Juno sat cross-legged over the nativity of any man's | mation of his rider, he neither felt the want of a intellectual offspring. The prose, however, is not directing hand, nor failed to take advantage of it. nearly equal in merit to the poetry, and degenerates No refusal, no hesitation of any kind stopped him into the virulence of personality little interesting to for a moment; on the contrary, his multiplied another generation. A different account may be bounds seemed only to increase his pace.-Long given of the ballads of the Jacobites. Many of their and reiterated bravos were soon heard at the winlyrics were the testimony of affection to the gal-ning post, which Mr. Moggridge reached in four lantry and worth of the unreturning brave. Soldiers minutes and fifty seconds." covered with wounds threw flowers upon the graves of the heroes who had served them as a model. Their song rises at the description of their glory, and sinks to sadness at the uniform story of their fate. They have the spirit to reach the elevation of their subject, and a pathos equal to their misfor--Some people had anticipated sensations of dread

tunes.

These histories of the eventful times we have been considering, are of somewhat greater use than to gratify an idle curiosity, or to form the means of amusement for an idle hour. They enlighten the present age by past experience and example. They are dragged from the obscurity of manuscript to teach us, that the same errors now urged upon the world as discovered truth, have been met and vanquished by our fathers. They show us their former origin, their progress, and decline, and by instructing us how to avoid them, we have the true philosophy of history, which does not render the present an abstraction when discoursing of the past.

STEEPLE CHASE IN FRANCE.

The rider appeared to have experienced fatigue, but not so the horse, who finished with a leap of more than twenty-three feet over a brook. He had cleared in his progress fifteen fences, one of them a hedge six feet high, with brushwood at each side.

at witnessing a sight which they believed to be excessively dangerous; but, on observing the mutual confidence between the rider and his horse, they were soon relieved from their apprehensions. The emotions felt at an ordinary horse race are dull compared with the palpitations excited on witnessing an exertion which some cavillers have been disposed to compare with the combats of the circus, which should rather recall the remembrance of the rude tilts of the middle ages. Since that period steeple chases have been regularly established, and the French government and local societies, anxious to improve the breed of horses, give annual prizes both for flat races and steeple chases. The latter expression, like the word beefsteak, or rather bifstick, has been adopted by the French, who have not any corresponding term in their own language. They also employ the compound word gentlemanrider, I presume, from the extreme difficulty of defining that personage.-[Hairby's Rambles in Normandy.

CITY OF MATAMORAS, ITS CATHEDRAL.

OH! England, how much you have to answer for! Until within a very few years the Normans, and the same may be said of the French in general, thought it absolutely impossible for any man to ride a mile straight a-head over fences. About five years ago an English gentleman of my acquaintance, residing at Avranches, offered, one evening, CLEVERLY in Matamoras, the first impression you at a French party, a bet that he would ride his receive is the desolate feeling created by the prison horse a mile and three quarters across the country aspect of all the houses. They have a semi-Moorin less than ten minutes. His proposal was imme-ish appearance, and you cannot divest yourself of diately accepted, the French gentleman giving him the idea that a city thus built must be inhabited by odds, and allowing him twelve minutes for his work, people of jealous dispositions, subject to civil war for they thought it impossible he could do it in less. and of unsocial habits. As you pass along you see, Several thousand persons assembled to see the per-peeping through grated windows, pairs of dark eyes formance, it was so new, and seemed so difficult. The enthusiasm of the spectators, some of whom were people of high rank, was intense; and some ladies were so complimentary as to assure the rider that he was the admiration of the whole world." -He had a thorough bred English hunter, and, without any difficulty, rode the distance in four minutes and fifty seconds.

To give my sporting countrymen some idea of the light in which this performance was regarded, I shall translate a passage from an article which appeared in the Avranches Journal, written by and bearing the signature of the Count St. Germain, a gentleman of education, property, and distinction: This fine animal glided like a serpent through the branches which opposed his progress, stooped his head with great sagacity, and then, stretching his limbs, passed, at a single bound, the fences in his way, giving to the imagination the notion of a disembodied form moving in open space. He cleared in two bounds the wooden fences protected by streams, gathering up his legs, sometimes like a stag in its attempts to escape from the hounds, proportioning his efforts to the difficulty of the jump, and altering his style of going according to the nature of the ground. Yielding to the least inti

that flash strangely with fear and curiosity, and little children retreat before you with that gait peculiar to the young of timid animals, that flee from instinct, before they do it from reason. The double door, opened at an angle to admit the air, gives glimpses of deep brunettes, throwing remarkably luxuriant and dark tresses over their heads, previous to arranging them for the evening listlessness.

Men sit sullenly about in their fantastic dresses, half of them looking as if they had been stolen from a stock company of a theatre, while engaged in playing a "brigand piece." There is a flaunting, stilleto-you-in-the-dark expression about them. As you wander on you find the city remarkably well laid out, and although giving evidences of having seen better days, still it is far from being destitute of attractive buildings. Once fairly in the Plaza Hidalgo, the principal square of the city, you can rest yourself under the shade of some stunted China trees, and then commence examining at your leisure.

You will at once be attracted by the unfinished cathedral, which is so managed that the houses on its wings appear to be part of the cathedral itself, giving to the mass a very imposing appearance; it

She in her fondness knew not, sooth to say.

For if the sky-lark's pipe was shrill and strong,
And its rich tones the thrilling ear might please,
Yet Pusybell could breathe a fireside song
As winning, when she lay on Lucy's knees.

bounds one entire side of the plaza. The architect | That which the tender-hearted girl preferred; commenced with most excellent intentions, and but for a want of funds would have made a splendid building. Two fine but unfinished towers command the sides of the cathedral, upon one of which is rudely laid a piece of timber from which are suspended a couple of bells. The large gothic door in the centre would have exposed the interior with great effect, but alas, some misfortune overwhelmed its progress, and left the bare walls, to provoke the imagination into contemplating the reasons why a work so well begun was not completed.

In front, seated in the angles formed by the bases of the pillars, or upon the bases themselves, are fifty or more poor miserable creatures, who seem, in their poverty, to have nothing in abundance but sunshine, and that they are determined to enjoy. Many are disgustingly disfigured by slow cankerous diseases, that appear to render their victims hideous, and yet will not kill. Some are slightly wounded soldiers, who have crawled out of the hospitals for fresh air. Few well dressed persons linger in their vicinity, but pass decorously on and disappear in a narrow alley way on the right of the cathedral, where we enter.

Having done so you soon come to a small room, no doubt intended originally for the sacristy, but now used as a chapel. The walls are plain, and there is no wealth about the altar to tempt sacrilegious hands. The adornments, on the contrary, are of little value, and of a kind in no way harmonious with the objects for which they are appropriated. The priest is at the altar in the act of celebrating mass, the worshipping congregation is impressive, and tempts the heart to join in the solemn

service.

Before you are kneeling some twenty Mexican women, many of them quite handsome, all calculated to excite curiosity. They kneel gracefully, and accidentally as possible expose a fine foot, tastefully set off with a small slipper. There are but two Mexican men in the house, shame upon the sex, but there are men there beside, noble and true-hearted men, who form a curious sight, all the circumstances 'considered. Some twenty United States troops, in their uniforms, are on their knees at prayer, among the most devotional in the house. It was a sight to see those thus engaged who but a few days before were surrounded by the terrors of the battle field, busy, prominently busy, in the work of death.Such is one of the cathedrals in Matamoras, and the principal building in the city.-N. O. Tropic.

E

Both knew her voice, and each alike would seek
Her eye, her smile, her fondling touch to gain:
How faintly, then, may words her sorrow speak,
When by the one she sees the other slain.

The flowers fall scattered from her lifted hand;
A cry of grief she utters in affright;
And self-condemned for negligence she stands
Aghast and helpless at the cruel sight

Come, Lucy, let me dry those tearful eyes;
Take thou, dear child, a lesson not unholy,
From one whom nature taught to moralize,
Both in his mirth and in his melancholy.

I

will not warn thee not to set thy heart
Too fondly upon perishable things;
In vain the earnest preacher spends his art
Upon that theme: in vain the poet sings.

It is our nature's strong necessity,

And this the soul's unerring instincts tell;
Therefore I say, let us love worthily,
Dear child, and then we cannot love too well.
Better it is all losses to deplore,

Which dutiful affection can sustain,
Than that the heart should, in its inmost core,
Harden without it, and have lived in vain.

This love which thou hast lavished, and the woe
Which makes thy lip now quiver with distress,
Are but a vent, an innocent overflow,

From the deep springs of female tenderness.

It had a place assigned in yonder skies, There, through an endless life of joyous youth, To warble in the bowers of Paradise,

We have sometimes thought that a few of South-But didst thou know, in sure and sacred truth, ey's small poems, which are hardly known, are the most felicitous in expression of all his writings, and the most beautiful in sentiment. The following we have read perhaps a hundred times, but never without feeling it breathing over us like a cool breeze in one of these sultry days. We publish it with the hope that it may have a similar influence on our readers.-C. Register.

ON A PICTURE BY J. M. WRIGHT, ESQ.
[Engraved for the Keepsake of 1829.]

The sky-lark hath perceived his prison-door,
Unclosed; for liberty the captive tries :
Puss eagerly hath watched him from the floor,
And in her grasp he flutters, pants, and dies.
Lucy's own Puss, and Lucy's own dear Bird,

Her foster'd favorites both for many a day,

Lucy, if then the power to thee were given
In that cold form its life to reëngage,
Wouldst thou call back the warbler from its heaven
To be again the tenant of a cage?

Only that thou might'st cherish it again,

Wouldst thou the object of thy love recall
To mortal life, and chance, and change, and pain,
And death, which must be suffered once by all?

Oh, no, thou say'st: oh, surely not, not so!

I read the answer which those looks express; For pure and true affection, well I know,

Leaves in the heart no room for selfishness.

Such love of all our virtues is the gem;

We bring with us the immortal seeds at birth; Of heaven it is, and heavenly; woe to them Who make it wholly earthly and of earth!

What we love perfectly, for its own sake

We love, and not our own, being ready thus Whate'er self-sacrifice is asked, to make;

That which is best for it, is best for us.

O Lucy! treasure up that pious thought!

It hath a balm for sorrow's deadliest darts;
And with true comfort thou wilt find it fraught,
If grief should reach thee in thy heart of hearts.

FAITH AND HOPE.

A PARABLE-BY WORDSWORTH.

ONE morning as the sun arose, two spirits went forth upon the earth.

And they were sisters; but Faith was of mature age, while Hope was yet a child.

They were both beautiful. Some loved to gaze upon the countenance of Faith, for her eye was serene, and her beauty changed not; but Hope was the delight of every eye.

And the child sported in the freshness of the morning and as she hovered over the gardens and dewy lawns, her wings glittered in the sunbeams like a rainbow.

"Come, my sister," she cried, "and chase with me the butterfly from flower to flower."

But her sister was gazing at the lark, as it arose from its low nest and warbled among the clouds.

And when it was noon the child said again : "Come, my sister, and pluck with me the flowers of the garden, for they are beautiful, and their fragrance is sweet."

Then Faith raised the child, and led her forth from the shade of the trees, and pointed to the sun and said:

"A shadow is passing over the face thereof, but no ray of his glory is extinguished.-He still walketh in brightness, and thou shalt again delight thyself in his beams. See, even yet his face is not wholly hidden from us."

But the child dared not look up, for the gloom struck upon her heart.

And when all was bright again, she feared to wander from her sister, and her sports were less gay than before.

When the eventide was come, Faith went forth from the forest shades and sought the lawn, where she might watch the setting of the sun.

Then said she to her young sister: "Come and behold how far the glories of sunset transcend the beauties of the morning. See how softly they melt away, and give place to the shadows of night.

But Hope was now weary-her eye was heavy, and her voice languid. See folded her radiant wings, and dropped on her sister's bosom, and fell asleep.

But Faith watched through the night-she was never weary, nor did her eyelids need repose.

She laid the child on a bed of flowers, and kissed her cheek. She also drew her mantle round the head of the young sleeper, that she might sleep in

peace.

Then Faith looked upwards, and beheld how the stars came forth. She traced them in their radiant courses, and listened to their harmonies, which mortal ear hath not heard.

And as she listened, their music entranced her soul.

At length a light appeared in the east, and burst forth from the portals of the heavens. Then the But Faith replied: "Nay, my sister, let the spirit hastened to arouse the young sleeper. flowers be there, for thou art young and delightest "Awake! O my sister! awake!" she cried, thyself in their beauty. I will meditate in the" a new day hath dawned, and no cloud shall overshade until the heat of the day be past. Thou shadow it. Awake, for the sun hath arisen which wilt find me by the fountain in the forest. When shall set no more."

thou art weary, come and repose on my bosom."

And she smiled and departed.

After a time Hope sought her sister. The tear was in her eye; and her countenance was mournful.

Then Faith said: "My sister, wherefore dost thou weep, and why is thy countenance sad ?”

And the child answered: "Because a cloud is in the sky, and the sunshine is overcast-see, the rain begins to fall."

"It is but a shower," Faith replied, "and when it is over, the fields will be greener than before."

WORDS WITHOUT POWER.

WE were struck with the following instance of Christian faithfulness, in admonishing a young disciple, as affording a beautiful specimen of the meekness of wisdom. It would be well for many a "young hand," both in the pulpit and the prayer meeting, to have such a faithful Mentor, to warn of the danger of "superfluous expressions" both in preaching and in prayer. It is extracted from The Friend.-Presbyterian.

Now the place where they sat was sheltered Peter Yarnall, when on a visit to Philadelphia in from the rain, as it had been from the noontide the second month, 1781, while he was yet young heat. And Faith comforted the child, and showed in the ministry, appeared in supplication at a meether how the waters flowed with a fuller and clearer ing held in the Market street house. George stream as the showers fell. Churchman, a judicious elder, was present, and soon after sent him the following letter. It is said that Peter Yarnall preserved this message of love with care, it having, no doubt, been "a word in season" to him. In preaching or praying it has a scattering effect upon hearers-to find words continue, after the power has passed.

And presently the sun broke out again, and the woods resounded with song.

Then Hope was glad, and went forth to her sports once more.

After a while the sky was again darkened, and the young spirit looked up, and behold, there was no cloud in the whole circle of the heavens.

Therefore Hope marvelled, for it was not yet night.

And she fled to her sister, and cast herself down at her feet and trembled exceedingly.

London Grove, second month, 20th, 1781. Respected Friend-Feeling a degree of sympathy toward thee, under the exercise which of latter time has attended thy mind, and, I trust, has measureably engaged thee to be anxious about redeem

upon the northern bank of the Souhegan. In front is a beautiful meadow of many acres of rich bottom land, through which the river rolls sluggishly along. I visited them on a Sunday evening, and a most extraordinary scene I there beheld. It was the occasion of a meeting of nearly every member of the family. It was a scene that would have made the heart of a stoic rejoice.

ing time that is passed and gone-I have divers | times for a hotel, but many years since turned to times witnessed desires for thy preservation in a its present uses. It stands upon a gentle slope state of stability; and that the Divine hand may be near for thy support, under the provings which may be permitted to attend, for the trial of thy faith, the advancement of thy experience in the path of self-denial. I may just inform thee, that my attention was turned more particularly to thy present state on my being present at the week-day meeting in Market street, the fifth day following the late Quarterly Meeting in the city; where I heard a voice in supplication, at a considerable distance from the place I sat in. And though I knew not whose voice it was, I was afterwards told it was thine. I then felt a degree of sympathy, upon hearing the first sentence uttered, and was willing to believe it was not without the savor of life, and could by no means condemn the motion. On remembering several times since, I felt a freedom gently to hint to thee the sense which attended me before thy conclusion: which was, that perhaps it might be as well to have closed it rather sooner or with fewer expressions, for that time. I hope thou wilt clearly understand me, in the hint, that I am not censorious about it, but feel great tenderness; yet withal a care that thou, in thy infant state, may be preserved from getting out of, or swimming beyond thy depth in the stream, with which thy acquaintance and experience have been but short; although thy mind has been mercifully turned, I hope, towards the way everlasting.

I have apprehended some danger has attended, and may attend young hands, without great care, in regard of repetitions; public prayer in a congregation being a very awful thing, and He to whom it is addressed, being the Author of infinite purity. I believe there is no occasion of discouragement; but if the mind is sincerely devoted to the merciful Father, to seek for preservation out of every danger of forward stepping, superfluous expressions, and fleshy mixtures, there will be Divine assistance afforded to contrited souls. So that experience and strength will, from time to time be enlarged, and a gradual growth witnessed, in a state which is sound, healthy, and safe. That this may truly be thy state, is the sincere desire of thy well-wishing friend,

We met there eight sons, six of whom were accompanied by their wives, two daughters, and there were from twenty to thirty grand-children, from two to twelve years of age, frolicking around. The old folks were seated at the door as we approached, and we waited while they received each one of their children, as they arrived, with a patriarchal blessing. It recalled to my mind the account of the children of Jacob with their little ones, gathering about the aged patriarch as he sat in the door of his tent. There seemed to be joy and pleasure in every heart, and brotherly love, and kindness were visibly manifest. When we approached to pay our respects to the aged couple, we were received, if possible, with more affectionate welcome than their own children, with many kind inquiries and a wish that prosperity and happiness might ever attend us. Our fathers had been their intimates, and their minds ran back over the incidents of those old years, with a freshness that brought tears to their eyes. Jesse and Judson reside in Lynn-the other members of the family are here.

The three boys, Judson, John and Asa, and their sister Abby, will, in the course of two months, start upon a singing tour. They tell me they will visit Worcester soon after leaving home. Should they go there, you may expect to hear better music than has greeted your ears for many a day. I once thought their singing perfect, and so it was in its way; but "Excelsior" is their motto, and they will prove to you that their experience in England has not been lost to them. The character of their singing is not changed, but their style is improved. There is a richness, a fulness, a brilliancy in their tones, and an expression of life in every breath, which will thrill the coldest blood in your heart. But it is natural, simple melody; they have acquired no foreign habit or accenttheir turns and appogiaturas are all their own, and occur just in the right places. For me, the beauty of their singing is in its expressive truthfulness. It speaks to the heart and makes it vibrate to music, as though it were itself a musical instrument, responding to the voice of God.

I have noticed an article copied from some of the Manchester papers, giving an account of the wealth which their tour in Europe produced to them. There is very little, if any, truth in the statement, which was made without their knowledge. Their residence is about twenty miles from Manchester, instead of seven and a half.-They have not purchased nor are they about to purchase a farm for $10,000. Indeed, I am well assured there are no such farms for sale in the county of Hillsborough. They won golden opinions, and left England with the hearty good will of the English, but they did not bring home a fortune of thirty thousand dolJars.

From Fraser's Magazine.

APPARITIONS.

"What is here
Which looks like death in life, and speaks like things
Born ere this dying world? They come like clouds!
BYRON.

Ir was a gloomy autumnal evening; all was hushed and still in the interior of the dwelling in which we sat, while the tall trees without kept up a continual mysterious and confidential whispering, as though they had a thousand things to tell one another; and the wind went searching round the old house, and down the wide chimney, and through the long corridors, as if it had lost something. Or practised all the ancient tunes which it sang hundreds and hundreds of years ago, in a low wailing voice, half human in its melancholy sweetness, or wild revelry. Sometimes it seemed to go a long way off, and then, when you least expected it, back it came again as though it were singing under the window, or in the very room itself, while the heavy drapery swayed to and fro with a strange sympathy. Presently, in restless mood it went out to play with the old trees before mentioned, which at first only shook their heads gently at his frolics, but afterwards laughed and gambolled till their branches creaked again! And finally, elated with its sports, came sweeping along the old corridor and burst open the room door where we sat.

said to be." Neither are we aware that any member of the family is able to speak more confidently on the subject. It was curious enough, however, that several casual visitors, without the possibility of any previous communication passing between them, and in most instances without their even hearing it mentioned, have united in giving a precisely similar description of the phantom. By which we understood it to be tall, of the male sex, and wearing a loose pepper-and-salt coat, probably the fashion in those days. My father, who was frequently up writing until long after the rest of the family had gone to bed, has repeatedly heard or fancied footsteps upon the stairs, followed by a distinct tapping at his study door; on which occasions he never failed to call aloud "Come in," although his ghostly visitant seems invariably to have declined availing himself of the invitation.

We can remember one thing, however, which as children made a deep impression upon us. All of a sudden a strange noise, like the ticking of a watch, only slower, began to be heard night after night in the room where we generally sat. Some said it was a cricket, or a spider; others spoke of the death-watch! while a few took the opportunity of displaying their entomological knowledge by ascribing it to a certain beetle, belonging to the timber-boring genus anobium, which frequently finds its way into old walls and wainscoting. Anyhow, it was a very solemn sound; and Startled a little from our dreamy reveries we remarked all the more for a curious coincidence looked hastily up, but perceiving no one, naturally which took place about the same time. A large concluded that it was only the wind; and were in Newfoundland dog, hitherto perfectly quiet, comthe very act of putting the finishing stitch to the menced a series of the most dismal howlings; and work on which we were employed, seeking at the it was discovered one morning, had actually same time for the tangled thread of our former scratched up a deep hole in the ground, which cerpleasant musings thus rudely broken, when a pas-tainly did look very like a grave! This was resage which we had been lately reading in a very peated more than once, until they took to chaining clever paper, entitled "Miscellanea Mystica," but him. Not long afterwards a little child residing in without making any deep impression upon our the house sickened and died; and from that hour minds at the time, came back like a lightning flash we never heard the death-watch again! -"How often do we say, 'Tis only the wind,' when former inhabitants of the houses we live in may be sweeping past us!"

The words had been uttered in reference to a spirit-story of a poor emigrant's wife, yearning for her forsaken home; the door of which was seen to open wide, one windy night-just such an one, perhaps, as that on which we write. To common eyesight this was all; but a certain woman, gifted with the rare faculty of ghost-seeing, was enabled both to distinguish and describe this strange visitor, who was dressed after her usual fashion, and wore a sad and troubled expression of countenance, as though grieving for all she had left behind.

Not being gifted with this same supernatural clearness of vision, which must be by no means desirable, if any "forms of the departed entered at the open door," it was unknown to us. And we only remember coming suddenly conscious that the evening was drawing in, and it might be as well to ring for candles. After which we fell into a train of thought far from unpleasant, in the which all that we had heard and read of such things came back as vividly as though it were but yesterday; the wind, meanwhile, keeping up a sort of running accompaniment to the wild harmony of by-gone recollections.

The house where we were born, and around which some of our earliest reminiscences are entwined, was said to be haunted; but a residence of many years never warranted us to give a less vague assertion than the common one, "it was

Of our own experience in these matters we have little more to tell; but a whole host of incidents heard at different times, and from some who are now spirits themselves, comes thronging into our memory with a strange distinctness, so that we feel tempted to relate a few for who does not love a ghost story, however they may laugh at it afterwards?

The first is told by a distant relative of our own, living far away in a quiet country place, where a belief in these things comes quite natural. Her father had been long ill, and as she lay thinking of him one summer night, and how improbable it was they should ever meet again, she became suddenly conscious of a heavy weight, as though a head rested upon her bosom, and stretching forth her hand, distinctly felt the thick, crisped curls with which she had played a thousand times when a child, and which were only just beginning to be tinged with grey when she married and left home. She knew that it was her father, and yet, somehow, she was not frightened, but lay quite still; and presently heard a sweet voice singing an old familiar hymn, which he had often taught and sang to them long ago. And when its last tones died lingering away, the spirit, if it were one, had also departed.

Many have said it was only a dream-that she had gone to bed thinking of her poor father, and so dreamt the rest. Well, it might have been thus. But it is curious enough, nevertheless, that the old man actually died upon the very night, and, as near