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of arrangement which would have agonized its maker, and replaced it in the drawer.

"I wish," said I, lounging back to the sofa, upon which Helen was already reseated, having given over her search for the print-"I wish that all ladies were obliged by law to fill the very station in which they can be most useful."

"In many cases that might be a cruel law," said Helen. "Not when their own good sense should perceive its salutary influence."

"Perhaps their own good sense might be difficult to convince. And, upon the whole, I dare say they generally are placed as is most advantageous to themselves and others."

"And yet I have an idea," said I.

"That what?" asked Helen.

"Perhaps you will think me impertinent?"

"Not at all--go on."

"Then I cannot help thinking, Helen, that your power

to confer happiness might be turned to greater account." Helen's face crimsoned, but she made no answer.

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No trial of this dark, dark world,

No loads of feverish care,
Hath bowed the spirit down in pain,

Nor set its signet there:

But like the flowers that bloom in spring,
Or like the angels bright,
It scatters round a joyousness,
A beauty and a light.

A bright connecting link it is,
Of more than human birth,
'Twixt scenes of God's own Paradise
And dwellers on this earth.

Oh, worlds that we could bear for aye
The feelings of a child—

How sweet would be our path thro' life,
Our death how calm and mild.

Xenia, Ohio.

saw that she comprehended me, and, gathering courage, LETTERS FROM OUT THE OLD OAK. I proceeded seriously

"You might at least make one more individual perfectly happy--an individual upon whom you have imposed nearly five years of infinite misery. He deserves some atonement at your hands. Speak, my sweet cousin--tell him what he may expect?"

"If he will not require a very romantic return for his affection," answered Helen, with a deeper blush, and a grave smile, "he may be as happy as he pleases."

Reader! I have now been married for six months to my cousin Helen, and I still think her, though the most useless, yet also the most charming of human creatures. I am afraid there are some people who will like her the less for having admitted into her heart a new object, but, upon my honor, I think her conduct has been perfectly accordant with good feeling, as well as good sense. Is it not best to be as happy as we can-especially when it enables us to render others happy too?

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NO. I.

MR. EDITOR: So general has become the mania for letter and periodical writing, that the untutored rustic is not wholly unaffected by its influence. Of humble origin, and obscure as the inhabitant of an old oak must be, I confess I in seeking to make the great Literary Messenger the vehifeel startled at the height to which ambition would aspire cle through which to convey my small ware. Freighted with the rich and costly merchandise of all the wealthy intellects of Virginia; Time her ocean, and Immortality her port of destination, the consummate and skilful pilot of this great national vessel, may smile at the folly of the peasant boy, who would seek to enship his perishable property for so long a voyage. A faint heart never wins a fair lady-so says the proverb; and but for the effort and daring of one man, the wild Indian might have been the occupant of my neat-natural home; ergo, with these facts right before me, and the say-so of some one, that

Our doubts are traitors,

And make us lose the good we oft would win
By fearing to attempt―

leaving you to decide whether I am right, I will lay hold on Crocket's popular dictum, and "go ahead."

But who is this bold aspirant, who quotes without giving credit, and with unparalleled affectation, would blazon his paltry production with 'Letters from out the Old Oak,' apeing the great Mr. Willis, in his fanciful style of 'Letters from under a Bridge,' &c? Well, I would cater for the public, and like a true democrat, must answer queries. My first vocation in life, ere I had assumed the modern toga of boyhood, was picking up chips, bringing water, and making fires-acting somewhat in the capacity of scullion. This, for awhile, I thought pleasant enough. I worked during the day, and was permitted to sleep unmolested during the night. My mother was in the habit of preparing our meals; and was taught from infancy to reverence, respect, and obey her. My father, however, being a stirring sort of somebody, in the course of a few years purchased a family of negroes. This relieved my mother of the drudgery of her domestic matters, and I, with her, was removed from the kitchen. My next appointment was that of manager-general of the stock. I was delighted with my promotion. I had been sent to the Sunday school, and my nights were now usually spent in poring over such small books as formed our little family library.

This is the outline of the history of him, who, from the humble and homely avocations of the mill-boy, has dared aspire to the proud eminence of a literary scribbler; who would fain make the Messenger the medium through which to convey the dwarf children of his brain, dressed in rustic and unseemly garb, to the centre-tables of the wise and the wealthy; who would unfold his simple repast to the fastidious taste of the learned amateur, and

"Building his little Babylon of straw,

Cry-Behold the wonders of my might." "Egotistical f-1! your philosophy is comprised in a single word, and that one of no signification; self is the whole tenor of your song." Hold, Mr. Editor, I have but answered the inquiry commencing this epistle; if my answer has been prolix-candor required it; and Horace somewhere says, “Edidi monumentum ebro durissimum," &c., which far sur

passes me.

I had intended devoting this my first letter to the consideration of the scenery, antiquities, and prospects of my county; but as I can, at best, ask only one small corner in your usually well filled magazine, I must run up my pegasus, and asking your pardon if I intrude, bid you good night.

NUGATRITE.

My father's next purchase was a mill. I was then sufficient- in this instance, I have taken man, the original, as my voly advanced to take charge of the establishment. I was lume, in preference to the writings of the voluminous Stewart, now admirably situated; and having acquired a fondness for or the acute and admired Brown. reading, I thought a few new books were all that was wanting to render me "lord of creation." I was so diligent and attentive to my charge, that at length, as the reward of my industry, my kind sire consented to send me one session to a neighboring academy. Here I learned English grammar, Latin, and Arithmetic. To my great mortification, the following year I was returned to the mill. The friendly benevolence of a neighboring lawyer, kindly extended to me the use of his books, and he even condescended so far as to visit me sometimes, and lend me instruction. Thus I lived for two years, when my father dying, I was called to take charge of the family concerns. My mother is since dead, my sister married, and I am left alone. I live upon my hereditary estate, containing just four acres; but my little cottage being recently burned, I am now residing in an old oak. I move in good society, boast an honest lineage, am in love with the prettiest little brunette in all Virginia, and am writing to the great Mr. White. I am slightly acquainted with the philosophy of books; but nature is my chosen study. The deep silence of the unbroken forest, where no echo is heard to reverberate the sound of the woodman's axe; the grassy bank of the woodland stream, where the wild flower exhales it odor to the wooing breeze; the mountain cliff and river's bank, are scenes which I delight to frequent. About the former there is a calm serenity, which courts, with irresistible attractions, the human heart to quiet and repose; a solitude omnipotent to quell the wildest emotion of the human bosom, and hush to stillness the very storm of its passion. Its tranquillizing influence chastens the feelings, and smooths down the asperities of man's character. Educated, or rather raised as I was, I was addicted to the sports common to the boys of my condition, and in my coon hunts, learned early to admire, yea, to gaze with enthusiasm, on all the numberless beauties of a clear sky. I was a wayward boy; and oft of a moon-lit night have I watched my cork floating on the smooth surface of some tributary stream of the Potomac, listening to the hoarse croakings of the frog, and the mocking-bird, which, under the influence of the mild and balmy atmosphere of a summer's night, would steal from her thicket of bramble, and break in upon the surrounding silence with notes of dulcet sound, according well with the softness and beauty of the scene. Yet it has not been amongst these scenes of calm beauty alone that I have delighted to linger. Others, in which grandeur was the most striking feature, have presented charms no less attrac-Where the body shall lie when the heart is cold'— tive. The foaming wave, dashing mountain high, has borne aloft my slight and fragile skiff, as it flew nimbly over the dark waters. Even this was familiar, and I was charmed with the very peril of my seemingly daring adventure, and have wished there were some second golden fleece which might require a modern Argonautic Expedition, in which I might play the part of Jason. The very fury of the raging elements contributed to my pleasure-yea, I delight to witness the vivid flash of the fiery lightning, and listen to the pealing thunders.

THE OCEAN-BURIED.*
BY REV. E. H. CHAPIN.
"Bury me not in the deep, deep sea!"
The words came faint and mournfully,
From the pallid lips of a youth, who lay
On the cabin couch, where, day by day,
He had wasted and pined, till o'er his brow
The death shade had slowly passed-and now,
When the land and his fond-loved home were nigh,
They had gathered around him to see him die.
"Bury me not in the deep, deep sea,
Where the billowy shroud will roll over me-
Where no light can break through the dark cold wave,
And no sunbeam rest sweetly upon my grave.
'It boots not,' I know I have oft been told,

Yet grant ye, oh! grant ye this boon to me,
Bury me not in the deep, deep sea!

"For in fancy I've listened to well known words-
The free, wild wind, and the song of birds-
I have thought of home, of cot and bower,
And of scenes that I loved in childhood's hour.
I have ever hoped to be laid, when I died,
In the church-yard there on the green hill side-
By the bones of my fathers my grave should be-
Bury me not in the deep, deep sea!
"Let my death slumber be where a mother's prayer
And sister's tears can be blended there.
Oh! 'twill be sweet, ere the heart's throb is o'er,

Yet the sublimities and beauties of inanimate nature, though my chief, have not been my sole study. Man-that mysterious volume-the wonderful mechanism of his yet more wonderful mind, his passions, and his social relations, have each formed the subject of my reflections. Fear not, however, that I shall trouble you with a metaphysical disqui-To know when its fountain shall gush no more, sition. I have studied them but to ascertain the practical That those it so fondly has yearned for will come philosophy of human life, by observing the principles upon To plant the first wild-flowers of spring on my tomb. which human action is founded. The nice and finely spun Let me lie where the loved-ones can weep over metheories of the moral philosopher, have met with but a cur- Bury me not in the deep, deep sea. sory perusal at my hands; and though fond of reading, yet

• Selected.

"And there is another-her tears would be shed
For him who lay far in an ocean-bed.
In hours that it pains me to think of now,
She hath twined these locks and kissed this brow-
In the hair she hath wreathed shall the sea-snake hiss?
The brow she hath pressed shall the cold wave kiss?—
For the sake of that bright one who waits for me,
Bury me not in the deep, deep sea.

intermarriage to which these lead, will account for much of this uncertainty. Thus the Caucasian and Mongolian varieties have been much intermixed in Asia; the latter and the Ethiopian in Africa.

The characters of the Caucasian variety area white skin, either with a fair rosy tint, or inclining to brown; hair abundant, soft, and generally more or less curved or waving. Large cranium with small face, and the upper and anterior regions of the brain peculiarly de

"She hath been in my dreams." His voice failed there. veloped. Face oval and straight, with a high and exThey gave no heed to his dying prayer.

panded forehead. Moral and intellectual qualities most energetic, and susceptible of the highest development and culture.

It includes all the ancient and modern Europeans, crests-except the Laplanders and Finns, the former and pre

They have lowered him slow o'er the vessel's side-
Above him hath closed the solemn tide.
Where to dip her wing the wild fowl rests—
Where the blue waves dance with their foamy
Where the billows bound and the winds sport free-
They have buried him there in the deep, deep sea.

DIFFERENCES

sent inhabitants of western Asia, as far as the rise of the Caspian Sea and the Ganges, including the Assy. rians, Medes and Chaldeans; the Sarmatians, Scythians, and Parthians; the Philistines, Phenicians and Jews; the Tartars, Persians and Hindoos of high caste; the northern Africans, Egyptians* and Abyssinians. 2nd.-The Mongolian variety is characterised by

IN THE INTELLECTUAL CHARACter of the sevE. olive color, straight and thin hair, little or no beard,

RAL VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN RACE.

BY HARVEY LINDSLY, M. D.

In taking a survey of man, as he exists in different parts of the world, it cannot have escaped the attention of the most casual observer, that he exhibits striking differences of physical organization, and no less remark able diversity of intellectual character. We can see at a glance, that the civilized and polished European, is in many respects an essentially different being, from the savage red man of America, the wandering and ignorant Tartar, or the degraded and brutish Hottentot.

square head with small and low forehead, broad and flattened face, nose small and flat, and stature generally inferior to the Caucasian variety.

It includes the numerous tribes which inhabit northern and central Asia-as the Mongols, Calmucks, the Chinese and Japanese, the Finnish races of the north of Europe, and the Esquimaux tribes in America, extending from Bhering's Straits to the extremity of Greenland.

3rd. In the Ethiopian variety, the skin and eyes are black; hair black and woolly; the skull compressed laterally and elongated towards the front; forehead low, narrow and slanting; the cheek bones prominent, and

But it will hardly be expected, on a subject present-nose broad, thick and flat. ing so wide a field for discussion, and entering so largely into all that is interesting in the moral and physical history of man, that we shall do more than to notice a few leading facts and some of the more prominent arguments by which these differences are established.

As a preliminary step in this discussion, it will be proper to present a brief view of the several varieties of which the human race is composed, with their peculiar and distinguishing characteristics. Physiologists generally make five distinctive varieties, viz. Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American and Malay. The Caucasian is regarded as the primitive stock. It deviates into two extremes, most remote and different from each other-the Mongolian on one side and Ethiopian on the other. The other varieties come in between these two extremes—that is, the American comes in between the Caucasian and Mongolian; and the Malay between the Caucasian and Ethiopian.

The following marks will serve to define and distinguish these different classes. But here, we must observe, that as in the brute creation the different species are connected together, and pass into each other, by almost imperceptible gradations; so in the human race, individuals of distinct but approximating varieties may often be found, so nearly resembling each other, that it would be no easy matter to assign each his peculiar and proper place. The changes in our world, consequent upon migration, wars, invasions and conquest, and the

All the inhabitants of

Africa not included in the first variety, belong to this. 4th. The American variety is marked by a dark skin, of a more or less red tint; black, straight and strong hair; little beard, which is generally eradicated; countenance and skull very similar to the Mongolian tribes; forehead low, eyes deep, and face broad; the mouth is large and lips rather thick.

This variety includes all the aboriginal Americans, except the Esquimaux.

5th.-The Malay division exhibits a brown color, from a slight tawny tint not deeper than that of the Spaniards and Portuguese, to a dark brown approaching to black. Hair black, more or less curled and abundant-head narrow, nose full and broad, and mouth large. This division includes the inhabitants of the peninsula of Malacca, Sumatra and Borneo-of New Holland, New Zealand, and the innumerable islands scattered through the whole of the South Sea. It is called Malay, because most of the tribes speak the Malay language.

I am well aware that the propriety of placing the ancient Egyptians in the Caucasian variety, has been denied by some writers of high character. My attention, however, was parti cularly directed to the consideration of this question, a few years since, and after a careful examination, I came unhesitatingly to the conclusion stated above. The paper, which was the result of this examination, may, perhaps, on a future occasion, be spread before the readers of the Messenger.

wither the noblest gifts of nature, and plunge into ignorance, degradation and misery-nations, which are capable of the highest cultivation and are equal to the most splendid moral and intellectual achievements. Modern Greece, Italy and Spain, are most melancholy examples of this afflicting truth. But attentive and careful observers, can find even among these victims of cruelty and fanaticism, the germs of those intellectual powers, which require only an opportunity of developing themselves, to place their possessors in a high rank for talents and accomplishments.

Having thus given a rapid and cursory sketch of the | fanaticism, bigotry and intolerance, may counteract and physical distinctions of the different varieties of the human race, it remains to be considered, whether similar peculiarities exist in their moral and intellectual qualities. If there is really no coincidence between the physical structure and moral and intellectual phenomena which man exhibits, then it is self-evident that the most lofty talents and splendid intellect, which have ever adorned or dignified our race, may be combined with the meanest organization; but if, on the contrary, the moral and intellectual character bear a close analogy to the body it inhabits--if the former be nearly allied to, and dependant upon the latter, the varieties of both will generally correspond.

That there is a marked and striking difference in the capacity for improvement and the intellectual endowments of the most perfect and the most degraded of our species, I think no one can doubt, who has attentively considered the progress of different nations in civilization and refinement, in the cultivation of the arts and sciences, and in the nature, character and excellence of their various forms of government. How else can we account for the fact, that from the earliest periods of which history presents any record, to the present day, the Caucasian variety has invariably held the same undisputed and enviable superiority over all the other races? The highest advances in civilization-the greatest improvements and most useful inventions in the mechanic arts--the most profound discoveries in the various sciences, and their application in innumerable modes to the relief of our wants and the supply of our necessities-the most complicated, beneficial and perfect forms of government-the most extensive and varied plans of charity and benevolence, and, in fine, every thing that tends to adorn and elevate human nature, have been exhibited to the greatest extent among the white races. While the other races, in precisely the same proportion as their physical organization has varied from, and been inferior to ours, have manifested those traits of character which belong to savage life-ignorance, debauchery, sensuality, cruelty-idolatry in its most degraded and disgusting forms-indifference to the pains and pleasures of others, and an almost total want of all that we comprehend under the name of elevated sentiments, manly virtues and moral feelings.

That the white nations may degenerate and fall from their high and elevated rank, is rendered manifest by the history of the Greeks and Romans. The forum and the capitol, which have been rendered illustrious through all future ages, by the Scipios, the Brutuses and Catos-by Horace and Virgil and Cicero-by Hortensius and Cæsar and Tacitus--are now degraded and disgraced by ignorance and superstition and fanaticism--by monks without learning, and priests without piety--and those streets which were once enlivened by the splendid triumphs of returning conquerors, and which rung with the shouts of happy and prosperous freemen, are now trodden by a priest-ridden populace, ignorant, superstitious and servile. But notwithstanding all this weakness, degradation and misery--this classic ground has still maintained a high intellectual rank, and has sent forth men not unworthy to be the descendants of those who rendered Rome the mistress of the world. What country can boast in the same period of time, of having produced a greater variety or more splendid displays of genius, than the immortal names which adorn modern Italy? Dante, Petrarch and Boccacio-Tasso, Ariosto and Alfieri-Raphael, Michael Angelo, and a crowd of others.

But even in a state of comparative barbarism, the superiority of the white races over the dark colored tribes is almost equally manifest. To be convinced of this, we need but read the account given by Tacitus and Cæsar of the manners and habits of the ancient Germans, and compare them with the hideous savages of New Holland or Van Dieman's Land-or look at the difference between the ancient Spaniards or any of the Celtic tribes and the modern Mongolians, Africans, or Indians of our own country.

And indeed the history and character of the aborigines of America, present, perhaps, one of the strongest arguments in favor of our position--that there is an essential and inherent difference in the capacity of the various races for improvement. Although placed for more than three hundred years, almost in immediate contact with knowledge and civilization and refinement-although every inducement has been held out, and vast exertions made, to reclaim them from their erratic mode of life, and to introduce among them the arts and conveniences of their more polished neighbors-although missionaries and teachers have devoted their time and talents for their instruction, and government has extended its fostering aid-yet how little has been accomplished? And even that little has been

A single glance at the history of the world, shows conclusively the truth of these positions. There cannot be found either in ancient or modern times, a single tribe or nation, among the four inferior varieties, which has made any advances in civilization and learning, that will bear a comparison with the state of the white division of the same period. That there have been and are individual exceptions to this general rule, is readily admitted; but this proves nothing against the position, as our business is not with individuals but with communities. We all know that the most talented and intellectual persons of an inferior variety, may, and often do, equal and even excel the lowest of a superior class. It must also be admitted, that all the white races have not made those distinguished advances in knowledge and civilization, which have been claimed as indicating their superior organization and endow-effected more by their intermarriages with whites, than ments. But when this is the case, some artificial causes can always be assigned for the deficiency.

Loss of liberty, a bad government, oppressive laws,

by any actual improvement in the manners and habits of the Indians themselves.

The superiority of the whites, is almost universally

unrelenting and exterminating cruelty to enemies--the same brutal apathy and indolence-and the same unmanly treatment of their defenceless women.

felt and acknowledged by the other races. The most intelligent negro, whom Mr. Park met in his travels in Africa, after witnessing only such evidences of European skill and knowledge as were exhibited at the We would not be understood, however, as asserting, English settlement on the coast, would sometimes ap- that all the nobler qualities of the mind are wanting in pear pensive and exclaim, with an involuntary sigh, the dark races. We know that courage in repelling "black men are nothing." Similar facts have been danger and fortitude, in enduring suffering, and even noticed by other travellers. And indeed this conscious- some of the softer virtues, may be occasionally witness of inferiority is the only rational mode of explain-nessed among them, in all their native loveliness and ing the docility and patience with which the blacks beauty-but when they are so exhibited, they are submit to slavery-and especially when, as is the case usually either exceptions to the general rule or closely in some of the West India islands, they vastly out-allied to the neighboring vice. The Mongolian tribes number their masters. Suppose the situation and pro- of central Asia, when united under a Tenghis Khan or portions of these people were reversed—that the Euro- a Tamerlane, could achieve the most brilliant victories peans were the slaves and the negroes were the mas- and overturn kingdoms and empires--but their wars ters, and the former five or six times as numerous as were wars of extermination, to destroy and darken, the latter, how long would such a state of things last? not to build up and enlighten. And even when an attempt at regaining their freedom is made by this unhappy people, their plans are so illy contrived-and so often betrayed through cowardice and ignorance and treachery, as to be frustrated with ease and almost without an effort.

In order to appreciate fully the intellectual differences in the human race, we must not take two approximating varieties, between which, perhaps, the distinction is not very striking, and in some aspects of the case |hardly perceptible--but we must compare the two The distinction of color between the white and dark extremes-as for instance the Caucasian and Malay, races, is not more striking than the superiority of the or the Caucasian and Ethiopian-and the most increduformer in intellectual energy and character. The latter,lous, I think, can hardly doubt, that here an essential it is true, sometimes exhibit astonishing acuteness in their external senses, particularly in hearing and sight. But no doubt their preeminence here, is to be attributed entirely to their want of those mechanical aids and contrivances, which civilized man adopts to assist the powers of nature; and, therefore, their excellence in this respect is but another proof of their mental inferiority.

difference exists. And indeed a regular gradation in their intellectual powers, can be observed through the Caucasian, Mongolian, American, and Ethiopian varieties. And this gradation is in pretty exact proportion to the more or less perfect form of the head--the anterior and superior parts of the brain, being larger and more fully developed in the first, and more and more flattened and compressed as we descend in the scale.

The wretched and degraded beings who inhabit Van Dieman's land and the adjacent islands, are per- It may be objected to this theory that some of the haps the lowest and most debased in the scale of human white races have, in former times, been in a semi-barexistence. Peron describes them as examples of the barous state, little, if at all superior, to that of many of rudest barbarism-" without chiefs, properly so called; the inferior varieties at the present day. But this obwithout laws, or any thing like regular government;jection, upon examination, will be found rather specious without arts of any kind; with no idea of agriculture, than solid. of the use of metals, or of the services to be derived from animals; without clothes or fixed abode, and with no other shelter than a mere shed of bark to keep off the cold winds; and with no arms but a club or spear." Although these people inhabit one of the most fertile countries in the world, with a mild and equable climate, suited to all the productions which strengthen the body and gratify the appetite of man-yet they derive no other sustenance from the earth than a few roots and plants and are frequently driven by the failure of these, and of fish, which is their principal resource, to the most disgusting food, as frogs, lizards, serpents, spiders, the larvæ of insects, and especially a large kind of caterpillar, which is found in great abundance on some of their trees.

Who can, for a moment believe, that this besotted and ignorant and degraded people are cast in the same intellectual mould with those races who have produced a Homer, a Demosthenes, a Milton, a Chatham and a Franklin?

And these general traits of character, exist in a more or less modified form, in most of the dark races--in the American Indian, the Africans, and Mongolian nations of Asia, in the Malays and most of the inhabitants of the South Sea islands--we see every where the same

In the first place, no period can be found in the history of the Caucasian race, when their situation was in any respect as low and degraded as that of the dark races. Agriculture and the pastoral state, and even some of the mechanic arts have--so far at least as the most minute research into their former history and manners have informed us--always existed among them. And besides, if we admit that this race were once sunk to the lowest depth of ignorance and barbarism, how does it happen that they, and they only, have emerged from this state-have gone on progressively advancing in civilization and knowledge to their present pitch of refinenient, while the other races remain in nearly the same situation in which they existed centuries ago?

The present and past state of the Chinese empire, is another striking illustration of the truth of the posi tion we are endeavoring to establish. Here we behold a whole nation, which three thousand years ago en joyed a considerable share of civilization—which had made some progress in the arts and sciences, and advanced far enough, if they had been endowed by nature with a high intellectual capacity for improvement, to have reached the noblest pitch of mental greatness, and, taken an elevated rank among the most gifted nations of the earth; but instead of this, we see them year

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