Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

292 you and all knew afterwards that 1 was unjustly sentenced to. God bless you !” Here the tears came from his eyes, and neither the captain, nor any one around, could conceal their kindred sensation. The poor sufferer resumed—“l have only to beg, sir, you will take care that my dear wife and little ones shall have my back pay as soon as possible ; —1 am not many hours for this world.” The captain pressed his hand, but could not -peak, lie h and his face in his handker chief. “1 have done my duty, captain —have l not, sir V “You have, Tom, you have, and nobly done it,” replied the captain, with great emotion. “God bless you!—l have only one thing more to say.” Then addressing one of his comrades he asked for his ha versack, which was immediately handed to him. “1 have only one thing to say, captain,” said he; “1 have not been very well this week, sir, and did not eat all my rations. 1 have one biscuit—it is all I possess. You, as well as others, sir, are without bread ; take it for the sake of a poor grateful soldier—take it — take it, sir, and God be with you !” The poor good-natured creature was totally exhausted as he concluded; he leaned back —his eyes grew a dull glassy colour —his face still paler, and he ex pired in about ten minutes after on the spot. The captain wept like a child. Few woids were spoken. The body was borne along with us to the wood where the division was bivouacked, and the whole of the company to which the man belonged attended his interment, which took place in about two hours af ter. He was wrapped in his blanket, just as he was, and laid in the earth. The : captain himself read a prayer over his grave, and pronounced a short, but im pressive eulogy on the merits of the de parted. lie showed the men the biscuit, as he related to them the manner in which it had been given to him, and he declared he would never taste it, but keep the token in remembrance of the good soldier, even though he starved. The commissary, however, arrived that night, and prevented the necessity of trial to the captain’s amiable resolution. At the same time, I do believe that nothing would have made him eat the biscuit. This is no tale of fiction : the fact oc curred before the author’s eyes. Let no man, then, in his ignorance, throw taunts upon the soldier, and tell him that his gay apparel and his daily bread are paid tor out of the citizen's pocket. Rather let him think on this biscuit, and reflect, that the soldier earns his crust as well as he, and when the day of trial comes, will bear the worst and most appalling pri vations, to keep the enemy from snatch ing the last biscuit out of the citizen’s SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE. mouth. It is for his country men at home that he starves—it is for them lie dies. [ Chambers's Edinburgh Journal. WILLIAM C. BRYANT’S CHAR ACTER. Mr. Bryant’s habits of life have a smack of asceticism although he is the disciple of none of the popular schools which, under various forms, claim to rule the present world in that direction. Milk is more familiar to his lips than wine, yet he does not disdain the “cheer ful hour, over which moderation presides, lie eats sparingly of animal food, but lie is by no means afraid to enjoy roast goose Jest he should outrage the manes of his ancestors, like some modern en thusiasts. He “hears no music,” if it be fantastical, yet his ear is finely attuned to the varied harmonies of wood and wave. His health is delicate, yet he is almost never ill; hislife laborious, yet care fully guardedagainstexcessiveand exhaus ting fatigue. He is a man of rule, but none the less tolerant of want of method in others; strictly self governed, but not prone to censure the unwary or the weak willed. In religion he is at once catholic and devout, and to moral excel lence no soul bows lower. Placable we can perhaps hardly call him, for, im pressions on his mind are almost indeli ble ; but it may, with the strictest truth, be said, that it requires a great offence, or a great unworthiness, to make an enemy of him, so strong, is his sense of justice. Not amid the bustle and dust of the po litical arena, eased in armour offensive and defensive, is a champion’s more in timate self to be estimated, but in the pavilion or the bower, where, in robes of ease, and with all professional feroci ty laid aside, we see his natural form and complexion, and hear, in placid domestic tones, the voice so lately thundering above the fight. 80 we willingly follow Mr. Bryant to Roslyn ; see him musing on the pretty rural bridge that spans the fish-pond; or taking the oar in his daughter’s fairy boat; or pruning his trees; or talking over farming matters with his neighbours; or—to return to the spot whence we set out some time ago —sitting calm and happy in that pleasant 1i bi ary, surrounded by the friends he loves to draw about him, or listening to the prattle of infant voices, quite as much at home there as under their own more especial roof—his daugh ter’s, within the same inclosure. In person, Mr. Bryant is quite slender, symmetrical and well poised ; in carriage, eminently firm and self possessed. He is fond of long rural walks and of gym nastic exercises—on ail which health de pends. Poetical composition tries him severely—so severely, that his efforts of that kind are necessarily rare. His are no holiday verses ; and these who urge his producing a long poem are, per haps, proposing that he should, in grati fying their admiration, build for himself a monument iu which he would he self enveloped. Let us rather content our selves with asking “a few more of the same,” especially of the latest poems, in which, ceitainly, the poet trusts his fellows with a nearer and more intimate view of his inner and peculiar self than was his wont in earlier times. Let him more and more give a human voice to woods and waters ; and, in acting as the accepted interpreter of nature, speak fearlessly to the heart as well as to the eye. 11 is countrymen were never more disposed to hear him with delight; for, since the public demand for his poems has placed a copy in every house in the land, the taste for thorn has steadily in creased, and the national pride in the writer’s genius become a generous enthu siasm, which is ready to grant him an apotheosis while he lives. [Homes of American Authors. STORY OF A HUMOURIST. EXTRACT OF A LETTER, WRITTEN IN 1792. Well, I have seen your friend, and find him to be exactly what you described him as being as a humourist. lie seems to have imparted much of that character to every thing around him. His servants are all admirably disciplined to second his whims, and his very furniture is, for the most part, adapted to the same pur pose. This put me upon my guard ; and there was hardly any thing in the room that I did not touch with apprehension. No trick, however, was practised upon me; and, as 1 found subsequently, I was indebted for such indulgence to one which was reserved for me at night, and which was such as perhaps all my English phlegm would not have enabled me to bear with patience. I escaped, however, be ing put to the proof, by the merest acci dent —the arrival of a poor Scotch sur veyor, who was thought a fitter subject for the often repeated experiment. The Scotchman was treated with extreme hos pitality ; he was helped to every thing to excess; his glass was never allowed to stand full or empty for one minute. The potations were suspended not until, and only while the cloth was laying for sup per, during and after which, they were resumed with renovated energy. Our entertainer was like the landlord describ ed by Addison ; the liquor seemed to have no other efiect upon him than upon any other vessel in the house. It was not so with this Scotch guest, who was by this time much farther advanced upon the cruise of intoxication than half seas over. In this state he was conducted to his chamber—a fine lofty Gothic apart ment, with a bedstead that seemed coe val with the building. I say seemed; for that was by no means the case, it being [.December 25,