A SCENE IN REAL LIFE. (continued 22)

—"entitled," I repeated, "to no earthly commiseration. Who indeed would think of compassionating a shadow? Besides—has he not had his full share of the blessings of mortality? He was the originator of tall monuments—shot-towers—lightning-rods—lombardy-poplars. His treatise upon 'Shades and Shadows' has immortalized him.

"He went early to college and studied Pneumatics. He then came home—talked eternally—and played upon the French horn.

"He patronized the bag-pipes. Captain Barclay, who walked against Time, would not walk against him. Windham and Allbreath were his favorite writers. He died gloriously while inhaling gas—levique flatu corrumpitur, like the fama pudicitiæ in Hieronymus.² He was indubitably a"——

² Tenera res in feminis fama pudicitiæ et quasi flos pulcherrimus, cito ad levem marcessit auram, levique flatu corrumpitur—maxime, &c.—Hieronymus ad Salvinam.

"How can you?—how—can—you?"—interrupted the object of my animadversions, gasping for breath, and tearing off, with a desperate exertion, the bandage around his jaws—"how can you, Mr. Lacko'breath, be so infernally cruel as to pinch me in that manner by the nose? Did you not see how they had fastened up my mouth—and you must know—if you know any thing—what a vast superfluity of breath I have to dispose of! If you do not know, however, sit down and you shall see. In my situation it is really a great relief to be able to open one's mouth—to be able to expatiate—to be able to communicate with a person like yourself who do not think yourself called upon at every period to interrupt the thread of a gentleman's discourse. Interruptions are annoying and should undoubtedly be abolished—don't you think so?—no reply, I beg you,—one person is enough to be speaking at a time. I shall be done, by and bye, and then you may begin. How the devil, sir, did you get into this place?—not a word I beseech you—been here some time myself—terrible accident!—heard of it I suppose—awful calamity!—walking under your windows—some short while ago—about the time you were stage-struck—horrible occurrence! heard of 'catching one's breath,' eh?—hold your tongue I tell you!—I caught somebody else's!—had always too much of my own—met Blab at the corner of the street—would'nt give me a chance for a word—could'nt get in a syllable edgeways—attacked, consequently, with Epilepsis—Blab made his escape—damn all fools!—they took me up for dead, and put me in this place—pretty doings all of them!—heard all you said about me—every word a lie—horrible!—wonderful!—outrageous!—hideous!—incomprehensible!—et cetera—et cetera—et cetera—et cetera"——

It is impossible to conceive my astonishment at so unexpected a discourse; or the extravagant joy with which I became gradually convinced that the breath so fortunately caught by the gentleman—whom I soon recognized as my neighbor Windenough—was, in fact, the identical expiration mislaid by myself in the conversation with my wife. Time—place—and incidental circumstances rendered it a matter beyond question. I did not however, immediately release my hold upon Mr. W.'s proboscis—not at least during the long period in which the inventor of lombardy poplars continued to favor me with his explanations. In this respect I was actuated by that habitual prudence which has ever been my predominating trait.

I reflected that many difficulties might still lie in the path of my preservation which extreme exertion on my part would be alone able to surmount. Many persons, I considered, are prone to estimate commodities in their possession—however valueless to the then proprietor—however troublesome, or distressing—in precise ratio with the advantages to be derived by others from their attainment—or by themselves from their abandonment. Might not this be the case with Mr. Windenough? In displaying anxiety for the breath of which he was at present so willing to get rid, might I not lay myself open to the exactions of his avarice? There are scoundrels in this world—I remembered with a sigh—who will not scruple to take unfair opportunities with even a next door neighbor—and (this remark is from Epictetus) it is precisely at that time when men are most anxious to throw off the burden of their own calamities that they feel the least desirous of relieving them in others.

Upon considerations similar to these, and still retaining my grasp upon the nose of Mr. W., I accordingly thought proper to model my reply.

"Monster!"—I began in a tone of the deepest indignation—"monster! and double-winded idiot!—Dost thou whom, for thine iniquities, it has pleased Heaven to accurse with a two-fold respiration—dost thou, I say, presume to address me in the familiar language of an old acquaintance?—'I lie,' forsooth!—and 'hold my tongue,' to be sure—pretty conversation, indeed, to a gentleman with a single breath!—all this, too, when I have it in my power to relieve the calamity under which thou dost so justly suffer—to curtail the superfluities of thine unhappy respiration." Like Brutus I paused for a reply—with which, like a tornado, Mr. Windenough immediately overwhelmed me. Protestation followed upon protestation, and apology upon apology. There were no terms with which he was unwilling to comply, and there were none of which I failed to take the fullest advantage.

Preliminaries being at length arranged, my acquaintance delivered me the respiration—for which—having carefully examined it—I gave him afterwards a receipt.

I am aware that by many I shall be held to blame for speaking in a manner so cursory of a transaction so impalpable. It will be thought that I should have entered more minutely into the details of an occurrence by which—and all this is very true—much new light might be thrown upon a highly interesting branch of physical philosophy.

To all this, I am sorry, that I cannot reply. A hint is the only answer which I am permitted to make. There were circumstances—but I think it much safer upon consideration to say as little as possible about an affair so delicate—so delicate, I repeat, and at the same time involving the interests of a third party whose resentment I have not the least desire, at this moment, of incurring.

We were not long after this necessary arrangement in effecting an escape from the dungeons of the sepulchre. The united strength of our resuscitated voices was soon efficiently apparent. Scissors, the Whig Editor, republished a treatise upon "the nature and origin of subterranean noises." A reply—rejoinder—confutation—and justification followed in the columns of an ultra Gazette. It was not until the opening of the vault to decide the controversy, that the appearance of Mr. Windenough and myself proved both parties to have been decidedly in the wrong.

I cannot conclude these details of some very singular passages in a life at all times sufficiently eventful, without again recalling to the attention of the reader the merits of that indiscriminate philosophy which is a sure and ready shield against those shafts of calamity which can be neither seen, felt, nor fully understood. It was in the spirit of this wisdom that, among the ancient Hebrews, it was believed the gates of Heaven would be inevitably opened to that sinner, or saint, who with good lungs and implicit confidence, should vociferate the word "Amen!" It was in the spirit of this wisdom that when a great plague raged at Athens, and every means had been in vain attempted for its removal, Epimenides—as Laertius relates in his second book of the life of that philosopher—advised the erection of a shrine and temple to prostekonti Theo—"to the proper God."

The "Acajou et Zirphile" of Du Clos is a whimsical and amusing Fairy Tale, ingeniously composed in illustration of a series of grotesque, and extravagant engravings, whose figures, rats, apes, butterflies, and men, have no earthly meaning or connection but that given by the pen of the writer.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

CUPID'S SPORT.

"And is this Cupid's realm?—if so, good by! Cupid, and Cupid's votaries I fly: No offering to his altar do I bring— No bleeding heart, nor hymeneal ring."

In the third number of the Messenger, my good reader, you and I were engaged in taking a peep at Cupid's Sport. Unless you have fallen out with me, (as I certainly have not with you,) we will again travel together, in a half merry, half serious mood, through some three or four pages. We shall perhaps be forced to scramble over hedges matted with brambles, or amble along some grassy mead or velvet lawn; it may be we

"Must pore where babbling waters flow, And watch unfolding roses blow."

You no doubt remember in what a sad plight we left our young friend Timothy Wilberforce; how he had been gradually led on by Cupid, buoyed up and transported, till he attained within a step of the pinnacle of bliss—and then, how the mischief-making God had precipitated him to the very brink of despair; how, like Sisyphus,

"Up the high hill he heav'd the huge round stone;"

and how

"The huge round stone resulting with a bound, Thunder'd impetuous down, and smoked along the ground."

In fine, he had been caught and caged, manacled, cuffed, and then kicked, (that's the word,) by our good little, sweet little Molly, to his heart's content. Alas! this truly is one of the miseries of human life. Had Tim received a kick from a man fashioned like himself, he might at least have returned the blow. Had it been bestowed by one fashioned after the manner of the Houyhnims, with hock and hoof, or had it been driven full in his face by an ass, shod with a double set of irons, he might have consoled himself with the reflection that some skilful surgeon would replace the mangled elements, or kind nature reproduce a healthy action. But the impress of a damsel's foot upon a generous heart was far more difficult to efface. The wound it inflicted, had baffled through all ages the skill of anatomists, phrenologists, and philosophers. Tim then, could only bewail the hopelessness of his situation in the mournful strains of the gentle Corydon:

"She is faithless, and I am undone. Ye that witness the woes I endure, Let reason instruct you to shun What it cannot instruct you to cure."

These were the first sensations of his softened soul, but as time moved on with his unslackened wing, other thoughts unbidden sprung upon his mind. Memory indeed, for awhile continued to brood over "the ills that flesh is heir to," but the good Tim, at last, came to the same conclusion with the wise McPherson, that

"To cut his throat, a brave man scorns, So, instead of his throat, he cut—his corns."

Tim, like all honest bachelors, swore most roundly, that he would never more be caught by woman's wiles; that she was heartless, faithless, deceitful, "and desperately wicked." Alas! poor Tim knew not the susceptibility of his own heart; and Cupid but smiled to think how easily he could hold our hero in magic thraldom. Tim indeed could cry out in the agony of woe,

"Have I not had my brain sear'd, heart riven, Hopes sapp'd, name blighted, life's life lied away?"

but still, blindfold and unconscious, he would find himself worse than ever entangled and ensnared. A ringlet tastefully displayed, a soft melting eye, it might be a keen piercing one, it mattered not to him, a dimpled cheek, a laughter making mouth, were to him more attractive, than a diamond to a miser, a ship with her canvass swelling to the breeze to the jolly tar, or a well fed steed to a Dutchman's fancy. The very hopes he once cherished, now nipped and blighted; his former fondness for society which he now shunned and despised, served by the contrast to make him doubly gloomy and alone,

"Lone—as the corse within its shroud, Lone—as a solitary cloud, A single cloud on a sunny day, While all the rest of heaven is clear, A frown upon the atmosphere, That hath no business to appear When skies are blue, and earth is gay."

Feeling so doubly lone, Tim would again seek a partner to sympathize in his sorrows, and to whom could he go? to man—cold calculating man? What is man worth in sorrow? Has he the tender sensibility, the warm hearted sympathy that is ever alive in a female's bosom? If you tell him your love sick tale, he will laugh you to scorn, he will frown you down for a puling blockhead; but woman will listen to your griefs, will alleviate your pain, assuage your sorrow, and if she but smiles, Tim would exclaim,

"How she smiled, and I could not but love."

With feelings such as these, Tim accidentally became acquainted with "the lass with the auburn curls." These accidents occur sometimes, so happily and apropos, that we are tempted to believe them not merely the result of casualty; my own opinion is, that they are all devised, planned and executed by that wily urchin cupid, to bring those together, upon whom to sport his strange fantastic freaks.

One autumn's eve, when the sun was low, Catherine and her Cousin Tony issued forth, to ramble along the winding banks of the James River Canal. They were admiring the beauty of the scenery, and occasionally turning to view the dazzling brilliancy of many of the windows in the city, caused by the reflection of the setting sun, producing the effect of an illumination shifting from house to house as they changed their position.

They had progressed along the canal as far as the first water-fall, the situation of which, many of my readers will no doubt remember; not as it is at present, but as it existed a few years ago, before the polishing hand of art had shorn it of half its beauties. There is an arch turned there, spanning the ravine, over which the canal passes at its usual level, and is thus raised, some thirty feet perhaps, above the base of the ravine. Under this arch a pellucid rivulet gently ripples, till reaching the brink of the acclivity below, it leaps and bounds towards the river. Above the sides of this arch, the waste water from the canal rushed headlong, mingling with the clear waters of the rivulet, and dashing foamingly along, or eddying and bubbling among a rugged bed of granite. On the east side of this fall, there was once a rock, raised high above the rest, by the side of which a little cedar grew, over and around whose boughs the wild grape and sweet brier intertwined their branches until they hung a verdant canopy above. This place, adorned as it was with its native drapery, had obtained the name of "Cupid's Cavern,"—for here, many a loving couple, after an evening's walk, would rest, feasting upon the beauties of the surrounding scenery. And here, many a tale of love had been told, which the roar of the water-fall deafened to all, but the ears into which they had been whispered. On the rock just mentioned, by the side of the cavern, Tony and Kate at length seated themselves, and will you believe it, Tony was actually endeavoring to persuade his cousin to permit him, to call her, by a more endearing title.

Tim too, had been attracted by the delicious softness of the evening, to gaze upon the same beauties; he was a little behind them during the walk, but had been so absorbed with his own reflections, that he had scarcely noticed that any one was before him. Here, he had often walked with his once sweet Molly in the days of his happiness, and although he now boasted that his heart was free as air, association necessarily brought to his mind, her whom he wished to banish, and spite of himself, he more than once repeated,

"Alas! where with her I have stray'd, I could wander with pleasure alone."

A few yards above the fall I have vainly endeavored to describe, there was a little bridge across the canal, then formed of two logs, each about a foot wide, but without railing or safeguard of any kind. From its proximity to "Cupid's Cavern," it might well have been termed the "Bridge of Sighs." These logs had been so long exposed to the weather, and were so much used and worn, as to have become very much decayed and absolutely dangerous. Still, through mere habit, they were daily crossed by many, and their dilapidated condition was scarcely noticed. One had evidently, already, partially given way near the middle, while the other was not in a much more sound condition.

Upon the end of this bridge, Tim determined to rest, and while thoughtfully musing, his eyes fell upon the cousins I have just described, seated on the rock below.

Reader, I cannot tell you all that Tony or Kate said; I wish I could. A word or two must suffice. It is not what they said I care about. I desire you to look at Kate, and then tell me if you can blame Tim for looking too.

"Cousin Kate," said Tony, "Did you ever feel as if you would choke when you attempted to speak?" This was a plain, common place question, and Catherine might have answered straight forward, "Yes, cousin Tony, I have,"—or "No, Tony, I have not;" or "I do not know cuz;"—but, some how or other, girls are strange beings. Catherine said not one word, but began to blush. "I have called you cousin," said Tony, "long enough, Kate." Here the perspiration stood upon Tony's brow, and Kate blushed crimson. "Cousin Tony," said Kate, "It is time for us to be returning home." "Ah Kate," said Tony, "you know how long and how ardently I have loved you; may I not, one day, drop that epithet of Cousin?" Tony looked at Kate for some reply. "Cousin Tony," said Catherine, summoning up all her courage, "we can never be more than friends and cousins." Then Kate's brow began to cool, but whenever Tony would press the matter, all he saw was new blown blushes, for Kate had seen that Tim's eyes were fastened upon her, and from Tony's eager gaze and manner, she well knew a stranger's suspicions must be roused.

Gentle reader, I have told you thus much of Tony's courtship, that you, as well as Tim, might see a few of Katy's blushes. She was as delicately refined in thought and sentiment as you can possibly conceive. Her's was

"A beautiful transparent skin, Which never hides the blood, yet holds it in;"

so soft, and thin, and white, that you might perceive each pulse as it ebbed and flowed; indeed, whenever her heart was excited by any sudden emotion, the delicate ruby would come and go, till the consciousness of blushing would make her doubly crimson. She would endeavor to conceal her emotions,

"But o'er her bright brow flashed a tumult strange, And into her clear cheek the blood was brought, Blood red, as sunset summer clouds, which range The verge of heaven."

Good reader, I hate formal introductions, and therefore I have not introduced you formally to my heroine, but since I have let you into the secret that Kate's foible was blushing, I must go a little further; when she did blush, she had a habit, as if to cool her brow, of parting her ringlets, and then, carelessly, throwing them back, there wantonly hung

"Down her white neck, long floating auburn curls, The least of which, would set ten poets raving."

You are not to consider this a description of Katy's person; when I attempt such a delineation, it will be with a flourish of trumpets, louder and longer than Joshua made, when he encompassed the walls of Jericho and blew them into fragments. At present, you see our Catherine in a simple, neat, white dress, which

"Like fleecy clouds about the moon, play'd 'round her."

All this time, Tim, that most notorious contemner of beauty, and the man of all others who could most manfully resist loveliness, "in any shape, in any mood," sat drinking in these unconscious exhibitions of Katy's character and mind. He saw not Tony, much less did he hear or imagine what he said. All he perceived was Catherine's face, and those rich, floating curls. It was indeed cruel in Cupid to place him there. At every succeeding blush, a poisoned arrow flew from his silver bow, and Tim's poor heart fluttered in his bosom. Determining for once, however, to out general Cupid, Tim gallantly resolved upon a hasty flight; accordingly, he took himself across the little bridge, and began sauntering away on the opposite hill.

About the same time, Catherine again insisted upon returning, and Tony finding all effort at persuasion perfectly hopeless, began to put upon the matter the best face he could muster. Taking his cousin's arm he insisted she should vary the walk, by crossing to the other side of the canal, and return to the city in that direction. Kate expressed her uneasiness at crossing this insecure bridge, but as Tony was importunate, she reluctantly consented, not desiring farther to add to his mortification by a positive refusal. Tony, as a man of gallantry naturally would do, placed Catherine upon the soundest of the logs, he himself walking by her side on the weaker of the two, not reflecting that the weaker log would much more easily bear her weight than his. As fate would have it, Catherine became alarmed by the trembling of the bridge, and leaned the more heavily upon Tony for support, and as he was not in a mood to care much whether he broke his own neck or not, he insisted upon proving to his cousin, that the bridge was perfectly secure, and that all her fears were totally groundless. So taking her by the arm, in a careless way, and telling her gaily, "Now mind what you are about," he raised himself upon his feet several times, so as to produce an oscillating motion in the log. At this moment, Tim had turned about to cast one lingering look, merely to inquire with himself, what lassie that might be, when perceiving the danger they were in, he shouted at the top of his voice, "Take care!"—but it was too late,—down went the log with a terrible crash, and poor Tony and sweet Kate were precipitated into the water below, in the middle of the canal, at the deepest point. If ever you have seen in the hand of some ruthless urchin, an innocent bird (which he has just succeeded in securing from his trap,) flurried, gasping and panting with fright, you will have a correct idea of Katy. She gave one shriek as she fell, and then rose almost breathless, gasping and panting in an agony of alarm. Luckily the water was not more than waist deep. Tony went down feet foremost, following the decayed timbers, (pity he had not fallen on his head,) but Catherine, clinging to his arm at the time of the accident, and having her support suddenly taken from her, was precipitated at full length into the water. In an instant, Tim rushed to the spot. Into the canal he went, and catching the terrified Kate in his arms, he brought her safely to the shore. Tony did all he could, but poor fellow he was completely involved among the broken fragments, and though he strove to rescue Kate, it was as much as he could do to extricate himself. Tim knew there was no danger of Tony's drowning, and so he left him to struggle for himself, giving all his attention to Kate, who was truly an object worthy of his care, and yet not the less of his admiration. She, though thoroughly wet, withal looked so grateful, and her countenance expressed so many thanks, and her pitiable situation, together with the freshness of the water, heightened the bloom of her cheek to such a degree, that Tim never once noticed her dress. Well might he have imagined her the beauteous Goddess Thetis, with her silvery drapery, as she issued from her watery mansion. But when she took off her fragile bonnet, to adjust her dishevelled hair, and he viewed

"O'er her white forehead the gilt tresses flow, Like the rays of the sun on a hillock of snow,"

who could have blamed him, if he had given way to his raptures, and exclaimed,

"My heart for a slave to gay Venus I've sold, And bartered my freedom for ringlets of gold."

As for Tony, if you could have seen him, as he crept out of the water, with his "long tailed blue," tapering to a point, and dripping like an old rooster under a cart, on a rainy day, with his head up and his tail down, you really would have pitied him; he knew not which way to look, nor what to say. I have seen a dog caught in the act of killing sheep; have seen a wet rat creeping out of a tub; and I saw the gay Tony sneaking out of the canal after having been turned off by his sweetheart, and each of these animals, dog, rat, and Tony, had the same identical sickly phiz. The dog slunk to his kennel, the rat crept to his hole, but Tony was forced to his mistress, who with all imaginable sweetness forgave him in an instant. He ought, if he could, to have crept into an augur hole and hid himself there forever.

However, finding Tim was an old friend of his, he thanked him kindly for his timely assistance, and introduced him to her, of all others, with whom Tim most desired some farther acquaintance.

In a little time, our three friends began to laugh the matter over as well as they could, and being thoroughly drenched, they endeavored to keep each other in countenance, on their way homeward. Tim accompanied Kate to her door, and then, wishing she might experience no farther inconvenience from her accident, and having received a polite invitation to visit the family, retired with Tony to procure a drier suit.

My kind reader, you must listen to me with patience; hereafter, I will not ramble so much at large, but will hasten on with my story. Time's magic wing sped on, and days, weeks and months rolled by. In the mean time, Tim continued his visits to Kate. Sometimes, at an interval of a fortnight; at other times but a week would elapse; then this short week began to appear an entire month; finally, weeks were reduced to days, and days to hours, and Tim was not satisfied unless he paid a visit at least twice a day.

The gossips of the city were thus furnished with a new theme to run riot with, and Tim and Catherine were bandied about at a merciless rate. Some thought it passing strange—others thought it natural enough. "Did you hear Mr. Wilberforce was courting?" said one; "Did you know Miss Catherine was engaged?" said another; "I'll bet my life they will be married!" "I know she has turned him off!" "She will never have him in the world," said a third, "for she is already engaged to her cousin Tony." And thus, Tim was known to be courting, engaged, turned off and jilted, before he himself had ascertained what his fate would be; but the latter opinion, that he was certainly turned off, gained the more currency, particularly as our friend was suddenly called off, by business, to a distant city, where he was compelled to remain for several months. The busy bodies could not but notice, with what a heavy heart he departed, and there could be no possibility of doubt about it. Tim had certainly received his walking papers. No matter, friend Tim, thou must learn

"What it is to admire and to love, And to leave her we love and admire."

My best wishes attend thee wherever thou goest.

Most persons would suppose, that after the honest denial, and the decent ducking Tony had obtained, that the ardor of his love would have been somewhat cooled, and that he would have been the last person who would ever have attempted again to mention love in Catherine's presence. Not so, Tony. He had been more than once rejected already by his cousin, but because they were cousins, and Catherine had always treated him kindly, Tony was still induced to harbor hope, when almost any other person would only have welcomed despair. He found it impossible "to look and not to love." He was one of those luckless wights, who love and are not beloved, and yet cannot bring themselves to give up the loved object—who, though driven from the presence of their fair ones, continue to cast a lingering look behind, to catch a glimpse of relenting compassion. He reminded me of the glowing description of Lot's wife, once given by an humble divine, when he endeavored to explain to his flock why it was that she continued to look back as she fled from the ill-fated Sodom. "Ah, my brethren," he said, "no doubt the good woman had a pleasant little garden there, filled with all kinds of vegetables, and the remembrance of her greens, and her turnips, her potatoes, tomatoes, her squashes and beans, about which she had experienced many moments of anxiety and vexation, caused her heart to cling to the world, and so from the top of every little knob, she looked,—and looked,—and there she stands, a pillar of salt." If Tony but received a look of recognition, it was sufficient encouragement for him. If he accidentally received a civil bow, in return for a gracious smile, he would imagine himself welcomed to her arms. If he offered his hand, and she did not put her arms akimbo, and look like a very virago, he would return the next morning, and if he was again told of friendship merely, Tony would only express his astonishment, and say, "Why then did you give me such encouragement,—why did you look in that way?" Look in that way! Now the fact is, no matter which way Catherine might have looked, it would have been all the same to Tony. If she looked mild and placid, or fierce and acid; if she had been pensive and musing, or laughing and romping; had she looked out of her right eye athwart her nose, or out of her left athwart her shoulder, or had she not looked at all, "like Paddy, when he shut his eyes to peep in the glass, to see how he looked when asleep," Tony would have discovered ample cause for indulging in hope in each smile, frown, curl of the lip, or play of a muscle. But though, continuing in the same hopeless condition, he always consoled himself by saying,

"She gaz'd as I slowly withdrew, My path I could hardly discern, So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she bade me return."

Time still moved onward. And Catherine still attracted and received the admiration of all who beheld her. One day, as she was seated alone in her parlor, in a somewhat melancholy mood, (for it was a rainy, dreary day,) with a book in her hand, her back to the door, and her head leaning against the sash of the window, she began to hum to herself a little song a friend had lately given her. She would sing a line or two, and pause,—and then again would raise her mellow voice.

"If he return not, ah, she said, I'll bid adieu to Hope to-morrow."

And this was sung with so much feeling, you could plainly see her heart had given utterance to its inmost sentiments. Her singing was so sweet, we might truly say,

"It was the carol of a bird; It ceased, and then it came again, The sweetest song ear ever heard."

The notes however died away, and Kate still sat in a seeming reverie. When we are fairly in one of these musing moods, we will sit for hours, without being able to tell upon what object our eyes or thoughts have been so keenly rivetted. Our senses seem to be closed against ordinary impressions. At any rate, while Catherine continued thus leaning, some one walked lightly into the room, and discovering he was not noticed, gently placed his hands over her eyes without speaking.

"Now, cousin Tony," said Kate, "none of your tricks; I am not in a humor for trifling to-day." Tony was not satisfied with feeling cousin Katy's eyes, but turning her head gently back, was feasting on the face, which a little vexation had slightly ruffled. "I'll pay you for this, Tony," she said, in a sprightlier tone, "I know it is you, so let me go." Tony had often played this trick before. "I thought, after what passed," said Kate, and she was about saying something harsh, but checking herself, she added, "Never mind, Tony." "Indeed, Kate, it is not Tony," said the gentleman, releasing his prisoner.

Reader, you have seen blushes! Had you been with me that day, you would have witnessed "smiles playing with dimples, suffused with blushes, Aurora alone could rival." You would have seen surprise and joy chasing away sorrow from a pensive brow; and from the "joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem," you would have sworn that these were acknowledged lovers.

"Oh, there are looks and tones that dart An instant sunshine through the heart."

Who do you think could have thus intruded and taken such a liberty, other than cousin Tony? It was our old friend Timothy Wilberforce, returned from his travels.

Any one of ordinary comprehension, who could have witnessed this meeting, and seen these looks, would have felt no hesitation in making affidavit to the fact, that Kate had not only never rejected Tim, but that they were upon pretty reasonable terms.

Some of my fair readers, I have no doubt, have already determined, if any engagement actually existed, that Tim was a cold, phlegmatic, inanimate being, or he would have kissed her at every hazard. I know one young lady, who jilted a beau, because he never offered to salute her,—she "had no idea of icicles"—not she. And I know another, who swears! (ladies never swear,) who "vows, 'pon honor, she would turn off any man under the sun, who would have the presumption to approach her with such an intention even." But if the doors were closed, blinds drawn, and they were all alone, and she was sure nobody could see them, I rather think it would not be quite as shocking as some people might imagine. The fact is, my dear madam, Tim was excessively remiss on this occasion, but he must be excused, because, just as he was in the very act, with one hand under Katy's chin, and the other at the back of her head, and just as her little lips began to crimson, in came Katy's dear old aunty! I take my oath, I would have gone the whole figure, and old aunt Tabby might have gone to the ——. (I beg pardon.) Tim and Kate took it out in looking, and

"In the large dark eyes mutual darted flame,"

enough was said and felt to compensate the loss.

Now, you must understand, that for some cause, I never could divine what, aunt Tabby had taken up a mortal antipathy to our friend Tim; indeed, she was his evil genius, and she always managed to step in, at the very moment of all others, when her company was least desired. If he paid a morning visit, and the rest of the family kindly dropped off one by one, (each, by the bye, making a lame excuse for his or her absence,) just as Tim would draw up his chair close along side, and begin those endearments, which all know how to use, but few to express,

"The gentle pressure and the thrilling touch, The least glance, better understood than words,"

in would pop aunt Tabby, and down she would sit, like a cat at a hole, and sit there for hours. Oh how Tim's heart would sicken. If he made an evening call, and sat till all the family retired to repose, good aunt Tabby did not think it proper for young ladies to be left alone with young gentlemen; such things were not tolerated in her day. Thus did the old lady keep her nightly vigils, rattling away about ten thousand fooleries, and fretting honest Tim more than a legion of devils, and at last, after vainly spending the evening, the poor fellow would slowly depart, growling smothered curses:

"So turns the lion from the nightly fold, Though high in courage, and with hunger bold, Long galled by herdsmen, and long vex'd by hounds, Stiff with fatigue, and fretted sore with wounds: The darts fly round him from an hundred hands, And the red terrors of the blazing brands: 'Till late, reluctant, at the dawn of day, Sour he departs, and quits the untasted prey."

Some readers will say, "what difference would it make if aunt Tabby was present?" I set all such down as utter boobies; for if any one could carry on a courtship, or after engagement could carry on a conversation with his intended, when the "Mother of Vinegar" was present, in the shape of an old maid, and that old maid a sworn enemy, I would unhesitatingly pronounce, that Cupid had nothing in the world to do with the matter.

Tim and Kate however, found opportunities, at other times, to elude even the vigilance of aunt Tabby, and the old lady finding matters were going on swimmingly, in spite of her interruptions and vigils, only became the more determined to break off the match, if it could by possibility be accomplished. The dear old lady never failed to whisper into Katy's ear, every idle slander that the fertility of her own mind enabled her to invent, or that she accidentally picked up among the malicious gossips of the neighborhood, and more than once Katy's faith had been shaken by her plausible inventions. Nevertheless, as yet, Tim was smoothly gliding on the unruffled wave of happiness; all was quiet and calm, and but a few days had elapsed since Kate appointed the period for the consummation of their nuptials.

On a former occasion, when Tim and little Molly were engaged, my readers will remember how Tim endeavored to break the matter to his mother. How he began with a desire to have the old house in which they lived, newly painted, and how, before they came to the conclusion to do so, the matter was suddenly terminated, by the unlucky intrusion of a small friendly epistle, which not only rendered it unnecessary to paint the house, but actually caused Tim to kick up more dust and soot, than could be effaced by the best coat of English lead that could be procured.

At the present juncture, the first intimation the old lady had of the matter, was afforded her by an army of carpenters, bricklayers, stone-masons and painters, scaling her house with ladders and scaffolds, and turning the whole concern, topsy turvy, from the garret to the cellar. Here ran the painters devils, rubbing every thing with sand paper; there shouted the bricklayer, "mortar! bricks here!" Here whistled the carpenter, and jarred the old timbers with his hammer, banging and whacking away with the force of a giant.

"In the name of common sense," said the old lady, "good people what do you mean?" If ever you saw a hen fluttering when a hawk made a sudden dart at one of her brood, you would have some idea of the old lady on this memorable occasion. It was as plain as the nose in her face, that something was to pay, and she half suspected what it was; but that Tim should go to work without any consultation was unaccountable, and more than that, it was unreasonable. She hallooed for Tim; he was not forthcoming. She asked the carpenter what he was about? "Mr. Wilberforce had ordered him to mend every thing that required mending." She inquired of the bricklayer what he was doing? "Mr. Wilberforce told him to cap the chimnies, relay the hearths and mend the whole concern." She asked the painter what he meant by all this preparation? "Mr. Wilberforce sent him to paint the house all over." "You must have made a mistake in the house," said Tim's mother. "No—there was no mistake. It was to be done, and in the best style, and in the shortest possible time." The old lady packed off the servants in all directions for Tim, and in the mean time continued fluttering about, stowing away this thing and that thing, into this hole and that cuddy, until she had fatigued herself into a perfect fever. At length, Tim arrived. "My dear son," said she, "what in the world has got into you? Do you mean to ruin yourself, Tim?" "Mother," says Tim, kindly, "I told you I was going to be married." "No you did'nt." "Well, I tell you so now, and I think our house wants a little furbishing." Now, the old lady had frequently of late, been charging Tim with being in love with Kate, and though he never exactly denied it, yet he never had admitted it; and though she had no decided objection to the match, yet she never had made up her mind to it, and therefore she seated herself and began to cry. She did'nt ask Tim, who he was to marry? Where the young lady lived? What she was like? Whether she had a fortune or not? But she sat down, as one bereft of all hope, and tuned up her pipes. Alas for Tim! He had been too precipitate. Such matters require some introduction.

The truth was, nothing could give the old lady so much happiness, as to contribute in any way to Tim's comfort and felicity, or to know that he was happy; but then, she and Tim had lived so long together, now that he was going to be married, it seemed to her as though she and he were to be divorced forever, and a thousand conflicting feelings rushed into her bosom. Tim asked his mother if she was dissatisfied with the match? "No," she said, in a tone of inextinguishable grief, and then burst forth into fresh weeping.

Now, gentle reader, I have told you that the painters were making terrible preparations for their work, and while Tim and his mother were engaged, as we have just seen,—he, endeavoring to soothe the old lady's unreasonable and ill-timed grief, and she, exhibiting as much woe as she could possibly have done, had Tim been wrapped in his winding sheet before her,—one of these aforesaid daubers kept continually passing in and out at the door, until he had heard enough to satisfy him that Tim was going to be married, and that the old lady was most vehemently opposed to the match. He had not heard her deny her opposition, but he had seen and heard her weepings and wailings, which convinced him that she would never consent to the match in the world. So, on his way home that day, he happened to meet his cousin Patsy Wiggins, and stopping her in the street,—"Did you know, cousin Patty, that young Mr. Wilberforce is going to be married?" said brushy. "But I tell you what, it has kicked up a terrible rumpus. I just left the old lady, breaking her heart about it, and poor Mr. Tim is in a peck of troubles." Brushy went his way, and so did cousin Patty, but meeting her dear friend Miss Deborah Dobbins, as she was gossiping about the neighborhood; "Ah, my dear Deb," says she, "have you heard the news? Old Mrs. Wilberforce says, she will see her son in his grave, before she will give her consent to his marrying, and what's more, Miss Catherine Turberville shall never darken her doors while her head is hot. You may rely upon it, they will have monstrous work of it." So off posted the friendly Deborah Dobbins, to visit her crony, good Miss Catherine's dear aunt Tabby. "Aunt Tabby," said Deb, "I am afraid I have bad news to tell you." "What is it child?" "I know it will distress you to hear it, but Mrs. Wilberforce has just heard that her son and your niece are engaged, and she has told her son, in the most peremptory manner, that her family shall never be disgraced by such a connexion—that your niece is beneath his notice, and if he does not break off the match immediately, he never more shall see her face. Now, Mr. Tim swears he will marry her in spite of all opposition, and so the whole house is in an uproar. If I were Kate, I'd let them know who was disgraced."—"Beneath them!" said aunt Tabby, turning up her nose until it nearly twisted over the back of her head—"Beneath them, indeed!" "Darken her doors!" "She disgraced by my niece!" "She!"

Gentle reader, you may readily imagine what else these good people said and devised; but while this tale was going the rounds, gathering as it rolled, Tim had entirely reconciled his mother to his intended marriage, and as he unfolded his little plans, for his own and her future comfort, the old lady cheered up and resumed her wonted good humor.

The next day, Tim as usual, called to see his dearest Catherine, but he was told she was not at home that morning. In the evening he called again. "Miss Catherine was so unwell, she had taken to her bed." Early the day after, Tim called to inquire how Catherine was. "Tell Miss Catherine," said Tim, "I called to see her, and hope she is better." Tim rambled about the lower part of the house. "Miss Catherine was not so well." In this way, Tim called for several days, vainly hoping to see his Kate, or at any rate to receive some kind word or message. At last, he was honored with the following letter.

"Richmond, March 10th.

"I hope Mr. Wilberforce will pardon me for having denied myself so often. At first, it was to me as painful as it could have been to him, but if he knew the reason which prompted the course I have adopted, he could not fail to applaud, what he now, no doubt, condemns. In determining not to see him again, I have consulted not only his peace, and the felicity of those dearest to him, but I am convinced, my own happiness also. My reasons would satisfy the most scrupulous—but as I cannot divulge them, I must bear the scoffs of the world, for the fickleness and coquetry which my conduct apparently justifies. I hope my friend will bear this blow with becoming fortitude. The determination I have made is painful to myself, but it is irrevocable. If it will afford my friend any satisfaction to know, that nothing that he has said or done, has produced this sudden change in my purposes, I freely acknowledge the fact. He is in every respect worthy of the best and loveliest. Forgive me, as freely as I acquit you. Our engagement is terminated.

CATHERINE TURBERVILLE."

Tim sat down,—his elbow on the table,—his head on his hand.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

MY TONGS. BY ——.

During the very cold weather which ushered in our last spring, I was one night sitting in my dormitory, before a blazing fire, luxuriating in that most selfish of all pleasures, vulgo a "brown study." There was something so indescribably comfortable in my situation, that, although I had half a dozen unprepared lectures for the next morning staring me in the face, I found it a matter of utter impossibility to open a text book, still less to direct my attention even for the shortest time to its contents. Stretched in my capacious arm chair—my feet toasting before the aforesaid blazing fire—I lay listening with a dreamy sort of consciousness, to the continual, dull, unceasing hum of the falling snow. Regardless and entirely independent of the cold and storm without, my eyes fixed on the fanciful figures, changeable as the images of the Kaleidescope, which the burning coals assumed—in a word, settled in that position, a description of which has been so often attempted—and which every man who has one particle of soul about him has often and oftentimes enjoyed, I fell into a long train of reflections as absorbing and delightful as they were false and illusory. The future—the present—the past—castles in the air—my far distant home—were the most prominent and strongly marked images in the scenes which flitted across the magic mirror of my fancy.

"I thought about myself and the whole earth, Of man the wonderful, and of the stars, And how the deuce they ever could have birth; And then I thought of earthquakes and of wars; How many miles the moon might have in girth; Of air balloons, and of the many bars To perfect knowledge—of the boundless skies."

I know not how long I had been in this situation, when my dreaming was suddenly interrupted in a most singular manner. My tongs, which were but little removed from the direct line of my vision, seemed suddenly to become extremely uneasy. The simple, unoffending tongs, which, except when used, had quietly occupied their allotted station in the corner during the whole session, appeared to be seized with a strange propensity for locomotion, and at the same time to be altering the figure of their outward self in a manner singular, wonderful, unaccountable. The general appearance—the "tout ensemble" was, it is true, nearly the same, but still there seemed to have been effected a certain change, which attracted my wandering attention rather more immediately towards them. You may smile perhaps, and say that either I was rather light headed, or that I was neither more nor less than dreaming in reality. But there before my eyes, which were as wide awake as they are at this moment, upon the round knob which I had so often and so unceremoniously grasped, was as quaint and humorous a face as ever came from the pencil of Hogarth. A slight glance now gave me an insight into the whole figure. Imagine the long spindle legs cased in a pair of rusty looking "shorts"—the body, what little there was of it, surrounded by one of those comfortable old garments, which have been, not inaptly denominated quaker coats—and the rest of the clothing in strict keeping with a style which, all who can recollect, or even have heard much of the good old days of our grandfathers, will at once recognise. Just imagine, I say, this odd figure, thus garmented up, and you will form a good idea of the general appearance of my visiter—(For I cannot believe it was the same boná fide pair of tongs, which are now so peacefully reposing before me.) The first glance was sufficient for an introduction. A slight start on my side, and a familiar "at home" sort of nod on his—and all was settled. His first motion was to seat himself on my fender, where he deliberately crossed his legs—his first remark was on the subject that last engaged my thoughts. A voice sweet and delightful as the first waking notes of distant serenade, but perfectly full and distinct, stole over my enraptured senses.

"You will doubtless be surprised to learn that I have been listening to your thoughts for the last half hour. But know" said he, a little pompously I thought, "that if your breast had in it the imaginary window of Momus, your slightest meditations would not be more plain and open to inspection than they are to me now. They have been running rather in a scattered and unconnected manner, but like those of most young men, they are principally directed to your own future destiny and the choice you are to make with regard to your pursuits and efforts hereafter. In a word, as a matter of considerable importance to yourself, you are weighing the comparative advantages of political and literary fame. Both are sufficiently attractive, but to most young men, and particularly to those of your country, the former is especially enticing. Perhaps there are at times, doubts resting upon the minds of all men, whether these attractions are not far greater in anticipation than the reality would authorize. Even if these doubts were well founded, I would not attempt to damp your bright and delightful hopes, by pouring into your ears the dull, cold voice of a desponding prophesy. But such is not the case. The pleasure of possession is real, and though in our ignorance we sometimes decide, that when a balance is struck between the bitter and sweet, in that mixture called the enjoyment of honors, it is heavy in favor of the former—though we hear the pursuit after worldly honors daily decried as a chase after some gaudy and painted insect, which, when gained with difficulty, when grasped with all the fervor and delight of gratified success, vanishes from the sight and leaves nothing behind but the pain and agony of its sting—though men who have never enjoyed them, often condescend to pity their unhappy possessors—still do I assure you that possession is delightful—even as delightful perhaps as your wildest dreams may have painted it. The very eagerness with which all strive for it, who can do so with any probability of success—the unconquerable perseverance with which they hold it when obtained—are sufficient proofs that it is worth the pursuit, and well rewards the winner. But you have already decided on this point; perhaps your only doubts are, upon which of the two principal (and in the present peaceful days, I may almost say only,) roads to honor, will a man find the best reward for the necessary exertions required to obtain it.

"The Hill of Fame on which your attention is fixed, is divided into two summits. To the one every step of the path is plain, and open to your view. You are at once sensible of the enjoyments as well as the difficulties, which are found in the various parts of the ascent, while those who journey upward are seen by all from the moment they start. You perceive along this path the most delightful pleasures awaiting those who may be so happy as to reach them—and increasing in number as they rise. But you see dangers and difficulties of every kind interspersed among them and also increasing to the very top. The flowers when plucked have often a poisonous insect enclosed in them—the finest fruit grows upon precipices the most steep and frightful—or when gathered 'turns to ashes in the mouth.' Yet in spite of these dangers you see many rising free and uninjured, higher and higher, till they attain even to the summit. But here, though pleasures are more abundant, the dangers are likewise increased—though the flowers are more beautiful and more numerous, the fruit large, and more delicious—the poison is also more deadly, the precipices are higher, and the fall from them more certainly fatal. But still is that summit, bright and glorious as it is—the brilliant object on which is fixed the ardent, anxious, devoted gaze of all who toil up the sides of the mountain. This is the Hill of Political Fame. Now let us turn to the other; it presents us quite a different aspect; its sides and bottom are covered with a dim mist, through which no objects are distinctly seen; we can only perceive that the way, though extremely steep and laborious, is as free from the precipices and dangers of the first, as it is deprived of its pleasures and enticements. Those who are toiling on their way to its summit, have nothing to cheer them in their dreary task but the prospect of the bright vision above them—which like the beacon signal to the worn mariner, holds out comfort and repose—cheering and inspiring him with fortitude—nerving his limbs with new vigor, and instilling renewed hope into his heart. Nor do you see them assailed by many imminent perils; yet many faint and sink on their tedious way—and few, very few are so fortunate as to gain the bright summit which rears its head above—free from the shades and mists which envelope the skies—brilliant and glorious as its opposite neighbor, and at the same time undisturbed by its dangers. Even of those who do ultimately reach this rich goal of their hopes—this happy end of their labors—how very few enjoy their hard earned rewards—many of them supported alone by their hopes on their wearisome journey—fall as soon as they reach the top, and gain only after death the glorious distinction for which they spent—to which they devoted their lives. This is the Hill of Literary Fame.

"And now examine each and decide for yourself, which you will choose as the scene of your future efforts—choose, and pursue that choice with determination. One road alone can you follow. Some, it is true, have, when tired of the one, pursued the other for a time. But no man ever reached the top of both. You are then to decide in favor of one, and having decided, steadily to pursue it, or content yourself with remaining unnoticed in the crowd which fills the plain beneath. That you may form your decision more correctly, look into the history of those who have sought and gained pre-eminence, in either kind of fame. Let us then (laying aside our metaphors) judge from past history, and by that let your future course be decided. In the histories of those who have even stood highest as writers, poets, &c. you often find much calculated to disgust you with the pursuit which they followed—how little do you find to envy in the lot of the beggar Homer—the blind and half starved Milton—the miserable Otway dying, choked with the morsel of food which he had begged of a friend; Goldsmith, Johnson, &c. It is true, that in contrast to these we may name Newton, Bacon, Shakspeare, Byron, who succeeded in gaining during (and some of them early in) their lives the fame they so eagerly sought. But more numerous are the instances on record, where literary merit has been unrewarded except by posthumous renown. Of genius the most brilliant—of minds the most powerful, which have gained their hard earned mede of praise—when their bodies were mouldering in the grave—when the head which conceived, and the hand which penned their bright aspirations, as well as the heart which so ardently beat for glory and honor—have mingled with the dust, alike unmindful and indifferent to praise or reproach, to fame or obloquy. When the bright etherial spirit, which once so strongly throbbed for a 'name among men,' has taken its flight to a truer home, where the glory of this world is nothing—then is paid to the memory the honor which the man deserved—which would have made him so completely happy. His life perhaps was spent in grinding poverty, in misery and wretchedness, imbittered by that chill cold neglect of the world, which so withers the sensitive heart—for what? A name after death. Let us turn from this dismal picture, to the other. Here at least, are some substantial pleasures, however they may be alloyed by the attendant evils, dangers and difficulties. Here at least, honor is nearly always rendered, if bestowed at all, whilst it can be appreciated. And now let us see whether the dangers and difficulties I have mentioned, may not be really less than we were at first inclined to believe them, and whether with care they may not be almost entirely avoided. It is true, that he who once becomes a public servant, throws his character in the hands of every man, and lays himself open to the attacks of every scribbler. He is exposed to the malicious accusations of men, who are neither able nor anxious to see his actions in their true light; his slightest faults held up on high to become marks of scorn among men—buts at which every vindictive slanderer may wing a poisoned shaft—even his very virtues distorted and perverted till they become in appearance vices. This I grant, is the life which all public men must lead; but let not this picture startle you. If really innocent, he will rise above the abuse which is poured upon him. Confident in the great decision of a candid world, he is superior to this sort of scandal. And have we not reason to believe that here as in other cases, custom renders one indifferent to that which at first would make him miserable? And that the most sensitive mind may soon begin to look on these as troublesome insects, which may at the time incommode, but which should create no lasting disturbance. The best proof of this, as I have before told you is, that men who have succeeded at all in public life, will, however disagreeable it may appear, cling to it as strongly as if in this, lay the very light of their existence. How sweet it is to have one's name in the mouths of all—to be the theme of admiration and wonder with the crowd—to have power. But there is even a purer and better enjoyment. How perfect the pleasure which animates the bosom of the statesman when he knows that to his talents—to his efforts—millions are indebted for their greatest comforts—that a whole nation looks up to him as their benefactor—that through his means"——

My visiter had proceeded thus far, when a villainous log of wood became suddenly discontented with its situation and rolled out upon the hearth, scattering its sparks over me. Though deeply interested, my first and most natural impulse was to grasp the tongs and set every thing to rights. At the next instant my recollection returned and I carefully replaced them. But it was too late. I saw nothing before me but the cold and senseless instrument. The mild expression of the features was gone—the quaint old figure had vanished, and the faint sound of that sweet voice melted away on my ear, like the dying ring of a harp, leaving me alone and disconsolate in my solitary room.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO MRS. ——,

Whose husband was absent in the United States Navy. On seeing her in a gay company.

Canst thou forget, amidst the gay and heartless, One far away whom thou hast vowed to love? Thou'rt lovely, and thou seemest pure and artless, And innocent and gentle as the dove. Dost thou forget, or do thy blue eyes brighten Only with thoughts of his return to thee? Dost thou the pains of absence seek to lighten, In scenes like this of mirth and revelry? Ah, pause awhile, mid sounds of song and dancing, While thoughts of conscious beauty paint thy cheek, While eyes, admiring eyes, around thee glancing, Volumes of warmest admiration speak— Think, if 'tis well for one whose faith is plighted, To shine among the free unfettered gay— Think, should those lovely eyes with smiles be lighted At homage which no heart but one should pay? Oh keep those smiles, so full of light and gladness, To welcome one whom thou canst call thine own; And may no darkling shade of gloom or sadness Come o'er thy life, thou bright and peerless one!

E. A. S.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.

Eliza!—let thy generous heart From its present pathway part not: Being every thing which now thou art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways— Thy unassuming beauty— And truth shall be a theme of praise Forever—and love a duty.

E. A. P.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

GENERAL WARREN.

STORIES ABOUT GENERAL WARREN—By a Lady of Boston, 1835, pp. 112, 12mo.

The sneers of those grown up readers,—who may choose to sneer at a review of so very juvenile a book as this, we brave, for the sake of bringing it, and its subject, somewhat into notice—pointing out some phraseological errors—doing justice to its merits—and, above all, freshening the memories, if not informing the minds, of the less fastidious among our countrymen, as to a few of the incidents preceding and attending the commencement of that great struggle, of which the cherished remembrance conduces so much to preserve in American bosoms a catholic, American, liberty-loving spirit. These incidents will be found naturally to imbody themselves in a brief account of the life of General Warren, drawn chiefly from the volume above mentioned. Those who may incline to despise either so simple a book, or a narrative of (to them) such trite facts, as these of which we shall speak, are probably not aware how shallow and narrow is the knowledge existing through the country, and even in some minds that claim to be considered as enlightened, with regard to our own history. "Mr. President!"—recently, at a public dinner in Virginia, vociferated a young orator of the Milesian school—a lawyer, we took him to be—"Mr. President! I give you, sir, the memory of the gallant General Warren, who fell at the battle of LEXINGTON!" And but a few months before, a friend as dear to us as ourselves, and whose age and opportunities should certainly have made him know better, confounded Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia in the times of Charles I and II, with Norborne Berkeley, Lord Botetourt, viceroy of George III, in 1769 and 1770! It would not surprise us, to hear a lawyer or a physician—still less a gentleman at large—talk of the burning of Charleston as simultaneous with the battle of Sullivan's Island, because Charlestown burned while the battle of Bunker Hill was fighting—as "John Bull in America" passes in half an hour from Boston, where the folk make wooden nutmegs, roast witches, and bake pumpkin pies, into Charleston, where they gouge and stab, drink mint juleps, eat young negroes, and feed old ones upon cotton seed.

The narrative before us is couched in a dialogue, between a mother and her two children; and, being obviously designed for gentlemen and ladies not much higher than mamma's rocking chair, has frequently an infantine simplicity of style, that makes us marvel at our own moral courage, in daring to serve up such a baby's mess. Convinced, however, that children's reading may afford both amusement and instruction to grown people, (witness "Early Lessons," "Frank," "The Parent's Assistant," "Sandford and Merton," and "Evenings at Home," cum pluribus aliis;) believing, at any rate, that among the palates for which it is our duty to cater, there are some youthful ones to which this dish may be both pleasant and useful; hoping, too, that by having her faults of composition noted, the authoress may be induced to cure, or "others in like cases offending" be moved to shun them, we make the venture. Indeed, not only the book's childishness of style, but many offences far more atrocious in a critic's eyes—sins against grammar, idiom, and good taste—are in great part redeemed by the good sense and justness of its reflections, the interesting tenor of its incidents, and the virtuous glow it is calculated to kindle. The sins are very many. "Lay," used for "lie," is wholly unwarranted—scarcely palliated—even by the example of Byron, in the Fourth Canto itself: for he was compelled by duress of rhyme; a coercion, which the most tuneful and the most dissonant are alike powerless to resist. "Mr. Warren, the father of Joseph, while walking round his orchard to see if every thing was in good order, as he was looking over the trees, he perceived," &c. Here is a nominative without any verb. There is a four or five fold vice in the second member of the following sentence, in which, as it stands, the writer may be defied to show a meaning: "It often happens that a mother is left with a family of young children, and is obliged to bring them up without the controlling power of a father's care; it is therefore the duty of every female so to educate her own mind, and that of her daughters, as to enable her, if she should be placed in this responsible situation, to be able to guide aright the minds of those under her care." Enable her to be able! Educate her own mind! and that of her daughters! Are they to be supposed to have but one mind among them, as the Sirens had but one tooth? The use of educate for train, is a match for the Frenchman's blunder, who, finding in the Dictionary that to press means to squeeze, politely begged leave to squeeze a lady to sing. "Enable HER." Enable whom? Why herself and her daughters: and she should have said so. Never, surely, was prosing, bona fide, printed prosing, to so little purpose. Again: "A mother should always possess ... a firm principle of action." Does she need but one firm principle of action? If so, it is to be hoped the next edition will say what that one is; for it must be valuable. A common blunder in the times of the infinitive mood, occurs repeatedly in this book: "How I should have admired to have gone to see her!" "It would have been a pity for us to have followed his example, and thus have lessened," &c.—"must have ardently desired to have been present"—"must have wished very much to have seen," &c. We cannot see the propriety of using the word "admired," as it is in one of these quotations. "Tell us if he did get in, and how he contrived to?" We protest against this fashion which our Yankee brethren are introducing, of making to, which is but the sign of the infinitive, stand for the infinitive itself. This is one of the few cases, in which we are for going the whole. "He began to practice"—"I know it was not him"—"he whom I told you was the first one"—"to respect, was added admiration and love"—"this tax bore very heavy"—"soldiers which"—"your country has much to hope from you, both in their counsels and in the field." These errors, a very moderate skill in orthography and syntax would have sufficed to avoid. Such a vulgarism as "nowadays," or such provincialisms as "pay one single copper," and "walked back and forth the room," (meaning to and fro, or backwards and forwards in the room) would not have occurred, if the author had remembered, that the simplicity which suits children's minds, is altogether different from vulgarity. There is such a thing as neat and graceful simplicity in writing, as well as in dress and manners. "They had contemplated making some attack on the British, or at least to endeavor to destroy their shipping." Contemplated to destroy! We will not further pursue this unwelcome task; pausing, short of the middle of the book, and having already passed over several faults without animadversion. Let the author be entreated to get the aid of some friend who is master (if she is not mistress) of grammar and taste enough, to reform these and the other errors of her little work, and then give us a new edition, calling in all the copies of the first, that are within her reach.—And now to our tale.

JOSEPH WARREN was born in 1741, in the village of Roxbury, one or two miles south from Boston, Mass. His father, a rich farmer, inhabited a house, the ruins of which are still visible; and was famous for raising the best fruit in that neighborhood. He was killed by a fall from one of his own apple trees, leaving a widow and four sons, of whom Joseph, the eldest, was 16, and John, the youngest, was 4 years old. This excellent woman appears to have much resembled the mother of Washington, in the skill and care with which she infused generous sentiments and virtuous principles into the bosoms of her children: and she reaped almost as richly as Mrs. Washington, the fruits of her labors. Her sons passed through life, all honored and loved, and more than one of them distinguished. Her nature seems to have had more of amiable softness than Mrs. Washington's; who, it must be confessed, blended something of the sternness with the purity and nobleness of a Spartan matron. Mrs. Warren's door was always open for deeds of hospitality and neighborly kindness. It is not easy to imagine a lovelier scene than one paragraph presents, of the evening of a well spent life, still warmed and brightened by the benign spirit, which had been the sun of that life's long day.

"In her old age, when her own children had left her fireside, it was one of her dearest pleasures to gather a group of their children, or of the children of others around her. She did all in her power to promote their enjoyment, and her benevolent smile was always ready to encourage them. On Thanksgiving-day,¹ she depended on having all her children and grand children with her; and until she was 80 years of age, she herself made the pies with which the table was loaded! Not satisfied with feasting them to their heart's content while they were with her, she always had some nice great pies ready for them to take home with them."

¹ Thanksgiving-day is in New England, what Christmas is in the Southern States and England. It is always in November, on a day fixed by Proclamation of the Governor of each State, in each year. Christmas, from the anti-Catholic zeal of the Puritan Pilgrims, is almost entirely neglected; being, with all its train of quips, cranks, gambols and mince-pies, thought to savor too strongly of popery.

Joseph's education, till his fourteenth year, was at the public school in Roxbury; one of those common schools, which, from the earliest times of New England, have been planting and nurturing in her soil the seeds and shoots of virtue and freedom. Even in boyhood, our hero was manly, fearless and generous: always taking the part of his weaker school-fellows against a strong oppressor—always the

"village Hampden, that with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood."

At fourteen, he entered Harvard University. His talents, perseverance, gentleness and courage, here gained him unrivalled popularity. That he did not acquire or preserve the regard of his fellow students by any base compliances with vice or disorder, the following incident shews.

Some of them had once resolved on some breach of the laws, which, from the sturdiness of his principles, they knew that young Warren would disapprove, and by his powerful influence probably prevent. They therefore met in an upper room of the college, to arrange their plans secretly; fastening the door against him. He found what they were about; and seeing the window of their room open, crept out, through a scuttle door, upon the roof—crawled to the eaves—and there, seizing a water-spout nearly rotten with age, he swung and slid down by it to the window, and unexpectedly sprang in amongst the conspirators. The spout, at the instant of his quitting it, fell with a crash to the ground, and was shivered to pieces. Only saying, in answer to the exclamations of astonishment that burst from his comrades, "it stayed up just long enough for my purpose," he commenced an expostulation against their intended misdemeanor, and succeeded in diverting them from it.

On leaving college, he studied medicine, and began to practise at the age of 23, just previously to a visit of the small pox to Boston, with those fearful ravages which usually attended its march, before the virtues of vaccination were known. Dr. Warren's judgment, tenderness, and skill, made him pre-eminently successful in treating the disease. And it is said, that his gentle and courteous deportment completely neutralized the usual tendency of such professional success, to enkindle the jealousy of his brethren. His mild features and winning smile, true indexes, for once, to the soul within, gained every heart; his knowledge and talents added respect to love. Thus, by the same qualities which had distinguished him at school and at college, did he acquire among his fellow townsmen an influence which no other man of his age and day possessed.

When the British Parliament and Crown began, in 1764, that course of unconstitutional legislation, which was destined, after eleven years of wordy war, to end in a war of blood, Dr. Warren was among the first to stand forth for the rights of America—to assert, and to labor in demonstrating to his countrymen, that the power to tax them (claiming, as they did, all the liberties of Englishmen) could not exist in a government of which no representatives of theirs formed a part. Fostered by him, and by others like him, the spirit of resistance to tyranny grew daily more strong. The inhabitants of the whole country, and especially of Boston, gave token after token of their fixed resolve, to spurn the chain which they saw preparing for them. In 1768, Col. Dalrymple with two royal regiments, reinforced afterwards by additional troops, entered that devoted town, with more than the usual "pomp and circumstance" of military bravado; and there remained in garrison, to repress what the king and ministry were pleased to call "the seditious temper" of the people. Never was attempt at restraint more impotent; nay, more suicidal. The curb, feebly and capriciously or unskilfully plied, served but to infuriate the noble animal it was meant to check and guide: and no wonder that the rider was at length unseated, and stretched in the dust. The New Englanders—we should rather say, the Americans—were too stubborn to be driven, and too shrewd to be circumvented. Every measure of tyranny, they met with an appropriate measure of resistance. Tea had been brought from India, to be the vehicle of unconstitutional taxation. They threw part of it into the sea; another part they hindered from being landed; and the remainder they excluded from use, by mutual pledges to "touch not, taste not" "the unclean thing." Judges were sent over to judge them—creatures of the king—the panders of ministerial oppression. The people would not suffer them to mount the judgment seat—closed the court houses—referred all their differences to arbitrators chosen by the parties—and even so far tamed the spirit of litigation and disorder, as to make tribunals of any sort in a great degree needless.² Between the British troops and the Boston people, animosities soon ran high. The soldiers seized every opportunity to exasperate the people: the people assembled in mobs, to revenge themselves on the soldiers. Amidst these tumults, Dr. Warren repeatedly exposed his life to soothe and restrain his countrymen. His eloquent persuasions were generally successful. At first, the more violent would endeavor to repel him, and would clamor to drown his voice. "While they did this, he would stand calmly and look at them. His intrepidity, his commanding and animated countenance, and above all, their knowledge that he was on their side so far as it was right to be, would soon make them as eager to hear as he was to speak: and finally, they would disperse to their homes with perfect confidence that they could not do better than to leave their cause in such hands." Those who seek to restrain the excesses of contending factions, may always expect rough usage from both sides. Warren incurred the occasional displeasure of his own party; but he did not escape insult and outrage from the British. They often called him rebel, and threatened him with a rebel's doom. One day, on his way to Roxbury, to see his mother, he passed near several British officers, standing in the Neck, which joins the peninsula of Boston to the main land. Not far before him stood a gallows. One of the officers called out, "Go on, Warren, you will soon come to the gallows:" and the whole party laughed aloud. Walking directly up to them, he calmly asked, which of them had thus addressed him? Not one was bold enough to avow the insolence, and he left them, crest-fallen and ashamed.

² We have grouped together here, the events of several years, in the rapidity of our narrative. The dependence of the judges for their salaries on the Crown, instead of on the Colonial Legislatures, (whence we date their meriting to be called creatures and panders,) began in 1772: and the tea was thrown into Boston Harbor, Dec. 16th, 1773.

Distinguished for his eloquence, our young physician was repeatedly called on to address the people, upon the great and soul-stirring topics of the times. Far the most interesting of these, was the Massacre of the Fifth of March. Our authoress has passed too slightly over this incident. Let us be a little more full.

Insults, recrimination, and outrage, between the soldiers and citizens, were at length, on the 5th of March, 1770, consummated, by the former's firing upon the latter in the streets of Boston, and killing five men—with circumstances shocking to humanity. After one of the slain (Mr. Gray,) had been shot through the body, and had fallen on the ground, a bayonet was pushed through his skull, and his brains fell out upon the pavement. This was the first bloodshed, consequent on the long festering irritations of the period. The officer (Capt. Preston) who gave the word "fire!" and six of the soldiers who had so fatally obeyed it, were in the ensuing October tried before a Boston jury: and, defended, in spite of obloquy, popular clamor, and the remonstrances of timid or prudent friends, by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr., were even by that jury, acquitted. It grieves us that we cannot pause here, to bestow a merited tribute on the moral courage of the illustrious counsel who dared defend, on the steady justice of the tribunal that could acquit, and on the virtue and good sense of the multitude who, when the first paroxysm of natural excitement was over, could applaud that defence and approve that acquittal³—horrible as had been the deed—maddening as had been the antecedent circumstances. But though the killing happened not to be murder, (because the people had been the assailants,) still, the violent destruction of five human lives by an armed soldiery in the streets of a free and peaceful city, was too impressive an example of what mischiefs may come of standing armies and lawless government, to pass unimproved. It was determined to solemnize each anniversary of that day, by a public exposition of those mischiefs; by an oration, commemorative of the tragedy, and of those great principles, the disregard of which had led to its perpetration. Warren delivered two of these orations.⁴ His first was on the 5th of March, 1772. It is not contained in the little book now before us, but we have seen it elsewhere: and on reading it, no one need be surprised at its having well nigh urged the people, even at that early day, to forcible measures. Its masterly argumentation is equalled by its burning appeals to the passions. All the four first of these orations had wrought so powerfully upon the public mind, that the British officers declared there should be no more of them: and that whoever undertook to deliver another, should do so at the peril of life. This menace daunted others, but only roused Warren. Not wailing to be invited, he solicited the task of addressing the people; and prepared himself accordingly for the fifth anniversary of the massacre—1775. Meanwhile, the givings out of the officers, and the rumors among the populace, imported mortal hazard to him if he should persist. He persisted but the more resolutely. Early in the day, the Old South Meeting House—which, as the scene of these orations, deserves, better than Faneuil Hall, to be termed the cradle of liberty—was crowded to its very porch. Many a devoted friend of Warren's was there, determined to see him safely through, or to fall in his defence. British officers and soldiers filled the aisles, the pulpit steps, and even the pulpit. Thinking that if he pushed through them to his place, a pretext might be seized for some disturbance, which would take from him and his audience the desirable degree of calmness, he procured a ladder to be placed outside, and by it, climbed through the window into the pulpit, just as all were expecting his entrance at the door. The officers quailed and receded, at his sudden appearance and dauntless air: while he, far from sure that his first word would not be answered by a bayonet-thrust or a pistol-shot, addressed the silent, breathless multitude. His countenance was lighted up with more than its usual glow of patriotic enthusiasm: but every other face was pale; every auditor could distinctly hear the throbbings of his own heart. The speech is given at length in the appendix to the work under examination; from the original, as we may conjecture, which, in the orator's own hand writing, is now in the possession of his nephew, Dr. John C. Warren. The opening was brief and simple: but in it we discern that curbed energy, that impassioned moderation—une force contenue, une rèserve animée—so characteristic of a great mind, concentrating its powers for some gigantic effort: and as he passes on from the unaffected humility of his exordium "to the height of his great argument," we have bodily before our fancy's eye, a nobler personification of wisdom, courage, eloquence and virtue, than Homer has displayed in the form of Ulysses.

"MY EVER HONORED FELLOW CITIZENS,

"It is not without the most humiliating conviction of my want of ability, that I now appear before you; but the sense I have, of the obligation I am under to obey the calls of my country at all times, together with the animating recollection of your indulgence, exhibited upon so many occasions, has induced me once more, undeserving as I am, to throw myself upon that candor, which looks with kindness upon the feeblest efforts of an honest mind.

"You will not now expect the elegance, the learning, the fire, the enrapturing strains of eloquence, which captivated you when a Lovell, a Church, or a Hancock spake: but you will permit me to say, that with a sincerity equal to theirs, I mourn over my bleeding country: with them I weep at her distress, and with them, deeply resent the many injuries she has received from the hands of cruel and unreasonable men."

³ Mr. Adams was, at the time, 35 years old; Mr. Quincy only 26. They were both threatened with loss of friends, of popularity, and of all prospect of political preferment. The "Memoirs of Quincy" (by his son Josiah, once a prominent federal leader in Congress, now President of Harvard University,) contain a letter from his venerable father, earnestly expostulating upon the step. The young barrister's reply is also given—a triumphant vindication of the motives, and even of the prudence of his resolution, to undertake the defence. In the success of that defence, in the universal approbation which soon followed it, and in the professional and political advancement of the generous advocates, they found ample rewards for having breasted the storm of popular feeling, in obedience to the call of duty.

⁴ The oration of 1771 was delivered by James Lovell; that of 1772 by Joseph Warren; of 1773, by Dr. Benjamin Church; of 1774, by John Hancock; of 1775, by Joseph Warren. These, and eight others of succeeding years, down to 1783, we have in Mr. H. Niles' inestimable collection of "Revolutionary Acts and Speeches."

Having laid down as axioms, the natural right of every man to personal freedom and to the control of his property, the orator sketched, with a master's hand, the history of English America: and, deducing the right of the colonists to the soil from their treaties with the Indians, and not from the grants of King James or King Charles, (whose pretended claims of right they undoubtedly despised—whose patents they probably accepted only "to silence the cavils of their enemies," and who "might with equal justice have made them a grant of the planet Jupiter,") he proved by unanswerable reasoning the rights of America, and painted in deep and living colors the usurpations and injustice of England. He traced the progress of these wrongs: he depicted the halcyon peace, the mutual benefactions, and the common happiness of the two countries, marred by successive and heightening aggressions—reaching, at length, that last aggravation short of civil war—the quartering of an insolent, hireling soldiery upon the people, to enforce submission to unjust and unconstitutional laws. The danger of standing armies, always, to liberty—the incompatibility of martial law with the government of a well regulated city—the certainty of disputes between the soldier and the citizen, especially when they are in each other's eyes, respectively, a rebel, and an instrument of tyranny—all made it but just to fear the most disagreeable consequences. "Our fears, we have seen," continued the orator, "were but too well grounded."

"The many injuries offered to the town, I pass over in silence. I cannot now mark out the path which led to that unequalled scene of horror, the sad remembrance of which takes full possession of my soul. The sanguinary theatre again opens itself to view. The baleful images of terror crowd around me, and discontented ghosts, with hollow groans, appear to solemnize the anniversary of the FIFTH OF MARCH.

"Approach we then the melancholy walk of death. Hither let me call the gay companion; here let him drop a farewell tear upon that body, which so late he saw vigorous and warm with social mirth; hither let me lead the tender mother, to weep over her beloved son: come, widowed mourner, here satiate thy grief! behold thy murdered husband gasping on the ground; and, to complete the pompous show of wretchedness, bring in each hand thy infant children to bewail their father's fate: take heed, ye orphan babes, lest, while your streaming eyes are fixed upon the ghastly corpse, your feet slide on the stones bespattered with your father's brains! Enough! this tragedy need not be heightened by an infant weltering in the blood of him that gave it birth. Nature, reluctant, shrinks already from the view; and the chilled blood rolls slowly backward to its fountain. We wildly stare about, and with amazement, ask, who spread this ruin round us? Has haughty France or cruel Spain, sent forth her myrmidons? Has the grim savage rushed again from the distant wilderness? Or does some fiend, fierce from the depth of hell, with all the rancorous malice which the apostate damned can feel, twang her destructive bow, and hurl her deadly arrows at our breast? No, none of these. It is the hand of Britain that inflicts the wound! The arms of George, our rightful king, have been employed to shed that blood, when justice, or the honor of his crown, had called his subjects to the field!

"But pity, grief, astonishment, with all the softer movements of the soul, must now give way to stronger passions. Say, fellow citizens, what dreadful thought now swells your heaving bosoms? You fly to arms—sharp indignation flashes from each eye—revenge gnashes her iron teeth—death grins an hideous smile, secure to drench his jaws in human gore—whilst hovering furies darken all the air! But stop, my bold, adventurous countrymen; stain not your weapons with the blood of Britons! Attend to reason's voice. Humanity puts in her claim, and sues to be again admitted to her wonted seat, the bosom of the brave. Revenge is far beneath the noble mind. Many, perhaps, compelled to rank among the vile assassins, do, from their inmost souls, detest the barbarous action. The winged death, shot from your arms, may chance to pierce some breast, that bleeds already for your injured country.

"The storm subsides: a solemn pause ensues: you spare, upon condition they depart. They go; they quit your city: they no more shall give offence. Thus closes the important drama.

"And could it have been conceived that we again should see a British army in our land, sent to enforce obedience to acts of Parliament destructive to our liberty?... Our streets are again filled with armed men; our harbor is crowded with ships of war: but these cannot intimidate us: our liberty must be preserved: it is far dearer than life—we hold it even dear as our allegiance. We must defend it against the attacks of friends, as well as enemies: we cannot suffer even Britons to ravish it from us. No longer could we reflect, with generous pride, on the heroic actions of our American forefathers; no longer boast our origin from that far famed island, whose warlike sons have so often drawn their well tried swords to save her from the ravages of tyranny;—could we, but for a moment, entertain the thought of giving up our liberty. The man who meanly will submit to wear a shackle, contemns the noblest gift of Heaven; and impiously affronts the God that made him free."

Highly wrought as these passages may appear, they accorded, perfectly, with the minds to which they were addressed.

It may be doubted, if any scene of the kind ever possessed more of the moral sublime, than that which our young countryman presented,—daring thus, amidst armed and frowning enemies, to denounce them and their masters, and to speak forth the startling truths of justice and freedom, with the naked sword of tyranny suspended over his head. The rising of Brutus, "refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate," shaking his crimsoned steel, and hailing Tully aloud as the "father of his country"—Tully's own denunciations of Catiline, Verres and Anthony—or the more illustrious Philippics of Demosthenes—all remote from personal danger—the objects of their enmity and invective being absent, defenceless, or prostrate—cannot be compared, for moral sublimity, with the splendid boldness of Warren. And, whatever classical anathemas await us for it, we are heretical enough to venture the opinion, that for true eloquence, blendedly pathetic and argumentative, his oration outstrips any that we have read of Cicero's, and equals aught that we have seen of Demosthenes. To the most effective effusions of the latter, indeed, it bears the closest resemblance—rapid, condensed, inornate, impassioned: similar, too, in its result, if we consider the difference of their auditories—the one a mercurial mob, ever liable to be swayed by whim or convulsed by passion; the other a grave, reflecting people, who subjected every thing—feeling, imagination, and even the love of liberty—to REASON. The oratory of Demosthenes made the Athenians cry out, "Let us march against Philip!" When Warren ended, a glow of admiration and respect pervaded even the hostile bosoms around him; but the people of Boston were ready at once to abjure allegiance to Great Britain. For this, however, affairs were not yet ripe.

The celebrated Josiah Quincy, Jr. was at this time in England, on a mission of remonstrance and observation. His interesting letters, and more interesting journal, (for parts of which we are indebted to the "Memoirs" before referred to,) shewed his conviction that the pending disputes must come to the arbitrament of arms. His countrymen, he said, "must seal their cause with their blood." This, he was assured by Warren, (one of his warmest and dearest friends) they were ready to do. "It is the united voice of America" (Warren wrote him) "to preserve their freedom, or lose their lives in its defence." Warren was President of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts. He writes thus to Quincy concerning it: "Congress met at Concord at the time appointed. About 260 members were present. You would have thought yourself in an assembly of Spartans, or ancient Romans, had you seen the ardor of those who spoke on the important business they were transacting." Quincy remained but six months in England, and then embarked for his home in an advanced stage of consumption: having, as he told the seaman who attended his sick bed, but one desire—that he might live long enough to have one more interview with Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren. His prayer was not granted. He died on ship board, just entering Cape Anne Harbor, on the 26th of April, 1775,⁵ eight days after the battle of Lexington; where, unknown to him, his countrymen had already "sealed their cause with their blood."