The story of one so true and tender, could not but excite great interest in a country remarkable for enthusiasm. It completely won the heart of a brave officer, who paid his addresses to her, and thought that one so true to the dead, could not but prove affectionate to the living. She declined his attentions, for her thoughts were irrevocably engrossed by the memory of her former lover. He, however, persisted in his suit. He solicited not her tenderness, but her esteem. He was assisted by her conviction of his worth, and her sense of her own destitute and dependent situation; for she was existing on the kindness of friends. In a word, he at length succeeded in gaining her hand, though with the solemn assurance that her heart was unalterably another's.

He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of scene might wear out the remembrance of early woes. She was an amiable and exemplary wife, and made an effort to be a happy one; but nothing could cure the silent and devouring melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She wasted away in a slow but hopeless decline, and at length sunk into the grave, the victim of a broken heart.

IRVING.

THE IDIOT.

A POOR widow, in a small town in the north of England, kept a booth, or stall, of apples and sweetmeats. She had an idiot child, so utterly helpless and dependent, that he did not appear to be ever alive to anger or self-defence. He sat all day at her feet, and seemed to be possessed of no other sentiment of the human kind, than confidence in his mother's love, and a dread of the schoolboys, by whom he was often annoyed. His whole occupation, as he sat on the ground, was in swinging backwards and forwards, singing "pal lal" in a low pathetic voice, only interrupted at intervals on the appearance of any of his tormentors, when he clung to his mother in alarm. From morning till evening he sung his plaintive

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and aimless ditty; at night, when his poor mother gathered up little wares to return home, so deplorable did his defects appear, that, while she carried her table on her head, her stock of little merchandise in her lap, and her stool in one hand, she was obliged to lead him by the other. Ever and anon, as any of the schoolboys appeared in view, the harmless thing clung close to her, and hid his face in her bosom for protection. A human creature so far below the standard of humanity, was nowhere ever seen: he had not even the shallow cunning which is often found among these unfinished beings; and his simplicity could not even be measured by the standard we would apply to the capacity of a lamb. Yet it had a feeling rarely manifested even in the affectionate dog, and a knowledge never shown by any mere animal. He was sensible of his mother's kindness, and how much he owed to her care. At night, when she spread his humble pallet, though he knew not prayer, nor could comprehend the solemnities of worship, he prostrated himself at her feet; and, as he kissed them, mumbled a kind of mental orison, as if in fond and holy devotion. In the morning, before she went abroad to resume her station in the market-place, he peeped anxiously out to reconnoitre the street; and as often as he saw any of the schoolboys in the way, he held her firmly back, and sung his sorrowful “pal lal”.

One day the poor woman and her idiot boy were missed from the market place, and the charity of some of the neighbors induced them to visit her hovel. They found her dead on her sorry couch, and the boy sitting beside her, holding her hand, swinging and singing his pitiful lay more sorrowfully than he had ever done before. He could not speak, but only utter a brutish gabble; sometimes, however, he looked as if he comprehended something of what was said. On this occasion, when the neighbors spoke to him, he looked up with a tear in his eye; and, clasping the cold hand more tenderly, sunk the strain of his mournful "pal lal" into a softer and sadder key. The spectators, deeply affected, raised him from the body; and he surrendered his hold of the earthly hand without resistance, retiring in silence to an obscure corner of the room. One of them, looking towards the others, said to them,

"Poor wretch! what shall we do with him?" At that moment, he resumed his chant; and, lifting two handfuls of dust from the floor, sprinkled it on his head, and sung, with a wild and clear heart piercing pathos, "Pal lal, pal lal.”

Blackwood's Magazine.

ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

TO WHAT are we to attribute the fact, that the social progress of the Americans so far outstrips any ratio of improvement which the world has yet seen? Are we bound to consider them-as they vainly style themselves "The most extraordinary people of all time"! I answer, frankly and decidedly, no. Great, I admit them to be; but the least extraordinary people of any that I know. My reasons are these :-the present condition of the United States is the solution of a problem-the measure of the capacities of the age placed in circumstances the most highly favorable to their development. Never were men called upon to work out greater consequences than the Americans, and never were men less authors of the causes and principles from which, or the means by which, they were to be educed. In other countries, the actual condition of society is the hard earned booty which the intelligence of its past and present members has carried off from time-the prize of a long wrestle with ages of barbarism, ages of oppression, ages of fanaticism, ages of blood-the amount of health which difficult precautions and tedious cares have rescued from old and still unsubdued disease. Look at England - from her heptarchy to her conquest — from that to the revolution from the revolution to the present time. Mark her long and weary efforts to pile up her freedom: how often was it the toil of Sisyphus? Consider the stubborn and guarded quarries from which she was forced to hew out her greatness; trace the course of her social improvements at first like a little silver stream in a rocky wilderness: then widening and deepening-always flowing and fretting onward, but not always seen; now diverted from its

way by some rugged obstacle, and now dammed up, until the weight of its waters broke down the impediment; thus sometimes free, and sometimes checked, until its channel becomes broad and deep, and its waters expand into a glorious flood. It is this long agony with toils — it is these stolen marches by night, and this warring by day —it is this self-construction of character and fortune, which constitute an extraordinary nation—a most extraordinary nation; but can America pretend to the same distinction? What has been her career? Like another Minerva, she sprang into existence a perfect goddess; and, as the brain of Jove alone could have conceived the first, the greatness of England alone could have conceived the second. What did the ground of the quarrel of America with the parent state imply? A sensitive love of liberty, and a practical acquaintance with its elements. But such a knowledge infers a high degree of social and intellectual excellence. So primed and seasoned for self-government, she was fully able to go on her course alone; nor was she at all embarrassed which path to choose. A less enlightened government than that of England she could not take; one more suited, if possible, to her peculiar circumstances, could only be devised by modifying the fundamental principles of that one so as to suit the new society to which it was to be applied. All that was to be done was to disown and disconnect the British constitution—and she did it. The great difficulty in England has been to combine the artificial distinctions of society with one great action, to connect them by a common interest. In America these distinctions did not exist. Society there presented a plain, uniform surface, without irregularities, without difference of materials—no one point of which required a different kind or weight of superstructure from the rest. The American Republic, therefore, instead of being a bold innovation, is, after all, only a close copy with local amendments. There is a President, a Senate, and a House of Representatives humble imitations of our King, Lords, and Commons. Viewed at a distance, through the mist of European prejudice, the American Republic seems a chimera; viewed near at hand, at a distance from those prejudices, it was plainly a necessity. Up to this point, then, there is confessedly nothing in their career to surprise us. Trained,

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from their earliest colonization, in the practice and principles of constitutional liberty, they no sooner resolved to be independent, than they became so: no sooner became so, than with a noble display of easy and dexterous strength, they wielded the sceptre they had seized! It was doubtless an imposing application of a great principle; there never certainly was any on which Fortune more kindly smiled. Placed, as it were, in the midst of a political world, they had no neighbor to harrass or obstruct them- to excite their cupidity, their ambition, or their revenge. Even the feverish excitement that survives a revolution, found a natural issue in their commercial activity and skill. Then came the mad wars of Europe, taxing their enterprise to the utmost; goading, compelling them to wealth and then came Fulton !

The first steamboat that ascended the Hudson ploughed away centuries of delay to the growing prosperity of the States, and eventually of the world. It was as important in its immediate results to the navigation of America, as the compass, in its remote results, to the navigation of the world; and then, as if she were to have the benefit of extent without the obstacle of distance, the railroad appearsand separation vanishes! And now I ask, if, under this complication of advantages-if, with this early infusion of sound political, social, and moral knowledge—if with a territory of inexhaustible fertility, and mechanical invention that enables her to subsidize every part of its vast surface- if, with appeals and encouragements to her industry, such as no nation was ever before in a situation to receive-if, with all these things, there be anything in the brilliancy and swiftness of her course to puzzle or confound us? With great means she has done great things. In many and most respects she may challenge our applause — in some she provokes our censure and rebuke- in none our wonder.

Greenbank's Lectures on America.