had spoken in her sickness. I can conceive great advantages may be derived from this retentive power in our memories, in the advancement of the mind towards perfection in knowledge (so essential to its happiness) in a future world.

DR. BENJAMIN RUSH.

TRUTH AND POETRY.

There is a quaint conceit of old Malherbe, the father of French poetry, "that God repented of having made man, but never repented of having created woman." Without her, Paradise was joyless; for to taste joy, it must be shared, and "happiness was born a twin." In his "Pleasures of Hope," Mr. Camp

bell has a fine allusion to this truth:
"Till Hymen brought his love delighted hour,
There dwelt no joy in Eden's rosy bower!
In vain the viewless seraph lingered there,
At starry midnight charmed the silent air;
In vain the wild bird carolled on the steep,
To hail the sun slow wheeling from the deep;
In vain to soothe the solitary shade,
Aerial notes in mingling measure played;
The summer wind that shook the spangled tree,
The whispering wave, the murmur of the bee:
Still slowly passed the melancholy day,
And still the stranger wist not where to stray;
The world was sad! the garden was a wild!
And man the hermit, sighed till woman smiled!"

THE art of healing does not seem to be in a very palmy state in Algiers, if we may judge by the pithy description given by the author of the "Pleasures of Hope," of what he observed during his sojourn there. These gentry have been so long accustomed to the summary method of striking off heads, hands, noses and ears, that it is scarcely to be expected that they should become all at once proficients in pharmacy; as they have given up privateering, however, we see no reason why their naval officers should not betake themselves to hospital practice, for which their previous extempore quickness of operation must have not a little qualified them.

"The Mussulman's bigotry must ultimately retreat before civilization; and Heaven knows there is room enough for improvement in this barbarous land. The native population, though it will sometimes show you heads and forms worthy of a scriptural picture, exhibits incomparably more numerous objects of such wretchedness as you would not meet with in an European city: elephantiasis and blindness are excessively common, and disease and poverty may be said to walk the streets. Until the French arrived, there was scarcely an European surgeon or physician in the regency, except some runaway druggists' apprentices from Christendom; now

The

there is an established school both of surgery and medicine, under the inspection of talented men. The doctrine of fatalism opposes itself in limine to the very profession of medicine and surgery. A French officer, who has written an account of the conquest, describes an interesting scene which he witnessed bein wounded to the French camp, and tween a young Arab, who was brought his aged father, who came to visit him. The leg-bone of the youth had been shattered, but his life might have been saved by amputation of the limb. old man hung over him in agony, beMahomet by submitting to the operation. seeching him not to offend God and His son followed the advice, and Mahomet took him to himself in reward of his piety. There are, nevertheless, Moors and Jews who pretend to make both clinical and surgical cures, and women who are called in as sages femmes; but the native doctors know not a tittle of anatomy, and scarcely the names of their own medicines, many of which are noxious in the cases in which they are prescribed. In surgery they understand not even the use of a lancet. They console the cholic, the stone, and pleurisy with the application of red-hot iron to This treatment the suffering parts.

often elicits shrieks of assurance from the patients that they are perfectly cured; and intreaties that the application may be removed. They bleed and amputate with a razor, and stop hæmorrhage with boiling pitch. Dr. Abernethy, in lecturing on the disease of wens, declared that he knew not how to cure them, and that perhaps whistling to them was not the worst prescription. In like manner, it is possible that the amulets bestowed on the Algerines by their holy maraboots, are among the most innocent of their cures."

IDLE PEOPLE.

BY WILLIAM COX.

Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither!
Here shall he see

No enemy, But winter and rough weather.-Shakspeare. THERE is no class of human beings visited with more matter-of-course vituperation than idle people. Idleness! it is the greatest vice of civilization, for it is the least profitable. Men may lie, and cheat, and game, and drink, and break the ten commandments in what

soever way they please, and they will find apologists; but for idleness, no one lifteth up his voice to speak. From the busy haunts of men, from the toil and turmoil of the marts of traffic, from the din and smoke of manufactories, from the high courts of Mammon, it is for ever banished: only on the pleasant bill side, in the waving meadow, and under the ancient forest trees, or by the babbling brook and lazy river hath it sought out an undisturbed retreat; and there its devotee is to be found, stretched luxuriously along the greensward, worshipping his divinity after his own calm and easy fashion. Foolish fellow! up and away unto the crowded city, for there money, "the white man's god," is to be made-spend thy days in bargaining and wrangling and over-reaching, and thy nights in scheming and calculating, until thou art worth a million! but rest not, relax not, toil and bargain and wrangle on, and thou mayest yet be worth a million and a half! and then if death some morning put a stop unto thy profitable speculations, think, for all thy care and anxiety-thy joyless days and sleepless nights-what a glorious consolation is thine! The poor idler goes to his grave not worth a groat, while thou descendest to thine everlasting rest with more money invested in the funds than any man on 'change!

"Idleness," saith the proverb, "is the mother of mischief." How strange that such a noisy brawling urchin should spring from so inoffensive a parent! For my own part, I have a respect for idle people; and when no one suffers by their idleness, they are the most sensible people on the face of the earth-your only true philosophers. Love of ease is natural to man, and industry came into the world with original sin. Hard work occasioned the first murder. If Cain, instead of tilling the stubborn earth and earning his bread "by the sweat of his brow," had had nothing to do but lounge on the mountain-side like his brother Abel, play his pipe, watch his sheep feeding, and then feed himself, he would never have envied him, and the second great transgression would never have come to pass.

That idleness is the natural state of man, cannot be doubted. Like the flowers of the field it springeth up without care or culture; but industry is a hot-house plant, of forced and artificial growth, and is apt to wither away, if not anxiously tended and cherished. In asserting these undeniable truths, let it not

be supposed that any reproach is meant to be cast on the industrious. No-the man who sacrifices his love of ease, and labours unremittingly that his wife may be at rest, and his little ones comfortably clothed and fed-that he may be free from duns and debts, and walk through the world fearing and beholden to no living creature--such a man is worthy of admiration. But there are others, who have enough and to spare, but still go onthe slaves of avarice and habit; who dignify their love of gain with the name of industry, and plume themselves mightily on "never being a single minute idle;" why, what are they at best but miserable earth-worms, voluntary bondsmen; the worldly wise, and yet the most egregious fools!

One thing that has undeservedly brought idleness into bad repute, is the confounding it with laziness, than which no two things can be more different. The lazy sluggard, who hates motion in every shape, and lies upon the earth an inert piece of animation, is scarcely upon a par with the beasts that perish. A fine specimen of this tribe was a fat old gentleman of the city, a prodigious eater, who, in summer time, used to sit, by the day together, smoking and steaming like a cauldron. The only exercise he was ever known to take consisted in calling out, after he had sat on one seat long enough to make it uncomfortably warm, "John, bring me a cool chair!" and then moving from one chair to the other. Now idle people are the very reverse of this. In all sorts of games and sports they are first and foremost. It is they who can pitch a quoit or bowl a cricket-ball straighter and truer than any one else; the swiftest runners and most active wrestlers of the district. is they who have roamed the country far and wide, and know where the finest fishing streams are to be found, and where the birds are most plentiful-the healthiest, hardiest, and most venturesome of heaven's creatures; who will scramble up a precipice, and risk their necks for a bird's nest, but droop and pine away under a regular routine of moneymaking tasks. There are, however, different varieties of this species, like every other. Some of a more contemplative turn, who seek out the pleasant nooks and shady places, known but to themselves, and there muse away their hours. These are intimate acquaintances of nature, and are initiated into thousands of her little secrets that others know not of; and with Shaks

It

peare in their hand, they read unfolded mysteries of mind and matter, that seem, and are, not the records of observation, but the outpourings of inspiration. Such an one was Jaques, though rather too cynical; and, at times, even such an one must Shakspeare have been. It appears impossible that the scenes in the forest of Arden could have been engendered anywhere except "under the shade of melancholy boughs." So thoroughly are they imbued with a true pastoral spirit, so free from the noise and smoke of cities, that it is really strange, after reading "As you like it," with your mind filled with images of lonely forest walks and their denizens, the Duke of Amiens and his "co-mates and brothers in exile," to walk to the window and see so many streets, houses, carriages, and fantastically dressed men and women. How pitiable would he be who could afford to dream away hours amid such scenes, and yet who should forsake them "For so much dross as may be grasped thus !"

Yet idle people are looked upon as the very worst and "most good-for-nothing" people in existence. They are under the ban of society. The worldly father points them out to his son as a warning, and the prudent mother watches that her marriageable daughter's eyes rest not on them; their names are stricken from invitation-lists; and every griping scoundrel twitteth them, and vaunteth his superior pack-horse qualifications. And for what?-why, their comparative poverty and practical philosophy. Yet they are in one sense the wealthiest of men, "Poor and content, is rich, and rich enough; But riches, fineless, is as poor as winter To him that ever fears he shall be poor."

In towns a person of this temperament is altogether out of his element. He is a connoisseur in sweet, wholesome air, and sighs to rove about in search of

it.

As long as the grizzly tyrant winter keeps the fair spring in chains, it matters little where he is; but when one of those glorious days that herald her approach breaks forth, and nature becomes, on the instant, all life and animation, there are few men, let them be as industrious as they may, who have not experienced his feelings. Who, on such a day, has not felt a pleasing langour steal over him, and a distaste for ordinary pursuits and avocations? Who does not long to leave the hubbub of the city far behind, to stroll forth into the fields, and have the taint of the smoke blown off by the fresh April winds? and who would not do so if

"Necessity the master still of will,
How strong soe'er it is,"

did not drag him back to his toils? Oh! what a clog it is on a man's spirit, to feel that he is a slave for what are they but slaves with the privilege of change, whose daily labour buys their daily bread?)—to long for liberty, yet feel that the pure air, the green fields, the blue sky, the very commonest gifts of nature, that are enjoyed by the brutes of the earth and the birds of the air, are denied to him? True, he may break through all restraints and go about inhaling as much fresh air as he pleases; but when the cravings of appetite hint to him that it is dinner time, whence are to come the victuals that constitute that important item in the sum total of human happiness? Man is unfortunately a carnivorous animal, and must, once a day at least, be fed with flesh, fowl, or fish: he cannot make an unsophisticated repast off the fruits of the earth, for though

"his anatomical construction Bears vegetables in a grumbling sort of way, Yet certainly he thinks, beyond all question, Beef, veal, and mutton easier of digestion."

Then, why are idle people, who can afford to be so without wrong to any one, so hardly dealt with, when all men, deserving the name, would be idle if they could? Who ever knew a creature that could make use of the toounless I am doing something," that was common expression, "I am never easy shewed the slightest symptoms of having worth passing an hour with, or that

a soul?
He cannot be easy without
doing something, merely because he
cannot hold communion with himself;
he has no treasures of thought to which
itself unless exercised in the miser-
he can revert, and his mind preys upon
able distinctions and petty gains and
triumphs of business, which
is at
best but a necessary evil, With a few
exceptions, I much admire the state of
things that the old courtier in the Tem-
pest proposes to introduce into the
enchanted island if he were king of it—
"No kind of traffic

Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; no use of service,
Of riches, or of poverty; no contracts,
Successions; bound of land, tilth, vineyard none:
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
No occupation; all men idle, all;

And women too; but innocent and pure.
All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavour; treason, felony,
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
Would I not have; but nature should bring
forth

Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance,
To feed my innocent people."

their prophet?--for he had the dexterity to persuade them, at least, that he possessed supernatural virtues, and enjoyed divine revelations.

He had curiously engraved, at the end of an orange stick, a small human figure, which, when it was touched a little below the head, moved its eyes and lips, and seemed to be animated. He pretended that this fetiche answered all his questions, as an oracle; and when he thought fit to predict the death of any one, it is certain he was never mistaken. From the great knowledge Makandal had of simples, he was enabled to discover, at St. Domingo, many poisonous plants; and it was through this that he acquired such extensive credit. Without explaining the means that he employed, he would declare that such a negro, whether male or female, who lived sometimes fifty leagues from the place where he uttered the prediction, would die the same day or the day after, and those who heard him soon learned, to their terror, that the prediction was accomplished.

It is now proper to explain the means that he employed in the commission of crimes that were not conceived to be such, till they had been carried to an extreme of enormity.

The negroes, in general, have a great propensity to commerce. Numbers of them act as hawkers or pedlars, in dispersing the European goods about the country; and in the French colonies, they are called pacotilleurs. It was amongst these that Makandal had his disciples and most confidential partisans; and these, in particular, he employed in all the good or evil of which he was the

author.

Another custom, moreover, among the negroes, is to exercise the rites of hospitality with a religious attention, and to take a repast together on seeing each other again, after the smallest ab sence. Now, whenever Makandal had determined that any particular person should perish, he dispatched one of these pedlars who were his friends, to present to the devoted person some fruit that he gave him, declaring, at the same time, that it contained the death of the person who was to eat it. The pedlar, instead of supposing that Makandal had poisoned the fruit, trembled at the power of his

Fetiche is a name given in Guinea to their divinities; one of whom is supposed to preside over a whole province, and one over a whole family. This idol is a tree, the head of an ape, a bird, or any such thing as their fancy may suggest.

fetiche, and executed the command of the pretended prophet, without daring to mention it to any one. The victim expired; and dying, perhaps, at a distance from the predictor, the prescience of Makandal was the subject of admiration.

His friends thus found in him a formidable avenger, and his rivals—his inconstant mistresses, and those, in particular, who refused his solicitations, never escaped his cruelty. But at last, love, which had so much favoured him-love, for which he had committed innumerable crimes; love hurried him to destruction.

Makandal had two accomplices, or lieutenants, blindly devoted to his will; the one was named Teysselo, the other Mayombo; and it is probable that they alone were partly in the secret of the means which he employed to establish his dominion.

In the day time, he retired with these two chiefs, and a considerable number of other runaway negroes, to the almost inaccessible heights of the mountains, where they kept their wives and children with well-cultivated plantations. Bands of armed robbers sometimes thence descended, at the command of Makandal, to spread terror and devastation in the habitations of the neighbouring plains, or to exterminate those who had disobeyed the prophet.

He seemed, moreover, to be attached to many young negroes, who gave him an account of whatever passed in the plantations where they were slaves. Among these was one named Zami, about eighteen years old, beautiful as the Belvedere Apollo, and distinguished by both courage and understanding.

One Sunday, Zami had repaired to a dance about three leagues from his master's house. The whole assembly, with transports of admiration and pleasure, encircled a negro girl called Samba, who danced with an enchanting grace, and who, to a tender and voluptuous air, united the most timid modesty. Her shape was elegant and easy, like the pliant reeds that are balanced by the winds. Her eyes beamed inexpressible lustre ;-her teeth eclipsed the whiteness of snow; and her complexion, black as ebony, added fascination to her charms.

Zami beheld this uncommon beauty, and, for the first time felt the tender sensation. Samba, at the same instant, fixed her fine eyes, by chance, on Zami, and was struck with the same dart that had pierced the young negro.

After the dance was over, a conversa