"In this little rocky dell," said my grandfa ther, as I, a light-hearted, laughing girl, tripped by his side, on a sunny May morning-" in this very dell which you so much love, I, too, used to play, when my eyes were as bright and my heart as light as yours; and when we reach yonder rock, and are seated, I will tell you a little story, which may interest, and, perhaps, instruct you."

My heart, as well as my limbs, bounded at this mention of a story, for I well know how sweetly my grandfather could blend the useful and attractive; and in a moment I was seated, and my dress spread upon the rock to the extent of its dimensions, for the double purpose of protecting the feeble old man from its coldness, and inducing him to sit very near me. I nestled closely to his side, and looked wistfully in his eye, which seemed lighted with something of youthful brilliancy, as he called up this reminiscence of his boyhood. "There," said he, pointing to a cleft rock which had been riven and thrown into a mass by some unknown power-" there, from amid that mass, when I was a boy, I uprooted a little, stunted vine, which seemed struggling for life, with a multitude of opposing circumstances. I looked at its pale and scattered leaves, which the warm rays of the sun but seldom reached, its creeping, scraggled roots, watered by no friendly rill, and scarce covered with soil, and my young heart pitied its lone poverty. Come with me, little, friendless vine, said I; I will transplant thee in a more genial soil, where 'sun and shower diffuse their warmest influence,' and if thou wilt requite my labors, thou shalt be the pride and joy of my heart. I loosened its slight hold to its native rock, and bounded homeward. I turned up the rich mould at the sunny side of our cottage door, and with boyish ardor planted deeply the tiny roots which had scarce ever before known shelter. I removed every shrub which would throw a shadow upon it; at morn and even I watered it, and with anxious eye waited the effect of my faithful labor. Nor did I wait and look in vain; soon it thrust upward its

hitherto stunted tendrils, its broad leaves glistened in the dews of the morning, and its sweet perfume mingled with every breeze that swept across the door-way.

"I left the cottage for a distant school; years passed, and when I returned, its strong green arms seemed to uphold the cottage roof, its luxuriant foliage threw a grateful shadow over the rude seat which had been reared beneath it. It seemed to woo the passing zephyrs, and hold them singing in its bosom, and while I lounged beneath its shade, they carolled in my ears soft lullabies. The birds beneath the cottage eaves and within its sheltering branches, whispered their loves, reared their rustic homes, and sang soft soothing notes to their tiny nestlings.

"Again I left that cottage home, a man, to toil and struggle mid the strife and fever of the world.' Long and weary was the war I waged with its cares, its hopes deferred, its prospects never realized, and I returned an old, gray-headed man.

"As I approached the time-changed roof, which, in the days of boyhood, and, indeed, of wandering manhood too, had seemed to me the very concentration of joy and peace, of hope and happiness, though gone, all gone, were the friends. of my youth, the parents who had soothed my infant sorrows, and ministered to the wants of riper years,—the soft, sweet voice of a sister, too, who had been as the light of heaven to the eye of my soul, was hushed in the long sleep of the grave, still flourished and bloomed on my beautiful vine, and as its soft leaves fanned my fevered brow, I exclaimed, in the language of an unknown poet,

THE PURITAN IMMIGRANTS.-As our publisher has chosen for one of the embellishments of the present number of the magazine, a sketch-in the main an excellent one, we think of the debarkation of the immigrants in the ship Mayflower, it may, perhaps, be expected, that some buckets full of editorial enthusiasm will be dipped up from Plymouth harbor, to treat our readers withal. But we shall do no such thing; and that for several reasons, not the least of which is, a pretty strong suspicion that our readers are generally good, sensible people. It is the fashion of the times for a man to run crazy, and foam at the mouth, and perform all manner of strange antics, at the mere mention of the name of a hero; and when you talk to him of half a score of these heroic characters, it is necessary sometimes to hold him, for fear he will break somebody's crockery, in his wild, disorderly mêlée. But we are for taking things a little more coolly. There is some policy in this, we confess; for we cannot help thinking, ever and anon, when we are dealing with a hero, that if we raise a whirlwind and waft him up into the skies, we shall have to get up pretty much the same sort of a whirlwind for the next hero that comes along. We hope we shall not be charged with penuriousness; but this bellows-blowing is too expensive. We declare we can't afford it.

That the Puritans of Old England and New England were stern, iron-hearted, conscientious, principled men, however, we wonder anybody who forms his notions in this century, can for a moment doubt. They have, indeed, been overrated. But that is no reason we should underrate them. With all their errors, foibles, faults, weaknesses-and they had some, many, if you will have it so they presented some of the richest specimens of humanity the world has ever produced. There was too much religionism, so to speak, among them-too much technical religion. Their faces were elongated more than they need have been, and there was an austerity bordering on asceticism in their piety. Those things were not well. But were they worse than their relative extremes? and where, in Cromwell's century, will you go for the spirit of Christianity, if you do not find it

among the Puritans? They deserve well of the world, for having done so much toward the solution of that problem about liberty of conscience. Even Hume, skeptical Hume, looking through the green spectacles of infidel philosophy though he always did, was obliged to confess this. Conscience was everything with them. "But they made some sad blunders in that same matter." So they did. But these blunders were the legitimate result of the circumstances under which they had been educated. To us, the wonder is not that they made the blunders, but that they were able to break away so far from the influence of their early education-not that the full blaze of the sun of religious liberty did not burst upon them at once, which would have been little else but a miracle, but that that sun shed around them so pure and beautiful a twilight.

It is a truth-and it were idle to dispute it and to cavil at it, as some affect to do-that the foundation of our free institutions was laid on the rock of Christian principle; and we believe they are maintained only by the maintenance of Christian principle. We do not believe there is any other wall between the present order of things and anarchy and monarchy; nor can we believe that any republican government resting on another basis will attain to a very remarkable longevity. If the French republic ever becomes hoary-headed, there will have to be a new corner-stone laid, or we are but a sorry prophet.

NAPOLEON AND ADAMS.-What a contrast was there in the death, as well as in the life of these two great men! The conclusion of Gov. Seward's late eulogy, on the occasion of the death of the American statesman, presents this contrast in a manner as elegant as truthful. The orator portrays the beautiful and impressive picture of the last days of Adams. "He could not shake off the dews of death,"-we quote the language of the eulogy-" that gath ered on his brow. He could not pierce the thick shades that rose up before him. But he knew that Eternity lay close by the shores of Time. He knew that his Redeemer lived. Eloquence, even in that hour, inspired him with

his ancient sublimity of utterance. 'THIS,' said the dying man, 'THIS IS THE END OF EARTH.' He paused for a moment, and then added, 'I AM CONTENT.'

Then is sketched with a hand as masterly and true, the rise and fall of another remarkable man. The sketch is lengthy, but we cannot resist the temptation to present it entire : "Only two years after the birth of John Quincy Adams, there appeared on an island in the Mediterranean Sea, a human spirit, newly born, endowed with equal genius, without the regulating qualities of justice and benevolence which Adams possessed in such an eminent degree. A like career opened to both born, like Adams, a subject of a king—the child of more genial skies, like him, became in early life a patriot and a citizen of a new and great republic. Like Adams, he lent his service to the State in precocious youth, and in its hour of need, and won its confidence. But unlike Adams, he could not wait the dull delays of slow and laborious, but sure advancement. He sought power by the hasty road that leads through fields of carnage, and he became, like Adams, a supreme magistrate, a consul. But there were other consuls. He was not content. He thrust them aside, and was consul alone. Consular power was too short. He fought new battles, and was consul for life. But power, confessedly derived from the people, must be exercised in obedience to their will, and must be resigned to them again, at least in death. He was not content. He desolated Europe afresh, subverted the republic, imprisoned the patriarch who presided over Rome's comprehensive see, and obliged him to pour on his head the sacred oil that made the persons of kings divine, and their right to reign indefeasible. He was an emperor. But he saw around him a mother, brothers and sisters, not ennobled, whose humble state reminded him and the world that he was born a plebeian; and he had no heir to wait impatient for the imperial crown. He scourged the earth again, and again fortune smiled on him, even in his wild extravagances. He bestowed kingdoms and principalities on his kindred,-put away the devoted wife of his youthful days, and another, a daughter of Hapsburgh's imperial house, joyfully accepted his proud alliance. Offspring gladdened his anxious sight; a diadem was placed on its infant brow, and it received the homage of princes, even in its cradle. Now he was, indeed, a monarch—a legitimate mon

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arch-a monarch by Divine appointment-the first of an endless succession of monarchs. But there were other monarchs who held sway in the earth. He was not content. He would reign with his kindred alone. He gathered new and greater armies from his own landfrom subjugated lands. He called forth the young and brave-one from every householdfrom the Pyrenees to the Zuyder Zee-from Jura to the ocean. He marshalled them into long and majestic columns, and went forth to seize that universal dominion which seemed almost within his grasp. But ambition had tempted fortune too far. The nations of the earth resisted, repelled, pursued, surrounded him. The pageant was ended. The crown fell from his presumptuous head. The wife who had wedded him in his pride, forsook him in the hour when fear came upon him. His child was ravished from his sight. His kinsmen were degraded to their first estate, and he was no longer emperor, nor consul, nor general, nor even a citizen, but an exile and a prisoner, on a lonely island, in the midst of the wild Atlantic. Discontent attended him there. The wayward man fretted out a few long years of his yet unbroken manhood, looking off, at the earliest dawn and in evening's latest twilight, toward that distant world that had only just eluded his grasp. His heart corroded. Death came, not unlooked for, though it came even then unwelcome. He was stretched on his bed, within the fort which constituted his prison. A few fast and faithful friends stood around, with the guards who rejoiced that the hour of relief from long and wearisome watching was at hand. As his strength wasted away, delirium stirred up the brain from its long and inglorious inactivity. The pageant of ambition returned. He was again a lieutenant, a general, a consul, an emperor of France. He filled again the throne of Charlemagne. His kindred pressed around him, again reinvested with the pompous pageantry of royalty. The daughter of the long line of kings again stood proudly by his side, and the sunny face of his child shone out from beneath the diadem that encircled its flowing locks. The marshals of the empire awaited his command. The legions of the Old Guard were in the field, and their scarred faces rejuvenated, and their ranks, thinned in many battles, replenished. Russia, Prussia, Austria, Denmark and England, gathered their mighty hosts to give him battle. Once more he mounted his impatient charger,

and rushed forth to conquest. He waved his sword aloft and cried, TETE D'ARMEE.' The feverish vision broke-the mockery was ended. The silver cord was loosed, and the warrior fell back upon his bed a lifeless corpse. This was the END OF EARTH. THE CORSICAN WAS NOT CONTENT."

OUR BIRDS.-Say what you will, the partridge is a very interesting bird, on more than one account; and the pair which our artist has sketched in the engraving brings so forcibly to our mind sundry tricks which we have noticed in some members of this family, that we can hardly help alluding to one or two. You must know that the partridge is a very demure-looking sort of fellow. Nobody would suspect, to see these birds hobbling along in the woods, and occasionally turning around in a very silly manner, to look at their pursuer, that there was any wit about them. But there is a good deal of it. When the female has a nest, her cunning almost always prevents its discovery. We have spent hours, when a boy, in hunting after a partridge's nest, but we could have found a gold mine as well. As soon as the partridge perceives an enemy approaching, she leaves her nest carefully, after covering it with leaves, and without making the least noise, walks away several rods from the spot. Then she discovers herself, and tries to make her enemies believe that her treasures are concealed in that vicinity. When the young appear, the mother makes use of another artifice at the approach of danger. She first utters a note of alarm, which the little ones understand, and in an instant they hide themselves among the leaves or grass, till the danger is over. The mother throws herself in the path, and begins to flutter and beat the ground with her wings, at a great rate, pretending to be wounded. The object of this feint is to draw attention from the young to herself, which, unless the passenger is well acquainted with her stratagems, she succeeds in doing. She allows

herself to be chased until she is at a sufficient distance from the spot where the little ones are concealed, and then she exhibits pretty conclusive evidence that her power of locomotion is quite adequate to the circumstances, after all. This manœuvre is rather a severe satire on the rapacity of the race of Adam. This running full tilt after the largest prize-real or supposed-is a peculiarity of the genus homo, so marked, it should seem, that animals much

lower in the scale of intelligence have learned to take advantage of it.

BULKLEY'S NIAGARA.--We promised our readers, a while ago, to present a specimen of this poem, recently issued from the press of Leavitt, Trow & Company; and now that so many thousands are flocking to see the worldrenowned cataract, we must redeem the promise. What do you say to this, reader?

"I saw the day-star set behind the hills;
The shadows fell o'er plain, and stream, and vale,
As if the sunbeams bright had lost their life,
And now had lengthened out their darkened forms
To die on earth; slowly they sank to rest,
Their requiem sung in vesper tones of birds,
And leaves and brooks that murmured low their grief

In mutlled winds, and groaning cataracts;
The tearful flowers their censers waved in air,
The streams moved on funereal to the sea,
Their burial place, bearing with solemn looks
The death shades of the day; and as they marched,
Their footsteps lightly might be heard to sweep
Along th' enamelled banks, themselves all clad
With Night's dim robe of grief. The hills stood by,
Like dark veiled mourners round the couch of death,
With sorrow mute, and witnessed last of all
The spectacle of Day's departing light,
Sending their tears forth from their fountain-eyes,
While the green trees, their offspring on their breasts,
Wept dew-drops down upon the sad dark bier,
Borne by the rivers on. All Earth was still,
Her hour for tears had now returned again,
For darkness settled on her heart its weight;
The
Waterfall threw down his form
moaning
In griet's abandonment, and writhed in wo;
Yet not forgetful of the widowed sky,
Into her ear he poured his sympathies
With manly voice, to soothe her aching breast;
And o'er her brow to close her sleepless lids,
Whose starry lashes shone 'mid dewy tears,
Drew the soit curtains of his gauze-like mists.
Slowly the moments made their pilgrimage,
For the dim clouds hung o'er the path of Time,
To frown away the stars that measure night,
And check his chariot wheels in circling course.
The last deep sigh of natural life seemed heaved,
At evening, and methought the pulseless earth
Had died indeed, her children parentless,
And not a kindred orb to weep her loss."

DEMPSTER'S CONCERTS.-Mr. Dempster, the far-famed vocalist, has taken his leave of our

city, though we hope only for a short time. We are always delighted with his singing. There is not a particle of empiricism about him, that ever we could see. He puts on no airs-employs no superfluous so-called embellishments, to captivate the soulless vulgar-he does not tear a passion to tatters, to very rags," with his endless graces, his trills, and turns, and tremandos, like a poor, shivering victim of the ague. On the contrary, he is simple, modest,

unaffected-willing to make up in the sweetness of his musical tones what he lacks in clap-trap. The airs he sings are mostly of his own conception; and some of them, as specimens of the true ballad style, are most effective. Such sweet and touching efforts as the "May Queen," and the "Lament of the Irish Emigrant," place him in the front rank of composers in this department, and separate him from the legion of stupid musical pretenders, as far at least as the poles are separated.

A WORD TO NEW CONTRIBUTORS.-We are always happy to hear from a new contributor, and wish to extend a general and cordial invitation to our friends to write for our pages.

There is a vast amount of talent in every community, which, like latent heat, is now useless to others; and which, with a little effort, might become available. We do sincerely hope, that no excessive modesty or fear of editorial censorship, will deter any one who has the faculty of writing sensibly and well, from sending us an occasional contribution. The publisher authorizes us to say, that he will forward the Magazine one year to any person from whom an acceptable article is received.

Now we think of it, we must acknowledge the receipt of some pleasant lines from a new female contributor, under the caption of "Grief for the Dead," which shall appear in our next number. May we hope to hear again from the same source?

Napoleon and the Marshals of the Empire. Complete in two volumes; with sixteen steel Portraits in Military Costume. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. New York: Sold by John S. Taylor.

This work is issued in the same style with " Washington and the Generals of the Revolution," by the same enterprising house, and it has a similar general design and plan. We have taken great pleasure in reading it. The picture which the author draws of Napoleon is, in our judgment, pretty nearly accordant with truth. In other words, we do not essentially dissent from the conclusions arrived at in the history, and think that he is right in the main. There must be, from the nature of the case,-from the brilliancy, eccentricity, and unparalleled achievements of this remarkable man, as well as from the diversity of position in the stand-points from which he must be viewed-various and conflicting opinions respecting his motives, while none, unless they be wilfully and stupidly blinded by prejudice, can fail to concede to him the possession of genius in a degree seldom reached in the world's history. Those who have written of Napoleon's achievements, and who have respectively passed them under review, in the light of philosophy, have very generally fallen into one of two opposite extremes. They have either praised him too much or too little -either landed him as a sort of demi-god, both as to the strength of his intellect, and the purity, disinterestedness, and philanthropy of his aims; or branded him as an ambitious, blood-thirsty fiend in human shape, with about the same number of redeeming qualities that Milton accords to the archapostate himself. Now it needs but little shrewdness for an unprejudiced student of history to discover that neither of these opinions is correct. The truth, we humbly conceive, lies somewhere between these extremes-very possibly about midway. At all events, the writer of this history seems disposed to avoid equally both extremes, and we certainly honor his judgment. The sketches of this wonderful general and his twenty-six marshals, besides possessing great intrinsic excellence, which adapts them to any age, will be especially interesting when read in the light of the new and astonishing political changes that are now taking place in France, and in fact on the whole arena of Napoleon's conquests.

Gunn's Domestic Medicine, or, Poor Man's Friend in the hours of Affliction, Pain, and Sickness. New revised edition, improved and enlarged. New York: Charles M. Saxton.

As a general proposition, we are opposed to the use of those books in the family which describe the symptoms and modes of treatment of all manner of diseases. Somebody has said that the world is governed too much With equal truth we think it may be said that the world is doctored too much; and it has been our opinion that medical works professing to be safe guides for the use of the family, were too often the offspring of empirics. For this reason we have thought them capable of effecting quite as much evil as good. But this book of Dr. Gunn, if we do not greatly mistake, is liable to no objections on this score. It bears the marks of having been written by a scientific man, and one of intimate acquaintance with his profession. We like it for this reason, too, if for no other-that it advocates the use of medicine sparingly; and in cases of slight indisposition not at all. Dr. Gunn's practice, we believe, is somewhat in accordance with the principles of the old school, though differing from those principles so far as to be called the reformed practice. What that reformation is, exactly, we do not know. Perhaps it consists, in part, in giving less medicine-perhaps in administering fewer mineral and more vegetable agents-perhaps it includes both these elements At any rate, our examination of the book leads us to believe that these elements are embraced in the system; and this change of itself is a reform worth speaking of. We should think it decidedly the best manual of the kind that we have ever seen. For our single self, we hardly know what to believe, in this revolutionary age, about this matter of curing diseases. We are erratic, perhaps, in our theories-skeptical, for aught we know.

A French Grammar, or, Plain Instructions for learning French. In a series of Letters. By WILLIAM COBBETT. New York: John Doyle.

As an assistant in learning to read and write the French language, this Grammar has long stood in the front rank, and we are glad to see this edition of Mr. Doyle. The style is