would prove overwhelming and intolerable. But the welcome sheet arrives, and we are blest by the intelligence that the being concerning whom we were so anxious has surmounted all dangers, and still lives to think of us, and to love us. Again we converse together, again we interchange our thoughts, as if present with each other; we speak to those we cannot see, and we listen to them who are too far off to hear even the thunder that rolls along our horizon. If ever mortal deserved a monument to perpetuate his memory, it was the inventor of writing; (what are the claims of kings or conquerors in the comparison ?) it is the next best gift to life itself, and, deprived of it, life would hardly be worth the possessing: it is truly like the air we breathe; if we have it not we die. The best enjoyments of being emanate from this divine art : it pours the brightest sunshine that illumines the desolate path of life; without it, the gift of genius would be bestowed in vain, and talent would expire unseen and unenjoyed, like the bright flowers of an uninhabited region. And without the medium of communication by the post, even this would be divested of half its advantages; with a cheapness that no other mode can compete with, a swiftness that none else can rival, and a certainty and dependance that no other can offer, it presents the finest instance of communication between men that the world has ever witnessed. Crowned heads, and the nobles of the land, might, indeed, send their communications by messengers or couriers; but these would hardly be available for the merchant, and not at all for the tradesman or artizan. But now we can receive the most needful intelligence, or the kindest effusions of regard, from a distance of nearly three hundred miles, for almost nothing: and, in four or five days, a letter may be dispatched, and an answer received, from the metropolis to the Land's End in Cornwall. Thus may the prodigal, who has absented himself from his paternal roof, and the arms of his parents, solicit and receive permission to return to the hearts that mourn over his absence. I knew a father whose son had left his home, and was an exile above two hundred miles off. This father was taken ill, and was told he could not survive many days. His palsied hand was yet able to scrawl a few lines to his still darling boy, whose retreat had just become known to him. He conjured him, if he wished to receive his dying blessing and forgiveness, to return immediately. The unconscious paper was dispatched; it flew upon the wings of the wind along the dreary road,-it traversed the long heaths, it past over the high hills and the deep rivers: neither the floods nor the precipices retarded the important message; and, in a few days, the repentant prodigal was at his father's feet, and in his arms, and received his pardon and blessing, and saw him close his eyes in peace; when, but for this, the one would have lived wretched, and the other died miserable. I never see the mail flying along the road, with its lamps gleaming through the darkness, and its horn breaking the stillness of midnight, but I think of the thousand intense interests that are conveyed in its packages. The timely assistance which it is conveying to solace, and perhaps to save, the distressed,-the pleadings of love, the outpourings of friendship, and the supplications of despair,-the joys and the sorrows of the heart, are all going to their respective destinations, to carry peace or hope, succour or sympathy, to the bosoms that need them. To some it will terminate a suspense worse than death. To whole families deprived of the means of existence, it will carry plenty and peace. It oft makes whole the breaking heart, revives the sinking spirit, and illumes the haggard eye; and, if it do convey some sad intelligence, it is that which must be known, and is always better known than feared. How many a man has its speed and punctuality saved from bankruptcy and from ruin. M- was, and is still, in prosperous and happy circumstances; but, owing to the failure of his banker, he was once nearly involved in irreparable ruin. He had a large acceptance coming due in six days after this event happened; and, upon the honouring of this, his credit as a tradesman, and, perhaps, his very liberty, depended. The state of his mind during this period is not to be described. He had indeed a friend, possessing both the means and the will to save him; but he, alas! was afar off,-a distance of more than three hundred miles spread between them. Could he breathe his distress into the ear of that friend, he was safe; for him to go and return in the time was, indeed, difficult, to say nothing of the expense; but he seized his pen, he described his misfortune, the post conveyed it to his friend; the answer might arrive on the day the bill became due, but sooner it could not. The fated day came, the bill was presented, the clerk left the address; he had done his part, and cared for no more. M-paced his counting-house in all the agonized suspense of a man whom that day must save or destroy. His wife was weeping at home, his children wondering at the cause of such unusual sorrow. The postman entered the street, and every knock that sounded caused the heart of M― to beat with increased velocity; the unconscious messenger past his door; M-clasped his hands, and felt himself undone! Suddenly the man returned; he had overlooked the number, and his knock sounded like a reprieve to a malefactor on the scaffold. The letter was torn open, it contained a sufficient remittance, and a command to call upon the donor in any similar emergency, with a heart-inspired assurance of unaltered friendship. The throbbing heart of M-was stilled; his difficulties were surmounted, and he is now independent and happy. Had his letter miscarried, or the answer been less punctual, he and his family might have been undone. The post! how often is it the only remaining link that unites the fondest hearts on earth! When fortune has torn them asunder, and they beat in different hemispheres, it is the only connecting chain that still binds them together. It is as if another sense, over which distance had no control, were added to those we son, already possess. By this channel alone each knows that the other still lives. But for this, how doubly afflicting to the fond mother would be the absence of a who had gone in search of fame or fortune to distant climes; how many fears, which nothing could allay, would fancy conjure up to torture her: how else could she know that he had not expired on the pestilential shores of Africa, in the fever of the West Indies, or beneath the poisoned dagger of the Malay: that he had not been engulphed in the stormy billows of the Cape, or been wasted to death beneath the burning heat of an equinoxial sun? Now she knows that he still lives, and waits in fond hope for the day that shall restore him to her arms; she is assured by a messenger she cannot doubt, that he was, when that was dispatched, . living and well, and her sorrow is disarmed of its sting. When a battle has been fought on some distant shore, how many thousands are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the sealed messengers, which can alone assure them that those they love have survived the carnage of the field, and still live for them. And, till the letters arrive, how many thousand eyes are passing sleepless nights,-how many bosoms are throbbing with suspense, -how many fond lips are counting the days that must intervene before the post can bring the longed-for tidings. Till then they are imagining that the objects of their solicitude may be entombed beneath the field of slaughter, or writhing in the anguish of cureless wounds, and praying in vain for the tender hand of friend or relative to smooth the couch of pain: thus, even while friends at home are conjuring up all the harrowing circumstances that fancy can devise, the sealed papers are speeding on their way to set their hearts at rest. But to depict all the interests that are connected with the post, would be to read the history of human life, and the portraiture of human feelings: there is no passion that can actuate the breast, that is not fed or solaced by its visits; there is no interest that concerns VOL. 1. April, 1829. Q the welfare of man that is not carried on and perfected by it. Events, the most momentous to those concerned, are forwarded and completed, without the parties ever seeing each other during their progress. A man's dearest interests may hang on the safe conveyance, and punctual arrival, of a single letter, and seldom does it fail. If victory have blest the arms of the nation, the post conveys the welcome news to all parts of the empire, and from east to west the joy is simultaneous. It is the most perfect system of intercourse that has ever been devised,-it scatters wealth and happiness in a thousand directions. No place is too distant for it to reach,-no village too insignificant for it to visit. Like the sun, dispensing delight, it goes its daily journey. The heats of summer, and the cold of winter, are not allowed to intercept or retard it. In spite of Malthus, and all the economists, it carries on the important business of courtship, and leads to matrimony, whether for better or worse. It solaces the lover's sorrow, and transmits hope through many a cruel league. The bashful bachelor, who has not the courage to make a personal declaration, may do it through the medium of the post; nay, if he prefer it, he may even put the last question itself into the hands of the postman. It assists to bind society in one common union, for who would emigrate to a region where it could not reach! It is better than the gold-mines of Peru; and, like the Nile in Egypt, it scatters blessings along its track; and deserves to be considered as one of the most happy and distinguishing features of modern times. dear day dreams. Proudly those billows broke upon the sight, my soul, And I did gaze on them, until |