such people as Miss Wright, and Mr. Owen, and Mr. Jennings, when I've heard so much about them, and see their writings every week. Can't I believe my eyes?

Hunter. Yes, but that's the thing I want to know.

How can you prove that they did write them things? To come right out, how can you prove that that paper was printed?

Reasoner. Why, I know it was; it could'nt make itself. Hunter. Yes, I know that; but then could'nt it grow so? Reasoner. A newspaper grow! What nonsense! printing, and this is what they make by printing.

I read about

Hunter. As far as I can see, you don't know but what it grow'd. But could'nt it happen so?

Reasoner. Happen? No. What an absurd idea!

*

It was made. Hunter. I don't see but it might happen without being made, as easy as all this world, any how.

MEMORY AND HOPE.

BY J. K. PAULDING.

HOPE is the leading string of youth, memory is the staff of old age; yet for a long time they were at variance, and scarcely ever associated together. Memory was almost always grave, nay, sad and melancholy. She delighted in silence and repose, amid rocks and waterfalls; and whenever she raised her eyes from the ground, it was only to look back over her shoulder. Hope was a smiling, dancing, rosy boy, with sparkling eyes, whom it was impossible to look upon without being inspired by his gay and sprightly buoyancy. Wherever he went, he diffused around him gladness and joy: the eyes of the young sparkled brighter than ever at his approach; old age, as it cast its dim glance at the blue vault of heaven, seemed inspired with new vigour; the flowers looked more gay, the grass more green, the birds sung more cheerily, and all nature seemed to sympathize in his gladness. Memory was of mortal birth, but Hope partook of immortality.

One day they chanced to meet, and Memory reproached Hope with being a deceiver; she charged him with deluding mankind with visionary, impracticable schemes, and exciting expectations that only led to disappointment and regret; with being the ignis fatuus of youth, and the scourge of old age. But Hope cast back upon her the charge of deceit, and maintained that the pictures of the past were as much exaggerated by Memory as were the anticipations of Hope. He declared that she looked at objects at a great distance in the past, he in the future, and that this distance magnified every thing. "Let us make the circuit of the world," said he," and try the experiment." Memory consented, reluctantly, and they went their way together.

The first person they met was a schoolboy lounging lazily along, and stopping every moment to gaze around, as if unwilling to proceed on his way; by and by he sat down and burst into tears.

"Whither so fast, my good lad?" asked Hope cheeringly.

"I'm going to school," replied the lad, "to study, when I'd a thou

sand times rather be at play: and sit on a bench with a book in my hand, while I long to be sporting, in the fields. But never mind, I shall be a man soon, and then I shall be free as the air." Saying this, he skipped away merrily, in the hope of soon being a man.

"It is thus you play upon the inexperience of youth," said Memory, reproachfully.

Passing onward, they met a beautiful girl, pacing slow and melancholy behind a party of gay young men and maidens, who walked arm in arm with each other, and were flirting and exchanging all those harmless courtesies, which nature prompts on such occasions. They were all gaily dressed in silks and ribands: but the little girl had on a simple frock, a homely apron, and clumsy thick-soled shoes.

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"Why don't you join yonder group," asked Hope, “ and partake in the gaiety, my pretty little girl?"

"Alas," replied she, "they take no notice of me.

They call me a child. But I shall soon be a woman, and then I shall be so happy!" Inspired by this hope, she quickened her pace, and soon was seen dancing merrily with the rest.

In this manner they wended their way, from nation to nation, and clime to clime, until they had made the circuit of the universe. Wherever they came, they found the human race, which at this time was all young-it being not many years since the first creation of mankindrepining at the present, and looking forward to a riper age for happiness. All anticipated some future good, and Memory had scarce any thing to do but to cast looks of reproach at her young companion. Let us return home," said she, to that delightful spot where I first drew my breath. I long to repose among its beautiful bowers, to listen to the brooks that murmured a thousand times sweeter, and to the echoes that were softer than any I have since heard. Ah! there is nothing on earth so enchanting as the scenes of my earliest youth."

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Hope indulged himself in a sly, significant smile, and they proceeded on their way home. As they journeyed but slowly, many years elapsed ere they reached the spot whence they had departed. It so happened one day that they met an old man, bending under the weight of years, and walking with trembling steps, leaning on his staff. Memory at once recognised him as the youth they had seen going to school, in their first outset in the tour of the world. As they came nearer, the old man reclined on his staff, and looking at Hope, who being immortal, was still a blithe young boy, sighed as if his heart was breaking.

"What aileth thee, old man?" asked the youth.

"What aileth!" he replied, in a feeble, faltering voice,-"what should ail me, but old age? I have outlived my health and strength; I have survived all that was near and dear; I have seen all I loved, or that loved me; and now I stand like an old tree withering alone in the world, without roots, without branches, and without verdure. I have only just enough sensation to know that I am miserable, and the recollection of the happiness of my youthful days, when careless and full of blissful anticipations, I was a laughing, merry boy, only add to the miseries I now endure."

"Behold!" cried Hope, "the deception practised by thyself! Dost

thou remember the boy we met when we first set out together, who was weeping on his way to school, and sighing to be a man?"

A little way onward they came to a miserable cottage, at the door of which was an aged woman, meanly clad, and shaking with the palsy : she sat all alone, her head resting on her bosom, and, as the pair approached, vainly tried to raise it up to look at them.

"Good morrow, old lady—and all happiness to you," cried Hope, gaily, and the old woman thought it was a long time since she had heard such a charming salutation.

"Happiness!" said she, and in a voice that quivered with weakness and infirmity. "Happiness!" I have had it not since I was a little girl, without care or sorrow. O, I remember those delightful days when I thought of nothing but the present moment, nor cared for the future or the past. When I laughed and played and sung, from morning till night, and envied no one, or wished to be any other than I was. But those happy times are past, never to return. O, if I could only once more return to the days of my childhood!

The old woman sunk back on her seat, and the tears flowed from her hollow eyes.

Memory again reproached her companion, but he only asked her if she recollected the little girl they had met a long time ago, who was so miserable because she was so young. Memory knew it well enough, and said not another word.

They now approached their home, and Memory was on tiptoe with the thoughts of once more enjoying the unequalled beauties of those scenes from which she had been so long separated. But, some how or

other, it seemed they were sadly changed. Neither the grass was so green, the flowers so sweet and lovely, nor did the brooks murmur, the echoes answer, or the birds sing half so enchantingly, as she remembered them in long time past.

"Alas!" she exclaimed, "how changed is every thing."

Every thing is the same, and thou alone art changed," answered Hope. "Thou hast deceived thyself in the past, just as much as I deceive others in the future."

"What is it you are disputing about?" asked an old man, whom they had not observed before, though he was standing close by them: "I have lived almost fourscore and ten years, and my experience may perhaps enable me to decide between you."

They told him the occasion of their disagreement, and related the history of their journey around the earth. The old man smiled, and for a few moments sat buried in thought. He then said to them :—

"I, too, have lived to see all the hopes of my youth turned into shadows, clouds, and darkness, and vanish into nothing. I, too, have survived my fortune, my friends, my children, the hilarity of youth, and the blessing of health!"

"And dost thou not despair?" said Memory.

"No, I have still one hope left me."

"And what is that?"

"The hope of heaven !"

Memory turned towards Hope, threw herself into his arms, which opened to receive her, and burst into tears, exclaiming

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Forgive me, I have done thee injustice. Let us never again separate from each other."

"With all my heart," said Hope, and they continued for ever after to travel together hand and hand through the world.

Ir is absolutely a burlesque on human nature to suppose, as some, claiming the character of philosophers, have done, that a child is not to be subject to any control, but be left to its own reason for a guide; as this strengthens, it is alleged, it will more and more clearly perceive and pursue the direct course. Long before reason can be supposed to have reached that maturity which would answer this purpose, thought is awakened, and passions are called into exercise. These passions are the current by which the mind is first moved. The child has yet no reason to guide this current, and the philosophy of the father will not permit his reason to interpose; the current is, therefore, suffered to take its own course. These passions are all to be indulged, for denial would be the exercise of authority, and every indulgence increases their strength. When reason, at length, casts its first feeble view on the world, through which it is to guide the child, the youth, and the man, it sees that world not as it really is, but as it appears through the perverting medium of the passions. Reason begins to unfold, and to act under the full and established influence of the passions. If the reason of the father, with all his knowledge and experience of the world, did not attempt to control these passions, can the reason of the child be expected to turn their strong and impetuous current? The singularity of this philosophy is, that the child, whose passions are strong, whose reason is weak, whose knowledge of the world is extremely limited, should be expected to accomplish a task which the father, whose reason is fully matured, whose knowledge of the world, both from observation and experience, is extensive, has not attempted to do. The first conclusion of reason in the child will most probably be of this nature-My father, who loves me, and who is much better qualified than I am to judge of the course I should pursue, has never denied, but always indulged me; I therefore conclude that this is the proper course. Reason comes into exercise-the pupil, or rather the subject of the passions. The reports which the understanding receives from the world without, of what is right and wrong, good and evil, honourable and dishonourable, proper and improper, are all made by the passions. These reports are the material with which reason forms its first decisions; and it is easy to see that they will be in favour of the passions; indeed, according to the constitution of the human mind, they cannot be otherwise. A character formed on the principles of this philosophy, is one governed by the passions; reason has no other province, in fact, is permitted to do nothing else, than to devise ways and means for the indulgence of these sovereigns of the mind.

Yet some profess to admire the system as a great improvement in education, as a method calculated to raise the human mind to the highest point of perfection, and thus promote, by rapid strides, the prosperity and happiness of society. We have known a few characters formed after this model; and certainly we could not envy the parents the satisfaction they derived from the experiment; nor could the community very loudly boast of them as a valuable acquisition. You might as well take the reins of civil government from the enlightened and the wise, and place them in the hands of the ignorant, headstrong rabble, and call this a great improvement in political science. You might as well require a man to view every object through an instrument composed of glasses highly discoloured, and of different convexities, and call this a wonderful improvement in optics. You might as well deprive the ship of its compass and its rudder, leave it to drive before the wind and the tide, and call this a great improvement in navigation. Neither of these cases involves a greater absurdity than it does to withdraw entirely the judicious exercise of parental authority, and commit the government of a child to its own blind and impetuous passions.

CONTENTMENT.

If we consider the various pursuits of mankind after happiness, they will be found in general concentrated in that sovereign object, riches. The statesman, whose motives would seem to tend wholly to the prosperity and welfare of his country, who makes the most solemn protestations of his attachment to its interest, and pretends to be ready to sacrifice his life and fortune, whenever called on in the defence of it, will, as soon as the grand spring of his action is removed, be found as cool and inactive in support of the common cause, as he was a zealous promoter of its happiness. Self-interest precedes every other consideration, and a thirst after money often prompts the mind to actions of a base and dangerous tendency. The miser, whose insatiable avarice keeps pace with every other part of his character, knows no happiness but in accumulating wealth, and is as sanguine and diligent in the cause, as if the preservation of his life depended on the pursuit of it. His ambition knows no bounds, but, like a greedy monster, he would rob the indigent of their support, and reduce them to the most abject servility, in order to enrich his own coffers. Contentment is a name he is not acquainted with, his chief pleasure consists in admiring his illgotten riches, and looking disdainfully on all beneath him. Yet after all, his riches serve only to torment him; surrounded with all the superfluities of life, he murmurs in the midst of plenty, and by looking up to others in a prosperous situation, he not only envies the happiness they enjoy, but loses all relish for his own. When ambition fires the mind, and when avarice petrifies the heart, a man may truly bid farewell to content. It is impossible for a miser to be happy; his name implies misery, and he deserves it; and the ambitious man being of a restless disposition by nature, can never enjoy the blessings of repose. The way to be happy is to look down on those who suffer, and not up to those who shine in the world. The comparison, then, would be

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