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nished on which the nest, or cocoon, is spun ; and direction by stone walls, and interspersed with vathe worm, as worm, dies. A butterfly, however, riously verdant woods. would emerge from the cocoon in ten or twelve days, by eating its way out and thus spoiling the ton. silk, if it were not plunged in scalding water to den, kill the fly. Then the tow, or outer part, is pulled off, and spun into a coarser silk; the rest is wound, or reeled off, to make the proper silk-worth $4 a pound. Four, five, ten, fifty, and even a hundred pounds a year, are made in some families. In one house, where 12lbs. were made, a girl of 15 was elosely employed. Mansfield, some miles to the left of my road, is the township most famous for silk.

Hampton village-Entered the school house, where is kept one of the famed "Common-schools" | of New England. The house is planned like many that I have passed. Framed-one story-24 feet long by about 18 wide, with a stove and four windows in the school-room. A partition cuts off one end, to make an entry six feet wide, in which pots, bonnets, baskets, &c., are left ; and out of which

A barley field, three or four miles beyond HampThe owner says that Putnam's famous wolf(for which I have been steering these two days,) is but a mile or two off. The road he pointed out, led me to two very rough men, sitting in the wayside; one of whom, after some parley, engaged to guide me for 25 cents. I never saw more the air and manners of a ruffian; yet a cowardly and good-humored one. Barefooted, in his shirt sleeves-hat and waistcoat, mere apologies for the gear so called. He said he owned a fine farm close by-pointing to it-and offered to go by it and get his horse and carryall for me. But I chose to walk, and we jogged on, sociably. After house of a Mr. Fay, to whom he introduced me as going a quarter of a mile, he invited me into the a friend of his, who was going to see the wolf's den. Having taken several hearty draughts of fect on him, must have been no thin potation.) my cider, for which he called, (and which, from its efguide, Mr. Andrew Downing, resumed the line of march. Not 500 yards further, he proposed stopping at 'Squire Sharpe's, to get another drink of "cool cider." I acquiesced: having been told of Mr. Sharpe's as a place where good directions might be gotten; and desiring to see the inside of as many houses as possible. The squire was not and sensible woman she seemed. She promptly at home; but his wife was-and a ladylike, kind, complied with Mr. Downing's call for some cideroffering me a glass, too; and when I declined it,

you go into the school room. Thus the latter has no outer door-to the promotion of its warmth and cleanliness. When I knocked, the teacher, (a pretty young woman of 19 or 20,) came to receive me and, on my asking permission to rest awhile and see her mode of teaching, she said, "if you please, sir" and surrendered me her chair; she standing, and walking round to her several classes and pupils. Two or three classes said spelling lessons. On their coming up to recite, she would stamp with her foot, and say, "Attend!" when each one drop-she pressed on me some switchell. ped a curtesy, or made a bow, and forthwith the recitation began. The spelling was odd enough- and in the outer room, my guide, spying the cider We took our leave, after sitting twenty minutes; letters and syllables mumbled over, yet with tem- pitcher on a sideboard, took a long, and earnest pestuous loudness, so that I could only guess what farewell draught. He now almost staggered; his the varlets were saying. A reading class actually got through five or six sentences, before I could fences and through fields, "in various talk th' intongue perceptibly tripped. On we strode over with my best endeavors distinguish one word, or structive" moments passing. Andrew particularly conjecture what the subject was. All the half hour that I staid, the teacher, (or school-marm, as he was sure he and I would be pleased with each regretted Squire Sharpe's absence from home, as they call her,) was on her feet; walking to and fro, o her. Andrew had been a prodigious traveller and rebuking one, patting another to make him take his hands out of his breeches,--soothing and en-Ohio-"to Europe and France," and Cape Horn. sailor had been to New York, Pennsylvania and couraging. Her countenance betokened much decision of character and intelligence.

"Are you not related," said I, to the famous Major Jack Downing, who has written so many funny letters in the newspapers ?"

Hampton Hill commands a fine prospect. But a finer, though less extensive, presently occurred. Descending into the valley, then mounting the opposite hill, and the top of a large rock, there lay couragement no doubt he would have essayed a before and around me the village of Hampton; a description of Downingville from personal obserromantic brook, (one of the Thames' head waters,) vation.

"He is a cousin of mine," said Andrew, with perfect gravity and nonchalance. With a little en

running due South, along the valley; a singular He pointed out a second farm of his, let to a hill, round as the dome of a rotunda, and not much tenant. larger, crowned with tombstones, and surrounded

This "town" [township] is Pomfret-General

at its base by a stone fence which sets it apart as Putnam's native one-in Windham county. The the village burying-ground;—many a neat farm, whole region is semi-mountainous, with a great deal and many a boldly swelling hill, crossed in every of woodland for Connecticut-half, I should think.

VOL. XIV-49

My guide says, the poor of Abington society, in this town, 15 or 20 in all, are kept by him, as the lowest bidder, at so much a head. The paupers who can, work; and he has the proceeds.

a traveller to hurry on, though he has no business ahead, and no body is expecting him.

Reached Pomfret Landing (on the Quinebaug) in 2 miles; and in 3 more Field's tavern, in a Presently reached the wood's edge, on a steep small village, formed by a factory and the buildings hill-side, where the den was. Here D. professed connected with it. My landlord, like most in Congreat perplexity as to the spot; though he had necticut, does what is essential to a quest's com been to it "fifty times in the last twelve months." fort, but is grudging of bland words, and even of He actually rambled about for half an hour before he found it. Whether this affectation was to raise my estimate of his service, or for some other purpose of knavery or waggery I could not discover; but after following him in a few of his turns I sat down upon a log, bidding him search away, and call me when he had found the place. resorted to conjuration. Cutting a whortleberry twig he put it, leaves downward, against a sapling; then splitting the butt end, and looking very wise, and aching-having walked 22 miles to-day. My with several strange gestures-"The den is south!" yesterday's walk was 30.

He now

said he. But it proved to be north. For, after going south a little way, he turned and went much farther north and at last hailed me to the DEN. I went; and saw what, with the exploit of which it was the scene, has filled a larger space in my wondering fancy from childhood than Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant Killer, and Red Ridinghood all put together.

For

The den runs as it were into the hill, beneath a slightly projecting rock. The mouth is 2 or 3 feet wide from right to left; and about as high. 7 or 8 feet from the entrance it slopes gently downwards; thence, narrowing, it slightly ascends. I did not enter; as, from the first, I must have crawled on hands and knees, and then more abjectly still; which would have soiled my clothesbesides risk of foul air, and rattle-snakes-the latter being frequent. Neither did I think my hat and coat would be safe in the custody of my worthy cicerone, while their owner should be buried in the wolf's lair.

D. insisted that I should add my name to hundreds of others, carved on the surrounding trees; and smoothed me a place on a maple. Next, he led me to an overhanging rock, lower down the hill; where he said, the neighbors, a hundred at least, met, after the wolf affair, and celebrated it with divers bottles of wine. This must have been 1750, on the frontier of an infant colony-of puritans too! Guiding me out of the wood he showed me the road to a point on Quinebaug river (a branch of the Thames.) where the turnpike from Hartford to Providence crosses. D. repeatedly urged me to go home with him, where he promised fiddling and dancing, plenty of cider, and an assemblage of pretty girls. I was so foolish as to refuse this capital opportunity of seeing rustic manners, in one of the most primitive districts of New England. Partly, the mean character of my new friend prevented me-and partly that vague proneness of

courteous answers to questions. Says there are more abolitionists in the neighborhood. Indeed a fire-eating one is at my elbow while I jot down these notes: a working-man he calls himself. His reasonings on the subject are above my comprehension. My host is with me. The fire eater gives me a shocking account of the factory moralsa many-headed depravity among the operatives. To bed at half past nine. Feet and ancles sore

MORNING IN SUMMER.

BY SIDNEY DYER.

The rising sun with golden fingers parts
The sable locks from off fair Morning's brow,
And warmly kisses from her dew-wet cheek
The marks of grief which night had scattered there,
Then leads her blushing forth, in radiance dressed,
To meet and yield her virgin charms and reign
To noon's embrace and fervid rule.

Anon,

The murky vapors, which have heavy lain
Upon the mountain's top, thence spreading wide
Their ghostly folds the sleeping landscape o'er,
More slowly up the rugged mountain's side,
And from its topmost peak reluctant take
Their leave of earth, and wildly launch upon
A long ærial, uncertain voyage,
The idle sport of every changing wind,
Which soon each misty wreath will rend, and lay
Their pride upon some distant shore, to kiss
The vulgar soil, or quickly in the storm,
Blend with the ocean's waves their last remains.
The prowling beasts and croaking birds of night,
On foul and murderous aims intent, now seek
The dismal cave, to hide in deepest gloom
Afraid, as men of guilty souls would shun
The searching light of day, which would expose
Their thievish plots, or deeds of darker dye;
But spotless innocence walks fearless forth,
Nor shuns the brightest glare of heaven's light,
Which brings no dread, but gilds with brighter hues
Its native truthfulness!

All grades of life,
Which through the night has been but passive held,
As from a general resurrection, now

Arise, all teeming with activity.

The lark, from 'neath the clover's scented shade,
Spreads her glad wing to greet the rising sun,
And from her trembling throat, in thrilling strains,
Her morning praise floats up to heaven! The wren,
The thrush, the red-breast, (sweetest fair of all
The feathered tenants of the wood,) and all
The songsters of the vocal groves, trills each

Its varying note, which blending make the harp
Which fills the woodland shade with harmony.
The butterfly now spreads its gandy wings,
Their downy velvet richly jewelled o'er
With infinite drops of dew, which reflect

A thousand tiny rainbows round its form.

PASSAGES

IN THE

VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE,

From Twenty to Fifty Years Since, &c.

A Mr. Lee, member of the House of Delegates, wore a wig, with a long queue, in the old fashion. A waggish brother member (Roberts of Culpeper) one day saw Lee wriggling in his seat, and trying

The flowers, whose closing leaves had barred their halls, to catch the speaker's eye, that he might rise and

As night approached to spread its sable shades,
And rob them of their beauty, now unfold
Their fragrant leaves to catch a brighter hue
From the fresh palette of the morning sun.
The busy humming bee flies forth to cull,
With eager haste, the sweets remaining from
The flower's last banqueting. The cattle low
Upon the hills, or rise to cross the plain.
The frisking lamb runs sportive o'er the mead,
Or wages mimic war, and bold defies
The leader out. Proud chanticleer awakes,
And loudly peals his warning note, and leads,
In strutting glory, all his brood to glean

Their morning fare. The plough-boy yokes the team,
And whistling goes to turn the yielding glebe,
With lighter heart than ever beat beneath
A royal diadem; while round the door,

Just from their beds, half dressed, the urchins play,
With rosy cheeks, bright eyes, and flaxen curls.
Their joyous happy shout rings loud and clear,
As with old Ponto locked they roll supine
Along the ground, or trip it lightly o'er
The door yard green.

Now sounds the mellow horn,
Whose welcome note declares the morning meal
Already laid upon the well-spread board,
An early gift from heaven. First round the hearth
The bappy group with reverence come, to hear
The words of truth flow from a father's lips;
And then with him to kneel with humble awe
Around that Altar, where so oft the heart
Has poured its sorrows out in fervent prayer,
And felt them pass away, as light returns,
When passing clouds reveal the sun's bright face.
O sacred sight! to see a father pray!
His face upturned wherein assurance strong
Is seen, and faith which no dental takes;
And through its time-marked lines, the soul within
Seems struggling out, as though it would leap forth,
Aud mingle back with its eternal source!
Their thauks devoutly paid, they slowly rise,
And seek the wonted place around the board
So truly blessed of heaven! Then each with joy
Returns to that employ which yields the fruit
Of honest toil and heaven-rewarded care!
But now the circling earth has onward moved
To that position marked, where blushing morn
Resigns its brief control to fervid noon.

Louisville, Kentucky.

make a speech. R. dexterously tied the queue to
the high back of the bench, on which L. sat-and
such as all that House sat on, till within the last
ten or twelve years. The next moment, a favora-
ble juncture came, and Mr. Lee rose eagerly, ex-
claiming, "Mr. Speaker!"-but his wig came off;
and, turning to Roberts, he in the same breath cried
out, "
You're a fool!"

The House roared, of course.

A member, before the convention sat in 1829 to amend the Constitution of Virginia, used to say that he could write a better constitution than the old one, with a fire-coal, upon a board.

When the Virginia school-system (such it is) was under discussion, General Breckenridge wished the disposable funds laid out in a university, and colleges: Mr. Doddridge, in Primary Schools, for teaching rudiments. As they sat together one day in the H. of D., an old member named B

making a speech, mentioned" the sov-e-ran-ity of the States." Said Brackenridge aside to Doddridge, "I think that's strong argument in favor of a University." "No," replied D., “I think it is a stronger one for Primary Schools."

Mr. Doddridge was once in the chair; and, there being no business going on, pulled out some bank notes, and began to count them. Gen. Blackburn rose and said, "Mr. Speaker, I move that those Bills be laid upon the table." Doddridge hastily huddled his notes into his pocket, and said, "The gentleman from Bath is out of order!"

A bashful member (from Augusta, I think) rose to make his maiden speech, on some local question interesting to his constituents, and began,-

"Mr. Speaker!-What shall I say to my constituents ?"-and then, unable to utter another syllable, stood with lips apart, in the mute stupefaction of terror.

Gen. Blackburn, leaning forward in his seat, said in a whisper audible all over the House,-" Tell 'em you tried to make a speech!" The poor victim of bashfulness sunk down upon the bench, and never attempted to speak afterwards.

When the late Governor Barbour was Speaker, a member from a Southside county (whom I shall call Mr. Kyle) rose to speak-unaccustomed perhaps it was his maiden speech. He was very much in love with the beauteous Miss Fouray, daughter of doctor Fonray, who was also a menber. Mr. K. began

"Mr. Speaker! I rise, freighted with opinions too big for utterance, yet too momentous and too mighty to be suppressed:" [Here Dr. Fouray entered the Hall]" But-yonder comes doctor Fouray!"-and down Mr. K. sat, without further power of utterance. The speaker, willing to relieve his embarrassment and rally his fainting spirit, called out," Mr. Kyle has the floor!" Mr. K. hereupon rose again and said,

Notices of New Works.

ORTA-UNDIS, and other Poems. By J. M. Legaré. Boston. William D. Ticknor & Company. 1848.

A writer in a recent number of Fraser's Magazine, in reviewing Mr. Longfellow's Evangeline, hails it as the very first poem of indigenous American growth. We are not prepared to concede this, but, assuredly, our poets have displayed as yet little literary patriotism, and we are inclined to think that, if we had a rostrum and an audience, we could “pronounce" them a very good lecture "on the duty of"-staying at home. To reproduce the feeble imagery of the Lake School or to send back the echoes of Mrs. He

mans seems to be the design of a majority of our modera minstrels. Some there are, (even of the highest on the roll,) who can find nothing on their own soil to kindle the sacred flame, whose best productions are inspired by srenery they have never beheld or events that belong to a past age,

Presenting Thebes or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,-.

others, with cosmopolitan frenzy, sing of localities all round the world, while others again seem really to have

"Mr. Speaker! The grandest thoughts were in written in vacuo, for their "airy nothings" have no “local my mind, that it ever entered into my soul to con-habitation" whatever.

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This is altogether wrong.

We want no epics of a con

ventional world, no madrigals of moonshine. The litera

ture of America should be marked by a distinctive homefeeling and nourished by the affections that spring up from

her own earth. There are abundant sources of inspiration everywhere throughout her borders, then why should her sons seek for other climes to celebrate, or "think to climb Parnassus, by dint o' Greek"? They may find subjects in their own homesteads. The elements of song are all around

Every body knows that Henry made his debut them. The same stars are set in the heavens that the Chal

as a lawyer in what is called "The Parsons' cause,' in the county court of Hanover. One particular passage of that speech is said by his biographer, Mr. Wirt, to have driven the reverend clergy in dismay from the Bench and from the Court-House,

and in

deans saw, nature still robes the fields in gay colors, the surges of the everlasting sea are sounding in our ears, the heart of man are the same desires and longings-the same impulses and aspirations-the same hopes and mysteries, that have furnished themes of speculation to the poets

of all time.

These reflections have been suggested by the modest lit

where they had assembled in the confident expec-tle volume before us. We are glad to recognize in Mr. Letation of an easy victory. The following is a part garé a true worshipper of Nature, a genuine poet of the of that passage-reported by Mr. W. N., of Louisa county, whose memory is a store-house of varied and valuable reminiscences. He derived this one from his grandfather, who was an eye-and-ear-wit

ness of the scene:

"Gentlemen of the Jury, do these pretended disciples of Christ obey the precepts and imitate the example of their sacred master Jesus, in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked,—in going about every day, continually doing good? No, no,-far, very far from it! Such is the avarice, such the insatiable thirst for gold, of these ecclesiastical harpies, that they would take the last hoecake from the widow and the orphan, and the last blanket from the lying-in woman!"—

M.

South, whose healthy and graceful verses reflect the very features of her landscapes. In every descriptive poem we have an exquisite little picture, radiant with all the hues of the Southern sky. We select the following as a pleasing specimen of his style.

THE REAPER.

How still Earth lies!-hehind the pines
The summer clouds sink slowly down.
The sunset gilds the higher hills
And distant steeples of the town.

Refreshed and moist the meadow spreads,
Birds sing from out the dripping leaves,
And standing in the breast-high corn
I see the farmer bind his sheaves.

It was when on the fallow fields
The heavy frosts of winter lay,
A rustic with unsparing hand
Strewed seed along the furrowed way

And I too, walking through the waste
And wintry hours of the past,
Have in the furrows made by griefs
The seeds of future harvests cast.
Rewarded well, if when the world
Grows dimmer in the ebbing light,
And all the valley lies in shade,
But sunset glimmers on the height.
Down in the meadows of the heart
The birds sing out a last refrain,
And ready garnered for the mart
I see the ripe and golden grain.

We mention these faults, because we would have Mr. Legaré avoid the commission of similar ones in future. We shall look with great interest to his literary efforts, feeling assured that he will yet achieve something of permanent fame for himself and Southern Literature.

THE POWER OF THE PULPIT, or Thoughts Addressed to Christian Ministers, and those who hear them. By Gardner Spring, D. D. New York. Baker & Scribner. 1848.

The last, and in many respects the best work, of an able and venerable man. The most careless observer cannot

These four stanzas from "A May Morn" are highly con- fail to be struck with the extending influence of religious

sonant to nature.

Last night the town was close and warm,
But while we slept, arose a storm:
And now how clear

And cool and fresh the morning air.

How still it is!-the city lies
Behind, half hidden from the eyes;
And from the tops

Of trees around the moisture drops.

A bird with scarlet on his wings,
Down in the meadow sits and sings;
Beneath his weight

The long corn-tassels undulate.

The thrush and red-bird in the brake
Flit up and from the blossoms shake,
Across the grass,

A fragrant shower where I pass.

Mr. Legaré is no mean poet of the affections. He does not indeed embalm in anapæsts the heartless sentimentalism of an artificial society, nor does he, with senseless egotism, lay hare his own heart to our gaze, but he sings of those delights and regrets which have their birth in the tender passion and which have set apart forever the lovesongs of Burns. We adduce no instance of this, because we regard the poems in the present volume, rather as affording promise of what Mr. Legaré will do, than as enduring evidences of his power.

sentiment, among all ranks and classes of society. At no former period, in the history of our country, at least, has there been a more universal deference paid to religion and its ministers. This is rendered every day more apparent, by the increasing numbers who throng the churches of the evangelical denominations in our land--by the multiplication of religious newspapers and periodicals-by the marked attention which even the secular press now pays to ecclesiastical assemblages and acts-and by the demand for a higher standard of ministerial talent and attainment than was once required.

It was, in part, in reference to this demand, that Dr. Spring issued the work now under consideration. Containing as it does the results of long observation, the conclusions of a highly gifted and matured mind, replete with stirring appeals to those who fill the sacred office on the responsibility of their station, the necessity of profound and varied learning, of accomplished and conciliating manners, and above all, of deep-toned personal piety-it cannot fail to aid in the elevation of that standard of ministerial qualifi cation, and in the augmenting of that hallowed "Power" which the pulpit must possess, in order that it may ever

acknowledged stand

The most important and effectual guard, Support, and ornament of virtue's cause.

On first opening the book, our eye chanced to light on a beautiful and well-deserved tribute to the memory of an illustrious Divine recently deceased-one in whose splendid Occasionally the effect of Mr. Legaré's versification is genius the gospel was so enshrined, as to liken it to “an Al

marred by a needless inversion, as the stanza,

"As costly diamonds in their lees,
Washed from beneath the roots of trees
By torrents, find the Bengalese."

where the construction is just the reverse of what Mr. Legaré intended. Again, in a very sweet poem, we find a passage in which we are perplexed to get at the author's meaning,

"When Diana dimly rising
Through the openwork of trees,
On the cliff-sides, on the steeples
Travels down by slow degrees

Silently the pallid splendor,

Till behind our shadows stream,
Like the shapes uncouth and dismal
We encounter in a dream." pp. 70, 71.

Should it not have been

"When Diana dimly rises?"

We should like to copy "Quæ Pulchrior?" if only to show how trippingly the verse runs on, and to ask Mr. Legare the meaning of a "carcanet mind."

hambra with a seraph for its occupant."

That this is no extravagant encomium, all will admit, when we mention, as we ever must, with the profoundest veneration, the name of CHALMERS.

We beg leave to extract Dr. Spring's brief, but happy reference to his character and labors. "The life and death of the late Dr. Chalmers present a most delightful view of that high degree of enjoyment which attends a laborious minister. In all the voluminous productions of his pen I do not recollect a gloomy or pensive thought. The most grave and weighty subjects he treats, not indeed without solemnity, but with a buoyancy and vigor that indicates a cheerful and happy mind. I love to think of such a man, and to dwell on the undying verdure of his clustering thoughts. Even his stern and struggling career interests me, it was so light and gladsome. I love to think of him climbing up the hill of Mount Zion, holding on sometimes by the jutting rocks, and sometimes by the green boughs, ever tasking his fortitude as he ascends, till, like Moses on the top of Nebo, he looks for the last time on the plain below, and scarcely conscious of the change, finds himself by the men of light and love, and in the presence of God and the Lamb. I sometimes think of such a man, and say, I would not be a Lazzaroni. 'I have no desire to be a weed on the shore.""

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