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the various religious and benevolent Socie- ! ties hold their annuary assemblies. I have, j however, already trespassed too long upon your patience, to think of saying anything at present of what these bodies are doing or are going to do. Ever yours, Flit. _ . ‘ __ - sl)c Sontljcrn Grclectic. TO THE MOCKING-BIRD. BY THE LATE RICHARD HENRY WILDE. Wing’d mimic of the woods ! thou motley fool! Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe 1 Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe: Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe, Thou sportive satirist of Nature’s school; To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, Arch-mocker and mad Abbot of Misrule! For such thou art by day—and all night long Thou pour’st a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain, As if thou didst in this thy moonlight song Like to the melancholy Jacques complain, Musing on falsehood, folly, vice and wrong, And sighing for thy motley coat again. THE STORY OF THE ACAD IANS, i BY REV. WM. BACON STEVENS. The history of this people constitutes one of the most thrilling passages in the fortunes of the French Americans. Nova Scotia, called by the French, Acadie, and first settled by them, was, after various wars and chan ges, yielded by the treaty of Utretcht, in 1713, to the crown of England. The inhabitants, of French descent, speaking that language, and professing the Romish faith, were re quired at its cession to Great Britain to take the oath of allegiance to their English mon arch, or leave the country. This the Aca dians consented to do, provided they were not required to take up arms against France or their old Indian allies. The Governor ac quiescing in this proviso, they took the oath; but it was disallowed by the court at home, who required an unconditional oath or an im mediate departure. Refusing to comply with these peremptory demands, the matter re mained unsettled until 1755; the Acadians taking, and as a body maintaining, a neutral position. They were an agricultural and pastoral people —tilled their lands with great art and industry —reared large flocks and herds —dwelt in neat and convenient houses — subsisted upon the varied stores gathered from sea and land, and, with few wants, and no money, lived in peace and harmony under the mild jurisdiction of their elders and pas tors. The Abbe Raynal has described them in terms almost too eulogistic for human na ture, representing a state of social happiness more consonant with the license of poetry than the fidelity of history. It cannot be de nied, however, that they presented a rural and social picture, full of. charming scenes and lovely portraits, showing simple manners, guileless lives, peaceable habits, scrupulous integrity, and calm devotion. But the eye of English envy was upon them, and English rapacity planned their removal. The pretexts for this gross violation of hu man rights were as frivolous as they were unjust; as Edmund Burke truly said, “Pre tences that, in the eye of an honest man, are not worth a farthing/’ But after the reduc tion of Forts Beau-Sejour and Gaspareau, by Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow, it was resolved, at a meeting of Lieutenant-Governor Law rence, his Council, and Admirals Boscawen and Moysterq to remove the entire popula tion, and disperse them “ among the British colonies, where they could not unite in any offensive measures, and where they might be naturalized to the government and country.” The uprooting of this whole people was entrusted to Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow, commanding the Massachusetts forces, a gen tleman of great moral and military worth, and much commended for his humanity and firmness. Nothing but his strict ideas of mil itary obedience brought Colonel Winslow to consent to take so conspicuous a part in this, as he himself termed it, “ disagreeable and ungrateful kind of duty, which required an ungenerous cunning, anil a subtle kind of severity.” By a proclamation, so artfully framed that its design could not be discovered, and yet requiring compliance by penalties so severe as prevented any absence, the attendance of the male Acadians was required at a specified time, and in a specified place. At Grand Pre, where Col. Winslow commanded, over four hundred men met on the appointed day, September sth, 1755, at 3 P. M., in the vil lage church; when, going into their midst, §©© If SUB Bl&i &aIfBIE A& V ®A S B IP'*? B. (they not even suspecting the cause of their convention,) he revealed to their astonished ears the startling resolutions of the Governor and Council, “that your lands and tenements, cattle of all kinds, and live stock of all sorts, are forfeited to the crown, with all other your effects, saving your money and household goods, and you yourselves to be removed from this province.” The late happy but now wretched inhabi tants, eighteen thousand in number, were ap- ! palled by the magnitude of the calamity which thus suddenly burst upon them. No lan guage can describe their woes: turned out of ! their dwellings, bereft of their stock, stripped of all their possessions, their bright hopes of the future blasted in a single hour, their la bors of years wrested from them by a single 1 effort, and torn from each and every associa tion which binds the heart to its native fields —they were declared prisoners, for no crimes, and destined to expatriation only because English blood flowed not in their veins, and English words did not dwell upon their lips. That it might be impossible for them to re main, their houses were burnt down, their fields laid waste, their improvements des troyed—churches, mills, barns, dwellings, and school-houses mingled together in one gene ral conflagration. “For several successive j evenings, the cattle assembled around the smouldering ruins, as if in anxious expecta tion of the return of their masters, while all night long, the faithful watch-dogs of the neutrals howled over the scene of desolation, I and mourned alike the hand that had fed, and the house that had sheltered them.” Forced to embark at the point of the bayo net, crowded into small vessels at the rate of two persons per ton, provided with neither comforts nor even necessaries, broken up as a community into many fragments —wives separated from husbands —children from pa ; rents —brothers from sisters —they were stow ed on board like a cargo of slaves, and guard ed like the felons of a convict-ship. Thus were they hurried away from their native land, their fertile fields, their once social hearths, and scattered like leaves by the ruthless winds of autumn, from Massachu i setts to Georgia, among those who hated | their religion, detested their country, derided : their manners, and mocked at their language, i Landed on these distant shores, those who | had once known wealth and plenty, wnohad i enjoyed peace and prosperity, w 7 ere scouted ;at as vagrants, reduced to beggary, bearing within them broken hearts and lacerated af ! sections. where but few Samaritans were ! found to bind up their wounded spirits and pour in the oil and wine of consolation into their aching bosoms. This was English pol icy outraging English humanity. It was an inhuman act, blending fraud, robbery, arson, slavery and death, such as history can scarce ly equal. “It was the hardest case,” said one of the sufferers, “ which had happened since our Saviour was on earth.” English philanthropy planted Georgia; English inhu manity uprooted the Acadians. How shall we reconcile the two 1 The one was prompt ed by the mild spirit of peace; the other, by stern counsels of war. It was a detachment of this persecuted people whose arrival in Savannah recalled Governor Reynolds to the seat of government. But what could the Governor do with such a body of strangers ] It was one of the ex press condftions on which Georgia was set -1 tied, that no Papist should be permitted in it; yet here were four hundred in one body, set down in its midst. It was also of the last importance to break up French influence on the frontiers, but now nearly half a thousand French were consigned to the weakest and most exposed of all the thirteen colonies. — The season of ihe year not admitting of their going north, their provisions being all ex pended, and themselves “ready to perish,” ; they were distributed in small parties about the province, and maintained at the public | expense until spring, when, by leave of the Governor, they built themselves a number of rude boats, and in March, most of them left for South Carolina; two hundred, in ten boats, going off* at one time, indulging the | hope that they might thus work their way along to their native and beloved Acadie. South Carolina, to which fifteen hundred had been sent, apportioned them out by an act of the Governor, Council, and Assembly, among the different parishes, offered them ves sels at the public charge to transport them i selves elsewhere, and many went to France ; others remained in the colonies ; some reached : Canada; but they became dispersed as a peo ple, and extinct as a community. Reynolds ; acted towards the poor Acadians as humane- i i ly as the indigent circumstances of the colony permitted ; he supplied their wants to the ex tent of his ability, and suffered them to go without molestation on their earnest, but : I hopeless pilgrimage.— History of Georgia. £l|c (Medic of til it. THE DISCOVERY. _ BY THOMAS HOOI). “ It’s a nasty evening,” said Mr.Dornton,thc stock-broker, as he settled himself in the last inside place of the last Fulham coach, driven by our friend Mat—an especial friend in need, be it remembered, to the fair sex. “ I wouldn’t be outside,” said Mr.Jones, an other stockbroker, “for a trifle.” “ Nor as a speculation in options,” said Mr. Parsons, another frequenter of the Alley. “ I wonder what Mat is waiting for,” said Mr.Tidwell, “for we are full, inside and out.” Mr. Tidwell’s doubt was soon solved, —the coach door opened, and Mat somewhat osten tatiously inquired, what indeed he very well knew— U I believe every place is took “up in side]” “We are all here,” answered Mr. Jones, on behalf of the usual complement of old sta gers. “ I told you so, Ma’am,” said Mat, to a fe male who stood beside him, but still leaving the door open to an invitation from within. — However, nobody spoke—on the contrary, I felt Mr. Hindmarsh, my next neighbor, dila ting himse'f like the frog in the fable. “ I don’t know what I shall do,” exclaimed the woman; “ I’ve no where to go to, and it’s mining cats and dogs!” “You’d better not hang about anyhow,” said Mat, “ for you may ketch your death, — and I am the last coach, —an’t I Mr. Jones ]” “ To he sure you are,” said Mr. Jones rath er impatiently; “ shut the door.” “I told the lady the gentlemen couldn’t make room for her,” answered Mat, in a tone of apology,—“ I’m very sorry, my dear” (turn ing towards the female,) “you should have my seat, if you could hold the ribbons—but such a pretty one as you ought to have a coach of her own.” He began slowly closing the door. “ Stop, Mat, stop!” cried Mr. Dornton, and the door quickly unclosed again ; “ I can’t give up my place, for I am expected home to din ner; but if the lady wouldn’t object to sit on my knees —” “Not the least in the world,” answered Mat, eagerly; “you won’t object, will you, ma’am, for once in a way, with a married gentleman, and a wet night, and the last coach on the road I” “If I thought I shouldn’t uncommode,” said the lady, precipitately furling her umbrella, which she handed in to one gentleman, whilst she favored another with her muddy pattens. She then followed herself, Mat shutting the door behind her, in such a manner as to help her in. “ I’m sure I'm obliged for the favor,” she said, looking round; but which gentle man was so kind I” “It was I who had the pleasure of propo sing, Madam” said Mr. Dornton : and before he pronounced the last words she was in his lap, with an assurance that she would sit as lightsome as she could. Both parties seemed very well pleased with the arrangement; but to judge according to the rules of Lavater, the rest of the company were but ill at ease.— For my own part, I candidly confess I was equally out of humor with myself and the person who had set me such an example of gallantry. I, w 7 ho had read the lays of Trouba dours —the awards of ihe ‘ Courts of Love”— the lives of the “ preux Chevaliers”—the his tory of Sir Charles Grandison—to be outdone in courtesy to the sex by a married stockbroker! How I grudged him the honor she. conferred upon him—how 1 envied his feelings! I did not stand alone, 1 suspect, in this un justifiable jealousy; Messrs. Jones, Hind marsh, Tidwell, and Parsons, seemed equally disinclined to forgive the chivalrous act which had, as true knights, lowered afl our crests and blotted our scutcheons, and cut off our spurs. Many an unfair jibe was launched at j the champion of the fair, and when he attemp ted to enter into conversation with the lady, he was interrupted by incessant questions of “What is stirring in the Alley]”—“What is doing in Dutch ?”—“ How are the Rentes ] ” To all these questions Mr. Dornton incon tinetly returned business-like answers, accord ing to the last Stock Exchange quotations; and he was in the middle of an elaborate enu meration, that so and so was very firm, and so and so very low, and this rather brisk, and that getting up, and operations, and fluctua tions, and so forth, when somebody enquired about Spanish Bonds. “They are looking up, my dear ,” answered Mr. Dornton, sowewhat abstractedly; and be fore the other stockbrokers had done tittering the stage stopped. A bell was rung, and Mat stood beside the open coach-door, a staid female in a calash and clogs, with a lantern I in her hand, came clattering pompously down a front garden. “Is Susan Pegge come ?” inquired a shrill voice. “ Yes, I be,” replied the lady who had been dry-nursed from town; —“are you, ma’am, number ten, Grove Place ]” “This is Mr. Dornton’s,” said the dignified woman in the hood, advancing her lantern, — “and —mercy on us! you’re in master’s lap!” A shout of laughter from five of the inside passengers corroborated the assertion, and like a literal cat out of the bag, the ci-devant la dy, forgetting her umbrella and her pattens, bolted out of the coach, and with feline celeri ty rushed up the garden, and down the area, of number ten. “ Renounce the woman !” said Mr. Dornton, as he scuttled out of the stage—“ Why the devil did’nt she tell me she was the new cook ]” PLEA OF A SUCKER LAWYER. An imperfect report of the following plea before an Illinois jury, has already been pub lished ; but we are happy to be able to pre sent the speech in full, from the manuscript notes of a friend of ours, present at the trial: It is with feelings of no ordinary commo tion that I arise, gentlemen of the jury, to defend my client’s hitherto unapproachably character. And I feel, gentlemen, that al though a great deal smarter than any of you are, or even the honorable judge there, that I am utterly uncompetent to present the sub ject in that magnanimous and heart-rending light, which its importance demands; and I trust, therefore, gentlemen of the jury, that whatever I may lack in presenting the sub ject, will be immediately made up by your own natural good sense and discernment, that is if you have any. The counsel for the persecution will tell you, undoubtedly, that his client is a man of function—that he is a man of unimpeachable voracity —that he is a man who would scorn to fotch a suit agin another, merely to gratify his own corporosity; but, gentlemen, let me retreat of you to beware how you rely on any spacious reasoning like this, for I myself apprehend, that this suit has been wilfully and maliciously fotched ; fotched, gentlemen, for the soul purpose of brow-beating my un fortunate client, and in an eminent manner, of grinding the face of the poor; and I ap prehend that, if you could but look into that man’s heart, and examine the motives that propelled him to fotch this suit, such a feeling of moral turpentine and heart-felt in gratitude would be brought to light, as has never been experienced, since the falls of Ni agara. And now, gentlemen, I wish to make a few remarks in favor of my unhappy client, and then, I shall introduce n*y remarks to a close. Here is a poor man, with a very numerous wife and children dependent on him for their daily bread and butter, wantonly and mali ciously fotched up here and arranged before an intelligent jury, for having ignominiously hooked, yes gentlemen, mark the charge—of hooking six quarts of cider. You, gentlemen, have been placed in the same situation, and you know how to sym pathise with my heart-broken client; and I don’t want you to let the nateral gushins of your overflowin hearts, to be overthrown by the arguments of my superstitious opponent there, on the other side. Will you, dare you convict him ] The law expressly declares, in the beauti ful language of Shakspeare, that where no doubt exists, of the guilt of the prisoner, it is your duty to lean to the side of justice, and fotch him in innocent. If, gentlemen, you keep this fact in view, you will have the honor of making a friend of him and all his relations; the consolation of having healed their damaged hearts—and you can always look back upon this case, and reflect that you did as you have been did by. But if you disregard this first point of law, set at nought all my eloquent remarks and exhor tations, and fotch him in guilty, the silent ; twitches and jerks of conscience will thunder in your ears; will follow you over every fair cornfield, and gentlemen, my client will be pretty apt to light on you some of these dark nights, like a cat lights on a saucer full of new milk. I ANECDOTE OF JOHNSON. “Do you really believe, Dr. Johnson,” said a Litchfield lady, “in the dead walking after death ]” —“ Madam,” said Johnshn, “1 have no doubt on the subject; I have heard i the Dead t March in Saul.” “You really be lieve then, Doctor, in ghosts]” —“Madam,” said Johnson, “ I think appearances are in their favour.” 13