that the republicanism of Mexico will be permanent. | to go out, or to shelter ourselves. The mornings now Aristocracy, of course, reduces the highest class of so- are only a little cool, although we are in mid-winter; ciety to a limited number, so that a large assemblage of and our tables are supplied with fruit as bountifully as ladies here would be thought small in the United States. in the months of July and August. Our other ills are At whatever hour you invite company, it will not in like manner trivial. We are sometimes ennuyés collect before nine, and the most fashionable appear for want of society, but books, and sometimes a game between ten and eleven. The music soon invites them of chess, enable us to live without being driven to the to the waltz, or to the Spanish country-dance, both of commission of suicide. And as a dernier resort, we which are graceful, and perhaps voluptuous, when throw ourselves into the arms of Morpheus, this being danced, as in Mexico, to the music of guitars or of ban- the peculiar delightful climate for sleep-no mosquitos, dolines. They dance upon brick floors-there are none nor extremes of heat or cold. The thermometer ordiother in Mexican houses-generally bare, but foreigners narily ranges at about 70° of Fahrenheit. have introduced the more comfortable fashion of covering them with canvass; and as the steps are simple, without the hopping and restlessness of our cotillons or SCENES FROM AN UNPUBLISHED DRAMA, quadrilles, it is not so unpleasant as would be supposed; they glide over the pavement without much exertion. The dancing continues, not uninterruptedly as with us, but at intervals, until twelve o'clock, when the ladies are conducted to the supper table, which must be loaded with substantial as well as sweet things. After supper, dancing is continued, and the company begins to disperse between one and two in the morning, and sometimes not until near daybreak.

None of the wealthy families have followed the example set them by foreigners. They give no balls or dinners. Although I have now been here six months, I have never dined in a Mexican house in the city. Their hospitality consists in this: they place their houses and all they possess at your disposal, and are the better pleased the oftener you visit them, but they rarely, if ever, offer you refreshments of any kind. It is said that they are gratified if you will dine with them unceremoniously, but they never invite you.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

I.

ROME. A Lady's apartment, with a window open and looking

into a garden. Lalage, in deep mourning, reading at a table
on which lie some books and a hand mirror. In the back
ground Jacinta (a servant maid) leans carelessly upon a chair.
Lalage. Jacinta! is it thou?

Jacinta (pertly.) Yes, Ma'am, I'm here.
Lalage. I did not know, Jacinta, you were in waiting.
Sit down!-let not my presence trouble you-
Sit down!-for I am humble, most humble.
Jacinta (aside.) 'Tis time.

(Jacinta seats herself in a side-long manner upon
the chair, resting her elbows upon the back, and
regarding her mistress with a contemptuous
look. Lalage continues to read.)

Lalage. "It in another climate, so he said, "Bore a bright golden flower, but not i' this soil!"

(pauses-turns over some leaves, and resumes.) 31st December, 1825. I can scarcely persuade my- "No lingering winters there, nor snow, nor showerself that to-morrow will be New-Year's day. The "But Ocean ever to refresh mankind weather is most delightful. We are now sitting with "Breathes the shrill spirit of the western wind.” our windows open-at night too. About a fortnight Oh, beautiful!-most beautiful!—how like ago the mornings were uncomfortably cool; but the sun To what my fevered soul doth dream of Heaven! at mid-day is always hot. What a delightful climate! | O happy land! (pauses.) She died!—the maiden died! And we are now eating the fruits of a northern mid- O still more happy maiden who could'st die! summer. We have always had fresh oranges since our arrival. A week since we had green peas; and to-day five different kinds of fruit appeared upon our tableoranges, apples, walnuts, granadites de China, and chi-Told of a beauteous dame beyond the sea! rimoyas—the last, la reina de los frutos, (the queen of Thus speaketh one Ferdinand in the words of the playfruit,) tasting like strawberries and cream. "She died full young"-one Bossola answers him

The mar

Jacinta!

(Jacinta returns no answer, and Lalage presently resumes.) Again!-a similar tale

kets contain numerous other sorts. Our friends at home"I think not so!-her infelicity

are now gathering around the glowing coals, or tread- | Seem'd to have years too many”—Ah luckless lady! ing the snow without. We see the former in the kitch-Jacinta! (still no answer.) en only the latter on the valcanoes which tower in the distance.

*

7th December, 1827. A letter from home affords me the satisfaction of knowing that our friends generally continue to enjoy good health, and are subject to none other than the ordinary ills of life, such as cut-throat weather, squalling brats, or a twinge or two of gout or rheumatism. These are evils which humanity is decreed to suffer throughout the world; but in Mexico we are more exempt from most of them than elsewhere. The sun now shines twelve hours of every day, and either the moon or stars give light to the other twelve. Such will the weather continue to be until May or June, when the rains fall with such regularity and certainty, that very slight observation enables us to know when

Here's a far sterner story

But like-oh! very like in its despair-
Of that Egyptian queen, winning so easily
A thousand hearts-losing at length her own.
She died. Thus endeth the history—and her maids
Lean over her and weep-two gentle maids
With gentle names-Eiros and Charmion!
Rainbow and Dove!―Jacinta !

Jacinta (pettishly.) Madam, what is it?

Lalage. Wilt thou, my good Jacinta, be so kind
As go down in the library and bring me
The Holy Evangelists.

Jacinta. Pshaw! (exit.)
Lalage. If there be balm

For the wounded spirit in Gilead it is there!

There is a vow were fitting should be madc—
A sacred vow, imperative, and urgent,
A solemn vow!

Monk. Daughter, this zeal is well!
Lalage. Father, this zeal is any thing but well!

That's meant for me. (aside) I'm sure, Madam, you Hast thou a crucifix fit for this thing?

For ruin'd maid. Fair mirror and true!-thou liest not! I live-I live.
Thou hast no end to gain-no heart to break-
Castiglione lied who said he loved-

Thou true-he false!-false!-false!

(while she speaks a monk enters her apartment, To give thee cause for grief, my honored friend.
and approaches unobserved.)
Command me, sir, what wouldst thou have me do?
At thy behest I will shake off that nature

Sweet daughter! in Heaven. Think of eternal things! Which from my forefathers I did inherit,
Give up thy soul to penitence, and pray!
Which with my mother's milk I did imbibe,

Lalage (arising hurriedly.) I cannot pray!-My soul And be no more Politian, but some other.

Politian. Weep not! oh, weep not thus-thy bitter | Far less a shadow which thou likenest to it,

[Published by request of the Institute.]

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Institute:

I am to offer you, and this large assembly, some thoughts upon EDUCATION, as a means of preserving the Republican Institutions of our country.

The sentiment of the Roman Senate, who, upon their general's return with the shattered remains of a great army from an almost annihilating defeat, thanked and applauded him for not despairing of the Republic, has, in later times, been moulded into an apothegm of political morality; and few sayings, of equal dignity, are now more hackneyed, than that "A good citizen will never despair of the commonwealth." I

I shall hope to escape the anathema, and the charge of disloyalty to our popular institutions, implied in the terms of this apothegm, if I doubt, somewhat, its unqualified truth; when you consider how frequently omens of ruin, overclouding the sky of our country, have constrained the most unquestionable republican patriot's heart to quiver with alarm, if not to sink in despair. When a factious minority, too strong to be punished as traitors, treasonably refuse to rally under their country's flag, in defence of her rights and in obedience to her laws; when a factious majority, by partial legislation, pervert the government to the ends of self-aggrandizement or tyranny; when mobs dethrone justice, by assuming to be her ministers, and rush madly to the destruction of property or of life; when artful demagogues, playing upon the credulity or the bad passions of a confiding multitude, sway them to measures the most adverse to the public good; or when a popular chief (though he were a Washington) contrives so far to plant his will in the place of law and of policy, that the people approve or condemn both measures and men, mainly if not solely, by his judgment or caprice; and when all history shews these identical causes (the offspring of ignorance and vice) to have overthrown every proud republic of former times;-then, surely, a Marcus Brutus or an Algernon Sidney,-the man whose heart is the most irrevocably sworn to liberty, and whose life, if required, would be a willing sacrifice upon her altars-must find the most gloomy forebodings often haunting his thoughts, and darkening his hopes.

supported by all the powers of reasoning and persuasion, in discussing not only systems of measures, but their minutest details, year after year, before successive councils, in successive generations: and supposing the machinery of Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary to be so simple or so happily adjusted, that an idiot might propel it, and a school-lad with the first four rules of arithmetic-or even "a negro boy with his knife and tally stick"-might regulate its movements and record their results; still, those other objects demand all the comprehension and energies of no contracted or feeble mind. Nor are these qualities needful only to the actual administrators of the government. Its proprietors, the people, must look both vigilantly and intelligently to its administration: for so liable is power to continual abuse; so perpetually is it tending to steal from them to their steward or their agent; that if they either want the requisite sagacity to judge of his acts, or substitute a blind confidence in him for that wise distrust, which all experience proves indispensable to the preservation of power in the people,-it will soon be their power no longer. A tame surrender of it to him is inevitable, unless they comprehend the subjects of his action well enough to judge the character of his acts: unless they know something of that vast and diversified field of policy, of duty, and of right, in which they have set him to labor. Yes-in its least perplexed form, on its most diminutive scale, the task of selfgovernment is a perilously difficult one; difficult, in proportion to its nobleness: calling for the highest attributes of the human character. What, then, must it be, in a system so complex as ours? Two sets of public functionaries, to appoint and superintend: two sets of machinery to watch, and keep in order: each of them not only complicated within itself, but constantly tending to clash with the other. Viewing the State government alone, how many fearful dissensions have arisen, as to the extent of its powers, and the propriety of its acts! Turning then to the Federal government, how much more awful and numerous controversies, respecting both the constitutionality and expediency of its measures, have, within half a century, convulsed the whole Union! No less than three conjunctures within that time, threatening us with disunion and civil war; not to mention the troubles of the elder Adams' administration, the conspiracy of Burr, the Missouri dispute, or the cloud (now, I trust, about to disperse) which has just been lowering in our northern sky. To the complexity of our two governments, separately considered, add the delicate problems daily springing from their relations with one another, and from the mutual relations of the twenty-four states-disputes concerning territory; claims urged by citizens of one, against another state; or wrongs done to some states, by citizens and residents of others-all these, and innumerable other questions, involving each innumerable ramifications, continually starting up to try the wisdom and temper, if not to mar the peace, of our country;-and say, if there are words forcible and emphatic enough to express the need, that the POPULAR WILL, which зupremely controls this labyrinthine complication of difficulties, should be enlightened by knowledge, tempered by kindness, and ruled by justice?

Indeed, at the best, it is no trivial task, to conduct the affairs of a great people. Even in the tiny republics of antiquity, some twenty of which were crowded into a space less than two-thirds of Virginia,-government was no such simple machine, as some fond enthusiasts would have us believe it might be. The only very simple form of government, is despotism. There, every question of policy, every complicated problem of state economy, every knotty dispute respecting the rights or interests of individuals or of provinces, is at once solved by the intelligible and irreversible sic volo of a Nicholas or a Mohammed. But in republics, there are passions to soothe; clashing interests to reconcile; jarring opinjons to mould into one result, for the general weal. To effect this, requires extensive and accurate knowledge, ber, 1829.

*Mr. Randolph's Speech in the Virginia Convention, NovemVOL. II.-3