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Crowded boarding schools for young girls are quite numerous, but to many of them I fear they prove the portals of the grave. At these schools, with few exceptions, but little pains are taken to develope the physical powers of the scholars, and the chief attention is given to rapidly improving the intellect. Often an amount of mental labor is required of young and delicate girls, sufficient to impair a strong constitution. All the rewards and praise, all the hopes and wishes of parents and teachers, are for intellectual progress. True, they exercise a little; but the kind allowed them is often a task, and is nearly useless. They occasionally walk abroad with their teachers, with a regulated, stereotyped pace, that does them little or no good. Plays and exercises that they naturally enjoy, and which call into action and benefit the whole system that enlarge the chest, and strengthen the muscles of the back, and enable them to support the spine- are considered rude and improper. Hence we see young ladies return from such schools, with minds much improved, perhaps, but with chests no larger than when they left home, and not unfrequently one shoulder more elevated than the other, and with some curvature of the spine. Let it not be said, in refutation of this statement, that girls in boarding schools look animated and healthy. This is not generally true, and if it were, it would not prove that the course pursued at such schools was proper. The evil effects which result from want of exercise are not witnessed immediately in youth.

In a few years, a delicate girl thus educated, from a little more exposure or fatigue than she has been accustomed to, or even from the mental anxiety and conflict of feelings not unusual to young ladies who mix in society, she grows feeble, a slight cough ensues, scarcely noticed for a while, shortness of breath is experienced on a little exercise, and though the countenance appears brilliant and animated,

"Tis the hectic spot that flushes there,'

and the work of death has already commenced. In a few months, she sinks into the grave, and the newspapers announce, that an interesting young lady the pride of her parents and friends whose mind had been improved by the most careful education, has been cut off by consumption. But such announcements, though frequently seen, make but little impression upon the community, and convey no warning to those who have the guardianship of young ladies.

I have dwelt longer on this subject than I should, did I not believe that inattention to the physical education of females, and the rage for improving the intellect to the utmost extent, had become alarming evils; and did I not believe a reform in this respect would diminish the mortality from the disease we are considering, and that the children of feeble or consumptive parents might be rescued from the grave by more attention to the development and improvement of their bodies, by healthful and agreeable exercise, and by less attention to the advancement of the intellect by confinement at school.

The subject is one of vast interest to the patriot and philanthropist. On good bodily organization depend not only individual health but national welfare. The subject, however, seems to be overlooked in this country. While great improvements are making in every thing else, but little thought is given to the improvement of man himself - to

physical man. But this is a neglect which sooner or later will lead to the most disastrous results, even to the ruin of those portions of the population that have from this neglect become effeminate. History assures us of this. When the citizens of Rome changed their habits, neglected those exercises that improved the body, their physical temperament changed. The men became effeminate in body and mind; the women became nervous, and were either barren or gave birth to a feeble race; and then, as was necessary for the good of humanity, 'the fierce giants of the North broke in, and mended the puny breed.'

To avert such a fate from all civilized nations, it will be necessary, while striving for intellectual improvement, to keep constantly in mind that physical improvement is equally necessary, and must not be neglected.

Hartford, June 1, 1836.

A. B.

A SUNDAY NIGHT AT SEA.

BY REV. JOHN PIERPONT, AUTHOR OF AIRS OF PALESTINE,' 'THE PILGRIM FATHERS,' ETC.

How sadly hath this Sabbath day, O God, been spent by me,
Cribbed close beneath a narrow deck, washed by the frequent sea,
An adverse wind careering o'er me from those eastern clouds,

And complaining as its shivering wings sweep through my roaring shrouds!

This humble deck, so near to which my rocking couch is spread,

That I strike it if incautiously I lift my throbbing head,
Hath all day told, and tells me still, of falling sleet and rain,
While I have lain alone beneath, in weariness and pain.

Nay, not alone;' for, though no voice of wife or children dear,
Or friend, or fellow worshipper, hath fallen upon my ear,
Hast thou not, even here, O God, thy face and favor shown?
Then, how have I been desolate, or how am I alone?

And, while the wind hath roared above, and tossed the raging sea,

Have not my silent orisons, my God, gone up to thee?

To thee who sittest on the flood, and ridest on the storm,

And biddest every wind that blows some work of love perform.

And though the winds have tossed, and though the waves have washed my deck,
It hath not by their weight been sunk, or driven ashore a wreck;
For, though thou hast not hushed the blast, nor bid its fury cease,
Thou'st brought me up and sheltered me behind the hills of Greece.

It was not, my Preserver, thus the lines were made to fall,

In this same season, these same seas, unto thy servant Paul,
Who, by this same Euroclydon, was driven till he, at last,

On Malta's rock, from which I've come, a shivering wreck, was cast.

Then let me murmur not that I this live-long day have lain
In weakness, and in weariness, in loneliness and pain;
But rather, when I think of Paul, thy mercy let me bless,
That, though I've served thee less than he, I've also suffered less.

Yet, will thou not forgive me, Lord, if on this holy day,
I think of those I love, and think how far they are away;
And if that house of thine, where I have served thee many a year,
That pleasant house, should claim from me the tribute of a tear?

* St. Paul's day, i. e. the day of his shipwreck, is fixed; and I witnessed the celebration of it in Malta, on the 10th inst.

Within its walls, even now, though Night o'er me hath spread her wing,
I see my friends, my family, my flock, all worshipping;

For, between the pastor and his flock, the foamy crests are curled
That whiten o'er the waters of a quarter of the world.*

And if he lifts to thee his eyes, with tears and darkness dim,
And asks if, in their prayers, his friends, his flock remember him,
Let not the thought of self, that thus intrudes upon their prayers,
Be set down as a sin, O God, in thy sight or in theirs!

That holy house, where I have stood, and where these hands of mine,
So many years, the bread have broken, and poured out the wine
That speak of the Redeemer's love, and bring to mind the debt
Of those he hath redeemed from sin can I that house forget?

Forget those little children too, whose angels do behold

Their Father's face,' whose names, on earth, are with thy church enrolled,
And on whose brows, unfurrowed yet by time, or care, or sin,
The water I have thrown that speaks of purity within?

Forget the dead!-forget the dead! What witness do they bear
Of my influence on their spirits that are now beyond my care?
That I have spoken faithfully? or that I, through fear, was dumb
'Of righteousness, and temperance, and of the world to come?'

The dead! Shrink not, my soul! What witness, in their bowers of bliss,
Or from their seats of wo, must they have borne of me, in this?
And they who 're yet alive, what will, what ought to be, the amount
Of their report, when, in their turn, they go to give account?

Can I forget the mourning ones, who 've brought their load of grief,
And, at thine altar laid it down, and found in prayer relief?
Forget the needy, who their wants have there before thee spread?
Or the liberal hand that there hath given the poor their daily bread?

Forget the young, who, having laid their parents in the dust,
Came up, in One who cannot die, to learn to place their trust?
Forget the hoary headed ones, who've bent their feeble knees,
With me so long in prayer?-O God, can I forget all these?

And, when I do remember those whose worship I have led,
How can I but indulge the hope, when taken from their head,
That they whose kindness in my heart will ever be enshrined,
When they've come to bow before the Lord, have borne me in their mind?

And how am I remembered then? - as a watchman loving sleep?

As a shepherd who hath sought his ease, and cared not for the sheep?
Or as one who, aware that his time was short, that his day would soon be o'er,
With more of zeal than of wisdom wrought till he could work no more?

Shall I, then, work no more?'-or wilt thou bring me back at length,
To serve thee in thy courts again, with renovated strength?
And, when the people of my care within those courts I meet,
Will the same faces welcome me- the same kind voices greet?

No there are eyes that rolled in light, when I launched upon the wave,
And that, when I return- - should I e'er return

the grave:

will have closed in the sleep of

And are there not those which fell on me then with a warm and a friendly ray,
And which, when they see me again, will turn with an icy glare away?

* The 93 degrees of longitude that lie between Cape Matapan and Boston, make a difference, in time, of about 6 1-4 hours; so that while these thoughts are passing through my mind in my meditations upon my bed,' between 9 and 10 o'clock at night, my people are in the midst of their afternoon service.

O Father, by thy chastening hand that now is laid on me,
In weakness and in wandering upon this wintry sea,

In absence from thy holy house, to which I loved to go,

And from my home, my happy home, and them who make it so,

By all this discipline of thine - all which, I know, is just —
Shall I be made a wiser man, and worthier of my trust?
An answer, O my guardian God, thy wisdom will prepare;
And what thy wisdom shall appoint, it will be mine to bear.

At sea, lying to,' behind Cape Matapan,
Sunday, 14th February, 1836.

HOMER, AND EPIC POETRY.

MUCH has, in all ages since he lived, been written respecting Homer. After the multitudes of commentaries which have illustrated his works, and the great number of critics who have elucidated his merits and his defects, there still remain a few gleanings to reward the industry of a humble laborer in that extensive vineyard.

It need scarcely be stated in the outset, that the works of Homer are far from being polished and perfect specimens of the art of poetry. They are considered by all who are willing to regard them favorably, as affording proofs of stupendous genius. But they were undoubtedly the work of a rude age, and exhibit many of the faults which arise from the want of critical skill, in the use of his materials, and from the infant state of the art in which he was the first great practitioner. There existed then no critical rules by which he could be guided, and but few, if any, specimens which could serve as examples to direct him. He drew from the resources of his own powerful genius, from the impetus of his own natural emotions. Carried along by these guides, he composed poems which have often been excelled in judgment of selection and discrimination, in smoothness, polish, and correctness; but never have, and in all probability never will be excelled, in grandeur of conception, in matchless simplicity of diction, as well as several others of the most essential qualities of a great poet.

One of the most striking instances of the decided superiority of Homer to almost all other poets, is his faithful and consistent representation of character. No other poet whatever introduces his readers so completely to an intimate acquaintance with all the personages that appear in his works. We become as familiar with the heroes of the Iliad as if we saw them acting, and heard them speaking in real life. They come in and act before us, each in his appropriate character, so that we seem to have lived for years in intimacy with them, and can never mistake the speeches and actions of one for those of another.

There appears in his writings a vast variety of characters, and they all act their part with the utmost propriety and discrimination. Virgil, who far surpasses Homer in judgment and elegance of taste, falls far below him in the extensive representation of character. His descriptions are grand, the situations of his principal personages interesting and pathetic in the utmost degree; but he introduces but comparatively few characters that are minutely and clearly discriminated. At the same time, nothing can be better executed than the characters he

has brought forward, as nothing can exceed the grandeur or the interest of the situations into which he has brought them.

But the circumstance which appears to me most worthy of particular notice in the works of Homer, is the general truth of his narrations and descriptions. I am well aware how paradoxical this assertion will appear, when compared with the fabulous structure that is considered as essential to epic poetry, and especially of Homer's epics as a series of fables. In what view then, it will be asked, do I assign truth as a characteristic of these poems? They contain true descriptions of the manners and of the opinions of those ages. In this respect they are even more valuable in a historical than in a poetical view. They are the sole remaining records of man, in these ancient times, that we have obtained through the hands of that nation, and they are every way worthy of close attention.

The manners he describes, are undoubtedly the manners of the people among whom he lived; the sentiments he ascribes to his heroes, are those of his countrymen; and the religious opinions and impressions he puts into their speeches, contain the theological creed of the men of that primitive race.

Homer did not, like Virgil, undertake to describe the actions of men who had lived a thousand years before, whose manners it was therefore necessary to borrow from more ancient authors; nor, like Milton, attempt to describe those of another race of beings, whose manners he must therefore invent from his own fertile imagination. He describes to us the manners which he saw existing, and characters, which had been handed down through only three or four generations, and whose actions had therefore not been too much deformed by fable, or obscured by long tradition. If he lived, as is generally supposed, about a century and a half after the period of the great events which he describes, he then lived just at the time, or at that degree of remoteness from it, which is calculated to give the greatest interest to the events narrated, without obscuring them in the mists of fable, to any great degree.

At all events, he describes the actions of his heroes as they were reported by his countrymen, and at a time when the same manners were still followed, and perfectly understood.

Doubts have been entertained, indeed, as to the reality of the events described in the Iliad and the Odyssey, but without any very certain evidence. But even if I were to admit that the actions and events were all fabulous, this would not detract from the authenticity of Homer as to his descriptions of manners and of sentiments. His evidence will still remain unimpeachable as to all that we would wish to know of the religious impressions, as to the moral persuasions, or to the modes of thinking, and acting, and reasoning, which characterized the men of that distant age.

The same remark applies to the whole of the arts, and knowledge, and domestic habits of that remote race. It is in the works of this Father of Poetry alone, that we can obtain any information of these interesting particulars. His testimony, as far as it goes, may be received with complete security. The private life and domestic economy he describes, are those he witnessed, and those he practised. They describe the life led by those among whom he lived, and by whom he was surrounded.

The following passage, for example, taken from the sixth book of

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