But happy he who finds a worthy friend! Vir- | pery paths, hold together for mutual support, in tue, left to its own strength, often languishes; the order to walk with greater security." example and approbation of a friend redouble it. The wicked join hands to do evil. Should not Perhaps he is fearful at first, feeling himself in- the virtuous combine to do good?

clined to many faults, and not possessing a proper consciousness of his own merits; the esteem of a man that he loves, raises him in his own estimation. He still experiences a secret shame that he does not possess all the worth which the indulgence of another supposes, but his courage increases by his efforts to correct himself. He rejoices that his good qualities have not escaped the notice of his friend; he is grateful to him for it; he has the ambition to acquire other claims to his esteem, and thanks to friendship, we sometimes see a man advancing vigorously towards perfection, who was far from it, and who otherwise would have remained so.

Make no strenuous efforts to acquire friends. It is better to have none at all, than to be forced to repent of having chosen them with precipitation. But when you have found one, honor him with an elevated friendship.

This noble affection has been sanctioned by all philosophers; it is sanctioned by religion. We find some beautiful examples of it in Scripture: "The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." But better still, friendship was consecrated by the Redeemer himself. He pillowed upon his bosom the head of the sleeping John, and when he was suspended upon the cross, before he expired, he pronounced these divine words full of filial love and friendship: "Mother, behold thy son,-Disciple, behold thy mother."

I believe that friendship, (I mean elevated, true friendship, which is based upon high esteem,) is almost necessary to man to draw him away from his propensities to evil. It imparts to the soul something poetical, a sublime and noble strength, without which he rises with difficulty above the miry slough of selfishness.

LOVE SKETCHES.

Maiden! on whose placid features
Childhood's beauty lingers still,
Who hast never known the shadow,
Of a proud, imperious will,

Dreary hours are dark before thee,
Hours that try the soul they task,
But the skies are starry o'er thee,
Mercy grants what faith shall ask.

Care can never soil thy spirit,
Deepest grief shall soon depart,
For thou'rt strong in all the aiding,
Heaven sends the pure in heart.

Bertha half sat, half reclined on a lounge, and played idly with the fragrant cluster of roses she held in her hand. Clara was busily occupied with her embroidery, and Herbert was reading aloud to them from that lovely prose-poem, the "Home" of Frederika Bremer. A sweet and tranquil summer afternoon was drawing brightly to its close, and the undisturbed beauty of the world without seemed not more peaceful than this trio of dreaming hearts. Her bertread well and feelingly, and he had reached the touching portion of that fascinating home-chronicle, which paints the melancholy death of Henrich, his mother's most gifted and best beloved, the "summer-child" of many hopes and prayers.

"Close the book, Herbert," said Clara, as he paused at the conclusion of this sad scene, "such pictures are uselessly sorrowful, and the impression they leave is too painful. We take from life much that makes it great and glorious, by imaginBut this friendship once conceived and promised, ing an early doom the ordinary lot of the unusually engrave its duties upon your heart. They are talented. Such records depress the spirit, and I many! nothing less than to render yourself all do not like, even in fiction, to dwell on the disapyour life worthy of your friend. pointments of hope."

"How different our tastes are!" returned Bertha; "I feel more sympathy with griefs and events like these, than with gayer ones, and to me there is something of a higher peace, a purer tendency, in the moral humility such tearful lessons teach us."

Some persons advise us not to contract a friendship with any one, because it takes too strong a hold upon the affections, distracts the mind and produces jealousy; but I hold with a very excellent philosopher, Francisco di Sales, who, in his Philothea, calls this "an evil counsel." He grants "And is there not enough in the daily and hourly that, in the cloister, it may be prudent to guard experience of our feebleness, in the frailty of our against particular attachments: "But in the world," own best purposes, to teach us humility?" replied says he, “it is necessary that those should unite Clara bitterly. "I would acquire in its stead strength together, who wish to combat under the banner and power, the strength to combat, the power to of virtue, under the banner of the cross. Men control circumstances, to mould them to what they who live in an age where there are so many ob- were not, to what we will. It is time enough when stacles to be overcome in their way to Heaven, disappointment inevitably comes, to learn passively are like those travellers, who, in rugged and slip-to endure it."

I am too

Herbert's gaze was bent on her earnestly as she | I am wretched. My interest in things around me uttered these words, and though he doubted her is lessened, the poet's page has lost its charm, and philosophy, he did not contradict the proud expres- literature, the enchanting dream-world of my purer sions that so well became the impassioned beauty of days, is no longer a source of pleasure. Fiction their speaker. And yet they awoke reflections in wearies me; I am too really and earnestly sad to his mind, which grieved and perplexed him, and he find entertainment in the portrayal, however skilfelt as he marked the momentary and unconscious ful of imaginary events. Society gives me but dejection which at times flitted over her faultless momentary excitement and distraction; I return face, that the shadows were dark on her heart and from scenes of gaiety and my spirit feels its lonethat all was not peace within. The elasticity of liness the deeper from their contrast. her youth-that charm which returns not-was pre-proud to appear melancholy, and the effort to seem maturely vanishing and giving place to the care- happy is a constant trial. How many such mental tinted thoughts of womanhood, and he feared that, mysteries, such useless, and self-imposed martyrwith all her brilliant endowments, her self-relying doms as mine, the social world might show, and pride, she had none of the quiet, abiding principle, while each one mournfully feels his own depressing which brings even to the deluded visionary, an burden of care and its concealment, how little he enduring hope and solace. Herbert dwelt on this sympathizes with those who, like himself, are living calmly there was no sentiment in his heart for her on in silent and passive endurance, and not one now but the true, deep solicitude of a brother's light word is restrained by a kind thought for the affection, and that involuntary interest which ever heart, perchance breaking beside him! We know follows the destiny of the one we loved first. He not the mysteries that control our nature, that knew her faults well, and though he would wil- make our impulses marvels to ourselves, changing lingly have sacrificed much for her happiness, she the tenor of our human destinies and altering the was dear less for herself than as Bertha's sister. future for our souls. We divide all that is dearest He admired her too, as men always admire beauty, in existence, pleasure is essentially a sympathy, and he felt that sympathy in her aspiring tenden- and our joys are in part the property of others to be cies, which the cultivated intuitively experience known and shared. But our griefs, life's shadows towards the mind which soars beyond the common- and its truths, the things that make us what we are place aims of life, and strives, however unwisely, and turn us aside from what we might have been, however vainly, to work out and realize the loftier the haunters of our memories, the diggers of our portion of its intellectual nature. There is in all graves-ah! they are wholly and undisturbedly the high spirits that have once hoped proudly and our own, to be buried in the stillness of the heart have watched the world well, an emotion of kind- that bore them, and covered with the dust of the ness, perhaps mingled with compassion, towards hopes they broke." "And yet I was the ambitious, and it may be, that with Herbert created for something better and higher than this this feeling strengthened, because he now regarded idle, complaining nothingness; I have strong yearnher tranquilly and philosophically. He had learned ings that might guide me upward to nobler aims, to reason on her character, to read at once its in- that might fulfil my holier dreamings. When I sufficiencies and its aspirations; he saw in them look on the past, brief and bright as it is for me, much to pity, yet something to approve, and he there is yet a sentiment of disappointment that so admired her more, because he loved her less. And many of my anticipations should already have well Clara knew this, and bitterly in her secret proved vain, that my womanhood has so faintly soul she felt and mourned it, and sometimes as she sustained, so feebly worked out the beautiful ideality looked on Bertha's innocent and placid face and of my childhood. It is a hard lot too, to be incessaw the guileless enjoyment of which it bore the santly pursued by this wild, taunting desire for the lovely impress, she would turn away in irrepressible admiration of the many, and yet to have so little regret, and thoughts would overcast her spirit, whose in common with them. I begin to believe that talent, sudden and envious sorrow startled and appalled her accompanied by such imaginative tendencies, is as they passed. nothing but a curse, and I would joyfully relin"Is all the purer and better portion of my nature quish every ray of intellectual superiority, to attain lost?" She wrote thus in her diary, "have I suf- the placid peacefulness that sheds so holy, so changefered one dream to concentrate every gentler and less a lustre over my sister's quiet and loving life. softer feeling, to prompt every impulse, to sway Well! this can not endure for ever; all things will every motive, and is all else harshness, despon- fade, even as hope fadeth, and we are but wanderers dency and wretchedness? I pause as I trace that and strangers here, and pilgrims-whither ?" word, for the habit of concealment has grown to Bertha was alone, and her movements were be natural, and I can scarcely deal candidly with quick and excited as those of one whose thoughts my own thoughts. I would not willingly acknow- were unusually and painfully restless. Very difledge even to myself that such a change has swept ferent from her ordinary composed and pensive over me, and yet I may as well write as feel that happiness, was the trace of shadowy care now

VOL. X-78

darkening her forehead, as if a cloud swept over was prone to doubt her capability of inspiring love,

its fairness.

She closed and locked the door of her apartment, and then, with a burst of irrepressible tears, gave way to the only tumultuous sorrow that had ever ruffled her tranquil existence.

and to fear her ability to retain it. Her doubts and fears on this subject were morbidly acute, and she had none of the vanity and self-approval, which would have successfully combatted their represenAh! it is a dark and fearful thing, the young tations. It never for a moment occurred to her soul's first realization of its power to suffer, its that Herbert knew best how to promote his own obligation to yield to the trespasser it strives in happiness, and that while Clara was more ardently vain to repel. Many a shattered illusion is then admired, she might be more fervently beloved; but trodden in the dust, and numberless are the enchant- even to enter into such competition seemed like ing hopes that then take their final flight for heaven. inflicting a wrong on one she believed almost perThe shade may pass from the dreamer, but the fection. She did not perceive the selfishness, the mind has learned to doubt; fear for the future lack of self-control in Clara's giving place to the blends with enjoyment of the present, the sunshine sentiments she experienced, and the want of that has grown paler, and many anxious hours of ques- high and compensating principle, which can unhesitioning and regretting lie beyond the mournful tatingly sacrifice all things to its innate sense of threshold of youth's first real grief. right. It seemed to Bertha so natural that Herbert should be loved, and there was so evident an effort on her sister's part to conceal, if not to conquer her emotions, that the less favorable view of the case never appealed to her judgment, and she remembered only that Clara was altered and unhappy.

It was with meditations and intentions like these that Bertha had sought solitude to commune with herself, and which finally determined her to be no longer a hindrance to Clara's tranquillity. Sor

For several minutes Bertha could not restrain her tears, and rested her head on her hands in trembling and agitated silence. Then the unfailing resource of her heart returned to soothe her, and when she again looked up, there was peace on her brow; reliance had brought her composure, and prayer had bade her look upward and be strong. And truly hers was no idle repining, but earnest cause for tears and prayers lay heavy on her spirit. She was about voluntarily to dissipate the loveliest vision of her life, to put aside the radiant delusion rowful enough were her vivid dreamings, as step of her earnest love, to give to one affection the by step imagination wandered forward, and unrolled priceless offering of another. She had observed the sad chronicle of long and lonely years to be. of late the depression hovering around Clara, her And yet with all, a gleam of comfort blended and listlessness and dejection, and that petulant, sar- she was strong in the true consciousness of her castic bitterness of tone and speech which be- own purity, and felt an honest pride in the selftokens a mind diseased. She had watched her command that proved itself so intense in its hidden closely with devotion's unerring solicitude, and power to sacrifice. But frequently in the time gradually the dark truth dawned upon her, and from the true tenderness of her own nature, she learned rightly to divine the existence of another's love. It was a terrible thought to Bertha that she had, however innocently, interfered with her sister's happiness, and none knew the voiceless suffering with which day by day she continued her silent observation, and gathered a thousand trifles to confirm her first suspicions. Herbert, too, she scanned narrowly; she saw his eye follow Clara's graceful movements in unconcealed admiration; she heard his eager and ardent replies in conversation; she felt that he was interested in her sister's views and character, but more than this, not even her watchful investigation could detect. She discovered in his conduct nothing to regret, no change nor swerving, and she marked this with a thrill of pride in the knowledge that one who had been so dear, so well deserved such preference. And yet, she believed that if unshackled by another engagement, his feelings of interest might be fostered into something warmer, and with the inherent humility of her character she fancied he would perhaps be happier with Clara than with her. Bertha's estimate of her own virtues was lowly and unjust, she

that came afterwards, did she look back on the reflections and resolutions of that hour in sorrowing wonder, and marvel at the delusions which had made such visions hers: and alas! the period arrived too, when she realized that these struggles were all unavailing to secure her sister's peace, for Clara's was one of the minds whose unrest lies within, and for whom external circumstances, however favorable, can bring but temporary contentment.

And yet who that has resignedly suffered, shall say such trials are in vain, if they lead thought onward a single step toward its better bourne, if in stealing bright realities from this world, they add brighter hopes to the everlasting treasures of another?

That evening Bertha completed a closely written letter, and though her cheek was wan, and her hand trembled, as it traced Herbert's address, there was neither shrinking nor faltering in the spirit that had knelt down in its trusting simplicity and humility, and found consolation and repose.

JANE TAYLOE WORTHINGTON.

Chilicothe, Ohio.

own hatching; we hear the echo of their mock; It would be an interesting thing to trace the rise thunder rolling down the wind, and, too distant to and progress of this peculiar sect, though it would ascertain its real nature, take it up and roll it back take too much space, and too much time at preagain, much to the amusement of the true thun- sent. Undoubtedly Shelley and Coleridge may derers at home, who perhaps have been all the be considered as its founders; but the cloak, which while laughing at the paltry Salmoneus. Again, adorned the shoulders of these prophets, serves in England there are numerous critics ever on the but to expose and heighten the deformities of the look out for a novelty, and perpetually eager to be pretenders, who are endeavoring by its assistance the discoverers and patrons of some great, but hidden to impose their trivialities on the public for ingenius. These men fasten on every new poetas-spired dreamings. Some few credulous souls have ter, every unfledged tacker of rhymes, and proclaim been taken in, as by Father Miller and Prophet Joe him "the master spirit of the age," "the com- Smith, but the imposture will soon be discovered, mencement of a poetical revolution," with sundry and the quacks consigned to their native oblivion. other stereotyped phrases, which have no doubt Among the most conceited and outrè of the prewearied our readers as frequently as they have sent race of bards may be named Leigh Hunt. ourselves. These catchwords are sent from mouth His literary history is rather a curious one. At to mouth among this set, and we, good, easy van- the age of sixteen, he published quite a ponderous kees that we are! take it all for Gospel, and won-volume of poems, singularly good, considering his der at the fungus reputations which thus appear age, but totally worthless in every other point of to spring up in a night, while they may notwith-view. He then appeared as an essayist, and gainstanding be totally unknown to the class of readers ed some little attention by his youth and the strength who give the real and final stamp of approbation. with which he delivered his opinions. This conThese reflections have just been stimulated anew tinued for a number of years, during which he in us by the perusal of a late work-"The New chiefly contributed to a paper named the Examiner, Spirit of the Age," by R. H. Horne. The author, conducted by his brother John, until for some lihimself a poet, though of no great celebrity, in his bellous expressions towards the Prince Regent remarks on the English rhymers of the present they were prosecuted, and were foolishly imprisday, shows a singular degree of partiality towards oned for two years. This, of course, stimulated the ideal dreaming school which seems to have so Hunt's vanity, warm enough before, and inflated completely spread its influence over the recent by the applause consequent on his youthful efforts, English poetry. We are still free from it-may raising him, in his own opinion, to the dignity of a we continue so! Mr. Horne's predilections may martyr. While in prison, he published "The be summed up in a word,-he considers Alfred Descent of Liberty, a Masque," and on leaving it, Tennyson as a greater poet than Byron, and exalts his "Story of Rimini," the greater part of which Leigh Hunt to an equality with Wordsworth, whom was written during his incarceration. Since then, he regards as the poet of the age. Such criticism, his efforts in verse have not been frequent. "Folihowever, ean not endure long. True poetry can age" appeared in the course of some two years be understood by the many, and such alone will after the Rimini, and then his Pegasus took a live. It does not require a separate education to long rest. Some years since he produced a drama enable a man to appreciate and enjoy Shakspeare, or too, and more lately a volume of "Tales in or Milton, or Byron,-they wrote for the universal Verse." These constitute nearly the whole of mind, and in language not to be mistaken. It is his poetical attempts. During this time, the tory only the pretenders, the smaller fry, the minnows journals, of course, took every opportunity of atof these tritons, whose readers must undergo a tacking such a man, and the savage criticism of separate course of study to fit the mind for a proper Gifford, and the coarse personalities of Wilson enjoyment of their productions. These poets were poured on him unsparingly. He was praised write not of man, or of nature, as they are in re- in the Whig Reviews, when mentioned, but it was ality around them, but as they appear in a self- done timidly, more for the man than the poet, and created world, and the misguided followers gradu- they evidently saw that the wisest course lay in ally assume the same sickly tone of mind, until letting him alone. He laid himself open in his they can relish no healthy, no natural food, and works to every kind of attack, and yet, it must be shrink from the energy and power of the real mas- confessed that he was frequently treated with more ters of the human lyre. Scott was in the right harshness than he deserved. Wilson's critical lecwhen he read his "Lady of the Lake" to a neigh-ture upon his "Choice," in the "Noctes Ambroboring farmer, and judged of its merit by the effect sianæ," is perhaps as well executed and ferocious it produced on an acute, but uneducated mind. Such a mixture of criticism and personality as the annals we find to be the case with all those poems which of magazines can afford. These assaults continued the world has pronounced immortal, and such will it be, long after the present school of dreamers has vanished and been utterly forgotten.

for a number of years, and he was constantly exhibited on the pillory of abuse for the amusement of the profane, but now times have changed with