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And when I hear it all unmoved,
I wonder if I ever loved,

So very calm's my heart.

I'm from thee many a weary mile,
Where rolls La Belle* along ;
I love its ripples, song and smile,
'Tis like thy smile and song-
So truly it reflects the scene,
The sunny ray, the changing green,
The clear, o'erhanging heaven;
So truly, when I've looked on thee,
Thou gav'st each love-look back to me,
Till I have thought love given.

Oh, lady! in this changing world,
Passions, strange and strong,
Bear us, like a leaf, wind-whirled,
With varying fate along.
But yester-eve this bounding river
Wore holy calm, as if forever;
Now rolls it wildly free.
Thus I, who bid my heart be still,
Now feel it bursting 'gainst my will,
As wildly unto thee.

Alas! I am a wanderer

From those who love me best,
Who, when it was my lot to err,

Relieved an aching breast;

From friends who loved my lowly name,
And never heard a word of blame,

But to defend their friend;

And here, o'er mountain and o'er flood,
I pour to them my gratitude;

"Tis all I have to send.

Oh! that I could my dark thoughts cast
Upon thee, lovely river!

And know, as on thy bright waves passed,
They'd pass with them forever.
Lady! we yet may meet again,
When memory shall no longer pain,

And love no longer sigh;

No more, no more may I adore thee;
Enough, the world is all before me;

My lady-love, good bye.

Banks of the Ohio, near Louisville, 1835.

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A few months ago I strung together a few thoughts upon this most delightful theme; and interspersed some passages from the poets, and legends from the classics, by way of illustrating those views. A critic of the cui bono class piqued me to write "More about Trees," in order to show that our countrymen had a love, and were fast increasing that affection, for these beautiful creations of God's hand: and the object of the present paper is merely to cite more of those illustrations, for

The French called the Ohio La Belle Riviere; the beautiful river.

the readers of the Messenger, from the ancient and modern poets.

This is peculiarly the season for the resumption of this subject. How beautifully sings the wisest, when in his canticles he says:

"The winter is past: the rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land:

The figtree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines, with the tender grape, give a good smell."

But few delights are there for the enjoyment of the lover of nature in the winter time,-I mean in our northern New England winter-time. My friend Brent has touchingly described the sheeny show of the sleet, lighted by the next day's sun, but that is evanescent at best, and always cold and dreary in its associations, Yet do I remember some winter days when my rambles afield have been as delightful and as free from discomfort as those of the merry summer time, or the more sober of autumn days. One in a particular manner recurs to me. It was in December. The sun rose as clear and undimmed as in May. I climbed to the top of a lovely hill in the neighborhood, to enjoy a beautiful, and, to me, a most rare spectacle. I had never before an idea of the fine effect upon a landscape of the curling of a thousand smokes, wreathing slowly and gently upwards from the cottage roofs of little villages scattered picturesquely around the base of a high hill. The atmosphere was perfectly clear, and the sun shed its short-lived warmth upon the sere grass at my feet, rendering its yellow tint more deep and golden. It dazzled my eye as it rested upon the sod. The sky was so soft and blue, and those little eddies of smoke were curling so slowly upwards to its expanse, I could almost fancy it to be their resting place, and that it was from them that it received its own azure beauty. The little river which bears the same name as the bill, was gliding on its serpentine way, forming little islands and peninsulas, all covered with the same hue of wintery desolation, yet cheered and relieved by this un wonted and almost forgotten brightness. The sunbeam played under the brown bank with the leaping wavelet, which, as if delighted with its return, sparkled and flashed like scattering diamonds, beneath its influence. The very oaks, shorn, as they had so long been, of their verdure, and standing forth, as they did, in all their gaunt and gigantic majesty, seemed glad amidst all this gladness of nature: for they gently waved their minuter branches, and looked down, methought, into their transparent mirror, to catch, from the brightness it reflected, a part of this general inspiration of

nature.

But it is of summer trees, and not those of winter, that I was writing.

The whole country is now in blossom. How beau. tiful is Herrick, when apostrophizing these short-lived

visitants!

'BLOSSOMS.

'Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,— Why do ye fall so fast?

Your date is not so past, But ye may yet stay here awhile To blush and gently smile,And go at last!

What! were ye born to be
An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good night?
"Twas pity nature brought ye forth,
Merely to show your worth,

And lose you quite!

But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read, how soon things have
Their end, tho' ne'er so brave;
And after they have shown their pride,
Like you, awhile, they glide
Into the grave!'

There are those who pretend to despise the Sycamore. This tree is not likely to come to perfection, unless planted upon the banks of rivers. It is not so good a tree for lawn or city as many others. Its rapid growth is in its favor. But the sycamore-haters should see it growing upon the Connecticut river: its noble stems gracefully dipping "its broad green crown" into the waves, and forming a verdant bower, into which you may drive your skiff, and sit like a nested bird, seeing but unseen. Old Herrick has a pretty address to this tree, among his delightful poems.

'TO SYCAMORES.

'I'm sick with love: oh let me lie
Under your shades, to sleep or die!
Either is welcome, so I have
Or here my bed, or here my grave.
Why do ye sigh, and sob, and keep
Time with the tears that I do weep?
Say have ye sense, and do ye prove
What sympathies there are in love?'

And a modern poet has been inspired by the beauty of such a tree as I have described. He says:

'This sycamore, oft musical with bees,

Such tents the patriarchs loved! oh, long unharmed
May all its aged boughs o'ercanopy

The small round basin, which this jutting stone
Keeps pure from falling leaves.

Here twilight is, and coolness; here is moss,
A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade.
Thou may'st toil far, and find no second tree.
Drink, pilgrim, here! here rest!'

Coleridge.

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'I am the prince of sports, the forest is my fee,
He's not upon the earth who pleasure tastes like me.
The morn no sooner puts her rosy mantle on,
Than from my quiet lodge I instantly am gone,
When the melodious birds, from every bush and brier
Of the wild spacious wastes, make a continual choir.
The mottled meadows then, fresh garnish'd by the sun,
Waft up their spicy sweets, upon the winds that run
In easy ambling course, and softly seem to pace,
That we the longer may their lusciousness embrace.
I am clad in youthful green, I other colors scorn;
My silken baldric bears my bugle or my horn,
Which setting to my lips, I wind so loud and shrill,
As makes the echoes shout from every neighboring hill;
My dog-hook at my belt, to which my lyam's tied,
My sheaf of arrows by, my wood knife by my side;
My cross-bow in my hand, I by the woodman's art,
Forecast where I may spring the goodly high-palm'd hart.
To view the grazing herds, at sundry times I use,
When by the loftiest head I know my deer to choose,

The same poet has this pretty conceit. Who has And to unherd him then, I gallop o'er the ground,

not seen what he so tenderly describes ?

'This little lime-tree bower! in which I've marked
Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage: and I watched
Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above,
Dappling its sunshine!'

While thinking, in our less genial clime, of such a bower as this, how natural is it for the lover of nature to exclaim, with poor Keats,

'Oh for a beaker full of the warm south,-
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene!
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth!

That I might drink, and leave the world, unseen,
And fade away, into the forest dim!'

Such a 'forest dim' was that of Arden, when the duke kept court, when the melancholy Jaques watched

Upon my well breath'd nag, and cheer my faithful hound.
Sometimes I pitch my toils the deer alive to take,
Sometimes I like the cry the deep-mouth'd kennel make.
Meanwhile the feather'd flocks that the wild forests haunt,
Their sylvan songs to me in cheerful ditties chaunt.
The shades, like ample shields, defend me from the sun,
Through which to cheer my burning brow, the gentle streamlets

run;

No little bubbling brook from any spring that falls,
But on the pebbles play for me his pretty madrigals.
At morn I climb the hills, where wholesome breezes blow,
At noon I seek the vales, and arching shades below;
At evening I again the crystal floods frequent;
In pleasure thus my life continually is spent.
As princes and great lords have palaces, so I
Have in the forests here, for hall and gallery,
The tall and stately woods, which underneath are plain;
The groves my gardens are, the heath and downs again
My wide and spacious walks. Ah! say whate'er you can,
The forester is still your only happy man!'

Adieu! I will yet, ere summer closes, climb more trees, with the Hesperides.

J. F. O.

ON HEALTH.

TO MOTHERS.

BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.

the partner of his joys, is so dispiriting, how much more oppressive is it to those little ones who are by nature allied to gladness. Childhood, whose richest heritage is its innocent joy, must hush its sportive laugh, and repress its merry footstep, as if its plays were sins. Or if the diseased nerves of the mother do Have we not all of us seen, with pity and regret, not habitually impose such sacrifices, it learns, from some sickly mother, burdened with the cares of her nature's promptings, to fashion its manners, or its voice, household? Feeling that there were employments or its countenance, after the melancholy model of the which none could discharge as well as herself—modifica- | sufferer whom it loves, and so forfeits its beautiful heritions of duty, in which the interest of her husband, the welfare of her children, the comfort of her family, were involved duties which she could not depute to another, without loss-she continued to exert herself, above and beyond her strength.

tage of young delight.

Those sicknesses to which the most robust are subject, by giving exercise to self-denial and offices of sympathy, from all the members of a household, are doubtless often blessed as means of improvement, and the messengers which draw more closely the bonds of true affection. But it must be sufficiently obvious, that I aliude to that want of constitutional vigor, or of that confirm ed feebleness of habit, which either create inability for those duties which in most parts of our country devolve upon a wife, a mother, and the mistress of a family, or

Still her step is languid, and her eye joyless. The "spirit, indeed, is willing, but the flesh is weak." Her little ones observe her dejected manner, and become sad; or, they take advantage of her want of energy, and grow lawless. She, herself, cannot long persist in a course of labor that involves expense of health, with out some mental sympathy. A temper the most amia-else cause them to be discharged in languor and wretchble, will sometimes become irritable or complaining, when the shrinking nerves require rest, and the demands of toil, and the claims upon painful thought, are perpetual. Efforts, which to one in health, are like dew-drops shaken from the eagle's wing, seem to the invalid like the ascent of the Alps, or like heaping Pelion upon Ossa.

Admitting that a sickly woman has sufficient selfcontrol to repel the intrusion of fretfulness, and preserve a subdued equanimity, this, though certainly deserving of praise, is falling short of what she should wish to attain. The meek look of resignation, though it may cost her much to maintain, is not all that a husband wishes, who, coming from the vexed atmosphere of business or ambition, would fain find in his home the smile of cheerfulness, the playful charm of a mind

at ease.

Men, prize more than our sex are always aware, the health-beaming countenance, the elastic step, and all those demonstrations of domestic order, in which unbroken activity delights. They love to see a woman equal to her own duties, and performing them with pleasure. They do not like to have the principal theme of domestic conversation a detail of physical ills, or to be expected to question, like a physician, into the variety of symptoms which have supervened since their departure. Or if this may be occasionally done, with a good grace, where ill-health is supposed to be temporary, yet the saddening effects of an enfeebled constitution, cannot always be resisted by him who expected to find in a wife a "yoke-fellow," able to endure the rough roads and sharp ascents of life. A nature possessing great capacities of sympathy and tenderness, may doubtless be softened by the exercise of those capacities. Still, the good gained, is only from the patient, perhaps the christian endurance of a disappointment. But where those capacities do not exist, and where religious principle is absent, the perpetual influence of a sickly and mournful wife, is as a blight on those prospects which allure to matrimony. Folly, moroseness, and lapses into vice, may be often traced to those causes which robe home in gloom.

edness. And I speak of them, that the attention of those who conduct the earliest physical education of females, may be quickened to search how an evil of such magnitude may be obviated.

Mothers, is there any thing we can do to acquire for our daughters, a good constitution? Is there truth in the sentiment sometimes expressed, that our sex are becoming more and more effeminate? Are we as capable of enduring fatigue as were our grand-mothers? Are we as well versed in the details of house. keeping, as able to bear them without inconvenience, as our mothers? Have our daughters as much stamina of constitution, as much aptitude for domestic duty, as we ourselves possess? These questions are not interesting to us simply as individuals. They affect the welfare of the community. For the ability or inability of woman to discharge what the Almighty has committed to her, touches the equilibrium of society, and the hidden springs of existence. Tenderly interested as we are for the health of our offspring, let us devote peculiar attention to that of our daughters. Their delicate frames require more care in order to become vigorous, and are in more danger from the prevalence of fashion. I plead for the little girl, that she may have air and exercise, as well as her brother, and that she may not be too much blamed, if in her earnest play she happen to tear or soil her apparel. I plead that she be not punished as a romp, if she keenly enjoy those active sports which city gentility proscribes. I plead that the ambition to make her accomplished, do not chain her to the piano, till the spinal column, which should consolidate the frame, starts aside like a broken reed;— nor bow her over her book, till the vital energy which ought to pervade the whole frame, mounts into the brain, and kindles the death-fever.

Surely we ought to acquaint ourselves with the outlines of the mechanism of this our clay-temple, that we interfere not, through ignorance, with those laws on which its organization depends. Rendered precious, by being the shrine of an undying.spirit, our ministrations for its well-being assume an almost fearful importance. Appointed, as the mother is, to guard If to a father the influence of continual ill-health in the harmony of its architecture, to study the arts on

which its symmetry depends, she is forced to perceive how much the mind is affected by the circumstances of its lodgment, and is incited to cherish the mortal for the sake of the immortal.

Does she attach value to the germs of intellect? Let her see that the casket which contains them, be not lightly endangered or carelessly broken. Does she pray for the welfare of the soul? Let her seek the good of its companion, who walks with it to the gates of the grave, and rushes again to its embrace on the morning of the resurrection.

upon her vitals? We know that it is so. Who, that has tested the omnipotence of fashion, will doubt it? This is by no means the only sacrifice of health that she imposes. But it is a prominent one. Let us, who are mothers, look to it. Fully aware, as we must be, of the danger of stricture on the lungs and heart, during their season of development, why should we not bring up our daughters without any article of dress which could disorder the seat of vitality? Our sons hold themselves erect, without busk, or corset, or framework of whale-bone. Why should not our daughters also? Did not God make them equally upright? Yes. But they have "sought out many inventions."

Those who educate the young, should be ever awake to the evils of compression in the region of the heart and lungs. A slight ligature there, in the earlier stages of life, is fraught with danger. To disturb or impede the laborers who turn the wheels of life, both night and day, is absurd and ungrateful. Samson was bound in fetters, and ground in the prison-house, for a while, but at length he crushed the pillars of the temple, and the lords of the Philistines perished with him. Nature, though she may be long in resenting an injury, does not forget it. Against those who violate her laws, she often rises as a giant in his might, and when they least expect it, inflicts a fearful punishment. Fashion seems long enough to have oppressed and insulted health in its strong holds. She cannot even prove that she has rendered the form more graceful, as some equivalent for her ravages. In ancient Greece, to whom our paint-swer for it before the High Judge? ers and sculptors still look for the purest models, was not the form left untortured? the volume of the lungs allowed free play? the heart permitted, without manacles, to do the great work that the Creator assigned it? The injuries inflicted by compression of the vital parts, are too numerous to be readily recounted. Impaired digestion, obstructed circulation, pulmonary disease, and nervous wretchedness, are in their train. A physician, distinguished by practical knowledge of the Protean forms of insanity, asserts that he gains many patients from this cause. Another medical gentleman of eminence, led by philanthropy to investigate the subject of tight-lacing, has assured the public, that multitudes aunually die by the severe discipline of busk and corset. This theory is sustained by collateral proof, and illustrated by dissections.

Let us educate a race who shall have room to breathe. Let us promise, even in their cradle, that their hearts shall not be pinioned as in a vice, nor their spines bent like a bow, nor their ribs forced into the liver. Doubtless, the husbands and fathers of the next generation will give us thanks.

Let us leave no place in the minds of those whom we educate, for the lunatic sentiment, that the mind's healthful action, and the integrity of the organs on which it operates, are secondary to the vanities of external decoration. If they have received from their Creator a sound mind in a sound body, teach them that they are accountable to Him for both. If they deliberately permit injury to either, how shall they an

It is not sufficient that we, mothers, protect our younger daughters, while immediately under our authority, from such hurtful practices. We should follow them until a principle is formed by which they can protect themselves from the tyranny of fashion. It is true, that no young lady acknowledges herself to be laced too tight. Habits that shun the light, and shelter themselves under subterfuge, are ever the most difficult to eradicate. A part of the energy which is essential to their reformation, must be expended in hunting them from their hiding-places. Though the sufferer from tight-lacing, may not own herself to be uncomfortable, the laborious respiration, the constrained movement, perhaps the curved spine, bring different testimony.

But in these days of diffused knowledge, of heightened education, is it possible that any female can put in jeopardy the enjoyment of health, even the duration of existence, for a circumstance of dress? Will she throw an illusion over those who try to save her? and like the Spartan culprit, conceal the destroyer that feeds |

But how shall the mother answer it, in whose hand the soul of her child was laid, as a waxen tablet, if she suffer fashion to cover it with fantastic images, and folly to puff out her feverish breath, melting the lines that wisdom pencilled there, till what heaven would fain have polished for itself, loses the fair impression, and becomes like common earth. Hartford, Conn.

TO A FRIEND AT PARTING.

We part-perhaps to meet no more;
And oft may I, with fond regret,
Recall the scenes we've travelled o'er :
Such scenes the heart can ne'er forget.
Long months--it may be years--will roll;
It may be (who can know the pain
With which that thought weighs down the soul?)
On earth we ne'er shall meet again.

Through distant lands and stranger climes
Our lot 'twill be to wander far,

Yet shall our hearts, like cadenced rhymes-
With friendship for their polar star--
Together flow unjarring on,

Persuading us with siren strain,
How hopes exist, till life be gone,

That we shall haply meet again.

But should such hopes delusive prove,
And ne'er again that joy we know,
While doomed, apart, alone to rove
Through life's uncertain hours of wo;
Then let this last memento be

A link in friendship's holy chain,
To prove my heart still true to thee,
Although we ne'er shall meet again!

F.G.

Bibliographical Notices.

So carefully has the present production been put together, that we honestly believe it free from all ground of cavil or criticism from the most rigid moralist; for,

[ Publishers and authors, who wish their works noticed in this melancholy to relate, Bulwer, the emissary of darkness, journal, are requested to forward them immediately.]

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1838."

is reading us a lesson of virtue and morals, and if we mistake not, has disarmed his adversaries, by withholding the necessary food for the fastidious taste of the temulent critics. The fountain, condemned as muddy and pestilential, is pouring forth clear waters; and for the bitter drug, has been substituted a sweet and refreshing draught. He who discovers the serpent's poison lingering on the leaflets of so fragrant a plant, must indeed be gifted with a microscopic eye.

This is undoubtedly one of the ablest productions of its class, and will secure for its talented author a prominent rank among historical novelists. We have not been brought so immediately in contact with the meniorable actors in those stirring times of British history, when an oppressed and insulted people rebuked the bold in- The preface to the play sets forth Mr. Bulwer's obcursions of a heartless and vile despot; nor commingled ject in stepping upon the field of dramatic composition, in imagination, so familiarly with the determined and and his motives are alike creditable to his head and sanguinary belligerents, since the graphic pen of Scot-heart. To benefit a friend (Mr. Macready,) by contriland's dramatic historian was paralysed in death. If buting to the novelties of a theatrical season, was a sufwe view the present work as a pure novel, it presents ficient incentive to Mr. Bulwer, to engage in a labor us many points for criticism; it lacks variety of in- somewhat at variance with his ordinary pursuits. This, cident, originality, and dramatis persona; but as an superadded to the charge of the hyper-critics, that drahistorical novel, it stands pre-eminent, bringing before matic composition was above his range, induced him to the mind's eye, in the richest attire, the memorable actors engage promptly and heartily in the effort. in that great struggle which secured freedom to England, and whose influence will be felt to the latest posterity. The able author has succeeded admirably in sketching the character of that most extraordinary man, whose firmness of mind and energy of purpose, raised him from the humblest position in life, if not to a throne, to a sceptre more powerful; since it touched the hearts and swayed the minds of a nation.

To achieve entire success, and demolish the sickly opposition of a band of jealous and prejudiced adversaries, calls for an inventive, creative fancy, and a well stored mind. Of its ability as a dramatic composition, there exists not now a doubt; for although it was brought forth sub-rosa, in as critical a community and before as enlightened and competent an umpirage as the world can boast of, it met its unqualified applause. Its dramatic effect, richness and beauty of composition, and lofty tone, have placed it beyond the reach of a

"Mexico versus Texas. A descriptive novel. By a Texian, prepossessed and illiberal judicature. The following Philadelphia: 1838."

extracts from the fifth act will furnish fair specimens of the play, and as they are selected from the consummation of the plot, develope the ingenuity and power of the author:

"SCENE II.

We are glad to find that the skilful pen of the Texian is recording many of the eventful struggles of his oppressed countrymen, in a form which will prove attractive to the general reader. The present work will afford amusement, and impart information, and while there "A room in the house of Monsieur Deschappelles; Pau are some objectionable points, there is much to admire and commend. Upon the whole it is a very creditable production.

"Slavery in America; being a Review of Miss Martineau on that subject. By a South Carolinian. Richmond: Thos. W. White. 183S."

This review was originally published in the Southern Literary Messenger, and attracted great attention, from the lucid and successful manner in which it confuted the gross misrepresentations in "Society in America ;” and as the demand for the essay has exhausted the number of the Messenger, the editor has determined to publish it in pamphlet form. The time, we think, has been judiciously selected, since it will answer as well for a review of "Retrospect of Western Travels."

"The Lady of Lyons, or Love and Pride. A play in five acts. By E. L. Bulwer. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1838." The intense anxiety with which "The Lady of Ly. ons" was awaited, and the avidity with which it has been read, is sufficient evidence of the high estimation in which its gifted author is held, notwithstanding the heavy artillery of certain soi-disant moralists.

line seated in great dejection.

PAULINE.

Is it so, then. I must be false to love,
Or sacrifice a father! Oh, my Claude,
My lover, and my husband! have I lived
To pray that thou mayst find some fairer boon
Than the deep faith of this devoted heart,
Nourish'd till now, now broken?

(Enter Monsieur Deschappelles.)

MONS. DASCHAP.

My dear child,
I will not say my fortune-I could bear
How shall I thank, how bless thee? Thou hast saved,
Reverse, and shrink not-but that prouder wealth
Which merchants value most; my name, my credit,
The hard-won honors of a toilsome life:
These thou hast saved, my child!
Is there no hope?

PAULINE.

No hope but this?

MONS. DESCHAP.

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