bustle of the world.

Love is but the embellish

ment of his early life, or a song piped in the inter

vals of the acts.

He seeks for fame, for fortune, for space in the world's thought, and domination over his fellow-men. But a woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection, and if shipwrecked her case is hopeless-for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.

To a man the disappointment of love may occasion some bitter pangs; it wounds some feelings of tenderness-it blasts some prospects of felicity; but he is an active being- he may dissipate his thoughts in the whirl of varied occupation, or may plunge into the tide of pleasure; or, if the scene of disappointment be too full of painful associations, he can shift his abode at will, and taking as it were the wings of the morning, can "fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, and be at rest.”

But a woman's is comparatively a fixed, a secluded, and a meditative life. She is more the companion of her own thoughts and feelings; and if they are turned to ministers of sorrow, where shall she look for consolation? Her lot is to be wooed and won; and if unhappy in her love, her heart is like some fortress that has been captured, and sacked, and abandoned, and left desolate.

How many bright eyes grow dim, how many

soft cheeks grow pale, how many lovely forms
fade away into the tomb, and none can tell the
cause that blighted their loveliness! As the
dove will clasp its wings to its sides, and cover
and conceal the arrow that is preying on its vitals,
so it is the nature of women to hide from the
world the pangs of wounded affection. The love
of a delicate female is always shy and silent.
Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to
herself; but when otherwise, she buries it in the
deep recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower
and brood among the ruins of her peace. With
her the desire of her heart has failed. The great
charm of existence is at an end. She neglects
all the cheerful exercises which gladden the spirits,
quicken the pulses, and send the tide of life in
healthful currents through the veins. Her rest is
broken- the sweet refreshment of sleep is poi-
soned by melancholy dreams" dry sorrow drinks
her blood," until her enfeebled frame sinks under
the slightest injury. Look for her after a while,
and you will find friendship over her untimely
grave, and wondering that one who but lately
glowed with all the radiance of health and beauty
should so easily be brought down to "darkness
and the worm." You will be told of some wintry
chill, some casual indisposition, that laid her low;
but no one knows of the mental malady that pre-
viously sapped her strength, and made her so easy
a prey to the spoiler.

She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the grove; graceful in its form, bright in its foliage, but with the worm preying at its heart. We find it suddenly withering, when it should be most fresh and luxuriant. We see it dropping its branches to the earth, and shedding leaf by leaf, until, wasted and perished away, it falls even in the stillness of the forest; and as we muse over the beautiful ruin, we strive in vain to collect the blast or thunderbolt that could have smitten it with decay.

I have seen many instances of women running to waste and self-neglect, and disappearing gradually from the earth, almost as if they had been exalted to heaven; and have repeatedly fancied that I could trace their death through the various declensions of consumption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy, until I reached the first symptom of disappointed love. But an instance of the kind was lately told to me; the circumstances are well known in the country where they happened, and I shall give them in the manner in which they were related.

Every one must recollect the tragical story of young E, the Irish patriot; it was too touching to be soon forgotten. During the troubles in Ireland, he was tried, condemned, and executed, on a charge of treason. His fate made a deep impression on public sympathy. He was so young

SO intelligent- so generous so brave- so

-

every thing we are apt to like in a young man! His conduct under trial, too, was so lofty and intrepid. The noble indignation with which he repelled the charges of treason against his country -the eloquent vindication of his name and his pathetic appeal to posterity in the hopeless hour of condemnation - all these entered deeply into every generous bosom, and even his enemies lamented the stern policy that dictated his execution.

But there was one heart whose anguish it would be impossible to describe. In happier days and fairer fortunes, he had won the affections of a beautiful and interesting girl, the daughter of a late Irish barrister. She loved him with the disinterested fervor of a woman's first and early love. When every worldly maxim arrayed itself against him, when blasted in fortune, and disgrace and danger darkened around his name, she loved him the more ardently for his sufferings. If, then, his fate could awaken the sympathy even of his foes, what must have been the agony of her whose whole soul was occupied by his image! Let those tell who have the portals of the tomb suddenly closed between them and the being they most loved on earth who have sat at its threshold, as one shut out in a cold and lonely world, from whence all that was most lovely and loving had departed.

But the horrors of such a grave! so frightful, so dishonored! There was nothing for memory to

dwell on that could soothe the pang of separation -none of those tender, though melancholy, circumstances that endear the parting scene nothing to melt sorrow into those blessed tears, sent, like the dews of heaven, to revive the heart in the parting hour of anguish.

To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had incurred her father's displeasure by the unfortunate attachment, and was an exile from the parental roof. But could the sympathy and kind offices of friends have reached a spirit so shocked and driven in by horror, she would have experienced no want of consolation, for the Irish are a people of quick and generous sensibilities. The most delicate attentions were paid her by families of wealth and distinction. She was led into society, and tried all kinds of occupation and amusement to dissipate her grief, and wean her from the tragical story of her lover. But it was all in vain. There are some strokes of calamity that scath and scorch the soul-that penetrate to the vital seat of happiness, and blast it, never again to put forth bud or blossom. She never objected to frequent the haunts of pleasure, but she was as much alone there as in the depths of solitude. She walked about in sad revery, apparently unconscious of the world around her. She carried within her an inward woe that mocked all the blandishments of friendship, and "heeded not the song of the charmer, charm he never so wisely."