We see all the flowers around us die,

And esteem it their fate: but their lovely sovereign We would crown with an immortality,

And all beautiful spirits round her hovering!"

IV.

Then call not that thankless which is, in truth,
The promptings of deep and tender affection;
And pardon the sorrow with which our youth
Secs, and mourns in thee, but a sad reflection!
For all the beauty and joy of our life-

All the loves and the hopes that our spirits cherish,
We liken to thee,-and when they fade,

"like the Rose, how soon they perish!" We say, Eames' Place, Nov. 1840.

OLD WILLY: A SKETCH.

BY A. F. OLMSTED.

O Reader! had you in your mind,
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in everything.

Wordsworth.

had strayed down from the paths of younger days. It would doubtless have little to interest, could we tell more of his history, and I have told you my story is not one of incident. True, Willy himself would sometimes grow garrulous of other days and scenes;—but his memory was weak and wandering, and always grew wildered in attempting to call up the past. He could gossip much, though, at times, to some curious antiquary, carefully searching the village grave-yard with book and pencil, and could tell the births and deaths of many whose names could scarcely be traced on the stones, all mouldered over and sunken in the ground. Innocently, I am sure, must have passed his morning, whose evening gathered so quietly beautiful. No memories of bad deeds could speak to his heart from shadows falling so mellowed around his way. So long as I remember, he was living in a small decayed cottage, with no companion save the old woman who minded his few household concerns.

He was poor, but his wants were few, and he tilled a small plot of ground, which, with some slight pittance laid by in former years, satisfied his scanty desires. In the summer, when not busied in his garden, he might be seen sitting in front of his home, under the shadow of "his elms," as he

Holy and beautiful is age, as the twilight of its day is melting away into the silent night. Long years have shown to it somewhat of life's mystery, and the thousand little charities and kindly delighted to call them. The reason was this. sympathies our being asks have taught a cheerful faith in humanity, and to love "the human heart by which we live." Venerable, too, is age. The shadows of the grave seem lengthened almost to the ground over which it steps so feebly, and its silence to be falling on the voice which speaks to us so gently and tremulous.

Old Willy!-how pleasantly my heart lingers with the sound! Memory is busy with it, and younger days from the younger past come at a bidding. Thou art not lying in the village graveyard, far away: nor have I grown up to wrestle with the world 'till sometimes my heart weighs heavily within me. A blithe boy, I pause this bright spring morning, to return thy kind greeting, as sitting in thy cottage door, thy head resting upon the propping staff, thou art wooing the sunshine of the pleasant May. Ah! 'tis a trick of memory-I wander.

Reader! I have no tale for your ear. The picture which employs my hand will have little charm of coloring; but should it touch the heart for a moment with the mild light and shade all its own, I shall have succeeded. "Tis a truthful sketch, and my heart whispers to me that some one who reads it shall say, "I too remember such an one."

Many years before, at a time none but himself could remember, Willy, together with others who had since dropped around him like their autumn leaves, had brought the trees, younglings then, from a near wood, and set them in a row from one end of the street to the other. Methinks all would have loved the old man for this, if for nothing else; for the villagers were ever proud of their beautiful elms, and the traveller often paused to admire their glories. In truth, they were a goodly show, those fine old trees; magnificent in the bravery of their summer greenness, and none the less, when of a winter-night, the snow having fallen on their broad spreading branches, in the morning you might see them bending lovingly with their fleecy burthen, as if the white-winged clouds had been caught in their arms and rested there; or when, as sometimes they were, encased in icy panoply, all glittering in the golden sheen, like a row of stout and steeled knights of the olden time.

Beneath them, as I have said, Willy loved to sit on a summer-day, his hat laid by his side, the light wind lifting the few locks from his temples; and so to look upon the boys so blithe and gamesome in their sports, it made his heart glad to see, and he would smile pleasantly upon them.

Old Willy, as he was called, and he rejoiced in And they would leave their games, and gather the name, was an old man of my native village. around him as he thus sat; for although, as he He had lived while well nigh an hundred years said, he had never been himself a soldier, yet he had been creeping away to their shadowy homes. had lived through the great wars of the Revolution, None could tell of his early history, for those and could tell how our good friends the French, so who should have remembered the youth of the old he called them, had once passed through our quiet man, had long since been gone; and all alone he village, encamping in the church, and in the "Sil

He still sat in summer beneath his broad elms; and in the winter clung by the fireside of the village-inn.

ver Lane"-so called, from the fancies of the good night; and we know not of what sounds the old dames at the great store of the precious coin the sometimes make music. French had brought over, as they thought. He would speak too of some, the companions of his youth, who left their homes to fight their country's battles, but had never come back to their own firesides—and many a young heart, I doubt not, throbbed high with its first lesson of patriotism at the old man's reminiscences.

He had stories too for our ears, of the Red men, who within his memory were yet lingering in the neighboring forest, and by the beautiful stream winding through the green meadows of the village.

One bright spring morning he was found dead in his bed by the old domestic, who had long waited his rising, and venturing in, thought at first he was sleeping, so quietly the old man lay. She had heard no noise or stir through the still night, so gently had he passed to the home of the weary.

And on a lovely afternoon they bore him away to the "silent land;"—and as the long train walked hushedly beneath the shadows of the tall elms,

How his heart clung to the young! His presence I thought their branches drooped mournfully to ever brought gladness to the door he entered. He the breeze, stirring their leaves to a strain solemn would prattle simply to the babe upon his knee, yet passing sweet.

THALASSION.

A piece of wreck the waves did waft ashore,
The which a mother and her infant bore;
Her arm upreared the child aloft did hold,
So that it might not touch the waters cold;
And though she felt her own life blood to chill,
And all that lack of pain she knew must kill,
The child she still would hold, with hope to save,
If not from death, yet from that ice-cold grave.
And lo! at length a wave hath borne them o'er
The place of billowy strife, and on the shore
She safely lay-that mother with her child.

himself a very child. He would follow every sad train that walked to the quiet resting place of the dead, whether age had fallen like ripe fruit in autumn, or a sweet blossom had dropped in the spring time. He would be with every merry gathering, and had a blessing for the youths and maidens on their wedding festival. In the winter, his favorite place of resort was the little inn, where, in the long evenings, the villagers would gather to gossip innocently of their neighbors, and discuss, in their homely way, things of state. Willy was always nestled in his corner, for none ever robbed him of his chosen nook, with his chin propped upon bis staff, mingling in the talk only when something touching the village history in olden time, and its departed fathers, might task his memory. He could not trouble himself now to learn what was going on in the great world :-his own little village was a world to him, turning by itself, while the world without went around. He saw the golden grain waving on sunny hill and plain, and when It might an instant cloud her view of that loved infant there! Autumn came on, gathered in with the rich fruitage by the busy husbandman, with "none to molest or make him afraid ;" and when he saw happy faces around their winter-firesides, the old man too was glad, rejoicing that he had outlived the troublous time gone by.

She did not move, but yet her fixed eyes
Told with what love she watched that little prize
That she had rescued for a life she could not hope to share;
And there was 'neath her lids a joyful tear,
That would not burst its prison house, for fear

She hopes for life, though knowing she must die,
But life for him she holdeth in her eye;

A hope undimm'd by doubt, that makes her way
To gloomy death, as joyful as the day!
Her bosom burneth with the thought it brings,
And in her heart a gush of rapture springs,
And all forgotten is her dying woe!
And in one quick, absorbing dream, the past
And future too, come rushing in at last,
That with its flood of feeling makes her white cold face to
glow!

So passed his life. Year after year was stepping noiselessly by, and how happily was old Willy treading with them away. It was not well, I doubt, although his neighbors meant kindly to him, when, because they said it would fall in upon him, they won the old man to leave his poor cottage for a-The mother to restrain it could not stretch her hand--

new snug home. I do not think he was so happy ever after. His face, always before cheerful, sometimes now grew sad :-and when the old cottage was pulled down, he would go mournfully among the ruins, carefully turning the relics with his staff as if to find something he had lost. Or he would gaze long into the old well ;-his heart had grown to the mouldering stones, the green moss, and sweet waters. He missed too, he would say, the voice of the wind among the loose boards on a stormy

The child arose, and crept along the sand,

And dazzled by the breaking surf, it moved,
And held its arms that way, as to a thing it loved,

Until it reached, and plunged among the waves!
And heedless, fearless, thus its death it braves.
And to and fro they dash the helpless thing,
Till, bruised and cold, this tender bud of spring
Is early nipped, and death has cut it close!

Nor moved to save what the rude waves had kill'd;
The mother wept not, for the fount was chill'd,
But yet her eyes could see, to tell the tale,
And give the silent pang for that she could not wail.

thought. His poetry abounds with the lively imi-
tation of natural fancy; the eye is pleased with the
semblance; the ear is charmed with the flow of his
"terrible pathos"-sometimes smooth like a clear
stream, through which we see the gems below;
then again, he is wildly sublime, enchaining our af-
fections by his impetuous imagination.

His history is justly told, in two lines from Lara:
"Left by his sire, too young such love to know,
Lord of himself, that heritage of woe."

He entertained a desire to travel; to visit the relics of antiquity, and the ruins of those republics whose word but yesterday gave law to the lesser nations of the globe. Empires are but bubbles that sparkle in the sun's rays, which burst and leave but the froth of their former magnificence. He longed to visit the tombs,

"Where dead, but sceptred sovereigns,

Byron, in the world of literature, is like the Colossus of Rhodes-a mighty structure. In the field of poetry, he stands like the Trojan Hector, surrounded by his noble compeers-pre-eminent. He has traversed his sphere of light, and left a name for which posterity may cull the sweetest flowers to decorate. He was the child of nature. His spirit of inspiration flowing from her ethereal fountains, Now rule our spirits from their urns." his heart delighted to commune with her wonders, Another efficient cause that strengthened the me"There is society where none intrudes." From Nature he learned another language, and he became lancholy of Lord Byron, was the fatal end of Shelley. her fostered child. She taught him her wonders, His melancholy temperament is shadowed out in all and touched the chords of his soul-stirring lyre. his characters or heroes, in his Manfreds, Laras, &c. Poesy extended to him her right hand, and On account of his separation from his wife, and enchained his affections by her incense-breathing melody. Within his bosom lay passion's essence, like a lake calm and unruffled, reflecting the imagery of the starry world, until a whirlwind of ungoverned thought would dispel its glass-like semblance, and raise its waters into troubled fury ;-as day is followed by night, so is its calmness dis-pressed by one of the Foscari. turbed by wildness. Even in his calm and lucid lines, we can discover sorrow's gloomy lay:

It was the night,-and Lara's glassy stream,

the sly insults with which the press teemed, and its papers abounded, when their vials of wrath were poured out upon him to emptiness, and became harmless of venom, he left England never again to tread the soil whose critics and writers so abused him. His feelings upon this subject, are nobly ex

"The soil!-Oh no, it is the sod of the soil,
Whoe'er persecutes me; but my native earth
Will take me as a mother to her arms."

The stars are studding, each with imaged beam: It was in his voluntary exile, that he encountered So calm, the waters scarcely seem to stray, Shelley, whose misfortunes were so like to his And yet they glide, like happiness, away." own. He too was parted from his wife; the law reByron's melancholy temper may be considered fused him his child; he was forced from his native the effect of various misfortunes. The first fatal England, as Byron was. When these two spirits stroke of anticipation he received from the rejec-met, under the same circumstances, having ention of Miss Mary Chaworth, who, preferring ano-countered similar misfortunes, their hearts were ther, linked herself with him in the golden chain in unison. Does it not then follow, that their of wedlock. It proved to be an unfortunate one, names should bloom in "social sweetness" on the and drove her to an incurable despair. Byron loved self-same bough of poesy? her with all the zeal of poetic romance; and it grieved him to the heart. "A change came over the spirit of his dream," and he was an altered man. Her unkindness was the groundwork of his melancholy. In the "Dream," he has introduced her, in the feelings of his distempered thought:

In

The unfortunate death of Shelley, as before said, increased this distemper. He had lost a friend, the "immediate jewel" of his soul-he had lost a brother bard. The world had lost her Shelley, and sought to commemorate his fame, by preserving his productions.

A passage from the Prophecy of Dante, may be quoted it is written in Byron's peculiar manner.

"I have met

"The one to end in madness-both in misery." He delighted to imitate the works of nature. the calm stillness of the night he would seek some lonely spot where his soul seemed to com- Destruction, face to face, in all his ways." mune with that of Nature's-reposing upon some Milton is styled the Prince of Poets; but so far as high precipice, to look upon the roaring cataract,- true poetry is concerned, and semblances of nature, watching the moon as she resumed her silent reign, imagery, of fancy and of imagination may be reflecting her mellow light upon the yellow waters. thrown into the scale, the Prince of Poets will be In this pensive mood would he gaze upon elemen-cast into the shade, by the superior genius and tal strife, and pour from his soul a wild chaos of transcendant talents of Lord G. N. Byron. H.

SONG.

BY J. S. KIDNEY.

Gaily do the spirits dance,
When there are no cares to weigh;
As the merry sparkles glance
When the sunbeam gilds the spray.
Like a rainbow is the heart

Decked with many joyful hues;
Now they brighten, now depart,

Yet the brightness still renews.
Banish care!-a frosty King-
Though in proudest domes you be,
Cheerless splendor you may sing;
No such icy pomp for me!

Let the heart's own ivy grow,
And an arbor passing fair

Will its wreaths around you throw
Richer than the dome of care!

SONG.

BY THE SAME.

Yesterday, to-day, to-morrow!
Come, and come, and ever go;
Each the others' rapture borrow;
Glitter ever as ye flow!

Now I'm whizzing through the clouds,
Now upon the distant sea
With the wind among the shrouds,
'Neath the waters soon to be.
Breathing now the fragrant gales

Of the balmy Eastern clime;
Whisp'ring now the tend'rest tales→→
Telling love in sweetest rhyme.
Fancy-fancy hath her way,

1 am dancing with the jade;
'Mong the rocks she makes me play,

Then in swiftest streams to wade.
Here are friends, and here is wine!
Richly paint the passing hour;
Rosy space in life of mine,

As among the leaves the flower!

NAVAL SCHOOLS.

ADMIRAL SIR ISAAC COFFIN, BART. R. N.

lief, that like the caterers who once set out before a certain dignitary their olla podrida, he intended to have a course in which every one might find something suited to his own taste; in which case the pupil could follow up more especially those branches of studies best suited to his peculiar turn of mind.

We infer that Sir Isaac thought the plan of the Naval College at Portsmouth defective; for he directed that all that is taught there, and many things besides, should be taught in his schools. If then such a fund of information be so important to the mere trader, what must it be to the Navy officer-a man to whom are entrusted the most important interests abroad of his country, and upon whose practical information and knowledge, often depend the lives of thousands? That a Naval School on a proper foundation for training up our future Commodores, is considered a matter of the first importance to the well-being of the American Navy, we could cite the opinion of every distinguished officer in the service, and back it with the opinion of American statesmen from General Washington down to the present time. The great difficulty heretofore has been a difference of opinion with regard to the details of the plan on which a school for the U. S. Navy should be conducted. We have conversed much with Navy officers on this subject, and have had excellent opportunities from other sources, of learning their opinions. They all agree that the most suitable plan yet proposed, is detailed in "Scraps from the Lucky-Bag," which we have already given to the public. Why not give that plan a trial? It would cost but a mere trifle. The experiment, if unsuccessful itself, would not fail to lead to some definite and effective plan of education in the Navy.

Sir Isaac cancelled this will by tearing off the name and date. He then gave the original to an American Naval officer, who deposited it for sate keeping in the archives of the town clerk of Nantucket, from which our copy was obtained.-Ed. Sou. Lit. Mess.

This is the last will and testament of me, Sir ISAAC COF-
FIN, Baronet, an Admiral in the service of His Majesty
George the Fourth, King of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland.

I direct all my just debts, and funeral expenses, and the cost and charges of proving this my will to be paid. And holding in grateful remembrance the manifold blessings I have derived from the principles instilled into me while at Boston, in the state of Massachusetts, the place of my nativity, and feeling that my success in this life, is mainly to be attributed to the excellent education I received at that place, and wishing that none of my relations, being lineal descendants of Tristram Coffin, who settled in the Township of Salisbury, near Newbury-Port, in the said state of Massachusetts, in or about the year one thousand six hun[The subject of Naval Schools attracting much of the dred and thirty-two, and of Peter Coffin his Brother, and public attention at this time, we are enabled by the kind-bearing or taking the name of Coffin, may never want the ness of a friend, to lay before our readers the will of the means of obtaining those advantages so bountifully belate Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin, Bart. R. N., providing for stowed on me, I give and bequeath all the personal property the establishment of three such schools in Massachusetts. of which I may be possessed, or to which I may be entiThough circumstances afterwards arose which induced the tled at my death, in possession, reversion, or expectancy, Admiral to cancel this will, there is no doubt that he was in to my executors hereinafter named; in trust, to transfer earnest at the time of making it; for he actually purchased the same to seven Trustees, to be appointed as is herein afa brig, supplied her with a crew from his school at Nan- ter provided, for the establishment of three schools for Natucket, and kept her cruising for ten months on the plan in-val Education. One at said Boston, one at Nantucket, in tended for "the Seaman's Hope." Sir Isaac was an old and the state of Massachusetts, and one at said Newbury-Port. distinguished officer in the British Navy; his opinions, therefore, concerning the manner of educating sailors, and the branches in which they should be instructed, are entitled to great weight.

Among the many branches he directed should be taught in his schools, the want of details leaves room for the be

VOL. VII-5

And for the purpose of maintaining and perpetuating such establishment, according to this my last will I do appoint five Visitors or Overseers of said trust, that is to say; whoever shall be for the time being successively the Governor of the said state of Massachusetts, the President of Harvard University at Cambridge, in the said state, and the

Mayor of said city of Boston, with two others, to be chosen | Trustees. And the said Trustees shall have the care and by the said three. And the said Visitors shall have the immediate oversight of the said schools, and may make all power to fill all vacancies that shall occur in their own necessary rules and regulations, for the discipline and inbody, whether by death or resignation of any Visitor that struction and the general government thereof, provided they may be chosen as aforesaid, or from the discontinuance or be not inconsistent with the regulations in that behalf conother change of either of the said three offices. tained in this my will, and all such rules and regulations shall be in full force and operation until repealed by the said Visitors.

Item.-I do authorize and request the said Visitors, as soon as may be after my decease, to nominate and appoint seven discreet and faithful persons, to be Trustees for the estab- Item.-I will and direct, that each of such schools shall lishment of the said three schools; and if they shall not be on the following plan, and foundation, viz: each to be make such appointment within one year after this my will called "Sir Isaac Coffin's School." One of such schools, shall have been duly proved, and allowed, then I author-being the first established, to be at Boston, in such a situaize and request my executors to appoint the said seven tion that the scholars may be near the water side, and have Trustees; and the said Trustees when appointed in either ready access to the Harbour. The school to consist of of the modes above mentioned, shall forever thereafter fill twenty-four scholars; twelve of them, if so many may be all vacancies in their own body; their election in each found, are to be the male descendants, deriving their decase to be submitted without delay to said Visitors for their scent through males, of the said Tristram Coffin, and of the approbation, and to be void if disapproved by the Visitors; said Peter Coffin respectively, or one of them, and to bear, and if the Trustees shall refuse or neglect to fill any such or before entrance into the school, to take and assume the vacancy for the space of three months after the same shall name of Coffin. If male relations deriving their pedigree occur, and for the same length of time after being notified through males, should not be found, then descendants by the of the vacancy by the Visitors and being requested by them female line, may be chosen, and they to assume and bear to proceed to a choice, the then said Visitors, are authorized and write the name of Coffin, before they enter the school. and requested forthwith to fill such vacancy by the appoint- And I direct that such twelve scholars of each school, shall ment of a Trustee. And I do further authorize the said be fed, clothed, and lodged, out of the income of the funds Visitors from time to time, to remove any of the said Trus- of the establishment. And I direct that three Masters be tees who shall in the opinion of the Visitors, become inca-appointed for each school, viz: a Master of a Ship, a Mapable, or unfit by reason of age, infirmity, or any other cause, thematical Master, and a Drawing Master, each to be of to discharge the duties of his office.

good morals and reputation and well qualified for his department. Such three persons will in my humble judgment be sufficient to prepare the boys for the profession they are designed to follow. And I direct that the remaining twelve boys of the school at Boston, shall be selected from the sons of honest and industrious inhabitants of Boston, who may be desirous of breeding up their sons for a Nautical life. And it is further my will that the sons of the poorest citizens shall be preferred, and that no boy shall be eligible who shall have any bodily deformity, or who shall not be of a sound constitution, or who shall not have had the smallpox, or have been vaccinated. It is further my will, that no boy shall be admitted until he shall have attained the age of fourteen years, and that each boy should be able to read, and also to write a legible hand, and have a competent knowledge of Arithmetic, and be of the Christian persuasion. And if a classical scholar, he is on that account to be entitled cæteris paribus, to preference. Each boy shall leave the school at the age of eighteen, and I direct that the Ship Master, Mathematical Master, and Drawing Master, should respectively be native citizens of Massachusetts.

Item-I do order and request my executors herein after named, as soon as may be after my decease, to pay over, deliver, assign, and transfer to the said Trustees all my said personal estate herein above bequeathed, to the said Trustees, to be held by them upon the trust and for the purposes following, that is to say; all that part of my said estate, which may at the time of my decease be invested in the British funds, to be kept to accumulate by investing the interest, from time to time in the like stock, and adding it to the principal for sixty years after my decease, and if the rules of Law or equity will allow it; otherwise for any less time than sixty years that shall be allowable-and if from any cause it shall become impracticable, or greatly disad vantageous to the said establishment, to keep the said last mentioned part of my estate invested as aforesaid in the British funds, then I authorize the said Trustees with the consent and approbation of the said Visitors, to withdraw the whole of the said monies from the British funds, and invest the same in other stock, or funds, or in real estate, or put the same out at interest, to be accumulated as aforesaid as they shall think best for said establishment; and in Item.--As my said property may not be sufficient to found either case when the said fund shall cease to be accumula- the three schools to commence at the same time, I direct the ted as aforesaid, whether by force of the above written limi- school at Boston to be first established, and as the funds tation, or of the rules of Law, it shall be appropriated to- accumulate, to form the second of such establishment at gether with the other property herein bequeathed, to the Newbury-Port, and as future funds accumulate to form the said Trustees, to the maintenance of the said schools as third and last establishment at Nantucket. And I direct herein after provided; and, as to the residue of my said that each of such schools shall be educated on similar plans, estate bequeathed as aforesaid, (as also the part thereof last and each school to be limited to the number of twenty-four above mentioned, when the said trust for accumulation shall boys; and all the boys beyond the twelve of the Coffin famicease) the said Trustees shall, from time to time, invest ly, to be chosen by the Trustees out of the respective the same in any stocks or funds, or in real estate, or put the Towns in which such schools are to be established; and same out at interest, as shall be warranted and allowed by on failure of that number, then to be selected from any Law, and shall appear to be secure and most for the advan- other part of the state of Massachusetts; but this shall not tage of said establishment. And if it shall hereafter appear prevent the Trustees from admitting additional scholars, to the said Visitors and Trustees, that the property herein on payment of such sums for their tuition as the Trustees given to the Trustees can be better managed and secured, shall prescribe, when it can be done without injury to the and the purposes of this my will be better attained by an establishment. And whereas the branches of the family of incorporation of the said Trustees and Visitors, or either of the said Tristram Coffin and Peter Coffin, are spread over them, I do hereby as far as in me lies, assent to such incor- the Continent of North America and Europe, and are my poration, and do request that the same may be granted ac- relations, I direct that any of them and of whatever councordingly by the competent authority of the said state of try they may be natives, shall forever be eligible to be Massachusetts, on the application of the said Visitors and placed in each of the said schools. The number of twelve