boughs

With red-cheek fruits, while far along the wall, Full in the south, ripe plums and peaches fall In tufted grass where laughing lads carouse; And down the pastures, where the horse goes round His ring of tan, beneath the mossy shed,

Old cider-presses work with creaky din, Oozing in vats, and apples heap the ground; And hour by hour, a basket on his head, Up-clambering to the spout, the ploughman pours

them in!

Sweet-scented winds from meadows newly mown
Blow eastward now; and now for many a day
The fields will be alive with wains of hay
And stacks not all unmeet for Autumn's throne!
The granges will be crowded, and the men
Half-smothered, as they tread it from the top;
And then the wains will go, and come again,
And go and come until they end the crop.
And where the melous stud the garden vine,
Crook-necked or globy, smaller carts will wait,
Soon to be urged o'erloaded to the gate
Where apples drying on the stages shine;
And children soon will go at eve and morn
And set their snares for quails with baits of corn;
And when the house-dog snuffs a distant hare,
O'errun the gorgeous woods with noisy glee;
And when the walnuts ripen, climb a tree,
And shake the branches bare!

And by and by, when northern winds are out,
Great fires will roar in chimneys huge at night,
While chairs draw round, and pleasant tales are
told:

And nuts and apples will be passed about,
Until the household, drowsy with delight,
Creep off to bed a-cold!

Sovereign of Seasons! Monarch of the Earth!
Steward of bounteous Nature, whose rich alms
Are showered upon us from thy liberal palms,
Until our spirits overflow with mirth!
Divinest Autumn! while our garners burst

With plenteous harvesting, and heaped increase, We lift our eyes to thee through grateful tears. World-wide in boons, vouchsafe to visit first,

And linger last long o'er our realm of Peace, Where freedom calmly sits, and beckons on the

Years!

THE TWO BRIDES.

I saw two maidens at the kirk,
And both were fair and sweet:
One in her wedding robe,

And one in her winding sheet.
The choristers sang the hymn,
The sacred rites were read,

And one for life to Life,

And one to Death was wed.

They were borne to their bridal beds, In loveliness and bloom;

One in a merry castle,

The other a solemn tomb.

One on the morrow woke

In a world of sin and pain; But the other was happier far, And never woke again!

WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER

Is the son of the eminent lawyer and politician Benjamin F. Butler, a member of the cabinet of Jackson and Van Buren, to whom, in 1824, in connexion with John Duer and the late John C.

vising the statutes of the state of New York, and author of several addresses and a few poetical contributions to the Democratic Review, and other periodicals.

William Allen Butler was born in Albany in 1825. After completing his course at the University of the City of New York, and his law studies in the office of his father, he passed a year and a half abroad. Since his return he has been actively engaged in the practice of his profession.

Mr. Butler is the author of a number of poeins and is also a spirited prose writer. He has contributed to the Democratic Review several translations from Uhland; to the Art-Union Bulletin, The Cities of Art and the Early Artists, a series of biographical and critical sketches of the Old Masters; and to the Literary World a few pleasant sketches of travel, with the title Out-of-the-Way Places in Europe, and several humorous papers in prose and verse, entitled The Colonel's Club.

In 1850 he was the author of Barnum's Parnassus being Confidential Disclosures of the Prize Committee on the Jenny Lind Song, with Specimens of leading American Poets in the hap piest effulgence of their genius; a poetical squib, which passed rapidly through several editions.

UHLAND,

It is the Poet Uhland from whose wreathings
Of rarest harmony, I here have drawn,
To lower tones and less melodious breathings,
Some simple strains of truth and passion born.
His is the poetry of sweet expression,

Of clear unfaltering tune, serene and strong; Where gentlest thoughts and words in soft proces sion,

Move to the even measures of his song.

Delighting ever in his own calm fancies,

He sees much beauty where most men see naught, Looking at Nature with familiar glances,

And weaving garlands in the groves of Thought.
He sings of Youth, and Hope, and high Endeavor,
He sings of Love, (oh, crown of Poesie!)
Of Fate, and Sorrow, and the Grave, forever
The end of strife, the goal of Destiny.

He sings of Fatherland, the minstrel's glory,
High theme of memory and hope divine,
Twining its fame with gems of antique story,
In Suabian songs and legends of the Rhine;
In Ballads breathing many a dim tradition,

Nourished in long belief or Minstrel rhymes,
Fruit of the old Romance, whose gentle mission
Passed from the earth before our wiser times.
Well do they know his name amongst the moun-
tains,

And plains and valleys of his native Land;
Part of their nature are the sparkling fountains
Of his clear thought, with rainbow fancies
spanned.

His simple lays oft sings the mother cheerful
Beside the cradle in the dim twilight;
His plaintive notes low breathes the maiden tearful
With tender murmurs in the ear of Night.

The hill-side swain, the reaper in the meadows,

Carol his ditties through the toilsome day; And the lone hunter in the Alpine shadows, Recalls his ballads by some ruin gray.

Oh precious gift! oh wondrous inspiration!
Of all high deeds, of all harmonious things,
To be the Oracle, while a whole Nation

Catches the echo from the sounding strings.
Out of the depths of feeling and emotion
Rises the orb of Song, serenely bright,
As who beholds across the tracts of ocean,
The golden sunrise bursting into light.
Wide is its magic World-divided neither

By continent, nor sea, nor narrow zone;
Who would not wish sometimes to travel thither,
In fancied fortunes to forget his own?

JOHN L. McCONNEL

MR. MCCONNEL was born in Illinois, November 11, 1826. After studying law with his father, Murray McConnel, a distinguished lawyer and politician of the West, he entered and was graduated at the Transylvania Law School, Lexington, Ky.

On the sixth of June, 1846, he entered the regiment of Col. Harding, as a volunteer in the ranks. Before leaving the rendezvous at Alton, he was inade first lieutenant of his company, and promoted to a captaincy at the battle of Buena Vista, where he was twice wounded. After serving out his term he returned home, and commenced the practice of the law at Jacksonville, Illinois, where he has since resided.

In the spring of 1850 Mr. McConnel published Talbot and Vernon; in the autumn of the same year Graham, or Youth and Manhood; and in 1851 The Glenns. The scene of these novels is laid in the West; and the author has drawn on his experiences of the Mexican War and his skill as a lawyer in the construction of his plots.

These were followed in 1853 by Western Characters, a collection of sketches of the prominent classes in the formative period of western society. It is one of the author's most successful volumes. Mr. McConnel is at present engaged upon a continuation of this work, and also upon a History of Early Explorations in America, having especial reference to the labors of the early Roman Catholic missionaries.

A WESTERN POLITICIAN OF THE FIRST GROWTH.

A description of his personal appearance, like that of any other man, will convey no indistinct impression of his internal character.

Such a description probably combined more cha racteristic adjectives than that of any other personage of his time-adjectives, some of which were ap plicable to many of his neighbors, respectively, but all of which might be bestowed upon him only. He was tall, gaunt, angular, swarthy, active, and athletic. His hair was, invariably, black as the wing of the raven; even in that small portion which the cap of racoon-skin left exposed to the action of sun and rain, the gray was but thinly scattered; imparting to the monotonous darkness only a more iron character. As late as the present day, though we have changed in many things, light-haired men seldom attain eminence among the western people: many of our legislators are young enough, but none of them are beardless. They have a bilious look, as if, in case of illness, their only hope would lie in calomel and jalap. One might understand, at the first glance, that they are men of talent, not of genius; and that physical energy, the enduring vi

tality of the body, has no inconsiderable share in the power of the mind.

Corresponding to the sable of the hair, the politician's eye was usually small, and intensely black -not the dead, inexpressive jet, which gives the idea of a hole through white paper, or of a cavernous socket in a death's head; but the keen, midnight darkness, in whose depths you can see a twinkle of starlight-where you feel that there is meaning as well as color. There might be an expression of cunning along with that of penetration -but, in a much higher degree, the blaze of irascibility. There could be no doubt, from its glance, that its possessor was an excellent hater; you might be assured that he would never forget an injury or betray a friend.

A stoop in the shoulders indicated that, in times past, he had been in the habit of carrying a heavy rifle, and of closely examining the ground over which he walked; but what the chest thus lost in depth it gained in breadth. His lungs had ample space in which to play--there was nothing pulmonary even in the drooping shoulders. Few of his class have ever lived to a very advanced age, but it was not for want of iron constitutions, that they went early to the grave. The same services to his country, which gave the politician his prominence, also shortened his life.

From shoulders thus bowed, hung long, muscular arms-sometimes, perhaps, dangling a little ungracefully, but always under the command of their owner, and ready for any effort, however violent. These were terminated by broad, bony hands, which looked like grapnels-their grasp, indeed, bore no faint resemblance to the hold of those symmetrical instruments. Large feet, whose toes were usually turned in, like those of the Indian, were wielded by limbs whose vigor and activity were in keeping with the figure they supported. Imagine, with these peculiarities, a free, bold, rather swaggering gait, a swarthy complexion, and conformable features and tones of voice: and-excepting his costume-you have before your fancy a complete picture of the early western politician.

ICHABOD CRANE BEYOND THE ALLEGHANIES.

A genuine specimen of the class to which most of the early schoolmasters belonged, never felt any misgivings about his own success, and never hesi tated to assume any position in life. Neither pride nor modesty was ever suffered to interfere with his action. He would take charge of a numerous school, when he could do little more than write his own name, just as he would have undertaken to run a steamboat, or command an army, when he had never studied engineering or heard of strategy. Nor would he have failed in either capacity: a week's application would make him master of a steam-engine, or a proficient (after the present manner of proficiency) in tactics; and as for his school, he could himself learn at night what he was to teach others on the following day! Nor was this mere "conceit"-though, in some other respects, that word, in its limited sease, was not inapplicable -neither was it altogether ignorant presumption: for one of these men was seldom known to fail in anything he undertook: or, if he did fail, he was never found to be cast down by defeat, and the resiliency of his nature justified his confidence.

*

Properly to represent his lineage, therefore, the schoolmaster could be neither dandy nor dancingmaster; and, as if to hold him to his integrity, nature had omitted to give him any temptation, in his own person, to assume either of these respectable

characters. The tailor that could shape a coat to fit his shoulders, never yet handled shears; and he would have been as ill at ease in a pair of fashionable pantaloons, as if they had been lined with chestnut-burrs. He was generally above the medium height, with a very decided stoop, as if in the habit of carrying burthens: and a long, high nose, with light blue eyes, and coarse, uneven hair, of a faded weather-stain color, gave his face the expres sion answering to this lathy outline. Though never very slender, he was always thin: as if he had been flattened out in a rolling-mill; and rotundity of corporation was a mode of development not at all characteristic. His complexion was seldom florid, and not often decidedly pale; a sort of sallow discoloration was its prevailing hue, like that which marks the countenance of a consumer of coarse" whiskey and strong tobacco. But these failings were not the cause of his cadaverous look-for a faithful representative of the class held them both in commendable abhorrence-they were not the vices of his

nature.

66

There was a subdivision of the class, a secondary type, not so often observed, but common enough to entitle it to a brief notice. He was, generally, short, squat, and thick-the latitude bearing a better proportion to the longitude than in his lank brother-but never approaching anything like roundness. With this attractive figure he had a complexion of decidedly bilious darkness, and what is commonly called a "dish-face." His nose was depressed between the eyes, an arrangement which dragged the point upward in the most cruel manner, but gave it an expression equally ludicrous and impertinent. A pair of small, round, black eyes, encom passed-like two little feudal fortresses, each by its moat with a circle of yellowish white, peered out from under brows like battlements. Coarse, black hair, always cut short, and standing erect, so as to present something the appearance of a chevaux de frise, protected a hard, round head-a shape most appropriate to his lineage-while, with equal propriety, ears of corresponding magnitude stood boldly forth to assert their claim to notice.

Both these types were distinguished for large feet, which no boot could enclose, and hands broad beyond the compass of any glove. Neither was ever known to get drunk, to grow fat, to engage in a game of chance, or to lose his appetite: it became the teacher of "ingenuous youtli" to preserve an exemplary bearing before those whom he was endeavoring to benefit; while respectable "appearances," and proper appreciation of the good things of life, were the alpha and omega of his system of morality.

J. M. LEGARÉ,

A POET of South Carolina, and a resident, we believe, of Charleston, and a relative of the late Hugh S. Legaré, is the author of a volume, Orta-Undis and Other Poems, published in 1848. They are marked by their delicacy of sentiment and a certain scholastic refinement.

AMY.

This is the pathway where she walked,
The tender grass pressed by her feet.
The laurel boughs laced overhead,
Shut out the noonday heat.

The sunshine gladly stole between
The softly undulating limbs.
From every blade and leaf arose
The myriad insect hymns.

A brook ran murmuring beneath
The grateful twilight of the trees,
Where from the dripping pebbles swelled
A beech's mossy knees.

And there her robe of spotless white,
(Pure white such purity beseemed!)
Her angel face and tresses bright
Within the basin gleamed.

The coy sweetbriers half detained
Her light hem as we moved along!
To hear the music of her voice
The mockbird hushed his song.
But now her little feet are still,
Her lips the EVERLASTING seal;
The hideous secrets of the grave
The weeping eyes reveal.

The path still winds, the brook descends,
The skies are bright as then they were.
My Amy is the only leaf
In all that forest sear.

AUGUSTUS JULIAN REQUIER

Was born at Charleston, South Carolina, May 27, 1825. He was educated in that city, and having selected the law as his profession, was called to

the bar in 1844. From a very early age Mr. Requier was a regular contributor to the newspapers and periodicals, and in his seventeenth year published The Spanish Exile, a play in blank verse, which was acted with success. A year or two after he published The Old Sanctuary, a romance, the scene of which is laid in Carolina before the Revolution. He soon after removed to Marion, South Carolina, where, during the leisure intervals which occur in the life of a country barrister, many of his more mature and elaborate pieces in prose and verse were composed. These have never been collected in book form. The most prominent of them are "The Phantasmagoria," "Marco Bozzaris," a tragedy; "The Dial Plate," "Treasure Trove," "To Mary on Earth," "The Thornless Rose," 66 The Charm," "The Image." "The Blackbeard,” “The three Misses Grimball," a sketch; the Farewell Address to the Palmetto Regiment, delivered at the Charleston Theatre by Mrs. Mowatt, and mentioned in her "Autobio graphy;" the Welcome" to the same regiment on its return from Mexico, and an "Ode to Shakespeare."

Mr. Requier subsequently removed to Mobile, Alabama, where he now resides. Since 1850 he has ceased to write, being altogether engrossed by his professional pursuits, to which he is entirely devoted, and in which he has attained distinction. He is at present Attorney of the United States for the southern district of Alabama, having been appointed to that office by Mr. Pierce in 1853.

ODE TO SHAKESPEARE

He went forth into Nature and he sung, Her first-born of imperial sway-the lord

Of sea and continent and clime and tongue;
Striking the Harp with whose sublime accord
The whole creation rung!

He went forth into Nature and he sung,
Her grandest terrors and her simplest themes,
The torrent by the beetling crag o'erhung,
And the wild-daisy on its brink that gleams
Unharmed, and lifts a dew-drop to the sun!
The muttering of the tempest in its halls
Of darkness turreted; beheld alone

By an o'erwhelming brilliance which appals—
The turbulence of Ocean-the soft calm
Of the sequestered vale-the bride-like day,
Or sainted eve, dispensing holy balm
From her lone lamp of silver thro' the grey

That leads the star-crowned Night adown the mountain way!

These were his themes and more-no little bird

Lit in the April forest but he drew
From its wild notes a meditative word-
A gospel that no other mortal knew:

Bard, priest, evangelist! from nature's cells
Of riches inexhaustible he took

The potent ring of her profoundest spells,
And wrote great Nature's Book!

They people earth and sea and air,
The dim, tumultuous band,
Called into being everywhere
By his creative wand;

In kingly court and savage lair,

Prince, Peasant, Priest, and Sage and Peer,

And midnight hag and ladye fair,
Pure as the white rose in her hair,
And warriors that, on barbed steed,
Burn to do the crested deed,
And lovers that delighted rove

When moonlight marries with the grove,
Glide forth-appear!

To breathe or love or hate or fear;

And with most unexampled wile,

To win a soul-enraptured smile,

Or blot it in a tear.

Hark! a horn,

That with repeated winding shakes,

O'er hill and glen and far responsive lakes,

The mantle of the morn!

Now, on the mimic scene,

The simplest of all simple pairs
That ever drew from laughter tears,
Touchstone and Audrey, hand in hand,
Come hobbling o'er the green;
While Rosalind, in strange disguise,
With manly dress but maiden eyes,
Which, spite herself, will look sidewise,
E'en in this savage land;

And her companion like the flower,
That beaten by the morning shower
Still in resplendent beauty stoops,
Looking loveliest whilst it droops,
Step faintly forth from weariness,
All snowy in their maidenhood;
Twin-lilies of the wilderness-
A shepherd and his shepherdess,
In Arden's gloomy wood!

But comes anon, with halting step and pause,

A miserable man!

Revolving in each lengthened breath he draws,
The deep, dark problem of material laws,
That life is but a span.

Secluded, silent, solitary, still,

Lone in the vale and last upon the hill,
Companionless beside the haunted stream,
Walking the stars in the meridian beam,
VOL. II.-16

Himself the shade of an o'ershadowing dream; Blighting the rose

With his imaginary woes,

And weaving bird and tree and fruit and flower
Into a charm of such mysterious power,
Such plaintive tale

The beauteous skies grow pale,
And the rejoicing earth looks wan,

Like Jacques-her lonely, melancholy man!
Ring silver-sprinkling, gushing bells-
Blow clamorous pipes replying,

In tipsy merriment that swells
For ever multiplying!

He comes! with great sunshiny face
And chuckle deep and glances warm,
Sly nods and strange attempts at grace,
A matron on each arm;

He comes! of wit the soul and pith,
Custodian and lessor.

Room for him! Sir John Falstaff with
The merry Wives of Windsor.

Lo! on a blasted heath,
Lit by a flashing storm,

The threatening darkness underneath,
Three of the weird form!
Chanting, dancing all together,
For a charm upon the heather,
Filthy hags in the foul weather!

The spell works, and behold;
A castle in the midnight hour,
Muffled 'mid battlement and tower,
Whereon the crystal moon doth lower
Antarctically cold!

A blackbird's note hath drilled the air
And left the stillness still more drear;
Twice hath the hornéd owl around
The Chapel flown, nor uttered sound;
The night-breeze now doth scarcely blow.
And now, 'tis past and gone;
But the pale moon that like the snow
Erewhile descending shone.
Encrimsoned as the torch of Mars,
While cloud on cloud obscure the stars
And rolls above the trees,
Cleaves the dark billows of the Night
Like a shot-smitten sail on flight

Over the howling seas

God! what a piercing shriek was there,
So deep and loud and wild and drear
It bristles up the moistened hair
And bids the blood to freeze!
Again-again-

Athwart the brain,

Full of starch decorum:

A wise man this Cousin Shallow,

Justice of the Quorum;

A third is timid, slight, and tender, Showing harmless Master Slender; A fourth, doth frowningly reveal, His princely mantle jewelled o'er, By knightly spurs upon his heel And clanging sound of martial steel, The dark, Venetian Moor! The fifth advances with a start, His eye transfixing like a dart, Black Richard of the lion-heart! And now they rush along the scene, In crowds with scarce a pause between, Prelates high, in church and state, Speakers dexterous in debate, Courtiers gay in satin hose, Clowns fantastic and jocose, Soldiers brave and virgins fair,

Nymphs with golden flowing hair

And spirits of the azure air,

Pass, with solemn step and slow,
Pass, but linger as they go,

Like images that haunt the shade,
Or visions of the white cascade,

Or sunset on the snow.

Then, then, at length, the crowning glory comes, Loud trumpets speak unto the sky, and drums Unroll the military chain!

From pole to pole,

Greet wide the wonder of the poet's soul:
With raven plume,

And posture rapt in high, prophetic gloom-
Hamlet, the Dane!

Bright shall thine altars be,

First of the holy minstrel band,

Green as the vine-encircled laud

And vocal as the sea!

Thy name is writ

Where stars are lit,

And thine immortal shade,

'Mid archangelic clouds displayed

On Fame's imperial seat,

Sees the inseparable Nine
In its reflected glory shine,

And Nature at its feet.

PAUL H. HAYNE

Is a son of Lieut. Hayne of the United States Navy, and nephew of Robert G. Hayne of senatorial celebrity. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1831, and has been a frequent contributor to many of the southern magazines, more particularly the Southern Literary Messenger. He was editor of the Charleston Literary Gazette, and is now connected with the editorial department of the Evening News, a daily journal also published in Charleston. His poems, collected in a volume in 1855, are spirited, and he has cultivated the music of verse with effect. His longest poem is entitled The Temptation of Venus, a Monkish Legend.

SONNET.

The passionate Summer's dead; the sky's aglow
With roseate flushes of matured desire,
The winds at eve are musical and low,
As sweeping chords of a lamenting lyre,
Far up among the pillared clouds of fire,
Whose pomp of grand procession upward rolls
With gorgeous blazonry of pictured folds,

To celebrate the Summer's past renown;
Ah me! how regally the heavens look down,
O'ershadowing beautiful, autumnal woods,
And harvest-fields with hoarded increase brown,
And deep-toned majesty of golden floods,
That lift their solemn dirges to the sky,
To swell the purple pomp that floateth by.

A PORTRAIT.

1.

The laughing Hours before her feet, Are strewing vernal roses,

And the voices in her soul are sweet,
As music's mellowed closes,

All hopes and passions heavenly-born,
In her have met together,
And Joy diffuses round her morn
A mist of golden weather.

II.

As o'er her cheek of delicate dyes,
The blooms of childhood hover,
So do the tranced and sinless eyes,
All childhood's heart discover,
Full of a dreamy happiness,

With rainbow fancies laden,
Whose arch of promise glows to bless
Her spirit's beauteous Adenn.

III.

She is a being born to raise

Those undefiled emotions,
That link us with our sunniest days,
And most sincere devotions;

In her, we see renewed, and bright,
That phase of earthly story,
Which glimmers in the morning light
Of God's exceeding glory.

IV.

Why in a life of mortal cares,

Appear these heavenly faces, Why on the verge of darkened years, These amaranthine graces!

"Tis but to cheer the soul that faints, With pure and blest evangels,

To prove if Heaven is rich with Saints, That earth may have her Angels,

V.

Enough! 'tis not for me to pray
That on her life's sweet river,
The calmness of a virgin day,
May rest, and rest for ever;
I know a guardian Genius stands,
Beside those waters lowly,
And labors with immortal hands,
To keep them pure and holy.

HAMILTON COLLEGE, NEW YORK. THE founding of Hamilton College is due to the far-seeing generosity of the Rev. Samnel Kirkland, who labored more than forty years as a missionary among the Oneida Indians. Mr. Kirkland was born in Norwich, Connecticut, December 1, 1744, and was graduated from Nassau Hall in 1765. He was the father of three sons and three daughters. The eldest daughter. who was married to John H. Lothrop, Esq., of Utica, is the mother of the Rev. Samuel Kirkland Lothrop, D.D., of Boston, whose recently published life of his grandfather is embraced in Sparks's Library of American Biography. The youngest daughter, Eliza, was married in 1818 tc