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lilt in the change. Such is the work ol Lpicu. risrn. 16. We perpetually fancy ourselves intellectual ly transparent when we are opaque, ana moi ully opaque when we are transparent. 17. It was the middle of Aftgust. The sun was setting in a rainy sky, wiiich hid the disk be hind a dark bank of cloud. Ihe high tide oi the distant sea had caused the river to over flow a portion of its green and wooded banks. The whole unbounded plain, from tne beig.it on which the two spectators stood, iooked a bed of meadow and vineyard, through w hie a the large and quiet river, with a few small sails upon its surface, flowed unheared and waveless to the city, which extended its shape ly bridge, and raised its Gothic towers and soires in the becalmed and noiseless evening. The sun was invisible, but hung near enough to the lower edge of the clouds to shoot a bright red gleam obliquely, across the river from a bove the town, and to tinge the lake-like inun dation with aglow, broken to the eyes of the gazers by the trees in the hedges oi the flood ed fields. The town alone broke the straight line of the horizon, and between its buildings and the skirt of the clouds was spread a pale clear amber air, while all around the shy and over the whole landscape the shades of green and gray were dimly blending. The evening bell sounded from a distant village church, and the red light deepened and broadened on the water with a ruby blaze, while the vapors and land below the sun melted in a purple steam. Then the border of the cloud itself kindled, and from below it the sun’s rim dropped and -'seemed to hang a steady benignant fire. Through the broken clouds in the east, now tinged by the same red light of sunset, the full moon glanced serene. All was so peaceful and unmoving, while the far-off chime scarce ly floated to the ear, that time appeared to have ceased its beatings, and for a moment those two hearts lived in eternity. 18. In the spiritual, as in the physical world, for some portion of mankind, day is always dawn ing; and none arc so dark as to want the tra 'dition of past light, and the faith of its return. 19. To find the argument for the value of Chris tianity on external evidence, and not. on the condition of man, and the pure idea of God, is to hold up a candle before our eyes that we may better sec the stars. It may dazzle, but can mot assist us. 20. There is no lie that many men will not be lieve ; there is no man who does not believe many lies, and there is no man who believes only lies. 21. One dupe is as impossible as one twin. 'Z'Z. Physical results can prove nothing but a cause adequate to produce such, that is, a phys ical cause; though, do"btless, these results, ’when subservient to a spiritual system, may be used as illustrations of it. But the proofs of a spiritual system must he drawn from itself, must be spiritual proof and spiritually discern ed. Therefore, to the perverted, faithless, loveless mind, they cannot be made manifest; and to attempt to argue a bad, base creature into conscience and religion is a sowing of corn in the sea. Arguments are only valid for any man in proportion as he has the conscious ness of the premises they are grounded on. Tiie Epicurean, or greatest enjoyment-man, may, in truth, not reason ill at all from the on- ; ly grounds that his self-created habits and feel ings permit him to be conscious of. 11 is creed is the only logical one for swine and bubboons, and if he chooses to make these his sect, it is his moral election, not his dialectic understand, ing, that we have a right to blame. From all this it follows that the question, what is spirit ual cultivation? How may the spirit in man -be cultixated ? Is, of all practical questions, infinitely the most important; or, indeed, that •all others are but elements of this one. 23. It is thoughtless to say that because all things we know have each their cause, there fore tlie whole must have a one-cause. We see that within the bounds of nature every phe nomenon has a cause; but this docs not enti tle us to go beyond those bounds to look at na ture from Without, and say that this too must have a cause; for the argument is evidently drawn only from the parts, and is unduly stretched when we apply it to the whole, though perfectly tenable when we merely rea son from analogy, and conclude that as the phenomena have causes, so must the phenomena, we do not know. But every movement of existence might be in turn cause and result, and the whole be but a great ever lasting wheel. It is as easy to imagine such a system eternal and infinite author of it. But. the real ground of religion is very different, and may be suggested by the question;—Why is the view of the universe, as this great self included, self-reproducing whole, so weary and fearful, at the very best, so unsatisfying a pros pect for the human mind? How can it be but because the sense that we need a God is an infallible indication that there is one, an ex tra mundane creator, the idea of whom is con sistent with all we know of the universe, and absolutely required by our best and deepest knowledge of ourselves and our fellow-crea tures. 24. —Thou unmoving mass! wherefore djst thou bur mv wav ? Stone. —Thou idle' wanderer! Water rolled me hither. Quarrel with it. not with me. But wherefore, I may ask in turn, dost thou flutter against me? Leaf. —Wind blew me hither. Blame it, not me. Slone —Then mav water and wind contend together, and dispute i;istead[of us; while thou and I remain at peace. Leaf. —Nay, but water and wind will not , struggle in anger. For a sweet bird sang one summer evening amidst njy tree, and from him ] f learnt that they are fair twin-sisters; and when they seem to wrestle, it is but to dance together and embrace ; and when they uplift their voices it is but to join in song. 25. Every man has consciousness worse than the world would endure to hear of, but also wiser and better ones than it approves. Os these more memorable inward awakenings is the idea which has always haunted mankind of a universal, however indefinable, affinity i between themselves and the whole universe. We feel at times assured, though often unable to express even to ourselves the fact, that tlie forms and laws of all other beings are all a portion of the forms and laws of our being. Somehow, although we know not how, it is my self that seems to me repeated, or prophesied, or drawn out into story in every thing I see. It is something of myself, some vast primordi al matrix of my life that glooms before me with closed eyes and folded senses in the dark huge rock. The doubts and struggles of my earnest hours are the strivings of a spirit work ing in fraternal union with that which animates the stormy landscapes, and groans in the bo soms c f the ancient pine-trees. It seems to be a single deep and blissful heart, from which proceed at once the gentle and pious breathing of my devotion, and the pervading loveliness j of this transparent sunset as it melts into a j starry night. So I and all tilings around me appear but different reflections of one greet ex istence. Some in dimmer, some in clearer, in grey, or purple, or golden, in smooth, or dis- i torting mirrors. But there are still more 1 startling suggestions, when this kind of impres sion works upon us, not only from all the low er appearances, but from men themselves ; [ when it is revealed to us that all the world of intellect, passion, and imagination, all poems, i histories, and mythologies, all tragic and hero ic strains of life, exist by implication in every individual breast. For every man has in truth within himself, though buried, perhaps, under granite pavements of custom and ignorance, and under immemorial beds of cold lava, what- j ever was thought by tlie priests of Thebes, or , with the sinking towers of Babylon rolled into oblivion before tlie triumph of Cyrus, and all ! that was evoked from darkness by tlie ly re of j Homer. Our whole constitution is prepared for the impulse, us the electric matter lies fold- : ed in the cloud. Give but this shock, and then ; might the beggar, the negro bondmand, or the ■ shrivelled money-hoarder find flashing in his brain an lago, a Falstaff, a Juliet, a Lear; might rule as Timour a hundred kingdoms, and a million of horsemen ; in the person of Caesar woo a Cleopatra; teach as Plato, hear as Aristotle, die as Socrates; ns Columbus fashion a living, substantial world with the lines of a pencil on a chart: and as Isaiah thunder strike the aposte Kings of Judah, in whose wa vering, greedy, cruel hearts he would also find an image of his own. So large, manifold, and one is our existence. Yet wo to him who in this contemplat : on forgets that the life which is at the root of all, and its substance, is good, is true, is holy ; and works its way through an infinite scheme of forms to rest forever in that godlike consciousness. 26. There arc emotions in man so subtle and precious that he cannot find for them, even un uttered words. For sympathy is the vital air of language; and thoughts, and feelings which, by their nature, must be the birdi of out deep est and most solitary moments, of those the least disturbed by the murmur of crowds, can never to crowds be communicated without a sense of unfitness and shame in the mind of the speaker, and a sense of irritation and re pugnancy in the hearers. This higher and more inward language, therefore, supposing such to be possible, could never have had the opportunity of arising. But the more medita tive and vocal spirits may for themselves and the comparatively few who are as themselves, indicate the shooting or lambent light, insig nificant images, and perpetuate these in writ ten speech, a legacy for all ages of consolation to the few, and to the many of perplexity. Such things cannot, even in rare moments of serene and devout colloquy, be more palpably expressed than by a glance, a hint, a sigh. 27. The best and fairest world of which man can form a complete and consistent image, is that in which men live. 28. Every fancy that we would substitute for a reality, is, if we saw a right, and saw the whole, not only false, but every was less beautiful and excellent than that w hich we sacrifice to it. 29. The human heart is made for love as the household hearth for fire ; and for truth as the household lamp for light. 30. Heaven and hell are mixed together to make up this world, as light and darkness to com pose the morning twilight. r SI. To wish that others should learn by our ex perience is something as idle as to think that we can eat aad they be filled. But when we find that we ate poison, it is doubtless mercy to warn them against the dish. 32. All t! e sad infernal rivers flow ft om foun tains in this upper world. 33. He who conceived the images of Ixion, and Sisyphus, Tantalus and the Danaids, must have felt those miseries in himself before he transferred them to other names. 34. Superstition moulds i a'ure into an arbitrary semblance of t h e supernatural, and then bows down to the work of its own hands. 35. The rudest granite block is the first sullen and blind attempt at sculpture, as the same plastic force, which working at last by the hands of man, shaped the Olympic Jove, and he Venus of Melos. 39. Practical life does all for a purpose, yet it is precisely in a reasonable ultimate purpose that it is most likely to be wanting. 37. The spontancou; life of emotion and imagi nation ends in povverlessncss and emptiness, and mere slavery to outward impressions, un less its free movements be not indeed suppress ed, but regulated towards distinct ends. 38. Daily, customary life is a dark and mean abode for man; and unless he often opens the door and windows, and looks out into a freer world beyond, the dust and cobwebs soon thicken over every entrance ofliglit; and in the perfect gloom lie forgets that beyond and above there is an open air. 39. He who is satisfied with existence so long i as it shines brightly, forgets that snuffing the candle will not prevent it from burning to the socket. 40. Men narrow their views in order to see more distinctly, as they go to the bottom of a well to see the stars at noon. But it is a poor exchange to give sun-light for starlight. 41. There arc characters so utterly and so un consciously false and hollow, that they seem like casts or impressions of men, similar to those figures of fossil shells in rocks, where there is no remnant of the shell itself, —rather than real men, however mutilated and dwarfed. And some such are plausible, full-blown spec tacles, o:i whom day-light and general opinion shine flatteringly ; while there shall be some crabbed, uncouth, unhappy fragment of genu ine human life that the whole universe scowls on, yet in truth far worthier than the gaudy image which overshadows and scorns it. The one is but a glaring figure in nature’s magic lantern; the other one of her misshapen, disinherited children. 42. Could we imagine a complete devil’s world a world of lies, quacks would in it be the only j professors, and proof of entire ignorance, and | incapacity would be the only requisite for oh | tainmg all degrees and diplomas. Yet so j much is their akin to this in our actual world, ; that many among us would sigh for such a I state of things as far a milleniuin, a golden age —an age in which all literature would be puff-;, 1 all discourse compliments and rhetoric; and he who wishes most earnestly to pass for a ! great man, without being one, would be at once acknowledged worthiest of the honor. 43. An excess of excitement and a deficiency of enthusiasm may easily characterise the same period. 44. Enthusiasm is grave, inward, self-controlled; j mere excitement outward, fantastic, hysterical, i and passing in a moment from tears to laugh- Tei;. 45. Ail age of eager, random movement keeps turning the windmill round and round, in , hopes to grind the faster, forgetting that tlie wind blows from but one point at one time. i The Three Sisters. TRANSLATED FROM THE PIKENICIAIf, BV BULWER. CHAPTER 1. In an age which two or three thousand years ! «g° was considered somewhat of the earliest, but which geologists have proved to have been ; but as yesterday. laopater reigned over those | districts known to historians by the name of i noeiiicia. An honest arbitrary, good sort of a King be was; not altogether unlike our : Henry the Eighth,—only he was not quite so much master ol'his own house. Her majesty led him a troublesome life—into the particulars of which we need notenter, seeing that people in t lis virtuous age have a disinclination to scandal, and that the Greeks have made some of the best stories sufficiently familiar in that budget of gossip which they call a Mythology. Ravenous a nos moutons. lao-pater had a very large family— sons and daughters without number. Ainon<r them, by a. left-handed marriage, were three'"young ladies, culled, in the language of that day*, Aza, Merthyne, and Insla. Respecting tliese prin cesses, we find a tale recorded in one of the manuscripts consulted by Sanchoniathon, in his works on the Serpent, which has not hith erto been published. I In the latter days of lao-pater his subjects were visited by a most terrible species of mad ness. Each man fancied, he saw a horrible dragon upon the back of his neighbor, and was instantly seized with a furious desire to attack the monster. Thus, the moment your back was turned, half a dozen of your countrymen made a rush at you, one with a sword to hew, another with a saw, to saw, a third with red hot pincers, to pluck off*, the creature of their imagination : if no other weapon was at hand, t iey fastened an you with their nails and teeth. Wnat made this malady more singular, while t leir vict m perished under their m t lations, they kept congratulating him u:i his approach ing delivery from the dragon. The more he bellowed for mercy, the worse he fared: when once attacked in this manner his late was seal ed, and, as he gave up the ghost, his tormen ters, instead of suspecting they had done any tiling wrong, shrugged their sholders and cried —“ Tin’s comes of the dragon !” So dreadful were the ravages and slaughter resulting from this insanity, tiiat his his majes ty’s dominions were nearly depopula'ed. lao pater, in a great fright lest his own back should be caught sight of, shut himself up in his pal ace ; and all prudent persons, followed the royal example, kept themselves? in doors, with their backs screwed tight against tlie wall. The soothsayers killed nine millions and forty - two birds, and four hundred thousand sows, but the entrails of the victims were obstinately silent on the occasion, nor could any remedy for the growing evil be suggested by counsel lor or pile t. At length, one night, Aza dreamed a dream. She thought that the great deity, No-No, ap peal eJ to her, and said—“ Arise and go forth into the c’ty, and the people shall be delivered from the c urse.” And Aza, the next morning, sought lao-pater, who had crept into a hole of tlie wall, so that nothing but his face was dis cernible. Aza told her dream, arid implored permission to obey the divine command. “l)o as you like my dear child,” said the King, but don’t come so close to me : and mind, wherever you go, that you proclaim it to be high treason to attempt to peep at my back. As for otijer people’s backs—it is not my affair.” When Aza went forth from the palace, she repaired to the royal gardens, and amused her self with catching the mo. t beautiful butterflies she could find. Having put them into a little net of silver meshes, inconceivably line, she took her way into the great street. Scarcely had she gone three paces, when she heard a tremenduous uproar and hallooing ; and pres ently a young man, more beautiful than words can describe, came bounding up the street, pale, breathless, and frightened out of h’s wits, and fell exhausted at tlie feet of the princess. “Save me!—save me!” he cried out. I am an unhappy stranger in this city, and a whole mob are at my heels, swearing I have a dragon at my back. As long as I spoke to them, face to luce, they overwhelmed me with civilities. But the moment I turned!—Ah, here they are !” And, in fact, a score or two, of ficrcc-looking citizens, some with hatchets, some with pincers, some with long hooks—(all for the dragon)—now thronged, hot, and pant ing to the spot. At the sight of Aza they halted abruptly,— for there was something in her face so serene and 1 ively, that even the wretched maniacs felt the soothing influence of her beauty. “ My friends,” said Aza, in a vo ce of sweet command, “what would you do with this young man ?” “ Tlie dragon ! —the dragon ?”—shouted a dozen voices, already hoarse with screaming. “He has a dragon on his back ; we would not harm him for the world!—a most cluruing young man ! but the dragon, your royal high ness, —the dragon!” “ 1 have taken it off tie stranger’s back,” said the princess, mildly. “ See, here it is. Be!;old tlie terrible monster < hat so appals you ?” So saying, she opened her hand, and away flew one of tlie most beautiful, purple and gold but terflies that e\er was seen. As the insect fluttered and circled to and fro, the crowd stared at it with open mouths. “ Bless me,” cried one of them, “ and that’s what we took for a dragon—so rt is !’’ “ Hollo ! you sir !” cried another, lifting up his hatchet against the last speaker, who had unw.ttingly turned round and exposed on his back.—“ The dragon is on you /” “ Hold !” exclaimed Aza, arresting the mad man’s arm. “The God No-No has changed all your dragons into bit erflics.” M itn that, she turned aside, and, unperceived by the ciowd, emptied the silver net. Tlie air was filled with butterflies. Tlie crowd stared again ; first at the insects, then at the princess, then at one another. Fortunately, at that time the God No-No, thought it a good oppor tunity to thunder: the omen completed the cure—and the mob woke all at oi.cj fto.n their delusion. Paganini’s fourth string. In order to refute the many tales and ru mours relative to tlie occasion which induced the celebrated virtuoso to acquire such a w on derful power of execution on the fourth string of the violin, an Italian publication has lately given tlie following particulars, professedly in tlie words of the great master himself;— ' “ At Lucca I always led the ochestra when ever the reigning family attended the opera. I was so frequently sent into the Court circle, and I gave a grand concert every fortnight. Ihe Princess Eliza (Bacciocchi Napoleon’s sister) always retired before the conclusion, because the harmonic notes of my instrument effected her nerves too powerfully. \ Vo . amiable lady who I had long sin’ee secretly adored, was frequently present at these narti ■' and I soon perceived that a pleasing secret at* traded her also to me. Our niutui 1 passions imperceptibly gained strength. One fl av { promised in the next concert to surprise h Cr with a musical piece of gallantry, which should huVe reference to the terms upon which \\ e stood. At the same time I caused tlie Court to be apprised that I meant to perform ane w composition, with t! e 1 t!eof “ A Love Scene ” Great curiosity was excite and, but what was the amazement of the company when I enter ed with a violin with but two strings! I had left only the G and E string. The latter was intended to express all the feelings of a voun? female ; the former to imitate theioice of a despairing lover. In this manner it executed a kind of impassioned dialogue, in which the tendered tones succeeded expressions of jeal ousy'. At one time they were caressing at another, tearful accords, cries of anger 5 and rapture, of pain and felicity. A reconciliation formed the close ; the lovers more enamoured than ever of each other, performed a pas do deux, which terminated in a brilliant coda— Tlie “Scene” was highly applauded. I sav nothing of the delighted looks which the lady of my thoughts cast upon me. The Princess Elza after lond’ng me with praises, said to me flatteringly : “ You have done the impossible on two strings; would not a single one be enough for your talent!” I promised inline, diately to make the trial. This idea flattered my imagination, and in a few weeks I composed for the fourth string a sonato entitled Napoleon, which I performed on tne 25th of August, before a numerous and brilliant court. The success surpassed mv expectations. From that time dates mv pre deleetion for the G string. People were nev. cr tired of listening to my pieces composed ior that string. As one keeps learning from day to day, so I gradually attained that profi. cicncy, in wtiich there ought now to be noth, ing astonishing.” For the Southern Post. TO HER. Oh guileless heart! shall the winter’s breath E’er blight thy early bud of love, And crush its beauteous stem in death And waft its purest sweets above ? Shall the chilling frost creep in thy bower, Its step unheard, its form unseen, And nip the bud of that sweet flower, And break the charm of my spirit’s dream ? Then sure were earth no more to me, Than the mighty waste which memory flings O’er the turbid wove of oblivion’s sea, Or the chaos which from the future springs— A blank, a worse than blank ’twould be— Where the wild bird flapps his sable wings— A waste —where the voice of misery In sadest echo, ever lings. My harp unstrung no more should full Thy tar w ith music rich and swee'. But tiie murmurings of its magic thrill, Would fall unlionortd at my feet; And its maniac notes so sadly w ild Would whisper love on the desert air, Or greet the ear of sorrow’s child, As it fell in tremulous accents there. Sweet spirit! may the holy light Os brighter days and happier hours, Shine ’mid the gloom of early night And soothe thee with its magic powers. And oh, instead of wintry blight, To lay in waste thy lovely flowers, May heaven shed its sweetest light And softest dews,o’er all thy bowers. And though for me, no rose shall bloom, Oi shed its perfume on the wind, If thoucscapest a wretched doom My pensive heart shall be resignd; And oft I’ll fancy thee as blest With one who worships at thy shrine. And bears thine image in his breast Eastamped by impress all divine. And my heart shall pray each w inter morn When it wakes from the troubled sleep of night, That w hen the storm of death shall moan In wildness round thy spirit’s light, Angels may claim thee as their own And heavenward bend their mystic flight, Till in the high celestial zone They’re lost in richest floods of light, E. M. P. For the Southern Post LINES FROM AN ALBUM. Who that bears A human bosom, hath not often felt llow dear are all those ties which bind our race In gentleness together, and how sweet Their force, let fortune’s wayward hand the while, Be kind or cruel. Akcuside, In life’s young hour, when Beauty throws her light O’er Nature’s face, and gilds the path of life, W idi charms of gaudy hue, without a thorn T ,J mar the heart 's glad joy, in all the course I hrough which unyielding late shall lead ; V\ hen springs oi woe and disappointments keen, Are hid beneath the false, deceiving veil, Which youth o'er future hours unwisely casts, The source of joy and happiness divine, — The fount of gladness to the youthful heart,— The active impulse of thesoid tosip Insafia'e, at pleasure's ehrystal source, And bask in all the fields of pure delight, Imagination paints, concentre first, In those sweet bonds of pure affection, \\ liich binds congenial souls in ties of bliss; Not by the union of unbounded wealth— Ihe couch id indolence, and jewel’d grove, Os all the fine emotions of the soul— Nor mutual feelings of exalted rank, The blazonry of pomp, and heritage Entail’d by high ancestral fame and power, 3nt in that hour, when willing hearts unite, To share alike the joys and wees of earth; To live by virtue’s rules and wis ’om’s light, < no; through life’s scenes, indissolutelyone. To sink at last into a common grave, W # J