minds, and so display to her the sublime creations of that blind poet's fancy. We regret that with such a magnificent temple of mind ever by her side-so decorated with all the gorgeousness of rich imagination-so teeming with exalted ethereal influences-so blazing with unsurpassable pictures of life and nature, we regret that she should voluntarily exclude herself from such an exhibition-and passing carelessly by the gates, waste her precious faculties and ever flying hours upon unworthy objects. We would not that the glowing girl should dim the lustre of her eyes in midnight studies, or turn from the graceful duties and pleasures of domestic life and social intercourse to become pedantic and learned; but no being with a mind and a soul can enter into the spirit of such a poem without feeling nobler and happier. It dignifies the character with lofty meditations it breaks away the webs which prejudice, passion, interest, and the common place circumstances of society are for ever weaving around the heart.

REVERIES.

HEAVEN bless Walter Scott! There is almost a melancholy in the reflection that the warmest wish of an obscure scribbler like myself is utterly valueless to one who has so often been near me, like a guardian spirit, in sickness, weariness, and despondency, and shed such cheerful light across some of the loneliest and dreariest passages of my life. I am without any companion in a strange and crowded city. My hotel is swarming with new faces. I hear laughter and music, and the rustling of a silk gown, and a half open door discovers a finely furnished parlour, and a group of graceful girls, one of whom is running her hand lightly over the keys of a piano. But I am excluded from the merry company, and now the closed door hides them from my sight, I had roamed around the city: to the reading room-to the book stores-the museum, at which latter receptacle of wonders, I was edified by

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the same eternal monotony of stuffed pelicans and ostriches, great bears and lions glaring on me with their bright glass eyes, snakes, autographs, monkeys smoking cigars, overgrown oystershells, and turtles with two heads. I had snatched a glance at the theatre, and mused on the bridge-I had read the Directory and the almanac, and subjected myself to the operation of my polite friend the barber, with the laudable design of surmounting so much time. He had powdered my chin and dressed my hair according to the uninterrupted dictates of his own fancy. My shoes were polished-my clothes brushed. I had stolen a single glance at my insignificant self in a full length mirror, which adorns the drawing room of the G. hotel, and was just stretching myself, with the indolent ennui of a fashionable lady, upon a sofa by the fire, when an old, torn volume, full of dog's ears, met my eye behind the clock, and was immediately seized with the hungry avidity of a shark. Some friendly spirit had, very opportunely, supplied me with what turned out to be "Woodstock," by that magnificent fellow-that exhaustless fountain of literary pleasure that princely author and honest man, Walter Scott. That I had read it several times before, which, in reference to most books, would have arrested all further proceedings in that way, was precisely the reason why I should read it again; so, without further ado, in I plunged, and the heavy hours, which had hitherto grated so harshly across my soul, floated by like light and silent clouds. Late in the afternoon I looked up to find the sky all reddening with the sunset. During the evening I forgot the bustle and solitariness of a great hotel, and at length I closed the second volume; when the last pages were dimly seen through the gathering moisture of my eyes. This sprang not from sickly sentimentality, but from the glowing excitement with which I followed this potent enchanter through the living and thrilling scenes of human life.

What an admirable production it is! With what a strong and vivid reality Wildrake stands out from the canvass? How individual, yet how natural! Pierson and Cromwell, by a few masterly outlines, are perfectly distinct and impressive-and over even old Bevis the author has shed such a coloring, that the noble beast

shares the interest of the reader. Is not such a book a glorious wonder? A few marks upon paper, borne about in the pocket, and which to many would be a mystery, a mere blank, yet what a magical influence it possesses. Suppose an intelligent savage, unacquainted with the beautiful art by which we convey thought from realm to realm, should behold a more enlightened being availing himself of this refined source of amusement; when the apparently useless object is opened, and the eyes rest upon it, mark how it arrests their light and wandering flashes. Hour after hour the gaze is fastened on the silent pages-they shut the ear to surrounding sounds -they change the flow of thought-make the heart beat-the eyes moisten-the system glow-the countenance lighten with sudden mirth, or reflect the dark emotions which pass visibly before the mind's eye on the little space of a single page.

Think of the beast's monotonous life, and what a fine and subtle joy has man here in comparison. How it verges toward the borders of a higher existence. How utterly and immeasurably it is beyond their comprehension. If then we are gifted with,a capacity so elevated, so extraordinary, so intellectual, and yet of which millions even of our own fellow creatures have been totally ignorant, by a discovery at once so simple and easy, of the resources and hidden treasures which lie sometimes hidden within the reach of man, what glorious secrets in a yet higher life the benificent hand of nature may unlock to the human soul? At what other wonderful fountains may she not suffer us to quench our thirst for knowledge and bliss-fountains, which, perchance, are even now flowing beautifully around us, but which accident or genius, or the invisible influence of a divine spirit, may hereafter lay open to our understanding.

It is curious to contemplate the symmetrical gradations by which the principle of life, as connected with inert matter, rises in beauty and approaches perfection. How it branches up from the dark coarse earth into new, more refined, and wonderful forms and qualities of being. The spirit ranges nearer and nearer the sublime mystery of all life, and at each successive stage increases its power, its knowledge, and its capacities. The

system resembles a tree, which at first seems an obscure and apparently worthless seed, buried in the dust; then the rough barked tree strikes its gnarled roots into the soil; from this, which, although containing the invisible essence and machinery of life, presents little by which the eye can distinguish it from dead matter, behold the smooth and tapering branches spread abroad, and the green leaves burst forth; then flowers of fine coloring, and enriching the air with their balmy breath; and, to crown the perfection of this common piece of nature's handywork, fruit, lovely to the eye, soft and pleasant to the touch, cool and delicious to the taste, hangs clustering among the verdant foliage, drinking life and rich sweetness and crimson beauty from the distant sun, and destined to supply a purpose to beings more immeasurably and inconceivably superior to itself in the scale of creation, than it is above the meanest particle of dust which floats around it in the air. This study of nature's plan -this conviction of man's capacities to go on and fit himself for a higher existence, combined with the instinctive imperishable tenacity with which the mind clings to the consciousness of its immortality, makes atheism and disbelief in a future state an impossibility: not but that there are thousands who think they are skeptical, and who in the moment suffer no doubt of their annihilation to intrude upon them; but it is my opinion, that when brought directly in the face of death they are conscious of a change. This is not the effect of fear or of early associations; it is the voice of nature whispering consolation to her creature, trembling in the agony of the most awful crisis. The mind cannot conceive the idea of its own destruction.

GOING INTO THE COUNTRY.

THIS "going into the country" to recruit, discovers, after all, a very ordinary species of wisdom. I am one who rashly credited the virtues of these rural excursions, and now find myself in the predicament of

an unfortunate valetudinarian, after having swallowed the nostrum of an empiric which affords a temporary relief, only to leave the patient subsequently in a more complete distress. I write this, therefore, as a caution to unwary young men likely to be tempted into a similar snare. At first it was certainly very specious-every thing in the face of nature looked fair and beautiful. The air was scented and exhilarating, and I gave myself up to emotions of pleasure. We found numerous means of "fleeting away the time as they did in the golden age❞—we reclined beneath the shade-we wandered along the beach-mounted the hill, and roamed through the woods.

By and bye came on the evening with its balmy breezes. The slight summer shower was over, and the clouds broke apart in painted masses; behind their burnished fragments the crimson sky appeared, glowing with a fine and lingering radiance, which faded like the twilight reveries of the dreamers beneath. These are not hours to waste within a room-they found us pacing and re-pacing the sandy beach-breathing in the odors that floated from the woods and fields. Then as the evening shadows thickened, and the blended and deepened colors of the west had passed like the last splendors of some gaudy and magnificent procession, a light star appeared alone in the overhanging vault, as if it were even now first created. The broad water seemed asleep, but that as it lapped softly with its silver waves upon the shore, its ripples turned to fire, and then the everlasting stars came forth one after another from the depths of the blue distance, lighting our lingering steps with the beams of clustering worlds.

Now all this is very well, but the evil consequences must not be concealed. Before I was betrayed by a designing friend into the power of certain people inhabiting the regions about New York, I was an industrious and contented young man. I was rapidly establishing a reputation for punctuality in business, for my faculties were properly balanced for my daily task. Habit had drilled me into a kind of mechanical routine, and I operated upon my special pleas and bills in chancery with the uninterrupted uniformity of a steam engine, freed from the winds and tides of wandering wishes and