cause no intermission in the consciousness of a happy existence. Even if the soul itself, according to the opinion of some good men, should sleep till the revivification of universal nature, there is no perception of time in the insensibility of sleep. The moment of dissolution shall touch on that of our restoration to life. The grave, sanctified by the death, triumphed over by the resurrection of our blessed Saviour, is now to all his disciples only the gate to a new, a glorious, and immortal existence. This corruptible shall put on incorruption. This mortal shall put on immortality. O DEATH! then, where is thy sting? O GRAVE! where is thy victory? Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord! Amen!

CHARACTER OF THE SERPENT,

From M. De Chateaubriand's beauties of Christianity.

THE present age rejects with disdain whatever has any tincture of the marvellous: arts, sciences, morals, religion, are all stripped of their enchantments. The serpent has frequently been the subject of our observations, and if we may venture to speak out, we have often imagined that we could discover in him that pernicious sagacity and that subtlety which are ascribed to him by scripture. Every thing is mysterious, secret, astonishing, in this incomprehensible reptile. His movements differ from those of all other animals; it is impossible to say where his locomotive principle lies, for he has neither fins, nor feet, nor wings; and yet he flits like a shadow, he vanishes as by magick, he reappears and is gone again, like a light azure vapour, or the gleams of a sabre in the dark. Now he curls himself into a circle, and projects a tongue of fire; now standing erect upon the extremity of his tail, he moves along in a perpendicular attitude as by enchantment. He rolls himself into a

ball; rises and falls in a spiral line; gives to his rings the un dulations of waves; twines round the branches of trees, glides under the grass of the meadows, or skims along the surface of water. His colours are not more determinate than his activity; they change with each new point of view, and like his motion they possess false splendour and deceitful variety.

Still more astonishing in the rest of his manners, he knows, like a man polluted with murder, how to throw aside his garment distained with blood, lest it should lead to his detection. By a singular faculty, the female can receive back into her body the little monsters to which she has given birth.

The serpent passes whole months in sleep; he frequents tombs, inhabits secret retreats, produces poisons which chill, burn, or checker the body of his victim with the colours with which he is himself marked. In one place, he raises his two menacing heads; in another he sounds a rattle; he hisses like an eagle of the mountain; he bellows like a bull. He naturally associates with all moral or religious ideas, as if in consequence of the influence which he exercised over our destiny. An object of horrour or adoration, men either feel an implacable hatred against him, or bow before his genius; falsehood calls him to his aid, and prudence claims him as her own; in hell he arms the scourges of the furies, in heaven, eternity is typified by his image. He moreover possesses the art of seducing innocence, his eyes fascinate the birds of the air, and beneath the fern of the crib, the ewe to him gives up her milk. But he may himself be charmed by the harmony of sweet sounds; and to subdue him, the shepherd needs no other weapon than his pipe.

In the month of July, 1791, we were travelling in Upper Canada, with several families of savages belonging to the nation of the Onontagues. One day, when we had halted in a spacious plain on the bank of the river Genesee, a rattlesnake entered our encampment. Among us was a Canadian who could play on the flute, and who, to divert us, advanced against the serpent with his new species of weapon. On the approach of his enemy, the haughty reptile curls himself into a spiral line, flattens his head, inflates his cheecks, contracts his lips, displays his en

venomed fangs, and his bloody throat; his double tongue glows like two flames of fire; his eyes are burning coals; his body swollen with rage, rises and falls like the bellows of a forge; his dilated skin assumes a dull and scaly appearance; and his tail, whence proceeds the death-denouncing sound, vibrates with such rapidity as to resemble a light vapour.

The Canadian now begins to play upon his flute; the serpent starts with surprise and draws back his head. In proportion as he is struck with the magick effect, his eyes lose their fierceness, the oscillations of his tail become slower, and the sound which it emits grows weaker, and gradually dies away. Less perpendicular upon their spiral line, the rings of the charmed serpent are by degrees expanded, and sink, one after another, upon the ground in concentrick circles. The shades of azure, green, white, and gold, recover their brilliancy on his quivering skin, and slightly turning his head, he remains motionless in the attitude of attention and pleasure.

At this moment, the Canadian advanced a few steps, producing, with his flute sweet and simple notes. The reptile inclining his variegated neck, opens a passage with his head through the high grass, and begins to creep after the musician, stopping when he stops, and beginning to follow him again as soon as he moves forward. In this manner, he was led out of our camp, attended by a great number of spectators, both savages and Europeans, who could scarcely believe their eyes when they witnessed this wonderful effect of harmony. The assembly unanimously decreed that the serpent which had so highly entertained them, should be permitted to escape.

FROM PRATT'S GLEANINGS.

IT is refreshing to the soul sickened by the uninteresting trash, and illibera! sarcasms of modern Tourists, who have travelled in their closets, like CARR, for the sake of making a book," crossed a desart like VOLNEY, to seek arguments in favour of infidelity, or rambled over a country to gleam food for national prejudice, like the generous MOORE of song singing memory: sometimes to have an opportunity of lingering over the descriptions of those "sentimental travellers," who have crossed oceans and traversed climes, to note the varieties of mankind, and not of roads. bridges, and the weather. The following extract from " Gleanings in Westphalia," we think, may justly entitle their interesting author, to a place on the same shelf in our libraries, with the far-famed author of the "sentimental jour. ney."] ÉDITOR.

AS to clay-built cottages, woodland inhabitants, rustick songs, and lazy waterfalls, they are passed by as fit only for Country Corydons, or shepherdesses bemused. Far different is the attractive scenery of a world's man and woman-the broad and beaten track amidst the crush and clatter of coaches, which are so wedged together that they move as if in funeral procession, walks, so crammed, that you cannot pass without difficulty, a cluster of glaring lamps stuck upon trees, to the blush of the moon beam,-the sun himself shut out to make way for a parcel of artificial lights, brought into an unwholesome room crouded with company and card tables, a kind of elegant pesthouse where people infect one another by common consent, and are suffocated on principles of politeness-These are the appreciated scenes of men and women of the world !—And I ought not to fail observing, that, amongst these well-bred broiled and roasted, who sit with the perseverance of a hatching hen, as if nailed to the sides of the card table, there are always a certain number of sentimental misses, who affect to have souls superiour to such waste of time, and build up a sort of reputation on never touching a card, but when politeness, or a dowager mamma, insists on her making up the set. These damsels fidget, or glide about the rooms, and ogle their fair images in the pier glasses, till picked up by stray batchelors, or cut out married men, or song-transcribing young striplings, who get into

prattling parties, or file off into corners for a touch of the patheticks, or construct the horn work of a future siege in a whispered tete a tete. Most of those light troops assure you of their detestation of the town, but yet run their pretty faces into one or other of its hot-houses every night, and go through a summer campaign amidst more fire and smoke, than would melt down the constitution of the whole board of aldermen. Mean time there is another set dispersed here and there, insidiously laying a mine to blow up reputations, and while the game of the other parties goes on, these engineers prepare a very notable masked battery, and play off their artillery, as if only in a mock action, at your wife or daughter, till they almost surrender at discretion before your face. The play amongst the card veterans, becomes too intense for observing on any stratagems but their own: the card passions are all at work, breaking the unlucky chairs of some, biting the lips, gnashing the teeth, slapping the foreheads, or stamping the feet of others, and while the honour's are lost by one, and the odd trick gained by another, the mistress of the house slaves in hospitality, and struggles through the elegant mob, with more toil and difficulty, than a landlady at an election dinner!

"But somewhat too much of this." Let us fly from these artificial beings, to the children of nature and the heart. Suffer me to reconduct you to the simple, yet ever-blooming paths, from which these world-warped tribes have too long led us astray.

Allow me to place you once more within sight of the flute and voice I mentioned to you before, and listen to the magick that ensued. The wood notes, wild as they were, charmed me. I rose and advanced. A few paces brought me within sight of a cottage door, which was wide open. The song and musick proceeded, mingled with dancing, of which I could rather hear the happy step, than perceive the enlivening figure. But I was presently observed, and actually as fair a maid, accompanied by as blooming a youth as Arcadia ever fancied, tripped forward without quitting hands to invite me into their dwelling. You are here prepared for

VOL. I.