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Supper of the Lord. He also desired that the to cease, but only to disappear in the greater organist should relinquish the old and perni- tide, and flow unseen beneath it? Yet so it cious habit of preluding with triumphal marches, was; and this stronger yearning—this unapand running his fingers at random over the peasable desire for her friend-was only the keys of his instrument, playing scraps of secu- tumultuous swelling of a heart, that as yet lar music very slowly to make them sacred, knows not its own secret.” and substitute instead some of the beautiful symphonies of Pergolesi, Palestrina, and Sebas

Another young lady more actively and tian Bach.

consciously unfolds the flower of her affec“ He held that sacred melodies were becoming

tions. Miss Amelia Hawkins becomes to sacred themes; and did not wish, that, in suddenly captivating and devout; and his church, as in some of the French Cana- | takes interest in Sabbath-schools, as well dian churches, the holy profession of religion as in a portrait for which the young clershould be sung to the air of · When one is dead 'tis for a long time the command gyman submits to sit at the request of his ments, aspirations for heaven, and the neces parishioners. The portrait is described sity of thinking of one's salvation, to "The with humor: Follies of Spain,' • Louisa was sleeping in a grove,' or a grand · March of the French “ The parish showed their grateful acknowCavalry."

ledgment of his zeal and sympathy, by request

ing him to sit for his portrait to a great artist He soon became popular, especially from the city, who was passing the summer with the ladies, one of whom declared on months in the village for recreation, using his his first appearance that he was “not a

pencil only on rarest occasions and as a parman, but a Thaddeus of Warsaw.” Alice Kavanagh submitted without a murmur. Dur

ticular favor. To this martyrdom the meek Archer, a thoughtful, silent, susceptible ing the progress of this work of art, he was girl, whose dark eyes, fixed upon him seldom left alone; some one of his parishioners with unflagging interest and attention, was there to enliven him; and most frequently cheered and consoled him through the it was Miss Martha Amelia Hawkins. * * discouragements of his first discourse, She took a very lively interest in the portrain becomes enamored of his eloquence and tinguished artist, who found it dificult to obtain

and favored with many suggestions the disof himself. The first suggestions of her an expression which would satisfy the parish, passion are delicately introduced in a con- some wishing to have it grave, if not severe, versation with her friend, Cecilia Vaughan. and others with " Mr. Kavanagh's peculiar

smile.” Kavanagh himself was quite indiffer* • I have just been writing to you,' said ent about the matter, and met his fate with Alice; 'I wanted so much to see you this Christian fortitude, in a white cravat and sacermorning!

*dotal robes, with one hand hanging down from “Why this morning in particular? Has the back of his chair, and the other holding a any thing happened ?'

large book, with the fore-finger between its Nothing, only I had such a longing to leaves, reminding Mr. Churchill of Milo with see you!

his fingers in the oak. The expression of the “ And, seating herself in a low chair by Ce- face was exceedingly bland and resigned; cilia's side, she laid her head upon the shoul- perhaps a little wanting in strength, but on the der of her friend, who, taking one of her pale, whole satisfactory to the parish. So was the thin hands in both her own, silently kissed her artist's price; nay, it was even held by some forehead again and again.

persons to be cheap, considering the quantity “ Alice was not aware, that, in the words she of background he had put in.” uttered, there was the slightest shadow of untruth. And yet had nothing happened? Was The following is equally felicitous : it nothing, that among her thoughts a new thought had risen, like a star, whose pale “Mr. Churchill, also, had had his profile, effulgence, mingled with the common daylight, and those of his wife and children, taken, in a was not yet distinctly visible even to herself, very humble style, by Mr. Bantam, whose adbut would grow brighter as the sun grew lower, vertisement he had noticed on his way to school and the rosy twilight darker ? Was it nothing, nearly a year before. His own was considered that a new fountain of affection had suddenly the best, as a work of art. The face was cut sprung up within her, which she mistook for out entirely; the collar of the coat velvet; the the freshening and overflowing of the old foun- shirt-collar very high and white; and the top tain of friendship, that hitherto had kept the of his head ornamented with a crest of hair lowland landscape of her life so green, but turning up in front, though his own turned now, being flooded by more affection, was not | down—which slight deviation from nature was

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explained and justified by the painter as a acted in a deeper tragedy than this! How terlicense allowable in art.”

rible it is ! Let us pass on.'

“ They hurried away, Kavanagh trembling Ignorant of the timid but deep-seated in every fibre. Silently they walked, the music love of Alice, and annoyed by the vulgar fading into softest vibrations behind them. assiduities of Miss Hawkins, Kavanagh said Mr. Churchill, rather as a relief to his

How strange is this fanaticism ! at length bestows his affections on the beautiful

own thoughts, than for the purpose of reviving Cecilia Vaughan; and after a short and the conversation. These people really believe not very romantic wooing, they are united that the end of the world is close at hand.' and go to Italy.

“ • And to thousands,' answered Kavanagh, Churchill, meanwhile, with his cheerful, this is no fiction—no illusion of an overblue-eyed wife, moves on the even tenor heated imagination. To-day, to-morrow, every of his way, which is unbroken by a single day, to thousands, the end of the world is close incident, except the absconding and sub- walk here, as it were, in the crypts of life; at

at hand. And why should we fear it? We. sequent death of their pretty serving-maid, times, from the great cathedral above us, we Lucy; who, after eloping with“ The can hear the organ and the chanting of the Briareus of boots,” returns “forlorn and choir; we see the light stream through the forsaken,” wishes she were only a Chris- open door, when some friend goes up before tian that she might destroy her life, and

us; and shall we fear to mount the narrow shortly afterward, under the exciting in- staircase of the grave, that leads us out

of this fuences of a Millerite camp-meeting, the life eternal ?'

uncertain twilight into the serene mansions of drowns herself in the river. It is the only “They reached the wooden bridge over the impressive incident that occurs, and is river, which the moonlight converted into a alluded to with just sufficient detail and river of light. Their footsteps sounded on the remark to produce the strongest effect.

planks; they passed without perceiving a fe

male figure that stood in the shadow below on “Kavanagh and Mr. Churchill took a stroll the brink of the stream, watching wistfully the together across the fields, and down green

flow of the current. It was Lucy! Her bonlanes, walking all the bright, brief afternoon.

net and shawl were lying at her feet; and From the summit of the bill

, beside the old when they had passed, she waded far out into windmill , they saw the sun set; and, opposite; in its deeper waves, and floated slowly away

the shallow stream, laid herself gently down the full moon rise, dewy, large, and red. As they descended, they felt the heavy dampness that were faded and fallen like herself—among

into the moonlight, among the golden leaves of the air, like water, rising to meet thembathing with coolness first their feet, then their

the water-lilies, whose fragrant white blossoms hands, then their faces, till they were sub-" had been broken off and polluted long ago. merged in that sea of dew. As they skirted

Without a struggle, without a sigh, without a the woodland on their homeward way, tram

sound, she floated downward, downward, and

Far off, pling the golden leaves under foot, they heard silently sank into the silent river. voices at a distance, singing; and then saw

faint, and indistinct, was heard the startling the lights of the camp-meeting gleaming hymn, with its wild and peculiar melody: through the trees, and, drawing nearer, distinguished a portion of the hymn :

O, there will be mourning, mourning, mourning,

mourning,
Don't you hear the Lord a-coming O, there will be mourning, at the judgment-seat
To the old church-yards,

of Christ!'”
With a band of music,
With a band of music,

This beautiful passage is like that in
With a band of music,
Sounding through the air?'

which Evangeline unknowingly passes her

lover on the Mississippi. The unaccus“These words, at once awful and ludicrous, tomed sadness that comes over Kavanagh rose on the still twilight air from a hundred and his friend, as they pass the wooden voices, thrilling with emotion, and from as bridge, is like the spirit-presence of Gabriel many beating, fluttering, struggling hearts.

on the heart of that wandering maiden ; High above them all was heard one voice, and the one as strikingly illustrates our clear and musical as a clarion.

" " I know that voice," said Mr. Churchill ; • it often unconscious nearness to calamity and is Elder Evans's.'

death, as in the other we see how the “Ah! exclaimed Kavanagh—for only the objects of most ardent aspirations someimpression of awe was upon him— he never times approach so as to be grasped, had

'

we but a distincter sense of their prox- | ances into serious misfortunes. The basis imity.

of his character is weakness; he is too After three years' absence, Kavanagh amiable to resist, too inefficient to perform. and Cecilia return to Fairmeadow, which, The scope of his intellect is narrowed by by the addition of a railroad, had grown, the exclusiveness with which he cherishes according to some of the ladies, “quite one darling aspiration; and his whole metropolitan," and was thought "likely character becomes “sicklied o'er” by his soon to become a sea-port,” having already “pale cast of thought.” Beneath the “grown from a simple village to a very actual life he bends as with a burthen, precocious town.” Kavanagh, wandering stumbling as he goes; while in the world about, the morning after his return, finds of imagination he walks erect with his not the Fairmeadow of his memory: his head in the clouds, and half blinded by first familiar recognition is of Miss Man- their vapor. Such a man has no station, chester, on a ladder, painting her own no identity; he is shadowy, and makes no cottage.

lasting impression. Our author compares

him to the sea, “that plays with the pebbles ““Go away!' she said, flourishing her brush. on its beach ; but under the inspiration of “Go away! What are you coming down here the wind might lift great navies on its for, when I am on the ladder, painting my outstretched palms, and toss them into the house? If you don't go right about your air as playthings.” Beyond this assertion, business, I will come down and" "Why, Miss Manchester!' exclaimed Kav

we have no evidence of such power to anagh, 'how could I know that you would be play with mighty things; and, far from going up the ladder just as I came down the playing with the pebbles of life, he conlane?'

tinually frets himself against them, and “«Well, I declare! if it is not Mr. Kava- magnifies them into great rocks. nagh!

The delineation of Cecilia Vaughan, if * And she scrambled down the ladder back- less elaborated, is scarcely less unreal. wards with as much grace as the circumstances Here the character and the situation are permitted. She, too, like the rest of his friends in the village, showed symptoms of growing not in keeping. No such girls are found older. The passing years had drunk a portion in a New England village. In no such of the light from her eyes

, and left their traces village could Miss Vaughan, there born on her cheeks, as birds that drink at lakes and bred, have preserved that aristocratic leave their foot-prints on the margin.” exclusiveness which limited her acquaint

ance to Alice Archer, and held her at such Churchill is found still brooding over awful, unapproachable distance above the bis long-cherished, darling contemplation, unfortunate aspirations of Mr. Adolphus his still unwritten romance. It is on the Hawkins. character of Churchill that our author has Alice Archer is more true to nature. expended his strongest effort. He is a Her early love, crossed by that of her man of a naturally powerful and expan- friend, and ending in death, constitutes sive intellect, constantly obstructed by the the romance proper of the tale; but her actual in search of the sublime. A man death, instead of being reserved for the of feeble passions, possessing no ambition, dénouement, occurring as it does in the unless it be a vague sort of literary am- middle of the book, and at a time when bition, he moves in a kind of trance, and, other interests are paramount, the little always procrastinating, passes his life with sympathy which her ill-fated passion has scarcely an effort at accomplishing its excited is lost, and she forgotten. The dearest hope. The Monday morning that practical morality squeezed from her story, calls him from his day-dreams to his duties, and thrown, as it were, in the teeth of is “ a dark hand placed between him and poor, innocent Mr. Churchill, is so wide the light;” and he is thrown from his as to be ridiculous, and makes one laugh equanimity by the appearance of a butch- as if at the wrong time, and feel like a er's cart at his door. Utterly deficient in child who has behaved with indecorum at humor, he has therefore no tolerance of a prayer-meeting. the little practical items of daily life, and exaggerates trivial and ridiculous annoy- “ All day long, all night long, the snow fell on the village and on the church-yard ; on the I in his experience,” and that he “never happy home of Cecilia Vaughan, on the lonely knew it.' It was not so much the young grave of Alice Archer! Yes; for before the lady's death as its cause, on which, could winter came she had gone to that land where he have been content with so meagre a winter never comes. Her long domestic tragedy was ended. She was dead; and with her subject, he might have constructed the had died her secret sorrow and her secret love. long contemplated romance, and that Kavanagh never knew what wealth of affection cause, we are told, died with her. What for him faded from the world when she depart- then have we to do with these impertinent ed; Cecilia never knew what fidelity of friend- moralities, and why is Mr. Churchill's inship, what delicate regard, what gentle magna- evitable ignorance of the affair passed nimity, what angelic patience had gone with her into the grave; Mr. Churchill never knew, over, and the “nearness” of the event that, while he was exploring the Past for rec

commented upon as preventing its being ords of obscure and unknown martyrs, in his clothed and suited to his purpose-its own village, near his own door, before his own “familiarily," withal, rendering it too eyes, one of that silent sisterhood had passed “trivial” to satisfy him. This is absolute away into oblivion, unnoticed and unknown.

"gassing." It reminds us of Joseph Sur" How often, ah, how often, between the de- face's eternal “For the man who- ;” and sire of the heart and its fulfilment, lies only the

with Sir Peter, we are ready to exclaim, briefest space of time and distance, and yet the desire remains forever unfulfilled!

It is so

Oh, curse your sentiment !” near that we can touch it with the hand, and The displayful morality of Mr. Longyet so far away that the eye cannot perceive it. fellow's poetry has frequently been noWhat Mr. Churchill most desired was before ticed. In most of his minor poems-in him. The romance he was longing to find ** The Voices of the Night” particularly, and record had really occurred in his neighbor- the beautiful moral so characteristically hood, among his own friends. It had been set involved and interwoven with the theme, like a picture into the framework of his life, instead of being left to diffuse its own ininclosed within his own experience. But he could not see it as an object apart from him- fluence over the mind of the reader, is self; and as he was gazing at what was remote drawn out separately, and suspended like and strange and indistinct, the nearer incidents a label indicating the nature of that which of aspiration, love, and death, escaped him. in its own exquisite flavor and coloring They were too near to be clothed by the im: sufficiently declares itself. In Churchill's agination with the golden vapors of romance ; for the familiar seems trivial, and only the private meditations we notice the same distant and unknown completely fill and satisfy laconics in the thirteenth chapter. They

to the mind.”

are well worth preserving, and we have a Viola says, “she never told her love," fancy that they have been preserved a &c., and knowing that she speaks of her long while ; just as ladies lay aside exself, we are touched with a feeling of her quisite old needlework till it is in danger of truth and delicacy; but how, if Alice wearing out from disuse, and then fabricate "never unclasped the book of her secret agreeable lounges and cushions on which soul,” is Mr. Longfellew supposed to have to display it; no one ever suspecting (undivined it? The artist should know that less it be some prying, inquisitive sister the charm of his picture is to be life-like. who, ten to one, has used the same innoWe voluntarily give ourselves to the pe- cent artifice herself) that the lounge was rusal of a fiction, and losing that conscious made for the embroidery, instead of the ness as we proceed, should never be per- embroidery for the lounge. mitted for a moment to recall it: for the time the imaginary must stand for the

“ Mr. Churchill had really put up in his real, and no inconsiderate assertion of the study the old white, wine-glass-shaped pulpit. author should dispel the illusion. Why note-book, recording his many meditations with

He made use of it externally as a should Mr. Churchill be reproached for a pencil on the white panels. The following “ ransacking the records of obscure mar- will serve as a specimen of his pulpit elotyrs," instead of chronicling the passage of quence : this remarkable romance which he knew

“ Morality without religion is only a kind of nothing about? while we are informed, dead-reckoning—an endeavor to find our place on the same page, that it was “ enclosed on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we

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have run, but without any observation of the much larger than the book itself; as Sancho heavenly bodies.

Panza, with his eyes blinded, beheld from his Many readers judge of the power of a book

wooden horse the earth no larger than a grain

of mustard seed, and the men and women on by the shock it gives their feelings--as some savage tribes determine the power of muskets

it as large as hazel-nuts. by their recoil ; that being considered the best “ Like an inundation of the Indus is the which fairly prostrates the purchaser.

course of Time. We look for the homes of “Men of genius are often dull and inert in our childhood, they are gone ; for the friends of society; as the blazing meteor, when it de- our childhood, they are gone. The loves and scends to earth, is only a stone.

animosities of youth, where are they? Swept

away “ With many readers, brilliancy of style the sandy bed of the river.

like the camps that had been pitched in passes for afiluence of thought; they mistake buttercups in the grass for immeasurable gold

6 As no saint can be canonized until the mines under ground.

Devil's Advocate has exposed all his evil deeds, “ The motives and purposes of authors are

and showed why he should not be made a saint, not always so pure and high, as, in the en- so no poet can take his station among the gods thusiasm of youth, we sometimes imagine. To until the critics have said all that can be said many the trumpet of fame is nothing but a tin against him.” horn to call them home, like laborers from the field. at dinner-time ; and they think themselves lucky to get the dinner.

Mr. Churchill's use of the old church " The rays of happiness, like those of light, pulpit is preposterously improbable, since

its dimensions may reasonably be supposed are colorless when unbroken.

to have equalled the capacity of his study “ Critics are sentinels in the grand army of to receive it, and greatly to have exceedletters, stationed at the corners of newspapers ed the width of an inner door. It is and reviews, to challenge every new author.

laughable to observe with what fore“The country is lyric--the town dramatic. thought and labor it is brought up, and When mingled, they make the most perfect made to serve in presenting with an easy, musical drama.

natural air these meditations, which, after “ The natural alone is permanent. Fan- all, we read with little interest, because tastic idols may be worshipped for a while; but however beautiful or brilliant in themat length they are overturned by the continual selves, they stand separate and discon. and silent progress of Truth, as the grim statues of Copan have been pushed from their nected. Brought in as illustrations, such pedestals by the growth of forest-tress, whose things possess a charm which is lost when seeds were sown by the wind in the ruined we see them alone.

Forced upon us walls.

without propriety they become weari“ The every-day cares and duties, which Scattered pearls are of less value men call drudgery, are the weights and coun- than when drawn together by the thread terpoises of the clock of time, giving its pendu- of connection, their beauty being enhanced lum a true vibration, and its hands a regular by the union of a purpose. Another obmotion ; and when they cease to hang upon jection might be offered to this “ pulpit the wheels, the pendulum no longer swings, eloquence" as it is facetiously termed, in the hands no longer move, the clock stands still.

that it draws attention from the story and “ The same object, seen from the three differ-fore us in their stead, which, however

its personages, and brings the author beent points of view—the Past, the Present, and the Future-often exhibits three different faces agreeable to us, might not, on the present to us; like those sign-boards over shop doors, occasion, be convenient to himself. Mr. which represent the face of a lion as we ap

Churchill never commences his romance ; proach, of a man when we are in front, and of but we catch a glimpse of Mr. Longfellow, an ass when we have passed.

seated in Mr. Churchill's study, extracting “In character, in manners, in style, in all from his common-place book' material for things, the supreme excellence is simplicity. the

pages of his own. “ Some critics have the habit of rowing up

The sentimentality of our principal drathe Heliconian rivers wiih their backs turned, matis personæ is exhibited in a rather so as to see the landscape precisely as the poet spiritless pic-nic held at the “ Roaring did not see it. Others see faulis in a book. Brook," in the neighboring town of West

some.