THE FEMALE CHARACTER.

In the portraiture of deep and tragic passion men may possibly excel women; and surely it is a fact, and no fancy, that women understand better, and pencil out more gracefully, those finer and more fugitive impressions which come under the description of sentiment. Even the countrymen of Rousseau are apt to recommend some of their fair writers, as the best models of the sentimental style. They find in them more truth, nature, gentleness; less of exaggeration and mannerism, sensibilities less morbid, and language refined without bordering on effeminacy.

It would be a very interesting inquiry, whether this power of susceptibility in the female mind, a power made up as we have mentioned it to be, is original, or formed by circumstances? We certainly do believe it to be in a great measure original; and yet there are many things in the situation of women, in the ground which they occupy in society, that seem to assist nature in the production of the effect described. Their conscious inferiority of personal strength, must, of itself, dispose them to a cultivation of the finer and lovelier feelings; and this disposition is much aided by exemption from those employments which hackney the minds of the other sex, and have a tendency to wear down all the minuter feelings. In consequence, too, of their domestic life, the reciprocation of social kindness, which is only a recreation to men, is to women, in some sense a business. It is their field duty, from which, household cares are their repose. Men do not seek the intercourse of society as a friend to be cultivated, but merely throw themselves on its bosom to sleep. Women, on the contrary, resort to it with recollections undistracted, and curiosity all alive. Thus, that which we enjoy and forget, keeps their attention and their feelings in constant play, and gradually ma tures their perceptions into instinct.

To similar causes the softer sex own their exquisite acquaintance with life and manners; their fine discernment of those smaller peculiarities of character which throw so much light and shade over the

surface of ordinary society. Of the deeper varieties of the mind they know little, because they have not been accustomed to watch its movements when agitated by the vexing disquietudes of business, or ploughed up into frightful inequalities by the tempests of public life. It is human nature in a calm, or ruffled only into gentle undulation; it is the fireside character of mankind, which forms their chief study, and with which, of course, they are perfectly intimate.

Consider also that class of domestic occupations which concerns the care of children. Peace be to those wretched votaries of dissipation, if indeed they can find peace, who, all selfishness, resign their offspring to fortune, apparently not as pledges, but as presents. Of these we say nothing; but with respect to the majority of the middling class, there can be no question that, either as mothers, or as elder sisters, the female sex are infinitely more conversant with children than the other. Trace the effects naturally produced on their minds by this sort of society-for surely it may be honoured with that appellation-what habits of quick and intelligent observation must be formed by the employment of watching over interesting helplessness, and construing ill-explained wants! How must the perpetual contemplation of unsophisticated nature, reflect back on the dispositions of the observer a kind of simplicity and ingenuousness!What an insight into the native constitution of the human mind must it give, to inspect it in the very act of concoction? It is as if a chemist should examine

"Young diamonds in their infant dew."

Not that mothers will be apt to indulge in delusive dreams of the perfection of human nature and human society. They see too much of the waywardness of infants, to imagine them perfect, they neither find them nor think them angels though they often call them so. But whatever is bad or good in them, they behold untrammelled and undisguised. All this must, in some degree, contribute to form those peculiarities in the female character, of which we

are attempting to follow out the natural history.

The same peculiarities may, in part perhaps, be traced up to the system of European manners, which allows to women a free association with the world, while it enjoins on them the condition of an unimpeachable strictness of conduct. However loosely the fulfilment of this condition may be exacted in some countries of Europe, the system is still pretty extensively acted upon; and it doubtless tends to produce in the sex a habit of circumspection, an alarmed sense of self-respect, and a scrupulous tenderness of that feeling which is to conscience what decorum is to virtue. But these qualities seem to be intimately allied to delicacy of perception and of mind. In fact, in the western world, bienséance has become (if we may use a very hard and workmanlike-term) the professional virtue of the fair, and it is therefore that they excel in it. On the whole, if it should be asked, why women are more refined than men? It may be asked in return, why civilized men are more refined than barbarians? It is society which has polished the savage. It is the task of presiding over the society of society, the more civilized part of civilized life, which has so highly polished, and thrown so fine a finish over women.

THE NEW DRESS.

As I was lately sitting in the nursery of an old acquaintance, she exhibited to me a dress just completed for her little daughter. After I had duly admired it, the mother turned and displayed it to her child, exclaiming, Ann's new dress! Little Ann's pretty new dress!' while the little creature clapping her hands, testified her admiration of gay colours, if not the joy of her sex, in the prospect of becoming a possessor of such a prize as a gay dress. I, too, participated in the pleasure afforded by the animation of the little one; but as I turned my steps toward my own quiet, and perhaps, at times, lonely home-for I have no daughters to enliven my fireside-I fell into the following train of thought:

The incident, which I have this day witnessed, may exert an influence upon the character of this child, through time,—perhaps through eternity. She will soon understand the language of the lips, although she now only comprehended that of the features; and from both will she learn, that to her mother her dress is important. She will be arrayed in the new dress to visit

grandmother, and the pride of displaying it, will supersede the gratification which arises from the indulgence of the affections of the heart. When her mother has visitors, she will be told to be very good, as she is to wear her new dress to see the ladies, thus making propriety of deportment simply an appendage to dress; and connecting for life the idea of displaying herself, with the gratification of seeing her friends. The new dress will be prepared for the Sabbath, and the child will feel that to display it is the primary object for which she is taken to the house of God; and even upon her first entrance within the sanctuary, she may may be taught a lesson of pride and vanity, rather than of humility and reverence. Children are apt scholars in the school of vanity, and this child may soon become as vain, as heartless, as fond of display, as the most sanguine mother could wish, were it her only object to infuse pride, vanity, and the love of show into the heart of her child.

THE PIOUS NURSE.

THE Bible, which has erected so many monuments to record the worth of distinguished virtue, has not passed by the pious nurse. The sacred narrative says, 'But Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died; and she was buried beneath Bethel, under an oak; and the name of it was called Alion-bachuth' (the Oak of Weeping). There is something very beautiful in this short piece of Biography, and far more valuable than many volumes of the wars, the political intrigues, and follies which are generally the staple of history. We should notice that it was 'Rebekah's nurse.' She had nursed Jacob's mother, and had now lived in the family upward of sixty years. She had left Mesopotamia many years before to accompany her young mistress. She had nursed and waited on Rebekah, and probably had closed her eyes in death, and, having laid her in the grave, had returned to her native country again, and had taken up her abode in the family of her young master, Jacob; and now behold, although her head was grey, she had a second time quitted her native land for ever, that she might end her days in the family to which she was so much attached. It may be that she hoped for a grave near that of her mistress, but God's providence ordained otherwise, and she died on the road; and while her worth gave immortality to Allon-bachuth, 'the oak of weeping, the new appellation of the oak gave immortality to her virtues.

Ir must be sweet, in childhood to give back
The Spirit to its Maker-ere the heart
Has grown familiar with the paths of sin,
And sorrow-to gather up the bitter fruits.
I knew a boy, whose infant feet had trod
Upon the blossoms of some seven springs:
And when the eighth came round, and called him
out

To revel in its light, he turned away,

And sought his chamber, to lie down and die. 'Twas night-he summoned his accustom'd friends, And on this wise, bestowed his last request:

"Mother-I'm dying now!

"There's a deep suffocation in my breast, "As if some heavy hand my bosom press'd, "And on my brow

"I feel the cold sweat stand

"My lips grow dry and tremulous, and my breath "Comes feebly up. Oh! tell me, is this death? 'Mother, your hand

"Here-lay it on my wrist,

"And place the other thus, beneath my head, "And say, sweet mother, say, when I am dead, "Shall I be missed?

46 Never, beside your knee

"Shall I kneel down again at night to pray, "Nor in the morning wake and sing the lay "You taught me.

"Oh! at the time of prayer,

"When you look round and see a vacant seat "You'll not wait then for my coming feet"You'll miss me there."

แ Father-I'm going home!

"To the good home you spoke of, that blest home "Where it is one bright summer always, and "Storms do never come:

"I must be happy there,

"From pain and death you say I shall be free "That sickness never enters there-and we "Shall meet again!"

"Brother-that little spot

"I used to call my garden, where long hours "We've stayed to watch the budding leaves and flowers, "Forget it not!

"Plant there some box or pine,

"Something that lives in winter, and will be "A verdant offering to my memory, "And call it mine."

"Sister-my young rose tree

"That all the spring has been my pleasant care, "Just putting forth its leaves so green and fair, "I give to thee.

"And when its roses bloom

"I shall be gone away, my short life done; "And will you not bestow a single one "Upon my tomb?"

แ Now, mother, sing the tune

"You sung last night; I'm weary and must sleep, "Who was it called my name? Nay, do not weep, "You'll all come soon."

Morn spread o'er earth her rosy wings—
And that meek sufferer, cold and ivory pale,

Lay on his couch asleep. The gentle air
Came through the open window, freighted with
The savoury odours of the early spring-
He breathed it not: the laugh of passers by
Jarred like a discord in some mournful tone,
Disturbing not his slumbers. He was dead.

ANON.