guishing days. His intensely active imagination, to use his own language, "ever on the upward path," found marvellously solacing contemplations of Eternity, even in the broken sleep of a sick couch-correcting perchance some of the crude notions which our blind humanity is apt to form of the after state; divesting it, may be, of sensual attributes and circumstances, and placing it in the focal point of spiritual perception. "Is that your hell? is that your heaven?" exclaimed he, while a lofty surprise irradiated his slumbering countenance; and then awaking to recall and meditate upon the vision, he remarked to a fond and observant friend, "Now all is so clear-life is so clear and plain!" Ah yes, Schiller, it indeed needs a glance undistorted by the belongings of a fleshly existence to make life thus "clear and plain!" The media through which the spirit, fettered to its earthly tabernacle, must look onward and upward are changeful and refrangible, and like the blind beggar, when the light breaks in thus scantily and dimly, we see "men as trees walking." We have no clear, large, comprehending views of the only Living One and True-of his amazing attributes and government, of his wonderful works and ways. But, thanks to his good name, with Hope, and Faith, and Truth in the soul, we may yet "see as we are seen, and know as we are known!" The domestic relations of our great Suabian poet were remarkably congenial. He never borrowed that witty and caustic figure of Pegasus in harness ploughing wearily beside an ox, "Until worn out the eye grows dim, from his own household experience, as full many an ill-mated genius might aptly do. This gentle light burned at his death-pillow with a soft brilliancy, which the oil of deep and enduring affection alone could supply; and in one of the last upflashings of this homealtar flame the dying Poet asked that his youngest child might be brought to his bedside. It was done, and taking the little hand into his own, now wet with death-dew, he gazed and gazed in her young face till all the father was stirred within him, and he wept agonizingly. Ah, the poor helpless one! There was a masculine energy and courage in his noble boy, "his first born, his gold son Karl," who, though yet in his tender years, gave promise of power to battle bravely with the world; his own spirit could he perceive there-a spirit to do and to dare-a spirit that could not be affrighted from its great purposes and lofty aims, even by the decree of his sovereign that he should "write no more verses, but confine his studies and efforts to his medical profession."* But his little maiden, whom a frown could wither, whom a chiding word could terrify, who clung to the parental bosom with such wild earnestness, how should she be fatherless? The boy was fitted by nature for the struggles he must encounter, with or without the heritage of genius; but Meta-his little Von Sengefeld, the transcript of a nature his great heart loved and worshipped-why should not his strong arm, but now in the meridian of manhood, cherish and protect her from the dark storm-gatherings of an unfriendly world? Alas! alas! he was dying too soon! his duties were not yet done! His masterpieces of dramatic poetry, criticism, and history, his glorious songs, his grand ballads and lyrics were written to be sure, and had gained him applause and fame, such as few authors in a lifetime enjoy, and had made classic the language of his Fatherland-but then the dearer, the tenderer offices of life were unperformed! Oh, that Death would delay! But when does the grim angel of the grave tarry for the reluctance of his victim? The shadow of his wings was already on that noble countenance, and the torpor of dissolution succeeded this sweet episode in the mortal conflict. Yet he roused himself once more as the tones of affection tremulously asked for his welfare. "Better and better,-calmer and calmer," he replied; "and then he longed to see the sun," says his biographer. The vast, round orb was sinking into the horizon, and his level rays streamed softly over the landscape. They drew the curtains of the deathchamber aside, and he looked serenely on the departing day. In that long and intense gaze he bade farewell to Nature, the great mother who had nurtured, and inspired, and shaped his lofty genius! After this his voice failed, and he could no more enunciate the sentence which seemed struggling upon his lips. The exhausted organs refused to obey the behest of wish or will, and in despair he signified that he would express himself by writing. The pen was placed in his pale and quivering hand, but it was too late ;- -a faint, unintelligible scrawl alone bore token of the latest thought of Schiller his head fell back, and the calm of death overspread his features. It was all over! *The Grand Duke of Wurtemberg, dissatisfied with some of the first poetical compositions of Schiller, made a restriction of this nature, which, it is needless to say, could not but be disregarded. COLONEL FREMONT. BY PROFESSOR RHOADS. (See Portrait in front.) SINCE the mission of Him who came into the world to suffer that mankind might find redemption, the three greatest events that have occurred, are connected with the rise and progress of our own happy country;-the discovery of America, the American Revolution, and the establishment of the American empire on the coast of the Pacific Ocean; the last destined to be, in its effects, by no means the least important of the three. ment of human rights and human welfare; and Frémont lifted the veil which, since time first began, had hidden from view the real El Dorado. I purpose to introduce to the reader a short sketch of the life of the latter; the others belong to past time, and history has made up its record of their deeds. JOHN CHARLES FREMONT was born in South Carolina in January, 1813, and is consequently at this time a few months over thirty-seven When he was but four years years of age. old he was left an orphan by the death of his father, who, as the name indicates, was a The direction of his edunative of France. cation, therefore, devolved entirely upon his mother, and his career in active life has shown that she lacked neither inclination nor ability to direct it aright. Notwithstanding her limited means, she managed to support her son at Charleston College, where he distinguished himself by his industry and upright deportment. He graduated in 1830. About this time he became a teacher of Mathematics, and found means, not only for his own support, but also to contribute to that of his mother and her family. While discharging faithfully the arduous and responsible duties which were incumbent upon him as teacher, he still found time to attend to those of a student; and with that indomitable energy and perseverance which have marked his whole career, he devoted every leisure moment to perfecting himself in the science of civil engineering. In this pursuit, he was aided by the natural bent of his mind and talents peculiarly adapted to the subject. Having attracted the attention and secured the confidence and support of men of influence, he obtained the situation of assistant to Nicollet in the survey of the country around the head waters of the Mississippi. In this work he was engaged about four years, during the first half of the time in the arduous but interesting labours of the field, collecting information, making surveys, observations, &c., and during the last half in digesting and arranging the matter collected, and in preparing an acHe curate and valuable map of the country. When the announcement was made to the astonished nations of Europe of the existence of a new world far off over the wild waves of the western sea, a new principle introduced into the general mind a new impulse, which changed entirely the industrial relations and habits of the people, and produced effects, even upon the extent and permanency of empires, to which those of the conquests of Macedonia and Greece were but trifles. The overthrow of the Roman power, by the northern barbarians, sinks into insignificance, when its effects are contrasted with those of the enunciation in the Declaration of American Independence, and the practical application in the Constitution of the United States, of the great truths of the brotherhood and equality of man. And now, the discovery of the bright sands and rich rocks of California, and the issue thence of a golden stream to irrigate the nations, is destined to wield a mightier and far more permanent influence than the impulse, which raised France to be for a time the mistress of Europe. And not only were these events greater in power than those with which I have compared them, they were also better in kind. On the one hand we find a train of woe and desolation; on the other, of happiness and prosperity. The greatness of the old world was the handmaid of ignorance and tyranny; that of the new led to civilization and liberty. Each great event is personified in a great man of corresponding character. Alexander led Greece and Macedon to conquest; Alaric extinguished the flickering light of Roman refinement; with Napoleon, France "rose, reigned and fell;" Columbus marked a pathway to a new-found world; Washington guided and sustained the patriots had now added practice to theory, and expewho consecrated that world to the advance-rience to enthusiasm and love of adventure. He VOL. VII. 16 had prepared himself for those great and wonderful expeditions and scientific researches by which he has since acquired imperishable re nown. land sea, the poor persecuted Mormons, driven by violence from their hard-earned possessions in Illinois, established their city of refuge, about four years after the visit of the gallant Frémont. After occupying about a week in making such partial exploration of this strange and interesting region as the lateness of the season would permit, our explorers pursued their course through Oregon, making the observations directed by the government orders, and in November arrived at Fort Vancouver, the goal of their journey. The active mind of Frémont could not endure the thought of returning upon the same track. He determined to seek new scenes and discoveries through the vast region to the south of him, of which fable had told such wonders, but where civilized man had never penetrated, and of which the only sources of knowledge heretofore had been the wild and romantic but often contradictory stories of the Utah and his kindred races, and of the The first of these expeditions he made in 1842, under the authority of the United States. At the head of a small party of frontiersmen, he entered the wilds west of Missouri and Iowa, and pursued his course to the Rocky Mountains. The main object of this expedition was to discover and explore a more practicable route over them than was then known. In this he was completely successful; and the comparative ease with which thousands of pilgrims to the golden shrines of California have passed in safety through the mountain barrier, testifies to the correctness of his judgment in pointing out the South Pass as the proper place, and to the care and skill with which he explored and laid down the route. Upon his return, he prepared a report replete with the most valuable information, not only respecting the geo-half-blood hunters who frequented Fort Hall. graphy of the country through which he had passed, but also in relation to its climate, to its geological characteristics, to the principal points of its military susceptibilities, locations for forts, &c., to its mineral wealth, to its rich grasses and its beautiful flowers-contributions in short new and valuable to almost every department of science. This report was printed by the Senate of the United States, and has since been translated into various foreign languages, attracting attention and admiration from the learned in every quarter of the globe. With men of Frémont's energy and enthusiasm, success acts merely as a stimulant to further exertion. As soon therefore as one expedition is concluded, we find him planning another more extensive and more hazardous. In the spring of 1843, he started upon his grand expedition, which has gained for himself the gratitude of the votaries of science everywhere, and for his country the great gold-bearing region of the west. His orders directed him to co-operate with the naval exploring expedition under Wilkes, in making a scientific examination of the basin of the Columbia River, the upper districts being allotted to him, and the tide-water regions to Wilkes. In May he left the frontiers of Missouri, and scaling the mountains south of the South Pass, followed the windings of Bear River, until, in September, he arrived at the Great Salt Lake. Despite the warnings of the Indians, who imagined, that as the lake had no outlet for its waters, a great whirlpool must exist in the centre, he and his companions trusted themselves upon its waters in a frail boat of Indiarubber cloth, and spent a night upon one of its islands, where, doubtless, foot of man had never trod before. Upon the shores of this in Our adventurers, twenty-five in number, accordingly plunged without hesitation into the wilderness. They feared not. The men had confidence in Frémont, and he, under God, had confidence in himself. Nothing, perhaps, shows more clearly the varied powers of his mind, and his fertility in resources, than the success of this expedition, undertaken at the approach, and executed in the depth of winter. Of the sway which he exercised over the minds of his men, we need no better evidence than the fact that they bore all the trials, the sufferings, and the hazards of this winter journey, almost without a murmur. For nine months the little band and its noble leader were unheard of by their friends. Many a heart ached with doubt, and many a lip paled with apprehension for the fate of a husband, a brother, or a son, thus daring unknown perils. At length the news of their safety, and of their glorious achievements, sent a thrill of joy through the hearts, not only of their immediate relatives, but also of the whole nation. Three thousand five hundred miles had the weary wayfarers travelled. They had crossed the mighty, snowy Sierra, they had explored the wonderful valley through which roll the golden floods of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, they had skirted the great interior basin of California, and examined its prominent features, and they had returned in safety to their happy homes, proud of themselves, and proud of their beloved leader. Immediately after his return, Frémont proceeded to Washington, to submit his report, and to prepare it for publication. When the war broke out between the United States and Mexico, it found him again on the shores of the Pacific. He had entrusted the oversight of the publication of his great report to other hands, and sought again the country of his many labours, for the purpose of exploring the western slope of the mountains which lie between the Sacramento valley and the Pacific. The limits of this article will not admit of even a condensed account of his services during the war. Suffice it to say, they were but ill rewarded. "He had been explorer, conqueror, peacemaker, governor in California; and, the victim of a quarrel between two commanders, like Columbus, he was brought home a prisoner." Being condemned by a court-martial, he refused indignantly a proffered pardon, and determined to continue his explorations with his own resources, and as a private individual. He set out to seek for a favourable road to San Francisco. Overtaken by terrible snow-storms among the mountains, he lost all his mules, and many of his men, and arrived at Santa Fe in the most destitute and suffering condition. Still he did not despair. The assistance of the honest frontiersmen, enabled him to pursue his journey, and after surmounting every difficulty, he again arrived in the valley of the Sacramento. He for the first time in his life, began to look well to his own interest, and in a few years he has amassed great wealth. He did not, however, devote himself wholly to gain, but found time to render valuable aid in organization of the noble young Pacific state, which has evinced her gratitude and her confidence by appointing him one of her first two Senators to the Congress of our country. now, SUMMER RECREATION. BY MRS. C. M. KIRKLAND. THE season of returning to town is apt to be the time when we ask ourselves why we ever go away. Home looks so delightful after absence; the joyous faces of meeting friends so cheer our hearts, and lift our spirits above the influence of fatigue and care, that we sometimes think it has been foolish to leave all these pleasant things, to wander over the face of the earth, to lie in strange beds, to toss on uneasy seas, to endure the company of strangers, to renounce one's favourite employments, and, above all, to relinquish the society of those whose society is the chief pleasure of life to us. Very wise people reproach us with all this; they say, what we cannot deny, that we should have been much more comfortable at home; that our own houses are more comfortable than hotels, our own beds than steamboat berths, our own dinners than any that we shall find elsewhere. These sensible remarks make us quite ashamed of our wanderings, perhaps. Comfort is so much the business of life with most of us that we are quite sensitive to the reproach of having mistaken the way to it. The reasons for going are less obvious than the reasons for staying, and the joy of returning makes us feel them with peculiar force. But do we remember that this joy of reunion and return is purchased by the absence and the journey, with all their trials and inconveniences, and could not have been felt without them? Iteration wears out even our best pleasures; emotions are not to be summoned at will; the home that we have never left is not the home that beams upon us after a temporary renunciation. Love our friends as we may, we love them better after we have lost sight of them for a while. Our employments tire, even in proportion to the ardour with which we pursue them, and their zest is only renewable on condition of some intervals of complete repose or change of object. So that for the mere purchase of intenser pleasure, it is worth while to refrain for a time; but there are stronger reasons for summer jaunting. Supposing that our life has only a certain fixed amount of power, and that both happiness and duty command us to make the most of this power for the work that is given us to do, seasons of complete change and relaxation, even of new fatigue and voluntary privation in unaccustomed directions, must be advantageous to our bodily and mental condition, since aching heads and pinched and anxious hearts often admonish us that too long perseverance in a single track is not congenial to so varied a Even the unbroken enjoyment nature as ours. of home luxuries and ease, is conducive to anything but strength, either of character or muscles. City life, especially, is notoriously unfavourable to vigorous and enduring health; its excitements tend, more through their ceaselessness than their intensity, perhaps, to insanity and premature decay, or sudden failure of the energies of nature. We are not of those who believe city life to be necessarily unwholesome. It would be so to animals, doubtless; but man's bodily condition depends so much upon ample and judicious exercise of his mental and moral faculties, that some of the disadvantages of too close contact with others, and of employments more sedentary than those which are favourable to perfect health, are probably counteracted by the more wholesome uses he may make of brain and heart when surrounded by fellowbeings than when in comparative solitude. Such a country life as we can imagine, might indeed unite all advantages-but we are talking of the actual, and not of the ideal. Perhaps the best way of making the most of life is that which is practised by so many of our citizens-living in the full town and partaking of all its intellectual excitements and means of culture, its cheering social amusements, its varied human interests and religious instruction, for the colder part of the year, while the fireside is so cosy and delightful; and in the summer, learning a new chapter of life, finding out a new set of powers, associating with a new round and variety of character, discovering the ideas of other people on subjects on which we might suppose there could be but one way of thinking, and, in short, making ourselves as much new creatures as possible, with a continual reserve of our old habits and a constant tendency and desire to return to them. To say nothing of the wholesomeness of fresh air and hardy exercise-the last a theme hardly to be mentioned to ears polite, in a country where it is not fashionable to be strong this way of parcelling out life is certainly defensible, to say the least. One thing is certain that those who have most thoroughly and rationally practised it are best prepared to defend it. The question as to how and where the summer is to be spent, is quite another one. To some, the plain farm-house, with the early voices of birds and the humbler noise of the farm-yard, new milk for the children, tumbling in haymows and riding without saddle for stout boys, and a thousand pretty country sports for little girls; long walks, and rides, and fishing excursions for the elder, and shaded seats at noon, and pleasant windows at sunset for all, afford the needful change. To others, the sea-shore, with its variety and its sameness, its refreshing surf and its moonlight beach, is more congenial, and braces the limbs and spirits better. Others long for the excitement of watering places to balance the excitement of the city, as he whose hands have become shaky with brandy must have his coffee very strong to steady his nerves. Others again dream of the novelties and wonders of foreign lands, and seek the verification of their ideal at the expense of a long sea-voyage, and the encounter of strange people and strange tongues. All this while, the wise shake their heads and congratulate themselves upon being comfortable at home. The money that is expended in this summer change, is a prominent objection with most of those who condemn it. They speak as if they, or any of us, lived by the law of necessity, and never spent anything that could possibly be avoided. But in truth, this is so far from being the case, that these very comfortable people will perhaps spend in the course of the year as extra luxuries for the table, extra expenses in dress, or extra indulgence of some sort, what would pay for the summer recreation twice It is simply a question of spending money in one way or the other for pleasure and advantage. Perhaps the home luxuries are as injurious as the jaunt would be beneficial; that is our opinion, but it is not the opinion of every over. one. Some years ago, it was rather unusual for people of moderate means to travel in summer. Most of our citizens contented themselves with short trips, or perhaps a few weeks' boarding in the country. But this was when our cities were smaller, our modes of life less unnatural and exhausting, our social ambition less pungent, perhaps our physiological ideas less rational. With great opportunities for acquiring wealth, came great anxiety to acquire it, and with this anxiety, and the success consequent upon it, perhaps, much disease, suffering and premature decay. The wealthy were advised to travel, and soon found reason to be glad they had done so, and their example has encouraged others, who though not wealthy are suffering, to resort to the same remedy, instead of retiring into a sick room and tiring the patience of the dyspepsia doctors. But shall we all wait until we have a claim to be ranked among the suffering? Does worldly wisdom counsel that? If travelling cures, will it not also have a tendency to prevent disease? Many are beginning to think so, and when they find themselves wearied and overdone, do not sit down till disease has crept over them unawares, but ward it off by refraining from the toil that had threatened to produce it. It used to be quite a proverb with the English and French, that all Americans who came to see them were ill. The remark is no longer appropriate; travelling abroad is no longer confined to the rich and the sick. Health may be still a principal object with many, but it is future health of mind as well as body. Instruction, too, comes in as a leading motive; not instruction in the fashions, but in whatever the study of ages has been able to bring to perfection. The sea-voyage is still enough of a bugbear with many to render the thought of a visit to Europe distasteful. But there is a considera |