But I had had enough of politics and canvassing. Oh! gloomy as our lot may be, I was sick of the ceaseless and nervous excitement which it engendered. I longed again for my former quiet, my books, my cigar, my chase. I actually began seriously to think of changing my bachelor mode of life; and I did, in no great time, find a sweet little fairy, who was willing, contrary to the advice of L. E. L., to marry a bachelor in preference to a widower with ten small children.

My opponent went to the Legislature, where he acquired such an over-weaning passion for political excitement, that when the ever-rolling wheel of Fortune took its turn with him, he was unable to do without some stimulant, and died a sot.

Happy in my domestic pursuits, I have never listened to the fascinating whisper of political ambition; and though sometimes excited even now upon that all-exciting theme, it is soon abated by a wife's smile and the joys of home, and on no occurrence of my life, do I look with so little regret, as my defeat as the County Candidate.

Gloucester County, Va.

THE EXILE'S PRAYER.

T.

From sin to toil and sorrow driven,
Sweet childhood! we have still in thee,
One golden link that holds to Heaven!
When Mercy's errand angels bear,
Clad in thy innocence, they shine,
And if one voice reach Mercy's ear,
That blessed voice is surely thine!
God of his fathers! may the breath
Rise, fragrant from the lips of death,
That upward wafts the exile's sigh,
Frown not, that, on his childhood's track,
As the sweet pray'r of infancy!

Each anxious hope and thought should roam,-
In childhood's sinless name, call back
The weary wand'rer to his Home!
Baltimore, Md.

AN AUTUMN REVERIE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

"The melancholy days have come," the soft, dreamy days, that, in all their regal gorgeousness, follow in the sunny footsteps of departing summer. This morning is beautiful exceedingly. Dr. Rush was informed by a Clergyman in Philadelphia, The sky is unobscured, except when a few dense that “in visiting the old Swedes, who inhabited the South-white clouds float lazily along, throwing masses of ern District of the City, on their death-beds, he was much struck in hearing some of them pray in the Swedish language, who, he was sure, had not spoken it for fifty or sixty years before, and who had, probably, entirely forgotten it." [Rush on the Mind, p. 284.

He speaks!-the ling'ring locks, that cold
And few, and gray, fall o'er his brow,
Were bright, with childhood's cluster'd gold,
When last that voice was heard, as now ;-
He speaks! and as, with flick'ring blaze,
Life's last dim moments, waning, burn,
Fresh from the fount of happy days,
His childhood's gushing words return!
Oh! who can tell what visions roll

Before those wet and shrouded eyes,
As, o'er the old man's parting soul,
His childhood's new-born mem'ries rise!
The fields are greenly gladsome still,

That smiled around his sinless home;
And back, from ancient vale and hill,

Remember'd echoes, rolling, come.

He treads that soil-the first he prest,-
He shouts in all his childish glee,-
He rushes to his mother's breast,-
He clasps and climbs his father's knee :
And then-the prayer that, nightly, rose

Pure from his lisping lips, of yore,
Bursts forth, to bless his evening's close,
With joy and hope that fade no more.

moving shadow upon the serene world beneath. They are vast callers forth of visions; these same wandering clouds, bringing to our minds the fancies of our childhood, when, with wondering and admiring eyes, we built up bright realities among those shining vapors, yet believed, in our ignorance, that the earth held for us, far lovelier realities still. Then Hope was to our future, what sunset is to the sky; and the years to come wore the same rich flushing of gold, and crimson, and purple, which, in our reverential simplicity, we thought were the hues of heaven. But all that is past with me now, and instead of those radiant illusions, the clouds summon to my imagination vague pictures of snowy sails, gliding over the far blue ocean, and of sunny islands, with all their wild luxuriance of fruit and flowers, sleeping silently in the glowing bosom of Southern seas.

The grass is bending whisperingly to greet the gentle wind; and the trees, with their drapery of many tinted leaves, majestically wave their branches in the sighing breeze, that, lover like, lingers on its way. This murmuring wind has its own mystic harmony, as it dallies to gossip with the quivering boughs. Some old poet has well said, there is no other sound upon earth, so like the voice of a spirit. And may not this restless agent, be in truth the spirit of the universe; may it not be to materialism, what the soul is to humanity, invisible, yet

It is assuredly a strange thing, that the aspect of whatever is most sublime in the world around us, should convey to our minds, in its first, involuntary impression, the thought of our comparative littleness. Such views, should undoubtedly produce exactly an opposite train of reflection; for the superior heavenward destiny, the higher immortality promised to the spirit, never appears so precious, so palpable, as when contrasted with the merely unprogressive permanence of the earth's greatest marvels.

everywhere recognized,—an existence known only | or died, and this very absence of every kindly and by its effects, a thing of wonder and mystery? familiar association, increases the profoundness of There seems to be between it and the human heart, that still and reverential homage, with which cona kind of ideal intelligence, revealing itself in a templation gazes on a grandeur that has no part, thousand varying tones. To the lover, it sounds nor portion with humanity. like a tender whisper, low and bewitching; to the mourner, it sighs a sympathizing lament; and to those-God help them! who have friends far out on the stormy sea, it tells a fearful and thrilling tale of tempest and wreck and peril. And to the poet, the great Interpreter of Nature's melodies, to whose restless heart, all living things breathe of beauty unutterable, to him the wind sweeps by, laden with lovely imaginings. It moans amid the dark pine boughs, discoursing the saddest of music, and to him it brings a bewildering witchery, like the harmonies heard in some dim gone time, of It is interesting to mark the mysterious connexwhich the mind retains no other remembrance. ion between human character, and the accidental, Its presence peoples his solitude with spiritual and external circumstances of its position, and to note inexhaustible beauty, and around him flit forms of how peculiarly the moral tone, is influenced and light and glimpses of ecstasy, for which language prompted by outward objects; for mental charachas no portrayal, and that words would but conceal.

Before me, piercing the heavens, and receiving, like stately monarchs, the glorious tribute of autumn's shade and sunshine, are the peaks of Otter. What a tide of busy and bewildering thought rushes upon the mind, as the gaze rises enraptured to these gigantic monuments; such thought as is only produced by the view of Nature's most majestic marvels, by the perpetual ocean, and the everlasting hills.

Now, every grand undulation of form stands in vivid tracery against the sunny sky, and the glance looks miles in a moment, from the bright foliage scattered luxuriantly at the base, chequered here and there, by squares of cultivated land, upward where the tall old trees, which have battled with the storms of countless winters, stand stern, and undisturbed, and upward still, to where the bare rock and rugged outline tell that man's grasping dominion has reached its limit, and that his presumptuous sway can never climb thus near to heaven.

teristics unconsciously assimilate with the scenes amid which they have lived. The love of country is always most passionate, with those whose home is distinguished by remarkable natural features, and that is true, even with the unimproved and unintellectual, who feel, without philosophizing. Many a poor exile, a victim of that heart-breaking maladie du pays, has wept away his life in vain pinings, to behold once more his rugged native hlls, or to hear again the familiar dashing of the sea, that laved his early home, and made his childhood's well-remembered music. O! that some voice, inspired, could reveal the unwritten poetry, living in the deep silence of such natures, and alas! dying with them; for full of tender and touching pathos, would be the history of souls, that, in continued conflict with one wild and resistless yearning, have wearied out existence.

Why is it, that the memory appears re-invigorated at this season, and that during these lovely misty days, old times, long almost forgotten, return to us with nearly their original distinctness? There is an indescribable something, tempting and fresh

These mountains are a vast, yet visionary reality, defying all delineation, and in the solemn sub-ening recollection, in all the episodical periods of limity of their perfect repose, baffling alike the el- life; we feel its influence in spring, in twilight, and oquence of the poet and the inspiration of the artist. more than all, in autumn. Ah! well may such revNo coloring can vie with their ever-varying tints, eries depress us, and well may we shrink from reand their most impressive charm is the indescri- membrance, when even the happiest experience bable one of unceasing silentness. They are at confesses so many ties unloosed, so many friendonce palpable and ideal, they belong to two worlds, ships broken, so many exquisite illusions lost. It and are holy and dream-like in their very earthli- is sorrowful, too, as we grow older, to recognize ness. They stand, in enduring loneliness, apart how erroneous our cherished opinions have been; from the magical appeal of human memories. No to look back on the wrecks of our favorite theotradition links them endearingly with mortal sym-ries, and to feel, that, with all their vanity and depathies, and no record of man's passions, or suffer- ception, they were to us, what nothing else can be, ings, claims a "local habitation," where all is lofty and to realize that we can never hereafter give to and mighty materialism. No chronicle, even of any thing but Inspiration, the fervent, unhesitating Indian daring or endurance, remains to teach us, faith, we wasted on their falsehood. But alter as that one human heart in the wild past, there lived we may, always with its old beauty, its fair familiar

She has had her reward, as all do, who await the end in trust and patience; but experience has no wisdom, so difficult to acquire and practice, as that which bids us silently endure, and yet hope on.

structive of true happiness, by depriving it of the peace which is one of its essentials. Quietness is necessary to the loftiest enjoyment, and Bulwer says, in one of his earliest and best romances, that he fancies "even the bliss of heaven, has in it more of melancholy than of mirth.”

softness, autumn glides to our presence; and though | face, in its serene and appealing loveliness, seems to with its coming, the same links of thought reknit shine upon me, like the hallowing light of stars. themselves year after year, they appeal to us strongly and successfully still. We cannot grow weary of so much loveliness, and it seems but the dearer from its continued returning. "Always wonderful to me," said Schiller, "is the sublime But these pensées grow too mournful, and the unsimplicity, and then again the rich profusion of Na- broken repose of the sublime nature around me, ture. When we have long been tossed here and rebukes these restless visions that depress, these there with passion, with outward and inward con- backward glances, that call from the past only its flict, when we have parted with ourselves, still we shadows. Undoubtedly we disturb ourselves usefind the same nature, and ourselves in her. How lessly too often; all that agitates our spirits is desad were our lot, could we not bring our vanishing possessions, and entrust them to this faithful friend! we, who have such need savingly to turn even the pleasures of the past into property." And as month after month adds its unfading records to the accumulated hoard of our associations; as we feel, by the paling of earthly expectation, and the constant There is no period of existence, so fraught with brightening of memory, by the darkening of the the most elevated mental beauty, as that era in heart and the doubting of the intellect, that Life, character, which corresponds in many respects, with with its aims and responsibilities, is a more solemn with the autumn of the year. Then youth, with and earnest gift, than in our reckless joyfulness we its blended promise and folly,-maturity with its once believed it, then come over us with unspeak-perplexing annoyances, and ever-recurring failures, able consolation, the knowledge, that the momen- all the yearnings and disappointments, which mark tary present and the mournful past are not all, the epoch of human activity, are over, and to those and the precious assurance, that the future, for faith, who, in the purest and highest sense, have lived, is boundless. Our own spirits echo and confirm the hereafter is but one long, radiant hope of endthe truth of the conviction, and enfolding ourselves less rest. Then, we feel the thought whose presin the glorious consciousness of immortality, we ence exalts, the charity which appreciates the learn to be grateful even for griefs, if they have strength of temptation, and from knowing much, induced us to look within, to the depths of our own" hopeth all things." Entire tranquillity is the perbeing, and trace there the heavenward mystery of fection of moral nature: the mountain tops are the existence. O! Thought! thou, the holy, the eternal most silent spots on earth, and the nearest to heaand the beautiful, we have indeed much need to be ven; and it is only when perfectly at rest, that the thankful that thy range is limitless, thy flight un-sea reflects the sky. ceasing! From the cares and conflicts, the pains and penalties, the temptations and resistances of our common "working day world," we can turn unheeding and unprofaned. Daily experience would be too great a weariness, had reflection no respite, and were the mind deprived of its priceless power to soar above mortal evils, and free itself from the shackles of materialism. Duly from sorrow we cannot flee, for that is full of divine recompense, and opens wide the golden gates of heaven, sanctifying humanity, until it is almost angelic. Give all reverence to those, who patiently and tranquilly have suffered, for a spirit, not of the, earth is with "Ah, William, I see!" said the pretty shy Delia, them, and the dark page they have tearfully unfolded, is a leaf from the book of life.

Vividly, as I write, throng to my memory, some of those I have known, purified and exalted by the ordeal of affliction, and one especially, who, in the

JANE TAYLOE WORTHINGTON.

THE RETORT HUMOROUS.

“Fie on you! you cannot conceal it ;

'Tis plain, you are deeply in love with Fidelia, Your cheek and your eye both reveal it!"

bright flush of girlhood, became in a single year" Come, list ye fair Delia, I like not your teasing," a wife and a widow, a mother and childless. Never Said Will, as his heart heaved a sigh,— can I forget the indescribably touching expression "I don't love, Fi-delia, but own 'twould be pleasing, of agony, subdued into resignation, that rested on

her youthful features, and often since, through the

To leave off that little word, Fi!"

dark clouds of my own sorrows, that fair, pale Hoosier-land.

Something whereunto I may bind my heart;
Something to love-to rest upon-to clasp
Affection's tendrils round."

You have often asked me, dearest Ellen, for a narrative of those events, in the life of our mutual friend and schoolmate, Emma Clifford, which some few years since created so much excitement among our acquaintances. The curiosity of some, the anxiety of others, and the deep misery of one or two who were actors in the drama, have never departed from my memory. But I have hitherto forborne to recount the circumstances, from feelings which it will be easier for you to conceive, than for me to explain.

I was thinking over Emma's life just now, when I determined to comply with your request, and as far as I was able, to trace out its mistakes and its excellencies; its straight and curved lines. Its principles of success, and of disappointment, seem to have disentangled themselves to my perceptions, while the end is before my eyes. I see how fancy led her astray, and how love brought her back; how wilfulness plunged her into misfortunes, which awakened principle changed into good.

Let us pass over her early marriage with Frederick Delcour, that marriage entered into at the instigation of her father, with little reflection on her part, and no sentiment stronger than esteem for the being, into whose hands she yielded up her destiny! But no! pass it not over so lightly; for there was her first mistake! Oh, how many an early marriage has been raised upon no firmer base! how many a young heart has dreamed of love it never felt, until the virtues of the object after marriage have awakened it to a knowledge of the truth, by showing that there might have been a very different reality! Emma thought that she loved her husband. He was kind, gentle, and polite; and she admired the elegance of his address, and was proud of his refinement, his good taste, and gentlemanly qualities. But Mr. Delcour was too correct, too perfect, if such a thing can be, to create a strong sentiment in a heart like Emma's: she might, however, have gone on for years, unsuspicious of the truth, in the calm routine of duty, as practised in the polished and fashionable circles of the South, had not adverse circumstances befallen them. The loss of most of their large property, the death of Mr. Clifford, and the removal, a short time subsequently to that event of Mr. Delcour and Emma, to the far West, with the migration, about the same time, of my own little household, and our close proximity in our new home, are circumstances to which I need only allude when writing to you. My youngest daughter being called Emma Clifford, was also a bond of affection between Mrs. Delcour and myself, and seldom did a day pass without our meeting.

his wife; and often, when I have seen them together, have I wished that he had been her elder brother, rather than her husband.

I have ever regretted that Emma had no chilSweet Emma Clifford! you remember her as a dren; for with her deep capacity for loving, this child, how bright and wild she was. When at the would have formed an indissoluble tie between hercritical age of fourteen, her mother died,-she was self and her husband. But alas! most of the best left an only child to the care of a father, who, doat-capacities of her nature were stifled by her situaing upon her to weakness, left no indulgence un- tion. Mr. Delcour was not a man to draw out the tried, which his clinging affection could suggest, energies, and win the tenderness of a woman like and large fortune supply, to gratify his high-spirited and beautiful daughter. Calculated, as all this was, to spoil her, and as her superiority in mental acquisitions likewise was to render her an I need not now tell you, dear Ellen, how our object of envy among her schoolmates, there was families succeeded in establishing new homesteads not one of us who did not love her for her amiabil- in the West. Mr. Delcour was prosperous and ity and the winning gracefulness of her manners. popular, and his house and society were soon sought Beautiful, gifted, happy Emma Clifford how 1 by every one in the flourishing little village in love to remember her at this early period, when no which we had fixed our residence; and in a very care had cast its shadow on her brow, and her glad short time, he might have been mistaken for an old eyes looked forth upon the world, as if daring it to denizen of the State. As my own husband had the conflict. The latent strength of her character resumed the practice of Law upon our arrival in seems to have been long unsuspected, even by her- -, a co-partnership between Mr. Delcour and self; for her ready smile, and almost as ready tear, himself was entered into, and the very unusual appeared to mark her as the creature of impulses, phenomenon of a scarcity of Lawyers-(I mean, quick, beautiful and evanescent. Life seemed to of course, good Lawyers; for aspirants for the light her on its path with sunshine and with bless-title are rather more plentiful in the West, than ings. But why linger upon a period, which you, leaves in the forest,)—presenting itself in our newly like myself, can so easily recall? settled village, business poured in from all quar

VOL. XI-85

ters, and our gentlemen were necessarily much | life occurred, and threw the whole community into confined at their office, and engaged in the Courts. a ferment of excitement. Emma, in consequence, spent many long hours alone; and for a time, they hung heavily upon her. With good servants and a well-arranged household, she had little to occupy her time, and not many were the acquaintances whom she cared to visit. I soon perceived that her spirits began to droop, and her cheek grew pale from very listlessness. The energies of her strong mind had apparently sunk into apathy, and her only resource was writing.

From childhood she had indulged the habit of throwing into rhyme each thought which arose within her mind, each emotion that thrilled her heart, and every wild fancy that dazzled her imagination. This talent, at all times a dangerous one, was in her case particularly to be lamented; for who knows not the cherishing influence a feeling acquires after it is written down? Many of her emotions, which would have been as evanescent as the sigh that came with them into existence, lingered upon her memory from being thus traced before her eyes. The facility with which she wrote, too, was pleasant; while her fine ear delighted in the harmonies produced by her own thoughts. Often when I have visited her, have I found her poring over some unfinished fragment, scribbled for amusement, but often striking, for their euphony and beauty of thought. Upon one occasion I found her in tears, and enquired the cause. She pointed to these words-the conclusion of a long poem, which she had just been writing:

"Alas! few know the misery that clings
Around a heart, whose wildly gushing springs
Are bearing back the treasures they have brought
From hidden sources."

There was a murder committed, under the most horrible circumstances, upon an aged woman; and Justice cried aloud for retribution on the murderer. Yet, who this murderer was, none could determine. At length, public opinion, guided by certain circumstantial evidence, fastened upon a young man, who had resided for a few months only in the place, but who, from his secluded life and unsocial habits, was looked upon with distrust and curiosity by the inhabitants. Alas! how prone are we all to condemn what we do not understand!

James Burton was certainly not over twenty-six years of age,—a man of fine appearance and quiet manners, but avoiding, rather than seeking society. No one knew any thing about his history, or means of living: he dined at a hotel, but slept at a small room, or office, where most of his time was passed, and where he employed himself, no one knew how ;-and mystery is too often associated with evil, for you to be surprised, that to this man the suspicion of guilt was attached by many of our villagers, and he was arrested to be tried for the murder. He employed Mr. Delcour as his counsel; and I was sitting with Emma, when he returned from his first visit to the prisoner. We immediately inquired his opinion on the subject, for we saw that even his calm temperament had been disturbed by the interview; and his clear mind seemed to have weighed, and comprehended thoroughly, the situation of his client.

"He is innocent," was the first sentence he uttered; "he is innocent, and I must prove it,—if I can only prove an alibi,” he added, after awhile, as if thinking aloud. "His mother, yes, his mother must do it, painful as it will be to them," and he continued silently musing for the remainder of my visit. As this was a well-established habit of Mr.

chatted on upon indifferent matters, but, of course, both Emma and myself felt a new interest in the unfortunate Burton, for implicit was our faith in the opinions and judgment of Mr. Delcour.

"And why bearing back, Emma? Why not Delcour's when engaged in professional cares, we fling its treasures out upon your friends ?" "Why not?" she interrupted me impatiently. "Hush, Rose! I was wrong to show any one such silly lines-only, I do wish I had some one to answer to all the wild feelings, that are constantly bursting forth in spite of me, meeting no return from any source, and falling back upon my own heart to crush and wither it !"

I can now scarcely remember all the particulars of the trial, my dear Ellen; but the circumstances attending it, filled every one with interest at the time. A very feeble woman, the mother of This was the first time I had ever heard a mur-the prisoner, was carried into Court, and testified, mur from those beautiful lips, and it shocked me. that at the period of the murder, and for many had not the courage, however, to name her hus-hours before and after its committal, James Burband as the legitimate object, upon whom such ton had been at her bedside, administering reemotions should expend themselves, for alas! Ilief to her sufferings, and the vigilance of affection felt the mockery of offering him an oblation he to her repose. This oath, of course, obtained his could so little comprehend; and my heart sorrowed acquittal; but as no trace had been afforded of the for the young creature, whose ardent nature seemed real criminals, there were many present in the struggling against her better judgment to be free. Court, wicked enough to suspect and to insinuate, Suddenly a stop was put to almost every kind of that the mother had been a false witness, and to employment in our village; for one of those thril- look coldly upon the son who had been acquitted ling tragedies which sometimes take place in real' upon her testimony. Not so, however, felt Emma