happiness complete, beside encouraging notes from their affectionate and invisible divinity, but when he explored his own receipts, imagine his cruel disappointnient on drawing forth-a whip. The anger of St. Nicholas and his own ill conduct betrayed so publicly, and coming upon him with the suddenness of a thunderbolt, in a moment of such highly wrought and joyful expectation, swelled his innocent heart nearly to breaking. Our informant described it in a graphic manner, and as a scene which would have formed an apt subject for a picture. The terrible emblem of supernatural displeasure was no sooner produced than the gay group of lovely young children were struck into motionless astonishment. Their lively voices were hushed in an instant. The rich and glittering fragments of childish splendor lay around unregarded, while the hero of the tragedy, with the dark looking thong in his hand, stood like a statue, his glowing cheeks turned to an ashy paleness-his uplifted eyes streaming with tears, and giving no other sign of life than a quivering of the lip, and a throbbing of the heart, till he fell senseless to the floor. The alarmed parents hastened to recover him, and sought, by convincing him that they themselves, and no angry angel, had put in the whip as a method of punishing him for his late offences, to relieve his terrors and calm his grief; but their scheme had taken a stronger hold on a lively and uninformed imagination, and struck more deeply a tender young heart than they supposed. The consequence was a fever and delirium of an alarming kind, and a bitterness of anguish which it took months to soothe. I trust at this season our young friends will not be troubled with whips, either on their shoulders or in their stockings, for I consider them as the rightful inheritors of most of the real merriment at present afloat. Indeed, much as we talk of the several holidays and festivities which diversify the-year, no one greets them with such a hearty welcome as the boys. They measure the flight of time by these great landmarks. On the first of April if you find a letter, penknife, pocket book, or a check for five thousand dollars in the street, don't stop to pick it up, for just as you grasp at it, and think good luck has befriended you at last, it will disappear from between your fingers, and the suppressed titters of a troop of mischievous tatterdemallions, concealed behind a cellar door, or round the corner, will let you into the agreeable secret that you have been made a fool of. The immortal Washington, on the publication of our independence, was not more sincere in his gratification, than they on the return of the great climacteric of American holidays; and the evacuation of the British causes as much triumph every year among whole armies of the juvenile race, as it did to the sober citizens who thereby regained their homes. How I have mused to behold a group of raggamuffins, infinitely happier than so many kings, venting their patriotic principles in shouts and merriment on the eighth of January, before a huge transparency representing the famous hero of New Orleans, with a formidable broadsword in one hand, and leaning the other on the mane of a war charger, of extraordinary fierceness, appropriately decorated with blue and yellow lamps. Men cannot sufficiently unbend their minds from business to enter into the true spirit of these occasions. They wish each other merry Christmas as if they were going to be hanged; and their "happy new year" comes out as dolefully as we have seen a comic actor on his benefit night go through a facetious part to empty boxes. We cannot forget the cares of yesterday—we cannot refrain from anticipating the troubles of tomorrow. Bills are crowding in—money is running out. B. G. and L. Higgins's note comes due next Tuesday. Such an one has failed, and such a stock has fallen. There is not one man in ten but will tell you, if he speak the truth, that wishing him a happy new year, sounds in his ears like an insult. A friend of mine is afflicted with a "lady intellectual," who acts toward him like a Xantippe. He does not pretend to be a Socrates; wish him a happy new year, and I think it is not impossible he may knock you down. Will Whipple has been ten years courting a sweet belle about town, who gave him "his walking ticket," as one of his friends expresses it, on Christmas eve. When our carrier wished him a merry christmas, he told him to go to the d-l. How many are there whose affairs are equally crossed with perplexities and disappointments. But your true boy is of a more untameable spirit. Set one of these adrift on the fourth of July, with a few packs of crackers, some powder, and an old pistol, and what cares he that he is to be beaten when he goes back to school, so long as he can contribute to the general racket in the cause of freedom? As for me, amid the mirth of these times, I confess myself secretly prone to a little moralizing and melancholy. It is not that I am infected with a spirit of narrow repining, but my mind finds a kind of mournful satisfaction in dwelling upon even the darker touches with which the wisdom of Providence has overshadowed the picture of human life. It is good for us to know what we are, and to familiarize ourselves with the vicissitudes to which we are for ever exposed. When all around me, therefore, abandon themselves to lively pleasure, when the blooming bride blushes to receive friendly congratulations, and the father of a virtuous. family smiles as he regards the beings whom he has protected and made contented, an irresistible impulse carries my thoughts forward through the dim glimmerings of the future, and back upon the events of the past. These universal holidays form prominent points in the year, which remind me to compare what I have been with what I may be. I cannot but also admit into my speculations the destinies of the beings around me. The young stir up my fancy to conjecture the scenes through which they must pass, and the aged to discover the adventures they have already experienced. It is wonderful as we grow old how our minds broaden, and from the sight of a single object grasp innumerable additional ideas. I remember when the appearance of a Christmas dinner enlivened me only with thoughts of good cheer and merry making. Now it is pregnant with grave reflections, and fills me with a crowd of moral images and pensive associations. I wonder at the benevolent skill with which heaven has so constructed our race, that, notwithstanding all the gloomy events which crush human feelings from one year to another, the great game still goes joyfully on-that although the arrow of grief has quivered in many a bosom, while the earth was performing her vast annual circuit, the wounds are so nearly healed. Within twelve brief months what ravages, what fearful ravages, have been wrought by VOL. II.-14 misfortune and death-how many are exposed to the perils of distant places, who should now be with us— how many are stretched out in the pain and suspense of dangerous disease-how many have been borne to their last cold sleeping place! Who so thoughtless as to remember the past without reading a lesson for the future? The approaching year will be but a type of that which is gone. They who sit by our side today may be missed when the rolling months shall bring another season of mirth. There is a sweet moral in these thoughts. I would press it upon the attention of my youthful readers. Let them reflect upon it when passion swells their young bosoms, and they will check the malignant look, and hush the angry retort. When the reckless son wounds the feelings of his mother, or the impatient husband vents his ill humor on his wifewhen ungentle words rise between brother and sister, or friend and friend, let them fancy the image of a grave, newly spread over the palid face of the companion whose petty fault now agitates their bosom with rage and revenge. Surely the tumult of passion must be calmed, and they will feel the almost unloosened bonds of love drawing their hearts together more closely. They will be more inclined to see each other's virtues than their errors. They will exclaim with poor Eve, shrinking from the upbraidings of Adam after the fall, "While yet we live, scarce one short hour perhaps, and many a rude scene of domestic commotion will be spared to their future recollection. THE TRUE PHILOSOPHER. THE worst men are not always found among the greatest criminals, nor the most melancholy dispositions among those who seem the saddest, any more than those gifted with the highest genius and virtues on the lists of fame. There is a kind of malefactor whose wickedness actually proceeds from noble qualities of the mind and the heart. There are others who owe their correct deportment to cowardice and coldness of feeling. Pure generosity unchecked, sometimes creates the spendthrift and the debtor. The most contemptible meanness has formed the thriving, prosperous, and irreproachable citizen of course these are exceptions to general rules. He who with warm impulses exercises his liberality according to his means, is in the true medium. The same causes have shaped characters apparently widely different, while exactly opposite causes have produced others which a superficial observer would conceive to be the same. S. and D. are both dark and gloomy misanthropes. They fly from pleasure, detest children, shun female society with the bitterest sarcasms, and one would almost believe, hate the very light of day. Nature made S. exactly what he is. He is absorbed in himself and his selfish plans, and is in reality not discontented with his lot. D., on the contrary, is naturally ardent, affectionate, buoyant, and merry. Domestic misfortunes have injured the springs of his mind. He flies from children and women, not because he dislikes them, but because they call up thoughts of his own family, with whom he once lived in a distant country. In proportion as he was happy then, he is miserable now. "Dearly bought the hidden treasure Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure, I have sometimes observed a peculiarity respecting character which may at first sight appear paradoxical. The most honest in their business affairs, and who sustain the most unspotted character abroad, are often, in their own domestic circle, the most unsocial, tasteless, and tyrannical; while the scoundrel of a swindler, who cheats every one, and contracts debts which he never intends to pay, has a lovely wife and sweet children at home, ignorant of his true character, who look up to him and love him as a model of goodness and |