OUR PORTION. Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion. Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God. For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth him in the joy of his heart. Ecclesiastes v, 18, 19, 20. A wanderer on a midnight sea, Denied the polestar's guiding ray, I know that rocks are on the lee, That sands and shallows crowd the way; And, as the vivid lightning's play, Bowed by the fury of the blast, And borne on foam-crowned waves away, See tattered sail and broken mast. I see how those who went before Are dashed against my vessel's side; It cries:-"And hast thou then relied Ask of those mangled forms a guide: They've seen and proved the dangers near." That sea is but the sea of life, O'er which a polar darkness lours; He mocks our anguish to renew: The corses weltering in the wave We saw them yield; and could not save: And every pleasure we have known Resistless fell before his might; Like flashing meteors, they shone And perished like the dreams of night, That scarce have roused the o'er-labored mind, We seek for honors, wealth, or power, We may not conjure from the past For Time came on with ruthless haste, And floating in its dismal shade The demon comes with hellish grin ; Ha! let me drain the poisoned bowl: Away! away! The spell is o'er.- I'll use my jaded powers to bear. As others have, I'll bravely dare, With confidence its folds extend. The helm remains a faithful friend; As, struggling up the clouded east, And I, from danger's grasp released, Yet will we drop the sorrowing tear As round the hearth their tale we tell. On theirs, of sturdier minds, who drove The fiend Despair to distant cell, And firmly 'gainst life's evils strove. Though friendships formed without a thought, Have proved; the lesson's cheaply bought From that endeared and humble home, Where still the partial friends will come, Whose kind reproofs we, angered, fled. If, where excess holds carnival, How soon the senses pall we've found, We'll hasten to the ample hall Where Science sits by Virtue crowned. There will we learn the laws profound That govern things, and states, and mind, VOL. III.-3 And, when eve's shadows gather round, If honors sought invest our heads, We'll wealth relinquish unconcerned; Their bright example who so yearned Towards Freedom, in past days, shall aid. But if, adown the humbler path Of life, with poverty we wend, We'll seek the bliss contentment hath And life in healthy labor spend. And, freemen born, we'll proudly lend The furrowed lines that there appear. For lo! the bow-spanned arch is clear, And every breeze is fraught with joy. And now again, as in the hours When childhood's guilelessness could find, We will admire His power who made; Of ills He bade his creatures bear. A LETTER NITOR. done, and caused, in consequence, a good deal of intestine commotion on board of our vessel. I owe the sickness, however, thanks in one respect, for in the outset, whilst I was experiencing the truth of Byron's lines, It is an awkward sight To see one's native land receding through and feeling as blue as the waters of the ocean around me, at leaving "friends and sacred home," it completely released me from all such moral sufferings. One is apt to care for little else when revelling in the sensations which the motion of the ship produces. But enough of such reminiscences. On revient toujours à ses premiers amours, but not to one's first hates. After remaining a day in Havre, I set off in the Diligence for Rouen. Being desirous, of course, of seeing the country through which we passed, without imitating the example of great Julius, who, according to the school-boy's translation of the phrase, "Cæsar venit in Galliam summâ diligentiâ,"-came into Gaul "on the summit of the Diligence"-I took my seat in the Caupé, which being open on all sides save the one where it is separated from the Intérieur, affords a very good prospect of whatever is to be seen. The road between Havre and Rouen is generally very good. It runs near the river Seine, the banks of which are quite pretty, and through a finely cultivated and tolerably well-wooded region. Some of the views which it presents to the traveller, embracing both sides of the river, are beautiful. The villages situated upon it wear all a squalid, decayed appearance. In all the habitations of the inferior orders of people that I observed scattered about the country or collected together in villages, there is a lamentable want of that air of neatness and comfort which renders the farm-houses and hamlets in England so attractive. One dwelling that we passed was of so unique a character that it deserves to be mentioned; it was constructed entirely out of an immense rock which rested on the side of a high hill, and seemed to possess every requisite for the residence of the poor family by whom it was inhabited. It was rather singular to see smoke curling out of the top of a huge mass of granite, before you came near enough to be aware of its nature. At a short distance from L'Ilebonne, one of the villages through which we rode, are the moss-covered ruins of a building of Roman date, and of an old feudal chateau that wear a highly impressive and venerable aspect. The sight of these relics of former days constitutes one of the peculiar pleasures of travelling through a country where, for centuries, civilization in a greater or less degree, has exercised sway. The mind contemplates with a species of pensive delight the various monuments of bygone ages, slowly mouldering into the decay which long since has overtaken the hands by which they were constructed. For the student especially there is something intensely interesting in wandering through regions thus pregnant with historical and romantic recollections, where every antiquated structure, where almost every spot of ground has its own story to tell, and affords food for diversified reflection. How he revels in the idea that he is in a land Where each old poetic mountain where he may almost fancy himself treading in the plan. But scarcely has he advanced a few steps in the footsteps of men, on whose actions and on whose street, before his notice is attracted by something that thoughts he has loved to dwell, and can, as it were, causes him to linger for awhile. Tearing himself, howidentify them with what he sees! It is this undefinable ever, away, he proceeds a little further in his course, charm which is thrown around several of the countries when another novelty produces another delay. Again of Europe, more than their positive, actual beauty, he continues his route, secretly vowing that nothing which renders a tour through them a matter of such shall a third time turn him aside from the object he has exquisite gratification. But the scenes of practical in view, but again is his attention diverted to what misery which are constantly presented to the eye in meets his eye. In this manner he goes on; until perFrance, are too revolting to allow the imagination to haps he finds himself completely wearied for the day, indulge in its reveries for any length of time, and before he has arrived at the place which it was his inconstitute a great drawback upon the pleasure arising tention first to inspect. This happened to me so often from a journey through its hallowed and lovely region. | in my sight-seeking expeditions, that at length I abanWhenever the Diligence stopped, especially if in a vil-doned all hopes of accomplishing a systematic scrutiny, lage or town, it was immediately surrounded by a host and permitted myself to wander about without chart or of beggars demanding charity, whose pitiably miserable compass in whatever direction I was borne by the varyappearance was enough to sicken the heart. It would ing wind of inclination or chance. "Quo me cunque be in vain, however, for any other than a Rothschild rapit tempestas, deferor hospes," was the only principle to attempt to bestow alms, however inconsiderable, of my ramblings. Indeed it would be next to impossiupon them all. If a person with a purse of but mode- ble to have any other in Paris, where at every step so rate dimensions were to do it, he would soon be obliged many causes of amusement and interest are encountered, to enroll himself among the mendicant fraternity, and that unless you possess the self-command or apathy of cry out with the rest of them-"Donnez un sous, à un a stoic, it is a matter of as much difficulty for you to pauvre malheureux, pour l'amour de Dieu et de la Sainte keep your "eyes right" as it is for a militia man on his Vierge." But it would be impossible for the most frigid first muster-day. This remark is of course only applistoic to resist some of the sights of distress which are cable to pedestrian excursions—in a cabriolet or any encountered. other kind of vehicle, temptations to irregularity being much less strong and much less easy to gratify, a methodical course may be pursued. But I must confess that (whenever the state of the weather rendered it possible,) I infinitely preferred trudging along to the employment of a conveyance; and I think it decidedly most advisable for a stranger, who is anxious to gain all the entertainment and instruction he can from his sojourn in Paris, to make use of his legs as much as possible in his peregrinations among its streets. By riding, it is true, he saves a great deal of time and avoids considerable inconvenience of various kinds, but his observations will be comparatively few and superfi cial, and his sources of amusement much less abundant. There is one circumstance which at first gives the Where through the long drawn aisle and fretted vault, Beyond those venerable structures the place has few The first thing of course that a stranger does in Paris, is to make the round of its "lions," having previously purchased a guide-book, and arranged the most regular process for inspecting them all. After fixing upon the method to be pursued, appropriating certain objects to each day, in order to avoid confusion, he sets out upon his tour with a full resolve to follow his predetermined I have said that considerable inconvenience is avoided by riding, and it must be acknowledged that it requires no small portion of patience and self-possession to thread one's way through most of the streets, or rather alleys, of Paris. It is a pity the poet Gay did not write a Trivia upon the art of walking in them, as well as in those of London, instead of leaving that theme for "Gallia's Muse." His directions for the comfort of pedestrians in the metropolis of England, are of little use to the tribe, who, in the sister capital, seek Sweet content on foot, Wrapt in their virtue, and a good surtout. Here it is useless to trouble one's self about giving the wall to one person and refusing it to another, or with reflections upon the best means of escaping all annoyances, such as the dirtying of clothes, jostling, and a hundred others, which it would require an iron voice and brazen lungs to enumerate-all minor considerations are merged in the absorbing one of safety. The danger that is incurred from innumerable vehicles in narrow, crowded streets, where there are no side-walks, and where consequently the pedestrian has no appropriate place, is such, that unless the whole attention is devoted to its avoidance accidents must ensue. Wo to garden is equal, if not superior, to the garden of the Tuileries-that the Palais Royal was the property of the notorious Philippe Egalité, Duke d'Orleans, who sold it to repair his fortunes, shattered by a long course of profligacy and extravagance, and that it is now a splendid bazaar of quadrangular shape, where all the necessaries, and almost all the luxuries of life can be obtained-that the other buildings most worthy of admiration, are the Bourse or Exchange, an exquisite specimen of chaste architecture; the Bourbon Palace, where the Chamber of Deputies hold their sittings; the Hotel Dieu or Hospital for invalid and worn out veterans, famous for its gilded dome; the churches of Notre Dame, the Madeline, St. Roc, &c. the person who is anxious about the preservation of his | national collection of paintings, though much inferior coat from the mud and filth of all kinds which are flying in size and value to that of the Louvre, and that its about; vanity will as certainly be his ruin as it was that of the frog in the fable. In endeavoring to get out of the way of the mire that is flung from the wheels and "dashing hoofs" of one equipage, he will almost infallibly be run over by another-to use a favorite figure, from the frying pan he will jump into the fire. Our worthy forefathers, it is said, always made their last wills and testaments when they were on the eve of a journey from Philadelphia to New York or Baltimore; and it would appear necessary for persons about to commence the perilous navigation of Parisian streets, to take the same precaution, were it not a fact that few if any accidents occur. I have really been astonished, not only at the dexterity of the natives in dodging, but at that which I myself have acquired after a short noviciate. It eventually becomes so natural to you to hear the rattling of a vehicle at your back, while the heads of a pair of horses are almost in contact with your face, that such a position gives you not the slightest uneasiness. The stranger, therefore, who resolves upon performing the tour of Paris on foot, must make up his mind to endure a good deal of inconvenience-he must not murmur at frequently finding that Black floods of mire th' embroider'd coat disgrace, or at having the soles of his feet somewhat disturbed It is not my intention to trouble you with long descriptions of the edifices, &c. of Paris, of which the length, breadth, height, appearance and character, have been over and over again detailed in every work that has been published concerning that city. You are, doubtless, well aware that the Louvre is a magnificent palace, containing the most extensive, if not the most valuable collection of pictures and statuary in the world, and was formerly the residence of the Kings of Francethat their present dwelling is the palace of the Tuileries, a long, irregular edifice, facing a beautiful garden, in which the airy elegance of the parterre is blended with the melancholy loveliness of the grove; the choicest flowers springing up here in rich profusion and arranged with exquisite taste; there long avenues of lofty, spreading trees, whose branches mingling together form a dense mass of foliage alike impervious to the rays of the sun and the waters of the clouds; and in all directions statues of various dimensions and kinds, and basins of crystal transparency glittering with gold fish, on whose surface majestie swans are gliding in all the pride of conscious beauty. You need not be told that in the palace of the Luxembourg, perhaps the most striking edifice of the kind in Paris, there is another You would not care much either, I am sure, for a repetition of the sentimentalism and moralizing of every previous visiter to the cemetery of Pére la Chaise, where indeed one would be tempted to exclaim, if it were not profanity—“Oh grave where is thy victory— Oh death where is thy sting"-so completely is the tomb divested of its horrors by the loveliness of the spot, and the general appearance of its receptacles for mortal remains-those of the once great ones of this world interred in magnificent mausoleums, those of the humble in graves where the cypress and the choicest flowers planted by the hand of affection, spread around such an air of tranquil, blessed peace, as almost to render repose in them an object of desire. The most interesting monument of course is that of Abelard and Eloisa, which affords romantic young ladies and young gentlemen such a delightful opportunity To pour A thousand melodies unheard before: But by far the most magnificent, is that of the Countess On some fond breast the parting soul relies, but theirs was the hard lot to be deprived in their last But let me quit this grave subject and transport you to a gayer place, the Garden of Plants-the only fixed name of this terrestrial paradise, which, like the tiger that under the Bourbons was dubbed "le grand tigre royal," then, under Buonaparte, "le grand tigre imperial," then again after the restoration of the Bourbons, |