the belief that she has found some spells | "And, Tyrians, you through time to come No love, no league 'twixt race and race, Oft as our hands can wield the sword: With a master's hand the poet enhances the "Then, maddening over crime, the queen Scales the high pile with swift ascent, And pausing, thought awhile and wept: When fate and heaven were kind, My life is lived, and I have played And now I pass, a queenly 'shade, Have seen my walls ascend; So she mounts the funeral pile, and stabs herself with the Trojan's sword, her sister Anna coming upon the scene only in time to receive the parting breath. ON MEMORY. [DUGALD STEWART, a Scottish metaphysician of great eminence, was professor of moral philosophy in the College of Edinburgh, where he was born in 1753, and died 1828. His " Philosophy of the Human Mind," (1792,) "Moral Philosophy," (1793,) "Progress of Philosophy," (1816,) and "Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man," (1828,) are his principal works.] It is generally supposed, that of all our faculties, memory is that which nature has bestowed in the most unequal degrees on dif ferent individuals; and it is far from being impossible that this opinion may be well founded. If, however, we consider that there is scarcely any man who has not memory sufficient to learn the use of language, and learn to recognize, at the first glance, the appearances of an infinite number of familiar objects; besides acquiring such an acquaintance with the laws of nature, and the ordinary course of human affairs, as is necessary for directing his conduct in life, we shall be satisfied that the original disparities among men, in this respect, are by no means so immense as they seem to be at first view; and that much is to be ascribed to differént habits of attention, and to a difference of selection among the various events presented to the curiosity. It is worthy of remark, also, that those individuals who possess unusual powers of memory with respect to any one class of objects, are commonly as remarkably defi cient in some of the other applications of that faculty. I knew a person who, though completely ignorant of Latin, was able to repeat over thirty or forty lines of Virgil, after having heard them once read to him -not with perfect exactness, but with such a degree of resemblance as (all circumstances considered) was truly astonishing; yet this person (who was in the condition of a servant) was singularly deficient in memory in all cases in which that faculty is of real practical utility. He was noted in every family in which he had been employed for habits of forgetfulness, and could scarcely deliver an ordinary message without committing some blunder. A similar observation, I can almost venture to say, will be found to apply to by the far greater number of those in whom this faculty seems to exhibit a preternatural or anomalous degree of force. The varieties of memory are indeed wonderful, but they ought not to be confounded with inequalities of memory. One man is distinguished by a power of recollecting names, and dates, and genealogies; a second, by the multiplicity of speculations and of general conclusions treasured up in his intellect; a third, by the facility with which words and combinations of words (the very words of a speaker or of an author) seem to lay hold of his mind; a fourth, by the quickness with which he seizes and appropriates the sense and meaning of an author, while the phraseology and style seem altogether to escape his notice; a fifth, by his memory for poetry; a sixth, by his memory for music; a seventh, by his memory for architecture, statuary, and painting, and all the other objects of taste which are addressed to the eye. All these different powers seem miraculous to those who do not possess them; and as they are apt to be supposed by superficial observers to be commonly united in the same individuals, they contribute much to encourage those exaggerated estimates concerning the original inequalities among men in respect to this faculty which I am now endeavouring to reduce to their first standard. As the great purpose to which this fac alty is subservient is to enable us to collect and to retain, for the future regulation of It is but rarely that these three quali. ties are united in the same person. We often, indeed, meet with a memory which is at once susceptible and ready; but I doubt much if such memories be commonly very retentive; for the same set of habits which are favourable to the first two qualities are adverse to the third. Those individuals, for example, who, with a view to conversation, make a constant business of informing themselves with respect to the popular topics of the day, or of turning over the ephemeral publications subservient to the amusement or to the politics of the times, are naturally led to cultivate a susceptibility and readiness of memory, but have no inducement to aim at that permanent retention of selected ideas which enables the scientific student to combine the most remote materials, and to concentrate at will, on a particular object, all the scattered lights of his experience and of his reflections. Such men (as far as my observation has reached) seldom possess a familiar or correct acquaintance even with those classical remains of our own earlier writers which have ceased to furnish topics of discourse to the circles of fashion. A stream of novel. ties is perpetually passing through their minds, and the faint impressions which it leaves soon vanish to make way for others, like the traces which the ebbing tide leaves upon the sand. Nor is this all. portion as the associating principles which lay the foundation of susceptibility and readiness predominate in the memory, those which form the basis of our more solid and lasting acquisitions may be expected to be weakened, as a natural consequence of the general laws of our intellectual frame. In pro our conduct, the results of our past expe- DEATH OF ELIZA AT THE BATTLE rience, it is evident that the degree of perfection which it attains in the case of dif ferent persons must vary; first, with the facility of making the original acquisition; secondly, with the permanence of the acquisition; and thirdly, with the quickness or readiness with which the individual is able, on particular occasions, to apply it to use. The qualities, therefore, of a good memory are, in the first place, to be susceptible; secondly, to be retentive; and thirdly, to be ready. OF MINDEN. From the Loves of the Plants. [Dr. ERASMUS DARWIN, an English naturalist and didactic poet, born 1731, died 1802, wrote a widely cir culated poem entitled "The Botanic Garden" (1791), explaining the economy of vegetation and the loves of plants. Also, "Zoonomia" (1794), “Phytologia” (1799), and The Temple of Nature" (1803).] Now stood Eliza on the wood-crowned height, Sought with bold eye amid the bloody strife Her dearer self, the partner of her life; 66 'Ah me!" she cried, and sinking on the ground, "O spare, ye war-hounds, spare their tender age; From tent to tent the impatient warrior flies, Fear in his heart, and frenzy in his eyes; Eliza's name along the camp he calls, "Eliza" echoes through the canvas walls; SONG TO MAY. From the Loves of the Plants. Born in yon blaze of orient sky, And wave thy shadowy locks of gold. For thee the fragrant zephyrs blow, And brighter blossoms gem the bower. THE BUSTLING, AFFECTIONATE, LITTLE AMERICAN WOMAN. There was a little woman on board with a little baby; and both little woman and little child were cheerful, good-looking, bright-eyed, and fair to see. The little woman had been passing a long time with her sick mother in New York, and had left her home in St. Louis in that condition in which ladies who truly love their lords desire to be. The baby was born in her Quick through the murmuring gloom his footsteps tread, mother's house, and she had not seen her O'er groaning heaps, the dying and the dead, 66 O heavens !" he cried, "my first rash vow forgive; VOL. III. husband (to whom she was now returning) for twelve months, having left him a month or two after their marriage. Well, to be sure, there never was a little woman so full of hope, and tenderness, and love, and anxiety, as this little woman was; and all day long she wondered whether "he" would be at the wharf; and whether "he" had got her letter; and whether, if she sent the baby ashore by somebody else, "he" would know it, meeting it in the street; which, seeing that he had never set eyes upon it in his life, was not very likely in the abstract, but was probable enough to the young mother. She was such an artless little creature, and was in such a sunny, beaming, hopeful state, and let out all this matter clinging close about her heart so freely, that all the other lady-passengers entered into the spirit of it as much as she; and the captain (who heard 58 rest. SOCIETY IN BAGDAD. FROM SIR R. KER PORTER'S TRAVELS. [SIR ROBERT KER PORTER, 1775–1842, an English trav eller and author, lived many years in Russia, and punlished several widely-read volumes of travels in Russia, Sweden, Portugal, Spain and the east.] all about it from his wife) was wondrous sly, I promise you, inquiring every time we met at table, as if in forgetfulness, whether she expected anybody to meet her at St. Louis, and whether she would want to go ashore the night we reached it (but he supposed she wouldn't), and cutting many other dry jokes of that nature. There was one little The wives of the higher classes in Bagweazen-dried, apple-faced old woman, who dad are usually selected from the most took occasion to doubt the constancy of beautiful girls that can be obtained from husbands in such circumstances of bereave- Georgia and Circassia; and, to their natument; and there was another lady (with a ral charms, in like manner with their caplapdog), old enough to moralize on the tive sisters all over the East, they add the lightness of human affections, and yet not so fancied embellishments of painted complexold that she could help nursing the baby ions, hands and feet dyed with henna, and now and then, or laughing with the rest their hair and eyebrows stained with the when the little woman called it by its father's rang, or prepared indigo leaf. Chains name, and asked it all manner of fantastic of gold, and collars of pearls, with various questions concerning him, in the joy of her ornaments of precious stones, decorate the heart. It was something of a blow to the upper part of their persons, while solid bracelittle woman, that when we were within lets of gold, in shapes resembling serpents, twenty miles of our destination, it became clasp their wrists and ankles. Silver and clearly necessary to put this baby to bed. golden tissued muslins not only form their But she got over it with the same good- turbans, but frequently their under-gar. humour, tied a handkerchief round her head, ments. In summer the ample pelisse is and came out into the little gallery with the made of the most costly shawl, and in cold Then, such an oracle as she became weather lined and bordered with the choi in reference to the localities! and such face- cest furs. The dress is altogether very betiousness as was displayed by the married coming; by its easy folds and glittering ladies, and such sympathy as was shewn by transparency, shewing a fine shape to ad the single ones, and such peals of laughter vantage, without the immodest exposure of as the little woman herself (who would just the open vest of the Persian ladies. The as soon have cried) greeted every jest with! humbler females generally move abroad At last there were the lights of St. Louis, with faces totally unveiled, having a handand here was the wharf, and those were the kerchief rolled round their heads, from besteps; and the little woman, covering her neath which their hair hangs down over face with her hands, and laughing (or seem- their shoulders, while another piece of linen ing to laugh) more than ever, ran into her passes under their chin, in the fashion of own cabin and shut herself up. I have no the Georgians. Their garment is a gown doubt that in the charming inconsistency of of a shift form, reaching to their ankles, such excitement, she stopped her ears, lest open before, and of a gray colour. Their she should hear "him" asking for her-but feet are completely naked. Many of the I did not see her do it. Then a great crowd very inferior classes stain their bosoms with of people rushed on board, though the boat the figures of circles, half-moons, stars, &c. was not yet made fast, but was wandering in a bluish stamp. In this barbaric embelabout among the other boats to find a land-lishment the poor damsel of Irak-Arabi has ing-place; and everybody looked for the husband, and nobody saw him, when, in the midst of us all-Heaven knows how she ever got there!—there was the little woman clinging with both arms tight round the neck of a fine, good-looking, sturdy young fellow; and in a moment afterwards there she was again, actually clapping her little hands for joy, as she dragged him through the small door of her small cabin to look at the baby as he lay asleep! Dickens' American Notes. one point of vanity resembling that of the ladies of Irak-Ajemi. The former frequently adds this frightful cadaverous hue to her lips; and to complete her savage appear ance, thrusts a ring through the right nostril, pendent with a flat button-like ornament set round with blue or red stones. But to return to the ladies of the higher circles, whom we left in some gay saloon of Bagdad. When all are assembled, the evening meal or dinner is soon served. The party, seated in rows, then prepare them. |