of framing our own code of social manners, of adopting our own rule of national conduct, with the experience of nearly six thousand years before us, and placed at such a distance from the other civilized nations of the world, as to enable us to try our own experiments without the fear of "The worlds' dread laugh, which scarce the stern philosopher can bear ;" knowing also that it is easier to begin "de novo" than to unsettle old established customs. But we persevere in ours. They suit our constitution, they answer our purpose; every country has its own, each adopts from any other such points as are found congenial or convenient, and thus general improvement is propagated. Again, it is true that the progress of learning, of science, of important theories, of all that relates to philosophy, is in England considerably in advance of us, as are also the lighter accomplishments; but we recollect that, as regards literature, the English are in continual, almost daily, intercourse with the scholars of Europe, whilst we are either left to our own exertions, or must wait for communications sent over three thousand miles of trackless ocean, with not only tedious intervals of suspense, but also frequent and total losses of valuable information, absorbed within the bosom of that unfathomable abyss; and as regards the external qualifications, we know that the collision of persons, like that of minerals, smooths and polishes all that come together, and that the acerbities of the nature and temper, like the points and angles of stones, are removed by being continually intermingled with others. Thus has Europe generally the opportunities, from which we are precluded who have a thin population spread over an immense extent of country, and duties before us with which the cultivation of mere superficial accomplishments are quite incompatible. Thus, therefore, each country has its boast, each has its privileges; and indeed, if we would look around us with a truly Christian eye, we should find that Divine Providence has showered blessings, advantages, and happiness on all the world alike, and that the expression so frequently in the mouths of mankind of "highly favored country," "land of peculiar blessings," and such like, though it may be the effusion of a grateful heart, and is so far praise-worthy, yet it is also a tacit accusation against that same Benevolent Giver, of partiality in the distribution of His gifts; forgetful that His eye shines on all alike, "that He sendeth his rain upon the just and upon the unjust," that it is not situation, local conveniences, fertility of soil, nor even political privileges, that can entitle us to use such an exclamation; for is not the poor Greenlander more attached to his country, and happier in the thought of his privileges, than the refined European or the shrewd American? The really enviable condition is that of him who can exclaim, "My mind to me a kingdom is;" and such a mind is occupied by a better tenant than jealousy or malevolence. Such a mind is ready to thank the Divine Goodness which vouchsafes the ability to see and discriminate the workings of an Universal Benevolence, from those of a partial distribution of bounty; and the enlightened American and Englishman, can equally discern the hand of omniscience, as well as of omnipotence, in the changes and the distinctions it is His will to make over the great circle of humanity. In connexion with such a feeling as this, and to end as we began, may we not conclude, that there may be intellectual revolutions included in the divine design, as well as there are those of a physical, or of a political nature? We have seen the sun of science, wisdom, and power, travelling, like the sun in the heavens, westerly. What is there to militate against the notion that our great western territories may hereafter arrive to the height of population, that the dwellers therein may be highly cultivated and informed, whilst the people of our own lands may have passed their meridian? Why may not the same luminary of the mind traverse the great Pacific Ocean, as it has already travelled the Atlantic, and carry in its train, wisdom, science, and art, thus gradually restoring them to their primitive seats, and completing the circuit of the world, perhaps to commence another and another round, till the time which God may have been pleased to fix for the consummation of all things. In such a view, how petty, how insignificant is the strife of mankind, for individual or for national pre-eminence! How much worse, then, would it be, if two people, whose relations towards each other are so numerous, and so intimate as our own and those of Britain, were to cherish a mutual spirit of animosity and prejudice, which could only be detrimental to both! But it is our confident belief, that this is not the case, notwithstanding that misjudging heads, or diabolical hearts sound the alarm. The wise in both states will always cultivate a friendly union on honorable principles, and no possible power can ever hope to withstand such an union between AMERICA and ENGLAND. J. HERO AND LEANDER. I. BEFORE the fury of the blast The scudding clouds flew thick and fast, Athwart heaven's moonless canopy; And many a rocky island o'er, And many a far-resounding shore, Pealed in discordant harmony The sea-mews troubled scream, the billow's whirling roar. II. But not for sound, or sight of fear, The lover checked his bold career Midst Ocean's wildest revelry, While through the surge's smoky haze Yon turret's love-inspiring blaze Might gleam on his delighted eye, Dear as the beacon's light, to storm-tost seaman's gaze. III. But higher yet the sea shall roll, A wilder knell the winds shall toll, For they, who o'er the obedient deep Lulled not the tempest's howl, nor bade the waters sleep. IV. The morning clouds all pure and light But though so fair the new-born day, Not all the charms of earth and sky Might still the maiden's breast, or chase her cares away. V. She only strained her burning eyes, Where yon far city's temples rise, Beyond the Hellespont's blue main; While bliss without him were but pain- VI. Where the waves kiss the yellow sand, She saw the long lost wanderer lie. And the fixed glare of that dead eye How the heart once so warm, was pulseless now and cold. THE WANDERER'S RETURN.-A FRAGMENT. "They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn: The tree will wither long before it fall; The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn ; The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall In massy hoariness; the ruined wall Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone; The day drags through though storms keep out the sun, Childe Harold, III. xxx11. THE heavy dew of an April morning still lay unexhaled on moorland and meadow, though the sun was already riding high in heaven: the light air came in gusts, fraught with that delicious freshness, peculiar to the early spring; every brake and bush teemed with life and motion, the small birds flitted from spray to spray, filling the whole atmosphere with gushes of rejoicing melody, while far above the noisy rooks cawed, and fluttered among the quivering branches, busy in repairing their wind-rocked habitations, for the reception of their callow brood; repairing them perchance to be demolished by the gale, which on the morrow shall cover the green earth with its icy shower, and blight in its first tender beauty, the budding vegetation of the year. Wild, thoughtless, happy denizens of the free air, we look upon your discordant sports, upon your fruitless labors. We moralize, and almost mourn over the disappointments, which must befall you from many a chilling blast, before the season shall realize its promise; and we forget that we, the boasted lords of a creation, the learned, the eloquent, the wise, are hourly "building palaces unmindful of the tomb," that we are eternally forming projects, and lapping our souls in golden dreams, which—however our reason may whisper that they can never come to pass-shall nevertheless sprinkle the flowers of our existence with bitterness and wo, as they melt like the haze of morning before the increasing sunshine of experience. Some such thoughts as these were passing through the mind of a traveller who was already on the road, even at this early hour. He was a man whose days had not passed their prime, although the frequent streaks of white that mingled with the waving curls, which might once have shamed the color of the raven, and the deep furrows which trenched his broad and massive forehead, might have become one many years his senior; his tall form was knit in the strongest mould compatible with grace, and his features, though obscured by a settled cloud of melancholy, were like the chiselled lineaments of some sculptured marble. The broad thick moustache shaded a mouth whose decided curve bespoke unconquered resolution, and the dark gray eye, so passionless, and even philosophic, in its present expression, had yet a something which taught the beholder that there might be moments, when the glare of its wrath would be scarcely less bright, or less blighting, than the electric flash. His garb, of that fashion which has been rendered immortal by the pencil of Vandyke; costly in its materials, and rich in its almost gloomy coloring, was worn in a manner which, if not actually careless, yet showed that the wearer had long ceased to feel interest in his personal appearance. In marked distinction to this negligence of apparel, the condition and equipments of the noble horse he bestrode, as well as the state of his arms-at that period the mark of gentle blood-showed, that in matters deemed worthy of note, neither care, nor cost, were spared. A huge grayhound, of the genuine Irish wolf breed, now trotted lazily by the side of the charger, now bounded erect to the stirrup, as if to claim the attention of his moody lord. The path along which he was journeying, at a moderate rate, swept in easy reaches through one of those tracts of forest land, which abound even to the present day (though in small and detached portions) through the northern counties of England. The land lay in broken swells, here studded with huge oaks, whose mossy trunks, and gnarled branches twisting their gray and shivered extremities far above the red leaves of the preceding autumn, seemed as if they might have rung to the bugle, or twanged to the bowstring of the Saxon outlaw: and there retiring into thickets, where the varnished holly mingled its never changing hues with the silvery bark of the birch, and the tender verdure of the budding hazel. It was a lovely scene, with all its accompaniments of animated nature. The deer couching in picturesque groups among the tall fern, the rabbit glancing for a moment through the bushes on his way to his neighboring burrow; the partridge, springing on its startled wing from some sandy bank on which it had been dusting its ruffled feathers in the fullest warmth of the sunshine. All combined to form a sweet though somewhat melancholy picture-melancholy, because it bore the likeness of a district, once reclaimed to the dominion of man, now gradually relapsing into the untamed desolation of the wilderness. The attention of the rider seemed rivetted on the scenery as he proceeded; his eye roved from place, to place, as if in search of some familiar object, and ever and anon returned to its gloomy abstraction, unsatisfied, as it were, in its inquiries, and disappointed in its expectations. There was none however of that bitter impatience, which the young and sanguine feel, when frustrated in the pursuit of expected pleasure, to be traced in the grave features and placid eye of the stranger. His thoughts seemed rather to partake of that stern and cold sorrow with which men are apt to meet a long-anticipated calamity, when they have steeled their hearts for its encounter; and feel, perhaps, even mingled with the very pain, a strange sensation of pleasure at the realization of true though gloomy forebodings. A stranger, banished for years from the land of his birth; a wanderer, round half the sea-girt ball; a soldier of fortune, wielding that sword under the banners of a foreign power, which political and domestic discords forbade to strike in the cause of his own country; a son, estranged from his father by the cursed excitement of civil dissension; a lover, forsaken and abandoned by the woman he adored; with a broken heart, but undaunted! spirit, he was now returning, after long and lonely wanderings, in calm and philosophic sorrow, to the home which he had left, in the fiery indignation of aspiring boyhood. Francis Audeley, the son of a true-blue cavalier, had been among the earliest patriots, who had seen into the grasping policy, by which the first Charles was striving to base an absolute autocracy on the ruins of an overthrown constitution. With Audeley, to perceive injustice and tyranny, was to hate-to hate, not silently, or in the |