reign of Henry the Sixth. It displayed the application of a mathematical principle to the commonest purposes; the back and the supporters being joined at such an angle, and in such a manner, that the greater the pressure, the more firm was their union. But man does not only disfigure, he actually lays waste, the creations of the Almighty Architect, with the same remorseless rage which goads him to destroy the works of his fellow-beings. Not only the antiquities of art, but the antique forms of Nature, perish before him. Her ancient garment of mighty forests is rent away by his savage grasp. Even the solid fortresses of rocks are no protection to her violated majesty. These are still deeper outrages than any before enumerated; for men may seem to have some right over the works of their mortal predecessors; but by what charter do they rend and disfigure the fair dwelling-house which God has given them for their service, and not for their abuse? The love of money is the root of all evil, says the voice of Wisdom. Certainly it is the origin of this; "Thou art the cause that levels every tree, And woods bow down to form a way for thee." Everything now-a-days must be turned to account. There is no generous consecration of even the most worthless elements of natural loveliness-no flinging in of the meanest dole for beauty's sake. Wherever a farthing can be made, the plough-share of ruin is driven. The ghost of Paley rejoices in the Elysian shades, as each new-comer to Hades reports the progress of his doctrine of expediency. We are all for utility; and it would be well that it should be so, if, like the boar of the forest, which delves up the flower to get at the root, we had no instincts beyond those of selfsustenance. But, as we have the immortal power of imagination, we are bound to provide nutriment for that celestial part of us, not less than for that which we hold in com mon with the brutes. Why then is the mere money-getter become an animal so common? Why do we meet with whole districts full of mean wretches, who estimate every landscape by the number of productive acres it contains, and admire all trees according to the loads of timber into which they will cut up? These are men, who, if half-a-dozen elms, which had for years been the delight of a whole neighborhood, could produce half-a-dozen pounds, would sentence them without remorse. I said that rocks even were no certain barriers to our destructive rage. If any one doubt the reality of this assertion, let him go to Clifton. He will hear the hourly explosions of the gunpowder which is destroying one of the finest pieces of natural scenery in England; he will see the majestic rocks, that once impended over the Avon, thrown back into comparative insignificance, while their venerable tints, rich from the lichens of many centuries, give place to the red hue of the soil beneath-the only barrier to the spoiler's hand; and he will be told that all this havoc is caused by a man of twenty thousand a-year, for the sake of an accession of forty pounds to his annual income! This is another sin, for which our Macadamized roads have to answer. Our coaches bowl along in triumph over the pulverised remains of the sublime and beautiful, which (as Southey says) are sold by the boat-load, and measured by the ton. On a smaller scale these injuries are common; and even I, in my generation, have had to follow, as a mourner, the desolating footsteps of what is called Improvement. With what perseverance we labor to subdue nature, the very success of our efforts sufficiently indicates. For she hath a rebellious will, a reclaiming force within herself, an antidotal power, whereby, if at all left to her own operations, she repairs the ravages of man. See how she enamels even the formal stone wall with her many-colored lichens; how her rains, her winds, displace a stone here, and a stone there, until she has in some sort assimilated it to her own dominion! See how she hangs her ivy veil over the shame of the lopped tree, and persists in thrusting out her boughs, in defiance to all rule, with the dews of each returning spring! Observe how she scatters her principles of life wherever a seed can float, or a root can cling, and adds a plume to the helmeted rock, or a banner to the roofless ruin! Yet man continues to counteract her! Even her gushing, bounding heritage of waters is not her freehold. The indignant stream, that leaps from crag to crag in the wildest and most sequestered glen, may be tasked to turn the dizzying wheels of some polluted and polluting manufactory. Nay, the loveliest spots are most frequently so profaned, as if man delighted, with his own hand, to fulfil the original curse upon this earth and upon himself, and to prevent eye or heart from forgetting, for a moment, the primal malediction. Amongst the modern deformities that disfigure the pure element of water, the steam-boat claims preeminence. Every variety of ship, boat, or vessel, is beautiful, except this. There is no grander object than a leviathan of the brine, with all her sails set, and her spars and rigging in the exquisite order of naval discipline the power of man appears in none of his works more conspicuously; such mighty daring is there in the very thought of subduing the tremendous ocean to his purposes, and of making his path upon the unfathomed deep. Beau- less, betake himself to the forests. tiful, again, is the light symmetry of the vessels that skim before the gale, and catch the summer sunshine upon their glancing wings; glad and joyous are the little boats that dance, like sea-birds, from wave But what beauty, what gladness, is there in yonder shapeless hulk that carries the smoke, to gether with the vulgarity of the metropolis, into the dominion of the awful ocean? What vision of grace or grandeur can such a moving St. Giles's raise in the mind? What thoughts but those of a culinary nature can the savor of the passengers' beef and cabbage, wafted on shore while "Sicken'd by the smell, For many a league old ocean frowns". produce in the most imaginative? It is a pity that our recent improvements upon old inventions should all most universally be unpleasing to the eye, especially since a little attention to outward appearance might have obviated this defect. A stagecoach and four horses, spanking along, may not exactly come under the head of the picturesque; but at any rate they are more glorious to behold than a steam-coach with its boiler, if one may be permitted to judge by the engravings of that invention. The poet Wordsworth has likened the smoking horses of a waggon to Apollo in a cloud; but unto what should he liken the smoking tubes of a steam-coach? There has been a whisper of a steamplough. How future commentators will rack their brains over the first stanza of Gray's Elegy in a Churchyard! "The ploughman homeward plods his weary way!" What in the world could that mysterious personage, "the ploughman," have been? There is, moreover, the Omnibus-but I abstain. Enough has been said to convince the most incredulous that the inevitable hour is on its way, which shall consummate the triumph of Art over Nature, of Deformity over Beauty. Then shall the horse, becoming use the to wave. I forget myself,-we have no forests. Our horses shall be all put to death as cumber-grounds, and broiled down for dog's meat. Then shall every relic of antiquity utterly disappear. Our cathedrals will mend the roads, and our ancient buildings help to erect snug villas. Then shall every road be laid bare, every hill shall be made low, and all the rough places plain. Every glen shall be Macadamized,-every river turned into a mill stream, every lake drained into marshy meadow land. And then shall the Picturesque vanish entirely from the dwellings and scenery of our land! APHORISMS, &c. AN APHORISM is a maxim or general rule; a brief sentence comprehending much matter in a few words. In language strong, pointed, and vigorous, ideas should be as numerous as expressions, leaving no room for useless or unimportant words. A harsh man can sometimes smile, and a kind man can sometimes frown; the former is the transient sunshine of winter, the latter is the evanescent gloominess of summer. Times of public commotion are those in which the talents and virtues of humble life are called into publicity; and often have the workshop and the loom furnished characters for the future historian, and proved that the true nobility of mankind are not always adorned with a riband, nor pointed out to vulgar gaze by the glittering of a star. There is a word in the vocabulary more bitter, more direful in its import, than all the rest. If poverty, disgrace, bodily pain, slighted love, or perjured friendship, is our unhappy fate, we may kneel, and bless Heaven for its beneficent influence, if we are not tortured with the anguish of Remorse. The satisfaction derived from revenge endures but for a moment; but that which is the offspring of clemency is eternal. Of what advantage is a cultivated mind, or improved taste, if it does not render us more independent of the casualties of life? Those who have only experienced affluence can judge but incorrectly of themselves or others; the rich and powerful live in a perpetual masquerade, in which all about them wear borrowed characters: and the estimation they are held in is only discovered when they can no longer give hopes or fears. There is this difference between happiness and wisdom,-he that thinks himself the happiest man really is so, but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool. Sensibility would be a good Porteress, if she had but one hand— but with her right she opens the door to Pleasure, with her left to Pain. Dionisius strove to be the best poet; Caligula, to be the best orator; Nero, the best fiddler, of their times-but they were the worst emperors. Heat is the instrument, and anger the whetstone of fortitude. Pride hath two steps; the lowest, blood-the highest, envy. In common life, reason and conscience have only the appetites and passions to encounter; but in higher stations they must oppose artifice and adulation. Suffering is no duty, but where it is necessary to avoid guilt or to do good. Many men lose by desire, but are crowned by content. As oft as we do good, we offer sacrifice. . When the punishment is disproportioned to the offence, abhorrence of the crime is absorbed in compassion for the criminal; and when expediency is pleaded for the severity, instead of justice, the force of the example disappears, and the moral principle loses much of its efficacy. That man employeth his thoughts well, who useth them rather to testify his virtue, than to nourish his displeasure. Yielding to immoral pleasures corrupts the mind; living to animal and trifling ones, debases it; and both, in their degree, disqualify it for its genuine good, and consign it over to wretchedness. Where the peoples' affection is secured, the traitor's purpose is prevented. Beauty is the true glass of divine virtue, and suspicion the mirror in which we see our own noted dangers. A man of no resolution, or of weak resolution, says an old drama, will be won with a nut, and lost by an apple. "Does a man from real conviction of heart forsake his vices? The position is not to be allowed-no— his vices have forsaken him!" To fly from covetousness is to gain a kingdom. It is not death that destroyeth the soul, but a bad life. Pomps and honors are bitter mockeries to the troubled mind. Experience, that touchstone of truth, abundantly convinces us, that all parts of nature are in correspondence with, and dependent on, each other for the exercise of their functions, and the accomplishment True wisdom teacheth us both to of their destination; and that the do well and to speak well. They who are hasty in adopting new projects, ought to be reminded, that in all novelty there is hazard, and in all experiments there is a risk of disappointment,-for no man can reason so accurately from the past, as to be certain of a future result. To play the scoffing fool well, is a sign of some wit, but no wisdom. We seldom value rightly, what we have never known the misery of wanting. Society is the true sphere of human virtue. Sterne has well expressed the too common spirit of detraction final term in which the various uses of the parts which compose our world centre, is visibly man. Corrupt company is more infectious than corrupt air. There is no security in evil society, where the bad are often made worse, the good seldom better. The bitterest fruit of distress is the bread of another's baking; but if it must be eaten in base company, fortune has done her worst. He is my friend that succoreth me-not he that pitieth me. The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH. "Look out for that sea, quartermaster!-Mind your starboard helm-Ease her, man-ease her." On it came rolling as high as the foreyard, and tumbled in over the bows, green, clear, and unbroken. It filled the deep waist of the Torch in an instant, and as I rose half smothered in the midst of a jumble of men, pigs, hencoops, and spare spars, I had nearly lost an eye by a floating boarding-pike that was lanced at me by the jaugle of the water. As for the boats on the booms, they had all gone to sea separately, and were bobbing at us in a squadron to leeward, the launch acting as commodore, with a crew "No more At length the lee ports were forced out-the pumps promptly rigged and manned-buckets slung and at work down the hatchways; and although we had narrowly es caped being swamped, and it continued to blow hard, with a heavy sea, the men, confident in the qualities of the ship, worked with glee, shaking their feathers, and quizzing each other. But anon a sudden and appalling change came over the sea and the sky, that made the stoutest among us quail and draw his breath thick. The firmament darkened-the horizon seemed to contract-the sea became black as ink-the wind fell to a dead calmthe teeming clouds descended and filled the murky arch of heaven with their whirling masses, until they appeared to touch our mastheads, but there was neither lightning nor rain, not one glancing flash, not one refreshing drop-the windows of the sky had been sealed up by Him who had said to the storm, "Peace, be still." During this death-like pause, infinitely more awful than the heaviest gale, every sound on board, the voices of the men, even the creaking of the bulkheads, was heard with startling distinctness; and the water-logged brig, having no wind to steady her, labored so heavily in the trough of the sea, that we expected her mast to go overboard every moment. "Do you see and hear that, sir? said Lieutenant Treenail to the Captain. We all looked eagerly forth in the direction indicated. There was a white line in fearful contrast with the clouds and the rest of the ocean, gleaming on the extreme verge of the horizon-it grew broader-a low increasing growl was heard a thick blinding raist came driving up a-stern of us, whose small drops pierced into the skin like sharp hail" Is it rain ?” --"No, no,-salt, salt." And now the fierce Spirit of the Hurricane himself, the sea Azrael, in storm and in darkness, came thundering on with stunning violence, tearing off the snowy scalps of the tortured billows, and with tremendous and sheer force, crushing down beneath his chariot wheels their mountainous and howling ridges into one level plain of foaming water. Our chainplates, strong fastenings, and clenched bolts, drew like pliant wires, shrouds and stays were torn away, like the summer gossamer, and our masts and spars, crackling before his fury like dry reeds in autumn, were blown clean out of the ship, over her bows, into the sea. Had we shown a shred of the strongest sail in the vessel, it would have been blown out of the boltrope in an instant; we had, therefore, to get her before the wind, by crossing a spar on the stump of the foremast,with four men at the wheel, one watch at the pumps, and the other clearing the wreck. But our spirits were soon dashed, when the old carpenter, one of the coolest and bravest men in the ship, rose through the fore-hatch, pale as a ghost, with his white hairs streaming straight out in the wind. He did not speak to any of us, but clambered aft, towards the capstan, to which the Captain had lashed himself. "The water is rushing in forward like a mill-stream, sir; we have either started a but, or the wreck of the foremast has gone through her bows, for she is fast settling down by the head."-" Get the boatswain to fother a sail, then, man, and try it over the leak, but don't alarm the people, Mr. Kelson." The brig was, indeed, rapidly losing her buoyancy, and when the next heavy sea rose a-head of us, she gave a drunken sickening lurch, and pitched right into it, groaning and trembling in every plank, like a guilty and condemned thing in the prospect of impending punishment. "Stand by, to heave the guns overboard." Too late, too lateOh God, that cry!-I was stunned and drowning, a chaos of wreck was beneath me, and around me, and above me, and blue agonized gasping faces, and struggling arms, and colorless clutching hands, and despairing yells for help, where help was impossible; when I felt a sharp bite on the neck, and breathed again. My Newfoundland dog, Sneezer, had snatched at me, and dragged me out of the eddy of the sinking vessel, |