I am told he was quite attached to a charming young lady, and that he took her out one day to pop the question, when they were overtaken by a high wind. His companion was a novelreading, piano-playing, devotee to modern fashion. She had Moore and Bulwer at her fingers' ends, and was as romantic as he was neat.

"How beautifully the clouds are dispersed above the blue vault of heaven," said the lady languishingly, and by way of introduciug the tender conversation, for she knew what he was at, as well as he did himself.

"What a devil of a dust!" said Jackson, in a passion.

"We had better forget the evils of our earthly existence," said the lady. "I think we had better go home," said Jackson.

"Horrible!" thought Jackson; "make love to a woman covered with dust!"

In short, I discovered that the glorious reputation for neatness which my friend had established on so firm a basis, was purchased at an incalculable sacrifice of simple ease and pleasure. A windy day gives him the blues. He will not eat a loaf of bread of doubtful origin; children, dogs, cats, and brooms are his abhorrence. Chimneysweeps, bakers' shops, stages, and steam-boats make him nervous. He is wretched if he has to sleep in a strange bed; and thus he goes on, shuddering and trembling through life, suspicious of every thing, and often unhappy. What an effort it must be to him to go through the ordinary routine of business. I cannot conceive of any situation wherein he would be perfectly happy, unless he were dressed to his mind, hermetically sealed in a glass-case, and put up in the museum for people to look at.

THIS opinion of the celebrated poet has been so frequently quoted, as to be familiar to all the reading classes of the community. It evidently sprang from that thoughtful study of nature which is the great parent of benevolence, and does honour to the writer's heart; yet, like many beautiful theories, both in prose and poetry, I do not believe a single word of it. In youth, when the mind is more curious to inquire, and more ready to believe than reason, we receive instruction with a general credulity, and without ever pausing to examine into its origin. Impressions so made are confirmed by time, which deepens the prejudices which it fails to destroy. I esteem this to be one, among other errors of a more serious kind, which the world fall into, as it were, blindfolded; and in which they are contented to grope, when by merely exercising the senses, with which nature has endued them, they might detect the path of truth.

The poor beetle that we tread upon,
In corporal suffering, feels a pang as great
As when a giant dies.

In naming the " poor beetle," I presume the writer means to include all living creatures on the face of the globe, or beneath the ground, or in the deep, or the air. The mass of agony for which this admission makes nature responsible, is shocking, and beyond credit. The death of every creature which supplies our table with food, would, in such case, be a massacre, and we should shrink from an oyster supper with horror unutterable. What appetite should we derive from witnessing a human being placed upon the rack, his limbs torn quivering and bleeding from his body, his eyes wrenched from their sockets, his heart cut out from his panting breast, or his head twisted off before life had left the mangled trunk; and yet, if those forms of life, which are evidently intended to serve the purposes of nutrition to human beings,

In corporal suffering, feel a pang as great As when a giant dies, even such is the exquisite torture inflicted upon every oyster that is eaten, upon every fish that is brought up trembling from the depths of the stream, and every bird which falls fluttering and bloody at the fowler's feet.

Beside the creatures which are useful as the food of man, there are myriads of others which swarm about his steps, and die in countless numbers by accidentwhile others are intentionally destroyed as offensive. If death be to all these what it is to a human being, it would be no affectation of sensibility to confess that I could not put my foot on a spider, nor witness the struggles of a drowning fly, without a thrill of painful compassion.

I have no doubt that all creatures gifted with life, are, also, endued with a sufficient susceptibility of pain, and instinctive dread of it, to answer the general purpose of self-preservation; but, when we behold the difference between the organization of an oyster, a fly, or a beetle, and a man, it is impossible to conceive that their systems can admit of an equal degree either of pain or pleasure. Both sensations must be to them something dull and vague; and, inasmuch as their sphere of existence is more contracted, and their formation meaner, so their capacities are all dim and small, and their lives comparatively worthless. You may watch a fly upon the table, perambulating briskly in search of food. True, if you catch him, he makes a great noise, although uninjured; but set him free again, and after convincing himself, by a few aerial circumvolutions, of the fact that so important a personage is actually released without a ransom, he will return to the table, and go on with his epicurean researches. Cut off his legs and his wings, and sometimes I have seen his body rather unceremoniously divided for the sake of the experiment. The patient was evidently incommoded by the loss, and performed certain involuntary evolutions, but presently, on arriving at a crumb of sugar, he commenced regaling himself as usual, body or no body, and afterwards cleansed the remainder of his wings with the fragments of his legs, and hobbled off till he found and partook of some more sugar.

The fisherman takes the worm from the earth, tears its helpless form into pieces; each one of which he fastens upon the

barbed hook. Imagination recoils from the idea of such an experiment upon one of our race, yet if similar pain be suffered by the worm, it is equally cruel. Fish taken from the water, remain alive many hours. If we suppose them gifted with a human susceptibility of bodily torture, what agony can be more excruciating than theirs?

The destruction which we necessarily commit among the inferior living creation, although presenting a vast and gloomy picture of suffering, would form but a part of the great system of anguish offered to the contemplation of the naturalist. He beholds the brute creation continually engaged, from their nature, in destroying each other. The lion is tearing his victim; the vulture is pouncing upon his prey; the whale is swallowing shoals of lesser fish-altogether, the earth would afford a prospect painful to dwell upon, and inconsistent with the principles of benevolence which form leading features in the creation and government of the world. I am, therefore, compelled to believe, that although the creatures over which man is lord, are capable of sufferings to a certain degree, yet, that their pain is very different from the torture of human beings. The essence, which we call life, might have been breathed into matter much finer and purer, and more capable of every species of emotion, than that of which we are at present constructed. The nerves of the tooth, for example, how exquisitely delicate, and with what a refined agony do they resent the softest touch? The same power that spread these fibres through the teeth, might have created us all nerve, so that the breathing of the air upon our uncovered bodies would have thus afflicted us, or perhaps overcome us with an equal consciousness of delight. The nerves, which in us, are productive of such acute sensation, are wanting in the fly, the oyster, the beetle, &c., or are composed of a different material, and, we may therefore justly conclude, are governed by different rules. The more nature is studied the more the harsh and gloomy features in her aspect are softened down into kindness and beauty; and, however painful insects may find the act by which their lives are extinguished, I must differ in opinion from the author of the lines at the head of this article. Beasts and insects are as incapable of our sufferings as they are of our enjoy

ments.

CHARLES had been absent two days. Poor Julia had been wishing and wishing for him. His well-known step sounded in the entry; the door opened, and she met him with a heightened. colour in her cheek, and her blue eyes flashing from beneath their long lashes with sparkles of unwonted pleasure. Shall I mention particulars? It is scarcely necessary. He who cannot imagine how a warm-hearted young wife, in the honeymoon, would meet her idol after an absence of two whole days, is no reader for me.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, after the first transport had a little subsided, "I am glad you have returned, dear, dear Charles! I was afraid you might not come-that you were sick, or some accident had occurred. But here you are. And now, have you had a pleasant time? and how do they all do? and whom did you see? and

Charles stopped her mouth.

"Yes, here I am, safe and sound, and full of news; but you huddle question upon question with such volubility that I shall never get a chance to answer them, and your mouth here wide open to ask I don't know how many more.'

"Well, then," answered she, flinging herself into an attitude of attention, and folding her arms like a judge upon a bench," there—I am dumb, and ready to listen to the news-I wont speak another word till you have done.”

And with considerable apparent difficulty she closed her lips.

"Now then," said Charles, "mark me." "I will," said Julia.

"Well, then," continued her husband laughing, "in the first place, they are all well; in the next, I have had a very pleasant time; and, lastly, I have seen old Mr. Peterson, and aunt Sarah, and Mr. and Mrs. Vanderdyke, and little Bob, Henry, and Maria.

"And this," inquired Julia, "is the news that you are to tell? and these are all you saw?"

"Oh, no!" replied Charles, mysteriously; "far from it, Julia. I have met one more-one most beautiful, bewitching being more-the very counterpart of Venus. Such complexion-such ringlets, long and glossy-and cheeks-roses and

lilies are nothing to them! There is nothing in all nature sweeter than her lips, and her eyes are bright dangers no man should rashly encounter. They were soft, melting, liquid, heavenly, blue -full of the light of intellect, and tremulous every beam of them with a tenderness that makes the heart ache."

66

You are only jesting with me," said Julia, endeavouring, but in vain, to check the change that came over her face, as the shadow of a cloud flits across a stream. "This is some stupid Dutch beauty, and you can scarcely describe her without laughing. Come, now, tell the truth."

"You may believe it or not, just as you please," said Charles; "but I assure you the whole account is as true as the enjoyment of it was enrapturing, and the memory is delicious."

She

Julia was sensitive and artless. loved her husband with that deep tenderness which knew all the thrills of love's hopes and fears. Her heart was like a goblet filled to the brim, whose contents tremble and overflow when shaken ever so lightly. There was, therefore, in these enthusiastic praises of another, something strange, and even cruel. Still she could not believe that he was serious; and forcing a smile, and struggling to keep down her rising emotion, she listened to him in silence as he rattled on.

"Our meeting was marked with uncommon interest. Old Mr. Peterson introduced me to her, after having previously hinted that, before I was married, she had regarded me with more than common complacency."

"Charles!

"Well, we met. I addressed her by name; she said nothing—but, oh! those eyes of hers were fixed on me with a gaze that reached into the innermost recesses of my heart, and seemed to touch all those chords of feeling which nature had strung for joy. Wherever I went, I found her eyes still turned toward me, and an arch smile just played around her saucy lips, and spoke all the fine fancies and half-hidden meanings that woman will often look, but not always trust to the clumsy vehicle of words. I could restrain myself no longer-but, forgetting all but those heavenly lips, I approached and

"

Poor Julia-she thought she heard the knell of her young dreams. The hue of her cheek, and the sparkle of her azure eye, were gone long before; and as he painted in such glowing colours the picture of his feelings, her lip quivered, and tears swelled up and dimmed the blue light of eyes beautiful as day. "I will never speak to you again, Charles," sobbed she, "if this is true." "It is true," he exclaimed, "only not

half like the reality. It was your own PICTURE, my sweet girl, that I kissed again and again."

She looked at him a moment, and buried her wet eyes in his bosom. As she lifted her head, and, shaking back the clustering ringlets that fell around her brow, displayed her face smiling through tears, his arm softly found its way around her waist, and-but I am at the end of my sheet.