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46 is it that the rainbow and the cloud come over us with a beauty that is not of earth, and then pass off and leave us to muse upon their faded loveliness? Why is it that the stars, which “ hold their festivals around the midnight throne,” are set above the grasp of our limited faculties—forever mocking us with their unapproachable glory ? And fi nally, why is it that bright forms of human beauty are presented to our view and then ta ken from us—leaving the thousand streams of our affections to How back in Alpine tor rent upon our hearts? There is a realm where the rainbow never fades, where the stars will be spread out before us like the islands that slumber on the ocean, and where the beauti ful beings, which here pass before us like vi sions, will stay in our presence forever.— Bright creature of my dreams--in that realm 1 shall see thee again. Even now thy lost im age is sometimes w ith me. In the mysterious silence of midnight, when the stars are glowing in the beam that lingers around my pillow, it stands before me in its pale, dim loveliness—till its own spirit sinks, like a spell from heaven upon my thoughts, and the grief of years is turned to dreams of blessedness and peace. Newspaper Analects. COWPER. The poet of “ The Sofa,” when “in merry pin,” trifled pleasantly. As an instance of his manner, there remains the following: LETTER TO THE REV. J. NEWTON. July 12, 1881. My very very dear Friend, —I am going to send, what, when you have read, you may scratch your head, and say, I suppose there’s nobody knows, whether what 1 have got, be verse or not; by the tune or the time, it ought to be rhyme; but if it be, did you ever see, of late or of yore, such a ditty before ? I have writ Charity, not for popularity, but as well as 1 could, in hopes to do good ; and if the reviewers should say “ to be sure, the gentleman's muse wears Methodist shoes; you may know by her pace, and talk about grace, that she and her bard, have little re gard, for the taste and fashions, and ruling pas sions, and koidening play, of the modern day, and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air ‘tis on ly her plan, to catch if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that way, by a production, on anew construction; she has baited her trap, in hopes to snap, all that may come with a sugar plum,—This opinion in this will not be amiss; ’tis what I intend, my principal end, ; and if l succeed, and folks should read, till a few are brought, to a serious thought, I should think 1 am paid for all I have said, and all 1 have done, though l have run, many a time, after a rhyme, as far from hence, to the end of my sense, and by hook or crook, write another book, if I live and am here, another year. 1 have heard before, of a room with a floor, laid upon springs, and such like things, with so much aft, in every part, that when you went in, you was forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming a bout, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a figure of eight, without pipe or string, or any such thing. And now 1 have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and as you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penned; which that you may do, ere madam and you are quite worn out, with jiggling about, l take my leave, and here you receive a bow profound, down to the ground, from your humble me— W. C. \V hen prevented by rains, and floods from visiting the lady who suggested “ The Task,” Cowper beguiled the time by writing to her the following lines, and afterwards printing them with his own hand. He sent a copy of these verses, so printed, to his sister, accompa nied by the subjoined note written upon his typographical labours. To watch the storms, and hear the sky Give all the almanacks the lio ; To shake with cold, and see the plains In autumn drown’d with wintery rains : ’Tis thus 1 spend my moments here, And wish myself a Dutch mynheer; I then would have no need of wit, For lumpish Hollander unfit; Nor should I then repine at mud. Or meadows delug’d with a fiood ; But in a bog live well content, And find it just iny element; Should be a clod, and not a man, Nor wish in vain for sister Ann, With charitable aid to drag, My mind out of its proper quag ; Should have the genius of a boor, And no ambition to have more. SjSHJlfiaShhl MlfMAlE'tf ©A% &if * My dear Sister, —You see my beginning; I do not know but in time 1 may proceed to the printing of half-penny ballads. Excuse the coarseness of my paper; I wasted so much be fore I could accomplish any thing legible, that I could not afford finer. I intend to em ploy an ingenious mechanic of this town to make me a longer case, for you may observe that my lines turn up their tails like Dutch mastiffs; so difficult do I find it to make the two halves exactly coincide with each other. We wait with impatience for the departure of this unseasonable flood. We think of you, and talk of you, but we can do no more till the waters subside. I don’t think our correspon dence should drop because we are within a mile of each other; —it is but an imaginary approxi mation, the flood having in reality as effectu ally parted us, as if the British Channel roll ed between us. Vours, my dear sister, with Mrs. U.’s best love. William Cowper. Monday , Aug. 12, 1782. OLD ENGLISH PROVERB. u An ounce of mother wit is worth a pound of learning ,” seems well exemplified in the following dialogue, translated from the Ger man : Hans, the son of the clergyman, said to the farmer’s son Frederick, as they were walking together on a fine summer's evening, “How large is the moon which we now see in the heavens ?” Frederick. As large as a baking-dish. Hans. Ha! ha! ha! As large as a baking dish ? No, Frederick, it is full as large as a whole country. Frederick. What do you tell me ? as large as a whole country ? How do you know it is so large ? Hans. My tutor told me so. While they were'talking, Augustus, anoth er boy, came by; and Hans ran laughing up to him, and said, “Only hear him, Augustus! Frederick says the moon is no bigger than a baking-dish.” “No?” replied Augustus, “The moon must be .at least as big as our barn. When my fa ther has taken me with him into the city, I have observed, that the globe on the top of the dome of the cathedral seems like a very little ball; and yet it will contain three sacks of corn; and the moon must be a great deal high er than the dome.” Now which of these little philosopers was Ihe most intelligent?—l must give it in favor of the last; though Hans was most right, Through the instruction of his master. But it is much more honorable to come even at all near the truth, by one’s own reasoning, than to give implicit faith to the hypothesis of an other. (El)c Dark (Honm\ For the Southern Literary Gazette. AN ORIGINAL CHARADE. Born in the gentle zephyr In every breeze it blows Yet borne upon no passing wind, Nor in the air it goes ; It breathes in all sweet spices, It smiles in every place, It dwells in fear and terror, Yet beams in every face ; ’Tis seen not in the morning, It shuns the light of day; And coming when eve’s shadows come With those it fades away : In me you may behold it, In you ’t is never seen ; —Como read for me my riddle, And tell mo what 1 mean. HiQijt ter Dark Corner. ANSWER TO RIDDLES IN OUR LAST. 1. Noah’s Ark. 2. The Year. ANSWER TO THE CHARADE. It is an adage through the land Familiar as the hand and glove The G remove, who can withstand The magic influence of love ! s§s°’ We subjoin another answer which is certainly clever; though our little friend, G. W. L., failed to discover the whole, while he is correct in the most important part. Clove is a word of letters five, Take oif the C and love is left ; And Love’s influence no man alive, (Unless of sense he is bereft,) Can o’er withstand. }Jl)tlosop!)ij for tl)c People. INSTINCT. What is it that guides the ox in selecting two hundred and seventy-six kinds of herbs, and at the same time teaches him to avoid two hundred and eighteen, as unfit for food ? A species of spider digs a hole in the earth, about two feet deep, and closes it with a curi ous trap-door —so as to deceive, and keep out every intruder. The tortoise, though hatched a mile from the water, no sooner leaves its shell, than it runs directly to the ocean, without a guide. The sphex fabulosa prepares little shells in the earth —then she fetches spiders, and de posites one with each egg, that the little ones may have food as soon as they break forth from the shell. All animals, without instruction, move with perfect skill, from the time of their birth, from one place to another ; and they use their limbs, and select their food, at the proper time and place. Mix salt and arsenic, and a sheep will se lect the former from the latter, a thing which you could not do. WONDERS OF CHEMISTRY. Aquafortis and the air we breath are made oi the same materials. Linen, and sugar, and spirits of wine, are so much alike in their chemical composition, that an old shirt can he converted into its own weight in sugar, and the sugar into spirit of Wine. Wine is made of two substances, one of which is the cause of almost all combustion or burning, and the other will burn with more rapidity than any thing in nature. The famous Peruvian bark, so much used to strengthen the stomach, and the poisonous principle of opium are found to be of the same materials. ” 1 MUSIC OF THE HAMMER. Were we to seek one only sound in the whole world as a representative of expression, of life, business, health, vigor and improvement, we should eertainly name the “ sound of the hammer.” What is there on earth, more cheering ? It is the very note of preparation for business, and gives a thrill peculiar to it self to all which lies inert around it. What brings the morning so fresh and so vivid to the mind of the sluggard as the ham mer which sounds from the neighboring roofs ? ’ It is the veriest reproach that an indolent man can have, and speaks straight to the heart in those quick, manly, sudden, tones, which only the sincerest friendship employs. And then how much is in that sound besides! What a range can fancy take when such a sound comes forth ! There is the workman on the roof of anew building, or in the shop i of the mechanic, or the store of the merchant. It is the hammer of the carpenter, the black smith, the tinman, the cordwainer, the jeweler, or the worker of marble—’all industrious, all busy, all well to do. The “ sound of the hammer” Is a note which forewarns the world of the where-abouts of the hard working man. About it there is no concealment.— The man he owes hears it, and waits content ed —who owes him listens, and straightway goes to his daily labor. There is a spirit in the sound of a hammer which aflects more or less nearly all the world. Some people go : through life without noting one sound from another, in the multitude of noises around them, but we will answer for the sound of a hammer, that no one ever heard that without being conscious of an impression, either posi tively pleasant or certainly painful. Me chanics should stick to their hammers, for they are sentinels of industry and bestowers of praise. THE MECHANIC. Kirby, the young actor, in the play of the Carpenter of Rouen, gives the following ex cellent sentiment, which always brings down three rounds of applause: The mechanic, sir, is one of God’s noble men. What have mechanics not done ? Have they not opened the secret chambers of the mighty deep, and extracted its treasures, | and made the raging billows their highway, on which they ride ason a tame steed ? Are not the elements of fire and water chained to the crank, and at the mechanic’s bidding com pelled to turn it ! Have not mechanics open ed the bowels of the earth, and made its pro ducts contribute to their wants ? The forked , lightning is their play-thing; and they ride ; triumphant on the mighty winds To the ; wise they are the flood-gates of knowledge, and kings and princes are decorated with their handiwork —He who made this universe, was ■ a great Mechanic. 3 Column (Cmtctr to Iww DEM’S ’EM. A pious old negro, while saying grace at the table, not only used to ask a blessing on all he had upon his board, but would also pe tition to have some deficient dish supplied.— One day it was known that Cato was out of potatoes, and suspecting that he would pray for the same at dinner, a wag provided him self with a small measure ot the wegitahles , and stole under the window near which stood the table of our colored Christian. Soon Ca to drew up a chair and commenced: — “0, massa Lord! wilt dow in dy provident kindness condescend to bresebery ting before us; and be pleased to stow upon us just a few taters —and all de praise.” [Here the po tatoes were dashed upon the table, breaking plates and upsetting the mustard pot.] “Dem's ’em, massa Lord!” said Cato looking up with surprise. “Only jist luff em down leetle ea sier next time!” A RICH SCENE. The following rich scene recently occurred in one of our courts of justice between the Judge and a Dutch witness all the way from Rotterdam. Judge. —“What’s,your native language?” Witness. —“ lpe no native, I’s a Dutchman.” Judge. —“What is your mother tongue?” Witness. —“0, fader say she pe all tongue.” Judge. —(In an irritable tone) —“What lan guage did you first learn ? what language did you speak in the cradle?” Witness. —“I tid not speak no language in the cradle at all, I only cried in Dooch .” — Then there was a general laugh in which the Judge, Jury and audience joined. The wit ness was interrogated no further about his na tive language. r DENTISTRY. An itinerating! dentisti lately called at a house and applied for business. “Don’t you want your teeth drawn?” says he to the own er. “No.” “Don’t your wife?” “No.” “None ol the children?” “No.” “Can’t you give me some sort of a job ?” says the dentist. “Why,” says the gentleman, “l have got an old cross-cut-saw , the teeth of which are out of order. You can have that job, if you’ll fix ’em.” Two Days to Run. —A has given a bill to B and A finds himself without a shilling when the bill has only two days to run. Now what is A to do undei these circumstances ? Answer. If the bill has two days to run, A has, of course two days to run also, and he had better run accordingly. Timely Knowledge.— “Do you know all the rocks in this harbor ?” asked the master of a vessel of an Irish pilot. “Yes, yer honor, and” (here the ship struck) “there’s one of them!” Settling Accounts. —“ I never go to church,” said a country tradesman to his par ish clergyman; “1 always spend Sunday in settling accounts.” The Minister immediate ly replied, “you will find, sir, that the day of judgement will be spent in the same manner.” First Discovery. —A gentleman praising the personal charms of a very plain woman, Foote whispered him, “why dont you lay claim to such an accomplished beauty?”— “What right have I to her?” said the other. “Every right by the law of nations, as the first discoverer,” replied Foote. The Difference. — xV gentleman talking to a friend on the subject of marriage, made the following observation: “I first saw my wife in a storm; carried her to a ball in a storm; courted her in a storm; was published to her in a storm; married in a storm; lived in a storm ; but thank Heaven I buried her in pleasant weather!” Taking it Coolly. —“ Avast there!” cried a sailor to his comrade, who was busied in heaving overboard the lower division of a ship-mate just cut in halves by a chain-shot at a great naval engagement; “avast! let us first see if Ben arn’t got the key of our mess chest in his pocket.” Rewards of Merit. —“ Sam,” said one lit tle urchin to another, yesterday—“ Sam, does your schoolmaster ever give you any rewards of merit?” “I s’pose he does,” was the re joinder; “he gives me a lickin’ regularly ev ery day and says I merits two!”