The sunshine and the flowers, And the old trees that cast a solemn shade; The pleasant evening, the fresh dewy hours, And the green hills whereon your fathers play'd; The grey and ancient peaks, Round which the silent clouds hang day and night; The voice of hidden rills, Its quiet way into your spirit finds; Ye sit upon the earth, Twining its flowers, and shouting, full of glee ; And a pure mighty influence, 'mid your mirth, Moulds your unconscious spirit silently. Hence is it that the lands Of storm and mountain have the noblest sons; Whom the world reverence-the patriot bands Were of the hills like you, ye little ones! Children of pleasant song Are taught within the mountain solitudes; For hoary legends to your wilds belong, And yours are haunts where inspiration broods. Then go forth; earth and sky To you are tributary; joys are spread Profusely like the summer flowers that lie In the green path beneath your gamesome tread ! LETTER TO THE UNKNOWN PURCHASER AND NEXT OCCUPANT OF GLENMARY. BY N. P. WILLIS. SIR In selling you the dew and sunshine or 'ained to fall hereafter on this bright spot of earth the waters on their way to this sparkling brook-the tints mixed for the flowers of that enamelled meadow, and the songs bidden to be sung in coming summers by the feathery builders in Glenmary, I know not whether to wonder more at the omnipotence of money, or at my own impertinent audacity toward Nature. How you can buy the right to exclude at will every other creature made in God's image from sitting by this brook, treading on that carpet of flowers, or lying listening to the birds in the shade of these glorious trees-how I can sell it you, is a mystery not understood by the Indian, and da. k, I must say, to me. "Lord of the soil," is a title which conveys your privileges but poorly. You are master of waters flowing at this moment, perhaps, in a river of Judea, or floating in clouds over some spicy island of the tropics, bound hither after many changes. There are lilies and violets ordered for you in millions, acres of sunshine in daily instalments, and dew nightly in proportion. There are throats to be tuned with song, and wings to be painted with red and gold, blue and yellow; thousands of them, and all tributaries to you. Your corn is ordered to be sheathed in silk, and lifted high to the sun. Your grain is to be duly bearded and stemmed. There is perfume distilling for your clover, and juices for your grasses and fruits. Ice will be here for your wine, shade for your refreshment at noon, breezes and showers and snow-flakes; all in their season, and all deeded to you for forty dollars the acre!" Gods! what a copyhold of property for a fallen world! Mine has been but a short lease of this lovely and well endowed domain (the duration of a smile of fortune. five years, scarce longer than a five act play); but as in a play we sometimes live through a life, it seems to me that I have lived a life at Glenmary. Allow me this, and then you must allow me the privilege of those who, at the close of life, leave something behind them: that of writing out my will. Though I depart this life, I would fain, like others, extend my ghostly hand into the future; and if wings are to be borrowed or stolen where I go, you may rely on my hovering around and haunting you, in visitations not restricted by cock-crowing. Trying to look at Glenmary through your eyes, sir, I see too plainly that I have not shaped my ways as if expecting a successor in my lifetime. I did not, I am free to own. I thought to have shuffled off my mortal coil tranquilly here; flitting at last in company with some troop of my autumn leaves, or some bevy of spring blossoms, or with snow in the thaw; my tenants at my back, as a won our regard. He presumes a little on your allowance for old age; and with this pardonable weakness growing upon him, it seems but right that his position and standing should be tenderly made known to any new-comer on the premises. In the cutting of the next grass, slice me not up my fat friend, sir! nor set your cane down heedlessly in his modest domain. He is mine ancient," and I would fain do him a good turn with you. landlord may say. I have counted on a life-interest | male eye, and, with the trimness of his shape, has in the trees, trimming them accordingly; and in the departed much of that measured alacrity which first squirrels and birds, encouraging them to chatter and build and fear nothing; no guns permitted on the premises. I have had my will of this beautiful stream. I have carved the woods into a shape of my liking. I have propagated the despised sumach and the persecuted hemlock and "pizen laurel." And "no end to the weeds dug up and set out again," as one of my neighbours delivers himself. I have built a bridge over Glenmary brook, which the town looks to have kept up by the place," and we have plied free ferry over the river, I and my man Tom, till the neighbours, from the daily saving of the two miles round, have got the trick of it. And betwixt the aforesaid Glenmary brook and a certain muddy and plebeian gutter formerly permitted to join company with, and pollute it, I have procured a divorce at much trouble and pains, a guardian duty entailed of course on my successor. For my spoilt family of squirrels, sir, I crave nothing but immunity from powder and shot. They require coaxing to come on the same side of the tree with you, and though saucy to me, I observe that they commence acquaintance invariably with a safe mistrust. One or two of them have suffered, it is true, from too hasty a confidence in my greyhound Maida, but the beauty of that gay fellow was a trap against which nature had furnished them with no warning instinct! (A fact, sir, which would pretti of the lawn, and the black walnut over the shoulder of the flower garden, have been, through my dynas. ty, sanctuaries inviolate for squirrels. I pray you, sir, let them not be" reformed out" under your administration. First of ail, sir, let me plead for the old trees of Glenmary! Ah! those friendly old trees! The cot-ly point a moral!) The large hickory on the edge tage stands belted in with them, a thousand visible from the door, and of stems and branches worthy of the great valley of the Susquehannah. For how much music played without thanks am I indebted to those leaf-organs of changing tone? for how many whisperings of thought breathed like oracles into my ear for how many new shapes of beauty moulded in the leaves by the wind? for how much companionship, solace, and welcome? Steadfast and constant is the countenance of such friends; God be praised for their staid welcome and sweet fidelity! If I love them better than some things human, it is no fault of ambitiousness in the trees. They stand where they did. But in recoiling from mankind, one may find them the next kindliest things, and be glad of dumb friendship. Spare those old trees, gentle sir! a Of our feathered connexions and friends, we are Bob o'-Lincoln, the first occupying the top of the most bound to a pair of Phebe-birds and a merry young maple near the door of the cottage, and the der bushes in the meadow, though in common with latter executing his bravuras upon the clump of al. many a gay-plumaged gallant like himself, his whereabout after dark is a dark mystery. He comes every year from his rice-plantation in Florida to pass the summer at Glenmary. Pray keep him safe from percussion-caps, and let no urchin with a long pole poke down our trusting Phebes; annuals in that same tree for three summers. There are humming. birds, too, whom we have complimented and looked morning to morning. And there is a golden oriole sweet upon, but they can not be identified from who sings through May on a dog wood tree by the brook side, but he has fought shy of our crumbs and coaxing, and let him go! We are mates for his bet ters, with all his gold livery! With these reservations, sir, I commend the birds to your friendship and kind keeping. In the smooth walk which encircles the meadow betwixt that solitary Olympian sugar-maple and the margin of the river, dwells a portly and venerable toad; who (if I may venture to bequeath you my friends) must be commended to your kindly consid eration. Though a squatter, he was noticed in our first rambles along the stream, five years since, for his ready civility in yielding the way; not hurriedly, however, nor with an obsequiousness unbecoming republican, but deliberately and just enough; sitting quietly on the grass till our passing by gave him room again on the warm and trodden ground. PunctuAnd now sir, I have nothing else to ask, save only ally after the April cleansing of the walk, your watchfulness over the small nook reserved from this jewelled habitue, from his indifferent lodgings this purchase of seclusion and loveliness. In the near by, emerges to take his pleasure in the sun; shady depths of the small glen above you, among the and there, at any time when a gentleman is likely to wild flowers and music, the music of the brook babbe abroad, you may find him, patient on his os coccy-bling over rocky steps, is a spot sacred to love and gis, or vaulting to his asylum of long grass. This year, he shows, I am grieved to remark, an ominous obesity, likely to render him obnoxious to the fe memory. Keep it inviolate, and as much of the happiness of Glenmary as we can leave behind, stay with you for recompense! THE ALDERMAN'S FUNERAL. BY ROBERT SOUTHLY. Stranger. Whom are they ushering from the world, with all This pageantry and long parade of death? Townsman. A long parade, indeed, sir; and yet here Stranger. Why judge you, then, Townsman. For what he left Undone, for sins not one of which is mention'd Believed no other gods than those of the creed. Stranger. It is but a mournful sight, and yet the To honour his dead father; did no snurder; pomp Tempts me to stand a gazer. Townsman. Yonder schoolboy, Who plays the truant, says, the proclamation Never pick'd pockets; never bore false witness; The virtues of your hundred-thousanders; Ay, who was worth, last week, a good half million, Tomnsman. We track the streamlet by the brigher Screw'd down in yonder hearse. Stranger. Then he was born Under a lucky planet, who to-day Puts mourning on for his inheritance. Townsman. When first I heard his death, that Leap'd to my lips; but now the closing scene Stranger. The camel and needle-- Townsman. Even so. The text Is gospel wisdom. I would ride the camel-- Stranger. Your pardon, sir, But sure this lack of Christian charity Looks not like Christian truth. Townsman. Your pardon, too, sir, If with this text before me, I should feel green And livelier growth it gives; but as for this- Stranger. Yet even these Are reservoirs, whence public charity Townsman. Now, sir, you touch To that hard face. Yet he was always found His alms were money put to interest A running charity account with heaven; In the preaching mood! But for these barren fig trees, Plead his own cause as plaintiff. With all their flourish and their leafiness, Stranger. Was his wealth Stranger. I must needs Believe you, sir; these are your witnesses, Than the old servant of the family! How can this man have lived, that thus his death Townsman. Who should lament for him, sir, in whose heart Love had no place, nor natural charity? His paternoster and his decalogue. When yet he was a boy, and should have breathed Stranger. Yet your next newspaper will blazon him Townsman. Even half a million Gets him no other praise. But come this way Some twelvemonths hence, and you will find his virtues Trimly set forth in lapidary lines, Faith with her torch beside, and little Cupids MY CHILD. BY JOHN PIER PONT. I cannot make him dead! Is ever bounding round my study chair; The vision vanishes-he is not there! I walk my parlor floor, And, through the open door, I hear a footfall on the chamber stair; And then bethink me that- he is not there! I thread the crowded street: A satchel'd lad I meet With the same beaming eyes and colored hair ; And, as he's running by, Follow him with my eye, Scarcely believing that-he is not there! BY RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH. A dewdrop falling on the wild sea wave, A COMMISSION OF LUNACY. BY CHARLES F. BRIGGS to swathe me in wet sheets. Him, too, I drove from It was a perfectly clear case of lunacy, and a pitiable one. But when we retired to the jury-room, one of the jurors would not agree with the other five. He stretched himself upon a bench, threw a handkerchief over his head, and requested us to wake him when we had come over to his way of thinking. For myself, I was not disposed to be bullied out of my opinion, so I too lay down upon a bench, deter I was once called to decide upon the case of a person who was thought by his friends to be insane. He had been sent to a mad-house, and in one of his lucid intervals had demanded a trial of the county judge, and a trial was granted. A jury of six men, of whom I was one, were to decide upon his case. He was a healthy looking gentleman, with nothing unusual in his appearance excepting a restlessness of his eyes, which might not have been observed had he not been accused of insanity. The proofs of his madness were very clear, but he showed so much coolness and clear thinking in his cross-questioning of witnesses, that I felt some hesitation in pronounc-mined not to yield an inch of my right to think for ing him unsound of mind. His case was a very sad one, and he melted the hearts of all who heard him when he appealed to the jury. myself, and in a few minutes fell fast asleep; but I had better have kept awake, for the moment that my eyelids fell, I had to perform the part of a juror It was the same ill-lighted room, the same dull Judge who slept through half the trial, the same clownish spectators, the same everything, except the defendant, who yet seemed to be the same person in a different habit. I deny that I am insane, gentlemen," he said, again. when the Judge gave him leave to speak, "but that is a matter of course. No man ever thought himself insane; neither can any man ever think himself so; for, having no standard of soundness but what exists in his own mind, he cannot be unsound to himself, though he may be manifestly so in the mind of ano- He was a good looking youth; indeed, I have never ther. But who shall determine what is madness seen a finer; his dark chesnut hair and sandy beard and what is not? Be careful, gentlemen, how you were equal to a patent of nobility, for they proclaimpronounce me mad, lest to-morrow I be called to pro-ed his Saxon blood, and proved him of a race that nounce you so. The proofs that have been offered to came upon the earth to conquer it. His eyes were you of my madness, are to me proofs of entire sound-gray and his complexion fair. But, poor man! he ness of mind. I would be mad were I anything dif- was out of his mind. His father was a merchant, ferent from what I have been represented. They and he wept while he gave evidence to his son's inhave brought three physicians, who all say that I sanity. He, the son, would wear his beard, and this am mad. Yet I will compel you to admit that the was the proof of his madness. In spite of the jeers, madness is in them and not in me. I was sick, very the sneers, and the laughter of the world, he would sick, sick at heart, for you must know that I had lost let his beard grow as nature intended. Poor fellow! my Bessy and my little boy-my little boy." Here We all pitied him. So intelligent, so gentle in his the unfortunate hesitated and seemed to lose him- manners, so happily circumstanced, and yet mad! self entirely. "I said that I was sick, but it was He had the hardihood to declare in open court, that Bessy. But it must have been me. Yes, I was he saw no reason why he should deprive his face of sick, very sick, sick at heart, for my little boy and the covering which God had put upon it. Bessy. Bessy again. Yes, Bessy had been sick, but now it was I. I was sick, and they brought me a physician. He felt my pulse, he looked upon me with his cold gray eyes, and then reached me a tumbler half full of a nauseous liquid, which he said would quiet me, and do me good. But all the while I was quieter than a rock, and colder, and harder. I thought that he needed the stuff more than myself, so I caught his head between my knees, and though he struggled hard, yet I poured it down his throat, gentlemen, and he was glad enough to escape. Then they brought another to me, who gave me a little globule of sugar, a pin's head was a cannon ball beside it, and told me that it would cure my fever. Do you blame me for thrusting the madman out of my chamber? Then they brought me another, who would give me no medicine at all, but ordered them "No reason," cried his mother, "O, my son, does not your father shave, your uncle, your brother, all the world shave but yourself? No reason for shaving? O! my son!" "True," replied the unfortunate youth, as he stroked his beard with ineffable content, "true, but they are all mad or they would not. I need my beard to protect my face and throat from the wet and cold. It helps to hide the sharp angles of my jaws, it makes me more comely, adds to my strength, and keeps me in health. Do I not look more like a man than my father, with his smooth, pale face, who has nothing but his clothes to distinguish him from a woman? Look at him; he has scraped all the hair off his chin, and placed another man's hair on his head. Beautiful consistency. To shave his chin and put false hair on his head! What a mad outrage upon |