philosophy, which inculcates suspicion and doubt meet!-instead of complaining of estrangements of the truthfulness of all appearances, that we do of hearts, and mourning over dead feelings, we not take to our bosoms a new acquaintance with all think that time has caused us to look more alike; the heartiness that we do an old one, but because and we often felicitate ourselves with the hope, that he lacks familiarity with what is particularly dear the fraternal likeness between us, will steadily into us in the past, and which renders an old friend crease-until we meet, to part no more, beyond the to us the model of all that is noble and worthy to crystal battlements of Heaven. be loved in man. If you have been forced to become a sojourner when with him you talked of by-gone times, and How noiseless falls the foot of time, I love the face of an old acquaintance, and think in lands far away from the haunts of your earlier it beautiful, even if it be wholly unpossessed of years, and have there, unexpectedly, met with one symmetry, because it is hallowed by a thousand who was dear to you in your more propitious days, refreshing reminiscences. No one ever looked on you can easily recall the fresh delight you felt D's face, with all its singular sinuosities and obliquities, for the first time, without pronouncing it to be decidedly the most unhandsome one to be seen in any one of the four continents. As you become acquainted with him, you begin to wonder how it came to pass that nature was in such an eccentric mood at the time of his creation, as to fashion such a face to express such thoughts and such sentiments as characterize him. At first, you are prone to think that if any man ever had a right to bring How quickly you bridged the chasm of years an action for slander against his face, that unfortu- which separated you from your old loves! If there nate being is D. But when you get to be familiar was a cloud on your spirit, how speedily did your with him, you fancy his face to be not so outra-smiles flash through and enlighten it! Each flower geously ugly after all, and perceive there is a pecu- of happiness plucked with a light and careless liar fitness between the dubious eye and the sly hand, long ago, once more bloomed in all its origi wit which often looks from it, and you confess that nal loveliness, and you again inhaled its fragrance though his mouth apparently is not so sweet as Hy- with a relish which cannot be obliterated. As you bla, yet no other one in Christendom could so well give effect to the lazy humor which lounges from it. It is a singularly extreme case I know, yet I am not unwilling to affirm that I can discover many decided pretensions to beauty in that strange, dark, twisted face by which my friend D is known to the sons and daughters of men. It may be that Fancy, like a fairy artist, embellished his rough features to my eye. Be that as it may, it seems to me that he gets the better of his ugliness as years roll on, and I doubt not, if it be the will of ProviLike a carrier-pigeon, just freed from its jesses, dence that we both survive to the period of gray my memory has been rising and revolving in circles hairs, I will pronounce him to be a very good above me for the last minute, as if uncertain of the looking old gentleman-particularly when I see course she would pursue. Now she sails away, him in his best lights, which is, when the smoke of and now she alights among scenes where years his pipe obscures the outlines of his features, and ago it was my bliss to mingle with some of nsmy fancy supplies their doubtfully descried portions ture's noblemen. How we used to wreathe the with architecture all her own. In this way, does feet of the hours with roses, and how noiseless a long established friendship beautify outward de- were their steps as we prolonged our discourse formity, throw a veil over unmitigated ugliness, away into the mysterious depths of the night! and cause what was unsightly, to seem symmetrical. How wit and wisdom flashed and flowed, in a cerOther men prate of the fragility of their friend-tain strange, unhewed, out-of-the-way apartment, ships; whereas it is my happiness to know that be- looking out on the busy crowds that thronged the tween my soul and many of those I love, are thoroughfares of the "Queen City" of the West! chains of adamant, which neither time nor change That littered and literary room has not yet been can break. Many are the amaranthine flowers properly described; but when its history shall be which have sprung up in our hearts under the sunny faithfully written, as it assuredly will be, by some influences of friendship; and though years of trial of the gifted spirits who therein were wont to confhave passed over them, every leaf and petal is as gregate, many most interesting reminiscences of fresh and unblighted as ever. alas! that with some of them I can so seldom only fit monument to the memory of the "Attic.” And when we meet, brilliant meetings will then be summoned up-the summoned up former scenes, did not a serenity and sweetness, like that of a May morning, overspread your heart, and your gentle affections gush up like living waters, until, in the midst of life's springlike influences, you forgot all the black misanthropy which ever afflicted you? Had you felt an hour before like cursing your species, would not your tongue, like Balaam's, have refused the ungentie office, while its maledictions melted into blessings on humanity? Its old rafters, festooned by the industry of a thou- the remembrance of what was there done lived, sand venerable spiders, have echoed sounds which, like a "sweet smelling savor," on other minds when last I stood reverently beneath that leaky than my own. roof, still haunted the sacied place. There G. I have tasted a variety of pleasures, but have grew poetical, while his fine blue eye, roving experienced very few which are superior to a meetstarward, caught glorious glimpses of that cloud- ing of a few old acquaintances on a cold and stormy land, whither his fancy flew like a bird of passage, winter night, when, all without being cheerless, we eager for its sunny home, so often ;-there J. cling closer to each other, and become more loving attered his wit and his jokes, stroking his sparsely than we were during the heats of the summer seabearded chin the while with an inward chuckle of son. At such a time, how naturally do we revert satisfaction; there B. with his ample brow, and to former years, and talk of the loved and the lost clear ringing tones, was often seen, while sentence ones whom we knew and cherished in our "heart after sentence sped from his lips, as he unfolded of hearts." We discuss again the theories, brilthe treasures of a philosophy slightly tinged with liant and false, which, in the impetuous season of the mysticism of certain German sects;-there youth, come over us like revelations from Heaven. T. talked of founding a new school of Ameri- We talk of the rambles we had in the flowery pecan fiction, and related his early adventures plea-riod of the year, over hill and through forest, along santly-there too E. and F. and S. and many the green margin of the creek where the constant other noble fellows, were often seen and heard, clatter of the old mill was heard, and through the giving and receiving delight. Could not that woodlands when autumn and its sombre glories old Attic furnish many an interesting chapter, were down upon the earth. We joke each other and, if its ANA were chronicled, would it not take pleasantly about some defeated scheme of love or rank with the elder fabrics of the Boar's Head, ambition, we once cherished. We confess how the Mermaid, and the Cat and Salutation, of glo- much our views of life, its duties and its interests, rious memory? I have heard more profound and have been modified, and feel thankful that in a brilliant thoughts uttered there in one day, than world of change our hearts are unchanged. As Boswell ever recorded in a month. Alas, that they the inspiring beverage we have imbibed takes eflive only in the muttering echoes of that now de- fect, away soar our thoughts to the regions of phiserted sanctuary, and that no fitting record was losophy, or backwards to the glorious old writers made of them before their sounds melted away on whom we love and read devoutly. Before we have the oblivious wind! Old acquaintances of mine given a thought to the passage of time, the city's who used to meet therein, how are we scattered multitudes are wrapped in the solemnity and siWhile some of you are wandering near the blue lence of the slumberous night, and the hour of wave of the Atlantic, others are amid the forests twelve is booming from Time's signal bells, far and of Michigan, some are on the prairies of the far wide, over the echoing and deserted streets. But west, and some are pursuing pleasure in the shades still we hold on our course, unflaggingly in spirits, of the magnolias in the sunny south! and maintaining our high discourse" on princely In recounting reminiscences of my old acquain-subjects. Away dart the joyful moments on untances, it would be impious were I not to recall the resting wing, and affection and intelligence are still T. A. G. S. to my pen's point. Are the gather-radiant in the faces of our friends. Another and ings of that association perishable from the memo- another hour breaks on the ear of night, and then ries of those who ever attended them? Eloquence, comes the parting glass, and we separate, each one poetry and brilliant dissertations made the glory of to feel how dear every other one is to him. the T. A. G. S. And, then, would I be unfor- My memory now takes cognizance of one of given were I to neglect to notice the quarterly these nights, the remembrance of which cannot meetings, when wit and wisdom were seen in dis-soon pass away. It was celebrated by four old habille? Did not the muses smile upon that select acquaintances who happened to meet far away band? Did not song and speech furnish agreeable from their accustomed haunts. It was a most interludes between the decapitation of bottles? classic entertainment. We began with philosophy, Friends of that delightful association,-some of and it would, perhaps, be unsafe to hazard a conyou have already achieved reputations co-extensive jecture as to what we ended our hilarity with. with these states and territories-then, why have The night was bitter cold out of doors; but within, ye not celebrated the sacred nights we then knew every thing was eloquent of comfort. Was punch together? Where would ye find more fitting ever so cheering as M's? In the midst of our themes for your brilliant pens? Right well pleased merriment, the ambitious Charley seated himself at was I to hear D. when I last saw him, with the table and wrote an article on Western Literathe fumes of his seventh pipe mantling round his ture, which was afterwards published and much adgifted brow, affirm that since our old meetings in mired. An hour later, and such an achievement the "Row," there had been no intellectual gather-would have been impossible, for the beverage had ings in the "Queen City;" for it assured me that taken effect and philosophy given way to mirth. 66 When M. took down his violin and drew the bow the sounds and sights that you have here heard over its strings, was there not a gush of me- and witnessed. Yet even to these, by constant lody, as divine as that which bursts from the mock- daily intercourse, we become in time habituated. ingbird in the depths of a southern forest? Poor I doubt the existence of that union of poverty G. forgot his outrageous sobriety that night, and and refinement of which we read in books;-of broke down in the midst of a defence of the refinement and the whining poverty that crosses preeminent beauty of the Buckeye girls. "What our daily paths, with the untiring tale of the “five a fall was there, my countrymen !" One of the small children," and the "sick man at home." company got along better, for he clung nervously Such poverty is essentially selfish. Too much to the table and poured forth a cataract of sounds, occupied with coarse necessity, to give thought to to the convulsive delight of all who heard him. the cultivation of refined gratitude, or understandPunch might quicken his blood, but his brain laying to the elegance of refined benevolence. too high for the surgings of its highest tides. I am reminded, whenever thus beset by a troop There was no wormwood in that evening's cup its brim was wreathed with roses, and its last drop was the sweetest. Joy crowned the hours, and enchantment lingers around their remembrance. One of the company was appointed to write the history of that night for the edification of mankind, but the task remains unexecuted. Would that it had been worthily done, before its memory had fled, "Like some frail exhalation, which the dawn Louisville, Ky. BIBLIO H. S. A STROLL IN BROADWAY. BY MRS. M. E. HEWITT. Concluded from the January Number. of juvenile beggars, of an anecdote related to me by an excellent and kind-hearted old lady—a little adventure of her own. One morning, while taking her accustomed walk, she observed assembled around the low window of a shop, appropriated to the sale of candies and "round-hearts," some half dozen unwashed, uncombed, ragged children, of both sexes-their foreheads strained against the panes, and pointing out to each other with eager fingers the tempting cates displayed within. Remembering the strictly regulated diet of her own young days, and the longing for sweets denied to her childish palate, she at once determined on gratifying their desires, and witnessing their enjoyment of what, to them, must have been a rare indulgence. "Come in! come in!" said she, opening wide the door to the children, who stared at her with stupid wonderment-"Take whatever you wish!—A cake—a candy!—help yourselves," she repeated; while one had already fastened on an entire sheet of gingerbread, and the rapid fingers of the others were busy among the delicacies arranged on the counter, the shop-woman looking on with a half displeased, half surprised air, as if doubting the sanity of such benevolence. To the good laWhat a satire on the gay throng around us are dy's smiling solicitations her little guests did amthe pair approaching! These, too, have come out ple justice; until, having feasted to repletion, each, to enjoy the sunshine of Nature's holiday. Folded with full hands, bolted unceremoniously from the in her squalid rags, and brushed ever and anon by door. My kind informant, having satisfied the some gay mantle in passing, with what imperturba-shop-woman's demand, went forth. Turning and ble gravity the woman stalks on, holding the short nodding encouragingly to the little vagrants, who and blackened pipe between her bloodless lips, while the thin white smoke escapes lazily upwards. No ray of intelligence crosses her stolid countenance; her walk seems mechanical, while her companion-blind-the sharp traces of pain furrowing his ashy visage-gathering the remnant of his tattered cloak about him with one hand; while the other, extended, grasps the woman's shoulder convulsively, halts behind, the personification of poverty and wretchedness. A tiresome thing it is, coz, this choosing out shades of worsted by the tints of a Berlin pattern. But come! we have yet a half hour to dinner-'tis a day for sight-seeing, and its attendant, a gossipping conyersation-let us retrace our steps. had retreated to a distance, and stood in a knot together, she had.proceeded but a few steps onward, when a loud shout from their voracious young throats burst on her ear, with "Ha-! a-! a—! see that old crazy woman!" But see! what funeral train approaches at this unusual hour of the day? By the number of pallbearers in their funeral scarfs, it should be the remains of some person of distinction. And thus, alas! we are borne away to our last home, with a Yonder is a negro, begging for alms. Statue- mere interrogatory of wonder from the passing mullike he stands, with closed eyes and outstretched titude! A burial in the city is so frequent an epalm, waiting the donation of some charitable way-currence, that we learn to view the train conductfarer. Listen to the pitiable appeals of this ragged ing some remnant of mortality to its resting-place, young troop, gathering about us. Ah, coz! in almost with indifference. Of all our population, your quiet country home, you will scarcely realize the Irish alone, at their funeral rites, seem to enter into the full enjoyment of the luxury of sorrow; | able in such shops, yet, in the hope of finding an and literally to put on "the oil of joy for mourn- article that might serve for the nonce, I entered. ing, and a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness." Such as the shop afforded were readily produced; but on demanding the price, the attempt at extorWhat a display of gorgeous volumes-"Books tion was so obvious, that, replacing the gloves on that are no books”—“things in book's clothing," the counter, I turned to leave the place. "Won't Lamb would have called them-are here arranged you buy ?" said the man, roughly. "Not at that to attract the passing gaze. And here is a phre- price," I replied! "I have never paid more than five nological cast, ready mapped off for the study of shillings for such as these, and you demand seven." that pleasing science. Apropos! The god Brama," Then missis," returned he, swelling with imporaccording to the Bramins, never fails, at the in- tance, "you never bought in a re-spect-able store!" stant of each man's birth, to write on his head, in characters indelible, every thing he is to do, and whatever, during life, shall befall him. Was the theory of phrenology, think you, really an emanation from the brain of Dr. Gall, or do we owe to him merely the reducing to a system the belief of those ancient phrenologists, the Brahmins? This sudden assertion of consequence, and rude apparent doubting of my own gentility, was too much even for my usually quiet risibles, and I laughed aloud. It is well for us, thought I, as I again proceeded on my way, that there are those about us who, when we are lifted above ourselves, are ready to bring us back again to our proper level. How truly rich and beautiful are the goods displayed in the windows we are passing! Velvets Farther on a woman, in soiled gown and long and gold embroideries-fit appointments for regal gold ear-rings, standing in the doorway of a shop grandeur-shawls for a Sultana, and gossamer for for the vending of groceries, crockery-ware and land of faery. If in your shopping excursions you provisions-ornamented on one side by a pile of would be served without rudeness, always make cabbages, and on the other with some dried heryour purchases, however small, in a respectable rings, fancifully arranged on the top of a pork barestablishment. Listen to a case in point, though I rel-a slaughtered hog dangling by the heels from may be long in bringing the conclusion before you. the awning rail in front-attracted my attention. Some few mornings since I set out on a visit to a Just then a man, guiding by the long reins an atfriend, residing in a remote quarter of the city. tenuated horse, attached to a diminutive cart laden My course, for some distance, lay through Broad- with vegetables, addressed the lady in an agreeable way. The street was thronged, as now, and as I voice with-" do you want any onions, Madam ?” proceeded onward, my spirits exhilirated by the Here was a Preux Chevalier of servant maids and soft morning air, and the happy faces passing be-market women! I could have called him friend at fore me, I already felt my apparel changed, like the moment, for his apparent reverence for the the homely garments of Cinderellla, by the wand form of womanhood. of enchantment. My cloak of plain drab was mag- Apropos to the system of morning calls-that nified into a sumptuous mantle of "three-piled necessary evil in a large community, where disGenoa," and the plume in my bonnet might have tance, for the most part, precludes more social graced the head-dress of an Empress. I was visiting. How vexatious, after a long journeying alone, but felt an attaché at either elbow. I shared through by-streets, to be turned from a friend's in the bows, the smiles, the compliments, bestowed door with-" not at home," or the worse plea of on each fair pedestrian. Now, bending respon- engaged." The first, being definite, is preferasive to some amiable salutation from the prome-ble; but the latter mortifies my ear like an impernade, I rolled onward, liveried and lacqueyed, in tinence. With the fashionable lady on her mornmy magnificent equipage, with its blazoned pannels ing round, the mere repetition of a conventional and crested hammer-cloth-my vision of grandeur, term of denial weighs not against her dignity an in short, was as high wrought as the day-dream of iota. Strong in her own position in society, her Alnaschar, too soon, alas! to be as suddenly liveried equipage draws up before some stately overthrown. 66 dwelling; and giving her cards into the whiteI had now turned off from Broadway, and was gloved hand in waiting, to be re-delivered to the proceeding through one of those unpleasant streets other gentleman footman standing erect in the leading to the eastern section of our city, when, wide open portal, she sinks back again in her luxon removing my hand from my muff, I discovered urious seat; while the coachman on the box, swelthat the straw-colored gloves I wore retained too ling with all the conscious importance of place, evident marks of contact with the dark colored fur gives rein to the impatient steeds, and onward to be presentable. The door of a low shop, strung rolls the lordly equipage with its blazonry and round with calicoes, and flaunting in ribbands and crest toward some other mansion, marked out on laces—their price, in starring blue numerals, pinned her morning visiting route. But to those who, to each article, at this juncture, presented itself; like myself, haply removed from a life of necesand although one rarely meets with aught purchas-sity, dwell midway between the habitations of toil For a brother who died in his earliest years; and the seventh heaven of fashionable existence | My thoughts, even now, their sad vigils are keeping whose visitings are made à pied, and whose bellringing and its accompanying interrogatory are personally performed-a denial at a friend's door is unpleasant at the best. You arrive at an inopportune period. The lady is occupied with some one of the many domestic cares attendant on housekeeping;-deep in the mysteries of pickling and preserving. The domestic who fills the triple of-Though o'er thee, New England, the war-fiend is scowling, And the flowers will revive in the Spring's balmy breath, As a beacon which Friendship had lighted for me. As we turn from the scenes of our childhood away, The stars of thy romance like pharos will shine; fice of chambermaid, child's nurse and waiter, is Though on thy bleak hill-tops the tempests are howling, absent perhaps on some family errand; and after What treasures of beauty and glory are thine! ringing until almost hopeless of gaining admittance, In my own native vale there are fair ones, to-night, Madame Cook-some late ingraft from a foreign Whose blue eyes are beaming with bliss and delight; And thither, swift-winged as the Eagle, I fly, stock—with a thorough misconception of the popu- Unappall'd by the gloom that o'ershadows the sky! lar rallying cry, "liberty and equality"-with all As, in sadness, I left that loved valley at morn, the ignorant rudeness of her class, assuming to Ere the skies were illumed by the flush of the dawn, herself, together with the fashions of her mistress, I hailed the fair light, gleaming bright o'er the lea, an impertinence of manner which she strangely miscalls independence-her dirty apron dragged awry over one arm, her face very red with her late culinary exertions-vexed at being called from the business of her department-condescends to open the street door a very little way, to your repeated summons, and standing in the with one gap, hand on the knob and the other on the door-post, as if to bar your entrance, replies to your interrogatory that her mistress is "engaged." What a flood of mortification comes over you, as you turn to descend, with the feeling that the maid-servant is inwardly chuckling over "the lady's" discomfiture. But the dial-hands point to three o'clock, and here we are, at home, in season to escape a rebuke for keeping the dinner waiting. New-York. THOUGHTS OF HOME. BY PAYNE KENYON KILBOURN. A voice on the night-winds!-list, list, to their roar ! And the flame of devotion enkindle his heart, As he thinks of the loved ones, accustomed to gather, In the trail of Ambition, wherever I roam, The forms that have vanished no more to return; And still linger like blossoms in Memory's urn! We're parted, we're parted!-our farewells are spoken, And no hearts were e'er lighter or gayer than ours. ters Told their vows, and adored the "Great Spirit" above! Frail wrecks of Mortality!-where are they now? Their glory departed long ages ago! And woman's smooth cheek, and the warrior's stern brow, Dear BANTAM! ere long may I greet thee again!— |