renewed with promptitude and regularity, being brought in by a long file of servants, each one of whom delivered his charge to a superior attendant, by whom it was placed upon the table. The whole ceremony did not exceed one hour, when we returned to the Salon of Reception, in the order we had left it.

In French society, the practice which prevails in England, and which we have borrowed from that country, of sitting at table after the ladies have retired, and guzzling wine, (the epithet is a coarse one, but not so coarse as the custom,) is unknown. It is a relic of barbarism, and ought to be banished. It leads too often to orgies, and not to pleasures; substituting for rational enjoyment excessive indulgence. I have never been at a dinner in Continental Europe, where the ladies and gentlemen did not retire from the table together. It is very seldom that the entertainment exceeds eighty or ninety minutes; and often, after returning to the salon, I have heard some experienced eater observe, with all the self-complacency inspired by a most satisfactory meal, 'It was an excellent dinner, and we were at table but an hour!'

EXERCISE CLXIX.

THE SAME SUBJECT, CONCLUDED.

French life has also its deep shadows; and if any American envies the one, let him recollect that the other does not rest upon his country. If we have no Saint Cloud, neither have we any of that misery to which the inequality of condition in Europe gives birth. Here is a family, elevated by its position, estimable by its virtues, and surrounded by all those external circumstances which the world considers as the clements of true happiness; and what is better, they have also those moral qualities, without which high rank becomes the shame of its possessors, and a pernicious example to all within the sphere of its influence. And yet the head of this family, the Chief of the State, cannot pass the threshhold of his door, without being exposed to the bullet of the assassin. What a

reproach upon the country, where such crimes are engen dered, if not applauded!

Thank God! we have in our country 'neither poverty nor riches,' in the European acceptation of these terms. We have none of those overgrown fortunes, which accumulate in particular families enormous wealth, placing under their control large regions of fertile land, with all who inhabit them; and thus rendering the mass miserable, that the few may live in luxury. I content myself with stating the facts as they exist, without comment or reproach; neither seeking to investigate the cause, nor to suggest the remedy.

As one of the phases of human life, an American may well be anxious to observe the condition and manners of high European society, and to describe them for his countrymen. But the description, if faithful, will contain much more for warning than for imitation. When contrasted with the extremity of penury and wretchedness which everywhere meet the eye, the present tendency of the institutions in Europe, whether continental or insular, presents a subject of painful reflection to the foreign traveller, and, I should think, of serious alarm to every lover of good order, and to every wellwisher of human nature.

In fact, European society is a volcano, prepared at any moment for an eruption, which may bury beneath its lava the happiness of generations. The evil, in truth, lies far deeper than mere appearances indicate. Political institutions certainly require regeneration; a better adaptation to the present state of society, and to the prevalent opinions of the world; a system of legislation and administration, not in the interest of the few who govern, but seeking the general welfare of the entire community. But, beyond this, there are causes in operation which laws cannot reach, and which governments, if they can effect, cannot control. Property is too unequally divided; population presses too closely upon subsistence; employment is too often wanting, and too insufficiently paid; and penury and misery are the consequences. Life, in advance, offers to the laboring man nothing but a perpetual struggle to procure the means of subsistence, and the prospect of early decrepitude, and of a death in some den of wretchedness, public or private.

The extremity of suffering which the old world exhibits, is beyond the reach of an American imagination to conceive. I

shall confine myself to a single fact. I passed the last summer at Versailles, where the commanding general put at my disposition an officer to accompany me in my walks, and to point out the various localities worthy of particular observation, at that seat of wonders. He was a very intelligent man, and well educated; and I owe to his conversation much knowledge of the true condition of things in the internal economy of France. He was from the neighborhood of Amiens, and his father was a small proprietor. I asked him, one day, what was the usual breakfast of the laboring people in that part of the country. He said, 'Plenty of water, and a piece of ammunition bread, rubbed with an onion !'

Well may an American exclaim with the royal Psalmist, not proudly, but with all the humility of gratitude to that Providence who has given us such a country and such institutions: 'The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage!'

Alba . Greens

EXERCISE CLX.

TO THE WEATHERCOCK ON OUR STEEPLE.

The dawn has broke, the morn is up,
Another day begun;

And there thy poised and gilded spear
Is flashing in the sun,

Upon that steep and lofty tower

Where thou thy watch hast kept,

A true and faithful sentinel,

While all around thee slept.

Men slander thee, my honest friend,
And call thee, in their pride,

An emblem of their fickleness,
Thou ever-faithful guide.

Each weak, unstable human mind
Aweathercock' they call;

And thus, unthinkingly, mankind
Abuse thee, one and.all.

They have no right to make thy name
A by-word for their deeds: -

They change their friends, their principles,
Their fashions, and their creeds;

Whilst thou hast ne'er, like them, been known
Thus causelessly to range;

But when thou changest sides, canst give

Good reason for the change.

Thou, like some lofty soul, whose course
The thoughtless oft condemn,
Art touched by many airs from heaven
Which never breathe on them,
And moved by many impulses

Which they do never know,

Who, round their earth-bound circles, plod
The dusty paths below.

Through one more dark and cheerless night
Thou well hast kept thy trust,
And now in glory o'er thy head
The morning light has burst.
And unto earth's true watcher, thus,
When his dark hours have passed,
Will come 'the day-spring from on high,'
To cheer his path at last.

Bright symbol of fidelity,

Still may I think of thee:

And may the lesson thou dost teach

Be never lost on me;

But still, in sunshine or in storm,

Whatever task is mine,

May I be faithful to my trust.

As thou hast been to thine.

RULE FOR READING FAMILIAR POETRY.

POETIC PIECES, IN FAMILIAR STYLE, require THE EASY MANNER OF CONVERSATION, A LIVELY UTTERANCE, and WELLMARKED EMPHASIS, carefully guarded, however, from the dry style f prose reading.

EXERCISE CLXI.

SUNSET AMONG THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.-John S. Stone.

What finishes the effect of the scenic picture in these romantic regions, an effect, without which the magnificent whole, however grand in itself, would be comparatively tame, -is the gorgeously sublime and touchingly solemn effect of SUNSET among these highland peaks.

As we swept along the glassy surface of the dark waters, we saw, on turning our eyes to the north, and looking away into the narrow and endless recess, headland behind headland, running down from the tall western mountains into the lake, like enormous buttresses propping the battlements of a mighty castle, and leaving opening after opening through the split summits, which threw themselves up in all imaginable forms, and among which Ben-Arthur, with his 'cobbler' shaped pinnacle, rose away into the heavens,, in all his wild raggedness and grandeur.

To sit thus, and look upon these noble mountain forms; upon the soft, the rich, the almost holy light of the setting sun, as it finged their summits, and poured its flood through their openings, as if in molten gold, upon the lake; to look upon the bold and fantastic outlines of their ridges, standing out in luminous relief against the glorious evening sky; upon the deep and widening masses of shade, cast by the mountains upon the edge of the lake, and seen in dark contrast with alternate floods of golden light; and upon the still sleeping of these almost fathomless waters, containing, like a deep mind in its stillest mood, all their mystic treasures and all their resistless power; to sit thus, and look upon this splendid conflict between departing day and coming night, upon this gorgeous gilding of creation, as if in promise that the coming day should be as beautiful as the past, was to live amidst a scene indescribably grand, and to feel the impossibility, to a serious mind, of contemplating it without deep and solemn emotions.

Our thoughts, amidst the silence of the evening, went irresistibly up to heaven, and busied themselves amidst the wonders of that world, where more glorious heights arise, where a more glorious light shineth, where more mysterious depths spread themselves beneath the mind, and where all tokens of God's presence give place to the infinite reality itself. There, our thoughts dwelt, the while, in calm delight.