which was entitled to take the Lone Bird to his lodge. It was then proposed that they should leap: they did so, but neither could surpass the other the breadth of a hair. They were directed to go into the forest and hunt, and the Lone Bird should be the prize of the most successful. They went, and next day the Bending Bow returned bearing the scalps of twenty bears that he had slain, and they all cried aloud, the Bending Bow will bear the Lone Bird to his home! Just then an exulting shout was heard in the forest, and Who-strikesthe-game bounding into their midst, also threw twenty scalps of the bear at the feet of the old men. Then was Wah-bon troubled, for he saw in this the hand of the Great Spirit. And he sought his lodge, and there he found his daughter bowed to the ground, and her eyes were red with weeping. raised her up kindly, and asked, "WhereHe fore dost thou weep, my daughter?" And the Lone Bird answered: "Are you not my father? Is not the lodge of Wah-bon large enough for his daughter ?" | and their steps were slow, and she knew that they must soon die. She leaned her head upon her hand, and she felt that she was all alone. At her feet the sun had melted away the snow, and the young flow face; and then she saw, for the first time, ers of spring looked modestly up in her and that they seemed to lend beauty one that they grew in pairs, two on a stem, to the other. Lone Bird, "I have never noticed this be "It is strange," said the fore-it is very strange!" Just then sh heard a merry chirping above her head. and looking up she saw that the birds were returning from the south, and again spreadnorth. She saw also, that they nestled ing themselves through the forests of the together, two and two, and she exclaimed, ers blossom alone!" At that momen "Neither do the birds sing, nor the flowand with much noise they alighted on the swept over a great flight of water-fowl bosom of the lake. She looked as they and lo, they glided over the water in pairs flung up the spray on their glad wings And then the thoughts of the Lone Bra loneliness more than ever. returned to herself again, and she felt her flected on her coldness to the young war And she reriors of her nation, and thought of the reproof of her father, and she said despondingly: "Oh, I love not! I love not! I am all alone! Alas! why did the Great Spirit fill the breasts of the birds with that love which he denies to his Then was the heart of Wah-bon moved; he kissed his child, and he said, "Never shall the Lone Bird leave the lodge of Wah-bon." And he returned to his people on the shore of the lake, and told them it was the will of the Great Spirit that his daughter should not leave him; and the old men responded, "It is the will of the Great Spirit!" and the young war-daughter?" and she bowed her head and riors and the women all returned to their homes. Then were the eyes of the Lone Bird filled with gladness. The summer and the autumn passed, and the snows of winter began to melt, and Wah-bon went forth on the sunny slope of the hill to make sugar. His daughter accompanied and assisted him, and in vessels of bark gathered together the sweet juice of the maples. One day when the smoke was curling slowly up from her father's fire on the slope of the hill, and the warm sun shone mildly down among the trees, that seemed to live beneath its glow, the Lone Bird seated herself on a bare rock, and looked around her. And though all was bright and beautiful, yet she was sad. thought of her father and mother; they She still lived, but their heads had grown gray wept. The Lone Bird sat long, wrapped in home, it was evening. The full moon had her meditations, and when she rose to go just lifted its disk of silver, without a spot the great lake, upon which the tiny waves to mar its brightness, above the waters of leaped up joyously as if to catch the slanting beams upon their crests. The Lone Bird radiant under its mild light, and stretching gazed upon the moon, and her face grew forth her arms as if she would clasp it, she exclaimed, "Oh, how beautiful thou art! Would that I had such as thee to love: then would the Lone Bird no longer sorsow in her loneliness!" The Great Manitou heard the voice of she uttered these words than he transthe Ojibway maiden, and no sooner had ferred her to the bosom of the moon. where her image is seen to this day. | grounds, and the graves of their fathers Great was the lamentation in the lodge of are unhonored; but still the spring comes, Wah-bon, because the Lone Bird returned the little flowers still blossom on the slope not; but when her father lifted his eyes of the hill, the birds nestle together among to the Great Spirit in heaven, he there the budding branches, the wild fowl toss saw his daughter in the embraces of the up the waters on their wings, and still the moon; then Wah-bon sorrowed no more Lone Bird looks down upon the daughters for the loss of his child. of her nation, who trace her form in the disk of the moon, and tell her strange story by the light of the lodge-fire, in the long nights of autumn. E. G. S. Many, very many snows have passed, and the Ojibways have become small and weak; the stranger occupies their hunting WILLIAM GODWIN was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable men of his time. The boldness of his opinions, the force and sincerity with which he enunciated them, the graphic force, unflagging interest, and sweet melodious style of his novels, contrasted strangely with his quiet, retired course of life, taciturn habits in society, and his evenness and complacency of temper. Godwin was born at Wisbeach, in Cambridgeshire, on the 3d day of March, 1756. His father was a dissenting minister-a pious non-conformist. He was thus nurtured in a love of religious and civil liberty, without much reverence for existing authority, and with little love for "gay religions full of pomp and gold." He was educated at the dissenting college at Hoxton, and afterwards undertook the charge of a congregation in the vicinity of London, and also officiated for some time at Stowmarket, in Suffolk. His intimate acquaintance with the Scriptures displayed itself in after life, in the shape of apt quotations, which gave a grand and solemn air "Virtue alone is happiness. The happiness of a brute that spends the greater part of his life in listlessness and sleep, is but one remove from the happiness of a plant that is full of sap, vigor and nutrition. The happiness of a man who pursues licentious pleasure is momentary, and his intervals of weariness and disgust per matter, and of the perfectibility of man. Private affections and interests were to be merged in the public good. He was for establishing a glorious intellectual republic, and was also desirous of producing a work from the perusal of which no man should rise without being strengthened in habits of sincerity, fortitude and justice. Hazlitt justly and finely observes, that on the pub-petual. He speedily wears himself out in lication of the Enquiry, Tom Paine was considered as a Tom Fool in comparison with Godwin; Paley, an old woman; Burke, a flashy sophist. Throw aside your books of chemistry, said Wordsworth to a young student in the Temple, and read "Godwin on Necessity." The fault of Mr. Godwin's philosophy was too much ambition: he conceived too nobly of his fellows, and raised the standard of morality above the reach of humanity, and by directing virtue to airy and romantic heights her path became dangerous, solitary and impracticable. Godwin was earnest in the matter even "to the red heart's core," and with no shadows of misgiving. The style is persuasive and glowingly eloquent; "faster than springtime showers comes thought on thought." The Enquiry was highly successful. The entire tone and spirit of the book will clearly appear from the following extracts, which speak for themselves. his specious career; and every time that he employs the means of delight which his corporeal existence affords him, takes so much from his capacity of enjoyment. If he be wise enough, like Epicurus, to perceive a part of these advantages, and to find in fresh herbs and the water of the spring the truest gratification of his appetite, he will be obliged to seek some addition to his stock of enjoyment, and like Epicurus to become benevolent out of pure sensuality. But the virtuous man has a perpetual source of enjoyment. The only reason on account of which the truth of this assertion was ever controverted is, that men have not understood what it was that constituted virtue. It is impossible that any situation can occur in which vi tue cannot find room to expatiate. It society there is continual opportunity for its active employment. I cannot have intercourse with any human being who may not be the better for that intercourse. If "If there be any meaning in courage, its he be already just and virtuous, the first ingredient must be the daring to speak qualities are improved by communicati the truth at all times, to all persons and in It is from a similar principle that it has bee every possible situation. What is it but the observed, that great geniuses have ususly want of courage that should prevent me from existed in a cluster, and have been av saying, Sir, I ought to refuse your chal- kened by the fire struck into them by their lenge. What I ought to do, that I dare do. neighbors. If he be imperfect and errvae Have I injured you? I will readily and ous, there must always be some prej hee without compulsion repair my injustice to I may contribute to destroy-some mere the uttermost mite. Have you miscon- to delineate some error to remove. I'l strued me? State to me the particulars, be prejudiced and imperfect myself, it ca and doubt not that what is true I will make not, however, happen that my prejus appear to be true. Thus far I will go. and imperfections shall be exactly e But, though I should be branded for a cident with his. I may, therefore, coward by all mankind, I will not repair to form him of the truths that I know, a scene of deliberate murder. I will not even by the collision of prejudices trus do an act that I know to be flagitious. I elicited. It is impossible that I sh sid will exercise my judgment upon every pro- strenuously apply myself to his mind position that comes before me; the dictates sincere motives of benevolence with of that judgment I will speak; and upon some good being the result. Nor am! them I will form my conduct.' He that more at a loss in solitude. In solitude 1 holds this language with a countenance in may accumulate the materials of saca unison with his words, will never be sus- benefit. No situation can be so desperat pected of acting from the impulse of fear." as to preclude these efforts. Fuis when shut up in the Bastille, and for aught he knew for life, deprived of books, of pens, and of paper, arranged and in part executed the project of his Henriade." "It is by no means certain that the individual ever yet existed whose life was of so much value to the community as to be worth preserving at so great an expense as that of his sincerity.' "We should be upon all occasions perfectly ingenuous, expressing with simplicity the sentiments of the heart, and speaking of ourselves, when that may be necessary, neither with ostentation and arrogance on the one hand, nor with the frequently applauded lie of a cowardly humility on the other. There is a charm in sincerity that nothing can resist. If once a man could be perfectly frank, open, and firm in all his words and actions, it would be impossible for that man to be misinterpreted." "Xerxes was not more unreasonable when he lashed the waves of the sea, than that man would be who inflicted suffering on his fellow, from a view to the past, and not from a view to the future." does not stand approved to the judgment of his own understanding;) he will be governed by something that is not reason, and ashamed of something that is not disgrace; or else every pang he endures will excite the honest indignation of his heart, and fix the clear disapprobation of his intellect, will produce contempt and alienation against his punisher." The Enquiry was followed in twelve months by a novel, "Things as they are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams," in three volumes, with the motto "Amidst the woods the leopard knows his kind; His object here was to inculcate his favorite doctrines, and to comprehend a general review of the modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism by which man becomes the destroyer of man. Caleb Williams tells his own story. The character of Falkland is one of the finest in the whole range of English fictitious com"The genuine propensity of man is to positions. It is undoubtedly a production venerate mind in his fellow-man. With of the highest originality and power. what delight do we contemplate the pro- There is in it the material, the overpowergress of intellect, its efforts for the discov-ing energy, zeal, and enthusiasm, “to have ery of truth, the harvest of virtue that springs up under the genial influence of instruction, the wisdom that is generated through the medium of unrestricted communication. How completely do violence and corporal infliction reverse the scene. From this moment all the wholesome avenues of mind are closed, and on every side we see them guarded with a train of disgraceful passions-hatred, revenge, despotism, cruelty, hypocrisy, conspiracy, and cowardice. Man becomes the enemy of man; the stronger are seized with the lust of unbridled domination, and the weaker shrink with hopeless disgust from the approach of a fellow. With what feelings must an enlightened observer contemplate the furrow of a lash imprinted upon the body of a man. What heart beats not in unison with the sublime law of antiquity-Thou shalt not inflict stripes upon the body of a Roman.' There is but one alternative in this case upon the part of the sufferer; either his mind must be subdued by the arbitrary dictates of the superior, (for to him all is arbitrary that animated a hundred schemes for the weal or woe of the species." This work has always been regarded with an unusual degree of favor by the public, and is said to be altogether the most popular novel to be found in the Circulating Libraries of England. At the publication of Political Justice he was compelled to consider his pen the sole instrument for supplying his current expenses, and Mr. George Robinson's liberality supplied him with means to live for ten years before this period, while Godwin was writing different things of obscure note, which he willingly let sink into oblivion. In 1791 he projected his favorite work, Political Justice, and from that time gave up every other occupation that might interfere with it. Robinson provided for his wants at a specified rate while the book was in the course of composition; and on the day of its publication, as far as regarded means, he was very little beforehand with the world. He then thought he would write a work of fictitious narrative in some way distinguished by a very powerful interest. He wrote the third volume of Caleb Wil- | last of all grappled with the first. He liams first, then the second, and the first wrote but a small portion in any single last. In the third volume he bent himself day. He only wrote "when the afflatus to the conception of a series of adventures was on him." He held it for a maxia. of flight and pursuit the fugitive perpetu- that any portion written when he was not ally apprehensive of being overwhelmed in the vein, told for considerably worse with the worst calamities, and the pursuer than nothing. He wrote by starts, someby his ingenuity and resources keeping his times for a week or ten days not a line. victim in a state of the most fearful alarm. On an average, a volume of Caleb WiHe was next called upon to conceive a liams cost him four months, neither less dramatic and impressive situation adequate nor more. His mind, during this time, to account for the impulse that the pur- was in a high state of excitement. He suer should feel incessantly to alarm and said to himself a thousand times, “I w♫ harass his victim with an inextinguishable write a tale that shall constitute an epoch resolution never to allow him the least in- in the mind of the reader, that no one terval of peace and security. This he ap- after he has read it shall ever be exactly prehended could best be effected by a secret the same man that he was before." Whe murder, to the investigation of which the he had written some seven-tenths of the innocent victim should be impelled by an first volume, he was prevailed upon by the unconquerable spirit of curiosity. The extreme importunity of an old and intimate murderer would thus have a sufficient mo- friend to allow him the perusal of the tive to persecute the unhappy discoverer, manuscript. On the second day he rethat he might deprive him of peace, char- turned it with a note to this purpose: "I acter, and credit, and have him forever in return you your manuscript because I his power. This constituted the outline promised to do so; if I had obeyed the of the second volume. The subject of the impulse of my own mind, I should have first volume was still to be invented. To thrust it in the fire. If you persist, the account for the fearful events of the third, book will infallibly prove the grave of it was necessary that the pursuer should your literary fame." Fortunately Godbe invested with every advantage of for- win had the good sense and firmness to tune, with a resolution that nothing could persevere. A pleasant writer observes baffle or defeat, and with extraordinary that he well remembers his first reading resources of intellect. Nor could the purCaleb Williams. He began it about nine pose of giving an extraordinary and over- o'clock at night in a lonely room; he read powering interest to the tale be answered, on and read on, forgetful of time, place. without his appearing to have been origin- and of the fact especially that his candle ally endowed with a great store of amiable was going out, when lo, at one of the most dispositions and virtues, so that his being enchaining of its situations, the candle driven to the first act of murder should suddenly dropped down, and he was in be judged worthy of the deepest regret, darkness. The family were all asleep, not and should be seen, in some measure, to a spark of light to be had, and there be have arisen out of his virtues themselves. sat with the book he had been devouring It was necessary, so to speak, to make him in his hands, pressing it in enthusiasm to the tenant of an atmosphere of romance, his breast. This happened, he says, in his so that every reader should feel prompted seventeenth year, "but we were up with almost to worship him for high qualities. the dawn and tearing out its heart.” We Here was ample material for a first read it for the first time, years ago, on a volume. He conceived this to be the best winter's night, when the snow was drive plan to produce a unity of spirit and in- against the windows by short, fitful gusts, terest to give it a powerful hold on the in a little room reader. He devoted two or three weeks to the imagining and putting down hints for the story, before he engaged seriously and methodically in its composition. On these hints he began with the third volume, then proceeded to the second, and "Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers joined To cheer the gloom;" and at times we raised our eye from the volume to gaze upon a fine portrait of |