Transcriber's Note: The following Table of Contents has been added for the convenience of the reader.

[AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.]
[NAPOLEON.]
[THE DEATH OF SOCRATES.]
[NOTES OF A SURGEON.]
[THE BIRCHEN CANOE.]
[MARK!]
[LINES.]
[STANZAS.]
[THE FOSTER-CHILD.]
[SONNET.]
[STANZAS.]
[ORNAMENTAL GARDENING.]
[THE SEA.]
[THAPTOPSIS.]
[EXQUISITES: THE GENUS 'BORE.']
[THE GENUS 'BORE.']
[NAHANT.]
[SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES.]
[THE TIMES.]
[RANDOM PASSAGES]
[THE BLIGHTED FLOWER.]
[FATAL BALLOON ADVENTURE.]
[RETROSPECTION]
[LITERARY NOTICES.]
[EDITORS' TABLE.]
[LITERARY RECORD.]

THE KNICKERBOCKER.

Vol. X. OCTOBER, 1837. No. 4.

[AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.]

NUMBER THREE.

'Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?
Thy very weeds are beautiful; thy waste
More rich than other climes' fertility;
Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruins graced
With an immaculate charm.'

If, as has been stated in previous numbers, this continent is distinguished by the remains of great cities, magnificent structures, and innumerable other ingenious specimens of ancient art; and if, as has likewise been shown, these things existed at a period of time unknown to history or tradition, the inquiry, 'Who were the people that inhabited these cities, who constructed these edifices, and who executed these varied arts?' becomes of intense interest to all men of curiosity and of learning. The inquiry is also inseparably connected with the description of these arts; and, as a consequence, demands attention, as we proceed with the subject of American Antiquities.

For a long time, the majority of men were satisfied with the reputed discovery of this continent by Columbus, even though they were acquainted with the fact that he found the 'new world' thickly inhabited by different varieties of mankind, and though subsequent researches proved these inhabitants to have existed ages before, and from one end of the continent to the other. So little reflection is still manifested upon this subject by many, that they blindly assent to the opinion, that Columbus was, indeed, the first European discoverer of America; forgetting, seemingly—to say nothing of its repeated discovery by the 'North-men,' and probably by others, from the ninth to the twelve century—that, according to the same popular idea, the primitive inhabitants must themselves have been the discoverers, time immemoriably past, and, like Columbus, have sailed from the eastern continent, across a wide and trackless ocean, to our far-famed 'new world.' The truth is, men are too prone to consider that which is new to themselves, as actual discovery; and, during the novelty of the occasion, and in their love of praise, are very little inclined to reflect upon the evidences of antiquity, though they stare them full in the face. Should we concede the correctness of the common opinion, as to the origin of these inhabitants, the discovery of America by them must have been a much more eventful circumstance in the history of man than that by Columbus. How many and how exciting must have been the incidents attending that discovery! How bold the enterprise, how long and how perilous the voyages! How startling the hair-breadth 'scapes, and how imposing to them must have been a 'new world' indeed! What strange objects, animate and inanimate, must have been presented to them, on first reaching, and while traversing, the great continent of America! How little knowledge, in fine, did Columbus possess of this continent, compared with that acquired by the observations of the millions who had occupied it for time unknown! These were men, reasoning and feeling men, like ourselves; why, then, should we not reason upon the times and the events which marked their discovery of the 'new world?' We might imagine, perhaps, something like those events, or conceive of the records to which they might have given birth, when, without the compass that guided Columbus, or the means which safely protected him against the fury of the elements, they made successive discoveries of, and peopled, so vast a continent. It is not impossible that the African, the Malay, and the Tartar, found here by Columbus, 'monarchs of all they surveyed,' possessed such a knowledge of the arts and sciences as to have enabled them to navigate the boisterous ocean with equal security, as certainly they had done with equal success. History, in fact, informs us, that the remote knowledge of many of these people was of a superior order. It might have equalled that of the Caucassian, at the time of his discovery of America. The event proves that it even did, in many important particulars, notwithstanding our boasted prëeminence. Let the records of the ancient Chinese, Arabians, and East Indians, the monuments of Asia, and of the Peloponnesian Islands, and the arts of Palenque, speak for the early condition of the human intellect. But a long night of darkness has intervened; and, like men at all ages of the world, 'we reason but from what we know.'

It cannot be inferred from evidences derived from the relics hitherto discovered in the United States, that the primitive inhabitants of our country were not, for centuries, contemporaneous with the Tultecans. That they were, indeed, will appear extremely probable, in solving the question as to their ultimate destiny. It is a very common and a very important question, 'What became of the numerous people who once populated our western valleys?' Though we may not give a conclusive answer to the inquiry, yet it may be shown that, in the final overthrow of the Tultecan nation, and synchronous with the desertion, and perhaps destruction, of the city of Palenque, the barbarous northern nations of Aztiques and Chichimecas, before alluded to, were none others than the primitive inhabitants of the Mississippi valley; who, in the order observed in the rise and fall of nations, were expelled from their country by hordes of a still more northern and warlike nation of Tartars.

We find, to begin with the human family in Central America, and the earliest arts which are at present revealed to us, that the Tultecan people, or a people analogous in their arts, customs, etc., inhabited, at the period of their glory, the provinces of Yucatan, Chiapa, and Guatemala. Which of the two first named portions of that delightful country was the scene of their primeval history, does not clearly appear. Should it be determined that this people actually traversed the great Atlantic, agreeably to the somewhat plausible and ingenious story of Votan, of which we shall hereafter speak, the province of Yucatan may be supposed to have been the spot where they first established themselves, and reared their stone edifices; and, indeed, if the fact goes for any thing in illustrating this position, the ruins of their architectural monuments are actually found strewed along the province, from near its eastern point, toward the famous city we have mentioned. But if the Tultecan metropolis, situated on an elevated paradisian plain, far removed from any other similar ruins, was de facto, the first residence of man in America, we shall be at a loss to assign any other than an indigenous origin for the Tultecan people. On a question thus undecided, there can be no cause of wonder, if there are those who are conscientiously Pre-Adamites. But, without designing to favor one opinion more than another, independent of the evidence actually offered, it may be confidently affirmed, that there does not appear any satisfactory proofs adduced by those who have attempted to trace the origin of that people, that they partook more of the character of one eastern people than another. There has been, in truth, no distinguished nation of people with whose ancient history we are acquainted, who had not manners and customs resembling those of the Palencians. It is not strange, therefore, that men, influenced by preconceived opinions, should have assigned various reasons to account for the commencement of human population in America, and that, in the height of their zeal to reconcile all things with those opinions, they should have propounded their own imaginings, and the sheerest inventions, as sober matters of fact. Such, melancholy as is the fact for moral truth, has too often been the case, whenever favorite theories have been in jeopardy, or have stood in need of opportune evidence to render them plausible or reconcilable with popular dogmas. The story of Votan, though ingenious, and though accredited by many, for the same reason, is indebted, we may believe, to the same ideal source for its origin. This story, however, claims notice, and a mention of the circumstances on which it is founded, in speaking of the beginning of our race on this continent. With history, as with science, there have been at all times those who have stepped forth, and gratuitously proposed theories, probable and improbable, in aid of opinions involving individual interests and sectarian views; but, in the case before us, we are left alone with facts and probability to establish our conclusions, which we are not at liberty to warp by prejudice, or the favor of others' opinions.

There are found among the ruins of Palenque, of Copan, and of several places of ancient grandeur in Central America, specimens of arts so closely resembling the Egyptian, the Carthaginian, the Romans, the Grecian, and the East Indian, that many have thought the people of each have, at different times, visited America, and instructed the Tultiques in useful and ornamental knowledge. Some suppose that the Romans remained just long enough to afford the Tultecans the knowledge of building their dykes, aqueducts, bridges, etc., and then to have returned to the eastern continent. The Hindoos must also, for the same reason, have instructed these American people in their religion and their arts; and so with those of some other nations. Thus it was, according to this hypothesis, but a trifling affair for the people of transatlantic fame to make visits to this continent for the purpose of giving its ancient inhabitants the requisite information for the construction of their edifices, etc. A singular difficulty would seem, however, to stand in the way of this supposition; and this is, that the ruins of these arts themselves indicate a greater antiquity than those of the eastern world, in the execution of which these sage school-masters are supposed to have acquired all their skill. May it not be equally probable, from this view of the subject, that the Americans instructed the people of Asia in a knowledge of the arts, sciences, and mysteries, of which their history so much boasts? The fact is conclusive, that the Tultiques, were highly proficient in both the arts and sciences, at an immeasurably distant period of time; even more so, as far as we are enabled to learn, than most nations of men on the other continent. The science of astronomy, by which this people was enabled to calculate time with a precision, which, as is thought, it is the pride of modern science alone to claim, need only be cited as evidence in point. Their knowledge of the useful and ornamental arts was not behind that of any other people of the earliest times, as we shall see by reference to the ruins which, for thousands of years, have survived them. Were we, in fact, to compare that knowledge, as indicated by those ruins, with that of the Chaldeans, and other remote people, as evinced by theirs, we could not hesitate to return a uniformly favorable decision for the great antiquity of the Tultiques. It is unhesitatingly admitted, that the Mexicans derived all their knowledge of art and of science from these people, whom they succeeded; and it is equally certain, that they were a barbarous and ignorant race of men, long after the extinction of the Tultique nation. Admitting the Mexican people, then, to have had their origin in the northern nations, existing, as we have reason to suppose, within the vast extent of country between the ancient Tultiques and the present south-western boundary lines of the United States, the lapse of a long period of time must be supposed necessary for their acquirement of that extraordinary proficiency of which they were found to be possessed by the tyrant invader, Cortes.

The Tultecan people, it has been observed, were completely isolated on a mountainous plain, more than five thousand feet above the level of the sea, where they enjoyed a climate more temperate and genial, an air more salubrious, and natural productions more rich and abundant, than it has been the lot of any other people of the earth to enjoy. It is therefore from this paradisial location that we are to date our knowledge of this people, since we are provided with no facts which prove them, or any other people, to have had an anterior existence on this continent. The ruined arts of Yucatan and of Guatemala do not satisfy us that those provinces were inhabited previous to that of Chiapa, and the delightful vale upon the Cordillera mountains, where we now find the astonishing remains referred to. On the contrary, their present condition shows them to have been constructed long posterior. The people whose they were, should be considered as colonists from the great Palencian city, which must have overflowed with population. The arts and customs of these colonists are seen to have been precisely those of the parent city, as well also as their religion. So late, in fact, was the origin of Copan, that we are led to believe it to have been a city built subsequent to the destruction of the Palencian capital. Some of the edifices, and many of the monuments, still remain: the coloring matter used in the drawings upon the obelisks is also as fresh and as bright, apparently, as it was when first put on; notwithstanding the materials of which the buildings, etc., are composed are more exposed to moisture, and consequently, more liable to disintegration, than those of Palenque. In these obelisks, we have a novelty among the arts preserved for our admiration, as relics of the ancient American people. Nothing resembling them has yet been found at Palenque, though it is possible such may have existed, both in that city and in the province of Yucatan; but they long since crumbled in the general wreck of ruins. It may be in place here to introduce a notice of some of these ancient structures, now existing in a state of tolerable preservation in the city of Copan, in the Province of Honduras, and on a river of the same name.

From the bay of Honduras, the traveller proceeds up the river Matayua, two hundred and fifty miles, when he arrives at the mouth of the river Copan, a tributary to the Matayua. Entering this river, he ascends it for about sixty miles, when the ruins of an ancient city are presented to his view on its banks, and running along its course for several miles. Masses of stone fragments and crumbling edifices stretch along the river as far as it was explored. One of the principal objects of attraction, is a temple of great magnitude, but partially in ruins. This magnificent building stands immediately upon the bank, one hundred and twenty feet above the river. It is seven hundred and fifty feet in length, and six hundred feet broad! Stone steps conduct from the base of the rock on which it is situated to an elevation, from which others descend to a large square, in the interior of the building. From this large square you pass on and upward through a small gallery to still higher elevations which overhang the river. A splendid view of the extended ruins is here presented to the admiring observer, traversing the banks as far as they can be followed by the eye. Excavations were here made, in order to lay open passages which had been blocked up by the crumbling fragments of the building. At the opening of the gallery into the square, a passage was discovered which led into a sepulchre, the floor of which was twelve feet below the square. This vault is ten feet long, six high, and five and a half broad, and runs north and south. It contains great numbers of earthen dishes and pots, in good preservation. Fifty of these were filled with human bones, closely packed in lime. Several sharp and pointed knives, made of a hard and brittle stone, called itzli, were also found; likewise a head representing Death, the back part of which was perforated with small holes; and the whole wrought with exquisite workmanship, out of a fine green stone. There were also found in this sepulchre two other heads, numerous shells from the sea-shore, and stalactites from a neighboring cave, all of which indicated the superstition of the people who placed them there. The floor was of stone, and strewed with mouldering fragments of bones.

Great numbers of other rooms were entered, all of which, as far as they could be traced, showed the most singular customs of the people, and the most grotesque specimens of sculpture. Many monstrous figures were likewise found among these and neighboring ruins. There was one representing the head of a huge alligator, having in its mouth a figure with a human face, and paws like an animal. Another was discovered of a gigantic toad, in an erect position, with claws like a tiger, on human arms! Numerous obelisks were seen in various directions, both standing and fallen. These were generally about ten feet high, and three feet thick. One of them, still standing, is covered with representations of human figures, sculptured in relief, all presenting a front view, with their hands on their breasts, sandals on their feet, caps on their heads, and otherwise richly adorned with garments. Opposite to this, and ten feet distant, were stone altars, which are likewise covered with sculptured designs. The sides of the obelisks contained numerous phonetic hieroglyphics. There was one of these curious obelisks in the temple before mentioned, the top of which was covered by forty-nine square tablets of hieroglyphics. The sides were occupied by sixteen human figures in relief, sitting cross-legged on cushions, carved in the stone, and holding fans in their hands. On a neighboring hill stands two other obelisks, which were also covered with hieroglyphics. These were painted red, with a paint made of a rich deep-colored stone, obtained from a neighboring quarry. Unlike any other pyramidal monuments of the kind among the antiquities of the eastern continent, these were both broader and thicker at the top than at the base; and the colors with which they were richly ornamented, were still of the brightest hues.

Among the mountainous piles of stone ruins which are to be seen in the country round about, no very great difference is observable in the style of workmanship or of architecture, so far as could be observed, from that noticed among the relics at Palenque. This similarity is a striking feature, and is calculated at once to induce the opinion, as we have before suggested, that the first inhabitants of this city were colonists of the Tultiques, or that they fled thence on the fall of their metropolis.

The name of Palenque, it would seem, had, long before the conquest, passed into oblivion, while a part of the city of Copan, then offering a shelter for the natives, was occupied by them at the time of Columbus' discovery of America, three hundred and forty-five years ago. The materials of the Copan edifices, were, however, evidently much less durable than those of Palenque. The former, being constructed of sand-stone, disintegrated by exposure to the action of the atmosphere, though not more readily, perhaps, than ordinary building stone, of the same geological character, yet obviously more so than the materials of which Palenque was built, which are remarkable for their indurated quality. Hence our astonishment is increased, on reflecting, that neither the Palenquans nor the Copanians, had any knowledge of the use of iron tools, but nevertheless quarried, shaped, and planted, those massive blocks and pillars of stones, which composed their magnificent Teöculi, and all the great works which adorned and defended their cities. But one solitary hut, beside the fabrics mentioned, now stands on the ruins of Copan! The present natives deserted it only about seventy-five years ago. Many of them, hereabout, were engaged in the cultivation of tobacco, for which the soil was very good; and this ancient place was celebrated as a dépôt for that article, under the Spanish conquerors. It is worthy of notice, that the water of this place is remarkable for its great purity, and the climate is equally distinguished for its healthfulness; circumstances which the primitive inhabitants of America would seem to have considered of primary importance in the location of their cities.

We have already said that the people of whom we are speaking enjoyed a felicity unequalled by any other. This is attributable to their peaceful character, their simple yet effective government, their industrious habits, conjoined with their choice location, uniting as it did almost every natural advantage of situation and production. But the present period exhibits their successors the most wretched of the human species. The Indian race, once the most happy and numerous of mankind, may be traced from the vigor of youth through the strength of its manhood to the present decline and decrepitude of old age. Total extinction, in the usual course of events, will soon follow. It is indeed fast approaching at the present moment urged on as it is by the mad ambition of the Caucassian, who, in his turn, is rapidly approximating the zenith of his power and numbers. Throughout the world this may now be seen at a glance. The native of India is rapidly falling before the gigantic power, the cunning, and the oppression of England, now herself at the acmé of her strength and numerical force. Ignorance, superstition, and imbecility, press the Indian forward to his last hopes. Availing itself of these inevitable results of old age, the power that is slowly but effectually crushing him, rises elastic and buoyant upon the dead body of the old native. The free Indian of United America, in like manner, is fast closing the scene of his glory and the fulness of his manhood. He too is declining into old age; and already are the marks of death observable upon his withered visage. He too was flushed with the hopes of youth, and spread out his vigorous energies like the green bay tree. He too realized the measure of his glory, and proudly exulted in his power and possessions. But, alas! he too is fast wasting in the last stages of decline and death. So it is with the Indian of Central America. From the fruition of his hopes and numbers, and the full consummation of his glory, he has sunk to the deepest degradation, to numerical insignificance, and to the most abject wretchedness. A stronger contrast in the relative condition of a people can nowhere be found. Turning from the period of which we have been speaking, that saw the Tultecans the happiest people of the earth, to the present, that reveals their miserable descendants tamely bowing their necks to the galling yoke of their Spanish masters, and how forcible are the marks of distinction! Take this people, amalgamated with the reputed barbarous Aztiques, or Chichimecas, and constituting the Mexican nation at the time of Cortes' mad invasion, and how deplorable is their present situation, contrasted with what it then was! Where are the promised blessings of the 'Christian,' the boasted charms of civilization, etc.? Away with the idle and superstitious fantasies, and the base schemes of the selfish and ambitious, under the garb of reason and of philanthropy! Let truth and justice speak for themselves. How much better, we would ask, is the poor Indian of Central America, how much more rational and how much more numerous is he now, than when the proud Caucassian, 'the most honored of the free,' first essayed his renovating influences? Let the past and the present answer! Suffice it to say, that like his native compeer of our own states, he is rapidly disappearing under the operation of these causes, and oblivion, meanwhile, closes over his history. Like the ill-fated Indian, it will be in turn for the oppressor to yield to the force of recurring circumstances. Yes! time, too, will bring along his destiny, and it will be that of the oppressed, the cheated, the extinct Indian!

Civilization, as some one has observed, is and ever has been travelling westward. We believe it. The relics of America go far to prove it; and those of the Pacific Islands, if possible, still farther. Giving then to America an indefinite antiquity, its earliest monuments should have mingled with the soil on which they were erected. They should have crumbled before the all-crushing power of time. And such is the fact. Its people should have passed onward to Asia; and they should have left other monuments by the way. Such appears also to have been the fact. Remains of magnificent structures are still to be seen on the islands which intervene, even those of great and splendid cities. These, too, defy the scrutinizing inquiries of mankind, at this so distant date. The arts are those of ancient America. To one conversant with the specimens now to be found in some of those islands, the inference will appear conclusive. It belongs to the geologist to prove, that the intervening land has undergone extraordinary revolutions. We are prepared to say, that he is enabled to prove that many of those islands are of recent geological epocha, and that most of them are of volcanic origin.

By the way of these islands, then, it was both easy and natural to have peopled India, China, and those nations claiming with them the most distant antiquity. The arts of those times are nearly the same in execution and design. The Chinese Tartars, those wandering hordes that stretched along the Pacific, in time again found their way to this continent, by means of the continuous chain of the Fox Islands and Alaska, and across Behring's Straits. Farther notice of this fact will accompany some remarks on the present race of North American Indians, for they are the Tartars referred to. If we are to do credit to a recent philological work, published in London, displaying great research and learning, we shall be struck with the general proposition, that man had a common ancestry, far east of the hitherto reputed source of his origin. The evidence adduced from the analogy of the Arabic, the Chinese, the Tartar, and generally the Asiatic languages, with the Greek, etc., throws much light upon the subject of our inquiry. Late researches, also, among the Pacific Islands, and those more particularly bordering on the Asiatic coasts, are replete with interest touching the antiquity and former character of their inhabitants. Ruined walls, monuments, and sepulchres, of antique and massive masonry, of which tradition has preserved no memorial among the descendants of the people, clearly prove the existence of a different state and character of people at some very remote period. But recently there have been discovered the buried walls of an extensive city, and also a strange race of people in New Holland. A colony hitherto unknown, speaking the English language, with European countenances, manners, etc., has quite lately been discovered in the interior of that yet unexplored continent. These facts are exciting no little inquiry and astonishment among the curious of Europe. Still farther, and it is hoped and presumed still more important, discoveries will, ere long, reveal new truths upon this subject, and tend, in a striking manner, to enlighten mankind in relation to their early history. To effect this, means more effective could not be devised than 'exploring expeditions.' That now contemplated by this government, if conducted in part with reference to this subject, cannot fail to be highly fruitful of discovery.

The ancient Aztec cities, on the vast and beautiful plains, and upon the southern banks of the Rio Gila, in New California, with numerous other remains of arts, and evidences of former civilization, now to be seen among what have been denominated the 'Independent Indians,' on the north-west coast of America, from the thirty-third to the fifty-fourth parallels of latitude, will be seen to throw much light on the original people, both of Mexico and of our own country. For the present, attention is still farther called to the origin of the Tultiques, the first and the most remarkable people, ancient or modern, that have inhabited the American continent.

In reflecting upon the period at which the Tultiques flourished, one cannot but smile at the determination of some to give comparatively modern dates to the Palencian city, and its ruined arts; as if it were impossible that it should have preceded a certain time to which previously supposed data had limited their faith or comprehension. Some give its origin but about two hundred years anterior to the conquest by the Spaniards. Others, again, extend, their views several hundred years beyond this; but such are careful, at the same time, to circumscribe their belief within a definite period, viz: the Christian era. The majority, perhaps, derive their dates from the dispersion at the tower of Babel. Again, there are those who place entire confidence in the theory given by Cabrera, derived from another source, and paraded with the utmost assurance as having been obtained from some 'precious documents,' found in a cave, where they had been hid by Votan himself! From the tenor of the facts in this case, but more particularly from the language used by the Bishop of Chiapa, Don Francisco Nunez de la Vega, whose book was printed at Rome in 1702, we are forced to think that many, very many, important memorials, and those which would have afforded us the means for discovering the history of this people, were destroyed by the bigots of his sect. In this superstitious crusade, he himself gave the most distinguished example, by destroying, according to his own confession, the 'precious documents' in question. It is important that the truth or falsity of this 'memorial for future ages,' as Cabrera calls it, should be inquired into; as it is either to be considered hereafter as settling the great question, 'Who were the Tultiques,' or it is to be thrown aside as an idle and credulous story, got up by the bishop himself, for the purpose of giving himself eclat, and of confirming those who otherwise might be sceptical upon so interesting a point in history, or, perhaps, in his own peculiar faith.

The evidences already presented of the antiquity of the Tultecan monuments cannot, we must suppose, but destroy all the statements, (for they are mere statements, without one clear and rational fact to support them,) which have been made, giving a comparatively modern date to the Tultique nation. It is true, that the monuments of Tultecan greatness bear a striking resemblance to those of the Egyptians and Romans, not to say several other eastern nations of people. But what does this prove? Just nothing at all. If the relics which so much astonish us at Palenque, give evidence of age cöeval at least, if not greatly anterior, to those of Egypt, from which, it has been affirmed they were copied, the Cyclops cannot be supposed to have been their authors. A long period of time should have elapsed from that in which these 'wandering masons,' for such it is said the Indian traditions of Central America style the builders of their ancient edifices, were exterminated from Egypt, wandered to the Atlantic coast, prepared themselves for a long voyage—totally unacquainted, as they were, with marine navigation—and actually traversed the unknown sea for three thousand miles! How long, will it be supposed, they were engaged in thus acquiring a taste so unsuited to their habits, and in contriving suitable vessels, which, in Upper Egypt, they never could have seen, to embark on the trackless sea for America, without a compass to guide them, and without the possibility of their knowing whither they were going? Is it to be presumed, that vessels of theirs, at that time, if they built any at all, or were, in fact, in a situation to build them, if they had a mind, were furnished with the requisite materials, provisioned, etc., to navigate the Atlantic ocean? Should we admit all this as probable, for the sake of speculation, it would appear remarkable if they, first and fortunately, touched upon the coast of Yucatan, and located, at once, in the finest country on the globe, and that, too, in sufficient numbers to have built and peopled even one of its large cities. We shall not venture to name the time required at that stage of man's history to have accomplished all these things, or attempt to explain how the mouldering arts which this people have left from unrecorded time, could exhibit still greater antiquity than those of the Egyptians. This discrepancy between supposition and fact is better referred to those who, rather than doubt what they have previously believed, adopt as truth the most inconsistent theories.

The Carthaginians, although more adventurous, and more accustomed in their belligerent prows to the dangers of the sea than any other ancient maritime nation of people, are as little entitled to the credit of having first peopled America, as the native Egyptians, so far as positive evidence is concerned. The latter will not be supposed to have inspired their successors with the requisite information and skill, nor will it be presumed that they were so far the masters of navigation themselves, as to have accomplished voyages to this continent. The reasons which apply to these people, are equally applicable to all others during the early conditions of society. Neither the Greeks nor the Romans, ambitious as they were of fortune and of fame, can be conceived capable of having executed voyages of three thousand miles on an unexplored ocean. Nor will the colonies of the Carthaginians and Romans, said to have been established by them upon the sea-coast and on neighboring Islands, be imagined to have afforded the parent nations the necessary impetus to embark in quest of discovery on an ocean, ever considered by them of boundless extent, or have prompted them to plant colonies at the distance of four thousand miles, admitting them to have conceived the existence of another continent. Were we so credulous as to believe this, we should be driven to the admission, that they not only made one, but numerous voyages across the Atlantic; and eventually reared a great nation under their auspices. And if so, why, we might very naturally inquire, is all history silent upon the subject, and without even a hint of its truth, or the possibility of the performances?

The wreck on our shores of some solitary vessel, a circumstance dwelt upon by all who have attempted to get over the difficulties in accounting for the origin of the American people, is equally unsatisfactory; for it is but a bare supposition at best. We might as reasonably suppose any other means of peopling this continent. It is even less probable that a female was upon such a wreck, and survived the catastrophe, to constitute an American Eve. Yet supposing even this to have been the case, how long a time would have been required, from the earliest history of Carthaginian or Roman prow navigation, for the luckless navigators of their craft, with each a surviving partner, a circumstance still less probable, to have explored Central America, built numerous cities—one containing at least two millions of people—reared the most stupendous and durable edifices, and other monuments, and then to have become extinct, or identified with other species of men, and all their monuments of 'eternal rock' to have crumbled into one general wreck of matter? Could all this have happened, we ask, even supposing, for the love of conjecture, that all the rest actually did happen? We leave reasonable men to answer for themselves. But there is another reason why the Tultiques are derived from no such reputed stock, and one which every scientific man will deem conclusive, if his prejudices preclude all other sources of evidence. There are physical peculiarities, we all know, by which species of men, as well as all lower animals, are contradistinguished. These in the Tultique have so little resemblance in common with other species of mankind, ancient or modern, that no effort of the physiologist can give him, according to distinctive criteria, a homologous arrangement. He is completely alone in this respect, and consequently could not have been indebted to the people in question, from whom he most of all differed, for his origin.

The fact also, if it needs be, that the Carthaginians visited parts of the United States, either from choice or necessity, as is believed by many archæologists, would go far to prove that they were not the people of Tulteca. If this be still supposed, where, we would inquire, are their descendants? They would have been as likely to have peopled this country as any other. The reasons why they did not flourish here, would answer alike for their not peopling Central America. The same remains of great cities would appear here as in Chiapa, Guatemala, etc., had they or their descendants been the authors of those in the latter places. Faint evidences do exist, of the presence of a peculiar people in this country, at some distant period of time, other than those who raised the tumuli of the western states, the Tartars, the Scandinavians, or Welch. The most remarkable of these—perhaps these are the only evidences worthy of note—are inscriptions on rocks in various parts of the United States. The characters are believed to be Carthaginian. In not less than twelve places are they to be seen at the present day. But whatever others may think, in relation to the authors of these blind, though curious inscriptions, we are ourselves little inclined to believe them Carthaginian. It is quite as probable, in fact, that they were the work of the original inhabitants of the western valleys, as of any other people, for they are there to be seen, as well as upon the Atlantic coast. Similar characters have been discovered on specimens of arts left by that people. Confidence may have been obtained for the supposition that they were Carthaginian, from the fact that the remains of a vessel, clearly Carthaginian in form and style, are said to have been discovered imbedded in the soil not far distant from where inscriptions are now to be seen on rocks, near our Atlantic coast. But at that time, these were supposed to be the only inscriptions to be found in our country; many others, however, are now known to exist, as far distant even as Georgia, and in the interior.

The walls of cities lately discovered at the west, in Wisconsin, Arkansas, etc., prove nothing in respect to the ruined cities of which we have been speaking in Central America, except that they are entirely unlike in every particular, and were built by people as different in their character and knowledge, as our present Indians and ourselves. They prove much, however, in relation to the remains of cities on the north-west coast, heretofore noticed, and also to the temples, cities, etc., of the valley of Mexico. These with others equally remarkable, will be fully discussed in subsequent numbers.

[NAPOLEON.]

He won the laurels, and with them renown,
But lost them both, to shape them to a crown;
And, sworn to conquer kings, self-conquer'd fell,
When he himself the royal list would swell;
And, with the fasces, for the sceptre made
A sorry change—the substance for the shade:
Untaught what madness to the million clings,
Who forms to facts prefer, and names to things:
Triumphant for a space, by craft and crime,
Two foes he left unconquered—Truth and Time:
Oh! had he for true glory shaped his course,
He'd 'scaped repentance living—dead, remorse!

[THE DEATH OF SOCRATES.]

Give me the bowl!
The boon of freedom to my weary soul
Hath come at last; the hour of calm release,
When all the restless storms of life may cease,
And time's dark billows, as they onward roll,
Shall sweep above my silent grave in peace.

Long, long in sadness hath my spirit yearn'd
For freedom from the heavy bonds of flesh;
And earthly hopes and earthly pleasures spurn'd:
And while the quenchless fire within it burn'd,
Hath sighed for streams immortal, to refresh
Its drooping wings, that it might upward soar,
Beyond the curtains of the vaulted sky,
Within the veil that hides Eternity;
And drink the tide of bliss, and weep no more!
*****

It is a bitter draught!
Meet emblem of Death's cruel bitterness;
To those who love life more, or loathe it less;
Yet in its mingled poison have I quaff'd
The fountain, whose undying strength shall waft
The heir of life immortal to those shores,
Where the full tide of its bright glory pours!

Yet may this be a vision! I have dream'd
Of future time—of years beyond the grave;
Of brighter worlds far o'er the whelming wave;
And on my raptured fancy there hath gleam'd.
The image of a thousand hidden things,
That reason may not trace; and wisdom brings
No clue to read; and weary thought turns back,
All hopeless from the dark, bewildering track.
*****

'Tis drain'd! and mingled with the streams of life,
The venom pours through every swollen vein:
The race is run—fought is the field of strife;
And bleeds the vanquish'd now upon the plain,
No more the conflict to essay again!
*****

Oh, Source Eternal! Being Infinite!
To whom—though blindly, from this darksome prison,
Where doubt and error reign in ceaseless night—
The worship of my spirit long hath risen;
No more I doubt—no longer wavering,
I offer incense to a God unknown,
But, from the altar of my bosom, fling
Its fragrance at the footstool of thy throne;
And as the film of death obscures my sight,
The vision of thy presence grows more bright!
*****

'Tis almost o'er! My wildered senses roam—
A thousand harps the balmy air are filling!
A thousand angel voices wildly thrilling,
Are calling, 'Kindred spirit, haste thee home!'
Speed, speed, my ling'ring soul!—'I come! I come!'

Wilmington, (Del.,) August, 1837.J. T. J.

[NOTES OF A SURGEON.][1]

NUMBER TWO.

THE INCENDIARIES.

I was aroused from my sleep one morning about three o'clock, by the alarm of fire. A bright light was shining into my room, and casting its tinted rays in flashes over the wall, pallid by the beams of a December moon, like the flickering glances of hectic over the consumptive cheek of beauty. On going to the window, I discovered that the fire was but a short distance from the hospital, and in broad view. A brilliant fire so near me, overcame my natural apathy, and packing on some extra habiliments, I sallied out to see what havoc this mighty element was making among the time-worn and thickly-tenanted buildings of the purlieus of L—— street.

The engines were already at work, when I reached the spot. A dwelling-house was on fire, and the flames were shooting merrily up from the roof and windows, tinged or obscured for a brief moment by the occasional flood of water which the bounteous hose lavished upon the most flagrant portions of the enkindled domicil—a powerful and efficient antiphlogistic, as it struck me at the time. I made my way, with others, into an alley which led to the rear of the house, with some faint hope that I might be of service in arresting the flames, or at any rate, enjoy a fair and near view of the fire, without the danger of being trodden under foot. The whole back part of one wooden building was in a blaze, and the persons in the yard were pointing to it with evident marks of interest and agitation. I did not have long to wait, to be informed of the subject of their solicitude. Presently, a figure shot through the second-story window, sash and all, and bounded to the ground. He rolled and plunged about, and endeavored to tear off his burning garments; for, singularly enough, he was dressed in pantaloons, boots, and vest, as if he had not been in bed; his hair was entirely singed off, and his shirt was fast consuming from his arms. In a moment, another one similarly dressed, but without shoes, rushed down stairs, and tumbled into the middle of the yard, uttering most pitiable cries. Astonished at such a sudden apparition, the spectators scarcely knew what to do; and I was equally at a loss, for an instant; but running up to the one who lay prostrate on the ground, where he had just pitched from the door, with the aid of some of the more wakeful beholders, I extinguished the fire about his neck and shoulders, as effectually as was practicable. He would hardly permit any one to touch him, but kept thrusting his burning arms up to his face, and thus adding unconsciously to the mischief. Having smothered the flames, and put him in charge of some of the by-standers, who had now generously volunteered their assistance, I went to take a view of the other. I found him lying in the dirt, without any fire on his person, (it had been put out by others,) and rolling ceaselessly from side to side. When spoken to, he answered in a hurried and impatient manner.

Having made a rude litter out of boards, we had them laid on it, and carried to the hospital. As we emerged from the rear gate, the crowd, who had learned the nature of the occurrence, made way, and we were soon at the corner, around which the store was situated, from whence these unfortunate individuals had issued in the rear. Here their mother joined us. She made no violent manifestations of grief, as the litter went along, but walked by its side, occasionally coming nearer, and addressing a word to her sons, as they seemed to be more sharply tortured.

Having deposited them in one of the wards of the hospital, reserved for the reception of such cases, the first dressings were put on, and a slight anodyne and cordial were administered to them both, as they were greatly prostrated, especially the one who seemed to be the younger. Bottles of hot water, and bags filled with heated sand, were applied around their extremities. It was not long before one of them was restored to his natural warmth, and to a full sense of his wretchedness. But the other never recovered from the shock given to his nervous system, and rapidly sunk, as will be seen. His senses were in full activity, until near the last, and with a little agitation, attributable to the severity of his bodily injury, and to the prospect of the near approach of death, there was a degree of emotion, which was not to be assigned to so obvious a cause, and which led to the belief that something lay heavily on his mind, which he wished, yet hesitated to declare. His father appeared but once, and going to his bed, whispered a few words in his ear, and left him. He seemed not less distressed after this visit.

His mother came frequently, but was unable to remain constantly, or even a considerable part of the time, by his bed-side, from the distress which the view of his calamitous situation, and his terrible writhings under the agony of his burns, produced in her mind. She said very few words to him; and those only in the way of soothing and comforting his momentary distresses; but sat by the side of his low bed, and at every half unconscious toss that tore off strips of skin from his body, and exposed patches of the bleeding surface to the view of the mother, she raised up her arms and face, in the most pitiable excess of grief that the mind is capable of imagining. She might have been a study to the unhallowed gaze of an ambitious devotee of sculpture.

The patient (the younger, who is here alluded to, the other being comparatively out of danger,) tossed and turned so incessantly in bed, that it was almost impossible to keep any dressings on the excoriated parts. At the approach of night, his agitation increased. He continually complained of rigor, or chilliness, and inquired for some warm drink, which, when presented to him, he rejected, with appearances of disgust. I determined to set up with him a part of the night, in the hope of being able to relieve his sufferings, if not by bodily remedies, at least by such anodynes to the mind as might be administered in words. I was not without some expectations that he might be induced to make me the participator of the secret uneasiness, which various circumstances had led me to believe he was laboring under.

One of the junior assistants was sent down to see if he could contribute to the comfort of the patient, by changing his dressings, and came back with the report, that the patient would not allow of his ministrations, but desired my presence.

'Did you not take off any of the coverings from his arms, face, and neck?' I asked.

'No; when I went in, he was discussing some grave subject with himself, about murders foul and dire, coughs and cords; and when I touched my hand to his neck, he repulsed my arm, and I thought he meant 'nec sinit esse feros;' that he would not permit me to lay rough hands on his neck.'

'You should not be rough, Mr. Aster.'

'Oh, I was quite otherwise. So, I removed to a little distance, and listened to his oracular mutterings. He made me the recipient of some dubious matters—rather unutterable secrets.'

'What did he say?'

'Why, he first broke into violent denunciations of certain persons, and accused them, particularly his brother, of urging him on to the commission of some desperate deed; then he called on his mother and sisters, and poured out entreaties to some unknown accuser. From all of which I inferred, that he had a hand in the fire; in other words, 'Fieri fecit.''

'I have had some suspicions of that kind; but we must be silent touching such involuntary communications.'

'Then, suddenly coming to himself, he began to stare around, and seeing us standing about, he collapsed into dead silence, and pulling the bed-clothes over him, remained invisible. Shortly, I drew near his bed, and asked him if he would have any thing. 'Please send Mr. F—— here,' he replied, and I left him.'

It was late in the evening before I could arrange to be with the patient. I found him with less appearance of delirium than might have been expected from the augmented severity of his sufferings. He remained restless and agitated, until about one in the morning, speaking very little, but occasionally murmuring inarticulately in his slumbers. On becoming more calm, he manifested much solicitude for his fellow sufferer.

'Doctor, how does my brother do? Do you think he will get over it?'

He had been removed to a different ward, that he might not be affected by the situation of the other, and was doing well. I stated as much.

'I feel cold, very cold,' he continued. 'Wouldn't some of that warm drink give me a little heat? No! I've tried that; it burns my throat. Yet, I'm all dried up inside.'

'Here is some cool water with wine.'

'Cool! The sound is enough to make me shiver. But I will take some, for the sake of the experiment.'

He touched a little of it to his lips, and then drank the whole of the potion. It agreed with him better than warm drinks, which were more suitable to his condition. Then sinking into quietude, he seemed about to be falling asleep. All at once, he burst out into exclamations of horror and alarm, and cries for assistance; vehemently declared his innocence; and in the course of his ramblings, made a complete exposure of his secret. He terminated by springing up in bed, and attempting to jump on to the floor. His eyes fell upon me, and he seemed to recover his mental faculties as speedily as he had lost them. He reclined back on his pillow, and said, with much earnestness:

'Doctor, what have I been uttering? Have I revealed any thing?'

'You have disclosed some things which I should not hear, except in the confidence of a physician,' I replied.

'What!—any thing that would criminate me?'

'Yes, you and others.'

'I see that I have unwittingly taught you my secret. Curse this wild delirium! But on whom should the curse fall! I will trust you. I know that until I am dead, you will not be able to betray any thing; and after that, it will be at your option, at any rate, to make that public which will endanger the life of another.'

'Have no fears of me, if there is a possibility that any one may receive injury from my information.'

The patient, whose name was Ludovico, being satisfied with my assurance of secrecy, proceeded to give a short narration of the facts.

'My brother was of a very impetuous temper, and always exercised a kind of authority over me, to which in fact I willingly acceded, from a consciousness of his superior knowledge. He had conceived some splendid project for sudden aggrandizement, which, to be carried into effect, required the aid and countenance of my father. One dark and stormy night in October, about one year since, he took me to a house in the northern part of the city, and introduced me into a room, where, by the light of a dimly-burning lamp, a half dozen men were busily engaged around a table in looking over some rude sketches and diagrams. Pieces of paper were marked over with Arabic numerical characters, and letters of the alphabet, arranged in squares, and perched upon pen-marked fabrics, which looked like houses or castles, churches, and prisons. Flags which resembled the signals of barbarian nations, were floating from the pinnacle of some lofty edifice, or planted on the summit of hills whose ranges extended off in parallel lines, or in angular courses far into the boldly-etched and pointed features of the landscape. These delineations were in correct perspective, and were evidently drawn up and embellished by a master hand, with some remote and magnificent intent, which was not perceptible to my uninitiated sense.

'Principal among those around the table, was a stout gray-headed man, whose heavy frame and badly-jointed limbs, which were freely exercised, apparently with a view of setting off their ungracefulness, and the general shabbiness of his attire, showed him to be the chief spirit of the adventurers. His lean fingers, at the end of so ill-managed an arm, hardly warranted the supposition that he was the draughtsman of the elegant sketch, over whose surface he was passing his pencil, and indenting the denominative syllables on the bosom of some winding river, which cut its way between the prominent and ornamented insignia that formed a part of the file of look-outs—for such I decided them to be, after having ascertained the subject of their deliberations. The other members of the conclave were of a like description; all were of shabby exterior, but the fire of an unnatural enthusiasm shone in their eyes, and spoke out in their gestures. They were evidently expecting my brother, who had them seemingly in control, and was only of them insomuch as he joined in their views and projects. They all erected themselves in various attitudes on his entrance, and the speaker of the company broke out in these words:

''Ha, Petro! we have been looking over this drawing, and there is nothing wrong about it, unless it is this hill. I think some one nearer should have been chosen.'

''Wrong?—there is not a particle wrong. The main points of observation have been carefully selected. Here is Philadelphia; there is Ludgate church; here is Mount Taurus; on the summit of that hill is a very tall pine, which I have sketched; this dwelling-house (of friend Soper's) is the last post before you reach New-York; and here is New-York.'

''But I think that mountain is at too great a distance from Philadelphia, to see distinctly. Don't you think so?' continued the speaker.

''Why, you owl! it is but fifteen miles; and a good telescope will discern a man's features at ten or twelve miles.'

''Well, if we have the countenance of Providence, we shall succeed,' he meekly replied.

'They were engaged in a scheme for transmitting intelligence from one city to another, by means of telegraphs, for the purpose of taking advantage of the rise or fall in stocks, and of speculating in lottery tickets. I have introduced this little scene, in order to show you the influences by which my brother was wrought upon. They spent the greater part of the night in discussing the measures, and Petro in enforcing the details of his arrangements. Those who were present, beside my brother Petro, could not have handed over a dollar, at the solicitation of a surcharged pistol, held horizontally at their vest button, and backed by the imperious proclamation, 'Stand and deliver, or die!' He was the only one who could move the enterprise so heavily constructed, and he was not equal to the whole effort. Though moneyless adventurers, his coadjutors were cunning enough to place upon his shoulders the burden of the undertaking, in the faith of their absolute necessity as a part of the machinery.

'Petro was engaged with his whole soul in the success of the experiment, and nothing could deter him from prosecuting it. Hard were his struggles to devise some means for raising the requisite funds. Every thing, I believe, passed through his mind, short of actual robbery, and it was not long before this entered into his calculations. The frequent meetings held with his associates, at which I was sometimes present, and the artful but seemingly innocent protestations of their honest leader, served to keep up his ambition, and to nourish his ardent and chimerical aspirations. We were at that time clerks in a store, which was filled with the most precious commodities; but the building itself was of wood, and of quite inferior appearance. We lodged on the second floor. My brother formed the design of removing the most valuable part of the goods, and setting fire to the store. The plan was not unfolded to me until after it had been completed, and every thing had been prepared. My opposition was useless. The gang were made acquainted with it, and agreed to assist on a certain night.

'A considerable quantity of the stock had been abstracted by degrees, for a number of weeks previous; and on that evening (the one you well know) after the principals had left, we began to transport the boxes and packages, assisted by the others, to the house of the prime accomplice, where they were secure from search. The avails were to enable us to realize our glittering dreams of wealth.

'In the back room, on the second floor, we had made a collection of the most combustible substances, and had so placed them, that they would in a moment after the application of the torch be ignited, and communicate the fire to the partitions, bed, etc. A stove-pipe which passed out of the back window had been disconnected with the stove, in order to allow the smoke to escape readily; so that it might not, by issuing through the crevices of the windows, particularly in the front of the building, betray our attempt before the fire had got fairly under way.

'We usually slept in the bed in the back part of this room, and had planned to go to the theatre, and returning about twelve o'clock, throw ourselves on to the bed in our clothes, and lie till one or two in the morning, when we were to arise and set fire to the apartment. If our plans succeeded, we were to make it appear that we had laid down rather in liquor, had set the candle by the side of the bed, and that it had caught the drapery.

'Accordingly, to the theatre we went; actually got somewhat tipsy, as we reflected on the hazardous nature of our enterprise, and coming back about midnight, proceeded directly to our chamber. We soon managed to procure a light. I pulled off my shoes and coat, and threw myself on to the bed, for I felt unwilling to contemplate the deed which we were on the point of committing. I had worked myself up to the task, and feared that my nerves might be unstrung by a survey of the preparatives for our mischief-doing. My brother, however, felt too deep an interest in the progress and result of the plan, to think of repose; and commissioning me to 'tumble up' his side of the bed, he took his position by the table, with a book before him, which had one advantage over vacancy, that it shut out the view of external objects, and opened the way to reflection.

'I soon fell into a disturbed sleep, and dreamed that the whole upper part of the house was in flames, and that my brother, in endeavoring to escape out of the front door with some valuable article about him, was seized by six or eight men, and carried away to prison, in spite of his entreaties. I dreamed also that I was standing in the door, and the whole building suddenly gave way, and was about to fall upon my head. At this I awoke in terror, but soon became sensible of my situation, when I found my brother standing over me, and shaking me by the shoulder.

'It was now about a quarter of three. Petro had prepared every thing, even to a match, to insure speedy conflagration.

''Now then,' said he, 'nerve yourself for the consummation. Take this match, and set fire to the bed-clothes, while I touch this other pile with my candle.'

'He did so, and at the same moment my trembling hands applied the torch to the light drapery of the bed. In an instant, curtains, sheets, and all, were in a blaze, while at the other end of the room the fire spread with astonishing rapidity among the dry and flimsy stuffs which had been thrown together in a heap. Seeing all things in such fine progress, we turned our steps toward the door, which was about midway of the room, when I recollected that we had left a small box of jewelry and money at the foot of the bed.

''Stop, one moment, till I get the box,' said I, and directed my steps to the bed.

''Make haste!' said my brother, as he stood with his hand on the latch.

'I threw up the clothes at the foot of the bed.

''Where is it? I cannot touch it?' I asked.

''Under the right corner, between the sack and the ——'

''It has been stolen! Who has been in here? Haven't you put it somewhere else?'

''Look under the head; it is surely there. Hurry!'

''Impossible!' The fire had become scorching hot, so that I could endure it no longer. Not only the whole bed, but the wainscot and window sashes had begun to burn. I was obliged to make my way to the door.

''It was left there, I tell you; it must be got; it is all our dependence for immediate funds. Ludovico, seek it once more!' exclaimed my brother.

''Will you have me burn myself to death! My shirt-sleeves are burnt off now. I hear some one coming.'

''It is your ears—try again!' returned Petro.

''I go—but you see!' I replied, as I turned back, holding up my arms, which were already severely scorched.

''Here, take this stick,' cried Petro, wrenching off a strip from the wall, and heaving it to me; 'that will save your hands.'

'I thrust it into every part of the bed, which was now little else than a mass of ashes, without striking the object of my search. My arms suffered severely from the hot air of the room, and the flames were almost licking my face.

''I can't endure it! I would not try any longer, for the universe!' I exclaimed.

''Must we lose the most valuable part of the goods? What shall we do?' said Petro, who now began to feel the warmth more pressingly, from which he had been before but little disturbed, there being a space in the middle of the room free from the flames.

''The house,' said I, 'will soon fall over our heads, if we don't escape; we shall be discovered; it can't be long before the fire will be observed without.'

''Well, let the cursed thing go; it is not worth our lives. Come, and let us get out, as quick as the devil will let us.'

''Ha! the door is locked!' he continued, in an alarmed voice, and working at the latch violently, with both hands. 'Run to the other door!'

'I ran and tried it; but it yielded no more than if it had been barricaded with triple bolts.

''What was done with the key?' demanded Petro, searching hastily in his pockets.

''It is on the outside. No one can have turned it since we went to bed; nobody has been in.'

''Locked!—locked! No, it cannot be!' repeated my brother: 'it is the heated air of the room. We must exert our whole strength together.'

'We did so, and without effect. We were now in a truly desperate situation, with no opportunity to escape, and the fire already enveloping us.

''Madmen! fools! why did we delay! By heavens! we must not perish here. Where are our friends!'

'At this time, the cry of 'fire!' was raised in the street, and we heard the engines rattling along the pavements. We also thought we distinguished the sound of persons ascending the stairs, and called to them, but could not make them hear, in consequence of the roaring of the flames, and the shouts of the firemen in the street.

''Down with the door! round to the rear!' we understood distinctly, and echoed back the unavailing cry, while the heavy shock of a ladder, as it struck against the wooden walls, one story above us, showed the advance of the preparations for effecting an entrance in that quarter, and for quenching the fire.

'My brother shouted for assistance, but the noise of the engines and the cry of 'fire!' without, drowned his voice.

''It is useless,' said I; 'that bellowing rabble will split their sides to out-bawl us.'

'Still more alarmed, and smarting with our burns, we now attempted to raise the window. But, as if the fates conspired against us, it refused to move!

''We shouted for help; we shrieked, till our voices were hoarse. The floor under our feet had now kindled to flame, and it was with difficulty we could prevent our clothes being entirely consumed.'

''Come, Ludovico,' said Petro, 'we can live here but a few minutes longer; let us make one more trial.'

''I can do no more; I shall die!' exclaimed I, sinking to the floor in the apathy of despair. I was suffering the most exquisite torture from my burns; and to relieve me of my insupportable agony, I attempted to hasten my death by strangulation. My brother, who was less burnt, still struggled at the door. He turned and saw me stretched out in this situation.

''Fool, fool!' he exclaimed, with angry energy; 'are you so willing to die? Up! up! and assist me!'

'I arose. The room was now filled with flame. I could not for a moment endure it. I flung myself again against the door in desperation, and sank down breathless and exhausted. It was now my brother's turn to be desperate; and for a moment, I forgot my pain in witnessing his agonies. He shrieked for aid, and cursed his hapless fate; and falling upon his knees, he invoked alternately the powers of heaven and hell, weeping and sobbing like a child.

'We once more arose, and resolved to make a final attempt to save our lives.

''Here, Ludovico,' said Petro, 'we can get out of that trap-door overhead. Why did we not think of it before?'

''There is a box on the other side,' said I, 'but I have not strength to get it.'

'Petro rushed across the room, through the blaze, and bounded back with a box which, on a less exciting occasion, he could not have moved.

''You have burnt your face Petro, terribly,' said I.

''Curse the face! What care I for a scar! It will be better for a disguise, should we be in danger of detection. Jump on to the box, and support me!'

''It is vain, Petro; I have scarcely strength to stand.'

'Nevertheless, we exerted ourselves to the utmost, but after almost superhuman efforts, we dropped again to the floor.

''We must die, Petro!' I exclaimed, in hopeless resignation; 'yet it is hard to die, while there may still be a possibility of escape.'

'But my brother's courage revived, and we made one more concentrated effort upon the door, and shook it a little. We strained harder; it seemed to yield; yet harder; it was illusion! The door was firmer than ever.

''Hell-fire! exclaimed Petro, in frenzy, 'I will balk these infernal flames yet!'

'Saying this, he darted to the front window, but as rapidly rushed back, scorched and miserably burned on his face and hands, and with his hair and clothes on fire.

''Save yourself, and follow me!' he muttered through his closed teeth, and running with all speed to the back window, without stopping to open the blinds, or raise the sash, he plunged head-foremost into the yard.

'My flesh was wretchedly burnt; each pore of my skin seemed penetrated by a red-hot needle. Every fibre of my body was a chain of fire; yet a chill ran through my frame; my limbs were paralyzed with horror; the weight of a hundred tons seemed pressing upon my breast.

'Before following my brother's example, I tremulously applied my hand to the door, and on using a little strength forced it open. Joyfully I hailed the passage, and rushed precipitately down stairs. You know the rest.'

Here the patient ended. The admission of air by the window was probably the cause of the door giving way to his touch. The unfortunate young man died early in the morning, in a state of savage delirium. It should be observed, that his narration was frequently interrupted by paroxysms of madness; but it was not necessary to preserve any thing more than the bare details. His brother went through a tedious period of recovery, during which time his infamous partners made way with the secreted property. No suspicion got abroad of the actors in this drama. Petro retired to some distant place, with what feelings, intents, or fate, I shall not attempt to describe.

[THE BIRCHEN CANOE.]

In the region of lakes, where the blue waters sleep,
My beautiful fabric was built,
Light cedars supported its weight on the deep,
And its sides with the sunbeams were gilt.

The bright leafy bark of the betula tree,
A flexible sheathing provides,
And the fir's thready roots drew the parts to agree,
And bound down its high-swelling sides.

No compass or gavel was used on the bark,
No art but the simplest degree,
But the structure was finished and trim to remark,
And as light as a sylph's could be.

Its rim is with tender young roots woven round,
Like a pattern of wicker-work rare,
And it glides o'er the waves with as lightsome a bound,
As a basket suspended in air.

The heavens in brightness and glory below,
Were reflected quite plain to the view,
And it moved like a swan, with as lightsome a show,
My beautiful birchen canoe!

The trees on the shore, as I glided along,
Seemed moving a contrary way,
And my voyagers lightened their toil with a song,
That caused every heart to be gay.

And still as I floated by rock and by shell,
My bark raised a murmur aloud,
And it danced on the waves, as they rose and they fell,
Like a fay on a bright summer cloud.

I thought, as I passed o'er the liquid expanse,
With the landscape in smiling array,
How blest I should be, if my life could advance,
Thus tranquil and sweetly away.

The skies were serene—not a cloud was in sight,
Not an angry surge beat on the shore,
And I gazed on the waters and then on the light,
Till my vision could bear it no more.

Oh, long shall I think of those silver-bright lakes,
And the scenes they revealed to my view,
My friends, and the wishes I formed for their sakes,
And my bright yellow birchen canoe!

Michilimackinack, September, 1837.H. R. S.

[MARK!]

BY PATER ABRAHAM A SANCTA CLARA.

In Two Parts.—Part Two.

The eloquent Pater, after the colloquy between Death and the soldiers of Vienna, as given in a former number, turns from Mars, and, by an easy transition, passes to Venus, and begins his homily to maidens. He mentions the miracle wrought by the prophet with the widow's cruise of oil, and draws from it a reflection we do not recollect to have yet heard 'improved' in the pulpit.

'Now, when this widow found no help in her trouble, she bethought herself of the prophet Elisha, to whom she told her story with tears in her eyes. Elisha was moved by these widow's tears, and asked her, what she had in the house. Think, for the love of heaven, what it was! 'And thereupon she answered, I have nothing in the house but a little oil, to anoint myself withal.' To anoint herself! Only think, in the midst of her poverty, she still took pains to be a pretty creature, even if a poor creature! In a word, beauty is the only aim of womankind!'

'How many long timbers, how many short timbers, how many large timbers, how many small timbers, how many thick timbers, how many thin timbers, how many round timbers, how many square timbers, how many straight timbers, how many crooked timbers, were used in building up the tower of Babel! How many large stones, how many small stones, how many round stones, how many square stones, how many rough stones, how many smooth stones, how many white stones, how many red stones, how many common stones, how many marble stones, were needed to build and adorn the tower of Babel! It is nearly the same with a woman. What taffeta stuffs, what silken stuffs, what worked stuffs, what embroidered stuffs, what flowered stuffs, what wide stuffs, what narrow stuffs, what colored stuffs, doth she not require; and all to be beautiful, to be thought beautiful, to be called beautiful!'

But Death is blind to all their beauty:

'This rude fellow saith, 'I never learned respect for beauty, I never practised it, I never used it! He who will look for modesty in a peacock, honesty in a fox, and fasting in a wolf, may look for respect in me; not a pound, not a half a pound, not a quarter of a pound, not an ounce, not a grain of respect is to be found in all my stock!''

From the maiden we pass to the matron, under which head we find an unhappy married life described with a pungency which savors rather of an experienced husband, than of a bare-footed bachelor:

'As odious as is a lyre, wherein the strings do not accord, so is marriage, where tempers do not agree. What is such an union but a disunion, a battle-ground, a school of affliction, a scolding-match, a grind-stone, a nest of hedge-hogs, a rack, a briar-bush, a clock always striking, a mental harrow, a pepper-mill, a summing up of all wretchedness!'

On the other hand, take his description of a happy marriage:

'It is known how vast was the temple of Solomon. In the first place, there were assembled there seventy thousand laborers, eighty thousand masons and stone-cutters, three thousand overseers. But the most wondrous part is, that during the work, not a stroke of steel or hammer was heard; nec ferrum audie batur. This was a miracle! Some say that this was clearly through God's work and aid; others, that Solomon caused to be got a store of the blood of a certain beast, by which the hardest stones were split in twain, without need of hammer or steel; be this as it may, true it is, that in all the work, neither blow nor stroke was heard.

'To this house of God can we compare the house of two loving spouses, where no sound of strife is heard, but every thing fits itself into place without struggle or labor. Such an union is a clock which always stands at one; a garden wherein nothing grows but hearts'-ease; a grammar in which nothing is conjugated but amo, and rixa is declined; a calendar, whose chiefest saints are St. Pacificus and St. Concordia.'

The following veracious tale we earnestly recommend to the attention of the ladies of the present day, without, however, meaning to insinuate for a moment that they have fallen away in the least from the conjugal devotion of the fair Francisca Romana:

'The holy lady Francisca Romana valued such quietude above all things else; wherefore one day, while she was devoutly, as was her wont, reading the history of our blessed Lady, being called away by her husband to perform some domestic duty, she laid aside her book, leaving the verse she was reading, unfinished, and having fulfilled her lord's commands, hastened back to her devotions, when lo! the verse at which she had broken off had been changed by an angel into letters of gold.'

The necessity of holding the rod over children, he thus illustrates:

'So long as Aaron, at Pharaoh's court, held the rod in his hand, it remained a rod; but when he cast it on the ground, it became a serpent. Remember this, ye parents! and cast it not away.'

Next comes the turn of the rich man, at whom our worthy apostle hammers away without mercy:

'MARK—RICH MAN!'

'If it were allowed to Samson to propound a riddle for the delectation of his guests, it will perhaps be not ill taken in me to question my hearers as follows: What is it? It hath not feet, yet travelleth through the whole world; it hath no hands, yet overmasters whole armies; it hath no tongue, yet discourseth more eloquently than Bartolus or Baldus; it hath no sense, yet is more mighty than all the wise men of the earth: 'tis a thing which, both in its German and Latin names, comes near to God. Well now what is it? Crack me this nut, if you can. It is nothing else than Gold. Take away the L from it, and we have God, and in Latin numen is God, and nummus money, which two names are near akin.

'In the days of Noah, when the weary waters were deluging the world, the patriarch sent forth a dove to see how the rains stood upon the earth. This pious and simple bird, more obedient than the raven, returned speedily, and lighted on the ark. After a time, he sent her forth again, and she returned with an olive branch in her mouth; and here the holy book doth not say that Noah this time laid hands on her, and took her into the ark; whence it is reasonable to conclude that she flew in the second time of her own accord, wherein lies no small mystery. The first time, Noah was obliged to draw her into the ark by force, the second time she flew freely in. Reason: the first time, the dovelet had nothing; the dovelet was a poor devil, and durst not venture into the ark,

Si nihil attuleris, ibis, Homere, foras.

The second time, it had an olive branch, and flew straight in, well knowing that door and portal stand open to him that bringeth any thing.'

'Here can I not omit to berate the miser a little. Dearest reader! thou hast doubtless seen somewhat beyond the hedge of thy father's garden, and wandered through many provinces and regions; tell me then, if thou hast ever seen a living purse of money? Such a rarity you have scarcely encountered. But lo! in Matthew, xvii. 23, it is described, how our blessed Lord and his disciples arrived at Capernaum, and the tax-money was demanded of them, and as neither our Lord nor Peter had any silver, he ordered the apostle to cast into the sea, and in the mouth of the first fish he caught he would find money—as indeed it happened, and thus the fish's mouth became a living purse. It is with misers as with this fish; they have nothing but gold in their mouths. They snap at gold, they talk of gold, they fight for gold, they sing of gold, they praise gold, they sigh for gold, they forget not gold, even on their death-bed. Yea, we have an instance in that bold scoffer, who, when the priest visited him in his last hour with the solemn rites of the church, said to him: 'Sir parson, I need not what the cup contains, but if you would have me loan you money on the golden cup itself, I am at your service;' and with these wicked words, gave up the ghost. So that we see that gold, gold is the miser's only thought. O ye fools! ye toil and ye moil, ye chase and ye race, ye sweat and ye fret, ye hurry and ye worry, ye wear and ye tear—and all for gold! Ye drink not, ye eat not, ye sleep not—for gold; till your eyes sink in your head like two hollow nut-shells, till your cheeks are pale as a lawyer's parchment, your hair ragged as a plundered swallow's nest, your legs covered only with skin, like an old drum-head!'

After despatching the misers in this style, he draws to a conclusion, and apostrophizes the world at large, telling them that all their misfortunes arise from sin, a text which he illustrates in this wise:

'I seem to see in fancy holy Bachomius in the wilderness, where he chose him a dwelling among hollow clefts of rocks, which abode consisted in nought but four crooked posts, with a transparent covering of dried boughs. And he, when wearied with singing psalms, resorting to labor lest the old serpent should catch him unemployed, and weaving rude coverings of thatch, sits by a rock, wherefrom flow forth silver veins of water, which make a pleasing murmur in their crystal descent, while around him on the green boughs play the birds of the forest, who with their natural cadences, and the clear-sounding flutes of their throats joining pleno choro, transform the wood into a concert; and the agile deer, the bleating hares, the chirping insects, are his constant companions, unharmed and unharming, all which furnishes him with solace and contentment. But it seemeth to me that our devout hermit delighteth himself more especially in the echo which sends him back his loud sighs and petitions, as when the holy anchorite cries, 'O merciful Christ!' the echo, that unembodied thief, steals away the words, and returns them back to him. But is he too sorely tempted, and doth he exclaim, in holy impatience, 'O thou accursed devil!' the echo lays aside its devout language and sounds back to him, 'Thou accursed devil!' In a word, as a man treats Echo so does Echo treat him.

'Now God is just like this voice of the woods. For it is an unquestioned truth, that as we demean ourselves toward God, so he demeaneth himself toward us.'

In the opinion of our author, and he is not singular in it, procrastination is the great foe to piety and repentance:

'By permission of the Almighty, I knock at the door of hell, and ask this or that one the reason of his condemnation. Holla! thou who art boiling in red hot iron, like a pea in a hot kettle, what was the cause of thy condemnation? 'I,' said he, 'was given to wild lusts, but resolved to leave off my wicked life, and repent, but was suddenly cut off, so that procrastination caused my eternal death.

'The same answer I received from a hundred thousand wretched sinners. Oh how true is it, as the poet says:

'The raven cras oft closes the pass
Unto our souls' salvation;
The fatal 'to-morrow' produceth sorrow,
And final condemnation.'

'And even, silly souls, if you are not cut off by sudden death, but have time to repent given you on your death-bed, still such late repentance seldom availeth much in the sight of God; as Saint Augustine saith, 'The repentance of a sick man, I fear, is generally sickly; that of a dying man, generally dies away. For when thou canst sin no longer, it is not that thou desertest sin, but that sin deserts thee.'

'God in the Old Testament has admitted all kinds of beasts as acceptable offerings; but he excludeth the swan alone, though the swan with its white vesture agreeth well with the livery of the angels, because this feathered creature is the image of a sinner who puts off repentance till death; for the swan is silent through his whole life, and doth not sing till his life is at its close.

'When Eve let herself be led astray so foolishly by the serpent, God reproved the malice of the enemy with the words: 'Thou shalt bruise the heel of Eve and her seed.' * * * Why then is it said that the serpent shall bruise man's heel? It is here to be observed, that every thing in the Scripture is not to be taken according to the letter, for if so, almost every man would be a cripple; for the Bible telleth us, 'If thy foot offend thee, cut it off.' But often in such words, the Holy Spirit concealeth the profoundest doctrine. So in this passage, as Lorinus wisely expoundeth it, we are not to understand by the heel, the lower part of the human body, but the last hours of man, which Satan pursueth most earnestly.'

Now for the conclusion:

'There are doubtless but few to be found among you so simple that they cannot count three. And if heaven has been so gracious as to endow you with wit enough to count three and upward, I still hope ye cannot go so far as to count among ye three-times-three, that is nine, I mean those nine, who were cured by the healing hand of Christ, and of whom only one returned to render to the Lord his Deo Gratias, while the other nine made off with themselves.'

The peroration runs on in this strain of quaint allusion at some length, but we are admonished that it is time to bring our labors to a close. The candle is flickering away its little life in uncertain flashes, and the quiet that surrounds us, warns us of like repose. Farewell then, Pater Abraham! Back to thy old abode, in yonder nook of our library, where few will disturb thee, save some prying book-worm like ourself. Thy quaint conceits have beguiled us of more than one hour of weariness; nor while we love thee the more for thy fun, do we respect thee less. Thou wert a true apostle of thy Master. The pestilence that ravaged the city, found thee laboring in thy calling, carrying the consolations of religion, and the hope of another life, to those to whom all other comfort and hope were denied, as fearlessly as ever stood a soldier of an earthly captain while his comrades were dropping round him. Far thee well! and may posterity think none the worse of thee, that with thy talents and thy piety were mingled some of the weaknesses of our nature; weaknesses which were but the overflowings of a merry and a kindly spirit. Would that all thy cloth had no other or worse foibles than thy bad jokes, thy cumbrous learning, and thy plethora of wit!

[LINES.]

'TINNIT, INANE EST!'

Thy bark, a coffin; helmsman, death—
A narrow shroud, the sail;
Thy freight corruption; and the breath
Of parting life the gale:
This makes all sense and sight disclose
Contemptible and mean;
But Faith, like ocean, riches knows,
Exhaustless, but unseen.

And, as that ocean wild, the moon,
With silver sceptre guides,
And, tranquil on her distant throne,
Controls the raging tides;
So Faith, from her celestial height,
Consoles the troubled breast,
And calm, from consciousness of might,
Rebellion awes to rest.

C.

[STANZAS.]

Still falls the boatman's oar,
Faint comes the ev'ning bell,
As from off the dusky shore
The cool night-breezes swell:
How sweet at such an hour,
The yellow sands to rove;
The spirit wrapt within the power
Of dreaming love.

How sweet, when youth has gone,
And manhood's eye looks dim,
To waken up in Memory's tone,
Love's own vesper hymn;
To bring back every note,
In early hours we knew,
And, as old voices round us float,
Believe them true.

Thus shall the buried joys,
The dreams, the hopes, the fears,
The all that cruel time destroys,
Come back to bless our years:
Thus shall the affections come,
Our raptures to restore;
Thus shall the sad heart bloom
In youth once more.

G. B. Singleton.

[THE FOSTER-CHILD.]

A DOMESTIC TALE OF ENGLAND, FOUNDED ON FACT.

'Ten years to-day! Mercy on us! Time does fly indeed! It seems but yesterday, and here she sat, her beautiful fair face all reddened by the heat, as in her childish romps she puffed with might and main the fire in that very grate. Dear heart!—how sweet a child it was, surely! Well, David, say what folks will, I'm convinced there was a fate about it.'

Before I relate how far David cöincided in this opinion of his 'gude wife,' I will mention to whom and what she alluded, and how I had an opportunity of declaring a similar conviction.

Seated, after a kind reception by the master and matron, in the best room in the work-house of L——, in Kent, at my request they were proceeding to gratify my curiosity, raised by a picture which hung between the windows. The subject and execution were striking. It had been hit off at one of those luckiest moments for the artist, when, all unconscious, the study presented that inspiration to the task, which so rarely occurs in what is termed a 'sitting for a likeness.' On a three-legged stool, with one foot raised upon the fender, and an old pair of bellows resting on her lap, in the act of blowing the fire; long clustering locks, the brightest yellow that ever rivalled sunbeams, flowing from a head turned toward her right shoulder, from which a coarse Holland pin-a-fore had slipped, by the breaking of one of the strings that had fastened it, sat a child, apparently eight or nine years old, in whose face beamed more beauty, spirit, and intelligence, than surely ever were portrayed on canvass. Well might the good dame cry, 'Dear heart! how sweet a child it was!' Never before or since have I beheld its equal; and the vivid recollection of the wonder I then felt, will never cease to throw its light upon the page of memory, till time turns over a new leaf of existence. What admirable grace—how exquisitely free! She seemed indeed to inhale the breath that panting look bespoke a lack of. What joyous fire in her large blue eyes! And then the parted laughing lips, and small teeth; the attitude, how careless and most natural! All appeared as much to live, as if all actual. But little do I hope, gentle reader, to excite in you as lively an interest for the original, by my weak tints of simple black and white, as the glowing colors of the picture roused in me. I will not attempt it, but at once proceed with the story appertaining to the object of my inquiry, as narrated by my host and his wife.

'Do you tell the tale, Bessum,' said honest David, addressing his spouse, whose name, from Elizabeth and Betsey, had undergone this farther proof of the liberties married folks take with one another; 'do you tell the tale; and if needs be, I can help you on, where you forget any part of it.'

'Ah, you're a 'cute fellow, David,' said the vainly-christened Elizabeth; 'you know how to set an easy task, as well as any one, 'specially when it's for yourself to go about; but never mind, I wont rate 'e for 't, for I know 'tis a sad subject for you to deal with.'

Bessum was evidently right; for the tear that stood trembling for a moment in the corner of David's eye, as she spoke, rolled unheeded down his cheek; while the handkerchief that seemed to have been taken from across his knees, for the purpose of concealing the simplicity of the tribute his honest heart was paying, was employed, for at least the tenth time that day, to brush the dust from the picture of his 'poor dear child.' I was affected to a degree for which I was unable to account, by the touching sigh poor David heaved, as he replaced the handkerchief on his knees, and resigned himself to the pangs my curiosity was about to inflict on him. There was a tender melancholy in the kind creature's face, that seemed to mark the lacerated feelings of intense affection. I could have pressed him to my breast, in sympathy of his sufferings, for I was already a sharer of his grief, before I knew the cause of it. It was at this moment that the dame began her story, in the words of my commencement.

'Ten years to-day,' said she, 'since that picture was painted, Sir——'

'Ah! my poor dear child!' sighed David; from which ejaculation I inferred that I was about to hear a tale of which his own daughter was the heroine; but I was soon undeceived by his wife, who thus proceeded:

'It be n't necessary to go farther back in the dear child's life, than the day she was first placed with me to nurse; who she is, has nought to do with what she is, or the story of her life; certain sure it is, she was the loveliest babe I ever saw, and I and David were as proud of her as if she were our own. Bless her dear heart! how every body talked about her, and how all the folks did love her, too, surely! I can't tell you, Sir, how beautiful she was; and as she grew, her beauty kept good pace with her years, I promise you. She was nine years old the very day the painter came to make a likeness of her for her father; here she sat in this very room, just as you see her in the picture, Sir. She had run in from the garden, where she had been at romps with poor George, and was puffing away at the fire with an old pair of bellows, which she found among the lumber in the tool-house, when the gentleman, who she didn't notice at first, was arranging his matters for the painting of the picture. It was at the moment that she turned round to see who was in the room, that, as he said, he was so struck with her lovely face, that he could have taken her likeness, if he had not seen her an instant longer; and sure enough he was not out much in his reckoning, for he had scarcely taken his pencil in his hand, before the little madcap bounded out of the room, and ran off to her play-mate in the garden. That is a copy of the picture, Sir; and if the poor dear child were sitting here as she was on that day, she couldn't look more like herself than that painting does to me.'

David was in the very act of again converting his handkerchief into a duster, but after a momentary struggle, for once in a way, he pressed a corner of it to his eyes, and kept his seat.

'Of all those, barring myself and David,' continued the dame, 'who loved the sweet child, as to be sure every body did, more or less, none seemed to doat on her so much as the young gentleman who was then our village doctor's assistant, and poor George.'

'And pray who was poor George?' said I.

'Ah, Sir, his is a sorry story, too; but of that anon; he was a gentleman born, Sir—bless his dear soul!—but before he was barely out of his teens, study and such like turned his wits, and poor George was placed in our care, an idiot. Oh, how he would watch and wait upon his young mistress, as he used to call the dear child; and 'Harri,' for so we called our little Harriet, for shortness, seemed to look up to him for all her amusements and happiness. Good heart! to see him racing round the garden, till he was fairly tired and beat for breath, trundling her in the wheel-barrow, and fancying himself her coachman; and then how he'd follow her wherever she went, as if to protect her; always at a distance, when he fancied she did not wish him with her, but never out of sight. She appeared to be his only care; his poor head seemed filled with nothing but thoughts of her. His friends used to send him trinkets and money, and baubles to amuse him; and his greatest pride was to take little 'Harri' into his room, and show her his stores, hang his gilt chains and beads about her neck; seat her in his large arm-chair, and stand behind it, as if he were her footman; and play all kinds of pranks, to make her laugh; for he seemed pleased when she laughed at him, though he would not bear a smile from any body else at the same cause. His senses served him at times, and then he would fall into fits of the bitterest melancholy, as he sat looking in our sweet child's face, as if reflecting how much he loved her, and how little his wandering mind was able to prove his affection. Ah, poor fellow! it's well his sufferings ended when they did, for they would have been terrible indeed, if he had lived till now; but all who loved her best, fell off from her, either by death or desertion, when her day of trouble came.'

David's resolution was plainly wavering, as to the application of his handkerchief, when Bessum gave it the turn in favor of the picture, on perceiving her husband's emotion, by adding:

'As for David and myself, you know, Sir, we are nobody; it would be strange indeed if we could ever have turned our backs upon the dear child.'

'God forbid!' said David, and little Harri's portrait received the extra polish breathed upon it by a deep sigh previous to the ordinary one, emanating solely from the handkerchief, 'God forbid!' repeated David, and Bessum added a hearty 'Amen!' as she resumed her story.

'As the sweet child grew up,' continued she, 'she was the talk of all tongues, far and near; and before she was fifteen, Sir, gentlefolks came from all parts to see her. A fine time we had of it, surely; first one pretence and then another kept us answering questions and inquiries about her, all day long. As for Dame Beetle, who kept a little shop, and sold gloves over the way, just facing this window, she made a pretty penny by the beauty of our dear child; though the old simpleton thought it was the goodness of her gloves that brought her so many gentlemen customers. Why, I have known no fewer than five or six of the neighboring squires, ay, and lords too, so difficult to fit, that they've been standing over the little counter by the hour together; but I warrant not to much purpose, as far as the real object of their visit was concerned. No sooner did horse, or gig, or carriage stop in the village, than dear Mr. George—that is him that was with the Doctor, you know, Sir——'

'Oh, his name was George too?'

'Yes, Sir, that it was; and down here he would run as fast as legs could carry him; and his first question was always, 'David, where is little Harri? Take her into the garden.' And here he would sit till the gentry opposite were gone away. If ever one creature did doat upon another, Mr. George loved that sweet child. Ah! would to heaven he had lived to make her his wife! But it's all fate, and so I suppose it's for the best as it is; though I would have died, sooner than things should have fallen out as they have, if that could have prevented it.'

'A thousand times over,' responded David, with a fond glance at the picture; 'I'd rather never have been born, than have lived to weep over the ruin of such heavenly beauty and goodness.'

A chill of horror struck upon my heart, as I repeated, with inquiring emphasis, the word that had produced it. 'The ruin?' said I; 'impossible!' and as I raised my eyes toward heaven, at the thought of such a sacrifice, they caught those of the victim in the picture. I could have wept aloud, so powerful was the influence of the gaze that I encountered. There sat the loveliest creature that the world e'er saw; an artless, careless child; health, hope and happiness beaming in her sweet fair face; her lips, although the choicest target for his aim, the foil of Cupid's darts, so pure, so modest was the smile that parted them. Her eyes, the beacon lights of virgin chastity; her joyous look the Lethe where pale care could come but to be lost, it scared off wo. And were these made for ruin to write shame upon? Oh man, monster, ingrate, fiend! Heaven, pitying the dull clod of nature's 'prentice work, sends an ethereal solace to your aid, and when the blessing comes with three-fold charms, to make the bounteous gift more welcome still, you seek, with whetted, graceless appetite, to abuse it, and know no bounds that limit less than infamy, to make up the mortal sum of your ingratitude.

I was roused from my reverie, by the perseverance of the good dame, who thus took up the thread of her discourse that my exclamation and subsequent reflection had broken:

'Ah, poor dear Mr. George! if he had lived, all would have been well. I make bold to say, for certain sure, they would have been man and wife by this time; for though she used to go on finely at 'that doctor,' as the darling girl used to call him, because he was the cause of her being taken into the garden so often, without knowing why, for all that she loved him in her heart, as well she might; for, as I said before, he fairly doated upon her; and yet so delicate was his noble mind, he could never, as it were, talk seriously to her; that is to say, not to make any kind of love to her, you know, Sir. He had known her from a precious babe, and although his whole heart and soul, I do believe, were set upon one day making her his wife, if so be as she should not refuse him of her own free will, still, he felt so almost like a father to her, though he was not more than eight or nine years older than she, that he never could bring himself to fairly pay court to her, as a lover, you see.'

'God bless his noble heart!' said David, as he rested his elbow on his knee, and his chin on the palm of his hand; 'he always said he should be drowned; there's fate ag'in, Bessum, sure enough.'

'And did he die by drowning?' said I.

'Ay, Sir,' replied the dame; 'and scarce was he dead, as if they only waited for that, than our sweet child's misfortunes began.'

'Destiny, indeed,' thought I, as a superstitious feeling seemed to prepare me for the proofs of it.

'She was just sixteen, and that's nearly five years ago, when she lost him that would have been more than all the world to her, as a body may say; and when Lieutenant H—— brought permission from a certain quarter to court her for his wife, heavy was my poor heart at the thoughts of parting with the blessed child, but more so, ten times over, though I couldn't tell why, at the idea of who I was going to part with her to. She was proud of the conceit of being married, and pleased with the gold lace and cocked hat of the young sailor. I don't believe the thought of love for him ever once entered her head; but that was nothing, for she would have loved any one who behaved kindly to her; and then to be a wife, and her own mistress, and the mistress of a house, alack-a-day! she little knew what she was doing, when she promised her hand where her heart had not gone before, and where none was beating for her. But it was well she made no objection, for it was to be, whether or not; so she was spared at least the pain of being forced against her will.

'Well, Sir, the wedding-day came, and never do I remember such a day as it was; in vain did the bells ring, and the sun shine. Folks, spite of all and of themselves too, couldn't be merry. They smiled, and talked, and tried to appear gay; but to my plain honest thinking, there was not a light heart in the village. Poor George, to be sure, was dancing with delight, for he saw the preparations, and the fine clothes; and he heard the bells ringing, and the neighbors talking, and he understood that all was for and about 'his lady,' as he then called his old play-mate; and the idea of so much fuss and bustle on her account, made him as proud and happy as if he were to be the sharer of it. Little did he imagine, that it was to end in robbing him of the only comfort of his life, poor fellow! And as the bride and bridegroom came from church, where, to the very altar, he had followed, like a guardian saint, his watchful eye, faithful in its duty to the last, he picked up here and there a flower that the villagers had strewn, on which she trod, and stuck them in a row in the button-holes of his waistcoat. But when the time came that our dear child was to be torn from our arms, there was a scene I never shall forget. She bade us one by one good-bye, as if she didn't dream of being gone from us a day. It fairly seemed as though Providence had deprived her of all thought. But when she came to take her leave of George, she appeared to shrink from bidding him farewell. She took his hand, and with a fluttering smile, said, 'George, I am going for a ride'—and she was gone. For full three hours after, George was missing; and when the twilight made us stir to find where he could be, there by the garden-gate he stood, with the old wheel-barrow at his side; his handkerchief spread out upon it, as he was wont to do when he used to wheel his little play-mate in it years agone; there was he, waiting till she should come to ride. Poor, poor creature! He had no idea of the journey that she meant when she told him she was going for a ride. He knew that he had been her coachman many a time and oft, and he thought of no other carriage than that which he had driven. I burst out a crying at the very sight of him. There he stood, as confident that she was coming, as if he had seen her on the threshold of the door, with her gipsy hat on her head. Three hours he had waited, and when I saw him, it would have melted a heart of stone to watch his look, and think upon the misery in store for him. The sun had gone down, and there was not a sound to hear, but now and then the melancholy pipe of a robin, or the distant tinkle of a sheep-bell. Every thing seemed sorrowing in silence at our loss; and he that would pine most, alone was ignorant of it. I hadn't courage to call him away, and tell him his misfortune; but when David brought him in, and told him that his lady had gone for a ride with the new footman, as the poor fellow called the lieutenant, the anguish in his face was more woful than you can think of, Sir. Every day, at the same hour, he brought the wheel-barrow to the garden gate, and kept it there till sunset; then, till he went to bed, he'd sit arranging the withered flowers in his waistcoat. He was never obstinate in refusing to do as he was desired; but unless he had been bidden to eat and drink, no morsel would have passed his lips. He never thought of hunger or of thirst. His little mistress, his old play-mate, and, as he thought her, his only friend, alone occupied the mind that never wandered now. It was fixed upon one object, and on that it dwelt. Ten months he pined and lingered for his loss, and then, more sensible than he had ever been before, poor George, Sir, died.'

'And happy for him that he is no more,' said I, anticipating the sequel of little Harri's story; 'he has gone down to the cold bed, it is true; but his pillow is far smoother than the down that is pressed in vain for quiet and repose by the heartless and unfeeling.'

'True, very true, Sir,' said David; and I was half in doubt whether the handkerchief would be put in requisition again; but it kept its place across the knees of my host, and Bessum continued:

'From the day she left us, Sir, we saw no more of our dear child for two years; but sad was the tale that reached us before she had been gone a month. Think of her wrongs, Sir. The man who had taken her to be parted but by death, left her the very next day after he had robbed scores of honest sighing hearts of the chance of proving the sincerity of their love by a life of cherishing and devotion.'

'God forgive him!' said David, 'for I fear I never can.'

'The gallows pardon him, for I never would,' cried I, in an ecstasy of vengeance and regret. 'And what became of the deserted wife?'

Bessum, who had for nearly an hour stifled the feelings to which she was all that time hankering to give vent, finding this either too seasonable or powerful an occasion to resist, burst into tears, while David, as a counterpoise to the grief which he had heretofore monopolized, evinced a well-timed symptom of stoicism, by folding up his handkerchief at least three times as small as the usual dimensions to which laundresses or common consent have established, time out of mind, a limit; and then thrusting it into the salt-box pocket of his coat, as being the last place, at that particular crisis, to which, under the influence of his senses, he certainly must have intended its destination.

'I shall make short work of the rest on't, I promise you, Sir,' sobbed the tender-hearted foster-mother; 'it be n't much use to dwell upon the finish.'

'End it at once,' said I, impatient of farther melancholy detail.

'Twenty-four hours had not passed, Sir, after the heartless fellow had become a husband, before he was aboard ship, and on his way to the East Indies. He had completed his bargain; he had married our blessed child, and received his wages for the job. He took her to the house of one of his relations, near London, and without telling her whither he was going, or when, if ever, he should return, left her as I have described. Fancy her sufferings, Sir; think what she felt, when she found herself a widow before she was fairly a wife. Oh, my heart bleeds when I recollect her wrongs! Well, Sir, she pined and fretted till those with whom she lived would fain have got rid of her; and it was not long before they had their wish.'

'And did the poor child die of her distress?' said I; 'alas! so young!'

'Not just then, Sir; you'll scarcely think that the worst of her troubles had yet to come, but so it was. As fate would have it, she was one day met and followed home by a gentleman who, she couldn't help observing, appeared so struck with her, that though he did not offer to speak to her, seemed determined upon finding where she lived. Every day, for more than a week, did he watch the house nearly all day long; and when at last she went out of doors, he made the best of the opportunity, and began in the most woful manner to tell her how much he loved her, and what he was suffering on her account; and to beg and pray of her not to be angry with him for what he couldn't help. Well, Sir, he spoke so mild and respectful, and seemed so truly miserable, that the wretched widow couldn't for the life of her speak harshly to him, and so she made no answer at all. He told her that he saw she had something on her mind that distressed her, and said he was certain he could make her happy, and that not even her displeasure should make him cease from the attempt. And sure enough, to her, poor thing, he seemed to be as good as his word; for though she forbade him to approach her in any way again, still he hovered about the house as much as ever, and wrote such letters, telling of his misery and anxiety on her account, that, tired out by the ill treatment of those to whose tender mercies she was abandoned; sinking under the pangs of her desertion, and beset by the arts and entreaties of a fine young man, who seemed to speak so fairly for her comfort and good; in an evil hour, the poor deluded and distracted creature flew to his arms for that protection which in vain was pledged her by a husband.

'I have already told you, that in my opinion she never had a thought of any love for the man she had married; it is not to be wondered at, then, that one who at least professed to be all that a husband should be, found no great difficulty or delay in gaining her affections and confidence in return. In short, her young heart, that had never before known the feeling, was now fixed upon this man with all the fondness and devotion of a first love. It was no hard matter for him, therefore, to persuade her to whatever he liked; and the first advice he gave her for her good was, to take a house in the neighborhood of one of the parks, which he made his home; eating, drinking, and riding about at her expense. For twelve or fourteen months, this was a life of uninterrupted happiness for our poor Harri. She had quiet or company, as she liked, and the society of one whom she loved to madness. She didn't trouble herself about what folks called the meanness of a man in a profession being clothed and kept by a woman; so long as there was the money, what mattered which had it, or which laid it out? This was the argument of a doating girl; and the best proof that it was a sufficient one is, that she was content. The first sign of an interruption to the joys that alas! are always too dearly bought at the sacrifice she had made, was the news of the arrival in England of her husband; and within two days after that, his appearance at her house. Here was a fine to do indeed! She was alone in her drawing-room, and no one else in the house but the two maid servants. In vain did she resist, and entreat him. By main force he carried her out of the house, put her into a hackney-coach, without bonnet or shawl, and drove away with her to the house of his mother. That man was born to be her torment and ruin. He had left her when he ought most to have been in her company, and he returned when his desertion had driven her, in misery and despair, to seek for happiness in the expectation of which with him he had deceived her; to disturb the comfort his heartlessness had neglected to afford her. Don't fancy that he loved her, Sir; 'twas no such thing, as I shall soon make clear to you. However, not six hours after she had been taken away, the dear child was home again, and in the arms of the man for whom she would have risked her life. Here was devotion, Sir. She got out of a one pair of stairs' window, by letting herself down with the bed clothes, as far as they would reach, and by jumping the rest; and just as she had been taken from her home, without a bit of out-door covering, off she set, in the cold and wet of a December night, and had to walk for full a mile and a half, before she got the coach that carried her home. Did her husband love her, Sir? Day after day he rode or walked past the house, and sent letters to her; but never once offered to seek out the man who kept his wife from him. Can he have loved her, Sir, to leave her in the quiet possession of another, and take himself off again to the Indies? So much for the husband, and now for the lover, as he called himself.

'Matters, I don't know what, took him to France; and he was to return to her, who was weary of her life in his absence, within a month. He had not been gone a fortnight, before she received a letter from him, written in a French prison, where he was confined for debt. That hour she started post for Dover, and in three days they were on their road home together. Little Harri had released the man she adored, and brought him away from his troubles in triumph and in joy.'

David's handkerchief, notwithstanding the depth into which it had been plunged, and the compactness with which it had been doubled up, was out of his pocket, unfolded, and across his knees in an instant; while the dame took occasion to fortify herself for the coming trial with a considerable pinch of Scotch snuff.

'They didn't reach home, Sir,' resumed she, 'for more than a fortnight; for they staid a day here, and a day there, to see the sights, and such like; and because she, poor girl, was in no condition for much hurry, though she had forgotten that, as she did every thing, when she started, but her devoted love for him whom she went to rescue. But when they did arrive, dearly did she pay for the fault a husband's cruelty had driven her to commit; and bitter was the punishment of Providence. But it was all fate, I'm sure it was, it must have been; for surely her crime didn't call for such a dreadful judgment as befell her. Oh, good heart, Sir; after all she had undergone, in a long journey to a foreign land, where she had never been before, and all alone, too, Sir, without a friend to help or to advise her; she had left a house fitted and furnished like a little palace, as a body may say, the homestead of her high-priced fatal happiness; think of her reaching what she thought a home, and finding none! What can have been her feelings? She was soon to be a mother, and she had not a bed to lie down upon! In the short time that she had been away, the servant, in whose charge she left her house, by the aid and advice of a villain she kept company with, had carried off every thing, under the pretence that he was moving for her mistress. Ah, you may look surprised, Sir, and with reason; but 'tis just as true as you and I sit here.'

'God's will be done!' sobbed David; 'she's out of harm's way now, Bessum; God's will be done!'

'She didn't rave and take on, Sir,' continued Bessum; 'the hand of destiny was on her, and she felt it. As calmly as though nothing had occurred, she bade the coachman drive to a certain hotel. She seemed to reckon but for a moment between what she had lost and what she had regained; and she was satisfied with the account as it stood. All in the world for which she cared, was still spared to her. She had herself preserved him; the author of her dishonor, the cause of her loss, and only compensation for it, the father of her child! These were all she prized on earth, and he who was one and all, now sat beside her. With a look of resignation, confidence, and content, she said: 'What's to be done?'

The eyes upon the canvass seemed to ask me for an answer. I felt that I could beg subsistence for such a woman—become a drudge, a slave, or yield my life up for her sake. 'And what was his answer?' cried I, in an ecstasy of impatience.

'Good advice! good advice, Sir!' replied Bessum. 'He asked her, if she didn't think she had better go to her old nurse! This was all the comfort she got from her lover; and she asked him for no more. She didn't upbraid him. Her wrongs were too great to be humbled by complaint. He had dealt her death-blow, and she followed his advice. She came to her old nurse, Sir—God be praised!—and I and David closed her precious eyes for ever, after they had lingered, in their last dim sight, on the lifeless image of him whose name, with her forgiveness and prayer to heaven for his happiness, were the last words upon her sweet, sweet lips!'

'And if a special hand is not upraised to strew his path of life with tenfold the sharp pangs that drove his victim to an early grave,' cried I, 'it can only be, that it has already sent the monster to his last fearful account.'

My heart was faint and sick at the recital I had heard. I returned to my inn, and all that night—for it was in vain that I attempted to sleep—I mused upon this awful dispensation of the wrath of heaven; and, dare I own it, I felt that had I been the sentencer, I must have incurred the blame of partiality, by a verdict in which pity would have blunted the keen edge of that just severity with which the wisdom of vindictive Providence had stricken the transgression of 'Poor little Harri!'

M.

[SONNET.]

The moon is gliding on her clear blue way:
I've watched her, as she rose above the clouds which lay
Darkly along the horizon; as she threw
A glorious halo round them, and then drew,
With her still power, away the fogs which night
Gathers upon the earth; then touched with light
The tree-abounding city, till its stately domes
Of Gothic and of Dorian art, and quiet homes,
Slept 'neath a sea of beauty. Then, sweet lady, I
Was bidden in my heart, remember thee—
How thou hast risen in thy angel purity,
And light of heavenly truth, to beam on me,
And scatter far the darkness, doubts, and fears,
Which rose from out the tomb of my young misspent years.

G. P. T.

[STANZAS.]

Thine is the hour of joy;
The heart untouched by sorrow,
And bliss without alloy
Is pictured on to-morrow:
To-morrow!—it may come
To robe thy brow in sadness,
Make desolate thy home,
And rob thy heart of gladness.

But fear thou not the storm,
Though it pass in fury o'er thee;
The rainbow's smiling form
Still bends its arch before thee:
It tells thee joy may fade,
And winter strip the bower,
Hope in the grave be laid,
And withered every flower:

Yet there's a home on high,
Where sorrow enters never,
Where pleasure cannot die,
And friendship lives for ever.
'Tis where the good are blest
With happiness unending
A world of heavenly rest,
And there thy steps are tending!

November 4, 1826.J. H. B.

[ORNAMENTAL GARDENING.]

'Unweeded gardens;
Things rank and gross in nature
Possess them merely.'

There is nothing more subject to the notice of a traveller in the United States, than the want of ornament about the residences, not only of the poorer but of the richer class of inhabitants. It would certainly seem, that the manners of the New-Englanders, so aptly described by the worthy historian of the three Dutch governors of New-York, had not yet entirely fallen into desuetude. He who has seen the many huge and ungainly, though perhaps less rickety and flimsy, palaces that frequently adorn a wide landscape, cannot think that the age of air-castles has wholly departed: it lacks but the relics of the old family wardrobe, petticoats, hats and breeches, thrust in the windows, to complete the idea, that one is in the land and age alluded to by the same veracious historian I have mentioned. How far an inside view of our modern shingle palaces might betoken a similar want of energy or means in the proprietors, it does not beseem my present purpose to inquire.

Certainly, the little attention that is paid to external ornament, around the situations of the wealthy and the great of our land, is evidence of a want of that refined taste which all should desire to see more common. It cannot be attributed to want of means, or of disposition to expend them, in decorating the family mansion; for enough is often laid out in the bare edifice that 'rears its bulky form against the sky,' if judiciously expended, not only to give to the building itself a far more tasteful appearance, but to surround it with ornamental work, and shrubbery, that shall add tenfold to its beauty, and very much to its comfort. It is the want of judgment and taste manifested in the expenditure of the vast sums annually devoted to the erection of retired family residences, which I esteem more particularly worthy of notice.

As a too common fault, the building itself is erected much too large for the purposes to which it is to be applied. It would often seem, that the proprietor imagined the respectability of his appearance, his very standing in the community, was to be measured by the extent of the edifice erected as his family residence. A huge palace is consequently run up, without the slightest idea of consulting the rules of symmetry or proportion, and plainly though expensively finished. It is then that the energy of the proprietor, as if exhausted at the immensity of the undertaking, fails him. No attention has been paid to the situation, save that care may possibly have been taken that the building should front the south or east; and it may be that he is not aware, until he enters his parlor, whether its windows open upon a delightful prospect, a rough hedge, or a black morass. If it should afford a convenient opportunity for a drain to the cellar, a spot of rising ground may have been selected, or if no such prudent foresight should trouble the mind, the mansion may be overlooked by a cragged knoll, that serves to protect it from the wintry blasts. If the out-buildings, barns, stables, and sheds, are behind, rather than on a line with, or directly in front of, the dwelling, it arose from the merest accident; for it never was thought worth the while to consult so arbitrary a rule of propriety as that which would teach the modest pig-stye that its appropriate sphere of duty was confined to a less conspicuous spot than the more aristocratic family mansion might properly claim. If the building is thoroughly completed, by which I mean without a particle of what the owner calls superfluous ornament, he is satisfied; sometimes, if blinds are added, or a handsome fence is built, he has done wonders, and thinks himself entitled to retire to—I wish I might say with better propriety—the shades of private life, and enjoy the true otium cum dignitate.

Thus stand the dwellings of many of our most wealthy and respectable citizens, naked and bare, looking more like extensive manufactories, than habitations of refined taste. It is the absence of exterior ornament, of fences, flowers, shade-trees, and shrubbery, that first strikes the eye as indicating a want of taste and judgment. Even though elegance and strict architectural proportion may have been consulted, judgment displayed in the selection of the site, and taste in the arrangement of the buildings, to suit the scenery about it, there is always the appearance of something wanting, if little or no attention has been paid to ornamenting the grounds about with shade-trees and shrubbery. No lavish expenditure on works of art can atone for the absence of these natural charms.

Some reasons may be adduced for the slight attention which is paid in this country to the beautiful study of arboriculture, and for the want of taste often manifested in relation to some of the noblest productions of nature. From having a boundless wilderness to convert into fruitful fields, it would almost seem that our fathers had acquired an inveterate antipathy to every thing bearing resemblance to a forest tree. In 'clearing' the spot selected for a settlement, every thing was swept off, with axe and fire, unless the primitive settler had occasion to use a few conveniently-placed trees to support the roof of his humble dwelling. He never dreamed that the sturdy monarchs of the forest might become desirable for the purpose of ornament, still less that their scarcity would ever render them valuable to the tenants of the soil. In consequence of this early development of the organ of destructiveness, very few ornamental trees, of great age or size, are to be found in the villages of our country; presenting something of an anomaly: a country unrivalled in the age and extent of its forests, and having indigenous to its soil some of the most beautiful specimens of ornamental trees, but with its towns and villages having scarcely a single tree, of great size or age, to ornament and shade their streets.

Nor have the indications of this destructive spirit of the early settlers, though less common, passed entirely away with the progress of time, or of our country in prosperity and happiness. The antipathy of which I have spoken, although it would hardly yet seem to be extinguished, is gradually wearing away. The study of arboriculture is beginning to be thought of and esteemed; attention is being paid to the planting of shade and ornamental trees; many of our public thoroughfares are properly bordered with the young and thrifty stalks, that in the due process of vegetation will adorn them with stately trees; and the situations of private citizens are beginning to exhibit, more commonly, signs of the beauty produced by the same cause.

Still less has there been any general attention paid to the art—for such I believe has been settled to be the classification of so beautiful a study—of landscape and ornamental gardening. Of this study, a late elegant writer remarks: 'It is a noble and worthy pursuit, and one that cannot be too earnestly encouraged, as a source of the purest and most elegant recreation; one whose indulgence is equally beneficial to the mind and to the body. The enjoyment which it affords, is at once sensual and intellectual; and if less stimulating than many other sensual gratifications, it has this superiority over them, that it is the least palling of any, or rather one that is incapable of satiating.' I know there are reasons why landscape gardening, of which the untravelled American knows literally nothing, can scarcely if ever be expected to reach that degree of splendor for which other climes are already noted. The fortunes of our citizens are of too recent acquirement, and too often divided among heirs, and otherwise, to permit of the great expense of such undertakings, even had society arrived at that pitch of refinement which naturally fosters this and other branches of the fine arts. These obstacles will effectually retard, if not prevent, those stupendous results of individual wealth and energy, which ages of feudal power, and the laws of primogeniture, have heaped upon the soil of Europe.

But there is a lesser branch of the art, more properly denominated the ornamental, which it is within the reach of most of our citizens to carry to a great degree of perfection. The grounds about our dwellings, though they may be limited, are capable of being dressed in a garb at once pleasing to the eye, and in other ways profitable to the owner. The traveller in England remarks, continually, upon neat rural cottages, embowered amid fruit trees, shrubbery, and flowers, with a portion of the ground around them tastefully arranged, and devoted to the cultivation of esculent vegetables, that supply much of the food necessary for the subsistence of the family. So too in many parts of continental Europe, the attention which all ranks bestow upon the grounds surrounding their dwellings strikes favorably the eye of the stranger, and leads him to exclaim that his tour lies through 'one continued garden, highly picturesque and pleasing.' All this is within the reach of our citizens, the humblest, as well as those who revel in superfluous wealth. Shade-trees of great beauty and long life are readily to be obtained, easily transplanted, and easily made to thrive. The cost of a neat close fence is trifling to those who are bred in the paths of industry and economy. A trellis is easily thrown up, and there is no difficulty in leading over it the creeping vine. Fruits of various descriptions may be cultivated with pleasure and profit, and flowers with hardly less of either. Small neat cottages, those rich caskets of pure enjoyment, may be embellished with the various objects of rural taste, and be made each the centre of a little Eden, that shall lead the lover of rural felicity to believe that it may exist otherwhere than in the fruitful imagination of the poet.

It is seriously to be wished, that more attention should be paid to this, of all studies the most humanizing and innocuous. It is to be regretted, that our countrymen are not more alive to the importance of devoting a small share of time and expense to ornamenting their dwellings and the public streets. 'I regard' (says an approved writer, whom I have not yet quoted) 'the man who surrounds his dwelling with the objects of rural taste, or who even plants a single shade-tree by the road side, as a public benefactor; not merely because he adds something to the general beauty of the country, and to the pleasure of those who travel through it, but because he also contributes something to the refinement of the general mind. He improves the taste, especially of his own family and neighborhood.' Were such benefactors more common, were country cottages, adorned with simplicity and taste, more frequent, we should hear more of that true rural enjoyment which does not consist in rudeness and selfishness, but in rational and dignified pleasure; we should acquire a national character for stability and contentment, as just as that which we now enjoy for uneasiness and mobility; we should hear less complaint of the disposition of our young men to ramble from the patrimonial estate, and bury themselves in the speculations and dissipated enjoyments of city life.

It is a too common opinion, that gardens are like the extremes of fashion, costly and useless appendages, maintained at great expense, and without yielding either profit or real satisfaction. Nothing can be wider from the truth. There is not an individual who can better employ a portion of his time and industry, than in the cultivation of a small spot about his dwelling. It is the nursery of elegant taste and refined feeling, and aids essentially in the cultivation of those elevated sentiments which bind men together in the bands of social union. 'Who,' says an elegant French writer, a century agone, 'who does not love flowers? They embellish our gardens; they give a more brilliant lustre to our festivals; they are the interpreters of our affections; they are the testimonials of our gratitude; we present them to those to whom we are under obligations; they are often necessary to the pomp of our religious ceremonies, and they seem to associate and mingle their perfumes with the purity of our prayers, and the homage which we address to the Almighty. Happy are those who love and cultivate them!' Nor is that labor lost in other respects, which is devoted to the cultivation of a garden. It may be made to afford sustenance for a whole family. It is the spot for useful experiment, and may be mentioned as the place into which some of the most valuable products of agriculture have been first introduced, and their qualities tested.

The external air and appearance of a dwelling are no uncertain indications of the character of its inmates. A large house, richly and expensively finished though it may be, standing naked and exposed to the burning rays of a summer sun, has nothing inviting in its appearance; and it is not unnatural, that with the absence of ornament and refreshing shade, we should augur as well the want of intelligence and taste in those who occupy it. There is something dry and hard in the air about it, that betokens little of kindly sentiment, little of social feeling—those blossoms that lend to scenes in our earthly pilgrimage their elysian fragrance. If we expect from such a place the sounds of merriment, they are those of rude mirth and selfish enjoyment. Very different is the idea conveyed by the snug cottage, with its surrounding shrubbery. The building may be humble in size and in its display of architectural skill; but it is neat and tidy, and indicative of attention paid to other than mere animal enjoyments. It is shaded by the foliage of overhanging trees; its fences are tastefully though plainly built; its grounds are richly cultivated, and disposed with much of beauty and effect; its shrubbery and flowers are pleasantly arranged. It is here we look for a happy family, above the world's reproach, for rational and refined enjoyment, for kindly intercourse between beings of the higher order of intellect.

It is a mistaken notion, scarcely less common than that which considers the cultivation of a garden as a useless expenditure of time and labor, which holds that nothing worthy the name of garden can be had without much expense, and that it is better to make no attempt, than to dabble in few flowers, and rude specimens of garden architecture. Many are doubtless deterred by the despair of ever attaining, with their opportunities and means, any degree of the beautiful and picturesque that should attract the commendation of those versed in a better and costlier style of the art. But there is no spot of ground, however unfitted for the purposes of ornamental gardening, that may not be arranged with beauty and effect, and that too at a trifling expense. It certainly could not be expected, that in this branch of the art should be expended the immense cost required for attaining that splendor to which the landscape garden may be perfected. A small and level bit of ground, devoid of water and prospect, may yet be so cultivated as to delight the eye, even of the amateur gardener. It may be traversed by winding alleys, bordered with flowers, of which there can be ever had a sufficient variety; it may be planted with every variety of fruit, adapted to the situation and climate; it maybe adorned with trellises, covered with trailing plants, and vases filled with appropriate flowers; it may be provided with its terraces and parterres, its bowers and refreshing shades. An ordinary share of industry and taste will prepare and arrange these, so that there shall not be an entire lack of beauty, even though it should want in elegant sculpture, in costly vases, in cascades and fountains, or in distant views of enchanting scenery. The expense of all this need not deter any one who has a free use of the faculties with which nature has endowed him: it may be saved often in the retrenchment of a single superfluity, and of these there is no lack with those who live what the world would term decently. Try it, young man; and if you feel not amply repaid, if you feel not a wiser, better, happier man, then I forfeit my credit in the art prognostic.

W. A. B.

[THE SEA.]

I love thee, dark blue sea!
When sleeping tranquilly,
When winds blow shrill,
And foaming surges rise,
That seem to dare the skies—
I love thee still!

And when the morning sleeps
Upon thy silent deeps,
I love the hour!
Or when the star of night
Bathes thee in silver light,
I own thy power.

I love thy golden strand,
When on the shell-strewn sand
Thy billows break;
When, soft as infant's sleep,
Thy gentle ripplings creep,
Nor echo wake.

And when thy thunders roar,
And lash the trembling shore,
Deep, foaming, strong,
And high thy breakers roll,
I feel thee stir my soul,
And love thy song!

Yes, thou art dear to me,
Thou ever-flowing sea!
Where'er thy waters roll;
In every varied mood,
Or mild, or gay, or rude,
From pole to pole!

Philadelphia, August 28, 1837.L. E. W.

[THAPTOPSIS.]

Not in the marble tomb—
Lay me not there to rest,
With the dim charnel gloom
Damply around my breast:
Bind me not there to lie,
Cold, mouldering lone,
Unmoved by the rain, as it falleth nigh,
Or the winds of varied tone:
No!—lay me under the sod—
'Neath the green turf, lay me low,
Where the sweet spring flowers may nod,
In dews which wet my brow.
Ay! then I'll mount the flowers,
And be worn on fairest breast,
And go up in vines which deck the bowers,
Where beauty loves to rest:
I shall rise, perchance, in the laurel leaf,
And be worn in the conqueror's hall;
In the grape, I'll be the foe of grief,
And the joy of the festival;
This is the way which I would rest—
Not in the charnel gloom:
Then lay me under the earth's green vest,
And I'll seek me out my tomb.

G. P. T.

[EXQUISITES: THE GENUS 'BORE.']

BY THE AUTHOR OF 'EDITING AND OTHER MATTERS,' 'JOHN JENKINS,' ETC.

'Some say there's nothing made in vain,
While others the reverse maintain,
And prove it very handy,
By citing animals like these:
Musquitoes, bed-bugs, crickets, fleas,
And worse than all—a dandy!'

Ray.

Richard Drilling, Esquire, was a lawyer of much ambition, as was manifest from the scrupulous care with which he decorated the outer man. He thought that a shabbily-dressed person was a shabby fellow; and as he wished to be thought any thing rather than shabby, his wardrobe was a miracle of taste. Two rival passions burned on the altar of his bosom, viz: to marry the most beautiful girl in town, and to become a model for gentlemen of well-dressing propensities. This latter desire was on the eve of consummation, at the period under consideration. As he glanced at his proportions in the glass, he was most sincerely of opinion that he was irresistibly handsome. He was nearly six feet high, and slender and symmetrical. His leg was as straight as an arrow, and his waist was the envy of many belles. Light hair, and a small foot, were the alpha and the omega of his personal fascinations. Now fancy this entity, with its chin cocked up on a huge stock, white vest, silk gloves, rattan, a little hat hanging on a lock of hair over the left ear, taking the air, with a genteel step, on the shady side of the street, and you have a very tolerable conception of what Richard Drilling resembled.

Richard considered himself a great favorite with the sex. He was careful not to distress them with conversation on theology, philosophy, or poetry; but much more sensibly entertained them with dissertations on the important subjects of marriage rumors, moving accidents, German waltzes, and Parisian fashions. Moreover, he was the most obedient servant whom the ladies had in their employ, and was always willing to sacrifice cash or convenience to their happiness. If a lady hinted a wish to take a ride, he made a proposition to gratify her, instanter; if she talked of the theatre, he would offer her the honor of his escort; or if she burned for ice-cream, of a summer night, he took good care that she should be gradually cooled down to a state of comfort. In fine, Richard and the girls had but one heart between them: whatever they wanted, he desired; and wherever they happened to be going, he was lucky in being on his way to the same place. He was as indispensable to every female establishment as a pin, which article he greatly resembled, as he was tolerably brazen, not very sharp, and was seen sticking about the ladies on all occasions. A very comfortable stock of vanity assured him, that the girls were always looking out for him; that he could wed whomsoever he considered eligible to that honor; and that he carried himself with the most genteel swagger that had been seen in the street, in church aisles, or at operas, since the days of the everlasting Beau Brummel.

Richard was universally called Dick, and so, for the salvation of space, we beg leave to name him. Well, Dick's parents were early emigrants to the west, at which time they were almost dollarless. By enterprise, his father had amassed a fortune; which Dick thought extracted the plebeian taint from his blood, and enrolled his name on the list of the aristocracy. Indeed, on a certain occasion, when asked if his grandfather was not on terms of daily intimacy with lap-boards, shears, and needles, Dick indignantly denied the charge, and asserted that he never had such an ancestor. Thereupon, it was supposed that Dick's family was of miraculous origin, having sprung up after the manner of mushrooms, quite spontaneously.

Possessing a pecuniary competency, Dick had read law, not for the purpose of practice, but merely to recreate his mind, and flourish an attorney's shingle. Having acquired thus much, to use his own elegant language, 'he didn't care a tinker's d—n for any thing else;' and he was henceforth regarded by himself as a gentleman of learned leisure, who, from motives of the purest benevolence, gratified his numerous friends, male and female, by throwing the charms of his conversational powers over the tedium of their otherwise wretched hours. Such was Dick Drilling; an inflated intellectual pauper, whom I never encounter, that I do not instantly call to mind the lines of the poet:

'The loaded bee the lowest flies,
The richest pearl the deepest lies;
The stalk the most replenished,
Doth bow the most its modest head:
And thus humility we find
The mark of every master mind;
The highest-gifted lowliest bends,
And merit meekest condescends,
And shuns the fame that fools adore—
The puff that bids a feather soar.'

[THE GENUS 'BORE.']

——'Oh, he's as tedious
As is a tired horse, a railing wife;
Worse than a smoky house: I had rather live
With cheese and garlick, in a windmill, far,
Than feed on cakes, and have him talk to me,
In any summer-house in Christendom.'

Shakspeare.

The good and the bad things of earth are strangely mingled together, and you cannot have either separately. Agreeable friends are blessings; but one cannot form acquaintances, without contracting some sort of alliances with those who are especially disagreeable. For what purpose bores were created, it would be difficult to determine; perhaps, to teach us patience and forbearance. It certainly requires as much patience to remain cool under the inflictions of dulness, as for any thing else in life; and to be able to forbear, when you feel tempted to kick stupidity out of your presence, is a virtue indeed.

There are two leading classes of bores—the garrulous and the taciturn. Heaven help you, when you are victimized by one of the first class! He deluges you with words. He inflicts all the scandal and news upon you, while you look like Resignation hugging a whipping-post. You feel irritated awhile, and then sick. He has tongue enough for both, and only requires that you resolve yourself into a horrible deformity, by becoming all ear. You gape, and show symptoms of sleep. He doesn't care; you may sleep, or dislocate your jaws, as you please. He is one of the emissaries of fate, sent on earth to punish, and he means to fulfil the purpose of his destiny. There is no getting clear of his noise; and you may as well be as complacent as you can, and regard his tongue as the scourge which inflicts chastisement for past sin.

Again, a taciturn bore drops into your presence. You talk first on one subject and then on some other; but instead of showing interest, he looks as if his leaden eyelid would fall in spite of your efforts. You think the fellow a fool; and can scarcely resist the propensity to enlighten him in regard to himself, by telling him so. You look 'unutterable things' at him; but you cannot stir him up. Your heart sinks within you, and for a moment you look the model of a statue of despair. You ask him to read the morning paper, but he is tired to death of politics. You offer him a book, and he fumbles it listlessly for a moment, and puts it down. Your agony becomes excruciating; your friend looks like the impersonation of the nightmare, and he clings to you, as the old man of the sea clung to Sinbad.

The present is the age of bores. No skill can avoid them. Like the enemy of your soul's salvation, they go about seeking whose peace they may destroy. They infest every society, and their name is Legion. If you were to seek a cave in some far-off mountain, they would find you out; or if, in despair, you should drown yourself, in the sea, the ghost of some bore would be sure to rise with yours from the waters, and torture your shade on its way to 'kingdom come.' Whether you sit down, lie down, read, write, or reflect, you must be annoyed by the presentiment of bores and coming evils. Your apprehensions are ceaseless, and you momentarily expect the Philistines will be upon you—Philistines who wield the weapon which was fatal to their ancestors of old.

[NAHANT.]

BY THE LATE J. HUNTINGTON BRIGHT, ESQ.

I love thy sea-washed coast, Nahant!—I love
Thine everlasting cliffs, which tower above;
I love to linger there, when day-light fades,
And evening hangs above her sombre shades,
And lights her pale lamps in the world on high,
And o'er the rough rocks throws her purple hue;
While ocean's heaving tides
Are beating round thy sides,
Flinging their foam-wreaths to the sky,
And flakes of fire seem bursting through
Each swelling wave of liquid blue!

Tradition lends to thee no hallowed tone;
Ne'er on thy beach was heard the spirit's moan;
Yet there's a charm about thee: here I've roved,
In being's blossom, with the forms I loved;
And they have faded; many a heart which sprung
Fresh into life when hope and joy were young,
Moulders in dust; and many a buoyant breast,
Which swelled with rapture then, is laid at rest;
And many a heart hath met the blight,
And many an eye is closed in night,
And many a bosom long will mourn
For those who never can return!

Each one of us who wander here,
And sport within life's little day,
At eve shall sleep upon the bier,
Our hopes, our promise, passed away:
But thou remain'st! Thy rugged rocks
Shall long withstand time's rudest shocks,
And other feet as light shall tread
Thy wave-bound isle, when we are dead!

Yes, man must bloom and fade, must rise and fall,
Till nature spreads at length o'er earth her pall;
Then shalt thou sink in chaos! Ay, thy name
Will fall in ruin, and the roll of fame[2]
Shall be a blot; and earth too, and her cherished,
In time's oblivious wreck will all have perished!
Then may our souls to that bright world arise,
Where beauty withers not, nor virtue dies.

August 19, 1834.

[SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES.]

BY AN AMERICAN.

Born and educated at the North, in taking up my residence in a slave-holding state, it was with all my feelings arrayed against slavery, and in the fear that I should be compelled to witness those brutal scenes of oppression and injustice, which have been so industriously circulated against slave-holders, and their obsequious overseers. I had seen prints portraying merciless masters—tyrants rather—in the act of applying the lash to the naked backs of their unhappy victims, whose supplicating looks might have drawn pity from a heart of adamant. I had heard tales of overseers, which made me blush to think myself a man, so foully were they pictured, and which, if true, must have made the earth groan to bear such monsters on its surface. I regarded a slave-holder as lost to all the finer feelings of humanity, and an involuntary sympathy for their unfortunate dependants occasioned in me a constant watchfulness over every word, and look, and act, that passed between master or mistress and their slaves. I have said that I expected to meet with many revolting incidents—we shall see with what coloring of justice; and let it be remembered, that in penning these desultory observations, I am actuated by no motive, save that of disabusing the public mind from the misrepresentations of ignorant or designing persons.

Pirates and man-stealers are the epithets usually bestowed upon the planters of the South. Abuse is not argument, neither can the calling of hard names abate one jot of oppression. Thus far, it has rivetted the chains of the slave more closely. The confidence which formerly existed between master and slave, has given way to a watchful suspicion on the one side, and a sullen reserve on the other; with the curtailment of many privileges formerly bestowed, and which, from long usage, had become matters of course. This has been one result of the efforts of abolitionists; and those worthies may place this to the account of their own intemperate measures. Were the enemies of slavery to predicate their sentiments on other grounds than the alleged cruelties practised upon the persons of slaves, southern people would probably bestow on them that degree of attention which the subject justly merits. Were they simply to assert that it is at variance with the enlightenment and liberality of the present age; that mere matter of expediency would one day render slavery a greater curse than it already is; that England has set an example which she expects us to follow, and that the eyes of all Europe are upon us; as men of understanding, they would ere this have been inquiring, 'What is best to be done?' But no. Americans have abused their brothers; have represented them to be monsters of brutality—murderers, in fine, living without law and without decency. Britain has been appealed to for pecuniary aid; and she too has hurled her measure of anathema upon us. She has, however, but too recently liberated her own slaves, to say much upon the subject; and whether the condition of the blacks in the West Indies has been improved by the change, remains yet to be seen. Look at the British possessions in the East Indies; at Russia, with her thousands of white slaves. Turn to unhappy Ireland, bowed, even to her own emerald sward, with oppression; and what consistency is there in this hue and cry, against one only of the existent evils, to the exclusion of others of equal importance?

I have sojourned for a season in no less than six of the southern states, in one of which I resided upward of two years, and had every opportunity, in my professional capacity, for seeing and knowing the truth; and I honestly and firmly declare, that the atrocities and brutal character attributed to the slave-holder, is a most foul and unnatural slander. Can it be believed, that men would countenance each other, that such a state of society could exist, where a man would destroy a fellow being, with as little remorse as he would crush a scorpion that crossed his path? Were they restrained by no other feeling, that of avarice alone would prevent such barbarity; for it cannot be supposed that a man would deliberately burn, shoot, or otherwise injure or maim a piece of property that he could at any moment dispose of for several hundred pounds. It is not credible; yet such is represented to be a case of frequent occurrence. Verily, the people, both of Great Britain and America, are one and all possessed of marvellous gullibilities!

Soon after my settlement on the St. John's river in East Florida, a report was circulated that a planter on the opposite side of the river had whipped a slave to death. The people, so far from appearing indifferent, and attempting to hide such an occurrence, rose simultaneously. By order of a magistrate of the city of Jacksonville, inquiries were instituted, and it was ascertained that a slave had died soon after receiving a flogging from his master. The body was disinterred, but as no marks of violence were discovered, it was again buried, and the owner put under bonds of ten thousand dollars, for his good treatment to his slaves; beside being prevented in future from whipping, or causing a slave to be whipped, on his plantation. When coercion was necessary, he was compelled to inform the magistrates of the county, and they meted out the punishment. This man was a native of one of our eastern states, and, as is invariably the case with such, was severe to his slaves. Northern people possess too much energy and decision of character to be patiently served by indolent servants; and there, they must either wait upon themselves, or receive attendance when and how they can; for a southern negro moves with about as much rapidity as a snail: and hence, when a northern man becomes a master, he is usually a hard one. One other instance I knew of, and that also was a northern man; one of the wealthiest in the territory, and at the same time the most despised. This planter lived sixty miles from where I resided; yet ask a child, either white or black, who was a hard master, and the answer unhesitatingly was, 'Bulow is a hard master.' He had no family, and was shunned by every respectable white person who knew him. In fact, during the summer months that he resided off his plantation, he found it difficult to obtain board in any respectable hotel, so prejudiced were people against him. Public opinion is an ordeal that many men dare brave; but public abhorrence none but the most hardened can endure. A master cannot hide his cruelties; negroes have too much communication with each other, and with neighboring plantations, not to trumpet loudly their hardships; and abject as their condition is, they do not tamely submit to an encroachment upon their rights or privileges. Infringe either the one or the other, and they become as inveterate grumblers as John Bull himself.

That magistrates are not always imbued with a sense of justice, we learn from that very respectable source, our spelling-book, in the story of the judge and the farmer; and a very little of every day's observation will prove to us that the species is not extinct. One of this class hired two negroes for two months, of a highly respectable planter in my neighborhood, to send with a partner about thirty miles distant, for the purpose of planting an orange grove. They had been absent about six weeks, when one of the men returned very unexpectedly to his master, complaining of ill treatment. He stated that they had been kept in the water for many days, in building a dock, with bad and scanty food; that he became sick, but being threatened, was obliged to work; and finally being unable to endure it any longer, he left his companion, and taking a canoe belonging to the firm, had returned home. His master felt for him, but urged his return till the expiration of the engagement. This the negro resolutely refused, saying he should only be whipped if he returned. The magistrate, on learning that one of the men had left his service, with bad accounts of the treatment he had received, instantly lodged him in jail on a charge of stealing the canoe. Nothing could be farther from the truth than this charge, and he knew it well; but he had long indulged a private pique against the owner of these slaves, who had more than once reproved his excesses. After keeping the man in jail for a week, he ordered him to receive forty lashes save one, on his naked back, for a crime he had never thought of committing. In vain the poor fellow protested his innocence; in vain his master offered to pay treble the price of the canoe; the sentence was awarded, and like Shylock, he would have his bond. The owner of these slaves, a near descendant of the learned and admirable Sir Alexander Crichton, was compelled to witness this violation of justice on the person of one of his household, and this too from a man who had fled from a northern city for defrauding his creditors. A whipping-post ought justly to be considered an emblem of the dark ages; yet, to our disgrace be it told, public whipping is still practised in some few of our northern states; and fourteen years ago, I myself witnessed in Jersey City, opposite to New-York, an aged woman, a white woman, taken to a post and publicly whipped for stealing a few articles of clothing! We hope the day is not far distant, at least not forever distant, when men shall be so taught, as to love and practice virtue for its own sake. Then every man will pursue truth and justice with his neighbor; then oppression shall no more stalk the earth, and the inferior passions of mankind yield to the intellectual and the moral. This will be the anticipated millennium; and let the philanthropist take heart, and pursue his onward course, which, though encompassed by a thousand thorns, and of a thousand different hues, must disappear under the sturdy culture of the indefatigable husbandman.

I have now stated the only acts of oppression that came to my knowledge during my southern residence; and with far greater pleasure can I bear testimony to the paternal character of masters. That a strong feeling of attachment does exist between many masters and slaves, no person who has spent any time with them can deny. Frequently born on the same plantations, they have played together as children, and together shared feats of peril in youth. I was acquainted with the parties, where a slave, advanced in years, was offered his freedom, for a small sum of money which he had saved by over-work, by his young master, who soon after taking possession of his property became embarrassed. 'No, massa George;' said the man, 'I hab carried massa in my arms when him was a baby; and if I leave him now, who will take care of me when I get old?' The slave was right; for when they get past work, their old age is made comfortable. In fact, the amount of labor required from a prime man or woman is comparatively light. One quarter of an acre per day is their required task, either of planting or digging. Ploughs are seldom used, and almost all of them can finish their task in three-quarters of a day; the remainder of the day is their own, and whatever they raise in their own time, they receive the avails of. I have known instances where they chiefly supplied the table of their master with chickens, eggs, or fish, for which they received pay, or, as they sometimes preferred bartering, sugar or molasses. The Sabbath is also their own, on which many of them hunt, fish, or gather the moss which grows on the live-oaks, and for which they receive four cents a pound. Their weekly allowance is one peck of Indian corn per head, which they grind into hominy or meal; several pounds of salt pork or beef, with sweet potatoes and salt. Few masters, however, are particular; they frequently receive many additions; and when sick, are taken good care of. They receive two suits of coarse clothes in a year, and the gay handkerchiefs, and fine calico dresses in which the females always appear on the Sabbath, are purchased with the proceeds of their extra labor. I have frequently been awakened on moonlight nights with the songs of negroes approaching our settlement to trade. With a written permit from their masters, they come in boats from a distance of thirty or forty miles; and if they return in time to commence their accustomed morning labor, all is well. The effect of this kind of music in a calm night is singularly wild and pleasing. They possess powerful voices, which can be heard for miles: one or two carry the air, while all join in the chorus; keeping pace in some measure with the strokes of their oars, each of which are clearly heard long before they near the landing. They bring, on these occasions, fowls, eggs, moss, ground or pea-nuts, with melons, and other fruits; and sometimes trade to a considerable amount. Their shopping consists in purchases of tobacco, coffee, or sugar, candles, and fancy handkerchiefs. Their general appearance is plump, healthy, and cheerful: living constantly in the open air, with a song for ever on their lips, life seems to wear for them a holiday dress the year round.

Will abolitionists believe this? It is true, nevertheless; and how can it be otherwise, in those so perfectly exempt from care? The scriptural command, 'Take no thought for the morrow,' is verified to the letter in the slave. They have neither to provide for families, for sickness, for the change of seasons, nor for any thing under the sun. To perform their customary meed of labor, is all that is required of them; this done, they prepare their suppers, when they retire, if they choose, or dance to the violin, or amuse themselves as they please. Most frequently, however, they assemble in front of the kitchen, after the people in the 'house,' as the family mansion is termed, have supped. A small fire of pine knots is kindled to keep away insects, and one is soon greeted with a 'concord of sweet sounds,' which sends off the youths of both sexes on 'the light fantastic toe.' They possess full, rich voices; most of the men perform on the violin, and many of them are proficients on that instrument. Imitation is large in the negro; and at these meetings it is a common amusement for them to mimic any peculiarity they may have noticed in the dancing of whites. 'Phillis, now dance like fat Mrs. ——,' bawled out the master of ceremonies to a tidy girl of sixteen. Her feats drew forth peals of laughter. 'See me dance like Mr. ——,' and in whipped a half-naked, strapping fellow, who received his share of applause. Comparisons are said to be odious; but at such moments I could not but contrast their condition with that of our laboring whites. The latter, compelled to work from sunrise to sunset to obtain a livelihood; a large family to provide for, during many tedious and severe winter months, to say nothing of sickness, casualties, etc., how can the father of a family divest himself of the cares and responsibilities of his situation, to indulge in even occasional relaxation and mirth? Worn out with the fatigues of the day, and greeted on his arrival at home with a list of wants and necessities, his life remains to the end one scene of self-denial and hardship. He maintains his independence, and that of his family, but at the expense of cheerfulness, and the foregoing of those innocent recreations, which nature, or the great God of Nature, intended for all. Exhausted at length with labor and anxieties, he sinks in premature old age to a welcome tomb.

That this is the history of thousands, even in our own favored country, is undeniable; and if we cast our eyes over the vast continent of Europe, what find we but toil and wretchedness, unknown in our western world? Were those who sigh and lament over the miseries of slaves, to bestow a little of their superfluous sympathy on the owners of slaves, it would be exceedingly better appropriated. They need it more than their dependants, who are not only eye-servants, but seemingly wilfully stupid. That they are less intelligent and more brutish than many of the inferior animals, is a lamentable fact; and that the circumstances in which they have been placed, is one cause of this stupidity, is no less a fact; but that they can ever attain to the intelligence of whites, I am not inclined to admit. Nature, habit, opinion, have drawn lines of separation, which can never be totally removed. It was remarked in the presence of a French gentleman, who had spent some years in South America, that the greatest prejudice existing in the minds of whites against blacks was their color. 'Non, non,' he exclaimed with warmth; 'ce n'est pas seulement leur couleur; d'autres sens outre celui de la vue sont offensés.' And truly, place a person at a southern tea-table, with the thermometer above 90°, and two or three black waiters in attendance, with a half grown negro at his elbow, wielding a huge feather fan, and unless his olfactories were more than ordinarily obtuse, he would essay in vain to repeat with the tender Sappho, 'Come, gentle air!' That they are susceptible of culture, to a certain extent, is correct; and that many of them possess what is termed mother wit, I had daily opportunities of observing. This species of humor is most frequently shown in the composition of their songs, more particularly in their boat songs; in which I have known the whole family receive sly thrusts from their negroes, while being rowed by them, and which seldom failed in eliciting good-natured mirth. Music is the life and soul of a southern negro: he does every thing, but eat and sleep, with a tune.

Their organization seems to have been expressly adapted to the climate in which they were to live. The hotter the weather, the better it suits them; and when exposure would be fatal to whites, a negro enjoys the best health. A boat with three hands was sent for me, in the month of July, to visit a planter who was taken suddenly ill. We left my residence at ten in the morning, of one of the hottest days I have ever experienced. The atmosphere was nearly suffocating, without the slightest breath of air. The negroes were clad in duck trowsers, and a shirt of the same material, with an apology for a hat on the head of each. After rowing several miles, one took off his hat, then another, and opened his collar; presently the third threw down his, protesting it was too hot to wear a hat. I carried with me a small pocket-thermometer, which I consulted, and it stood at 103°, Fahrenheit, and I am confident that a white person, to have been guilty of the same imprudence, would have fallen under coup de soleil. I wore a large chip hat, and held an umbrella above my head; yet when we reached the distance, which was fifteen miles, my face and hands were in a light blister. The case to which I was called was one of extreme urgency, and for which my presence was required several days.

The evening before I left, I had the satisfaction of witnessing a negro marriage, which had been delayed a day or two, in consequence of the illness of their master. The groom was a fine young man, about twenty; the bride was free, though the daughter of a slave. Children always belong to the mother: hence if a slave marries a free woman, their children are free, and vice versa. A tutor in the family performed the ceremony, by reading our church service, the oldest daughter of their master and myself being present. I believe this wedding was something extraordinary, from the importance the blacks seemed to feel on the occasion; and it certainly surpassed many white weddings I have known. The bride was dressed in white, and after the ceremony, wine was passed round, with very respectable wedding-cake, and slices of cold venison. These were of course furnished by the parties themselves; and the kitchen was the place of rendezvous, which was crowded with all the slaves on the plantation; and being Saturday night, their mirth sounded in our ears till midnight. The next morning I accompanied my companions of the preceding night to the negro quarter, about a quarter of a mile distant from the house, where they were assembled according to custom. A chapter from the New Testament was read to them, and the catechism taught to the children. The father of the bride was a preacher, and on Sunday evenings he usually held forth to his fellow servants. As I departed in the afternoon, he was prevailed on to give his usual evening sermon that morning. It was a curious medley, I must confess; and he wound up his discourse, by urging his hearers to become religious, in order to get to heaven; and by way of encouragement to their color, affirmed, that a great many indecent people were already in heaven.

And now, what shall be said of the licentiousness which exists in the South? Shall we attempt to palliate the fact? Most assuredly no. That there are children born on plantations, who are very nearly white, and of whose paternity there can be no doubt, is no less a fact; and this always appeared to me as one of the most disagreeable features in slavery. I have known a few instances in which a favorite slave kept pace with her mistress in increasing the family stock, if not the name. These children are usually employed as house-servants as they grow up; and the mistress, though perfectly aware of the relationship, generally regards them with peculiar kindness and care. Great pains are usually taken by the mother to let these unfortunates know to whom they are indebted for existence; and whether this knowledge renders them more faithful to the interests of the family, or from whatever cause it may be, they are the best servants, and the most attached, that I have ever seen. These practises are the productive source of much domestic unhappiness. It is not to be supposed that a wife can regard her sable rival with other feelings than those of deep aversion and dislike; without the power to banish such from her daily sight. Negroes themselves, the men particularly, look with no very pleasant eye on such liaisons. A circumstance was related to me by one of them, which had excited in his breast much indignation. 'Do you think such things are right, massa?' he asked, at the conclusion. I assured the honest fellow of my deep disapprobation of such wickedness, which seemed to afford him much satisfaction.

While I state that such practices do exist, let it not be understood that I extend these connections to all planters, or even to the greater number of them. Such an accusation would be destitute of either truth or justice. That they exist at all, however, is at variance with every principle of morality, and for which let not the shadow of an excuse ever be made. Yet turn we to other portions of civilized society, and what do we behold? Vice is vice, wherever it is found; and let not the haughty man of fashion, who spends his hundreds upon an unworthy mistress, or the systematic seducer of female innocence, from whose fatal snares neither virgin purity, nor the holiness of the marriage tie are exempt, let them not, I say, join their polluted voices in the general cry of the monstrous depravity and licentiousness of the South. First pull the beam from the eye of self, and then turn we to convince our neighbor of the mote that obscures his moral vision.

Though an enemy to slavery, I would have the true friends of the blacks pursue a course that will tend to their lasting advantage. There is no great urgency, on their own accounts, that abolition should be immediate; and I do not hesitate to pronounce the sympathy false and perverted, which dwells on the miseries of their situation. If we except the lot itself, their condition is far better than it would be were they freed; and infinitely better than that of our city blacks, or even many of our laboring whites. That their being slaves is a sufficient cause for discontent, I admit, did they consider it so. The mass, however, know and think nothing about it. They recollect nothing else, and therefore the loss of liberty is scarcely a deprivation. Servitude of any sort is a grievous yoke; it is hard to be poor; yet none but visionaries ever indulge in the Utopian scheme of a perfect happiness. That slavery is an evil, that it is a great and a growing evil, none who think at all on the subject can deny; slave-holders themselves are well convinced of this truth, and many of them would rejoice to have the evil removed, could proper means be devised, independently of robbing them of their lawful property. They cannot consent to make themselves and their children beggars, which would be the case, were slavery immediately abolished; for without a sufficient force to work their land, it is worth nothing. My own opinion coincides with that of Paley: 'The emancipation of slaves should be gradual, and be carried on by provisions of law, and under the protection of civil government. Christianity can only operate as an alternative. By the mild diffusion of its light and influence, the minds of men are insensibly prepared to perceive and correct the enormities which folly, or wickedness, or accident, have introduced into their public establishments. In this way, the Greek and Roman slavery, and since these, the feudal tyranny, has declined before it. And we trust that, as the knowledge and authority of the same religion advance in the world, they will banish what remains of this odious institution.' This opinion, I am aware, does not accord with the schemes of the reformers of the present age. They wish to reap the reward of their exertions in their own day; no matter what individual loss or suffering it may occasion to whites; no matter what injury accrues to a million and a half of ignorant, improvident blacks, let loose upon society without a motive, a principle to guide them, or a desire above the fulfilment of their animal wants. 'The world is wrong, all wrong!' cries out an hundred reformers. That it is mad, on certain subjects, I verily believe. One sect announce that their own peculiar religious tenets will alone make man happy here, and wise unto salvation, and denounce the rest of the world as lost, and that their teachers knowingly delude their followers. Another party are so zealous in the cause of temperance, that they are the most intemperate fanatics out of bedlam. Others, again, oppose the march of Catholicism, and their cry is, 'Popery! popery!—our country will become priest-ridden; we must put down popery, at whatever cost.' But by far the greater number are weeping over the sorrows, not of Werter, but of the 'poor blacks,' who are fostered, fed, and kindly treated, in return for their services. Thus wags the world; each man has his hobby, in riding which, it would be well for him not to trample on the rights of his neighbor.

[THE TIMES.]

'The times! the times!'—the burden of that sound
Falls ever on my ear, most dismally;
And as from rock to hill its echoes bound,
I ask my heart, 'And can it truly be,
That 'Providence, which oft afflicts the just,'
Has fore-ordain'd that all the banks should bu'st?'

'The times! the times!'—the cry of terror goes
From field to field, o'er mountain, vale, and glen,
And in a thousand anguish'd accents flows
From half the 'doubting, doting' sons of men;
While they are joined the cadence of the hymn in,
By half the girls, and all of the old women.

Though these be days of steam-revolving pistons,
And labor-saving tools, of every kind,
Yet do we moderns slay our own Philistines,
Much in the manner you may call to mind
Of him of yore, who, neither weak nor lazy,
Abstracted, one dark night, the gate of Gaza.

Yea, prophets prophecy, and dreamers dream,
While stupid men look on in wild derision,
Nor things of sober earnestness they deem
The workings of each cabalistic vision,
Which tells the causes of the things that ail 'em,
As clearly as the ass explained to Balaam.

''Tis for your sins!'—as Pollux link'd with Castor
Is ever seen, so guilt with punishment;
Each mortal sin provokes a fresh bank 'plaster,'
Precisely at the rate of cent per cent.
Oh! deeds of crime, at which the bosom sickens.
Ye've hatch'd indeed a pretty brood of chickens!

'Twas not for nought we made the Indians shank it,
Far to the westward of the Mountains Rocky;
While a tobacco-pipe, and three-point blanket
Was all the guerdon of each hapless jockey:
Fancy the march in dioramic views,
Ye who have seen the 'Exit of the Jews!'

The negroes! Hold we not this seed of Ham's
In durance, equally inhuman, fully,
To that which brought old Pharaoh to the clams?
And why? Because their occiputs are woolly;
Their lips are thick; their cheeks display no roses:
And then, to cap the climax, oh! what noses!

And meanwhile, drunkenness, on every hand,
Hath rear'd her gilded shrines, and never rested;
Till now, within the borders of the land,
The only draughts that don't come back 'protested,'
But currently are taken, till the stock fails,
Are alcoholic potions, christen'd 'cock-tails.'

And thus, while crime hath spread with stride portentous,
Pray is it strange that evil o'er us lingers?
That 'lots' of retribution have been sent us;
And blessing (in disguise!) slip through our fingers;
While ever and anon bursts some new bubble,
To throw us neck and heels again in trouble?

My country! thou art sick, and very bilious,
From feeding high, and working very little,
Whereby thou hast become quite supercilious,
And, through the passing richness of thy victual,
'Wax'd fat, like Jeshurun,' that noted kicker,
In token of his wholesome meat and liquor.

The sickness hath no bounds; alack! there bobs not
A head, the holder of a limb unruly,
Betwixt Ponchartrain and the fair Penobscot,
That hath not told the tale of terror duly
To scores of friends, in sympathizing masses;
Like him of Uz who own'd the sheep and asses.

And I, like 'Eliphaz the Temanite,'
Would merely say, that on this mundane globe,
'As sparks tend ever upward in their flight,'
(A fact familiar both to him and Job,)
'So man is born to misery' of some sort,
And this was all the hapless patriarch's comfort.

But as the hand of Time healed all his woes,
And raised another batch of pigs and asses,
So will its kindly influence interpose,
With crops of rice, tobacco, and molasses,
To dry thy tears, to bid thy murmurs cease,
And bring again the days of palmy peace!

Wilmington, (Del.,) September, 1837.

[RANDOM PASSAGES]

FROM ROUGH NOTES OF A VISIT TO ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, AND GERMANY.

NUMBER FIVE.

PARIS, (CONCLUDED)—SWITZERLAND.

I have marvelled at nothing more, in Paris, than the rarity of female beauty. I have been in the Boulevards, and other fashionable resorts, at fashionable hours, many a time and oft; but I do not recollect having seen a single French woman decidedly pretty. In some of the galleries, I observed occasionally a lady who might be called so, but they always proved to be English. It seemed more singular, as the prevalent notions of Paris with us led me to expect a brilliant display 'in this line.' But if the French damsels are deficient in personal attractions, they certainly are not in graceful and fascinating manners; and this remark will apply almost equally to the peasant girl and the queen. The style of dress of the Parisian ladies seemed to me very neat, simple, and tasteful, and certainly much less showy than that of the belles of Gotham, who, it must be owned, are apt to be somewhat ultra in the extremes of foreign fashions. There is sound policy, no doubt, in the practice of employing young women as clerks in the shops; they certainly have an irresistible way of recommending their wares, charming you by their ineffable sweetness and apparent naïveté, while they draw as liberally as possible on your purse.