But on thy harp, or on thy lute,

The string which thou hast broken, Shall never in sweet sound again Give to thy touch a token!" Stanley sought not in his disappointment the consolation which had so wonderfully sustained the once fragile, but now strong spirit of Julia. But nature will seek happiness in some form: that in which Stanley now sought her was riches. For this he strove with an ardor worthy a nobler object, and he was successful-not in finding happiness, but in amassing wealth, to be in turn expended in the pursuit of happiness in another form, as vain and empty-that of worldly pleasures. So passed his life, rich in what thousands esteem capable of affording happiness, yet poor indeed in the more valuable riches of the mind and heart.

So passed not the life of Julia. Blest with a competency, she sighed not for riches, but, from her wisely expended means, supplied the necessities of her poor neighbors, sought their intellectual and spiritual good, was active and useful in a thousand ways, besides administering to the comfort of her beloved father, and enlivening the circle of choice spirits by which she was surrounded. True, she met with afflictions; but she who had so nobly conquered her feelings in the weakness of her almost childhood, was not, in the vigor of her riper years, overwhelmed by any subsequent shock of calamity. The bitterest cup which she drank was the loss of her father; yet was she comforted with the thought that he had but put off the frail tabernacle of the body, to enjoy more fully the blessings of spiritual life.

Her loss was, indeed, severe, yet calmly, serenely, though with a deeply chastened spirit, returned she to her duties, when the time which nature demands as the exclusive privilege of tears had passed away. And did she then forget him who had so loved her,

whose life had been so closely linked with hers, that the subtle shaft of death alone could sever them? Forget him! let her careful observance of every wish he had expressed, the tear oft checked because he would have grieved to see her disconsolate, her efforts to be cheerful because he would have wished her to be so, and her continual looking forward to a reunion with him in the spiritual world, answer and bear witness how truly she loved and honored him even in his grave.

And now that she was left thus desolate, her former friend and admirer, Count Rothwell, hoped that she might look with more favor upon his longtried affection; but his devoted attachment was to meet with yet another disappointment. Julia told him that he had ever possessed her friendship, which was still her only return for his generous affection. He replied that he did not expect such regard as she had once bestowed on another, but that he would sooner possess her esteem than another's love. Yet he could not induce her to reverse her decision, and reluctantly left her to the humble, retired life which she thus preferred to a life of splendor with one whom she highly esteemed, but could not regard with that emotion which she deemed essential to the sanctity of marriage. They who are dazzled by wealth and station might regard this as a splendid conquest; but a far higher than this, or the double conquest of Stanley, was that which she achieved over her own heart.

Surrounded by a few dear friends, Julia had leisure to devote herself with untiring assiduity to those ministrations of benevolence in which we may suppose angels joyfully mingle. Thus actively, yet unostentatiously, passed the remainder of her life; and she was happy; for as certainly as vice, however prospered for a time, brings misery at the last, so certainly does virtue, though it pass through the fire and floods of tribulation, ultimately bring peace to the soul.

AMERICAN BEAUTY.

THERE are two points in which it is seldom equalled, never excelled-the classic chasteness and delicacy of the features, and the smallness and exquisite symmetry of the extremities. In the latter respect, particularly, the American ladies are singularly fortunate. I have seldom seer one, delicately brought up, who had not a fine hand. The feet are also generally very small and exquisitely moulded, particularly those of a Maryland girl; who, well aware of their attractiveness, has a thousand little coquettish ways of her own of temptingly exhibit

ing them. That in which the American women are most deficient is in roundness of figure. But it is a mistake to suppose that well rounded forms are not to be found in America. Whilst this is the characteristic of English beauty, it is not so prominent a feature in America. In New England, in the mountainous districts of Pennsylvania and Maryland, and in the central valley of Virginia, the female form is, generally speaking, as well rounded and developed as it is here; whilst a New England complexion is, in nine cases out of ten, a match for an English one. This, however, cannot be said of the American women as a class. They are, in a

majority of cases, over-delicate and languid; a defeet chiefly superinduced by their want of exercise. An English girl will go through as much exercise in a forenoon, without dreaming of fatigue, as an American will in a day, and be overcome by the exertion. It is also true that American is more evanescent than English beauty, particularly in the south, where it seems to fade ere it has well bloomed. But it is much more lasting in the north and northeast; a remark which will apply to the whole region north of the Potomac, and east of the lakes: and I have known instances of Philadelphia beauty as lovely and enduring as any that our own hardy climate can produce.-Mackay's Western World.

WATER DRINKING.

PROFESSOR SILLIMAN closed a recent Smithsonian lecture, by giving the following sensible advice to young men: "If, therefore, you wish for a clear mind, strong muscles, and quiet nerves, and long life and power prolonged into old age, permit me to say, although I am not giving a temperance lecture, avoid all drinks but water, and mild infusions of that fluid; shun tobacco and opium, and everything else that disturbs the normal state of the system; rely upon nutritious food and mild diluent drinks of which water is the basis, and you will need nothing beyond these things except rest, and due moral regulation of all your powers, to give you long, happy, and useful lives, and a serene evening at the close."

POISONS.

VESSELS of copper often give rise to poisoning. Though the metal undergoes but little change in a dry atmosphere, it is rusted if moisture be present, and its surface becomes covered with a green substance-carbonate or the protoxide of copper, a poisonous compound. It has sometimes happened that a mother has, for a want of knowledge, poisoned her family. Sourkrout, when permitted to stand some time in a copper vessel, has produced death in a few hours. Cooks sometimes permit pickles to remain in copper vessels, that they may acquire a rich green color, which they do by absorbing poison. Families have often been thrown into disease by eating such dainties, and may have died, in some instances, without suspecting the cause.-Dr. Thomp

HOW TO PROMOTE HEALTH.

Do not expect, sir, some wonderful announcement, some fascinating mystery! No. It is simply the plain little practice of leaving your bed-room window a little open at the top while sleeping, both in winter and summer. I do not come before you as a theorist or an inexperienced teacher, in thus calling loudly upon every family to adopt this healthful practice. I am the father of ten children, all in pure health, and have (thank God) never lost one, although their natural constitutions were not robust. But in addition to the salutary effect of the practice in my own family, wherever I have advised others to try its effects, it has invariably been found to be both pleasant and beneficial.-Correspondent of the London Sun.

"I WILL."

We like that strong, robust expression. No one having uttered it sincerely was ever a mean, cringing man. The pigmies of the world did not trouble him. He speaks and the indomitable will prevail. His enemies fall before him. He rides forth a conqueror. Would you be great? Would you be distinguished for your literary or scientific efforts? Look not mournfully at your lot, but with "I will," breathing upon your lips, and bursting from a great heart, you cannot but prevail. Show us the man who never rose higher than a road-stool, and whose influence died with his breath, and we will point you to a cringing wretch, who trembled at the approach of a spider, and fainted beneath a thunder cloud. Let the fires of energy play through your veins, and if your thoughts are directed in the right channels, you will yet startle the slumbering universe. John Neal.

VOL. XLV.-44

THE HOMESTEAD.

HERE is what Thomas Jefferson said in a few words on this subject, a great many years ago. There is more necessity, now, for the new "declaration," than there was then:

"When the war is over, and our freedom won, the people must make a new declaration; they must declare the rights of man, the individual, sacred above all craft in priesthood or governments-they must at one blow put an end to all the trickeries of English Jaw, which is garnered in the charnel of ages, binding the heart and will with lies. They must perpetuate republican truth, by making the homestead of every man a holy thing, which no law can touch, no juggle wrest from his wife and children. Until this is done, the revolution will have been fought in vain.

THE various crotchets which creep into the "heads of the people," upon as various subjects, afford much that is amusing, and more that is ridiculous. In the department of Fine Arts, the absurdities of taste are more openly displayed than in perhaps any other. Cunning men, acting on this fact, have, for a number of years back, been plundering the pockets of those unfortunate connoisseurs who have great faith in their own judgment, and greater in their worship of "old masters." This mania, which has been so prevalent, will doubtless disappear, now that it has become apparent that modern ingenuity has supplied what ancient industry had failed to do viz., a constant stock of "old masters" for posterity. The absurdity of a taste for the "old masters" can be seen by a look at any of the private collections in the country, or on the walls of our academy. Such miserable daubs and ungainly drawings would disgrace the name of any living painter, however slight his calibre; and yet there are men who prate of their taste in the Fine Arts, and frown at the inention of a doubt of their judgment, who fall into ecstasies over a broken-backed saint, a disturbed virgin, or india-rubber-man Samson-the principal aim of old painters seeming to have been to endeavor to display the various contortions which the human body can undergo-and this accompanied with a peculiarity of color between brickdust and black

ink, interspersed with occasional patches of whitewash. Notwithstanding these departures from all correct rules, the perverse "patron" of the Fine Arts sees much that is to admire, and freely bleeds at the pocket, to display to the public the fact that he can be humbugged into the purchase of an "old master," under the flattering idea that he is a "patron of the Arts." The enormous prices paid for this distinction are the more deplorable when we look around at the modern talent which, neglected and uncared for, is daily subject to the privations of the world-the emanations of whose genius would be a credit to the house and heart of any purchaser.

No ornament is more appropriate for the walls of a well-furnished house than the creations of the pencil (ancient daubs excepted), and our hope is, that the purchasing public will be drawn from the errors of their ways, in their senseless admiration of the "old masters," to a taste for nature and modern Art. The following nut we leave for all admirers of the particular class of paintings it has reference to, to crack. Speaking of the modern supply of "old masters," the "London Art Union" holds the following language: "The fabrication of false ancient masters has not always been the trade of needy dealers. A distinguished amateur of our own time, who moved in the best circles of society, and whose taste in the Fine Arts was patent to the highest classes, did not

scruple to pursue the dishonorable course. The late Mr. Zachary, it may be recollected, occupied the house on the Adelphia Terrace, where the widow of David Garrick had formerly resided. Here he possessed some pictures by the great celebrities in art, which decorated the walls of his apartment, and occasionally appeared in the exhibition of the British Institution. In the back drawing-room, a stove was placed in the centre of the floor, having no connection with the chimney, for the express intention that the smoke should ascend into the room and circulate in every part. This stove was made from Mr. Zachary's design by Mr. Sandison, ironmonger, No. 7 Maiden-Lane, Covent Garden, and the accompanying sketch (see Engraving) will give an idea of its construction. On the ceiling iron rods were placed, to which the copies of his pictures were hung, resting obliquely on rails fixed lower down, as Mr. Zachary found by experience that the copies were best cooked into antiquity by remaining over the stove at an angle of 45°. Two poor artists were constantly employed by him in the house to make careful copies of his fine pictures. Three months was about the time necessary to harden and discolor the paint on these canvases, which then became similar enough, for deception, to old pictures. Mr. Zachary possessed a very fine picture by Hobbina, of which he had at least a dozen. copies made, which were sent to various parts of Europe, where each may probably figure at present as the real original of a celebrated work by the great landscape painter of the Dutch school. Mr. Zachary did not confine his labors to making copies, but he undertook to improve originals. The pictures by Claude, known as the Berwick Claude, were once subjected to this operation. It had suffered by neglect and age, but now riots in more than pristine beauty, as it has received at Mr. Zachary's hands the addition of trees, which Claude did not think necessary to the composition. For three entire months an English landscape painter, formerly a Royal Academician, was employed to repair, beautify, and make additions to this Berwick Claude; which ended in Mr. Zachary's selling it for a considerable profit. Some other damaged originals of consequence underwent a similar revivification.

"Mr. Zachary sold his pictures twice by auction; ft remains for the possessors of pictures which have once belonged to this gentleman to satisfy themselves that out of the numerous copies of his originals they may have acquired the fortunate prize, instead of a mystified blank."

It was decidedly cruel in the English picturedealer to play upon the credulity of his "old master" customers. If their taste had made them fools, his avarice should not have been satisfied by making them dupes as well. We have very little pity for them. The humbug of picture-dealing does not stop at the old masters. Modern painters come in for their share in this wise: It is the habit of one

or two gentlemen picture-dealers of this country to make pilgrimages to Europe for the purpose of procuring pictures by living artists, to satisfy the cravings of connoisseurs, and to fill a vacuum in their own pockets. After a few months' absence, they return with a large collection, which they hang up in a room selected for the purpose, calling on the public to take a gratis look. Various names well known to fame are given as the artists, and many of the pictures are transferred to the walls of private residences. Those not sold at private sale after a certain time are put up at auction, and bring good prices. It would seem a mystery to the uninitiated how so many pictures by living artists could be procured, and sold at such a "sacrifice." But they will see how easily it can be managed when they know that these "pictures by living artists" are merely copies purchased from the students at the various academies in Europe for a mere song, some of them being really excellent copies, but they are nothing but copies after all. Original pictures, by old or living masters, are not easily obtained, and it is a very difficult matter to tell the real from the counterfeit. If any of our readers want good pictures for their parlors, let them commission such living American artists as Leutze, Rothermel, Williams, Hamilton, and others.

A THOUGHT OF THE GIFTED DEAD.

BY MRS. J. H. THOMAS.

AH! never shall a golden thought,
A lofty aim be lost-

Though glorious thinkers yield to Death,
As Southern flowers to frost!

For God, whose seal the gifted bear,
Shall other souls inspire;

And other hearts and lips shall glow
With the undying fire.

A starry ray shall clasp and gild
Our sorrow-night so dim;
For holy lips shall fondly close

The grandly-opening hymn.

The hymn his peerless soul had learned, 'Mid bitter strife and tears,

Oh, ever shall its echo ring

Through all the coming years!

And to our aching hearts, the while,
Sweet memories shall cling;
Blest dreams of him who round our way
Did light and glory fling.

Sweet friends, that wail above the bier
Of high hopes shrouded thus,
Joy! joy that for a little while

He trod life's path with us!

Joy! joy! that on our latest life

His impress shall remain; Nor seek to part what God hath blentThe proud joy and the pain.

I HAVE tasted of the stranger's cup, and slept beneath the stranger's roof, and ever felt a yearning for the bright atmosphere of home, save one pleasant summer that I spent at Summerdale House, with its kind hostess, Mrs. McNaully.

Never shall I forget the delight and admiration I experienced when, after the heat and fatigue of a day's journey, we entered the gate that led to the mansion. Magnificent old trees shaded the walks, and fragrant flowers grew along the borders. In the centre of the lawn a sparkling fountain escaped from the upturned beak of a snow-white swan. Statues, artificial mounds covered by flowers, and mimic grottos served to make more beautiful this very lovelys pot. A broad circuitous path led from the gate to the dwelling, which was two stories high, and built of white stone. The windows were protected by green Venetian shutters; those of the upper story opened upon a veranda which was supported by white pillars; the ground beneath it was paved with squares of variegated marble, affording a cool and shady seat during the warmest portion of the day.

When we alighted from the carriage, Mrs McNaully came forward to receive us. Her benevolent smile and affectionate greeting immediately won my heart; and after we had been conversing a short time, I felt as if it were impossible that until now we had been entire strangers to each other. Her dress spoke u language from the past that was quite refreshing in an age when fashion's whims are forever changing; her silvered hair was laid smoothly beneath a cap of snowy lawn; her dress was of rich brown satin, the sleeves of which but reached to her elbow; brown silk mitts partly concealed the lower portion of an arm that time had failed to rob of its whiteness; a kerchief of thin muslin was folded across her bust; a white linen apron, with capacious pockets, a ponderous bunch of keys, and high-heeled shoes with silver buckles, completed her unique costume. She was slightly below the medium height, her figure round and portly; but her face-ah! indeed, it were vain for me to attempt describing it. Though age had dimmed the eye that once was bright, and planted furrows upon the brow that, years gone by, was smooth as polished marble, there still shone within those eyes a light that cometh only from the heart, and there was an expression of kindness and benevolence upon that aged face that made it beautiful as an infant's smile, or the first blush on a maiden's check: yes, gladsome and beautiful is a cheerful old age, for it telleth of a life well spent, and duties faithfully performed; it showeth

that the storms of sorrow have been banished by the smiles of contentment and resignation. But I will say no more, for it would be impossible for me to impart to you the admiration and love our hostess excited in the heart of your humble servant.

The dressing-bell caused us to seek our chamber for the purpose of exchanging travel-soiled dresses for those of a thinner texture; but when we entered the chamber, I forgot my purpose, and paused to admire the simple elegance displayed in its arrangement. Cool matting covered the floor; the furniture was composed of white enamelled wood beautifully gilt and painted; the beds were dressed in the purest white; the hangings were of thin muslin trimmed with deep lace; the toilet-table was dressed in worked muslin trimmed with lace; above it, hung an oval-shaped mirror surrounded by a gilt frame; the embroidered window-curtains were looped back by sprigs of cedar; brilliant flowers filled vases upon the mantelpiece; and green pine boughs were placed within the nicely whitewashed fireplace.

We had just completed our toilet when we were summoned to tea; the windows on one side of the dining-room opened upon a blooming garden; the balmy breath of smiling flowers stealing in upon us made our repast taste most fragrantly delicious; the table linen was of snowy hue, and of the finest texture; the napkins were inclosed in mother-ofpearl rings, upon which were numbers by which each seat was designated; the golden-hued butter and snowy bread were very tempting, as were also the freshly gathered raspberries and rich cream. Every dish on the well-laden table was so tastefully arranged and nicely prepared that the most fastidious appetite could not have sighed for better.

After tea we joined a party of city friends (who were also staying at Summerdale) in a ramble. They led us through shady paths and over a rustic bridge into a little valley where a sparkling waterfall capered and murmured adown the side of a rock into a small stream as clear and bright as liquid silver. The many-hued flowers and clinging vines that hung from the rocks, the overhanging trees, and the music of the birds that dwelt amid their branches, gave a fairy-like charm to the spot. Upon the banks of the stream a party of ladies and gentlemen (from Summerdale) were engaged in fishing. We watched their sport until the moon's bright face peeped down upon us through the foliage, when they ceased to trouble the finny tribe, and returned with us to the house. We then adjourned to the music-room (which was a long apartment furnished with cane