a vessel twice as large for much less money.' 'Well,' said our young diplomat, nothing abashed, 'I'll go as cheap as any Englishman!" 'Good!' says the Governor; and now I'll order my barge, and we will go together and look at her: beside, I want a little fresh air.' So down they marched, much to the wonder of said two rooms-ful of people, the Governor all the time keeping up a sharp questioning upon various topics. He took up, as he went along, what Charley soon found out to be what we should call the Naval Constructor; for coming alongside, this officer went on board alone; the Governor and Charley remaining in the barge. When the officer came back his report was not very favorable; for after a good deal of conversation, the Governor turned and said: Why, your brig's between-decks are not laid.' 'Oh !' says Charley,' that 's easily done.'

But 't is expensive,' rejoined the Governor. Then he questioned him as to his plans, and why he wanted the charter. Charley readily replied that the trip might be performed while he had to wait to sell cargo, and thereby the brig's expenses would be saved, if nothing more, by taking the charter. Very good,' said the Governor; 'I'll take her, and you need not trouble yourself about the between-decks; I'll send the government-yard carpenter to attend to that: get the cargo all out, and I will consider your vessel as a government brig, and that will save you all port charges.'

Great was the surprise of all when the charter was known, and great the grumbling of better ships' captains.

The necessary papers were prepared by the consignee, and the brig was soon out of the expensive port with her precious freight. Charley, after disposing of the residue of his cargo, put the proceeds in his pocket, and took passage in a country vessel and went to M- where he had ordered the brig to return. By the time she arrived, he had purchased a cargo, at about his own price, and with it he left for Boston, where it was sold for a large per centage profit. During these transactions, our super-cargo received not one line from his employer, neither had the owner any knowledge of the port at which his vessel was loaded; but as all vessels then on the coast were losing nearly fifty per cent of their capital, he had made up his mind that Charley could not be better off. If our super-cargo did not feel as much elated on his return to Boston as Napoleon did on his return to Paris after his first Italian campaign, it was because his hopes were perhaps fixed on a brilliant future. His first enterprise had developed qualities of character, superior in importance to common commercial valor, which however valuable as an ally, cannot alone win the battle. There was manifested in these proceedings a true Faith, a sentiment which, when firmly entertained, banishes all mistrust, and imparts to all action its own inherent power.

No misgivings nor no devices of man can warp or annihilate it. It is as deep and lasting as the memorable incident that occurred at the 'Well of Sychar.'.

'Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come.'

Early success often proves to be a mere thread, unable to hold the freshly-impelled bark to its second moorings.

Not so with our hero, for that thread gradually waxed into a chain cable, sufficiently strong for all his future rich-freighted argosies, wherever anchored.

Unwavering faith plucks, right and left, the honors, emoluments, and successes of this world. The half-shut-up soul can never win or

wear them.

In our social Scriptures, this is the doctrine that points to salvation here; but few there are that find it.

As years roll on, our hero makes them subservient to the laudable design of attaining personal independence. His next abiding impressions were received among the Spice Islands of the East, and they caught there a hue which deepened as life advanced.

The bloom and odor of that charming region became so inwrought with all that was captivating to his senses and profitable to his purse, that they still seem to sweeten his existence.

He can never speak of Penang and its surroundings, but as a physical heaven.

Success thus far had been challenged and won, and though it expands his desires, they are made to wait on judgment. Wherever he goes, within or without the tropics, he is come to be regarded as a kind of North Star, and as earnestly consulted.

He had now reached that half-way point of existence, when a man, if ever, may project himself into other minds and discover and define motives. Accustomed to explore all seas, he was prepared to impart more useful knowledge to the denizens of remote, half-civilized islands in a day, than the learned pedant could in a month, backed by all the appliances of classics, codex, and philosophy.

He makes a capture of prejudices, where the less skilful would incur and increase them; and without any govermental commission in his pocket, he carries in his head and heart an authority that no words on parchment can either dignify or strengthen.

It is from this sturdy, full-blooded stock that proceeds our really effective commercial ambassadors. It was a remark of Socrates that the gods sell every thing to labor.' The merchant, possessing general ability and forecast is the great ally in enlarging the circumference of civilization. He is often seen penetrating into regions where the people have long lain in the ore, and there sinks a shaft that strikes and develops a long-hidden mine of material wealth; and not infrequently has the enthroned monarch become his pupil in the science of political economy, stirring up his dormant energies to a new development of his means and a brighter destiny for his people.

The race of hero-merchants is rapidly disappearing, snuffed out as it were by steam, telegraph, and banker's credits. Modern enterprise has now posted its sentinels on every foreign inlet and by-way of commercial traffic, and the votary of mercantile renown, however endued with courage and skill, can find few places on the world's map where those qualities may be signalized or tasked as formerly.

Success is just as difficult of attainment now as then; the field of operation is only changed, but requiring no change of equipment, nor a tithe less of robust virtue.

The influence which this class of merchants, which we have been considering has exerted in various parts of New-England, and especially in its capital, has been very salutary. They have possessed wealth, without being mastered by it, and have evinced a sagacity in using and applying it, that is beyond mere praise. When old age presses its leaden hand upon them, they can point to and talk of the ships they have built, the voyages they have projected, the acres they have reclaimed and enriched; and what is a crowning joy, they see around them the manly inheritors that will soon succeed to names untainted and possessions unembarrassed. Many a one of them has been invited to abandon his quiet independence by seductive promises of political honors, but he prefers to hear at a distance the noise of the Comitia,' and to pass the residue of his days in the groves of his own Egeria.

"THERE in bright drops the crystal fountains play,
By laurels shaded from the piercing day;
Where summer's beauty, midst of winter strays,
And winter's coolness, spite of summer's rays.'

A halo of substantial renown encircles the form of the hero-merchant while living, and death only serves to disperse not extinguish it.

The incidents which we have attempted to relate in the career of 'Hardly Eighteen' were communicated to us some sixteen years ago from his own lips. He was then, as now, the thorough and accomplished merchant.

Our only aim in preparing this sketch has been, to endeavor to preserve and present in a decent form the honorable results of a first enterprise of a New-England lad, hoping that it may attract the attention of some portion of that countless number of young men who are now living fast and will die early, unless they awake to a new life with the firm resolve of making some mark for good on the age through which they are passing.

D. E. N.

LINE S

TO A VERY DEAR FRIEND FAR AWAY.

My soul thy sacred image keeps,

My mid-night dreams are all of thee;
For Nature then in silence sleeps,

And silence broods o'er land and sea:
Oh! in that still, mysterious hour,
How oft from waking dreams I start,
To find thee but a fancy flower,

Thou cherished idol of my heart!

Thou hast each thought and dream of mine:
Have I in turn one thought of thine?

Forever thine my dreams will be,
Whate'er may be my fortune here;
I ask not love, I claim from thee
Only one boon - a gentle tear:
May e'er blest visions from above

Play gently round thy happy heart,
And may the beams of Peace and Love
Ne'er from thy glowing soul depart.
Farewell, my dreams are still with thee:
Hast thou one tender thought of me?

My joys like summer birds may fly,

My hopes like summer blooms depart,
But there's one flower that cannot die
The holy memory in my heart;
No dew that flower's cup may fill,
No sun-light to its leaves be given,
But it will live and flourish still

As deathless as a thing of heaven.
My soul greets thine unasked, unsought:
Hast thou for me one gentle thought?

Farewell, farewell, my far-off friend;
Between us broad, blue rivers flow,
And forests wave and plains extend,

And mountains in the sun-light glow;
The wind that breathes upon thy brow,
Is not the wind that breathes on mine:
The star-beams shining on thee now,

Are not the beams that on me shine:
But Memory's spell is with me yet:
Can'st thou the holy past forget?

The bitter tears that thou and I

May shed whene'er by anguish bowed,

Exhaled into the noon-tide sky,

May meet and mingle in the cloud;

And thus, my much-loved friend, though we,

Far, far apart may live and move,

Our souls, when GOD shall set them free,

Can mingle in the world of Love:

This was an ecstasy to me:

Say would it be a joy to thee?

THE OBSERVATIONS OF MACE SLOPER, ESQ.

FAMILIARLY NARRATED BY HIMSELF.

NUMBER FOURTEEN.

IN WHICH MACE SPEAKS OF UNIVERSAL GENIUS IN GENERAL AND THAT OF THOMPSON ALEXANDER GLASGOW IN PARTICULAR-CONCLUDING WITH A MORAL ANECDOTE OF THE APOTHECARY WHO SPREAD HIMSELF A LITTLE TOO WIDE ON SEGARS.

I DON'T know but what it may have struck the reader that there are some folks whose nature is to stick to one thing just as much as it is for others to spread themselves miscellaneously over the most variegated kind of a variety of pollycrowmatical toptics. Both sorts deserve more pity than they get; but principally the latter, for while the world lets the first chap off tolerable easy, only calling him old fogy and a man of one idea, it runs the second down worse than an old clock, constantly posting him as Jack of All Trades, Everything By Shorts and Nothing Long, and worst of all as Genius. And when they get him down to this last word, they 're mighty apt to fix his flint entirely for him, for they rigged up a certificate in six letters, that he could have been something rich or extensive and would n't.

It is queer any how, how hard folks are on these miscellaneous scatteration sort of characters who like variety. They may get along very well—may make money - get real estatehave their names every week in the papers with honorable mention any thing you like — and yet, for all that, the regular rank and file never speak of 'em without a sort of misgiving shrug, as much as to say: 'Poor fellow, he might have made something if he'd only have stuck to one thing.' Which, considering what the grain of the wood really was, and what nature intended the poor fellow to be, is generally about as reasonable as if they'd blamed all the long and round sauce in a kitchen-garden for not growing up into a hickory pole. Just about as reasonable !

They can't keep it down; but fortunately for some of 'em they move in a sphere where it do n't hurt. From where I sit writing in Sam Batchelder's and Hiram's office, and where I, too, have a small tin, (for the purpose of selling Yonkville and Wamskatequa,) I can see Mr. Thompson Alexander Glasgow very busy at work polishing of the pavement with a broom, putting in the fancy licks round the corner of the steps in the high graceful tone, and carrying on any amount of cheerful sass with the opposite office-boy, who seems to labor under a wild idea that he can shut Thompson up on personal abuse, a thing that nothing short of a dozen Tombs lawyers could ever begin to do.

Thompson is a colored man, one of varied, extensive, and peculiar resources. About a year ago, Hiram observed him somewhere on the Island as greatly gifted on horses, being able to groom them first-rate, and ride them either to buy or sell, as occasion might require. On the