Powerless to flee, your aged comrades stand, INTERCEPTED CORRESPONDENCE. DEAR GALITON: + The chain of the Blue Ridge mountains running through the State of Virginia, has ever commanded the beholder's admiration. Its wild irregularity, its rocky sides, its shaggy crests, the sepulchral silence of its secret places, are sufficient to strike the mind of the gazer with reverential awe. Beside the main line of the mountains, there are, occasionally, isolated "spurs," a few miles distant, rising almost to an equal elevation, and which, being easier of ascent, become fine observatories of the farstretching landscape. "There is a beautiful spirit breathing now Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life Within the solemn woods of ash, deep crimsoned, And again: "Oh, what a glory doth this world put on To his long resting-place without a tear!" Longfellow. How still are these temples, mused I-built by the ancient hand of nature! To me, nothing is more impressive than silence. There is more morality to be gathered from it than from many a homily. It disengages the soul from every artificial excitement, and pours into it the balm of its own simple eloquence. How like a dream-a shadow-does life seem at such times! Like the fantastic images which fit in fragments through the brain, in our nightly slumbers, the events of life come and go, unmarked, in their old routine. When I have left this quiet spot, I shall look back upon it as I now do on the past-as a vision, and to be forgotten. And may not all life be thus reasoned up? He, with whom yesterday we bade adieu to care, whom to-day finds in another clime, what is he but a dream? She, whom we once loved, but who now lies in cold obstruction-quietly in her grave-what is she but the veriest vision? Upon one of these mountains, which I have christened my Pisgah, I am accustomed to ramble of a cool afternoon, when my books have become wearisome. 1 well remember the time when I first accomplished its ascent. It was late Autumn. The birds, with a few exceptions, had taken wing to a sunnier sky. The frost had tinged the beech, maple and birch, with a pale sickly hue; but the oak, still green, towered among them in its strength, like Age at the tomb of Youth. There was a wild, withered fragrance floating in the wood; it was not the incense of Spring, but the sweetness of decay. It came from the frost-touched sweet-briar on the mountain-side-from the blasted fern and herbage of the valley, and the flowers by the water-courses. I commenced the ascent, following slowly the rough and winding path, clinging to some friendly bush here and there for aid, stopping occasionally to gather flowers which some overhanging rock had sheltered; till, in the course of These, and kindred thoughts, passed through my mind an hour, I stood upon the peak. My sensations at this mo till the sun hastened toward the occident. The clouds bement may be imagined-not described. Around me the came tinged with gold and vermilion, as they gathered giant forest-king heaved abroad his arms in the sky, un- around the departing day-god, and a softly blended light scarred by the axe of the woodman. Rocks, many of them streamed through their broken edges, coloring up the misty twenty feet in height, stood up in silent majesty, monuments peaks of the mountains with a hue of rich purple. At last of some long past revolution in nature. From one of these he sank slowly behind them; and as he flung forth his last I obtained an unobstructed view of the ridge. Towering mellow glances, he seemed like some beloved friend sinkone above the other as they stretched far away to the south-ing calmly into death, whose parting looks are more beauwest, the mountains rose till their blue summits were lost tiful and impressive, as we know we shall soon see them in the embrace of heaven. Had this scenery been in Scotland, thought I, the genius of Scott would have hallowed it by making it the scene of legend; the eye of Poesy would have kindled, and her harp been strung anew to sing of its beauty. But there it lay, rarely visited—less rarely observed—the sunshine and winds sleeping upon it in solitude and secrecy. Below me, the valley presented a picture of rural beauty. The smoke curled slowly from the chimnies of a lady's distant mansion, and, though the herbage was somewhat withered by "winter's sure precursor," the flocks, still scattered along the plain, seemed to delight in their quiet pastures. As my eyes wandered alternately over this scene, the distant mountains, and along the sides and base of the one on which I stood, the verses of an American poet descriptive of a similar scene came unbidden to my mind : no more. I then commenced the descent of the mountain, but not without regret. When I reached its base, the yellow moon was shining; a few stars gleamed from their watch-towers, and under their gentle radiance I sought my lodgings. Such, Galiton, was the first visit to my Pisgah. Come, I beseech you, and visit the land of Pocahontas. It is, you know, hallowed by associations interesting to every American. The soil has been pressed by the feet of Washington. On this very mountain, it is said, Marshall, in his youth, meditated. It is ever good to lay the ear upon the lip of nature and listen to her holy teachings. The stirring air will add a fresh hue to your cheek, and the ground, made holy by the ashes of departed worth, will impart new fire to your patriotism. Thine decidedly, Virginia, June, 1840. A. D. G. A NAMELESS ESSAY. BY CH. LANMAN. After I had filled my foolscap sheet with words, I vainly strove to find an appropriate name for the newly born; but, kind reader, the object which I had in view when writing this, was to please the fancy and to mend the heart. sweet creature, rest yourself and slumber if you please on the corner of that Holy Bible. He who wrote that book is as much your Father, as He is mine. At this silent hour and in this solitary place, you have come to minister to my delight. The thoughts which you have caused will make my rest this night more peaceful than it would have been but for you. The question is often asked-why are such insects as yourself created? I answer, to accomplish some Omnipotent end. God willed it that you should be born and minister for a few moments to my delight, and also to my instruction, by causing you to direct my thoughts to Him, who is infinite in greatness, holiness and love. You have fulfilled the object of your mission. Good bye! I How impressive is the eloquence of silence! Sweet indeed is the voice of woman—the fire-side song of those, who are near and dear to us. Sweet, the sounds of morning and evening twilight. Sweet, the million melodies continually floating over the bosom of Nature. But there are hours in the life of every man when the music of silence is dearer to him than all. Even such an hour is it my pre-love you, and shall not forget your admonitions. sent privilege to enjoy. The iron tongue of Time has told the surrounding darkness that midnight is upon the earth. I am in my room alone. A burning taper is before me, but its light is too feeble to affect the distant objects. How much does it seem "like a good deed in a naughty world?" I turn my face from the light, and looking into some dark corner, my mind is led to wander in that mysterious world created by the genius of Dante. Soon, this little taper will flicker in the socket, and leave be-den from his sight. The other in its humbleness, hind it a world of gloom. Is it not so with life? Motionless shadows are upon the wall. To me, they have a peculiar language. They are the emblems of my most ardent aspirations and fondest hopes. A few days since I heard a man say"next week I shall deliver my long thought-of oration in the presence of assembled thousands, make known what eloquence and genius I possess, and strive to win a name." That man is now stretched upon the couch of sickness, and his thoughts are changed. A dark valley is before his mind, and he is wondering whether he can pass its dangers in safety. What were his hopes, his ambition, but shadows? The light is out-I am now seated at my window, gazing upon the city. There is such a calm in the heavens and upon the earth, I almost fear the world will never wake again. The ticking of my watch is the only sound I hear. How much more real wisdom may be gathered from this instrument, than from the lauded and far-fetched philosophy of man? With pompous pretensions, the one strives vainly to explain mysteries which are forever hid simply tells us of the fleetness of time. The lessons of this are of practical utility, and if we were to listen to them as we ought, we should think less of ourselves, and look upon futurity as the period when our knowledge of God and the universe would be consummated. Why then, should the ticking of a watch be beneath our notice? If we were but conscious of our own utter littleness, we would not dare look with contempt on the smallest atom in the world. Even a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without attracting the notice of its Creator. There is something in the nature of silence which always affects me deeply. Why it is I know not; but I do know that I love to be alone at such an hour as this. I love to forget the outward world and hold communion with the beings of the mind. And, in a lonely place like this, if we invite them, they will always come with their beautiful smiles and sorrowful tears, whispering thoughts into the soul about another and a better world. With them How refreshing is the breeze which now fans my forehead!—it seems like the sweet breath of a guardian Angel. It comes from the far south, and its birth-place was amid the leaves of the olive and palm. Since its departure thence it has wandered over many a woody dell and silver lake, and kissed the glowing cheek of many a lovely dark-eyed too maiden. It is gone-gone to pursue its spirit-like wanderings in some other clime. -the forms of the departed, Enter at the open door, The loved ones, the true hearted, Come to visit me once more.ore.-Long fellow. The chirping cricket has ceased its noise, and is asleep in its hiding-place. A little white miller is flying about the light as though he thought it the Yes! they come-the young, the good-the bearmost wonderful thing in the whole world. And tiful; those whom I loved long years ago, when this is not strange, because he came into being since life was but a pleasant dream. That dream is now the evening of yesterday. Dear little fellow, be a sad reality careful-else your ignorance and curiosity will be What an impressive night! a slumbering city. the cause of your death. That shining pyramid The beating of its mighty heart has ceased. which you think so beautiful, is treacherous. Like Filled as it is with the power of man, it is now as many of the beautiful things of earth, it carries pain helpless as an infant on its mother's breast. and destruction within its bosom. That's right, Go we back only a few years, and we behold this spot a small portion of an uncultivated wilderness. That man was a philosopher, who said that the "Here the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate, history of the world was a history of ruin. It is and the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer." so. Wherever we turn our eyes, we cannot fail Is there a spot on the face of the earth where to behold some magnificent ruin. Our daily change and decay have never been? Alas! there is not. footsteps are imprinted in the dust of things which were once the admiration of men. They are the In that delightful land embosomed in the Medi- hieroglyphics of time. Silent and holy are all terranean sea, there once stood in its pride and their teachings. Sometimes they remind us of strength one of the most splendid cities of the beauty and peace, and sometimes of terror, tumult world. It had seven hills for its foundation, and a and woe. They have nothing to do with the futhousand domes glittered above its battlements. It ture and present, but the past is their all; and yet was the seat of learning and the arts. She was how wise, how important their counsels! mistress of the world. Pleasure and fame were In the spring-time of life, and the summer of the sought, and their votaries were satisfied just the year, I once stood on the shore of Lake Superior. same as they are in these our days. Since then I remember to have seen, in a little sunny cove, many centuries have rolled away and are lost in and half imbedded in the sand, the ruin of an Indioblivion. They have gone, and O how many mil-an canoe. A part of it was in the water, and in this lions of men have gone with them to the shoreless the pike and the black bass found a safe retreat. ocean of eternity. The spot where this city once stood may be pressed by the foot of the traveller, but he cannot behold her former glory, for that has passed away. Her palaces have crumbled, and the owl builds her nest within the mouldering chambers of her kings. The poet's lyre is broken. The I have seen a flower blooming in beauty in a sevoice of eloquence is forever hushed. The wine-cluded vale, and, ere I had a chance to look again, eup is in the dust. The voice of their merriment a chilly breath of air has scattered its petals and has long since ceased. The good, the brave, the left it a ruin. I saw an oak standing in its pride noble, the wealthy and the poor, are all forgotten. upon a distant mountain. It had braved the storms Spirit of change! these mighty revolutions are thine. of many centuries. I returned, and its limbs were Thou art the eldest-born of time; thy lessons are leafless and its trunk decayed. That oak is a fit precious to the soul, and ever should they be trea- emblem of nature in ruins. The Coliseum at Rome, sured in the memory. and the Parthenon at Athens, are the fit emblems of art in ruins. I saw a beautiful child sporting upon its mother's lap. It was the brightest star in the horizon of her hope. I returned, and that mother was in her grave. The child was changed. Trembling with the weight of years he stood, the last of his generation, a stranger amidst the perishing monuments of earth. I saw a river, whose bosom was a crystal mirror picturing the beauties of the earth and sky. I returned, but it was as marble, and I heard the skaters steel ring upon its surface. I saw a youth, kneeling at the feet of a fair girl, who was the idol of his heart. A few years were gone, and the vows of each had been forgotten; and they were weeping for different sorrows in separate homes. Its sides were covered with moss and rank seaweed. I was alone, and in that far off wilderness the voice of that simple ruin sank deeply into my soul, and I looked upon it as a beautiful but melancholy type of the history of the world. Besides those of inanimate nature and art, the world is filled with living ruins. A few months since I was a solitary traveller on the road between Stonington and Norwich in Connecticut. It was one of the loveliest days in ear|ly autumn, and the general atmosphere had a tendency to subdue every feeling of the heart, and threw me in a thoughtful mood. I was startled from my revery by the sound of a low moan, proceeding from beneath an old pine tree beside the road. I dismounted and approached the place, and saw the withered form of a woman seated upon a stone, eating a dry crust of bread. Her hair was white as snow, and the tears of ninety years seemed to have made deep furrows in her cheeks. I Change and decay are written upon every thing saw by the copper color of her skin that she was earthly. As surely will the proudest monuments of an Indian, and therefore I asked her how many of human labor pass away, as the morning mist from her tribe were left? She raised her haggard eyes among the hills. If we can look upon the past and to mine, and with a trembling voice, in broken behold the ravages of time, or on the present and English, answered-" only me." not feel his powerful influence upon ourselves and the things around us, then indeed will our future be dark and cheerless. Let us remember, that although this is but a theatre of change, there is a world beyond the skies where the Saviour reigns supreme, and where change and decay can never come. My heart was full. I prayed to God that he would bless her, and resumed my journey. But those sad words-" only me! only me!" still haunted my memory. And now, at this late day, I would not, if I could, forget them. That little incident gave a new direction to my thoughts, and I became an altered man. That poor old desolate woman was the living ruin of a once powerful nation-the | The blood-root and the violet, the frail anemoné, She wore them, and alas! I deemed it was for love of me The word, the look, the smile, the blush, the ribbon that she and more. My face I cover with my hands and bitterly I weep, In view of the foregoing, which I hope has caused a pensive pleasure instead of gloom, it is most appropriate that we should dwell one moment, on the following beautiful lines by Wordsworth. The world is too much with us; late and soon Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. Do they not find an echo in every thoughtful heart? It is true, the human mind is too much taken up Each day they grow more dear to me and pain me more with the playthings of its infancy. When we remember that in the short space of one hundred years, all the inhabitants of this world will have passed into another state of existence, we cannot but acknowledge that the occupations of time engage too much of our attention. All of us feel and know these things to be true, and yet we live as though we believed them not. Why is this? It As calm as doth the lily float, close by the lakelet's brim, is because the deep and dark valley of forgetfulness So calm and spotless down time's stream, her peaceful days is the receptacle of neglected thought. It is a strange truth-we do forget! In the multiplicity of our earthly pursuits we forget that we are but pilgrims to another world. Reason tells the old man, that he was once young, but is he not prone to forget the high aspirations, the wild, free thoughts, the innocence and happiness of his early days? His Once, there was a man who was known throughout the world as a distinguished merchant. ships floated in almost every sea, and he was called honorable and great. It was midnight, and I saw him asleep on his downy couch. His dreams were of luxury and wealth. I saw him again by the light of day, and a sordid smile was on his face. Care and anxiety had wrinkled his cheeks and brow. At last, he died-was buried in great pomp, and is now forgotten. Was it merely to pass through these changing scenes that he was born? Was he not too earnestly engaged in playing with the shadows of life? And that the stream so pure and bright must turn it from back! did swim; And I had longed, and dreamed, and prayed that closely by Yet there is something in my heart that whispers ceaselessly, VIVE LA BAGATELLE! H. P. A farmer about kindling up a fire, bitter cold day, deep snow on the ground, said to his son; "Tom, my son, can't you go out to the woodpa.e and hustle me up a few chips to start this fire!" Tom: "Oh yis, while I'm a hustling about there, arter them chips, who knows but I mought hustle out a snake." Two boys in Tennessee went out one sunshiny Sunday morning, after simmons. When they go to the tree, Bill got hold of a very green simmon, which pricked up his mouth so fast as to make a noise like whistling. Says Dick, with a solenn countenance, "I'll tell your mammy sir, you whist I hoped, I thought she loved me once, and yet, I know not led Sunday." Bill replies, bursting with indig why, There is a coldness in her speech and a coldness in her eye; nation, "whithled the devil! I'm pizoned." A gentleman said that he was out in a storm at sea once, that frightened him so, that his hair all And in her utmost openness, I feel there's something hid; turned gray in one night. Another gentleman She almost seems to shun me-as if she thought that I present, said yes, he had been in a gale of wind at sea that alarmed him so, that it turned his wg gray in one night. "Sir," said the first gentleman, "do you mean to doubt my word!" "No," said the other, "do you mean to doubt mine?" To make a cat-egorical Piano.-Prepare a row of London, on a charge of retailing liquor by of boxes like the old-fashioned rat-traps, of gra- weight and not by measure. Mayor-“ Are you duated sizes;-put them in a line, arranging the in the habit of selling your liquor by weight?" smallest to the right and the rest in order according Shopkeeper-" No, my Lord." Mayor-Do you to size, so that the largest shall be at the extreme sell your liquor by measure ?" Shopkeeper-" Oh left, like the keys of piano-forte. Then procure no, my Lord, by no means. Mayor-" "Well then a number of cats equal to the number of boxes. how do you do?" Shopkeeper "Right well my Put your largest old Tom-cat in the largest box, Lord I thank you, how do you do?" to the left, and sort the rest of them in the boxes, agreeable to size and age. The old cats represent base—the young, including kittens, making up the treble. Next with an auger bore a hole in the end of each box, through which the cats, for want of sea room, (the boxes being a tight fit) will naturally protrude their tails. Your instrument is ow ready for performance. Now pass up and down the line rapidly, pulling their tails, and you will have in perfection, what is called by the learned, categorical music. N. B. By substituting dogs, you may readily alter it to a dogmatical piano. P. S. Flats and sharps are made by pinching the tails more or less; grace notes may require a jerk. Every man for himself, as the Jack-ass said when he stomped among the younk turkeys. "Gentlemen of the jury, do you suppose my client would be so mean as to steal two poor hanks of picked cotting? I 'spose not, I reckon not. While the wolves were howling on the mountains of Kentucky, and Napoleon Bonaparte was massacreing the armies of Europe-do you suppose my client would be so mean, as to steal two poor pitful hanks of picked cotting? I spose not, I reckon not." 66 Yes, fellow citizens, I was ardent in your behalf; I was more than ardent-I was lukewarm in your behalf." Postscript to a letter from a settler in Mississippi: "Tom are dead; craps is middlin ?" Keeper of a menagerie loquitur ;—“ This, gentlemen, is the celebrated rhinoceros, and he is a very serious animal I assure you." Lawyer-"Suppose for example, your honor stole a sheep." Judge-"Sir you are not to suppose any such thing." Lawyer-" Then may it please your honor, suppose I stole a sheep." Judge-"Ah, now you have hit it." "Yes, gentlemen of the jury, these wolves of Kentucky, when all nature is locked in the arms of Morpheus, step forth, at the silent hour of midnight, and devour whole litters of pigs." A man advertised he would go into a quart-pot, ut when the people came he disappointed them; Voltaire was praising an author, when he was lowever, to make up for it, he promised if they told that the author had spoken very ill of him. would come the next evening, he would go into a "Ah well," said Voltaire, " perhaps he and I are int-pot-positively. both mistaken." A judge in one of the new counties in Western A gentleman speaking to Robert Hall, of a peVirginia, inquired of the sheriff, whether he had nurious man, said; "you might put his soul in a nade up a jury. The sheriff replied, that he had nut-shell." "Yes sir," said Hall, "and then it mpanelled eleven and expected to have the other would creep out at a maggot-hole." soon, as they were running him with dogs. A toper, drinking good wine, wished his neck a mile long, that he might taste it all the way down. - A judge on the circuit with a party of lawyers, 1 little girl in the yard, and the only reply he could draw from her was; ux is got young tukkies." "You all know, fellow citizens, that I fought, "Fellow citizens, should I have the felicity to be elected upon the present occasion, after the A Shopkeeper brought before the Lord Mayor next session of Congress it is my fixed determina - |