that I have enjoyed
or suffered, for all that I have had or wanted in this life; yea, for all the
afflictions and sorrows and terrors that have beset my path, and that of my
beloved wife and my dear children—children of the tribe of Judah and of
the house of Jacob!—Yea, for the overthrow of all my proud hopes and
prouder wishes, when I forsook thee and almost abjured the faith of my
Fathers for dominion sake. Forgive my apostate brother, I beseech thee, O
Lord! as thou hast forgiven me: and bless the heritage of thy people, and
encourage them as the followers of the new faith are encouraged by their
Jesus of Nazareth, to forgive their enemies, even though their enemies take
the shape of a beloved friend or brother—to betray them—giving up their
birth-right, like Esau for a mess of pottage.
A great commotion appeared on the house-tops, extending itself slowly far
and wide.
Nevertheless, continued the Jew—nevertheless! oh Father and Judge, God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! thy will and not mine be done!
The multitude began to surge this way and that, with exceeding violence. A
cry of indignation arose from every side. A tumult followed—a general rush
—the house-tops were suddenly deserted—the sea shore—and some began
shouting, Away with him! away with him! and others, Let the blaspheming
Jew perish without hope! and others, Crucify him! crucify him!
But in the midst of the uproar, one clear solitary cry was heard afar off,
repeating a prayer to the God of the Hebrews—another cloud of white
smoke rolled over the battlements—the flames appeared half way up the
sky—a trumpet sounded underneath the very scaffold—the ancient war-cry
of the Jews, To your tents, O Israel! rung far and wide along the outer
barrier—up sprang a multitude of small white banners, like affrighted birds,
from the midst of the people—and the next moment, before they had
recovered from their unspeakable consternation, the heavy horsemen
charged upon them in a body, the great ship swung round with all her voices
thundering together, and swept their pathway as with a whirlwind of fire,
while they hurried hither and thither, crying To arms! to arms! The Jews!
the Jews! and pointing toward the bridge, only to find the bridge itself
destroyed and the opposite shore in possession of that other converted Jew

—the stranger!—all in glittering steel arrayed, and carrying a banner on
which the Lion of Judah was ramping in a field of carnage!

And when the Jew Adonijah, now more a Jew than ever, and more fully
satisfied than ever, with the sublime, and awful, and unchangeable faith of
his old Hebrew Fathers, came fully to himself, and the tumult was all over,
he found three out of his four children of the house of Jacob, standing near
him in their robes of state—another, and a stranger, harnessed for the war,
his black eyes yet gleaming with the half-extinguished fire of battle,
standing at the door of the chamber.
And why wouldst thou not pray for us, father? said one of the two that were
standing by the bed-side.
Because ye were sick unto death; and I held it sinful to ask for that which
had been refused to King David himself—I, that had forsaken the Lord God
of my fathers—How could I hope that he would not forsake me!
But the christian prayed for us, Father, and the prayers of the christian were
heard!
With what face could they, being christians, pray for the children of men
that put their Savior to death? How could they, being christians, forget their
scripture, which saith—suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid
them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven!
And as he spoke, the great doors were thrown open, and the armed man
flung down his helmet, and walked forward with a solemn and haughty step
leading a beautiful woman captive, and a young child.
A shriek!—a tumult!—and straightway all were kneeling together! And not
one of that family of Jacob—that remnant of the tribe of Judah—not one
was missing. They were determined to live and die in their old august
unchangeable faith, even as all their progenitors had lived and died—
enduring all things—suffering all things—trials and sorrows and
temptations—age after age—and never betraying their faith, never!

But the unconquerable Jew acknowledged to himself, and to his brother,
even there, as they fell upon his neck and wept, the possibility of prayer
being heard, the possibility that the unchangeable God might be reached by
supplication—and the possibility that even a philosopher and a Jew might
be mistaken.
But—

A WAR-SONG OF THE REVOLUTION.
By John Neal.

Men of the North! look up!
There's a tumult in your
sky;
A troubled glory surging out;
Great shadows hurrying by:

Your strength—Where is it
now?
Your quivers—Are they
spent?
Your arrows in the rust of
death,
Your fathers' bows unbent?

Men of the North! Awake!
Ye're called to from the
Deep;
Trumpets in every breeze—
Yet there ye lie asleep:

A stir in every tree;
A shout from every wave;
A challenging on every side;
A moan from every grave:

A battle in the sky;
Ships thundering through
the air—
Jehovah on the march—
Men of the North, to
prayer!

Now, now—in all your
strength;
There's that before your
way,
Above, about you, and below,
Like armies in array:

Lift up your eyes, and see
The changes overhead;
Now hold your breath! and
hear
The mustering of the dead.

See how the midnight air
With bright commotion
burns,
Thronging with giant shape,
Banner and spear by turns
—

The sea-fog driving in,
Solemnly and swift;
The Moon afraid—stars
dropping out—
The very skies adrift:

The Everlasting God:
Our Father—Lord of Love
—
With cherubim and seraphim
All gathering above—

Their stormy plumage lighted
up
As forth to war they go;
The shadow of the Universe,
Upon our haughty foe!

MUSINGS ON MUSIC.
By James F. Otis.

And while I was musing, the fire burned.—Holy Writ.

THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC.
Music is the wondrous breathing of God's spirit in our souls. As we view
the "floor of heaven, thickly inlaid with patines of pure gold," we feel that

There's not the smallest orb
which we behold,
But, in its motion, like an
angel sings,
Still quiring to the young eyed
cherubim.

We feel it in the constitution of the air, which causes vibration—in the
formation of man, possessed of the wonderful faculties enabling him to
sing, to distinguish musical sounds, and to feel within his whole frame the
effects of music. Man, indeed, is himself a wonderful musical instrument,
made by the hand of God. He hears all nature hymning adoration and
praises to its Maker—he feels the constant vibration of universal harmony
around him—he is conscious that the emotions of gratitude he feels toward
the Creator should be expressed, and that in the highest strains which the
human mind can conceive, and the human voice can reach. Thus he calls in
to his aid all those auxiliaries which nature and art afford, to supply him
with associations tending to elevate the standard of his grateful expressions.
Music is a sacred, a religious, a holy thing. Applied to common purposes, it
is pleasing and worthy of cultivation—but still it has a higher character
when used for its original and more worthy purpose. The effect it produces
in the former instance is to raise our mirth:—when used in its higher
character, its effect is to produce rapture. It soothes when thus employed, as
of old it did when David banished the evil spirit from the soul of Saul by

the vibrations of his sweet-toned harp; it improves—as all good influences
and pure associations ever must, when permitted their due action upon the
mind; and it elevates the spirit toward the eternal source whence all its
harmony flows. As it peals upon the ear, and sinks inly upon the heart of
him whose mind is bent upon the thoughts of holy things—upon his
creation, his present blessings and future hopes, he seems to hear

That undisturbed song of pure
content,
Aye sung around the sapphire-
colored throne,
To him that sits thereon—
Where the bright seraphim, in
burning row,
Their loud, uplifted angel
trumpets blow;
And the cherubic hosts, in
thousand choirs,
Touch their celestial harps of
golden wires.

HANDEL AND HAYDN. THE MESSIAH AND THE CREATION, A
PARABLE.
Handel, with all his comparative simplicity, is my favorite. I cannot but
look up to him with astonishment and veneration; his "Messiah," I behold
as the purest specimen of sublimity ever displayed in the arts: and I can
conceive of nothing in poetry with any pretension to be considered its
parallel, but the "Paradise Lost" of Milton. The "Hallelujah Chorus" may be
esteemed the loftiest work of the imagination. The leading conception is
entirely inimitable. The full chorus of other masters is often bold and
elevated; but it is only Handel who has the sublime of devotion. Haydn is
triumphant and inspiring; but the effect of his chorus is only that of martial
music. In listening to Haydn, you seem to hear the shouts of conquerors,
proudly entering a vanquished city: in listening to Handel, the shouts seem

to break from the clouds; from the triumphant host admitted to the presence
of God; and the object of praise gives a character of holiness and purity to
the harmony. With Haydn, we exult, we reason not why. With Handel, we
can never for a moment forget that we are praising God. The rapid
movements and quick transitions of Haydn draw the fullest admiration to
the orchestra, and the subject is forgotten. The lighter passages in Handel
are only the varied note of praise, expanding only in proportion to the
inspiration which the object kindles. In one word,—every thing in Haydn is
seen to be accomplished; and every delineation, if I may thus employ the
word, is felt to be a resemblance. But in Handel, let what will be described
or exhibited,—a battle,—a victory,—the trembling of the earth,—the
tottering of a wall,—the moan of sympathy,—the insults and crucifixion of
a Savior,—the awful stillness of death,—or, on the other hand, the triumph
of the resurrection,—the birth of the Prince of Peace,—or hosannas to the
King of Kings, and Lord of Lords,—every thing seems to be done at the
command of God himself.
But I conceive it is not difficult to reconcile an admiration of both these
great masters, in as much as their music presents such a variety only as
every art admits. Claude Loraine was no rival of Raphael—yet we stand
with one before a landscape, and with the other at the foot of the cross, with
like, if not equal astonishment and admiration. The recitatives of Haydn are,
with scarcely a single exception, less bold, but better finished,—less abrupt,
and better calculated for the scope of the voice, than those of Handel; and
are supported by a harmony more graceful, though not more striking and
natural. Haydn, at all times, threw the fascination of melody over his richest
modulations, and the whole effect of his harmony resulted from conspiring
airs, each of which was melodious by itself. While, on the other hand, the
separate parts in Handel were like single pillars from a temple, or single
stones from a pyramid. If, in Handel, appear the beauty of consistency,—in
Haydn we admire the consistency of beauty. If Handel's choruses and
harmony might be compared, both in their formation and beauty, to
mountains of ice, illuminated by the sun,—Haydn's harmony would seem to
resemble the most splendid crystalizations—under the same illumination, in
which one form of beauty has gradually encircled another, until the shape
and beauty of the minutest part has become imparted to the larger
proportions, and more commanding figure of the whole mass. It is

impossible indeed, to find any thing in music,—placing his choruses out of
view,—which can rival the sublime recitative of Handel,—"For behold
darkness shall cover the earth,—but the Lord shall arise!"—Yet the opening
of Haydn's "Creation," may deserve to be ranked second only to this, and as
surpassing every other attempt of its author, in sublimity, and deep, solemn
grandeur. The fall of the angels, in the first part of the same noble oratorio,
is a wonderful effort, and presents the most remarkable instance in all
Haydn's compositions, of the characteristic excellence which has just been
ascribed to him, namely, his uniform regard to his melody, even where he
designed to produce the boldest effect in his harmony. It is the most graphic
musical description ever attempted; and it must have been produced in one
of those moments of lofty enthusiasm in which a conception of surpassing
grandeur flashes upon the mind, is grasped and embodied in an instant, and
a man pauses in exultation and astonishment at what he has himself
accomplished. This passage, however,—if it had no other excellence,—
could never be forgotten, as it gives the most striking effect to the
inimitable contrast which succeeds,—where the first impression of the
beauty of the world at the moment of the creation is described with such
tenderness and grace, that the most vulgar minds, as well as those whose
taste has been in some degree refined, have felt every note, as it came from
the forms of living things, exulting in their existence—or as if the author
had borrowed the lyre of the morning stars, that sang the glories of the "new
created world."—The celebrated chorus, "The Heavens are telling the glory
of God," is unquestionably the boldest conception of Haydn. Its harmony
has the most astonishing richness and variety, and the leading air is almost
unexceptionably beautiful. Yet it may be called a chorus in theory only; for
it requires the fullest choir of the finest voices and most refined tastes,—and
no community of any country can furnish a hundred and fifty singers,
capable of performing it, even with a tolerable degree of spirit, judgment
and correctness. By this remark I mean merely, that the original conception
of the author, and that with which every one who feels its true beauty and
force is filled, upon studying, or hearing it,—can never be fully realized and
carried out, and filled up, by the finest combination of human powers.
There have not been wanting writers upon the beautiful in music, who have
denounced what they are pleased to call attempts at picturesque, in the
"Creation" of Haydn. Their arguments proceed upon the trifling nature of

the results produced by imitations, as unworthy the dignity of an art so
refined. The feelings awakened by the gradual developement of the work of
creation in this immortal work are certainly far superior in their nature to
those imputed by such writers to the admirers of what they call depictive
music;—and I cannot believe that these objectors can have listened to the
oratorio they criticise, either with the physical or rational ear. Had they, we
should have heard nothing like an imputation of an unsuccessful imitation
of trifling originals. They would have seen no other use of the musical
picturesque than perfectly consists with true descriptiveness of the subject
celebrated. The Creation is a grand panorama; its object was to impress the
hearer with the realities it commemorates. Its author was engaged two
whole years upon it, and gave as a reason for his absorption in the task, that
he meant it to last a great while. He has composed a work which addresses
itself to the mind in such a manner, as to call up to the eye the landscape, as
well as to the ear the sounds, and to the conception the animation and
motion of the scenes described. Surely a beautiful thought, a fine
description, an impassioned sentiment, impressed upon the mind and
memory by a strong association with almost all the senses at once, are more
likely to become inseparably entwined among the very fibres of the heart,
than a cold, abstract description of the same subject, without the
intervention of such associations. I should pity the man who could utter
such a criticism, while listening to the performance, or even reading the
score of this most splendid oratorio. From the commencement,—conveying
the idea of primeval chaos,—through the gradual gathering of the earth and
sea, and the things which each contains, into their several places,—the
budding and blooming of the thousand flowers,—the cooing of the tender
doves,—the trampling of the heavy beasts,—the flowing of the gentle rills,
—the rolling of the mountain waves,—the bursting of light at the Creator's
word,—angels praising God,—the noble work of man's creation,—the
achievement of the whole,—up to the last grand and glorious chorus,—all is
sublimity—all is divine! and the whole soul of the auditor is wrapt in sacred
awe, as he follows the beneficent hand of his Maker in its wonderful work,
and is lost in rapture and adoration, amid the blaze of glory by which he
finds himself surrounded at the close.

SOME THOUGHTS ON OPERATIVE MUSIC.
There are those who institute a comparison between music and poetry, and
much to the prejudice of the former. They argue that the intellect has
nothing to do with music, and that it is ridiculous and absurd in those who
speak no Italian, to pretend to derive any satisfaction from listening, for two
hours, to music in a language they cannot understand—affecting, at the
same time, to comprehend the sense to be conveyed, by the sounds they
drink in with such assumed rapture. I conceive this to be far from just
reasoning. Doubtless there is a great deal of affectation in the fashionable
world upon the subject of music in general, and of the opera in particular;
but we have no right to judge our neighbor's taste by our own—perhaps,
after all, it may turn out that our own is defective or false. I am inclined to
argue that the intellect has as much to do with music as with poetry.
In judging of pieces adapted to music, we should be lenient on the subject
of the thoughts, if the design and story have variety enough to afford a basis
for a corresponding variety of musical ideas. The most common expression
of any passion may be tolerated, when the music, not the poetry, is to form
the embellishment. Who cares for the story—the plot—in listening to the
Italian opera? Nay, more—are not the finest and most beautiful pieces of
that class of music, vulgar and weak as poetical compositions? Is not the
musical composer the genius of the piece? While the poet utters some such
trash as 'I shall support myself by feasting on your beautiful eyes,' the
composer so varies the expression of his music, that, in truth, the thought
becomes refined, just as it would if the poet had undertaken to present it in
a variety of views. To say, therefore, that the repetitions in music are
nonsense, is just to profess a deplorable ignorance of the science. The words
convey a sentiment which the musician undertakes to increase—to soften—
to embellish, through a series of fine ideas, of which those who have neither
musical taste nor ear have not the least conception.
Nor should it be supposed that, in the opera—in the fine pieces of
Metastasio, for instance—the poetry is disgraced by being but the handmaid
of music, and that the former is therefore reduced unduly in the scale of
comparative merit. This is not the case with him who is an equal admirer of
the two arts. Such as these will admit that it is but in a very small degree
that music is designed to please a sense. They will insist that its design is to

excite emotions that poetry, to the same extent, cannot awaken. What
speech in the whole Iliad rouses more exulting courage than the 'Marsellois
Hymn?' The music of 'Pleyel's German Hymn' not only of itself produces an
effect to awaken a feeling of grief, but no words that I have ever read are
capable of producing that feeling in an equal degree. Take for example, the
lamentation of David for the loss of Absalom—and if that passage, and
others like it, are enough to melt or break the heart, there is a kind of music,
of which 'Pleyel's Hymn' is an example, that will affect it more deeply yet.
Words, considered as auxiliary to music, merely show the subject on which
the emotion rests, but have nothing to do with the emotion itself; that is
produced by music alone—and long before any words are known to an air,
the emotion will have been produced. We shall have imagined the subject—
and when we come to know the words, we shall discover one of three
things: first, that the subject is what we imagined—secondly, that it is
something analogous to our perception—or, thirdly, if neither of the two
former, that the words and air are ill-adapted to each other. Indeed, what do
we mean by saying, 'these words are adapted to the air,' if the air have no
character of its own? And what is its character but its peculiar power of
awakening certain emotions? Admitting that it is better that fine poetry and
fine harmony should be united, when possible—and that this union, of
course, produces additional delight to a refined mind,—it still seems to me
very absurd to condemn the pieces which are constructed upon ideas
conveyed in poetry of an inferior class, merely because such is the
character of the poetry. Music is the governor of the heart, and all she asks
of Poetry is a subject,—and then, delightful magician! it is her province to
call up, by her sweet spell, the corresponding emotions!

SIN ESTIMATED BY THE LIGHT OF HEAVEN.
By Edward Payson.

Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy
countenance.
It is a well known fact that the appearance of objects, and the ideas which
we form of them, are very much affected by the situation in which they are
placed with respect to us, and by the light in which they are seen. Objects
seen at a distance, for example, appear much smaller than they really are.
The same object, viewed through different mediums, will often exhibit very
different appearances. A lighted candle, or a star, appears bright during the
absence of the sun; but when that luminary returns, their brightness is
eclipsed. Since the appearance of objects, and the ideas which we form of
them, are thus affected by extraneous circumstances, it follows, that no two
persons will form precisely the same ideas of any object, unless they view it
in the same light, or are placed with respect to it in the same situation.
These remarks have a direct and important bearing upon our subject. No
person can read the scriptures candidly and attentively, without perceiving
that God and men differ, very widely, in the opinion which they entertain
respecting almost every object. And in nothing do they differ more widely,
than in the estimate they form of man's moral character, and of the
malignity and desert of sin. Nothing can be more evident than the fact, that,
in the sight of God, our sins are incomparably more numerous, aggravated
and criminal, than they appear to us. He regards us as deserving of an
endless punishment, while we scarcely perceive that we deserve any
punishment at all. Now whence arises this difference? The remarks which
have just been made will inform us. God and men view objects through a
very different medium, and are placed, with respect to them, in a very
different situation. God is present with every object; he views it as near and
therefore sees its real magnitude. But many objects, especially those of a
religious nature, are seen by us at a distance, and, of course, appear to us
smaller than they really are. God sees every object in a perfectly clear light;

but we see most objects dimly and indistinctly. In fine, God sees all objects
just as they are; but we see them through a deceitful medium, which
ignorance, prejudice and self-love place between them and us.
The Psalmist, addressing God, says, thou hast set our iniquities before thee,
our secret sins in the light of thy countenance, that is, our iniquities or open
transgressions, and our secret sins, the sins of our hearts, are placed, as it
were, full before God's face, immediately under his eye; and he sees them in
the pure, clear, all-disclosing light of his own holiness and glory. Now if we
would see our sins as they appear to him, that is, as they really are; if we
would see their number, blackness and criminality, and the malignity and
desert of every sin, we must place ourselves, as nearly as is possible, in his
situation, and look at sin, as it were, through his eyes. We must place
ourselves and our sins in the centre of that circle, which is irradiated by the
light of his countenance; where all his infinite perfections are clearly
displayed, where his awful majesty is seen, where his concentrated glories
blaze, and burn, and dazzle, with insufferable brightness; and in order to
this, we must, in thought, leave our dark and sinful world, where God is
unseen and almost forgotten, and where, consequently, the evil of sinning
against him cannot be fully perceived—and mount up to heaven, the
peculiar habitation of his holiness and glory.
Let us, then, attempt this adventurous flight. Let us follow the path by
which our blessed Savior ascended to heaven, and soar upward to the great
capital of the universe; to the palace and the throne of its greater King. As
we rise, the earth fades away from our view; now we leave worlds, and
suns, and systems behind us. Now we reach the utmost limits of creation;
now the last star disappears, and no ray of created light is seen. But a new
light begins to dawn and brighten upon us. It is the light of heaven, which
pours a flood of glory from its wide-open gates, spreading continual,
meridian day, far and wide through the regions of ethereal space. Passing
swiftly onward through this flood of day, the songs of heaven begin to burst
upon your ears, and voices of celestial sweetness, yet loud as the sound of
many waters and of mighty thunderings, are heard exclaiming, Hallelujah!
for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth! Blessing, and glory, and honor, and
power, be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever. A
moment more, and you have passed the gates—you are in the midst of the
city—you are before the eternal throne—you are in the immediate presence

of God, and all his glories are blazing around you like a consuming fire.
Flesh and blood cannot support it; your bodies dissolve into their original
dust; but your immortal souls remain, and stand naked spirits before the
great Father of spirits. Nor, in losing their tenements of clay, have they lost
their powers of perception. No; they are now all eye, all ear; nor can you
close the eyelids of the soul, to shut out, for a moment, the dazzling,
overpowering splendors which surround you, and which appear like light
condensed; like glory which may be felt. You see indeed no form or shape;
and yet your whole souls perceive with intuitive clearness and certainty, the
immediate, awe-inspiring presence of Jehovah. You see no countenance;
and yet you feel as if a countenance of awful majesty, in which all the
perfections of divinity are shown forth, were beaming upon you wherever
you turn. You see no eye; and yet a piercing, heart-searching eye, an eye of
omniscient purity, every glance of which goes through your souls like a
flash of lightning, seems to look upon you from every point of surrounding
space. You feel as if enveloped in an atmosphere, or plunged in an ocean of
existence, intelligence, perfection and glory; an ocean of which your
laboring minds can take in only a drop; an ocean, the depth of which you
cannot fathom, and the breadth of which you can never fully explore. But
while you feel utterly unable to comprehend this infinite Being, your views
of him, so far as they extend, are perfectly clear and distinct. You have the
most vivid perceptions, the most deeply graven impressions, of an infinite,
eternal, spotless mind; in which the image of all things, past, present and to
come, are most harmoniously seen, arranged in the most perfect order, and
defined with the nicest accuracy; of a mind, which wills with infinite ease,
but whose volitions are attended by a power omnipotent and irresistible,
and which sows worlds, suns and systems through the fields of space with
far more facility, than the husbandman scatters his seed upon the earth; of a
mind, whence have flowed all the streams, which ever watered any part of
the universe with life, intelligence, holiness, or happiness, and which is still
fully overflowing and inexhaustible. You perceive also, with equal clearness
and certainty, that this infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, all-wise,
all-creating mind is perfectly and essentially holy, a pure flame of holiness;
and that, as such, he regards sin with unutterable, irreconcilable detestation
and abhorrence. With a voice, which reverberates through the wide expanse
of his dominions, you hear him saying, as the Sovereign and Legislator of
the universe, Be ye holy; for I, the Lord your God, am holy. And you see his

throne surrounded, you see heaven filled by those only, who perfectly obey
this command. You see thousands of thousands, and ten thousand times ten
thousand of angels and archangels, pure, exalted, glorious intelligences,
who reflect his perfect image, burn like flames of fire with zeal for his
glory, and seem to be so many concentrations of wisdom, knowledge,
holiness and love; a fit retinue for the thrice holy Lord of hosts, whose
holiness and all-filling glory they unceasingly proclaim.
And now, if you are willing to see your sins in their true colors; if you
would rightly estimate their number, magnitude and criminality, bring them
into this hallowed place, where nothing is seen but the whiteness of
unsullied purity, and the splendors of uncreated glory; where the sun itself
would appear a dark spot, and there, in the midst of this circle of seraphic
intelligences, with the infinite God pouring all the light of his countenance
around you, review your lives, contemplate your offences, and see how they
appear.

THE WAY OF THE SOUL.
By L. S. P.

There is a homely proverb which tells us that "the longest way round is the
shortest way home." Whether the mathematical demonstration of so
paradoxical an assertion would be easy or difficult I shall not undertake to
decide. My concern is with its application to the spiritual; and with such a
reference, are there not many in these hurrying days who would be
benefited by a serious attention to it?
Do you doubt its truth? Reflect, and you will be convinced. Have you never
groped darkly after a principle, of which you had some dim revelation, and
which you strove with mightiest working to make your own? Still as you
seemed about to seize it, it eluded your grasp; you were sure that it was
there; but to lay hold of it was beyond your strength. You gave up the effort,
turned your thoughts to a new channel, and busied yourself with other
investigations—when lo! a revelation; and the truth you sought, burst upon
you as a ray from the eternal splendor.
Or, perchance, you have been all the day perplexed and wearied with
doubts, relating, it may be, to some point of practical moment to you, and
seeming to demand a solution, which yet you are unable to give. You would
fain come to an end, but you cannot even see an opening; only here and
there an uncertain glimmer, which vanishes when you approach it more
nearly. Your soul is faint and harassed; you go forth at sunset to commune
with nature, and in her communion to forget your perplexities. You gaze on
the calm glories of the departing sun, and the calm enters into your soul; the
cooling breath of heaven comes to you, and you listen to the many voices,
"the melodies of woods and winds and waters," that go up in one harmony
to heaven. You behold, and listen, and love;—and with love comes light.
Yes, a light, so pure, so soft, so mild, that it seems not of earth rests upon
your soul, and your darkness, and doubts, and perplexity are gone.

Oh, never let it be forgotten that the road to truth is a winding road; it lies
through the heart as well as through the intellect; for, says the wise man,
"Into a malicious soul, wisdom shall not enter." Thou must learn to love,
before thou canst learn to know; and never shalt thou behold the serene and
beautiful countenance of Truth, until thy aim be honest, and thy soul in
harmony with nature.
And are not Nature's paths circuitous? It is man who has constructed the
broad high road, and made for himself a straight way through forests and
streams, levelling the mountains, and filling up the valleys—but it is not
thus in nature. Her paths are wild, and devious, and rambling; following
"the river's course, the valley's playful windings," and ever and anon turning
aside to some sunny nook, or steep ravine. The rain which falls upon the
earth travels not by a plain high road to the springs and fountains whither it
is bound; but gently, slowly wins its way, drop by drop, till a little stream is
formed, and the stream winds its noiseless and hidden track to the fountain.
In her processes too, Nature is patient and long-waiting. She doth not say to
the seed just planted in the earth, spring up and bear fruit forthwith, or you
shall be cast out, but she waiteth for the unfolding of the tender germ, and
the striking of the new-shooting roots; and hath long patience, and with
slowliest care, and a mother's enduring love, she bringeth forth to light the
first green leaf. Then she calleth for the sun to shine, and the dews to
descend upon the young plant, and many days doth she wait for the ripe
fruit.
But man, impatient man would be wise in a day. He waits not for the holy
and mysterious processes of nature, he leaves not the wonderful powers
within him to unfold in silence and secrecy, but must ever disturb them with
his foolish meddling and impertinent haste, like some silly child, who digs
up the seed he has planted an hour ago, to see if it have yet sprouted. And
are there not some who deal in like fashion with other minds than their
own? Educators let them not be called, for never do they bring out what is
within. The young mind is not to them a germ to be unfolded, an infant to
be nursed into manhood, but rather a receptacle to be filled, and stuffed, and
crammed as expeditiously as possible; and this, thanks to the numerous
machines lately invented for the purpose, is very quick indeed.

There have been times when you seemed to make no progress in your
favorite pursuit. You struggled without advancing as we sometimes do in
dreams, or though you stepped up and down, it was as in a treadmill. So it
seemed to you. But was it so? Nay, the process was going on within, though
its visible manifestations may have ceased. If no addition was made to the
superstructure, yet the foundations were deepening and widening; if the
branches and leaves did not grow, yet the root strengthened itself in the
earth.
But not only so—you seemed to be going backward. Even the ground
slipped from under your feet, and where you had heretofore a firm standing-
place, you found but a swamp. And have you never considered that Nature
too sometimes works backwards? See that withered leaf which flutters in
the breeze, maintaining yet an uncertain hold upon the branch which
nurtured its younger growth. A fresh gust of wind loosens its hold, and it is
blown in circling eddies to the earth. There it rests till the elements of decay
in its bosom have finished their work, and it mixes with the dust. "What is
this? Can a mother forget her child? Does Nature destroy her own
productions?" Ah, look again. In that fresh-blooming flower, dyed with tints
of infinite softness, behold the withered leaf. Nature was as really working
to the production of that flower when she decomposed the elements of the
leaf, as when she unfolded the germ, and elaborated the juices, and blended
the tints of the flower itself. It was but a glorified resurrection. And your
spiritual growth is going on as truly and steadily, if not as visibly and
delightfully, when you cast aside the slough of some old prejudice, or
painfully tear yourself from a cherished delusion as when the dawning of a
new truth flashes light and joy upon your soul.
For what Coleridge has said of nations, is equally true of individuals. "The
progress of the species neither is nor can be, like that of a Roman road, in a
right line. It may be more justly compared to that of a river, which, both in
its smaller reaches and larger turnings, is frequently forced back towards its
fountains, by objects which cannot otherwise be eluded or overcome; yet
with an accompanying impulse that will ensure its advancement hereafter, it
is either gaining strength every hour or conquering in secret some difficulty,
by a labor that contributes as effectually to further its course, as when it
moves forward in an uninterrupted line."

I might go on to illustrate the application of this truth to self-knowledge, but
it is one easily made, by each for himself. Its bearing upon our moral
growth must not be so lightly passed over.
You have learned that you have a spirit which may be, must be trained for
immortality and heaven. You have found too that there are difficulties in the
way of this training. There is a constant under-current of selfishness ready
to insinuate itself into all you do; there is contempt for your inferiors in
birth or cultivation, ever offering to start up, and there is a spirit of
resentment against those who have injured you ready to take fire on the
least provocation. What is to be done with these? You do not forget that to
Him, whose "still, small voice" can speak with authority to the spirits He
has made, must be your first appeal; but neither do you forget that his help
is vouchsafed to those only who help themselves. And how will you help
yourself? Will you in the plenitude of your might, and the resoluteness of
kindled energy, will the extinction of those unruly passions? Try it; exert the
volition; will to stop the flowing tide of revenge in your breast, and to cause
love and forgiveness to spring up in its place. Well, have you done it? But
what means that glowing cheek—that flashing eye—that compressed brow?
Is such the expression of love? Nay brother, you have mistaken the way.
Not the straight path of direct volition will ever lead you to your object.
But come forth with me into the field. Here are "sweet, strange flowers," to
glad thy heart with their innocent beauty, and delight thee with their
fragrance; here is the broad and blessed "sky bending over" thee, and the
quiet lake at thy feet.

"The air is spread with
beauty; and the sky
Is musical with sounds that
rise and die,
Till scarce the ear can catch
them; then they swell,
Then send from far a low,
sweet, sad farewell."

And who art thou that bringest discord and rough, angry passions into a
scene like this? Ah, thou bringest not discord, it has stolen from thy heart;

thou art at peace. For it is not a poetic fiction when we are told that a
wayward spirit, is subdued by nature's loveliness and lovingness.

"Till he can no more endure
To be a jarring and a
dissonant thing,
Amidst this general dance and
minstrelsy;
But, bursting into tears, wins
back his way,
His angry spirit healed and
harmonized,
By the benignant touch of
love and beauty."

We asked, perchance, that our hearts might be lifted above the earth, and
taught to repose with a surer love, and a more child-like trustfulness on the
Father of Spirits. And did we know that our prayer was answered when the
light of our eyes was torn from us; when our souls were rent with bitter
agony, and lay crushed and bowed beneath the stroke of His hand? Yes, it
was answered; we know it now, though we knew it not then. The weary bird
never reposes so sweetly in its nest, as when it hath been battered by the
tempest and chased by the vulture; never doth the little child rest so
lovingly and rejoicingly on its mother's breast, as when it hath there found a
shelter from the injuries and taunts of its rude play-fellows; and the
christian never knows the full sweetness of the words, "My Father in
Heaven," till he can also add, "there is none that I desire beside Thee."

FRAGMENTS OF AN ADDRESS ON MUSIC.
By Edward Payson.

Without resorting to the hyperbolical expressions of poetry, or to the dreams
and fables of pagan mythology, to the wonders said to be performed by the
lyre of Amphion and the harp of Orpheus,—I might place before you the
prophet of Jehovah, composing his ruffled spirits by the soothing influence
of music, that he might be suitably prepared to receive a message from the
Lord of Hosts. I might present to your view the evil spirit, by which jealous
and melancholy Saul was afflicted, flying, baffled and defeated, from the
animating and harmonious tones of David's harp. I might show you the
same David, the defender and avenger of his flock, the champion and
bulwark of his country, the conqueror of Goliah, the greatest warrior and
monarch of his age, laying down the sword and the sceptre to take up his
harp, and exchanging the titles of victor and king for the more honorable
title of the sweet Psalmist of Israel.—But I appear not before you as her
advocate; for in that character my exertions would be superfluous. She is
present to speak for herself, and assert her own claims to our notice and
approbation. You have heard her voice in the performances of this evening;
and those of you, whom the God of nature has favored with a capacity of
feeling and understanding her eloquent language, will, I trust, acknowledge
that she has pleaded her own cause with triumphant success; has given
sensible demonstration, that she can speak, not only to the ear, but to the
heart; and that she possesses irresistible power to soothe, delight, and
fascinate the soul. Nor was it to the senses alone that she spake; but while,
in harmonious sounds, she maintained her claims, and asserted her powers;
in a still and small but convincing voice, she addressed herself directly to
reason and conscience, proclaiming the most solemn and important truths;
truths which perhaps some of you did not hear or regard, but which deserve
and demand our most serious attention.—With the same irresistible
evidence as if an angel had spoken from heaven, she said, There is a God—
and that God is good and benevolent. For, my friends, who but God could
have tuned the human voice, and given harmony to sounds? Who, but a

good and benevolent God, would have given us senses capable of
perceiving and enjoying this harmony? Who, but such a being, would have
opened a way through the ear, for its passage to the soul? Could blind
chance have produced these wonders of wisdom? or a malignant being
these miracles of goodness? Could they have caused this admirable fitness
between harmony of sounds, and the organs of sense by which it is
perceived? No. They would have either given us no senses, or left them
imperfect, or rendered every sound discordant and harsh. With the utmost
propriety, therefore may Jehovah ask, Who hath made man's mouth, and
planted the ear? Have not I, the Lord? With the utmost justice, also, may he
demand of us, that all our musical powers and faculties should be
consecrated to his service, and employed in celebrating his praises. To urge
you diligently and cheerfully to perform this pleasing, reasonable, and
indispensable duty, is the principal object of the speaker. Not, then, as the
advocate of music, but as the ambassador of that God, whose being and
benevolence, music proclaims, do I now address this assembly, entreating
every individual, without delay, to adopt and practise the resolution of the
royal Psalmist—I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise
to my God while I have my being. Psa. civ. 33.
In your imagination go back to the origin of the world, when, every thing
was very good, and all creation harmonized together. All its parts, animate
and inanimate, like the voices and instruments of a well regulated concert,
helped to compose a perfect and beautiful whole; and so exquisite was the
harmony thus produced, that in the whole compass of creation, not one
jarring or discordant note was heard, even by the perfect ear of God
himself.—The blessed angels of light began the universal chorus, "when the
morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy."

Of this universal concert, man was appointed the terrestrial leader, and was
furnished with natural and moral powers, admirably fitted for this blessed
and glorious employment. His body, exempt from dissolution, disease, and
decay, was like a perfect and well-strung instrument, which never gave
forth a false or uncertain sound, but always answered, with exact precision,
the wishes of his nobler part, the soul. His heart did not then belie his

tongue, when he sung the praises of his Creator; but all the emotions felt by
the one were expressed by the other, from the high notes of ecstatic
admiration, thankfulness, and joy, down to the deep tones of the most
profound veneration and humility. In a word, his heart was the throne of
celestial love and harmony, and his tongue at once the organ of their will,
and the sceptre of their power.
We are told, in ancient story, of a statue, formed with such wonderful art,
that, whenever it was visited by the rays of the rising sun, it gave forth, in
honor of that luminary, the most melodious and ravishing sounds. In like
manner, man was originally so constituted, by skill divine, that, whenever
he contemplated the rays of wisdom, power, and goodness, emanating from
the great Sun of the moral system, the ardent emotions of his soul
spontaneously burst forth in the most pure and exalted strains of adoration
and praise. Such was the world, such was man, at the creation. Even in the
eye of the Creator, all was good; for, wherever he turned, he saw only his
own image, and heard nothing but his own praises. Love beamed from
every countenance; harmony reigned in every breast, and flowed
mellifluous from every tongue; and the grand chorus of praise, begun by
raptured seraphs round the throne, and heard from heaven to earth, was
reechoed back from earth to heaven; and this blissful sound, loud as the
archangel's trump, and sweet as the melody of his golden harp, rapidly
spread, and was received from world to world, and floated, in gently-
undulating waves, even to the farthest bounds of creation.
To this primeval harmony, a lamentable contrast followed, when sin
untuned the tongues of angels, and changed their blissful songs of praise
into the groans of wretchedness, the execrations of malignity, the
blasphemies of impiety, and the ravings of despair. Storms and tempests,
earthquakes and convulsions, fire from above, and deluges from beneath,
which destroyed the order of the natural world, proved that its baleful
influence had reached our earth, and afforded a faint emblem of the jars and
disorders which sin had introduced into the moral system. Man's corporeal
part, that lyre of a thousand strings, tuned by the finger of God himself,
destined to last as long as the soul, and to be her instrument in offering up
eternal praise, was, at one blow, shattered, unstrung, and almost irreparably
ruined. His soul, all whose powers and faculties, like the chords of an
Æolian harp, once harmoniously vibrated to every breath of the divine

Spirit, and ever returned a sympathizing sound to the tones of kindness and
love from a fellow-being, now became silent, and insensible to melody, or
produced only the jarring and discordant notes of envy, malice, hatred, and
revenge. The mouth, filled with cursing and bitterness, was set against the
heavens; the tongue was inflamed with the fire of hell. Every voice, instead
of uniting in the song of "Glory to God in the highest," was now at variance
with the voices around it, and, in barbarous and dissonant strains, sung
praise to itself, or was employed in muttering sullen murmurs against the
Most High—in venting slanders against fellow-creatures—in celebrating
and deifying some worthless idol, or in singing the triumphs of
intemperance, dissipation, and excess. The noise of violence and cruelty
was heard mingled with the boasting of the oppressor, and the cry of the
oppressed, and the complaints of the wretched; while the shouts of
embattled hosts, the crash of arms, the brazen clangor of trumpets, the
shrieks of the wounded, the groans of the dying, and all the horrid din of
war, together with the wailings of those whom it had rendered widows and
orphans, overwhelmed and drowned every sound of benevolence, praise
and love. Such is the jargon which sin has introduced—such the discord
which, from every quarter of our globe, has long ascended up into the ears
of the Lord of hosts.

THE BLUSH.
By Mrs. Elizabeth Smith.

The soft warm air scarcely stirred the leaves of the vine, that clustered
about the bower of Eve, as she lay with pale cheek and languid limbs, her
first born daughter resting upon her breast. Adam had led his sons to the
field, that their sports might not disturb the repose of our first mother, and
the low murmur of the tiny cascade, the monotonous hum of insects, and
happy twitter of unfledged birds, all wooed her to slumber; yet she slept
not. She looked with a mother's deep unutterable love upon the face of her
babe, yet tears were in her eye, and anxiety upon her brow. Herself the last,
the perfection of the Creator's workmanship, she still marvelled at the
surprising beauty of her daughter. She looked into its dark liquid eye, and
drank deep from the fountain of maternal love. She pressed its small foot
and hand to her lips, hugged it to her full heart, and felt again the bitterness
of transgression. She thought of Paradise, whence she had expelled her
children. She thought of generations to come, who might curse her for their
misery. She thought of the sweet beauty of her child on whom she had
entailed sorrow, suffering and temptation. She felt it murmuring at the
fountain of life while it stretched its little hand to her lips. She turned aside
the thick leaves of the grape vine, and looked out upon the still blue sky,
over which, scarcely moved the white thin clouds. "My daughter," she
faintly articulated, "thou knowest not the evil I have done thee. Let these
bitter tears attest my penitence. Let me teach thee so to live, that thou mayst
hereafter obtain in another world the Paradise thou hast lost in this—lost by
thy mother's guilt. O, my daughter, would that I alone might suffer, that the
whole wrath of my offended Creator might fall on my head and thou, and
such as thou, might escape." The tears, the penitence of Eve prevailed; a
Heavenly messenger was despatched to console her, to lift her thoughts to
better hopes and less gloomy anticipations.—Since the sin of our first
parents, and their banishment from Paradise, these angel visits had been
"few and far between," and our first mother hailed his approach with awe
and pleasure. "Eve," kindly spake the divine visitant, "thy sorrow and thy

penitence are all known to thy Creator, and though thy fault was great, he
yet careth for thee. I am sent to comfort thee. As thou didst disobey the
commands of God, death has been brought, indeed, upon thy posterity, but
thy children may not curse thee. Thy daughters shall imitate thy penitence,
and so secure the favor of Heaven. To each one shall be given a spirit,
capable of resisting temptation, and assimilating to that holiness from which
thou hast departed. Though sin and death have entered the world by thy
means, thy children will still have only their own sins to answer for, and
may not justly reproach thee for their errors." "True, Lord," responded Eve,
"but the altered sky, the hard earth that scarcely yields its treasures to the
labor of Adam, and the changed natures of the animals that once meekly
and kindly sported together, all tell of my disobedience, and my daughter
will turn her eyes upon me when suffering and trial come, and that look will
reproach me as the cause. I am told that our children shall equal in number
the leaves of the green wood, and the earth shall hereafter be peopled with
beings like ourselves. I shrink to think on the mass of sorrow I have brought
upon my daughters."
She looked fondly on her babe, and timidly raised it towards the beneficent
being who paused at her bower. "When men shall become numerous, and
there shall be many beings like these, fair and frail, may not their beauty—"
She paused and looked anxiously up. "Speak, Eve," said the messenger,
"thy request shall be granted. I am sent to bestow upon thee whatever thou
shalt ask, for this thy first born daughter." "I scarcely know," resumed Eve,
thus encouraged, "but I would ask for this first daughter of an erring
mother, something, to warn her of even the approach of sin, something, that
will whisper caution, and speak of innocence and purity. Something, Lord,
that will remind us of Paradise." "Hast thou not all that, Eve, in the voice
within, the voice of conscience?" Eve dropped her head upon her bosom.
"But that monitor may be disregarded, my daughters may, like their
unhappy parent, stifle its voice and heedlessly neglect its warnings. I would
have something, that when flattery would mislead, beauty bewilder, or
passion lead astray, would outwardly as it were bid them take heed, warn
them to shrink from the very trail of the serpent whose insidious poison
may corrupt and destroy. Hast thou nothing that will be to the innocent, the
virtuous, like a second conscience, to cause them to shrink even from the
appearance of evil?" The angel smiled, and answered our mother with

kindness, and a look of heavenly satisfaction. "Most wisely hast thou
petitioned, O Eve. Thou hast asked blessings for thy posterity, not for
thyself. Thy daughters shall bless thee for the gift thy prayer has obtained."
The spirit departed. The gift he bestowed may be seen on the face of the
maiden when she shrinks from the too admiring gaze, when her ear is
listening to the tale of love, or flattery, when in the solitude of her own
thoughts she starts at her own imaginings, when she shrinks even from her
own reflected loveliness in the secrecy of home; or abroad, trembles at the
intrusive touch, or familiar language, of him who should be her guide, her
protector from evil. That gift was the blush.

THE WIDOWED BRIDE.
By Mrs. Ann S. Stephens.

The Morn awoke in
Hindostan,
And blushing, left the
couch of Night,
While soon her rosy smiles
began,
To flood the dewy earth
with light.
While yet the sultry day was
young,
Came forth a happy bridal
band,
With sunny smiles and
English tongue,
Which spoke them of a
distant land;
They gathered round an altar-
stone,
Erected to the one Most
High,
Standing in solitude alone,
Mid signs of dark idolatry.
Then two came slowly from
the crowd;
He with a bearing bold and
proud,
A haughty smile and flashing
eye,
Darkling with love's intensity;

While she, the high-born
English bride,
Drew closer to that one dear
side;
Her eyelids drooped, her
cheek grew pale
As snow, beneath the bridal
veil,
As if the weight of her own
bliss
Were all too much of
happiness,
To thrill her heart and light
her eye
Beneath another's scrutiny.
On crimson cushions dropped
with gold
The youthful pair together
bow;
Before that priest in surplice-
fold
They clasp their trembling
fingers now;
A prayer is heard—the oath is
said—
That gentle creature lifts her
head—
A voice has thrilled into her
heart,
Like music breathed to it
apart,—
To lie there an abiding spell,
To haunt forever memory's
cell—
To mingle with her latest
breath

And light the very wing of
death.
Her vow was uttered timidly
—
With half a murmur, half a
sigh;
Yet the low faltering sound
confessed
The love that brooded in her
breast.

The golden ring is on her
hand—
She is pronounced a
wedded bride;
Oh say, why does she
lingering stand
So long that altar-stone
beside?
And whence the misty tears
that dim
The sunny azure of her
eye?
Why leans her slender form
on him?
Why does she sob so
bitterly?
Well may she weep, that fair
young bride;
For up the Ganges' golden
tide,
Mid jungles deep, where
beasts of prey
With pestilence hold deadly
sway,
Where the wild waters
fiercest sweep,

And serpents in their venom
sleep,
Beneath each dewy leaf and
flower,
That gentle bride must build
her bower.

In the cool shadow of the
shore,
With snowy streamers
floating wide,
To the light dipping of the oar,
The budgerow swept o'er
the tide;
The soft breeze ling'ring at
her prow,
Where many a garland
graceful hung,
In hues of purple, gold and
snow,
And on the rippling waters
flung
An odor sweet and delicate,
As that which all
imprisoned lies,
Unknown to man as his own
fate,
Within the flowers of
Paradise.

Beneath an awning's silken
shade,
Where the light breeze its
music made,
With woven fringe and silken
cord,

Sat the young bride with her
brave lord.
Her hand in his was ling'ring
still,
And every throb of his full
heart
Met her young pulses with a
thrill,
And sent the blood up with
a start,
To that round cheek but late
so pale
And blanched beneath the
bridal veil.
A tear still trembled in her
eye,
Like dews that in the violet
lie;
But breaking through its
lovely sheen,
The brightness of her soul
was seen,
Like light within the
amethyst,
Which told how truly she was
blest;
Though as she met his ardent
gaze,
Like the veined petal of a
flower
Her eyelids drooped, as from
the blaze
Of some loved, high, but
dreaded power.
As bound by some subduing
spell,

In beauty at his side she
bowed.
The bridal robe around her
fell,
Like fragments of a
summer cloud;
The loosened veil had
backward swept,
And deeply in her glossy
hair,
Like light, the orange
blossoms slept,
As if they sought new
beauty there;
And pearls lay softly on her
neck,
Like hailstones melting
over snow,
Save when the blood, that
dyed her cheek.
Diffused abroad its rosy
glow,
And playing on her bosom-
swell,
With every heart-pulse rose or
fell.

Up went the sun; his burning
rays
Broke o'er the stream like
sparkling fire,
Till the broad Ganges seemed
a-blaze,
With gorgeous light, save
where the spire
Of some lone slender minaret,

Threw its clear shadow on
the stream,
Or grove-like banian firmly
set,
Broke with its boughs the
fiery gleam;
Or where a white pagoda
shone
Like snow-drift through the
shadowy trees;
Or ancient mosque stood out
alone,
Where the wild creeper
sought the breeze;
Or where some dark and
gloomy rock
Shot o'er the deep its
ragged cliffs,
Inhabited by many a flock
Of vultures, and its
yawning rifts
Alive with lizards, glowing,
bright,
As if a prism's changing light
Within the gloomy depths
were flung,
Where like rich jewels newly
strung,
The sleeping serpent stretched
its length,
And nursed its venom into
strength.

Where the broad stream in
shadow lay,
The bridal barque kept on her
way,

While every breeze that swept
them o'er,
Brought loads of incense from
the shore;
Where each luxuriant jungle
lay
A wilderness of tangled
flowers,
And budding vines in wanton
play
Fell from the trees in leafy
showers,
Flinging their graceful
garlands o'er
The rippling stream and reedy
shore;
The lily bared its snowy
breast,
Swayed its full anthers like a
crest,
And softly from its pearly
swell,
A shower of golden powder
fell
Among the humbler flowers
that lay
And blushed their fragrant
lives away;
There oleanders lightly
wreathed
Their blossoms in a
coronal,
And the rich baubool softly
breathed
A perfume from its golden
bell;

There flower and shrub and
spicy tree
Seemed struggling for sweet
mastery;
And many a bird with
gorgeous plume,
Fluttered along the flowery
gloom,
Or on the spicy branches lay,
Uttering a sleepy roundelay;
While insects rushing out like
gems,
Or showery sparks at
random flung,
Through ripening fruit and
slender stems
There to the breathing
blossoms clung,
Studded the glowing boughs
and threw
O'er the broad bank a brilliant
hue.

On—on they went; a
fanning breeze
Came sighing through the
balmy trees,
And undulating o'er the
stream
Rose tiny wavelets, like the
gleam
Of molten gold, and crested
all
With a bright trembling
coronal,
Like that which Brahmins in
their dream

Lavish upon the sacred
stream.
Then all grew still. The sultry
air
Lay stagnant in the jungles
there—
The sun poured down his
fervent heat;
The river lay a burnished
sheet;
The floweret closed its
withered bell;
From the parched leaf the
insect fell;
The panting birds all tuneless
clung
To the still boughs, where late
they sung;
The dying blossoms felt the
calm,
And the still air was thick
with balm.
All things grew faint in that
hot noon,
As Nature's self lay in a
swoon.

And she, that gentle, loving
fair,
How brooks her form the
sultry air?
Most patiently—but see her
now!
What fear convulses her pale
brow?
And why that half-averted
eye,

Watching his look so
anxiously?
The scarlet burning in his
cheek—
Those lips all parched and
motionless?
Oh! do they fell disease
bespeak?
Or only simple weariness?
One look! the dreadful
certainty
Wrings from her heart a
stifled cry;
And now half phrensied with
despair,
She rends the blossoms from
her hair,
And leaping to the vessel's
side
She drenched them in the
sluggish tide;
Then to the cushions where he
lay,
Senseless and fevered with
disease,
Panting his very life away,
She rushed, and sinking to
her knees,
Raised softly up his throbbing
head,
And pillowed it upon her
breast—
Then on his burning forehead
laid
The dripping flowers, and
wildly pressed

Her pallid mouth upon his
brow,
And drew him closer to her
heart,
As if she thought each
trembling throe
Could unto his, new life
impart.
Wildly to his she laid her
cheek,
And backward threw her
loosened hair,
That not a glossy curl might
break
From off his face the
sluggish air.
The noon swept by, and there
was she
Counting his pulses as they
rose,
Striving with broken melody
To hush him to a short
repose,
Bathing his brow and twining
still
Her fingers in his burning
hand,
Her heart's blood stopping
with a chill
Whene'er he could not
understand,
Nor answer to her gentle
clasp;
But dashed that little hand
away,
Or crushed it with delirious
grasp,

Entreating tenderly her
stay.
Father of heaven! and must he
die?
She breathed in her heart's
agony,
As up with every painful
breath,
Came to his lips the foam of
death,
And o'er his swollen forehead
played,
Like serpents by the sun
betrayed,
The corded veins whose
purple swell,
With his hot pulses rose and
fell.

Those drops upon his
temple there,
The rolling eye, the gloomy
hair,
The livid lip, the drooping
chin,
And the death-rattle deep
within,
That speechless one, so late
thy pride—
There lies thy answer,
widowed bride!

Half conscious of her misery,
Like something chiselled
o'er a grave,
She placed her small hand
anxiously

Upon the lifeless heart, and
gave
One cry—but one—of such
despair,
The jackall startled from his
lair,
And answered back that
fearful knell,
With a long, sharp and hungry
yell.

A slow and solemn hour
swept by,
And there, all still and
motionless,
With rigid limb and stony eye,
The widow knelt in her
distress.
With pitying looks the
swarthy crew
Around the tearless mourner
drew,
And trembling strove to force
away
From her chill arms the
senseless clay.
Slowly she raised her awful
head;
A slight convulsion stirr'd
her face;
Close to her heart she
snatched the dead,
And held him in a strong
embrace;
Then drawing o'er his brow
her veil,

She turned her face as
strangely wild,
As if a fiend had mocked her
wail,
Parted her marble lips and
smiled.
Twice she essayed to speak,
and then
Her face drooped o'er the
corpse again,
While forth from the
disshevelled hair
A husky whisper stirred the
air.
'Nay, bury him not here,' it
said,
'I would have prayers above
my dead;'
Then, one by one, the timid
crew,
From the infected barge
withdrew:
Helmsmen and servants, all
were gone;
The wife was with her dead
alone.

With no propelling arm to
guide,
The barque turned slowly
with the tide,
And on the heavy current
swept
Its slow, funereal pathway
back,
Where the expiring sunbeams
slept,

Like gold along its morning
track.
The day threw out its dying
gleam,
Imbuing with its tints the
stream,
As if the mighty river rolled
O'er beds of ruby—sands of
gold.

As if some seraph just had
hung
In the blue west his
coronet,
The timid moon came out and
flung
Her pearly smiles about—
then set,
As if she feared the stars
would dim
The silvery brightness of her
rim;
Then in the blue and
deepening skies
The stars sprang out, like
glowing eyes,
And on the stream reflected
lay,
Like ingots down the watery
way;
And softly streamed the starry
light
Down to the wet and
gloomy trees,
Where fiery flies were
flashing bright,

Afloat upon the evening
breeze,
Or like some fairy, tiny lamp,
Glow'd out among the
stirring leaves,
And down among the rushes
damp,
Where Pestilence her vapor
weaves,
Till shrub and reed, and
slender stems,
Seemed drooping with a
shower of gems.

The Widow raised her head
once more,
Turned her still look upon
the sky,
The lighted stream and
broken shore;
Oh, God! it was a mockery,
—The bridegroom—Death—
upon her breast
For aye possessing and
possessed!
With the deep calmness of
despair,
The mourner raised his
marble head,
And on the silken cushions
there,
With icy hands, composed
the dead;
Then tore her veil off for a
shroud,
And in her voiceless
mourning bowed.

That holy sorrow might have
awed
The very wind—but
mockingly
It flung his matted hair
abroad,
As trifling with her agony,
And with a low and moaning
wail
Bore on its wings the bridal
veil;
Then came a cold and starry
ray,
And on his marble forehead
lay.
Father of heaven! she could
not brook
That floating hair, that rigid
look.
With one quick gasp she
forward sprung,
And to the helm in frenzy
clung,
Until the barque shot on its
way
Where a dense shadow
darkest lay;
And there, as shrouded with a
pall,
The barge swept to the very
shore;
The fell hyena's fiendish call
Rang wildly to her ear once
more,
And from the deep dark
solitude

She saw the hungry jackall
creep,
And whimper for his nightly
food,
Where many a monster lay
asleep
Just in the margin of the
flood,
As resting from a feast of
blood.
Around the corpse the widow
flung
Her snowy arms, and madly
clung
To that cold bosom, whence a
chill
Shot through her heart, and
frantic still
Her eyes in horror turned to
seek
That prowling beast, whose
hungry jaws
Worked fiercely and began to
reek
With eager foam, as with
his paws
He tore the turf impatiently,
And howling snuffed the
passing clay.
It was not that she feared to
die;
In the deep stillness of her
heart,
Her spirit prayed most
fervently
There with the dead to hold
its part.

The only boon she cared to
crave,
Was for them both a christian
grave;
But oh! the agonizing
thought!
That in her madness she had
brought
That loved and lost one, for a
feast,
To vulture and to prowling
beast,
Where all things fierce and
wild had come
To howl a horrid requiem.

But soon a stronger current
bore
The freight of death from off
the shore;
Again the trembling starlight
broke
Above the still and
changing clay,
And with its pearly kisses
woke
The widow from her trance,
who lay
Convulsed and shivering with
dread,
Her white arms clinging to the
dead;
For yet the stilly night wind
bore
The wild beasts' disappointed
roar.

Within the far o'erhanging
wood,
A bulbul listening to her
heart,
Poured forth upon the air a
flood
Of gushing love;—with lips
apart
The widow clasped her
trembling hands,
And bent her ear to catch
the strain,
As if a seraph's low
commands
Were breathed into her
soul;—again,
That heavenly sound came
gushing out,
Like waters in their leaping
shout;
Over her heart's deep frozen
spring
The gentle strain went
lingering,
And touched each icy tear that
slept
With sudden life, until she
wept.

Again the lovely morn awoke
Upon that temple still and
lone;
Its rosy bloom in gladness
broke,

And to the holy altar-stone
Came down subduedly and
dim,
Through painted glass, o'er
sculptured limb:
Outstretched within that
gorgeous gloom,
Shaded by pall and sable
plume,
As chisseled from the very
stone,
The Bridegroom lay. A broken
moan
Rose up from where the
Widow bowed,
Her forehead buried in the
pall,
Her fingers grasping still the
shroud,
And every limb betraying
all
The agony that wrung her
heart.
It was a sad and fearful
sight,
That lifted head, those lips
apart,
When through the dim and
purplish light
Those who obeyed the bridal
call
Now gathered for the funeral;
A soft and solemn strain
awoke
The silence of that lofty
dome,

And through the fretted
arches broke
The music surging to its
home;
Then with a firm and heavy
tread
The bearers slowly raised the
dead;
She followed close, her
trembling hand
Still clenched upon the
gloomy pall,
In snowy robes and pearly
band,
As at her wedding festival;
And in her bright disshevelled
hair
A broken orange-blossom
lay,
Withered and all entangled
there;
Fit relic of her bridal day;
Thus onward to the tomb she
passed,
Her white robe swaying to the
blast,
And mingling at each stirring
breath
There with the drapery of
death.

JACK DOWNING'S VISIT TO PORTLAND.
By Seba Smith.

In the fall of the year 1829 I took it into my head I'd go to Portland. I had
heard a good deal about Portland, what a fine place it was, and how the
folks got rich there proper fast; and that fall there was a couple of new
papers come up to Downingville from there, called the Portland Courier and
Family Reader; and they told a good many queer kind of things about
Portland and one thing another; and all at once it popped into my head, and
I up and told father, and says I, I'm going to Portland whether or no; and I'll
see what this world is made of yet. Father stared a little at first, and said he
was afraid I should get lost; but when he see I was bent upon it, he give it
up; and he stepped to his chist and opened the till, and took out a dollar and
gave to me, and says he, Jack, this is all I can do for you; but go, and lead
an honest life, and I believe I shall hear good of you yet. He turned and
walked across the room, but I could see the tears start into his eyes, and
mother sot down and had a hearty crying spell. This made me feel rather
bad for a minute or two, and I almost had a mind to give it up; and then
again father's dream came into my mind, and I mustered up courage, and
declared I'd go. So I tackled up the old horse and packed in a load of ax
handles and a few notions, and mother fried me some dough-nuts and put
'em into a box along with some cheese and sassages, and ropped me up
another shirt, for I told her I did n't know how long I should be gone; and
after I got all rigged out, I went round and bid all the neighbors good bye,
and jumped in and drove off for Portland.
Ant Sally had been married two or three years before and moved to
Portland, and I inquired round till I found out where she lived, and went
there and put the old horse up and eat some supper and went to bed. And the
next morning I got up and straightened right off to see the Editor of the
Portland Courier, for I knew by what I had seen in his paper that he was just
the man to tell me which way to steer. And when I come to see him I knew I
was right; for soon as I told him my name and what I wanted, he took me
by the hand as kind as if he had been a brother; and says he, Mr. Downing,

I'll do any thing I can to assist you. You have come to a good town; Portland
is a healthy thriving place, and any man with a proper degree of enterprise
may do well here. But says he, Mr. Downing, and he looked mighty kind of
knowing, says he, if you want to make out to your mind, you must do as the
steamboats do. Well, says I, how do they do? for I did n't know what a
steam boat was, any more than the man in the moon. Why, says he, they go
ahead. And you must drive about among the folks here jest as though you
were at home on the farm among the cattle. Dont be afraid of any of 'em,
but figure away, and I dare say you will get into good business in a very
little while. But, says he, there's one thing you must be careful of, and that
is not to get into the hands of them are folks that trades up round Huckler's
Row: for there's some sharpers up there, if they get hold of you, would twist
your eye teeth out in five minutes. Well after he had gin me all the good
advice he could I went back to Ant Sally's again and got some breakfast,
and then I walked all over the town to see what chance I could find to sell
my ax handles and things, and to get into business.
After I had walked about three or four hours I come along towards the
upper end of the town where I found there were stores and shops of all sorts
and sizes. And I met a feller, and says I, what place is this? Why this says
he, is Huckler's Row. What, says I, are these the stores where the traders in
Huckler's Row keep? And says he, yes. Well then, thinks I to myself, I have
a pesky good mind to go in and have a try with one of these chaps, and see
if they can twist my eye teeth out. If they can get the best end of a bargain
out of me, they can do what there aint a man in Downingville can do, and I
should jest like to know what sort of stuff these ere Portland chaps are made
of. So in I goes into the best looking store among 'em. And I see some
biscuit lying on the shelf, and says I, Mister, how much do you ax apiece
for them are biscuit? A cent apiece, says he. Well, says I, I shant give you
that, but if you 've a mind to, I'll give you two cents for three of 'em, for I
begin to feel a little as though I should like to take a bite. Well, says he, I
would n't sell 'em to any body else so, but seeing it 's you I dont care if you
take 'em. I knew he lied, for he never see me before in his life. Well he
handed down the biscuits and I took 'em, and walked round the store awhile
to see what else he had to sell. At last, says I, Mister, have you got any good
new cider? Says he, yes, as good as ever you see. Well, says I, what do you
ax a glass for it? Two cents, says he. Well, says I, seems to me I feel more

dry than I do hungry now. Aint you a mind to take these ere biscuit again
and give me a glass of cider? And says he, I dont care if I do; so he took and
laid 'em on the shelf again, and poured out a glass of cider. I took the cider
and drinkt it down, and to tell the truth it was capital good cider. Then, says
I, I guess it 's time for me to be a going, and I stept along towards the door.
But, says he, stop Mister. I believe you have 'nt paid me for the cider. Not
paid you for the cider, says I, what do you mean by that? Did n't the biscuit
that I give you jest come to the cider? Oh, ah, right, says he. So I started to
go again; and says he, but stop, Mister, you did n't pay me for the biscuit.
What, says I, do you mean to impose upon me? do you think I am going to
pay you for the biscuit and let you keep 'em tu? Aint they there now on your
shelf, what more do you want? I guess sir, you dont whittle me in that way.
So I turned about and marched off, and left the feller staring and thinking
and scratching his head, as though he was struck with a dunderment.
Howsomever, I did n't want to cheat him, only jest to show 'em it want so
easy a matter to pull my eye teeth out, so I called in next day and paid him
his two cents. Well I staid at Ant Sally's a week or two, and I went about
town every day to see what chance I could find to trade off my ax handles,
or hire out, or find some way or other to begin to seek my fortune.
And I must confess the editor of the Courier was about right in calling
Portland a pretty good thriving sort of a place; every body seemed to be as
busy as so many bees; and the masts of the vessels stuck up round the
wharves as thick as pine trees in uncle Joshua's pasture; and the stores and
the shops were so thick, it seemed as if there was no end to 'em. In short,
although I have been round the world considerable, from that time to this,
all the way from Madawaska to Washington, I 've never seen any place yet
that I think has any business to grin at Portland.

PORTLAND AS IT WAS.
By William Willis.

The advantages which in early days our new country held out for
employment, encouraged immigration, and the population was almost
wholly made up by accessions from the more thickly peopled parts of
Massachusetts. To the county of Essex particularly, in the early as well as
more recent period of our history, the town is indebted for large portions of
its population. Middlesex, Suffolk and the Old Colony, were not without
their contributions. But the people did not come from such widely different
sources as to produce any difficulty of amalgamation, or any striking
diversity of manners. They formed one people and brought with them the
steady habits and good principles of those from whom they had separated.
There were some accessions before the revolution made to our population
from the other side of the Atlantic; the emigrants readily incorporated
themselves with our people and form a substantial part of the population.
Within twenty years, the numbers by immigration have increased more
rapidly, especially from Ireland, but not sufficiently to destroy the
uniformity which characterises our population, nor to disturb the harmony
of our community.
It cannot have escaped observation that one of the principal sources of our
wealth has been the lumber trade. We have seen on the revival of the town
in the early part of the last century, how intimately the progress of the town
was connected with operations in timber. Before the revolution our
commerce was sustained almost wholly by the large ships from England
which loaded here with masts, spars, and boards for the mother country, and
by ship building. The West India business was then comparatively small,
employing but few vessels of inferior size. After the revolution our trade
had to form new channels, and the employment of our own navigation was
to give new activity to all the springs of industry and wealth. We find
therefore that the enterprise of the people arose to the emergency, and in a
few years our ships were floating on every ocean, becoming the carriers of
southern as well as northern produce, and bringing back the money and

commodities of other countries. The trade to the West Indies, supported by
our lumber, increased vastly, and direct voyages were made in larger vessels
than had before been employed, which received in exchange for the growth
of our forests and our seas, sugar, molasses and rum, the triple products of
the cane. This trade has contributed mainly to the advancement and
prosperity of the town, has nourished a hardy race of seamen, and formed a
people among the most active and enterprising of any in the United States.
The great changes which have taken place in the customs and manners of
society since the revolution, must deeply impress the mind of a reflecting
observer. These have extended not only to the outward forms of things, but
to the habits of thought and to the very principles of character. The moral
revolution has been as signal and striking as the political one; it upturned
the old land marks of antiquated and hereditary customs and the obedience
to mere authority, and established in their stead a more simple and just rule
of action; it set up reason and common sense, and a true equality in the
place of a factitious and conventional state of society which unrelentingly
required a submission to its stern dictates; which made an unnatural
distinction in moral power, and elevated the rich knave or fool to the station
that humble and despised merit would have better graced.
These peculiarities have been destroyed by the silent and gradual operation
of public opinion; the spirit which arose in the new world is spreading with
the same effect over the old. Freedom of opinion is asserting a just sway,
and it is only now to be feared that the principle will be carried too far, that
authority will lose all its influence and that reason and a just estimate of
human rights will not be sufficient restraints upon the passions of men. The
experiment is going on, and unless education, an early and sound moral
education go on with it, which will enlighten and strengthen the public
mind, it will fail of success. The feelings and passions must be placed under
the charge of moral principle, or we may expect an age of licentiousness to
succeed one of authority and rigid discipline. We may be said now to be in
the transition state of society.
Distinctions of rank among different classes of the community, a part of the
old system, prevailed very much before the revolution and were preserved
in the dress as well as in the forms of society. But the deference attached to
robes of office and the formality of official station have all fled before the

genius of our republican institutions; we look now upon the man and not
upon his garments nor upon the post to which chance may have elevated
him. In the circle of our little town, the lines were drawn with much
strictness. The higher classes were called the quality, and were composed of
persons not engaged in mechanic employments. We now occasionally find
some old persons whose memory recurs with longing delight to the days in
which these formal distinctions held uncontrolled sway.
The fashionable color of clothes among this class was drab; the coats were
made with large cuffs reaching to the elbows, and low collars. All classes
wore breeches which had not the advantage of being kept up as in modern
times by suspenders; the dandies of that day wore embroidered silk vests
with long pocket flaps and ruffles over their hands. Most of those above
mentioned were engaged in trade, and the means of none were sufficiently
ample to enable them to live without engaging in some employment. Still
the pride of their cast was maintained, and although the cloak and perhaps
the wig may have been laid aside in the dust and hurry of business, they
were scrupulously retained when abroad.
There were many other expensive customs in that day to which the spirit of
the age required implicit obedience; these demanded costly presents to be
made and large expenses to be incurred at the three most important events
in the history of man, his birth, marriage and death. In the latter it became
particularly onerous and extended the influence of its example to the
poorest classes of people, who in their show of grief, imitated, though at an
immeasurable distance, the customs of the rich.
The leaders of the people in the early part of the revolution, with a view to
check importations from Britain, aimed a blow at these expensive customs,
from which they never recovered. The example commenced in the highest
places, of an entire abandonment of all the outward trappings of grief which
had been wont to be displayed, and of all luxury in dress, which extended
over the whole community. In the later stages of the revolution however, an
extravagant and luxurious style of living and dress was revived, encouraged
by the large amount both of specie and paper money in circulation, and the
great quantity of foreign articles of luxury brought into the country by
numerous captures.

The evils here noticed did not exist in this part of the country in any
considerable degree, especially after the revolution; the people were too
poor to indulge in an expensive style of living. They were literally a
working people, property had not descended upon them from a rich
ancestry, but whatever they had accumulated had been the result of their
own industry and economy. Our ladies too at that period had not forgotten
the use of the distaff, and occasionally employed that antiquated instrument
of domestic labor for the benefit of others as well as of themselves. The
following notice of a spinning bee at Mrs. Deane's on the first of May 1788,
is a flattering memorial of the industry and skill of the females of our town
at that period.
"On the first instant, assembled at the house of the Rev. Samuel Deane of
this town, more than one hundred of the fair sex, married and single ladies,
most of whom were skilled in the important art of spinning. An emulous
industry was never more apparent than in this beautiful assembly. The
majority of fair hands gave motion to not less than sixty wheels. Many were
occupied in preparing the materials, besides those who attended to the
entertainment of the rest, provision for which was mostly presented by the
guests themselves, or sent in by other generous promoters of the exhibition,
as were also the materials for the work. Near the close of the day, Mrs.
Deane was presented by the company with two hundred and thirty-six seven
knotted skeins of excellent cotton and linen yarn, the work of the day,
excepting about a dozen skeins which some of the company brought in
ready spun. Some had spun six, and many not less than five skeins apiece.
To conclude and crown the day, a numerous band of the best singers
attended in the evening, and performed an agreeable variety of excellent
pieces in psalmody."
Some of the ante-revolutionary customs "more honored in the breach than
in the observance"—have been continued quite to our day, although not
precisely in the same manner, nor in equal degree. One was the practise of
helping forward every undertaking by a deluge of ardent spirit in some of
its multifarious mistifications. Nothing could be done from the burial of a
friend or the quiet sessions of a town committee; to the raising of the frame
of a barn or a meeting-house, but the men must be goaded on by the
stimulus of rum. Flip and punch were then the indispensable
accompaniments of every social meeting and of every enterprise.

It is not a great while since similar customs have extensively prevailed not
perhaps in precisely the instances or degree above mentioned, but in
junkettings, and other meetings which have substituted whiskey punch,
toddy, &c. for the soothing but pernicious compounds of our fathers.
Thanks however to the genius of temperance, a redeeming spirit is abroad,
which it is hoped will save the country from the destruction that seemed to
threaten it from this source.
The amusements of our people in early days had nothing particular to
distinguish them. The winter was generally a merry season, and the snow
was always improved for sleighing parties out of town. In summer the
badness of the roads prevented all riding for pleasure; in that season the
inhabitants indulged themselves in water parties, fishing and visiting the
islands, a recreation that has lost none of its relish at this day.
Dancing does not seem to have met with much favor, for we find upon
record in 1766, that Theophilus Bradbury and wife, Nathaniel Deering and
wife, John Waite and wife, and several other of the most respectable people
in town were indicted for dancing at Joshua Freeman's tavern in December
1765. Mr. Bradbury brought himself and friends off by pleading that the
room in which the dance took place, having been hired by private
individuals for the season, was no longer to be considered as a public place
of resort, but a private apartment, and that the persons there assembled had
a right to meet in their own room and to dance there. The court sustained
the plea. David Wyer was king's attorney at this time.
It was common for clubs and social parties to meet at the tavern in those
days, and Mrs. Greele's in Backstreet was a place of most fashionable resort
both for old and young wags, before as well as after the revolution. It was
the Eastcheap of Portland, and was as famous for baked beans as the
"Boar's head" was for sack, although we would by no means compare
honest Dame Greele, with the more celebrated, though less deserving
hostess of Falstaff and Poins. Many persons are now living on whose heads
the frosts of age have extinguished the fires of youth, who love to recur to
the amusing scenes and incidents associated with that house.
When we look back a space of just two hundred years and compare our
present situation, surrounded by all the beauty of civilization and

intelligence, with the cheerless prospect which awaited the European settler,
whose voice first startled the stillness of the forest; or if we look back but
one hundred years to the humble beginnings of the second race of settlers,
who undertook the task of reviving the waste places of this wilderness, and
suffered all the privations and hardships which the pioneers in the march of
civilization are called upon to endure; or if we take a nearer point for
comparison, and view the blackened ruin of our village at the close of the
revolutionary war, and estimate the proud pre-eminence over all those
periods which we now enjoy, in our civil relations and in the means of
social happiness, our hearts should swell with gratitude to the Author of all
good that these high privileges are granted to us; and we should resolve that
we will individually and as a community sustain the purity and moral tone
of our institutions, and leave them unimpaired to posterity.

THE CHEROKEE'S THREAT.
By N. P. Willis.

At the extremity of a green lane in the outer skirt of the fashionable suburb
of New-Haven, stood a rambling old Dutch house, built, probably, when the
cattle of Mynheer grazed over the present site of the town. It was a
wilderness of irregular rooms, of no describable shape in its exterior, and
from its southern balcony, to use an expressive gallicism, gave upon the
bay. Long Island Sound, the great highway from the northern Atlantic to
New York, weltered in alternate lead and silver (oftener like the brighter
metal, for the climate is divine) between the curving lip of the bay, and the
interminable and sandy shore of the island some six leagues distant, the
procession of ships and steamers stole past with an imperceptible progress,
the ceaseless bells of the college chapel came deadened through the trees
from behind, and (the day being one of golden Autumn, and myself and St.
John waiting while black Agatha answered the door-bell) the sun-steeped
precipice of East Rock with its tiara of blood-red maples flushing like a
Turk's banner in the light, drew from us both a truant wish for a ramble and
a holiday.
In a few minutes from this time were assembled in Mrs. Ilfrington's
drawing-room the six or seven young ladies of my more particular
acquaintance among her pupils—of whom one was a new-comer, and the
object of my mingled curiosity and admiration. It was the one day of the
week when morning visiters were admitted, and I was there in compliance
with an unexpected request from my friend, to present him to the agreeable
circle of Mrs. Ilfrington. As an habitue in her family, this excellent lady had
taken occasion to introduce to me a week or two before, the new-comer of
whom I have spoken above—a departure from the ordinary rule of the
establishment, which I felt to be a compliment, and which gave me, I
presumed, a tacit claim to mix myself up in that young lady's destiny as
deeply as I should find agreeable. The new-comer was the daughter of an
Indian chief, and her name was Nunu.

The transmission of the daughter of a Cherokee chief to New-Haven, to be
educated at the expense of the government, and of several young men of the
same high birth to different colleges, will be recorded among the evidences
in history that we did not plough the bones of their fathers into our fields
without some feelings of compunction. Nunu had come to the seaboard
under the charge of a female missionary, whose pupil she had been in one
of the native schools of the west, and was destined, though a chief's
daughter, to return as a teacher to her tribe, when she should have mastered
some of the higher accomplishments of her sex. She was an apt scholar, but
her settled melancholy when away from her books, had determined Mrs.
Ilfrington to try the effect of a little society upon her, and hence my
privilege to ask for her appearance in the drawing-room.
As we strolled down in the alternate shade and sunshine of the road, I had
been a little piqued at the want of interest and the manner of course with
which St. John had received my animated descriptions of the personal
beauty of the Cherokee.
"I have hunted with the tribe," was his only answer, "and know their
features."
"But she is not like them," I replied with a tone of some impatience; "she is
the beau-ideal of a red skin, but it is with the softened features of an Arab
or an Egyptian. She is more willowy than erect, and has no higher cheek-
bones than the plaster Venus in your chambers. If it were not for the
lambent fire in her eye, you might take her in the sculptured grace of her
attitudes, for an immortal bronze of Cleopatra. I tell you she is divine!"
St. John called to his dog and we turned along the green bank above the
beach, with Mrs. Ilfrington's house in view, and so opens a new chapter of
my story.

I have seen in many years wandering over the world, lived to gaze upon,
and live to remember and adore—a constellation, I almost believe, that has
absorbed all the intensest light of the beauty of a hemisphere—yet with
your pictures coloured to life in my memory, and the pride of rank and state

thrown over them like an elevating charm—I go back to the school of Mrs.
Ilfrington, and (smile if you will!) they were as lovely and stately, and as
worthy of the worship of the world.
I introduced St. John to the young ladies as they came in. Having never
seen him except in the presence of men, I was a little curious to know
whether his singular aplomb would serve him as well with the other sex, of
which I was aware he had had a very slender experience. My attention was
distracted at the moment of mentioning his name to a lovely little Georgian,
(with eyes full of the liquid sunshine of the south,) by a sudden bark of joy
from the dog who had been left in the hall; and as the door opened, and the
slight and graceful Indian girl entered the room, the usually unsocial animal
sprung bounding in, lavishing caresses on her, and seemingly wild with the
delight of recognition.
In the confusion of taking the dog from the room, I had again lost the
moment of remarking St. John's manner, and on the entrance of Mrs.
Ilfrington, Nunu was sitting calmly by the piano, and my friend was talking
in a quiet undertone with the passionate Georgian.
"I must apologise for my dog," said St. John, bowing gracefully to the
mistress of the house; "he was bred by Indians, and the sight of a Cherokee
reminded him of happier days—as it did his master."
Nunu turned her eyes quickly upon him, but immediately resumed her
apparently deep study of the abstruse figures in the Kidderminster carpet.
"You are well arrived, young gentlemen," said Mrs. Ilfrington; "we press
you into our service for a botanical ramble, Mr. Slingsby is at leisure, and
will be delighted I am sure. Shall I say as much for you, Mr. St. John?" St.
John bowed, and the ladies left the room for their bonnets, Mrs. Ilfrington
last.
The door was scarcely closed when Nunu re-appeared, and checking herself
with a sudden feeling at the first step over the threshold, stood gazing at St.
John, evidently under very powerful emotion.
"Nunu!" he said, smiling slowly and unwillingly, and holding out his hands
with the air of one who forgives an offence.

She sprang upon his bosom with the bound of a leveret, and, between her
fast kisses broke the endearing epithets of her native tongue—in words that
I only understood by their passionate and thrilling accent. The language of
the heart is universal.
The fair scholars came in one after another, and we were soon on our way
through the green fields to the flowery mountain side of East Rock, Mrs.
Ilfrington's arm and conversation having fallen to my share, and St. John
rambling at large with the rest of the party, but more particularly beset by
Miss Temple, whose Christian name was Isabella, and whose Christian
charity had no bowels for broken hearts.
The most sociable individuals of the party for a while were Nunu and Last,
the dog's recollections of the past seeming, like those of wiser animals,
more agreeable than the present. The Cherokee astonished Mrs. Ilfrington
by an abandonment of joy and frolic which she had never displayed before,
sometimes fairly outrunning the dog at full speed, and sometimes sitting
down breathless upon a green bank, while the rude creature overpowered
her with his caresses. The scene gave rise to a grave discussion between that
well-instructed lady and myself upon the singular force of childish
association—the extraordinary intimacy between the Indian and the
trapper's dog being explained satisfactorily, to her at least, on that attractive
principle. Had she but seen Nunu spring into the bosom of my friend half an
hour before, she might have added a material corollary to her proposition. If
the dog and the chief's daughter were not old friends, the chief's daughter
and St. John certainly were!
As well as I could judge by the motions of two people walking before me,
St. John was advancing fast in the favor and acquaintance of the graceful
Georgian. Her southern indolence was probably an apology in Mrs.
Ilfrington's eyes for leaning heavily on her companion's arm, but, in a
momentary halt, the capricious beauty disembarrassed herself of the light
scarf that had floated over her shoulders, and bound it playfully around his
waist. This was rather strange on a first acquaintance, and Mrs. Ilfrington
was of that opinion.
"Miss Temple!" said she, advancing to whisper a reproof in the beauty's ear.

Before she had taken a second step, Nunu bounded over the low hedge,
followed by the dog with whom she had been chasing a butterfly, and
springing upon St. John, with eyes that flashed fire, she tore the scarf into
shreds, and stood trembling and pale, with her feet on the silken fragments.
"Madam!" said St. John, advancing to Mrs. Ilfrington, after casting on the
Cherokee a look of surprise and displeasure, "I should have told you before,
that your pupil and myself are not new acquaintances. Her father is my
friend. I have hunted with the tribe, and have hitherto looked upon Nunu as
a child. You will believe me, I trust, when I say, her conduct surprises me,
and I beg to assure you, that any influence I may have over her, will be in
accordance with your own wishes exclusively."
His tone was cold, and Nunu listened with fixed lips and frowning eyes.
"Have you seen her before since her arrival?" asked Mrs. Ilfrington.
"My dog brought me yesterday the first intelligence that she was here. He
returned from his morning ramble with a string of wampum about his neck,
which had the mark of the tribe. He was her gift," he added, patting the
head of the dog and looking with a softened expression at Nunu, who
drooped her head upon her bosom and walked on in tears.

The chain of the Green Mountains, after a gallop of some five hundred
miles from Canada to Connecticut, suddenly pulls up on the shore of Long
Island Sound, and stands rearing with a bristling mane of pine-trees, three
hundred feet in air, as if checked in midcareer by the sea. Standing on the
brink of this bold precipice, you have the bald face of the rock in a sheer
perpendicular below you; and, spreading away from the broken masses at
its foot, lies an emerald meadow inlaid with a crystal and rambling river,
across which, at a distance of a mile or two, rise the spires of the university
from what else were a thick serried wilderness of elms. Back from the edge
of the precipice extends a wild forest of hemlock and fir, ploughed on its
northern side by a mountain torrent, whose bed of marl, dry and overhung
with trees in the summer, serves as a path and guide from the plain to the

summit. It were a toilsome ascent but for that smooth and hard pavement,
and the impervious and green thatch of pine-tassels overhung.
The kind mistress ascended with the assistance of my arm, and St. John
drew stoutly between Miss Temple and a fat young lady with an incipient
asthma. Nunu had not been seen since the first cluster of hanging flowers
had hidden her from our sight as she bounded upward.
The hour or two of slanting sunshine, poured in upon the summit of the
precipice from the west, had been sufficient to induce a fine and silken
moss to show its fibres and small blossoms above the carpet of pine-tassels,
and, emerging from the brown shadow of the wood, you stood on a verdant
platform, the foliage of sighing trees overhead, a fairies' velvet beneath you,
and a view below, that you may as well (if you would not die in your
ignorance) make a voyage to see.
We found Nunu lying thoughtfully near the brink of the precipice and
gazing off over the waters of the sound, as if she watched the coming or
going of a friend under the white sails that glanced upon its bosom. We
recovered our breath in silence, I alone perhaps of that considerable
company gazing with admiration at the lithe and unconscious figure of
grace lying in the attitude of the Grecian hermaphrodite on the brow of the
rock before us. Her eyes were moist, and motionless with abstraction, her
lips just perceptibly curved in an expression of mingled pride and sorrow,
her small hand buried and clenched in the moss, and her left foot and ankle,
models of spirited symmetry, escaped carelessly from her dress, the high
instep strained back, as if recovering from a leap with the tense control of
emotion.
The game of the coquettish Georgian was well played. With a true woman's
pique, she had redoubled her attentions to my friend from the moment that
she found it gave pain to another of her sex; and St. John, like most men,
seemed not unwilling to see a new altar kindled to his vanity, though a heart
he had already won, was stifling with the incense. Miss Temple was very
lovely: her skin of that teint of opaque and patrician white, which is found
oftenest in Asian latitudes, was just perceptibly warmed toward the centre
of the cheek with a glow like sunshine through the thick white petal of a
magnolia: her eyes were hazel with those inky lashes which enhance the

expression a thousand fold either of passion, or melancholy; her teeth were
like strips from the lily's heart; and she was clever, captivating, graceful,
and a thorough coquette. St. John was mysterious, romantic-looking,
superior, and just now the only victim in the way. He admired, as all men
do, those qualities, which to her own sex, rendered the fair Isabella
unamiable, and yielded himself, as all men will, a satisfied prey to
enchantments of which he knew the springs were the pique and vanity of
the enchantress. How singular it is that the highest and best qualities of the
female heart are those with which men are the least captivated!
A rib of the mountain formed a natural seat a little back from the pitch of
the precipice, and here sat Miss Temple, triumphant in drawing all eyes
upon herself and her tamed lion, her lap full of flowers which he had found
time to gather on the way, and her fair hands employed in arranging a
bouquet, of which the destiny was yet a secret. Next to their own loves,
ladies like nothing on earth like mending or marring the loves of others;
and, while the violets and already drooping wild flowers were coquettishly
chosen or rejected by those slender fingers, the sun might have swung back
to the east like a pendulum, and those seven-and-twenty misses would have
watched their lovely schoolfellow the same. Nunu turned her head slowly
around at last, and silently looked on. St. John lay at the feet of the
Georgian, glancing from the flowers to her face, and from her face to the
flowers, with an admiration not at all equivocal. Mrs. Ilfrington sat apart,
absorbed in finishing a sketch of New-Haven; and I, interested painfully in
watching the emotions of the Cherokee, sat with my back to the trunk of a
hemlock, the only spectator who comprehended the whole extent of the
drama.
A wild rose was set in the heart of the bouquet at last, a spear of riband-
grass added to give it grace and point, and nothing was wanting but a string.
Reticules were searched, pockets turned inside out, and never a bit of riband
to be found. The beauty was in despair.
"Stay!" said St. John, springing to his feet. "Last! Last!"
The dog came coursing in from the wood, and crouched to his master's
hand.

"Will a string of wampum do?" he asked, feeling under the long hair on the
dog's neck, and untying a fine and variegated thread of many-colored beads,
worked exquisitely.
The dog growled, and Nunu sprang into the middle of the circle with the
fling of an adder, and seizing the wampum as he handed it to her rival,
called the dog and fastened it once more around his neck.
The ladies rose in alarm; the belle turned pale and clung to St. John's arm;
the dog, with his hair bristling on his back, stood close to her feet in an
attitude of defiance, and the superb Indian, the peculiar genius of her beauty
developed by her indignation, her nostrils expanded and her eyes almost
showering fire in their flashes, stood before them, like a young Pythoness,
ready to strike them dead with a regard.
St. John recovered from his astonishment after a moment, and leaving the
arm of Miss Temple, advanced a step and called to his dog.
The Cherokee patted the animal on the back, and spoke to him in her own
language; and, as St. John still advanced, Nunu drew herself to her fullest
height, placed herself before the dog, who slunk growling from his master,
and said to him as she folded her arms, "the wampum is mine!"
St. John colored to the temples with shame.
"Last!" he cried, stamping with his foot, and endeavoring to frighten him
from his shelter.
The dog howled and crept away, half crouching with fear toward the
precipice; and St. John shooting suddenly past Nunu, seized him on the
brink, and held him down by the throat.
The next instant a scream of horror from Mrs. Ilfrington, followed by a
terrific echo from every female present, started the rude Kentuckian to his
feet.
Clear over the abyss, hanging with one hand by an aspen sapling, the point
of her tiny foot just poising on a projecting ledge of rock, swung the
desperate Cherokee, sustaining herself with perfect ease, but with all the
determination of her iron race collected in calm concentration on her lips.

"Restore the wampum to his neck!" she cried, with a voice that thrilled the
very marrow with its subdued fierceness, "or my blood rest on your soul!"
St. John flung it toward the dog, and clasped his hands in silent horror.
The Cherokee bore down the sapling till its slender stem cracked with the
tension, and rising lightly with the rebound, alit like a feather upon the rock.
The subdued Kentuckian sprang to her side; but, with scorn on her lip and
the flush of exertion already vanished from her cheek, she called to the dog,
and with rapid strides took her way alone down the mountain.

Five years had elapsed. I had put to sea from the sheltered river of boyhood;
had encountered the storms of a first entrance into life; had trimmed my
boat, shortened sail, and with a sharp eye to windward, was laying fairly on
my course. Among others from whom I had parted company, was Paul St.
John, who had shaken hands with me at the university-gate, leaving me,
after four years' intimacy, as much in doubt as to his real character and
history as the first day we met. I had never heard him speak of either father
or mother; nor had he, to my knowledge, received a letter from the day of
his matriculation. He passed his vacation at the university. He had studied
well, yet refused one of the highest college-honors offered him with his
degree. He had shown many good qualities, yet some unaccountable faults;
and, all in all, was an enigma to myself and the class. I knew him clever,
accomplished, and conscious of superiority, and my knowledge went no
farther.
It was five years from this time, I say, and in the bitter struggles of first
manhood, I had almost forgotten there was such a being in the world. Late
in the month of October, in 1829, I was on my way westward, giving
myself a vacation from the law. I embarked on a clear and delicious day in
the small steamer which plies up and down the Cayuga Lake, looking
forward to a calm feast of scenery, and caring little who were to be my
fellow passengers. As we got out of the little harbor of Cayuga, I walked
astern for the first time, and saw the not very unusual sight of a group of

Indians standing motionless by the wheel. They were chiefs returning from
a diplomatic visit to Washington.
I sat down by the companion-ladder, and opened soul and eye to the
glorious scenery we were gliding through. The first severe frost had come,
and the miraculous change had passed upon the leaves, which is known
only in America. The blood-red sugar-maple, with a leaf brighter and more
delicate than a Circassian's lip, stood here and there in the forest like the
sultan's standard in a host, the solitary and far-seen aristocrat of the
wilderness; the birch, with its spirit-like and amber leaves, ghosts of the
departed summer, turned out along the edges of the woods like a lining of
the palest gold; the broad sycamore and the fan-like catalpa, flaunted their
saffron foliage in the sun, spotted with gold like the wings of a lady-bird;
the kingly oak, with its summit shaken bare, still hid its majestic trunk in a
drapery of sumptuous dies like a stricken monarch, gathering his robes of
state about him to die royally in his purple; the tall poplar, with its minaret
of silver leaves, stood blanched like a coward in the dying forest, burdening
every breeze with its complainings; the hickory, paled through its enduring
green; the bright berries of the mountain-ash flushed with a sanguine glory
in the unobstructed sun; the gaudy tulip-tree, the sybarite of vegetation,
stripped of its golden cups, still drank the intoxicating light of noonday in
leaves than which the lip of Indian shell was never more delicately teinted;
the still deeper-died vines of the lavish wilderness, perishing with the nobler
things whose summer they had shared, outshone them in their decline, as
woman in her death is heavenlier than the being on whom in life she leaned;
and alone and unsympathizing in this universal decay, outlaws from nature,
stood the fir and the hemlock, their frowning and sombre heads, darker and
less lovely than ever in contrast with the death-struck glory of their
companions.
The dull colors of English autumnal foliage, give you no conception of this
marvellous phenomenon. The change here, too, is gradual. In America it is
the work of a night—of a single frost! Ah, to have seen the sun set on hills,
bright in the still green and lingering summer, and to wake in the morning
to a spectacle like this! It is as if a myriad of rainbows were laced through
the tree-tops—as if the sunsets of a summer—gold, purple and crimson—
had been fused in the alembic of the west, and poured back in a new deluge
of light and color over the wilderness. It is as if every leaf in those countless

trees had been painted to outflush the tulip—as if, by some electric miracle,
the dies of the earth's heart had struck upward, and her crystals and ore, her
sapphires, hyacinths and rubies, had let forth their imprisoned dies to mount
through the roots of the forest, and like the angels that in olden time entered
the bodies of the dying, reanimate the perishing leaves, and revel an hour in
their bravery.
I was sitting by the companion-ladder, thinking to what on earth these
masses of foliage could be resembled, when a dog sprang upon my knees,
and, the moment after, a hand was laid on my shoulder.
"St. John? Impossible!"
"Bodily!" answered my quondam classmate.
I looked at him with astonishment. The soigne man of fashion I had once
known, was enveloped in a kind of hunter's frock, loose and large, and
girded to his waist by a belt; his hat was exchanged for a cap of rich otter-
skin; his pantaloons spread with a slovenly carelessness over his feet, and
altogether there was that in his air which told me at a glance that he had
renounced the world. Last had recovered his leanness, and after wagging
out his joy, he couched between my feet, and lay looking into my face as if
he was brooding over the more idle days in which we had been acquainted.
"And where are you bound?" I asked, having answered the same question
for myself.
"Westward with the chiefs!"
"For how long?"
"The remainder of my life."
I could not forbear an exclamation of surprise.
"You would wonder less," said he, with an impatient gesture, "if you knew
more of me. And by the way," he added, with a smile, "I think I never told
you the first half of the story—my life up to the time I met you."
"It was not for the want of a catechist," I answered, setting myself in an
attitude of attention.

"No! and I was often tempted to gratify your curiosity; but from the little
intercourse I had with the world I had adopted some precocious principles,
and one was, that a man's influence over others was vulgarism, and
diminished by a knowledge of his history."
I smiled, and as the boat sped on her way over the calm waters of the
Cayuga, St. John went on leisurely with a story which is scarce remarkable
enough to merit a repetition. He believed himself the natural son of a
western hunter, but only knew that he had passed his early youth on the
borders of civilization, between whites and Indians, and that he had been
more particularly indebted for protection to the father of Nunu. Mingled
ambition and curiosity had led him eastward while still a lad, and a year or
two of the most vagabond life in the different cities, had taught him the
caution and bitterness for which he was so remarkable. A fortunate
experiment in lotteries supplied him with the means of education, and with
singular application in a youth of such wandering habits, he had applied
himself to study under a private master, fitted himself for the university in
half the usual time, and cultivated in addition the literary taste which I have
remarked upon.
"This," he said, smiling at my look of astonishment, "brings me up to the
time when we met. I came to college at the age of eighteen, with a few
hundred dollars in my pocket, some pregnant experience of the rough side
of the world, great confidence in myself and distrust of others, and, I
believe, a kind of instinct of good manners, which made me ambitious of
shining in society. You were a witness of my debut. Miss Temple was the
first highly educated woman I had ever known, and you saw the effect on
me!"
"And since we parted?"
"Oh, since we parted, my life has been vulgar enough. I have ransacked
civilized life to the bottom, and found it a heap of unredeemed falsehoods. I
do not say it from common disappointment, for I may say I succeeded in
every thing I undertook."
"Except Miss Temple," I said, interrupting, at the hazard of wounding him.

"No. She was a coquette, and I pursued her till I had my turn. You see me in
my new character now. But a month ago, I was the Apollo of Saratoga,
playing my own game with Miss Temple. I left her for a woman worth ten
thousand of her—but here she is."
As Nunu came up the companionway from the cabin, I thought I had never
seen a breathing creature so exquisitely lovely. With the exception of a pair
of brilliant moccasins on her feet, she was dressed in the usual manner, but
with the most absolute simplicity. She had changed in those five years from
the child to the woman, and, with a round and well-developed figure,
additional height, and manners at once gracious and dignified, she walked
and looked the chieftan's daughter. St. John took her hand, and gazed on her
with moisture in his eyes.
"That I could ever put a creature like this," he said, "into comparison with
the dolls of civilization!"
We parted at Buffalo—St. John with his wife and the chiefs to pursue their
way westward by Lake Erie, and I to go moralizing on my way to Niagara.

GRECIAN AND ROMAN ELOQUENCE.
By Ashur Ware.

In the flourishing periods of the Grecian and Roman commonwealths, the
forms of their governments, the state of society, and the passions and
manners of the times, were more favorable to the developement of great
talents, than have existed in any other age, or among any other people. In
Athens and Rome, every citizen was a public man. The great powers of
government were exercised by the people themselves in their primary
assemblies. The practice of delegating the higher attributes of sovereignty
to a small number of persons periodically elected is one of the greatest
improvements, which the lights of modern experience have introduced into
the constitutions of free governments. The advantages which are gained by
this system in favor of internal tranquillity, the steadiness and permanency
of political institutions and the security of private rights, can scarcely be
estimated too highly, or purchased at too great a price. But nearly in the
same proportion as this improvement contributes to the general tranquillity
and the personal security of the citizen, does it narrow the field for the
operation of great talents. The individual power of each man is hardly felt in
the harmonious working of the great machine of government, and its
character soon comes to depend much more on the system than on the
genius of those by whom it is conducted. Precedents, fixed opinions, long
established policy and constitutional maxims, throw an invisible net work
over those, who are at the head of affairs, which a giant's strength cannot
break through. An ordinary share of talent, enlightened by experience, is
found to be about as useful in the regular movement of the system, as the
highest gifts of genius.
But it was otherwise in the republics of Athens and Rome. There the power
of the system was nothing, and the genius of the individual every thing. In
the agitations of these popular commonwealths, the great actors on the stage
were driven to a life of unremitted exertion. The revolutions of popular
favor were sudden and appalling, and always liable to be carried to great
extremes. A decisive moment lost might be fatal to the hopes of a whole

life. Their powers were, therefore, constantly wound up to the utmost
intensity of action. Second rate men, who are abundantly able to go through
with the regular and quiet routine of official duty in our modern bureaus,
would be quickly blown down by the storms which shook the tribunes of
those turbulent democracies. The very imperfections in their political
systems contributed to develope the genius of their statesmen, and
necessarily called into action every faculty of the mind.
In all free and popular governments, eloquence is one of the principal
instruments of power, and the fairest field is presented for its operations
where the general powers of government are put in motion by the
immediate agency of the mass of the people. In all the nations of modern
Europe, where the semblance of deliberative assemblies is preserved, these
are composed of a small and select number of persons; and in these small
bodies, when a reasonable space is allowed for the coercive power of party
training, for the operation of the subtle and diffusive poison of executive
influence, and in some cases, for the gross and palpable application of
direct corruption, the province of eloquence will be found to be greatly
narrowed. Her most persuasive accents fall on ears that are spellbound by a
mightier power, and on the most important questions, the votes are often
counted, before deliberation commences. But this complicated machinery
cannot be brought to bear with the same effect on the whole body of the
citizens. If their movements are more irregular, and liable to greater
excesses, they have their origin in the purer and more noble impulses of the
heart. The natural love of equity, the instinctive principles of
disinterestedness and generosity, originally implanted in the heart of man by
the author of our being, cannot easily be extinguished in a whole people.
After the tools of faction, and the minions of power, have exhausted the arts
of corruption, these holier elements of our nature will kindle into
spontaneous enthusiasm, when lofty and generous sentiments are brought
home to the bosom in the accents of a manly and pathetic eloquence. The
great and unsophisticated springs of human action are always touched with
most effect in large assemblies. In these the prevailing tone of feeling, when
highly exalted, spreads through the whole by a secret sympathy, with the
rapidity of the electric fluid.
It was before such an audience that eloquence uttered her voice in ancient
times. The orators of Greece and Rome brought their genius to bear directly

on the popular mind. The public assemblies which were then held were for
actual deliberation. It was not a mockery of consultation on matters upon
which all opinions were definitely made up. They came together to be
instructed, and were open to the seductive arts of their orators even to a
fault. The objects of deliberation also were of the greatest moment, the
fortunes of a province or a kingdom, the safety of the republic, the honor, or
perhaps the life of the orator himself or his nearest friends. Every motive
which hope or fear or pride or party could suggest, to animate the passions,
was brought to act on the speaker's mind, and all depended on a doubtful
decision, which was to be made on the spot, and before the separation of the
assembly. These contests were not of rare occurrence. They were coming up
continually. They were upon the most magnificent theatre in the world, and
before judges who united a most refined and discriminating taste with an
extraordinary degree of susceptibility to all the charms of a passionate and
harmonious eloquence. The orators, therefore, were kept in constant
training. Their faculties had no time to cool.
They had no intervals for luxurious repose. The dignities to which they had
risen were watched by powerful and jealous rivals, always ready to wrest
from them their honors, and they could be retained only by the same efforts
by which they were won.
In these ancient republics eloquence was substantial and effective power
and led to the highest dignities, which the most aspiring genius could hope
to attain. It was cultivated with an assiduity bearing a just proportion to the
honors with which it was crowned. The education of the orator commenced
in his cradle, and did not terminate until he had reached the full maturity of
manhood; or, to speak more correctly, it comprised the whole business of
his life. All his studies were made subservient to the art of speaking, and the
course of instruction descended into the most minute details which could
improve him in his action or elocution. It was this entire devotion to a
favorite and honored art, which raised it to a height of perfection, which it
has never since been able to reach, and which produced those prodigies in
the oratorical art, which have been the admiration and the despair of
succeeding ages.
In the most brilliant period of antiquity there were two styles of eloquence
cultivated by the different orators. One, calm, subtle and elegant, addressed

almost exclusively to the understanding. In the time of Cicero this was
called the Attic style, and those who belonged to this school assumed no
little credit on the supposed purity of their Attic taste. The other affected a
style of greater warmth and brilliancy, and intermingled with the scrupulous
dialectics of the former, frequent appeals to the passions, and adorned their
discourses with all the beauties which could captivate the imagination.
What was then denominated the Attic style, forms the prevailing
characteristic of modern oratory. It is cool and didactic. It relies almost
wholly on the powers of a cultivated logic and seldom attempts to reach the
understanding through the medium of the heart. It requires little reflection
to determine which of these styles would bear away the palm before a
popular audience. The former leaves one half the faculties of the hearer
dormant, while the latter addresses itself to all the powers of man, the moral
as well as the intellectual, instructs the reason while it agitates the passions,
and gives at the same time one powerful and impetuous movement to the
whole man. But if any one doubts upon this matter let him go to the pages
of Demosthenes and especially to that most perfect of all his orations, in
which he was contending with his great rival for the glory of a whole life in
the presence of all that was most illustrious in Greece,—his oration for the
crown. He will find from the beginning to the end, a clear and exact logic.
But it is logic raised into enthusiasm by the dignity and elevation of
sentiment by which it is surrounded. He will not find a metaphor or an
observation introduced merely for the purposes of ornament. It is a
continued stream of clear, rapid and convincing argument. But it is
argument enveloped in a torrent of earnestness and exaggeration, environed
with a blaze of anger and disdain and passion—it is argument clothed in
thunder, which could no more be listened to with a composed and tranquil
mind than the flashes of lightning could be viewed with an unblinking eye.
Strip Demosthenes of these accompaniments, of these accessories, if you
please to call them so, and you will leave enough perhaps to satisfy our
modern Attics, but this residue will be no more like the living Demosthenes
who "fulmined over Greece," than the unformed block of marble is like the
Belvidere Apollo, or a naked skeleton like a living man.
It is said that the state of manners in modern society would not bear those
bold appeals to the passions which abound in the ancient orators. We are
ingenious in taking to ourselves credit even for our inferiority, and it is

contended that our understandings are more cultivated and our passions
more under the dominion of reason. If there be any foundation for this
opinion it must be received with many qualifications. It has become a
fashion of late to decry the manners and morals of the republics of
antiquity. That their manners differed in many respects from the modes of
fashion established in what is called good society in modern times is
admitted, but it does not follow that the advantage is on our side. There is
still less foundation for the opinion that in their intellectual powers the
Greeks and Romans were less cultivated than the most polished nations of
our times. There never existed a nation in which the intellectual education
of the whole body of the people was carried to so high a pitch as in Athens.
However extravagant the assertion may be thought, it is indisputably true
that the "mob of Athens," as the people of that renowned commonwealth
are affectedly called, were of a more refined, severe and critical taste in
every thing that pertains to the beauties of eloquence than the members of
the British House of Commons have been, at any period of its existence,
from the first meeting of the Wittenagemote to the present day. They would
allow, says Cicero, in their orators no violation of purity or elegance of
language. Eorum religioni cum serviret orator, nullum verbum insolens,
nullum odiosum ponere audebat. Many a speech has been cheered by the
"hear hims" of the Treasury Bench in that house, which would have
shocked the discriminating and critical ears, aures teretes ac religiosas, of
that extraordinary people. The whole testimony of antiquity concurs in
proving their extreme delicacy and fastidiousness in every thing which
belongs to taste in letters and the arts.
There was another peculiarity in the circumstances of these ancient
republics which favored the cultivation of eloquence. The press, that great
engine by which public opinion is moved in modern times, was then
unknown. Addresses in the assemblies of the people were not only the
ordinary but almost the sole mode by which public men could influence or
enlighten public opinion. All political discussion assumed this form and
these popular harangues composed a very large portion of the literature of
the times. The language of oral communication naturally assumes a tone of
greater vivacity and passion than that of the closet. The predominance of
this species of composition must have had a powerful influence in forming
the national taste and would naturally impart its prevailing tone to every

other species. Such seems to have been the fact. The philosophers and
historians caught something of the animated and rhetorical manner of their
public speakers, and in that species of eloquence which is suited to the
nature of their subjects, surpass the moderns nearly as much as their orators
do. Plato stands as far above all rivals in this particular, as his countryman
and disciple Demosthenes. The easy and graceful movement of his
dialogue, the splendid amplification and harmonious numbers of his
declamation and the warm and animated glow of moral enthusiasm, which
he has thrown over his mystical speculations, render his works the most
perfect specimen of philosophical eloquence ever yet produced. His
example will also show what importance was attached to style alone by the
teachers of ancient wisdom. The last labors of a long life, which had been
devoted to the most sublime philosophy of the age, were employed in
retouching and remodelling the inimitable graces of his rich and flowing
periods; musæo contingens cuncta lepore.
A superiority scarcely less imposing in this respect will be found in their
historians. Their genius was also kindled by a coal from the altar of the
orators. I am ready to acknowledge the great merit of the classic historians
of modern times. I am not insensible to the calm and sustained dignity of
Roberston, to the melody of his full and flowing style, though it sometimes
fills the ear without filling the mind. He must be a much more morose critic
who is not delighted with the simple and unaffected elegance of Hume, and
with that admirable facility with which he intermingles the most profound
reflections in a narration always easy, copious and graceful. Nor can the
historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire be forgotten in an
enumeration of those who have done honor to this branch of literature. After
all that has been said and written against him, he has left a work which the
world will not willingly suffer to die. The Randolphs and Taylors and
Chelsums by whom he was assailed, have passed into an easy oblivion, but
the great work of the historian will always find a place in every library and
a reader in every well educated man. The pomp and stateliness of his style
sometimes bordering on the turgid may provoke a sneer from those who
look only to the surface, but he had a mind enriched by various and
extensive learning, which he has exuberantly and tastefully displayed in
every page of his work. It may also be admitted that in modern times
history has in its general character received something more of a

philosophical tone. But what it has gained on the side of philosophy it has
more than lost on that of eloquence.
Compare the triumvirate of English historians in this respect with the
inestimable remains of antiquity, and there is a disparity as striking as it is
difficult to be accounted for. In this, as in every other department of
literature, the Romans were the imitators of the Greeks; but in history while
they imitated they surpassed their masters. The two great historians of
Rome stand above all that preceded as well as all that followed them. The
history of the rise of the Roman republic, from a small band of outlaws to
the uncontrolled mastery of the world, is the most extraordinary chapter in
the history of the human race. The annals of mankind present nothing that
resembles it. A splendid or an affecting story may be degraded or belittled
by being told in an unworthy style. But the style of Livy never falls below
the dignity of his subject. His eloquence is as magnificent as the fortunes of
the eternal city. In splendor of language, in glowing and picturesque
description, in warmth and brilliancy and boldness of coloring, and in the
dignified and majestic movement of his whole narrative, there is nothing in
the literature of any country which will bear a comparison with the Decads
of Livy. He is always on the borders of oratory and poetry, without ever
passing the soberness of history. Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter habet.
The golden age of letters in Rome was as short as it was brilliant. It scarcely
surpassed in duration the ordinary term of human life. Commencing with
Cicero, it closed with the generation who were his cotemporaries, the last
who breathed the free air of the republic. But in the universal corruption of
taste and morals that followed the extinction of liberty, there arose one man,
Tacitus, whose genius belonged to a happier age. In his own, it has been
remarked with as much truth as beauty, he stands like a column in the midst
of ruins. It has been said that the secret of his style belongs to the
circumstances of his life, as well as to the peculiar temperament of the man.
He wrote the history of his own times, and they presented but few bright
spots on which the eye could repose with pleasure. But he paints the
features of that dark and fearful peace, of that awful and portentous silence
of despotism, convulsed as it was by internal dissensions and agitated by all
the vices of a profligate populace and an abandoned nobility, in words of
enchantment. While they seem to express every thing that is terrible in
tragedy, they suggest to the imagination more than meets the ear. No man

could have described those scenes as he has done but one who had seen and
felt them. His vivid and graphic pictures speak at once to the eye, to the
imagination, and to the heart; and without any of the parade or ostentation
of eloquence, he impresses on the mind of the reader all the feelings which
seem to prevail in his own.
The current of fashion has for some time been setting strongly against
classical learning. In an age of so much intellectual activity as the present,
all sorts of new opinions are received with favor. The most extravagant
have their hour of triumph until they are chased from the stage by some
new absurdity, or until the restless love of change is drawn off to some
more startling paradox. This insatiable thirst for novelty is carried into
literature as well as other things. But the principles of good taste are
unchangeable. They have their foundations deeply laid in nature and truth,
and the tide of time which sweeps into oblivion the sickly illusions of
distempered imaginations, passes over these unhurt. The Bavii and Maevii
of former ages, who like those of later times enjoyed for their hour the
sunshine of fashionable celebrity, have been long ago gathered to their long
home, but the beauties of Homer and Virgil are as fresh now as they were at
the beginning. Independent of the arguments commonly used in favor of
classical learning, there are two considerations which recommend these
studies to peculiar favor in this country. I advert to them the more willingly,
because they have not been usually urged in proportion to their importance.
The first is addressed to our literary ambition. If there be any department of
elegant literature in which we may hope to surpass our European ancestors
and cotemporaries, it is in eloquence. It is the fairest and most hopeful field
which now remains for literary distinction. In every other the moderns, if
they have not equalled, are not far behind the ancients. Their poetry can
scarcely claim an advantage over that of the moderns, except what it owes
directly to the superiority of the ancient languages. But if we except some
of the finest productions of the French pulpit in the reign of Louis XIV.
there is nothing in modern literature which approaches the eloquence of
antiquity. The most accomplished of our forensic and parliamentary
speakers are at an immeasurable distance from the perfection of the ancient
orators. If there be any modern nation, which may hope to emulate them
with some prospect of success, it is our own. In our free institutions and in
the free genius of our countrymen we have all that is necessary. The soil is

prepared and we are already a nation of debaters. But if we would add to
the faculty of fluent speaking the gifts of eloquence, these must be sought
where the ancients found them, in a patient and persevering devotion to the
art. We must be made sensible both of its dignity and its difficulty, and
nothing can so effectually give us this knowledge as a familiar acquaintance
with the inimitable remains of the orators of Greece and Rome.
The second consideration is of a political character. The feudal governments
of Europe may have an interest in discouraging a taste for these studies. The
literature of antiquity, in its prevailing tone and character, is deeply
impregnated with the free spirit of the age in which it was produced.
Nothing can be more repugnant to that temper of patient servility which it is
the policy of such governments to foster. Nothing can more powerfully
invigorate those generous feelings which are inspired by the consciousness
of freedom, than a familiarity with the historians and orators of Greece and
Rome. There is an uncompromising spirit of liberty breathing its divine
inspirations over every page, wholly irreconcilable with that courtly
suppleness which is adapted to the genius of these governments. These
proud republicans had no superstitious veneration for anointed heads. They
were accustomed to behold suppliant royalty trembling in the antichambers
of their Senate, or its haughty spirit still more humbled in swelling the
triumphal pomp of their generals and consuls. These sights served to
nourish a profound feeling of the dignity, which is attached to the person of
a freeman, a feeling more deeply engraved on the spirit of antiquity than
any other sentiment of the heart. It seems to have constituted the very soul
of their genius, and it breathes its sacred fires through every ramification of
their literature. So intimately was it incorporated with the very elements of
their intellectual nature, that nothing could extinguish it short of those
calamities which spread their deadly mildews over the fires of genius itself.
After the constitutional liberty of the country sunk under the weight of
military despotism, its scattered flames still broke out at intervals in the few
great men who arose to throw a gleam of brightness over the surrounding
gloom. It shewed itself in the pathetic and affecting complaints of Tacitus,
and burst forth in the bitter and indignant sarcasms of Juvenal. The
venerable father of song declared in prophetic numbers that the first day of
servitude robbed man of half his virtue, and Longinus, the last of the
ancient race of great men, holds up the lights of fifteen centuries experience

to verify the words of the poet. It is democracy, says he, that is the
propitious nurse of great talents, and it is only in democracy that they
flourish. Let the minions of legitimacy then extinguish if they can the
emulation of ancient eloquence; it is their most dangerous enemy; but let us,
who inherit the liberties of the ancient republics, cherish it with a sacred
devotion. It is at once the child and the champion of freedom.

RELIGION.
By Jason Whitman.

Religion, as introduced to us by our Saviour, attracts our attention and
enlists our affections, not by any solemn pomp or formal parade, but by her
beautiful and interesting simplicity, her real and intrinsic worth. Nor has she
been introduced to us, merely that she may dwell in our temples to be gazed
at from a distance and occasionally adored. No. She has been introduced to
us, that we might take her familiarly by the hand, conduct her into our
houses and seat her by our firesides,—not as an occasional visitor there, but
as an intimate friend—perfectly free and unreserved, ever ready to lend her
aid in making home the abode of happiness, or to go forth with us and assist
in elevating and purifying the pleasures and the intercourse of social life;
ever ready to assist in the various labors of life—to guide and cheer the
conversation—to bend over the bed of sickness, or to mingle her
sympathies with those who are mourning. It is her office to elevate and
improve mankind, not by looking down upon them from above, but by
dwelling familiarly and habitually among them, restraining, by the respect
which her presence inspires, every thing impure and unholy, until she has
awakened aspirations after the pure, the holy, the spiritual, the infinite and
eternal. Such was the Christian Religion as introduced to us by our Saviour.
Would that she might ever remain such, an inmate of our houses, a member
of our family circles, whose form and features are familiar to our children,
and for whom their attachment grows with their growth and strengthens
with their strength. But such have not, it would seem, been the feelings of
mankind in regard to her. They, filled with admiration, perhaps, for her
excellence, and fearing, lest she might be treated with rude familiarity, have
thought to add to her dignity and to increase the respect entertained for her,
by enveloping her in the folds of unintelligible mysteries, and by suffering
her to be approached only in a formal manner, upon the set days when and
the appointed places where she holds her levees. The consequences of this
have been such as might have been expected. While there are multitudes of
admirers of Religion, as one of a higher order of beings altogether above

and beyond themselves, there are few who make her the companion of their
daily walk—few who take her to themselves and, in the firm conviction that
they were made for each other, leave all things else, cleave unto and
become one with her.
Would that we might all embrace Christianity as she is in herself—as she
was introduced to us by our Saviour, in all her simplicity—in all her purity
—that we might make her the companion of our lives—the friend of our
hearts. She is one, who will with readiness accompany us wherever we go
—pointing out to us the way of our duty and the sources of our happiness.
Are we children she will teach us the duties of children. Are we parents she
will instruct us in our duties as parents. In prosperity she will increase our
happiness—in adversity she will sweeten our cup—in sickness she will
alleviate our pains, and, when called away by the stern summons of death,
she will accompany us and introduce us into the society of heaven with
which she is intimate—the society of our God—of Jesus our Saviour—and
of the spirits of the just made perfect, concerning whom she has often
conversed with us, making us acquainted with their principles, feelings and
characters, and exerting within us a desire to be with them.

THE DESERTED WIFE.
By Mrs. Ann S. Stephens.

'Like ivy, woman's love will
cling
Too often round a worthless
thing.'

Immediately after the horrid murder of young Darnley, Mary of Scotland
removed from the scene of his death to Sterling, ostensibly on a visit to her
infant son. Thither she was followed by all the gay members of her court,
among whom were the Earl of Bothwell and Balfour, the suspected
murderers. A short time previous to this journey Mary had received a letter
from one of her subjects in the north, strenuously recommending a young
and interesting female to her protection, who, as the letter stated, had
especial reasons for sojourning awhile in the neighborhood of the court.
Mary with her usual benevolence kindly received the lovely stranger, and
was so won by her grace and melancholy beauty, that with the
thoughtlessness of her impulsive character, she installed her in the royal
household and admitted her to the closest intimacy of mistress and servant.
Her affections daily increased for one of whom she knew nothing, except
that she was reported to have sprung from a noble but impoverished family,
and had been drawn to court by her interest in a dear relation, or perhaps
lover. The queen did not trouble herself to inquire into particulars, at a time
when her own affairs not only engrossed her thoughts, but the attention of
all Europe. Certain it was, that whatever had drawn Ellen Craigh to the
Scottish court, it was no desire to partake of its pleasures. Though she
occasionally mingled with the ladies of Mary's household, and even listened
with silent interest to the scandal which recent events had given rise to, she
sedulously secluded herself from the gallants of the court, and on no
occasion had been known to leave the immediate apartment of the queen,
except for a short space each day, when the relative who had drawn her
from home might be supposed to occupy her attention.
On the day our story commences, Throgmorton, the English ambassador,
had arrived at Sterling with despatches, which had been forwarded from
London after the first news of young Darnley's death reached the court of
St. James. Mary, eager to conciliate the imperious Elizabeth, had ordered an
entertainment to be made in honor of her ambassador, and yielding to his
first request, or rather demand for an audience, had been more than an hour

closetted with him, in the little oratory which communicated alike with her
audience-room and sleeping chamber.
The hour for robing had long passed, and Ellen Craigh was alone in the
royal bed-chamber, waiting the appearance of her mistress. She might have
been taken for a sorrowing angel, as she sat in the embrasure of a window,
with the mellow-tinted light streaming through the stained glass over her
tresses of waving gold, and flooding her small and exquisite figure with a
brilliancy almost too gorgeous to harmonize with the delicate cheek and
sorrowful blue eyes, which, at the moment, wore an expression of suffering
which nothing on earth can represent, so patient and holy was it. She
continued in one position, listlessly swaying the cord of twisted gold, which
looped back the curtain falling in magnificent volumes over the upper part
of the window, or pulling the threads from a massive tassel and scattering
them one by one at her feet, till the carpet around looked as if embroidered
over and over with the glittering fragments. The indistinct voices which
came from the oratory, where the queen and the ambassador were seated,
fell unheeded upon her senses, till a tone was mingled with theirs which
started her to sudden life. She leaped up with an energy that sent the
mutilated tassel with a crash against the window, and flinging back the
tapestry which concealed the door of the oratory, bent her eye to a crevice
in the ill-fitted pannel. The beating of her heart was almost audible, and the
thin slender hand which held back the tapestry quivered like a newly
prisoned bird, as she gazed with intense eagerness into the apartment. The
queen sat directly opposite the door. At her right hand was placed a dark
handsome man, of about thirty, with a haughty and almost fierce array of
countenance, dressed in a style of careless magnificence, which bespoke a
love of display rather than true elegance in his choice of attire. A subdued
smile lurked about his lips, and he seemed intently occupied in counting the
links of a massive gold chain, which fell over his doublet of three-piled
velvet, studded and gorgeously wrought with jewels and embroidery. Now
and then he would drop his hand carelessly over the queen's chair-arm, and
fix his black eyes with a bold and admiring gaze on her features, with a
freedom which bespoke more of audacious love, than of respect for the
royal beauty. She not only submitted to his free glance, but more than once
returned it with one of those looks which had scattered sorrow through
many a Scottish bosom.