609. NATIONAL UNION. Do not, gentlemen, suiler the rage of passion to drive reason from her seat. If this law be indeed bad, let us join to remedy its defects. Has it been passed in a manner which wounded your pride, or roused your resentment! Have, I conjure you, , the magnanimity to pardon that offence. I entreat, I implore you, to sacrifice those angry passions to the interests of our country. Pour out this pride of opinion on the altar of patriotism. Let it be an expiatory libation for the weal of America. Do not suiler that pride to plunge us all into the abyss of ruin. Indeed, indeed, it will be but of little, very little avail, whether one opinion or the other be right or wrong; it will heal no wounds, it will pay no debts, it will rebuild no ravaged towns. Do not rely on that popular will, which has brought us frail beings into political existence. That opinion is but a changeable thing. It will soon change. This very measure will change it. You will be deceived. Do not, I beseech you, in reliance on a foundation so frail, commit the dignity, the harmony, the existence of our nation to the wild wind. Trust not your treasure to the waves. Throw not your compass and your charts into the ocean. Do not believe that its billows will waft you into port. Indeed, indeed, you will be deceived. Cast not away this only anchor of our safety. I have seen its progress. I know the diff

culties through which it was obtained. I

stand in the presence of Almighty God and of the world. I declare to you, that if you lose this charter, never, no never, will you get another. We are now perhaps arrived at the parting point. Here, even here, we stand on the brink of fate. Pause, then-pause. For Heaven's sake, pause.-Morris.

ATHEIST AND ACORN.

"Methinks the world-seems oddly made,
And every thing-amiss;"

A dull, complaining atheist said,
As stretched he lay-beneath the shade,
And instanced it-in this:

"Behold." quoth he, "that mighty thing,
A pumpkin, large, and round,
Is held-lanty a little string,
Which upwards cannot make it spring,
Nor bear it from the ground.
While on this onk--an acorn small,
So disproportioned grows,
That whosoe'er surveys this all,
This universal ersual Lall,

Its ill contrivance knows,

My better julginent-would have hung
The pumpkin-on the tree,
And left the acorn-slightly strung,
"Mongst things-that on the surface sprung,
And weak and feeble be."

No more the eaviler could say,

No further faults descry;

For, upwards gazing, as he lay,

An acorn, loosened from its spray,

Fell down upon his eye.

The wonmied part-with tears ran o'er,
As punished for that sin;

Fool! had that Lough-a pumpkin Lore,
Thy whimsey would have worked no more,
Nor skull-have kept them in.

MY COUNTRY.

I love my country's pine-clad hills,
Her thousand bright, and gushing rills,
Her sunshine, and her stormis;
Her rough and rugged rocks, that rear
Their hoary heads, high in the air

In wild funaste forms.

I love her rivers, deep and wide,

Those mighty streams, that seaward glide,
To seek the ocean's breast;
Her smiling fields, her pleasant vales,
Her shady del's, her flow'ry dales,
The haunts of peaceful rest.

I love her forests, dark and lone,
For there-the wild birds' merry tone,
I heard from morn-til night;
And there-are lovlier flowers I ween,
Than e'er in eastern lands were seen,
In varied colors bright.

Her forests-and her valleys fair,
Her flowers, that scent the morning air,
Hove all the r charms for the,
But more--! love my country's name,
Those words, that echo deathless faune,

The land of LIBERTY."—Anon. 610. SUBLIMITY OF MOUNTAIN SCEND

Y. Of all the sights, that nature oders t the eye, and mind of man, mountains--have seen the ocean, when it was turned up from always stirred my strongest feelings. I have the bottom by tempest, and noon-was like might, with the conflict of the blows, and the storm, that tore, and scattered them, in mist and foam, across the sky. I have scen the desert rise around me, and calmly, in the midst of thousands, uttering cries of horror, and paralysed by fear, have contemplated the sandy pilars, coming like the advance of some gigantic city of conflagration-flying across the wilderness, every column glowing with intense fire, and every blast-death; the sky-vaulted with gloom, the earth-a furnace. But with me, the mountain, in tempest, or in calm, the throne of the thunder, or with the evening sun, painting its dells and declivities in colors dipped in heaven-has been the source of the most absorbing sensations. There stands magnitude, giving the instant impression of a power above man-grandeur, that defies decay-antiquity, that tells of ages unnumbered-beauty, that the touch of time makes only more beautiful--use, exhaustless for the service of man-strength imperishable as the globe; the monument of eternity-the truest earthly emblem of that ever-living, unchangeable, irresistible Majes ty, by whom and for whom, all things were nade-Croty.

The time shall come, the fated hour is agh,
When guiltless blood-shall penetrate the sky
Amid these horrors, and involving night,
Prophetic visions Lush before my s gut;
Eternal justice wakes, and, in their turn.
The vanquished-triumph, and the victors mourn!
A hungry bean-faced villain,

A mere anateny, a mountebank,
A thread-bare juggler, and a fortune-teller;
A needy, hollow -eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
A living-dead man.

False pleasure—from abroad her joys imparts.

611. THE MURDERER: KNAPP'S TRIAL. Though I could well have wished to shun this occasion, I have not felt at liberty, to withhold my professional assistance, when it is supposed, that I might be, in some degree, useful-in investigating, and discovering the truth, respecting this most extraordinary murder. It has seemed to be a duty, incumbent on me, as on every other citizen, to do my best, and my utmost, to bring to light the perpetrators of this crime.

its hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him.

The room was uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to strike. The fatal blow is given! and the victim passes, without a struggle, or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death! It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work; and he yet plies the dagger, though it was obvious that he had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it aan over the

ture, he explores the wrist for the pulse! Hə feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer! It is accomplished. The deed is done! He retreats, retraces his steps to the windew, passes out through it, as he came in, and eg capes. He has done the murder,-no eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe!

It was a cool, calculating, money-making murder. It was all "hire and salary, not revenge." It was the weighing of money against life: the counting out of so many pieces of silver, against so many ounces of blood. An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder, for mere pay. Truly, here is a new lesson for painters and poets.

Whosoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of Murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited in one example, where such example was last to have been looked for, in the very bosom of our New England society, let him not give the grim visage of Moloch, the brow, knitted by revenge, the face, black with settled hate, and the blood-shot eye, emitting livid fires of malice.

Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smoothfaced, bloodless demon; a picture in repose, rather than in action; not so much an example of human nature, in its depravity, and in its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal nature, a fiend, in the ordinary display, and develop ment of his character.

The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness, equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances, now clearly in evidence, spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof -a healthful old man to whom sleep was sweet;-the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace.

The assassin enters, through the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apart ment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half-lighted by the moon; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on

through all disguises, and beholds everything, as in the splendor of noon, such secrets of guili are never safe from detection even by men.

True it is, generally speaking, that "mur der will out." True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those, who break the great law of Heaven, by shedding man's blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Especially, in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must come, and will come, sooner or later. Å thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, everything, every circumstance, con nected with the time and place; a thousand cars catch every whisper; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery.

Meantime, the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself; or rather, it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it The human heart was not made for the resi dence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it dares not acknowledge to God or man.

A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no assistance, or sympathy, either from heaven, or earth. The secret, which the murderer possesses, soon comes to possess him; and, like the evil spirits, of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master.

It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarass him, and the net of circumstance to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles, with still greater violence, to burst forth. It must be confessed, it will be confessed, there is no refuge from confession, but suicide, and suicide is confession.

612. ANTONY'S ORATION OVER CESAR.
Friends, Romans, Countrymen: Lend me your
I come to bury Cesar, not to praise him. [ears,
The evil, that men do, lives after them;
The good-is oft interred with their bones:
So, let it be with Cesar! Noble Brutus
Hath told you, Cesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously-hath Cesar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honorable man,
So are they all, all honorable men)
Come I to speak-in Cesar's funeral-

He was my friend, faithful, and just to me:
But Brutus says-he was ambitious;
And Brutus-is an honorable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms-did the general coffers fill:
Did this, in Cesar, seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Cesar hath wept;
Ambition, should be made of sterner stuff;
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus--is an honorable man.
You all did see, that, on the Lupercal,
I thrice presented him-a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice-refuse; Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious;
And sure, he is an honorable man.

I speak not to disprove-what Brutus spoke,
But here I am, to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once; not without cause:
What cause witholds you, then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason! Bear with me:
My heart is in the coffin there-with Cesar;
And I must pause, till it come back to me.
But yesterday, the word of Cesar-might
Have stood against the world! now, lies he there,
And none so poor-to do him reverence.
O masters! if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds-to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong;
Who, you all know, are honorable men.
I will not do them wrong-I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men.
But here's a parchment, with the seal of Cesar;
I found it in his closet; 'tis his will:
Let but the commons-hear this testament,
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,)
And they would go, and kiss dead Cesar's wounds,
And dip their napkins-in his sacred blood-
Yen, beg a hair of him, for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills;
Beqeathing it, as a rich legacy,

Unto their issue.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now
You all do know this mantle: I remember
The first time ever Cesar put it on ;
Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent;
That day-he overcome the Nervii-
Look! in this place-ran Cassius' dagger through,
Bee, what a rent-the envious Casca made:
Through this, the well beloved Brutus stabbed,
And, as he plucked his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cesar followed it!
Th's, was the most unkindest cut of all!

For when the noble Cesar-saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arins,
Quite vanquished him: then, Lurst-his might
And, in his mantle, mafiling up his face, [heart;
Even at the base of Pompey's statue,

(Which all the while ran blood) great Cesar-fell
O what fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I, and you, and all of us--fell down,
Whilst bloody treason--flourished over us.
O, now you weep: and, I perceive, you feel
The dint of pity: these are gracious drops.
Kind souls! what, weep you, when you but bel old
Our Cesar's vesture wounded? Look you here!
Here is himself,-marred, as you see, by traitors
Good friends! sweet friends! let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny.

They, that have done this deed, are honorable;
What private griefs they have, alas! I know not,
That made them do it; they are wise, and honorɑ-
| And will, no doubt, with reason answer you. [ble,
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts;
I am no orator, as Brutus is;

But, as you know me all. a plain-blunt man,
That love my friend-and that they know full well,
That gave ine public leave, to speak of him.
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor power of speech,
To stir men's blood-I only speak right on:
I tell you that which you yourselves do know--
Show you sweet Cesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb
And bid them speak for me.
But were I-Brutus,

[mouths,

And Brutus-Antony, there were an Antony-
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Cesar, that should move
The stones of Rome-to rise and mutiny.

613. THE INVALID ABROAD. It is a sad

thing, to feel that we must die, away from our own home. Tell not the invalid, who is yearning after his distant country, that the atmos phere around him is soft, that the gales are filled with balin, and that the flowers are springing from the green earth; he knows, that the softest air to his heart, would be the air, whicn hangs over his native land; that, more gratefully than all the gales of the south, would breathe low whispers of anxious affection, that the very icicles, clinging to his own eaves, and snow, beating against his own windows, would be far more pleasant to his eyes, than the bloom and verdure, which only inore forcibly remind him, how far he is from that one spot, which is dearer to him, than all the world beside. He may, indeed, find estimable friends, who will do all in their power to promote his comfort, and assuage liis pans; but they cannot supply the place of the long known and long loved; they cannot read, as in a book, the mute language of his face; they have not learned to wait upon his habits, and anticipate his wants, and he has not learned to communicate, without hesitation, all his wishes, impressions, and thoughts to them. He feels that he is a stranger; and a more desolate feeling than that, could not visit his soul. How much is expressed, by that form of oriental benediction," Muy you die among your kindred."—Greenwood.

All, who joy would win,

Must share it,—happiness-was Lorn a twin He is unhappy, who is never satisfied.

614. THE LIFE OF A DRUNKARD. If you would mark the misery, which drunkenness infuses into the cup of domestic happiness, go with me to one of those nurseries of crime, a common tippling shop, and there behold, collected till midnight, the fathers, the husbands, the sons, and the brothers of a neighborhood. Bear witness to the stench, and the filthiness around them. Hearken to the oaths, the obscen ty, and the ferocity of their conversation. Observe their idiot laugh; record the vulgar jest, with which they are delighted, and tell me, what potent sorcery has so transformed these men, that, for this loathsome den, they should forego all the delights of an innocent, and lovely fireside.

But let us follow some of them home, from the scene of their debauch. There is a young man, whose accent, and gait, and dress, bespeak the communion, which he once has held, with something better than all this. He is an only son. On him, the hopes of parents, and of sisters have centred. Every nerve of that family has been strained, to give to that intellect, of which they all were proud, every means of choicest cultivation. They have denied themselves, that nothing should be wanting, to enable him to enter his profession, ander every advantage. They gloried in his talents, they exulted in the first buddings of his youthful promise, and they were looking forward to the time when every labor should be repaid, and every self-denial rewarded, by the joys of that hour, when he should stand forth in all the blaze of well-carned, and indisputable professional pre-eminence. Alas, these visions are less bright than once they were!

Enter that family circle. Behold those aged parents, surrounded by children, lovely and beloved. Within that circle reign peace, vir tue, intelligence, and refinement. The evening has been spent, in animated discussion, in innocent pleasantry, in the sweet interchange of affectionate endearment. There is one, who used to share all this, who was the centre of this circle. Why is he not here? Do professional engagements, of late, so estrange him from home! The hour of devotion has arrived. They kneel before their Father and their God. A voice, that used to mingle in their praises, is absent. An hour rolls away. Where now has all that cheerfulness fled! Why does every effort to rally, sink them deeper in despondency? Why do those parents look so wistfully around, and why do they start at the sound of every footstep? Another hour has gone. That lengthened peal is too much for a mother's endurance. She can conceal the well known cause no longer. The unanswered question is wrung from her lips, Where, oh where, is my son?

The step of that son and brother is heard. The door is opened. He staggers in before them, and is stretched out at their feet, in all the loathsomeness of beastly intoxication.

615. SERPENT OF THE STILL.

They tell me of the Egyptian asp,
The bite of which-is death;
The victim, yielding with a gasp,
His hot, and hurried breath.
The Egyptian queen, says history,
The reptile vile applied;
And in the arms of agony,
Victoriously died.

Y

They tell me, that, in Italy,
There is a reptile dread,
The sting of which-is agony,

And dooms the victim dead.
But, it is said, that music's sound,
May soothe the poisoned part,
Yea, heal the galling, ghastly woun
And save the sinking heart.
They tell me, too, of serpents vast,
That crawl on Afric's shore,
And swallow men-historians past
Tell us of one of yore:-
But there is yet, one, of a kind,

More fatal-than the whole,

That stings the body, and the mind, Yea, it devours the soul.

'Tis found almost o'er all the earth,

Save Turkey's wide domains; And there, if e'er it had a birth,

'Tis kept in mercy's chains. Tis found in our own gardens gay, In our own flowery fields; Devouring, every passing day, Its thousands-at its meals. The poisonous venom withers youth, Blasts character, and health; All sink before it--hope, and truth, And comfort, joy, and wealth. It is the author, too, of shame; And never fails to kill.

Reader, dost thou desire the name? The SERPENT OF THE STILL.

THE WORLD AT A DISTANCE.

'Tis pleasant-through the loopholes of retreat, To peep at such a world; to see the stir Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd; To hear the roar she sends, through all her gates At a safe distance, where the dying sound, Falls a soft murmur-on the uninjured ear. Thus sitting, and surveying, thus at ease, The globe, and its concerns, I seem advanced To some secure, and more than mortal height, That liberates, and exempts me, from them all It turns submitted to my view, turns round With all its generations; I behold The tumult, and am still. The sound of warHas lost its terrors, ere it reaches me; Grieves, but alarms me not. I mourn the pride And avarice, that make man-a wolf to man; Hear the faint echo-of those brazen throats, By which he speaks the language of his heart, And sigh, but never tremble, at the sound.

He travels, and expatiates; as the bee, From flower to flower, so he-from and to land; The manners, customs, policy of all, Pay contribution-to the store he gleans; He sucks intelligence-in every clime, And spreads the honey-of his deep research, At his return-a rich repast for me. He travels, and I too. I trend his deck, Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes Discover countries, with a kindred heart Suffer his woes, and share in his escapes; While fancy, like the finger of a clock, Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.

Red battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock.