tic, not long since, for the mere purpose of playing with the bag-pipes, the coronach over his grave. He was a Macpherson, and before his return, called on and related the fact to Macpherson Berrian, Esq., formerly Attorney General of the United States, and distantly connected with that clan.

XL.

STRANGE ETYMOLOGY.

WHEN Ash was compiling his Dictionary, he was perplexed for the derivation of the word 'curmudgeon.' Some friend sent him anonymously the following, which is probably correct:-[ Curmudgeon, from cœur mechant: Fr. a miser, a churl, a griper.'] This was signed, An unknown correspondent.' By a strange transposition of the words, for which it is difficult to account, it stands thus in the Dictionary:-Curmudgeon, s. (from the French cŒUR,' unknown-and MECHAnt, a correspondent')—a miser, a churl, a griper.'

XLI.

AN ANCIENT IRISH ANACREONTIC, RECENTLY TRANSLATED.

See the ripe fruit. Oh! were I such,-
That mellow hangs from yonder spray ;
To win your eyes, to woo your touch,
And on your lips to melt away!

Were I a rose in some fair bower,
By thee selected from the rest;
To triumph in thy choice an hour,
And die upon thy snowy breast!

XLII.

ACCORDING TO ORDER.'

UNDER a regulation that renders clergymen ineligible to a seat in the House of Commons, a motion was made to expel Horne Tooke, who had been recently elected a member, and who had been in orders. It was in vain that he made a solemn asseveration that he had neither preached nor prayed for thirty years. A decree of expulsion passed the House.

XLIII.

CITY OF WASHINGTON.

WHEN this city was pretty much in its infancy-and it has not yet arrived at man's estate-a Frenchman, who had heard much talk of the city,' and who had formed his ideas of our metropolis, somewhat on the plan of London, or Paris, or at least Havre or Canterbury, was seized with a desire of feasting his eyes with a sight of the city'-and went in the stage to the seat of the General Government. When he arrived there, and saw the scanty supply of houses, and the wide extent of streets, crossing at right angles, and diagonally, he was lost in wonder at the great disparity-and cried out: Mon dieu, quelle grande ville! Elle

ne manque que de maisons et des habitans pour être la plus grande ville de monde !' My God, what a great city! It only wants houses and inhabitants, to be the greatest city in the world!'

XLIV.

DISCORDANT TESTIMONY.

PERHAPS there is hardly any aspect under which human nature can be viewed, much more revolting, than the discordance of testimony given in Courts of Justice, under all the sanctions, and with all the solemnity of an awful appeal to the Omniscient Ruler of the Universe. Juries acting under the most conscientious motives, are hence liable to give verdicts which may rob innocent and upright men, not merely of property, but of life. They have no means of detecting perjury, unless in cases of gross contradiction—and it is too awfully true, that a hardened wretch, with a front of Frersites, will narrate a story, totally false, with more apparent consistency and correctness, than a timid, inexperienced man can give to a narrative of facts, that have, even recently, passed under the examination of his senses, and still more so of events long past and gone.

I was struck with this melancholy train of ideas, by the perusal of the trial of General Gousell, a British officer, for an assault, in which evidence was brought forward of the most contradictory kind. And the contradiction was not of that description to which honest men are liable, through incorrect views, or from regarding an object through totally different media. No. There was on the one side or the other, the most absolute and unqualified perjury.

The General was greatly embarrassed in his circumstances. A warrant had been taken out against him, for a debt of £130. Five sheriff's officers went to execute the writ. The General fired two pistols at them, and was knocked down and disarmed, while he was preparing to fire the third. For this assault upon the officers, he was prosecuted. The point at issue was, whether the General's room was locked, or whether he had been outside the door, and on his retreat to the room, had been so closely followed by one of the officers, that the latter had prevented him from locking the door. All the officers swore positively that the General had come to the top of the stairs ;-that Hyde, the first of their body, had informed him of the warrant, and had followed him so closely as to get his leg and thigh inside the door ;-that Hyde had in this situation, seized him by the shoulder, and that the General had fired his pistols in succession through the door;-that after the second had been fired, Hyde forced his way in, and seized him ;-and moreover, that the officers had no other weapons than sticks.

But mark the other side of the story. The General's servants, who were in his room when the officers rapped at the door, and who left it one after the other, swore positively, that each time the door was locked after them; that the General did not leave his room; that the door was broken open, and the box which contained the bolt of the lock, forced away;—In addition to this evidence, Mrs. Mayo, the lady with whose husband the General lodged, deposed that Hyde had taken a double-bar

relled pistol out of her parlor for the purpose of employing it on the occasion; and the servants swore that he threatened them with that pistol when they attempted to stop him and his colleagues on the stairs. Several persons who had carefully examined the hole made by the ball in the door and in the wall, deposed that from the direction of the two, it was impossible the door could have been open. The General was acquitted.

XLV.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

I ONCE had a long conversation with Allen M'Lane,* a celebrated partisan officer during the war of the Revolution, on the subject of the Declaration of Independence, in which I observed, that considering the immense disparity of the forces on both sides—the overwhelming power of . G. Britain, and the feebleness of the Americans, more especially taking into view the great and inveterate jealousies that prevailed between the colonies, I thought that prudent and honorable men with the best intentions, might very well hesitate on the subject of declaring independence, at the risk of being denounced, and made the objects of persecution. He acknowledged the correctness of what I said; but added, emphatically, that if the Declaration had not taken place before the battle of Long Island, it would probably not have taken place at that period, as that battle produced such a prostration of the public mind, as would have led to a compromise, had not the Rubicon been passed.

XLVI. !

ECONOMY.

THE importance of economy is susceptible of the most powerful illustrations, by the fate of hundreds of individuals, who have expended, in a few years, more than five, perhaps ten times as much, as, by proper management, would have sufficed to support them through life, not merely comfortably, but even elegantly and splendidly. The example of Kean, the great actor, may be fairly cited under this head. He, by his profession, earned £10,000 a-year, and yet died poor. The Duke of Marlborough is miserably poor and despised, notwithstanding his immense income, which is in the hands of trustees, to pay his debts. And no small portion of the nobility and gentry of England are obliged to put their estates into the hands of trustees,' at nurse,' as I believe the phrase is, and to live in France, from motives of economy.

XLVII.

DELICATE ATTENTIONS.

In the tenth century, to eat off the same plate, and drink out of the same cup, was considered a mark of gallantry, and of the best possible understanding between a lady and a gentleman.

Father of the Hon. Louis M'Lane.

XLVIII.

SALT MOUNTAINS.

MR. JEFFERSON's statement of a Salt Mountain, was a subject of ridicule among the editors opposed to his administration. But time has fully proved that he was correct. Fischer states that there is a salt rock at Pinoso in Valencia, composed of solid masses of salt, as hard as stone; in some places white-in others red-and in others gray. It extends two leagues from east to west, and one from north to south, without any variety in its component parts.

LINES.

I'LL tell thee why this weary world me seemeth
But as the visions light of one who dreameth,
Which pass like clouds, leaving no trace behind :
Why this strange life, so full of sin and folly,
In me awakeneth no melancholy,

Nor casteth shade or sadness o'er my mind.
'Tis not, that with an undiscerning eye,
I see the pageant wild go dancing by,

Mistaking that which falsest is, for true;
'Tis not that pleasure hath entwined me,
'Tis not that sorrow hath enshrined me,-
I bear no badge of roses, or of rue.
But in the inmost chambers of my soul

There is another world, a blessed home,
O'er which no living power holdeth control,
Anigh to which ill things do never come.

There shineth the glad sun-light of sweet thought,
With hope and faith holding communion high,
Over a fragrant land, with flow'rs ywrought,
Where gush the living springs of poesy.
There speak the voices that I love to hear,
There smile the glances that I love to see,
There live the forms of those my soul holds dear,
For ever in that secret world with me.
They who have walk'd with me along life's way,
And sever'd been by Fortune's adverse tide,
Who ne'er again, thro' Time's uncertain day,
In weal or woe may wander by my side;
These all dwell here: nor these, whom life alone
Divideth from me, but the dead-the dead,
Those happy ones, who to their rest are gone,
Whose foot-prints from the earth have vanished.
There dwell they all;-and here, within this world,
Like light within a summer sun cloud furl'd,

My spirit dwells :-therefore, this evil life,
With all its gilded snares, and fair deceivings,
Its wealth, its want, its pleasures and its grievings,
Nor frights nor frets me, by its idle strife.
O thou who readest, for thy courtesy,
Whoe'er thou art, I wish the same to thee!

Philadelphia, September, 1834.

F. A. B.

A SPLENDID SPECTACLE.

FROM A CORRESPONDENT AT ALEXANDRIA, ON RED RIVER, LOUISIANA.

I WITNESSED On the evening of the thirtieth of March, 1834, the most striking spectacle that I have ever seen, although it has been my fortune to witness two or three of the most destructive fires that have ever occurred in the cities of our country. Peculiar circumstances of the air, the season, and the position, all concurred to produce the unparalleled sublimity of the view of this conflagration. The time was midnight. The wind, the day previous, had been brisk from the South, of the bland and delicious temperature of a Louisiana spring day, and driving along the air that mass of white, fair-weather clouds, that half cover and half disclose the delightful blue of the sky, tempering the brightness of the sun, and rendering simple existence in the open air a positive luxury. The foliage of the trees had attained about two-thirds of its full development, and was precisely in that stage of tender, yellowish verdure, when spring, in my view, wears her most beautiful face. Nothing could exceed the brilliancy of the green carpet on the shores of the river. Nor have I any where else seen such a charming border of trees and grass, as skirted the stream for a league below the town. Between these splendid shores, the river rolled full to its brim,-smooth, unbroken, apparently a vast canal,—its deep, red waters moving on as calm as a mirror, -the exact ground, on which to paint such a fearful conflagration, which seemed to roll its lurid, spiral columns deeper and more brilliant in the abyss, than it showed in sending up its crimson masses into the air.

When the fire commenced, the groups of white clouds, that had been floating before the wind through the previous day, were suspended in vast wreaths and strata, apparently rolled over each other, leaving long vistas through these accumulations, disclosing half the blue and half the stars of the firmament. Not a breath of air was felt. The greater part of a square was blazing simultaneously; and, as the buildings were entirely composed of the fat pine timber of the long-leaved Louisiana pine, the flame was like that of a vast pile of pitch. The huge, spiral columns rolled aloft towards the sleeping clouds, in ruddy and smoke-enveloped massiveness-in fearful splendor! But the magnificence of the picture consisted in the complete picturing of the whole conflagration on the bright foliage of the trees down the river. The reflection from the deep red and rolling surface of the water, gave it an impressive and startling grandeur, that I have no words to paint. The fire seemed rolling up from the surface of the river, and caught upon the lofty and branching trees. The deep forest, back of the town, too, was illuminated in more dusky colors, as it wanted the mirror of the river to reflect the flames. The wreaths of long moss, suspended beneath the blazing verdure, might have been taken for masses of pendent diamonds, as the fire appeared dropping from them in prismatic brilliancy, constituting inexpressibly glorious fire-works. Occasionally, casks of spirits exploded, producing prodigious spirals of smoke, and giving, for a moment, an entire