SPRING.

"Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun."-ECCLESIASTES xi. 7.

The sensitive Gray, in a frank letter to his friend West, assures him that, when the sun grows warm enough to tempt him from the fireside, he will, like all other things, be the better for his influence; for the sun is an old friend, and an excellent nurse. This is an opinion which will be easily entertained by every one who has been cramped by the icy hand of Winter, and who feels the gay and renovating influence of Spring. In those mournful months when vegetables and animals are alike coerced by cold, man is tributary to the howling storm and the sullen sky, and is, in the pathetic phrase of Johnson, a "slave to gloom." But when the earth is disencumbered of her load of snows, and warmth is felt, and twitting swallows are heard, he is again jocund and free. Nature renews her charter to her sons, and rejoicing mortals, in the striking language of the poet, "revisit light, and feel its sovereign, vital lamp." Hence is enjoyed in the highest luxury,

"Day, and the sweet approach of even, and morn,
And sight of vernal bloom, and summer's rose,
And flocks, and herds, and human face divine."

It is nearly impossible for me to convey to my readers an idea of the "vernal delight" felt, at this period, by the Lay Preacher, far declined in the vale of years. My spectral figure, pinched by the rude gripe of January, becomes as thin as that

dagger of lath" employed by the vaunting Falstaff; and my mind, affected by the universal desolation of Winter, is nearly as vacant of joy and bright ideas as the forest is of leaves, and the grove is of song.

Fortunately for my happiness, this is only periodical spleen. Though, in the bitter months, surveying my extenuated body, I exclaim, with the melancholy prophet, "My leanness, my leanness, wo unto me!" and though, adverting to the state of my mind, I behold it "all in a robe of darkest grain," yet, when April and May reign in sweet vicissitude, I give, like Horace, care to the winds, and perceive the whole system excited by the potent stimulus of sunshine.

An ancient bard, of the happiest descriptive powers, and who noted objects not only with the eye of a poet, but with

the accuracy of a philosopher, says, in a short poem devoted to the praises of mirth, that

"Young and old come forth to play,
On a sunshine holiday."

1

In merry Spring-time, not only birds, but melancholic old fellows like myself, sing. The sun is the poet's, the invalid's, and the hypochondriac's friend. Under clement skies and genial sunshine, not only the body is corroborated, but the mind is vivified, and the heart becomes "open as day." I may be considered fanciful in the assertion, but I am positive that many who, in November, December, January, February, and March, read nothing but Mandeville, Rochefoucault, and Hobbes, and cherish malignant thoughts, at the expense of poor human nature, abjure their evil books and sour theories when a softer season succeeds. I have myself, in winter, felt hostile to those whom I could smile upon in May, and clasp to my bosom in June. Our moral qualities as well as natural objects are affected by physical laws, and I can easily conceive that benevolence, no less than the sunflower, flourishes and expands under the luminary of day.

With unaffected earnestness, I hope that none of my readers will look upon the agreeable visitation of the sun, at this beauteous season, as the impertinent call of a crabbed monitor, or an importunate dun. I hope that none will churlishly tell him "how they hate his beams." I am credibly informed that several of my city friends, many fine ladies, and the worshipful society of loungers, consider the early call of the above redfaced personage as downright intrusion. It must be confessed that he is fond of prying into chambers and closets, but not, like a rude searcher, or libertine gallant, for injurious or licentious purposes. His designs are beneficent, and he is one of

the warmest friends in the world.

Notwithstanding his looks are sometimes a little suspicious, and he presents himself with the fiery eye and flushed cheek of a jolly toper; yet this is only a new proof of the fallacy of physiognomy, for he is the most regular being in the universe. He keeps admirable hours, and is steady, diligent, and punctual to a proverb. Conscious of his shining merit, and dazzled by his regal glory, I must rigidly inhibit all from attempting to exclude his person. I caution sluggards to abstain from the use of shutters, curtains, and all other villanous modes of

Pron. Rosh'-foo-co.

insulting my ardent friend. My little garden-my only support-and myself, are equally the object of his care; and were it not for the constant loan of his great lamp, I could not always see to write The Lay Preacher.

JOSEPH S. BUCKMINSTER, 1784-1812.

JOSEPH STEVENS BUCKMINSTER was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, May 26, 1784. His ancestors, both by his father's and his mother's side, for several generations, were clergymen. His father, Dr. Buckminster, was for a long time a minister of Portsmouth, and was esteemed one of the most eminent clergymen of the State. His mother, the granddaughter of Dr. Stevens, of Kittery, was a woman of an elegant and cultivated mind, and, though dying while the subject of this memoir was very young, she had made such impressions on his mind and heart as most deeply and permanently affected his character.

Mr. Buckminster was a striking example of the early development of talents. There was no period, after his earliest infancy, when he did not impress on all who saw him a conviction of the certainty of his future eminence. It is said that he began to study the Latin grammar at four years of age, and even then discovered that love for books and ardent thirst for knowledge which he possessed through life. He received his education preparatory for college at Exeter Academy, New Hampshire, under the care of the venerable Dr. Benjamin Abbot that prince of schoolmasters, for whom all his pupils ever entertained the highest veneration and esteem. At the age of thirteen he entered Harvard University, nearly a year in advance, and at once took the highest rank as a scholar, which he continued throughout his whole collegiate career to maintain-a career as honorable to his moral principles as it was to his intellectual powers. He never incurred any college censure; and it may be said of him, as has been remarked of a kindred genius, that "he did not need the smart of guilt to make him virtuous, nor the regret of folly to make him wise."

In 1800, he received the honors of the University, and entered at once upon the study of theology, for which he had an inclination at

'Kirkland's Life of Fisher Ames.

an early age. After four years of very faithful study, in which he had made attainments of an extent and variety rarely met with in one so young, he was invited, in October, 1804, to preach at the Brattle Street Church, Boston. He accepted the invitation, and, after preaching for a few weeks, was invited by that church to become their minister, and was ordained January 30, 1805. Of the style, the learning, and the unction of his sermons at this time, all who heard him spoke in the highest terms. "The most refined and the least cultivated equally hung upon his lips. The attention of the thoughtless was fixed. The gayety of youth was composed to seriousness. The mature, the aged, the most vigorous and enlarged minds, were at once charmed, instructed, and improved."

But a cloud was soon to overshadow this fair prospect, for, in October of that year, he was attacked by a fit of epilepsy, brought on by too intense application to his studies. In the spring of 1806, the increase of this fatal malady induced his friends to insist upon his taking a voyage to Europe. He consented, and embarked in May of that year, for Liverpool. He spent some time in London, passed over to the Continent, ascended the Rhine, made the tour of Switzerland, visited Paris, returned to London in February, 1807, went through England, Scotland, and Wales, embarked at Liverpool in August, and reached home in September. He was welcomed by his congregation with unabated affection, and returned to all the duties of his office with redoubled activity. This he flattered himself he could safely do, from the increased vigor and improved health which his visit to Europe had given to him. But the result proved all the fond hopes his friends had cherished of a life of prolonged usefulness, to be vain. For a few years he continued to labor in his professional duties with unabated industry, and was continually filling a larger space in the public eye, when, in the midst of all his usefulness and activity, and when he was especially interesting to his friends, he was suddenly cut down. A violent attack of his old disorder at once made a total wreck of his intellect, and, after lingering for a few days, during which he had not even a momentary interval of reason, he sank under its force, June 9, 1812, having just completed his twenty-eighth year.

Few men ever died more lamented by the community in which they had lived, than Mr. Buckminster. His death was felt by all classes, and by all sects of Christians, to be a great public loss; for he was eminently a good as well as a great man. His life was one of uniform purity and rectitude, of devotion to his Master's service, of disinterested zeal for the good of mankind. It was the great object of his ministerial labors to produce that practical religion of heart and life

which is explained in the teaching and illustrated in the example of the Saviour. As a scholar, Professor Norton remarks: "There is no question that he was one of the most eminent men whom our country has produced. In the time which was left him by his many interruptions, he had acquired such a variety of knowledge that one could hardly converse with him on any subject connected with his profession, or with the branches of elegant literature, without having some new ideas suggested, without receiving some information, or being, at least, directed how to obtain it. Yet he did not labor to acquire learning merely for the sake of exhibiting it to the wonder of others, but his studies were all for profit and usefulness. Of his public discourses I do not fear speaking with exaggerated praise. To listen to them was the indulgence and gratification of our best affections. It was to follow in the triumph of religion and virtue. . . . He was, beyond all question, to be placed in the first rank of those by whom we have been best instructed in truth, and most animated in virtue."

THE FORCE OF HABIT.

To form a vicious habit is one of the easiest processes in nature. Man comes into a world where sin is, in many of its various forms, originally pleasant, and where evil propensities may be gratified at small expense. The necessary indulgence of appetite, and the first use of the senses, would make us all sensual and selfish from our birth, if the kind provision which Heaven has made, of suffering, of instruction, and of various discipline, did not sometimes break the propensities which we bring with us from the cradle. Nothing is required but to leave man to what is called the state of nature, to make him the slave of habitual sensuality.

But, even after the mind is in some degree fortified by education, and reason has acquired a degree of force, the ease with which a bad habit can be acquired is not less to be lamented. If, indeed, the consequence were to struggle with sin, in fair, open, and direct contest, it would not so often and so readily yield. But sin enters not by breach or escalade, but by cunning or treachery. It presents itself not as sin, but as innocence, when your watchfulness is hushed to sleep, or the eye

1 Read a memoir prefixed to his works, 2 vols., Boston, 1839; also, an article in the North American Review, x. 204; but above all, "Memoirs of the Rev. Joseph Buckminster, D. D., and of his son, Rev. Joseph Stevens Buckminster, by Eliza B. Lee.