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28 any other strange cognomens you may give me. i can bear any thing from or for you, patiently and cheerfully. “ Frank!” interrupted the bewildered wife, “Do for heaven’s sake—for my sake, cease this foolery, and go down to receive the guests. They are all arriving, and no one in the draw ing-room !” 11 My guests, my dear! I'm sure I did not invite them, and besides, you know that 1 have to dress for dinner —would you not like me to wear my new silk my dear, with the beautiful point lace ” Here our hero was interrupted in his toilet speculations, by the abrupt and maddened de parture of Isadora, who seeing no hope of ma king her husband conscious of his duties, has tened down stairs to welcome her friends, and to make an apology of sudden indisposition for Frank. The excuse was of course sufficient, and every thing went on in all apparent harmony, until dinner was announced, and the guests were preparing to move to the salon-a-manger. At this instant, to the utter astonishment of the party and to the entire petrifaction of Is adora, the invalid host entered the hall, in a complete suit of lady's apparel! He (or she) greeted the assembly with infinite grace, and hoped that Mr. Morton had given them all a cordial welcome, and made her excuse for her own tardy appearance. He then took the proffered arm of his cavalier, Mr. Sydney Brown, and leading the way, was, as by a spell, followed by all to the table, where he seated himself on Isadora's chair, and pointed her to the one he himself usually occupied! She mechanically obeyed the gesture, but when Frank called upon her to pronounce the blessing, she could bear it no longer—and re calling her scattered senses, and a share of her accustomed self-possession, she made a motion for the banquet to proceed, and ad dressing the party, hoped that the absurd scene they were witnessing would be forgiven, since her poor husband had long been some what out of his mind, and was now evidently insane.” Mr. Sydney Brown, in pursuance of the permission which he held from Isadora, lent himself fully to the wild humor of his host; gallantly paying him all sorts of compliments, and carrying it so far as directly to address Isadora, now and then, as Mr. Morton. “ Shall I,” said he at one moment, gaily bowing to Frank, “have the honor of taking wine with my fair hostess ‘?*’ and then turning to Isadora, he added, “my friend Frank, you are backward to-day in good example; faith your glass has not yet been touched!” At another instant, he commenced a sen tence to Frank touching a lady’s opera cos tume, and finished it to Isadora, with a remark npon the proboble results of the next Presi dential election. Then again, he accused Frank of stealing away the hearts of all the beaux; but told Isadora she well repaid the theft, by his own notorious flirtations. How long this odd scene might have con tinued we know not, had not a light suddenly burst upon Isadora’s mind, as glancing at her husband, she detected the often observed, equivocal smile upon his lip; and at the same moment, upon that also of Mr. Sydney Brown. The scenes of the past few weeks, and the sequel of to-day, was, as by magic, explained to her. A deep blush of shame covered her face, and she burst into an uncontrollable fit of tears. “Frank!” she exclaimed, amidst her sobs of mingled shame and rage, “ why am J sub mitted to this outrage ? What means this cruel farce!” “ It means, madam,” said Frank, now grave ly rising and speaking in his wonted tone of pride and command, “that you have so long abused my love, in usurping my authority, that I have resolved to gratify you to the top of your bent, and resign the shadow with the substance ; to abandon to you the outward form of rule, since you have taken the spirit §®© nr isa && El H, BIFBIB &IB Y ® BTFIFB ♦ of it. I, therefore, formally make over to you, before these witnesses, every portion of my wardrobe, while I, in return, shall beg the use of yours! In short, madam, you will now make choice of one or the other; either to take upon yourself my entire duties in the household, or totally resign your usurped and ill-placed authority, and become as a wife should be —modest, gentle and obedient!” “Spare me! oh! forgive me! 1 ’ cried the conquered Isadora, falling at his feet. “The punishment you have inflicted upon me is on ly just—and yet it is cruel—oh ! too cruel! I have long, dearest Frank, felt my error and sighed to retrieve it. The lesson you have taught me, is bitterly completed to-day. It is so stricken in my heart, that it can never be forgotten. Forgive me! and I promise you by the solemn vow I once pledged you, to be come, henceforth, all your brightest dreams could ever have shown you in a wife!” “Ah, my Isadora! once again my own loved Isadora!” cried the now really crazy Frank, as lie raised his repentant wife and clasped her to his breast, “ Oh! bitterly now, should I regret the severe measures I have used, but for the wonderful and happy results! Oh! Isadora, you are well forgiven—but can you ever pardon me, and our good friend too?'’ he added, placing her hand in that of Sydney Brown, who stood, for once in his life, em barrassed by the strangeness of his position. This mauvaise honte vanished, as Isadora kindly pressed his hand, and in a sweet voice pronounced his pardon and her thanks. Syd ney, sinking upon his knee, pressed the fair fingers to his lips, and sacredly promised never again to flirt with Frank, if the sacrifice should even break his heart! When all explanations had been duly made; mutual pardons granted, and the felicitations of friends offered, Frank addressing the as sembly, said— “ The role, which you now know me to have been long playing, has, thank God, been eminently happy in its denouement. I have taken care that none should witness this pain ful scene, but well-tried friends, in whose honor I have perfect reliance, and I must now exact a solemn promise from all, to keep the incidents of to-day, forever sacred as the i grave.” “No, no!” interposed Isadora, “The world knows my fault, and it is but just that they should witness its punishment.” “ I will not accept so hard a penance*’ re turned Frank. “ Let them know only the re sults. My good friend Sydney, whose genius alone has accomplished these glorious effects, will know best how to complete his work.” ******* Once again the good people of were 1 taken by surprise. Mr. and Mrs. Morton were never to be seen, but together; each as gay and joyous as in the merry days of their courtship. Whenever allusion happened to be made to the metamorphosis, Frank looked with a smile of pity and triumph upon the guerist, which seemed to establish the very common report, that the scandal-loving pub lic had been the egregious dupes of the invet erate wag and bitter satirist, Frank Morton, who, with the assistance of his equally satir ical Isadore, had so long successfully flayed the part of the Hen-pecked Husband! Their envious friends were compelled to swallow this hitter pill of chagrin, when even the hith erto invincible Sydney, confessed that his friend Frank had at last done him Brown! TO MARY, Thine is the sweetest name to mortal given, The link that binds this sinful earth to heaven ; Love’s purest talisman—his magic spell, A key that can unlock the heart’s deep cell; A symbol bright of beauty and of grace, Born in the soul, and mirrored in the face ; And if in heaven an earthly name we bear, Thine will be first of all aud sweetest there! ~ EPSILON. May 30,1848. &l)c (Essayist. For the Southern Literary Gazette. SOUTHERN LITERATURE. i BY HON. B. F. PORTER. The people who acknowledge that they do not support the Literature of their own coun try, or upon whom, notwithstanding their de nial, such a charge is fixed by history ; at the same time confess that they are, or are proud to be barbarians. To import our knowledge, as we do the fabrics of foreign countries, is either to admit our poverty, or gratify our pride; and ends, not in rendering ourselves learned in original thoughts, but in being mere retailers of what other men invent, and distributors of the thoughts and language of wholly dissimilar people. We will consid er the wrongs which the Southern people do themselves in this particular, in several views. 1. It is not right to regulate our letters by pecuniary standards. In whatever way Lit erature is developed, it necessarily involves an expenditure of money; and whether we look to this, as connected either with the sup port of the scholar, or of the many who must contribute to his success, it is evident that a common sense view of the subject, requires money to be regarded in the discussion. Now the wealth of a country is not advantageous to it, unless distributed among those who form its population. The most prosperous nation is that in which a large number of per sons are divided off into a variety of employ ments —the one depending upon the other— and each feeling the want of the product of the industry of the other. This principle op erates as well in vocations of a mental as of a mere manual nature. The majority of the •employments of men have reference to the means of supporting and contributing to the ornament of life, physically considered. The number of those is few, whose only pro fession is to advance the elegant arts, and guide the minds of men. These last are the men who read; who look into the future; who prepare the way for all those discoveries which are successively disclosed, and wdiich contribute so much to the happiness and de fence of life. The nature of the trades, prop erly so called, forbids that the operatives shall be also instruments of invention, and of dispersion of knowledge. A class must exist who will read and think for others; and so ciety presents, but on an enlarged scale, the idea of twenty men turning the cranks of a Factory, while one reads for the rest. The sum paid for this mental service, it is direct ly the interest of the mass physically em ployed, should be paid to one of their own people; because if so paid it is returned back to them again, in payment for the labor of their hands, in furnishing whatever is neces sary for the comfort and maintenance of the others. In this way the wealth of a people is kept continually circulating among them selves; and the reward of their labor, instead of being drained off into foreign channels, and supporting other communities, improves the country in which they live, and adds some thing to the advantage of every man in it. 2. Local literature is to be encouraged for another reason. In every community there will be found, occasionally, to rise up and display its faint light above the horizon, the mind of some poverty stricken scholar, whom to animate in his ambition, becomes the very essence ol charity. Ii Letters are advanced generally, a taste is promoted for the patron age of such persons; and the wealth of a people from being confined to its own sphere, is pleasingly contributed to the inciting of those, who, in the vale of life, are making vigorous efforts to achieve fame for them selves and their country; and to bring down upon the little home where they lived, the gaze of posterity, as upon the birth-place of Milton, Pope and Grey; a fame not merely individual, but national: for every one who by his brilliant life, directs the eye of posteri ty to his country, adds to its glory and iden tifies its character with his own. 3. The encouragement of our own Litera ture contributes also to confine the thoughts of our men of letters to their own land. This is the very life of patriotism. It is a reproac h to us in foreign countries, that we are not for ourselves. We are base imitators of them and their writers. We cannot write an essav %> without assuming the ground occupied by Addison, or a poem without borrowing the scenes or events of European history and countries. Consequently our own land and our own heroes go unsung. Our wars, the most heroic ever fought, never roused the mind of our poets —our country, the most beautiful, never conciliates the pencil of the painter. We trust that the ambition which prompts the advent of anew enterprise in the Athens of Georgia, will not be unsuccessful. Geor gia embraces scenery more beautiful than the finest of Switzerland —events more pregnant with poetic conceptions than the mysterious pine forests of northern Germany. Let us build up writers of our own, and encourage them to look in our own land, not only for the topics, bnt for the rewards of letters. (Eclectic of iDit. PETER BRUSH, THE GREAT USED UP. BY THE LATE JOSEPH C. NEAL. It was November; soon after election time, when a considerable portion of the political world are apt to be despondent, and external things appear to do their utmost to keep them so. November, the season of dejection, when pride itself loses its imperious port; when ambition gives place to melancholy; when beauty hardly takes the trouble to look in the glass; and when existence dotls its rainbow hues, and wears an aspect of such dull, com monplace reality, that hope leaves the world for a temporary excursion, and those who cannot do without her inspiring presence, bor row the aid of pistols, cords, and chemicals, and send themselves on a longer journey, ex pecting to find her by the way:—a season, when the hair will not stay in curl; when the walls weep dewy drops, to the great detri ment of paper-hangings, and of every species of colouring with which they are adorned; when the banisters distil liquids, anything but beneficial to white gloves, when nature fills the ponds, and when window-washing is the only species of amusement at all popular among housekeepers. It was on the worst of nights in that worst of seasons. The atmosphere was in a condi tion of which it is difficult to speak with res pect, much as we may be disposed to applaud the doings of nature. It was damp, foggy, and drizzling; to sum up its imperfections in a sonorous and descriptive epithet, it was “’orrid muggy weather.” The air hung about the wayfarer in warm, unhealthy folds, and extracted the starch from his shirt collar and and from the bosom of his dickey, with as much rapidity as it robbed his spirits of their elasticity, and melted the sugar of self-com placency from his mind. The street lamps emitted a ghastly white glare, and were so hemmed in with vapory wreaths, that their best efforts could not project a ray of light three feet from the burner. Gloom was uni versal, and any change, even to the heat of Africa, or to the frosts of the arctic circle, would, in comparison, have been delightful. The pigs’ tails no longer waived in graceful sinuosities; wffiile the tail of each night-rov ing, hectoring bull-dog ceased flaunting to ward the clouds, a banner of w r rath and defi ance to punier creatures, and hung down drooping and dejected, an emblem of a heart little disposed to quarrel and offence. The ornamentals of the brute creation being thus below par, it w T as not surprising that men, wfith cares on their shoulders and raggedness in their trousers, should likewise be more mel ancholy than on occasions of a brighter char acter. Every one at all subject to the “ skiey influences,” who has had trouble enough to tear his clothes, and to teach him that the sta ple of this mundane existence is not exclu sively made up of fun, has felt that philoso phy is but a barometrical affair, and that he who is proof against sorrow w hen the air is clear and bracing, may be a very miserable