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POETRY.
The following beautiful lines form no idle
picture of the fancy. How many a fernale,
bred up in ease, in affluence and refine
ment, and afterwards made happy in the
husband of het choice, has been doomed at
length to realize the sad reverse here de
sceibed. : %
SOLILOQUY OF A DRUNKARD’S
_ WIFE. . ;
#¥*Time was, when much he lov’d me: =
When we walk’d out at close of day tin
hale ; 2
The vernal breeze—ah, well do I remem
ber, . ;
How then with careful hand, he drew my
mantle 5
Around me; fearful lest the evening dews
Should mar my fragile health. Yes, then
his eye ‘ v
Look’d kindly on me; when my heart was
sad,
How tenderly he wiped my tears away,
‘While from {;is lips the words of gentle
soothing
In soft accents fell. 7
How blest my evenings, too; when wintry
blasts
‘Were howling round our peaceful, happy
dwelling,
0, it. was sweet, the daily task perform’d,
By the swept hearth, and cheerful fire, to
sit gy
“With him I lov’d: to view with glistening
eye, '
And a“)zri parent’s fondness, the budding
graces :
Of our little ones.
***'T'hen ye had a father, .
My lovely babes, now more than helpless
orphans! ; i ,
"Thy mother more than widow’s grief has
known; ‘. iy
Ves, sharper pangs than those who mourn
the dead, ’
Seiz*’d on my breaking heart, when first I
¥ knew, 3 5
My lover, husband—oO, my earthly all,
Was dead to virtue! When I'saw the man
My soul too fondly lov’d transform’d to,
brute, A 58
0, it was then I tasted gall and wormwood!
"Then, then the world logk’d dreary! fear
* ful clouds
Quick gather’d round me; dark forebod
-3 ings came.
"T'he grave before was terror: now it smild;
Ilong’d to lay me down in peaceful rest,"
There to forget my sorrows. But I livid:
And O, my God! what yearsof wo have
follow?d!
I feel my heart is broken. . He who vow’d
"T'o cherish me—before God’s altar vow’d—
Has done the deed. And shall I then up
braid him—
The husband of my youthful days—the
man - UK
For whom I gave my virgin heart away’?
Patient I’ll bear itall. >
***Peace, peace, my heart! 3
*T'is almost o’er. A few more stormy blasts,
And thFri] this shatter’d, sickly frame will
; all,
~ And sweetly slumber—where the weary
iiresty : “
The wicked cease from troubling! %
Christian Jour.
MISCELLANEOUS.
From the United States Gazette.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF WOMAN’S
RELIGION.
He who salutes every passenger,
may sometimes receive an yncivil an
swer: he who returas no salutation,
or intimates an udWvillingness to ex
change civdities, might incur the risk
of being marked down for a churl. In
the way of error, it is hetter.to be pas
sive than active;so I find a kindly look
for all who pass me, beyond the pre
cincts of the city. It costs, indeed,
an occasional _penny extraordinary for
a mendicant; but the ‘God bless you’
of a human being, must surely have
Tost its value, if it will not pass in ex
change for so small a sum. ity
Eujoying the prime of the day in
September last, about two- miles
from the city, I chaticed to meet the
tood morning’ of a man with a cordial
ity that evidently gave me a favora
bie estimation with him; and as his
occupation was before him, and mine
was unknown, I put ceremony aside
at once, by asking information upon
subjects connected with a farm which
it seemed he was cultivating. While
he was enlarging upon a topic that was
evidently pleasing to him, though I
must confess, it had little interest for
me, beyond the pleasure of witnessing
his an:mation, his wife came to the
door with an’infant in her arms. 1
may have done her wrong in neglect;
but the child possessed attractions su
perior to its parents at that moment;
and as if conscious of my feelings, the
nursling stretched odt its hands and
evinced a desire to approach me. I ‘
Jearned that it was an only son—the
last of five, affections that had expan
ded over all others, had settled'with‘
intensity upon this—it.was worth all a
" parent’s love. I gazed long upon it§
perfect features, the soft blue eyes
and full dark lashes;aud as I pressed
my lips upon its face, the palmy fra-,
grance of its breath was redolent of
health. T had won upon the mother’s
esteem, by my atr,ntion to her boy
but a tear that fell from my eye,
warm upon the infant’s breast, show
ed her that while I joyed with her in
the living I eould in afiiiction"'symp'r
thize withher for the dead.
I know not how it was, but for
sometime there was scarcely a morn
ing that 1 did not pass the house in
wy ride, and the boy,? thiough not a
year old, had learned to expect me.
Let those who have no fondness for
children, pass on the other side of the
way—there is enough in life with
“which to amuse themselves; I neither
envy them their capacities for other
enjoyments, nor would give one of that
infant’s smiles of recognition for alt
their fancied pleasure. L
~ The equinoctial raivs made sad
work with wmy calculation of riding
and it was not until the weather be,
came settled that 1 was enabled to
renew my wonted excursions. It was
aboutithree o’clock, P. M. when Tap
proached the dwelling of my new ac
quaintance; and as its low roof met
my sight, the thought occurred whe
ther my little blue eyed friend would
after a lapse of twogweeks recognise
his former acquaintance. I confess |
that as I moved towards him, some
little anxiety was experienced that
he should give evidence of pleasure
at my return. I had furnished my
pockets with some trifles for him, and
anticipated his pleasure at the recep
tion—the delight with which he would
reach forward to cateh them, and the
pleasure that would dance in his eye
or play around his mouth, as he re- |
ceived the tokens of my affection.
His mother too, had ever shown so
much gratification at my fondness for
her little boy, that I promised myself
pleasure in her delight.
Pursuing these anticipations, I arriv
ed by a short turn in the road, directly
in front of the dwelling without discov
ering a member of the family. The
stopping of the horse in front of the
house, 1 thought would soon bring some
one to the door. I waited several
| minutes—no one appeared. = The
family might be absent, or perhaps
sick; the last thought determined me;
so dismounting 1 opened the wicket
gate and proceeded under an arbor of
grape vines to the house. The front
door was open, and I entered. The
parlor was vacant; and as | cressed it
I saw the door of a side room opened.
I turned towards it—and the cause of
the ufwonted silence of the habitation
lay before me. On a table against
the wall of the room resteda coffin.
With a single step I was at its side;
=| T looked in it; it contained the inani-
I mate form of my little favorite. For
a moment I turned away in the agony
of disappointment: Ilooked again—it
I was too true; and my hopes, childish
almost as those T had excited in him
lay blighted. As Igazed upon the cold
remains before me, my feelings sub=s
| sided, and I recovered that tone swhich’
l the well regulated mind never loses.
It was but to divest myself of those
acquired feelings. concerning death,
and the child that lay before me, was
as lovely and as deserving admiration
as whea alive. The beautiful glossi
ness of his prominent forehead, was set
off by the fine silky hair that stretched
in a semicircle toward the temples.
There was a transparency in the skin
through which the blue veins showed
with wonderful distinctness; and the
budding whiteness of the teeth was
discernible between the slightly open- |
ed lips; and his little hands were
crosssed below his breast—their beau
ty had not departed, but the eyes, as
I gazed upwards gleamed glassy be
tween the lids, through their long
dark lashes; and as the light trickled
through the veins near the window, 1
sometinmes thought that life was re
turning to animate the lovely features
on which I gazed. . I stooped to press
| a kiss upon its face—it was cold, and
the tears that I dropped upen it, trick
ed off as if they had fell upon polished
marble. As I raised my head from
the coffin, my eyes met those of the
mother.—We gaze upon the dead
with regret for their loss, we look
upon the inanimate cerps of an infant,
and mourn that it sois soon snatched
away; we dwell with fondness upon its
features, treasure the memory of its
beauties, and sigh that we can no long
er enjoy them. But when wesee
thdse whom the bereavement has left
childless - standing by us in the dignity
of grief, the silent cause of sorrow yet
stretched before them, we spring al
most with awe from their presence.
Such for a moment were my feelings.
I wished myself absent from the scene
that was about to ensue; but the ex
tended hand of the afflicted pavent,
satisfied me that retreat would have
been crielty or cowardice. I pressed
the hind ‘of the mother in the ardor
of sympathy, and our tears fell fast
«upon - the snowy shroud of the out
stretched infant. She leaned forward
and buried her face with his in the
narrow coffin.—Fearing the effects of
this paroxysm of grief uponthe mo
ther, I would have withdrawn her.
‘Let me alone,” said she; ‘I know by
whom I have been affiicted, and in
my sorrow I will not sin; neither will
1 charge God foolishly.’—But in my
‘darling’s sickness, he lay night day
upon my knees, until he died; and
the kind officiousness of neighbors has
kept me from asolitary indulgence of
grief until now. Let me then, ere
they shut him out of my sight for ev
er—let me once more feel his face
imprinting its features bn my cheek;
though it be cold asdeath. 1 came to
yield up in silence and solitude, my
child, to him who gave it—but not
without the feelings and grief of a
mother. ‘I have bowed to the chas
tisement—l have even kissed the rod
that smote me; but I have not mista
ken stoicism for resignation, nor of
fered the Lord anunfeeling for a sub
missive mind. Four times has the
hand of Heaven visited me in afilic
tion and 1 have not murmured; and
now when the last lamb of the flock
is taken,, I have inthe hour of prayer
and solitude, exclaimed——‘the Lord
giveth and the Lord taketh away,’
and when the passion of grief shall
have subsided when the cords of af
fection now torn asunder, shall have
ceased to bleed, and mourning shall
have become woven into the tissue
of life, instead of being, as now, its
whole web, then perhaps, I may add,
——tblessed be the name of the Lord.’
But oh! so lovely, so bright in prom
ise, of all that a parent’s heart can ask,
and to lie now so cold’——
Again the mother threw herself
upon_the coffin and nestled her face
with that of her infant. Isaw that
was no time to offer consolation. She
had restrained her grief during the
presence of her neighbours, and now
{hat she thought herself alone she had
| come from her chamber to indulge a
a mother’s grief.
In a short time the people of the
vicmity where seen gathering towards
the house, with a view of attending
the funeral. The mother impressed
a new kiss upon the lips of her dead
child; she uttered one more burst of
grief and shrunk to her chamber.
In a little while they screwed down
the coffin lid, and a slight bustle de
noted preparations for procession to
the grave. I followed among the ve
ry few whom the occasion had called
together; and aswe entered the city
of the dead, I saw by the little heap
of fresh turned earth, where the tene
,A:ldent of my little favorite was prepar-
The line of followers assembled
round the little grave, and the coffin
lay at its mouth.—At length the hoarse
rumbling of the cords, and the sup-{
pressed sounds of clods falling far down
upon the coffin, told that the dust had
been committed to dust. 1 locked
for the officiating clergyman, and
others appeared to await his service
—there was none. It was now that 1
feared for the firmness of the mother;
she had been almost distracted by
grief when her child lay befor her, in
her own house—what could sustain
her when she looked down into the
deep pit, and saw it there girt in with
the dampness of the grave, lying cold
and stretched out, for ever to be se
parate from her gaze; and to become
the comdpanion and prey of worms.
The father stepped forward, and
looking down upon his child, he with
drew with clamorous grief. The mo
| ther advanced, and stamding wpon a
little eminence of fresh earth, she
gazed silently down. I could not see
her face; but when she raised her
head to retire, an expression of agony
was passing from her features; her
lips remained firmly closed, and her
eyes were inflamed. _As she stef)‘ped
from the grave, she uttered in scarce
ly an audible voice, I shall go unto
him, but he shall return no more to
me.*’
If there is one who reads this sketch,
and feels that it is sometimes good to
share in the sorrows of others, let him
go forth asl have done; he will find
abundant food for sympathy, number
less scenes in nature, that will move
and instruct more than the wildest
bodings forth of fancy. 4
From tl_@ Scotsman. :
BEIGHT OF THE AFRICAN
CONTINENT.
This subject is worthy of more
consideration than we were able to
bestow upon it in ourreview of Cap-|
tain Chapperton’s - last Expedition;
‘& we have now to offer. a few further
observations Uponit. lltis an mter
esting fact, that the barometer. has
now been carried quite across the
African continent, and that we are
“thus supplied with more correct ideas
of the elevation of the soil in that re
gion than in some others which are
much more accessible. In the first
expedition the party cenveyed a bar
ometer with them from Tripoli to
'Kouka, in latitude 12 3-4; and the
last journey presents us with an un
broken series of observations from-the
coast of Guinéa north, to Kane in lat.
13. All these, however, are not of
equal value. As the atmosphere has
its fluctuations within the tropics,
though not so great as in our climate,
dependence can be placed only on
suites of observations continued for sev
eral days; & evenjthese are not free of
anomalies. We think we can dis
cern clerical errors, too, in the jour
nal, and tlis furnishes an additional
reason for distrusting isolated,observa
tions.
The interioro f the African continent
at its broadest part, thus appears to
present a surface, varying {rom 1000
to 1700 feet in height, and averaging
about 1300—a degree of elevation
surprisingly small considering the
great extent of the country. Even
in our own narrow isle, the plain
which connects the basins of the Forth
and Clyde, along which the road pass
es from. Edinburgh to Glasgow, is a
bout 800 feet in height. The low
part of Switzerland has an_elevation
of 1700 or 1800 feet, and Bavaria
nearly as much. -On the other hand,
the table land of Mexico is about
6000 or 7000 feet in height, and the
central plateau of Asia, the great
plain of Thibet, is believed to rise
12,000 feet above the sea.
In the desert, rain sometimes does
not fall once in three, four or six
years, and even m Bournou and Hou
sa, we find from the Journal, there is
rarely a shower, except in August,
when it rains almost daily. The
small size of the river Yeou, which is
not larger than the Tweed, though it
draws its waters from a country of
greater extent than all Scotland, is a
| proof of the geneval dryness of the
| climate. The prevailing winds are
| from the North-east and South-west.
During the rainy season, and imme
diately after it the country is exceed
ingly unhealthy, and swarms of in
sects leave the traveller no rest.—
There is a species of ant so vora
cious, that in a single night they will
eat the clothes of a man’s body, and
leave him naked. Soudan is, inshort;
one ®f the least attractive countries
on the face of the globe.
It is probable that this low eleva
"{ion, and the general want of interior
mountains,is the chiel cause of the ste
rillity of N. Africa. The Sahara, or
Grat Desert, is in fact surrounded with
a fence of mountains, so placed as to
intercept all the adqueous vapor ex
haled from the ocean on its two sides.
Within the tropics rain most general
ly comes from the east; and here it is
caught on its passage by the Abyssin
ian chain, which rises ahove the line
of perpetual snoy. The western
prolongation of this chain arrests the
vapor brought by the oceanal south
west winds from the Gulf of Guinea;
while the moisture which comes from’
the Atlantic with the west and north
west is precipitated upon Mount At
las. The lands on the sides and at
the foot of all these mountains is well
watered and fruitful, and at every is
olated spot in the Desert where
springs rise or rain frequeatly falls,
productive soil is often found. llfa
lofty chain like the Andes or Himala
ya, had traversed Africa about the
northern tropic; or if the country,
without having great chains, had con
sisted of table land 6000 or 7000 feet
high like Mexico, it would in all prob
ability have had as large a propor
tion of good soil as Europe or Amer
ica, and the Sahara would not have
existed. It is a curious question,
whether the march of civilization
will at any future time supply man
with power to conquer the sterility
of the Great Desert? Without pre
{ tending to solve this problem, we
{ may observe, that if M. Cordier’s
statement is to be trusted, a very sin
gular fate is preparing for this most
useless portion of the inhabited globe.
| He informs us, that according to ob
| servations made by the French Savans
‘ at the ruins of Tanis, the northern
continent’ of Africa appears to be sub
siding into the ocean at the rate es
one foof in a century. As the mean
height is only about 1300 feet, it fol
lows that if this subsidence is really
in progress, the Desert will be vearly
covered in 130,000 and entirely
submerged in 200,000 years. - When
this takes place, the Mediternean «u
--nited with the Indian ocean through
the Red Sea, will reach to the moun-,
tains of Gibbel Kumra in the 10th
parallel; Mount Atlas will assume the
form of a long elevated island like Su
matra; fishes will play in the gardens
of the Hesperides, and glide round the
‘pyramids; and perhaps some new con
tinent rising from the bosom of the
sonthern ocean, will open an equally
large and a far happier theatre for
for the industry of civilized man.—
‘We do not mean to affirm the certain
ty of Africa having sunk in time past,
' as M. Cordier infers, and still less to
maintain that, supposing his state
ment to be correct, the subsidence
will go on for the long period men
tioned; but this we would, that if the’
country alluded to is in its progress
ive annihilation, it is the region of the’
world which could best be spared.
EFFECTS 'OF GAMING.
A friend upon whom we place the’
most perfect reliance, has communi
cated the following facts, which are
said to have created considerable
sensation among - the friends . of
the parties. Their publication
may be productive of good ef
fects, and may lead many a thought
less mind to profitable reflection.
‘A young gentleman of this city,
living with his widowed mother in
Broadway, above Canal-street, had
been for several months in the hab
it of coming home at late hoursin
the night, often keeping his mother
waiting until one or two o’clock.—
Her advice, given in the mildest man
ner, had no effect upon him, and his
restoration to regular and virtuous
habits was only effected by the fol
lowing singular occurrence. One_
night, rather earlier than his hour of’
returning home, his mother heard the
footsteps of a person running up the
stairs, whom she supposed to be her
son. As usual she went tomeet him,
but instead of meeting her son, she
was seized by a genteel drgised young
man, who snatched an elegant gold
wateh from her side, and made his
escge before the screams of the la
dy brought her servant to her assist
ance. Shortly after the son came
home, and found his mother in a most
distressing state of fear and indispos
ition. During a subsequent conver
sation, she remarked that the robber
resembled in his general appearance
a young companion of her son, who
had often called to see him. The
son was much surprised, and admitted
that he had that evening been in com
pany with the individual alluded to,
who had lost all his money at play,
and had left the house at which they
usually met, at an early hcur, much
dejected. He could not however be
lieve that a person whom he consid
ered of unimpeachable honor and in
tegrity would commit such an act.
But the conviction of his mother that
she was not mistaken, and her de
sire that he should take measures to
discover whether her suspicions were
unjustly founded, induced him to en
deavor to ascertain their correctness.
The next night they met again at the
gaming table. The son took his
friend aside and mentioned the occur
rence. The young man burst into
tears and confessed that he was the
robber. He declared that he had
pawned the watch, and that the mon
ey he was venturing at play was the
proceeds. He solemnly abjured gam
ing fyom that time, begging his friend
to save him from disgrace and de
struction, by keeping the sccret, and
promising.in a week to redeem and
return the watch to its owner. He
was as good as his word. The two
young men are now correct in their
habits, and often meet at the lady’s
house. They enjoy each other’s so«
ciety and friendship, and endeavor to,
find pleasure in the paths of virtue and
respectability.
This statement is vouched for by
our friend, who informs us that it
was given him by the lady from whom
the watceh was taken.
LETTERS
REMAINING m the Post Office at
New Echota, July 1, 1829.
‘Woalter S. Adair, Pleasant Combs, “Ar
chibald R. S. Hunter, Esq. Richard Rush.
S. A. WORCESTER, P.-M.
July 8, 1829. 14 3.
N. Y. Siatesman.