LXII.-AN APRIL DAY.

1. All day the low-hung clouds have dropt

Their garnered fullness down;
All day that soft gray mist hath wrapt

Hill, valley, grove and town.
There has not been a sound to-day

To break the calm of nature:
Nor motion, I might almost say,

Of life or living creature;
Of waving bow, or warbling bird,

Or cattle faintly lowing;
I could have half believed I heard

The leaves and blossoms growing. 2. I stood to hear, I love it well,

The rain's continuous sound;
Small drops, but thick and fast they fell,

Down straight into the ground.
For leafy thickness is not yet

Earth's naked breast to screen,
Though every dripping branch is set

With shoots of tender green.
Sure, since I looked at early morn,

Those honeysuckle buds
Have swelled to double growth; that thorn

Hath put forth larger studs ;
That lilac's cleaving cones have burst,

The milk-white flowers revealing;
Even now upon my senses first

Methinks their sweets are stealing.

3. The very earth, the steamy air

Is all with fragrance rife;
And grace and beauty everywhere

Are flushing into life.

Down, down they come, those fruitful stores!

Those earth-rejoicing drops
A momentary deluge pours,
Then thins — decreases —
-

stops;
And ere the dimples on the stream

Have circled out of sight,
Lo! from the west a parting gleam

Breaks forth of amber light.
But yet behold! abrupt and loud

Comes down the glittering rain;
The farewell of a passing cloud,
The fringes of her train.

G. CHAUCER.

LXIII.DEATH OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON.*

1. A short time since, and he who is the occasion of our sorrows was the ornament of his country. He stood on an eminence, and glory covered him. From that eminence he has fallen — suddenly, forever fallen. His intercourse with the living world is now ended; and those who would hereafter find him must seek him in

the grave.

2. There, cold and lifeless, is the heart which just now was the seat of friendship; there, dim and sightless, is the eye whose radiant and enlivening orb beamed with

intelligence; and there, closed forever, are those lips on whose persuasive accents we have so often, and so lately, hung with transport.

3. From the darkness which rests upon his tomb there proceeds, methinks, a light, in which it is clearly seen that those gaudy objects which men pursue are only phantoms. In this light, how dimly shines the splendor of victory ! how humble appears the majesty of grandeur! The bubble which seemed to have so much solidity has burst, and we again see that all below the sun is vanity.

4. True, the funeral eulogy has been pronounced ; the sad and solemn procession has moved; the badge of mourning has already been decreed; and presently the , sculptured marble will lift up its front, proud to perpetuate the name of Hamilton and rehearse to the passing traveler his virtues.

5. Just tributes of respect, and to the living useful; but to him, moldering in his narrow and humble habitation, what are they? How vain! How unavailing! Approach and behold, while I lift from his sepulcher its covering Ye admirers of his greatness, ye emulous of his talents and his fame, approach and behold him now.

6. How pale! how silent! No martial bands admire the adroitness of his movements; no fascinated throng weep, and melt, and tremble at his eloqnence. Amazing change! A shroud, a coffin, a narrow subterraneous cabin ! this is all that now remains of Hamilton. And is this all that remains of him? During a life so transi tory, what lasting monument, then, can our fondest erect?

7. My brethren, we stand on the borders of an awful gulf, which is swallowing up all things human. And is there, amidst this universal wreck, nothing stable, nothing abiding, nothing immortal, on which poor, frail, dying

man can fasten? Ask the hero; ask the statesman, whose wisdom you have been accustomed to revere, and he will tell you.

8. He will tell you, did I say? He has already told you, from his death-bed; and his illumined spirit still whispers from the heavens, with well-known eloquence, the solemn admonition: “Mortals, hastening to the tomb, and once the companions of my pilgrimage, take warning, and avoid my errors; cultivate the virtues I have recommended; live disinterestedly; live for immortality : and if you would rescue any thing from final dissolution, lay it up in God.”

ELIPHALET NOTT.

LXIV.-THE GRAVE OF AARON BURR.

1. We envy not the man who, unmoved, can gaze on the grave of Colonel Burr. It is one of the most desolate places that we have ever seen. There is no monumental pile or sculptured marble standing over it, to evince the affection, or even respect, of a single soul; not so much as a rough, unhewn stone marks the head or the foot of him who once held such sway over the minds and feelings of men.

2. Wild grass and poisonous weeds form the sod that partly covers him. The rest of the surface of the grave is sterile clay, yielding no verdant plant or shrub. The stranger treads upon the spot and regards it not, until he is told that he stands over the remains of Burr.

3. How changed the scene, when from this unmarked spot we turn to the sleeping-place of the father of Burr ! Over it there is no towering monument; but there is a massive tombstone, on which are chiseled the deeds of the loved and honored president of New Jersey College

The grave of the son is only designated by its being at the foot of the father's.

4. As the visitor stands over the grave, many scenes in the checkered and eventful life of Burr crowd upon his recollection. He remembers the 6th of February, 1756, when Burr first saw that light through which misdirected zeal led him to so many deeds of woe.

5. He calls to mind the death of both his parents, while he was only three years old; the handsome fortune that was bequeathed an orphan son; the four days' abscondance from his preceptor, when, too, he was a child of four years' growth; the run away from Mr. Edwards, for the purpose of going to sea, while he was in his eleventh year; and the entrance of Princeton College at the early age of twelve, where he graduated at the age of sixteen, taking the honors of his class in spite of a moral character that evoked much disapprobation.

6. He reflects upon him as a volunteer in the American revolution, and a soldier in the celebrated expedition of Arnold to Quebec; as an aid to General Putnam, and a conferree of the title of lieutenant-colonel. He follows him to the study of law, and admittance to the Albany bar in 1782; to the Senate in 1791; and to the second place in the high gift of the American people in 1801. 7. He beholds him the destroyer of Hamilton ; the

1 intended establisher of an empire beyond the great father of rivers, of which he was to be emperor, and the Crescent City the great capital. He sees him arraigned before the tribunal of his country, and acqnitted for want of that overt proof which his own far-stretching cunning had enveloped in impenetrable clouds.

8. And finally, he follows him from Staten Island, where, in 1836, he closed his miserable career, to the cemetery at Princeton, to be interred with the honors