not quite so sure as you are. But I will not disturb, by fears or evil forebodings, such an admirable arrangement. I see peace and plenty flourishing, and thanks to your wise provision, the age of gold once more returning. WILLIAM.-But this is not all. Our tutor says that the lesser animals have a more delicate and perfect organization than the larger, that their sight is more penetrating, their hearing more acute, and their sense of smell more refined. PAPA.-Yes, generally speaking. CHARLES. So that men, very little men, would see, hear, and smell a number of things of which our coarser senses know nothing at present. have that flexibility and sensibility which render the use PAPA.-I make no plans on this subject, for the simple reason, that I am fully convinced that I should not succeed one degree better than you have done. You have, yourselves, seen, and every day's experience will prove to you, that you could not make any change in man's conformation, that could better adapt him to the circum PAPA.—These would be advantages, but I must own their acquisition would be to me more than counter-stances by which he is surrounded; nor is it otherwise balanced, by the loss of the universal dominion we exercise over every living creature. CHARLES. But why must it be lost, Papa? Have you not often told me that man rules more by his intelligence than by his strength? with the powers of mind which he has been given. You will yet learn, I trust, by the use and development of them in yourselves, the wondrous resources of the human mind. How marvellous are the discoveries which the exercise of the noble faculty of thought has enabled man to make; how admirable the inventions, rendering all nature tributary to him; and, not only PAPA.-True, but this would be no longer the case, if his strength were so utterly disproportioned to his intelligence. Give a Lilliputian the boldest, the most ex-making it minister to the daily wants of ordinary life, pansive genius, give him even our arts and inventions at their present high degree of perfection, do you think that he would be able to make use of our most pliant instruments, or give to our lightest machine its motion? How could he defend himself from wild beasts, when his own dog might unintentionally trample him to death? CHARLES.-But you know everything around is to be smaller in proportion. Oh, papa! I have caught you there. but, at one time, giving him, in the aid of instruments, the greater acuteness of vision, of which you spoke just now as belonging to the inferior animals; and, at another, giving him, by machinery, set in motion by the elements, a swiftness almost bearing comparison with the wing of the bird, for which, I dare say, you have often wished. But man is even still greater as a social being. CHARLES.-Papa, what do you mean by man as a social being? PAPA.--Only to the upsetting of your whole scheme, PAPA. I mean man's connection with, his influence, for in that case, he loses all the advantages you thought his power over his fellow-men; the way in which men to procure for him by the change. His small crops are dependent one upon another. To use this power for would be no security against famine; his wars would be mutual benefit, is to comply with the injunction to as frequent and as cruel. The inferior animals would still "Love thy neighbour as thyself;" for mutual depenhave finer organs and more delicate perception, and per-dence, mutual benefit, is a law of our nature, and haps, notwithstanding his insignificance, we should have him like some little gentleman of my acquaintance, setting about reforming the universe. CHARLES.-Well, indeed, papa, you are very hard to be pleased. You let none of our arrangements stand. WILLIAM. It is your fault, Charles, for you do not know how to manage matters. I have a plan in my head that would settle everything. PAPA.-Pray let us hear it. I own I am not a little curious. WILLIAM.-All would be right if we had only harder bodies, as hard as iron. PAPA.-How so? WILLIAM.-Look at this scratch on my finger. It seems a mere trifle, and yet I cannot tell you how it pains me. PAPA.-(Taking an orange from his pocket.) Here, William, smell this orange. WILLIAM.—What a beautiful orange, and such a nice scent. I am sure it must have a delicious flavour. May I take it, papa, and share it with Charles? PAPA.-No, indeed. I intend it for the little black figure on the chimney-piece. WILLIAM.-Oh, now you are laughing at us, papa. It PAPA.-It seems then, that you were ready to sacrifice the pleasure of sight, smell and taste, to insure that should you fall off the chimney-piece your head would not be broken. For you would be good for nothing but to figure there. WILLIAM.-Oh, I never meant that. I intended to be alive, with this difference only that my body should be made of iron. PAPA. And how could the nerves of an iron body a privilege of it-I mean, it is good, and not less good for one person than it is for all. Even just now, in your first plan of being the only giant in the world, you found this isolation, this standing alone and high above all others, had its inconveniences; and you seemed, too, I am sorry to say, inclined to use the power you fancied it would give you, solely for selfish ends; everything was to be cleared out of your way, and for trifling objects. Man is placed here to do good and to get good, and this he does by communication and kind intercourse with his fellow-men, by gentle courtesy, pity, humanity, kindly sympathy, and regardful consideration in his several relations as master, servant, employer, employed, friend, in short, as good neighbours. CHARLES.-But, Papa, you say he is greater as a social being, than in those wonderful discoveries and inventions, and the exercise of his mind and powers of thought. It would seem so easy a thing to be what you call a good neighbour. PAPA. I will tell you why he is greater as a social being. First, because the feelings, or moral powers, are the highest part of our nature: and, in society, with his fellows, man's affections are developed and exercised, and not merely his understanding and intellect. I think you always feel happier, and I am sure you are better, when you have shown from your heart, some kindness to another, than when you have worked the most difficult sum your tutor ever gave you to calculate. He is a nobler being who can say, "I am a man, and nothing is foreign, nothing far from me that is human," than he who, in his delight at knowledge acquired, said, "I have found it-I have found it." Besides, all the wonderful discoveries and inventions of man's intellect have always, as their object, social benefit; and are valuable just in proportion as they minister to this object. Now, if the object be a good one, it must always be of more import ance than the means used to attain it. And I cannot stream is bounding hot, and mantling through all her How warm the sun is ! You cannot now look veins. but think, my dear boys, that this would be a good rule for you through life, by which to test any pursuit. Set a just value upon the time, the powers God has given you, and then let your object be greater than the means. I must now leave you for some business out of doors, but I hope you do not feel so ready to believe in the superiority of your mode of arrangement. NOTES ON THE MONTHS. "The Earth herself is adorning, In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, in his eye, as he sails through the great blue ocean along the path he has lighted from everlasting. Under his glowing eye, all things spring into renewed life. In the meadows you walk ankle-deep among the thick grassthe richest carpet of nature's weaving. In the woods, which are pow bright green, you are delighted by the sunshine streaming down through the branches of the tall trees, finding a broken passage to the ground, as if to seek out and kiss some loved though lonely flower, that blushes unseen beneath the shadow of yonder huge oak. Then hearken! It is the song of the sky-lark as it fans the milk-white cloud-singing a song of love, sweet as is the melody of a happy thought in its transit through the soul. You may not see it, and yet the welkin rings with its jubilant music. Not without a wise purpose does nature thus yearly renew her youth for us, and clothe every succeeding summer with verdure and with flowers. How beautiful are the rosy footsteps of May! Less The summer of the heart is thus preserved and prolonged showery and changeful than April, and not so heated in all its freshness, by this glorious procession of the and burdensome as June, she stands like a gentle media-seasons in nature. We look upon all this to little purtor between the two, gradually leading us onward to the season when all is sunshine. With her soft blue eye, and her mild but radiant countenance, she comes like an angel of light among men. Verdure and fruition start into new life at her approach. She scatters in her path the sweetest flowers of nature, and everywhere breathes fragrance and joyousness. The hawthorn blossom covers the hedges, and daisies and cowslips still deck the upland and the valley. The birds of the air are carolling her welcome, and even the mute beasts of the field seem happier at her coming. And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm." The Spring is past; but it has left traces of its footsteps on vale, and wood, and stream. 'Tis past! But we imagine we can yet hear its voice dying away in the distance, like a song of heaven, or like the voices we have heard in a dream, singing of hope, and peace, and love; telling of the Summer which draws near, less fresh and buoyant perhaps, but more sedately beautiful. Who can look on the land where Spring hath been, and where Summer is, without feeling his heart expanding, and pouring out its streams of gentleness" on all things round, and clasping all above?" "Rise up," said the wise Solomon, "rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo! the Winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land." May-day! the heart leaps up at the word, and is thrilled with feelings of the purest delight. In times of yore, the first morning of May was ushered in with music, and songs, and merry-makings. What loving and cheerful hearts our brave forefathers must have had, and how keen a relish for the beautiful in nature ! The young maidens rose with the first dawning of the Mayday morn, and went forth to bathe their rosy cheeks with the early May-dew, and the men and boys to gather green boughs and wild flowers, wherewith to deck their homes for the summer festival; and the tallest tree on the lord's estate was reared as a Maypole on the village green, around which lads and lasses danced and sang till the sinking sun tipped the distant hills with his gold. It was the veritable Summer's saturnalia; then the hobbyhorse jumped, and the dragon rolled, and many uncouth capers were cut, the lord of the soil with his wife and daughters, from the old Hall, not disdaining to take their share in the sports. This May-day celebration, they say, was but a relic of an old Pagan Festival. It matters not, the fact makes us even feel kindly towards the Pagans, who invented this form of worship to the sovereign month of flowers. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." pose, if we look not up, and see the great and loving God above all. Hearken to the booming of the bee as it wings its joyous way, laden with the sweets of a thousand flowers. Or, it is evening; the golden sun is sinking beneath a cloud, and "day goes blushing like a bride to rest," then uprises from some sheltered grove the clear, mellifluous, ravishing song of the nightingale pouring her strains into the ear of night, till the east becomes gilded with the first rays of the advancing god, when the lark springs from her nest and takes up the beautiful strain of melody. You are seated in a bosky green dell, and your ear catches the murmuring ripple of the streamlet as it winds its tortuous way, now concealed by the brushwood and briars, and now laughing in the full gaze of the meridian sun. The very wind is now musical, as it wanders over the hills and valleys, and sweeps the bright meadows with its soft and gentle wing; curling the bosom of the lake and fanning the crisp foliage of the trees; creeping through open lattices, and bringing a refreshing coolness to the fevered brow, bearing on its wings a delicious fragrance to the spent frame of the drooping invalid. All these voices of May-nature are but a small part of the vast choir of melodious tongues, which are ever pouring forth a ceaseless song of tributary praise to the Creator. Among the beautiful features of this lovely month, the following are to be noted. The hawthorn hedges covered with their May blossom, over thousands of miles of country-exhaling a perfume more delicious than ever floated in the marble palaces of cities. The woods are bright with foliage, though many young leaves are still bursting from their buds into the light of day. The. pines now look dark and gloomy amid the gay livery of the surrounding trees. The tracery of each tree is still to be remarked, the wiry twigs and the feathery branches, though in a few weeks more they will be clothed with leafy darkness. The lilac is in flower, the chestnut-flowers are just appearing; the guelder-rose and laburnum are also in bloom. The heaths now wear a gorgeous livery; red ferns are bursting forth, and the yellow gorse is hung with flowers of gold. There is no end of flowers, from the violet, which has not yet departed; the crocus, buttercup, and daisy; the field hyacinth, meadow lychnis, blue-bell, pile-wort, and crowsfoot,-to the gay flowers of the garden and parterre the brilliant tulip, the rich crimson peony, the bright red monkey poppy, with a thousand other beautiful flowering plants and roots. The woods are now alive with the singing of birds. The song of the cuckoo is fullest in May, though towards the end of the month he begins to grow hoarse. The ringdove's melancholy COO is often heard, with the Nature is now in her youth again, and the full life-weet-weet, and pink-pink, of the chaffinch, and the the wrinkle-winkle of the blackbird, in the intervals of their melody. There is also the shriek of the jay, the shrill shout of the wood-pecker, the tinkling voice of the titmouse; and the whitethroat may be seen hopping from tree to tree, to allure you from his nest. The voices and cries of these birds are almost as interesting as their songs. The insects of the season now make their appearance, and there are certain fine days in which thousands of species make their first début together. The early sulphur butterfly is now seen every fine day, and is followed by the tortoiseshell, the peacock, and lastly, by the white cabbage butterflies. The air is full of winged insects, and the bees are humming over the flowers, sucking from them their honey. Now is the time to go out and enjoy the mild summer sun, the green weather, and the beauties of earth, and air, and sky. How we, who are busily occupied in the pent-up towns, long to get out into the May scenery! Hurrying along the crowded streets, we hear with a thrill, the voice of the caged blackbird, hung out where a patch of sunshine comes cheeringly on the brown brick wall; and we look out with interest upon the budding greenness of a solitary tree, donning its summer livery in some black city garden. The amateur gardener busies himself among his pinks, roses, and tulips; and the little cottage garden is now a little paradise, gay with flowers. The roses and woodbines trailed along the porch are now putting forth their beauties, making the sunshine more glad. Out in the country, what pictures of beauty await us-in the green lanes, along the wayside hedges, and among the "green-robed senators of the mighty woods." And as the quiet stillness of evening falls over the landscape, you can almost fancy that you hear the grass growing, and the pulse of nature beating. The month of May should be full of holidays. May-day in especial should be consecrated to its old uses-to the holding of the great summer festival. We ought then to renew our cordial acquaintance with nature, so that a life of toil may be sweetened, and many glad thoughts be treasured up in the heart for future remembrance. "The world is too much with us-getting and spending we lay waste our powers." Let us have a May-day for the people, and inundate the green fields with the pale faces from the towns, where shrunken spirits may be invigorated by a contact with nature, and the breath of a new life may be freely inhaled. Every railroad should bear its burden of human beings countrywards on that day-none without its monster train, and fares should be brought sufficiently low to induce all classes to travel. Let us use our great power of steam locomotion, so as to civilize and humanize the masses, and promote their full health and vigour. Let them see the clear sky, and the green grass and trees, hear the waters murmur, and the birds sing; and they will learn to love nature, and appreciate her lessons; drawing from thence the best materials for their moral and spiritual well-being. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. From the maggot that leaps from a nut as we crack it on our plate after dinner, and the caterpillar that eats up the leaves of our favourite convolvulus in the gardenfrom the fish that cleaves the green, translucent wave, and the bird that wings the breeze of incense-breathing morn-from the lion that roams the desert wild, and the horse that tramps the battle-field, or prances before the lady's equipage-up to Man, the master of them all, there is one all-pervading nervous system, progressively diminishing in a downward scale of analytic exhaustion, till it ends in a mere microscopic globule of a brain, by which they all communicate and hold their relative and inter-dependent existences, according to their various forms and needs, and types of organization, function, growth, location, and pursuits.-Dr. Winslow's Journal of Psychological Medicine. NACOOCHEE. With the valley of Nacoochee is connected a beautiful Indian legend. It runs substantially as follows: "Long before the Anglo Saxon had made his first footprints on these western shores--long before even the Genoese visionary had dreamed of a New World beyond the Columns of Hercules, there dwelt in this lovely valley a young maiden of wonderful and almost celestial beauty. She was the daughter of a chieftain-a princess. In doing homage to her, the people of her tribe almost forgot the Great Spirit who made her, and endowed her with such strange beauty. Her name was Nacoochee-" The Evening Star." A son of the chieftain of a neighbouring and hostile tribe saw the beautiful Nacoochee and loved her. He stole her young heart. She loved him with an intensity of passion that only the noblest souls know. They met beneath the holy stars, and sealed their simple vows with kisses. In the valley, where, from the interlocked branches overhead, hung with festoons, in which the white flowers of the climate, and the purple blossoms of the magnificent wild passion-flower, mingled with the dark foliage of the muscadine, they found a fitting place. The song of the mocking-bird, and the murmur of the Chattahoochee's hurrying waters were marriage-hymn and anthem to them. They vowed eternal love. They vowed to live and die with each other. Intelligence of these secret meetings reached the ear of the old chief, Nacoochee's father, and his anger was terrible. But love for Laceola was stronger in the heart of Nacoochee than even reverence to her father's commands. One night the maiden was missed from her tent. The old chieftain commanded his warriors to pursue the fugitive. They found her with Laceola, the son of a hated race. In an instant an arrow was aimed at his breast. Nacoochee sprang before him and received the barbed shaft in her own heart. Her lover was stupified! He made no resistance, and his blood mingled with hers! The lovers were buried in the same grave, and a lofty mound was raised to mark the spot. Deep grief seized the old chief and all his people, and the valley was ever after called Nacoochee. The mound which marks the trysting-place, and the grave of the maiden and her betrothed, surmounted by a solitary pine, is still to be seen, and forms one of the most interesting features of the landscape of this lovely vale." TRUTH IN CONVERSATION. The love of truth is the stimulus to all noble conversation. This is the root of all the charities. The tree which springs from it may have a thousand branches, but they will bear a golden and generous fruitage. It is the loftiest impulse to inquiry-willing to communicate, and more willing to receive-contemptuous of petty curiosity, but passionate for glorious knowledge. Speech without it is but babble. Rhetoric more noisy, but less useful than the tinman's trade. When the love of truth fires up the passions, puts its lightning in the brain, then men may know that a prophet is among them. This is the spring of all heroism, and clothes the martyr with a flame that outshines the flame that kills him. Compared with this, the emulations of argument-the pungencies of sarcasm-the pride of logic-the pomp of declamation-are as the sounds of an automation to the voice of a man. NATURAL BEAUTY. The impression of human beauty either in marble, or on canvas, is, to those who can feel it, a great delight,but the living and the actual is a rapture which admits of no defining. All adventitious distinctions are nothing in its presence. The youth barefooted on the mountains, clad in the goodliness of nature, is a true prince and peer of earth. The girl, by the spring, robed in homespun cotton, with the light of loveliness around her, is a queen with a right divine from heaven. And with a steady fervency I too would do my part; But 'tis not given me to write Upon the world my name, Or send up to its giddy height I am a pebble, gently cast The wavelets, as they circle past, Seem neither deep nor wide; Yet calm and noiseless ride they on And are assuredly a force In Life's Infinity. There is a "mission " then for me, Though humble, yet divine; A faint, soft light may stream from me, Though not a star to shine. What work lies nearest to my hand That may I nobly do; And midst our homely, household band, Be simple, loving, true. Beside my hearth, and at my door, Kind words may sweetly fall; And he is sure not very poor, Who gladly blesseth all! O'er common things and common ways The love of man in his maturer years, is not so much a new emotion, as a revival and concentration of all his departed affections to others. Who, when he returns to recall his first and fondest associations-when he throws off one by one, the layers of earth and stone which have grown and hardened over the records of the past-who has not been surprised to discover how fresh and unimpaired those buried treasures rise again upon his heart? They have been laid up in the store-house of time; their very concealment has preserved them. We remove the lava, and the world of a gone day is before us. DIAMOND DUST. LIBERTY is the child of education. THE authors of one generation are the spiritual parents of the next, which invariably reaps the full harvest of its thoughts and aspirations. WHEN clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks. THE world is upheld by the veracity of good men. GOUT sometimes the father's sin visited upon the child, but more often the child of our own sins visiting its father. THERE is a sort of masonry in poetry, wherein the pause represents the joints of building, which ought in every line and course to have their disposition varied. WHEN the heart prompts us to listen, how fine is the ear. Do the likeliest and hope the best. THE mystery of sympathy links us with kindred minds, and bids us feel, long before the lights and shadows of character can be distinguished, that we have met with the rich blessing of a heart which can understand us, and on which our own can lean. TARDY recognition insults the genius which it starves and then crowns. VICE can never know itself and virtue, but virtue knows both itself and vice. MANNERS are the hypocrisy of nature, the hypocrisy being more or less perfect. HAPPINESS-a blessing often missed by those who run after pleasure, and generally found by those who suffer pleasure to run after them. A GENTLEMAN is one who combines a woman's tenderness with a man's courage. EVERYTHING great is not always good, but all good things are great. MEN who regard money merely as a means to some particular end seldom grow rich. WANT of prudence is too frequently the want of virtue; nor is there on earth a more powerful advocate for vice than poverty. Ir is better to do something than to project many things. DARE to be good, though the world laugh at you. THE true poet produces his greatest effects not by outraging the sympathies, but by vindicating them. TRUST not the world, for it never payeth what it promiseth. DRAM-a small quantity taken in large quantities by those who have few grains of sobriety and no scruples of conscience. To conciliate is so infinitely more agreeable than to offend, that it is worth some sacrifice of individual will. ECONOMY-a pauper without a parish, whom no one will own or adopt, unless compelled by necessity. He who enlarges his heart restricts his tongue. MISFORTUNE is but another word for the follies, blunders, and vices which, with a greater blindness, we attribute to the blind goddess, to the fates, to the stars, to heart are the heaven and earth which we accuse and any one, in short, but ourselves. make responsible for all our calamities. Our own head and As love without esteem is volatile and capricious. so esteem without love is languid and cold. We should let our likings ripen before we love. Printed and Published for the Proprietor, by JoHN OWEN CLARER, (of No. 8, Canonbury Villas, in the Parish of St. Mary, Islington, in the County of Middlesex) at his Printing Office, No. 3, Raquet Court, Fleet Street, in the Parish of St. Bride, in the City of London, Saturday, May 4, 1850. THE SEAMSTRESS. SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1850. TRIPPING Over the stile, one Sabbath summer morning, came a village girl, her sunburnt face half-shaded by a knitted bonnet, dimples showing upon her cheeks and chin, lips rosy and full, eyes sparkling with life and health, her whole frame radiant with rural beauty and vigour. After her came a little, pale boy, who limped over the stile, aided by her tender hand, and who seemed to breathe heavily and painfully, as he plodded after her along the field-path which led to church. Through the green meadow they walked, along the tall waving corn, by the skirt of the coppice, and then up the green lane which brought them to the church door, the humble spire of which had been for some time in sight, the bell chiming louder and louder as they neared it. [PRICE 1d. "Thank you kindly, Rosie," was his answer, as he warmly pressed her hand. "I trust it will be all as you say, and now let us go into church." Across the churchyard they went, hand in hand, striding over the pigmy hunches of sward, on one of which sat a child playing with the shadows cast by itself upon a newly-chiselled gravestone; then near the porch, with greetings on each side, they passed through a group of old men gossiping over their staves; while up the centre walk came a bridal party in gay attire, following whom came a bowed-down widow, in her weeds, amid a mourning family of sons and daughters. And thus, converging towards the old ivy-covered porch, its Norman scroll half-hid beneath the leaves,-the joys and sorrows, the hopes and regrets, the aspirations and fears of this quiet country district, passed commingling together into "Haste thee, Jacky, haste thee, else I fear we shall the church. be too late," said the girl. The boy, wearied and panting, dragged himself along, holding by his sister's arm. "Oh, Rosie, how tired I am, you do not know," he said; "here, let us sit down upon this gravestone for a minute or two, for we are in good time; the last bell has not rung in yet." "Poor Jacky, lad, I wish I had left you at home; you look quite ill. But, you know you would come, and I couldn't say No!" "It was your last Sunday with us, Rosie; and my heart longed to be with you here again, before you left us for the great city. You may never see me again, Rosie, but you may sit upon my grave and think of me, kindly and lovingly." Rosie sighed, and with kind words tried to cheer the drooping boy. "Faint-hearted as ever, Jacky, I see! why will you thus give way to sorrowful thoughts? Surely, life is fresh and young to both of us, and merry joys are yet in store for us all. I go to London for your sake-I wish to send you to school, and make you learned and wise, like our own good curate, and then how proud and happy we shall all be!" The boy's eyes sparkled with pleasure now, for it was his thought by day, and his dream by night-that he should be a scholar, and live with the great dead in their works, breathe their thoughtful breath, and drink in their glorious spirit. His precocious aspirations were already formed, and he panted eagerly after learning, boy though he was. * Six months have passed, and the scene is changed. The summer's sun has gone, harvest is past, and autumn has paled into winter, which whitens the ground with his rime. About a dozen girls sit sewing in a small close room, behind the millinery and dressmaking establishment of Mrs. Jones, situated in a narrow street, in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square. The only window looks into a close yard, on the other side of which rise up the blackened brick walls of the line of houses forming the next parallel street. Sometimes the sun throws a slanting ray into that narrow rift of brick, but, into this little room itself its glad light never plays. There is nothing cheerful to view without, and there is still less that is cheerful to behold within. The sewers are dressed, some neatly, some gaudily, some tastefully, some plainly and humbly as poor girls can be. Among them is seated our Rosie, whom we last saw entering the village church. Her cheeks have lost their fresh hue, and a pasty paleness has taken its place. Her | eyes are red and swelled, her lips are shrunken, and her form seems shrivelled up. Can this be the girl whom we found so bright and glowing with hope only six months ago? It is! For poor Rosie now leads the familiar life of a London seamstress, and she has already stamped upon her features the accustomed miseries of her class. There is no want of talk in this little back-room, stifling and cheerless though it be. One tells of her visit to the theatre last night, and how she had been charmed, |