Coxcombs, hardly worth the hurting,—
Tyrant! if you must be flirting,
Pr'ythee, flirt with me!

Then why postpone your love to own
For me from day to day so,
And let me whisper still alone,
"Tom, if you love me, say so?"
How oft when I was sick, or sad
With some remember'd folly,
The sight of you has made me glad,--
And then most melancholy!
Ah! why will thoughts of one so good
Upon my spirit prey so?

By you it should be understood-
66 Tom, if you love me, say so."
Last Monday, at the cricket-match,
No rival stood before you;

In harvest-time, for quick despatch
The farmers all adore you;
And evermore your praise they sing,
Though one thing you delay so,
And I sleep nightly murmuring,

"Tom, if you love me, say so.'
Whate'er of ours you chance to seek,
Almost before your breathe it,
I bring with blushes on my cheek,
And all my soul goes with it.
Why thank me, then, with voice so low,

And, faltering, turn away so?
When next you come, before you go
Tom, if you love me, say so.
When Jasper Wild, beside the brook,
Resentful round us lower'd,
1 oft recall that lion-look

bursting of the earth, just below the village of New Madrid, arrested this mighty stream in its course, and caused a reflux of its waves, by which, in a little time, a great number of boats were swept by the ascending current into the mouth of the Bayou, carried out and left upon the dry land, when the accumulating waters of the river had again cleared their current. There were a great number of severe shocks. but two series of concussions were particularly terrible, far more so than the rest. They remark, that the shocks were clearly distinguishable into two classes; those in which the motion was horizontal, and those in which it was perpendicular. The latter were attended by the explosions and the terrible mixture of noises that preceded and accompanied the earthquakes in a louder degree, but were by no means so desolating and destructive as the NOTICE OF EARTHQUAKES ON THE other. When they were felt, the houses crumMISSISSIPPI. bled, the trees waved together, the ground sunk, and all the destructive phenomena were more conspicuous. In the intervals of the earthquakes there was one evening, and that a brilliant and cloudless one, in which the wesof lightning, and repeated peals of subterranean tern sky was a continued glare of vivid flashes thunder seemed to proceed, as the flashes did, this night, so conspicuous for subterranean from below the horizon. They remark that thunder, was the same period in which the fatal earthquakes at Caraccas occurred, and they seem to suppose these flashes and that event parts of the same scene.

The people, without exception, were unlettered backwoodsmen, of the class least addict-ed to reasoning. And it is remarkable how ingeniously and conclusively they reasoned from apprehension sharpened by fear. They remarked, that the chasms in the earth were in direction from south-west to north-east, and they were of an extent to swallow up, not only men but houses, and these chasms occurred frequently within intervals of half a mile. They felled the tallest trees at right angles with the chasms, and stationed themselves upon the felled trees. By this invention all were saved; for the chasms occurred more than once under these trees.

VI.

Wherefore, Fanny! kiss and fondle
Half the ugly brats you see?-
Waste not love among so many,-
Sweetest! if fondle
you
any,
Pr'ythee fondle me!

VII.

Wherefore wedlock's lottery enter?
Chances for you, one to three!-
Richest ventures oft miscarry,-
Fanny, Fanny! if you marry,
Pr'ythee, marry me!

BY MR. FLINT.

FROM all the accounts corrected one by ano-
ther, and compared with the very imper-
fect narratives that were published, says Mr.
Flint, I infer that the shock of these earth
quakes, in the immediate vicinity of the centre
of their course, must have equalled, in their
terrible heavings of the earth, any thing of

the kind that has been recorded. I do not be-
lieve that the public have ever yet had any
adequate idea of the violence of the concus-
sions. We are accustomed to measure this,

by the buildings overturned, and the mortality
that results. Here the country was thinly set-
tled. The houses fortunately were frail and
of logs, the most difficult to overturn that
could be constructed. Yet, as it was, whole
tracts were plunged into the bed of the river,
The grave-yard, at New Madrid, with all its
sleeping tenants, was precipitated into the bed
of the stream. Most of the houses were thrown
down. Large lakes, of twenty miles in extent.
were made in an hour; other lakes were
drained. The whole country to the mouth of
the Ohio, in one direction, and to the St.
Francis in the other, including a front of three
hundred miles, was convulsed to such a de-
gree, as to create lakes and islands, the num.
ber of which is not yet known, to cover a tract
of many miles in extent near the little Prairie,
with water three or four feet deep; and, when
the water disappeared, a stratum of sand, of
the same thickness, was left in its place. The
trees split in the midst, lashed one with ano-
ther, and are still visible over great tracts of
country, inclining in every direction, and at
every angle to the earth and to the horizon.

They described the undulations of the earth
as resembling waves, increasing in elevation
as they advanced; and, when they had attain-
ed a certain fearful height, the earth would
burst, and vast volumes of water and sand and
pitcoal were discharged, as high as the tops of
the trees. I have seen a hundred of these
chasms, which remained fearfully deep, al-
though in a very tender alluvial soil, and after
a lapse of seven years. Whole districts were
covered with white sand, so as to become un-
inhabitable.

The water at first covered the whole country, particularly at the Little Prairie; and it must have been indeed a scene of horror, in these deep forests, and in the gloom of the darkest night, and by wading in the water to the middle to flee from these concussions, which were occurring every few hours, with noise equally terrible to the beasts and birds as to men. The birds themselves lost all power and disposition to fly, and retreated to the bosoms of men, their fellow-sufferers in this scene of convulsion. A few persons sunk in these chasms, and were providentially extricated. One person died of fright; one perished miserably on an island, which retained its origi nal level, in the midst of a wide lake created by the earthquake. The hat and clothes of this man were found. A number perished, who sunk with their boats in the river. A

My wish was at last gratified. Walter Er-
rick caught a fever when we were crossing
the Line, and my profession, as a clergyman,
obliged me to sit by him, and offer the conso-
lations which our holy religion affords to the
penitent sinner. For some days he was deli-
rious, and during that time he seemed happier
than I had ever seen him: he talked of the
scenes of his childhood, fancied himself on the
shore of the Isle of Wight, and would take my
hand and gaze fondly into my face, murmuring
some name in a low faint voice, or sometimes
without speaking at all. One night, after
lying in a stupor for some time, he roused him-
self and asked for something to drink after
a few moments' pause, he inquired how long
it was probable he should live? The sur-
geon replied, that at present there was no cer-
tainty of his death,-that he might and in all
probability would, recover. "Nonsense!" said
he; "I am dying: I feel it-I know it: it is
the plague the plague of the body and the
| soul." We thought he was relapsing into de-
lirium, when, suddenly seizing my arm, he ex-
claimed, "I have a great wish to say some-
thing to you, Sir, before I go. You have
brought on this fever: you have watched me
-suspected me,-I know you have: for above
a fortnight before I took to my bed, I could not
hear your foot on the deck, (and, oh, how well
I knew your step from the others!) without
feeling my heart beat as if it would have burst;
and when you looked at me so long and so
earnestly as you used to do, the veins in my
forehead swelled and throbbed, and my head
grew giddy. Sir, I could not sleep for that
look; and now you shall hear all,-why I did
it, and how it happened that no one but you
ever guessed what I had done." At that mo-
ment I confess I felt almost in the state the
wretched man had himself described: every
nerve in my body thrilled, and the drops stood
on my brow. I did not speak, however; and,
after some time, he continued.

they were decidedly pleasing; and melancho-
ly, rather than gloom, appeared to me to be
their habitual cast. I always piqued myself
on being a good judge of physiognomy; and,
as I walked up and down the deck of the Al-
phonse, I repeated so often to myself, "That
man has a history," that, at last, during all the
dull monotonous voyage, I came to have but
one pervading wish, which gradually obtained
complete empire over me, to hear his story
from himself. I cannot describe to you the
burning intensity of my curiosity on this sub-gladly, as she had taken home the half-starved
ject. Day after day, night after night, I re- orphan of one of the men who perished, or
peated, almost with feverish longing, "Oh were taken, the night my father died. My
that I could hear Walter Errick's story!" I brother and I performed the voyages alternate-
do really think that, at that time, I would have
ly, and experienced the greatest kindness from
consented to lose an arm or a leg, if the loss the captain, who frequently assisted my mo-
could have ensured the gratification of my ther and little Mary, the orphan girl, with
wish. Time passed, and the desire increased small but useful presents during his short stay
in proportion as the likelihood of satisfying it on land. It was during the third voyage_my
diminished. A thousand times I was on the younger brother, James, had made, that I be-
point of addressing him, of telling him the in- gan to think of the orphan Mary as a wife.
terest he had inspired; but the cold gravity, Beautiful and gentle she was; and to live with
the insouciance of his melancholy, always re- her and not love her was impossible. We used
strained me: his was not a sorrow of the to ramble over the beach together during the
heart, which could be relieved by unbosoming bright summer evenings, and sit side by side
himself to a compassionate friend; it was a watching the waves rippling to the shore, or
cloud over the soul, a dark veil thrown over looking for the ships in the distance, and
his natural feelings by some event of his past guessing their destinations and the feelings of
life. Oh that I could discover how and when those within them. At length the time drew
it took place!
near when James was to return, and I should
take his place, and bid farewell to Mary for a
while. The day, the hour came. 1 felt her
last kiss on my lips, her warm bright tears on
my cheek; and the boat that brought me to
the vessel, rowed away again with her and
James and others, and became a speck in the
distance.

WALTER ERRICK.

BY THE HON. MRS. NORTON.

It was on board the Alphonse that I learnt the history of this unfortunate man. He was first mate there; and, though exceedingly unpopular amongst his messmates, there was something about him which excited my interest. He was a short thickset man, about the middle age, with a singularly grave countenance, which circumstance had probably obtained him among his companions the name of "gloomy Walter," by which he was constantly designated. There was, however, nothing harsh or forbidding in his general expression: on the contrary, when a faint gleam of something like gladness stole over his features,

"I was born in a little fishing hut, at the back of the Isle of Wight. I believe my father had originally been a farmer; but distresses had come upon him, and, under the ostensible trade of a fisherman, he connected himself with a gang of smugglers, who carried on successful plunder in that part of the island. I used always to accompany him on his expeditions, and was with him the night he was shot by the King's officers:-he fell from the boat in which he was standing, into the sea; after the struggle was over, two men looked for his body and brought it home: we then discovered that the wound was of little consequence, but the time he had been in the water pre

cluded all possibility of his recovery. My mother was thus left with myself and a younger brother,--with no means of subsistence except the scanty earnings afforded by making fishing-nets, and selling shells and weeds to those whom curiosity and leisure brought to the beach. One of her little customers, who was daughter to the captain of a small merchant vessel, offered to obtain a situation, as cabin boy, for either of us, in her father's ship,-a proposition my mother acceded to the more

one.

"It was two years before I again saw the Isle of Wight, and my landing was an ominous The well known signal was hoisted, and I could see a white handkerchief fluttering in reply above the roof of our cottage. The boat put off from shore, and my heart told me, before my eye could distinguish, that my brother James was the one who pulled so stoutly, and kept his glance so fixed on the deck of our vessel. I got a pocket telescope, and looked out to see his bright and blessed countenance a few minutes sooner: and there he was, handsomer than ever; his sun-burnt face lit with gladness, his white smiling teeth gleaming in the sun, and the fresh breeze waving his ring. leted hair. I never felt so fond or so proud of him: I kept repeating, in a tone of triumph, to those near me, 'There's James,-that's my brother James,-do you see James?' never heeding or seeing their total indifference to the rapture which swelled my heart. Mary too, dear Mary! I could see faintly on the shore the outline of a figure I felt must be hers. I watched impatiently the light boat shooting over the waters, which lay as clear and smooth as glass: suddenly there was a momentary confusion; some one stood up, leant forward, and the boat upset, plunging all into the sea. For one single instant I stood paralyzed, with my eyes fixed on the splashing glancing waters, as the sunshine played over the spot where fourteen wretches, were struggling for life: another moment and I had leapt into the ocean, and was swimming with all the energy of love and despair to the place where the boat had sunk. As I swam from the vessel, I heard the captain shout out orders to lower a boat: we had but one left,-the rest had taken part of the cargo to land. I knew, and remembered as I swam along, that this was too small to hold all the sufferers; and though I could see boats in all directions putting off from the land, yet the time that must elapse before they could reach the spot rendered their being of service very uncertain. At length I swam into the centre of the eddying waves: hands were extended, and faint efforts were made to grasp me, by men already exhausted wit rowing: but they were strangers; and, in that moment of excitement, I shook them off as I would have done a troublesome animal. I gazed,-I panted,-the dreadful thought struck

|

make a noise that would not a little astonish and alarm a stranger. Occasionally they will lodge themselves very snugly in a boot, and if a person puts his foot upon them inadvertently, he has quick intimation of the intruder, by a grasp of his nippers. For a few weeks in this season, they may be gathered in any quantities, and the Negroes sometimes hurt themselves by making too free use of them. Even the hogs catch them, although not always with impunity, as a crab sometimes gets hold of one of them by the snout, from which he is not easily disengaged, and the terrified animal runs about squeaking in great distress.

district at the time. On ascending Quahill, from the vale of Plantain-Garden River, the road appeared of a reddish colour, as if strewed with brick-dust. I dismounted from my horse to examine the cause of so unusual an appearance, and was not a little astonished to find that it was owing to myriads of young black crabs, about the size of the nail of a man's finger, crossing the road, and moving at a pretty pace direct for the mountains. I was concerned to think of the destruction I was causing in travelling through such a body of useful creatures, as I fancied that every time my horse put down a foot, it was the loss of at At other seasons, and when more valuable, least ten lives. I rode along the coast a disthey are caught by torch light at night, and tance of about fifteen miles, and found it nearput into covered baskets. Crowds of Negroes ly the same the whole way, only that in some from the neighbouring plantations pass my places they were more numerous, and in others house every evening with their torches and less so. Returning the following day, I found baskets, going to a crab wood on the other the road still covered with them the same as side, and return before midnight fully laden. the day before. How have they been produced Their baskets will contain about 40 crabs, and in such numbers, or, where are they come the regular price is a five-penny piece, our from? were questions that every body asked, smallest coin, equal to about 34d. sterling, for and no one could answer. It is well known five or six crabs. At this rate a Negro will the crabs deposite their eggs once a year, and make 2s. 6d. currency in an evening; and the in the month of May; but, except on this occamore improvident, who will not cultivate pro- sion, though living on the coast, I never saw a vision grounds, depend, in some measure, upon dozen of young crabs together, and here were catching crabs, and selling them to the others. millions of millions covering the earth for miles A hundred plantains, usually sold at five shil- along a large extent of sea coast. No unusual lings, will purchase from sixty to seventy crabs, number of old crabs had been observed that and two of these eaten with plantains or yams, season; and it is worthy of remark, that this make an excellent meal. I have seen upwards prodigious multitude of young ones were movof a hundred Negroes pass my house in an ing from a rock-bound shore, formed by inacevening, and return with their baskets on their cessible cliffs, the abode of sea birds, and heads, not only full of crabs, but with quanti-against which the waves of the sea are conties of them fastened by the claws on the tops stantly dashed by the Trade-wind blowing diof the baskets. I make but a moderate compu- rectly upon them. That the old crabs should tation, when I suppose they must have had, at be able to deposite their eggs in such a part of the very least, three thousand crabs. Almost the coast, (if that, as would appear, is the every Negro family has an old flour barrel habit of the animal) is not a little extraordina pierced with holes, in which their crabs are ry. No person in Jamaica, so far as I know, kept. They are fed with plantain skins, &c. or have heard, ever saw such a sight, or any and taken out and thrown into the pot as thing of the kind, but on that occasion: and I wanted. have understood, that, since 1811, black crabs have been abundant farther into the interior of the island than they were ever known before. —Barclay's View of Slavery in the West Indics.

There is a great variety of crabs in Jamaica, of which two only are eaten. The black is the finest, and has ever been esteemed one of the greatest delicacies in the West Indies, not excepting even the turtle. These live in the mountain forests, on stony ground, and feed on the fallen dry leaves of the trees. The white crab, as it is called (although rather purple than white) used principally by the Negroes, but by the white people also, is larger, and more resembles in taste the lobster of this country. These are amphibious, and are found in the low lands, principally in the woods, where, as I have already said, they are caught at night with torches. But they are numerous also in the cultivated fields, and in some of the low lying estates frequently do considerable damage to the planters in dry weather, when vegetation is low, by nipping off the blade of the young canes and corn, as it shoots through the ground. In situations of this kind, the Negroes have a somewhat singular method of catching them: they know from the appear-. ance of a crab hole if there be a crab in it, and dig down with a hoe through the soft loam, till they come to water (about eighteen inches or two feet,) and then close the hole firmly with a handful of dry grass. In this manner a Negro will shut up two or three dozen of holes in a morning. About four hours after, he returns, and his prisoners being by this time drunkened (half drowned,) they tumble out along with the plug of grass, and are caught.

In the year 1811, there was a very extraordinary production of black crabs in the eastern parts of Jamaica. In the month of June or July of that year, I forget which, the whole district of Manchioneal (where the great chain of the Blue Mountains, extending from west to east, through the centre of the island, terminates on the east coast,) was covered with countless millions of these creatures, swarming from the sea to the mountains. Of this singular phenomenon, I was myself an eye witness, having had occasion to travel through that

IV.

How shall I woo her?--I will bow
Before the holy shrine;

And pray the prayer, and vow the vow,
And press her lips to mine;
And I will tell her, when she parts
From passion's thrilling kiss,
That memory to many hearts
Is dearer far than bliss.

V.

Away! away! the chords are mute,
The bond is rent in twain ;—
You cannot wake that silent lute,
Nor clasp those links again:
Love's toil I know is little cost,
Love's perjury is light sin;
But souls that lose what I have lost,-
What have they left to win?

VANITY FAIR.

BY THOMAS H. BAYLY, ESQ.

1.

To Vanity Fair all my neighbours have been,
To see all the sights that were there to be

seen;

Old and young, rich and poor, were all hurrying there,

To pick up a bargain at Vanity Fair!

II.

A very rich man ostentatiously came,
To buy with his lucre a liberal name;
He published his charities every where,
And thought he bought virtue at Vanity Fair!

III.

A lady, whose beauty was on the decline, Rather tawny from age, like an over-kept wine;

Bought lilies and roses, teeth, plumpers, and hair,

And emerged a new person from Vanity Fair!

IV.

Another, so plain that she really resigned
Pretensions to beauty-save that of the mind;
Picked up a half-mad, intellectual air,
And came back quite a genius from Vanity
Fair!

V.

A soldier came next, and he flourished a flag,
By sword, gun and bayonet torn to a rag!
He had faced the grim mouth of a cannon, to

share

Renown's twig of laurel in Vanity Fair!

VI.

A mathematician there made up his mind
To sneer at all things of a frivolous kind;
A circle he vowed was by no means a square,
And he thought he enlightened all Vanity

Fair!

VII.

Another, despising refinement and grace, Growled at all who were near, with a frown on his face;

He prided himself on being rude as a bear,
So he shone the eccentric of Vanity Fair!

VIII.

A grand politician, unshaken, withstood
Individual ill for the national good;

To mount a new step on promotion's high stair,
He toiled for precedence in Vanity Fair!

IX.

A ci-derant beau, with one foot in the grave,
Still followed the ladies, their shadowy slave;
Concealing his limp with a strut debonair,

He smoothed down his wrinkles in Vanity

Fair!

X.

The next was an orator, longing to teach,
And to cut a great figure by figures of speech;
At dinner he sat in the President's chair,
In attitudes purchased at Vanity Fair!

XI.

One sailed to the Red Sea-and one to the
Black;

One danced on the tight rope-and one on the
slack;

And all were agog for the popular stare,—
All mad to be Lions in Vanity Fair!

XII.

One raised on new doctrines his personal

pride,

His pen put the wisdom of ages aside;
The apple of Eve after all was a pear!
So said the Reformer of Vanity Fair!

XIII.

A poet came last, with a fine rolling eye,
His shirt collar open-his neck cloth thrown
by ;-
Such matters evince inspiration, he'll swear,
So he sticks up his portrait in Vanity Fair!

A DOMESTIC SCENE.

BY MRS. HEMANS.

"The priest-like father reads the sacred page.”,
The Cotter's Saturday Night.

I.

'Twas early day-and sun-light stream'd
Soft thro' a quiet room,
That hush'd, but not forsaken, seem'd-
Still, but with nought of gloom:
For there secure in happy age,

Whose hope is from above,
A father communes with the page
Of Heaven's recorded love.

Structure of the Sponge.-If a common sponge be carefully examined in a microscope, it will appear to be furnished with galleries and compartments, which rival, in intricacy and number, those of the celebrated labyrinths of Crete; the ramified entrances of a marine pavillion, gradually extending upwards, and sending forth branches in different directions, till they at length unite, and form a compound reticulation throughout the sponge. The extremities of the upper shoots are furnished with small openings at the ends of their fibres; and, as we trace these fibres downwards from the openings, a soft whitish substance may be discovered filling the internal hollow part of the ramifications throughout the whole sponge; which ramifications resemble catgut, are of an amber colour, and are undoubtedly the habitations of a particular kind of zoophytes. For, although we cannot distinguish either vesicles or cells, nor discover any other kind of organization than that of a variety of hollow tubes inflected and wrought together into a multitude of agreeable forms, some branching like corals, or expanding like a fungus, many rising like a column, others resembling a hollow inverted pyramid with irregular cavities, entrances, or apertures; yet, from many obvious resemblances to different other kinds of marine productions, as well as from the chemical analysis of sponges in general, we are amply justified in referring them to the class of animal productions.

North-West Passage proved by Whales.Whales which have been harpooned in the Greenland seas, have been found in the Pacific Ocean; and whales, with some lances sticking in their feet, (a kind of weapon used by no nation now known,) have been caught both in the sea of Spitzbergen and in Davis' Strait. The following is one of the authorities for this fact, which, of all other arguments yet offered in favour of a transpolar passage, seems to be the most satisfactory:

A Dutch East India captain, of the name of Jacob Cool, of Sardam, who had been several times at Greenland, and was, of course, well acquainted with the nature of the apparatus used in the whale fishery, was informed by the Fishal Zeeman, of India, that in the sea of Tartary, there was a whale taken, in the back of which was sticking a Dutch harpoon, marked with the letters W. B. This curious circumstance was communicated to Peter Jansz Vischer, probably a Greenland whaler, who discovered that the harpoon in question had belonged to William Bastiaanz, Admiral of the Dutch Greenland fleet, and had been struck into the whale in the Spitzbergen sea.-Beschryving der Walvisvangst, vol. ii. p. 33.

Books and Journals received this week, and to which we are indebted for part of this number:

The Museum of Foreign Literature and Science-Edinburgh Philosophical JournalLiterary Souvenir-Amulet-Friendship's Of fering-Writings of Thomas Jefferson-Silliman's Journal-Newspapers.

Insects in a Mummy.-M. Figeac of Greno- Is composed of the best articles in the Foreign Theolo ble, while examining an Egyptian mummy, gical Journals, Reviews and Magazines, and the quantity of matter is very great. The selections are carefully found amongst its fingers several dead coleop-made, with a reference solely to the merit of the papers, terous insects of a fine rose colour, in all its brilliancy. M. Jurine of Geneva ascertained that they belonged to a nondescript species of corynetes, (Fabricius,) which he is disposed to call C. Glaber. Circumstances indicate that the eggs of those insects were laid on the mummy during the embalming process, and The subsequently became perfect insects. the envelope of the hands, where the insects Arabs, indeed, had opened the mummy; but were found, was untouched.

and their tendency to advance the interests of pure evangelical religion. No article which can afford grounds of offence to any orthodox Protestant denomination, will, at any time, be admitted. We will not attempt to make the publication subservient to the purposes of any parti cular denomination, but shall select from Presbyterian or Episcopal, Methodist or Baptist writers, according as their papers shall best answer the avowed purposes of the publication.