Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/bostonbookbeingsOOthat / \ THE 'JtT. BOSTON BOOK. BEING SPECIMENS OF METROPOLITAN LITERATURE. EDITED BY J5? B. B. THATCHER. BOSTON: LIGHT & STEARNS, 1 CORNHILL. 183 7 . BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY CHESTNUT BILL, MASS, Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by Light & Stearns, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Massachu- setts. PREFACE, The Publishers of the Boston Book, encouraged to continue it for another season, by the favor with which their first experiment on the plan was received, and not insensible of the fresh inducements thereby furnished for additional efforts to deserve their success, offer this volume to the public with the confident expectation that their renewed labors will be rewarded by a still warmer approval. The Editor, who, in the ab- sence of his esteemed friend and predecessor, has been invited to aid them, and has endeavored according to his ability to do so, embraces the earliest occasion to acknowledge his obligations to the manner in which that gentleman’s task was performed, as well as to the just popularity which attended it, for the auspices under which IV PREFACE. he now submits his own share of the enterprize, to its former patrons, and to the public at large. At the same time, he may add with propriety, that if, in the details of the execution he has been able to improve upon the beginning of the series, in any of those particulars respecting which such a beginning was of necessity open, as it was candidly subjected, to fair criticism, this improvement he is conscious he owes, in a great degree, to the friendly discussion of the character of the book, among its friends, excited by their interest itself in its merits. No explanation of our design, we presume, will be required, additional to what has already been given; it being in that connection sufficient to remark, that no very important deviation from it has been considered advisable. The second volume, therefore, is presented, like the first, as a compilation of specimens — or, essentially, a specimen, in the aggregate — of the modern litera- ture of the Metropolis of the North. How far the performance is adequate to this plan, the Editor of course will not undertake to decide. How far PREFACE. V it will be deemed to be so by the public, remains to be seen. They will perceive, however, we trust, that while it does not assume to be com- plete, nor to deprecate reasonable strictures in any respect, it has preserved a goodly portion of the general spirit — the liberal, republican, na- tional, and Christian spirit — which breathed in its pages before ; and that it does something like justice, in this respect, to the City, as emphati- cally a Bostonian Book. It is hoped, also, that we shall not be found, in a primary attention to this substantial qualification, to have forgotten the condiments of vivacity and variety proper for recommending that to notice, and for giving it a tolerable relish at the feast. Here the Editor is again indebted to his plan, and especially to the range into a wide and rich region which it al- lowed him. If the publication of one volume, comprising so many of our gems, forestalled him to a certain extent in the preparation of this, it did not, after all, so much impoverish as it em- barrassed him. It occasioned, in the phrase of the day, only a transient panic, and consequently 1 * VI PREFACE. a trivial pressure, in the literary market. Real estate and property at large were in fact rising, the while, by the increased demand for it ; and, we are free to say, it has been among the princi- pal sources of the satisfaction we have taken, in the unambitious though not a little laborious process of compilation required in such a case as this, thus, (as the earlier drafts on the common fund had compelled him,) to ascertain, by actual trial, how handsomely that Bank was able to bear the “run.” If we have not succeeded in showing all this, we admit, then, it is our fault. .Exploration has disclosed plentiful resources. Names inadver- tently omitted before, or crowded out, have been gladly introduced ; and at least some of the new treasures, especially, which we have brought for- ward to mix with the old , wear, if we mistake not, an aspect of sterling freshness, which proves at once that if they may have been comparatively “ to dumb forgetfulness a prey,” they neither have deserved, nor will continue, to be so. PREFACE. vii We shall not need to apologize for the omission of many articles which we should have been proud to include; and of several, among the num- ber, by authors whose contributions were last year availed of to great advantage. It is not neces- sary to account for this on the republican prin- ciple of rotation — agreeably to the professedly re- publican scheme of the work ; although it was in fact the only way by which justice could be ren- dered in cases where it had been with that view deferred. It regarded also the other principle of our plan, which looked to a discretionary con- tinuation of the work. Nor, whatever errors have occurred in the delicate task of selection, where selection of some sort was so rigidly required, ought we perhaps to regret the sacrifices — many of them unexpected till almost the completion of the volume — that have enabled us to secure the interest which we trust may accrue to it from the increased novelty of some of its con- tents. Among these, the fine essay on American History was kindly furnished us in the manu- script, as were several other valuable composi- PREFACE. viii tions, to which, in respect to that circumstance, a place, and sometimes a precedence, was duly awarded. With this preamble, the Boston Book is cheer- fully submitted once more. If it be not found faultless, we shall have the consolation of con- sidering that we did not propose that it should be; as well as that, perhaps, of the future benefit arising from the generous and fair criticism which we invite, and to which only we feel ourselves to be exposed. Beyond this, we shall be more than satisfied with the approbation of the impar- tial, and the indulgent, whom we confess we have chiefly endeavored to please. Boston, Oct. 8 , 1836 . CONTENTS. The Tri-Mountain — by H. T. Tuckerman, 13 The Progress of Discovery-— by Edward Everett, 16 The Family Meeting — by Charles Sprague, 25 Greenough’s Group of the Angel and Child — by Washington Allston, 27 The Good Match — by Mrs. Hale, 30 The Comet — by O. W. Holmes, 37 Poets — Past and Present — by Albert Pike, 40 The Fountain of Beauty — by Mrs. Child, 43 Daybreak — by Richard H. Dana, 54 The Belfry Pigeon — by N. P. Willis, 58 Our Village Poet — by Mrs. Sullivan, 60 The Passion for Life — by I. McLellan, Jr., 70 New England — by J. G. Whittier, 73 Spiritual Freedom — by Wm. E. Channing, 75 The White Hare — by Mrs. Wells, 80 Stanzas — by Mrs. Gilman, 83 A Thanksgiving Dream — by Richard Hildreth, 85 Hampton Beach — by George Lunt, 93 The Love of the Supreme Being — by Jacob Abbott, 96 The Exile at Rest — by John Pierpont, 101 Mortal and Immortal — by R. C. Waterston, 103 Keeping up Appearances — by Leonard Withington, 105 u Blow, Gentle Gale ” — by Park Benjamin, 115 Our Yankee Girls — by O. W. Holmes, 117 X CONTENTS. The Little Beach Bird — by Richard H. Dana, 119 American History — by Jared Sparks, 121 The Spirit of Beauty — by Rufus Dawes, 142 The Household — by I. C. Pray, Jr., 144 Tailors— by N. P. Willis, 146 The Bucket — by Samuel Woodworth, 150 The Spirit of New England — by John S. J. Gardiner, 152 The Dead — by Grenville Mellen, 156 Poetry — by Orville Dewey, 159 The Last Bouquet — by H. T. Tuckerman, 163 The Idle Boys — by J. O. Sargent, 165 Barbers — by S. P. Holbrook, 167 I See Thee Still — -by Charles Sprague, 172 The Leaf — by S. G. Goodrich, . 174 Easy Joe Bruce— by H. H. Weld, 176 The Fields of War — by I. McLellan, Jr., 181 Rockall — by E. Sargent, Jr., 184 Impressions of the Mother Land — by A. H. Everett, 187 A Word for the Farmers — by T. G. Fessenden, 194 Hints to Students— by Lyman Beecher, 198 Seasons of Prayer — by Henry Ware, Jr., 208 Miseries of an Invalid— by Geo. S. Hillard, 211 The Confessional — by N. P. Willis, 224 Mount Auburn — by Samuel Kettel, 228 Lexington Ode — by John Pierpont, 235 Washington’s Remains — by George Lunt, 237 Old Ironsides — by O. W. Holmes, 239 Women- — by John Neal, 240 The Spell of Love — by Mrs. Osgood, 245 Light for the Blind — by Miss Foster, 247 The Dark Side — by Mrs. Davis, 249 Lines — by N. L. Frothingham, 252 The Man of Expedients — by Samuel Gilman, 254 Flowers — by Henry Pickering, 259 CONTENTS. XI American Influence — by Francis Way land, 262 The Silent Farewell — by Thomas Power, 268 The Land's-End— by Samuel Woodworth, 269 Tight Lacing — by Wm. A. Alcott, 270 Domestic Love — by Park Benjamin, 275 Christmas — by William Crosvvcll, 277 Children — by R. C. Waterston, 278 To a Bereaved Mother — by John Quincy Adams, . 281 Hints to Editors — by Wm. J. Snelling, 284 Indian Summer — by H. F. Harrington, 291 Changes — by J. O. Rockwell, 293 To the Bunker Hill Veterans— -by Daniel Webster, 295 Song of the Revolution — by T. Gray, Jr., 300 Philip of Mount Hope — by J. O. Sargent, 302 Pleasures of Science — by Wm. M. Rogers, 304 Solitary Hours — by Geo. W. Light, 312 News-Making — by S. H. Jenks, 314 Rosalie — by Washington Alls't&ft, 316 The Poetry of Mrs. Hemans — by B. B. Thatcher, 318 Visit to an Old Play-Place — by J. W. Miller, 332 A Modern Greek — by S. G. Howe,. 336 Lines for my Cousin's Album- — by Horatio Hale, 341 Shaking Hands — by Edward Everett, 343 Temperance Hymn — by L. M. Sargent, 349 Thanksgiving — by J. T. Buckingham, 351 The Pilgrims' Land — by Charles Sprague, t 356 THE BOSTON BOOK. THE TRI-MOUNTAIN. By H. T. Tuckerman. Through Time’s dim atmosphere, behold Those ancient hills again, — Rising to Fancy’s eager view, In solitude — as when Beneath the summer firmament, So silently of yore, The shadow of each passing cloud Their rugged bosoms bore ! They sloped in pathless grandeur then Down to the murmuring sea, And rose upon the woodland plain In lonely majesty. The breeze, at noontide, wdiispered soft Their emerald knolls among, And midnight’s wind, amid their heights, Its wildest dirges sung. 2 14 THE BOSTON BOOK. As, on their brow, the forest king Paused in his weary way, From far below his quick ear caught The moaning of the bay. The dry leaves, fanned by Autumn’s breath, Along their ridges crept ; And snow-wreaths, like storm-whitened waves, Around them rudely swept. For ages, o’er their swelling sides, Grew the wild flowers of spring, And stars smiled down, and dew-founts poured Their gentle offering. The moonbeams played upon their peaks, And at their feet the tide ; And thus, like altar-mounts they stood, By nature sanctified. Now, when to mark their beacon forms The seaman turns his gaze, It quails, as roof and spire and dome Flash in the sun’s bright rays. On those wild hills a thousand homes Are reared in proud array, And argosies float safely o’er That lone and isle-gemmed bay. Those shadowy mounds, so long untrod, By countless feet are pressed ; And hosts of loved ones meekly sleep Below their teeming breast. THE TRI-MOUNTAIN. 15 A world’s unnumbered voices float Within their narrow bound, — Love’s gentle tone, and traffic’s hum, And music’s thrilling sound. There Liberty first found a tongue, Beneath New England’s sky, And there her earliest martyrs stood, And nerved themselves to die. And long, upon these ancient hills, By glory’s light enshrined, May rise the dwellings of the free, The city of the mind. THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY. By Edward Ever*ett. We are confirmed in the conclusion that the popular diffusion of knowledge is favorable to the growth of science, when we reflect that, vast as the domain of learning is, and extraordinary as is the progress which has been made in almost every branch, we may assume as certain, I will not say that we are in its infancy, but that the discoveries which have been already made, won- derful as they are, bear but a small proportion to those that will hereafter be effected ; and that in everything that belongs to the improvement of man, there is yet a field of investigation broad enough to satisfy the most eager thirst for know- ledge, and diversified enough to suit every variety of taste, order of intellect, or degree of qualifica- tion. For the peaceful victories of the mind, that unknown and unconquered world, for which Alexander wept, is forever near at hand; hidden indeed, as yet, behind the veil with which nature shrouds her undiscovered mysteries, but stretch- ing all along the confines of the domain of know- ledge, sometimes nearest when least suspected. THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY. 21 and boldly grasp the idea that the globe is round. The two truths are apparently without connec- tion ; but in their application to practice, they are intimately associated. Hobbes says that Dr. Harvey, the illustrious discoverer of the circula- tion of the blood, is the only author of a great discovery, who ever lived to see it universally adopted. To the honor of subsequent science, this remark could not now, with equal truth, be made. Nor was Harvey himself without some painful experience of the obstacles, arising from popular ignorance, against which truth sometimes forces its way to general acceptance. When he first proposed the beautiful doctrine, his practice fell off ; people would not continue to trust their lives in the hands of such a dreamer. When it was firmly established and generally received, one of his opponents published a tract de circulo sanguinis Salomoneo , and proved from the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes, that the circulation of the blood was no secret in the time of Solomon. The whole doctrine of the Reformation may be found in the writings of Wiclif; but neither he nor his age felt the importance of his principles, nor the consequences to which they led. Huss had studied the writings of Wiclif in manuscript, and was in no degree behind him, in the boldness with which he denounced the papal usurpations. But his voice was not heard beyond the moun- tains of Bohemia ; and he expired in agony at the stake, and his ashes were scattered upon the 22 THE BOSTON BOOK. Rhine. A hundred years passed away. Luther, like an avenging angel, burst upon the world, and denounced the corruptions of the church, and rallied the host of the faithful, with a voice which might almost call up those ashes from their watery grave, and form and kindle them again into a living witness to the truth. Thus Providence, which has ends innumerable to answer, in the conduct of the physical and intellectual, as well as of the moral world, some- times permits the great discoverers fully to enjoy their fame, sometimes to catch but a glimpse of the extent of their achievements, and sometimes sends them dejected and heart-broken to the grave, unconscious of the importance of their own dis- coveries, and not merely undervalued by their con- temporaries, but by themselves. It is plain that Copernicus, like his great contemporary, Colum- bus, though fully conscious of the boldness and the novelty of his doctrine, saw but a part of the changes it was to effect in science. After har- boring in his bosom for long, long years that per- nicious heresy — the solar system — he died on the day of the appearance of his book from the press. The closing scene of his life, with a little help from the imagination, would furnish a noble sub- ject for an artist. For thirty-five years he has revolved and matured in his mind his system of the heavens. A natural mildness of disposition, bordering on timidity, a reluctance to encounter controversy, and a dread of persecution, have led THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY. 23 him to withhold his work from the press, and to make known his system but to a few confidential disciples and friends. At length he draws near his end ; he is seventy-three years of age, and he yields his work on “ The Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs” to his friends for publication. The day at last has come, on which it is to be ushered into the world. It is the twenty-fourth of May, 1543. On that day — the effect, no doubt, of the intense excitement of his mind, operating upon an exhausted frame — an effusion of blood brings him to the gates of the grave. His last hour has come ; he lies stretched upon the couch from which he will never rise, in his apartment at the Canonry at Frauenberg, East Prussia. The beams of the setting sun glance through the gothic windows of his chamber ; near his bed- side is the armillary sphere, which he has con- trived to represent his theory of the heavens; his picture, painted by himself, the amusement of his earlier years, hangs before him; beneath it are his astrolabe and other imperfect astronomical instruments; and around him are gathered his sorrowing disciples. The door of the apartment opens ; — the eye of the departing sage is turned to see who enters : it is a friend, who brings him the first printed copy of his immortal treatise. He knows that in that book, he contradicts all that had ever been distinctly taught, by former philosophers ; he knows that he has rebelled against the sway of Ptolemy, which the scientific 24 THE BOSTON BOOK. world had acknowledged for a thousand years ; he knows that the popular mind will be shocked by his innovations ; he knows that the attempt will be made to press even religion into the ser- vice against him; but he knows that his book is true. He is dying, but he leaves a glorious truth, as his dying bequest to the world. He bids the friend who has brought it place himself between the window and his bedside, that the sun’s rays may fall upon the precious volume, and he may behold it once more, before his eye grows dim. He looks upon it, takes it in his hands, presses it to his breast, and expires. But no, he is not wholly gone. A smile lights up his dying countenance ; a beam of returning intelli- gence kindles in his eye; his lips move ; and the friend, who leans over him, can hear him faintly murmur the beautiful sentiments which the Chris- tian lyrist of a later age has so finely expressed in verse; Ye golden lamps of heaven, farewell, with all your feeble light j Farewell, thou ever-changing moon, pale empress of the night 5 And thou, refulgent orb of day, in brighter flames arrayed, My soul which springs beyond thy sphere, no more demands thy aid. Ye stars are but the shining dust of my divine abode, The pavement of those heavenly courts, where I shall reign with God. So died the great Columbus of the heavens. THE FAMILY MEETING. By Charles Sprague. Written on occasion of the accidental meeting- of all the surviving members of a family. We are all here ! Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, All who hold each other dear. Each chair is filled — we ’re all at home ; To-night let no cold stranger come : It is not often thus around Our old familiar hearth we ’re found : Bless then the meeting and the spot ; F or once be every care forgot ; Let gentle peace assert her power, And kind affection rule the hour ; We’re all — all here. We’re not all here ! Some are away — the dead ones dear, Who thronged with us this ancient hearth, And gave the hour to guiltless mirth. Fate, with a stern, relentless hand, Looked in and thinned our little band : 3 26 THE BOSTON BOOK. Some like a night-flash passed away, And some sank, lingering, day by day; The quiet grave-yard — some lie there — And cruel Ocean has his share — We ’re not all here. We are all here ! Even they — the dead — though dead, so dear Fond Memory, to her duty true, Brings hack their faded forms to view. How life-like, through the mist of years, Each well remembered face appears ! We see them as in times long past, From each to each kind looks are cast, We hear their words, their smiles behold, They ’re round us as they were of old — We are all here. We are all here ! Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Youthat I love with love so dear. This may not long of us be said ; Soon must we join the gathered dead ; And by the hearth we now sit round, Some other circle will be found. Oh ! then, that wisdom may we know, Which yields a life of peace below ; So, in the world to follow this, May each repeat, in words of bliss, W e ’re all — all here ! 'BOSTON rOU-FGE LIBRARY CHESTNUT HIU-, MASS. GREENOUGH’S GROUP OF THE ANGEL AND CHILD. By Washington Allston. I stood alone ; nor word, nor other sound, Broke the mute solitude that closed me round ; As when the air doth take her midnight sleep, Leaving the wintry stars her watch to keep, So slept she now at noon. But not alone My spirit then : a light within me shone That was not mine ; and feelings undefined, And thoughts flowed in upon me not my own. ’T was that deep mystery — for aye unknown — The living presence of another’s mind. Another mind was there — the gift of few — That by its own strong will can all that ’s true In its own nature unto others give, And mingling life with life, seem there to live. I felt it now in mine ; and oh ! how fair, How beautiful the thoughts that met me there — Visions of Love and Purity and Truth ! Though form distinct had each, they seemed, as ’t were, Embodied all of one celestial air — To beam forever in coequal youth. 28 THE BOSTON BOOK. And thus I learned — as in the mind they moved — These stranger Thoughts the one the other loved ; That Purity loved Truth, because ’t was true, And Truth, because ’t was pure, the first did woo ; While Love, as pure and true, did love the twain ; Then Love was loved of them, for that sweet chain That bound them all. Thus sure, as passionless, Their love did grow, till one harmonious strain Of melting sounds they seemed ; then, changed again, One angel form they took — Self-Happiness. This angel form the gifted Artist saw, That held me in his spell. ’T was his to draw The veil of sense, and see the immortal race, The Forms spiritual, that know not place. He saw it in the quarry, deep in earth, And stayed it by his will, and gave it birth E’en to the world of sense ; bidding its cell, The cold, hard marble, thus in plastic girth The shape etherial fix, and body forth A being of the skies — with man to dwell. And then another form beside it stood ; ’T was one of this our earth — though the warm blood Had from it passed — exhaled as in a breath Drawn from its lips by the cold kiss of Death. Its little “ dream of human life ” had fled ; And yet it seemed not numbered with the dead, But one emerging to a life so bright That, as the wondrous nature o’er it spread, Its very consciousness did seem to shed Rays from within, and clothe it all in light. THE ANGEL AND CHILD. 29 Now touched the Angel Form its little hand, Turning upon it with a look so bland, And yet so full of majesty, as less Than holy natures never may impress — And more than proudest guilt unmoved may brook. The Creature of the Earth now felt that look, And stood in blissful awe — as one above Who saw his name in the Eternal Book, And Him that opened it ; e’en Him that took The Little Child, and blessed it in his love. 3 * THE GOOD MATCH. By Mrs. Hale. If the promotion of happiness between two hu- man beings be considered necessary to constitute a good match , then no speculation on earth is so uncertain as the matrimonial speculation. There can never be any precise rules laid down by which we may estimate the qualities of mind, and ascertain how any two souls, when compounded and united into “one flesh / 7 will harmonize to- gether. And, worse still, there can be no precise limits assigned to the passions and whims, no boundaries to prevent their clashing, where we can say u hitherto will they come, but no far- ther . 77 A man may buy a house, or farm, or cotton manufactory, and if he be a judicious man, and examine thoroughly, and calculate the cost, and consider all the local circumstances, he may feel pretty secure of making at least an even bargain. But with all his judiciousness and foresight, he may be egregiously hoaxed when he comes to make that contract which only death can annul. THE GOOD MATCH. 31 A lady may have an excellent taste, and select her silks and muslins, ribbons and laces, feathers and fans, without committing one blunder in the matching , and yet when choosing that one beloved, for whom all this array of fashion was selected, she may be guilty of a mistake, in the fitness of character to secure her own happiness, which neither art nor fashion can remedy. Perhaps it is the difficulty which attends the investigation of the qualities of mind and heart — the character — that makes most people entirely neglect such things when choosing their partners. It requires thought, and they hate to think ; it demands reflection, and it is so dull to reflect. But every gentleman can see that a lady is pretty, and every lady can hear that a gentleman is rich. It was solely this seeing and hearing system that decided the destiny of the lovely and accomplished Miss Caroline Anderson. In preferring the man she did for a husband, however, she only followed the bias of her education, since it had been, from her childhood, industriously instilled into her mind by her mother, that she was very beau- tiful ; and though she was poor, yet her charms would entitle her to expect to marry a rich man ; and that her happiness, the happiness of residing in an elegant house, and having elegant furniture, and elegant dresses, and above all, living elegantly without being obliged to work , depended on her marrying a rich man. 32 THE BOSTON BOOK. How unfortunate it is for the real happiness of young females, that since to understand “ house- hold cares 75 is such an indispensable accomplish- ment for women, it cannot be rendered a fashion- able one ! Though Caroline Anderson longed to be mis- tress of a fine house, she disdained to be burdened with any of those domestic cares which ought to be assumed with pride and pleasure by every mis- tress of a family. And so she consented to ac- cept a man who had offered himself, because she thought he was rich enough to maintain her like a lady; the term lady, meaning, in her vocabu- lary, a woman who dressed extravagantly, visited or received company continually, and did nothing at all. The sentiment that good and evil are al- ways mingled, is not more trite than true. Caro- line Anderson realized it, when, in the midst of her ardent anticipation of the felicity which the riches she was about to possess must confer, one shocking idea would continually intrude to mar the picture. It was not that her intended husband was thirty years older than herself, and very plain, — gold re- conciled her to these objections. But oh, he had such an unsentimental name ! Often and often did she wish it had been Belville, or Delville, or Melville, or any name that ended in ville ; or Du- mont, or Beaumont, or Bellamont, or some name that ended in mont ! But it was nothing but THE GOOD MATCH. 33 Crump ! If he had only had a title, either civil or military — been addressed as Major Crump, or Nathaniel Crump, Esq. — she thought she could have endured it; but to hear him called Nat Crump — nothing but Nat Crump — oh ! she did think it horrid. “What’s in a name?” Poor Caroline thought there was much ; and when she put on her bridal dress, formed of materials most rare and costly, and surveyed herself in the glass which told her she was a most charming bride, beautiful enough to be a nvvel heroine, she turned away shuddering at the thought that she must, so soon, be called Mrs. Crump ! Mr. Crump was not aware that his young wife possessed such a delicate sensitiveness (it is diffi- cult to describe her feelings with ene word) of nerve, and he immediately commenced calling her Mrs. Crump, Mrs. Cramp, without mercy. It was in vain she hinted to him that “ wife,” or “ Caroline,” would please her better, and was all the fashion ; he insisted it was not so dignified - — and the very day after they were married, they both became highly irritated ; she, that her hus- band would call her by a name she disliked, and he, that his wife would not like the name by which he thought it proper to call her. Mr. Crump was one of your pains-taking, pen- ny-saving, proverb-loving people. He had ac- quired a large property by a very small way of traffic, and in proportion as his stores had increas- ed, it seemed as if his mind had contracted ; at 34 THE BOSTON BOOK. least so his neighbors insinuated. But pray never attempt to gain credit as a prophet, by predicting what a man will do, or will become, especially in our free country, where, as soon as he has the means of “ living genteel/’ the blockhead may set up for the gentleman. Nat Crump found he was rich, and he built himself an elegant house, only he took care to build it as cheap as possible; and he purchased an elegant suit, only almost every garment had to be made a little too short, or too tight for the fashion, because the patterns were too scanty ; and then he thought if he could marry a young, handsome, accomplished girl, he should be a happy man and a gentleman. He offered himself to Miss Caroline Anderson for no forld, but only that she was uuici loaisuii in tuo vv called beautiful and fashionable ; in short, quite a belle. He did not love her : he loved nothing on earth, save his money and himself and his bay horse ; but he thought he was old enough to have a wife, and that he should be considered more of a gentleman, and invited to parties, &c.— and so he determined to marry. And he offered himself to Miss Caroline Anderson. The world said it would be a good match for Caroline ; her friends said it would be a good match, and she thought it would he a very good match. It is true she had some demurs on the question. One was, that she did not like Mr. Nat Crump ; and another was, that she did like a gentleman who was younger and more comely. But then she had been educated THE GOOD MATCH. 35 to expect to marry a rich man, and the one who pleased her, though industrious and respectable, happened to be poor ; in short, he was not a good match : and so Miss Caroline accepted the offer of Mr. Nat Crump, and became Mrs. Nat Crump. u And what’s her history ? A blank ? ” A blank indeed of happiness and usefulness — a blank of conjugal affection, domestic quiet, and rational felicity. Mr. Crump wished to be thought a man of fine taste, and he collected pictures and orna- ments for his spacious apartments, and invited large parties, that he might have the pleasure of hearing his taste and pictures and ornaments ad- mired. But there was, in all the efforts he made to be distinguished, that perpetual struggle be- tween magnificence in idea, and meanness in de- tail, which so certainly makes the ridiculous in effect ; and this was much heightened by the man- ner in which he and his wife displayed their char- acteristic qualities. While Mrs. Crump was de- lightedly expatiating on the beauties of a picture, by some of the great masters in the “ art divine,” her husband, to her great vexation, would be sure to point to some defect or damage in the piece, which enabled him to obtain it at a little cheaper rate. And then, though he wished to make a dis- play, he never parted with a cent of cash, even for necessaries for his family, willingly ; and this, as she had married him only for the pleasure of spending his property, she resented highly. And she called him mean, and he called her extrava- 36 THE BOSTON BOOK. gant ; she wished she never had seen him, and he wished he had never married her. He was old and fretful, and die was young and wilful ; he wanted his dinner at one o’clock precisely, and she never would dine till two ; she wished to ride to church, though it was only five minutes’ walk, and he never would permit the horses to be har- nessed on Sunday, because he resolved to keep the day holy, and therefore had rather quarrel with his wife than indulge her in any sinful extrava- gance ; — and in short, in less than one year from the day they were married, they agreed in no one thing, save regretting the transaction of their wed- ding day. The friends of Mrs. Crump are very sorry that she should live so unpleasantly; but yet as she resides in an elegant house, and dresses elegantly, the world will still say she made a — good match . THE COMET. By O. W. Holmes. The Comet ! he is on his way, And singing as he flies ; The whizzing planets shrink before The spectre of the skies. Ah, well may regal orbs burn blue, And satellites turn pale ! Ten million cubic miles of head ! Ten billion leagues of tail ! On, on, by whistling spheres of light He flashes and he flames ; He turns not to the left or right, He asks them not their names ; One spurn from his demoniac heel — Away, away they fly, Where darkness might be bottled up, And sold for “ Tyrian dye.” And what will happen to the land, And happen to the sea, If in the bearded monster’s path Our earth should chance to be ? Full hot and high the sea should boil, Full red the forests gleam — 4 THE BOSTON BOOK. Methought I saw and heard it all In a dyspeptic dream. I saw a poet dip a scroll Each moment in a tub ; I read upon the warping back “ The dream of Beelzebub : ” He could not see his verses burn, Although his brain was fried ; And ever and anon he bent To wet them as they dried. I saw a tutor take his tube, The comet’s course to spy ; — I heard a scream — the gathered rays Had stewed the tutor’s eye. I saw a fort : — the soldiers ran About in goggles green ; Pop! cracked the guns — whiz! flew the ball Bang ! went the magazine ! The Worcester locomotives did Their trip in half an hour ; The Lowell cars ran forty miles Before they checked the power. Boll-brimstone soon became a drug, And Loco-focos fell ; All asked for ice — but everywhere Saltpetre was to sell. The gas-light companies were mobbed, The bakers all were shot, THE COMET. 39 The penny press began to talk Of Lynching Doctor Nott ; And all about the warehouse steps Were angry men in droves, Crashing and splintering through the doors, To smash the patent stoves. I saw a roasting pullet brood Upon a baking egg ; I saw a cripple scorch his hands, Extinguishing his leg ; I saw nine geese upon the wing Towards the frozen pole, And every mother’s gosling fell Crisped to a crackling coal. I saw the ox that cropped the grass Writhe in the blistering rays ; The herbage in his shrinking jaws Was all a fiery blaze. I saw huge fishes, boiled to rags, Bob through the bubbling waves ; I listened, and I heard the dead Ail simmering in their graves ! Strange sights ! strange sounds ! O ghastly dream ! Its memory haunts me still ; — The steaming sea, the crimson glare That wreathed each wooded hill ! Stranger ! if o’er thy slumbering couch Such fearful visions sweep, Spare, spare, oh ! spare thine evening meal, And sweet shall be thy sleep. POETS— PAST AND PRESENT. By Albert Pike. A poet used to be a man that wore a thread-bare coat ; A lank and lean ungartered wight, with a red silk round his throat ; With a long and wo-denouncing face as a man would like to see — All dirtiness and slovenliness, and a look of misery ; With his nails grown out, and his hair grown thick and savage-like and long, And a beard that would make a razor shake, unless its nerves were strong. A poet now is another thing. His pockets rattle with cash ; His coat ’s of the finest, and made in style, and he cuts a monstrous dash. He ’s an exquisite of the highest stamp — he sports a flaming cravat ; You may look for him with a peaked toe, and a little top to his hat, And a head of hair of the primest cut, and opera glass at the eye ; For a poet now is a man to make the hearts of the ladies sigh. POETS— PAST AND PRESENT. 41 A poet once was a lonely man, and lived not far from the roof ; From the ladies and their parties he was fain to keep aloof ; He thought himself superbly off, though rather cramped in bed, If his garret kept the winter rain from dripping on his head : And lady Fortune dealt her gifts with a niggardliness of measure, And gave to poets, times ago, but very little treasure. A poet 7ioio is an exquisite : he ’s the deuse among the girls ; A thing of foppery and ton , of whiskers and of curls ; He travels to the Springs at times, and cuts a monstrous swell — And there ’s many a man with his coffers full, that lives not half so well. The poets have oculists turned, they say, and opened Fortune’s eyes — And you ’ll hardly hear for an age, I think, a starving rhymer’s cries. A poet once wrote “ slow and sure,” that his writing might last for ages ; For poets then were knowing men — your dignified old sages : An epic took them twenty years — a tragedy some five — And very little care had they to make the main point thrive ; 4 * 42 THE BOSTON BOOK. Their search was for a fleeting thing, (so present times call Fame,) And we think it odd the world has heard, and granted all their claim. A poet now writes on the trot, or on the canter even — And ’t will be a while before you find a name to sound to heaven. An epic now is a two months’ job — a tragedy a week’s — And all that a poet gets to-day — no matter what he seeks — Is the fellow Cash ; for as to that which people once called fame, The world will never grant to them the purpose of their claim. THE FOUNTAIN OF BEAUTY. By Mrs. Child. In ancient times two little princesses lived in Scotland, one of whom was extremely beautiful, the other dwarfish, dark colored, and deformed. One was named Rose and the other Marion. The sisters did not live happily together. Marion hated Rose because she was handsome, and everybody praised her. She scowled, and her face absolutely grew black, when anybody asked her how her pretty little sister Rose did ; and once she was so wicked as to cut off all her glossy, golden hair, and throw it into the fire. Poor Rose cried bitterly about it ; but she did not scold, or strike her sister; for she was an amiable, gentle little being as ever lived. No wonder all the family and all the neighborhood disliked Marion — and no wonder her face grew uglier and uglier every day. The Scotch used to be a very superstitious people ; and they believed the infant Rose had been blessed by the fairies, to whom she owed her extraordinary beauty and exceed- ing goodness. Not far from the Castle where the princesses resided, was a deep grotto, said to lead to the 44 THE BOSTON BOOK. Palace of Beauty ; where the Queen of the Fairies held her court. Some said Rose had fallen asleep there one day, when she had grown tired of chasing a butterfly, and that the Queen had dipped her in an immortal fountain, from which she had risen with the beauty of an angel.* Marion often asked questions about this story ; but Rose always replied that she had been forbid- den to speak of it. When she saw any uncom- monly brilliant bird or butterfly, she would some- times exclaim, “Oh how much that looks like fairy-land ! 57 But when asked what she knew about fairy-land, she blushed, and would not answer. Marion thought a great deal about this. “Why cannot I go to the Palace of Beauty ? 77 thought she ; “ and why may I not bathe in the Immortal Fountain ! 77 One summer’s noon, when all was still, save the faint twittering of the birds, and the lazy hum of the insects, Marion entered the deep grotto. She sat down on a bank of moss ; the air around her was as fragrant as if it came from a bed of violets ; and with a sound of far-off music dying on her ear, she fell into a gentle slumber. When she awoke it was evening ; and she found herself in a small hall, where opal pillows sup- ported a rainbow-roof, the bright reflection of * There was a superstition that whoever slept on fairy ground was carried away by the fairies. THE FOUNTAIN OF BEAUTY. 45 which rested on crystal walls, and a golden floor inlaid with pearls. All around, between the opal pillars, stood the tiniest vases of pure alabaster, in which grew a multitude of brilliant and fra- grant flowers; some of them, twining around the pillars, were lost in the floating rainbow above. The whole of this scene of beauty was lighted up by millions of fire-flies, glittering about like wandering stars. While Marion was wondering at all this, a little figure of rare loveliness stood before her ; her robe was of green and gold ; her flowing gossamer mantle was caught up on one shoulder with a pearl, and in her hair was a soli- tary star, composed of five diamonds, each no bigger than a pin’s point. And thus she sung: The Fairy Queen Hath rarely seen Creature of earthly mould. Within her door, On pearly floor, Inlaid with shining gold. Mortal, all thou seest is fair, Quick thy purposes declare ! As she concluded, the song was taken up, and thrice repeated by a multitude of soft voices in the distance. It seemed as if birds and insects joined the chorus — the clear voice of the thrush was distinctly heard ; the cricket kept time with his tiny cymbal ; and ever and anon between the pauses, the sound of a distant cascade was heard, whose waters fell in music. 46 THE BOSTON BOOK. All these delightful sounds died away, and the Queen of the Fairies stood patiently awaiting Marion’s answer. Courtesying low, and with a trembling voice, the little maiden said, “ Will it please your majesty to make me as handsome as my sister Rose ? ” The Queen smiled: “I will grant your request,” she said, “if you will prom- ise to fulfil all the conditions I impose.” Marion eagerly promised that she would. “ The Immortal Fountain,” replied the Queen, “ is on the top of a high, steep hill; at four different places fairies are stationed around it, who guard it with their wands ; none can pass them except those who obey my orders. Go home now : for one week speak no ungentle word to your sister — at the end of that time come again to the grotto.” Marion went home light of heart. Rose was in the garden watering the flowers ; and the first thing Marion observed was, that her sister’s ‘ sunny hair had suddenly grown as long and beautiful as it had ever been. The sight made her angry ; and she was just about to snatch the water-pot from her hand with an angry expres- sion ; but she remembered the fairy, and passed into the Castle in silence. The end of the week arrived, and Marion had faithfully kept her promise. Again she went to the grotto. The Queen was feasting when she entered the hall. The bees brought honey-comb and deposited it on the small rose-colored shells, which adorned the crystal table; gaudy butterflies floated about the THE FOUNTAIN OF BEAUTY. 47 head of the Queen, and fanned her with their wings; the cucullo and the lantern-fly stood at her side, to afford her light ; a large diamond beetle formed her splendid footstool, and when she had supped, a dew-drop, on the petal of a violet, was brought for her royal fingers. When Marion entered, the diamond sparkles on the wings of the fairies faded, as they always did in the presence of anything not perfectly good : and in a few moments all the Queen’s attendants vanished away, singing as they went, The Fairy Queen Hath rarely seen Creature of earthly mould, Within her door, On pearly floor, Inlaid with shining gold. “Mortal! hast thou fulfilled thy promise?” asked the Queen. “ I have,” replied the maiden. “ Then follow me.” Marion did as she was directed — and away they went, over beds of violets and migionette. The birds warbled above their heads, butterflies cooled the air, and the gurgling of many fountains came with a refresh- ing sound. Presently they came to the hill, on the top of which was the Immortal Fountain. Its foot was surrounded by a band of fairies clothed in green gossamer, with their ivory wands crossed, to bar the ascent. The Queen waved her wand over them, and immediately they stretched their thin wings and flew away. The 48 THE BOSTON BOOK. hill was steep; and far, far np they went: and the air became more and more fragrant ; and more and more distinctly they heard the sound of the waters falling in music. At length they were stopped by a band of fairies clothed in blue, with their silver wands crossed. “ Here,” said the Queen, “ our journey must end. You can go no further until you shall have fulfilled the orders I shall give you. Go home now; for one month, do by your sister in all respects, as you would wish to have her do by you, were you Rose and she Marion.” Marion promised, and departed. She found the task harder than the first had been. She could help speaking; but when Rose asked for any of her playthings, she found it difficult to give them gently and affectionately, instead of pushing them along ; when Rose talked to her she wanted to go away in silence ; and when a pocket mirror was found in her sister’s room, broken into a thousand pieces, she felt sorely tempted to conceal that she did the mischief. But she was so anxious to be made beautiful, that she did as she would be done by. All the household remarked how Marion had changed. “ I love her dearly,” said Rose, “she is good and amiable.” “ So do I,” and “So do I,” said a dozen voices. Marion blushed, and her eye sparkled with pleasure. “How pleasant it is to be loved,” thought she. At the end of the month, she went to the grotto. The fairies in blue lowered their silver wands THE FOUNTAIN OF BEAUTY. 49 and flew away. They travelled on — the path grew steeper and steeper ; but the fragrance of the atmosphere was redoubled; and more dis- tinctly came the sound of the waters falling in music. Their course was staid by a troop of fairies in rainbow robes — their silver wands tipped with gold. In face and form, they were far more beautiful than anything Marion had yet seen. “ Here we must pause,” said the Queen ; “ this boundary you cannot yet pass.” “Why not?” asked the impatient Marion. “ Because those must be very pure who pass the Rainbow Fairies,” replied the Queen. ‘‘Am I not very pure?” said Marion ; “all the folks at the Castle tell me how good I have grown.” “Mortal eyes see only the outside,” answered the Queen; “but those who pass the Rainbow Fairies must be pure in thought as well as in- action. Return home — for three months never indulge an envious or wicked thought. You shall then have a sight of the Immortal Foun- tain.” Marion was sad at heart; for she knew how many envious thoughts and wrong wishes she had suffered to gain power over her. At the end of the three months, she again visited the Palace of Beauty. The Queen did not smile when she saw her ; but in silence led the way to the Immortal Fountain. The Green Fairies and the Blue Fairies flew away as they approached; but the Rainbow Fairies bowed low 5 50 THE BOSTON BOOK. to the Queen, and kept their gold-tipped wands firmly crossed. Marion saw that the silver specks on their wings grew dim ; and she burst into tears. “I knew,” said the Queen, “that you could not pass this boundary. Envy has been in your heart, and you have not driven it away. Your sister has been ill ; and in your heart you wished that she might die, or rise from the bed of sickness deprived of her beauty. But be not dis- couraged; you have been several years indulging wrong feelings, and you must not wonder that it takes many years to drive them away.” Marion was sad as she wended her way home- ward. When Rose asked her what was the matter, she told her that she wanted to be very good, but she could not. “ When I want to be good, I read my Bible and pray,” said Rose; “and I find God helps me to be good.” Then Marion prayed that God would help her to be pure in thought ; and when wicked feelings rose in her heart she read her Bible, and they went away. When she again visited the Palace of Beauty, the Queen smiled and touched her playfully with her wand, then led the way to the Immortal Fountain. The silver specks on the wings of the Rainbow Fairies shone bright as she ap- proached them, and they lowered their wands, and sung as they flew away — THE FOUNTAIN OF BEAUTY. 51 Mortal, pass on, Till the goal is won, — For such I ween Is the will of our Queen — Pass on ! Pass on ! And now every footstep was on flowers, that yielded beneath their feet, as if their pathway had been upon a cloud. The delicious fragrance could almost be felt, yet it did not oppress the senses with its heaviness; and loud, clear and liquid, came the sound of the waters as they fell in music. And now the cascade is seen leaping and sparkling over crystal rocks ; a rainbow arch rests above it, like a perpetual halo ; the spray falls in pearls, and forms fantastic foliage about the margin of the fountain. It has touched the webs woven among the grass, and they have become pearl-embroidered cloaks for the Fairy Queen. Deep and silent, below the foam, is the Immortal Fountain ! Its amber-colored waves flow over a golden bed ; and as the fairies bathe in it, the diamonds in their hair glance like sun- beams on the waters. “Oh let me bathe in the fountain!” cried Marion, clasping her hands in delight. “Not yet,” said the Queen. “ Behold the Purple Fairies with golden wands, that guard its brink ! ” Marion looked, and saw beings far lovelier than any her eye had ever rested on. “You cannot pass them yet,” said the Queen. “ Go home — for one year drive away all evil feelings, not for the 52 THE BOSTON BOOK. sake of bathing in the fountain, but because good- ness is lovely and desirable for its own sake. Purify the inward motive, and your work is done.” This was the hardest task of all ; for she had been willing to be good, not because it was right to be good, but because she had wished to be beautiful. Three times she sought the grotto, and three times she left it in tears; for the golden specks grew dim at her approach, and the golden wands were still crossed, to shut her from the Immortal Fountain. The fourth time she pre- vailed. The Purple Fairies lowered their wands, singing, Thou hast scaled the mountain, Go bathe in the fountain, Rise fair to the sight As an angel of light, — Go bathe in the fountain ! Marion was about to plunge in ; but the Queen touched her, saying, “ Look into the mirror of the waters. Art thou not already as beautiful as heart can wish ? ” Marion looked at herself, and she saw that her eye sparkled with new lustre, that a bright color shone through her cheeks, and dimples played sweetly about her mouth. “I have not touched the Immortal Fountain,” said she, turning in surprise to the Queen. u True,” replied the Queen; “ but its waters have been within your soul. Know that a pure heart and clean con- THE FOUNTAIN OF BEAUTY. 53 science are the only Immortal Fountain of Beauty.” When Marion returned, Rose clasped her to her bosom, and kissed her fervently. “ I know all,” said she, “ though I have not asked you a ques- tion. I have been in fairy-land, disguised as a bird, and I have watched all your steps. When you first went to the grotto, I begged the Queen to grant your wish.” Ever after that, the sisters lived lovingly to- gether. It was the remark of every one, “ How handsome Marion has grown. The ugly scowl has departed from her face ; and the light of her eye is so mild and pleasant, and her mouth looks so smiling and good-natured, that to my taste, I declare, she is as handsome as Rose.” 5* DAYBREAK. By PvIchard H. Dana. The Pilgrim they laid in a large upper chamber, whose window opened towards the sun-rising 5 the name of the chamber was Peace ; where he slept till break of day, and then he awoke and sang. Pilgrim 1 s Progress. Now, brighter than the host, that, all night long, In fiery armor, up the heavens high Stood watch, thoucom’st to wait the morning’s song. Thou comest to tell me day again is nigh. Star of the dawning, cheerful is thine eye ; And yet in the broad day it must grow dim. Thou seem’st to look on me as asking why My mourning eyes with silent tears do swim ; Thou bidst me turn to God, and seek my rest in Him. “ Canst thou grow sad,” thou sayest, “ as earth grows bright ? And sigh, when little birds begin discourse In quick, low voices, ere the streaming light Pours on their nests, from out the day’s fresh source? With creatures innocent thou must, perforce, A sharer be, if that thine heart be pure. And holy hour like this, save sharp remorse, Of ills and pains of life must be the cure, And breathe in kindred calm, and teach thee to endure.” DAYBREAK. 55 I feel its calm. But there ’s a sombrous hue Along that eastern cloud, of deep, dull red ; Nor glitters yet the cold and heavy dew ; And all the woods and hill-tops stand outspread With dusky lights, which warmth nor comfort shed. Still — save the bird that scarcely lifts its song — The vast world seems the tomb of all the dead — The silent city emptied of its throng, And ended, all alike, grief, mirth, love, hate and wrong. But wrong, and hate, and love, and grief, and mirth Will quicken soon; and hard, hot toil and strife, With headlong purpose, shake this sleeping earth With discord strange, and all that man calls life. With thousand scattered beauties Nature ’s rife ; And airs, and woods, and streams, breathe harmonies : Man weds not these, but taketh art to wife ; Nor binds his heart with soft and kindly ties : He, feverish, blinded, lives, and, feverish, sated, dies. And ’t is because man useth so amiss Her dearest blessings, Nature seemeth sad ; Else why should she, in such fresh hour as this, Not lift the veil, in revelation glad, From her fair face ? — It is that man is mad ! Then chide me not, clear Star, that I repine, When Nature grieves ; nor deem this heart is bad. Thou look’st towards earth ; but yet the heavens are thine, While I to earth am bound : — When will the heavens be mine ? 56 THE BOSTON BOOK. If man would but his finer nature learn, And not in life fantastic lose the sense Of simpler things ; could Nature’s features stern Teach him be thoughtful ; then, with soul intense, I should not yearn for God to take me hence, But bear my lot, albeit in spirit bowed, Remembering, humbly, why it is, and whence : But when I see cold man of reason proud, My solitude is sad — I ’m lonely in the crowd. But not for this alone, the silent tear Steals to mine eyes, while looking on the morn, Nor for this solemn hour : — fresh life is near ; But all my joys ! — they died when newly born. Thousands will wake to joy — while I, forlorn, And like the stricken deer, with sickly eye, Shall see them pass. Breathe calm — my spirit ’s torn ; Ye holy thoughts, lift up my soul on high ! — Ye hopes of things unseen, the far-off world bring nigh. And when I grieve, oh ! rather let it be That I — whom Nature taught to sit with her On her proud mountains, by her rolling sea — Who, when the winds are up, with mighty stir Of wood and waters, feel the quickening spur To my strong spirit — who, as mine own child, Do love the flower, and in the ragged bur A beauty see — that I this mother mild Should leave, and go with care, and passions fierce and wild ! DAYBREAK. 57 How suddenly that straight and glittering shaft Shot ’thwart the earth ! — in crown of living fire Up comes the day ! — as if they conscious quaffed, The sunny flood, hill, forest, city, spire Laugh in the wakening light. — Go, vain Desire ! The dusky lights have gone ; go thou thy way ! And pining Discontent, like them, expire ! Be called my chamber, Peace, when ends the day ; And let me, with the dawn, like Pilgrim, sing and pray ! THE BELFRY PIGEON. By N. P. Willis. On the cross beam under the Old South bell, The nest of a pigeon is builded well. In summer and winter that bird is there — . Out and in with the morning air ; I ’ve passed him oft, and I know his peck, By the play of gold in his mottled neck ; And I love to see him track the street, With his wary eye and active feet ; And I often watch him as he springs, Circling the steeple with easy wings, Till across the dial his shade has passed, And the belfry edge is gained at last. ’T is a bird I love, with his brooding note, And the pulsing throb in his trembling throat; There’s a human look in his swelling breast, And the gentle curve of his lowly crest ; And I often stop with the fear I feel — He runs so close to the rapid wheel. Whatever is rung on that noisy bell — Chime of the hour or funeral knell — The dove in the belfry must hear it well. When the tongue swings out to the midnight moon — - VvTien the sexton cheerly rings for noon — THE BELFRY PIGEON. When the clock strikes clear at morning lmht — When the child is waked with “ nine at night, When the chimes play soft in the Sabbath air, Filling the spirit with tones of prayer — Whatever tale in the bell is heard, He broods on his folded feet unstirred, Or rising half in his rounded nest, He takes the time to smooth his breast, Then drops again with filmed eyes, And sleeps as the last vibration dies. Sw r eet bird ! I would that I could be A hermit in the crowd like thee ! With wings to fly to wood and glen, Thy lot, like mine, is cast w r ith men ; And daily, with unwilling feet, I tread, like thee, the crowded street ; But, unlike me, w T hen day is o’er, Thou canst dismiss the world and soar, Or, at a half-felt wish for rest, Canst smooth the feathers on thy breast, And drop, forgetful, to thy nest. I w r ould that in such wings of gold I could my w r eary heart upfold ; I would I could look down unmoved, (Unloving as I am unloved,) And while the world throngs on beneath, Smoothe down my cares, and calmly breathe ; And never sad with others’ sadness, And never glad with others’ gladness, Listen, unstirred, to knell or chime, And, lapt in quiet, bide my time. OUR VILLAGE POET. By Mrs. Sullivan. Our village is the very place where the muse of lyric poetry should take up her abode ; — it is so quiet and green. The natives believe there is not so lovely a spot under the blue heavens; but strangers say, there is nothing particularly beauti- ful in the town, excepting, always, the grace- ful rounding of the hills, and the easy meander- ing of its little river. The poetry inspired by our verdant scenery, is full of a serene and affec- tionate spirit. We have no rushing cataracts, sky- wrapped mountains, gloomy caverns, and sea-beaten cliffs, to awaken bold and startling thoughts. Byron’s muse would have died of in- anition, if she had been exiled to our village. Most of our school-girls were scribblers. Our very best poet was Donald McAllister, one of our school-boys, who perished among the u coral rocks in Madagascar seas.” There was one remarka- bly dull boy in our parish. His parents died when he was about fourteen years old, leaving him nothing but a small, poorly-furnished house and a few ragged books. The boy lived there all OUR VILLAGE POET. 61 alone, gathering for fuel the decayed leaves and branches which were profusely scattered in the forest where his hut was situated, going every day to labor for his bread at Dr. Johnson’s farm, and at his leisure hours poring over those ancient books. Sometimes a wealthy, generous-minded lady would bestow on him a worn-out coat, after heed- fully cutting off the buttons and depositing them in her own work-box, or a hat and shoes, from which parts of the rim and soles had been ab- stracted. Sometimes he carried about coarse wil- low baskets, which he had made in the long win- ter evenings by the light of a pitch-pine knot. He was considered dull, because he never played at ball, or hide-and-seek, with other boys. He could not understand a jest, even if he was himself the object of it, and if it was more bluntly repeated, he did not return it, but the tear would glisten in his eyes, which some said was u mighty babyish for a great boy like him.” If a school-mate struck him, instead of resenting the affront, he would treat the offender with kindness. A few supposed he was a coward ; but a greater number believed it was because the bible, his chosen book, commanded us “ not to avenge ourselves, but to return good for evil.” He could not have been a coward, for he used to walk through the bury- ing-ground to visit the graves of his parents every moonlight evening. If he was ever questioned upon any subject, he only replied, “No,” “Yes,” 6 62 THE BOSTON BOOK. or, “ I can’t tell ; ” this was the most he was ever heard to say. But, although he was called stupid, he was very amiable, respectful to his superiors, and obliging to all. No one could accuse him of a wicked action, or of neglecting to attend church. So he lived until he was eighteen years old, when an event occurred which tended to bring him greatly into notice. There was a pretty girl, named Sarah Cross, who lived about a mile from his cottage, to whom he had been accustomed to carry the first-blown roses, and the finest peaches from his little gar- den. That was all. He never saw her more than twice a year, excepting at church and sing- ing-meetings in the school-house, and never said ten words to her in his life, perhaps. One day she was merrily skipping across the frozen mill- pond, when the ice suddenly gave way, and she sunk under the water. The miller saw her fall in, and came to her assistance, but she was en- tirely lifeless before he succeeded in getting her out. Many sad lamentations were sent up by old and young, though they were mingled with heart- felt gratitude — for many of the school-children had passed over the pond that very morning in perfect safety. Harry Brown attended her funeral, as all the parish did ; and when he came to look at the corpse, he burst into tears, and sobbed aloud. From this time there was a visible change in his appearance. He was not so steady at his work as usual. He visited the burying-ground, mom- OUR VILLAGE POET. G3 ing and night, and planted a willow over Sarah’s grave, where he used to sit reading his old hooks. He was always moving his lips as if whispering, besides which he purchased, at the store, quill after quill, and sheet after sheet of paper, until all were in the fidgets to know what he could find to do with them. At last it came out. He was turning poet. The first poem he wrote was a lament for Sarah Cross — a most heart-melting thing. The next was an elegy for Tim Jeremy’s little girl. It also con- tained a notice of the kindness of Eleanor Wake- field, now Mrs. George Graves, who used to watch by its sick cradle. It was very much admired by Eleanor, to whom it was first shown. She handed it about to everybody, and everybody praised it, and begged a copy. The third was on the death of Mrs. Deacon Haskell, who was beloved by every one for her benevolence and piety. In fact, as Ensign Jewett observed, “ now he was once set a-going, there was no stopping him.” He expa- tiated in rhyme upon the stars, the pretty girls, the trees and birds, night and' morning, the meet- ing-house, and all nature besides — generously en- riching his poems with apposite quotations from Milton, Shakspeare, Homer and Virgil. A spirit of humble devotion to God, and sincere love to man, were diffused through all his writings. The lines were usually a little irregular, and the style sometimes rough. He had never conversed, and was only beginning to write, consequently he found 64 THE BOSTON BOOK. himself greatly in want of words. He applied to his dictionary, which, indeed, furnished him an abundance, but unfortunately he often selected those which were obsolete or unusual. Our min- ister, however, took occasion to hand him some well-written modern works, the style of which he seemed greatly to admire, and endeavored to imi- tate. What a change had taken place in this young man’s prospects within a year ! From a lonely, retiring boy, he had suddenly shot up into a man — a poet, — all in a moment. He bethought himself that his costume was not quite befitting his new character, and forthwith he diligently went to work for Deacon Haskell, until his means were sufficient to procure himself a complete suit of iron-gray, with a scarlet-and-green plaid cloak. When he “ came out,” he was quite a noticeable figure in our singing-seats. He was elegantly tall and slender. His head was covered with heavy, bright-yellow, natural curls. His light gray eyes were rather dull, unless he was in a reverie, or animated by music, when the pupil of the eye would so dilate, that you would fancy the whole organ was black, and so sparkling one could hardly look at him. ’T was a pity he could not converse. The language of the pen, and the un- speakable eloquence of the eye, were all he could boast. When Squire Newell’s eldest daughter, Fanny, died, Harry Brown composed so pathetic an elegy upon her death, that her father gave him a flute, OUR VILLAGE POET. 65 and her brother John offered to teach him to play it. It thrills my heart, at this distance of time, to remember how meltingly in the summer even- ing came the notes of Bonny Doon and Auld Robin Gray across the little river, from the thick forest in which the poet’s cot was hidden. — Oh ! it was the soul of melody — and the deep quiet of our green valley was in perfect unison with its sweet pensiveness. One Monday morning, Harry, as usual, hung out his iron- grays, and his green-and-scarlet cloak to air, while he was reading his chapter in the bible. Very few mischievous and light- fingered people are there in our village, but there is no place entirely without them ; and when the poet had replaced his bible on the shelf, cov- ered his fire, swept his hearth, and gone out to look to his Sunday garment, he discovered that the green-and-scarlet cloak had mysteriously dis- appeared. He went back in great consternation to his arm-chair, and resting his head on his hands, pondered gloomily the abduction of his rai- ment. “ It cannot have gone away without help , and therefore somebody must have helped it away , 57 reasoned he; but who? There was no trace of the thief, and the poet would not allow himself to suspect any one of the larceny. “ One thing I can do,” thought he, and after pacing the room awhile, he sat down to write an advertise- ment directed u to the person who took away a 6 * 66 THE BOSTON BOOK. green-and-red cloak belonging to Harry Brown.” In this document he meekly set forth that “the person had injured him without a cause, but he freely forgave him, and would use no means to bring him to justice. He, however, besought him to remember that he had been guilty of a great sin — a sin that would shut him out of heaven if he did not repent of it; — that he might suddenly die, and find no space for repentance. At any rate, if he should persist in the evil course he had begun, it must inevitably bring him to the gallows. He was willing to allow him the use of the cloak until Saturday night, when he begged him to re- turn it, as he could not otherwise attend church ! ” It was winter, and we had then no stoves in our church. One copy of this advertisement he nailed up on the door of the church, another on the store, and another on the central school-house. All that week, groups of men, or girls, or school- children, might be seen clustered around the no- tices; and one young man, who had been reading them, was seen to retire in evident and irrepressi- ble agitation. On Friday evening, the poet heard an inexplicable rustling among the bushes at his door, and on opening it, he discovered his cloak upon the door-stone. He examined the pocket to see if the hymn-book was gone. It was there, in company with some silver pieces, which the peni- tent offender had offered as an atonement for his OUR VILLAGE POET. 67 theft. Harry deposited them in the charity-box, as a thank-offering for the restoration of his cloak. This short-lived affliction served, on the whole, to do him good. It reminded him of the necessity of providing for a time of want or of losses, and he became more industrious, and began to lay up a portion of his small earnings. How our poet, in spite of his rhyming propensi- ties, could fall in love with, and marry plump Patty Gale, and how he managed to court her, with the aid of monosyllables only, was a marvel, passing the ability of our wisest heads to explain. But I had the story {in confidence) from Nancy, Patty’s sister, and there was nothing so very re- markable in it, after all. He merely addressed a sonnet to her, as he did to several of us village girls ; and we indeed thought nothing of it, only that he remembered us kindly; but she — (and she was a saucy girl) — taking advantage of the affec- tionate style of the poem, and her own good graces — (for she was, it must be conceded, extremely “ pretty-looking,” only she was so plump) — re- turned him an equally kind answer. There were some sentiments like these at the close of the sonnet : Thus, day and night, I sigh and languish, Oh ! will you not regard my anguish ? For you can save me if you will, And make me very happy still. My joy would never, never fail, If I could marry Patty Gale. 68 THE BOSTON BOOK. Patty was quite unable to resist this affecting appeal. The tears rolled down her rosy cheeks while she perused it. She immediately returned him an answer, telling him “ she would be his wife, and he might call and see her the next eve- ning. She was sorry he had suffered so much on her account ; but she could not blame herself, as she did not know of it before. 5 5 It is a matter of some doubt whether Harry ex- pected or even desired any reply ; least of all, such a reply as this ; but he visited her, and although the conversation was carried on pretty much with- out his aid, it was fully settled, with the consent of her parents, that they should marry next autumn. But in the autumn, her father was very ill, and therefore the wedding was deferred to winter, when the sleigh-bells rang a loud and merry peal, as the long procession moved rapidly by in its way to Harry Brown’s cottage in the wood. You would hardly have recognized that old cottage — it was so nicely painted and white- washed ; for though Henry was poor, Capt. Gale was rich, and generous too, and it gave him sin- cere pleasure to contribute to his children’s com- fort. If any stranger should have the curiosity to visit the poet’s birth-place, let him ride up the Shanobie road — (it is a smooth, shady road, and not much out of the way) — until he comes to the walnut wood, and, closely embowered by those heavy old trees, he may discover a little one-sided OUR VILLAGE POET. 69 yellow cottage, with plenty of red and white rose- bushes, and tall sun-flowers in front, and glitter- ing rows of tin milk-pans under the windows. It would afford him but little pleasure to look into the dwelling. He would only find a merry yel- low-haired man, and a plump black-eyed woman, and some half a dozen rosy romps of children. Harry has left off sonnet-writing. THE PASSION FOR LIFE. By I. McLellan, Jr. 11 Is there anything 1 on earth I can do for you ? ” said Taylor to Dr. Walcott, as he lay on his death-bed. The passion for life dictated the answer — u Give me back my youth ! ;7 These were his last words. Oh ! give me back my youth ! Oh ! give me back life’s golden prime, Childhood, and boyhood’s blissful time, Gay sports and frolics rude ; The tumble on the new-mown hay, The ramble in the wood ; The long bright summer holiday, The Christmas Eve’s domestic play ; The saunter in the fields, When autumn fruits were red and ripe, And grapes were hanging thick and sweet From every sunny wall, And in the orchard, round our feet, The yellow pears were thickly spread, And pippins, streaked with gold, would fall With every breeze that stirred o’er head, And school-boy baskets soon were laden With wild nuts from the branches shaken. THE PASSION FOR LIFE. 71 Oh ! give me back my youth ! Nor wealth nor wisdom do I crave, Nor honor, praise, or fame ; For soon the deep and gaping grave Must close above this frame : But rather give me back my youth — Its joy, its innocence, its truth. Oh ! give me back my youth ! Fill these dull eyes again with light ; Let these white hairs be shorn away, And let the golden locks of yore Above these temples play ; And let this old and furrowed brow, Ploughed by full many a year, Take the bright look of long ago, So white, so pure and clear ; And let this sunken cheek resume Its rosy health, its glowing bloom. Home of my childhood ! happy spot ! Beyond the dreary waste of years, In memory’s faithful glass, how bright, How fair, your humble roof appears ! I see, I see, the rustic porch, And, close beside the door, The old Elm, waving still as green As in the days of yore. I see the wreathing smoke ascend, In azure columns, up the sky ; I see the twittering swallows still Around in giddy circles fly. 72 THE BOSTON BOOK. Bat no ! that joyful time hath gone — Hath gone forever by ; And life, and earth, are fading fast Upon this glaring eye ; And soon the imprisoned soul shall mount, In freedom, to its last account ! NEW ENGLAND. By J. G. Whittier. Land of the forest and the rock — Of dark blue lake and mighty fiver — Of mountains reared aloft to mock The storm’s career, the lightning’s shock — My own green land forever ! Land of the beautiful and brave — The freeman’s home — the martyr’s grave — The nursery of giant men, Whose deeds have linked with every glen, And every hill, and every stream, The romance of some warrior-dream ! Oh ! never may a son of thine, Where’er his wandering steps incline, Forget the sky which bent above His childhood like a dream of love — The stream beneath the green hill flowing — The broad-armed trees above it growing — The clear breeze through the foliage blowing ; Or hear, unmoved, the taunt of scorn Breathed o’er the brave New England born ; Or mark the stranger’s jaguar hand Disturb the ashes of thy dead — The buried glory of a land Whose soil with noble blood is red, And sanctified in every part, — 7 74 THE BOSTON BOOK. Nor feel resentment, like a brand, Unsheathing from his fiery heart ! Oh ! greener hills may catch the sun Beneath the glorious heaven of France; And streams, rejoicing as they run Like life beneath the day-beam’s glance, May wander where the orange bough With golden fruit is bending low ; And there may bend a brighter sky O’er green and classic Italy — And pillared fane and ancient grave Bear record of another time, And over shaft and architrave The green luxuriant ivy climb ; And far towards the rising sun The palm may shake its leaves on high, Where flowers are opening, one by one, Like stars upon the twilight sky, And breezes soft as sighs of love Above the broad banana stray, And through the Brahmin’s sacred grove A thousand bright-hued pinions play ! Yet unto thee, New England, still Thy wandering sons shall stretch their arms, And thy rude chart of rock and hill Seem dearer than the land of palms ; Thy massy oak and mountain pine More welcome than the banyan’s shade ; And every free, blue stream of thine Seem richer than the golden bed Of oriental waves, which glow And sparkle with the wealth below ! SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. By Wm. E. Channing. I may be asked what I mean by Inward Spiritual Freedom ? The common and true answer is, that it is freedom from sin, I apprehend, however, that to many, if not to most, these words are too vague to convey a full and deep sense of the greatness of the blessing. Let me then offer a brief explanation ; and the most important remark in illustrating this freedom, is, that it is not a neg- ative state, not the mere absence of sin ; for such a freedom may be ascribed to inferior animals, or to children before becoming moral agents. Spir- itual freedom is the attribute of a mind, in which reason and conscience have begun to act, and which is free through its own energy, through fidelity to the truth, through resistance of tempta- tion. I cannot therefore better give my views of spiritual freedom, than by saying, that it is moral energy, or force of holy purpose, put forth against the senses, against the passions, against the world, and thus liberating the intellect, conscience and will, so that they may act with strength and un- fold themselves forever. The essence of spiritual 76 THE BOSTON BOOK. freedom is power. A man liberated from sensual lusts by a palsy, would not therefore be inwardly free. He only is free, who, through self-conflict and moral resolution, sustained by trust in God, subdues the passions which have debased him, and, escaping the thraldom of low objects, binds himself to pure and lofty ones. That mind alone is free, which, looking to God as the inspirer and rewarder of virtue, adopts his law, written on the heart and in his word, as its supreme rule, and which, in obedience to this, governs itself, reveres itself, exerts faithfully its best powers, and unfolds itself by well doing, in whatever sphere God’s providence assigns. It has pleased the All-wise Disposer to encom- pass us from our birth with difficulty and allure- ment, to place us in a world where wrong doing is often gainful, and duty rough and perilous, where many voices oppose the dictates of the in- ward monitor, where the body presses as a weight on the mind, and matter, by its perpetual agency on the senses, becomes a barrier between us and the spiritual world. We are in the midst of in- fluences, which menace the intellect and heart, and to be free is to withstand and conquer these. I call that mind free, which masters the senses, which protects itself against animal appetites, which contemns pleasure and pain in comparison with its own energy, which penetrates beneath the body and recognizes its own reality and great- ness, which passes life, not in asking what it shall SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. JJ eat or drink, but in hungering, thirsting and seek- ing after righteousness. I call that mind free, which escapes the bond- age of matter, which, instead of stopping at the material universe and making it a prison wall, passes beyond it to its Author, and finds, in the radiant signatures which it everywhere bears of the Infinite Spirit, helps to its own spiritual en- largement. I call that mind free, which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from heaven, which, while consulting others, inquires still more of the oracle within itself, and uses instruction from abroad, not to supersede, but to quicken and exalt its own energies. I call that mind free, which sets no bounds to its love, which is not imprisoned in itself or in a sect, which recognizes in all human beings the image of God and the rights of his children, which delights in virtue and sympathizes with suffering, wherever they are seen, which conquers pride, anger and sloth, and offers itself up a willing vic- tim to the cause of mankind. I call that mind free, which is not passively framed by outward circumstances, which is not swept away by the torrent of events, which is not the creature of accidental impulse, but which 7# 78 THE BOSTON BOOK. bends events to its own improvement, and acts from an inward spring, from immutable princi- ples which it has deliberately espoused. I call that mind free, which protects itself against the usurpations of society, which does not cower to human opinion, which feels itself ac- countable to a higher tribunal than man’s, which respects a higher law than fashion, which respects itself too much to be the slave or tool of the many or the few. I call that mind free, which, through confidence in God, and in the power of virtue, has cast off all fear but that of wrong doing, which no menace or peril can enthral, which is calm in the midst of tumults, and possesses itself, though all else be lost. I call that mind free, which resists the bondage of habit, which does not mechanically repeat itself and copy the past, which does not live on its old virtues, which does not enslave itself to pre- cise rules, but which forgets what is behind, listens for new and higher monitions of con- science, and rejoices to pour itself forth in fresh and higher exertions. I call that mind free, which is jealous of its own freedom, which guards itself from being merged in others, which guards its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the world. In fine, I call that mind free, which, conscious of its affinity with God, and confiding in his promises by Jesus Christ, devotes itself faithfully SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 79 to the unfolding of all its powers, which passes the bounds of time and death, which hopes to advance forever, and which finds inexhaustible power, both for action and suffering, in the pros- pect of immortality. Such is the spiritual freedom which Christ came to give. It consists in moral force, in self- control, in the enlargement of thought and affec- tion, and in the unrestrained action of our best powers. This is the great good of Christianity ; nor can we conceive a greater within the gift of God. THE WHITE HARE. By Mrs. Wells. It was the Sabbath eve — we went, My Geraldine and I, intent The twilight hour to pass, Where we might hear the water flow, And scent the freighted winds that blow Athwart the vernal grass. In darker grandeur— as the day Stole scarce perceptibly away — The purple mountain stood, Wearing the young moon as a crest ; The sun, half sunk in the far west, Seemed mingling with the flood. The cooling dews their balm distilled ; A holy joy our bosoms thrilled ; Our thoughts were free as air ; And, by one impulse moved, did we Together pour instinctively Our songs of gladness there. The greenwood waved its shade hard by, While thus we wove our harmony : THE WHITE HARE. SI Lured by the mystic strain, A snow-white hare, that long had been Peering forth from her covert green, Came bounding o’er the plain. Her beauty ’t was a joy to note — The pureness of her downy coat — • Her wild, yet gentle eye — - The pleasure that, despite of fear, Had led the timid thing so near, To list our minstrelsy. All motionless, with head inclined, She stood, as if her heart divined The impulses of ours, Till the last note had died — and then Turned half reluctantly again Back to her greenwood bowers. Once more the magic sounds we tried— Again the hare was seen to glide From out her sylvan shade ; Again — as joy had given her wings, Fleet as a bird she forward springs Along the dewy glade. Go, happy thing ! disport at will— Take thy delight o’er vale and hill, Or rest in leafy bower : The harrier may beset thy way, The cruel snare thy feet betray Enjoy thy little hour ! S2 THE BOSTON BOOK. We know not, and we ne’er may know, The hidden springs of joy and wo, That deep within do lie ; The silent workings of thy heart Do almost seem to have a part With our humanity. STANZAS. By Mrs. Gilman. Written on journeying in the Low Country of South Carolina. Cheerless to me ye do not seem, Tall pines that hide the solar beam, And stand in firm array ; Nor when, like warriors, stern and tall, By the swart woodman’s axe ye fall, Still ponderous in decay. I love to see each stately head, With clouds for waving plumage spread, And helms of “ living green ” — I love to see the solemn lend, To which your lofty forms ye bend, When breezes come unseen. Fit music are the rushing sounds, With which the lonely wood abounds, For your majestic file ; Like autumn winds o’er ocean’s swell They come of wondrous power to tell, And ye must stoop awhile. Fit death for such the fearful crash, Which, at the lightning’s dazzling flash, 84 THE BOSTON BOOK. Lays all your honors low ; — Fit dirge for these the wood-birds’ cry, When to their frightened young they fly, As the tall branches go. Wild Mistletoe ! not sad to me, Thy flowing drapery wanders free, Upon the old oak’s bough ; Not with the Druid’s awe-struck eye, I see thee raise thy banners high, And twine its withered brow. The oak indeed has reared its doom, And seems to stand before its tomb, The loneliest of the race ; But on its seared and aged head, The Mistletoe’s dark foliage spread, Imparts a pious grace. Not here, I own — not here arise Tall spires, that, pointing to the skies, Direct the thought sublime ; Not here the orchard blushing bright, Gives its rich fruitage to the light, As in my northern clime. But hush ! the thought of distant hills, Meadows of green, and gurgling rills, That charmed my early days ! My mind, my mind shall be to me, All that in other climes we see, And God shall teach me praise ! A THANKSGIVING DREAM: By Richard Hildreth. I dreamed a dream, and behold ! a table was set for a Thanksgiving Dinner, and there were gathered together, from the four corners of the earth, flesh, fish, and fruits of the field. I gazed upon them with delight, and was fast making up my mind, indeed, to a much more satisfactory mode of examination, when, as I seized upon a knife and fork for the purpose, I heard a grum voice from the upper end of the table — “ Gentle- men, please to come to order!” The crowd immediately began to arrange itself in files. The voice I presently perceived to have come from a venerable looking turkey, who rolled sideways out of the dish in which he had lain trussed and smoking from the spit, burst the pack-thread fet- ters that bound his clawless stumps, and mounted with great dignity upon an enormous apple- dumpling, where he seated himself in state, like the Chancellor of England on the woolsack. The meeting thus being organized, the Moderator delivered the following address : “ Gentlemen of the Thanksgiving Dinner : — We are assembled again on this anniversary, to take 8 86 THE BOSTON BOOK. into consideration the manifold and intolerable grievances which we have all been subjected to, by this tyrannical and gluttonous practice of the Yankee nation. [ Loud applause from the whole assembly. ] Gentlemen, this terrible day continues to sweep off yearly its thousands and tens of thousands of our unfortunate brother fowls and quadrupeds, and if it continues to be celebrated much longer, it is to be feared that the breed of turkeys may become extinct. It is time that a united effort be made to preserve the gobbling race from destruction. [Cheers from all the tur- keys present .] Not only on us, but on the devoted heads of the goose tribe also do the deeds of this evil day fall bloodily. [Hear ! hear ! from a green gosling .] O geese ! will you suffer your- selves to be plucked forever? [A general hiss : and cries of no ! no /] I call upon you also, ye ducks, to contribute your efforts to avert the general ruin ! [ Cries of ‘ quick ! quick ! quick ! J from the ducks.] The other members of this respectable assembly I would also appeal to, and remind them of their several and individual wrongs. O fowls of the barn-yard ! what hen- roost is sacred from the ravages of the fell de- stroyer? [Immense cackling among the poultry.] Oh harmless calves and sheep ! are not your ranks thinned by the autumnal slaughterer who, unsatisfied with the delicacies of the feathered creation, adds even the enormity of head and pluck to his piles of preposterous luxury ? [A A THANKSGIVING DREAM. 87 general baa-ing.] And you, unfortunate sucking pigs ! sweet emblems of innocence ! How often do your lovely infant countenances cast a gleam of rueful despair at the inexorable jaws of the tin-kitchen, in which the horrible Thanksgiving Day dooms you to be £ cabined, cribbed, con- fined,’ and make more turns roundabout than a modern politician ! [Hear ! hear ! from the pigs , accompanied by a general grunt of sympathy . ] Friends, countrymen, and fellow-sufferers, favor us with your counsel. Ye valiant turkeys, lift up your heads. Learned geese, display your wisdom. Young ducks, quack defiance to the Governor’s proclamation. And oh ! sweet pigs ! ye musical sons of thunder ! set up your pipes and squeal a deafening chorus into the ears of the Massachusetts Executive Council. 1 Down with that gormandizing hobgoblin, the genius of Thanksgiving Day.’ ” [Thunders of applause .] The Moderator having concluded, an old gan- der arose and addressed the chair. ££ Mr. Mode- rator,” said he, ££ give me leave to express my entire and cordial approbation of the sentiments you have uttered. This horrible day, is, indeed, a day of mourning for the whole feathered crea- tion. Seventy years have I witnessed its mon- strous ravages, hoping fondly to escape the gene- ral proscription. Alas, how vain my calculations ! A week ago I was seized by a caitiff Roxbury farmer — may a drum-stick choke him ! — and slaughtered for the Boston market. Behold me 88 THE BOSTON BOOK. plucked of my plumage, and not so much as a tail feather left to wag in doleful dumps ! Alas, what ills is goose-flesh heir to ! Mr. Moderator, I move that Thanksgiving be, and it is hereby abolished.” [Great cheering among the geese.] Here a black duck arose and began to suggest doubts as to the efficacy of the measure proposed by his web-footed brother. “It is useless, Mr. Moderator,” said he, “to waste time upon so nugatory a scheme as this. We have not a moment to spare, it being now within two hours of dinner time, for the sermon is at least half through, and I see, through the window panes of yonder church, a most multivorous and duck- devouring appetite, written in the faces of every mother’s son in the congregation. Sir, we have not two hours to live. Let us adopt some decisive measure. Abolish Thanksgiving ! a fiddlestick ! What individual among the two-legged monsters will care for that? Such a project is worthy of the goose that hatched it.” [Loud cries of ‘ Order ! order ! ’ from every part of the table.] A gray squirrel then rose, scratching from his face the crumbs of pastry which had smothered him in a meat-pie, and wiping his eyes with the end of his tail, spoke to the following purport : “Mr. Moderator, as my friend the black duck says, this is a time for action. We ought not to spend time in nibbling about the nut-shell, but strike at once into the meat and kernel of the matter. How do I regret that any gentleman of A THANKSGIVING DREAM. 89 this assembly should indulge in personalities. This is no place for private piques and party animosities. Let ducks and geese go amicably claw in claw, and paddle onward to the accom- plishment of the great purpose. Allow me still to remark, that the proposition of my respected friend the gander, is in my opinion hardly suita- ble to the present emergency. I hope that gentle- man will display his customary wisdom, and withdraw his motion.” [ Here loud murmurs arose from all the goose tribe , a?id cries of L Ques- tion! question!'] A sucking pig then took the floor. “ It is the opinion,” said he, “ of many of my learned friends, that we should use our endeavors to convert the Governor and Council into Jews ; for then,” added he — with great feeling — “ comes the day of deliverance for the swinish multitude. Under the Jewish dispensation, if the abomination of Thanksgiving were continued, which I very much doubt, it would at least be attended with a prohibition of pork, in all shapes, on that day. I propose, therefore, to bring forward a motion for the conversion of the afore-mentioned dignitaries, in the first place, and the Board of Boston Aider- men afterward.” An oyster, who had hitherto remained snug and silent, now begged the indulgence of the assembly. He hoped to see something done for shell-fish. The epicures of Thanksgiving Day had grown so absorbingly greedy, that oyster- 8 * 90 THE BOSTON BOOK. sauce had become a standing dish. The liberty of the seas was no longer inviolate. It was with the deepest melancholy that he informed the assembly he had it from the best authority, that the city government had recently rescinded an ordinance prohibiting the sale of oysters during certain months of the year. “ No day of the three hundred and sixty-five,” continued he, with great emotion, “ is a day of rest for us.” He was proceeding at some length, in the same strain, when he was called to order by a sheep’s head, and reminded that he was digressing. A violent altercation ensued between the two members, and several hard words passed from one to another. The oyster told the sheep’s head to give him none of his jaw ; which the sheep’s head retorted by desiring the oyster to shut up his clam-shell. Order being at length restored, the Moderator called upon the Standing Committee to report their proceedings since the last anniversary meet- ing. A gray goose, whom I found to be Chair- man of the Committee, then rose and read a report, stating that since they had the honor of sitting upon this most important business, various cir- cumstances had arisen to afford the most pleasing encouragements to the prosecution of the great enterprize in hand. “Of late years,” the report went on to say, “the disorder known by the name of dyspepsia, had increased to so remarka- ble a degree, as to cause great alarm among all people, both in town and country ; and the afore- A THANKSGIVING DREAM. 91 said complaint was well known to be mainly caused by an over-attachment to the dinner table. They had therefore the pleasure of informing the meeting, that there were not only Temperance Societies without number in the land, but that meats as well as drinks had now fallen under the ban of the big-wigs, and that there had actu- ally been proposed in the all-consuming, all- devouring city of Boston, an association entitled ‘ the Society for the Suppression of Eating.’ ” [Most overpowering thunders of applause from every part of the table. ] The report having been read and accepted, and the thanks of the meeting being presented to the Committee for their meritorious services, the fol- lowing resolutions were proposed and carried, nem. con . Resolved, That Thanksgiving Day is a griev- ance not to be borne. Resolved , That the Society for the Suppression of Eating, has our most sincere and hearty good wishes for its success. Resolved , That each and every member of this assembly, whether turkey, fowl, duck, teal, wid- geon, coot, calf’s head, oyster, sucking pig, lob- ster, plum-pudding, apple-dumpling, cranberry- tart, minced-pie, custard, or cream-cake, pledge himself, herself, and themselves, jointly and severally, to proceed forthwith, on the night of each Thanksgiving Day, and sit, with overpow- ering weight, like unto a mill-stone, upon the 92 THE BOSTON BOOK. conscience and stomach of the Governor of Mas- sachusetts, the members of the Executive Council, the Mayor of Boston, the Board of Aldermen, and every individual whose rotundity of the out- ward man showeth token of dinner-eating pro- pensity — giving unto all and singular afore-named, a perennial fit of the night-mare, until Thanks- giving Day be abolished. Resolved , moreover, that every minister, Avho shall read the Governor’s proclamation for Thanksgiving, be considered as coming within the above-mentioned penalty. These resolutions being engrossed and put to the vote, the Moderator declared the meeting adjourned; when, methought, the whole table burst into confusion — turkeys, geese, puddings, pies, all began to dance about, and a calf’s head jumped up from a pewter dish, and gave me a sharp bite by the ear. So much for sleeping in meeting ! But for a waggish boy who jogged me as the congregation were passing out, I should have suffered that greatest of all catastrophes — the loss of my Thanksgiving Dinner. HAMPTON BEACH. By George Lunt. Again upon the sounding shore, And — oh how blest — again alone ! I could not bear to hear thy roar, Thy deep, thy long, majestic tone — I could not bear to think that one Could view with me thy swelling might, And, like a very stock or stone, Turn coldly from the glorious sight, And seek the idle world, to hate, and fear, and fight. Thou art the same, Eternal Sea ! The earth has many shapes and forms, Of hill and valley, flower and tree — Fields that the fervid noontide warms, Or winter’s rugged grasp deforms, Or bright with autumn’s golden store ; Thou coverest up thy face with storms, Or smilest serene — but still thy roar And dazzling foam go up, to vex the sea-beat shore. I see thy heaving waters roll, I hear thy stem uplifted voice, And trumpet-like upon my soul 94 THE BOSTON BOOK. Falls the deep music of that noise, Wherewith thou dost thyself rejoice ; The ships that on thy bosom play — Thou dashest them about like toys, And stranded navies are thy prey, Strewn on the rock-bound coast, torn by thy whirling spray. At summer twilight soft and calm, Or when in stormy grandeur dressed, Peals up to heaven the eternal psalm That swells within thy boundless breast ; Thy curling waters have no rest, But, day and night, the ceaseless throng Of waves, that wait thy high behest, Speak out in utterance deep and strong, And loud the craggy beach howls back their savage sons*. Terrible art thou in thy wrath — Terrible in thine hour of glee — When the strong winds, upon their path, Bound o’er thy breast tumultuously, And shout their chorus loud and free To the sad sea-bird’s mournful wail, As, heaving with the heaving sea, The broken mast and shattered sail Tell of thy cruel strength the lamentable tale. Ay, ’t is indeed a glorious sight To gaze upon thine ample face, j An awful joy — a deep delight ! HAMPTON BEACH. 95 I see thy laughing waves embrace Each other in their frolic race ; I sit above the flashing spray That foams around this rocky base, And, as the bright blue waters play, Feel that my thoughts, my life, perchance, are vain as they. This is thy lesson, Mighty Sea ! Man calls the dimpled earth his own, The flowery vale — the golden lea ; — And on the wild gray mountain stone Claims nature’s temple for his throne ! But where thy many voices sing Their endless song, the deep, deep tone Calls back his spirit’s airy wing ; He shrinks into himself, where God alone is King ! THE LOVE OF THE SUPREME BEING. By Jacob Abbott. It is June. We walk out in some retired and uninhabited region, in the midst of the forest, and find all nature thronged with active and happy life. Insects unnumbered sport in the sun, or skip upon the bright surface of the lake. Nimble animals chase one another upon the branches of the trees, or hide in hollow trunks, or gather nuts and fruits which fall around them, in inexhausti- ble profusion. And what is all this for? Perhaps for hundreds of miles around, there is not a human habitation ; no human eye will witness this scene, and no human want will he supplied by anything it produces. What is it for? What motive in- duces these efforts ? Why, it is because this mighty architect, whose power is so great, and whose field is so boundless, loves to exercise that power in every corner of that wide-spread field, for the purpose of producing enjoyment. No per- son can look on such a scene, with anything like proper views of it, without feeling a glow of new interest and warmer attachment towards its mighty Author. The mere proofs of power and contri vance and skill, in the specimens of median- LOVE OF THE SUPREME BEING. 97 ism which have been noticed, awaken strong in- tellectual interest ; — but it touches the heart, and awakens a deeper and warmer emotion there, when we see this architect, while actually carry- ing on the mighty mechanism of the heavens, still busily engaged in this secluded valley, filling thousands and millions of his creatures with en- joyment, as if taking pleasure in witnessing the frolics of an insect; and drawing so copiously upon his stores of skill and power, to make a squirrel or a robin happy. The robin ! — -just look for a moment at his nest in the midst of this valley of peace. It is fixed securely in a cluster of branches, sheltered just enough by the foliage around, and in it are three or four tender, helpless, unfledged birds lying together. The open air and the broad sky are over their heads ; nothing but the hanging leaf protects them from an enemy. They have no power to fly, no power to resist; hunger is coming on, and they cannot provide food ; but they lie alone and helpless and weak, the very picture of defence- lessness and exposure. But they are safe and happy. God makes them his care. They cannot bear cold; He has guarded them against it, by so poising the pon- derous earth, and so carefully regulating its mo- tions, that no nipping frost, and no storm of snow can possibly come to desolate their little dwelling. They cannot defend themselves from violence, or escape from it. True ; and God has so regulated 9 98 THE BOSTON BOOK. the instincts and propensities of the millions of living things around them, that they shall be ex- posed to none. They cannot provide themselves with food, and it will take but very few hours to bring them to excruciating suffering unless they are supplied. But they will be supplied. God has sent out his messengers to provide for them. One flies from tree to tree in a distant part of the forest, and the other perhaps hops upon the shore of the brook or pond. The trees around them are filled with thousands of other birds, alluring them by their songs, and brighter vales and more shady trees invite them to stay. But no. God has bound them to one another, and to their helpless young, by a mechanism as incomprehensible as it is beautiful in its results. It allows them to fly free and unfettered as they choose, but it retains its indis- soluble hold wherever they go. No song of a stranger will make them forget one another; no other nest will lead them to forget their own ; no sunny bank or shady grove will have charms enough to detain them; but faithful to their trust, they toil industriously through the day, and un- less death or violence keep them away, they will be ready with their supply, when at night their helpless young open their mouths and cry for food. We cannot comprehend the admirable me- chanism by which these results are secured, but we love the character which our Father manifests in securing them. LOVE OF THE SUPREME BEING. 99 Now let us change the scene. It is January, and we walk out into the same forest, and look upon the same stream which in summer was the scene of so much life and activity and happiness. How changed ! Where are the insects now, which sported in the sunbeams, on the glassy surface of the water? That surface is still more glassy now, — solid and cold, — and over it scud the dry wreaths of snow before the bleak wind. Where are now the thousand forms of happy life, which enlivened every bank and fluttered from flower to flower ? Alas ! sunny bank, and gay flower, and verdant turf are gone ! The deep snow clothes the whole surface of the ground, covering every smaller plant, and rising around the naked trunks of the tall trees, hanging in wreaths over the banks, and fast accumulating, as the driving wintry storm brings on fresh supplies from God’s inexhaustible treasuries. Where is that happy home among the branches of the tree? The leaves which sheltered it are gone, a mass of drifting snow marks the spot where the desolate and forsaken habitation remains, and the cold dreary wind whistles through the naked branches around. Has God left— is a very natural inquiry — has He left all these millions of his creatures to be overwhelmed with destruction? No ; scarcely one. He has secured and pro- tected them all. Never did the most cautious husbandman lay in his stores, and prepare his clothing, and secure the warmth and tightness of 100 TIIE BOSTON BOOK. his buildings, with half the efficiency of foresight and care which God exhibits every autumn, in shutting up, in places of safety and protection, all the varieties of animal and vegetable life. The storm and the wintry cold are not allowed to come till he has given maturity and strength to the helpless birds, and sent them away to warmer climes. Other animals have, in obedience to an impulse of which they could not know the nature and design, been industriously employed during the summer, in laying in their winter stores; and are now sheltered in holes, or hollow trunks, sleep- ing undisturbed in the midst of a plenty which God has provided for them. Even the insect tribes, so delicate and frail, are all safe. By a most admi- rable arrangement, generation succeeds generation in a way so ordered, that the animal life of a whole species exists in such a form, at the approach of winter, that ice and cold and snow can produce neither injury nor pain. In these and in other ways, God has secured for all, protection and exemption from suffering; and when the first wintry midnight storm roars through the forest, it finds everything prepared for it. Every nest is empty, and its inmates are safe in another clime. All insect existence is protected, and the field mouse, and even the little ant, are carefully housed in their warm, sheltered and plentiful homes. THE EXILE AT REST. By John Pierpont. His falchion flashed along the Nile, His host he led through Alpine snows ; O’er Moscow’s towers, that blazed the while, His eagle-flag unrolled — and froze ! Here sleeps he now, alone ! — not one Of all the kings whose crowns he gave, Bends o’er his dust ; nor wife nor son Has ever seen or sought his grave. Behind the sea-girt rock, the star That led him on from crown to crown Has sunk, and nations from afar Gazed as it faded and went down. High is his tomb : the ocean flood Far, far below, by storms is curled — As round him heaved, while high he stood, A stormy and unstable world. Alone he sleeps : the mountain cloud, That night hangs round him, and the breath Of morning scatters, is the shroud That wraps the conqueror’s clay in death. 9 * 102 THE BOSTON BOOK. Pause here ! The far-off world at last Breathes free ; the hand that shook its thrones, And to the earth its mitres cast, Lies powerless now, beneath these stones. Hark ! Comes there from the pyramids, And from Siberian wastes of snow, And Europe’s hills, a voice that bids The world be awed to mourn him ? No ! The only, the perpetual dirge, That ’s heard here, is the sea-bird’s cry — The mournful murmur of the surge — The cloud’s deep voice — the wind’s low sigh ! MORTAL AND IMMORTAL. By R. C. Waterston. In soul, man mounts and flies— In flesh, he dies— Not that he may not here Taste of the cheer ; But as birds drink, and straight lift up their head, So must he sip, and think Of better drink He may attain to, after he is dead. Herbert. I stand between the Future and the Past — That which has been, and that which is to A feeble ray from the Eternal cast, A scanty rill, that seeks a shoreless sea ; A living soul, treading this earthly sod, A finite being, yet a child of God : A body crumbling to the dust away, A spirit panting for eternal peace ; A heavenly kingdom in a frame of clay. An infant angel, fluttering for release ; An erring man, whose race has just begun, A pilgrim, journeying on from sun to sun : 104 THE BOSTON BOOK. Creature of clay, yet heir of future life, Dweller upon a world I shall outlive ; Soldier of Christ, battling midst earthly strife, Yet hoping, by that strength which God may give, To burst the doors of death, and glorying rise Triumphant from the grave, to tread the skies ! KEEPING UP APPEARANCES. By Leonard Withington. Just one mile two furlongs and seven rods from my grandfather’s house, on a sightly hill called Mount Pleasant, stood the abode of Jonathan Old- bug, my father, in whose spacious but decaying mansion I spent part of my time ; for I would not have the reader imagine, that my parents were always so negligent as to leave me perpetu- ally to write’rebuses with my uncle Gideon, or to eat turn-overs from the hand of my aunt Han- nah. My father was a tall, stately man, with one good coat, which he kept to wear to meeting, one decent pair of shoes, which lasted, in my memory, seven years, one cotton shirt, with a linen collar to it, — and he was sometimes com- pelled to lie in bed, in order that it might be washed. He dwelt in a large house, whose ex- terior, though not splendid, was much preferable to some of the rooms within ; it was surrounded with a white fence, with some of the parts broken down, a front gate swung up on one hinge, several of the window panes were broken, on two of the 106 THE BOSTON BOOK. front windows hung two shattered blinds, which had once been green, and before the house, as you entered the garden, grew two spacious lime trees, forming a grateful shade. As you entered the house, you came to a large, massy, oak door, big enough to be the gate of a castle, with an iron knocker on it, shaped for a lion, but looking more like a dog ; and having entered the building, you saw a front entry, the paper torn and colored by the rain ; on your left hand was one room covered with a carpet, containing an eight-day clock, reaching from the floor to the ceiling, and telling the age of the moon ; the other furniture passable ; but the rest of the rooms in a condition which I blush to name. There, in this stately mansion, dwelt my venerable sire, who might justly be denominated a jioor gentleman ; that is, he was a gentleman in his own estimation, and poor in the esteem of everybody else. My father was a man of expedients, and had spent his whole life, and exhausted all his in- genuity, in that adroit presentation of pretences, which, in common speech, is called keeping up appearances. In this art he was really skilful ; and I often suspected then, and have really con- cluded since, if he had turned half the talent to procuring an honest livelihood, which he used to slobber over his ill-dissembled poverty, it would have been better for his soul and body both. He was a man that never told a lie, unless it was to keep up appearances . KEEPING UP APPEARANCES. 107 I hope none who hold this book, have been re- duced to the miserable necessity of tying up their pantaloons with pack-thread, instead of lawful suspenders; of using a remnant of a pillow-case for a pocket-handkerchief; of sticking a bur on their rent stocking to cover up a hole; and after slitting their worn pantaloons on the knee, when they had got half way to meeting on the Sabbath, of being obliged to tie a pretended pocket-hand- kerchief over a pretended wound, seeming to be lame, and perhaps before they had walked ten rods, forgetting in which leg the lameness was seated. No, these are the incommunicable sor- rows of me, of me the sad hero of a sad family — the prince and heir-apparent to the ragged genera- tion. To me, and to me alone, was reserved the awful destiny of being invited to a party, where were to assemble the first beauties of a country village — not daring to go until evening, lest the light of heaven should expose a thread-bare coat — having no clean shirt — not even a dickey which had not been worn ten times — supplying its place with a piece of writing paper — afraid to turn my head, lest the paper should rattle or be displaced — and then, just as a poor wretch was exulting in the hope that the stratagems of poverty were to pass undetected, to have a lady, perhaps the youngest and most beautiful in the whole party, come provokingly near, and beg to examine your collar, because she admires the pattern. Often 108 THE BOSTON BOOK. has it been my lot to return from the company, where all hearts seemed to bound with gladness, to water my couch with tears, amid sorrows which I could tell to none, and with which none would sympathize. I thought it poverty. But I was mistaken. It was something else which be- gins with a P. And then the awkward apologies to which one is reduced in such a situation, come very near to a mendacious violation of real verity. Oh ! how often have I seen my honored father put to his trumps, steering between Scylla and Charybdis, adroitly adjusting his language so as to make an impression, without incurring a lie, and reduced to shifts by which none were deceived, because all understood them. Once on a time, after a week’s starvation to procure a velvet collar for my father’s best coat, we were sitting down to a dinner of hasty-pudding and molasses, when, un- luckily, one of our neighbors happened to walk in without knocking, (a very improper act,) and we had no time to slip away the plates and table- cloth ^ we were taken in the very act. I never saw my poor father more confounded. A hectic flush passed over his long, sallow cheek, like the last, sad bloom on the visage of a consumptive man. He looked, for a moment, almost like a convicted criminal; but, however, he soon re- covered himself, and returned to his expedients. “ We thought,” said he, “we would have a plain KEEPING UP APPEARANCES. 109 dinner to-day; always to eat roast turkeys makes one sick !” There was no disputing this broad maxim. In our town, at the period of my boyhood, the severity of puritan manners was relaxing into a species of gentility ; and though my father and mother never went to balls and theatres, they were very fond of evening parties, where, after cards and conversation, they closed their enjoy- ments with an elegant supper. But, oh ! at what an expense on our poor purse were these plea- sures bought ! Once, I remember, to buy my mother’s muslin gown, we sold our pig, our only pig, and our only hope of animal food through the winter. And mark the malice of mankind when you are trying to tower over them ! The very next week were written by a piece of chalk, on the door of Bob Gill’s grist-mill, the following lines, where everybody could read them. They were the production of some cruel country wit, whom I could almost have murdered, had I known him : A pig is raised for food ; — it makes you stare To know that pigs are ever raised to wear 5 But Madam Oldbug puts her brains to rack, And wears her pig, transformed, upon her back. How the writer came to know the fact, I never could guess ; only that hypocrisy, in poverty as well as in religion, is seldom long successful. Sometimes my mother would borrow her shawl 10 110 THE BOSTON BOOK. at one place, and her tippet at another, and her cap at a third. Often would they come home late at night, on a winter evening, without a spark of fire on the hearth, or wood to kindle it ; my mother shivering in her airy dress. I was sent down cellar to pull off the boards from the potato crib, or to bring up an old flour-barrel, to light a transient flame, blazing and dying, like the fading joys on which our hearts were set. Sometimes we would pull down one part of the house to warm the other, so that the old mansion was made to perform a double office, yielding us at once shelter and fuel. Yet my father, with all his expedients, was a very unpopular man. Though he was always angling for public favor, he never had skill enough to put on the bait so as to conceal the hook, even to the gudgeons that floated in our shallow streams. There was a broken bridge near our habitation, and one year he was plotting and expecting to be surveyor of the highways, that he might mend it for the public convenience, at the public expense. He was disappointed; and old Mr. Slider, his rival and enemy, was put into the office, who suffered the bridge to remain unrepaired, with the ungenerous sarcasm, that a man who lived in such a shattered house, might well endure to ride over a rotten bridge. There was a militia company, and my father was ex- pecting to be chosen captain, especially as he had been in the revolutionary army, and had actually KEEPING UP APPEARANCES. Ill spoken to General Washington. But, at the age of forty-one, they chose him orderly sergeant, which office my father refused, declaring, with much spitting and sputtering, that he would never serve his ungrateful country again. Thus closed his military honors : he was reduced to the neces- sity of finding the post of virtue in a private sta- tion. I have heard that the only way to cure ambi- tion, is to starve it to death ; and all the world seemed to combine to remove my father’s favorite passion by that unwelcome medicine. Once we had determined to have a large party at our house, and we desired to get it up in our very best style. We had invited all the grandees of Bundleborough — Esquire Wilson, and his one- eyed daughter, Mrs. Butterfly, a retired milliner, Mrs. Redrose, a jolly widow, Mr. Wallflower, a broken merchant, and Captain Casket, supposed to be a pensioner on the king of Great Britain. We had raked and scraped, and twisted and turned, to procure all the money we could; my mother had sold pickled mangoes ; I was sent to pick up mushrooms in the great pasture ; my father disposed of about two tons of old salt hay, the remaining wheel of an old ox-cart, all his pumpkins and turnips, and about half of his Indian corn, to make up the sum of fifteen dollars thirty-seven and a half cents, with which we were to shine out, for one evening at least, in all the peacock feathers with which ingenious pov- 112 THE BOSTON BOOK. erty could cover over its hide-bound, frost-bitten, hunger- wasted frame. We sent for all the china and glass we could beg or borrow ; and Mr. Planewell, the carpenter, was summoned to re- pair our front gate, set up the fence, and new lay the step before the front door ; but, as there was very little prospect of his ever being paid, he could not come. Two of the legs of our dining table were broken, and I was ordered to glue them ; but failing in that, I remember I tied them together with a piece of fish-line, which was to be concealed by the depending table-cloth. The table-cloth itself was of the finest and nicest damask ; though unluckily, there was a thin spot in the middle of it, almost verging to a hole; but this we could conceal by the mat on which we laid the great dish in the centre. My mother had spent the previous week in preparation — keeping the whole house in confusion, washing, scouring, cleaning, adjusting the best chamber, where the ladies were to take off their bonnets, mending the carpet, and polishing the shovel and tongs ; and I must confess, considering her means, she put things in tolerable order. An old half- blind negro woman, by the name of Joice, who had formerly waited on parties, but was now nearly superannuated, was to come and assist us; it having been stipulated that she should have the fragments of the feast for her pay. The evening came; the company assembled ; our old barn-lantern, with one broken and three cracked KEEPING UP APPEARANCES. 113 glasses, was hung up in the entry for an intro- ductory light ; our turkey, our chickens, our jel- lies, and our cards were prepared. Joice was busy, my mother was directing, and all were happy. But let no man hereafter pronounce an evening blessed, before the hour of supper has closed. Joice had complained already that she wanted things to do with; and on the narrow table in the kitchen, she had overturned a lamp, and oiled the bottom of the great dish, on which the turkey was to be presented on the supper table. It became slippery, her fingers were slip- pery, and she was half blind. As she came wad- dling into the supper room, with the treasures of her cookery, she stumbled, struck the poor spliced legs of our dining table, my patchwork gave way, down went the table, dishes and sauces, on the ladies’ gowns, down went poor Joice in the midst of them; my fish-line was revealed, the tom place in the table-cloth was seen, torn still more disastrously ; my father looked aghast, my mother was in tears, and the whole company were in confusion. My father, however, tried to jump out of his condition, like a cat out of a corner. “ Plague take Mr. Hardwood, our cabinet-maker; I had just ordered a new table, but he never sends home his work in time ! ” In saying this, I can bear witness that my honored father did not tell a lie — he told just half the truth. He had ordered a new table, and Mr. Hardwood had not sent it to us in time ; but then he distinctly told 10 * 114 THE BOSTON BOOK. my father the reason; and that was, he should not send it, until he settled off the old score. u O poverty, poverty!” says Cervantes; “a man must have a great share of the grace of God, who can bring himself to be contented with thee. Why dost thou choose to pinch gentlemen?” Yes, I must allow, poverty is bad enough; but not so terrible when it comes alone. It may then bring peace and resignation by its side, and even lead contentment and virtue in its train. In such cases, it is probation, instruction, wisdom, im- provement, religion. The great and good, in all ages, have submitted to it ; and suffering heroes have sometimes made it their boast and glory. But Heaven defend me, and the souls of all my tribe, from the mingled horrors of pride and pov- erty, when they come upon us together ! In the language of our own Wigglesworth, I may say — It is a main great ocean Withouten bank or bound ; A deep abyss, wherein there is No bottom to be found. “ BLOW, GENTLE GALE.” By Park Benjamin. Blow, gentle gale ! my pinnace sleeps Upon the sea ; In yonder tower my Ella keeps Her watch for me. Ah, lift my snow-white sail, Thou gentle gale ! Breeze, pleasant breeze ! where dallyest thou ? On beds of flowers ? Come, with their odors round thee now, Come from their bowers ! And fill my drooping sail, Thou gentle gale ! Come, lovely wind ! — a fairer rose Awaits thy kiss ; On Ella’s cheek thou mayst repose, And faint with bliss, So thou wilt stir my sail, Thou gentle gale ! 116 TIIE BOSTON BOOK. Ah, joy ! the waters, crimson-dyed, F ar, far away, Touched by thy unseen pinions, glide In merry play ; Fill, fill my shivering sail, Thou gentle gale ! Thanks, gentle gale ! my pinnace rocks — My streamers fly — The mists float on, like soaring flocks, Along the sky ,* Press, press my willing sail, Thou gentle gale ! Blow on, sweet breeze ! — a moment more — And I shall see Her signal, waving from the shore, To welcome me ; Rend, if thou wilt, my sail, Thou gentle gale ! OUR YANKEE GIRLS. By O. W. Holmes. Let greener lands, and bluer skies, If such the wide earth shows, With fairer cheeks and brighter eyes, Match us the star and rose ; The winds that lift the Georgian’s veil, Or wave Circassia’s curls, Waft to their shores the Sultan’s sail ; — Who buys our Yankee girls ? The gay grisette, whose fingers touch Love’s thousand chords so well ; The dark Italian, loving much, But more than one can tell, And England’s fair-haired, blue-eyed dame, Who binds her brow with pearls- — Ye who have seen them — can they shame Our own sweet Yankee girls ? And what if court or castle vaunt Its children loftier born, — Who heeds the silken tassel’s flaunt, Beside the golden corn ? 118 THE BOSTON BOOK. They ask not for the courtly toil Of jewelled knights and earls — The daughters of the virgin soil— Our free-born Yankee girls. By every hill, whose stately pines Wave their dark arms above The home where some fair being shines, To warm the wilds with love ; From barest rock to bleakest shore, Where farthest sail unfurls, That stars and stripes are floating o’er— God bless our Yankee girls l THE LITTLE BEACH BIRD. By Richard H. Dana. Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea, Why takest thou its melancholy voice ? Why with that boding cry Along the waves dost fly ? Oh ! rather, bird, with me Through the fair land rejoice ! Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale, As driven by a beating storm at sea ; Thy cry is weak and. scared, As if thy mates had shared The doom of us. Thy wail — What does it bring to me ? Thou callest along the sand, and hauntest the surg Eestless and sad ; as if, in strange accord With the motion and the roar Of waves that drive to shore, One spirit did ye urge — The Mystery — the Word. 120 THE BOSTON BOOK. Of thousands, thou, both sepulchre and pall, Old Ocean, art ! A requiem o’er the dead, From out thy gloomy cells, A tale of mourning tells — Tells of man’s wo and fall, His sinless glory fled. Then turn thee, little bird, and take thy flight Where the complaining sea shall sadness bring Thy spirit never more. Come, quit with me the shore, For gladness and the light Where birds of summer sing. AMERICAN HISTORY. By Jared Sparks. In many respects the history of North America differs from that of every other country, and in this difference it possesses an interest peculiar to itself, especially for those, whose lot has been cast here, and who look back with a generous pride to the deeds of ancestors, by whom a na- tion’s existence has been created, and a nation’s glory adorned. We shall speak of this history, as divided into two periods, the Colonial, and the Revolutionary. When we talk of the history of our country, we are not to be understood as alluding to any particular book, or to the labors of any man, or number of men, in treating this subject. If we have a few compilations of merit, embracing detached portions and limited periods, there is yet wanting a work, the writer of which shall undertake the task of plodding his way through all the materials, printed and in manuscript, and digesting them into a united, continuous, lucid, and philosophical whole, bearing the shape, and containing the substance of genuine history. No 11 122 THE BOSTON BOOK. tempting encouragement, it is true, has been held out to such an enterprise. The absorbing present, in the midst of our stirring politics, and jarring party excitements, and bustling activity, has almost obliterated the past, or at least has left little leisure for pursuing the footsteps of the pil- grims, and the devious fortunes of our ancestors. The public taste has run in other directions, and no man of genius and industry has been found so courageous in his resolves, or prodigal of his labor, as to waste his life in digging into mines for treasures, which would cost him much, and avail him little. But symptoms of a change are beginning to appear, which it may be hoped will ere long be realized. And when the time shall come for illustrating this subject, it will be discovered, that there are rich stores of knowledge among the hidden and forgotten records of our colonial history, that the men of those days thought, and acted, and suf- fered with a wisdom, a fortitude, and an endur- ance, which would add lustre to any age ; and that they have transmitted an inheritance as honorable in the mode of its accpiisition, as it is dear to its present possessors. Notwithstanding the comparatively disconnected incidents in the history of this period, and the separate communi- ties and governments to which it extends, it has nevertheless a unity and a consistency of parts, as well as copiousness of events, which make it a theme for the most gifted historian, and a study AMERICAN HISTORY. 123 for every one, who would enlarge his knowledge and profit by high example. Unlike any other people, who have attained the rank of a nation, we may here trace our country’s growth to the very elements of its origin, and consult the testimonies of reality, instead of the blind oracles of fable, and the legends of a dubious tradition.. Besides a love of adventure, and an enthusiasm, that surmounted every difficulty, the character of its founders was marked by a hardy enterprise and sturdiness of purpose, which carried them onward through perils and sufferings, that would have appalled weaker minds and less resolute hearts. This is the first great feature of resemblance in all the early settlers, whether they came to the north or to the south, and it merits notice from the influence it could not fail to exercise on their future acts and character, both domestic and political. The timid, the wavering, the feeble-minded, the sons of indolence and ease, were not among those, who left the comforts of home, braved the tem- pests of the ocean, and sought danger on the shores of an unknown and inhospitable world. Incited by various motives they might have been ; by a fondness for adventure, curiosity, gain, or a dread of oppression ; yet none but the bold, ener- getic, determined, persevering, would yield to these motives or any other. Akin to these characteristics, and indeed a con- comitant with them, was a spirit of freedom, and 124 THE BOSTON BOOK. a restlessness under constraint. The New Eng- land settlers, we know, came away on this ground alone, goaded to a sense of their invaded rights by the thorns of religious intolerance. But whatever motives may have operated, the promi- nent fact remains the same, and in this we may see throughout the colonies a uniform basis of that vigor of character, and indomitable love of liberty, which appeared ever afterwards, in one guise or another, whenever occasions called them out. Hence it was, also, that the different colonies, although under dissimilar modes of government, some more and some less dependent on the crown, preserved a close resemblance in the spirit of their internal regulations, that spirit, or those principles, which entered deeply into the opinions of the people, and upon which their habits were formed. Beginning everywhere in small bodies, elections implied almost a universal suffrage, and every individual became acquainted with his rights, and accustomed to use the power they gave him. Increase of numbers made no change in this respect. Charters were given and taken away, laws were annulled, and the King’s judges de- cided against the colonial pretensions. The lib- erties of the mass were thus abridged, and the powers of legislation curtailed, but the people still went on, voting for their representatives and their municipal officers, and practising all the AMERICAN HISTORY. 125 elementary acts of independent government ; and the legislatures had new opportunities of asserting their rights before the world, studying them more deeply, watching over them more cautiously, and in this way gaining strength to their cause, through the agency of the very means that were employed to depress or destroy it. The primary elections were never reached by these oppressive measures of the supreme power, and, as they were founded on principles of close analogy in all the colonies, conformable to the circumstances of their origin, they were not only the guardian of the liberties of each, from its first foundation, but they became at last the cementing force, which bound them together, when a great and united effort was necessary. Another element of unity in the colonial period was the fact of the colonists springing from the same stock ; for although Holland, Germany and Sweden contributed a few settlers, yet the mass was of English origin, inheriting the free spirit that had been at work from the era of Runny Mead downwards, in building up the best parts of the British Constitution, and framing laws to protect them. The Sidneys, and Miltons, and Lockes of England were teachers in America as well as in their native land, and more effectual, because their instructions fell in a readier soil, and sprang up with a livelier and bolder growth. The books of England were the fountains of knowledge in America, from which all parts drew 11 * 126 THE BOSTON BOOK. equally, imbibing common habitudes of thought and opinion, and an intellectual uniformity. Our fathers soon saw, that the basis of virtue, the security of civil order and freedom, must be laid in the intelligence of the people. Schools were established and means provided, not everywhere with a zeal so ardent, and a forethought so judi- cious, as among the descendants of the pilgrims, but yet in all places according to their situation, and the tendency of controlling causes. The colonial wars form another combining principle in the unity of that period, and furnish materials for vivid delineations of character and animated narrative. The English and French colonies were always doomed to espouse the quar- rels and participate the broils of their rival heads in Europe, who continued to nourish a root of bitterness, that left but few intervals of peace, and fewer still of harmonious feeling. When the fire of discord was kindled into open hostility, its flame soon reached America, and roused all hearts to the conflict. Louisburg and Nova Scotia, Lake George and Braddock’s field, Os- wego and Niagara, have witnessed the bravery of our ancestors, and the blood they expended, fighting the battles as well of transatlantic ambi- tion as of self-defence. But there was a great moral cause at work in this train of events. By these trials, costly and severe as they were, the colonists were learning the extent of their physical resources, acting as AMERICAN HISTORY. 127 one people, gaining the experience and nerving the sinews, that were at a future day to serve them in a mightier contest. Much blood was shed, but it was the price of future glory to their country ; many a fair flower was cut off in the freshness of its bloom, many a sturdy oak was felled in the majesty of its strength, yet posterity will not forget the maxim of the Roman law, that they, who fall for their country, live in the im- mortality of their fame. Next come the Indian wars, which commenced with the first landing of the pilgrim wanderers, and ceased not till the proud sons of the forest W had melted away like an evening cloud, or dis- appeared. in the remote solitudes of their own wilderness. The wars of the Indians, their char- acter and manners, their social and political con- dition, are original, having no prototype in any former time or race of men. They mingle in all the incidents of our colonial history, and stamp upon it an impression novel and peculiar. With a strength of character and a reach of intellect, unknown in any other race of absolute savages, the Indian united many traits, some of them honorable and some degrading to humanity, which made him formidable in his enmity, faith- less in his friendship, and at all times a danger- ous neighbor : cruel, implacable, treacherous, yet not without a few of the better qualities of the heart and the head ; a being of contrasts, violent in his passions, hasty in his anger, fixed in his 128 THE BOSTON BOOK. revenge, yet cool in counsel, seldom betraying his plighted honor, hospitable, sometimes generous. A few names have stood out among them, which, with the culture of civilization, might have been shining stars on the lists of recorded fame. Philip, Pondiac, Sassacus, if the genius of an- other Homer were to embalm their memory, might rival the Hectors and Agamemnons of heroic renown, scarcely less savage, not less saga- cious or brave. Indian eloquence, if it did not flow with the richness of Nestor’s wisdom, or bum with Achil- % les’ fire, spoke in the deep strong tones of nature, and resounded from the chords of truth. The answer of the Iroquois chief to the French, who wished to purchase his lands, and push him far- ther into the wilderness, Voltaire has pronounced superior to any sayings of the great men com- memorated by Plutarch. u We were bom on this spot ; our fathers are buried here. Shall we say to the bones of our fathers, arise, and go with us into a strange land ? 77 But more has been said of their figurative lan- guage, than seems to be justified by modern expe- rience. Writers of fiction have distorted the Indian character, and given us anything but originals. Their fancy has produced sentimental Indians, a kind of beings that never existed in reality; and Indians clothing their ideas in the gorgeous imagery of external nature, which they had neither the refinement to conceive, nor words AMERICAN HISTORY. 129 to express. In truth, when we have lighted the pipe of concord, kindled or extinguished a coun- cil fire, buried the bloody hatchet, sat down under the tree of peace with its spreading branches, and brightened the chain of friendship, we have nearly exhausted their flowers of rhetoric. But the imagery prompted by internal emotion, and not by the visible world, the eloquence of con- densed thought and pointed expression, the elo- quence of a diction extremely limited in its forms, but nervous and direct, the eloquence of truth unadorned and of justice undisguised, these are often found in Indian speeches, and constitute their chief characteristic. It should, moreover, be said for the Indians, that, like the Carthaginians, their history has been written by their enemies. The tales of their wrongs and their achievements may have been told by the warrior-chiefs to stimulate the cour- age, and perpetuate the revenge of their children, but they were traces in the sand ; they perished in a day, and their memory is gone. Such are the outlines of our colonial history, which constitute its unity, and make it a topic* worthy to be illustrated by the labors of industry and talent. The details, if less imposing,^ are copious and varied. The progress of society developing itself in new modes, at first in isolated communities scattered along the sea-coast, and then gradually approximating each other, extend- ing to the interior, subduing the forests with a 130 THE BOSTON BOOK. magic almost rivalling the lyre of Orpheus, and encountering everywhere the ferocity of uncivil- ized man ; the plans of social government neces- sarily suggested by such a state of things, and their operations in the advancing stages of im- provement and change; the fantastic codes of laws, and corresponding habitudes, that sprang from the reveries of our Puritan fathers; the admirable systems which followed them, con- ceived by men tutored only in the school of free- dom and necessity, exceeding in political wisdom ^and security of rights the boasted schemes of •ancient lawgivers; the wild and disorganizing frenzies of religious fanaticism ; the misguided severities of religious intolerance ; the strange aberration^ of the human mind, and abuses of power, in abettings the criminal folly of witch- craft; the struggles,. that were ever going on, between the Governors and the Assemblies, the former urging the demands^of,. prerogative, the latter maintaining the claims of liberty; the sources of growing nvealth : the influence of knowledge widely diffused, of religion unshackled by .the trammels of power ; the manners and ha^t^f- the people at ^ferent times, and in dif- fered places, taking their hue from such a com- bination of causes; these, and a thousand other ;foatur?^^^)ly interesting and full of variety, belong to the^ortfAiture^f colo.niaKhistory, w giv- ing symmetry to its pans,' and completeness to the whole, AMERICAN HISTORY. 131 The Revolutionary period, like the Colonial, has hitherto been but imperfectly elucidated, and perhaps for the same reason. The voluminous materials, printed and unprinted, widely scattered in this country and in Europe, some obvious and well known, many unexplored, have been formi- dable obstacles to the execution of such an under- taking. No Rymers have yet appeared among us, who were willing to spend a life in gathering up and embodying these memorials ; and, till public encouragement shall prompt and aid such a design, till the national representatives shall have leisure to pause for a moment from theifl weighty cares in adjusting the wheels of state, and emulate the munificent patriotism of other governments, by adopting measures to collect and preserve the perishing records of the wisdom and. valor of their fathers ; till this shall be done, the historian of the revolution must labor under disadvantages, which his zeal will hardly stimu- late him to encounter, nor his genius enable him to surmount. The subject itself is one of the best, that ever employed the pen of a writer, whether considered in the object at stake, the series of acts by which it was accomplished, or its consequences. It prop- erly includes a cortipass of twenty years, extend- ing from the close of the French war in America to the general peace at Paris. The best history in existence, though left unfinished, that of the Peloponnesian war, by Thucydides, embraces 132 THE BOSTON BOOK. exactly the same space of time, and is not dis- similar in the details of its events. The revolu- tionary period, thus defined, is rounded with epic exactness, having a beginning, a middle, and an end ; a time for causes to operate, for the stir of action, and for the final results. The machinery in motion is on the broadest scale of grandeur. We see the new world, young in age, but resolute in youth, lifting up the arm of defiance against the haughtiest power of the old; fleets and armies, on one side, crossing the ocean in daring attitude and confiding strength ; |^n the other, men rallying round the banner of union, and fighting on their natal soil for freedom, rights, existence; the long struggle and successful issue ; hope confirmed, justice triumphant. The passions are likewise here at work, in all the changing scenes of politics and war, in the delib- erations of the senate, the popular mind, and the martial excitements of the field. We have elo- quence and deep thought in counsel, alertness and bravery in action, self-sacrifice, fortitude, and patient suffering of hardship through toil and danger to the last. If we search for the habili- ments of dignity with which to clothe a historical subject, or the looser drapery of ornament with which to embellish a narrative, where shall we find them thronging more thickly, or in happier contrasts, than during this period ? The causes of the revolution, so fertile a theme of speculation, are less definite than have been AMERICAN HISTORY. 133 imagined. The whole series of colonial events was a continued and accumulating cause. The spirit was kindled in England ; it went with Rob- inson’s congregation to Holland ; it landed with them at Plymouth ; it was the basis of the first constitution of these sage and self-taught legisla- tors ; it never left them nor their descendants. It extended to the other colonies, where it met with a kindred impulse, was nourished in every breast, and became rooted in the feelings of the whole people. The revolution was a change of forms, but not of substance ; the breaking of a tie, but not the* creation of a principle; the establishment of an independent nation, but not the origin of its intrinsic political capacities. The foundations of society, although unsettled for the moment, were not essentially disturbed ; its pillars were shaken, but never overthrown. The convulsions of war subsided, and the people found themselves, in their local relations and customs, their immediate privileges and enjoyments, just where they had been at the beginning. The new forms trans- ferred the supreme authority from the King and Parliament of Great Britain to the hands of the people. This was a gain, but not a renovation ; a security against future encroachments, but not an exemption from any old duty, nor an imposi- tion of any new one, farther than that of being at the trouble to govern themselves. 12 134 THE BOSTON BOOK. Hence the latent cause of what has been called a revolution was the fact, that the political spirit and habits in America had waxed into a shape so different from those in England, that it was no longer convenient to regulate them by the same forms. In other words, the people had grown to be kings, and chose to exercise their sovereign prerogatives in their own way. Time alone would have effected the end, probably without so violent an explosion, had it not been hastened by particular events, which may be denominated the proximate causes. These took their rise at the close of the French war, twelve years before the actual contest began. Relieved from future apprehensions of the French power on the frontiers, the colonists now had leisure to think of themselves, of their political affairs, their numbers, their united strength. At this juncture, the most inauspicious possible for the object in view, the precious device of taxing the colonies was resorted to by the British minis- try, which, indeed, had been for some time a secret scheme in the cabinet, and had been recom- mended by the same sagacious governor of Vir- ginia, who found the people in such a republican way of acting, that he could not manage them to his purpose. The fruit of this policy was the Stamp Act, which has been considered a primary cause ; and it was so, in the same sense that a torch is the AMERICAN HISTORY. 135 cause of a conflagration, kindling the flame, but not creating the combustible materials. Effects then became causes, and the triumphant opposi- tion to this tax was the cause of its being renewed on tea and other articles, not so much, it was avowed, for the amount of revenue it would yield, as to vindicate the principle, that Parlia- ment had a right to tax the colonies. The people resisted the act, and destroyed the tea, to show that they likewise had a principle, for which they felt an equal concern. By these experiments on their patience, and these struggles to oppose them, their confidence was increased, as the tree gains strength at its root, by the repeated blasts of the tempests against its branches. From this time a mixture of causes was at work ; the pride of power, the disgrace of defeat, the arrogance of office, on the one hand ; a sense of wrong, indignant feeling, and an enthusiasm for liberty on the other. These were secondary, having slight connection with the first springs of the revolution, or the per- vading force by which it was kept up, although important filaments in the network of history. The acts of the revolution derive dignity and interest from the character of the actors, and the nature and magnitude of the events. It has been remarked, that in all great political revolutions, men have arisen, possessed of extraordinary en- dowments, adequate to the exigency of the time. It is true enough, that such revolutions, or any 136 THE BOSTON BOOK. remarkable and continued exertions of human power, must be brought to pass by corresponding qualities in the agents ; but whether the occasion makes the men, or men the occasion, may not always be ascertained with exactness. In either case, however, no period has been adorned with examples more illustrious, or more perfectly adapted to the high destiny awaiting them, than that of the American Revolution. Statesmen were at hand, who, if not skilled in the art of governing empires, were thoroughly imbued with the principles of just government, intimately acquainted with the history of former ages, and, above all, with the condition, senti- ments, feelings of their countrymen. If there were no Richelieus nor Mazarines, no Cecils nor Chathams, in America, there were men, who, like Themistocles, knew how to raise a small state to glory and greatness. The eloquence and the internal counsels of the Old Congress were never recorded; we know them only in their results ; but that assembly, with no other power than that conferred by the suffrage of the people, with no other influence than that of their public virtue and talents, and without precedent to guide their deliberations, unsupported even by the arm of law or of ancient usages, that assembly levied troops, imposed taxes, and for years not only retained the confi- dence and upheld the civil existence of a dis- tracted country, but carried through a perilous AMERICAN HISTORY. 137 war under its most aggravating burdens of sacri- fice and suffering. Can we imagine a situation, in which were required higher moral courage, more intelligence and talent, a deeper insight into human nature and the principles of social and political organizations, or, indeed, any of those qualities, which constitute greatness of character in a statesman ? See, likewise, that work of wonder, the Confederation, a union of indepen- dent states, constructed in the very heart of a desolating war, but with a beauty and strength, imperfect as it was, of which the ancient leagues of the Amphictyons, the Achseans, the Lycians, and the modern confederacies of Germany, Hol- land, Switzerland, afford neither exemplar not parallel. In their foreign affairs these same statesmen showed no less sagacity and skill, taking their stand boldly in the rank of nations, maintaining it there, competing with the tactics of practised diplomacy, and extorting from the powers of the old world not only the homage of respect, but the proffers of friendship. The 'military events of the revolution, which necessarily occupy so much of its history, are not less honorable to the actors, nor less fruitful in the evidences they afford of large design and ability of character. But these we need not recount. They live in the memory of all ; we have heard them from the lips of those who saw and suffered ; they are inscribed on imperishable 12 * 138 THE BOSTON BOOK. monuments ; the very hills and plains around us tell of achievements, which can never die ; and the day will come, when the traveller, who has gazed and pondered at Marathon and Waterloo, will linger on the mount where Prescott fought and Warren fell, and say — Here is the field where man has struggled in his most daring con- flict ; here is the field where liberty poured out her noblest blood, and won her brightest and most enduring laurels. Happy was it for America, happy for the world, that a great name, a guardian genius, presided over her destinies in war, combining more than the virtues of the Roman Fabius and the Theban Epaminondas, and compared with whom, the conquerors of the world, the Alexan- ders and Caesars, are but pageants crimsoned with blood and decked with the trophies of slaughter, objects equally of the wonder and the execration of mankind. The hero of America was the conqueror only of his country’s foes, and the hearts of his countrymen. To the one he was a terror, and in the other he gained an ascendency, supreme, unrivalled, the tribute of admiring gratitude, the reward of a nation’s love. The deep interest excited by the events of war does not derive its intenseness from the numbers engaged. The army of Xerxes astounds 11s with its embodied millions, but it is only with Leoni- das, and his three hundred Spartans, that the heart mingles its sympathies, and is agitated with AMERICAN HISTORY. 139 thrilling hopes and fears. Kings pursue the game of war, as men play at chess. They martial their hosts, battles are fought, and there are con- quest and defeat. We may follow their fortunes with a languid curiosity, but with no intense feeling. The reason is obvious. We can be wrought upon only by vivid impressions, and what in some way touches the springs of the human affections. The American armies, compared with the em- battled legions of the old world, were small in numbers, but the soul of a whole people centred in the bosom of these more than Spartan bands, and vibrated quickly and keenly with every inci- dent that befell them, whether in their feats of valor, or the acuteness of their sufferings. The country itself was one wide battle-field, in which not merely the life-blood, but the dearest interests, the sustaining hopes, of every individual, were at stake. It was not a war of pride and ambition between monarchs, in which an island or a prov- ince might be the award of success; it was a contest for personal liberty and civil rights, com- ing down in its principles to the very sanctuary of home and the fireside, and determining for every man the measure of responsibility he should hold over his own condition, possessions, and happiness. The spectacle was grand and new, and may well be cited as the most glowing page in the annals of progressive man. 140 THE BOSTON BOOK. The instructive lesson of history, teaching by example, can nowhere be studied with more profit, or with a better promise, than in this revo- lutionary period of America ; and especially by us, who sit under the tree our fathers have planted, enjoy its shade, and are nourished by its fruits. But little is our merit, or gain, that we applaud their deeds, unless we emulate their vir- tues. Love of country was in them an absorbing principle, an undivided feeling ; not of a frag- ment, a section, but of the whole country. Union was the arch on which they raised the strong tower of a nation’s independence. Let the arm be palsied, that would loosen one stone in the basis of this fair structure, or mar its beauty ; the tongue mute, that would dishonor their names, by calculating the value of that, which they deemed without price. They have left us an example already inscribed in the world’s memory; an example, portentous to the aims of tyranny in every land ; an exam- ple that will console in all ages the drooping aspi- rations of oppressed humanity. They have left us a written charter as a legacy, and as a guide to our course. But every day convinces us, that a written charter may become powerless. Igno- rance may misinterpret it ; ambition may assail and faction destroy its vital parts ; and aspiring knavery may at last sing its requiem on the tomb of departed liberty. It is the spirit which lives; AMERICAN HISTORY. 141 in this are our safety and our hope ; the spirit of our fathers; and while this dwells deeply in our remembrance, and its flame is cherished, ever burning, ever pure, on the altar of our hearts ; while it incites us to think as they have thought, and do as they have done, the honor and the praise will be ours, to have preserved unim- paired the rich inheritance, which they so nobly achieved. THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. By Rufus Dawes. The Spirit of Beauty unfurls her light, And wheels her course in a joyous flight : I know her track through the balmy air, By the blossoms that cluster and whiten there ; She leaves the tops of the mountains green, And gems the valleys with crystal sheen. At morn, I know where she rested at night, For the roses are gushing with dewy delight : Then she mounts again, and around her flings A shower of light from her purple wings, Till the spirit is lost in the music on high, That silently fills it with ecstasy ! At noon she hies to a cool retreat, Where bowering elms over waters meet ; She dimples the wave, where the green leaves dip, That smiles, as it curls, like a maiden’s lip, When her tremulous bosom would hide, in vain, From her lover, the hope that she loves again. THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. 143 At eve, she hangs o’er the western sky Dark clouds for a glorious canopy ; And round the skirts of each sweeping fold, She paints a border of crimson and gold, Where the lingering sunbeams love to stay, When their god in his glory has passed away. She hovers around us at twilight hour, When her presence is felt with the deepest power ; ] She mellows the landscape, and crowds the stream With shadows that flit like a fairy dream : — Still wheeling her flight through the gladsome air, The Spirit of Beauty is everywhere ! THE HOUSEHOLD. By I. C. Pray, Jr. The roof is old. The moss-tufts green Cover each crevice, and their sheen Is diamond-gemmed with dew : A rosy girl, of summers five, Her features fair and glowing, Plays in the sun, so all-alive, Her locks so light and flowing, She seems a fairy child — a sprite, Just born to gratify the light — A vision sweet and new. A laughing boy, above a well, Is peeping down. He cannot tell What spirit is below. He wonders if he sees an elf ; It laughs when he is laughing. Is it the semblance of himself, Or some one water quaffing? To find the truth, he calls aloud. Echo but mocks. The boy is proud, And chiding says, “I know.” THE HOUSEHOLD. 14 Within a porch, upon a chair Time-worn, and rich with carving rare, Supported by a staff, A grandfather, with wrinkled face, And gray eyes dimly sparkling, Is watching some far distant place, As twilight there is darkling, With anxious mind — till down a steep A boy and girl like light fawns leap, Spring to his knee and laugh. A grave-yard walk ! Amid its glooms Two marble slabs denote the tombs Of two, with whom decayed The grace of life and beauty’s power — Whose primal virtues burning Were not the shadows of an hour, But winged doves heavenward turning ! Joined in their lives, in death they sleep, And evermore for them will weep That orphan boy and maid. 13 TAILORS. By N. P. Willis. “ Coat ! ” said Russelton, with an appearance of the most naive sur- prise, and taking hold of the collar suspiciously, by the finger and thumb 3 u coat, Sir Willoughby ! do you call this thing a coat ? ” Pelham. A much abused person is your tailor. He is ordinarily supposed to need less endowment than his fellows — (the ninth part of a man, I think they call him) — I shall prove to you that he needs more. Poetry is a lesser art in my esteem. Any man or woman may stitch — make a “ cover-me-decently.” The world goes clothed — town and country — though, (bear us witness, Pelham !) there are but three tailors, (proper tailors, I say,) from Bath to Savannah. For the rest, their daily work is a profanity of broadcloth — a sacrilege of kerseymere. Your eyes are shocked perpetually by the sight of unfortunate strangers who have fallen into the hands of those Vandals. There should be a law against the seductions practised by them — their signs and their adver- tisements. Merit is modest, and your best artist has often the smallest shop. Your pretender covers a square with his blazing insignia — yet TAILORS. 147 would I as soon wear an Indian’s blanket, as one of his abortions. To cut a coat well, requires more gifts than are possessed by one man in a thousand. The main points are, a painter’s eye, an anatomist’s ac- quaintance with the figure, and knowledge of the character, as it is developed in walking or sitting, wearing the coat open, (frankly,) or buttoned (nicely.) How, for instance, would your old bachelor’s coat look on your ship’s mate — or your reckless, rascally frock, thrown off the shoulders and flying to the wind, on your demure deacon ? No true tailor makes a man a coat till he has seen him walk. The way you move is everything. If you have a crab’s gait, sideways, the hitch must be counteracted. If you are a meek man, and carry your head low, the collar must be set back to remedy the defect. If your passions are vio- lent, a tight sleeve or a close fit at the shoulder is impolitic. If your neck is too long or too short, if your body is crooked or your bust flat, or if you are a vain man and swell at the lower button, it must be allowed for in your coat. It is the tailor’s business to make you perfect — or seem so- — which is quite the same thing. A friend of mine is so unfortunate as to have two or three of — ’s coats on hand. It excru- ciates me to see him come into the room — flat breasted, flap-dividing, pinched collared, scrimped, pasteboard-looking abominations ! He cannot move a limb without having the whole coat fol- 14S THE BOSTON BOOK. low in a piece. Touch his collar and his skirt flies up. The moment it is unbuttoned, down hugs the cape to his neck, and out flies the back at the waist, and the whole gets at sharp angles to his figure, and presents him to your eye like a caricature of a man frightened. Save us from such spectacles ! Your vile tailor does everything by padding. He slips you into a casement of buckram as unac- commodating as a coffin, and, with the second button fastened, shoves you up to his glass, and while you stand perfectly still, because you are unable to move, praises the smoothness of the fit ! And then the pantaloons! We were seduced once to commit ourself to the care of the fellow above-mentioned. The first pair we could not sit down in, if we were to be hanged. The second pair would have fitted Daniel Lambert. We would not trust such a fellow to make a cover for an umbrella. Next to the human form divine, the most beau- tiful thing in nature is a perfect coat. It is like a perfect style — it looks as if it was the easiest thing in the world. The collar lies loose, and yet neatly to the shoulders. The back, buttoned or unbut- toned, fits neatly and under all motions to the figure. The skirts hang gracefully, and indepen- dently of the back, parallel and slender. The sleeves work fitly with the arm, and the breasts lay flat and yet ample on the chest, and the wearer has that look in it, that a spectator would TAILORS. 149 suppose it grew to him — that it was a part and evidence of his fair proportions and the skill of the artist. There are a few artists who have acquired immortality in the cut of pantaloons; hut a man must grow gray in practice, before he acquires even the theoretical principles of that article. You shall go through the cities, and look at the popular tailors, and if there is one who can cut but a fragment of a coat well, who has not a fine head phrenologically, we are forsworn. Our life on it, Stultz and Watson had heads for senators. You may search the world over, and we will warrant the result. Your quack tailors should be selected for simpletons at once. They are all face — all animal. Their heads are as flat behind as the white sides of a melon. 13 * THE BUCKET. By Samuel Woodworth. How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, When fond recollection presents them to view ; The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wild-wood, And every loved spot which my infancy knew ; The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it, The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell ; The cot of my father, the dairy -house nigh it, And e’en the rude bucket which hung in the well ; The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well ! That moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure ; For often at noon, when returned from the field, I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure, The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. How ardent I seized it with hands that were glowing, And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell, Then soon with the emblem of truth overflowing, And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well ; The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket arose from the w T ell ! THE BUCKET. 151 How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it, As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips ! Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips. And now, far removed from the loved situation, The tear of regret will intrusively swell, As fancy reverts to my father’s plantation, And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well ; The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket which hangs in his well ! THE SPIRIT OF NEW ENGLAND. By John S. J. Gardiner. It has been apprehended by some, that the fame of New England will fade before the increasing glories of the more powerful sister states. But the apprehension is unfounded. She must ever form an important member of the Union. She must ever sparkle a brilliant star, in the constellation of the confederated states, as long as she preserves her religious, civil and literary character, her indefatigable industry, and her commercial enter- prize. For in what consist the greatness and re- spectability of a nation ? Most assuredly, not in the numerical superiority of its inhabitants, or in the extent of its territory. If that were the case, China and India would be more powerful than Europe. But the greatness and respectability of a nation consist in the virtue, and vigor, and tal- ents of its citizens. Rome, which sprang from the humblest origin, by her admirable institutions, and steady valor and free spirit, subdued and overawed the world. Athens and Sparta, both small states, but glorying in freedom and inde- pendence, repulsed and defeated the numerous ar- mies of the Great King; and Alexander, with THE SPIRIT OF NEW ENGLAND. 153 thirty thousand Grecians, subjugated the various and extensive provinces of Asia. What enabled the land of our fathers, in a late contest, with very inferior numbers, successfully to resist almost all Europe combined against her, under the auspices of one of the ablest generals that any age has ever produced? The freedom of her constitution, and that spirit which freedom never fails to inspire, aided by her commercial wealth, and the navy which protects it. And while these shall remain unimpaired, the conquest of Western Europe, by the arms of the northern powers, will prove an idle dream. It never can be realized, while superior- ity of civilization shall continue in favor of the opponent. What constitutes a state ? Not high-raised battlements ; or labored mound. Thick wall, or moated gate 3 Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned, Not bays and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride j Nor starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. No. Men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued, In forest, brake or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude; Men, who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain, Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain ; — These constitute a state. And while the inhabitants of New England, and of this ancient state in particular, shall pre- 154 THE BOSTON BOOK. serve and continue to improve their present ad- vantages, they cannot fail to fill their ancient space in the eye of America and the world. From this our eastern hive issue annually swarms of our enterprising fellow-citizens, carrying with them into the wilderness, the lights of learning, and of civilization, and of religion. “ The dreary desert and the howling waste 77 gradually disappear be- fore them. A terrestrial “ paradise is opened in the wild. 7 ’ The comfortable cottage and social hamlet arise, and the newly-raised sanctuary be- comes vocal with the praises of the Creator and Redeemer. Nor does the enterprise of New England exact less tribute from the ocean. Our “march,” like that of our progenitors, is also “on the mountain wave.” “ Our home is on the deep . 77 The American flag displays its stripes over every sea that bathes the shores of the habitable globe; and we are amply supplied with all the necessaries and luxuries of foreign climes. The fruits of this commercial enterprise are visi- ble whithersoever we turn our eyes ; in the splen- did palaces, which adorn our city and our towns: in the elegant villas, which decorate their vicinity ; and in the enchanting scenery, created by the united powers of taste and wealth, and reclaimed from a rugged soil. These advantages we can never lose but through our own fault ; by the neglect or abandonment of those principles and institutions to which they owe THE SPIRIT OF NEW ENGLAND. 1 55 their rise. Even should an event so unfortunate ever happen — for we cannot foresee “ through what varied scenes of untried being ” we may yet “pass ” — still the justly earned fame of this an- cient state and metropolis can never die. It will survive in the annals of history, imperishable as the page that records it. The ground we tread on is classic ground. It is enriched with the blood of patriots, and consecrated by their he- roic deeds. Here — will the future pilgrim say — here is the birth-place of American Independence. Here first was heard the voice that led to it — Tax- ation WITHOUT REPRESENTATION IS TYRANNY. Here first the unconstitutional encroachments of the parent country were resisted. Here first the battle bled. Here the gallant Warren fell, in the vigor of manhood, the first distinguished martyr to the liberties of his country. These are achievements, that will immor- talize the name of Massachusetts and of Boston. The laurels which they have gathered will never lose their verdure. It will freshen with the lapse of time. The fame of her statesmen and of her heroes will grow with the increase of years. Its shadow will lengthen as her sun de- clines. The deeds of their progenitors will sur- vive in the memory of a grateful posterity. They will inspire in distant generations an honorable pride and patriotic emulation, long after the mon- umental marble shall have crumbled into ruins, and its countless atoms shall have mingled with the wind. THE DEAD. By Grenville Mellen. Ye dead, ye dead — why come ye so Like shadows round my head, Stealing with steps so dim and slow, And such a noiseless tread ? Ye come like dreams of buried years, Not veiled in frowns, but bright in tears ! The night is bowing round the world ; My spirit is alone ! And have ye all your shrouds unfurled, And your dark kingdom flown, Souls of the glorious and high ! To breathe on one so sunk as I ? Then come, ye visions of the grave, I welcome ye to earth ; I see ye rise from land and wave, As summoned to new birth ! I see ye come, a glimmering band, Like stars before night’s ebon wand ! Shadows of beauty ! I have dreamed Of glory passed away To realms where all its brightness seemed TIIE DEAD. 157 Lost in one golden day ; The glory of some holy one, Who shone, on earth, my spirit’s sun ! Shadows of beauty ! do ye dwell In such high company — Where Heaven’s unbounded arches swell, Where ’t is unknown to die ? Live ye, emancipated there, Semblance of all on earth ye were ? Oh ! do these robes that round me sail, These shadowy robes of air, The same pure forms of beauty veil, That gladden life’s wayfare ? Do ye united wing the skies, In shapes once light of mortal eyes ? Spirits of loveliness ! are ye Before the Old in Days, Permitted in those courts to see Life’s loved ones bend in praise ? Meet ye those idols purified, For whom, on earth, ye wept — and died ? Oh ! if to pilgrim man ’t were given To meet in yonder sky His friends, devote to God and Heaven, It were but bliss to die ! What joy to tread those fields for aye, In such a deathless company ; 14 THE BOSTON BOOK. To sweep the golden harps ; to rise Upon the eternal lyre, With melody that never dies, From the white-robed angel choir; To pour the soul in one glad song, That echoing ages shall prolong ! Then welcome — ye long buried forms, Ye beautiful of old ! Your voice my stirring spirit warms Into fair dreams untold. New life, new life is breaking there, Deep in yon sparkling realms of air ! I fear ye not — I fear ye not, Dim shadows of the grave, Revoking years I had forgot From time’s relentless wave ! Ye tell me we shall meet again, Where comes not sorrow, blight, or pain POETRY. By Orville Dewey. What is poetry ? The common answer would be, that it is some peculiar gift, some intellectual effluence, distinct, not merely in form, not merely in rhythm, but essentially and in its very nature distinct from all prose writings. Its numbers are mystic numbers; its themes are far above us, and away from us, in the clouds, or in the hues of the distant landscape ; it is at war with the realities of life; and it is especially afraid of logic. It is using no extravagant language, it is commit- ting no vulgar mistake, to say, that poetry is re- garded as a kind of “ peculiar trade and mystery,” nay, in a sense beyond that of this technical lan- guage, as a real and absolute mystery. In one of the most distinguished journals of the day, we find a writer complaining after this sort: — “ Poetry,” says he, u the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, and with one or another meaning, has been called inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition.” And why — let 160 THE BOSTON BOOK. us ask — why should it be without its exposition ? — ay, and if there were any such thing as a sci- ence of criticism among us, (for the truth is, there is a great deal less of it than there was in the days of Addison and Johnson,) I would say its scientific exposition. What is poetry ? What is this mysterious thing, but one form in which hu- man nature expresses itself? What is it but em- bodying, what is it but “ showing up,” in all its moods, from the lowliest to the loftiest, the same deep and impassioned, but universal mind, which is alike and equally the theme of philosophy ? What does poetry tell us, but that which was already in our own hearts? What are all its intermingled lights and shadows ; what are its gorgeous clouds of imagery, and the hues of its distant landscapes ; what are its bright and blessed visions, and its dark pictures of sorrow and passion, but the varied reflection of the beauti- ful and holy, and yet overshadowed, and marred, and afflicted nature within us ? And how then is poetry any more inscrutable than our own hearts are inscrutable ! To whom or to what, let me ask again, does poetry address itself? To what, in its heroic ballads, in its epic song, in its humbler verse, in its strains of love, or pity, or indignation, — to what does it speak, but to human nature, but to the common mind of all the world ? And its noblest productions, its Iliads, its Hamlets and Lears, the whole world has understood, — the POETRY. 161 rude and the refined, the anchorite and the throng of men. There is poetry in real life, and in the humblest life ; and in this, if it may not misbe- come me to say so, is one of the noblest of our English poets right; though in the application of his theory, I would venture to assert, with the same reservation for my modesty, that he has sometimes made the most lamentable, not to say ludicrous mistakes. There in “ unwritten poetry there is poetry in prose; there is poetry in all living hearts. Let him be the true poet who shall find it, sym- pathize with it, and bring it to light. He that does so must deeply study human nature. He that does so, must, whether he knows it or not, be a philosopher. Much there is, no doubt, of technical language, much about quiddities and entities, that he may not know. But he must know, and that by deep study and observation, how feelings and passions rise in the human breast, what are those which coexist, what repel each other, what naturally spring one from an- other; he must know what within is moved, and how it is put in action by all this moving world around us ; what chords are struck, not only by the rough touches of fortune, but what are swept by invisible influences ; he must know all the wants, and sufferings, and joys of this inward being, what are its darkest struggles, its sublimest tendencies, its most soothing hopes, and most 14 * 162 THE BOSTON BOOK. blessed affections ; and all this is divine philoso- phy. He must wait almost in prayer at the ora- cle within ; he must write the very language of his own soul; he must write no rash response from the shrines of idolized models; but asking, questioning, listening to the voice within, as he writes ; and then will the deepest philosophy take the form of the noblest inspiration. THE LAST BOUQUET. By H. T. Tuckerman. There ’s sadness in your bloom to-night, My freshly-gathered flowers, As though ye conscious emblems were Of happy by-gone hours : Your fragrant breath floats heavily ; Each leaflet seems to say — O’er writ with fairy-graven lines — “ It is the last bouquet.” The drops within your chalices Seem tears ye shed for me, O’er hopes that like ye clustered once In glad fraternity ; But ye are destined for a shrine Where I no more can lay My floral gifts, and to it now I bear my last bouquet. When deeply in your buds ye slept, I culled with heart-felt glee Your gay compeers, the elder born, And twined them merrily. 164 THE BOSTON BOOK. To speak what flowers were made to tell, And what they best can say — The olden charm bides not with ye — Ye are Love’s last bouquet. While winding down our pilgrim path, Through this dim vale of care, With rapture deep and beaming eye, We hail each new parterre, Where buds of hope and half-blown joys Are blent in bright array; Delighted there we pluck and bind, Till Pleasure’s last bouquet. Oh ! when each flowery nook is gleaned, And nought remains to wreathe, But shrubs all wild and flowerless, That no sweet odors breathe — Unto perennial fields I ’d fly, Through upper gardens stray, To tread again no desert track, Nor cull a last bouquet. THE IDLE BOYS. [An Illustration of a Picture by Fisher.] By J. O. Sargent. Hardly a hundred years have passed Since I was gay as you ; When earth was ever green to me, And skies were ever blue ,* And I loved the running summer brook And the forest’s autumn hue. But time, that brings some change to all, Hath wrought much change with me : And in many things I am much unlike The boy I used to be, When years ago I loved to play Beneath the spreading tree. Care has not overshadowed me, Nor sorrow been my lot ; And I have spent some pleasant hours Too bright to he forgot ; And forged strong chains that bind me to This dim and earthly spot. 166 THE BOSTON BOOK. My best and earliest friend is dead, Untouched by stain of sin ; But they still live whose memories Light up a love within, — Hope lives — and holds the laurels out That I would die to win ! For a wide future is before — My heart beats high for fame ; And I have learned to breathe with love The music of a name, Writ on the tablets of my heart In syllables of flame. Oh ! little thought have ye of all That comes in after years, To stir the spirit with a spell Of changing hopes and fears, And ruin all the fancy-work That dreaming boyhood rears. Play— while the glad hours sparkle by, Like the bubbles'' of a stream ; Play on — the world may be to you, All that it now may seem ; Love may not be a phantasy, Nor fame an idle dream ! BARBERS. By S. P. Holbrook. There is good matter for speculation in your bar- ber’s brain — u he hath strange places crammed With observation $ the which he vents In mangled forms.” His mind is a dainty piece of Mosaic — a tesse- lated pavement, inlaid with fragments of various forms and colors ; here a bit of politics, there a ' bit of poetry; here a little law, there a little physic; here “a piece of black stone, and there a piece of white.” He cuts out his speech so as to fit every one who comes on. He can discourse to a farmer, of bullocks ; to a merchant, of ships ; to a broker, of stocks, and to a fine gentleman, of himself. His conversation, for the most part, consists of what Wordsworth calls “ personal talk.” He deals with men, not principles. Every flying bit of news, every anecdote, every good thing said by the leading wits of the day, seems to come right through his shop window, and to stick to him, like burs on a boy’s jacket. He knows all the engagements, the failures, the 168 THE BOSTON BOOK. deaths ; who pays his tailor, and who does not : who wears false whiskers, and who real ; he can tell you in a whisper, the name of the young gentleman that was carried before the Police Court for riotous conduct, and of the lady of “ respectable connections,’ 5 who was detected in walking out of a shop in Washington Street, with a yard or two of lace more than she had paid for. He has a shrewd trick of observation, too. He speculates a good deal on that part of the head which lies above the nose. He sees a man’s char- acter as well as his person, in a state of undress. When a man is in an arm-chair, his head thrown back, his coat off, lathered up to the eyes, he is stripped of all those cumbrous folds, which a sense of dignity, affectation, or the duty of self- defence oblige him to wear about him, in the daily walks of life. The barber learns the way to his customers’ weak side. He knows just how much flattery each one will bear to swallow, without making a wry face. Observe how that fat, old fool, now under his hands, chuckles with delight, as he tells him, “ he never saw a man of his age, with so few gray hairs upon his head.” Ever since reading the Arabian Nights I have had a warming of the heart towards a barber, and the sentiment has increased both by subse- quent reading and observation. Whenever I came across one in a book, I depended upon get- ting many a good laugh out of him, and I was BARBERS. 169 seldom disappointed. Authors, all over the world, agree in the views they take of their characters. They are always described as jovial, light-hearted dogs, full to the brim of fun and frolic, running over with animal spirits, their tongues wagging the live-long day, and only stopping long enough to laugh. Care makes many a clutch at them, but they always contrive to slip through his fingers. Poverty comes in at their door, but Cheerfulness does not fly out of the window. Old Age lays his frosty finger upon their brows, and they laugh in the gray-beard’s face. A surly, malicious, or even reserved barber, would shock our notions of propriety as much as a good- natured Saracen, or a benevolent Ogre. I grew up in a little village, and gathered my ideas of a barber from books ; he was to me a Platonic idea, a beautiful vision, an entity, a shadow; and, when I came to the city and saw a real painted pole, I took off my hat to it with an involuntary impulse of respect ; and as to the day on which, for the first time, I was professionally taken by the nose, I esteem it one of the whitest of my life. The barber, in truth, deserves all the kind treatment he has received from the hands of men of letters. He is the essence of good nature. He has a pleasant look with his eye, and he could not frown if he would. His wit is often as sharp as his own razor, but like that, it never draws blood ; it never shows itself in gibes, taunts and 15 170 THE BOSTON BOOK. thrusts. Perhaps some crusty old bachelor, that prides himself upon shaving with cold water every morning, may think this a piece of especial humbug ; if so, we have reasons for our faith as plenty as blackberries. In the first place, no one would choose the pro- fession that was not a man of peace, full of the milk of human kindness. Only think of the temptations that beset him — twenty or thirty necks laid bare to him every day of his life, with full permission to pass a sharp razor within a hair’s breadth of the carotid artery ; — who, that had a large organ of Destructiveness, could re- frain from occasionally slitting a wind-pipe, when the wind was east, or his breakfast not well digested? “ Think of that, Master Brook.” In the second place, his native goodness of heart is fostered by the circumstances in which he is placed. He takes sunny views of life, and sees men in the best mood. No one enters his shop without having a mellow glow of satisfac- tion steal over his soul. In summer it is cooler, and in winter warmer than the street, so that the first sensation is a highly pleasurable one. And whoever goes to get rid of a beard, or of an uncomfortable and unbecoming length of hair, feels happy in his errand ; it diffuses a smiling look over his face, far unlike the frowning brow and compressed lip of the poor fellow, that creeps to the dentist to have a tooth pulled, or to a law- yer to be helped out of a scrape. He takes off his BARBERS. 171 coat and cravat with an expression of relief at being free from their tight grasp. He throws himself down into the chair with an emphasis not to be mistaken , and, taking a long breath, wafts away with it all his anxieties and cares. The “ tonsorial artist” now approaches — he han- dles his collar and neck as tenderly as a mother would a new-born infant ; — he begins to lather him — there is a magic in the touch of the brush — it thrills to the marrow. Now he sees and feels the sharp steel playing around his chin, and every cut takes off a weight from his spirits. It is finished ; — he arises a new man — he feels clean and smooth, and pure in heart — he will assent to a paradox, laugh at an old story, and say amen to a prayer for his enemies. Happy the creditor that can catch him at this auspicious moment. He will be paid with a smile ! I SEE THEE STILL. By Charles Sprague. 11 1 rocked her in the cradle, And laid her in the tomb. She was the youngest : What fireside circle hath not felt the charm Of that sweet tie ! The youngest ne’er grow old. The fond endearments of our earlier days We keep alive in them ; and when they die, Our youthful joys we bury with them.” I see thee still : Remembrance, faithful to her trust, Calls thee in beauty from the dust ; Thou comest in the morning light, Thou’rt with me through the gloomy night ; In dreams I meet thee as of old ; Then thy soft arms my neck enfold, And thy sweet voice is in my ear ; In every scene to memory dear, I see thee still. I see thee still, In every hallowed token round ; This little ring thy finger bound, This lock of hair thy forehead shaded, This silken chain by thee was braided, I SEE THEE STILL. 173 These flowers, all withered now, like thee, Sweet Sister, thou didst cull for me ; This book was thine, here didst thou read ; This picture, ah ! yes, here, indeed, I see thee still. I see thee still : Here was thy summer noon’s retreat, Here was thy favorite fireside seat ; This was thy chamber — here, each day, I sat and watched thy sad decay ; Here, on this bed, thou last didst lie, Here, on this pillow — thou didst die : Dark hour ! once more its woes unfold ; As then I saw thee, pale and cold, I see thee still. I see thee still : Thou art not in the grave confined — Death cannot claim the immortal mind ; Let earth close o’er its sacred trust, But goodness dies not in the dust ; Thee, O my Sister, ’t is not thee, Beneath the coffin’s lid I see ; Thou to a fairer land art gone ; There, let me hope, my journey done, To see thee still ! 15 * THE LEAF. By S. G. Goodrich. It came with spring’s soft sun and showers, Mid bursting buds and blushing flowers ; It flourished on the same light stem, It drank the same clear dews with them. The crimson tints of summer morn, That gilded one, did each adorn. The breeze, that whispered light and brief To bud or blossom, kissed the leaf; When o’er the leaf the tempest flew, The bud and blossom trembled too. But its companions passed away, And left the leaf to lone decay. The gentle gales of spring went by, The fruits and flowers of summer die. The autumn winds swept o’er the hill, And winter’s breath came cold and chill. The leaf now yielded to the blast, And on the rushing stream was cast. Far, far it glided to the sea, And whirled and eddied wearily, Till suddenly it sank to rest, And slumbered in the ocean’s breast. THE LEAF. 175 Thus life begins — its morning hours, Bright as the birth-day of the flowers ; Thus passes like the leaves away, As withered and as lost as they. Beneath the parent roof we meet In joyous groups, and gaily greet The golden beams of love and light, That kindle to the youthful sight. But soon we part, and one by one, Like leaves and flowers, the group is gone. One gentle spirit seeks the tomb, His brow yet fresh with childhood’s bloom. Another treads the paths of fame, And barters peace to win a name. Another still tempts fortune’s wave, And seeking wealth, secures a grave. The last grasps yet the brittle thread — Though friends are gone and joy is dead, Still dares the dark and fretful tide, And clutches at its power and pride, Till suddenly the waters sever, And like the leaf he sinks forever. EASY JOE BRUCE. By H. H. Weld. “ Bless me !” exclaimed Mr. Joseph Bruce, — or perhaps we should rather say Joe Bruce, for, as he was a noble, easy fellow, nobody thought of allowing him more than half of his name, or of anything else which belonged to him, — “ I see by the paper that Hawk and Harpy have assigned. I meant to have secured my debt yesterday ! ” He left his coffee half drank, stumbled over the threshold, and went almost at a run to the counting-room of Hawk and Harpy. One half that speed on the day before would have saved his debt ; — as it was, he was just in season to put on his name at the bottom of a dozen and a half preferred ones, to receive ten per cent. He went back to his unfinished breakfast with what appe- tite he might. “Why did you neglect this so long, Mr. Bruce? ” said his helpmeet and comforter. “I meant to have attended to it yesterday, my dear.” “ You meant ! That is always your way, Mr. Bruce. You carelessly neglect your business to EASY JOE BRUCE. J77 the last moment, and then put yourself in a haste and a heat for nothing, my dear ! ” “ Really, Mrs. Bruce” But Mrs. Bruce did not allow him a chance to defend himself. O 11 she went, in the most ap- proved conjugal manner, to berate him for his carelessness and inattention. “ Really, Mrs. Bruce ” And it was really Mrs. Bruce, for few of the feminine, and none of the masculine gender, could have kept pace with her. Certainly Easy Joe could not. The clatter of a cotton-mill would not have been a circumstance to the din she raised. Easy Joe pulled a cigar-case out of his pocket — clapped his feet on the fender — and it almost seemed that the smoke rendered his ears impervious to the bleatings of that gentle lamb, his spouse, so placid was his countenance, as the vapor escaped in graceful volumes from his mouth. People overshoot the mark sometimes : Mrs. Bruce did. Had she spared her oration, the morning’s loss would have induced her husband to have been punctual to his business, for one day at least. As it was, he took the same sort of pride in neglect- ing it under her lecture, that the Grande Nation took so long in refusing to pay the claims of our citizens. “ Breeze away, Mrs. Bruce ! ” u Breeze away, sir! Breeze away! I wish I could impart one tittle of my energy to you, Mr. Bruce; 1—1” 178 THE BOSTON BOOK. Bruce sprang to his feet, and crash ! came an elegant mantel-clock down upon the hearth. “ There, Mr. Bruce ! That clock has stood there three months without fastening ; a single screw would have saved it; but” “ Well, I meant to ” “ You meant! Mr. Bruce — You meant won’t pay the damage, nor Hawk and Harpy’s note ! You meant, indeed ! ” Bruce seized his hat and cloak. In a few min- utes he was on ’Change. Nobody could read in his face any traces of the late matrimonial breeze, and nobody would have suspected from his coun- tenance that Hawk and Harpy failed in his debt. Easy Joe Bruce ! “ Well, Mr. Bruce, they’ve routed him.” “ Who?” “ Our friend Check. Pingree was chosen presi- dent of the Bank, this morning. One vote would have stopped him.” How deusedly unlucky. I meant to have been present to vote for Check myself.” “Never mind, Bruce,” said another. “You are a lucky man. The news of the great fire in Speederville has just reached town, by express, and I congratulate you that you was fully in- sured.” “Insured! my policy expired last week. I meant to have got it renewed this morning.” Joe posted home in no very happy humor. EASY JOE BRUCE. J79 When an easy man is fairly up, he is the most uneasy and unreasonable man in creation. “Mrs. Bruce, by staying at home to hear you scold, I have lost thousands. I meant to have got insured this morning. I did not; Speederville is burned down, and I am a beggar . 57 “ Why did you not do it yesterday, Mr. Bruce ? 77 “ I was thinking of Hawk and Harpy . 77 “Thinking! Why did you not secure your- self ? 77 “ I meant to, but 77 * “ But — me no buts . 77 “ You are in excellent spirits, Mrs. Bruce . 77 “ Never in better . 77 “ Vastly fine, madam. We are beggars . 77 Mrs. Bruce sat down, and clapped her feet on the fender, after her husband’s manner in the morning. “ We are beggars, madam , 77 Bruce repeated. “ Very good — I will take my guitar, and you shall shoulder the three children. We 7 ll play under Mr. Hawk’s window first, then under Mr. Harpy’s, and then beg our way to Speederville, to play to the ashes of what was once your factory — which you meant to have insured. I should like begging of all things . 77 “You abominable woman, I shall go mad . 77 “ Don’t, I beseech you. Mr. Bruce. They put mad beggars in Bedlam . 77 180 THE BOSTON BOOK. Bruce sprang for the door. His wife intercepted him. “ Here, Joseph, is a paper I meant to have shown you this morning.” u A policy ! and dated yesterday ! ” u Yes. You meant to get it renewed to-day — / meant it should be done yesterday — so I told your clerk, from you, to do it. Am I not an abominable woman ? ” “ When I said so, I was in a pet. I meant” u No more of that, Joseph. Now tell me who is first on Hawk and Harpy’s assignment.” “ Your brother.” “ His claim covers you both.” “ You are an angel, Mrs. Bruce ! ” Easy Joe became an altered man, and his wife was released from her watch over his out-door business. She died some years before him — but we are half inclined to suspect, that after her death, Joe partially relapsed into his old habits — so true it is, that habit is a second nature. Both were buried in the grave-yard at Speederville, and our suspicions are founded on something like the following conversation, which took place be- tween the grave-digger and his assistant : — “ Where are we to dig Mr. .Bruce’s grave ?” “I don’t know exactly. His will says, next his wife.” u Where was she laid? ” u That I don’t know. Easy Joe always said he meant to place an obelisk over her, — but it never was done.” THE FIELDS OF WAR. By I. McLellan, Jr. The leaders of the war of the Revolution are seen, by Fancy's eye, to take their stations on the mount of Remembrance. They come from the embattled cliffs of Abraham 5 they start from the heaving 1 sods of Bunker Hill 3 they gather from the blazing lines of Saratoga and York town* — from the blood-dyed waters of the Brandywine ; from the dreary snows of Valley-Forge, and all the hard-fought fields of the war. Edward Everett. They rise, by stream and yellow shore, By mountain, moor and fen ; By weedy rock and torrent hoar, And lonesome forest glen ! From many a woody moss-grown mound, Start forth a war-worn band, As when, of old, they caught the sound Of hostile arms, and closed around — To guard their native land. Hark ! to the clanging horn — Hark ! to the rolling drum ! Arms glitter in the flash of morn — The hosts to battle come ! 16 182 THE BOSTON BOOK. The serried files, the plumed troop, Are marshalled once again, Along the Hudson’s mountain group, Along the Atlantic main ! On Bunker, at the dead of night, I seem to view the raging fight, The burning town, the smoky height, The onset, the retreat ! And, down the banks of Brandywine, I see the levelled bayonets shine ; And lurid clouds of battle twine, Where struggling columns meet. Yorktown and Trenton blaze once more, And by the Delaware’s frozen shore, The hostile guns at midnight roar, The hostile shouts arise. The snows of Valley-Forge grow red, And Saratoga’s field is spread With heaps of undistinguished dead, And filled with dying cries ! ’T is o’er ; the battle shout has died By ocean, stream, and mountain-side ; And the bright harvest, far and wide, Waves o’er the blood-drenched field ; The rank grass o’er it greenly grows — And oft, the upturning shares disclose The buried arms and bones of those Who fell, but would not yield ! THE FIELDS OF WAR. 183 Time’s rolling chariot hath effaced The very hillocks, where were placed The bodies of the dead in haste, When closed the furious fight. The ancient fort and rampart-mound Long since have settled to the ground, On Bunker’s famous height — And the last relics of the brave Are sinking to oblivion’s grave ! ROCKALL* [Sketched while passing it.] By E. Sargent, Jr. Pale ocean rock ! that, like a phantom shape, Or some mysterious spirit’s tenement, Risest amid this wilderness of waves Lonely and desolate — thy spreading base Is planted in the sea’s unmeasured depths, Where rolls the huge leviathan o’er sands Glistening with shipwrecked treasures ! The strong wind Flings up thy sides a veil of feathery spray, With sunbeams interwoven, and the hues Which mingle in the rainbow. From thy top The sea-birds rise, and sweep with sidelong flight Downward upon their prey, or, with poised wings, Skim to the horizon o’er the glittering deep. Our bark, careening to the welcome breeze, With white sails filled and streamers all afloat, * Rockall is a block of granite, growing, as it were, out of the sea, farther from the main land, probably, than any other island or rock of the same diminutive size in the world. It is only seventy feet high, and not more than a hundred yards in circumference. It lies one hundred and eighty-four miles nearly due west of St. Kilda, the remotest part of the Hebrides, and is two hundred and sixty miles from the north of Ireland. ROCKALL. 185 Shakes from her dipping prow the foam, while we Gaze on thy outline mingling in the void, And draw our breaths like men who see, amazed, Some mighty pageant passing. What had been Our fate last night, if, when the aspiring waves Were toppling o’er our mainmast, and the stars Were shrouded in black vapors, we had struck Full on thy jagged cliffs ! gray sentinel ! But now another prospect greets our sight, And hope elate is rising with our hearts. Intensely blue the sky’s resplendent arch Bends over all serenely : not a cloud Dims its pure radiance. The refreshing air, It is a luxury to feel and breathe — The senses are made keener, and drink in The life, the joy, the beauty of the scene. Repeller of the wild and thundering surge ! For ages has the baffled tempest howled By thee with all its fury, and piled up The massive waters like a falling tower To dash thee down ; but there thou risest yet, As calm amid the roar of storms, the shock Of waves uptorn and hurled against thy front, As when on summer eves, the crimsoned main, In lingering undulations, girds thee round ! Oh ! might I stand as steadfast and as free Mid the fierce strife and tumult of the world, The crush of all the elements of wo, Unshaken by their terrors, looking forth 16 * 186 THE BOSTON BOOK. With placid eye on life’s uncertain sea, Whether its waves were darkly swelling high, Or dancing in the sunshine; — then might frown The clouds of fate around me ! Firm in faith, Pointing serenely to that better world Where there is peace, I would abide the storm, Unmindful of its rage and of its end. IMPRESSIONS OF THE MOTHER LAND. By A. H. Everett. No country ever exhibited so strongly the out- ward marks of general industry, wealth and prosperity, as England now does. The misery that exists, whatever it may he, retires from public view; and the traveller sees no traces of it, except in the beggars, who are not more numerous than they are on the continent, in the courts of justice, and in the newspapers. On the contrary, the impressions he receives from the objects that meet his view, are almost uniformly agreeable. He is pleased with the great attention paid to his personal accommo- dation as a traveller, with the excellent roads, and the convenience of the public carriages and inns. The country everywhere exhibits the appearance of high cultivation, or else of wild and picturesque beauty; and even the unim- proved lands are disposed with taste and skill, so as to embellish the landscape very highly, if they do not contribute, as they might, to the substan- tial comfort of the people. From every eminence, extensive parks and grounds, spreading far and 188 THE BOSTON BOOK. wide, over hill and vale, interspersed with dark woods and variegated with bright waters, unroll themselves before the eye, like enchanted gardens. And while the elegant constructions of the modern proprietors fill the mind with images of ease and luxury, the mouldering ruins, that remain from former ages, of the castles and churches of their feudal ancestors, increase the interest of the pic- ture by contrast, and associate with it poetical and affecting recollections of other times and manners. Every village seems to be the chosen residence of industry, and her handmaids, neat- ness and comfort; and in the various parts of the island, her operations present themselves under the most amusing and agreeable variety of forms. Sometimes her votaries are mounting to the skies in manufactories of innumerable stories in height, and sometimes diving in mines into the bowels of the earth, or dragging up drowned treasures from the bottom of the sea. At one time, the orna- mented grounds of a wealthy proprietor seem to realize the fabled Elysium; and again, as you pass in the evening through some village engaged in the iron manufacture, where a thousand forges are feeding at once their dark red fires, and clouding the air with their volumes of smoke, you might think yourself for a moment a little too near some drearier residence. The aspect of the cities is as various as that of the country. Oxford, in the silent, solemn gran- deur of its numerous collegiate palaces, with their IMPRESSIONS OF THE MOTHER LAND. Xg9 massy stone walls and vast interior quadrangles, seems like the deserted capital of some departed race of giants. This is the splendid sepulchre, where science, like the Roman Tarpeia, lies buried under the weight of gold, that rewarded her ancient services, and where copious libations of the richest port and madeira are daily poured out to her memory. At Liverpool, on the contrary, all is bustle, brick and business. Everything breathes of modern times ; everybody is occupied with the concerns of the present moment, except- ing indeed one elegant scholar, who unites a sin- gular resemblance to the Roman face and dignified person of our Washington, with the magnificent spirit and intellectual accomplishments of his own Italian hero. At every change in the land- scape, you fall upon monuments of some new race of men, among the number that have in their turn inhabited these islands. The myste- rious monument of Stonehenge, standing remote and alone upon a bare and boundless heath, as much unconnected with the events of past ages, as it is with the uses of the present, carries you back beyond all historical records into the ob- scurity of a wholly unknown period. Perhaps the Druids raised it; but by what machinery could these half barbarians have wrought and moved such immense masses of rock ? By what fatality is it, that in every part of the globe, the most durable impressions that hare been made 190 THE BOSTON BOOK. upon its surface, were the work of races now entirely extinct ? Who were the builders of the pyramids and the massy monuments of Egypt and India? Who constructed the Cyclopean walls of Italy and Greece, or elevated the innu- merable and inexplicable mounds, which are seen in every part of Europe, Asia and America ; or the ancient forts upon the Ohio, on whose ruins the third growth of trees is now more than four hundred years old ? All these constructions have existed, through the whole period within the memory of man, and will continue when all the architecture of the present generation, with its high civilization and improved machinery, shall have crumbled into dust. Stonehenge will remain unchanged, when the banks of the Thames shall be as bare as Salisbury heath. But the Romans had something of the spirit of these primitive builders, and they left everywhere distinct traces of their passage. Half the castles in Great Britain were founded, according to tradition, by Julius Caesar ; and abundant vestiges remain throughout the island of their walls and forts and military roads. Most of their castles have, how- ever, been built upon and augmented at a later period, and belong with more propriety to the brilliant epoch of the Gothic architecture. Thus the keep of Warwick dates from the time of Caesar, while the castle itself, with its lofty bat- tlements, extensive walls, and large enclosures, IMPRESSIONS OF THE MOTHER LAND. bears witness to the age when every Norman chief was a military despot within his own barony. To this period appertain the principal part of the magnificent Gothic monuments, castles, ca- thedrals, abbeys, priories and churches, in various stages of preservation and of ruin; some, like Warwick and Alnwick castles, like Salisbury cathedral and Westminster abbey, in all their original perfection ; others, like Kenilworth and Canterbury, little more than a rude mass of earth and rubbish ; and others, again, in the interme- diate stages of decay, borrowing a sort of charm from their very ruin, and putting on their dark green robes of ivy to conceal the ravages of time, as if the luxuriant bounty of nature were pur- posely throwing a veil over the frailty and feeble- ness of art. What a beautiful and brilliant vision was this Gothic architecture, shining out, as it did, from the deepest darkness of feudal barbar- ism ! And here, again, by what fatality has it happened, that the moderns, with all their civili- zation and improved taste, have been as utterly unsuccessful in rivalling the divine simplicity of the Greeks, as the rude grandeur of the Cyclo- peans and ancient Egyptians ? Since the revival of art in Europe, the builders have confined themselves wholly to a graceless and unsuccessful imitation of ancient models. Strange, that the only new architectural conception of any value, 192 THE BOSTON BOOK. subsequent to the time of Phidias, should have been struck out at the worst period of society, that has since occurred. Sometimes the moderns, in their laborious poverty of invention, heap up small materials in large masses, and think that St. Peter’s or St. Paul’s will be as much more sublime than the Parthenon, as they are larger ; at others, they condescend to a servile imitation of the wild and native graces of the Gothic ; as the Chinese, in their stupid ignorance of perspective, can still copy, line by line, and point by point, a European picture. But the Norman castles and churches, with all their richness and sublimity, fell with the power of their owners at the rise of the commonwealth. The Independents were lev- ellers of substance, as well as form : and the material traces they left of their existence are the ruins of what their predecessors had built. They too had an architecture, but it was not in wood nor stone. It was enough for them to lay the foundation of the nobler fabric of civil liberty. The effects of the only change in society, that has since occurred, are seen in the cultivated fields, the populous and thriving cities, the busy ports, and the general prosperous appearance of the country. All the various aspects, that I have mentioned, present themselves in turns; and, having gradually succeeded to each other, their contrasts are never too rude, and they harmonize together, so as to make up a most agreeable pic- IMPRESSIONS OF THE MOTHER LAND. 193 ture. Sometimes, as at Edinburgh, the creations of ancient and of modern days, the old and new towns, have placed themselves very amicably side by side, like Fitzjames and Roderic Dhu, reposing on the same plaid ; while at London, the general emporium and central point of the whole system, every variety of origin and social existence is effaced, and all are churned together, and coagulated into one uniform, though hetero- geneous mass. There is perhaps no part of Eng- land less agreeable, and less English, than the metropolis. 17 A WORD FOR THE FARMERS. By T. G. Fessenden. We ’re highly gratified to find The public more and more inclined The Cultivator’s art to practice, And patronize, because the fact is That righteousness and cultivation Go hand in hand t’ exalt a nation ; And Husbandry’s a hobby which A world may ride with spur and switch. If all mankind at once bestrode him They could not tire nor overload him. Not only men, who sit astride, But ladies also on a side- Saddle so neat, or on a pillion, That’s big enough to hold a million, May ride our hobby with a cheer-up, And he ’ll not kick, bite, plunge, nor rear up. We ’re tranced with rapture, when we find The fairer moiety of mankind, Whose smile makes mortal man’s condition But little short of sheer fruition — By whose society is given Earth’s purest prototype of Heaven, A WORD FOR THE FARMERS. Th’ angelic part of human nature, Inspire and aid the cultivator. A plant that ’s sunned by ladies’ eyes Will like an exhalation rise ; — We hope that horticulture may Be therefore blest with beauty’s ray, Till Flora’s germs gem every waste, And every grove ’s a “ Bower of Taste.” Adam, in Eden, we believe, Had been a brute without his Eve. An arid heath, a blasted common, Blest with the smiles of lovely woman, We should prefer to all that’s rare In paradise, without the fair. We therefore pray that friendship’s hand From every lady in the land, May be to us henceforth extended, From this time till our time is ended ; And would solicit every charmer To please to patronize the Farmer, And make those gentlemen, who claim Her approbation, do the same ; And common justice must require her To grant this boon to an admirer Like us, so prone to chant her praises, In verse which absolutely blazes. His head is very like a stump, Whate’er its craniologic bump, Who does not see that we the tillers Of earth compose the nation’s pillars, 196 THE BOSTON BOOK. And may be styled, with strict propriety, The props of civilized society. What would have been poor mortals’ lot — Yea, what were man, if we were not ? Nature’s poor, simple, houseless child, The weakest wild beast of the wild, Must live on browse ; (his home must be A cavern or a hollow tree ;) Sometimes, in spite of fears and cares, Be served up raw to wolves and bears ; Or maugre tooth, nail, fist, and truncheon, Make hungry catamounts a luncheon. Our art, moreover, claims ascendence As german to our independence; Both, commonly, are co-existent, And each the other’s best assistant. We farmers are a sort of stuff, Tyrants will always find too tough For them to W’ork up into slaves, The servile tools of lordly knaves. The men who till the stubborn soil, Enlightened, and inured to toil, Cannot be made to quail or cower By traitor’s art or tyrant’s power. They might as well attempt to chain The west wind in a hurricane — Make rivers run up hill by frightening, Or steal a march on kindled lightning™ The great sea-serpent, which we ’ve read of, Take by the tail and snap his head off' — * The firmament on cloudy nights, A WORD FOR THE FARMERS. 197 Illume with artificial lights, By such an apparatus as Is used for lighting streets with gas — Or, having split the north pole till it ’s Divided into baker’s billets, Make such a blaze as never shone, And torrefy the frozen zone — With clubs assail the polar bear, And drive the monster from his lair — Attack the comets as they run With loads of fuel for the sun, And overset by oppugnation Those shining colliers of creation — The milky way McAdamize, A railway raise to span the skies, Then make, to save Apollo’s team, The solar chariot go by steam : — These things shall tyrants do, and more Than we have specified, before Our cultivators they subdue, While grass is green, or sky is blue. 17 * HINTS TO STUDENTS. By Lyman Beecher. It seems to be thought by many that the design of education is the communication of knowledge to passive mind, to be laid up for use in the store- house of memory. But as well might all the products of agriculture and the mechanic arts be laid up for all future use by the young agricul- turist and mechanic. It is the acquisition of vigor and skill for a future productive industry, which constitutes the physical training of the one, and it is vigor and dexterity of mind in the acquisition and application of knowledge, which constitute chiefly the object of mental training. The habit of intellectual self-control, is not innate. Human indolence abhors it as nature does a vacuum, and the mind can be brought to it only by the power of habitual training. It is this aversion to close attention, which produces in the early stages of college life so many par- tial insurrections against the languages and the mathematics; and such profound and eloquent dissertations upon the inutility of the one, and the folly of plodding through the sterile regions HINTS TO STUDENTS. 199 of the other; and such warm-hearted eulogies of the literature and various knowledge which glitters on the surface ; for the acquisition of which, the eye, and the ear, and the memory, may suffice, with little taxation of thought and mental power; in which the inspirations of genius are idolized, and hard study stigmatized; in which, instead of putting in requisition the whole energy of the soul to turn the key of knowledge, the young gentleman may skip through college with kid gloves and a rattan, worship Bacchus and Venus, and cultivate the graces before the glass and before the ladies, and take his diploma, with all his college honors blushing thick upon his vacant head : a system of education that might suffice to qualify men to govern monkeys, but never to govern mind. The human mind has indeed waked up, and broken loose — rejoicing as a giant to run a race — but assuredly it will never be restrained and guided to auspicious results by dandy philoso- phers and baby intellects. The minds that ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm, must be of the first order, by nature and by discipline, and by various acquisition. Elementary principles must be ascertained. No man can understand any science, or any thing, who cannot lay his hand on the elementary prin- ciples, and, by the light of these, trace out the relations and dependencies of the whole. These are the key of knowledge, to which all the 200 THE BOSTON BOOK. sciences open their arcana; and without which they remain inexorably shut to all manner of demand and solicitation. Without this know- ledge of first principles, a man will behold truth always in isolated fragments, and be surrounded by a wilderness of light. Such knowledge is like a mass of disordered mechanism — confusion worse confounded, and utterly incapable of use — a maze, overwhelming and inextricable. There must be precision of thought. The mind cannot be thoroughly exercised without it ; and nothing worthy of the name of knowledge can otherwise be gained. There are many who go round a subject, and pass between its parts, and verily think they understand it, who, when called upon for an accurate description, can only hesitate and stammer amid the glimmering of their undefined moonbeams of knowledge. Why is this ? It is because they have nothing — only because they have acquired no definite knowledge of the subjects they have studied. They under- stand all subjects in general, and none in particu- lar — and for the purposes of exact knowledge adapted to use, might as well have been star- gazing through a dim telescope in a foggy night. Everything is what it is, exactly — and not merely almost ; and for purposes of science or use, a hair’s breadth discrepancy is as fatal as the discrepancy of a mile. Who could raise a building where every mortice and tenon only almost fitted ? or construct a useful almanac, HINTS TO STUDENTS. 201 when his calculations were almost, but not alto- gether exact? It is this precision of knowledge which it is the business of literary and theological institutions to communicate, and of their inmates to acquire, and without it, not only are the bless- ings of an education lost, but the multiplied evils of undisciplined minds — of indefinite conceptions and fallacious reasonings — and the bewilderment of a declamatory flippancy of specious words are poured out upon society with an overflowing flood, sweeping away the landmarks of truth and principle, and covering the surface with brush, and leaves, and gravel. No wonder that scepticism is rife, which pro- claims knowledge to be unattainable, and all things doubtful. What other result could be ex- pected from minds reared without first principles, and reasoning without precision of conceptions, in respect either to words, thoughts or things? No wonder that all disputes are regarded as un- productive efforts of vain jangling ; for what else than profitless declamation can result from discussions without first principles, definitions, or precision of any sort? No wonder that theology should be regarded as the region of chaos and old night — starless and dreamy — fan- ciful and feverish — where the atoms of truth and error hold everlasting conflict of attraction, and repulsion, and fermentation, and revolution, with- out the possibility of system, or knowledge, or 202 THE BOSTON BOOK. obligation to know the truth, or accountability for error. Looseness of mental discipline in seminaries, and slowness of head and heart in their inmates to acquire elementary and accurate knowledge, is a matter of deep concern. The original lack of foundation and method, in the governing minds of a community, cannot fail to produce a loose, conflicting, chaotic state of things in all the de- partments of society. Lawyers will jangle, phy- sicians will quarrel, politicians will contend, and theologians dispute, and the public mind be dark- ened and distracted by the very orbs appointed to guide the day and rule the night. Our repub- lican institutions and the church of God demand a greater efficiency and variety of mind ; and the desideratum can be supplied only by a more universal, energetic discipline, upward from the common school to the halls of legislation, the pulpit and the bar. The art of independent investigation is of pri- mary importance. Every student should be ac- customed to explore every subject — to analyse and take it apart — ascertain and define its ele- mentary principles, and all its dependencies and relations, and label the whole with letters of fire, and put it together again; then he will under- stand it — then he will never forget it — and then everywhere and instanter it will be ready for use. Now this can never be accomplished by HINTS TO STUDENTS. 203 lectures, and oral instruction — from the simple consideration that the act of receiving knowledge, and the act of acquiring it, by personal efforts, are entirely different in respect to mental exertion and thorough attainment. In the one case, the mind is passive, and records upon the tablets of memory only a few fragments of what is said, soon to be effaced, and recovered only by recur- ring to imperfect notes ; while in the other, the mind’s best energies are employed in unlocking and dissecting the subject, and the mind’s own eyesight in inspecting it, and there results the mind’s accurate and imperishable knowledge of it. I do not mean that lectures are useless, or to be dispensed with ; but they are to be only the important aids of original investigation. The young adventurer must have some stock in trade to begin with — some raw material for his mind to work upon ; — and on some plain subjects per- haps he has it. Let him experiment then first on the most familiar subject. Let him reconnoi- tre his own mind, and ascertain how much and what he knows, exactly, on the subject, and put it down in definite memoranda ; and if they are the elementary points, it will be easy by their light to follow out their relations and dependencies, from centre to circumference ; and if they are remote inferences and relations, it will be easy to follow them up till they disclose the elementary principle of which they are the satellites. When this has been done, and all that his own ingenuity 204 THE BOSTON BOOK. can disclose is found out, he may consult authors, and enlarge and connect his views by their aid. When called to investigate subjects which are beyond the sphere of his incipient knowledge, conversation and lectures may open the door of the temple, and put in the hand of the young adventurer the golden thread which may lead him out of darkness into open day. The advan- tages of this personal and primary investigation of subjects are, the augmentation of mental vigor and acute discrimination, the pleasures of mental action and discovery, the confidence of knowledge, dexterity in its application, and that originality of manner which imparts freshness, and variety, and undying interest, to oft-repeated truths, and protracted health of mind, and vigorous intel- lectual action. Especially, it is the remedy of college indolence and all mental sloth, protracted through life, and the guaranty of diligence, and mental action, and acquisition, down to the very frost of age. Mind which has opened the foun- tains of knowledge will thirst and drink, and thirst and drink forever. It is discipline which doubles its capacity, the economy of time, the energy of application, the amount of acquisition, and the duration of active usefulness, and the amount of it. Few minds uninitiated in the habit of investigation pass, without faltering, the meridian of life, or move on after it, but in the common-place repetition of common-place ideas ; while to minds exercised by reason of use to ana- HINTS TO STUDENTS. 205 lyze, and decompose, and reconstruct the elemen- tary order of things, the work is ever interesting, ever new; and the product ever fresh, original, and bright as the luminaries of heaven. The results of such training will be eloquence in the pulpit, eloquence at the bar, and eloquence in the halls of legislation ; such as none can sleep under nor resist, and whose victories, when achieved, will, like the battle of Trafalgar, leave the world in a blaze. On the art of speaking in conversation, and by oral instruction, and public lectures, sermons and speeches in deliberative bodies, I shall only say, that by a popular and powerful mode of speak- ing, a marffs success is sure, whose mental train- ing has corresponded with the preceding course; while, for the want of it, multitudes of minds of vigor and good training, with refined taste and copious stores of knowledge, have passed through life but little appreciated, and exerting on society but a feeble power. For what is the science of war, and what are all its implements and mu- nitions, without fire, and the power of striking home? There is nothing by which the power of mind on mind is so augmented, as by the exer- cise of a native, powerful, popular, argumenta- tive eloquence ; and no defect in public training, by which so much capacity of usefulness is neu- tralized and lost, as by unskilful and inefficient speaking. There must be a power of presenta- 18 206 THE BOSTON BOOK. tion — or good sense, and vigor, and well-balanced minds, and precision of thoughts on the page, and accurate definition, and full proportions of knowledge, and condensation, and taste, and beauty, and the battery of logic, and the electric fire of metaphors, will all be a dumb show in the popular collision of mind with mind. Popular, powerful, efficacious elocution is the result of the best order of mind, with all sorts of the best training. There must be mental vigor, and power, and precision of thought, and com- prehensive knowledge of men and of things, and condensation, and taste, and beauty, and power; and then a subject, and an object, and a soul on fire, in high and arduous effort to accomplish an end. What produced the immortal eloquence of De- mosthenes? A mind which heaven created; the culture of it by his own efforts; the stimulus of a popular government, and the provocations of Philip of Macedon. Instruction may obviate faults, and frame into order the excess of exuberant feeling; but you may as well teach artificial breathing as artificial eloquence. Teach men how to think, and how to feel, and, with good linguistic culture, you cannot prevent their being eloquent. As well stop thunder-storms and volcanoes, as the elec- tric burstings-out of soul with fervid, overflowing energy. HINTS TO STUDENTS. 207 Oh ! if Mind has waked up, and broke her fetters, as they say, I hope she has got her blood warm, and her mouth open, her tongue loose, and nature herself speaking, with her own tones, look and gesture, instead of the miserable imita- tions of art. Let the head be furnished, and the tongue be endowed with stores of language, and the soul filled with high patriotic and religious feeling; and when the occasion comes demand- ing eloquence, it will be there ; and men will not need a looking-glass to practise before ; but the soul will take possession of the body, and inspire intonation, and look, and gesture ; and nature will be justified of her children. SEASONS OF PRAYER. By Henry Ware, Jr. To prayer, to prayer ! for the morning breaks, And earth in her Maker’s smile awakes. His light is on all below and above, The light of gladness and life and love. Oh ! then, on the breath of this early air, Send upward the incense of grateful prayer. To prayer ! for the glorious sun is gone, And the gathering darkness of night comes on. Like a curtain from God’s kind hand it flows, To shade the couch where his children repose. Then kneel, while the watching stars are bright, And give your last thoughts to the Guardian of night. To prayer ! for the day that God has blest Comes tranquilly on with its welcome rest. It speaks of creation’s early bloom ; It speaks of the Prince who burst the tomb. Then summon the spirit’s exalted powers, And devote to heaven the hallowed hours. There are smiles and tears in the mother’s eyes, For her new-born infant beside her lies. SEASONS OF PRAYER. 209 O hour of bliss ! when the heart o’erflows With rapture a mother only knows. Let it gush forth in words of fervent prayer ; Let it swell up to heaven for its precious care. There are smiles and tears in that gathering band, Where the heart is pledged with the trembling hand. What trying thoughts in her bosom swell, As the bride bids parents and home farewell ! Kneel down by the side of the tearful fair, And strengthen the perilous hour with prayer. Kneel down by the dying sinner’s side, And pray for his soul through Him who died. Large drops of anguish are thick on his brow : Oh ! what are earth and its pleasures now ? And what shall assuage his dark despair, But the penitent cry of humble prayer ? Kneel down at the couch of departing faith, And hear the last words the believer saith. He has bidden adieu to his earthly friends ; There is peace in his eye as it upward bends; There is peace in his calm confiding air ; For his last thoughts are God’s, his last words prayer. The voice of prayer at the sable bier ! A voice to sustain, to soothe, and to cheer. It commends the spirit to God who gave ; It lifts the thoughts from the cold dark grave ; It points to the glory where he shall reign, Who whispered “ Thy brother shall rise again.” 18 * 210 THE BOSTON BOOK. The voice of prayer in the world of bliss ! But gladder, purer, than rose from this : The ransomed shout to their glorious King, Where no sorrow shadows the soul as they sing But a sinless and joyous song they raise, And their voice of prayer is eternal praise. Awake, awake, and gird up thy strength, To join that holy band at length. To Him, who unceasing love displays, Whom the powers of nature unceasingly praise, To him thy heart and thy hours be given ; For a life of prayer is the life of heaven. MISERIES OF AN INVALID. By Geo. S. Hillard. The trials of an habitual invalid are neither few nor small. The constant struggle between the flesh and the spirit, is, in the highest degree, exhausting to both. The feeling of languor, which nothing but the spur of duty can make us overcome; the nervous weakness and timidity, which make us shrink from all care and respon- sibility; the dreariness of being old before our time, and of having lost that electric vigor in the blood, which gives such “ splendor to the grass, such glory to the flower ” — all these are hard to bear — much more so than occasional fits of se- vere illness, or paroxysms of violent pain; not merely because the former are constant, and the latter transient, but because there is an heroic satisfaction in enduring the one, which is denied to us in the other — an active courage is displayed, which is a more common quality than passive fortitude. In the invalid’s cup, the wine of life never sparkles, however fine may be its flavor. His bosom’s lord sits heavy on his throne. He has none of that enjoyment arising from the mere 212 THE BOSTON BOOK. sense of being alive, which seems common to all animated nature, which the bird expresses by its song, and the beast by his gambols. Besides all these trials which begin and end with our own person, if a man have any benevolent or philan- thropic feelings, he will suffer the keenest anguish from the consciousness of a prostrating weakness, which, like an invisible enemy, creeps through his veins and drinks the life-blood from his heart. He is doomed to form plans and wishes, which live and die in the silence of his own breast, because his muscles are weak, and his nerves unstrung. Opportunities of doing good to himself and others, of creating an honorable reputation, crowd thick around him, but he cannot stretch out his arms to grasp them. He is a drone in the hive of life — a stranded bark, rotting in the sun and wind, while others are dancing on the blue waves, exulting on their foamy path. He hears the trumpet sound, and the busy hum of preparation, but he cannot arise and arm for the battle. While others are hurrying to and fro through life on their various errands, he alone is doomed to “ stand and wait.” 1 know of no spectacle that more deserves the sympathy of men and angels, than that of a human being, whose mind teems with noble schemes for making others wiser and better, and whose heart is over- flowing with benevolent affections, yet doomed to inactivity, and constantly compelled to think of himself by the sharp enforcement of physical MISERIES OF AN INVALID. 213 pain or the nervous despondence and inability produced by bodily weakness. The world is full of moral heroes and martyrs, for whom laurels are blooming in heaven — men who are constantly defeated, but never conquered, and who can bear without a murmur the lot which condemns them to the rust of repose and the blackness of despair. This is not all. Men, let poets and dyspeptics say what they please, are a charitable and sym- pathizing race. The sight of suffering creates a wish to relieve it. Every one who sees a sick man, feels a desire to add to his comforts, to give him his sympathy, if nothing else, and to learn whether he is growing better or worse. Kind people are perpetually inquiring after the health of those who are sometimes sick, suggesting remedies, giving advice, rebuking imprudences, and constantly leading, or rather dragging, their thoughts into the very direction which it is their interest and their wish to avoid. A man who always broods over the idea that he is sick, will always be sick. The great thing to be gained with respect to the system, is, that we should be unconscious of its existence. Now who can for- get this, that is perpetually reminded of it, by the u infernal politeness” of his friends? No one can tell how much I suffer from well- meant but most injudicious attentions of this kind. I have long and frequent intervals of brilliant health, but they are poisoned by my being inces- santly put in mind that I have been sick once 214 THE BOSTON BOOK. and may be again. People talk with one who has the reputation of being an invalid, about his health, as they do with others about the weather, or the news. How many times a day am I doomed to hear the question, How do you do to- day? with a strong emphasis on the last word; How is your health? Is your appetite good? Do you sleep well at night? Do you take exer- cise enough? but I will be more merciful to my readers, than my friends are to me. A little while ago I w^as attacked with a slight cold which confined me to my room for two days, and I had the curiosity to note down the events which occurred to me, as soon as I was well enough to resume my usual duties; and I submit it to any one who will take the trouble to read them, whether my health be not as hard to bear as my sickness. I board with a lady, whom I choose to call Mrs. Henderson, who is more remarkable for good feeling than good sense, and is truly desirous of saying and doing all that is most agreeable to the inmates of her house; and having very little fertility of genius, she finds it the easiest way of entertaining me, to talk to me about my symp- toms, and to inquire, at least once a day, into the state of all the organs in my body. My fellow-boarders are a gentleman and lady, each peculiar in their way. Miss Patience Crack- bone was younger once than she is now, and I hope and trust, prettier. She is a woman who MISERIES OF AN INVALID. 215 would like to live in a hospital, in the midst of the dying and the dead, not from the benevolence of her heart and her wish to lessen human misery, but because in such a situation she would find the most pleasant excitement to her mind. Her conversation is, to healthy talk, what calomel and jalap are to bread and wine. When she takes up the paper, she first looks at the deaths, and I can observe a shade of disappointment upon her face, if none of her own acquaintances are of the number. She is never so happy, as when some of her friends are dangerously sick, that she may have an opportunity of going once a day, and fussing about the house, peeping into the vials, and tasting the contents with the know- ing smack of a connoisseur; catching the doctor by the button-hole as he comes down stairs, inquiring, with a most dolorous expression, after the patient’s health, and then putting on her bonnet and hurrying away, a live bulletin, to make proclamation through all the city. She has the latest edition of Buchan’s Domestic Medicine, which bears the marks of constant reading, and a book of manuscript recipes, bound in rhubarb- colored leather, (how often in my dreams have I seen it!) any one of which would be enough to give his quietus to a grizzly bear. She was made quite unhappy for a long time, by her own obsti- nate good health, but she has contrived, at last, to worry herself into the dyspepsia, and is now entirely content. 216 THE BOSTON BOOK. Mr. (Gilbert Grimstone may be described in a few words. He is a bachelor, very selfish and very cross — something of a humorist withal, and, having made his own fortune, feels himself at liberty to do and say as many disagreeable things as he pleases. He has nerves like whip-lashes, skin like leather, and muscles like India-rubber. He believes that the sick are made so by their own fault, and he would hang every invalid in the country, if he had the power. On my appearance at the breakfast table, 1 found the family all assembled. Mrs. Henderson inquired with a most doleful voice and look after my health; — “I heard you cough last night, Mr. D , and I was afraid you would not be down this morning.” “ Mr. D is looking very pale and languid this morning,” said Miss Crackbone. “ I lost a young friend last year that had just that bluish look under the eyes that you have.” “ I am afraid we have nothing on the table that you can eat this morning,” continued Mrs. Hender- son ; “ would not you like to have a little arrow- root made ? ” 1 assured her that I intended to do ample justice to all her good things, and begged her to send me a cup of coffee. “You had better not touch that baker’s bread,” said Miss Patience — “ I am sure it will sour on your stomach ; it always does on mine : try some of this, which is made exactly after Ur. ’s directions,” extending to me a black loaf, at which a Spartan would have made wry faces. MISERIES OF AN INVALID. 217 “Mr. D never will be well/’ growled Mr. Grimstone, Avho was crumbling a loaf of bread into a huge bowl of boiled milk, “ as long as he drinks tea and coffee; I consider them as rank poison, for my part. When I was a young man, nobody ever thought of being sick — we did not have stomachs and nerves in those days. 75 “ 1 wish Mr. D would let me make him some flax-seed tea, 77 said Miss Patience. “I don’t think there is anything better for a cold on the lungs. Have you ever raised blood ? 77 she con- tinued, turning to me. “ I think, 77 said Mrs. Henderson, “he ought to wear flannel next his skin, all the year round. 77 “ Fudge ! 77 said Mr. Grimstone, “no need of flannel; I never wear flannel ; young men are so effeminate and luxu- rious now-a-days, no wonder they are sick all the time. I believe by the next generation a good, strong, able-bodied man will be carried about and shown for a sight. When I was of your age, Mr. D , I was up at four o’clock in the morning, hoeing potatoes ; and I believe it would do you good if you had the same to do. 77 “You don’t eat anything this morning,” said Mrs. Henderson. “I expect your stomach wants bracing; I think the quinine would do you good.” “Or a wine- glass full of camomile and quassia, taken three times a day,” interrupted Miss Patience; “it is excellent for wind in the chest. And that reminds me of poor Mrs. Hapgood ; — I went to see her 19 218 THE BOSTON BOOK. yesterday — you can ’t think what she suffers; she has such a stricture across her breast, that it seems as if she would die every breath she draws. And then her stomach is so weak that she can ’t keep anything down a single minute. I am afraid she can ’t live — and then only think of her leaving all those little children, and a baby only six months old ! ” Fortunately at this moment the papers came in, full of details of the cholera, and I was allowed to finish my meal in peace. In the course of the day, I encountered several of my acquaintances, old and young, male and female, from all of whom I met with more or less annoyance, either in the form of tedious inquiry, or still more tedious advice. One person reproved me for not wearing India-rubber shoes; and another, for not having on an outside gar- ment. A deaf old lady kept me ten minutes in the open street, roaring into her ears the assur- ance that I was perfectly well, but very busy. I was recommended to go to Europe, by a gentle- man who knew that I was never ten dollars ahead of my debts in my life; and by another, to take daily rides on horseback — as if a horse were as invariable and indispensable an appen- dage to a man, as a pocket-handkerchief. By one, I was told that I was looking wretchedly ; by another, that I never looked better in my life; *nd what, in all this, was most intolerable, was, MISERIES OF AN INVALID. 219 that I felt assured that nine out of ten of these people did not care a straw about me, but talked to me about my health, as they would to the gen- erality of men about the weather or the news — because they must say something, and had noth- ing to say. It is hard to be so badgered , without even the consciousness of sympathy to support you under the trial. But I had not yet been through the worst. I had an engagement of some standing, to drink tea with Mrs. Marchmont, a lady who, having an easy fortune, a healthy and an indulgent husband, no children, and the most benevolent affections, employs her time and energies in being the comforter, and often the nurse, of all the sick people among her very extensive acquaintance. She is never so happy as in the society of habitual invalids, attempting to animate their spirits, and giving them the best of advice ; but having been always in good health herself, her success is not often so great as her intentions are good. On my entrance into the drawing-room, I found about a dozen persons assembled, most of them females, and none of them uncomfortably young. I had a presentiment that Fate had some arrows yet in store for me, and I presume my face expressed it; for Mrs. Marchmont, while welcoming me in the most cordial manner, remarked— “ You don’t look so well as I hoped and expected, Mr. D ; I am afraid you have not recovered.” “ Why, I 220 THE BOSTON BOOK. was thinking Mr. D looked a great deal better than he did last spring / 7 said a thin, sharp voice, belonging to Miss Thorough wort, an an- cient maiden from the country. “I’m sure I thought at that time, he would have been under the sods before now.” “I am afraid Mr. D studies too much,” said Mrs. Balsamine, a ven- erable widow, who sat knitting in a comer, and looking at me over the glasses of her spectacles. “ I think it ’s a great pity there are so many books in the world.” The attention of the room being thus drawn to me, I endeavored to escape from it by slipping into the nearest open chair. From this I was immediately dislodged by my watchful hostess, who warned me that there was a window at my back, and pressed me to take a rocking- chair, which a kind lady had just vacated for me. Of course I refused — she insisted, and two or three most embarrassing minutes were passed in urgent solicitations and vigorous denials, which were ended by my taking possession of the chair, — which I should have done, if the cushion had been stuffed with thistles. Soon afterwards, the tea-equipage was brought in. As I was extending my arm to the waiter, it was arrested by Mrs. Marchmont, who told me that the tea was green, and very bad for my com- plaints, and that if I would wait a few minutes, she would have some black made for me. I com- forted myself for my disappointment with an MISERIES OF AN INVALID. 221 ample slice of bread and butter. As I was dis- cussing this with great relish, a lady, whom I had never seen before, and whose name I did not know, addressed me from the other side of the room — “Are your complaints consumptive, Mr. D ?” “Very much so, just now,” I replied. “ Then let me recommend to you to drink flax- seed tea twice a day, and whenever you feel a soreness on your lungs, apply a blister of hog’s fat and tartar-emetic.” “I should rather think from his looks that his bilious system was dis- ordered,” said Mrs. Thoroughwort. “Oh! he suffers from general debility,” said Mrs. March- mont ; “he lets things worry him when they ought not to.” “ White mustard-seed is very good for almost all kinds of sickness,” said Mrs. Balsamine. “ My husband used to take a great deal of it.” “ For my part, I have great faith in cold water,” said Miss Thoroughwort; (no one would have suspected it from her appearance;) “I think it would do you good to take a shower- bath every morning, and to have a tub of cold water standing at your bed-side, and dip your feet in it when you first get up.” “ And rub yourself with a stiff flesh-brush till you are all in a glow,” said the advocate of flax-seed tea. The conversation now became general, and, without being able to point out each individual’s share, I will merely write down the expressions as they came to my ears. “ Drink copiously of 19 * 222 THE BOSTON BOOK. valerian tea; take a Rochelle powder before breakfast; walk five miles every day; chew ginseng root; soak your feet in hot water, with a handful of mustard thrown into it; take a dose of magnesia; take a dose of rhubarb; wear a deer-skin waistcoat over your flannels ; drink Congress water; don’t study by candle-light; indigestion — catnip tea ; pain in the side ; good for a cough,” &c. &c. Thus was I tortured with well-meant kindness. However, at last, they ceased talking about me, and I was in hopes to have enjoyed some pleasant conversation, but I was mistaken. The all- engrossing subject of the cholera was brought up, and occupied them the rest of the evening. The various stages of the disease were described, and the symptoms commented upon with a minute- ness and a gout which, with the state of nervous excitement into which I had been previously thrown, drove me almost distracted. 1 imagined myself afflicted with all the spasms and convul- sions of that frightful disorder. I hurried home before nine o’clock, and never enjoyed, with greater zest, the luxury of solitude. My imagination had been so wrought upon by the scenes I had been through, that my very dreams were infected by them. All nature seemed to suffer an apothecary change. The glorious sun in heaven was turned into a Bur- gundy pitch-plaster ; the moon into a bread-poul- MISERIES OF AN INVALID. 223 tice ; and the host of the stars became blue pills. The flowers had all a medicinal smell, and labelled vials hung from the trees instead of fruit. I floated down rivers of camomile tea, in a bark of slippery elm. I opened a letter from a dear friend, and lo ! it was filled with doctors’ prescriptions. I stretched out my hand to grasp that of an acquaintance, and it was turned into a flesh-brush. The heavens drenched me with showers of tincture of rhubarb, and pelted me with Tolu lozenges ; and I awoke in a cold sweat, with the agony of the nightmare, which brooded over me in the shape of a huge mortar and pestle. So much for being an invalid ! THE CONFESSIONAL. By N. P. Willis. I thought of thee — I thought of thee, On ocean — many a weary night — When heaved the long and sullen sea, With only waves and stars in sight. We stole along by isles of balm, We furled before the coming gale, We slept amid the breathless calm, We flew beneath the straining sail — But thou wert lost for years to me, And, day and night, I thought of thee ! I thought of thee — I thought of thee, In France — amid the gay saloon, Where eyes as dark as eyes may be Are many as the leaves in June — Where life is love, and even the air Is pregnant with impassioned thought, And song and dance and music are With one warm meaning only fraught — My half-snared heart broke lightly free, And, with a blush, I thought of thee ! THE CONFESSIONAL. 225 I thought of thee — I thought of thee, In Florence — where the fiery hearts Of Italy are breathed away In wonders of the deathless arts ; Where strays the Contadina down Val d’Arno with a song of old; Where clime and woman seldom frown, And life runs over sands of gold ; I strayed to lone Fiesole On many an eve, and thought of thee. I thought of thee — I thought of thee, In Rome — when on the Palatine Night left the Csssar’s palace free To Time’s forgetful foot and mine; Or, on the Coliseum’s wall, When moonlight touched the ivied stone, Reclining, with a thought of all That o’er this scene has come and gone — The shades of Rome would start and flee Unconsciously — I thought of thee. I thought of thee — I thought of thee, In Vallombrosa’s holy shade, Where nobles born the friars be, By life’s rude changes humbler made. Here Milton framed his Paradise ; I slept within his very cell ; And as I closed my weary eyes, I thought the cowl would fit me well — The cloisters breathed, it seemed to me, Of heart’s-ease — but I thought of thee. 226 THE BOSTON BOOK. I thought of thee — I thought of thee, In Venice — on a night in June, When through the city of the sea, Like dust of silver slept the moon. Slow turned his oar the gondolier, And, as the black barks glided by, The water to my leaning ear Bore back the lover’s passing sigh ; It was no place alone to be — I thought of thee — I thought of thee. I thought of thee — I thought of thee, In the Ionian Isles — when straying With wise Ulysses by the sea — Old Homer’s songs around me playing; Or, watching the bewitched caique, That o’er the star-lit waters flew, I listened to the helmsman Greek, Who sung the song that Sappho knew — The poet’s spell, the bark, the sea, All vanished — as I thought of thee. I thought of thee — I thought of thee, In Greece — when rose the Parthenon Majestic o’er the Egean sea, And heroes with it, one by one ; When, in the grove of Academe, Where Lais and Leonti um strayed Discussing Plato’s mystic theme, I lay at noontide in the shade ; The Egean wind, the whispering tree, Had voices — and I thought of thee. THE CONFESSIONAL. 227 I thought of thee — I thought of thee, In Asia — on the Dardanelles ; Where, swiftly as the waters flee, Each wave some sweet old story tells ; And seated by the marble tank Which sleeps by Ilium’s ruins old, (The fount where peerless Helen drank, And Venus laved her locks of gold,) I thrilled such classic haunts to see — Yet even here, I thought of thee. I thought of thee — I thought of thee, Where glide the Bosphor’s lovely waters, All palace-lined, from sea to sea ; And ever on its shores the daughters Of the delicious East are seen, Printing the brink with slippered feet, And oh, those snowy folds between, What eyes of heaven your glances meet ! Peris of light no fairer be — Yet — in Stamboul — I thought of thee. I ’ve thought of thee — I ’ve thought of thee, Through change that teaches to forget ; Thy face looks up from every sea, In every star thine eyes are set ; Though roving beneath Orient skies, Whose golden beauty breathes of rest, I envy every bird that flies Into the far and clouded West : I think of thee — I think of thee ! Oh, dearest ! hast thou thought of me ? MOUNT AUBURN. By Samuel Kettel. “ Here shall we rest, — here find our last abode; this grove, now fresh and smiling with summer’s cheerful verdure, and gay with the harmony of a thousand warblers, shall become the silent man- sion of the dead.” Thus said I, as I took my walk to the site of the new cemetery. “ 7 T is well ; — here, in the seclusion of these calm precincts, have I passed many a meditative hour; here have I held converse with Nature, and sought and found a kind companionship with her un- sophisticated offspring ; the lofty oak and the humble cedar of this favorite spot have been to me sweeter companions than men. ’Tis well this lap of earth should prepare itself for my last slumbers. One of these deep glens or sunny banks shall surely receive me in its bosom; and the gentle breeze, which I so oft have wooed upon these hill-tops, shall sigh my requiem among the quivering leaves.” A lofty hill rises on the skirt of the wood, “ whose hairy sides, grotesque and wild,” are clad with tall trees and thick shrubbery, save MOUNT AUBURN. 229 toward the east, where a pathway leads to the summit, Which shows a distant prospect far away Of busy cities now in vain displayed, For they can lure no farther j and the ray Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday. I ascended this eminence, and threw myself in pensive mood at the foot of an ancient oak. It was a bright and serene afternoon, and a spot untrodden, except by the casual wanderer; a few white clouds were sailing with a motion scarce perceptible through the air ; the winding stream of the Charles glided lazily at my feet, without a ripple and without a sound. All nature disposed the mind to meditation; nothing broke the lone stillness of the scene, save the low and fitful whisper of the breeze among the foliage, or the plaintive cry of the towhee from the dark re- cesses of the pines. With feelings attuned to pensiveness, I threw myself on the earth, and pored upon the scene. In a reverie I gazed upon the green landscape be- neath, sleeping in the calm sunshine at my feet, and fading away in the distance into the soft blue hills that skirted the horizon. I turned my eye to the east, where Boston, swelling up with her proud domes and glittering spires, marked her noble outline upon the clear sky; and a feeling of awe came over me as I contemplated that majestic form, lifting its mass of stately architecture into the air with a commanding 20 230 THE BOSTON BOOK. grandeur, as if demanding the gazer’s homage to the Queen of the North. “This,” said 1, “is the city of riches and splendor; there lie her fleets; there throng her thousands of merchants and tradesmen ; there stand her palaces and her temples ; there shine her halls and saloons, the abodes of wealth and the home of gaiety and fashion ; there throng her countless swarms of busy citizens, those multi- tudes that roar and thunder like a mountain stream within her limits, but of whom scarce a faint murmur comes to my ear upon the passing breeze. Shall those lordly domes and ambitious roofs crumble to dust, and leave not a wreck behind? Is that gay and eager mass, now teem- ing with young life and enjoyment, and 1 shining as if earth contained no tomb,’ nought but such stuff as dreams are made of? Are they no more than the poor tenants of a little life that is rounded with a sleep ? “Yes, — those cloud-capped towers shall fall ; those fair bosoms now burning with high hope, those bright eyes that beam w Ah love, shall close in darkness. Man of wealth, thy princely man- sion shall forget thy name ! Maiden of the blooming cheek, to-morrow shall the ring sparkle and the hall resound, but none shall think of thee ! The generation too that cometh, shall stay but for a time. The Queen of the North shall bow her head and fall — and no city shall be eter- nal but the City of the Dead ! ” MOUNT AUBURN. 231 Filled with these thoughts I sank into a slum- ber. Methought some thousands of years had passed; and as their cloudy wings unfolded before my eyes, I stood upon the wreck of the city. Her lofty domes had fallen, her solid pillars were broken and buried in dust, the voice of man was silent among her shattered arches, noisome weeds choked the pathway among her crumbling walls, the dull breeze sighed through the grass, the bat and the owl nestled in the gateways of her palaces. All was still, lonely, and desolate ; the gay city had become a silent heap of moss-grown ruins. The gale of desola- tion swept over her crumbling hills. While I uttered a sigh over this sad scene of destruction, I descried a venerable old man with white hair, leaning his feeble frame upon a staff, and poring over the shapeless fragment of a column. He seemed a figure designed to per- sonate the decay which spread around him. His thin locks shook in the breeze as I ap- proached, and he turned his dull eye upon me, while I demanded what fate had befallen the city which lay in a giant wreck under our feet. “I know nought about it,” answered he; “but in times of old I have heard men say, that once a great city stood here.” “And the people!” said I; “what is remembered of them?” “Nothing at all,” replied the old man. “And is this then,” said I, “ the fate of that people and that generation, so proud, so mighty, 232 TIIE BOSTON BOOK. and so glorious? Gone are their heroes, their statesmen, their philosophers, their orators, and their penmen ; their memories have perished, and their very names are forgotten ; Yet wide was spread their fame in ages past. And poets once had promised they should last.” “A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.” Another long flight of ages swept by. I looked, and behold ! the hills had disappeared. The very foundations of the city were swallowed up, and nothing remained but a wide gulf of waters, choked with shoals of sand. The sea-birds were dashing the waves unmolested over the sunken ruins, and the solitary bittern screamed in the barren pools where the lofty Avails once had stood. The green isles of her bay were swept into the deep ; her grassy shores were flooded by the surf of the ocean ; the white sand drifted in the sea-breeze over her flowery banks ; the hills around had crumbled into naked barrenness ; the rocks were blackening in the sickly sun ; no sound broke the awful silence that reigned around, except the cry of the sea-fowl as he wheeled over the waters, or the hollow moan of the ocean driving his wasting wa\ r es against the land. I gazed in dismay at the desolation. “And where,” thought I, “is man? Has he too sunk into destruction’s mass? Are all trace and remnant swept away, of the countless thousands Avho swarmed within this wide region?” MOUNT AUBURN. 233 At length, after looking round the drear soli- tude for a long time, I discovered a swarthy sav- age in his canoe, fishing among the sand-banks. His looks were wild and ferocious, and his garb and mien seemed to display the last stages of expiring civilization. “ Where is the city that stood here ? 77 I asked. He turned upon me a stupid and a vacant look, but said nothing. I repeated the question ; he answered only by a few barbarous accents, which I found it impos- sible to understand. I endeavored to converse with him by action, and made signs ; he seemed aroused for a moment from his torpor, and at- tempted an expression, but sunk immediately back into a dead apathy. “Is this ,’ 7 thought I again, “the posterity of the men who founded the great empire of the West, and who spread civilization, and arts, and intellect, over half the globe ? Are all their fame and glory and genius dwindled to this poor wreck ? Alas ! what secret fatality has led man- kind onward from the beginning of its career ! The paths of glory and of empire lead but to oblivion ! 77 Another flight of ages passed. I looked once more, and the hills had arisen from their abysses; the isles lifted up their heads from the deep ; a thick verdure overspread the shores. Tangled forests clad hill and valley, and the whole land was one great green wilderness, quickened into luxuriant life by the bright sun, as on the first 20 * 234 THE BOSTON BOOK. morning of creation. On the rim of the far blue ocean, I discovered a white speck. It drew nearer, and I saw it was a sail. A ship came to the shore, and men landed. They felled the trees, and began to build dwellings. I was about to utter an exclamation of surprise and wonder, when, on lifting up my eyes, a figure stood over me, which I instantly recog- nized as the Genius of the City. “ Mortal ! ” he exclaimed in a solemn voice, “ cease to mourn over the destiny of the human race. Repine not at the decay of art or the fall of empire. For know that ruin is productive, and waste and dis- persion do but engender life in new forms and energies. In the mighty system of the universe, not a step of the destroyer, Time, but is made subservient to some ulterior purpose of reproduc- tion, and the circle of creation and destruction must still go on.” I had scarce made an attempt to reply, when the Genius disappeared. The whole scene vanished, and I suddenly awoke. The rays of the sinking sun were gilding the distant spires of the city, and I hastened homeward in deep thought upon the things of the vision, and the interpretation thereof. LEXINGTON ODE. By John Pierpont. Long, in a nameless grave, Bones of the true and brave, Have ye reposed ! This day, our hands have dressed, This day, our prayers have blessed A chamber for your rest ; And now ’t is closed. Sleep on, ye slaughtered ones ! Your spirit, in your sons, Shall guard your dust, While winter comes in gloom, While spring returns with bloom, Nay, till this honored tomb Gives up its trust. When war’s first blast was heard, These men stood forth to guard Thy house, O God ! And now, thy house shall keep Its vigils where they sleep, And still its shadow sweep O’er their green sod. 236 THE BOSTON BOOK. In morning’s prime they bled ; And morning finds their bed With tears all wet ; Tears that thy hosts of light, Rising in order bright, To watch their tomb all night, Shed for them yet. Nought shall their slumber break For “ they shall not awake, Nor yet be raised Out of their sleep,” before Thy heavens, now arching o’er Their couch, shall be no more. Thy name be praised ! WASHINGTON’S REMAINS. By George Lunt. Ay, leave him alone to sleep forever, Till the strong archangel calls for the dead, By the verdant bank of that rushing river, Where first they pillowed his mighty head ! Lowly may be the turf that covers The sacred grave of his last repose, But oh ! there ’s a glory around it hovers, Broad as the day-break and bright as its close. Though marble pillars were reared above him, Temples and obelisks rich and rare, — Better he dwells in the hearts that love him, Cold and lone as he slumbers there. Why should ye gather with choral numbers ? Why should your thronging thousands come? Who will dare to invade his slumbers, Or take him away from his narrow home ? 238 THE BOSTON BOOK. Well he sleeps in the majesty, Silent and stern, of awful death ! And he who visits him there, should be Alone with God and his own hushed breath ! Revel and pomp would profane his ashes, And may never a sound be murmured there, But the glorious river’s, that by hi n dashes, And the pilgrim’s voice in his heart-felt prayer ! But leave him alone ! — To sleep forever ! Till the trump, that awakens the countless dead, By the verdant bank of that rushing river, Where first they pillowed his mighty head ! OLD IRONSIDES. By O. W. Holmes. Ay ! pull her tattered ensign down ! Long has it waved on high, And many a heart has danced to see That banner in the sky ; Beneath it rang the battle-shout, And hurst the cannon’s roar — - The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more. Her deck once red with heroes’ blood, Where knelt the vanquished foe, When winds were hurrying o’er the flood, And waves were white below, No more shall feel the conqueror’s tread, Or know the conquered knee ; The harpies of the shore shall pluck The eagle of the sea ! Oh ! better that her shattered hulk Should sink beneath the wave ; Her thunders shook the mighty deep, And there should be her grave. Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms — The lightning and the gale ! WOMEN. By John Neal. It were no easy matter to describe the women of a small neighborhood, or of a single parish, set apart in one of the isles of the sea from all the rest of the earth. How much more difficult to describe those of a large country, by a few gen- eral remarks. It is not so with men. They may be hit off in the lump. They are the herbage, not the blossom of a country. They are all of a hue; they are not like the flowers, that blow under the pressure of the foot, and fade away before you have time to trace the perfume of their dying breath to the trodden and crushed root you have scarred with your heel as you hurried by. They are not like women — as changeable as light, and as fluctuating as the shadow of a summer sea. They are more like the substan- tialities that you see about you — heavy, and rocky, and steadfast. Men are the realities, women the poetry of this world. Men are the trees ; women the fruitage and flower. The former delight in a rude soil — they strike their roots downward with a perpetual WOMEN. 241 effort, and heave their proud branches upward, in perpetual strife. Are they to be removed ? — you must tear up the very earth with their roots, rock, and ore, and impurity, or they perish. They cannot be translated with safety. — Some- thing of their home, a little of their native soil, must cling to them forever, or they die. Not so with woman. Give her but air and sky enough, and she will seek no nourishment of the earth, strike no roots downward, urge no sceptre up- ward, but content herself with shedding light and cheerfulness on every side of her — flowers and perfume on everything she touches. Would you remove her — you have but to unclasp a few green delicate fibres, to scatter a few blossoms, and to shake off a few large drops — -like the rain- drops of a summer shower — and lo ! she is ready to depart with you whithersoever you may steer. She does not cling to the soil, she does not yearn for a native earth ; all that she needs anywhere is something to grow to. Her vitality is un- touched, her sympathies unhurt, by the influ- ences of a new sky or a strange air. It may be, that, in her youth, her blossoming was about the door-way of a cottage ; it may be that she is now transplanted to a palace — made to breathe the hot and crowded air, to bask in the artificial sunshine of a city — in shadow, and smoke, and a most exaggerating atmosphere. But even there she is happy; she carries her home with her; and though what she clings to may sicken at the 21 242 THE BOSTON BOOK. heart and perish at the roots, for lack of its native air, she will put forth her beauty, and scatter her perfume as before. These things are easily said : but are they true? We are liable to be carried away by poetry, and metaphor, and illustration ; but what do they prove? Why should it be more difficult to describe the women than the men of a small neighborhood, of a remote parish, or of a large country? Try the experiment yourself. Go into the first church you see open, or to any other place where you may meet a multitude of women gathered together. Try to give a general idea of their dress — nay, try to give anybody a general idea of part of it — of the fashion of their bonnets. You will find the hats of the men all alike; but of the bonnets you will seldom or never find two alike in the whole house — I might say on the face of the whole earth. Such is the very nature of woman; quick, apt, sensible and precipitate, with an eye for color that men have not, with ail ear for music that men have not, and with a taste for shape that shows itself in everything she wears, and in everything she builds up. A woman studies change and variety ; it is a re- proach to her to dress alike — I do not say to be alike — for twenty-four hours at a time. She would blush to be caught twice a year at a ball in the same or in a similar dress. And where it may not be in her power to put on a new robe every day, it is the study of a large part of her WOMEN. 243 life to appear to do so — to multiply and vary, by all sorts of contrivances, the few that she may have, now by altering the shape, now by giving a new dye, now by changing the ribbons, or a flounce, or a furbelow, and now it may be by converting slips into frocks, or frocks into slips, or both into spensers or riding-habits ; — all which a woman may do from her youth up, yet more from a love of change, than from her secret wish to appear better off than she is. And so with not a few of our men. The more youthful they are, the more sensitive they are, the more like women they are, the more changeable and capri- cious they are. But why should I complain of this? I do not; I only mention the fact, for the purpose of showing how difficult it is to give another a general idea of the character of a body of women. Before the hue is copied, it has altered. Before the outline is finished, it is no longer the same. You are in pursuit of the rainbow — you are describing a changeable land- scape under the drifting clouds of a changeable sky — you are after a bird of paradise — a feather — a butterfly — And every touch that woos its stay. Brushes its brightest hues away. But is this to complain ? — if I say that flowers are not trees, that fruitage is not rock, that women are not men; what say I more than everybody, woman as well as man, should delight to acknowledge ? Are we to be imprisoned for- 244 THE BOSTON BOOK. ever and aye with realities ? Are we to live under a marble firmament, because, forsooth, a marble firmament may have more stability ? Are we, avIio live in the very midst of change and fluctuation, who are never the same for two minutes together, who see all the elements circu- lating forever and ever within us and around us, through all the vicissitudes of shadow and light, and youth and age — are we to speak irreverently of her, who, by the greater fineness and greater purity of her corporeal texture, is made more sen- sible than we, to the influences of sky, and air, and sea, and earth? As well might we deride the perfume of the flower, and the hue of the wild rose, or the songs of birds, or the flavor of a peach, for not being as fixed and immutable as the very earth we tread on. Are we to speak slightingly of that, which, with all its changes, and through all its changes, is still woman — the witchery and power, the pulse and the life-blood of our being ? Let us remember that the charm of the very sky is its changeableness — of the very earth, is its being never the same for a long while together— of the very sea and air, that they change with every breath you draw, and with every word you speak. Let us remember that the character of her who is appointed to be our companion forever, here and hereafter, like sunshine in the rill, Though turned astray, is sunshine still, THE SPELL OF LOVE. By Mrs. Osgood. A thoughtless, happy, blooming boy, With dimpled cheek and laughing eye, Had stayed his bounding step of joy, And hushed his voice’s melody, And knelt down by his mother’s side, To breathe his prayer at eventide. Her gentle hand was lightly laid Upon his curls of sunny hair, And heart and cheek and eye were made Calmer beneath the pressure there ; Softly the prayer went forth, and blest, He sank to his sweet dreaming rest. Y ears had gone by : — still wore that brow The laughing light of childish years, Yet something on it told that now Life passed not all undimmed by tears ; — She who had cherished, loved him, died, And left him without guard or guide. And there were hours when manhood, truth, All that can light our wayward lot, 21 # 246 THE BOSTON BOOK. All that he had been taught in youth To honor, might have been forgot ; — But that soft hand amid his hair — Its thrilling fingers rested there ! And there were hours of passion deep, When the proud heart would rise. Oh ! then Nought could have bid the tempest sleep, Saving that hallowed touch again ; — Still fancy felt it lightly press — Still wept beneath the dear caress ! And sometimes he would kneel and pray Amid those deep repentant tears — And there his mother's hand would play, Like some sweet dream of earlier years ; Guiding him, with its “ spell of love,” To her own blessed home above ! LIGHT FOR THE BLIND. Written for the Ladies 7 Fair for the Blind, May 1, 1834. By Miss Foster. Light for the Blind ! who watch “ The sweet approach of morn,” Not by pale flash and ray, That o’er the dark east play, Heralds of rosy dawn ; — But lift the earnest brow, Its first light airs to feel ; Or list till may be heard The voice of early bird, Wakening the wood-choir’s peal: Who seek Spring’s infant buds, And fair unfolding flowers, Not by their virgin bloom, But by their faint perfume, Scenting the fresh-leaved bowers : Who wist not of the power In Evening’s dark wand hid, 248 THE BOSTON BOOK. Whose touch lights up, afar, Planet and golden star, That burn not till she bid. Ye cannot rend the veil O’er darkened nature thrown ; And bid the sightless view Earth, and the sky’s deep blue, In pomp of fair hues shown ; — Yet go ; with healing touch Anoint the inward eye ; The light of knowledge pour Its sealed and dark orb o’er — Day for the Blind draws nigh ! THE DARK SIDE. By Mrs. Davis. “ Have you heard that Miss P. is soon to be mar- ried ? 55 “ No, but I am glad to hear it ; she has waited long enough. 55 “Mr. L., the great merchant, has failed. 55 “ Ah, indeed ! 1 5 11 be bound he has lost noth- ing by his failure. He knows his own interest too well. 55 “Have you read Mr. M. 5 s new work? The papers are praising it highly. 55 “ No wonder — he has sent a volume to all the editors, and they can do nothing else than deal out a few puffs. 55 “ Mrs. R. is a fine-looking woman ; X think her complexion really beautiful. 55 “ She owes all her beauty to her dress. I assure you, I saw her one day in dishabille, and she was yellow as an ogre. 55 The natural eye must look at objects just as they are presented, but the mental eye is under no such necessity. It possesses the wonderful faculty of turning things over and over to suit 250 THE BOSTON BOOK. itself. How unwise then always to turn up the dark side. Some people run into this folly in regard to things, others respecting events, and a more guilty class in regard to characters and actions. This last form of the evil is the worst, and is frequently made familiar by indulgence in the others. An individual first begins to scan the objects around him, marking and magnifying every little defect. If he pluck a rose, he hardly notices its beauty or fragrance, but is wondering why roses should have so many thorns. If he is regaled with delicious fruits, instead of praising their flavor, he wishes they were not so full of stones and seeds. Show him a fine building, and he looks at it on purpose to find something wrong, and of course succeeds. But wo to the individual who has formed this evil habit of looking at earth’s pleasant things through the smoky atmosphere of his own bad feelings ! — It will be sure to lead to similar views of every event, past or future. The choicest blessings of life may, by a person of this querulous disposition, be converted into calamities. When he looks back, it is not to recall happy hours, or rejoice in the mournful pleasures which joys departed should excite ; — his retrospective glance dwells only on the dark passages, the weary paths of his journey ; and he lifts, with unholy hand, the veil of oblivion which time has drawn over the past. THE DARK SIDE, 251 Those who are in the habit of throwing other 1 things into the shade, are very apt to entertain the same dark views of the characters and actions of their fellow men. They doubt the affections of their friends, and question the motives of every good action. They weigh every person, and every person is found wanting. Alas ! for the community infested by such dark spirits. There will be tales of scandal, and ruined characters, and violated vows, and broken hearts. The habit of looking on the gloomy side may not, at first sight, appear very criminal, but when we follow it out, and see that it leads almost cer- tainly to jealousy, hatred and detraction, we must confess it is an evil tree which brings forth such bitter fruits. David Hume declared he would rather possess a cheerful disposition, inclined always to look on the bright side, than with a gloomy mind be master of an estate of ten thousand a year. And he was wise in his estimate. It would be better, because more conducive to happiness. There are no melancholy children, and there need be no dark-souled men, or fretful women. We can be happy, or at least cheerful, if we so choose. Keep the heart right, and the feelings will be so too. LINES. Written in the Burying-ground at New Ilaven. By N. L. Frothingham. Oh ! where are they, whose all, that earth could give, Beneath these senseless marbles disappeared ? Where even they, who taught these stones to grieve ! The hands that hewed them, and the hearts that reared ? Such the poor bounds of all that ’s hoped or feared, Within the griefs and smiles of this short day ; Here sunk the honored, vanished the endeared, This the last tribute love to love could pay, An idle pageant-pile to graces passed away. Why deck these sculptured trophies of the tomb ? Why, victims, garland thus the spoiler’s fane ? Hope ye by these to avert oblivion’s doom, In grief ambitious, and in ashes vain ? Go, rather, bid the sand the trace retain, Of all that parted virtue felt and did ! Yet powerless man revolts at ruin’s reign ; Hence blazoned flattery mocks pride’s coffin lid; Hence towered on Egypt’s plains the giant pyramid. LINES. 253 Sink, mean memorials of what cannot die ! Be lowly as the relics ye o’erspread, Nor lift your funeral forms so gorgeously, To tell who slumbers in each narrow bed. I would not honor thus the sainted dead ; Nor to each stranger’s careless ear declare My sacred griefs for joy and friendship fled. Oh ! let me hide the names of those that were, Deep in my stricken heart, and shrine them only there ! 22 THE MAN OF EXPEDIENTS. By Samuel Gilman. The man of expedients is he who, never pro- viding for the little mishaps and stitch-droppings with which this mortal life is pestered, and too indolent or too ignorant to repair them in the proper way, passes his days in inventing a suc- cession of devices, pretexts, substitutes, plans and commutations, by the help of which he thinks he appears as well as other people. Thus, the man of expedients may be said only to half live ; he is the creature of outside — the victim of emergencies — whose happiness often depends on the possession of a pin, or the strength of a button-hole. In his countenance you behold marks of anxiety and contrivance ; the natural consequence of his shiftless mode of life. The internal workings of his soul are generally a compound of cunning and the heart-ache. One half of his time he is silent, languid, indolent ; the other half he moves, bustles, and exclaims — “ What’s to be done now?’ 7 His whole aim is to live as near as possible to the very verge of propriety. His THE MAN OF EXPEDIENTS. 255 business is all slightingly performed; and when a transaction is over, he has no confidence in his own effectiveness, but asks, though in a careless manner, “ Will it do? will it do?” Look through the various professions and char- acters of life. You will there see men of expe- dients darting, and shifting, and glancing, like fishes in the stream. If a merchant, the man of expedients borrows incontinently at two per cent a month; if a sailor, he stows his hold with jury-masts, rather than ascertain if his ship be sea- worthy ; if a visitor where he dislikes, he is called out before the evening has half expired ; if a musician, he scrapes on a fiddle string of silk ; if an actor, he takes his stand within three feet of the prompter ; if a poet, he makes fault rhyme with ought , and look with spoke; if a re- viewer, he fills up three quarters of his article with extracts from the writer whom he abuses ; if a divine, he leaves ample room in every sermon for an exchange of texts; if a physician, he is often seen galloping at full rate, nobody knows where ; if a debtor, he has a marvellous acquain- tance with short corners and dark alleys; if a printer, he is adroit at scabbarding ; if a collegian, he commits Euclid and Locke to memory without understanding them, interlines his Greek, and writes themes equal to the Rambler. But it is in the character of a general scholar, that the man of expedients most shines. He ranges through all the arts and sciences — in cy- 256 THE BOSTON BOOK. clopoedias. He acquires a most thorough knowl- edge of classical literature — from translations. He is very extensively read — in title pages. He obtains an exact acquaintance of authors — from reviews. He follows all literature up to its source — in tables of contents. His researches are indefatigable — into indexes. He quotes memori- ter with astonishing facility — the Dictionary of Quotations; — and his bibliographical familiarity is miraculous — with Dibdin. We are sorry to say, that our men of expe- dients are to be sometimes discovered in the region of morality. There are those, who claim the praise of a good action, when they have acted merely from convenience, inclination or compul- sion. There are those, who make a show of industry, when they are set in motion only by avarice. There are those, who are quiet and peaceable, only because they are sluggish. There are those, who are sagely silent, because they have not one idea; abstemious, from repletion: patriots, because they are ambitious ; perfect, because there is no temptation. Again, let us look at the man of expedients in argument. His element is the sophism. He is at home in a circle. His forte— his glory, is the petitio principii. Often he catches at your words, and not at your ideas. Thus, if you are arguing that light is light, and he happens to be, (as it is quite likely he will,) on the other side of the question, he snatches at your phraseology. THE MAN OF EXPEDIENTS. 257 and exclaims, Did you ever weigh it? Sometimes he answers you hy silence. Or if he pretends to anything like a show of fair reasoning, he culti- vates a certain species of argumentative obliquity that defies the acutest logic. When you think you have him in a corner, he is gone — he has slipped through some hole of an argument, which you hoped was only letting in the light of convic- tion. In vain you attempt to fix him — it is putting your finger on a flea. But let us come down a little lower into life. Who appears so well and so shining at a ball room, as the man of expedients? Yet his small- clothes are borrowed, and as for his knee-buckles — about as ill matched, as if one had belonged to his hat and the other to a galoche — to prevent their difference being detected, he stands sidewise towards his partner. Nevertheless, the circum- stance makes him a more vivacious dancer, since, by the rapidity of his motions, he prevents a too curious examination from the spectators. Search farther into his dress. You will find that he very genteelly dangles one glove. There are five pins about him, and as many buttons gone, or button-holes broken. His pocket-book is a newspaper. His fingers are his comb, and the palm of his hand his clothes-brush. He conceals his antiquated linen by the help of a close vest, and adroitly claps a bur on the rent hole of his stocking while walking to church. 22 * 258 THE BOSTON BOOK. Follow him home. Behold his felicitous knack of metamorphosing all kinds of furniture into all kinds of furniture. A brick constitutes his right andiron, and a stone his left. His bellows is his hearth-brush, and a hat his bellows, and that too borrowed from a broken window-pane. He shaves himself without a looking-glass, by the sole help of imagination. He sits down on a table. His fingers are his snuffers. He puts his candlestick into a chair. That candlestick is a decanter. That decanter was borrowed. That borrowing was without leave. He drinks wine out of a tumbler. A fork is his cork-screw. His wine-glass he converts into a standish. Very ingenious is he in the whole business of writing a letter. For that purpose he makes use of three eighths of a sheet of paper. His knees are his writing-desk. His ruler is a book cover, and his pencil a spoon handle. He mends his pen with a pair of scissors. He dilutes his ink with water till it is reduced to invisibility. He uses ashes for sand. He seals his letter with the shreds and relics of his wafer box. His seal is a pin. O reader, if you have smiled at any parts of the foregoing representation, let it be to some purpose. There is no fault we are all so apt to indulge, as that into which we are pushed by the ingenuity of indolence — namely, the invention of expedients. FLOWERS. By Henry Pickering. La vue d’une fleur caresse mon imagination, et flatte mes sens a un point inexprimable : elle reveille avec volupte le sentiment de mon existence. Mme. Roland . The impatient Morn, Flushed with the vernal gale, calls forth, “ Arise ! To trace the hills, the meads, where thousand dyes The ground adorn, While the dew sparkles yet within the violet’s eyes : ” And when the day In golden slumber sinks, with accent sweet Mild Evening comes to lure the willing feet With her to stray, Where’er the bashful flowers the observant eye may greet. Near the moist brink Of music-loving streams they ever keep, And often in the lucid fountains peep ; Oft, laughing, drink Of the mad torrent’s spray, perched near the thundering steep. 260 TIIE BOSTON BOOK. And everywhere Along the plashy marge, and shallow bed Of the still waters, they innumerous spread ; Koc.ked gently there, The beautiful white lily pillows its bright head. Within the dell, Within the rocky clefts they love to hide ; And hang adventurous on the steep hill-side ; Or rugged fell, Where the young eagle waves his wings in youthful pride. In the green sea Of forest leaves, where nature wanton plays, They humbler bloom ; though through the verdant maze The tulip-tree Its golden chalice oft triumphantly displays : And, of pure white, Embedded ’mid its glossy leaves on high, There the superb magnolia lures the eye ; While, waving light, The locust’s airy tassels scent the ambient sky. But oh ! ye bowers — Ye valleys where the spring perpetual reigns, And myriad blossoms o’er the purple plains Exuberant showers — How fancy revels in your lovelier domains ! FLOWERS. 261 All love the light; Yet, in ethereal beauty, too, arrayed, What flowers unnumbered spring within the shade, Till comes a blight — Comes unaware — and then incontinent they fade ! And thus they bloom, And thus their lives ambrosial breathe away ; Thus flourish too the lovely and the gay : And the same doom Youth, beauty, flower, alike consigns to swift decay. AMERICAN INFLUENCE. By Francis Wayland. Our country has given to the world the first ocular demonstration, not only of the practica- bility, but also of the unrivalled superiority of a popular form of government. It was not long since fashionable to ridicule the idea, that a people could govern themselves. The science of rulers was supposed to consist in keeping the people in ignorance, in restraining them by force, and amusing them by shows. The people were treated like a ferocious monster, whose keepers could only be secure while its dungeon was dark, and its chain massive. But the example of our own country is rapidly consigning these notions to merited desuetude. It is teaching the world that the easiest method of governing an intelligent people is, to allow them to govern themselves. It is demonstrating that the people, so far from being the enemies, are the best, nay, the natural friends of wholesome institutions. It is showing that kings, and nobles, and standing armies, and religious establishments, are at best only very AMERICAN INFLUENCE. 263 useless appendages to a form of government. It is showing to the world that every right can be perfectly protected, under rulers elected by the people; that a government can be stable with no other support than the affections of its citizens ; that a people can be virtuous, without an estab- lished religion; and, more than this, that just such a government as it was predicted could no where exist but in the brain of a benevolent enthusiast, has actually existed for half a cen- tury, acquiring strength, and compactness, and solidity with every year’s duration. And it is manifest that nowhere else have men been so free, so happy, so enlightened, or so enterpris- ing, and nowhere have the legitimate objects of civil institutions been so triumphantly attained. Against facts such as these, it is difficult to argue; and they furnish the friends of free insti- tutions with more than an answer to all the theo- ries of legitimacy. It is unnecessary to pursue this subject further. This country stands linked by a thousand ties to the popular sentiment of Europe. We have no sympathies with the rulers. The principles, in support of which they are allied, are diametri- cally opposed to the very spirit of our constitu- tion. All our sympathies are with the people; for we are all of us the people. And not only are we thus amalgamated with them in feeling; we are manifestly at the head of that feeling. We first promulgated their sentiments, we taught 264 THE BOSTON BOOK. them their rights, we first contended success- fully for their principles ; and for sixty years we have furnished incontrovertible evidence that their principles are true. These principles have already girded us with Herculean strength, in the very infancy of our empire, and have given us political precedence of governments, which had been established on the old foundation, cen- turies before our continent was discovered. And now what nation will be second in the new order of things, is yet to be decided ; but the provi- dence of God has already announced, that, if true to ourselves, we shall be inevitably first. Now to say that any country is at the head of popular sentiment, is only to say, in other words, that it is in her power to direct that sentiment. It devolves on this country, then, to lead forward the present movement of public opinion to free- dom and independence. It devolves on us to sustain and to chasten the love of liberty among the friends of reform in other nations. It is not enough that the people everywhere desire a change. The subversion of a bad government is by no means synonymous with the establishment of a better. A people must know what it is to be free; they must have learned to reverence themselves, and bow implicitly to the principles of right, or nothing can be gained by a change of institutions. A constitution written on paper is utterly worthless, unless it be also written on the hearts of a people. Unless men have learned to AMERICAN INFLUENCE. 265 govern themselves, they may be plunged into all the horrors of civil war, and yet emerge from the most fearful revolution, a lawless nation of san- guinary slaves. But if this country remain happy, and its institutions free, it will render the common people of other countries acquainted with the fundamental principles of the science of government, this knowledge will silently produce its practical result, and year after year will insen- sibly train them to freedom. But suppose that the spirit of freedom have been sustained to its issue, the blow to have been struck, and, either by concession or by force, the time to have arrived when the institutions of the old world are to be transformed ; then will the happiness of the civilized world be again con- nected most intimately with the destinies of this country. Ancient constitutions having been abol- ished, new ones must be adopted by almost every nation in Europe. The old foundations will have been removed ; it will still remain to be decided on what foundations the social edifice shall rest. From the relation which we now sustain to the friends of free institutions, as well as from all the cases of revolution which have lately occurred, it is evident that to this nation they will all look for precedent and example. Thus far our institu- tions have conferred on man all that any form of government was ever expected to bestow. Should the grand experiment which we are now making on the human character succeed, there 23 266 THE BOSTON BOOK. can be no doubt that other governments, follow- ing our example, will be formed on the principles of equality, of right. Who does not see, that if France had been illuminated in the era of her revolution by the light which our sixty years’ experience has shed upon the world, unstained with the blood of three millions of her citizens, she might now have been rejoicing in a govern- ment of law ? We have spoken only of the effects which this country might produce upon the politics of Eu- rope, simply by her example. It is not impossi- ble, however, that she may be called to exert an influence still more direct on the destinies of man. Should the rulers of Europe make war upon the principles of our constitution, because its exis- tence “ may operate as an example” — or should a universal appeal be made to arms, on the ques- tion of civil and religious liberty — it is manifest that we must take no secondary part in the con- troversy. The contest will involve the civilized world, and the blow will be struck which must decide the fate of man for centuries to come. Then will the hour have arrived, when, uniting with herself the friends of freedom throughout the world, this country must breast herself to the shock of congregated nations. Then will she need the wealth of her merchants, the prowess of her warriors, and the sagacity of her states- men. Then, on the altars of our God, let us each one devote himself to the cause of the AMERICAN INFLUENCE. 267 human race ; and in the name of the Lord of Hosts go forth unto the battle. If need be, let our choicest blood flow freely; for life itself is valueless, when such interests are at stake. Then, when a world in arms is assembling to the conflict, may this country be found fighting in the vanguard for the liberties of man. God him- self hath summoned her to the contest, and she may not shrink back. For this hour may he by his grace prepare her ! And if the cause of true religion and of man shall eventually triumph, as we trust in God it will, who can tell how splendid are the destinies which will then await this country ! One feeling, the love of liberty, will have cemented together all the nations of the earth. Though speaking different languages, and inhabiting different re- gions, all will be but one people, united in the pursuit of one object, the happiness of the whole. And at the head of this truly holy alliance, if faithful to her trust, will then this nation be found. The first that taught them to be free; the first that suffered in the contest ; the nation that most freely and most firmly stood by them in the hour of their calamity ; at her feet will they lay the tribute of universal gratitude. Each one bound to her by every sentiment of interest and affection, she will be the centre of the new system which then shall emerge out of the chaos of ancient institutions. Henceforth she will sway for ages the destinies of the world. TIIE SILENT FAREWELL. By Thomas Power. Oh ! say not so soon ’t is the moment to part, That friends so united can give but a tear, That fancy alone must recall, in the heart, The whispers of friendship so soft on the ear ! When lips cannot utter the anguish we ’d tell, Our hearts feel most keenly the silent farewell. Though storms on the waters that part us may rise, And wake their dark forms on the breast of the deep, No cloud shall e’er come to o’ershadow the eyes Now quiet and gentle as infancy’s sleep : The sunshine of hope each dark form shall expel, And wake the kind thoughts of the silent farewell. Far, far be the day, ere a throb of this heart Shall cease its emotion for friendship so true ; And, ere a kind wish from the soul should depart, I ’d bid to this life and its changes adieu. Long, long may the joy in this bosom still dwell, And friendship revive the last silent farewell ! THE LAND’S-END. By Samuel Woodworth. The gale was propitious, all canvass was spread, As swift through the water we glided, And the tear-drop yet glistened that friendship had shed, Though the pang whence it sprang had subsided. Fast faded in distance each object we knew, As the shores which we loved were retiring, And the last grateful object which lingered in view, Was the beacon on land’s-end aspiring. Ah ! here, I exclaimed, is an emblem of life ; For ’tis but a turbulent ocean, Where passion with reason is ever at strife, While our frail little barks are in motion. The haven of infancy, calm and serene, We leave in the distance retiring, While memory lingers to gaze on some scene, Like the beacon on land’s-end aspiring. Oh ! may I be careful to steer by that chart, Which wisdom in mercy has given, And true, like the needle, this tremulous heart, Be constantly pointing to heaven. Thus safely with tempests and billows I ’ll cope, And find, when at last they ’re subsiding, On the land’s-end of life there ’s a beacon of hope, To the harbor of happiness guiding ! 23 * TIGHT LACING. [An Epitaph on the last of the Human Race.] By Wm. A. Alcott. Here perished the last puny individual of a race of beings, originally made in the image of their Creator; and, of course, noble and godlike. Their lives were at first protracted to a hundred years, or more ; and they were not only long, but useful and happy. But though the race was made upright, they sought out many inventions, some of which resulted in their ruin. The length and happiness of their lives had been made dependent upon the free and rapid circulation of about three gallons (in an adult) of blood through every part of their bodies, and the preservation of this blood in a pure state. To preserve it in the latter condition, a set of organs, called lungs, had been placed in a large cavity in the upper part of the body ; and things had been so contrived, that, by a process denominated breath- ing, these lungs were inflated with air twenty times or more a minute, and as often emptied ; and when thus frequently filled with pure air, TIGHT LACING. 271 the effect was to produce such changes in the blood which was constantly passing through them, as were necessary, and indispensable to health. These lungs were contained in a large bony hollow or cavity, shaped somewhat like a sugar- loaf; broad and capacious below, but smaller above. Although this cavity was surrounded by bones, it was easily compressible, especially about the bottom, and during the first years of life. Now it so happened that after this race of beings had existed about 5700 years, some of the females, who constituted about half their whole number, undertook to improve their structure. They did not like the shape which the Creator had given them ; it was clumsy, they thought, and ungraceful. So they began to compress the cavity of the lungs about the bottom, and retain it in this shape. At first, such an outrageous and impious procedure was not generally tolerated ; and the practice was for a time set aside. But after repeated efforts, they at last succeeded, about the year of the world 5800 ; and the custom became general and permanent. The first evil results were not very obvious. At least it was not quite obvious to the sufferer, that tight lacing was the cause, though her physi- cians told her so. They consisted chiefly in short and difficult breathing; greater liability to colds and obstructions in the system ; coughs ; cold extremities; irregular appetite; bad digestion; languor; and a pale or leaden appearance. But, 272 THE BOSTON BOOK. as the bony cavity became permanently con- tracted at the bottom, all the other organs, the stomach, the liver, and even the nerves, became affected. To the former complaints were now added dyspepsia, scrofula, hypochondria, con- sumption, and many more tedious and difficult diseases. Not only was the body diseased, but, through the medium of the body, the mind be- came affected. There was a law in their frames that if one member — as the lungs — suffered, all the other members suffered with it ; and also that if the body was injured, the intellect suffered sooner or later, in similar proportion. To pale, emaciated, sickly bodies, were now added fee- ble and debilitated minds, and even sluggish or cold affections towards their fellows, and towards their Creator. Not only was there a general ner- vousness, as it was sometimes called, or irrita- bility, but a downright fretfulness, peevishness, and impatience. These evils were most general among a class or order of people called Christians ; and so called because the name of their founder and leader was Christ. These persons professed to follow this leader’s directions in all things, and those direc- tions had been recorded after his decease in a book. This taught that it was their duty to do all things in such a manner as would most pro- mote the general good, in the best order and hap- piness of the universe; and to preserve their bodies in the greatest possible degree of health TIGHT LACING. 273 and vigor for this purpose. If those bodies were thus duly taken care of, they were distinctly told that they might become residences or temples of the divine spirit. In spite of all this, however, their bodies con- tinued to be injured in the foregoing manner, and with the foregoing results. But the whole is not yet told. The evils having become permanent in the individuals of one generation, soon became so much a part of the human constitution that they were transmitted to others. For the first two hundred years of the history of this declension, the length of human life, and the vigor of the race, did not seem materially altered, except in the case of those females who were immediate sufferers. The robust part of them, and the males generally, did not seem to be greatly degenerated. But in the next century, not only the one sex, but the other, began to be slender and wasp-shaped ; their size was much diminished, and their symmetry disturbed. Idiots of both sexes became greatly increased in num- ber ; monsters were more frequent ; diseases, especially dyspepsia and consumption, became more common and fatal ; and the whole race was now most evidently dwindling away. It was in vain that the teachers on soul and body — among the Christians — had preached loud and long on the subject, such was the general devotion to the goddess Fashion ; and now they had no lungs to preach with. 274 THE BOSTON BOOK. By the year 6200, the last of that portion of these beings called the European race — a solitary idiot— sank down with age and its decrepitude at thirty, and rose no more. The other races con- tinued a little longer. The latest race to expire was the noble but unfortunate Africans. But they, too, perished in the end. At last, the only remaining individual of their number, and the latest to dwell on the earth’s surface, a feeble individual, not more than two or three feet in height, and differing from a wasp chiefly in size, having breathed out her uncomfortable spirit on this spot, became a prey to a few wretched, fam- ished dogs and vultures ; for there were none to bury her. This stone is erected on the spot where she expired, not so much to her remembrance — for she was too puny and ignoble to deserve notice — as in remembrance of man in general, once the proud inhabitant of this world, and its rightful and duly-constituted lord. DOMESTIC LOYE. By Park Benjamin. When those we love are present to the sight, When those we love hear fond affection’s words, The heart is cheerful, as in morning light The merry song of early-wakened birds : And oh ! the atmosphere of home — how bright It floats around us, when we sit together Under a bower of vines in summer weather, Or round the hearth-stone in a winter’s night ! This is a picture, not by fancy drawn — The eve of life contrasted with its dawn — A gray-haired man — a girl with sunny eyes ; He seems to speak, and laughing, she replies — While father, mother, brothers smile to see How fair their rose-bud blooms beneath the parent tree When those we love are absent — far away, When those we love have met some hapless fate, How pours the heart its lone and plaintive lay, As the wood-songster mourns her stolen mate ! Alas ! the summer bower — how desolate ! The winter hearth — how dim its fire appears ! While the pale memories of by-gone years Around our thoughts like spectral shadows wait. 276 THE BOSTON BOOK. How changed the picture ! here, they all are parted To meet no more — the true, the gentle-hearted ! The old have journeyed to their bourn — the young Wander, if living, distant lands among — And now w£ rest our dearest hopes above ; For heavenly joy alone can match domestic love ! CHRISTMAS. By William Croswell. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary ; and I will make the place of my feet glorious. Isaiah. The thickly woven boughs they wreathe Through every hallowed fane, A soft reviving odor breathe Of summer’s gentle reign ; And rich the ray of mild green light Which, like an emerald’s glow, Comes struggling through the latticed height, Upon the crowds below. Oh let the streams of solemn thought, Which in those temples rise, From deeper sources spring than aught Dependant on the skies. Then though the summer’s glow departs, And winter’s withering chill Rests on the cheerless woods, our hearts Shall be unchanging still. 24 CHILDREN. By R. C. Waterston. u I love God and every little child / 5 were the sub- lime words of Richter. He looked upon children with the eye of faith : but they are too often looked upon merely with the bodily eye, and thus their small form and simplicity of look, conceal from us the mighty springs of action which are hidden within. We cannot, in the child, even see the man — much less the angel. We cannot prophesy, even with regard to earthly progress — much less the heavenly. Think you the mother of Newton, when she pressed her babe to her bosom, thought he was to stand pre-eminent in science, and reveal to man the most wonderful laws of the material universe? Think you the mother of Milton, when she sang lullabies over the cradle of her infant, dreamed that he was to gain the admiration of genius through all time ? Think you that those who saw Luther, at the age of fourteen, begging his bread from door to door, imagined that he was to be the leader in one of the greatest reformations the world has ever known? or did those who saw Howard a thin, CHILDREN. 279 pale, sickly boy, behind the counter of a grocer’s shop in London, suspect that he was to be the philanthropist of the world, and that his name would be revered by every civilized nation upon the face of the earth ? No — no ; we cannot in the child even see the future man. What, then, would it be, if this veil of sense were withdrawn, and we could see the realities of the spiritual life, stretching out in endless glory before us ; behold- ing the weak babe of the present, becoming the wonderful spirit of the future — dwelling with sainted martyrs and prophets, and sitting down with the holy company of the apostles in the kingdom of God ! Then should we feel, that although children were destined to take no important place in the view of men, their place, however obscure, would be important in the sight of their Creator— and however humble their earthly lot, if they had attained the Christian character, and been true to the precepts of Christ, they would at length be led triumphantly through the welcoming hosts of heaven. The same God who moulded the sun and kin- dled the stars, watches the flight of the insect. He who balances the clouds, and hung the earth upon nothing, notices the fall of the sparrow. He who gave Saturn his two rings, and placed the moon, like a ball of silver, in the broad arch of heaven, gives the rose leaf its delicate tint, and made the distant sun to nourish the violet. And 280 THE BOSTON BOOK. that same Being watches alike the highest seraph and the smallest child. Children are common about us ; therefore they do not awaken thought. We are too much bound down to the present, and hemmed in by the senses. We do not realize the stupendous desti- nies of a human soul. We do not follow up, link by link, the infinite chain. We speak of a human mind as of a common thing. We do not reflect, or we should see it ascending, stage above stage, in the sublime theatre of worlds; mounting, if true to the end of its being, higher and higher, heaven above heaven, increasing forever in wis- dom, and goodness, and power. We should feel that there was, in the endless history of a child, more to awaken wonder than in the earthly his- tory of empires. And thus everything connected with that history would assume an immense importance. Nothing could be trifling ; for all would show itself as connected with an eternal existence, stretching far, far away into the un- ending ages of futurity. TO A BEREAVED MOTHER. By John Quincy Adams. Sure, to the mansions of the blest, When infant innocence ascends, Some angel brighter than the rest, The spotless spirit’s flight attends. On wings of ecstacy they rise, Beyond where worlds material roll ; Till some fair sister of the skies Receives the unpolluted soul. That inextinguishable beam, With dust united at our birth, Sheds a more dim, discolored gleam, The more it lingers upon earth. Closed in this dark abode of clay, The stream of glory faintly burns : — Not unobserved, the lucid ray To its own native fount returns. But when the Lord of mortal breath Decrees his bounty to resume, And points the silent shaft of death, Which speeds an infant to the tomb — 24 * 282 THE BOSTON BOOK. No passion fierce, nor low desire, Has quenched the radiance of the flame ; Back to its God the living fire Reverts, unclouded as it came. Fond mourner I be that solace thine ! Let hope her healing charm impart, And soothe, with melodies divine, The anguish of a mother’s heart. O think ! the darlings of thy love, Divested of this earthly clod, Amid unnumbered saints above, Bask in the bosom of their God. Of their short pilgrimage on earth Still tender images remain : Still, still they bless thee for their birth, Still filial gratitude retain. Each anxious care, each rending sigh, That wrung for them the parent’s breast, Dwells on remembrance in the sky, Amid the raptures of the blest. O’er thee, with looks of love, they bend : For thee the Lord of life implore ; And oft from sainted bliss descend, Thy wounded quiet to restore. Oft, in the stillness of the night, They smooth the pillow of thy bed ; Oft, till the morn’s returning light, Still watchful hover o’er thy head. TO A BEREAVED MOTHER. 283 Hark ! in such strains as saints employ, They whisper to thy bosom, peace ; Calm the perturbed heart to joy, And bid the streaming sorrow cease. Then dry, henceforth, the bitter tear : Their part and thine inverted see : — Thou wert their guardian angel here, They guardian angels now to thee. HINTS TO EDITORS. By Wm. J. Snelling. There are three kinds of editors ; the Upright, the Saving, and the Natural. Of these, the first are so few that I shall not consider them at all, and the following remarks will refer to the case of the other two. The name of the second speaks for itself. No saving editor is ever caned, or pulled by the nose, nor even convicted of igno- rance, bad grammar, libels, lies, or anything else, indeed, in particular; — one good reason for which may be, that he never writes. He copies every- thing, and keeps on the safe side. The third plan I call the Natural, because it has been adopted by nineteen editors out of twenty ; because it meets with almost universal acceptance ; and because, in most cases, it is really natural to both editor and subscriber. A Natural editor has an excellent taste, a proof of which is, that literary young gentlemen write for him gratis ; and his poetry and tales are always found in ladies’ scrap-books. His opinions are always sound, because he adopts those of his subscribers. Aspiring apprentices and other self- taught geniuses speak of him as a man of pro- found talents, and imitate his style, even to slips HINTS TO EDITORS. 285 in grammar. No man is so open to conviction as your Natural editor, nor so ready to make amends when he has done amiss. If a correspondent has abused his neighbor in his columns, they are always open to a reply. No matter how clear a case may be ; he is willing to hear all that can be said about it. The Upright editor needs no advice. The fol- lowing remarks are for the benefit of the Savers and Naturals : Never have an opinion of your own. If you intend to criticise a book, wait till the North American — or what is better, one of the English reviews — shall have decided on its merits. You may then venture to express your candid senti- ments. Let your paper be filled, mostly, with tales, legends, &c. Their subjects should be love and war. Any literary young lady, or merchant’s clerk can write them. If you cannot get such assistance, you must write them yourself, for they must by no means be omitted. The matter is of little consequence; the style is all. Interlard your matter with Latin and Greek. A quotation has the same effect on a truism that a wig has on a British judge. If you are totally ignorant, as I take it for granted you are, the Dic- tionary of Quotations will answer your purpose. Latin gives great weight to a lie. Never fail to praise the appearance of a volun- teer company. There are many common places 286 THE BOSTON BOOK. that will save the wear and tear of invention, such as, “ The precision of their evolutions and ppanirnity with which they handled their ild have done honor to veteran iptain Guzzle proved, by the man- ner in wnich he did honor to the hospitality of his fellow citizens, that he was as much at home in the salon as in the field.” By these means you will make friends of the whole corps, and get one or two subscribers. If, by any strange chance, you should feel some spasms of con- science, you may express your admiration in ambiguous terms; as, “Europe never saw such troops.” “ Had General Packenham displayed such tactics at New Orleans, the result would have been more disastrous.” The persons thus noticed will not fail to interpret such oracular sayings in their own favor. Speak of great men in such terms as may be construed by them into expressions of respect, and by others into claims of intimacy. Thus, “Our old and esteemed friend, Judge Marshall” — “ Daniel Webster, whom we have known and loved from childhood,” &c. & c. If you are going round with a subscription-list in a country town, cajole the clods by telling them that the established paper is ill-conducted, or that it is not exactly the thing wanted in the country. This will probably be true. You are not obliged to tell them, however, that you are no better than the person you wish to supplant, HINTS TO EDITORS. 287 though you may be conscious of it. Let them find that out themselves ; there is nothing like experience. Treat all great rogues respectfully. Speak of their villanies as u extreme measures to which they have been compelled by necessity . 77 Add thereto some wise saw, such as “ Guilt lies prin- cipally in intention , 77 and “ There is no esti- mating the strength of temptation till we are exposed to it . 77 In this way you will gain the reputation of a good feeling man. As for poor rogues, you may treat them as you please, pro- vided it be not with too much lenity. The best of them, unquestionably, deserves the gallows. Take care how you abuse any private indi- vidual. Public characters, provided you have nothing to expect from them or their parties, are fair game. You need not care what the quality of your censure or praise be, but let there be a sufficient quantity. Lay it on thick; some of it will stick. There are several kinds of persons who may be abused, but it is most safe to abuse a truly good and great man. It is ten to one he never hears of it ; and if he should, he will suffer your insignificance to be your protection. Whatever you say of him, repeat it often. Repetition makes many a fable pass for truth. Speak respectfully of poets. They are veri- tably an irritable race. The truly good ones care little for criticism; but the bad ones feel it 288 THE BOSTON BOOK. to the quick, because they are conscious of de- serving it. Then, they all make common cause. Their own enmity would be of little consequence, but they have friends and admirers ; so true it is, that let a man be never so foolish, he will still find greater fools than himself. I need not tell you, that among these will be some of your sub- scribers. It is a pleasure, indeed, to demolish a poet, but it is a dear pleasure at ten or twenty dollars. You may laugh at honor, scoff at honesty, and revile religion, but never call any native author a dunce. It may be that he is so ; and probably he is ; but then there are eleven millions of dunces in the country, each of whom feels your remark as a personal reflection. Fail not to insert in your columns all the bloody murders and executions you can find. Sympathy with the criminals and sufferers will increase the length of your subscription list. The gallows is what all may, and some must, come to. If you have any original ideas, husband them with the strictest economy. It is truly astonish- ing how soon such a stock may be exhausted. Many a man is a very agreeable companion for half an hour, and very much the reverse all the rest of his life. If you have as many thoughts as will last a year, you will do well enough. By the end of it, the ideas first hung out will have been suffi- HINTS TO EDITORS. 289 ciently aired, and may be used again without much risk of recognition. If you can, by any means, get admittance where two or three men of real learning and talent resort, you will need no capital of your own. Listen to them attentively, and pick up the crumbs of conversation. If you have a bad memory, you can note them down. You can bring out what you have heard, in a few days, as your own ; and after the ideas have passed through your hands, it is not likely that their parents will know them again. If they should, they will probably be ashamed to claim them. You will sometimes find yourself under the necessity of stealing. In such cases, never steal from a brother Natural. Every Natural is on the look-out for literary larceners, and you will certainly be detected. Steal from an Upright editor. He can afford you an alms. Moreover, it is likely that he will never discover your depredation ; and if he should, he will not notice it. Too much cannot be said touching the renova- tion of a brain exhausted, or barren of ideas. I would earnestly recommend to you an extensive course of stall reading. The old, forgotten Eng- lish authors will furnish you with thoughts ad libitum ; nay, with whole paragraphs. Six years ago, Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy was the comforter of distressed editors, but it is now too hackneyed to venture upon. St. Evremond, 25 290 THE BOSTON BOOK. however, and Davenant, remain almost entire. Beaumont, and Fletcher, and Ben Johnson will supply all your poetry. Old sermons will serve you better than learn- ing and genius could. Nobody reads them, and you may extract their pith without the least scruple. Beware, however, of Tillotson and Blair. Speaking of a popular orator, say that he reminds you of the best days of Rome and Athens. Though you may never have read a line of Cicero or Demosthenes, it will appear, by implication, that you have. If you wish to get a character for indepen- dence, attack some work on a subject that interests nobody but its author. You may demolish such a person without scruple. Last, but not least — remember that the sole end of your creation is to eat, drink, and make money. In order to fulfil it, you must forget that you are an individual, and consider yourself as the representative of your subscribers, and those who are likely to be your subscribers, in every- thing. You must have no thought, no feeling, no apparent interest but theirs ; at least you must make them think you have no other. If you observe the directions here laid down, they will probably send you to the General Court, and your ghost will laugh when it reads the lie on your grave-stone. INDIAN SUMMER. [Illustration of a Picture by Doughty.] By H. F. Harrington. Pause ! — holy quietness pervades the scene ; The very air is slumbering and still ; The silvery haze, that far, the boughs between, With filmy curtain shrouds the distant hill, No gentlest zephyr stirs. Hark ! from the rill Steals on the ear, soft, murmuring melody ! And oh ! how does the longing spirit will Prone in yon tiny boat, at ease to lie, As with its snow-white sail it skims the forests by. The angel of dread winter hath been here, But not in anger. As he sped along, Borne on the chilling wind, he bade appear A thousand varied hues the trees among. What magic beauty hath his presence flung Round every leaf that quivers in the dell, Or shrub that to the mountain-side hath clung : And the bright scene the calm lake mirrors well, As if within its depths were wove some goblin spell. 292 THE BOSTON BOOK. Here the sweet stream, that through the grassy vale In smooth unbroken current gently flows, Leaps o’er the rock, and tells its happy tale, Then gathers up its waters in repose. Oh ! well that deep, clear pool the angler knows ! And oft he cometh in the lowering day, Stealing along the bank’s green margin close, Moving the mimic fly in careful play, To entice with seeming bait his unsuspecting prey. Peace breathes around ! The sportsman here hath come, And thrown him, languid, on the bank to rest ; Content, in such a spot, no more to roam, Joy stirs within him, and he feels him blest. And I would come, with anxious cares opprest, Apart from all the vanities of life, And pausing here — by nature’s hand carest — Gazing on all around with beauty rife, Muse, with the world forgot — its sorrows and its strife. CHANGES. By J. O. Rockwell. The billows run along in gold Over the yielding main, And when upon the shore unrolled, They gather up again ; They get themselves a different form, These children of the wind, And, or in sunlight or in storm, Leave the green land behind. Life’s billows on life’s changing sea Come alway to Death’s shore, Some with a calm content, and free, Some with a hollow roar; They break and are no longer seen, Yet still defying time, Divided, and of different mien, They roll from clime to clime. All water-courses find the main ; The main sinks back to earth ; Life settles in the grave ; — again The grave hath life and birth ; 25 # 294 THE BOSTON BOOK. Flowers bloom above the sleeping dust, Grass grows from scattered clay ; And thus from death the spirit must To life find back its way. Life hath its range eternally, Like water, changing forms ; The mists go upward from the sea, And gather into storms ; The dew and rain come down again, To fresh the drooping land ; So doth this life exalt and wane, And alter, and expand. TO THE BUNKER HILL VETERANS. By Daniel Webster. Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Behold, how altered ! The same heavens are indeed over your heads ; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but ail else, how changed ! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon ; you see now no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and dying; the impetuous charge ; the steady and successful re- pulse ; the loud call to repeated assault ; the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resist- ance; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death ; — all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its 296 THE BOSTON BOOK. towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy popula- tion, come out to welcome and greet you with an universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a feli- city of position appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but your country’s own means of distinction and defence. All is peace ; and God has granted you this sight of your country’s happiness, ere you slumber in the grave forever. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils ; and he has allowed us, your sons and country- men, to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you ! But alas ! you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Put- nam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amid this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance, and your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve, that you have met the common fate of men. You lived, at least, long enough to know that your work had been nobly and suc- cessfully accomplished. You lived to see your THE BUNKER HILL VETERANS. 297 country’s independence established, and to sheathe your swords from war. On the light of Liberty you saw arise the light of Peace, like 11 another morn, Risen on mid noon 3 ” and the sky on Avhich you closed your eyes was cloudless. But — ah ! — Him ! the first great martyr in this great cause ! Him ! the premature victim of his own self-devoting heart ! Him! the head of our civil councils, and the distinguished leader of our military bands ; whom nothing brought hither, but the unquenchable fire of his own spirit; Him ! cut off by Providence, in the hour of overwhelm- ing anxiety and thick gloom ; falling, ere he saw the star of his country rise ; pouring out his gen- erous blood, like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage! how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name ! Our poor work may perish ; but thine shall endure ! This monument may moulder away; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail ! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred with thy spirit ! But the scene amidst which we stand does not permit us to confine our thoughts or our sympa- 298 THE BOSTON BOOK. tliies to those fearless spirits who hazarded or lost their lives on this consecrated spot. We have the happiness to rejoice here in the presence of a most worthy representation of the survivors of the whole Revolutionary Army. Veterans ! you are the remnant of many a well-fought field. You bring with you marks of honor from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Camden, Bennington and Saratoga. Veterans of half a century ! when, in your youthful days, you put everything at hazard in your country's cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this ! At a period to which you could not reasonably have expected to arrive — at a moment of national pros- perity such as you never could have foreseen — you are now met, here, to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive the overflowings of an universal gratitude. But your agitated countenances and your heav- ing breasts inform me that even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult of con- tending feelings rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the persons of the living, throng to your embraces. The scene overwhelms you, and I turn from it. May the Father of all mercies smile upon your declining years, and bless them ! And when you shall have here exchanged your embraces, when you shall once THE BUNKER HILL VETERANS. 299 more have pressed the hands which have been so often extended to give succor in adversity, or grasped in the exultation of victory, — then look abroad into this lovely land, which your young valor defended, and mark the happiness with which it is filled; yea, look abroad into the whole earth, and see what a name you have contributed to give your country, and what a praise you have added to freedom ; and then rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which beam upon your last days from the improved condition of man- kind ! SONG OF THE REVOLUTION. By T. Gray, Jr. We meet but to part, love — we part but to meet, When our foes shall be trodden like dust at our feet. No fetters, no tyrants our souls shall enslave, While the ocean shall roll, or the harvest shall wave. We go — to return when the strife shall be done — When the field shall be fought, and the battle be w T on ; — When the sceptre is smitten, and broken the chain, We come back in freedom, or come not again. Yon red-robed battalions are plumed for the fray, And their banners dance high o’er their martial array ; To-morrow still redder in blood shall they lie On the spot where they stand ; — we will conquer or die. Few, faithful, and fearless, we bend to the fight, And England’s best legions shall quail at our might ; The rush of our foemen unshaken we stem ; As the rock meets the ocean-w r ave, so meet we them. Ours are no hirelings trained to the fight, With cymbal and clarion, all glittering and bright ; No prancing of chargers, no martial display, No war-trump is heard from our silent array. SONG OF THE REVOLUTION. 301 O’er the proud heads of freemen our star-banner waves ; Men firm as their mountains, and still as their graves. To-morrow shall pour out their life-blood like rain ; We come back in triumph, or come not again. No fearing, no doubting, thy soldier shall know, When here stands his country, and yonder her foe ; One look at the bright sun, one prayer to the sky, One glance where our banner floats glorious on high ; Then on, as the young lion bounds on his prey ; — Let the sword flash on high, fling the scabbard away ; Roll on like the thunder-bolt over the plain ; We come back in glory, or come not again. Sweep them ofF, as the storm sweeps the chaff on its breath, Where bows the red harvest, whose reaper is Death ! Be strong as the earthquake, and swift as the wind ; Carry vengeance before us, and freedom behind ; We shed not vain tears when the warrior is low r , Be his soul to his God, so his breast ’s to the foe ; Our tears are the red drops, the life-blood that drain, When we come back with vengeance, or come not again ! 26 PHILIP OF MOUNT HOPE. By J. O. Sargent. Away ! away ! I will not hear Of aught but death or vengeance now By the eternal skies, I swear My knee shall never learn to bow ! I will not hear a word of peace, Nor grasp in friendly grasp a hand, Linked to the pale -browed stranger race, That work the ruin of our land. Before their coming, we had ranged Our forests and our uplands, free ; Still let us keep unsold, unchanged, The heritage of liberty. As free as roll the chainless streams, Still let us roam our ancient woods ; As free as break the morning beams, That light our mountain solitudes. Touch not the hand they stretch to you ; The falsely proffered cup, put by ; Will you believe a coward true ? Or taste the poison-draught to die ? PHILIP OF MOUNT HOPE. 303 Their friendship is a lurking snare, Their honor but an idle breath ; Their smile, the smile that traitors wear ; Their love is hate, their life is death. Plains which your infant feet have roved, Broad streams you skimmed in light canoe, Green woods and glens your fathers loved — Whom smile they for, if not for you ? And could your fathers’ spirits look From lands where deathless verdure waves, Nor curse the craven hearts that brook To barter for a nation’s graves ? Then raise once more the warrior song, That tells despair and death are nigh ; Let the loud summons peal along, Rending the arches of the sky. And till your last white foe shall kneel, And in his coward pangs expire — Sleep— but to dream of brand and steel, Wake— but to deal in blood and fire ! PLEASURES OF SCIENCE. By Wm. M. Rogers. Truth is that view of things which God himself takes. Science is truth reduced to a system. In each and all of its branches, it has yielded rich blessings to man. You have only to look about you, and note the familiar things essential to our comfort and prosperity, to be satisfied that we owe much, very much, to the intelligence of past generations of men; a debt which is best paid by adding something ourselves to the stock of human knowledge, and transmitting it through those who shall succeed us, with the accumula- tions of century after century, on to the last of our race. It is to the past and present develop- ments of science, that we are to refer the pros- perity, with the promise of an indefinite increase, which meets us, look where we may. Go and stand upon the high places of the city ; and while the hum of industry comes up to you, ceaseless as the murmur of the hive, observe the crowded dwellings of men stretching away in fair proportions to the distance ; note the swelling sails of commerce, and the fire-sped cars, bearing PLEASURES OF SCIENCE. 305 to and fro the riches of milder climes, and the fertility of our own soil. Now what power was it which tore the granite from its bed, where it had rested since chaos, and piled it up a well- ordered habitation for man? What knowledge guides that bark on its trackless, shoreless way, amid the waste of waters? What hand has penetrated the mountains, dragged the rugged ore from its concealment, fused it into shapes to suit its purposes, and laid it down as a pathway for man, while it compels fire and water to bear him on it, with a speed which outstrips the flight of the bird? These are the triumphs of science. She makes nature tributary to man. She has thrown her spell over the world for his benefit. She has muttered the charm upon the rivers of the land, and forced them to work at the wheel like a bondman, and to speed the revolutions of the lathe and the spindle. She has vexed the bosom of the earth, and forced the unwilling soil to render up her treasures, to store his granaries, to furnish his table, and to fill his heart with gladness. Science does not stint man to the blessings of his own skies : she levels the forest, and fashions it to her mind, until the oak floats a gallant ship upon the waters, as on its element ; she clothes it with wings, and sends it across the ocean, compelling the very stars to tell the mari- ner his way whithersoever he would go, that she may pour into the lap of man the blessings of other climes, of which nature has been chary to his 26 * 30G THE BOSTON BOOK. own. Thus she binds the families of the earth together in the interests of commerce, enriching each with the good of all. These are the tri- umphs of science. And thus has she brought us, step by step, in- vention after invention, to the present state of civilized man. Nor does she close her labors here. She comes to man as a bride, with the treasures of the earth, the sea, and the sky for her dower ; but it is not in her dower, rich and divine though it be, that her chief excellence consists. She is to be loved and prized for herself, as well as the blessings she brings with her ; and they usually woo her most successfully, who seek her with no mercenary aims. He who cultivates an acquaintance with the world in which he lives, can never be alone. What is solitude, but the emptiness of an ignorant mind? He who can converse with nature, and ponder on the varied mysteries she brings to his notice, and by which she fills his heart with gratitude and delight, can never be alone. He needs no com- panionship. Let him wander forth by hill, and brook, and grove — no rhyming, love-sick, dream- ing enthusiast, but a shrewd observer of facts, a searcher after principles and laws — and nature has enough to occupy, to interest and improve, in her most common forms, without sending him to libraries for knowledge. Where the vulgar eye can see only a shapeless mass of rock, revealing nothing to the careless and ignorant, he will PLEASURES OF SCIENCE. 307 detect a chronicle of the past, and tracing it to its native quarry, gather something from it of the stupendous changes which have transpired in our globe. While others pass by the insect, unheeded in its toil, he will stoop to watch its labors, dis- cover its habits, and admire the divine wisdom which has fitted it to its sphere. The very clod, which is trod unnoticed by the common foot, in the organization of the humble herb upon it, the root, the stem, the circulation of its juices, and the provision for continuing its kind, is as a page in God’s book, where he has stereotyped his power, his wisdom, and his goodness. He cannot be a solitary being. The universe is open before him, and he sees everywhere the majesty and loveliness of a higher nature. Where others can perceive nothing, learn nothing, order, beauty, and law are revealed to him. Where others can see but a stone, he sees a God, and worships. He cannot be alone ; for, step by step, he learns to understand what a God. only could create. Let us take a single instance of the unexpected and curious facts which meet us, even in the humble branches of science. Men generally sup- pose that war, as a system, is confined to the hu- man race. Yet it comes to us from competent witnesses of the facts, that various species of the ants have their wars, offensive and defensive; and with a method that would not shame the better wisdom of man. Some ant-hill, where the lust of conquest inspires to high deeds, has dis- 308 THE BOSTON BOOK. covered a dangerous neighbor or an easy prey, at the distance of a few rods, and sends out its thousands to the strife. They are preceded by the advance guard, who reconnoitre the enemy, and keep up a constant intercourse by orderlies and aids with the main body, and these with the parent hive. But they do not approach unob- served. The threatened city is quick with mov- ing life, and its chivalry advance to meet the enemy, and fight for home and country ! The combatants are ranged in opposite lines, with an interval between. Before the general onset, sometimes an ant, with larger soul than the com- mon herd, advances from the ranks. It is under- stood as a challenge to single combat; and he is met by one of equal spirit. They meet, seize each other by the mandibles, and struggle for the mastery. The tide of war comes rushing on, and they are lost amid the thousands of combat- ants. To whichever side the victory incline, the repulsed despatch expresses for reinforcements. They arrive, and the battle is restored. Wo to the wretch that is taken prisoner. He is dragged away to death, or hopeless slavery ; for domestic servitude is not confined to the human race. The assailed, generally the weaker party, unwilling to trust to the issue of the battle, make instant preparation for the worst. Their most precious things, with their young, are hurried out of dan- ger, and sometimes, almost ere the day is lost, they have laid the foundations of another com- PLEASURES OF SCIENCE. 309 mon wealth, where they hope the rage of war will not seek them out. Doubtless they have their Thermopylae — their Austerlitz — their W at erloo. The spirit of a Bonaparte has doubtless dwarfed itself to the bosom of an ant. This study is pure and elevating. Science is the knowledge of the works of God. Wherever we turn — above, around, beneath, within — he has been there before us. From worlds to in- sects, he is the present God. The harmony of the heavens proclaims his power, his wisdom, and his goodness ; and if we seek the aids of sci- ence, and place a leaf or a drop of water under the microscope, we are taught the same lesson in smaller characters, by the living creatures which people them. If in the contemplation of the higher wonders of the heavens, we feel our insig- nificance, and fear we shall be overlooked by our Maker, we shall regain our balance, when we see he does not forget to supply the wants of creatures so minute that the oak-leaf is as broad as a forest, and the drop as a sea for their habi- tation. Mungo Park had been plundered by rob- bers, and left almost naked, some five hundred miles from the sea-coast, in the interior of Africa, sick, surrounded by wild beasts, and men hardly less savage. As he contemplated the gloomy prospect, despair of final success almost mastered him. He says — u At this moment, painful as my reflections were, the extraordinary beauty of a small moss in fructification caught my eye. The 310 THE BOSTON BOOK. whole plant was not larger than the top of one of my fingers, yet I could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its leaves and capsules, without admiration. Can that Being, thought I, who planted, watered, and brought to perfection in this wilderness a thing so worthless, look with unconcern upon the situation and sufferings of a creature formed in his image? Reflections like these would not suffer me to despair ; and disre- garding both hunger and fatigue, I travelled for- ward, assured that relief was at hand ; and I was not disappointed.” Yes, the flowers of the earth are the small print in which God writes many a lesson for our instruction. The facts we have alluded to are a few, among numberless others, equally worthy of attention. No man can gi ve himself to the study of nature, without finding food for his mind. He has the knowledge which shall delight his youth, grace his manhood, and, next to religion, cheer his age. And more : in commencing with nature, he ac- quires a growing resemblance to nature herself, in a mind well-balanced, peaceful, happy. The very agitation of his spirit will be but the natural effort of a spirit under the control of sound laws, to regain its equilibrium. The book of nature, too, is but the preface to the book of grace. Or rather, it is the first volume of the revelation of himself which God has made, with the promise of a second. In itself, it is incomplete* — a frag« ment — a beginning without an end. It finds its PLEASURES OF SCIENCE. 311 completion in the Bible. The book of nature prompts us to inquiries which find no answer in its own pages - but it refers us to another, fuller, clearer revelation of truth, for an exposition of the great end of our being, and the means of at- taining it. The book o nature, by its assertion of the same truths with the Bible, directs us to God as their common origin, and prepares us to receive in faith the higher truths of the scriptures, unrevealed in nature itself. These remarks cannot be better closed than in the language of Kepler. He says — “As men en- joy dainties at a feast, so do wise souls gain a taste of heavenly things, when they ascend from their schools to the universe, and there look about them. He who has discerned the frailty of human affairs, will aspire heavenward from earth. He will begin to set le ;s value on what appeared to him most excellent. He will esteem God’s works above all things, and in the contem- plation of them he will find a pure enjoyment. Great Artist of the world ! I look with wonder on the works of thine hands, and in the midst, the sun, the dispenser of light and life. I see the moon and stars strewn over the infinite field of space. Father of the world ! what moved thee thus to exalt a poor weak little creature of earth so high, that he stands in light a far-ruling king, almost a God ; for he thinks thy thoughts after thee” Yes, we see what God has made, how he has made them, and why ; and we think his thoughts after him ! SOLITARY HOURS. By Geo. W. Light. No pleasure in the calm and peaceful hours, When the delusive streams of worldly joy Afar have flown ? No pleasure in the lofty emerald bowers, Where nature’s melody breaks forth — the wide Green woods — alone ? It is not so. The soul may there expand, And feel, in melancholy’s wild retreats, A joy that, when It leaves the heart, brings not an icy hand To sweep its feeble strings, and o A uick destroy Its rest again. Ay — when I wander in the lonely grove, And gaze upon the blue and silent lake, I there can feel That blessed charm come o’er my breast, and prove A healing balm — and on my troubled heart Peace calmly steal. SOLITARY HOURS. 313 And though my tears oft mingle with the dew That on the morning’s fresh and blooming flowers Pearl-like doth dwell, Light dissipates my gloom ; a brilliant hue, A rainbow arch, gleams over pleasure’s grave ; And none can tell Of peace more soothing to the weary soul, Or leaving brighter sunset-traces, when Itself has fled : Oh ! that to me, when I shall reach my goal, That glorious light may find its way again, Beyond the dead ! 27 NEWS-MAKING. By S. II. Jenks. Can anything, dead or alive, more pitiably un- happy be conceived, than a jaded scribbler for the public press — sitting down to his task at the last moment, with an aching head and an empty stomach — or vice versa , which is exactly the same in effect? Imagine the forlorn drudge’s sensations, as he doggedly lifts the quill stump, and moves it instinctively towards that fountain of good and evil, the ink-pot, surcharged with both the gall of bitterness and the honey of adula- tion. He is destitute of a topic — his overwrought brain has exhausted its stock of images — and he can fancy nothing but the ghosts of ideas already hackneyed through all the changes of the alpha- bet — no subject that has not been hacked to death by the hungry scissors of borrowers and imitators. Yet must he continue to feed the iron jaws of the press ! There is no release from the undertaking. He is in for it, and, sterile or fertile, feasting or starving, his imagination must be wrung daily, yea hourly, for the wherewithal to meet the merciless demands of the demon at his elbow ! NEWS-MAKING. 315 Other men may eat, drink, and sleep; may live, move, and have a being like decent crea- tures ; the merchant may relax in time of sick- ness, or retire at seasons of enjoyment; the mechanic may forego a job when he breaks a limb, or chooses to go a- fishing; the farmer may work, or let it alone ; and the mariner has fre- quent intermission amidst the toils and the storms of his career ; and the world wags without con- fusion, nevertheless ; they only, comparatively, feel the consequences. Not so with the slave of types. For him there shines no holiday. No re- pose, no retreat awaits his tired powers. When he skulks, the world comes to an end, and chaos riots ! Nor is it merely indispensable that he shall labor at brief and stated intervals — the most irk- some sort of employment, from its very constancy and regularity, and unceasing recurrence ;- — he must also put forth his efforts at something new. The reading public has become a spoiled child, with a depraved appetite, perpetually hankering after novelties, monstrosities, and impossibilities. In the fabrication of these crudities for quidnuncs, a renewal of intellect, once a year at least, should be provided for. There is an end, even to “ the spider’s most attenuated thread ; and what maker of long yams can be required, in reason, not only to spin out, like the spider, the substance of his body, but that of his brains into the bar- gain ! — Truly this is a cruel world ; and the man that meddles with paragraphs, a miserable piece of carneous machinery. ROSALIE. By Washington Allston. [Illustration of a Picture by himself.] Oh ! pour upon my soul again That sad unearthly strain, That seems from other worlds to plain ; Thus falling, falling from afar, As if some melancholy star Had mingled with her light her sighs, And dropped them from the skies. No — never came from aught below This melody of wo, That makes my heart to overflow As from a thousand gushing springs Unknown before ; that with it brings This nameless light — if light it be — That veils the world I see. For all I see around me wears The hue of other spheres ; And something blent of smiles and tears Comes from the very air I breathe. Oh, nothing, sure, the stars beneath, ROSALIE. 317 Can mould a sadness like to this — So like angelic bliss. So, at that dreamy hour of day When the last lingering ray Stops on the highest cloud to play — So thought the gentle Rosalie, As on her maiden reverie First fell the strain of him who stole In music to her soul. 27 * THE POETRY OF MRS. HEMANS. By B. B. Thatcher. The decease of Mrs. Hemans has occasioned the general expression of sorrow which the almost unprecedented popularity of her writings, with the circumstances of her character and history known to the public, might have led us to expect. To the poetical community, to the admirers es- pecially of that glorious spirit in poetry by which hers was so nobly distinguished — to the whole world of the heart in reading Christendom, we should perhaps have said — it was indeed no ordi- nary nor trivial affliction. All these must feel that a bright light has gone out from the firma- ment of the soul; a flame that could not leave for them, like the Pleiad, “ a void unmarked,” (in the language of the poetess herself,) for though the sisters of that sky u Still hold their place on high,” and still u The shepherd greets them on his mountains free, And from the silvery sea To them the sailor's watchful eye is turning / 7 THE POETRY OF MRS. HEMANS. 319 it is not true of the loss of the Poet, as of the loss of the Pleiad, that u Yon majestic heaven Shines not the less for that one vanished star 1 17 And we rejoice that it does not. Our chief con- solation for such a bereavement must be in the thought that it is felt as it should be; for, as regards herself, next to the public possession of such an author, is that public appreciation of her writings which gives her now and forevermore a spiritual being, to breathe and speak in the fame and favor which they continue to enjoy. But the feeling we speak of indicates much more than such a disposition to do justice to one individual, and a corresponding prospect of her future influ- ence upon the race. It indicates the power of appreciation still unimpaired. It shows the sin- cerity and the strength of the first burst of admi- ration. It gives us new faith in the might of the principles by force of which that admiration was both deserved and awarded. It confirms anew, and with a weight proportioned to the brilliancy of this reputation, the old theory of the divine policy of honesty ; its policy in literature, as well as in life ; the policy, we mean, of nature, virtue, truth ; for such, beyond a question, are the graces of the poetry of Mrs. Hemans, which for so many years have attracted for it and for her the delighted deference, the almost personal affec- 320 THE BOSTON BOOK. tion, the fond remembrance, of the community of which we spoke. True excellence, then, has yet some room to hope for notice, gratitude, and fame. If the pub- lic may be imposed on, there is an appeal to a higher tribunal. If it has no heart, the world, which is wiser and better than the public, has one ; and it will feel ; and it cannot be deceived. It is not dazzling shows nor specious promises, it is not flattering the vanity nor pampering the passions of mankind, it is not what is fashionable merely, it is not all the tricks of imagination, or intellect at large, with all the aids of art — alone — that may monopolize the attention of the reading world, (and especially that portion of it which thinks and feels,) however they may transiently succeed in diverting its love from its best friends and benefactors, and from truth and excellence themselves. Fashion will pass away, and pas- sion subside in satiety ; and the frivolous industry that ministered to the gratification of the one, and the false excitement that led the other to its own destruction, will be despised first, and then for- gotten ; but man remains the same, from first to last; and truth, which also remains, is mighty, and, worthily interpreted, must prevail. How long it may be in making its way, depends upon the circumstances of each particular case. It may address the head, or the heart, or both. It may be more or less a matter of necessity, or of THE POETRY OF MRS. HEMANS. 321 luxury alone. It may be left to the recommen- dation only of its own modest merit, or be drawn into notice by fortunate crises, or casual accom- paniments, well adapted to excite a seasonable sympathy, as it were at the mere sight of its features, or the sound of its name, while its abso- lute character is yet unknown. Meanwhile 11 The soul whence these high gifts are shed May faint in solitude/' exhausted by these same efforts, or borne down by circumstances which have little or no connection with them ; or it may thrive, as the young tree that leans over running waters, and grows stronger as it gives more fruit, till it lives to feel, in the airs that reach it from many a far-off shore, the joy of its own blossomy breath returned to it, and to hear the blessing of the poor pilgrim who has paused in the dust of the way-side of a weary life, and the school-girl’s glee, and the child’s murmur of sweet delight, as they turn down from the heat of the day, to be refreshed and re- joice together in the gloom of its green repose. So has it been already, and so it will be still, with the poetry of Mrs. Hemans. She strove to be the worthy interpreter of worthy truth, deeply concerning the happiness of her race ; and the vital spirit of virtue has inspired her to be equal to the task. This is her praise ; and it is praise enough; not that she has spent her strength in the rearing of dazzling fabrics of fancy, as bril- 322 THE BOSTON BOOK. liant and as useless as the ice-palaces of the northern Queen ; not that she has chosen to in- dulge the impulse of a wayward temperament in the reckless expression of feeling without princi- ple, and of sentiment without point ; not that she has dealt only in the cold oracles of a selfish philosophy, more thoughtful of truth, and of proof, than of the use of either in the wants of the world ; not that she has indulged unholy passion in tier own breast, or the breast of any living creature ; not that she has dared to exag- gerate, that at all events she might astonish, or deigned to be mean, in the miserable hope of amusing. No ! She has neither failed to feel the high dignity of her profession, nor forgotten to observe it. She has made no vain display of genius faithless to its trust. She has cultivated self as the means, not consulted it as the end. She has been ambitious less to gain honor, than to give pleasure, and do good. She has not assumed to assert what is doubtful, or to deny what is not so. She has not dogmatised, criticised, or theorised. She has not speculated. She has not trifled. She has not flattered nor inflamed. But she did strive to ennoble virtue, to encourage exertion, to sustain hope, to increase the happi- ness of men by increasing their capacity to be happy, and developing their taste for what is deserving of pursuit. She strove, in a word, as we began with saying, to be the worthy interpre- ter of worthy truth. And she was so. THE POETRY OF MRS. HEMANS. 323 No Delphic frenzy could aid in the discharge of such a service ; it would have made it, as in so many other cases ( not heathen) it has done, a worse than worthless labor. She wanted the powers of perception, and reflection, to appreciate the world without, and the world within ; and these she had and did ; but not as if to know, and to think, only, were the life of the soul. She wanted sensibility — the more exquisite, the better — and the more cultivated, with all the fac- ulties in due proportion, the better ; — “ for what is it to live, if it be not to love?” She wanted to feel, as only the good can do, “at the sight of whatever is excellent, an emotion like that which the sweet remembrance of infancy causes ; ” an instinct to recognize the face of the beautiful, wherever it may be, and to rush as it were into its arms, as her Syrian pilgrim, from all his wan- derings returned to his mother’s home again, into hers. She wanted enthusiasm even, in the exercise of these capacities ; enthusiasm to make the exercise a delight, and to inspire her to com- municate to other bosoms the rejoicing of her own. But with all these, which she had, she needed no morbid disorder ; she had none. She knew, with Degerando, that “we preserve this precious faculty of the heart” — even this — “ only in proportion as we cultivate truth, and guard against the exag- gerated. affected, or factitious.” She kept herself calm even for the purpose of feeling — of feeling rightly, as much as of seeing clearly — knowing 324 THE BOSTON BOOK. also it is a fruitless torture we choose to suffer, “ to force ourselves to be false to ourselves, and to everything, that we may learn how to be true; 7 ’ that the mind may faithfully mirror, only in a state of composure, the impressions which meet it; that the knowledge, the knowledge of all nature, and especially of his own, which the poet pursues, flees from the rushing footstep of passion, even as the haste of the hunter startles his game. This calmness it is, which eminently charac- terizes the poetry of Mrs. Hemans, and which most distinguishes it from the revolutionary poetry of the revolutionary age we live in. It is a self- possession which never forsakes her, in the heat of her highest enthusiasm of joy or sorrow. There is a divine dignity, unsurpassed by the grandeur of Milton, even in the rapture of the admiration that seems almost to lift her in her song, as upon angels’ pinions, u To the breath Of Dorian flute, or lyre-note soft and slow;” and again, in the darkest mood of the u tender gloom” which beautifully tinges the whole sur- face of her works, (like the dim, religious light of an ancient forest, or of one of her own lonely fanes, A mighty minster, dim, and proud, and vast,”) THE POETRY OF MRS. HEMANS. 325 there is yet a more than wakeful — a cheerful — an inextinguishably cheerful spirit — an immortal hope — a “ calmness of the just/ 7 — as manifest and as majestic in herself as in her own “ Alvar’s glorious mien / 7 and making its voice heard in the midst of its sorrow, like the martyr’s 11 Sweet and solemn-breathing' strain, Piercing the flames, untremulous and clear.” We have called it the vital spirit of virtue which sustains her. But call it rather, with her- self, “ God’s breath within the soul ; 77 for such an exhaustless reservoir of resources, after all, is the secret of her inspiration. It was the inspi- ration of truth — religious truth — religiously im- pressed, and felt ; — deep-seated, but calm, as a lake in the lonely hills, in the sun-bright silence of the breast. But the most distinctive peculiarity of these compositions remains to be noticed. It is a great deal, indeed, especially in these days, to be able to speak unreservedly, as we have done in this case, of the glorious spirit that lives along the spotless page. It is a great deal to say that Mrs. Hemans was a moral, rational, religious writer. But she was more than that. She wrote as none but a woman can write ; nay, as a woman should. She had the elements in her nature which could enable her, and which prompted her, to do so ; and she explored them. She had the capacity of feeling, in her own experience, the whole history 28 326 THE BOSTON BOOK. of the heart of a woman, through all the chances of her life ; and the genius to do justice, in lan- guage, to what she felt; and having these, she studied them, and tested them, and trained them to the work ; — u Gathering the jewels far below From many a buried urn 5 Wringing from lava-veins the fire That o’er bright words is poured 5 Learning deep sounds, to make the lyre A spirit in each chord ! ” She devoted herself, in fact, a living sacrifice, to what she considered, as Milton did, her “ noble task.” She lived for it; lived herself out for it; died for it. And so — the price, indeed, like the diver’s pearls, of lonely toil and bitter tears — her gems became, like his, 11 A star to all the festive hall.” And such was the discipline through which her poetry came, at last, to indicate, as a model, what female poetry should be. And so she made her- self the worthy representative of the sex. She had the elements in her nature, we said. It was not a female intellect alone. It was not the delicacy, the grace, the miniatural nicety, the ex- quisite tact in little things, nor anything else, appa- rent in her mere style, for which she might be in- debted to her genius as a woman ; it was not these, alone. It was the genius of the heart. It was the THE POETRY OF MRS. HEMANS. 327 female feeling. And oh ! how has she poured and poured it out, strong and fresh as the rushing waters of her own u streams and founts ’ 7 of the Spring, when they hurst u From their sparry caves, And the earth resounds with the joy of waves.” What devotedness — what fearless, uncalculat- ing, uncompromising confidence — the confidence of the heart — of a woman’s heart — breathe, as with a living ardor of the warm lips themselves, in the agony of Inez at the Auto da Fe, when the “ breathless rider ” found her, by the gleam of the midnight fire, “And dashed off fiercely those who came to part, And rushed to that pale girl, and clasped her to his heart ! And for a moment all around gave way To that full burst of passion ! — on his breast, Like a bird panting yet from fear, she lay, But blest — in misery's very lap — yet blest ! — O love, love strong as death ! — from such an hour Pressing out joy by thine immortal power — Holy and fervent love ! had earth but rest For thee and thine, this world were all too fair! How could we thence be weaned to die without despair ? But she — as falls a willow from the storm, O'er its own river streaming — thus reclined On the youth's bosom hung her fragile form And clasping arms, so passionately twined Around his neck — with such a trusting fold, A full, deep sense of safety in their hold, As if naught earthly might th' embrace unbind ! Alas ! a child's fond faith, believing still Its mother's breast beyond the lightning's reach to kill ! " 328 THE BOSTON BOOK. What a picture is this ! How do we feel that only one who has herself a heart, and such a heart, can render such justice to u The strife Of love, faith, fear, and that vain dream of life, Within her woman’s breast ! ” How do we seem to hear, as her hero “ woos her back to life,” in his frenzy, her “ soft voice in his soul!” How do we see, again, u Her large tears gush Like blood-drops from a victim 5 with swift rain Bathing the bosom where she leaned that hour, As if her life would melt in that o’erswelling shower.” These, truly, are the fervor, the trust, the ten- derness of a woman’s poetry. Here was her own province. The warm air of home was her genial stimulant. Her subjects show that she felt herself that it was so. If, in the choice of these, she sometimes leaves the fireside, she does not travel in male disguise ; still less does she cease to be what she is. Her household gods go with her wherever she goes, and the sound of their parting footsteps is audible with her own. With the wreck and the treasures of the deep, mid gold and gems, and buried isles, and towers o’erthrown, we find 11 The lost and lovely ! — those for whom The place was kept at board and hearth so long ! ” THE POETRY OF MRS. HEMANS. 329 She brings her “ flowers ” for crowns to the early dead , and for li Brides to wear ; — They were born to blush in their shining hair ! ” She sends the Crusader to Syrian deserts, that he may find his way back again to “ some fond mother’s glance,” that “o’er him , too, brooded in his early years.” She makes the conqueror in his sleep “a child again.” The Traveller, at the source of the Nile, thinks of the wild sweet voices of the streams, in u Haunts of play, Where brightly through the beechen shade, Their waters glanced away.” Her trumpet sounds for the lover to quit his mar- riage-altar, and u The mother on her first-born son Looks with a boding eye 5” and it is still “ woman on the field of battle” it- self. Sh efelt, we said, that here was her empire. She knew that it was the spells of home which inspired her, and she clung even to the forsaken hearth, and to the graves, themselves, of the household. The faith, the hope, the fear, the love, even the anguish, of a woman’s heart, sus- tained her; and she revived with the “taste of tears ; ” and again and again, while yet she weeps, like the Bride of the Isle, till her voice 28 * 330 THE BOSTON BOOK. seems lost with the choking swell, sweeter and clearer than ever do 11 Her lovely thoughts from their cells find way, In the sudden flow of the plaintive lay.” Hers, in a word, as we said before, is the poetry of a woman ; all , as some of it is entitled, the records of the sex, the songs of affection. And it is, in this respect, what it should be. It is the poetry of the household. It is the poetry of the heart. Such exertions, and such results, could not be doomed to fail. She has not lived, nor died, in vain. Though dead, she speaketh yet, and will speak ; and the heart of man, whose necessities, and sufferings, and high yearnings in the midst of them all, she knew so well to utter and to address, will hear her, and give heed to her les- sons. She wrote for those whom others have forgotten, and these will remember her. The mother, sister, daughter, wife — they that baptise the living, and that bury the dead — they that rejoice, and they that pray and weep — they that love, and “must love on,” but would 11 Make pure the flame that knows not death, Bearing it up to Heaven, Love’s own abode j” these, and all the host of her own nameless mar- tyrs that flower-like throng the solitudes of earth — whose affliction she has soothed, whose dreari- THE POETRY OF MRS. HEMANS. 331 ness enlivened, whose fortitude and faith sus- tained, whose natures filled with finer, worthier, truer notions of their own capacity and destiny, and of the capacity and destiny of the race ; — u Lifting the eternal hope, the adoring breath Of spirits not to be disjoined by death, Up to the starry skies ! v these, all these, in all time, will remember her ; cherishing the dear affections she has trusted, as doves, to their bosoms ; and, long after dust shall be in the heart which sent them forth to roam the world for shelter in some human soul, rejoic- ing, and blessing God, that, though life for her was short, she did not live, and has not died, in vain ! VISIT TO AN OLD PLAY-PLACE. By J. W. Miller. I come, I come, bright, sparkling fount, To fling me on thy grassy side, And drink, as I in youth was wont, New life from thy pure tide ; And in thy cool, translucent wave, My parched, thought-fevered forehead lave. Loved fountain, thou art dear to me, For hallowed memories are thine; And in thy voice of pensive glee Shall breathe a hymn divine ; A hymn that flings upon the heart Old feelings that too soon depart. A thousand sweet imaginings Shall bloom among thy margin-flowers ; And thy fair streamlet, as it sings Down to the hazel bowers, Shall tell me gay and happy tales Of youth — like summer’s morning gales. I come ! My aching head is hot With tossing on a sleepless bed ; I come, but ah ! I hear thee not — VISIT TO AN OLD PLAY-PLACE. 333 Where are thine echoes fled ? What, silent all ! and is there none To wake for me one soothing moan ? I come ! Such is my wayward fate — I stand beside thine ancient place, All silent now and desolate — But yet there is a grace, Though mournful, in the weeds that wave Above it as above a grave. I knew thee when the smile of youth Was thine, and thou didst glad the eye, And make the bosom still. In sooth I deemed not thou wouldst die So soon ; but now these old, grey stones Seem like a charnel-pile of bones. And one might deem thy lucid flow Was like a young and happy heart That in life’s shaded vale of wo Sparkled awhile — to part— Alas, how swift^ and go forth Like thee forever from the earth. Oh ! it is sad to look upon The play-place of our boyish hours, And mark what wasting change hath run As fire amid its bowers, And seared its greenwood-tree, and left A trunk all blackened and bereft. 334 THE BOSTON BOOK. And sadly I remember now When, as gushed forth that fountain-tide, I chased in childhood’s eager glow The wild bee by its side ; And loved, I knew not why, to bound Its ver ant, sunlit marge around. Years rolled, and growing manhood’s seal Sat on my brow — alluring Fame Breathed out for me her bugle-peal, And then again I came ; — The gushing fount still bubbled out — The rill went on its shining route, As erst it went : yet one might know The foot of Ttme had trodden there ; The ripples flashed no sunlight now, And a tall grove afar Spread out its leafy canopy, And whispered as the breeze went by. Yet still I loved the spot; and when, The Sabbath-morning on the hills, In deeper silence down the glen More swiftly stole the rills, The cool recesses heard me tell High hopes and dreams I loved too well. Now other years have wandered by — Once more I come — my boyhood’s dream Hath fled away from manhood’s eye, VISIT TO AN OLD PLAY-PLACE. 335 As sun-rays from the stream ; Yet would I fain once more renew Those hopes and those loved visions too. The shades of youth’s departed days Still love the places of their birth, And kindly send some tranquil rays To cheer those spots of earth ; I come to summon them again To their beloved haunts — in vain ! And as I stand in sadness here, In sadness stand, when to rejoice I came — this tomb-like silence drear Hath a prophetic voice — “ Thus desolate thy bower of joy — The fountain of thy hopes thus dry !” A MODERN GREEK. By S. G. Howe. I would have you mark this fellow Francesco well, for in him you will find the model of thou- sands of young Greeks of the present day ; and you will see the effect of circumstances on the character of the nation. Francesco was, in form and mind, a true Greek. He had the light, well- made, active figure ; the dark yet clear com- plexion; the regular, expressive, and animated features ; the keen and ever-restless eye, that indicate active and enterprising minds, keen sus- ceptibility, and strong but short-lived passion. He was born he knew not where ; and he first found himself a slave at Constantinople. He grew up under the eye of a tyrant, whom he hated and feared, and who, (as Francesco said,) though free from the unnatural passion which is one of the besetting sins of the Asiatic Turks, treated him in every other respect as a dog and a slave. The earliest efforts of his mind were to deceive and cheat his master. Hypocrisy and deception were his only weapons against brutal force. u So much,” said he, “ did I fawn upon my master, A MODERN GREEK. 337 so cringing, so cowardly, and unresenting did I appear under the lash, that you would have said I had no soul, and could not feel like a man.” He had no communion of spirit with his kind, for the hand of every man was against him; he saw that every one around him was perfectly unprin- cipled and selfish, and trying by force or fraud to overreach his neighbor; he himself could do noth- ing by the strong hand, and he had, like all the weak, recourse to guile. He clothed his face in smiles; he put on a simple and benevolent look; he cultivated his address, and flattered every one he met. With a continual eye to his own interest, he studied the character of others, and tried to take advantage of their weaknesses. He would lie and cheat for gain, and then he must lie and cheat to conceal his spoil from his mas- ter, who would have approved the villany, and stripped the villain. But Francesco watched his time; he killed his tyrant; he took as much of his gold as he could get at ; and, concealing him- self in the hold of a vessel, escaped from Con- stantinople. He roved about some time, a pirate, in the Archipelago; and then found his way to Europe. He wandered awhile in Italy, sometimes a trader, sometimes a spy, and sometimes, I fear, a brigand. He was an Atheist, and unprinci- pled, though he still clung to the mummeries of his church. He would take by the beard, and rob, a priest of his own religion, when out of his sacerdotal robes, yet would he never eat without 29 338 THE BOSTON BOOK. crossing himself, or undertake a pillaging excur- sion without putting up a prayer to the Virgin, and vowing her a big wax taper, if he had success. But Francesco had too uneasy, wandering a spirit, to let him remain in civilized Europe ; for he had not enough of the avarice of his country- men to content himself with mere money-making. He wandered into Servia, and Bosnia, and served among the Armatoli, who often lived by plun- dering the Turks, their employers. In these countries, and in Russia, he found many of his countrymen, who were hatching the plot of revo- lution. He became initiated into the secret, and felt all his old hatred of the Turks revive. As soon as the revolt in Greece broke out, Francesco flew to join the first of the rebels. And now behold him in his element, — the life and spirit of a band of wild mountain-soldiers. His wit and humor, his volubility and fund of anecdote, and his continual flow of spirits, made him the delight of his companions around the night-fire. It was Francesco’s cheerful voice that roused them at early dawn, it was Francesco who ever led the way through difficult or dangerous passes ; his never-ceasing song cheered the weary march, and his light look and frolic eye were never darkened by fatigue. Methinks I see him now, with his thirty light-hearted companions in a row behind him, rapidly crossing a plain, or toiling over a mountain, all life and animation, taking up the chorus of his song, and making A MODERN GREEK. 339 the mountains echo with their shouts. There can be nothing in real life more romantic or pic- turesque than the march of a band of wild Greek soldiers among the wilder scenery of their moun- tains. The classic ground, the glorious recollec- tions, and the noble cause, threw another charm on what in itself was really romantic. The animated movements of the soldiers, their beauti- ful and glittering dresses, each with his red cap and blue silk tassel, — his neck bare down to his bosom, — his long, jet-black ringlets reaching to his shoulders, — his gold-laced close jacket, with sleeves slashed and thrown back so as to leave the right arm and shoulder bare, — the white kilt bound in at the waist with a blue silk sash, cov- ered by a belt, in which hung yatagan and gilded pistols, — his embroidered gaiters and sandaled feet, — the white, shaggy capote, hanging down from the left shoulder, — the long, light, bright- barrelled gun in his right hand, — behold the Greek soldier, with all his baggage, equipped for a cam- paign. Methinks I am again with them, bounding forward to avoid or surprise a foe, with no music but the song of Francesco, no baggage but what each of us carried on his shoulder. The little blue banner with the white cross was streaming over my head, the soil of Greece was beneath my feet, the sons of Greeks were my companions, the liberty of Greece was in perspective, and with the enthusiasm of youth, I said I was the happiest of mortals. 340 THE BOSTON BOOK. Francesco was always first on the march, when the path was difficult to be found, or a dangerous defile to be passed. His reputation for courage, sealed and confirmed by his many scars, made him as much respected by his companions, as his merry mood and liberal dashing way, made him beloved. But he was not first in good deeds alone : was a village to be put under con- tribution for provisions, or sheep to be obtained nolens-volens from the shepherd, he always did the business. He would plead like a lawyer, and coax like a woman, and when that failed, out flew his yatagan, and he would head the soldiers in their too frequent attacks on the peas- antry. A fine man, indeed, you have for an attend- ant, says the reader: — a murderer, robber, and brigand! True; and yet he had his redeeming qualities, for he was brave, and generous, and warm-hearted; and he loved his country with a zeal equalled only by his deadly hatred of the Turks. He would plunder without much straining his conscience; still, he was not a thief. I have known him come out as true as steel, from situa- tions that severely tried his courage and attach- ment, and come out too, unsullied, from yet more dangerous ones, which put his honor and honesty to the test. I tried him long and well, and hardly know the man to whom I should more freely trust my life and property. LINES FOR MY COUSIN’S ALBUM. By Horatio Hale. Nay, ask me not how long it be Since love’s sweet witchery on me stole ; In truth, it always seemed to me A portion of my soul. I know the springs where love was nursed, But ask not when it blossomed first. ’T was not beneath the cloudless skies Of youth’s sweet summer ; long before, The sunshine of those gentle eyes Had waked the tender flower, And from its breathing censer-cup, Had drawn its purest incense up. ’T was not in childhood’s merry May, When dews were fresh and skies were fair, And life was one long, sunny day, Undimmed by thought or care ; — Oh no ! the stream whence love is fed Is deepest at the fountain-head ; — 29 * 342 THE BOSTON BOOK. And feeling’s purest, holiest flowers Are brightest in life’s earliest dawn, But fade when come the sultry hours Of noontide splendor on. The heart’s fine music sweetest rings Ere manhood’s tears have dulled the strings. I think my being and my love, Like oak and vine, together sprung ; And bough and tendril interwove, And round my heart-strings clung. Oh! never till my latest sigh Shall aught unclasp that gentle tie. SHAKING HANDS. By Edward Everett. There are few things of more common occurrence than shaking hands; and yet I do not recollect that much has been speculated upon the subject. I confess, when I consider to what unimportant and futile concerns the attention of writers and readers has been directed, I am surprised that no one lias been found to handle so important a matter as this, and attempt to give the public a rational view of the doctrine and discipline of shaking hands. It is a theme on which I have myself theorized a good deal, and I beg leave to offer a few remarks on the origin of the practice, and the various forms in 'which it is exercised. I have been unable to find in the ancient writers, any distinct mention of shaking hands. They followed the heartier practice of hugging or embracing, which has not wholly disappeared among grown persons in Europe, and children in our own country, and has unquestionably the advantage on the score of cordiality. When the ancients trusted the business of salutation to the hands alone, they joined but did not shake them ; 344 THE BOSTON BOOK. and although I find frequently such phrases as jungere dextras hospitio , I do not recollect to have met with that of agitare dextras . I am inclined to think that the practice grew up in the ages of chivalry, when the cumbrous iron mail, in which the knights were cased, prevented their embrac- ing ; and when, with fingers clothed in steel, the simple touch or joining of the hands would have been but cold welcome ; so that a prolonged junc- tion was a natural resort, to express cordiality; and as it would have been awkward to keep the hands unemployed in this position, a gentle agi- tation or shaking might have been naturally in- troduced. How long the practice may have remained in this incipient stage, it is impossible, in the silence of history, to say ; nor is there any- thing in the Chronicles, in Philip de Comines, or the Byzantine historians, which enables us to trace the progress of the art, into the forms in which it now exists among us. Without therefore availing myself of the privi- lege of theorists to supply by conjecture the ab- sence of history or tradition, I shall pass imme- diately to the enumeration of these forms : 1. The pump-handle shake is the first which deserves notice. It is executed by taking your friend’s hand, and working it up and down, through an arc of fifty degrees, for about a minute and a half. To have its nature, force, and character, this shake should be performed with a fair steady motion. No attempt should be SHAKING HANDS. 345 made to give it grace, and, still less, vivacity; as the few instances, in which the latter has been tried, have uniformly resulted in dislocating the shoulder of the person on whom it has been attempted. On the contrary, persons who are partial to the pump-handle shake should be at some pains to give an equable, tranquil move- ment to the operation, which should on no account be continued after perspiration on the part of your friend has commenced. 2. The 'pendulum shake may be mentioned next, as being somewhat similar in character; but moving, as the name indicates, in a horizon- tal, instead of a perpendicular direction. It is executed by sweeping your hand horizontally toward your friend’s, and after the junction is effected, rowing with it from one side to the other, according to the pleasure of the parties. The only caution in its use, which needs particu- larly to be given, is not to insist on performing it in a plane, strictly parallel to the horizon, when you meet with a person who has been educated to the pump-handle shake. It is well known that people cling to the forms in which they have been educated, even when the substance is sacrificed in adhering to them. I had two ac- quaintances, both estimable men, one of whom had been brought up in the pump-handle shake, and another had brought home the pendulum from a foreign voyage. They met, joined hands, and attempted to put them in motion. They 346 THE BOSTON BOOK. were neither of them feeble men. One endeav- ored to pump, and the other to paddle ; their faces reddened ; the drops stood on their fore- heads ; and it was, at last, a pleasing illustration of the doctrine of the composition of forces, to see their hands slanting into an exact diagonal — in which line they ever after shook. But it was plain to see, there was no cordiality in it ; and, as is usually the case with compromises, both parties were discontented. 3. The tourniquet shake is the next in impor- tance. It derives its name from the instrument made use of by surgeons to stop the circulation of the hlood, in a limb about to be amputated. It is performed by clasping the hand of your friend, as far as you can, in your own, and then contracting the muscles of your thumb, fingers and palm, till you have induced any degree of compression you may propose, in the hand of your friend. Particular care ought to be taken, if your own hand is as hard and as big as a frying-pan, and that of your friend as small and soft as a young maiden’s, not to make use of the tourniquet shake to the degree that will force the small bones of the wrist out of place. It is also seldom safe to apply it to gouty persons. A hearty young friend of mine, who had pursued the study of geology, and acquired an unusual hardness and strength of hand and wrist, by the use of the hammer, on returning from a scientific excursion, gave his gouty uncle the tourniquet SHAKING HANDS. 347 shake, with such severity as nearly reduced the old gentleman’s fingers to powder; for which my friend had the pleasure of being disinherited, as soon as his uncle’s fingers got well enough to hold a pen. 4. The cordial grapple is a shake of some in- terest. It is a hearty, boisterous agitation of your friend’s hand, accompanied with moderate pressure, and loud, cheerful exclamations of wel- come. it is an excellent travelling shake, and well adapted to make friends. It is indiscrimi- nately performed. 5. The Peter Grievous touch is opposed to the cordial grapple. It is a pensive, tranquil junc- tion, followed by a mild subsuitary motion, a cast-down look, and an inarticulate inquiry after your friend’s health. 6. The prude major and prude minor are nearly monopolized by ladies. They cannot be accurately described, but are constantly to be noticed in practice. They never extend beyond the fingers ; and the prude major allows you to touch even then only down to the second joint. The prude minor gives you the whole of the fore- finger. Considerable skill may be shown in per- forming these, with nice variations, such as extending the left hand, instead of the right, or stretching a new glossy kid glove over the finger you extend. I might go through a list, of the gripe royal , the saw-mill shake, and the shake with malice 348 THE BOSTON BOOK. prepense ; but these are only factitious combina- tions of the three fundamental forms already described, as the pump-handle, the pendulum, and the tourniquet ; as the loving pat , the reach roman- tic, and the sentimental clasp, may be reduced in their main movements to various combinations and modifications of the cordial grapple, Peter Grievous touch, and the prude major and minor. I should trouble the reader with a few remarks, in conclusion, on the mode of shaking hands, as an indication of characters, but I see a friend coming up the avenue, who is addicted to the pump- handle. I dare not tire my wrist by further writing. TEMPERANCE HYMN. By L. M. Sargent. God gave the gift to man ; But man, with fatal skill, Insensate, formed the plan To change the good for ill : The poison, tortured from the cane, Like Sampson, hath its thousands slain. God gave the golden grain To hungry man, for food; But, querulous and vain, He spurned the proffered good ; And Egypt’s slothful sons, athirst, Drew forth the drowsy beverage first. God gave the clustering vine ; Ingenious man, perverse, Exchanged the boon for wine, And wrought Canaan’s curse : The Patriarch, who had safely past The deluge, was o’erwhelmed at last. 30 350 THE BOSTON BOOK. The madness came by wine, That wrought Belshazzar’s fall ; And caused the hand divine To write upon the wall — Scoffer, thy royal race is run ! Thy work of wickedness is done ! To earth the cup be hurled, That holds an adder’s sting ; And let us pledge the world, With nectar from the spring. Henceforth, like Rechab’s ancient line, Though prophets urge, we drink no wine. THANKSGIVING. By J. T. Buckingham. Thanksgiving ! — there is a magic in the sound of the word, which calls up from the grave of years the shadows of departed pleasures, breathes upon them the breath of life, fills them with their original attributes, decorates them again with the freshness of reality, and bids them move before the enraptured imagination, a long and gay pro- cession of images, reflecting the innocence of childhood, the generous affection of youth, the fervency and faithfulness of that unsophisticated and momentary interval, which precedes the entrance on the scenes of business and bustle, of anxiety and calculation, of cold-hearted indiffer- ence, of selfish distrust, and, perhaps, of treach- erous friendship and insidious hypocrisy. First in the smiling pageant, approaches the child, rich (Oh! how rich, beyond the wealth of princes!) in the possession of its primers and playthings, wondering why all the bustle of preparation for the feast, and inquiring, with characteristic sim- plicity, the meaning of the unusual prodigality and ceremony, which everywhere meet and 352 THE BOSTON BOOK. enchant its unaccustomed eye. Next, the troop of school-boys, with limbs all life and elasticity, and hearts all harmony and gladness, drunk with their dream of liberty and release from study ; mingled with the less happy but perhaps more fortunate boys, whose lot compels them to labor for their bread, with well-strung nerves, and bodies invigorated by health and exercise ; — bounding, to find their home, over fields and meadows, over brook and path, with hearts as unconcerned and steps as light as the roe or the young hart on the mountains of spices. The apprentice, — the implements of his handicraft laid by, and the frugal portion of his daily sim- ple subsistence forgotten, — his eyes glistening with exultation and his breast heaving with the fulness of anticipation, — rushes along to meet, at home, the anxious parent, proud of the boy’s advance in a trade that will make him indepen- dent, and the younger child, who wonders if a year can have wrought so astonishing a transfor- mation, and almost doubts his identity. Now approach the brother and sister, whom a few months of separation have rendered more affec- tionate — the friends, whom difference of employ- ment or variety of pursuit had partially estranged — the lovers, whose impatient hearts, though blessed with frequent and delighted intercourse, welcome the return of Thanksgiving as the day when hope and love are to find their consumma- tion — the day which is forever after to be more THANKSGIVING. 353 sacred in their calendar than all the year besides. But the images too thickly throng — “ too fast they crowd/’ for the powers of description. In the midst of the gay and glorious assembly, are the father, the mother, the patriarch bowed with years, and she who has been the nurse of genera- tions, partaking of the general joy and congratu- lation, nor murmuring that, while such a scene engages and employs their faculties, the wheels of time do not more rapidly bring on the promised period of translation to another and more endur- ing heaven. An anonymous modern writer has beautifully said — u There are moments in existence, which comprise the power of years — as thousands of roses are contained in a few drops of their essence.” The remark is no more beautiful than just. I once witnessed an incident which made me feel its truth, though long before the senti- ment itself was written. In one of the largest villages in the eastern part of Connecticut, a woman was left a widow, with ten children, all but one of whom were under twenty years of age. The family had once enjoyed a compe- tence, and looked forward to years of ease and plenty. Toward the close of the revolutionary war, the father, thinking to make a lucrative speculation, disposed of a large and profitable stock in trade, and received in payment what at the time was called cash, but which turned out shortly to be worthless paper — bills of the old 30 * 354 THE BOSTON BOOK. “ Continental Currency.” These bills were laid up in his desk, and soon began to depreciate in value. The deterioration went on from day to day, and in a few months the bubble burst, and the fund which had been hoarded to educate a family would not buy them a breakfast. At this moment the father died. I will not trace the history of this family through its days of destitu- tion and poverty. It is sufficient to state that the children were scattered in various directions, and engaged in various employments, till, at length, all were gone, and the mother left alone, dependent on friends for a bed-room, and on the labor of her hands for her own subsistence — a precarious de- pendence, for to other misfortunes had succeeded the loss of health. In process of time, one of the sons, having completed his apprenticeship, hired a house for his mother, and lived with her, while he followed the occupation of a shoemaker. Thanksgiving Day came; and with it returned an opportunity to indulge in its peculiar rites, which they had not enjoyed for ten years. The two youngest boys, who lived at a distance from each other and from the parent, came home to keep Thanksgiving. The festive preparations were completed — the table was spread — around it stood a mother and three sons, who had not been assembled together before, within the remem- brance of the youngest of the group. The grate- ful and pious mother lifted her heart and her voice to the widow’s God, and uttered a blessing THANKSGIVING. 355 on that kindness, which had not broken the bruised reed, and that goodness, which had re- membered all her sorrows, and permitted her once more to see so many of her orphan children assembled about her. Her expressions of grati- tude were not finished, when the tide of affection and thanksgiving, which swelled the heart, over- powered the physical faculties ; her bosom heaved with strong convulsions, her utterance was choked, the lips could not relieve by words the emotions which filled the soul ; — she faltered, and would have fallen, but that the elder son caught and sustained her in his arms. Tears at length came to her relief, and the earthquake of the soul was succeeded by those grateful and affectionate sen- sations, which can find no parallel but in a mother’s heart. It is near forty years since this incident took place. The scene is now as fresh and bright to my imagination as it was at the moment of its occurrence. Eternity cannot obliterate its im- pression from my memory— and, if it could, I would not ask for eternity on that condition — for that widow was my mother. THE PILGRIMS’ LAND. By Charles Sprague. Peace to the mingling dead ! Beneath the turf we tread, Chief, Pilgrim, Patriot sleep. All gone ! how changed ! and yet the same, As when faith’s herald bark first came In sorrow o’er the deep. Still from his noonday height, The sun looks down in light; Along the trackless realms of space, The stars still run their midnight race ; The same green valleys smile, the same rough shore Still echoes to the same wild ocean’s roar ; — But where the bristling night-wolf sprang Upon his startled prey, Where the fierce Indian’s war-cry rang Through many a bloody fray, And where the stern old Pilgrim prayed In solitude and gloom, Where the bold Patriot drew his blade, And dared a patriot’s doom — Behold ! in liberty’s unclouded blaze, We lift our heads, a race of other days. THE PILGRIMS’ LAND. 357 All gone ! the wild beast’s lair is trodden out ; Proud temples stand in beauty there ; Our children raise their merry shout, Where once the death-whoop vexed the air. The Pilgrim — seek yon ancient place of graves, Beneath that chapel’s holy shade ; Ask, where the breeze the long grass waves, Who, who within that spot are laid : The Patriot — go, to fame’s proud mount repair ; The tardy pile, slow rising there, With tongueless eloquence shall tell Of them who for their country fell. All gone ! ’t is ours, the goodly land. Look round — the heritage behold ; Go forth — upon the mountains stand, Then, if ye can, be cold. See living vales by living waters blessed, Their wealth see earth’s dark caverns yield, See ocean roll, in glory dressed, For all a treasure, and round all a shield : Hark to the shouts of praise Rejoicing millions raise ; Gaze on the spires that rise, To point them to the skies, Unfearing and unfeared ; Then, if ye can, oh, then forget To whom ye owe the sacred debt — The Pilgrim race revered ! The men who set faith’s burning lights Upon these everlasting heights, To guide their children through the years of time ; 358 THE BOSTON BOOK. The men that glorious law who taught, Unshrinking liberty of thought, And roused the nations with the truth sublime. Descendants of a twice-recorded race ! Long may ye here your lofty lineage grace. ’T is not for you home’s tender tie To rend, and brave the waste of waves; ’T is not for you to rouse and die, Or yield and live a line of slaves. The deeds of danger and of death are done : Upheld by inward power alone, Unhonored by the world’s loud tongue, ’T is yours to do unknown, And then to die unsung. To other days, to other men belong The penman’s plaudit and the poet’s song ; Enough for glory has been wrought ; By you be humbler praises sought ; In peace and truth life’s journey run, And keep unsullied what your Fathers won. Take then my prayer, Ye dwellers of this spot ! Be yours a noiseless and a guiltless lot. I plead not that ye bask In the rank beams of vulgar fame ; To light your steps I ask A purer and a holier flame. No bloated growth I supplicate for you, No pining multitude, no pampered few ; ’T is not alone to coffer gold, Nor spreading borders to behold ; THE PILGRIMS 7 LAND. 359 ’T is not fast-swelling crowds to win, The refuse-ranks of want and sin. This be the kind decree : Be ye by goodness crowned ; Revered, though not renowned ; Poor, if Heaven will, but Free ! Free from the tyrants of the hour, The clans of wealth, the clans of power, The coarse, cold scorners of their God ; Free from the taint of sin, The leprosy that feeds within, And free, in mercy, from the bigot’s rod. So, when our children turn the page, To ask what triumphs marked our age, What we achieved to challenge praise, Through the long line of future days, This let them read, and hence instruction draw : “ Here were the Many blessed, Here found the virtues rest, Faith linked with love, and liberty with law ; Here industry to comfort led ; Her book of light here learning spread ; Here the warm heart of youth Was wooed to temperance and to truth ; Here hoary age was found, By wisdom and by reverence crowned. No great but guilty fame Herelkindled pride, that should have kindled shame ; These chose the better, happier part, That poured its sunlight o’er the heart, That crowned their homes with peace and health ; And weighed heaven’s smile beyond earth’s wealth ; 360 THE BOSTON BOOK. Far from the thorny paths of strife They stood, a Jiving lesson to their race, Rich in the charities of life, Man in his strength, and Woman in her grace ; In purity and love their pilgrim road they trod, And when they served their neighbor, felt they served their God.” This be our story then, in that far day, When others come their kindred debt to pay : In that far day ? — Oh ! what shall be, In this dominion of the free, When we and ours have rendered up our trust, And men unborn shall tread above our dust ? Oh ! what shall be ? — He, He alone, The dread response can make, Who sitteth on the only throne, That time shall never shake ; Before whose all-beholding eyes Ages sweep on, and empires sink and rise. Then let the song to Him begun, To Him in reverence end : Look down in love, Eternal One, And Thy good cause defend ; Here, late and long, put forth Thy hand, To guard and guide the Pilgrims’ land ! Date Due PS 549 * BA B6 1837 T h e B o s t o n b o a k <■ Bapst Library Boston College Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02167