pine that you do not possess another, which you would not purchase. Would you be rich? Do you think that the single point worth sacrificing every thing else to? You may, then, be rich. Thousands have become so from the lowest beginnings by toil, and diligence, and attention to the minutest articles of expense and profit. But you must give up the pleasures of leisure, of an unembarrassed mind, and of a free unsuspicious temper. You must learn to do hard if not unjust things; and as for the embarrassment of a delicate and ingenuous spirit, it is necessary for you to get rid of it as fast as possible. You must not stop to enlarge your mind, polish your taste, or refine your sentiments; but must keep on in one unbeaten track, without turning aside to the right or to the left. 'But," you say, "I cannot submit to drudgery like this; 1 feel a spirit above it." "Tis well; be above it, then; only do not repine because you are not rich.

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Is knowledge the pearl of price in your estimation? That too may be purchased by steady application, and long solitary hours of study and reflection. "But," says the man of letters, what a hardship is it that many an illiterate fellow, who cannot construe the motto on his coach, shall raise a fortune, and make a figure, while I possess not the common necessaries of life!" Was it for fortune, then, that you grew pale over the midnight lamp, and gave the sprightly years to study and reflection? You, then, have mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry. "What reward have I, then, for all my labor?" What reward! a large comprehensive soul, purged from vulgar fears and prejudices, able to interpret the works of man and God -a perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the conscious dignity of superior intelligence. Good Hea

vens! what other reward can you ask? "But is it not a reproach upon the economy of Providence that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have amassed wealth enough to buy half a nation?" Not the least. He made himself a mean, dirty fellow for that very end. He has paid his health, his conscience, and his liberty for it. Do you envy him his bargain? Will you hang your head in his presence because he outshines you in equipage and show? Lift up your brow with a noble confidence, and say to yourself, "I have not these things, it is true; but it is because I have not desired them nor sought them; it is because I possess something better. I have chosen my lot; I am content and satisfied." The most characteristic mark of a great mind is to choose some one object, which it considers important, and pursue that object through life. If we expect the purchase, we must pay the price.

THE EVENING CLOUD.

A cloud lay cradled near the setting sun,
A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow;
Long had I watched the glory moving on
O'er the soft radiance of the lake below.
Tranquil its spirit seemed, and floated slow:
E'en in its very motion there was rest;
While every breath of eve that chanced to blow
Wafted the traveller to the beauteous west.
Emblem, methought, of the departed soul,

To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given,
And, by the breath of mercy, made to roll
Right onward to the golden gates of heaven,
Where to the eye of faith it peaceful lies,

And tells to man his glorious destinies.

WILSON.

WATERTON'S ACCOUNT OF THE SLOTH. The character and habits of that singular animal, the Sloth, according to Charles Waterton, the enthusiastic traveller in the wilds of South America, have been strangely misrepresented by naturalists. "This singular animal (says he) is destined by nature to be produced, to live, and to die, in the trees. He is a scarce and solitary animal, and, being good food, he is never allowed to escape. He inhabits remote and gloomy forests, where snakes take up their abode, and where cruelly-stinging ants and scorpions, and swamps, and innumerable thorny shrubs and bushes, obstruct the steps of civilized men. This, then, is the proper place to go in quest of the Sloth. We will first take a near view of him. By obtaining a knowledge of his anatomy, we will be enabled to account for his movements. His fore-legs, or, more correctly speaking, his arms, are apparently much too long, while his hind-legs are very short, and look as if they could be bent almost to the shape of a corkscrew. Both the fore and hind legs, by their form, and by the manner in which they are joined to the body, are quite incapacitated from acting in a perpendicular direction, or in supporting it on the earth, as the bodies of other quadrupeds are supported, by their legs. Hence, when you place him on the floor, his belly touches the ground. Now, granted that he supported himself on his legs like other animals, nevertheless he would be in pain, for he has no soles to his feet, and his claws are very sharp and long, and curved; so that, vere his body supported by his feet, it would be by their extremities, just as your body would be, were you to throw yourself on all-fours, and try to support it on the ends of your toes and fingers. Were the

floor of a polished surface, the sloth would actually be quite stationary; but as the ground is generally rough, with little protuberances upon it, such as stones, or roots of grass, this just suits the Sloth, and he moves his fore-legs in all directions, in order to find something to lay hold of; and when he has succeeded, he pulls himself forwards, and is thus enabled to travel onwards, but, at the same time, in so tardy and awkward a manner, as to acquire him the name of the Sloth. Indeed, his looks and his gestures evidently betray his uncomfortable situation; and as a sigh every now and then escapes him, we may be entitled to conclude that he is actually in pain.

Some years ago I kept a Sloth in my room for several months. I often took him out of the house, and placed him upon the ground, in order to have an opportunity of observing his motions. If the ground were rough, he would pull himself forwards by means of his fore-legs, at a pretty good pace; and he invariably shaped his course towards the nearest tree. His favorite abode was the back of a chair; and after getting all his legs in a line upon the topmost part of it, he would hang there for hours together, and often, with a low and inward. cry, would seem to invite me to take notice of him. The Sloth, in its wild state, spends its whole life in the trees, and never leaves them but through force, or by accident. An all-ruling Providence has ordered man to tread on the surface of the earth, the

eagle to soar in the expanse of the skies, and the monkey and squirrel to inhabit the trees; still these change their relative situations without feeling much inconvenience; but the Sloth is doomed to spend his whole life in the trees; and, what is more extraordinary, not upon the branches, like the squirrel and the monkey, but under them. He is as much at a loss to proceed on his journey upon a smooth and level floor, as a man would be who had to walk a mile upon a line of feather-beds. He moves suspended from the branch, he rests suspended from it, and he sleeps suspended from it. To enable him to do this, he must have a very different formation from that of any other known quadruped. Hence, his seemingly bungled conformation is at once accounted for; and in lieu of the Sloth leading a painful life, and entailing a melancholy and miserable existence on its progeny, it is but fair to surmise that it enjoys life just as much as any other animal, and that its extraordinary formation and singular habits are but farther proofs to engage us to admire the wonderful works of Omnipotence.

CHICK IN THE EGG.

The hen has scarcely sat on the egg twelve hours, when we begin already to discover in it some lineaments of the head and body of the chicken that is to be born. The heart appears to beat at the end of the day; at the end of forty-eight hours, two vesicles of blood can be distinguished, the pulsation of which is very visible. At the fiftieth hour, an auricle of the heart appears, and resembles a lace, or noose folded down upon itself. At the end of seventy hours we distinguish wings, and on the head two bubbles for the brain; one for the bill, and twe