that haunted me, nor was it that I saw no field in which my talents would serve me; I saw nothing but variance among men; I saw that to do as the multitude, I must chain my thoughts to subjects the most insignificant of any that could engage them; and I said, earth has not an allurement that shall win me from the contemplation of truth,—if there be truth in which the mind can ever rest.

In my present apathy, I look back with astonishment at the enthusiasm that possessed me-improvident-ignorant of what constituted my happiness. Now, what part, I exclaimed, was I sent here to act? No philosophy had consolation for me, with my sombre views of men and life, and worse, my ill defined hopes of what might lie beyond it. Yet, thrust into the world, I felt that my only hope was in striving to gloss over the realities of an active existence, with something of that imagined beauty which they have to other men,-wondering what strange obliquity deformed every thing I saw.

I am well convinced that the difference in men's mental capacities is not more radical than in the temperament resulting from the influence of the body on the mind, and characterizing every action of the intellect; the nature of which is too subtle to be scrutinized. It is not something formed or superinduced. The same circumstances of education and association, as far as may be, acting upon very similar capacities, yet want much to make the same man. Our physical constitution rules our lives. There is your contented mind, and your restless, inquisitive mind-the one calmly indifferent to the world and its mysteries as such, or making a wise faith a salvo for his ignorance; squaring his conduct to a worldly policy—perhaps rising to the height of human ambition, worldly wise ;-I have observed such another, seeing nothing in him or about him in which to rest satisfied, yet panting for a perfection of the possibility of which he cannot certify himself, and all efforts for which he sees in the history of his species to have been futile. I can hardly yet resolve me, which of them is truly wise-true at least it is that the latter is but natural.

What a record for my first score of years is this! If I scan ever so closely the tablets on which they have left their indelible impressions, I find no action-no event. It all is a succession of heartwearying hopes and fears. The spring-time of life blighted by cares self imposed!

And this general distrust-this almost pyrrhonism-these heartsick longings-these cynic moralizings were sapping the vigor of my body. I had always felt that there is a spark of something not transient in our natures, which I must fan and feed for a future state. I felt, in what I thought a spirit of calm philosophy, that if life had nothing worth an endeavor, I might at least retire into myself, and aim at the happiness of true virtue, and ponder a method, derived from observation and the experience of my fellow-men. But inactivity and melancholy meditation were corroding my very frame.

What sensation is there like that that tells us of the lamp of life going slowly out within us! "Oh!" I would sometimes exclaim, "Is there nothing truly, lastingly beautiful or satisfactory, where there is such apparent complacence!" There is indeed one source, which is all this and more. The bright, the divinely ordered world of matter, that I have less esteemed than the labyrinthian workings of human reason. The features of external nature are healthy-always radiant with the joy which her animating soul inspires-I must see new scenes-I must seek new circumstances.

I thought I had found a constant theme!

In this mind, I resolved on foreign travel to recruit my health and refresh my spirit. I dreamed of unusual pleasures in the strange sights of the old world, and can say I found something of it; and though I read only a condemnation of the pride of man, in the decay of his every work, yet, in the beautiful lineaments of the pervading mind so visibly impressed on nature, I found that on which I could meditate with delight-I found that to which I felt an alliance of something in me.

Thus I whiled away some years abroad-years never to be forgotten!—my mind ever exercised by the new and the beautiful, till at last weariness began to succeed to this too, and worked the revolution in my sentiments that has left me what I am, and what I shall remain-yet that has opened my eyes only when too late. Could I banish that hour from my recollection, I know not if I would: abasing as was the lesson-still it was salutary.

What is the loneliness of ruins, to that which greets us in pleasureseeking throngs, in Boulevards and Alamedas, where even life and joy are vapid to the mind, that centres by habit in itself! Though in a few short hours, gay thousands shall pass before your eyes, you may never find yourself so desolate as then.

What feelings came over me in such a scene, as I thought of closing my profitless wanderings! Memory was busy among the days of my past life. How I started-how I now start, to see the little there is upon which reflection loves to dwell. To what end have the marvels of nature and art that I have studied, impressed me? What do they teach me? What permanent resort yield, for restless faculties? Yet in my green days, I find myself as one that has grown old in the ways of the world. Oh! the vain task of severing one's self from an intercourse that we were made for! I have tested every means of rational happiness but one-the happiness that lies in any of the active, absorbing businesses of life. Let me leave these shores where I have lingered too long-I will return to friends and familiar places-I will dash into the current of life-I will contest for some one of the rewards of exertion!

And I am returned-I landed last spring on these busy shoresNature was renewing her existence-I seemed waking to new lifemy pulse heaved with new excitement. When lo! the silent finger

was still at work within-a hollow cheek and faded countenance, told me that the mental malady had possessed me too long for hope. I am clearly in the decline of my short day. My heart strives not to deceive itself. With talents-with acquirements-with garnered wisdom, oftentimes dear bought-I contemplate a blank existence! And why? In truth,

"The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree

I planted"—

I sought what the present life will not yield.

Had I early seized on the present-forgotten the past, and been reckless of the future, I might now be hurrying forward in the great crowd-buoyant with life-revelling in success

WHAT does not fade and die? Mark ye the earth-
Its fairest flowers but blossom to decay;
And man, its lord-scarce learn we of his birth,
Ere life's last sun has closed his fleeting day;

And all his proud creations—what are they?
Mere transient mockeries of his idle power;

Time turns his glass-like clouds they've passed away;
And Change sits monarch of the flying hour.

Assyria once upraised her princely head,

The mother-queen of luxury and pride;

And Egypt, too, with her uncrumbling dead

And massive temples, Time's stern power defied.

And early Greece in classic splendor shone,
The light and glory of the mystic past;

And Rome's broad empire reared its golden throne-
Of ancient realms the strongest and the last.

These once rejoicing in their manly strength,

Thought not that change could on their vigor seize,
Or that brief years could measure out their length,
And Time the current of their life-streams freeze.
But lo! their glory and their pride have fled-

Their names scarce known, save on the classic page,
Their bustling myriads slumbering with the dead,
And half their deeds long perished with old age.

And cities, too, though bound with massive walls,
And built with palaces, plunge, as would seem,
Beneath Time's flood from off high rocks, as falls
The autumn leaf down on the dusky stream.
Great Babylon arose and sunk, and none

Can now point out the ashes of her dead;
Palmyra, too, scarce shows a crumbling stone-
Her gold has cankered and her glory fled.

Thebes, with her brazen gates and winding tombs,
Has gone, as evanescent bubbles go;

And e'en in Athens the wild thistle blooms,

While sculptured marble mould'ring lies below.
Time's breath has swept the seven hills of Rome,
And blown that mistress of the earth away,
Though once she seemed as distant from her doom,
As e'en the mountains upon which she lay.

Thus fades all human grandeur; words in sand
Last not more briefly on the ocean's shore,
Than fame, and power, and all that these command,
When Time's dark-heaving billows on them pour.
Yet light comes from their ruins;-man may lay
Proud plans of empire, yea, may blindly deem
His fond creations lasting; still, one ray

Faint-streaming from the past, dispels the dream.

The future, too-how clearly one brief glance
Back on the mirror of departed years

Reveals, like magic power in old romance,

Dim coming scenes; and oh, what change appears!— Old Europe's plains a dismal forest bear

The gloomy home of some barbarian race;

Her sculptured piles o'ershade the lion's lair,

And light canoes her storied streams disgrace.

These rock-bound shores, where erst did Freedom reign, Again barbarians trample with delight,

While on the borders of the western main

A mighty empire bursts upon our sight.

A new Britannia in New Holland lies,

A second France on China's fruitful plain,

While German States, o'erarched by Birman skies,
From learning's mines the gems of science gain.

Thus change comes over all. And e'en the rocks
Of rugged, bald-head mountains, that dare stay
The storm's dark fury and the lightning's shocks,
The deep-worn wrinkles of old age betray.
Yet all things are not thus. While time shall be,
Though man, and man's productions come and go,
The same blue sky shall roll, the same green sea,

The same sun shine, and same bland breezes blow.

"WELL, Ned! I wax rather sleepy-how do you wax?" quoth Bill Easter, one evening, as longitudinally occupying some dozen chairs, we lay snoring in full concert to the tune of Old Hundred.'

"Who did you say she was going to marry?" yawned out Dick Harvey-a chap, at that time, well known to be rather the 'worse for love,' which said love, however, though it bound him rather closely to the heart of Susan M-, nevertheless, by no means destroyed the various qualities of 'good fellowship,' which every one could testify that he naturally possessed.

"Ha! ha! ha!" roared Bill, "you don't know then? eh! that's too bad. But come, fellow, wake up! )!"

Bill's injunction came a little too late; for his hearty laugh, together with Dick's mistake, a confused idea of which was still running in my mind, had fully roused us, and there we now sat-I confusedly rubbing my eyes, but Dick, by this time, fully alive to the dangers of his perilous situation in having so unguardedly given vent to the feelings of his heart.

Many better jokes having undoubtedly been made known to the world, than those which were then and there cracked by us over poor Dick's head, we therefore spare the reader a recital of ours, but few, we dare wager, ever caused more hearty laughter, than that which ever and anon rang through that room. To do Dick justice, however, he ran the gauntlet most manfully, never flinching in the least, but ever, as some one appeared more keen than its predecessors, crying out

lay on, Macduff,

And curs't be he that first cries 'hold! enough.'"

In fine, as Jack Downing would say, "he grinned and bore it," which we advise others to do in all disagreeable situations, pledging our word that they will find marvelous comfort in this same remedy. But to all things there's an end, as well as a 'time,' and at last even we came to a pause, decidedly to Dick's relief. A most awful stillness ensued, and Dick's head was already commencing anew its vibrations, when Bill, in a most sepulchral tone, offered the following resolution—

"Resolved, that for the promotion of cur corporeal welfare, and for the further invigoration of our drooping spirits, we as a body, will, and hereby do adjourn to the tabernacle of our friend Dike."