finished since he returned home from the army. A lofty portico, ninety feet in length, supported by eight pillars, has a pleasing effect when viewed from the water. The whole assemblage of the green-house, school-house, offices, and servant's halls, when seen from the land side, bears a resemblance to a rural village, especially as the lands on that side are laid out somewhat in the form of English gardens, in meadows and grass grounds, ornamented with little copes, circular clumps, and single trees. A small park on the margin of a river, where the English fallow deer and the American wild deer are seen through the thickets alternately with the vessels as they are sailing along, add a romantic and picturesque appearance to the whole scenery. On the opposite side of a small creek, to the northward, an extensive plain, exhibiting corn fields and cattle grazing, affords, in summer, a luxuriant landscape; while the blended verdure of woodlands and cultivated declivities on the Maryland shore, variegates the prospect in a charming manner. Such are the philosophic shades to which the late commander in chief of the American armies retired from the tumultuous scenes of a busy world."

WONDERFUL EFFECT OF MUSIC

WHICH, says the Poet, hath charms" to soothe a savage's breast ;" take the following proof of its truth, recorded in the page of history.

"Sultan Amurath, having laid seige to Bag. dad, and taken it, ordered 30,000 Persians to be put to death, though they had submitted and laid down their arms. Amongst these un.

fortunate victims was a musician. He besought the officer who had the command to see the sultan's orders executed, to spare him but for a moment, and permit him to speak to the em peror. The officer indulged him, and, being brought before the sultan, he was suffered to give a specimen of his art. He took up a kind of psaliry, which resembles a lyre, and has six strings on each side, and accompanied it with his voice. He sung the taking of Bagdad, and the triumph of Amurath. The pathetic tones and exulting sounds of the instrument, together with the alternate plaintiveness and boldness of his strains, melted even Amurath; he suffered him to proceed, till overpowered with harmony, tears of pity gushed forth, and he revoked his cruel orders. In consideration of the musician's abilities, he not only ordered those of the prisoners who remained alive to be spared, but gave them their liberty. This anecdote is related by Prince Cantimir, in his account of the transactions of the Ottomans.

THE ADVENTUROUS DUTCHMAN

SHEWS the aversion which man has to solitude and desertion; it is in many cases worse than death.

"A Dutch ship returning from the East In dies; one of the seaman was condemned to death, for some capital crime; soon after arri ving at St. Helena, at that time uninhabited. they changed his punishment, determining to leave him there, and accordingly put him on shore.

"The unhappy man representing to himself the horrors of such a solitude, perhaps in a

greater degree than he need, fell upon the following desperate enterprize: They had that day buried one of the officers. The poor seaman contrived to open the grave, and get the coffin up. He them forced it open and removed the body. He next took the coin down to the sea, and carefully seating himself in it, ventured out, having made a kind of rudder of the upper board! happily for him there was at that time a very great calm, and the ship lay as it were immoveable within a league and an half of the island. Those on board seeing so odd a kind of boat floating upon the water, were much alarmed, thinking it had been an apparition but when they could discern who and what it was, they were equally amazed at the unaccountable boldness of the man who had ventured so far in a few boards slightly nailed together, which a small wave would have over. set, when he could have no assurance of being received by those who so lately sentenced him to death! It was, however, put to the question, and though some were for having the sentence executed, yet pity and admiration prevailing, they determined to take him on board again. Being once more safe in the ship, he returned to Holland, where he afterwards resided at Hofn, on the Zyder Zee, and related unto many the deliverance which he had so miraculously experienced."

THE RISE OF THE REFORMATION

Is thus traced by a masterly hand; it is cer tainly the most interesting event in the later periods of ecclesiastical history.

"LEO the X. was not aware, that whilst he

was composing the troubles which the am bition of his neighbours or the misconduct e -his predecessors had occasioned, he was exci ting a still more formidable adversary, that was destined by a slow, but certain progress, to sap the foundation of the papal power, and to alienate that spiritual allegiance which the christian world had kept inviolate for so many centuries. Under the controul of Leo, the riches that flowed from every part of Europe to Rome, as to the heart of the ecclesiastical system, were again poured out through a thou sand channels, till the sources become inade quate to the expenditure. To supply this de ficiency, he availed himself of various expe dients, which, whilst they effected for a time the intended purpose, roused the attention of the people to the enormities and abuses of the church, and, in some measure, drew aside that sacred veil, which, in shading her from the prying eyes of the vulgar, has always been her safest preservative. The open sale of dis pensations and indulgencies for the most enor mous and disgraceful crimes, was too flagrant not to attract general notice. Encouraged by the dissatisfaction which was thus excited, a daring reformer arose, and, equally regardless of the threats of secular power and the denun eiations of the Roman See, ventured to oppose the opinion of an individual to the infallible determinations of the church. At this critical juncture Luther found that support which he might in vain have sought at any other period, and an inroad was made into the sanctuary, which has ever since been widening, and will probably continue to widen, till the nighty fa bric, the work of so many ages, shall be laid in ruins. It is not, however, so much for the

tenets of their religious creed as for the principles upon which they founded their dissent, that the reformers are entitled to the thanks of posterity. The right of private judgment, which they claimed for themselves, they could not refuse to others; and, by a mode of reasoning, as simple as it was decisive, mankind arrived at the knowledge of one of those great 'truths which form the basis of human happiness. It appeared that the denunciations were as ineffectual to condemn as its absolution was to exculpate; and, instead of an intercourse between the man and his priest, an intercourse took place between his conscience and his GodRoscoe.

THE SOUL

Is that intellectual spirit within us which proclaims at once the divinity of our origin, and the grandeur of our destiny; listen to the bard of Nature.

"We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or structure of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them, that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. I have some favourite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain-daisy the hare bell, the fox-glove, the wild brier, rose, the budding-birch, and the hoary haw. thorn, that I view and hang over with parti-cular delight. I never hear the loud solitary "whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixed cadence of a troop of grey-plovers in an autumnal morning, without feeling an ele