cheered her heart. Soon after his return home she received a long letter from him, in which he expressed his regret at her change of residence, and promised himself the pleasure of visiting her ere long. He wrote her a great deal about his voyage, and his travels in Europe; and after expressing his happiness at again finding himself at home, he went on to say

MISS LUCRETIA DAVIDSON.
MR. EDITOR:

Sir,-Having once enjoyed the pleasure of an acquaintance with Miss Lucretia Davidson, and being somewhat familiar with her early history, I was much surprised at some of the statements contained in your valuable Magazine over the signature of S., dated Irwinton, Alabama, 1842.

"It was with much pleasure I found Captain Halley at home on my return. You remember he From that article, one would very naturally conwas absent when I sailed for Europe-consequently, clude, that Miss Davidson enjoyed no early advanthat this is the first time we have met, since the tages, but made her way to fame and distinction by recovery of his property. He is a truly honorable, the unaided energies of her gifted mind. We noble-minded man. The first thing he did, was gather, however, from the biographies of these to free himself completely from all pecuniary ob- remarkable sisters, by Miss Sedgwick and Washligation. The debt of gratitude,' he was plea-ington Irving, facts, that abundantly testify to the sed to say, 'he must be content always to owe; but that was a pleasure rather than otherwise particularly as the fact of finding a friend in the depth of his misfortunes, had helped to reconcile him to his fellow-creatures; helped to check the seeds of misanthropy that were germinating in his heart.'"

"I called as soon as possible to see Mrs. Halley. She is in fine health, and looks as young as when I left home. She participates with me in my regrets at your having left Boston. We spent a very pleasant hour in talking you over, and in recalling those events that made us acquainted with each other."

value and importance of parental instruction and early culture. I beg the privilege of correcting this error, by transcribing their opinions, and also a brief sketch communicated by the frail and feeble mother, in answer to inquiries suggested by that article.

The opening page of Miss Sedgwick's Life of Lucretia, bears ample testimony on this point. "Lucretia Maria Davidson was born at Plattsburgh, in the State of New York, on the 27th of September, 1808. Her father, Dr. Oliver Davidson, is a lover of science, and a man of intellectual tastes. Her mother, Margaret Davidson, (born Miller,) is of a most respectable family, and received the best "But Kate Halley quite took me by surprise. education her times afforded, at the school of the I really did not know her. She is an elegant and celebrated Scottish lady, Isabella Graham; an inaccomplished girl; yet, the same modest, retiring, stitution in the city of New York, that had no gentle Kate as formerly. I did not think she could rival in its day, and which derived advantages from ever be so handsome. Her person is graceful and the distinguished individual that presided over it, attractive and her face almost beautiful-espe- that can scarcely be counterbalanced by the multicially so when her feelings are awakened. She plied masters and multiform studies of the present must have a deal of sensibility, or her emotions day. could not produce such an effect on her countenance."

The family of Miss Davidson lived in seclusion. Their pleasures and excitements were intellectual. Her mother has suffered year after year, from ill health and debility; and being a person of imaginative character, and most ardent and susceptible feelings, employed on domestic incidents, and concentrated in maternal tenderness, she naturally loved and cherished her daughter's marvellous gifts, and added to the intensity of the fire with which her genius and her affections, mingling in one holy flame, burned till they consumed their mortal investments. We should not have ventured to say thus much of the mother, who still survives to weep and to rejoice over her dead child, more than many parents over their living ones, were it not to prove, that Lucretia Davidson's character was not miraculous, but that this flower of Paradise was nurtured and trained by natural means and influences."

Mr. Irving, speaking of the memoranda furnished him by Mrs. Davidson, remarks: "From these, I have digested and arranged the following particulars, adopting in many places, the original manu

This mother, as this article will already have given you to understand, yet lives-lives in the painful, though vigorous exercise of those powers of intellect and fancy, to which her daughters were so much indebted, and which the diseases of her body have happily left untouched.

script, without alteration. In fact, the narrative | father's contemplative habits and "intellectual will be found almost as illustrative of the charac- tastes," and trained and elevated by a mother who ter of the mother as of the child; they were sin-"taught their young ideas how to shoot," and gularly identified in taste, feelings, and pursuits; watched, as none but a mother could, their earliest tenderly entwined together by maternal and filial efforts, and sympathized in all their sorrows and affection; they reflected an inexpressibly touching their joys. grace and interest upon each other, by this holy relationship; and, to my mind, it would be marring one of the most beautiful and affecting groups in the history of modern literature, to sunder them." Mrs. Davidson says, "Lucretia attended the Plattsburgh academy between the years of three and nine. During the extreme winter weather she rarely attended, on account of her health, for it was a long, cold walk, and I instructed her with the other children at home. I think she was about ten, when Mr. Prescott took charge of the institution. Under his direction, she improved rapidly quiries of the world, in relation to these sisters, it in geography, grammar, moral philosophy, and history. History was her favorite study; and, in that, and in composition, she excelled. With Mr. P., she commenced the study of Latin, and after reading seven books in Virgil, was obliged, on account of her health, to leave school for a season. Nearly the whole of her education, she received at the Plattsburgh academy, and in my own bedroom. I taught her all I was capable of teaching, and a more indefatigable learner I never wish to

see.

She was one term at the Troy seminary, and was seized with her last illness just after she had entered Miss Gilbert's school in Albany."

I have every inducement, which friendship, admiration and love, can suggest, to render fitting honor to the memory and genius of Lucretia Davidson. But indiscriminate eulogy is not just praise. A misconception of facts can do her no service, and those who knew her best and loved and admired her most, when living, will be most anxious, now that she is dead, to see her presented to the world precisely as she was. For if the striking beauty of her person, “when unadorned, was adorned the most," so the attractive graces of her character and the rare endowments of her mind, will be best appreciated, when contemplated by the light which the simple and touching history of her life affords. It is for these reasons, that I desire to set your correspondent right, and let the readers of the Messenger know where they can procure authentic information concerning this highly gifted child of song, and her no less remarkable sister. If they will refer to these sources, they will find that, though not born to affluence, they did not "pine in the shade of poverty, nor suffer under the grinding hand of adversity"-that, though they did not enjoy facilities for a fashionable or accomplished education, yet they had that home instruction, which, in many respects, was far better calculated to develope their precocious talents; that, though their genius was all that their fondest friends may claim, still it was chastened by a

Since every year increases the interest with which the memory of Lucretia and Margaret Davidson is regarded,-and since the biographies of Miss Sedgwick and Irving, interesting as they are, have served rather to excite, than satisfy the in

is to be hoped, that the pen of the mother, may yet be employed to supply all that is wanting to a full and accurate conception of their character. New York.

TO THE SPIRIT OF THE ÆOLIAN HARP.
Sweet Spirit, kiss those strings again,
Still longer swell th' entrancing note;
And let the full, celestial strain,

In varied richness round me float.

Ah, now it breathes upon my ear!

Spirit, thou hast an angel's art;
Thy notes so soft, so deep, so clear-
It is the music of the heart.
Whence art thou, Spirit? for thy voice-

Though sweet, methinks, as harps above,
Which in the bliss of Heaven rejoice,

And swell with praise, or melt in love-
Is sad as sweet; know'st thou of grief,
That thus thy plaintive murmurs flow?
Dost thou in music seek relief?

Do these wild notes express thy woe?
Sweet Spirit, no-for mortal pain-
For hearts surcharged with earthly cares,
Thy gentle pity wakes the strain,

To soothe the soul with heavenly airs.
Who art thou? tell me-mother dear,

Art thou my guardian-angel still?
Com'st thou from the celestial sphere,

Thy daughter's heart with peace to fill?
Father is 't thou who lov'st me yet?

Is it to thee the charge is given,
To teach my breast its cares forget,

And raise my thoughts from earth to Heaven?
Whence, or whoe'er thou art, I love

Thy sad, wild, warbling, fitful song,
Whether it, joyous, soar above,
Or a low, plaintive, wail prolong.

It tells me of the spirit-land

Where peace, and truth, and music dwell,All bound in love's celestial band:

Sweet, gentle Spirit, fare-thee-well! S. R. H. Golden Forest.

sure is too often drugged with effective, though un- it was in their domestic circle that they sought and seen poisons. It is not strange that Mr. and Mrs. obtained partial relief and consolation. Four chilClairwood became changed by the constant suffer-dren had been the result of their marriage, and in ing it was their lot to encounter. Firmer and bet-the exercise of parental love and duty, in the edu ter disciplined minds could hardly have withstood cation and moral training of those children, but the influence, which such suffering generally exerts. above all, in watching the unfolding and expansion And they indeed were changed. Their feelings, of their intellects, and in the prospect of their fusympathies, and thoughts became imbued with the ture lives, happiness and usefulness, did they eondarker color of their lives. This change was trive to assuage many a grief and parry many an gradually apparent. As the gushings of youthful adverse stroke of fortune. Their children were ardor and affection were chilled by rude contact not extraordinarily beautiful, nor talented, but they with the iey stream of worldly policy and interest, were dutiful, and repaid the care of their parents so did the whole current of their thoughts and feel- with reciprocal love, and with gratitude. ings undergo an entire revulsion. Affliction, ad- The eldest, a son, evinced a precocity of intellect versity, and the buffetings of the world did not that would not perhaps have greatly attracted the merely chasten them; they did more, they embit-attention of a stranger, yet, that served to excite tered the very sources of happiness and content and nourish the hopes of his parents. They loved ment. They turned into gall and wormwood, their children, but him they loved especially. If a those sympathies and kindly feelings which, in a peculiar fondness can exist, and be cherished in healthy mind, diffuse their renovating and tran- a parent's heart for one child above the rest, then it quillizing influences over the soul. A morbid sensi- existed and was cherished by Mr. and Mrs. Clairtiveness usurped the place in their minds, of true wood for their son Charles. And they spared delicacy and sensibility. Envy and jealousy suc- nothing, that their limited means and the time that ceeded the more liberal and generous sentiments, they could give from their daily avocations would that once pervaded their bosoms, until finally, by a allow, to improve his mind, and render him fitted slow but steady progress, hatred, malice, and the for that station in society, which his intelligence thousand darker propensities and passions of our and virtue seemed to justify them in believing, he natures rested in the recesses of their hearts, and would one day occupy. It was in the family cirexerted their unhallowed influences, to the exclu- cle then, that they sought an antidote to the vexasion of those nobler feelings which it had been tions and ills of life. When an impending storm their youthful pride to cherish. In the secrecy of darkened their pathway, it was the family fireside their closets they reviewed the calendar of past that dispelled the gloom and beamed the warm sunmisfortune, and brooded over many an unkind action light on their hearts, despite the blackness without. shown them in their intercourse with society, until When discouraged and disheartened by ill success thoughts were engendered and schemes devised, or insult, it was a sight of their family that reaswhich, a moment after, they blushed to have ad-sured them, and inspired them with renewed ardor mitted to their bosoms. Time flew by. The tide in the thorny journey of their lives. It was this of sorrow was unchanged, and they were trans- that sustained them. It was this alone which formed into those cold, calculating, selfish beings, counteracted the influences of sorrow and misforwhom, on their entrance into life, they had avoided tune, and corrected in some degree, the bitterness and abhorred. Such was the change wrought in of feeling which they caused. On the family altar, their characters, and such is the change which the the fires of affection still glowed, though with a operation of like circumstances is too apt to effect deadened lustre, and in the channel of familiar inin the infirmities of the human mind. As in na- tercourse and sympathy there still flowed a current, ture, the softer substances are, by the continual whose placid waters neutralized the acidity of drippings of a petrifying stream, converted into temper, which conflicts with the world, excite and stone, so do the feelings become callous and ada-diffused its tranquillizing and life-giving influences mantine when wrought upon by the powerful al-over their souls. They fondly hoped, that this conchemy of sorrow and adversity. It is too true, solation was one of which they could never be dethat this deadning effect is produced by continued prived, but this last illusion was destined to be torn misfortune. It benumbs the heart, chills the affec- rudely away, and the staff upon which they had tions, and infuses a lethargy and torpor into all the too confidently leaned, to be forever broken. sensibilities and finer feelings of our natures. Such An epidemic visited the city in which they reis its general tendency; and peculiarly was it mani-sided. For a long time, it raged with fearful viofested in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Clairwood. lence, but they and their family were unharmed. There was, however, one remedial, one renova- The scourge was suspended for a moment, that the ting influence left to them. They were not utterly infliction might be the more dreadful. On the eve alone. In their children they sought an alleviation of of congratulating themselves on the rescue of their their sorrow, and when repulsed in their advances by children from this imminent peril, they were struck scowling relatives, or slandered by a heartless world, dumb. The fear of rejoicing was hushed upon their

lips. Three of their children, the eldest last, were cease to operate. So it was in this case; Mr. and successively transferred from the death-bed to the Mrs. Clairwood suffered greatly, but the very ingrave. No crowd of mourners followed them to the tensity of their grief resulted in the production of tomb, no friendly voice whispered the accents of con- that ultimate apathy, that insensibility, which is solation and comfort in the ears of the bereaved pa- usual in such cases. As time glided on—as the rents. They met the shock alone, unfriended and cares of life again pressed upon them, and comunpitied. Each individual, in that unhappy city, had pelled them again to mingle with the world, the suffered more or less by the visitation. It was no immediate impression caused by their childrens' time for sympathy. Each one suffered too greatly death, was effaced, and an oblivious forgetfulness himself to feel the burthen of another's woe. The seemed to have swept away the record of past sorparents witnessed the interment of their third child. row. But the wound was externally healed, while It was the eldest. They stood beside the grave, its poisonous influences were lurking at the root, and gazed with the apathy of despair into its yawn- pervading and vitiating the better feelings of their ing bosom, in a moment more to engulph the dearest natures. They were soured by misfortune, disof their earthly treasures. The clergyman and gusted with the world, and almost weary of life one or two of the more immediate neighbors were itself. The continued peltings of adversity had the only persons present. They wept not. They rendered them, as it were, insensible to suffering, had no tears to shed.

and their sympathies and sensibilities had become And they were nothing, had they such to give; forever blunted. While their family was unbroken, but they could not meet the gaze of those horror- while in the enjoyment of reciprocal love and affecstricken parents; they could not look at the con- tion with their children, these feelings and sensivulsive writhings of their features, without a thrill bilities had been kept alive, and in some degree of instinctive dread. The service was hastily con- active. In the family circle, their more generous cluded, and the body lowered into the grave. As feelings were fostered by constant exercise; but the sound of the falling clods fell upon the ear of this means of exercise taken away, their feelings, the bereaved mother, her countenance underwent sympathies, all became steeled and insensitive. an instant change. The rigid, fixed stare with which she had gazed on the scene before her, vanished; an earthly wildness lighted at her eye, and pervaded every feature. She uttered a piercing shriek and fell.

What did that shriek tell? It rang the knell of departed hope. It told of an agony of woe, of suffering too poignant to be borne. It spoke of the concentration of every hope upon one object, and that object rudely torn away. It is only such a scene that can fully teach

"The heart, what dust we dote on
When 'tis man we love."

Mr. Clairwood had labored, until some time after the death of his children, under pecuniary embarrassment. His constant exertions, with those of his wife, were requisite in order to maintain his family. He was a merchant of exc nt family, but the unfortunate opposition of his friends to his marriage, sent him into business with extremely limited means. Untoward circumstances operated so very unfavorably, that his business, so far from increasing, had declined, until, by the death of a distant relative, a considerable sum of money was placed at his disposal. He invested it judiciously, and by enterprise and a series of successful speculations, finally established himself on an independent Death had invaded the domestic sanctuary. His and highly respectable footing among his fellow iron arm had crushed the altar reared in the re-merchants. But the increased worldly prosperity cesses of their hearts. His wasting breath had that visited Mr. and Mrs. Clairwood, affected no dried up the streams of affection and sympathy to corresponding change in their feelings. The smiles their source. Mr. and Mrs. Clairwood felt this of fortune could never compensate for the sufferstroke deeply. They felt in the first paroxysm of ing they had undergone, nor efface the remembrance grief, that their cup of suffering had been filled to of the past. Wealth, and its attendant luxury, graduoverflowing. That life had ceased to offer a reason ally succeeded their former poverty and simplicity or wish for existence. The charm that had thus of living; but what wealth can re-attune the shatfar yielded the evils of life with its fairy touch, tered sympathies and affections of the heart, or was dissolved, and the veil rent, that had hitherto kindle the flame of love once extinguished? The concealed the darkest shades of sorrow. But vio- same coldness, the same insensibility and stagnalent excitations of the mind are transitory. The tion of feeling that had been engendered in penury, paroxysms of emotion that convulse the mind and threaten, for a while, to unseat reason herself, gradually subside, until they are merged into an apathy, coincident with the intensity of the emotion excited. The violent excitation of the feelings is an entirely unnatural state of mind, and must subside when the causes that have produced it,

by the strokes of affliction, still continued to characterize Mr. and Mrs. Clairwood. On other persons, the ordeal of affliction through which Mr. and Mrs. Clairwood had passed, would have produced an entirely different effect. It would have subdued the pride of some! It would have taught them deep and abiding lessons of patience and humility. The