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

['NURSERIES OF AMERICAN FREEMEN.']
[SADNESS.]
[YOUNG LOVE.]
[WILSON CONWORTH.]
[LINES]
[SONNET: TO MRS. —— —— ——]
[RANDOM PASSAGES]
[THE SONGS OF OUR FATHERS.]
[THE DEAD HUSBAND.]
[THE DYING BOY.]
[A FEW THOUGHTS ON PHRENOLOGY.]
[A PRACTITIONER, HIS PILGRIMAGE]
[OUR VILLAGE POST-OFFICE.]
[SONNETS: BY 'QUINCE.']
[ANACREONTIC.]
[OLLAPODIANA.]
[LAMENT]
[LITERARY NOTICES.]
[EDITORS' TABLE]

THE KNICKERBOCKER.

Vol. X. NOVEMBER, 1837. No. 5.

['NURSERIES OF AMERICAN FREEMEN.']

NUMBER ONE.

General Education is the attribute and glory of republican America. It constitutes one of the strongest pledges of the success of that interesting experiment in politics, which has astonished and enlightened the nations of the eastern continent, and which promises, in future times, to be the grand means of extending the blessings of freedom to the civilized world. Education, in some of the most enlightened European countries, is like the sun rising in majesty, and gilding with surpassing brightness a few mountain tops. Education in the United States is like the sun pouring his cheering radiance over every hill, and into every valley.

The peculiar importance of universal and well-conducted education, in a republican government, must be evident from the slightest consideration. Every American citizen is a juror, before whom each officer of the government is on trial, in regard to his capacity and fidelity. The public prints are the pleaders, oftentimes very artful, and sometimes not altogether honest; and these jurors need to be well furnished with an enlightened understanding, that they may not be imposed upon by misrepresentation and sophistry. Universal suffrage can never be safely trusted but in the hands of an intelligent and virtuous population. And it is questionable whether another country can now be found, beside the United States, where education is sufficiently general, and conducted upon such principles, as to form a sufficient basis on which to rest the structure of a republican government.

The want of a well-educated population has been the occasion of most of the difficulties and disorders which have agitated the South American republics, where one stormy revolution has succeeded another, and where a strong tendency has been evinced to return to the death-like calm of despotism. This is a great reason why France, with all her aspirations after freedom, and all her toil, and sweat, and blood, to obtain it, has had no more success in securing its substantial blessings. This is one reason why reform in the English government is a work of such immense difficulty, and why it cannot be obtained but by a severe struggle, and, as it were, by inches. Some master-spirits in that country, in which there is much to admire, and to approve, and to imitate, have recently engaged in a noble effort to advance the cause of popular education. These men, whether they may be aware of it or not, are firing a train that may eventually produce an explosion, which will shake the lordly aristocracy of that country to its base. There is reason, however, to hope, that in England arbitrary power will gradually give way to liberal principles, and that the desired end may be at length attained, without violent convulsion. This may be hoped for with greater confidence, since intelligence is always friendly to order.

But aside from its political bearing, a general and well-conducted education is a matter of vast importance. Every man has a mind, which can never take its proper rank, and secure its highest enjoyment, without being enlightened; without a proper development of its power, and a suitable direction in applying them to practical purposes. A fire-side in Iceland, a land of frost and of poverty, becomes a scene of contentment and happiness, because it is surrounded by a reading population; and the long and dreary winter's nights pass pleasantly away, in the entertainment afforded by historical narration, or native poetry, or other means of mental cultivation. Every family is a school, and every child receives the rudiments of an education by his own fire-side. In civilized countries, valuable books constitute one of the cheapest, most domestic, and noblest amusements, for the enjoyment of which, however, a good education is an indispensable requisite.

But leaving this strain of general remark, it is proposed to give the subject a practical bearing, by a brief consideration, in the present number, of the importance of a legislative provision for the support of schools, and for the qualification and preparation of teachers.

A legislative provision for the support of schools is a matter of great importance. Every free government is bound by the principle of self-preservation to afford every necessary facility for the education of its whole population. And the most substantial aid which it has in its power to afford is, to furnish pecuniary assistance, by setting apart adequate funds, to bring the means of instruction alike within the reach of the poor and the rich. Schools, and especially common schools, are the Nurseries of Freemen; and not merely of those who are to exercise the important right of suffrage, but also, to an unknown extent, of those who are to sustain the weight of magistracy, and to wield the destinies of the nation. Many a man, during the short continuance of the American republic, who has risen to the highest stations of honor and of trust, who has surrounded his own name and that of his country with distinguished honor, and filled both continents with his fame, has grown up from the humblest circumstances in life, and has been indebted to the common schools of the country for the elements of his reputation and his usefulness; and but for the system of universal education, might have lived in obscurity, and never extended his influence beyond his native village. Franklin, the statesman and the philosopher, was once a humble printer's boy; and had he lived in a country where the aspirations of genius are checked by the principle that every man must keep his place, and not attempt to rise above the condition in which he was born, he might have lived and died a merely respectable setter of types. David Rittenhouse, the son of a plain farmer, was educated a goldsmith; and by his extraordinary mechanical genius, he invented a planetarium, which may justly be regarded as one of the mechanical wonders of the world. Pursuing his researches, he became one of the first practical astronomers of his time, and he succeeded the venerable Franklin as President of the American Philosophical Society, at Philadelphia. Roger Sherman, until the age of twenty-three, occupied a shoemaker's bench. To him it would have been injurious to apply the adage, 'Ne sutor ultra crepidam.' To the acquirements of a good common school education, he added, to a respectable extent, the higher attainments of legal and political science; and no man brought into the councils of this country, at the trying period of the revolution, a sounder head, or a more patriotic heart. To these distinguished examples, hundreds of others might be added, who, if they have not fully equalled those that have been mentioned, in fame, have perhaps not fallen behind them in respectability and usefulness. And what has been true in this respect, in time past, is true at present, and is likely to be equally true in time to come. No man now fills a greater space in the national councils, than the son of a plain farmer in New-Hampshire, who commenced his brilliant career on the benches of a common school, in his native town. And no man can tell what future farmers' or mechanics' sons may occupy the highest and most responsible posts of the nation. In the free government of the United States, every man is, to a great extent, the artificer of his own fortune and fame. Common schools are the means by which native genius is to be, in the first instance, taught to put forth its strength, and by which it is to be raised from its obscurity.

The people of the United States are, to a good degree, awake to the importance of affording legislative aid to the common and higher schools of the country; and in every state in the Union, public funds are, to a greater or less extent, devoted to this object. The new states seem likely, in this respect, to equal, if not to surpass, the old. The funds which they have appropriated to this purpose, have been chiefly new lands, which are constantly rising in value, and which, in many instances, promise, in a future day, to swell to a very respectable amount.

But while the means of education are brought within the reach of all, it is important that they be not made too cheap. Men are prone to set a small value on that which costs them nothing; and a provision too abundant, instead of stimulating to exertion, may but minister to negligence. The state of Connecticut has, it is believed, at present a greater productive school-fund, in proportion to its population, than any other state in the Union. It amounts to about the sum of two millions of dollars. This fund was not produced by the contributions of its inhabitants, but originated principally from the sale of the Western Reserve, an important part of the state of Ohio, to which it laid claim on the ground of its original charter, and which, by way of compromise, was ceded to it by the United States. In no state could the experiment of an abundant public provision for the support of schools have been tried with greater prospect of success, than in this. Previously to this endowment, the cause of education there was in a prosperous condition, and its population had been taught, from their childhood, to hold it in high estimation. Although no enlightened and patriotic inhabitant of that state would wish that this fund should be reduced in its amount, it is questionable whether the cause of education there has advanced in proportion to the abundance of its resources, and whether the largeness of this provision has not, in some instances, if not generally, contributed to keep the public mind less awake to the subject, than if its inhabitants had been compelled to rely more extensively on their own resources and exertions.

Without some legislative aid, there is reason to apprehend that the advantages of education will not be universally enjoyed; and therefore, every enlightened state will be inclined to make a competent provision for this object. If the common schools of the country need this aid, the higher schools and academies need it still more, as their expenses must necessarily be greater. They are required to carry on the work which is begun in common schools, to prepare members for the higher seminaries of learning, and especially to raise up a generation of teachers for the inferior schools. A number of academies, scattered over every state, should be placed on a respectable and permanent foundation, by a competent pecuniary endowment. This subject has not been overlooked by the legislatures of the respective states. A portion of the public revenue, which has been distributed among the several states of the Union, has been wisely set apart for the advancement of the cause of education. What species of internal improvement can be compared to this? Canals and rail-roads, and other similar works, are indeed of great importance. But these things have a principal reference to the physical wants of men. But physical wants are of minor importance, compared with the intellectual and moral elevation of the human mind. Republics, in a particular manner, must depend upon this intellectual and moral elevation for their highest prosperity. Legislative aid should be so afforded that, instead of producing apathy and indifference on the subject of schools, it may but stimulate to greater exertion. In proportion to the munificence of a public provision, the standard of education should be raised; competent teachers should be employed, and all the preparations for instruction should be on an extended scale. Much on this subject remains to be done; and availing themselves of the legislative aid, there is pressing need that the most gifted minds in the country should combine their strength to bring the schools of the nation, of every grade, and particularly the common schools, to answer the high purposes of their institution.

While it is important that adequate funds should be provided for the support of schools, it is still more important, that due care should be taken that these funds be employed in a prudent, wise, and efficient manner. Thousands and tens of thousands of dollars may easily be wasted, from year to year, and rendered of no avail, for the want of a proper management. That schools should answer the object for which they are designed, nothing is more essential, than that they should be under the instruction of competent teachers; and that suitable provision be made for the preparation and support of such teachers.

The government of a school is a matter of no small difficulty and importance; and to conduct it successfully, requires great sagacity, and a knowledge of human nature, the fruit of much observation and experience. The government of a school is unlike that of any other community. It should be neither despotic nor republican; it should be patriarchal. It bears a greater resemblance to the government of a family than to any other, and yet it differs, in many respects, from this. Children have grown up under the authority of their parents; and where parental government has been in any measure what it should be, obedience to it has become a matter of habit. Children are, moreover, dependent on their parents for their comfort and support, and therefore the authority of a parent is supported by a powerful consideration, which teachers of schools have not at command. If the proper government of a family is a difficult work, as every parent will be ready to acknowledge, the suitable government of a school is a work of still greater difficulty.

Without the maintenance of silence, diligence, and order, it is impossible that the business of education should be successfully prosecuted in schools. But to bring the volatility, and thoughtlessness, and love of ease and of play, so natural to children and youth, to a thorough subjection to these principles, is no easy task. The nature and dispositions of children must be carefully and philosophically studied; different modes of management must be tried, and those which are found by experience to be most successful, must be adopted. Every teacher of a school needs much of the patience of Job, and the meekness of Moses, suitably blended with dignity and authority. He should have an entire control over his own passions; and if he has a natural attachment to children, it will greatly aid him in his work. It should be his aim, by an amiable, dignified, and discreet deportment, to secure both the affection and respect of those committed to his charge.

But a talent for government, however important, will not alone fit a teacher of a school for his station. He needs not only a gifted, but a well-furnished mind. He should not only possess a thorough acquaintance with the text-books which he uses, and be able to explain all their intricacies, and to unravel all their difficulties, but he needs, in addition, a great variety of collateral information, which he may bring to bear on all the subjects of instruction. He should be himself a living, walking, speaking text-book. Every system of teaching which is what it should be, will be a course of familiar lecturing. The teacher should possess a fund of information on a great variety of subjects, and should be perpetually bringing forth, from the treasury of a well-furnished mind, the varied riches of literature and science. The qualifications which have been mentioned are important, not only in the higher seminaries, but also in common schools. The amount of instruction which will be given by a thoroughly qualified teacher, will greatly exceed that which is given by a person of inferior qualifications, even where very young children are concerned, and the time of the pupil, and the money of the parent, will be saved by the employment of such teachers.

In this view of the proper qualifications of teachers, we need only inquire what is the character of those who are usually employed, to discover the great deficiency which exists on this subject. The common schools of the country are extensively taught, in the winter season, by a set of intelligent and enterprising young men, who, in the summer season, are engaged in agricultural or other employments, not connected with literature; or in the neighborhood of colleges, in some instances, by young men who are in them receiving an education, and who resort to this means to help them to sustain the expenses which they necessarily incur. Far be it from the writer to speak lightly of those farmers' sons who have more taste for literature than the generality of their fellows, and have better improved the advantages which they have enjoyed, and who aspire to the office of teachers; or of those young men in colleges, who are conflicting with the disadvantages of poverty, and by diligence and perseverance, are raising themselves to usefulness, and perhaps to fame. Many a man, who has been an honor to his country, and sustained with reputation the higher offices of the state, has been, in early life, a teacher of a common school. The academies of the country have hitherto been chiefly taught by young men, who have completed a collegiate course, and having exhausted their patrimony, have resorted to this means to provide themselves with the funds necessary for the study of a profession. Before they have had time to become thoroughly acquainted with their business, they have relinquished it for another employment. In a large proportion of instances, the teachers of schools have labored under the disadvantages of youth and inexperience, and to a great extent, of a contracted education.

In the summer season, the common schools of the country have been chiefly taught by a fine collection of amiable, virtuous, and intelligent females, in many respects well adapted to the instruction of those younger children who, at that busy period, are alone extensively found in common schools. But these teachers have generally labored under the disadvantage of a very limited education.

In the cities, teaching has been more extensively a profession, and has received a more liberal patronage; and from these circumstances, it might be expected that the schools of the cities would have risen to a highly respectable standing. This has been, in some instances, true, but is by no means a general fact. Mere pretension and display, on the part of a teacher, often command more patronage than solid and unostentatious merit. The advertisements of teachers, of almost every description, in the cities, will be found to contain a catalogue of studies nearly sufficient for a collegiate course; studies, many of which some of these teachers do not thoroughly, if at all, understand. And in order that illiterate parents may have a high idea of the proficiency of their children, they are hurried through this course with a most unprofitable rapidity. The hurry and bustle and thousand diversions of a city are not favorable to mental cultivation. Show extensively occupies the place of substance; and even an intelligent teacher will often be found sacrificing his own better judgment to a perverted public taste. Fashionable accomplishments, particularly in the education of females, have been suffered to throw into the back-ground those intellectual pursuits, which can alone raise the mind to its proper dignity, and produce a full development of its powers. If most of the teachers of the cities would pretend to less, and attempt less, they would accomplish more, in the substantial business of education. Like some farmers in the country, they should cultivate a less extent of ground, and they would produce greater crops.

The interests of schools imperiously require that something effectual should be done, to raise up a different generation of teachers from those who have hitherto held in their hands the destinies of American youth. In order to do this, teaching must become more extensively a permanent profession; and such must be the support afforded to teachers, that it shall constitute a sufficient inducement to them not only to devote themselves to this employment, but to undertake the labor and expense of acquiring the requisite qualifications for this important trust; and the community must learn to distinguish between the well-furnished teacher and the mere pretender to literature and science.

Suppose, for a moment, that the mechanic arts were learned and practised as the profession of teaching has extensively been. Let us take the trade of a shoe-maker, for example. Let us suppose that farmers' sons, of a strong mechanical turn, during the leisure of the winter season, should begin with mending their own shoes, and, pleased with the efforts of their untaught ingenuity, should take in hand the shoes of the rest of the family; and having gained a little skill by practice, should set up as cobblers for their neighbors. What kind of shoes, can it be thought, would be worn by the community, if such were the common shoe-makers of the land? And does it require less education to become a competent teacher of youth, than a good shoe-maker? That person must think very highly of his feet, and very meanly of his head, who can entertain such an idea.

The community have, in some measure, yet to learn, that they will never practice a true economy in the business of education, until they are willing, at a reasonable expense, to secure the services of a thoroughly-furnished instructor. It must come to be considered, that a little smattering of information is not sufficient to prepare a person for a teacher of a common school. A collegiate education is not essential to this purpose, because many of the branches taught in a college will not be required to be taught in common schools. But in those branches which are taught, the education should not be less thorough than that which is acquired within the walls of a college.

The academies of the country are, at present, the seminaries in which the great body of teachers for common schools must be prepared; and in order that the academies should become suitable seminaries for teachers, they must be universally taught by able and experienced men, and the business of conducting them should no longer be made by young men a stepping stone to some other employment. These institutions should be, especially, under the charge of men who make teaching a permanent profession. But something beyond this is necessary, that a supply of competent teachers of common schools should be raised up. Seminaries should be instituted for the express purpose of preparing teachers. Such institutions, established on a broad foundation, and sustained by a liberal endowment, would be of incalculable importance to the interests of common schools. The instruction given in them, being specially directed to this object, would be more appropriate and more effectual. Connected with such institutions, should be model-schools, in which the most approved methods of instruction may be exemplified, and in conducting which, those educating for teachers should occasionally bear a part. The clerical, the legal, and the medical professions have been most essentially benefitted, and their character has been greatly elevated, by the establishment of institutions expressly for the preparation of young men for these professions; and the same result might be expected from a similar course in regard to the preparation of teachers.

In a subsequent number, we shall offer some observations upon text-books; the importance of a systematic arrangement and inspection in the management of schools; the illustration of the sciences by appropriate apparatus; and the cheering prospect which the advancement of education holds out, in regard to the stability and permanence of the American government.

H.

[SADNESS.]

'I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most pleasant to me.'

Shakspeare.

I.

I know not why!—but oft a deep gloom shading,
Steals o'er my gayest mood, my happiest hours;
The glory from my ardent soul is fading—
A tempest withers Hope's reviving flowers!
I know not why!

II.

I know not why!—but oft, when laughter thrilling,
Leaves its light echo joyously behind,
Tears from their secret founts mine eyes are filling;
I shudder, as the leaf shakes in the wind—
I know not why!

III.

Do I not know? Can Fate her stern course alter?
Are they not shadows of the brightness gone,
Which make the fond heart faint, the red lip falter,
Leaving me mournful memories alone—
They tell me why!

IV.

They are past and gone!
Those days that were so glad and bright,
Oh, can we call back one?
Ah, never!—would we might!
The memories of our early years,
Shall hallow still this cherish'd spot—
And hopes, though faded, ne'er forgot,
Whose light is quenched in tears!

L. B. Smith.

[YOUNG LOVE.]

AN EXTRACT: BY J. G. PERCIVAL.

Why are we not like Nature, ever new,
Freshening with every season? It is pain
To gaze, when sick and wasted, on the blue
Arching as purely o'er us, and the stain
Of the curled clouds, that gather in the train,
Which the low sun makes glorious with his smile;
To see the light Spring weave her rosy chain,
And sow her pearls, no longer can beguile,
When age, and want, and sin, our sinking hearts defile.

Youth is the season when we most enjoy,
If we would know the sweets of life; the mind
Is then pure feeling, for no base alloy
Of gain hath blended with the ore refined
By the wise hand of Nature, who designed
The beautiful years to be alone the time
When we can fondly love, and loving find
In the adored the same glad passion chime,
As if two spirits met in one most tuneful rhyme.

O! there are eyes that have a language—sweet
Comes their soft music round us, till the air
Is one intensest melody; we beat
Through every pulse, as if a spring were there
To buoy us into upper worlds, and bear
Our fond hearts with link'd arms, on whitest wings,
To a far island, where we two may share
Eternal looks, such as the live eye flings
When it collects all fire, and as it blesses, stings.

O! could we stop at this glad hour the wheels
Of Time, and make this point eternity;
Could check that onward flight, which ever steals
Hues, forms, and soul, as the twined colors flee,
Which are above the seven-fold Harmony,
Whose perfect concord meets in the soft light
That sits upon a wave of clouds—a sea
Of rolling vapor, pearled and purely white,
That as a curtain hangs the pale-lit throne of Night.

O! could we dwell in rapture thus forever,
Hearts burning with a high empyreal flame,
Whose blended cones no reckless storm could sever,
But they should tremble upward, till the same
Fine point of centred heat should ever aim
Higher and higher to the perfect glow;
As Dante saw from that celestial Dame
Once loved, now worshipped, Heaven's own splendors flow,
And gather in her smile, that looked so calm below.

It is not in us; we were fashioned here
For a more tranquil feeling, such as home
Sheds on two hearts, whose true and lasting sphere
Is round the holy hearth; hearts do not roam,
When they are pledged by the young shoots that come,
Like the green root-twigs, sweetly to renew
Our life in their dear lives, which are the sum
Of all our after being, where we view
Heaven, as the soul's fond smile those rose-lips tremble through.

[WILSON CONWORTH.]

NUMBER SEVEN.

I have already described setting out for the law school at L——. After a long and tedious ride over rocky hills, we arrived late in the evening at the town. It is situated on a river, on each side of which are meadows of the most fertile soil, one mile in breadth. On the east side of this river, a short range of mountains rise, grand and imposing, from the generally level face of the country about them. Here is perhaps the finest scenery in New-England. You have a great variety within one half hour's walk. Gardens of exotics, well-tilled farms, more resembling gardens than farms, mountains, a river, woods, cottages, princely edifices; here a street like a city, and the next turn brings you into something simply rural.

Here too might be found, at a later day, the finest school in the country, perhaps in the world, if we may judge from the talent employed in its management, and the splendor of the scale upon which it was got up. The founders of this school are probably in our country the only instance on record of men who had gained high places in the literary world, leaving all their hard-bought honors, and the ease of professorships in the first literary institution in the country, to embark in the thankless task of keeping school. This school has not succeeded according to its merits—as what school does? It enjoyed a temporary reputation and success, as long as it was the fashion and a novelty; and after the curiosity of the public was satisfied, it diminished, and no longer numbers its three hundred pupils. It is the same with our clergymen. People in our country are for ever changing their ministers. It is so with servants, ploughs, and all machinery, moral and physical. Variety, curiosity, experiment, are the words that govern. We are forever tearing things to pieces, to see what they are made of, and how they are constructed. There is not and never has been a permanent private school in America; and our endowed academies sink and rise, and only continue to exist, because from their legal nature they cannot die.

In the town of L—— you might have found, at the time I write of, a race peculiar to the soil of New-England; the descendants of old families, who have inherited wealth from their fathers, and with it a set of feelings that attaches them to old customs and habits. The furniture of their houses is antique, and they themselves are a little tinctured with puritanical manners. There are few places so aristocratic as this. They do not show their pride in equipage and dress, like new-born gentility, but in the distance of their manners, and the seclusion of their lives. A race has grown up and flocked in around these moss-covered families, which is thriving and industrious, but the line is strictly marked between them and the old settlers, who yet consider the land as their own, and themselves as the pillars of the place.

Some of the old men wear gold-headed canes and white-topped boots and cues, though the cocked-hat is obsolete; and the old ladies appear upon gala-days in brocade gowns, worn by their great-grand-mothers, for aught I know, with heads carried as none but old prim, stiff ladies know how to carry their heads: a little in the style, we may suppose, Jupiter carries his head, when he walks among the clouds, where there is no vulgar earth to look upon.

The morning after my arrival, I called upon Judge H——, the principal of the law school, and found him, Cincinnatus like, digging in his garden. He rested upon his spade, as I approached him; took my letter and read it; gave me his hand, when he had finished, and as I looked in his face, and saw his clear eye and benevolent countenance, I loved him. He was a spare man, with the air of a student about him; his face was pale, and worn with much thinking; his manners kind and winning, with the least affectation any one can imagine. He introduced me to his lovely family, and they made me feel at home in a moment, by the sincerity and unostentatiousness of their reception.

Some people, when a stranger is introduced to them, are chiefly occupied in making an impression upon him of their importance and dignity, while the best bred only think how he may be made easy and comfortable.

The judge pointed a boarding-house out to me, and appointed a time to talk farther with me, and I took my leave, thoroughly impressed with the idea that I was the happiest man in the world, and the judge and his family the best and most agreeable people. 'Now for a look at law-students at a law school,' thinks I.

I found a fine set of fellows here, from all parts of the United States. Here was a student from the West, with his dark eye and coal-black hair, and Indian-red cheeks. He was remarkable for his independence and fearlessness; for his up-and-down dealing, and for the originality of his figures, and the indifference all western men feel to weather, domestic comfort, and the elegancies of life. Then comes the hot-blooded Southerner, contending between his ignorance and his pride; for the Southerners, (although there are honorable exceptions,) who come to the North for an education, are too much gentlemen in their own sense, to be able to handle any thing heavier than a cigar; though now and then bolstered up to holding a pistol at some friend they have injured, for the sake of the éclat of the thing. We see enough of this race of spoiled children at college, where they attempt to lord it over the institution and its members. They mistake the contempt which permits their folly to pass unnoticed, for submission.

Here, too, appeared the yankee, with his honest phiz, from the green mountains of Vermont; with his heart in his hand; telling every body who will listen to him all his family affairs and domestic arrangements. Nevertheless he has his points of shrewdness. You are off your guard by his honest and simple confidence in you: find him at a nine-pin alley, and he is your man, as he says, ''at can knock 'em down.' Put him down to 'all fours,' and he will play game; but he does not aspire to whist or billiards; of the latter perhaps he never heard. But if you would see him in his glory, look at him at a scrub-race, mounted on one of his father's colts, taken without leave from the pasture; his hat a little on one side; his neck begirt with a colored handkerchief, the ends flying; the skirts of his coat pinned about in front, and he is in his element. A Vermonter is rarely a drunkard, away from his native state; but to him, and the smooth-faced, precise inhabitant of Connecticut, we are indebted for the bad odor in which yankees are held in the middle and southern states, among the lower order of people, by their sharp bargains, by biting those who intended to eat them up; for they are not always the aggressors in a bargain, beyond the latitude of trade law.

The strongest attachments of the Vermonter are for his horses and cattle, for he was brought up among them, and is taught to regard them as the sources of profit. Until the age of twenty-one, he is buckled close to the barn-yard and stables; but at that age, he is free, and goes from home to seek his fortune in the capacity of pedlar, clerk, student at medicine or law, or to college, if he has a bookish turn, but never as a servant.

Vermont is the most republican of any state in the Union. There, people are more upon an equality than elsewhere; the rate of intelligence, education, property, are more upon a par. It has no clownish aristocracy, like New-Hampshire; no mushroom importance, like New-York; no golden privileges, like Massachusetts; but simple and contented, intelligent and industrious, hospitable and honest, without pretensions and disdaining show, running into no wild chimeras of improvement, and only a little mad upon masonry, it stands firm as its own Green Mountains, full of the purest American character.

Here was the inhabitant of the coast, the polished New-Englander from sea-board, with his literature and his sectional pride, his love of the arts, his belief that Cambridge College is the first institution in the country, and the Unitarian doctrine the most splendid of religious speculation. He is small in stature, for the most part, and has an intellectual face, and a head full of bumps. His dress is simple and neat; his feet and hands are small, but his fingers are short and clumpish, showing that he is not anxious to talk of his grand-father. His manners are retiring and unobtrusive, not as if he lacked self-respect, but as if he feared others would not estimate him properly. It is his pride of character that keeps him silent, and causes him to stand aloof among strangers; for he would not be thought guilty of the vulgar habit of presumption, for his right hand. Show him that you respect him, and he is transformed in an instant; he is all openness and sociability, ready to be obliged, or to bestow favors. He sympathizes with you, till you almost love him like a brother—so aptly does he glide into the bent of your feelings. You will find him more literary than scientific; he writes better than he talks; judges better than he acts; for he is much given to impulse and enthusiasm of the subdued kind, which works like fire around his heart, while the exterior man—the surface of his demeanor—is calm and passionless; he thinks more than he says, and reads more than you have any idea of. His taste is refined, and his sensibility acute.

Science belongs to Yale College, with her grand professor Silliman; but fine writing, criticism, and moral philosophy, belong to Cambridge. Cambridge sends forth eloquent divines, poets, sculptors, and painters; Yale breeds sound lawyers, scientific doctors, and superstitious theologians.

The tall Virginian, with his rakish air, his big mouth, his large teeth, his long legs, and profuse hair, was next pointed out to me. He may be known the world over, by his independent way of chewing tobacco. He squirts out the juice, black as your hat, by the gill, as he walks the streets, or stands at the door of the hotel. He seems as if surrounded by slaves, so towering is his look. He is rarely a student, except in inventing strange oaths or a new-fashioned hat and cane. His family descent is his hobby; and this, in his opinion, makes up for all deficiencies.

Any one may single out the Georgian and the inhabitants of any of the Gulf-states. They are small, dark, men, who look as if they wore daggers. Their air is indolent and careless, when unexcited; but if they receive some slight or opposition, their dark eyes flash, and their lips close tight, with the intensest passion. They are confused by northern manners and yankee plainness. You rarely see them laugh, though they sneer most bitterly at things they dislike, or which are foreign to their own customs. As they come to the North to be educated, they herd with the Carolinians at our colleges and schools; continually quarreling among themselves, and slandering each other, they only agree to hate the 'd——d yankees.'

CHAPTER XV.

I found among the students many whom I had known at college slightly. They received me with the greatest kindness and cordiality. They knew enough of my struggles, and thought well enough of my good intentions, to do all they could to heal the wounds I had received. Beside, they knew they had misjudged me at college. I certainly had some good qualities; I was very sincere; spoke my sentiments, any thing that came into my head, right out, without regard to consequences. However imprudent such a course is, we cannot help liking a person who possesses a quality so rare. It was not a virtue in me, but I did it from a wild impulse, a recklessness of consequences; and finding that it gained me friends, and raised a good-natured laugh, I carried it to excess; criticizing my own faults, confessing every weakness, and telling people just what I thought of them.

I do not know when I have passed a more delightful evening than the first after my arrival in this place. With me were C——, and F——, and L——, and D——, all old friends, who had always clung to me, and predicted my reformation. We were all changed, as men always change after leaving college, and mingling in the world, and getting rid of the hateful jealousy, the struggle for rank, the boyish pride, and hot blood, which characterizes students at college, pitted against each other for the prize of parts. We sat together at a spot overlooking the finest landscape I know of. It was a calm summer evening, and the holy rest of nature poured quietness and complacency into our hearts. We silently regarded each other, and let fall the easy remark, each word opening to us the fact that we were different beings from what we were when we parted.

Men educated in the same way, do not talk in round sentences, like the characters in a novel. They interchange ideas by a word, a look, a smile, a gesture; even in silence they hold communion, in looking at a picture or a prospect. Observe how the Indians talk; this is a perfect instance of the near sympathy they have for one another. A shrug of the shoulder, a grunt, or a gesture, a movement of the head or hand, is sufficient to convey their meaning.

My friends saw that I had a good room; they let me into the habits of the place, and drew a fascinating picture of the life they led. I never was so happy. All the dark spots in my life vanished, and I looked only upon bright and joyous anticipations. I was away from scenes of hateful remembrance, and seemed to have began anew. I felt grateful for the chance that brought me there.

I do not intend to dwell long upon this law school; and I have introduced it more for the sake of showing the effect of character upon character, than any thing else, and to illustrate how our very best sympathies, unless properly guarded, may lead us into error.

Law was pursued in this institution with all the plan and regularity with which any school is conducted. Recitations were held every day, and the lessons marked out. I admire this way of getting into the dry details of an uninteresting profession by the beginner. By getting lessons, short lessons, every day, at the end of a few months the student finds himself the master of much information and technical knowledge which he never would have attained by himself, without the severest self-control and discipline.

It is every thing to the student at law to get a right start; to lay the foundation well for future reading and practice. Very many lawyers, particularly in the state of New-York, get a knowledge of their profession after they are admitted. The time of their clerkship is spent in copying legal instruments, and attending to the matter of practice, while principles, and the origin and reason of these forms and technicalities, are regarded with indifference. Surely, no man can be a good lawyer—useful, protecting the poor, and guarding the rights of the widow and the orphan, exposing crime and supporting straight-forwardness and virtue—who is not also a good scholar, a general reader, a nice observer, and sound reasoner. Certainly, a mere machine to hold a pen, and bully in pettifogging suits, cannot be this.

My friend C—— kept a friend's eye upon me, for he soon saw my failing; and so he dragged me to my duty by the gentle and strong persuasion of a friend; the kind and well-meant hint, more influential upon a generous mind than rivets of iron, or the severest authority. I was a good student here for three months. My self-satisfaction and confidence, my reasonings in my own favor, (most dangerous to our peace are such) put me off my guard, and—— But I will tell you.

I had frequently observed a tall, thin, pale, and very genteel young man passing the street. I had seen him once or twice at a law lecture. He evidently belonged to the school. I was surprised, too, that he seemed to know no one, and none of the students bowed to him, as they passed each other in the way. The first time I saw him, his back was toward me. He was elegantly, fastidiously dressed. His walk was very fine, and was the gait of a gentleman. I felt a strong interest to see his face; and when I came to look upon his pale, melancholy countenance, haggard with care and disappointment, I felt my heart lean toward him; I pitied him from the bottom of my soul.

I discovered that our study-rooms were contiguous, and determined to work myself, by some means, into an acquaintance with him. One night, as I was sitting late at my window, looking at the moon, and thinking of by-gone times, when I had one beside me to enjoy such scenes with, the sweetest and most melancholy voice met my ear I had ever heard. The song it sung was plaintive, and the sounds seemed like breathings out of the heart. This feast continued for hours. Now I could only hear a low chant, and then a wild burst of melody, that seemed to pierce the sky; varied again and again, with the most astonishing skill.

I found out, by some means, that the voice was that of Collins, the name of the young man whom I was so anxious to know.

I could not be satisfied, until I had his acquaintance. I wished to become his friend. I knew what it was to be wretched and lonely, and I felt criminal in neglecting him. I talked with particular friends about him, but they answered equivocally. 'They did not know why Collins did not associate more with them. His distance was his own work; he was a singular young man, and they believed he lived upon opium; that he was strange and eccentric, and chose to be alone.' C—— said: 'You had better let him alone; he can do you no good; his case is a hopeless one, and as for his melancholy, it is all fudge.' All I heard, only determined me to seek him out, and find what could occasion such habitual sadness.

Collins received my advances in a very gentlemanly way, though he showed no disposition to palm himself off upon me. He had been absent, until a short time before I saw him, from the school, and treated me as a new-comer; spoke very handsomely of the students, and seemed to know the character and course of every man in the institution. I was charmed with the elegance of his manners, the acuteness of his mind, and his general acquaintance with literature. He soon returned my civility, and we gradually became acquainted.

He pursued his usual habits without any secrecy, and apparently as if there was no harm in such courses. His mornings were usually spent in a deep sleep, more resembling a lethargy than refreshing rest, from which nothing could rouse him. He rose about mid-day and read until night, hardly taking any nourishment. At night he seemed to revel in a world of his own creation; he would sit for hours in one position, chanting low airs, his spirits kept alive by opium and worse stimulus. I never could discover the least mark of intoxication in Mr. Collins, as every body called him. His person was scrupulously neat, his dress always adjusted with the nicest regard to fashion and elegance. His language was at all times proper, and his sentiments refined. His mien was dignified and graceful. Had it not been for his haggard cheek, and the unnatural brightness of his eye, sensual indulgence would be the last vice one could have attributed to him.

The mind of this young man was radically wrong. He had no fixed principle, and if he did right, it was to be in good taste, not to be in opposition to error. Blackstone says, that 'to do right is only to pursue one's own substantial happiness;' and it may be said, that to do right, is to pursue good taste, elegance, refinement, true pleasure, and pure happiness.

Collins was unhappy; he hardly knew why. Possessed of a poetic temperament—nurtured in the lap of ease and wealth—every thing provided for him, he had never learned to think, to reason, but gave free scope to any impulse that came across him. Misfortune he could not bear, for he had never calculated for its inevitable coming; disappointment unmanned him, for he esteemed that wealth exempted him from the common lot of mortality. He had had an unfortunate attachment—as what young man has not?—and he thought he must be melancholy and wretched, to be Byronic and sentimental.

He was, as I found out upon a longer acquaintance, for my own foolish fancies made me singularly acute in tracing the rhapsodies of feeling in others, in a false and unnatural state of mind; a maniac, a madman, unsound. We are apt only to attach the name of madness to extravagant actions and incoherent words, but there is a madness which escapes the common eye—a madness of the soul, which as effectually destroys the balance and contracts the usefulness of man's life, as the wildest inconsistencies of conduct.

With every means of happiness within his reach, but for a strange and ridiculous fancy; with riches, the highest connexions, a fine person and good education, this young man indulged the idea that he was soon to die. It was impossible to shake off this illusion. Considering himself as doomed, he told me that he thought he was bound to make the most of the little time that remained for him, and he supported himself under this idea, so terrific to an ill-regulated mind, by opium, brandy, and any kind of stimulus.

Now his disease was this: Having taken by some accident this impression, he resorted to a bad remedy to drive it away. Each application only drove the poison still deeper into his system. He allowed himself no lucid interval. Could he have been prostrated by a fit of sickness, and placed under proper care, and recovered slowly from his disease, his mind might have been restored. But once in, he continued to weaken his strength by artificial stimulus, and his mind had no opportunity to resume its natural tone. The drunkard only can recover from his malady by going through the ordeal of a trial by water. He must expect to be prostrated. He must suffer intense agony for days, and perhaps weeks, but if he perseveres, his cure is certain.

Collins visited at some houses, and was caressed by a few, as 'a character.' He enjoyed the reputation of being an elegant scholar, among persons to whom he had never given the slightest evidence of scholarship, and who probably did not know what the classics were. This is very common. Who ever knew a case of a young man's throwing himself away, particularly if his connections are respectable, when it was not said: 'What a pity! He is the flower of the family; might be any thing, only——'

The ladies, dear souls! saw in him a desolated genius. It would be laughable to tell the thousand and one stories circulated about his love affair. They used to get him to sing his plaintive airs, and how it went to their hearts to hear the tones of a broken heart. He, under the influence of powerful doses of opium, enjoyed this. He yielded to the idea that he was what they thought him, and was happy in the luxury of wo. After one of these displays, he would ask me to relate to him what occurred the evening before, for he did not know, though all the time he appeared to the company as perfectly rational.

The students did not expose him, though they saw pretty nearly what he was. I, I cannot tell why, was with him constantly, and took pleasure in his society. It was something new to me, and gave me an opportunity of studying myself.

The example of this man constantly before me, the fact that I associated with him, contrary to the wishes of my friends, in the course of time alienated from me the good feeling of my former friends; or they felt bound to resent my neglect of them, by corresponding coldness. I did feel bitterly toward them, for their neglect of Collins, and always took his part; and when lightly spoken of, resented it as an insult to myself.

In this way, I lost the confidence and friendship of those men who could have still been, would I have permitted it, of inestimable advantage to me in healing my own distempered mind.

Collins and myself at last were constantly together, and each other's only companions. I gradually fell into his habits. Certain it is, that we enjoyed some Elysian hours. In the lonely still nights, when all else seemed lost in sleep, and the sound of labor broke not upon the ear to remind us that we were in a toiling world, we used to sally forth and wander through the meadows that skirt the river in this delightful region. Under the soothing influence of that drug, which creates first a heaven and then a hell, we talked and sang to the stars, and the beautiful earth, and the bright moon, and thought we were happy. A man must be far gone for this world, who goes straight about such an excitement of his system, when he knows, as we did, the agony that was to follow, after the charm had ceased. I was the greatest sufferer. My constitution was naturally strong; capable of great action and rëaction. While Collins was left in dull apathy and lethargy, I woke from the trance of joy to excessive nervous pain. My mind was filled with dismal images. I had horrid forebodings. My broken vows to my father—the probable misery I had caused her who really loved me—the days of quiet and peaceful happiness I might have enjoyed by a different course—my ruin—glimpses of what I am—all came to my mind, and inflicted the keenest torture. I lived over again all the pains I had ever suffered. It seemed as if miseries were accumulated to crush me. I meditated self-destruction. I prayed for death. This frame of mind would continue for days, during which time I kept my room, and lived upon the most simple diet. But when recovered in body and mind, and going out with strongest resolution, as I thought, some new temptation would assail me, and the same scene, the same agony, the same remorse, were acted over and over again; and what makes it more astonishing, there was a sincerity in this resistance, which repeated failure could not lead me to doubt.

My only object in forming this acquaintance, was pity for Collins' solitary state, and a desire to alleviate the pain he seemed to suffer. My motive, if I know my own heart, was good. Even believers in human depravity will give me credit for honesty of intention. 'The way to hell is paved with good intentions,' says the preacher. How true!

In one of my fits of voluntary seclusion, I read 'Hope Leslie.' Let me here give the evidence of my own experience in favor of that book. The study of the law was relinquished, and I read only works of feverish interest, when I read any thing. After the indulgence of irregular passions, every one who has suffered, knows that the mind is left in a flighty state; we have strange visions, and think strange thoughts; in short, we are quite poetic. Poetry, novels, music! how grateful they are! They lead us away from ourselves, and we are just unsound enough to yield entirely to the illusion. Under such circumstances, I read 'Hope Leslie.' I was a week about it, and I read all the time too. I was so enchanted with the book, that I consumed it as the child eats his sugar-plums, by little and little, to make it last the longer, dwelling over each passage; reading a scene, and then walking the room, and picturing out the lofty Indian, the heroic Magawisca, the generous youth, and the gentle mother. How I revelled! Beside, I felt strengthened and elevated by the high tone of moral sentiment contained in that work. It was the happiest week I ever lived, infinitely surpassing all possible reality.

[LINES]

IN HUMBLE IMITATION OF AN INIMITABLE SCOTTISH POET.

I would I were the slight fern growing
Beneath my Highland Mary's tread;
I would I were the green tree throwing
Its shadow o'er her gentle head:
I would I were a wild flower springing
Where my sweet Mary loves to rest,
That she might pluck me while she's singing,
And place me on her snowy breast!

I would I were in yonder heaven,
A silver star, whose soft dim light
Would rise to bless each summer even,
And watch my Mary all the night:
I would beneath those small white fingers
I were the lute her breath has fanned—
The plaintive lute, whose soft note lingers,
As loath to leave her fairy hand.

Ah, happy things! ye may not wander
From Scotland to some darker sky,
But ever live unchanging yonder,
To happiness and Mary nigh;
While I at midnight, sadly weeping,
Upon its deep transparent blue
Can only gaze, while all are sleeping,
And dream my Mary watches too!

[SONNET: TO MRS. —— —— ——]

BY W. GILMORE SIMMS.

Sweet Lady! in the name of one no more,
Both of us loved, and neither can forget,
Make me thy brother, though our hearts before,
Perchance have never in communion met:
Give me thy gentle memories, though there be,
Between our forms, some thousand miles of sea,
Wild tract, and weary desert: let me still,
Whate'er the joy that warms me, or the thrill
That tortures, and from which I may not flee—
Hold a sweet, sacred place within thy breast!
In this, my spirit shall be more than blest;
And, in my prayers, if haply prayers of mine
Be not a wrong unto a soul like thine,
There shall be blessings from the skies for thee.

[RANDOM PASSAGES]
FROM ROUGH NOTES OF A VISIT TO ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, AND GERMANY.

NUMBER SIX.

SWITZERLAND, (CONCLUDED) GERMANY.

Lausanne, August 26.—We left St. Bernard, well pleased with our hosts, and hastened back to Martigny, where we procured an open carriage, and proceeded directly to St. Maurice, there to lodge. The ride along the banks of the Rhone, in the cool of the evening, was delicious. As it grew dark, the bonfires of the chamois-hunters were lit up here and there on the distant mountains; and among other things, we passed a beautiful cascade, seven hundred feet high, flowing out of a solid rock. At half past three this morning, we were aroused from our slumbers at St. Maurice, to take the omnibus for Villeneuve, at the head of the Lake of Geneva. It was just after sunrise, on another soft and lovely morning, when we stepped on board the steamer 'Le Leman' to sail down this glorious lake, now placid and smooth as a mirror. The boat was well filled, principally with English tourists. We passed near the walls of the famous Castle of Chillon, where Bonnivard, Byron's 'Prisoner,' lingered in chains:

'Chillon! thy prison is a holy place,
And thy sad floor an altar—for 'twas trod,
Until his very steps have left a trace,
Worn as if thy cold pavement were a sod,
By Bonnivard!—May none those marks efface,
For they appeal from tyranny to God!'

The castle is at the foot of the hill, on the very margin of the lake, and seems almost to rise out of the water. The poet has finely pictured in his 'Prisoner' a striking scene of loneliness, amidst nature's fairest works. We passed Clarens, too, the 'sweet Clarens' of the author of 'Helöise:'

''Twas not for fiction chose Rousseau this spot,
Peopling it with affections. 'Tis lone,
And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound,
And sense, and sight of sweetness: here the Rhone
Hath spread himself a couch,[1] the Alps have reared a throne.'

At eleven o'clock we arrived at Lausanne, via its port, Ouchi, for the town is a fourth of a mile up the hill. This is a large but irregularly-built town, and is much frequented by the English. The house where Gibbon lived yet remains, and is now occupied by an English family. Here I took leave of the friendly party, and am to proceed alone to regions as yet to me unknown.

Berne, August 28.—Had a moonlight night-ride from Lausanne, whence we departed at seven, P. M. I am now coming to the Cantons where German is usually spoken, so I suppose I must play deaf and dumb, and talk by signs, guessing the import of what they say to me, as I did, for example, at the diligence office, when I paid my fare; but in this case I was left in a non-plus. When I took my seat, they motioned me out; and I stood patiently waiting to be disposed of. My luggage was put on, the diligence was filled and started off, leaving me there, solus, in deep cogitation. Well, 'thinks I to myself,' they are very polite! Presently, however, a smart buggy came along, and the driver civilly beckoned me to take a seat. Feeling very cool and good-natured, in I jumped, at the risk of going where 'the d——l drives;' for I really was somewhat in the dark, and I couldn't be positive whether it was not the 'old gentleman' himself. Soon, however, these dismal doubts were dispelled by our overtaking the diligence, and receiving an English gentleman into the buggy; and then the simple truth flashed upon me, that the diligence was full, and they were 'forwarding' me in an extra, as they are obliged to do, by law of the land, all who apply before the time.

In some learned discussions about England, I happened to say that the law securing the descent of property of the nobility, there, exclusively to the oldest son, seemed to me very unjust. My companion said he 'gloried in it;' though he himself was a 'younger son, he abhorred democracy and equality.' And with some more talk, I fell asleep, and left him to his cigar.

I was somewhat diverted with a prevalent custom of the Germans—that of embracing and kissing each other, when taking leave. I refer, of course, to the men; for an affectionate salutation of this sort to the ladies, it would be unpardonable to omit. But to see the 'grave and reverend seignors' bussing each other, is a little queer.

At two, A. M., we stopped at a place called Peterlinden, and got some coffee in a 'loft.' About daylight, we were riding in sight of Lake Neufchatel, and passed the little village of Morat, where the Swiss heroically defeated an invasion of the Burgundians, in 1440: of which Byron says:[2]

'There is a spot should not be passed in vain,
Morat! the proud, the patriot field! where man
May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain,[3]
Nor blush for those who conquered on that plain.
*****
While Waterloo with Cannæ's carnage vies,
Morat and Marathon, twin names shall stand.'

It is vastly amusing and edifying to observe the 'whims and oddities' of the various people one meets with on these routes, or indeed any where. The English and Germans generally like each other, while both dislike the French; and all are equally prejudiced against we poor Americans—perhaps not without reason. There are too many young Americans, who ape the worst traits of the English character, abroad, and make themselves ridiculous, by an affected hauteur and reserve. There were two such at ——, whom our Scotchman pronounced 'contemptible puppies; for they considered themselves too good to speak to the Misses ——, because they kept a pension;' and he added, rather rudely and illiberally, that 'all Americans are alike, when they think they have got money enough to act the aristocrat.' This sweeping charge was not worth notice, and would never be made by the better class of English or Scotch; but it must be owned, there is some ground for it; and it is too bad, that a few dandy upstarts abroad should excite prejudice against the whole of us.

At nine this morning, we rode through a long shady avenue, lined with elms, into the handsome town of Berne, the capital of Switzerland. It is built on a peninsula, formed by the windings of a little stream called the Aar, in the midst of an extensive and fertile plain. The two principal streets are long and uniform, the buildings being all of gray stone, projecting on heavy arches over the side-walks. In the Rue Grand are several public fountains, adorned with grotesque figures. At the city-gate, a couple of wooden 'grisly bears,' (the arms of the Canton,) look down upon all visitors, with a scrutinizing but rather inviting glance. The cathedral is a very curious piece of antique architecture, especially the great door, which is elaborately ornamented with emblematical sculpture. But the most attractive spot in Berne is the public promenade, by the side of the river, from whence you have a magnificent prospect of the whole range of the Oberland Alps, covered with perpetual snows, probably the most imposing array of mountains in the world, at least the finest to be seen at one view. A visit to some of this range, through the valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunen, is usually a prominent object to the Swiss tourist. Near the summit of one of these peaks, where 'winter reigns supreme,' the Jung Frau, is the awful precipice where Byron's 'Manfred' was stopped by the chamois hunter from taking a final leap.

The city and canton of Berne have always been noted as the most aristocratic of the confederacy, both in laws and in the spirit of the people. Each canton, it seems, has a different costume:[4] That of the Berne damsels is marked by white starched over-sleeves, extending to the elbows, and a broad black lace ruffle stuck up over the head, which makes them look like Peter Wilkins' flying islanders.

29th.—Like Mr. Cooper, we patronize 'Le Fauçon;' and the Rev. Mr. Cunningham has invited me among the Anglaise to hear the church service read in his room. The principal topic of the day in Berne is the dispute with Louis Phillipe, which at present looks rather squally.

Alpnach, Lake of Luzerne, 30th.—The ride from Berne to Thun was very agreeable, notwithstanding I was obliged to take the interieur, among some inveterate smokers. The scenery continued to be beautiful, but very different from that we had passed a few days since—the 'lofty heights' being in full view, but far distant.

Thun is a picturesque little village situated in an enchanting place on the Aar, near the head of the lake of the same name, which forms one of a series of the most charming sheets of water in Europe. Instead of the diligence route to Luzerne, I was tempted to enjoy the luxury of a sail over these lakes; and accordingly left Thun yesterday morning in a little steamer, which plies on the 'Thuner See' to Interlachen, another pretty village, situated, as its name implies, between two lakes, Thun and Brientz. It contains several good pensions, and is much frequented by tourists in search of health; and well it may be; for the region round about is a paradise. 'The air itself is a nosegay, the coarse bread a banquet, and the simple whey of the Alps is worth all the elixirs of the apothecary.' You may not sympathize, perhaps, in my enjoyment of this Swiss tour—would you were here to enjoy it with me!—for I know it is tantalizing to read of the 'fairest places of the earth,' when one must long in vain to be in them; and yet, it is pleasant to tell those we love of the pleasant things we have had the good fortune to fall in with.

On our way to Interlachen, from the boat, we passed through the queer and romantic old town of Unterseen. Interlachen is near the Lake of Brientz; and there, with the assistance of an obliging French gentleman, who volunteered as my interpreter, I hired a small boat with four rowers, to take me over the lake to the town of Brientz, a distance of ten miles. There I got 'some lunch,' and hired a horse and guide for my luggage, to Lungern, going myself, by way of variety, on foot, over the Brunig Alp. A violent thunder-storm, which had closely pursued us on the lake, overtook me on the summit of the rugged Brunig, and, at the expense of a thorough drenching, I had a fine chance to observe the sublime commotion of the elements; and sure enough,

——'Far along
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaped the live thunder!'

The movements of the clouds beneath me, after the shower, were extremely beautiful and grand; rising in detached masses, gracefully and majestically up the sides of the mountains, and parting slowly from their summits, or from the green vales below, like a veil which had covered a mystery. Huge masses of rock overhang the path in several places, threatening to tumble suddenly upon the unwary traveller, or the cottages below; and abundant are the proofs that 'such things have been.'

I have said so much about fine prospects, that the one from the Brunig shall only be referred to, and you may read of it elsewhere. At Lungern, I dined, and hired a chaise to take me, solus, to the Lake of the Four Cantons. The ride was along the banks of two more lakes, Lungern and Sarnen, both of which are of a sea-green color, deep as the blue of the 'Leman.' There was little to remark, except an occasional water-fall, or the ruddy peasant girls on the banks, spinning flax.

At sunset, after traversing four lakes, and a mountain of no mean dimensions, since breakfast, I was received by mine host at the 'Cheval-Blanc,' at Alpnach, who is much noted, it seems, as an honest, attentive, and eccentric Swiss publican 'of the old school.' The hotels, be it observed, throughout Switzerland, are generally excellent. The plain but substantial fare which they give you, among the mountains, may be partaken of, after a ramble in those regions of pure and bracing air, with better relish than a princely feast in courtly halls; and in the larger towns they will spread a table d'hôte which would do credit to Meurice, of the Rue Rivoli, or Boyden, of the Astor House. At all the inns, visitors are expected and even required to write in the 'Book of Chronicles' not only their name and residence, but occupation, destination, and 'where from:' and in the 'highland tour' they usually add 'remarks,' scraps of doggerel, and praise or abuse of the last visited inn; such as 'Avoid the 'Epee' at Zurich;' 'Go by all means to the 'Cygne' at Luzerne.' Italy being blockaded by cholera and quarantines, this season, its neighbor Switzerland is more than usually swarmed with tourists; and a good many American names may be found recorded in the medley albums.

Luzerne, August 30.—In company with a couple of very agreeable English gentlemen, who had just returned from Italy, we took a boat at Alpnach, and were rowed down the Lake of the Four Cantons to this beautiful place. This lake is one of the largest, and certainly the most picturesque, in Switzerland, being irregular in its shape, indented with little bays, and affording, in its whole extent, every variety of scenery. After doubling several of its promontories, in a sail of two hours, we landed almost on the very steps of the favorite 'Hotel de Cygne' at Luzerne. It is a capital house, close to the water, and as we sit at dinner, we have on one side a fine panoramic view of the Bay of Naples, and, on the other, the real panorama of this beautiful lake and surrounding mountains.

We dined sumptuously at the table d'hôte, and then walked out to a garden in the suburbs to see a famous piece of sculpture from a model by Thorwaldsen, the Swedish artist. It is a colossal lion, pierced with a barb, cut out on the side of a hill of rock, and under it are inscribed the names of the Swiss guards who fell in the French revolutions of '89 and '30. It is remarkable that Swiss soldiers are yet employed as the body-guards of the kings of France, Naples, etc., as more trustworthy than their own people. These guards are formally 'let out' by the Swiss government; but how such a proceeding is compatible with national honor, I am at a loss to conceive. There are two covered wooden bridges at Luzerne, each fourteen hundred feet long: the interiors are adorned with curious old paintings, of the Dutch school, comprising a regular series of scripture subjects.

You will recollect that this is the place from whence the travellers set out in the graphic opening scene of 'Anne of Gierstein.' It is in the vicinity of the scenes of Tell's exploits, of the battle-field of Sempach, and many other interesting spots. The gloomy and 'cloud-capt' brow of Mount Pilatus, where tradition says Pontius Pilate threw himself into the lake! is a conspicuous object on one side; and opposite, is the isolated Mount Rhigi, on the top of which we propose to lodge to-night, as all faithful travellers here do, for the sake of 'the most magnificent sunset and sunrise prospect which the world affords.'

Summit of the Rhigi, September 1.—Yesterday, at eleven, A. M., I took boat with my companion, (an intelligent young student from Cambridge, Eng.,) and we pushed across the lake to Kusnacht, near William Tell's chapel, and the place where he escaped from Gesler. Thence we proceeded without a guide, the ascent appearing to be quite easy; but we had the luck to lose our way and lose each other: nevertheless, we pressed forward to the goal, like Bunyan's 'Pilgrim,' tugging and climbing under an intensely hot sun, up, up, up, every step seeming to be the last, until I for one almost gave up in despair, when the friendly halloo! of some peasants pointed me to the path. At length we met each other near the top, on the side toward Altorf; and at six P. M. arrived at the inn, almost fainting with hunger and fatigue, and well able to do justice to a good supper.

Much as report had raised my anticipations, the view from the Rhigi Kulm far exceeded them: yet perhaps that from some points half-way to the summit, if not so extensive, is more pleasing and beautiful.[5] From the top, the eye takes in too much; and large towns and lakes appear like baby's play-houses and frog-ponds, and much as they would from a balloon. But the grand whole is certainly magnificent; a view of the whole of Switzerland could not be otherwise:

'Lakes, rivers, long drawn vales, towns, hamlets, towers,
From Gothard's glacier-snows to Swabia's bowers.'

Thirteen lovely lakes, of which those of Luzerne, Zug and Zurich are the nearest and most conspicuous; with a hundred villages scattered along their banks. On the south, the sublime and gigantic array of the snowy Alps of Unterwald and the Grisons, even to the borders of Italy; while on the other hand, 'the view extends into the very centre of Swabia, presenting a richly-colored relief, over which the eye of the spectator roves in silent rapture, as the eagle, hovering in mid air or from his aërie, in some isolated pinnacle of the Alps, looks down upon the states and kingdoms scattered at his feet. The sound of sheep-bells from the pastures, mingling with others that, with a deeper and more distant chime, call the villagers to matins; the smoke of the first fires, curling in light blue wreaths above their sheltering woods; the lowing of herds, rushing to their morning pasture; the mountain peaks, varying in tint and distinctness as the light oversteps their summits; the glaciers, gradually changing their snowy glare into a purple, and then a rosy glow; spires and pinnacles catching the first ray of light, and assuming their wonted station as land-marks in the scene; sails, half in shade and half in sunshine, skimming the lakes with their rural produce and population; the Alpine horn, pealing its signals from the pastoral bergs around; the pilgrim-troop, with solemn chant and motley costume, bringing their donations to the confessional of 'Our Lady;' the screams of the vulture in pursuit of his prey, and many other sights and sounds which it would be tedious to enumerate, strike the eye and imagination of the stranger so forcibly, that he feels for a time as if transported into the mysteries of a new world.'

This is in the early morning; but the most beautiful sight this evening was a sea of clouds resting on the minor hills, far beneath us, the peaks just peeping above, like so many little islands in the ocean. Bodies of vapor also hung, like a canopy, over a part of the lakes; but with us the sky was perfectly clear, and the sun went down in cloudless glory; and when the last morsel disappeared, the Germans of the party doffed their beavers, and made him a low parting bow.

Zurich, September 1.—Cooling as was the change of air on the Rhigi, after such a warm ascent, I never felt brighter than after my nap in that high position, five thousand seven hundred feet above the tide. By-the-by, the announcement at nine, of 'La lune! la lune!' produced a rush from the supper table, but the keen, bracing atmosphere soon compelled the ladies to retreat to their rooms. At 'four-and-a-half,' we were roused from our slumbers by a 'trumpet's martial sound,' announcing the approach of the 'king of day.' It was beautiful to watch the changing tints of the sky, for an hour before the sun appeared. Not a cloud was to be seen in the horizon, for we were far above them; but when the sun's dazzling rays began to be reflected on the hill-tops, and on the sea of vapor beneath us, and the mists began to roll away from over the lakes, gradually disclosing their varied outline, or lifting the canopy from the quiet towns, the scene was truly exquisite to look upon.

I left the 'Kulm' alone, at six, and came down in an hour and a half, on the side toward Goldau. This is the village that was destroyed in 1806, by the fall of a part of Mount Rossberg, when nearly five hundred persons, and property to the amount of half a million, were suddenly buried under a mass of earth, which our Mr. Cooper ascertained to be equal in bulk to all the buildings in New-York put together![6] From thence I walked along the banks of the Zuder See, to the curious old town of Zug. This lake is nine miles long. The road on its banks is lined with fruit trees, and I filled my pockets with nice fresh prunes for the gathering. Blackberries in profusion are there also. It was another delicious day, and I experienced none of the miseries so elegantly described, à la Wordsworth, in the Album at Alpnach:

'I wandered 'midst the untrodden ways
Beside the banks of Zug;
And there I met with scores of fleas,
And there with many a bug,' etc.

There was ringing of bells, and firing of cannon, which made a tremendous echo across the lake, but for what cause I did not learn. At Zug I got dinner, and a direction to a by-path 'across lots' of potatoe-fields to Horgern, on the Zurich See, where I was to take the steam-boat to this place. I was alone, and not a soul on the way could speak any thing but vulgar German. I was stared at as if from the clouds; and albeit not conscious, like the third Richard, of any special deformity, yet,

'As I passed, the dogs did bark at me.'

At one village, a cur at the first house commenced the salute, which was continued to the last, by every

'Mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And cur of low degree.'

The folks did not know what I meant by Horgern, because I did not roll it out with their horrid nasal pronunciation. I stopped to fill my flask at a spring, and had the luck to learn of a farmer that I was going just the wrong way. At length, after achieving another mountain, a splendid landscape was spread out before me; the beautiful Lake of Zurich, bordered with vineyards, and neat villages, flanked by another range of snow-capped Alps. With staff in hand, and knapsack on back, as I approached

'The margin of fair Zurich's waters,'

I met a posse of 'fair Zurich's daughters,' and of course doffed my beaver to the fairest, whereat they were all vastly tickled, and perhaps a little jealous of the 'favored one' (a-hem!) but bon jour, or 'alack-well-a-day,' was all I could say, so I proceeded to the 'margin,' found there was no steam-boat, hired a boat, took in a lady, who applied for a passage, and pushed off for Zurich. It was a lovely afternoon, and as pretty a sail as I have yet had. I had this morning seen the sun rise from the summit of the Rhigi; and now, after walking thirty-five miles in nine hours, under his hottest beams, I saw him set on the Lake of Zurich. This lake is nearly twenty miles long. As we came near the town, we passed several charming pleasure-gardens, on the very margin of the water. Zurich is situated much like Geneva, being built on both sides of the rapid stream which flows out at the head of the lake. It is quite a large and city-like place, and evidently a flourishing one. I saw several large buildings in the course of erection. The walks and rides in its environs, and the sail on its waters, are delightful in the extreme.

It was eight o'clock, P. M., when my boatmen landed me on the dock, and it was with no little trouble that I found the Gastoff Zum Schwardt, or Hotel de L'Epèe, for my pronunciation of the name would not pass. It is a good inn, near the lake, but always full, and very dear. Mine host politely gave me a ticket for the town museum and reading-room. I had sent my luggage here by diligence from Luzerne, and expected to meet my Rhigi companion; but he does not appear, and I must proceed alone to the Rhine and Germany, 'unknowing and unknown.'

Schaffhausen, September 2. * * * In the ride to this place, I had my first glimpse of the Rhine, at the village of Eglisan; and now I have been out to see the celebrated Falls of the Rhine, near Schaffhausen. I came to them from above, and was disappointed; but I found the right view is from the bend, on the other side. The falls are certainly beautiful and picturesque, but not very grand or marvellous. If the falls even of the Androscoggin at good old Brunswick were in Europe, they would be quite a 'lion' in their way.

Having now 'done Switzerland,' you may ask, 'Have we not scenery at home, equal to any in that land of wonders?' And, at the risk, as Mr. Cooper says, of being called unpatriotic and 'spoiled by travelling,' I must say no—at least so far as my knowledge goes. The 'Notch' at the White Mountains is equal in wildness and grandeur to any scenery in Scotland; of course it exceeds any in England, and probably, the rest of Europe, which is saying a good deal; but Swiss scenery, i.e., among the higher Alps, you must bear in mind is on a vastly larger scale than either. Think of mountains two or three times as high as Mount Washington, in some cases rising almost perpendicularly, or overhanging valleys eight or ten thousand feet below, their summits tapering off in fantastic shapes, and pyramids of rock. It is scenery of a different character, probably, from any other; unique in its wild sublimity. So also with extensive prospects. Our Catskill Mountain House is scarcely half as high as the Rhigi Kulm, and as to the relative merits and variety of the view, I would again refer you to Mr. Cooper's comparison. But with these exceptions, we need not go abroad to discover 'the beauties of nature.' Our rivers and river scenery are as much superior to those of Europe as Niagara is to the Falls of Trenton: even the far-famed Rhine, if I may judge from this portion of it, is not worthy to be named with the Connecticut, far less with our noble Hudson.

The Swiss views, recently published, with letter press by Dr. Beattie, are very correct as well as beautiful specimens of art. They will give you a much better notion of the country than any book I know of. You will perceive I visited most of the originals, having passed through the cantons of Geneva, Wallis, Waadt, Freyburg, Berne, Luzerne, Unterwalden, Schwyz, Zug, Zurich, and Schaffhausen, beside an excursion to Savoy and Piedmont. How much Knowles' Mariana says in the simple exclamation;

'Switzerland is a dear country—Switzerland!'

The name will always recall to me many pleasant associations.

I am not a little puzzled in choosing my route through Germany. I desire to go through the Tyrol to Bavaria, Munich, Prague, and Dresden; but it is a long tour, and little travelled. 'The Glyptique' collection of the fine arts at Munich, and the great Dresden Gallery, are doubtless worthy of a visit; but on the whole, I think I shall content myself with the 'sights' of Frankfort, Leipsic, Mayence, the sail down the Rhine to Coblentz and Cologne, and thence to Aix la Chapelle, and the cities of Belgium.

GERMANY—THE RHINE.

Carlsrhue, Duchy of Baden, September 5.—I was somewhat amused by a good-looking Irish gentleman, who, after paying some pretty sensible compliments to the flavor of the bon vins of mine host at Schaffhausen, very kindly offered me his confidence and friendship, 'free gratis for nothing,' and proposed a walk to the falls, observing by the way, while telling me this, that, and the other, in the between-you-and-me sort of a way, that a rascal, whom he had unsuspectingly made his bosom friend and room-mate at Aix-la-Chapelle, had, with equal good nature, very benevolently relieved him of the care of his purse and gold watch. Poor Pat! I fear he was in a fair way to be operated upon again, with equal efficacy.

Schaffhausen is a queer old Germanized town, quiet and dull. The Hibernian and myself were the only guests at the principal hotel. I had another dreary night-ride from thence to the frontier of this duchy, where passports and luggage were duly inspected. At sunset, I arrived at Offenbourg, a decent town, where I found a very nice inn, kept by a nice man, who deals in wines and broken English. He entertained me excellently well, and sent me on to this place this morning in an extra. We stopped to dine at a town, which I took for our ultimatum, and leisurely disposed myself accordingly, when lo! by mere accident, I observed the carriage starting off, with my portmanteaus safely behind. 'Ou allez vous?'—'à Carlsrhue!' So much for being among people of a strange tongue.

There seemed to be a uniformity of costume in several of the towns. Red vests and breeches and broad-brimmed, hats, were universal among men and boys; i.e., of the peasantry only, for they are a distinct order of beings on the continent. The most laborious part of farming, etc., is performed by the women; the 'fair sex' here are expected to hold the plough, rake the hay, and dig the potatoes. What brutes must the men be!

Carlsrhue, the duke of Baden's capital and residence, is one of the neatest towns I have seen on the continent. The streets are broad, straight, and well-paved, and the buildings all of stone, painted cream-color. The chateau of the duke is in the form of a crescent, opposite a block of private houses in similar style, thus making an elegant circle, with a garden and orangery in the centre. In the rear of the chateau, is an extensive hunting-park. The whole of this duchy appears to be one level plain, not specially fertile; and there is little to remark in riding over it, except the extensive squadrons of geese, tended by the lasses like a flock of sheep, and the battalions of ganders, in the shape of the duke's soldiers.

Our introduction to his Serene Lowness, the Rhine, did not give us the most favorable impression of his majesty. If one should see that part of the river between Switzerland and Mayence, and no more, he would pronounce its far-famed beauties all a joke. It passes here through this flat uninteresting duchy, the banks affording nothing more attractive than pine bushes, six feet high; and the river itself has lost its primitive attraction at Schaffhausen, for here it is of a brown muddy color, instead of its once transparent green. Occasionally, however, the monotony of the shores is relieved by a pretty town, which, the atmosphere being clear, and the view unobstructed, may be seen from a great distance. Among others, we passed Spires and Worms, noted for their cathedrals, which are very conspicuous objects from the river; and Manheim, a handsome town, with a fine palace, (now chiefly in ruins,) in the midst of a beautiful park. Near Manheim is Heidelberg, celebrated for its university, which is the oldest in Germany. These places are in the 'Grand Duchy' of Hesse-Darmstadt, which adjoins that of Baden. The boat stopped a short time at Manheim, and we went on shore to see the palace.

It was dusk when we came in sight of the famous and very pretty town of Mayence, our steamer passing through the bridge of boats over the Rhine, which was promptly opened to admit it. The spires, and domes of the town, as seen from the river, give it quite an imposing appearance. We stepped on the quay, with very little bustle, and without any obstruction or examination. The hotels near the river were all full, but we found good lodgings at the 'Trois Courounes' in the interior. I shall proceed to-morrow to Frankfort and Leipsic, with the intention of returning here to take the Rhine to Cologne.

Frankfort on the Maine, September 7.—The ride from Mayence to this city occupied three hours and a half. The approach to Frankfort is not remarkable, except for the beautiful grounds and gardens laid out on the site of the ancient walls and fortifications in the environs. Frankfort, you know, is one of the four free cities of Germany,[7] (Hanse-Towns,) and is entirely independent of any other state, being a co-equal member of the Germanic confederation, and important also as the seat of the Diet. Some parts of the city are very handsome, and the whole has an air of busy prosperity: it seems to be very like Paris, on a smaller scale. The hotels are renowned for their size and excellence; and as the great semi-annual Fair is in operation, they are at present abundantly well patronized. This Fair is quite an important affair to the city: all the public squares, quays, etc., are filled with temporary stalls and 'magazines' of articles, manufactured in different parts of Germany, the merchant announcing himself 'from Berlin,' or Dresden, or Leipsic. They often bring samples, only, of their wares, and from them make extensive 'package sales.' I should think that one half, at least, of these were filled with pipes—a fair illustration of the smoking propensities of the Germans. These pipes are long and clumsy, but most of them are very prettily ornamented. The Germans are verily inveterate lovers of the weed. They smoke every where and on all occasions; the toll-keeper puffs away while he opens the gate, the conducteur, regulating the diligence, the shop-keeper, while he makes your bill. All classes and degrees are alike in this respect—the duke, the 'professor,' the peasant. The charms of the practice are especially exemplified in the interior of a crowded diligence on a hot day, when three fourths of the passengers are doing their best to suffocate one another with fumes of smoke from pipes, and brimstone from matches. Remonstrance from a novice in the science is vain, for though otherwise polite and obliging, they seem to think smoking so much a matter of course, to prize it above their meat and drink, even above their wine, that they do not imagine it can be disagreeable.

The river Maine, which falls into the Rhine at Mayence, or Mainz, is an insignificant stream, only navigable by flat boats which go down with the current, and are drawn up by horses, as in canals. Frankfort is built on both sides of the river, but the greater part is on the north. The quays are broad, and afford a handsome architectural display, the buildings being all of a light cream color, like those of the French capital. I observed no very splendid public buildings, but the principal street, containing several of the great hotels, is very spacious and stately. In the Hotel de Ville is preserved, among other archives, the original of the celebrated 'Golden Bull.'

Leipsic, September 10.—Here am I, in the very heart of Germany, in the centre of Europe, within ten hours' ride of Dresden, one day of Berlin, two of Prague, three of Munich, four of Warsaw, ten of St. Petersburgh, and a few more of Rome, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, all of which I would fain honor with a visit, did time and the 'needful' permit; at present, however, this will be my ultimatum, and to-morrow I shall commence what the Frenchman said Napoleon did, after the memorable battle of this same Leipsic, not a retreat, but a mouvement retrograde toward home. My journeyings will now be toward the setting instead of the rising sun.

The ride to this city proved, as I expected, extremely tedious and disagreeable. We left Frankfort at half past nine, P. M., and were forty-one hours, including two nights, on the way; the distance being two hundred and twenty miles. I was again doomed to the interieur, amid five smokers, as usual, neither of whom could speak English or French; and the idea of the mistakes and vexations to which my solitary ignorance exposed me, was any thing but comfortable. I escaped, however, with nothing worse than the loss of a cloak in the Frankfort diligence; for on coming to the Prussian dominions, we were transferred to a respectable vehicle, on which was inscribed:

'Konig. Preuss,
Schnell Post.'

(Query, mail or snail? It does not merit the latter appellation so well as some of the French, to say the least.) The public conveyances on the continent are all driven by a postillion, in a kind of livery, with 'seven league boots,' a trumpet with tawdry tassels, and a leathern hat: he always rides the 'nigh' horse, and never goes more than one post, as each 'team' has its own postillion. Every diligence is superintended by a conducteur, who has the best seat in the coupé, but does nothing himself, except delivering the mails and small parcels on the way. The French and Swiss conducteurs are often surly and uncivil, but those in Prussia are very attentive, good-looking, and even well-educated. The most learned doctors of the university will converse with them on familiar terms, with deference and respect.

There is evidently much less exclusiveness in grades, and less show of haughty superiority in the wealthy, and even the noble, in these despotic countries, than in liberal and enlightened England. From the Grand Duke downward, it is usual to give a bow and a 'bon jour,' or 'adieu,' to the meanest servant in return for the same salutations: and these courtesies certainly do not seem to be misconstrued into that familiarity which breeds contempt, but rather to strengthen respect and attachment to the superior.

In coming to Leipsic from Switzerland, I passed through no less than eight independent states and principalities, viz.: the 'Grand Duchies' of Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Gotha, Hesse-Cassel, the free city of Frankfort, and the kingdoms of Prussia and Saxony. The boundaries of these great-little duchies are marked by a plain stone on the way-side, inscribed, 'Weimar,' 'Gotha,' etc., as the case may be. I observed nothing else to indicate that the country was governed by so many different masters. There is nothing on the route deserving the name of scenery: even a gentle hill to relieve the dull, tame prospect of long and often barren plains, occurs but seldom. Of the towns I shall see more on my return.

I was sorry to find that the noted book-publisher, Mr. Tauchnitz, Senior, died of apoplexy, very suddenly, a few months since. His son, who continues the business, is a very courteous and intelligent man, and speaks English fluently. He received me very kindly, and invited me to dine with him at twelve o'clock, M.! In England, I was several times invited to dine at seven, P. M. The usual dinner hour at hotels in Germany is one.

Before dinner, Mr. T. escorted me to the lions. In the principal Lutheran church, I was a little surprised to see paintings, altars and images!—things opposed, as I thought, to the very spirit of Lutheranism.

The 'booksellers' have just completed a handsome 'Exchange,' where the brethren of the 'trade' from all parts of Germany assemble semi-annually, at the Easter and Michaelmas fairs, to settle accounts, and make sales of new books, etc., by sample. The book-trade is carried on here very extensively, and with a great deal of system. Leipsic is the head-quarters for the business in all the German states, and all publishers in other places have their agents here. You will be surprised, perhaps, at the fact, that the number of new books published annually in Germany, is greater than all issued during the same time in Great Britain and France put together.[8] What a nation of book-makers! What a mass of intellect in active exercise! In a country not much exceeding in extent the single state of New-York, there are six thousand new works, comprising nine millions of volumes, printed every year, beside reprints of old works, and all pamphlets and periodicals! One would think the Germans ought to be a learned people!

Mr. Tauchnitz's establishment is one of the most extensive in the trade. He showed me the stereotype plates of his well-known editions of the Greek and Latin classics, of which he publishes a complete series, in an economical, pure text form, one set filling a box twenty inches square. So you may easily ascertain the exact bulk of all the intellect of antiquity!

The Leipsic University, which is one of the oldest in Germany, is also about to occupy a neat and extensive edifice just completed. The ancient fortifications of Leipsic, like those of Frankfort, have been removed, and the space they occupied is laid out in gardens and public promenades; a change decidedly for the better, as every peaceable man will say.[9] As to beauty of architecture, this city has little remarkable; the buildings are mostly antique and uncouth, and the streets narrow, and without side-walks.

At dinner to-day, at Mr. ——, the second dish consisted of thin slices of two sorts of fish, literally raw. It seemed to be regarded as a rare delicacy, but I could not stretch my politeness enough to do justice to it. The dinner, otherwise, was excellent. You know the old man who made the 'Bubbles from the Brunens,' feelingly describes his consternation at the never-ending courses of a German public table; but he does not mention two-thirds of the dishes I have tasted at a single sitting. The feast commences, all the world over, with soup; then comes the dry soup-meat, 'which a Grosvenor-Square cat would not touch with his whiskers!' but which is nevertheless rendered quite palatable by a highly-seasoned gravy; then, cutlets, omelets, and messes of various sorts; followed by poultry, wild fowls, beef, etc.; fifthly, pudding, which with us is a sign that the meat is disposed of; but lo! 'sixthly and lastly' comes a huge quarter of veal, roast chickens, young lobsters, salad, etc.; seventhly, tarts and confectionary; 'and, to conclude, a dessert of prunes, grapes, peaches, cakes, etc., the whole capped by sundry nibbles at a fair, round cheese, or peradventure, as to-day, with coffee, in Lilliputian cups, which I took for baby's play-things. Verily, one has a chance of finding something to his taste in this variety.

After dinner, Mr. Tauchnitz ordered his barouche, with two beautiful bays, and a footman in livery, (Mr. T. is a book-seller,) and we rode out to the field of the memorable battle of 1813, about a mile from the town. The whole vicinity of Leipsic, for several miles, is one vast plain, which has always been, and probably will continue to be, the theatre of battles, when the nations of Europe see fit to fight at all. We walked to a slight elevation, where Napoleon had his head-quarters during the battle. The French had garrisoned the town for six years previous; consequently they had their choice of position. Napoleon had made a mouvement retrograde from Dresden, after giving up his second expedition to Russia; he was followed by the allied army, and here they met. Three days' hard fighting, and the slaughter of twenty thousand men, was the consequence. The French were routed; but their possession of the town enabled them to proceed in their retrograde toward Frankfort, (the same route I had come,) and on the fourth day the allies entered Leipsic. Mr. T. was on the field during the fight, and he gave me a graphic description of it. 'Here stood Blucher, with his Prussians; there, Prince Swartzenberg and the Austrians.' What a scene of horror must that field have been, when twenty thousand human beings lay there, bloody corpses, and half as many more had fallen, wounded and mangled, sighing for death as a relief from their misery!

Otho, the young king of Greece, is now in Leipsic on a visit. He is shortly to be married to a German princess, whose name I have forgotten.

Mayence, Sept. 13.—At six, P. M., on the tenth, I was again in the diligence. There were but three passengers; one of them asked me in German to sit with him in the interior, but having persuaded him in English into a coupé seat, he complacently remarked that he was pretty sure, from the first, that I was English. I declined the honor, with equal good nature. 'Scotch?' No. 'Irish?' No. He looked puzzled. 'You must have spoken English from childhood?' 'Yes. I never spoke any other language.' 'Perhaps you have resided some time in England?' Never was there but three months.' Curious whether he would discover me, I kept mum.

'From the East Indies?' No. 'But you are a British subject?' Oh, no. I acknowledge no king whatever.

'South America?'(!) No.

And, strange to say, I was the first, after all, to hint that there was a republic usually called the United States of America. It did not occur to him, at the moment, that the English language was known to some extent in 'our country;' but singularly enough, when the happy land was mentioned, I found him far from being ignorant of it. He had read of our 'manners' from his own Duke of Saxe-Weimar down to Captain Hall and the Trollope; and he was now writing a critical essay on American poetry. In short, he was Dr. O. L. B. Wolff, professor of belles-lettres in the University of Jena; the author, you will recollect, of the History of German Literature in the London Athenæum, and of other essays which have made his name well known with us. He seemed a good deal interested in our literature, and we beguiled the hours far into the night, in learned talk, parting near the battle-field of Jena, with mutual promises of future correspondence.

The road lies over several memorable fields. Near Lutzen, they pointed to a stone, 'Voila la, Gustave tombeau!' It was the spot where the 'Great Gustavus' Adolphus fell, in the thirty years' war. We passed the house where Charles XII. of Sweden signed his treaty with the Elector of Saxony. At Erfurt is the cell where Martin Luther lived when he was an Augustine friar. At Gotha, Weimar, Eisenbach, and Fulda, the capitals of their respective duchies, are the 'chateaux de residence.'

The approaches to most of the continental towns are through long avenues, shaded by elms or poplars, extending sometimes a couple of miles. One naturally looks for something handsome, after passing such an imposing portal; but it does not always follow. One of the finest of these triumphal arches leads to a filthy hamlet, which would disgrace our backwoods.

They have a peculiar costume, at one of these towns; but in general, there is no costume in Germany. Both at Frankfort and Leipsic, I noticed two remarkable items, the Jews and the pretty girls. The Jews wear long black gowns and girdles, with beards of nearly equal length. They seem to be here a distinct and 'peculiar people.' As to the German ladies, there is certainly more beauty among them than I have seen elsewhere in Europe.

My second entrance into Frankfort was from a better point of view, crossing the stone bridge over the Main. I had been riding four nights, sans sleep, and in the vulgar phrase, was 'quite done up.' It was of course delightful to find that the 'fair' had so thoroughly filled the domicils of every publican in the place, that not a nook or a corner in all those immense hotels was to be had for love or money. I wandered here and there, houseless and alone, till dusk, with a fair prospect of a loafer-like lodging in the street! This was actually the only alternative to going off at ten, P. M., to Mayence. There were probably at least ten thousand strangers in the place at that moment.

The entrance into Mayence, at one o'clock at night, was quite impressive. On the opposite side of the river, in Cassel, is an extensive military establishment, through the gates and court of which we had to pass. The postillion sounded a martial air on his trumpet, and the sentinel, opening the ponderous gates, admitted us to the bridge of boats on which we crossed the Rhine to the city. Every thing was still and quiet, but our rumbling diligence; the stars and the lights of the town were looking at their portraits in the river. At the city portals, another blast of the trumpet[10] procured us admission, but no living thing was to be seen, except the military 'guardians of the night.'

To-day it rains torrents. So I will merely tell you, in guide-book style, that Mayence, as well as Cologne, owes its origin to the Romans, and was occasionally the residence of some of the emperors. The city has also been an electorate of the German empire, but at present it belongs to Prussia; and it is remarkable, that with a population of thirty-two thousand, it has a garrison of twelve thousand soldiers. It claims the honor of being the birth-place of Guttenberg, one, at least, of the inventors of printing, of whom there is a statue in one of the squares. I have been to see the cathedral, noted only for antiquity, and for the numerous monuments and statues of church dignitaries in the interior.

Coblentz, (on the Rhine,) September.—The steam-boat left the quay at Mayence this morning at six, with about one hundred passengers, mostly English, on their homeward retreat. For two or three miles, the banks of the river continued to be low and tame. We passed the palace of the Grand Duke of Nassau, a fine edifice, near the river The classical Brunnens of Langen-Schwalbach are a few miles in the interior.

We were this day to see the only interesting part of the 'glorious Rhine,' that between Mayence and Cologne. Along here, there are a plenty of little islands, and the banks of the river abound with picturesque rocky crags, capped by ruins of castles, and relieved here and there by a green meadow, a vineyard, or a neat village. Johannisberg, a chateau belonging to Prince Metternich, is one of the first from Mayence. This estate has fifty-five acres of vine-grounds, from whence comes the most celebrated of the Rhenish wines. Speaking of Metternich, I need not remind you of his portraiture as 'Beckendorf,' in that unique production, 'Vivian Grey.' Then we passed the ruins of Klopp and Ehrenfels,[11] Vantsberg castle, at present occupied, from which we were saluted with a gun; the ruins of Falkenberg, Guttenfels, Schöenberg, and the rocks of 'the Seven Sisters' in the river;[12] Sternberg and Liebenstein, 'the Brothers,' etc., all famed by many a pathetic legend. There are also the pretty villages of Rudesheim, Geisenheim, Bingen, Oberwesel, Saint Goar, and others, too tedious to mention; and the rock of Lureley, with an echo which repeats seven times.

I am now before the castle of Ehrenbreitstein, the strongest fortress in Europe, built on a rocky elevation, commanding the river for several miles. The city of Coblentz, nearly opposite, and connected with it by a floating bridge, is strongly fortified, and garrisoned by five thousand Prussian soldiers. It was founded by Drusus, the Roman general, thirteen years before Christ.

Cologne, 14th.—I am now in the ancient and honorable city of 'Les Trois Rois,' and of the eleven thousand virgins.

On leaving Coblentz, the shores are again 'flat and stale,' (though perhaps not 'unprofitable' to the vinters,) until thou comest unto Remagen, when there are a few miles of the picturesque, and then the scenery of the Rhine is finished. On the score of natural beauty, it would take a good many Rhines to make a Hudson; but, as Willis says, here we are constantly reminded of the past; history, tradition, and song, have given every thing a charm, and even these rough old ruins are tinted with a couleur de rose; but amidst the hills, and streams, and forests, of the so-called new world, our thoughts stretch forward to the future. We have already the rich material, and perhaps the time will come when Europe may not claim superiority, even in works of art, or in historical associations and reminiscences; albeit we have no princely palaces or baronical strongholds, and, thanks to our democratic rulers! we are in no immediate danger of them.

But the Rhine is interesting—intensely so; and I can only regret, my dear ——, that you are not here to share with me this long-wished for pleasure.

'The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scatter'd cities crowning these,
Whose far white walls along them shine,
Have strew'd a scene which I should see
With double joy, wert thou with me.

'And peasant girls with deep blue eyes,
And hands which offer early flowers,
Walk smiling o'er this paradise;
Above, the frequent feudal towers
Through green leaves lift their walls of gray,
And many a rock which steeply lowers,
And noble arch in proud decay,
Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers;
But one thing want these banks of Rhine—
Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine.

'The river nobly foams and flows,
The charm of this enchanted ground,
And all its thousand turns disclose
Some fresher beauty varying round;
The haughtiest breast its wish might bound
Through life to dwell delighted here;
Nor could on earth a spot be found
To nature and to me more dear,
Could thy dear eyes, in following mine,
Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine.'

If misery loves company, as the proverb says, why should not happiness be also sociably disposed? There is to me a special loneliness in being in these regions of song, with a crowd of strangers, but with no 'congenial spirit' who in after days would recall to us the fond recollection of happy hours passed together in the distant land; who with a single word might bring vividly before us a glowing panorama of scenes remembered as a dream. And is there not as much or more enjoyment in these remembrances, than in the 'first impression?'

Beside the Drachenfels, there are a score of ruins this side of Coblentz, such as Rolandzeck, Godesberg, and other hard names; and we also passed the pretty town of Bonn, the seat of an ancient and well-endowed university. From one of the castles, near the river, we were saluted with three cheers by the garrison.

To-morrow I shall write from Aix-la-Chapelle, for here I must say, albeit not in the Byronic vein,

'Adieu to thee, fair Rhine! How long delighted
The stranger fain would linger on his way;
Thine is a scene alike where souls united,
Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray;
And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey
On self-condemning bosoms, it were here,
Where nature, not too sombre nor too gay,
Wild, but not rude, awful, but not austere,
Is to the mellow earth as autumn to the year.'

[THE SONGS OF OUR FATHERS.]

'Their voice shall be heard in other ages,
When the kings of Temora have failed.'

Ossian.

Ye say, we sing no household songs,
To those beside our hearths at play;
No minstrelsy to us belongs,
No legends of our by-gone day:
No old traditions of the hills,
Our giant land no memory fills—
We have no proud heroic lay!
Ye ask the time-worn storied page—
Ye ask the things of other age,
From us—a race of yesterday!

Of yore, in Britain's feudal halls,
Where many a warlike trophy hung,
With shield and banner on the walls,
The bard's high harp was sternly strung
To praise of war—its fierce delights—
To 'heroes of an hundred fights,'
Ever the 'sounding shell' outrung!
Gone is the ancient Bardic race—
Their song hath found perpetual place
Their country's proud archives among!

The warlike Norsemen of the isles,
Erst o'er the wave held sovereignty—
A sound is swelling where, erewhile,
Their ringing spears made melody:
Rude hunters of the seal and whale
Are chaunting out the Saga's tale,
To the wild winds sweeping by—
How their heroes heard the Valkyriur call
To the feast and song in Odin's hall—
To the white mead foaming high!

The stirring Scottish border tale,
Pealed from the chords in chieftain's hall—
The wild traditions of the Gäel,
The wandering harper's lays recall:
All have their legends, and their songs—
Records of glory, feud, and wrongs.
What nerved the fair chivalric Gaul,
When woke the bold 'Parisienne?'
The 'Marsellois?' what foeman then
Roused him to conquer or to fall?

What thought the Switzer's bosom thrills,
When sounds the 'Ranz de Vache' on high;
A race as ancient as their hills,
Still echoes their wild mountain cry:
He springs along the rocky height—
He marks the lammergeyer's flight—
The chamois bounding by:
He snuffs the mountain breeze of morn—
He winds again the mountain horn,
And the loud Alps reply!

Our fathers bore from Albion's isle,
No stories of her sounding lyres—
They left the old baronial pile—
They left the harp of ringing wires!
Ours are the legends old and dim,
The household song—the evening hymn,
Sung by your bright hearth-fires!
Each tree that in your soft wind stirs,
Waves o'er our ancient sepulchres—
The ashes of our sires!

Yea, forth they went, nerved to forsake
Home, and the chains they might not bear—
And woman's heart was strong, to break
The links of love which bound her there.
Here, free to worship and believe,
From many a log-built hut, at eve,
Went up the suppliant voice of prayer.
Is it not writ on history's page,
How the strong arm claimed our heritage?—
Of the lion claimed his lair!

Our people sang no loud war-songs,
They shouted no loud battle-cry—
A burning memory of their wrongs
Lit up their path to victory!
With prayer to God to aid the right,
The yeoman girded him for fight,
To free the land he tilled, or die!
They bore no proud escutcheon'd shield—
No blazoned banners to the field—
Nought but their motto—'Liberty!'

Their sons—when after years shall fling
O'er these romance—when time hath cast
The mighty shadow of his wing
Between them and the stoned past—
Will tell of foul oppression's heel,
Of hands which bore the avenging steel,
And battled sternly to the last—
By their hearth-fires—on the hill-side free,
Till the swell is caught by the echöing sea,
And hymned by the wandering blast!

Ione.

[THE DEAD HUSBAND.][13]

BY ALPHONSO WETMORE, ESQ., AUTHOR OF THE 'GAZETTEER OF MISSOURI.'

More than one half of the inhabitants of the globe have an imperfect idea of the sufferings that are endured by their kindred, even in the vicinity of their own dwellings. The same laudable sentiment that induces display of the elegancies of life, causes concealment of our miseries, or humiliating misfortunes. The social feeling which induces us to lend aid to a neighbor in peril, or in the full tide of prosperous action, tends to the exhibition of our good fortune; it is sympathy in both instances. It is the sufferer who seeks concealment, having no flattering prospects to offer for the congratulations of the sympathetic. It is the jealous distrust of our natures that induces the pedestrian, who is toiling onward with a humid brow, to cast a nervous and discontented glance at the tenants of the post-coach, as it darts onward; and he welcomes the cloud of dust that insures concealment of his woes, created only by contrast. It is only when crime brings suffering on the innocent kindred of the criminal, that there exists serious cause of discontent.

Joseph Joplin was one of half a dozen sons of a tavern-keeper in the county of Buncombe, North Carolina; and consequently he became initiated in early life into the ways of the world; by which general expression, it may be in this case understood, an acquaintance with whiskey and tar-kilns, long rifles, and quarter-races. When this younger son of the publican of the 'Piny Woods' had nearly attained the stature of the family standard, six feet three inches, and a few months before he had reached his twentieth year, he led up before the township justice of the peace a hope-inspired damsel. She vowed herself his partner, in weal and wo, in life and death. His circumstances at the time were only middling. He owned 'a likely young nag, a dollar bill, and a good rifle-gun.'

A few months after the festivities of the nuptials had left the sober realities of life in bold relief, the young couple began to look beyond the precincts of the paternal double cabins, in order to fix the trace leading to the most inviting region. Their departure was accelerated by 'a small scrimmage,' in which Mr. Joplin was unfortunately a principal actor, at a shooting-match. His antagonist had darkened the manly disc of our hero a little; but then the young bridegroom boasted that he had taken an 'under bit out of his left ear, and stove two of his front teeth down his throat.'

The young couple departed with the buoyancy of hope, (that flattering endorser of accommodation paper,) for the western district; the husband on foot, leading in the devious pathway of his bride, who was mounted on the nag. This animal was well laden with household stuffs, consisting principally of quilts and 'kiverlids.'

The adventurers reached the point of destination, six miles from the last cabin, on the borders of the Indian country, in season to make a crop. When the corn was gathered in, the fall hunt half finished, the venison drying, and the 'bear bacon' cured, the Indian Summer, with its mild haze, shed a soft and cheering influence upon the new-beginners.

On one of the quiet evenings, made more interesting by the tranquillity of the day of rest, the settlers were entertaining a neighboring family with a happy display of the best the house could afford, with 'a streak of fat and a streak of lean.' While the children of their guests were playing antic gambols about the door, a scream of infantile alarm arrested the attention and deep interest of the settlers. As the three males of the party snatched their arms, the anticipated war-cry rang responsive in the precincts of the cabin. The foremost of the assailants fell, and another shot wounded and arrested the advance of the leading warrior, while the affrighted mothers drew in their fugitive infants. As the cabin-door was closed against the foe, a distracted mother saw her youngest child snatched up by a retreating brave, while his comrades dragged off their dead leader. A gun had been hastily charged, and the fearless Joplin, having thrown open the door, drew it to his face; but the wary savage held up, to shield his person, the little captive. 'Fire!' screamed the distracted mother; 'better dead than a prisoner!' At the critical instant when the little sufferer parted asunder its legs, the sharp report of the rifle of the white man was heard, and the crimson current, of a deeper hue than the painted skin of the savage, rippled down his naked trunk. He reeled, and hesitated, and ere the smoke of the rifle had blown away, the frantic mother, with knife in hand, was seen flying to the rescue. The savage, cool and collected, even in the agonies of death, interposed the infant between the thrust of the Amazon and his person, and the unhappy mother plunged her weapon into the bosom of her own child!

The warrior's knife closed the scene as he fell, and was bathed in the heart's blood of the fearless woman, the wife of Joplin's nearest neighbor. The Indians fled without a single scalp.

After the funeral obsequies of the mother and child had been hastily performed, and they were consigned to the same unostentatious grave, the neighboring settlers assembled, and rendezvoused at Joplin's cabin. They elected him their captain. Here they continued during the autumn and winter, with various fortune in sharp skirmishes with their unrelenting and always vigilant enemy.

Early in the spring, they broke up their little settlement, and retired back to the more populous part of the country. Captain Joplin returned to the paternal mansion in the Piny Woods, to exhibit the beginning of the third generation, in the person of young Buckeye Joplin. After lingering awhile in his old haunts, and recounting the perils he had cheerfully met and overcome, he looked out again upon the land of promise, the western expanse, for another channel of enterprise.

The second expedition of our hero was undertaken by water. Having packed his family across to the Tennessee river, and exchanged his 'nag' for a canoe, or 'dug-out,' he embarked in his long and devious voyage to the Mississippi. Joplin occupied the stern as steersman, but his spouse was provided with a paddle, which she plied alternately with her knitting, as they glided onward to an unknown land. The voyage was barren of incident, and only varied by fishing and hunting for the subsistence of the family. They entered the Mississippi, and descended this river to the mouth of White river; and as this was backed up by the spring freshets, the voyagers turned their course up the stream, and crossed the connecting cut, or bayou, to the Arkansas river. They continued their voyage, until they found a landing-place of an inviting aspect, near Little Rock. Here the emigrants landed and pitched their half-face camp. After a year or two of hardship and privation, incident to the settlement of a new country, the Joplin family, somewhat increased in numbers, began to enjoy the fruits of industry. The improved condition of the captain's pecuniary affairs afforded him the means of indulging in his ardent propensity for attendance on all the gatherings, which he had never dismissed from his mind while his necessities restrained him. In the absence of her husband, the pains-taking woman kept the shuttle flying, or sung an accompaniment to the instrumental music of the spinning-wheel. From these gatherings Joplin sometimes returned with marks of personal rencounters; and time, and the soothing care of the even-tempered woman, were requisite to soften the exasperated backwoodsman, and to obliterate the signs of the feud on the distorted visage of her husband. On these occasions, the ferocity of his disposition predominated on the first day after the gathering; on the second, he was moody and thoughtful; and the third brought on repentance, and promises of reformation.

The great races at length came on; and Captain Joplin's colt, sired by Chain-Lightning, out of the celebrated full-blooded dam Earthquake, had been entered for the jockey purse, and the owner was 'obliged to be present.' This he promised should be his last race, and his last fight on any race-course. The good woman ventured, as she handed him his holy-day jeans, to urge his return home at an earlier hour than usual. Very fair promises were made; but, about the hour of midnight, the 'whole team of bear-dogs' opened a boisterous greeting as the roistering captain approached his cabin. The cold bacon, and cabbage, and buttermilk, were set out by the flickering light of a Corinthian tallow peach-wicked candle, and the meal was despatched in silence. When the gentleman from Buncombe had picked his teeth with his pocket-knife, he whispered an appalling secret in the ear of his wife. She drew a long sigh of resignation, wiped her eyes with a corner of her apron, and began packing his saddle-bags, while Joseph Joplin cleaned his 'rifle-gun,' which he called 'Patsy,' after his wife. He had finished trimming the bullets he had cast, when, all things being ready, he rose to depart.

'Joseph Joplin,' said his wife, 'I always allowed it would come to this; but the Lord's will be done!'

In reply, the captain briefly remarked:

'If he don't die of the stab I give him, Mike Target will pass me word, when the boys go out into the bee-woods. I leave you every thing but the colt and my bear-dog, Gall-buster; and, so as I never comes back, tell the boys 'tis my wish that they never gives the lie, nor takes it.'

The period of Joplin's absence was more than three years; during which space of time his patient spouse kept up the monotonous music of her wheel, and the regular vibrations of the shuttle. Her hearth was kept warm and clean, and her children were amply clad in cleanly attire, and well fed. Every Sunday was set apart for extra washing of faces, combing of tow-heads, reading a chapter or two, and chanting a hymn. She had rented her field, so as to secure her bread-stuffs; and her little stock of cattle had increased, while they supplied milk and butter for the subsistence of her children. Each tedious year had she spun, wove, and made up for her absent husband a new suit of jeans, which she hung in the cabin beside her own holiday apparel, that she carefully abstained from wearing, until she could attire herself and husband in their best, on some joyous day of meeting. His Sunday hat hung on the hook where the breech of his rifle had rested. Every day of rest she made it a point to brush the dust from the smooth beaver, and drop a tear into the crown. From the day of his departure, no account had ever been received of him. The sheriff, with a rude posse, had searched the premises on the day after the affray, and the neighboring country had been scoured in vain. The racer had outstripped all pursuers, and the fugitive was secure in the unexplored regions at the foot of the Ozark mountains.

The wounded sportsman who had defrauded our hero, contrary to the most flattering hope, had been effectually cured of the wound that Joplin, in his intoxicated rage, had inflicted. The wife, rejoicing in this piece of good fortune, had resorted to every device within the compass of female ingenuity to convey intelligence to the unknown region, the abode of her husband; but she had almost despaired of ever seeing him again, when an old bee-hunter disembarked from his pirogue opposite her cabin, on the Arkansas river, to dry his blankets after a hard storm. Of this old adventurer Mrs. Joplin learned that he had met a trapper on the head waters of White river, who called himself Griffin, and the description of his person induced the fond wife to think it might be Captain Joplin himself. On his way out to the bee-woods the following season, the old hunter carried with him a letter to the following effect:

'Deer Capting Joe Jopling; arter my best respects, hoping these lines may find you: he arn't dead no more nor you and mee; you mout come home, I reckon; the childrin all right smartly groin; you would never know the baby.

'Patsy Jopling, at the Piny Bend.'

Long and anxiously did the poor affectionate wife wait the return of the father of her little brood, and often in the train of her flattering imagination start as some stranger entered her cabin, with the exclamation, 'I thought it was Capting Jopling!' In her leisure moments, too, she was in the habit of fixing her ardent and steady gaze on the point of rocks behind which she had seen him depart. In all the torture of delay, not a reproachful exclamation was ever uttered by the sufferer. A sigh hastily drawn, and a rudely-constructed prayer, evinced the emotion she deeply felt. The fond woman could perceive, as her children increased in growth, strong resemblances of their father developed in every lineament. But the likeness in 'the baby' was absolutely wonderful. 'If,' said she, 'little Joe was grown, and daddy war here present, they would never know themselves apart.'

It was on one of those mild and sunny days of rest, in the Indian Summer of autumn, that the wanderer returned. The careful mother was surrounded with her children, and was, at the moment he entered the cabin, giving the last touches to the flaxen locks of the youngest child.

'You had as well give my hair a little combing, Patsy,' was the calm salutation of our hero.

'Capting Joseph Jopling!' exclaimed the half-frantic wife, 'ar it you at last!' She smoothed down the folds of her garments as she arose, and, with a smile of welcome, as she gave her hand, said, 'Howdy, Joseph?'

On a close and more deliberate scrutiny of his person, Patsy seemed to think, with her husband, that his hair needed the comb. His locks were matted together like the wool on the forehead of a buffalo; not a comb or an intrusive pair of scissors had interrupted the wild luxuriance of its growth, in a period of more than three years. When his hat had given way to the irritation of cane-brakes and green briars, and the peltings of the storms of summer and winter, he had cultivated the covering with which nature had bountifully provided his cranium. By occasional cropping of his locks with his butcher-knife, as they grew out so as to obstruct his vision, he left his upper-works with a singular aspect; and when the growth of three years' beard is considered, with the bears' oil glistening on its uncombed surface, it is not strange that his charitable wife should give him some ironical compliments, such as these:

'Jopling, you're a beauty! Sally, bring the soap. Joseph, you are a picture! The poor baby don't know its daddy; did he think daddy was a painter? Get your daddy's razor out of mammy's box; put on the tea-kettle, Sally, and heat some water, while I make up a pone of bread. Josey, did you cook for yourself all this time?' and as she bustled about, she began to sing a long-neglected air, to which she had trod a measure in the joyous days of early youth, in the Piny Woods of Buncombe.

The first six months after his return home, Captain Joplin was diligently occupied in repairing his farm, which had fallen into a slovenly condition. He was content with the society of his domestic circle, and remained quietly at home. But, when the great annual races came on, he was tempted to spend a day, only as a spectator, on the track, and accordingly appeared there early on the first morning. He had many acquaintances there, all of whom were thirsty beings; and before the sun went down he felt rich, and generous, and glorious. The ferocious stage of the disease came on after dark.

The return of the husband to his cabin that night was at an earlier hour than usual. He was pale and nervous, and blood was on his hand, and his garments were discolored. He notified his wife of the necessity of his immediate departure. She insisted on leave to accompany him, which was readily granted. Such of their effects as could be speedily packed, were hastily put in portable form. In an hour, the family were mounted on their riding animals, and in the road leading down the river. Few words were exchanged among the fugitives; and the place of destination was never mentioned. On reaching the first ferry, at about the hour of midnight, they turned shortly to the left, and crossed to the opposite bank of the river, without requiring the aid of ferrymen. On landing, Joplin scuttled and sunk the ferry-flat, to cut off pursuit. They continued their route until about ten o'clock, with little regard to road or trace; and having found a deep ravine, apparently untrodden by human footsteps, they halted for refreshment. After a brief repast of dried venison, the party continued their route, and at sunset were fifty miles from their habitation. It should have been observed, that the fugitives left their cabin in a blaze, with a hope that in the neighborhood a belief would prevail that the whole family had been consumed. To strengthen this belief, the cunning woodsman had deposited the carcasses of two deer he had killed the day before, and several joints of bacon, in the corner where the family usually slept, that these might be mistaken for their bones. The impression which it was policy to make, on examination of the ashes, obtained currency to a great extent, and it delayed pursuit. When the doubts that were entertained by some of the destination of the fugitives finally induced search, it was too late to discover any trace of the Joplin family. It was believed by many, who supposed they had fled, that they departed down the river in the ferry-boat that had disappeared.

In the mean time the flight was continued, until Joplin reached his old haunts, in a cane-bottom on Flat Creek, a small tributary of White River. Here security was made doubly sure by the bear-rough that sheltered them, and by the distance they had removed from the settlement in Arkansas. They had, moreover, taken the precaution to locate within the boundaries of Missouri. The fugitive from justice was likewise in the vicinity of a cave, known only to himself and the red hunters who had formerly resided in this quarter of the country. In this subterranean chamber, the dry bones from a neighboring battle-field had been deposited by the tribe who had been the greatest sufferers in a sanguinary conflict. As cheerless as this place might appear, Joplin had reposed in it alone many nights on his former visit to this region of country; and in this place he had cached his furs and peltries, which now constituted his surplus for his new beginning in the world. The erection of a cabin was a task not easily completed, without the aid of neighbors for the raising; but, when the roof had been placed over their heads, and fastened there with weight-poles, and the puncheons composing the floor laid down, the mother of this little colony began to sing, and spin, and bustle about over the irregular surface with cautious footsteps, and stealthily, in her daily task. She had not forgotten the essential portions of her wheel and loom in her departure from the ruin of her old habitation, and the mechanical ingenuity of the woodsman, with his axe, augur, hand-saw, and butcher-knife, supplied the deficiency. The good woman continued still to indulge on Sunday in a clean apron, a chapter, and a comb. These were luxuries she could not readily dispense with. In his former visit to this wild region, Joplin esteemed it no hardship to refrain from the use of bread-stuffs; but he was constrained to make some apology to his wife and children for the privation he would be obliged to impose, until he could raise a crop. He however assured them, that with a mixture of bear-meat and venison, and a 'sprinkle' of turkey-breast, they would do very well without bread, provided they could get time to cut bee-trees.

This isolated family had innocence and contentment in full possession, and independence prospectively within reach. The disturber, known in the west by the name of 'long green' and 'blue ruin,' in Pennsylvania, 'old rye' and 'cider royal,' and by the Indians appropriately named 'fire-water,' and more emphatically 'fool-water,' was happily beyond their reach. The only race-path known in this new settlement was that on which the husband and wife contended for the prize of domestic comfort. In this, the fabrication of jeans by one party, and the dressing of buck-skins by the other, furnished profitable amusement. The only visit made by the daring woodsman to the settlements secured him the patriarch of a flock, and a few meek companions, from the fleeces of which 'the winter of his discontent' was made comfortable. In their retreat, the Joplin family were in a fair way to make their circumstances easy, by such skill as is usually acquired in frontier experience, when a hard winter, attended with much variable weather, set in earlier than was anticipated. The woodsman had exerted himself violently in the chase, to secure his supply of 'bear bacon,' while the Indian Summer lasted. To this cause he attributed the 'dumb ague,' that laid him up when the first snow-storm commenced. With this disease he lingered a few weeks. The only medicine within reach of the settlers was a small parcel of walnut pills. Whether the bark of which these were composed had been scraped up or down the tree, so as to fit it for an emetic or a cathartic, does not appear; but no relief was afforded by administering even 'a double dose,' and he grew weaker as much with the repetition as by discontinuance of the remedy. When he could no longer rise without assistance, or stand alone, the anxious and confiding wife inquired, for the first time, how far it might be to the residence of the nearest neighbor. When she was told it was one hundred and sixty miles, it is uncertain which predominated in her mind, hope or despair. She continued silently and thoughtfully to minister to his wants, to the extent of her circumscribed means, until, when, late at night, the wintry winds were rudely perforating the openings around the cabin-door, and the house-dogs growled a dignified response to the dismal howlings of the wolf, the hoarse death-rattle in the throat of the sufferer was perceived. This added consternation to alarm. To the earnest and almost unconscious inquiry now uttered by the trembling wife, 'Shall I send for a doctor?' no answer was given. Her husband had expired!

The embarrassing position now occupied by the widow had never been anticipated. If her strength could have overcome the resistance of the hard-frozen earth that would enable her to say to the Indian deity of the wilderness, 'With pious sacrilege a grave I stole,' her force, and that of her infant children united, was insufficient for the removal of the body. Widowed destitution was never more complete. There was her dead husband on one side, and her weeping and distracted babes on the other. A single night of bitter wakefulness and watching was the last that she ventured to linger out in her dreary abode; and it seemed to her an eternity of darkness. Early on the morning after the death of her husband, the lone widow packed up a supply of provision, and, with her children, mounted, left her cabin and unburied husband to search for a neighbor. She carried the rifle with her, in order to make fire at her encampments on the journey. On closing the door on the house of mourning, the distress of parting was made doubly agonizing by an inquiry of one of the children, made in these words: 'Are you going to leave daddy?'

The first day's route lay up through the valley, and along the bank of the creek on which her dwelling was situated; and she was therefore guided by it. After the first night's encampment, where she had been surrounded with wolves, and nervously agitated by their howlings, and occasionally the startling scream of a panther, she resumed her journey. The little family of wanderers had marched a short distance from their place of lodging, when all knowledge of their route failed. After wandering sometimes in one direction, and then retracing their steps and striking off at some other point of the compass, the bewildered mother encamped for the second night. The next morning the half-distracted traveller determined to retrace her steps. Two days brought her back to the dreary and desolate abode. The cabin was surrounded with a snarling pack of wolves, which were contending for the remains of her little flock of sheep. These were scared away by the faithful dogs that had followed the family. The interior presented the frightful evidence of mortality. A cat had made horrid inroads on the face of the deceased, and was still feeding on the mutilated corpse! The necessity of burial was in no manner diminished by this horrid spectacle. The afflicted woman scarcely knew why she had returned. She passed another long winter night in her house of mourning, hovering with her little brood around the cheerless hearth.

When morning at last arrived, the family again departed, having confined the cat under a tub, to prevent a repetition of her cannibal feast. After a journey of five days in a southwardly direction, and when the widow began to hope she was approaching a settlement, she was cheered with the view of smoke arising from a hunter's camp. He was out in search of game, but there was an abundance of venison hanging over the embers of his camp fire. This proved a seasonable supply, for the poor woman had that morning given the last morsel of her stock of food to her children, while she piously fasted herself. The hunter was as much gratified, on his return to his camp that evening, to find it so well peopled, as he had been in the successful hunt of the day. The hospitality of the camp was profusely urged upon the strangers, and bear-meat, venison, and turkey, and elk marrow-bones, were proffered with the frank and liberal manner of a woodsman.

This camp was sixty miles from the nearest settlement; and it was speedily arranged that the hunter should accompany the family back to the house, to inter the dead husband. As the party approached the cabin, the family halted, and the hunter advanced to look into the condition of the interior, before the mourners ventured to take another gaze of horror. Hunters, as well as sailors, have their superstitions, which deduct somewhat from their general fearless bearing. They believe in charms on their rifles, and sometimes employ a person skilled in magical incantations to 'take off the spell.' It is not, therefore, unaccountable, that this woodsman felt greater apprehension in approaching the cabin where a dead body lay, than he would in conflict with an Indian, or in a close hug with an 'old he bear,' provided his butcher-knife was stiff, of approved temper, and sharp at the point. He 'laid out' an old she wolf with his rifle, that was scratching at the door of the desolate habitation, and was on the point of raising the latch, when he heard issuing from within a low moaning sound. Venturing to peep through an opening where the chinking had fallen out, a single glance at the frightful and mutilated corpse satisfied his heated imagination that the sound proceeded from the dead husband. He ran off with wild affright, under a full conviction that the house was haunted. The earnest entreaties of the widow induced him, in company with herself, to approach the cabin once more. They looked in at the same moment, and beheld, as their superstitious imaginations severally painted the scene before them, in the conception of the hunter, a black, cloven-footed beast, sitting on the body of the deceased, while the widow insisted that something like a swan was hovering over the remains of her dead husband. The moaning was renewed; the confinement of the cat was not remembered, and the spectators of the horrors within ran away in despair. The hunter once more ventured near enough to the cabin to throw a torch upon its roof. When the flames had spread, and were rapidly reducing the house to a mass of vivid ruin, the funeral party mounted their horses, and turned their backs upon the ashes of the Dead Husband.

[THE DYING BOY.]

BY THE LATE J. HUNTINGTON BRIGHT, ESQ.

It must be sweet in childhood to give back
The spirit to its Maker, ere the heart
Hath grown familiar with the paths of sin,
And soon to gather up its bitter fruits.
I knew a boy, whose infant feet had trod
Upon the blossoms of some seven springs,
And when the eighth came round, and called him out
To revel in its light, he turned away,
And sought his chamber to lie down and die.
'Twas night; he summoned his accustomed friends,
And on this wise bestowed his last request:

'Mother, I'm dying now!
There's a deep suffocation on my breast,
As if some heavy hand my bosom pressed,
And on my brows I feel the cold sweat stand.
Say, mother, is this death?
Mother, your hand!
Here, lay it on my wrist,
And place the other thus, beneath my head;
And say, sweet mother, say, when I am dead,
Shall I be missed?

'Never beside your knee
Shall I kneel down at night and pray,
Nor in the morning wake, and sing the lay
You taught to me.
Oh! at the time of prayer,
When you look round and see a vacant seat,
You will not wait then for my coming feet—
You'll miss me there!

'Father, I'm going home!
To that great home you spoke of, that blessed land,
Where there is one bright summer, always bland,
And tortures do not come;
From faintness and from pain,
From troubles, fears, you say I shall be free—
That sickness does not enter there, and we
Shall meet again!

'Brother, the little spot
I used to call my garden, where long hours
We've stay'd to watch the coming buds and flowers—
Forget it not!
Plant there some box or pine,
Something that lives in winter, and will be
A verdant offering to my memory,
And call it mine.

'Sister, the young rose-tree,
That all the spring has been my pleasant care,
Just putting forth its leaves so green and fair,
I give to thee;
And when its roses bloom,
I shall be gone away—my short course run—
And will you not bestow a single one
Upon my tomb?

'Now, mother, sing the tune
You sang last night; I'm weary, and must sleep:
Who was it called my name? Nay, do not weep—
You'll all come soon!'

Morning spreads over earth her rosy wings,
And that meek sufferer, cold and ivory pale,
Lay on his couch asleep. The morning air
Came through the open window, freighted with
The fragrant odors of the lovely spring.
He breathed it not. The laugh of passer-by
Jarred like a discord in some mournful note,
But worried not his slumber. He was dead!

[A FEW THOUGHTS ON PHRENOLOGY.]
IN TWO PARTS.—PART ONE.

'Hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear.'—'Julius Cæsar.'

Whatever conflicts with the opinions or prejudices of mankind, must commend itself to public favor by something more than its simple truth, or according to the world's estimate of its danger or folly, persecution or ridicule will ever wait upon its progress to general belief.

The phrenologist has not been compelled to ascend the scaffold, nor has he been tortured with 'a slow fire of green wood,' for his heretical opinions; and for this mercy, he is indebted to the enlightenment of the age in which he first proclaimed his discoveries: but he has been preserved, in order to be 'roasted' by the burning satire of his contemporaries, and to be 'served up' for the gratification of those epicures in wit, who, with the aid of a good tailor, can do more for the cause of truth by a look and a laugh, than a Gall or a Spurzheim, by the labors of a life. To these laughing philosophers, your phrenologist is a very eccentric man indeed—very; to their humble apprehensions, his science appears quite stupid—quite; and all he converses about, appears to them to be nothing more nor less than 'bumpology,' positively. Moreover, they have heard some amusing anecdotes upon the subject. A travelling disciple of this wonderful science, who wrote out characters for eighteen pence per head, once departed from the scene of his labors without paying his bill, and his landlord was represented as so far becoming a convert to his guest's theory, as to believe in the organ of 'unpayativeness!'

These philosophers ill conceal their mirth at the frequent occurrence of mistakes made by those gentlemen termed practical phrenologists, and have been known to violate every rule for the suppression of ungentlemanly laughter, when the fact has been related, that a manipulator of heads, supposing himself (being blindfolded,) to be in a prison, pronounced the wealthy mayor of a city to be a thief; a retired butcher to be a murderer; and a minister of the gospel to have been convicted of rape!

More important opponents have been found among the traders in the current literature of the day; as well your 'penny-a-liner,' as the man who has had the courage to write a book, and the good fortune to vend a copy-right, have been unmercifully witty at the expense of my brethren; and without waiting to inquire whether any important truth was concerned in phrenological investigation, they have only sought to know whether any thing ludicrous could be derived from it. These oracles Ignorance consulted, and the response was—a laugh.

One American author, whose writings denote the combined action of mirthfulness and destructiveness, very magnanimously allowed the phrenologist the distinction of being one of the 'Three Wise Men of Gotham.' He is portrayed as sallying forth with no less enthusiasm than La Mancha's renowned knight, nor with less 'rueful visage,' upon a forlorn pilgrimage to some Golgotha, in quest of specimens to illustrate the truths of his mighty discovery; while one of his high compeers sails in quest of the great central hole of the earth; and the other stands in a glow of intense rapture, viewing the sudden perfectability of human nature. But alas for such noble enthusiasm! If our grave author's relation of the facts be genuine, (and who doubts his historical accuracy?) the

'Three little boys that a-sliding went,
All on a summer's day,'

met with an enviable fate, compared with that of these children of wisdom. The captain's boat never entered the wished-for haven; the philanthropist failed to make the lion and the lamb lie down together in peace and safety; and the unhappy phrenologist, in his 'meditations among the tombs,' erred in pronouncing upon the traits of mind that once inhabited the poor fragments he had gathered up; and he found his science blown to atoms, because he mistook the cranium of a fool for that of a philosopher!—a mistake which the vanity of an author might possibly make in his own case, with far better opportunities of judging aright.

A science that could survive an attack like this, must have had brains indeed to support it; and he who ventured to proclaim its truth, after a world's laugh had announced its folly, must have possessed more than an ordinary share of moral courage.

But the science of Human Nature survived this satire, and having outlived the sneers of learned prejudice, and the obstreperous mirth of vulgar ignorance, now commands much of the serious attention of mankind.

The world had long known the principal facts which suggested phrenological inquiry, but had omitted to pursue the investigation necessary to form a correct conclusion from them. Established theories in government, civil and moral, and in mental philosophy, presented great obstacles to such an inquiry as has finally been made. For many centuries, man had been regarded as a depraved moral being—instinctively inclined to do wrong—without a countervailing good sentiment; and the phrenologist has not yet been forgiven, in certain quarters, for his refutation of this slander. To him it was obvious, that no man could be found devoid of any good attribute. One is condemned for injustice; may he not be benevolent? Another professes to hate mankind, and yet loves his own offspring, and cherishes them with the most tender solicitude and care. One is a coward, but nevertheless benevolent and just; another is cruel, and yet he is enthusiastic and brave. Here is a prodigal; but he is kind and noble in his dispositions, and may yet return to paternal love, with forgiveness and blessings upon his head. There, again, is a thorough hater, and yet by the influence of the same temperament, a most ardent lover, whom no maiden would despise. Who had failed to observe as much as this?—and yet where was the apologist of his race—the defender of man's moral nature against the charge of total depravity?

Again: The intellects of men varied in activity and strength, and this difference was known to be early developed in persons born and nurtured under the same roof, and subjected to the same mental and moral discipline. The father who discovered that his son could not easily acquire a knowledge of words, but could nevertheless demonstrate with readiness the most difficult problem in mathematics, observed the fact in profitless silence. The phrenologist pointed the father to the conformation of his child's brain as the origin of his mental peculiarity; and demonstrated, that the effect which the parent had observed in silent wonder, had an adequate cause. For this he was ridiculed; while he who stupidly believed in the effect without the cause, was reverently regarded as both orthodox and wise.

The world knew that the genius of Fulton was not adapted to the writing of romance, while no one ever supposed that Sir Walter Scott was possessed of mechanical skill; yet it was regarded as mere accident, or great good fortune, that these distinguished men stumbled into a career of thought which demanded the world's admiration; and few dreamed that the causes of their varied excellence were as great and different, as the effects were dissimilar. Burns walked a poet behind his plough; and yet no other Scottish farmer seemed a poet 'ready made,' although he may have been as strong, as tall, and equally handsome. There must have been some difference in the head of Scotia's own bard—something that elevated his nature, and lifted him above his walk in life. To adopt his own language, he must have been 'one of Nature's noblemen, who derived the patent for his honors directly from the Almighty;' and yet, by what outward seal the patent was impressed which conferred the native title to distinction, the world knew not, and but for phrenology, never would have known. Pope

'Lisped in numbers, for the numbers came;'