piping there. The yells of fierce savages now faintly echo from beyond the waters of the Mississippi, and the time is not far off when the last Indian will leave his bones to bleach on the rockbound coast of the Pacific.

Dow, JR.

36. DESPAIR.

THE whitest foam dances upon the darkest billow, and the stars shine the brightest when surrounded by the blackest of thunder-clouds; even as a diamond pin glistens with the greatest effulgence when fastened upon the ebony bosom of an Ethiopian wench. So hope mirrors its most brilliant rays in the dark wave of despair, and happiness is never so complete as when visited occasionally by the ministers of misery. These ups and downs in the pathway of man's existence are all for the best, and yet he allows them to vex and torment his peace till he bursts the boiler of his rage, and scalds his own toes. I have no doubt but the common run of people would like to have a railroad built from here to the grave, and go through by steam; but if they all worked as easy in life's galling collar as I do, they would have things just as they are; some ups and some downs-some sweet and some bitter-some sunshine and some storm; because they constitute a variety. I wouldn't give a shinplaster penny to have the road of existence perfectly level; for I should soon become tired of a dull sameness of prospect, and make myself miserable in the idea that I must experience no material change, either for better or for worse. Plum-pudding is most excellent stuff to wind off a dinner with; but all plum-pudding would be worse than none at all. So you see, my friends, the trouble and trials of life are absolutely necessary to enable us to judge rightly of genuine happiness, whenever it happens to enliven the saturnine region of the heart with its presence.

If we never were to have our jackets and shirts wet with the cold rain of misfortune, we should never know how good it feels to stand out and dry in the warm rays of comfort. You needn't hesitate ever to travel through swamps of trouble, for fear of sinking over head in the mud of despondency; for despair is never quite despair. No, my friends, it never comes quite up to the mark in the most desperate cases. I know the prospects of man are sometimes most tormentingly conglomerous; but

the clouds eventually clear away, and his sky again becomes clear and quiescent as a basin of potato starch. His sun of ambition may be darkened-his moon of memory turned to blood-and the star of his peace blotted from the firmament of his, I don't know what; but he is not entirely a gone goose even in this situation. Those semi-celestial angels of light and loveliness, Hope and Fancy, will twine the sweetest of roses round his care-wrinkled brow; and while one whispers in his ear, "Don't give up the ship," the other dresses up for him a bower of future happiness, and festoons it with the choicest of elysian flowers. The very darkest cell of despair always has a gimlet-hole to let the glory of hope shine in, and dry up the tears of the poor prisoner of woe

Dow, JR.

37. NATURE.

MY DEAR FRIENDS, it matters not upon whichsoever side we turn our eyes, we behold such beauty in its primitive nakedness as cannot fail to captivate the heart of every true worshipper of the God of nature, and make him feel as though ten thousand caterpillars were crawling up and down the ossified railway of his back. Look at yonder myriads of stars that glitter and sparkle from the dome of heaven's high concave! Say, is there not beauty in these? Ay, there is beauty magnificent in these little celestial trinkets that stud the ebon brow of nightshining, as they do, like a multitude of beacon-lights of glory in the blue-black of eternity, or like so many cats' eyes in a windowless garret. Observe the silvery moon, pale-faced Cynthia, wandering Luna, or whatever you choose to call her: see how gracefully she promenades the self-same path which was laid out for her at the beginning of the world. Look at the resplendent sun see how it has maintained its unsullied brightness through the rust-gathering ages of time. Not a single thread has been lost from its golden fringe, and not even a fly-speck has marred its splendor; but it is to-day the same beautiful, lovely object that it was when it first burst upon Paradise, and rolled back the darkness of chaos into the unknown regions of nowhere. There is beauty at sunset. Who can look at all the glories of an autumnal twilight, and not have the furze upon his hands rise up in rapture! Oh, it is, by all odds, the grandest and sub

limest picture in the great academy of nature! At the festooned gates of the West, angels of peace and loveliness have furled their purple wings, and are sweetly sleeping with their heads upon pillows of amber, over canopied with curtains of damask and crimson, tempting poor mortals like us to climb up the ladder of imagination, and steal kisses by the bushel When the morning, too, as my friend Hudibras observes, like a boiled lobster, begins to turn from brown to red, there is beauty of the tallest order. Yes, when Aurora hangs out her red under-garment from her chamber window, prepares her perfumed toilet, and sweeps out the last speck of darkness from the Oriental parlor, there is such blushing beauty .esting upon the eastern hill-tops, as cannot fail to be appreciated by any one whose heart-strings are not composed of catgut and horse-hair. Dow, JR.

38. SLUMBER.

VARIOUS philosophers and naturalists have attempted to define man. I never was satisfied with their labors: absurd to pronounce him a two-legged, unfeathered animal, when it is obvious he is a sleepy one. In this world there is business enough for every individual: a sparkling sky over his head to admire, a soil under his feet to till, and innumerable objects, useful and pleasant, to choose. But such in general is the provoking indolence of our species, that the lives of many, if impartially journalized, might be truly said to have consisted of a series of slumbers. Some men are invested with day-dreams, as well as by visions of the night: they travel a certain insipid round, like the blind horse of the mill, and, as Bolingbroke observes, perhaps beget others to do the like after them. They may sometimes open their eyes a little, but they are soon dimmed by some lazy fog; they may sometimes stretch a limb, but its efforts are soon palsied by procrastination. Yawning, amid tobacco fumes, they seem to have no hopes, except that their bed will soon be made, and no fears, except that their slumbers will be broken by business clamoring at the door.

How tender and affectionate is the reproachful question of Solomon, "When wilt thou arise out of sleep?" Yet, at the present time, few Solomons exist to preach against pillows, and never was there more occasion for a sermon. Our country be.

ing at peace, not a drum is heard to rouse the slothful. But, though we are exempted from the tumults and vicissitudes of war, we should remember that there are many posts of duty, if not of danger, and at these we should vigilantly stand. If we will stretch the hand of exertion, means to acquire competent wealth, and honest fame, abound; and when such ends are in view, how shameful to close our eyes! He who surveys the paths of active life, will find them so numerous and long, that he will feel the necessity of early rising, and late taking rest, to accomplish so much travel. He who pants for the shade of speculation, will find that literature cannot flourish in the bowers of indolence and monkish gloom. Much midnight oil must be consumed, and innumerable pages examined, by him whose object is to be really wise. Few hours has that man to sleep, and not one to loiter, who has many coffers of wealth to fill, or many cells in his memory to store.

DENNIE.

39. THE SAME.-PART SECOND.

AMONG the various men whom I see in the course of my pilgrimage through this world, I cannot frequently find those who are broad awake. Sloth, a powerful magician, mutters a witching spell, and deluded mortals tamely suffer this drowsy being to bind a fillet over their eyes. All their activity is employed in turning themselves like a door on a rusty hinge, and all the noise they make in the world is a snore. When I see one, designed by nature for noble purposes, indolently declining the privilege, and, heedless, like Esau, bartering the birthright for what is of less worth than his red pottage of lentils, for liberty to sit still and lie quietly,-I think I see, not a man, but an oyster. The drone in society, like that fish on our shores, might as well be sunken in the mud, and inclosed in a shell, as stretched on a couch, or seated in a chimney-corner.

The season is now approaching fast, when some of the most plausible excuses for a little more sleep must fail. Enervated by indulgence, the slothful are of all men most impatient of cold, and they deem it never more intense than in the morning. But the last bitter month has rolled away, and now, could I suade to the experiment, the sluggard may discover that he may toss off the bedquilt, and try the air of early day without being congealed! He may be assured that sleep is a very stupid em

per

ployment, and differs very little from death, except in duration. He may receive it implicitly, upon the faith both of the physician and the preacher, that morning is friendly to the health and the heart; and if the idler is so manacled by the chains of habit, that he can, at first, do no more, he will do wisely and well to inhale pure air, to watch the rising sun, and mark the magnificence of nature.

DENNIE