cate, and in 1840, in hopes of deriving advantage from a milder climate, he made a voyage to Cuba. But he was not benefited materially by the change, and, learning, the next spring, of the death of his father, he returned home, and died in New York on the 5th of September, 1841.

Mr. Mellen wrote for various magazines and periodicals. In 1826, he delivered, at Portland, before the Peace Society of Maine, a poem, entitled The Rest of Empires. In 1827, he published Our Chronicle of Twenty-Six, a satire; and in 1829, Glad Tales and Sad Tales,-a volume in prose, from his contributions to the periodicals. The Martyr's Triumph, Buried Valley, and other Poems, appeared in 1834. The first-named poem is founded on the history of Saint Alban, the first Christian martyr in England. In the Buried Valley he describes the terrible avalanche at The Notch in the White Mountains, in 1826, by which the Willey family was destroyed.1

THE MARTYR.

Not yet, not yet the martyr dies. He sees
His triumph on its way. He hears the crash
Of the loud thunder round his enemies,

And dim through tears of blood he sees it dash
His dwelling and its idols. Joy to him!

The Lord-the Lord hath spoken from the sky!
The loftier glories on his eyeballs swim!

He hears the trumpet of Eternity!

Calling his spirit home-a clarion voice on high!

Yet, yet one moment linger! Who are they
That sweep far off along the quivering air?

It is God's bright, immortal company

The martyr pilgrim and his band are there!
Shadows with golden crowns and sounding lyres,
And the white royal robes, are issuing out,
And beckon upwards through the wreathing fires,
The blazing pathway compassing about,

With radiant heads unveil'd, and anthems joyful shout!

He sees, he hears! upon his dying gaze,

Forth from the throng one bright-hair'd angel near,
Stoops his red pinion through the mantling blaze—
It is the heaven-triumphing wanderer!

"I come we meet again!"—the martyr cries,

And smiles of deathless glory round him play:

Then on that flaming cross he bows-and dies!

His ashes eddy on the sinking day,

While through the roaring oak his spirit wings its way!

Upon the merits of Grenville Mellen's poetry, a writer in the 22d vol. of the "American Quarterly Review" thus remarks:-"There is in these poems no unusual sublimity to awaken surprise, no extreme pathos to communicate the luxury of grief, no chivalrous narrative to stir the blood to adventure, no high-painted ardor in love to make us enraptured with beauty. Yet we were charmed; for we love purity of sentiment, and we found it; we love amiability of heart, and nere we could perceive it in every stanza. The muse of Mellen delights in the beauties, not in the deformities, of nature: she is more inclined to celebrate the virtues than denounce the vices of man."

THE EAGLE.

ON SEEING AN EAGLE PASS NEAR ME IN AUTUMN TWILIGHT.

Sail on, thou lone imperial bird,

Of quenchless eye and tireless wing;
How is thy distant coming heard

As the night's breezes round thee ring!
Thy course was 'gainst the burning sun
In his extremest glory! How!
Is thy unequall'd daring done,

Thou stoop'st to earth so lowly now?

Or hast thou left thy rocking dome,
Thy roaring crag, thy lightning pine,
To find some secret, meaner home,
Less stormy and unsafe than thine?
Else why thy dusky pinions bend

So closely to this shadowy world,
And round thy searching glances send,
As wishing thy broad pens were furl'd?

Yet lonely is thy shatter'd nest,
Thy eyry desolate, though high;
And lonely thou, alike, at rest,
Or soaring in thy upper sky.

The golden light that bathes thy plumes,
On thine interminable flight,

Falls cheerless on earth's desert tombs,

And makes the North's ice-mountains bright.

So come the eagle-hearted down,

So come the proud and high to earth,
When life's night-gathering tempests frown
Over their glory and their mirth;

So quails the mind's undying eye,

That bore unveil'd fame's noontide sun;

So man seeks solitude, to die,

His high place left, his triumphs done.

So, round the residence of power,

A cold and joyless lustre shines,

And on life's pinnacles will lower

Clouds dark as bathes the eagle's pines.

But, oh, the mellow light that pours

From God's pure throne-the light that saves!

It warms the spirit as it soars,

And sheds deep radiance round our graves.

CONSCIENCE.

Voice of the viewless spirit! that hast rung
Through the still chambers of the human heart,
Since our first parents in sweet Eden sung

Their low lament in tears-thou voice, that art

Around us and above us, sounding on

With a perpetual echo, 'tis on thee,
The ministry sublime to wake and warn!-
Full of that high and wondrous Deity,
That call'd existence out from Chaos' lonely sea!
Voice that art heard through every age and clime,
Commanding like a trumpet every ear

That lends no heeding to the sounds of Time,
Seal'd up, for aye, from cradle to the bier!
That fallest, like a watchman's through the night,
Round those who sit in joy and those who weep,
Yet startling all men with thy tones of might-
O voice, that dwellest in the hallow'd deep
Of our own bosom's silence-eloquent in sleep!
That comest in the clearness of thy power,
Amid the crashing battle's wild uproar,
Stern as at peaceful midnight's leaden hour;
That talkest by the ocean's bellowing shore,
When surge meets surge in revelry, and lifts
Its booming voice above the weltering sca;
That risest loudly 'mid the roaring cliffs,
And o'er the deep-mouth'd thunder goest free,
E'en as the silver tones of quiet infancy!

Spirit of God! what sovereignty is thine!
Thine is no homage of the bended knee;
Thou hast of vassalage no human sign;
Yet monarchs hold no royal rule like thee!
Unlike the crownéd idols of our race,

Thou dost no earthly pomp about thee cast,
Thou tireless sentinel of elder days!-

Who, who to CONSCIENCE doth not bow at last,

Old arbiter of Time-the present and the past!

Thou wast from God when the green earth was young,
And man enchanted roved amid its flowers,

When faultless woman to his bosom clung,

Or led him through her paradise of bowers;

Where love's low whispers from the Garden rose,

And both amid its bloom and beauty bent,

In the long luxury of their first repose!

When the whole earth was incense, and there went
Perpetual praise from altars to the firmament.

WILLIAM B. 0. PEABODY, 1799-1847.

WILLIAM BOURNE OLIVER PEABODY, son of Judge Oliver Peabody, of Exeter, New Hampshire, was born in that town, July 9, 1799,' and, after completing his preparatory studies at Phillips Academy, in his native town, he entered Harvard

He had a twin-brother, Oliver William Bourne Peabody: the two fitted for college together at Exeter Academy, and graduated together. Oliver studied law

College, where he graduated in 1816. In 1820, he became the pastor of a Unitarian congregation at Springfield, Massachusetts, where he resided till his death, on the 28th of May, 1847.1 Besides the faithful discharge of his parochial duties, Mr. Peabody wrote numerous articles for the "North American Review" and the "Christian Examiner," and is the author of many beautiful occasional pieces of poetry, of which none deserves more to be remembered than his

HYMN OF NATURE.

God of the earth's extended plains!
The dark green fields contented lie:
The mountains rise like holy towers,

Where man might commune with the sky:
The tall cliff challenges the storm
That lowers upon the vale below,
Where shaded fountains send their streams,
With joyous music in their flow.

God of the dark and heavy deep!

The waves lie sleeping on the sands,
Till the fierce trumpet of the storm

Hath summon'd up their thundering bands;

Then the white sails are dash'd like foam,
Or hurry, trembling, o'er the seas,
Till, calm'd by thee, the sinking gale
Serenely breathes, "Depart in peace."

God of the forest's solemn shade!
The grandeur of the lonely tree,
That wrestles singly with the gale,
Lifts up admiring eyes to thee;
But more majestic far they stand,

When, side by side, their ranks they form,
To wave on high their plumes of green,
And fight their battles with the storm.

God of the light and viewless air!

Where summer breezes sweetly flow,
Or, gathering in their angry might,

The fierce and wintry tempests blow;
All-from the evening's plaintive sigh,
That hardly lifts the drooping flower,
To the wild whirlwind's midnight cry-
Breathe forth the language of thy power
God of the fair and open sky!

How gloriously above us springs

at first, but afterwards turned his attention more to literature, and assisted Alexander H. Everett, in 1831, in the editorship of the "North American Review." Subsequently he studied theology, settled in Burlington, Vermont, and died July 6, 1848.

1 Read a discourse delivered at his funeral by Rev. Ezra Stiles Gannett, D.D., and an article in the "Christian Examiner," September, 1847.

The tented dome, of heavenly blue,
Suspended on the rainbow's rings!
Each brilliant star, that sparkles through,
Each gilded cloud, that wanders free
In evening's purple radiance, gives
The beauty of its praise to thee.

God of the rolling orbs above!

Thy name is written clearly bright
In the warm day's unvarying blaze,
Or evening's golden shower of light.
For every fire that fronts the sun,

And every spark that walks alone
Around the utmost verge of heaven,
Were kindled at thy burning throne.

God of the world! the hour must come,
And nature's self to dust return;
Her crumbling altars must decay;

Her incense-fires shall cease to burn;
But still her grand and lovely scenes
Have made man's warmest praises flow;
For hearts grow holier as they trace
The beauty of the world below.

LYDIA MARIA CHILD.

LYDIA MARIA FRANCIS, though born in Massachusetts, spent the early portion of her youth in Maine. While on a visit to her brother, the Rev. Convers Francis, of Watertown, in the latter part of 1823, she was prompted to write her first work by reading, in the "North American Review," an article on Yamoyden, in which the writer (John G. Palfrey, D.D.) eloquently describes the adaptation of early New England history to the purposes of fiction; and in less than two months her first work, Hobomok, appeared,—a tale founded upon the early history of New England, which was received with very great favor. The next year appeared the Rebels, a tale of the Revolution. In 1828, she was married to David Lee Child, Esq., a lawyer of Boston, and subsequently the editor of the "National Anti-Slavery Standard." In 1827, she commenced the Juvenile Miscellany, a monthly magazine for children. It was an admirable work, and some of Mrs. Child's best pieces are to be found in it. She next issued the Frugal Housewife, a work on domestic economy, designed for families of limited means, and a most useful book for all. In 1831 appeared The Mother's Book, full of excellent counsel for training children; and, in 1832, The Girl's Book. Soon after, she prepared the lives of Madame de Staël, Madame Roland, Madame Guyon, and Lady Russell, for the Ladies' Family Library, which were followed by the Biography of Good Wives, and The History of the Condition of Women in all Ages, in two volumes.

The year 1833 is an important era in the history of this accomplished lady, as