were soothed by the skilful and affectionate atten- | mously resolved, that a monument should be dance of the distinguished Doctor Rush. He erected to the memory of Genearl Mercer at complained much of his head, and frequently Fredericksburg, Virginia; at the same time a remarked to his surgeon, "that there was the similar monument to the memory of Gen. Warprincipal danger," and Doctor Rush whenever he ren was decreed; and Gen. Washington, in an detailed the thrilling narrative of his patient's official letter to Congress, thus alludes to these suffering, always ascribed his death to the blows resolutions. "The honors Congress have decreed on the head more than to the bayonet wounds, to the memory of Generals Warren and Mercer although several of these were attended with ex-afford me the highest pleasure. Their character treme danger. and merit had a just claim to every mark of reIn a small house, a few yards distant from that spect, and I heartily wish that every officer of the blood-red plain of carnage and of death, far away United States, emulating their virtues, may by from the soothing consolations of domestic affec- their actions secure to themselves the same right tion, this distinguished martyr of Liberty breathed to the grateful tributes of their country." The his last. The victorious flag of his country proudly fixed popularity of Gen. Mercer, and the chefloated over a field of triumph, and without a mur- rished affection which the nation bore for his memur he sank into a soldier's grave-finding a hal-mory, was happily exemplified in the chaste and lowed sepulchre in the hearts of his countrymen, beautiful compliment of Lafayette. When he and a fadeless epitaph in their institutions. was in the United States a few years ago, the con The mangled body was removed under a mili-versation in a particular company, turning on the tary escort from Princeton to Philadelphia, and prominent men of the Revolution, one of the comexposed a day in the coffee-house, with the design pany observed to him, that he, Gen. Lafayette, of exciting by that mournful spectacle the indig- was of course acquainted with Gen. Mercer, not nation of the people. The Pennsylvania Evening recollecting that Lafayette did not arrive in the Post for January 18, 1777, has thus recorded his United States until after the battle of Princeton. death and funeral obsequies. "Last Sunday even- "Oh! no,” said the General, "you know that Mering, died near Princeton, of the wounds he re- cer fell in January, 1777, and I reached the United ceived in the engagement at that place on the 3rd States in the ensuing spring; but on my arrival I instant, Hugh Mercer, Esq., Brigadier General found the army and whole country so full of his in the continental army. On Wednesday his body name, that an impression has been always left on was brought to this city, and on Thursday buried my mind since, that I was personally acquainted on the south side of Christ church yard with mili- with him." tary honors; attended by the committee of safety— In Wilkinson's Memoirs, several interesting the members of the assembly-gentlemen of the particulars of the life and services of Gen. Mercer army, and a number of the most respectable in- are related, and in alluding to his death, that wrihabitants of this city. The uniform character-ter remarks: "In Gen. Mercer we lost at Princeexalted abilities and intrepidity of this illustrious ton a chief who for education, talents, disposition, officer, will render his name equally dear to Ame-integrity and patriotism, was second to no man rica with the liberty for which she is now contending, to the latest posterity." but the commander-in-chief, and was qualified to fill the highest trusts of the country." The battles of Trenton and Princeton, in which The same author remarks, that an evening or General Mercer fought and bled unto death, were two before the battle of Princeton, Gen. Mercer the most brilliant and fortunate victories won in being in the tent of Gen. St. Clair with several the war of the Revolution. The establishment of officers, the conversation turned on some promoour independence was now no longer a matter of tions then just made in the army. Gen. Mercer doubt. Confidence was restored to our disheart- remarked, "they were not engaged in a war of ened army, and a chord of sympathy was stricken ambition, or that he should not have been there, which vibrated throughout all the country. Eu- and that every man should be content to serve in rope looked with astonishment on the military that station in which he could be most useful-that kill displayed by a raw and dispirited soldiery, for his part he had but one object in view, and that and in the indomitable fortitude of her banded chivalry, America felt that her independence was secured. General Mercer's elevated character, lofty heroism and brutal murder, excited a deep and affectionate sympathy throughout all the colonies. On the 8th of April, 1777,* Congress unani It is still a resolution of Congress. How often are justice, gratitude and honor forgotten in the low and vulgar conflicts of party? was the success of the cause, and that God could witness how cheerfully he would lay down his life to secure it." Little, adds the writer, did he or any of the company then think that a few fleeting hours would seal the compact. In the historical paintings of the battle of Princeton by Peale and Trumbull, Gen. Mercer is a prominent and conspicuous figure. That by Peale hangs in the chapel of Nassau Hall at Princeton, and that by Col. Trumbull is in the exhibition VOL. IV.-28 rooms at New York. The states of Pennsylva- | the fields the birds warble to him in grateful accents; nia and Kentucky, among their first acts of legis- the lightning announces his power, and the ocean lation, named portions of their territories Mercer, declares his immensity. and lately Virginia followed these examples of It is not because the beauties of Nature prove the gratitude and respect. The country in New Jer-existence of Supreme Intelligence, that the attention of sey, including Trenton, Princeton, Laurenceville, and the battle field of the 3rd January, has been very recently erected into a county by the legisture of that state, and bears the appropriate name of Mercer. thinking minds is now called to a survey of the harmonies by which we are encompassed; but it is, that the Author of Nature made manifest in his works, may receive from man, "busy about many things," some portion of that admiration and love, which is so lavishly profused upon the fleeting vanities of life. It is by the calm contemplation of the material world, from man, the connecting link between higher intelligences and things perishable, the sharer of time and of The remains of this gifted and accomplished soldier now sleep in Christ churchyard, Philadelphia. Impelled by filial love, his youngest son in the year 1817 sought his place of interment. The venera-eternity, down through all the gradations of animal and ble Mr. Dolley, who had attended the funeral, was vegetable existence to inert matter in all its stupendous still the sexton and assisted in the pious search, and shapes, that we are enabled clearly to conceive, and near the grave on the southern side of the brick properly to estimate the dignity of our nature, and the enclosure were faintly inscribed the letters "Gl. sublimity of our destiny. The mind familiar with such observances seems to catch something of the immensity M." A plain and unadorned marble slab now marks the grave, bearing the simple yet expres-ing to the Architect, the heart is melted into love, while it contemplates, until lifting its view from the scaffoldsive epitaph" In memory of General Hugh the understanding is lost in admiration! Mercer, who fell at Princeton, January 3, 1777.” March, 1838. SCRAPS AND CULLINGS, From the Note Book of a Gleaner. BY A MARYLANDER. BEAUTIES AND WONDERS OF NATURE. Fountain of elegance, unseen thyself, That studiously surveys the wise design, Wearied and dissatisfied with the vexatious pursuits of ordinary life, there are moments of sober reflection, when the mind of man, recoiling upon itself, seeks in the materials of the universe some evidence of his true estate and high moral destination. The Book of Nature is unfolded to his view, and in its living pages he reads every character that can delight the heart, and every lesson that may direct his understanding. The Supreme Architect in the exercise of unmeasured power, seems, in the gorgeous display of his works, to have been prompted solely by his benevolence to those beings upon whom he has impressed his divine image. To the human mind, then, there can be no exercise of its wondrous faculties more grateful than a holy contemplation of the sublime machinery which wheels and moves around us. All nature, upon which side soever it is surveyed, proclaims the superintendence of this Spirit of Benevolence. The lowly plants of the valley and the lofty cedars of the mountain proclaim him; the delighted insects hum his praise; in the fragrance and foliage of It is thus, that overleaping the natural boundaries around us, we no longer confine our reflections to the fading beauties before us, but in the fulness of fervent contemplation extend our view to other beauties, which, while they seem to be transitory, are in reality permanent and everlasting. Such are motion and repose, darkness and light, the seasons, the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, and all those paraphernalia of nature, which give variety to the decorations of the universe. The ardent fire-worshipper of the East, who at early dawn turns to the pencilled messengers of the Orient which announce the coming of the God-the savage of our own continent, who breathes his lament upon the thickening shades of night for the departure of the Great Spirit at eventide, admire a fleeting beauty. But the christian philosopher, from the heights of science, in the scene that fades before him in the setting sun, traces in the distant heavens all the brilliant colors which are painted for another people and another clime, while he is overshadowed in the stillness of night. He feels that such beauties, though progressive, are absolute in duration, and that the lamp which has been hung out in the heavens can never be obscured, until the hand that created it shall, in the fulfilment of his inscrutable designs, throw time into eternity. Let us pause for a moment on this elevation, and in the fervor of a chaste imagination, group some of the most beautiful imagery of nature. Would you unfetter the mind, and lifting the curtain of your horizon, form a clear conception of a prospect of the universe? Figure to yourself as existing at the same time all the hours of the day-the balmy breath of the morning, the blaze of noontide effulgence, the holy hour of evening-all the seasons of the year, a weeping day in April and a sunset in yellow autumn-a firmament studded with stars and a night mantled in clouds— meadows enamelled with flowers, forests stripped of their foliage, and fields burdened with golden harveststhe milky-way lustrous in the heavens, and the ocean asleep in its immensity. Merciful Father! how art thou made manifest in thy works! How is it, that while you behold Hesperus sparkling on the crest of the western wave, the orisons of another | eternity of duration and infinity of space, more forcible should mingle with the first rays of the morning? By what magic is it, that this ancient luminary, the sun, which to your view retires to rest weary and glowing in the evening, should be to another the youthful orb that awakes bathed in dew, and arises from behind the gray curtains of the morning? Why is it, that at every moment of the day he is rising, burning in his zenith, and setting on the children of men? Who can look through the stillness of the night to peruse the magnificent volume of the heavens without feeling the nearness of the Deity? Who, that feels his presence and his goodness, will not bow down and adore him? Thus we have endeavored to group somewhat of the chaste and beauteous imagery of Nature. We will now descend to one of the chords in the harmony which prevails around us. than the subtlest reasoning of metaphysics. The ocean, obedient in its alternate tides, to the celestial influences, and rolling its indomitable surges from clime to clime, with every billow whitened with the commerce of the dweller upon earth, is the most august object under the heavens. Man, in the plenitude of his intellect, in the utmost stretch of his imagination, feeling his inability to comprehend or to conceive the mysteries of the great deep, stands upon its margin, himself an atom in creation, forgetful of his puny mechanism, to bow down the powers of his mind before the grandeur and magnificence reflected in this everlasting spectacle. Who art thou, that taketh up the sea in thy hand, and in whose sight the ocean is a drop; who covereth the earth with the deep as with a garment, and meteth it bounds which it cannot pass? Who will Let our spirit go forth upon the waters-let us con- dive into the hungry depths of the ocean to reveal the template THE OCEAN. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime, Dark-heaving, boundless, endless, and sublime, The image of eternity-the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone! beauties and the treasures which lie imbedded in its unfathomable recesses? O boundless deep! we know Thou hast strange wonders in thy gloom concealed, And an eternal spring Showers her rich colors with unsparing hand, Where coral trees their graceful branches fling Of all the wonders of creation, from the moment, But if the grandeur of this ocean scenery had been disthat obedient to the celestial mandate, the comet sub-played for no other purpose but to awaken the hallowed mitted, and planet attracted planet across the fields of feelings so eloquently uttered in the sublime sketch immensity, the ocean unreposed, untired, unconquerable, has filled the mind of man in all ages with a holy awe, which the other wonders of the universe had failed to inspire. The well ordered mind loves to look back to the origin of matter, when the infant ocean, in the morning of creation, commenced to roll that wild, profound, eternal bass in the anthem of early nature, and made such music as pleased the ear of Deity. It is the book of mystery. It is the temple of contemplation. The vintage, when the showering grapes "reel to the earth purple, and gushing in Bacchanal profusion," is not more rife with sweets, than the depths of the profound with wonders and beauties. with which we conclude, these wonderful mysteries have been wisely ordained. "One evening (it was a profound calm), we were in the delicious seas which bathe the shores of Virginia; every sail was furled; when the sound of the bell broke upon the stillness of the evening to announce the hour for mingling our supplications to the throne of Grace. The officers stood upon the quarter; the chaplain somewhat in advance; the seamen were scattered at random over the poop; our faces were towards the prow, which was turned to the west. The globe of the sun, whose lustre even then we could scarcely endure, ready to plunge beneath the waves, was discovered between the rigging in the Holy of Holies! where shall we commence thy praise? midst of boundless space. From the motion of the Whether we calmly look abroad upon its exparse, stern it appeared as if the radiant orb every moment when, asleep in its immensity, it reflects all nature from changed its horizon. A few clouds wandered confusedly its polished surface; or as the soft echoes of its undu- in the east, where the moon was slowly rising. The lating billows is heard in low and hollow murmurs from rest of the sky was serene. Towards the north a the caves of its shelving beach, when every breeze is water-spout, forming a glorious triangle with the lumihushed, and its placid bosom is unruffled; or whether naries of day and night, glistening with all the colors we gaze upon it when wrought up by fearful agitation of the prism, rose out of the sea, like a column of into all the horrors of the tempest, when blackness crystal supporting the vault of heaven. Religious scowls upon the face of its waters, and its foaming tears involuntarily flowed from my eyes when my waves mingle with the clouds; it is impossible to con- intrepid companions lifting their tarred hats, began in a ceive anything better calculated to excite in us lofty hoarse voice to chant their simple song to that God who and sublime conceptions of that Spirit, who weighs in is the protector of the mariner. How affecting were the hollow of his hand the waters of the deep. The the prayers of these men, who, from a frail plank in level expanse of the ocean when reposing, communicates the midst of the ocean, contemplated a sun setting in to the contemplative mind a similar tranquillity; and the waves! How touching to the heart such invocations when its angry billows lift their devouring heads, we to the Father of the distressed! The consciousness of are filled with ideas the most sublime, meditations the our insignificance, excited by the voice of infinity; our most solemn. The very nature of the prospect, bound-song resounding to a distance over the silent deep; the less and unbroken, presents a sensible argument for the night approaching with its dangers; our vessel, itself a wonder among so many wonders; a religious crew penetrated with admiration and awe; a priest august in supplication; the Almighty, diffused over the abyss, with one hand staying the sun at the portals of the west, with the other raising the moon in the eastern hemisphere, and lending throughout immensity an attentive ear to the voice of his creatures; this is a scene which defies the art of the painter and the eloquence of the writer, and which the whole heart of man is scarcely sufficient to embrace. her two youngest were girls, one four, and the other two years of age. The daughter had been educated in Carolina, as well as circumstances would permit. She had a natural taste for music, and was gifted with a melodious voice. Her spirit was lofty, her affections strong, and even vehement. At the period of her departure from her native state, in the autumn of 1787, her health was excellent, her frame rather slender and delicate, her spirits high and cheerful. Col. B commenced his journey in November, and reached a landing on the Holston river, in East Tennessee, early in December. He found that all the streams were swollen by recent rains, and the usual trace over the mountains utterly impracticable to one who was moving westwardly, with children, slaves, household furniture and farming utensils, In order to reach his destination near Nashville, Col. B determined to build a flat boat, to put his family and goods on board, and proceed down the Holston into the Tennessee river, thence into the Ohio, and up the Cumberland, to his intended home. There were dangers on this route. The boat might be stove: the shoals of the "We arose at midnight, and sat down upon deck, where we found only the officer of the watch and a few sailors in profound silence. No noise was heard save the dashing of the prow through the billows, while sparks of fire crested the ripple of the broken waters. God of christians! it is on the waters of the abyss, and on the expanded sky that thou hast particularly graven the characters of thy omnipotence. Millions of stars sparkling in the azure dome of heaven; the moon in the midst of the firmament; a sea unbounded by any shore; infinity in the skies and on the waves! Never didst thou affect me more powerfully than in those nights, when, suspended between the stars and the ocean, I had immensity over my head, and immensity | Tennessee were to be passed, as well as the boiling under my feet." Adoring, own The hand Almighty, who its channelled bed THE WEST FIFTY YEARS SINCE. BY L. M. CHAPTER I. Col. B of South-Carolina, who had been a subaltern officer of merit during our revolutionary war, having an increasing family, resolved to emigrate in 1787, to Tennessee. He predicted justly, that the rich lands of that region would in the course of a short time be settled by an enterprising and industrious population, and that on such a theatre, he and his children might do better than in an older and a poorer country. Col. B was a man of undoubted courage-of a powerful frame, and capable of enduring great fatigue. He was of a generous and unsuspecting nature-honest in all his transactions-and kind towards all his race. He was well educated in the practical matters of life. Almost all his valuable knowledge had been acquired in the camp, in his intercourse with his brother officers and soldiers, amongst whom there prevailed a chivalric spirit, begotten amidst the excitement and heroism that marked our revolutionary conflict. Mrs. B-was a woman of meek temper, a professor of religion, devoted to her husband and her children, of industrious habits and sound judgment. Her oldest child, Emily, was just sixteen at the period of the proposed emigration, her next was a robust boy about fourteen, suck, which even at this day is the terror of all navigators of that stream. Above all, he might be attacked and overpowered by the Cherokees. Still, there were nearly equal dangers in any other mode of removal. Having taken his resolution, Col. B proceeded to the construction of his vessel. He was assisted by five young laboring white men, who were emigrating with him, and eight negro fellows. The boat was large, and divided into three apartments: one for his family, one for the young men, and one for the slaves. The building of so large a boat, which was to be planked up at the sides, both inside and outside, and in which there were to be portholes made, whence his well armed force might be able to fire upon the enemy, required time. The timbers were to be hewn out of the standing trees, and the plank was to be sawed by hand. Still Col. B was not disheartened. His object was the land of promise, that lay before him to the west. During the whole of December, January, and part of February, the emigrants were busily employed. In the latter month there were appearances of approaching spring. The maples were tapped, poplar trays were dug out in which to catch the sugar water. The little negroes were usefully employed in this work; the negro women, under the direction of the mistress, were engaged in making sugar, a luxury of rare value in the midst of the wilderness. About this time two gentlemen, followed by a servant who led a pack-horse, arrived at this temporary residence of Col. B and his family. Having alighted, they approached the door of the cabin, and the elderly one having entered, presented his hand, gave his name Major G― of Virginia, and introduced his son Henry. The sight of these friendly and genteel strangers, filled the bosoms of the emigrants with delight. The elder was about fifty years of age, his hair somewhat stricken with gray. He was clad in apparel which indicated taste and wealth. His manners were kind and courteous, and evidently had been modelled after those of the men of highest rank in the "Old Dominion." Young Henry G was about twenty-two, rather | procured his hunting shirt-highly fringed, and ornatall, athletic, with light hair, fair complexion, a re-mented as was the fashion of the time-his powdermarkably keen, full blue eye, and the picture of good flask, shot-pouch, knife, flints, and all other necessary health. The mountain air of the Blue Ridge had given materials. When clad in these, when mounted on his a deep red to his cheek. The manner of Henry G- Virginia charger-of course the best in the world, as a was well enough. All his movements assured the ob- Virginian always thinks-when the party were all server that the character of his mind was of the posi-ready, when the horn was blown and the dogs set up tive order, and that he might prove a dangerous adver- their cry, Emily could not avoid looking upon this scene sary in a quarrel. He had been accustomed to the with secret pride, and with a far tenderer interest than chase in his native state, and was attached to all sports mere approbation begets. On the return of the huntrequiring physical exertion. Towards all those with ers, whatever game had been taken, was brought by whom he was intimate, he was as open as day. The young Henry, and thrown at Emily's feet. If a hear sentiments which he carried into his intercourse with was started from his wallow, the fight of the dogs with his young friends, were chivalric and honorable. To- bruin,-his gallant and long continued resistance--the wards his father, he manifested the deepest devotion. number of balls which he received before he fell—the The two seemed to be on a footing of the closest con- moans which he poured forth before he yielded up his fidence. The former gave continually evidence that breath, were detailed by Henry to the parents, and he looked upon the graceful figure of his boy with un- particularly to Emily herself, in the most animated utterable delight. strains. That the girl heard them with delight, her kindling eye and approving smile, abundantly attested. Occasionally the whole party would walk along the bank of the river, but Henry and Emily either pressed stated from North-Carolina arrived. The speedy departure of Major G― became certain. It was at once evident to the quick discerning maternal eye of Mrs. B—, that her daughter, always so gay and happy, had suddenly become sad. She could not mistake the cause, nor could she avoid sympathising with her child. In the course of conversation Major G that he was going to the west to examine some lands, in which he had become interested, and which demanded his personal care. He had left Virginia with the ex-on before or lingered behind. But at last the travellers pectation of meeting at some point, near where Col. Band his family were, a considerable party going to Nashville, having similar views with himself; and who, being completely armed, as he, his son and servant were, might protect each other, in pursuing the trace over Spencer's Mountain, and down the vallies to the head waters of the Cumberland river, from the hostile attacks of the savages. Until the arrival of this party, Major G would remain at the landing. But it came not as soon as was expected. Day after day rolled away. Col. B, Mrs. B- and Major Gfilled up their leisure in talking over the stirring events of the late war in the south-sometimes a melancholy, and sometimes an exulting theme. Occasionally, they spoke of the country to which they were making their way the fatness of the soil-the wonderful product which it yielded to reward the cultivator—the serenity of the climate, until these elderly people found their imaginations bodying forth the forms of things unknown, turning them to shape, and giving to airy no-face. The confession of a mutual passion was then things, names and local habitations. After a halt of two days, that the horses might be rested, and refresh themselves with the green cane that grew luxuriantly round the landing, the party determined to set out. The evening before, Henry made his way to Emily's cabin, and took his seat beside her. After a long pause, he said in a subdued tone, We are going in the morning! There was no reply. Raising his head, and looking into Emily's face, he perceived that her countenance had assumed a deadly paleness. But, in an instant, her color partially returned, and her heaving bosom found relief from her tears. Throwing his arms around her, her head sunk upon his bosom, and her shining brown hair fell in profusion over her made. For a long time both were dumb. At last, But, how were the son and daughter employed, during however, the silence was interrupted by a remark from this delay at the landing? Their acquaintance was Henry, full of the tenderest interest, that he feared begun in the very bosom of the wilderness. Not a greatly for her safety in the descent of the river; and human being was to be seen who did not reside within she reciprocated this feeling, by suggesting that the a fortress, and who did not cultivate his patch of corn, party to which he would be attached, might be assailed bearing his rifle in his left hand, and guiding his plough by the Cherokees in the gorges of the mountains, or at with his right-who did not prime his arms anew before some of the narrow passes, and all cut off. The prospect he laid himself down to rest from the labors of the day. of these dangers, she said, had filled her bosom with unThat such a girl as Emily B, under such circum-utterable anguish. But he calmed her fears in some stances, should strike the fancy and rivet the attention degree, by alleging that they were strong in numbersof so young a man as Henry G―, was, of all events well armed-that they would use every precaution, that could occur in the intercourse of persons so seclu- | and, that the Indians had not been known to assail any ded, the most natural. but very small detachments of emigrants, in the unfrequented parts of the country through which they were about to pass. That a high spirited and lovely maiden should feel anxious to know the mind and heart of such a youth as Henry, was also most natural. That she should even desire to gain his kind wishes, if not his affections, was at least pardonable. In the morning all arose before daylight. The horses were saddled, the circingles were buckled over the rolls of blankets which formed part of the baggage of each The hunt was resorted to as a matter both of neces-rider, and which were to be at once the bed and the sity and amusement. Anticipating the exhilarating joys covering of each man of the party. Breakfast was of the chase, on his western tour, Henry G― had hastily prepared, and all were soon ready to mount. |