up the door of the larder sometimes tearing down the silver web of the spider — and then hurrying through the garret, threatening death to the rats and other vermin, that dared to exhibit their eyes. At last, one of the boys ran me into a hoe, and away I went, scratching among the cucumbers, and corn, and dew-sprinkled cabbages: in truth, I employed the whole summer in the labors of horticulture. When I was not busy, I was generally to be found quietly hanging in the pear tree, and, as was supposed, in perfect security. But a different fate awaited me. One dark night, I heard a cautious footstep approaching. I found myself suddenly grasped, and detached from the limb to which I hung. I was hurried instantly away for I was kidnapped! My master was a gentleman very commonly clad, and his breath had a peculiar flavor. He had not proceeded far, before he separated me from the hoe itself, and pocketing the steel, threw me into one of the neighboring pastures, amid the dewy grass. My bed was a cool one, yet it was somewhat ameliorated by being near the fence. I had not remained long in this position, when a person approached, and commenced warily throwing down the rails upon me. After a few moments, he began calling his sheep, guiding them safely through the aperture, saying, as they passed: It is very unfortunate to have unruly flocks, that will, in spite of yourself, infringe upon your neighbor's ground!' I thought as much. But what surprised me more, was the fact, that no flock passed the other way. This was owing, possibly, to the barrenness of the pasture. On the following morning, the farmers both lamented the catastrophe, and trusted that such an occurrence might not happen again.

those fires that burn

As I lay amid the green grass, my memory ran back over the winding pathway I had traversed, and I hope the reader with me. It was indeed a scene for reflection. The blue heavens bending above, were stamped with the golden stars for ever, and yet are not quenched. As I gazed at them, the thought of their antiquity rushed upon me. It was that same bluespangled curtain that hung on high above old Rome, when she rioted in all her luxury and magnificence. The shepherds who watched their flocks by night,' were warned to study that living page for a light to guide them to the expected Messiah: the Arab, as he travelled the boundless fields of sand, trusted to those burning orbs, for they alone were his chart and compass. Well may the stars be called the 'poetry of heaven!' Beyond the grasp of poor frail man, they light him from the cradle, and down to the sepulchre. Their beams are shed upon his monument, until that too is crumbled away, and no token remains to point the spot where his ashes lie. Could a voice be heard from their blue home, doubtless it would speak of a race that passed from our continent long ere the canvass of Columbus was furled upon our shores; a race that preceded the Indian people whose remains are yet among us, but whose history lies deep in oblivion. Our harvests wave above their graves, and the plough turns up their bones from their couch of many centuries. But I am wandering again.

a

The pasture-boy caught me up one morning from my bed of repose, and threw me into the street, where I was discovered, and

picked up by a teamster, who carried me to the great emporium. On my arrival, I was presented, in compassion, to a lame mendicant, who conveyed me home to his filthy dwelling, and converted me into a crutch. Oh, the misery I beheld here! Pages could not record it. Disease, crime, poverty, were all united. How little do the opulent realize the situation of the poor in a great metropolis! But I must close. I am too miserable, in my miserable abode, to write farther.

H. H. R.

January, 1837.

No radiance has been mine, that lit the heart,
But that which played upon its summit all
Without or warmth or glory. I have lived
When life was but a pastime - and the beat
Of the quick pulse was like no pendulum,
That measures what it governs but a rush
Of the ungoverned waters, that spring forth
And pass to sea in tumult. On that wave
Rose the bright spirit of joy and every swell
Of the glad billow lifted while it bore

A soul of joyousness - but sweeping down

The pathway of sad change, the skies were chang'd,

And the deep light departed. I was left

A being over whom the sights and sounds

Of earth had lost their power - a being bow'd
As to new idols, and new worship. Thus,
Without a heeded measure of my days,
They passed to the great ocean. I beheld
No value to them. Like a pendulum,
They swung their weary duty-pattering
The story of Time's passage; and to-day
Telling the tale of yesterday-till years
Pass'd in this nothingness, and I beheld
Their history on my brow. I heard afar,
Like the great anthem of the heaving sea,
A sound come o'er my ear, when I recall'd
The mem'ry of young joy- the beautiful,
The many-voiced, and holy. I trode back
The path where I had leapt when pulse was song,
And every cadence music- when the sky
Was but a habitation of bright hearts,
That beat to melody and gave the world

A lustre and a loveliness that none

Could season into being, though they seemed
Led by the best philosophy-
-a light
That the soul gather'd from simplicity,

And gazed on through this dome of all the stars!

GRENVILLE MELLEN.

A WEEK IN CINCINNATI.

IN 1829.

'REALLY, this is a foine town,' exclaimed a drawling young Trollope, to an old man who stood tottering upon the verge of sixty and the side-walk, and who nodded assent, as I passed up Main-street. It may be,' thought I, for it has noble streets, beautiful buildings, capacious markets, lofty churches,' etc. So extending my walk a little, I ascended one of those everlasting hills in the rear of the city, and took a bird's-eye view of its magnitude and position, which embraces several square miles of surface, and whose tout ensemble, reflected upon the glassy waters of 'La Belle Riviere,' presents one of the most gorgeous and gratifying spectacles in the western world. The next morning, bright and early, I repeated my promenade, and before noon felt myself quite familiar with the boundaries of the town. I need not describe its beauties; for they are, or should be, as familiar as household words to those who cannot find it in their hearts to overlook such graphic delineations as those of Basil Hall, and Mad. Trollope, and, par nobile fratrum, Col. Hamilton, Maj. Ferrall, and Barrister Vigne. I therefore omit them, and recommend those who wish to have a correct idea of this eighth wonder of the western world, to visit it themselves; but by all means to go without letters:

For if they always serve you thus,
You'll find them but of little use.'

For example: My first letter of introduction I presented to the postmaster; for I always make it a point, in a large city, to gain the early acquaintance of this man of letters, that I may be sure of getting my own punctually, and of hearing the latest and best news from the fountain-head. I called at a fashionable hour, and for once only enjoyed the sight and conversation of a deaf old man of sixty — a veritable Jacksonian, of the methodist persuasion a multitudinous sect in this godly city, which, with Presbyterians, Swedenborgians, and others, have turned their little world upside down, and fulfilled to the very letter every thing which Mad. Trollope has revealed to us in her glowing descriptions of their demoralizing camp-meetings, and ultra revivals. I have sometimes attended them, and can bear witness, that in this instance, at least, the old lady has recorded the truth.

--

My next was such a letter as Chesterfield might have written, and was addressed to a merchant- one of the 'big bugs,' as they are called in the west. He had been president of a bank, insurance company, etc., but some how or other and it is not uncommon in new countries a change had come over his fortunes. He had lost his property, and with it his influence. He seemed broken-hearted, and, as I thought, in no disposition to share his misfortunes with a stranger. The chief and best reason I had for presenting the letter, was the pleasure it might give him to hear of the welfare of his former and absent friend.

I now selected from my budget, and fortified myself with, an introductory note from a gentleman of distinction—one of our foreign

ambassadors, and with which I hoped to be admitted to the centre of Almack's, if not to the very freedom of the city itself. It was addressed to a man of law - one of the world, and acquainted with its forms- - a man of wealth, and who knew how to keep it. By 'particular request,' I joined a friend to meet him at his own house, the following evening, where, thought I, we shall be sure to see something of the domestic manners' of the Cincinnatians. We had scarcely been seated at his fire-side, and exchanged a word or two with his lady, when the barrister remarked that he had an express invitation for us to attend an evening party at one of the most fashionable drawing-rooms in the city. How could we refuse? It was at Mad. B's. The rooms were crowded. There was music and dancing as we entered, and all went merry as a marriage bell.' We were treated with all the kindness due to strangers so honorably introduced, and with marked hospitality; but where was the barrister, our friend? He had disappeared, sans ceremonie; and though I remained a sojourner in the city many days, ill of a tertian, I never knew what became of him; and to this day have never had an opportunity to discharge an obligation which rests upon my heart of hearts for his civility, nor thanked him for his condescension and his kind

ness.

The next evening-for, as a professional man, I have learned to time my visits according to the necessitiy of the case I called and presented myself to the Magnus Apollo of the literary world of Cincinnati. I was introduced to his short acquaintance by a letter from his friend and class-mate,' who was himself an emigrant, and who now reposes in the valley of the shadow of death, on the banks of the Missouri. He was sitting at a centre-table, overshadowed with reviews, magazines, and pamphlets, seemingly arranging the last number' for the press, surrounded by his wife and very interesting family. His young and lovely daughter was there, with her scarlet robe and pink slippers, redolent of all those charms and virtues which Mad. Trollope has lavished upon her, in her 'Domestic Manners of the Americans;' and in one corner of the room sat the veritable old Trollope herself-rough-cast and misshapen― of coarse and vulgar expression, and a head, viewed phrenologically, of the very lowest order. She was a frequent intruder here, and gleaned many of her opinions upon literature and religion, if not of domestic manners,' from one who had been ten years a sojourner in the valley of the Mississippi. A second visit to this excellent reverend gentleman, gained me the promise of letters to the low countrie',' which, as in duty bound, I politely declined; and soon set forward with the liveliest anticipations of what my horoscope would reveal to me in a second visit to the sunny south:

"That region where the sun 's so bright

The air so mild, the wine so light.'

But here let me remark, that the people of Cincinnati are not wanting in hospitality by no means; and whatever Mad. Trollope good easy soul-may have thought of their expressive silence,' in regard to her own person, she should have cordially forgiven them, in consideration of the overpowering civilities not long

before extended to one whose name as well as her own now' smells of the blood of an Englishman.' It seems that a gentleman of color, of more than ordinary shrewdness and attraction, had strayed away from his lawful owner in Louisiana, and gone to sport awhile his feather in the virgin city of the west. He had adorned his curly pate with a wig and a prodigious pair of whiskers, and embellished his sooty person with a flaming sword, uniform, and epaulettes, and announced himself as the son or nephew of Major General Ross, of Bladensburg memory. No sooner was it whispered abroad that a distinguished military gentleman had entered the city, than every thing was set in motion to render his stay agreeable, and make time dance away with down upon its feet. He was a perfect Marlboro' with the gentlemen, and with the ladies, he was for all the world like love among the roses. Their fluttering little hearts could find no rest, while a simper or a smile was seen to play around the 'ebony and topaz' lips of the gallant captain.

'Alas! what was love made for,

If 't is not the same,

Through joy and through sorrow,
Through torment and shame?'

He now enjoyed the freedom of the city, and entered, unquestioned and most welcome, the theatre and assemblies; and not a route, nor dinner party, nor a musical soirée, nor a conversazione, could be had, unless darkened by the presence of this stick of ebony. He was now the reigning toast of all parties,' and hand and glove with those who granted him the freedom of their boxes at the theatre, where he nightly added perfume to the violet, and at times was so entranced by the spirit of his dream,' as seemingly to die of a rose in aromatic pain.' But can the Ethiopian change his skin? We believe not. And so it turned out; for one evening the soidisant captain, having forgotten his engagement at a fashionable supper party, which had been expressly made, and was in waiting, for his excellency, the gentlemen-perhaps some of the ladies became rather uneasy, if not alarmed, for his safety, and a servant was despatched to learn the cause of his cruel absence. He returned quite breathless, but with the laughing devil in his eye, and made known to his mistress and the company that 'Massa Captain Ross' was engaged at a scrub-ball, given in honor of 'de fair sec,' who were about to emigrate to the borders of Canada. What immediate effect this message had upon the party, and especially the ladies, I could never learn; though it is said there is not one of them, to this day, who hears the name of Captain Ross repeated, whose heart is not moved as by the sound of a trumpet.

Cincinnati abounds in churches. There are more, I think, than are needed, and many more, I dare say, than are useful. Many of them are built up by means of schisms and dissensions, and instead of contributing the greatest possible happiness to the greatest number, they reverse the maxim, and contribute the greatest possible misery to the greatest number. The dullest sermon upon the dullest subject I think I ever heard, was from one of their pulpits. The church music is execrable, and the lovers of harmony, it was said,