There were exceptions. Not every one lost himself in the dust and the agony of strife. Not every generation spent itself in conflicts. The physical powers were not always the only ones in exercise. At times the intellectual powers obtained develop ment. At rarer seasons, the spiritual powers evinced themselves. A generation might thus attain to a liberty far wider than that of its predecessors. An individual might thus rise to a liberty far higher than that of his contemporaries. Yet these were but exceptions. The rule, confirmed by them, was the tendency of men to a lower, rather than a higher state. Indirectly, they were led towards the higher state, for which the lower was the necessary preparation. But the passage was to be made through the lower. Every bad work that succeeded, every good work that failed, brought mankind nearer to the end of the prevailing evil. The advent of the approaching good was hastened by every downward step towards prostration.

From the masses of the clouds the light first fades away. It presently vanishes from the patches in the skies originally undimmed. Then darkness

overspreads the heavens. Men fall supine upon the earth. The night of universal humiliation sets in. But the gloom is not unbroken. Overshadowed as is the scene, it is not overwhelmed. There still remain the vales where truth has descended. There still exist the peaks to which love in its longing has climbed. Desires too earnest to have been wasted, principles too honest to have been unproductive, still linger in promise of the coming day. were to be humbled. They needed to feel the insecurity of their liberty, of the powers which made it their right, of the laws which made it their possession. But they did not need to be bereft of the good which their laws and their powers, however imperfect, comprehended.

Men

The day of redemption followed. It was not too late. It was not too soon. The human race had been tried. It had not been annihilated. Then the angels sang their song of glory to God and peace amongst His creatures. We may believe that when the morning came, the oppression and the servitude of old had left their darkest forms amidst the midnight clouds. Before the death of Augustus, the Business of THE FATHER had already been begun in the Temple at Jerusalem; and near by, THE SON was increasing in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

The sea, as it were, whereon wave has pursued wave through day and night, through years and centuries, before our eyes, is thus illumined with the advancing light which we have been waiting to behold. And as we stand upon the shore, conscious of the Spirit that has moved upon the face of the waters, we may lift our eyes with more confiding faith to the over-watching Heaven.

On

craft in London, writes good verses himself. two occasions, in 1838 and '48, Mr. Fields has delivered a poem before the Boston Mercantile Association. Sentiment and point, in good set iambics and clashing rhymes, are the approved necessities of these affairs. Mr. Fields's poems on "Commerce" and "the Post of Honor" are wanting in neither. An elegantly printed little volume, in the highest luxury of the press, contains his miscellaneous poems. They are truthful and unaffected in sentiment, finished and delicate in expression.

WORDSWORTH.

The grass hung wet on Rydal banks,
The golden day with pearls adorning,
When side by side with him we walked
To meet midway the summer morning.
The west wind took a softer breath,
The sun himself seemed brighter shining,
As through the porch the minstrel stept-
His eye sweet Nature's look enshrining.
He passed along the dewy sward,

The blue-bird sang aloft "good-morrow!
He plucked a bud, the flower awoke,
And smiled without one pang of sorrow.
He spoke of all that graced the scene

In tones that fell like music round us,
We felt the charm descend, nor strove

To break the rapturous spell that bound us. We listened with mysterious awe,

Strange feelings mingling with our pleasure; We heard that day prophetic words,

High thoughts the heart must always treasure. Great Nature's Priest! thy calm career,

With that sweet morn, on earth has endedBut who shall say thy mission died When, winged for Heaven, thy soul ascended!

DONALD G. MITCHELL.

MR. MITCHELL was born in Norwich, Connecticut, April, 1822. His father was the pastor of the Congregational church of that place, and his grandfather a member of the first Congress at Philadelphia, and for many years Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut.

After being prepared for college at a boardingschool, young Mitchell entered Yale, and was graduated in due course in 1841. His health being feeble, he passed the three following years on his grandfather's estate in the country. He became much interested in agriculture, wrote a number of letters for the Cultivator at Albany, and gained a silver cup from the New York Agricultural Society, as a prize for a plan of farm buildings.

He next crossed the ocean, and spent half a winter in the island of Jersey, and the other half in rambling over England on foot, visiting in this manner every county, and writing letters to the Albany Cultivator. After passing eighteen months on the continent he returned home, and commenced the study of the law in New York city. He soon after published, Fresh Gleanings; or, A New Sheaf from the Old Fields of Continental Europe; by Ik. Marvel, a pleasant volume of leisurely observation over a tour through some of the choice places of Central Europe. Mr. Mitchell's health suffering from confinement in a city office, he again visited Europe, and passed some of the eventful months of 1848 in the capital and among the vineyards of France.

Da Gamalu

On his return, Mr. Mitchell published in 1850, The Battle Summer, being Transcriptions from Personal Observations in Paris during the year 1848; by Ik. Marvel, a volume in which he carried the quaint brevity of style, somewhat apparent in the Fresh Gleanings, to an injudicious extent, coupling with this an unfortunate imitation of Carlyle's treatment of similar scenes in

the History of the French Revolution. His next production was The Lorgnette, a periodical in size and style resembling Salmagundi. It appeared anonymously, and although attracting much attention in fashionable circles, the author's incognito was for some time preserved. It was written in a quiet, pure style, and contains some of the best passages in the author's writings.

During the progress of the Lorgnette, Mr. Mitchell published the Reveries of a Bachelor, a contemplative view of life from the slippered ease of the chimney corner. A slight story runs through the volume, containing some pathetic scenes tenderly narrated.

A volume of a similar character, Dream Life, appeared in the following year. In 1853 Mr. Mitchell received the appointment of United States Consul at Venice. He retained the office but a short time, and after passing several months in Europe, engaged in the collection of materials for a proposed history of Venice, returned home the summer of 1855. He is at present residing on a country-seat which he has purchased in the neighborhood of New Haven.

Mr. Mitchell's last publication, Fudge Doings, was originally published in the Knickerbocker Magazine. It consists of a series of sketches, in a connected form, of city fashionable life, in the vein of the Lorgnette.

LETTERS-FROM THE REVERIES OF A BACHELOR.

Blessed be letters!-they are the monitors, they are also the comforters, and they are the only true heart-talkers. Your speech, and their speeches, are conventional; they are moulded by circumstances; they are suggested by the observation, remark, and influence of the parties to whom the speaking is addressed, or by whom it may be overheard.

Your truest thought is modified half through its utterance by a look, a sign, a smile, or a sneer. It is not individual; it is not integral: it is social and mixed,-half of you, and half of others. It bends, it sways, it multiplies, it retires, and it advances, as the talk of others presses, relaxes, or quickens.

But it is not so with Letters:-there you are, with only the soulless pen, and the snow-white, virgin paper. Your soul is measuring itself by itself, and saying its own sayings: there are no sneers to modify its utterance,-no scowl to scare,-nothing is present, but you and your thought.

Utter it then freely-write it down-stamp itburn it in the ink !-There it is, a true soul-print!

Oh, the glory, the freedom, the passion of a letter! It is worth all the lip-talk of the world. Do you say, it is studied, made up, acted, rehearsed, contrived, artistic?

Let me see it then; let me run it over; tell me age, sex, circumstances, and I will tell you if it be studied or real; if it be the merest lip-slang put into words, or heart-talk blazing on the paper.

I have a little pacquet, not very large, tied up with narrow crimson ribbon, now soiled with frequent handling, which far into some winter's night I take down from its nook upon my shelf, and untie, and open, and run over, with such sorrow, and such joy,-such tears and such smiles, as I am sure make me for weeks after, a kinder and holier man.

There are in this little pacquet, letters in the familiar hand of a mother-what gentle admonition -what tender affection!-God have mercy on him who outlives the tears that such admonitions, and such affection call up to the eye! There are others in the budget, in the delicate, and unformed hand of

The latest production of Mr. Read, published in Philadelphia in 1855, during the author's residence in Italy, The New Pastoral, is the most elaborate of his compositions. It is a series of thirty-seven sketches, forming a volume of two hundred and fifty pages, mostly in blank verse. The thread which connects the chapters together is the emigration of a family group of Middle Pennsylvania to the Mississippi. The description of their early residence; the rural manners and pursuits; the natural scenery of their home; the phenomena of the seasons; the exhibitions of religious, political, and social life; the school; the camp meeting; the election; Independence Day, with an elevating love theme in the engagement of a village maiden to a poetie lover in Europe; the incidents of the voyage on the Ohio, with fre quent episodes and patriotic aspirations, are all handled with an artist's eye for natural and moral beauty. The book presents a constant succession of truthful, pleasing images, in the healthy vein of the Goldsmiths and Bloomfields.

The characteristics we have noted describe Mr. Read's poems in his several volumes, which have exhibited a steady progress and development, in the confidence of the writer, in plain and simple objects, in strength of fancy and poetic culture.

THE CLOSING SCENE.

Within this sober realm of leafless trees,

The russet year inhaled the dreamy air,
Like some tanned reaper in his hour of ease,
When all the fields are lying brown and bare.
The gray barns, looking from their hazy hills
O'er the dim waters widening in the vales,
Sent down the air a greeting to the mills,
On the dull thunder of alternate flails.

All sights were mellowed, and all sounds subdued, The hills seemed farther, and the streams sang low;

As in a dream, the distant woodman hewed
His winter log with many a muffled blow.
Th' embattled forests, erewhile armed in gold,
Their banners bright with every martial hue,
Now stood, like some sad beaten host of old,
Withdrawn afar in Time's remotest blue.

On slumb'rous wings the vulture tried his flight; The dove scarce heard his sighing mate's complaint;

And like a star slow drowning in the light,

The village church-vane seemed to pale and faint. The sentinel cock upon the hill-side crew;

Crew thrice, and all was stiller than beforeSilent till some replying wanderer blew

His alien horn, and then was heard no more.

Where erst the jay within the elm's tall crest Made garrulous trouble round the unfledged young;

And where the oriole hung her swaying nest

By every light wind like a censer swung; Where sang the noisy masons of the eves, The busy swallows circling ever near, Foreboding, as the rustic mind believes,

An early harvest and a plenteous year; Where every bird which charmed the vernal feast Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at morn, To warn the reapers of the rosy east,

All now was songless, empty, and forlorn.

Alone, from out the stubble piped the quail,
And croaked the crow through all the dreary
gloom;

Alone the pheasant, drumming in the vale,
Made echo to the distant cottage loom.

There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers;
The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by
night;

The thistle-down, the only ghost of flowers,
Sailed slowly by-passed noiseless out of sight.
Amid all this-in this most cheerless air,

And where the woodbine sheds upon the porch
Its crimson leaves, as if the year stood there,
Firing the floor with his inverted torch-

Amid all this, the centre of the scene,

The white-haired matron, with monotonous tread Plied her swift wheel, and with her joyless mien Sat like a Fate, and watched the flying thread. She had known sorrow. He had walked with her, Oft supped, and broke with her the ashen crust, And in the dead leaves still she heard the stir Of his black mantle trailing in the dust.

While yet her cheek was bright with summer bloom,

Her country summoned, and she gave her all,
And twice war bowed to her his sable plume;
He gave the swords to rest upon the wall. -
Re-gave the swords-but not the hand that drew,
And struck for liberty the dying blow;
Nor him, who to his sire and country true
Fell 'mid the ranks of the invading foe.

Long, but not loud, the droning wheel went on,
Like the low murmurs of a hive at noon;
Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone
Breathed through her lips a sad and tremulous

tune.

At last the thread was snapped, her head was bowed:

Life drooped the distaff through his hands serene; And loving neighbors smoothed her careful shroud, While Death and Winter closed the autumn scene.

PENNSYLVANIA FROM THE NEW PASTORAL.

Fair Pennsylvania! than thy midland vales,
Lying 'twixt hills of green, and bound afar
By billowy mountains rolling in the blue,
No lovelier landscape meets the traveller's eye.
There Labour sows and reaps his sure reward,
And Peace and Plenty walk amid the glow
And perfume of full garners. I have seen
In lands less free, less fair, but far more known,
The streams which flow through history and wash
The legendary shores-and cleave in twain
Old capitols and towns, dividing oft
Great empires and estates of petty kings
And princes, whose domains full many a field,
Rustling with maize along our native West,
Out-measures and might put to shame! and yet
Nor Rhine, like Bacchus crowned, and reeling
through

His hills-
s-nor Danube, marred with tyranny,
His dull waves moaning on Hungarian shores-
Nor rapid Po, his opaque waters pouring
Athwart the fairest, fruitfulest, and worst
Enslaved of European lands-nor Seine,
Winding uncertain through inconstant France-
Are half so fair as thy broad stream whose breast
Is gemmed with many isles, and whose proud name
Shall yet become among the names of rivers
A synonym of beauty-Susquehanna!

THE VILLAGE CHURCH-FROM THE NEW PASTORAL..

About the chapel door, in easy groups,
The rustic people wait. Some trim the switch,
While some prognosticate of harvests full,
Or shake the dubious head with arguments
Based on the winter's frequent snow and thaw,
The heavy rains, and sudden frosts severe.
Some, happily but few, deal scandal out,
With look askance pointing their victim. These
Are the rank tares in every field of grain-
These are the nettles stinging unaware—
The briars which wound and trip unheeding feet-
The noxious vines, growing in every grove!
Their touch is deadly, and their passing breath
Poison most venomous! Such have I known--
As who has not?-and suffered by the contact.
Of these the husbandman takes certain note,
And in the proper season disinters

Their baneful roots; and to the sun exposed,
The killing light of truth, leaves them to pine
And perish in the noonday! "Gainst a tree,
With strong arms folded o'er a giant chest,
Stands Barton, to the neighbourhood chief smith;
His coat, unused to aught save Sunday wear,
Grown too oppressive by the morning walk,
Hangs on the drooping branch: so stands he oft
Beside the open door, what time the share
Is whitening at the roaring bellows' mouth.
There, too, the wheelwright-he, the magistrate-
In small communities a man of mark-
Stands with the smith, and holds such argument
As the unlettered but observing can;

Their theme some knot of scripture hard to solve.
And 'gainst the neighbouring bars two others fan,
Less fit the sacred hour, discussion hot
Of polities; a topic, which inflamed,
Knows no propriety of time or place.

There Oakes, the cooper, with rough brawny hand,
Descants at large, and, with a noisy ardour,
Rattles around his theme as round a cask;
While Hanson, heavy-browed, with shoulders bent,
Bent with great lifting of huge stones—for he
A mason and famed builder is-replies
With tongue as sharp and dexterous as his trowel,
And sentences which like his hammer fall,
Bringing the flinty fire at every blow!

But soon the approaching parson ends in peace
The wordy combat, and all turn within.
Awhile rough shoes, some with discordant creak,
And voices clearing for the psalm, disturb
The sacred quiet, till, at last, the veil

Of silence wavers, settles, falls; and then
The hymn is given, and all arise and sing.
Then follows prayer, which from the pastor's heart
Flows unpretending, with few words devout
Of humble thanks and askings; not, with lungs
Stentorian, assaulting heaven's high wall,
Compelling grace by virtue of a siege!
This done, with loving care he scans his flock,
And opes the sacred volume at the text.
Wide is his brow, and full of honest thought-
Love his vocation, truth is all his stock.
With these he strives to guide, and not perplex
With words sublime and empty, ringing oft
Most musically hollow. All his facts
Are simple, broad, sufficient for a world!

He knows them well, teaching but what he knows.
He never strides through metaphysic mists,

Or takes false greatness because seen through fogs;
Nor leads 'mid brambles of thick argument
Till all admire the wit which brings them through:
Nor e'er essays, in sermon or in prayer,

To share the hearer's thought; nor strives to make
The smallest of his congregation lose

One glimpse of heaven, to cast it on the priest.

Such simple course, in these ambitious tires.
Were worthy imitation; in these days,
When brazen tinsel bears the palm from worth,
And trick and pertness take the sacred desk;
Or some coarse thunderer, armed with doctrines

new,

Aims at our faith a blow to fell an ox-
Swinging his sledge, regardless where it strikes,
Or what demolishes--well pleased to win
By either blows or noise!-A modern seer,
Crying destruction! and, to prove it true,
Walking abroad, for demolition armed,
And boldly levelling where he cannot build!
The service done, the congregation rise,
And with a freshness glowing in their hearts,
And quiet strength, the benison of prayer,
And wholesome admonition, hence depart.
Some, loath to go, within the graveyard loiter,
Walking among the mounds, or on the tombs.
Hanging, like pictured grief beneath a willow,
Bathing the inscriptions with their tears; or here,
Finding the earliest violet, like a drop

Of heaven's anointing blue upon the dead,
Bless it with mournful pleasure; or, perchance,
With careful hands, recall the wandering vine,
And teach it where to creep, and where to bear
Its future epitaph of flowers. And there.
Each with a separate grief, and some with tears,
Ponder the sculptured lines of consolation.
"The chrysalis is here-the soul is flown.
And waits thee in the gardens of the blest!"
"The nest is cold and empty, but the bird
Sings with its loving mates in Paradise!"

"Our hope was planted here-it blooms in heaven!" She walks the azure field, 'mid dews of bliss,

While 'mong the thorns our feet still bleed in this!"
This was the fountain, but the sands are dry-
The waters have exhaled into the sky!"
"The listening Shepherd heard a voice forlorn,
And found the lamb, by thorns and brambles torn,
And placed it in his breast! Then wherefore
mourn?"

Such are the various lines; and, while they read,
Methinks I hear sweet voices in the air,
And winnowing of soft, invisible wings,
The whisperings of angels breathing peace!

FREDERICK L. COZZENS,

THE author of numerous popular sketches in the Knickerbocker and Putnam's Magazines, is a native of New York City. He early became engaged in mercantile life, and is at present a leading winemerchant.

In 1853 he published a volume of sketches in prose and verse entitled Prismatics, by Richard Haywarde. It was tastefully illustrated from designs by Elliott, Darley, Kensett, Hicks, and Rossiter. He has since written a series of sketches for Putnam's Monthly, humorously descriptive of a cockney residence in the country, under the title of The Sparrowgrass Papers, which are announced for publication in a volume by Derby.

Freda S. Corzines

С

Mr. Cozzens is also the author of a very pleasant miscellany published in connexion with his business, entitled The Wine Press. In addition to