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which contribute not the least forcibly
to impart resemblance in a sketch—
must have vanished, or been obscured,
before I met the General. All merely
graceful attributes are usually the most
evanescent: nor does Nature adorn the
human ruin with blossoms of new
beauty, that have their roots and proper
nutriment only in the chinks and crev
ices of decay, as she sows wall-flowers
over the ruined fortress of Ticonderoga.
Still, even in respect of grace and beau
ty. there were points well worth noting.
A rav of humour, now and then, would
make its way through the veil of dim
obstruction, and glimmer pleasantly
upon our faces. A trait of native ele
gance, seldom seen in the masculine
character after childhood or early youth,
was shown in the General’s fondness
for the sight and fragrance of flowers.
An old soldier might be supposed to
prize only the bloody laurel on his
brow ; but here was one, who seemed
to have a young girl’s appreciation of
the floral tribe.
There, beside the fireplace, the brave
old General used to sit; while the Sur
veyor —though seldom, when it could
be avoided, taking upon himself the
difficult task of engaging him in con
versation —was fond of standing at a
distance and watching his quiet and al
most slumberous countenance, fie
seemed away from us, although we
saw him but a few yards off; remote,
though we passed close beside his chair,
unattainable, though we might have
stretched forth our hands and touched
his own. It might be, that he lived a
more real life within his thoughts, than
amid the unappropriate environment of
the Collector’s office. The evolutions
of the parade ; the tumult of the bat
tle ; the flourish of old, heroic music,
heard thirty years before; —such scenes
and sounds, perhaps, were all alive be
fore his intellectual sense. Meanwhile,
the merchants and ship-masters, the
spruce clerks, and uncouth sailors, en
tered and departed; the bustle of this
commercial and Custom-House life
kept up its little murmur round about
him; and neither with the men nor
their affairs did the General appear to
sustain the most distant relation. He
was as much out of place as an old
sword —now rusty, but which had flash
ed once in the battle’s front, and show
ed still a bright gleam along its blade
—would have been, among the ink
stands, paper-folders, and mahogany
rulers, on the Deputy Collector’s desk.
There was one thing that much aided
me in renewing and re-creating the
stalwart soldier of the Niagara frontier,
—the man of true and simple energy.
It was the recollection of those memo
rable words of his, —“ I'll try, Sir !”
spoken on the very verge of a desper
ate and heroic enterprise, and breathing
the soul and spirit of New England
hardihood, comprehending all perils,
and encountering all. If, in our coun
try, valor were rewarded by heraldic
honour, this phrase—which it seems so
easy to speak, but which only he, with
such a task of danger and glory before
him, has ever spoken—would be the
best and littest of all mottoes for the
General’s shield of arms.
THE MAN OF BUSINESS.
There was one man, especially, the
observation of whose character gave j
me anew idea of talent. His gifts
were emphatically those of a man of
business ; prompt, acute, clear-minded;
with an eye that saw through all per- :
plexities. and a faculty of arrangement
that made them vanish, as by the wav
ing of an enchanter’s wand. Bred up
from boyhood in the Custom-House, it
was his proper field of activity ; and
the many intricacies of business, so
harassing to the interloper, presented
themselves before him with the regu
larity of a perfectly comprehended sys
tem. In my contemplation, he stood
as the ideal of his class. He was, in
deed, the Custom-House in himself; or,
at all events, the main-spring that kept
its variously revolving wheels in mo
tion ; for, in an institution like this,
where its officers are appointed to sub
serve their own profit and convenience, j
and seldom with a leading reference to
their fitness for the duty to be per
formed, they must perforce seek else
where the dexterity which is not in
them. Thus, by an inevitable neeessi
tv, as a magnet attracts steel-filings, so
and and our man of business draw to him
self the difficulties which everybody
met with. W ith an easy condescen
sion, and kind forbearance towards our
stupidity,—which, to his order of mind,
must have seemed little short of crime,
—would he forthwith, by the merest
touch of his finger, make the incom
prehensible as clear as daylight. The
merchants valued hint not less than we,
his esoteric friends. His integrity was
perfect: it was a law of nature with
him, rather than a choice or a princi- J
pie ; nor can it be otherwise than the :
main condition of an intellect so re
markably clear and accurate as his, to
be honest and regular in the adminis
tration of affairs. A stain on his con
science, a. to any thing that came with
in the range of his vocation, would
trouble such a man very much in the
same way, though to a far greater de
gree, than an error in the balance of an
account, or an ink-blot on the fair page
of a book of record. Here, in a word,
—and it is a rare instance in my life.—
l had met with a person thoroughly
adapted to the situation which he held.
Such were some of the people with
whom I now found myself connected.
I took it in good part at the hands of
Providence, that 1 was thrown into a
position so little akin to my past habits;
and set myself seriously to gather from
it whatever profit was to be had. Af
ter my fellowship of toil and impracti
cable schemes, with thedreamy brethren
of Brook Earm ; after living for three
years within the subtile influence of an
intellect like Emerson’s; after those
wild, free days on the Assabeth, in
dulging fantastic speculations beside
our fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery
Channing; after talking with Thoreau
about pine-trees and Indian relics, in his
hermitage at Walden ; after growing
fastidious by sympathy with the clas
sic refinement of Hillard’s culture;
utter becoming imbued with poetic sen
timent at Longfellow’s hearth-stone; —
it was time, at length, that I should ex
eicise other faculties of my nature, and
nourish myself with food for which I
had hitherto had little appetite. Even
the old Inspector was desirable, as a
change of diet, to a man who had
known Alcot. I looked upon it as an
evidence, in some measure, of a sys
tem naturally well balanced, and lack-
ing no essential part of a thorough or
ganization, that, with such associates to
remember, I could mingle at once with
men of altogether different qualities,
and never mumur at the change.
(Original
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
OH! MARY DEAR.
BY J. A. TURNER.
Air— “ Dearest Mae.”
When Mary used to love me,
My heart was gay and light.
And heavenly hope above me
Spread visions ever bright.
Chorus —Oh! Mary dear,
Come drop one gentle tear.
When I'm laid low
Where the roses blow,
And the wild-bird warbles near.
When the rnoon was shining brightly.
In the valley ’neath the hill,
We used to wander nightly
To the note of the whippoorwill.
But they tore her from my bosom—
Poor Mary how she wept,
As the honeysuckle’s blossom
Its vigils o’er her kept.
Now Mary loves another,
And soon will be his bride—
My grief how can I smother
To see her by his side ?
Where there comes no more to-morrow.
And the weary are at rest,
I’ll seek a balm for sorrow,
With the rose-hud on my breast.
(Driginul ißssntjs.
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
EGERI A:
Or, Voices from the Woods and Wayside.
NEW SERIES.
XLI.
Wholeness of Truth. But we must
not forget the sacred wholeness of
Truth. In putting her into small par
cels, we must be careful to diminish
none of her proportions. It is one im
portant element of her character, the
proof her spirituality, that she may
contract herself to any dimensions, yet
preserve her entireness and symmetry.
She must be symmetrical, or we cannot
love her —she must be perfect or we
shall not recognize her. No writer of
a book need set out with the design to
make a moral. If he does, his book
will be very apt to fail. His great ob
ject is to make his narrative—be it
history or fiction—and there is the
philosophy of both—entirely truthful;
and truthfulness, even in the delineation
of a vice or a crime, always carries
with it its own and a valuable moral.
The most moral authors that the world
has ever known, are those who have
been most true to nature : to nature in
her completeness—in all her essentials
—and not in partial glimpses of her
person. When, therefore, an author
proves immoral in his results—even
supposing that he sets out with no evil
intentions—the inference is fair that he
is not true in his details. He may
give you glimpses of the truth, but
they are glimpses only. The whole
truth is the only testimony which the
superior genius indulges, and the only
testimony which can properly avail for
his ease before the awful tribunals of
posterity. It is the lack of this entire
ness, this universal singleness, this in
dividual essential, absorbing all the
rest, that has surrendered to defeat,
and given up to oblivion, many a noble
mind and grasping imagination. The
world has known very few writers who
have deliberately set out to pervert the
truth, to misrepresent man, to deform
nature and to debase society! The
Etherege’s and the Rochester’s, were
vicious men, it is true, but they were
abandoned, rather in consequence of
their inferior intellectual nature, than
because of any wilful desire to do
wrong. They yielded themselves, with
out examination, to the habitual vices
and tastes of their period. Genius, it
must be remembered, is a Seer who is
apt to see false visions as well as true.
“ One-sidedness ” of survey is that which
frequently perverts the intellect, who
would otherwise honestly pursue the
truth. The truth naturally eludes such
vision. She has a thousand aspects
and they see but one. She lies, it is
true, upon the surface, but Mho shall
say how much of her there is below it.
It will not do to content ourselves with
the surface. We must dig, we must
dig below it, we must explore. Truth
has breadth, depth, length and weight;
and we shall fail to say what she is till
we learn what these are. What she
requires follows as another lesson.—
Some writers of great genius succeed
wonderfully in giving her surface.—
They show one of her aspects, with
most singular force and felicity; but as
they themselves see but her surface
only, they show no more; and they are
immoral writers because they are un
true. There is a general incoherence
i • °
in the tone and temper of their works—
an inconsistency between the character
and the doings of their agents—which
the natural world never presents to us.
To write morally, it is necessary that
i truth in the general, and truth in the
detail, should be attended to; if not,
we have the old monster of character,
the half woman, the half fish, described
by the Poet, in reference to a similar
topic:
“ The beauteous maid,
Proud of each charm above the waist displayed ;
Below a loathsome fish :
Such is the book, that like a sick man’s dreams.
Deforms all shapes and mingles all extremes.”
XLII.
Love, lo love wisely is not so easy
I as to love well; yet to love -well, it is
necessary that we should first love
wisely.
SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE.
C’tit Hrniruirr.
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
EULOGIZING THE DEAD*
Common as this practice is, at the
present day. and exhaustless as appears
the rage for multiplying publications,
all tending to the same object, it can
not be expected that the merit of de
cided originality should attach to ai, ‘
any of them, or that candid criticism
may claim for such a production a
greater distinction than that of being a
creditable specimen of its class. Yet
even among the fugitive tributes to de
parted worth, which deluge our ordi
nary prints, the monotony of indiscri
minate panegyric is occasionally re
lieved by a happy passing thought, or
a peculiarly appropriate analogy, and it
is to the skilful delineation of this latter
feature especially, tnat the biographer
of the dead, in sketching the most pro
minent points in the character and ca
reer of his subject, usually owes his
chief success.
The death of our late lamented
Statesman has furnished a fertile theme
for the Kulogist, and in analyzing his
many virtues as a man and a public
servant, much of the talent and scholu:-
sliip of our own State, as well a>
others, has been called into requisition.
In all writings of this character, there
must necessarily be found great same
ness, and perhaps a great deal that
is trite, homely and commonplace. —
Where all place, by unanimous consent,
the same high estimate upon the life
and services of men whom the whole
nation delighted to honour—the record
of their illustrious actions becomes the
property of all —their sayings and do
ings, their philosophy and practice, and
the very phraseology in which we are
accustomed to utter their praises, pass
into a national proverb, and become
flat and stale, while they lose nothing
of their profitableness from repetition.
Among the discourses which have
been given to the public from the press
of this city, we have been particu
larly struck with the one, the title of
which is inserted in a note below. We
have among us few, if any writers,
more capable of doing ample justice to
a theme of this character, than the
gifted author of this elegant and touch
ing tribute. With his profound scholar
ship and enlightened views of things,
his rare powers of delineation, improv
ing oratory, and keen, delicate percep
tion of the beautiful in nature and art,
all who have listened to and been pro
fited by the stated preachings of this
young, native divine, are abundantly ia
miliar. llis ordinary pulpit efforts bear
the marks of far more diligent study,
careful analysis, close philosophical ar
gumentation, and bold, speculative re
search, than are usually considered as
belonging to compositions in which
the mere declamatory is but too often
the most captivating and popular. —
Endowed with a brilliant imagination,
a striking facility of concentration, and
remarkably fluency of language, Mr.
C. possesses a happy combination of
those characteristics which distinguish
the votary of chaste and elegant litera
ture, while his earnestness and fervour
in applying the results of his theories
to the spiritual concerns of his hearers,
never fail to elicit from those capable
of appreciating the more refined traits
of pulpit eloquence, the tribute of their
attention and approval.
The discourse before us is founded
upon the incidents related in the 2d
chapter of the 2d book of Kings —the
text occurring just at that portion of
the narrative when Elijah the prophet
disappears miraculously from the earth:
“And Elisha saw it, and he said
‘My father, my father, the chariot of
Israel and the horsemen thereof. And
he saw him no more : and he took hold
of his own clothes and rent them in
two pieces.’’
Elijah, one of the most illustrious
prophets of the Old Testameut, lived
in a time of extreme wickedness and
idolatry. He was sent to recall the
people to a sense of their iniquity.—
He warned the nation, but in vain. His
warnings were despised. He opened
his lips in prayer, and the sky became
dark and lowering, the rocks were rent
and there were great earthquakes. In
the midst of all this he “stood upon
the mount and held converse with the
Deity—yet when the still small voice
came and asked ; what dost thou here
Elijah' —this solitary prophet who was
the hope of the nation and the seven
thousand who had not bowed the knee
to Baal, is now to cease his stay upon
earth, and well may the people weep,
and the tears course down Elisha’s
cheeks as they rapidly approach the
spot where they separate, never to
meet again on earth.”
The words italicised from the basis
of the beautiful analogy which the au
thor now institutes—in a civil sense, in
applying his text to the occasion. The
“ hope of the nation” after having sur
vived many a disastrous crisis in its af
fairs, after having exerted his <jreat and
acknowledged power, and influence in
vain to arrest the rashness of rulers,
and the disaffection of the people, is at
length, as if in judgement upon the
sins of a guilty nation, taken up into
Heaven, and the awe-stricken, mourn
ing Elisha, who had stood at his side,
listened to his counsels and leaned on
him for support, now weeps in solitude.
“And it came to pass, as they still went
on and talked, there appeared a chariot
*A Sermon preached at St. Philips Church,
Charleston, April 14th, 1850, on the occasion
of the Death of the Hon. John C. Calhoun, by
Rev. J. Barnwell Campbell, Assistant Minister
of St. Philips Church.
of tire and horses of tire, and parted
them both asunder, and Elijah went up
by a whirlwind into Heaven, and Elisha
saw it.”
in commenting upon this portion of
the narrative, the author uses the fol
lowing glowing language:
“Yes he marked all the amazing beau
ty of that spectacle. He saw the
wheels, burnished with jewels more
dazzling than the sun, the lambent flame
from the nostrils of the fiery steeds,
and that glorious chariot, made by su
perhuman hands, descending through
the parting clouds that glittered on ev
ery side, as the coursers trod as if on
solid gold; but wondrous as was this
sight, this fixes not Elisha’s eye. No
—he looks not at the chariot but its ri
der; he sees Elijah rising from the
ground; he beholds him above the
mountain summit; he hears the rush
of the whirlwind as it lifts him into his
dazzling seat; he marks his father and
his friend shining in the clear azure like
some shooting meteor; lie sees his be
loved form receding away in the far off
space, where the eagle’s wing has never
fanned the air ; and now, a; the shining
equipage has vanished, it is still of
Elijah that he thinks, of his loss, of his
soiitude, of his country’s desertion, and
he cries, “My father, my father, O
hope of Judah, shield of the national
defence, and stay of the widow and or
phan ! My father, my father, thou art
the chariot of Israel and the horse
man thereof! And he saw him no
more, and he took hold of his own
clothes and rent them in pieces.”
The application is obvious. As Elijah
was divinely commissioned, as a prophet
in a period of great idolatry, and the
political and spiritual welfare of Judah
were intimately connected, lie was im
portant not only to the Church, but the
State of Israel. So in the political his
tory of our own country, we find re
corded among the names of her great
leaders, one who trembled for the ark
of safety upon which our existence as
a nation depends, who saw with pro
phetic eye. the dangers and perils await
ing it in the future, and labored to ar
rest the tide of evil which still threat
ens it, and to put down the lust of pow
er and wealth, which is fast corrupting
the sensibilities of factions and blinding
them to their obligations under the sa
cred charter of which they have sworn
to support. The present crisis, and
the causes which have led to it, are thus
graphically depicted:
“ There are periods when the heart
of a great nation beats with a feverish
and tumultuous pulse, and the body
politic is convulsed in looking for those
things that are corning ; when the ties
that have bound together a people wide
ly dispersed over an extended territory
are shaken, and conflicting interests,
agitating the very seat and throne of
the ruling powers, rise as spectres in
the distant horizon, that warn us of an
unhappy future. At such a period we
seem now to have arrived. It cannot
be concealed that since the hour when
the sword was girt that smote the most
brilliant gem from the purple of Bri
tain. and rent a royal domain from her
hands; since the period American blood
was copiously shed in the contested
arena of this republic, and dyed the
waters of her extended shores, we have
reached no crisis greater than the pre
sent. Nay, it would seem the peril is
more intense. For, granting that our
infant republic had to cope with a mighty
antagonist, whose sword for centuries
had been skilfully wielded, and on a
thousand battle-fields returned victori
ously to its sheath, as invincible on the
sea as on the land; yet there was in
the hands of our fathers a bond of
union, only rendered more vehement
and close from their outward pressure.
Yes! who could stand before those men,
who fought for their lives, their liber
ties and their country, for their fire
sides, for their wives and their children;
and though pursued as a wild beast to
the rocks and recesses of our woods,
trampled and beaten upon, in naked
ness and cold and hunger, still returned
a myriad times to the conflict, showing
that a nation, however feeble in artil
lery and numbers, yet is unconquerable
if united as one brotherhood. This
unanimity was the secret of our former
strength. But what is the spectacle
now ? We have no foreign foe, but a
ten fold more dangerous enemy—dis
cord among ourselves. We have lust
ed for power and wealth, and we have
gained it by the might of arms, but as
if to curse us for the lust of power and
the thirst for gold, the very territory
which we have acquired is more terri
ble to us than all the batteries of Mex
co or the fleets and regiments of Britain
in our recent wars. God has decima
ted us by the pestilience, and since this
is not enough to teach us, now he sends
another scourge —civil dissention. We
have looked back upon our national
greatness with complacency, and con
ceive it shall be eternal; but while we
have astonished the world by our un
precedented advance, this rapid growth,
not yet of a century, seems the fore
runner of as speedy a dissolution.—
Would that upon our hearts, as upon
the rock of the everlasting hills, were
graven this undoubted truth, that it is
universal piety alone that can give sta
bility to our government. This is as
true in our case as in that of Israel.
The concluding appeal is an impres
sive admonition on the vanity of human
greatness:
“Alas ! Ye men whose ambition
trusted one day to reach an eminence
as lofty, learn here how vain is human
greatness! If this man, so mighty in
political wisdom, died, and saw not the
principles triumphant to which he devo
ted his whole life, how vain must be
the ambition that counts upon success
and wisdom and political greatness as
the great object and solace of life ! To
expire and find this end not accomplish
ed, for which so many hours of patient
research and years of toil and struggle
were spent —O how impressive the les
son ! “Let not the wise man glory in
his wisdom, neither let the mighty man
glory in his might, but let him that
gloryeth glory in this, that he under
standeth and knoweth me that 1 am the
Lord, which exercise loving kindness,
judgement and righteousness in earth,
for in these things I delight, saith the
Lord God.” And ye, my countrymen
who have wept upon hearing the ti
dings that have filled our country with
mourning, ‘when we remember that the
voice which has so eloquently plead In
our favour shall never again be heard ;
when ye recall all the patriotism that
stirred his bosom, the integrity, the vig
ilance, the earnestness, the sagacity, the
far-seeing vision, and the fidelity, (a
fidelity so marked that even when he
should have been reposing upon that
bed where he breathed his last, he came
forth, faint and feeble, leaning upon the
arms of others, to the Senate to speak
in your behalf—nay. he was too feeble
even to speak, and another had to de
liver the words he had dictated.) When
we rember this devotion to his country,
and that magnanimous heart which
made him surrender the highest hon
ours of these United States, had he
not boldly declared his adherence to
your political interests—surely when
we contemplate all his various excel
lencies. and remember that his per
son shall no longer be with us, save
when we shall delight to do honour to
his sacred remains, methinks South Car
olina has become like the land of
Egypt, for a great cry has gone up
th roughout all our borders, and it seems
as if in every house there was some
one dead, and, like the disconsolate
Elisha, we take hold of our clothes and
rend them in pieces, for we shall see
him no more.”
This beautiful discourse, was pub
lished by request of the Vestry of the
Church, and is from the Steam Power
Press of Messrs. Walker & James—
exhibiting a creditable specimen of
chaste typography. If.
hliscfllnttg.
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
TOM TOOKE;
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CHAPTER, INTER
SPERSED WITH EPIGRAMS.
BY J. A. TURNER
Die following MS. Mas handed me
the other day by a friend of Mr. Tooke,
who is noM - no more, with the request
that I should look over it, and prepare
it for publication in the Southern Lite
rary Gazette. \ cheerfully comply with
the request. The gentleman who hand
ed me the MS. was not certain whether
Mr. Tooke spent his College, days in
Oxford or Athens.
‘•1 entered the junior class of my
Alma Mater at the age of about eighteen.
Eroin my youth up, 1 had been in the
habit of indulging in satirical nature,
in order to punish any person or any
thing that gave me cause of offence.
The following incidents and epigrams
occurred during my college life.
Having a pair of boots M'hieh needed
half-soling, 1 took them to a boot
maker by the name of J B
to have the work done. Though this
fellow Mas a leading member of the
Methodist Church, and had once been
on the point of preaching, yet he Mas
as arrant a knave as ever lived, as is
evidenced by his conduct to me in re
ference to my boots. He charged me
for the work done #1.37 1-2, when the
usual price was only 87 1-2 cents. To
victimize the cobbler in shoes and
souls, 1 wrote the following epigram,
and slyly pinned it to the gentleman’s
back, Mho More it to church one Sab
bath. amid the M'inks and titters of the
congregation:
Whose heart in filthy lucre rolls.
Is not the man to deal in souls;
For he would hold salvation fast
With tax unto the very last.
There Mas a stupid fellow in my
class mlio sometimes sought the socie
ty of the muses, and M as, at the same
time, the favourite of a very dull lady
who made some pretensions to a lite
rary turn, however, she asked her
Adonis one day to write her a verse
entirely new meaning original—sug
gested by her person. The poetaster
very clumsily wrote in her album the
following:—
A verse you ask me to indite
On thee containing something new :
My answer is that what I write
Is all inspired by only you.
When 1 read the above, the oppor
tunity for repartee was too good to be
lost, aud my wit got *he better of my
gallantry. In a disguised hand, 1 M'rote
the following:—
This answers for your prose at once,
Since you’re inspired by such a dunce.
The lady and gentleman both sus
pected mo of the authorship of this
couplet, and 1 never obtained their for
giveness for my crime.
There Mas a certain lawyer whom 1
occasionally met in society, and who
thought more of himself—as is usual
M ith that class of persons—than any
body else thought of him. He took it
upon himself one day, in the presence
of some ladies to speak very slightingly
of college boys, because one of the fair
ones so far forgot his merits as to smile
upon me—(and I never had cause to
complain of a want of smiles. Heav en
bless the sex). 1 immediately resorted
to my potent weapon the epigram, and
having written the following lines with
a pencil, passed them around amongst
the ladies much to their merriment
and the annoyance of Coke-upon-Lit
tleton.
EPITAPH FOR A CERTAIN LAWYER.
Here sleeps the dust of one who lied
While with his fellows vieing—
His tongue is silent since he died.
But here his bones are lying.
The disciple of Blackstone tried to
get hold of the slip of paper contain
ing these lines, but the ladies would not
let him have it. He took this in high
dudgeon however, and the next day I
received a challenge. Before fighting
time catne on, the lawyer backed out,
and if he had not done so, I should.
The most complete victim of my
epigrammatic propensity that I ever
made, was a young lady who disliked
me for, God only knows what—l don’t.
Any M'ay, she had formed a very great
antipathy for me, and took every ocea
sion to exercise upon me what she con
sidered wit and sarcasm. My courtesy
prevented my retorting, and this only
added to the vindictiveness with which
the lady pursued me. One day, in
company, she grew excessively smart,
and considered herself enormously se
vere. The gad-fly may torment the
lion, you know, and cause him to roar.
1 suffered young Miss to proceed for
some time until she got upon the very
pinnacle of glee at my expense. I
wished to give her a lofty tumble. Fi
nally 1 deliberately drew a slip of pa
per from my pocket, and very coolly
proceeded to write for her the follow
ing verse, handing it to her after it was
finished.
You may be told you’re neat and pretty,
You may be told you’re smart and witty—
It’ so ’tis clear to every eye,
Your flaiteter and your mirror lie.
Miss was notoriously ugly, having a
face that looked like a gem of homeli
ness set in a casket of hair that was
not scarlet, only because hair never is
of that color. The effect which the
epigram produced upon her was aston
ing. Had a bolt from Olympus fallen
upon her bosom, it could not have put
a more complete quietus upon her. She
sank back in her chair, her cheek paled
and her lips quivered, as she rent the
slip of paper into fragments. Suffice it
to say l was never troubled by Miss
Impertinence after that.
I finally met my match. All that I
relate in this paper occurred while 1
was in college. I was a wild, carousing
fellow, such as a man of wit and smart
ness usually is. 1 rarely ever studied
any, and was therefore frequently at a
loss for little items of knowledge which
more careful book-worms had at their
command. One day in reciting our
Greek lesson we came across the word
fy a XM which 1 correctly rendered
drachm. Professor T. wished to know
the value of the drachm. I, mistaking
money for Apothecary's weight —told
him it was the third of a scrapie be
cause three drachms make a scrapie. —
It is just the reverse—three scraples
making a drachm. Professor T. got
the tables and showed me how 1 had
put the cart before the horse—drachms
following after scruples instead of com
ing before them. He also admonished
me in a long explanation—all lost of
course—that in our lesson was a
denomination of money not of weight.
I was boarding at Professor T’s, and
the good old doctor was remarkably
fond of sweet milk, never drinking less
than half a dozen tumblers full. One
day 1 took a pin and wrote on the bright
metalic pitcher which usually contain
ed his milk, the following lines.
Why does our good professor T.
Cow's milk so much delight to quail'?
The ‘•'philosophic cause'’ must be
It is the nature of a calf.
It is to be remarked that “ philo
sophic cause” was a favourite expres
sion with the old professor. I must
premise a little here in reference to a
spree in which 1 was engaged a short
time before this. The truth is I was
not far from drunk: —you know no
drinking man ever acknowledges him
self to be entirely so. After 1 got sober,
I felt badly of course, and, in a playful
way, told some of the students that 1
began to feel conscientious scruples
about drinking. Bv hook or bv crook
Professor T. had heard of my being
drunk, and of what I had said about
conscientious scruples, when he saw the
lines written upon his favourite pitcher,
he knew the hand to be mine. He said
not a word to any body, but taking a
pin, wrote these lines under mine.
When is it Tooke writes epigrams ?
When scruples follow after drachms.
This double allusion to my mistake
in taking three drachms to make a
scruple, and to my conscientious scru
ples after having been drunk, cut me
to the quick—especiaily as l thought
the faculty profoundly ignorant of my
last drinking spree. The Professor’s
reply to my epigram was soon noised
over College, .and the victim of Dr.
T’s wit was laughed at until I vowed
in my wrath never to pen another .epi
gram or line of poetry. In after years
I thanked the doctor for ridding me of
my rhyming mania, and at the same
time of my disposition to tipple. The
old pitcher was put away with its epi
grams still upon it, and, for aught l
know, may yet be held as a rod in ter
roretn over all unruly College witlings.”
THE HEAD AND TIIE HEART.
Here is a beautiful thing from the
pen of Mrs. Cornwall Barry Wilson :
“ Please, my lady, buy a nosegay, or
bestow a trifle,” was the address of a
pale, emaciated woman, holding a few
withered flowers in her hand, to a lady
who sat on the bench at Brighton watch
ing the blue waves of the receding tide.
“ I have no pence, my good woman,”
said the lady, looking up from the
novel she was perusing with a listless
gaze ; “If I had, I would give them to
you.”
“ I am a poor widow, with three help
less children depending upon me; would
you bestow a small trifle to help us on
our way ?”
“ I have no halfpence,” reiterated the
lady somewhat pettishly. “ Really,”
she added, as the poor applicant turned
meekly away, “ this is worse than the
streets of London ; they should have
a police on the shore to prevent annoy
ance.”
They were the thoughtless dictates
of the head.
“ Mamma,” said a blue-eyed boy,
who was playing on the beach at the la
dy’s feet, flinging pebbles into the sea,
“ I wish you had a penny, for the poor
woman does look hungry,and you know
that we are going to have a nice dinner,
and you have promised me a glass of
wine.”
The heart of the ladv answered the
appeal of the child; and with a blush
of shame crimsoning her cheek at the
tacit reproof his artless words eonvey
en, she opened her retticule, placed
half a crown in his tiny hand—and in
another moment the boy was bounding
along the sands on his errand of mercy.
In a few seconds he returned, his
eyes sparkling with delight, and his fea
tures glowing with health and beautv.
“Oh ! mamma, the poor woman was
so thankful, she wanted to turn back,
but 1 would not let her; and she said,
‘God help the noble lady, and you too,
my pretty lamb, my children will now
have bread for these two days, and we
shall go on our wav reloicing.” “
The eyes of the lady glistened as she
heard the recital of her child, and her
heart told her that its dictates bestowed
apleasure the cold reasoning of the head
could never bestow.
Private Libraries. —lt is stated
11 iat there are in the United States
many private libraries which would be
considered enormous, even in Europe.
Hie reason of this is that abroad there
are an immense number of large and
extensive public collections, so easy of
access that the tempatation to purchase
is verv small. Among the largest col
lections in America is that of Rev. Dr.
Smyth, of Charleston, containing about
17,000 volumes. The Hon. M. King,
has one nearlv as large. Judge barton,
of Philadelphia, has 10.000 volumes, |
peculiarly rich in dramatic works, his- j
tories, etc. of the days of Napoleon.—
Dr. Redmon Cox, has about *20.000.
Hon. E. D. Ingraham about 13.000 vol
umes, peculiarly rich in Judicial litera
ture and in American history. Mr. G.
Ticknor, of Boston, has the best collec
tion of Spanish literature in the world.
Mr. Douce, of Cambridge, has a very
large similar collection, Dr. Francis,
has, also, a very large collection very rich
in old English literature; Theodore
Parker’s, in Boston, is also large and ad
mirably selected.
There are many good libraries in Xew
York. Dr. Moore has more than 1*2.000
volumes; the library of Edwin Forrest
(collected chieflv by the late Wm. Leg
gets) is nearly as large, and is very rich
in English literature. The library of
Mr. Lennox is large and of extraordi
nary value, having cost, probably, more
than any private library in the country.
Mr. Bancroft has the best historical li
brary in the city, and the best collet
tion of MSS. illustrative of American
history, in the possession of any indi
vidual in the world. Very extensive
and valuable libraries are also owned
by J. W. Francis, and Rev. Drs.
Hawkes, W. R. Williams, Bethune.
and Griswold, the last having contained,
before the destruction of a portion of it
recently by fire, more than 13,000
books, chiefly American. Mr. W. E.
Burton, the popular actor, has one of the
best selected libraries in the country,
being peculiarly rich in dramatic litera
ture, poetry, and antiquarian science.—
N. Y. Paper.
iV'urtlj Stunting.
The Emperor of China is the father
and mother of the people, the high
priest of heaven, and the fountain of
all honour, power and wisdom.
The Chinese have no Sabbath-day,
no congregational worship, and no ex
ternal forms of prayer or devotion.
The Emperor is their mediator with
heaven; and at the equinoxes, he offers
sacrifices and oblations with great form
and ceremony, preparing himself by
fastiqg and humiliation, and by acts of
grace and benevolence to the people.
In their domestic establishments, the
Chinese are the neatest, cleanest, and
most comfortable people in the world;
and their customs and manners appear
to have been unvaried tor many thous
and years.
Amsterdam was in 1100 the castle
of Amstel, with some fishing huts.
After 1235 it began to be a town. It
is now one ot the noblest cities in Eu
rope.
The Lake of Geneva is 1.000 feet
above the Mediterranean, and parts of
it are 1,000 feet deep.
4he present extent of German v is
estimated at 249.000 square miles.—
The population of the several States is
about 83 millions.
There are 20 German principalities,
with territories equal to the English
counties, containing about 120 inhabi
tants to a square mile.
The Grand Duchy of Tuscany is
equal in extent to Wales, and contains
about two millions of inhabitants.
The native inhabitants of all Austra
lasia, equal in surface to Europe, are
not supposed to amount to 100.000.
Delhi, a famous city in India, was
the capital of the Mogul Empire. It
is now in decay, but in 1700 it con
tained a million of inhabitants.
The farms in France are small, run
ning from 20 to 50 or 00 acres, and
hence the mass of the people are com
fortable and well provided for. Wood
being the fuel of France, 15 or 10 mil
lions of acres are occupied by woods
and forests.
There are 500 species of parisitical
flies called ichneumon. They deposit
their eggs in other insects or animals,
and there the larva are hatched and find
find nourishment.
In the ovula of carp fish, called the
roe, nearly 150,000 germs of eggs have
been counted, and in that of the stur
geon, weighing 100 pounds, nearlv
1,500,000.
The number of changes which any
number of things, as bells, letters,
cards, &c., can produce, is the product
of all the figures multiplied together,
thus: 1,2, 3,4, 5,0, bells, produce 720
changes.
The beats in an hour of a common
seconds clock are 3,600. and 27,280 a
common watch; but seconds watches
beat 18,000 times, or 5 per second.
Ten beats of a healthy pulse is equal
to nine seconds.
Chronometers, for nautical and astro
nomical purposes, are now made with
such precision, that they do not vary
from the true time more than two or
three seconds in a year, or, in other
words, they are as perfect as any instru
ment by which observations can be
made on the heavenly bodies. The
£20,000 offered by the Board of Lon
gitude was given to Harrison.
China contains 1,297,991 square
miles, with a population of 150 to every
square mile, having had the advantage
of a paternal government for 4000
years.
The human brain is the 28th of the
body, but in the horse but a 400th.
€jj t §>arrrlr lltnr.
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
LINES TO A MOTHER ON THE DEATH OF
HER INFANT.
Kind mother! cease to weep,
Thine infant is at rest;
’Tis in its earthly bed asleep,
As pure as on thy oreast.
Kind mother! cease to mourn,
’Twill not remain there long,
The heavenly dove will take it home
To lisp some holy song.
Kind parent! cease to mourn,
Although thy loss is great,
Thy little babe has found a home
Before it was too late.
It rests unstained on high,
Where angels praise their God ;
Twas doomed to leave this world and die
Before it learned His Word.
I ond mother! cease to weep,
Forever cease to mourn,
Thine infant that was once asleep
Now rests before ihe throne.
Kind mother! dry thy tears.
Forever cease to mourn,
For thine, as was thy infant’s years,
Are by thy Maker known
Then let thy days be spent
In thinking of the Lord;
By studying with good intent
His pure and Holy Word
Kind mother! cease to mourn,
Thine infant is at rest,
But never cease His Word to own.
Who has thy infant blest. L. C. K.
Lesson for Sunday, June 16.
BELIEVERS’ TITLES.
“ Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling.”—
Heb. iii. 1.
Ihe Apostle is here speaking of be
lievers ; how beautiful and striking
the description he gives of them ! Ob
serve
The DIGNIFIED APPELLATION. He
calls them
Brethren. The church of God is a
family ; united, happy, spiritual, peace
ful, and honourable. It is now divided;
part is in heaven and part on earth.
Christians are assimilated to the same
likeness, interested in the same righte
ousness, animated by the same affec
tion. guided by the same rules, destined
to the same home. He styles them
Holy. I hey are set apart for holy
purposes, possessed of holy qualities,
influenced by holy motives, partakers
of holy joys, and bound for a holv
place. Their principles, dispositions,
secret thoughts, and the development
of their character, are connected with
holinesss. He speaks of them as
Partakers of the heavenly calling. —
Contemplate its nature ; it is the call
ing of the Spirit, addressed to the heart.
It is a sovereign, honourable, and high
calling. Consider its property, “heav
enly.” In its origin, efficacy, tendency,
and termination, it is heavenly. Look
at its participation, believers are “ par
takers ot it. This is something more
than a profession. Religion is personal
and experimental in its character. Am
Ia partaker of it ? Do I feel heaven
begun in my heart • Aspire, my soul,
to this honour ; see the world’s vanity,
emptiness, and delusions. Were every
dew-drop a diamond, every atom a
world, and every world filled with gold,
all would not satisfy the boundless de
sires of the immortal soul.
How blest the sacred tie that binds.
In sweet communion, kindred minds!
How switt the heavenly course they’ mn,
W hose hearts, whose faith, whose hopes are one’
To each the soul of each how dear!
What render love, what holy fear!
How doth the generous flame within
Refine from earth, and cleanse from sin!
Nor shall the glowing flame expire,
When dimly burns frail nature's fire;
Then shall they meet in realms above,
A heaven of joy, a heaven of lov.
MARCOLINI—A TALE OF VENICE.
It was midnight; the great clock had
struck, and was still echoing through
every porch and gallery in the quarter
of St. Mark, when a young citizen,
wrapped in his cloak, was hastening
home from an interview with his mis
tress. His step was light, for his
heart was so. Her parents had just
consented to their marriage, and the
very day was named. “ Lovely Giuli
etta!” he cried, “and shall 1 then call
thee mine at last? Who was ever so
blest as thy Marcolini?” But as he
spoke, he stopped ; for something was
glittering on the pavement before him.
It was a scabbard of rich workmanship;
and the discovery, what was it but an
earnest of good fortune? “Rest thou
there!” he cried, thrusting it gaily into
his belt; “if another claims thee not,
thou hast changed masters!” and on he
went as before, humming the burden of
a song which he and his Giulietta had
been singing together. But how little
we know what the next minute will
bring forth!
He turned by the church of St. Ge
miniano, and in three steps he met the
watch. A murder had just been com
mitted. The Senator Renaldi had been
found dead at his door, the dagger left
in ms heart; and the unfortunate Mar
colini was dragged away for examina
tion. The place, the time, every thing
served to excite, to justify suspicion;
and no sooner had he entered the
guard-house than an evidence appeared
against him. The bravo in his flight
had thrown away his scabbard; and,
smeared with blood, with blood not
vet drv, it was now in the belt of Mar
colini. Its patrician ornaments struck
every eye; and when the fatal dagger
was produced and compared with it,
not a doubt of his guilt remained. —
Still there is in the innocent an energy
and a composure; an energy when they
speak, and a composure when they are
silent, to which none can be altogether
insensible; and the judge delayed for
some time to pronounce the sentence,
though he was a near relation of the
dead. At length, however it came;
and Marcolini lost his life, and Giulietta
her reason.
Not many years afterwards, the truth
revealed itself, the real criminal, in his
last moments,confessing the crime: and
hence the custom in Venice, a custom
that long prevailed, for a crier to cr)
out in the court before a sentence was
passed, “Ricordatevi del povero Mar
colini !” —Remember the poor Marco
lini.
Great, indeed, was the lamentation
throughout the city, and the judge,
dying, directed that thenceforth and lor
ever, a mass should be sung every night
in the ducal church for his own soul and
the soul of Marcolini, and the souls of
all who had suffered by an unjust judg
ment. Some land on the Brenta was