vided the palm of public approbation. And vain as I had ever been disposed to feel on the score of personal merit, I had now a fair excuse for so being. Compliments of every description were heaped on me; rich presents, in jewels, and sums of no trifling amount, from undiscovered patrons; letters of a tender, but equivocal nature, from many a noble hand; and from one, too illustrious for his gifts to be refused, I received an exquisitely appointed equipage, well worthy the acceptance of a priestess of Terpsichore. My salary was now very large; so ample, that I determined to furnish a house, and take my kind friends, the Bontonvilles, as superintendents of my establishment, and protectors of myself. Occasionally I saw Gerald; sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes in the street; and often, lately, paying inexplicable morning visits to Madame. I never remained in her drawingroom a moment when he was there; and, at last, I expressed so decidedly my dislike of this intrusion, that he had to leave off calling on my duenna, as she was jestingly entitled, from her being continually by my side in the intervals of performance. How deeply, how fondly Gerald regarded me, I was fully conscious. I knew that I was ever present to his thoughts; that his existence seemed as if devoted to but one object; and yet that very excess of love became distasteful: though I had precluded him from all expression of it personally, and only through its powerful influence on my now distinguished position, I was still certain it was unchanged. On one of my benefit nights, around a diamond tiara, which was handed to me by my maid, I found the following verses; whose they were, my heart well understood; and cold as it was to the writer, and still bewildered in its foolish imaginings about him, who had so evidently deserted me, sadness for a few minutes overwhelined me, and I wept bitterly as I perused them: While others crowd around to gaze, The fire of madness lights my glance, Oh, thou shouldst be a hidden gem, In radiance seen afar, by them To be continued. LESLIE. AFFLICTIONS SCour us of our rust. Adversity, like winter weather, is of use to kill those vermin which the summer of prosperity is apt to cherish and nourish. Original. VISIT TO A STAR. 'Twas midnight—and I watched the clear bright moon, Mortal," she cried "I oft' have marked the sigh Have deign'd to hear thy wish and guide thee there." The queen this pigmy bevy loves and fears." I looked, and on a swan's smooth back was seen Her pure white robe was of the summer rose, "Haste, bring the maize." His famished child To feed, with joy the parent goes. And joyously their tiny conch shells sound, Her beauteous form, and thus the court addressed: Of its own white or gold or rosy shell. "THE fated hour is come-and now "Now on the fragrant mat recline, Thou shalt that guardian spirit see: Thus spake the red-sire, and his child Bowed to his wish in gentle seeming. And patient waits his spirit's dreaming. Suns rise and set-but no bright morrow Dawns on the youth who 'dreams' in sorrow. "Father, in evil hour I wait The great Monetto's wrath is gathering! Ah! let me strive to shun this fate, Nor tempt the frown my soul that's withering." "Nay-yet my child in patience bide thee— And honor, health, and fame betide thee." Youth's flush and freshness fades-and now, O'er sheety lake, and forest wild, *See "TRIP TO THE PICTURED ROCKS." Elate with pride, with hope high swelling, He gains the lone and leafy dwelling. Hark! whose the voice which murmuring low, -The noble forest-youth is there.- And-"Leave me not, my son!" he cries- Whose eyes with grief and pity languish. A heart with anxious cares corroding. Thy morn, thy noon, and evening hours, Original. SONNET. BY THE REV. J. H. CLINCH. A. E. L. A HAPPY smile upon thy cheek is playing, Gleams mirthfully from out its half-closed lid, Dorchester, Mass. Original. ESSAY ON AMERICAN LITERATURE. BY MRS. E. C. EMBURY. "A country which has no national literature, or a literature too insignificant to force itself abroad, must always be, to its neighbors, at least in every important spiritual respect, an unknown and misestimated country." "-EDINBUGH REVIEW. So much has been written by the ablest pens on both sides of the Atlantic, upon the subject of American Literature, that it seems presumptuous now to attempt its discussion; but the resources of our rapidly growing country, and the station which she holds among the nations of the earth, render it a topic of daily increasing importance to all who make any pretensions to patriotism or literary taste. To form an iden of the science of a nation we must examine its various institutions for the instruction of its youth; to learn a proper estimation of its literature we need only make ourselves acquainted with its periodical press. If we take the most cursory view of the monthly, weekly and daily journals which traverse our country from Georgia to Maine, we cannot fail to be struck with the variety of talent which they exhibit, however we may complain of them for want of independence, party spirit, etc. Tho fugitive poetry which floats from paper to paper, road, admired and then forgotten, is of a far higher order than that which made the reputation of many a votary of the muses in the days of Queen Anne; while many of the slightly-sketched tales and essays which are thrown into oblivion, after they have afforded a momentary amusement, are worthy of an Addison or a Goldsmith. But the very abundance of talent causes it to be undervalued and we examine the pages of a magazine as we might a cabinet of gems, where the richness of the collection soon makes us too fastidious to pause over any thing of less price than the diamond. The reproaches which have been cast upon America for her total neglect of the elegances of life will never more be heard. The young nation has heretofore labored for the means of existence-industry has brought wealth and she is now able to indulge in luxuries. We have our poets and our painters, our architects and our sculptors, our writers and our readers, and while establishing institutions for the promotion of the fine arts we have but just awakened to the necessity of forming a national literature. Heretofore there have been two grand obstacles in the way of the establishment of a national literature, viz: the want of literary patronage, which necessarily involves a want of literary industry, and a strange fondness among our writers for foreign rather than American subjects on which to employ their pens. The deficiency of patronage may be more easily explained than remedied. We are essentially an active, industrious, commercial people, and the merchant who sits poring over his ledger, calculating the riches which the four winds of heaven are daily wafting into his coffers-the settler who takes his axe on his shoulder and trudges off into the wilderness with the certainty of there building up his fortune-even the farmer who by hard labor pro cures a competence for his family and bequeaths them an estate rich in nature's bounties-all look with contempt upon. the inactive student. To them his habits seem those of confirmed indolence, for the man who takes up a book to amuse himself during his hour of relaxation from bodily labor can never be made to comprehend the intense and wasting toil of mental exertion. The page which he reads with so little effort, he supposes to have been written quite as easily, and remunerating an author seems to him like bestowing the wages of industry on idleness. He who has courage enough to devote himself to learning, with its usual attendant-poverty, is pitied by his friends and ridiculed by the world as one who has banished himself from the society of his fellows, in pursuit of a vain shadow. He will, in truth, find himself alone: there are few professedly literary men in our country, certainly not enough to form a class with whom he may unite himself. Our professional men make some approach to such a class, but devoted as they are to active employment in their several duties, they have but little time for the pursuit of classic lore or the speculations of abstract truth. All useful labor can demand a high price in American, but we have scarcely yet learned to rank the intellectual above the physical, and years must elapse before our citizens can live as well by the exercise of the brains as by the work of their hands. The roads to wealth are so numerous and so easily trodden, while the path of science is so rugged and unpromising that it is not to be regarded as a matter of surprise if our youth are tempted rather by the glittering prizes which await them at the shrine of Plutus, than by the laurel bough which grows by the temple of Minerva. The influence of wealth they feel at every step of their progress in life; but time may bleach the dark-brown locks and discase furrow the lofty brow before the fadeless laurel wreath can be won and worn. A few gifted spirits may rise superior to the temptations of worldly aggrandizement, and struggle successfully against the tide of popular opinion, but how few are they compared with the multitude who, after a few ineffectual attempts, either sink into oblivion, or cease their efforts, and float onward with the current. We want literary patronage, such as will enable men to live in comfort, if not in affluence, by the exercise of their intellectual as well as their physical powers. We want a spirit of liberality among all classes of men, such as may enable them to regard the author as a no less useful member of society than a member of some every-day profession. Then and not till then can we have a literary class in society—a class willing to admit all who can show themselves qualified, and which demands no other qualifications than the possession of intellectual superiority. The disposition which too many of our authors has shown to travel abroad in search of subjects for the exercise of their intellect, may be, in some measure, attributed to the want of independence which has heretofore prevailed among our critics. Until very recently a book written by an American was scarcely deemed worthy to come under the scalping-knife of criticism unless it had first attracted the notice of an English re now a name for herself-she is one of our national glories-our Sedgwick. Nor would we bestow on Mrs. Sigourney the name borne by one whom we alike lament. I mean Felicia Hemans. Few people are aware of the absurdity they commit when they attempt to class together the poetry of two individuals. Poetry is so closely connected with the feelings and affections that unless we could find two persons who thought, and felt, and acted precisely alike, we could never find them writing similar poetry. We might as well compare the gentle ripple of the lake with the rapid running of the mighty river, as attempt to judge of Mrs. Sigourney and Mrs. Hemans by the same rules of criticism. Besides, we would have our writers known by their own names, and not set ourselves to the task of weaving for them a chaplet of the leaves which have dropped from other's garlands. viewer, and if written upon an American subject would have inevitably fallen lifeless from the press. Few have been found prepared to brave the unequal conflict with opinion, and many a young writer who might have been a glory to our country has been allowed to sink into oblivion, while our reading public have been insulted by the re-production of myriads of trashy English books, exaggerated in sentiment, bombastic in style and false in delineation. I said few have been found, but America may well be proud of those few. Long before our eyes were opened to see the exhaustless mine of literary wealth which our country held within its bosom, Irving, Paulding, and at a somewhat later period, Cooper, coined some of its fine gold and sent it forth to the world stamped with the impress of genius. The name of Irving will be loved so long as America exists: he has associated himself with our most intimate sympathies -he has discovered the sources of our smiles and tears Our country, however, is now fully awakened, and -we have laughed with him till our "eyes ran o'er with our literary aspirants have learned that the true aim of glee," and we have wept with him till our tears fell like their ambition must be to acquire distinction as national rain-drops on his page. How, then, can we think of writers. The field which lies before them is an immense him as the mere author, the nominis umbra ? It is one. For the painter of society who seeks to "catch Irving, the man, the fellow-citizen, the friend, whom we the manners living as they rise," there never could be love even though our eyes may never have rested on his finer studies than are to be found at home. The eccenface. And who does not honor Paulding, the keen satric backwoods-man, the haughty Southerner, the quatirist of foreign fopperies, the true-hearted American ker-like descendant of William Penn, the acute Newauthor, whose every thought has been devoted to his Englander, and the thousand queer phases which chacountry? His pen has ever been employed in her ser- racter assumes in our Atlantic cities, might furnish a vice, whether he used its point to sting those who would lifetime of employment to a satirist. The student of undermine her strength by luxury, or its feather to paint political economy, and the philosophy of man can have her exquisite scenery and the workings of human na- no better opportunity than is afforded by our free institure in the hearts of her sons. Cooper has done more tutions and the consequent freedom of opinion which good abroad than at home. His books were American prevails. And for him, who, turning from the study of in scenery and incident, as such they were received|| mankind, devotes himself to the contemplation of the with avidity in Europe, and though creatures such as works of God, we could ask no nobler themes than our he drew never existed in this or any other quarter of the magnificent country can afford. The towering mounglobe, still they served to keep alive the interest which tain, the untrodden wilderness, the broad prairie spreadour literature had now awakened. Many a brilliant ing like a sea of verdure, the pathless forest, with its name may now be found among our authors who are "dim monastic aisles," the expansive lake, the silvery American in heart as well as by birth. We have a Bry-waterfall, the world-astonishing cataract, all are there ant whose soul is filled with images of beauty, and in matchless beauty, to fill the eye and the imagination. whose words breathe the sweetness of the " summer The poet and the novelist need look no farther than his wind." His muse was born amid our forest scenery, native soil to find subjects by which to immortalize themand though her eye has since delighted to watch "the selves. Let them go abroad for study-let them enlarge blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone," yet does she turn their minds by communion with their fellows in every with unabated love to her native shores. Halleck, too, clime-let them ponder over the time-worn institutions has followed no foreign leader in his flights of fancy. of other lands, and gaze upon the crumbling ruins of His feelings are the impulses of an American heart, and a by-gone age, but let them then return to pay the debt satire leaves us only cause to regret that its local merit they owe their native land. Let their hopes of indivicannot be more fully estimated beyond the broad Atlan- dual fame be interwoven with her glory, than even the tic. laurel would seem to them worthless if it grew on any other soil. How it irks the ear of a patriot when the names, however honored, of the gifted in another land are applied to our own writers. Who has not felt indignant at hearing Miss Sedgwick styled the Edgeworth of our country! Whether her hand pourtrays the sweet Hope Leslie, the stately Grace Campbell, the noble Magawasca, or the excellent Aunt Deborah, she is alike feminine, natural and American. Why then should we bestow on her the mantle which has fallen from the shoulders of another? She is no copyist of another's skill; she has Much is now doing for the cause of literature, but much yet remains to be done. Our young men must be taught that wealth is not the only good. The desolation which is now sweeping over the land, prostrating the golden harvest which men hoped to garner in their barns, and, alas! crushing with it many a noble spirit, may well teach them such a lesson. Our country needs intellectual laborers. Our sons must be educa ted in such a manner that if suddenly summoned to |