From the Home Journal, New York, January 1, 1849.

THE STORY OF A POEM.

NEW YORK, DEcember, 1848.

GENTLEMEN :-Allow me to enclose to you the following beautiful impromptu verses, said to have been written by the late Countess of Ellesmere, August 2d., 1840, but a few days before her death.

The few words of preface which I ask the liberty to premise, may serve as an outline of the little story of which these verses form no inappropriate conclusion.

An American friend, long a resident of Europe, was, in the month of August, eighteen hundred and forty, on his return from Scotland, passing some time about the lakes of Windermere, Rydal Water, and other picturesque localities in the county of Cumberland, England,

"Those spots to hallowed memory ever dear."

He finished his delighted ramble; and arriving at Kendal, took his place on the outside of the coach for Manchester. In those days, the railway was not even in contemplation. It was early in the day; the morning was, as usual in the north of England's summer, cold and misty; still, however, the inside seats being, as he was informed, all taken, necessity became a virtue; and, well wrapped up, he prepared himself for a long day's ride, whose monotony might be relieved by occasional glimpses of the grand panoramas of

lake and mountain of the English Switzerland, or by the harmless variety furnished by the coachman's sagacious observations on what they passed upon the route.

After an hour's drive, on stopping to change horses, our traveller discovered that the occupants of the interior of the coach were a lady and her maid-servant, only. They had taken all the places, for the sake of quiet and seclusion. The lady was apparently of rank. She was in delicate health, and in deep melancholy, and was engaged at the moment in culling and arranging a very elegant bouquet of flowers, evidently of those kinds which bloom upon the borders of those romantic lakes. After they had all resumed their places in the coach, and resumed their route again, the maid, by the direction of the lady, politely offered the gentleman a seat inside, as a shelter from the weather, which had now settled into a heavy rain. This invitation, which was at first respectfully declined, from fear of intrusion, on being repeated at some subsequent relay, was accepted. My friend took a seat within the coach; and the lady, seemingly wearied of the unmeaning chat of her maid, and apparently pleased with the presence of a gentleman of intelligence, soon fell into conversation, discoursing now and then upon her earlier history, and always, however, turning with reluctant interest to the melancholy shadow which consumption, her insidious destroyer, had cast athwart the sunlight of her days. She told him that though still very young, this fell disease had long since manifested its certain presence, and

had increased to such a degree as threatened very soon to exhaust the fountains of her life.

With such discoursing, they found it easy to beguile their travel of its weariness. The close of day found them at the end of their journey. On alighting from the coach, the lady was received by a gentleman of rank, with a rich equipage, into which she ascended, and drove off in the direction of Ellesmere Castle. Before alighting from the coach, she begged the acceptance, by my friend, of a large and beautiful carnation pink, of a rare species, culled from the borders of the Windermere, among the leaves of which the following beautiful lines, in pencil, were found by him.

My friend afterwards learned that the fair authoress was the Countess of Ellesmere; and within a fortnight of the period of this touching incident in life's pilgrimage, her destroyer accomplished his work, and the plaintive prophecy recorded in this impromptu was but too certainly fulfilled. The following verses conclude my little narrative:

R. D.

"But if thy path be dark and lonely, O think upon our parting hour, And breathe one sigh-I ask one only,

For her who gave this token-flower."

From the Democratic Review, March, 1849.

NEWSPAPERS IN THE U. STATES.

It is an obvious truth, that if we are in the habit of daily listening to the conversation of any one upon subjects of interest, we have, of course, commenced with yielding a certain confidence to his opinions: and, if the asperities of his logic be smoothed by skilful rhetoric, those opinions and suggestions, even though at first contrary to our own sentiments, become gradually adopted by us, and eventually gain a controlling and undivided influence.

The newspaper of a free press now occupies this position; it has long since become the monitor of governments, and the daily oracle of society; and the actual mental and social condition of a people may be fairly judged from the character and ability of its daily press. You are not surprised, in Prussia or Austria, to find the few journals permitted there by their despotic governments to be destitute of opinions, or of what is meant by politics of any sort, and made the mere vehicles for government advertisements. The inquiring stranger, when he reads their few and indifferent journals, draws the natural conclusion that the theory of those governments is merely the right of the strongest; and that the subject masses, if they really possess the living elements of