hedgerows, according to an immemorial right of way-the neighboring village, with its venerable cottages, its public green sheltered by trees, under which the forefathers of the present race have sported-the antique family mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a protecting air on the surrounding scene: all these common features of English landscape evince a calm and settled security, and hereditary transmission of homebred virtues and local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral. character of the nation.

PORTRAIT OF A DUTCHMAN.

The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away their lives, and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam; and who had comported themselves with such singular wisdom and propriety, that they were never either heard or talked of which, next to being universally applauded, should be the object of ambition of all magistrates and rulers. There are two opposite ways by which some men make a figure in the world; one by talking faster than they think; and the other by holding their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first many a smatterer acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual remark, which I would not for the universe have it thought I apply to Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke except in monosyllables; but then it was allowed he seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his gravity that he was never known to laugh or even to smile through the whole course of a long and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered in his presence, that set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was observed to throw him into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would deign to inquire into the matter, and when, after much explanation, the joke was made as plain as a pikestaff, he would continue to smoke his pipe in silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, would exclaim, "Well! I see nothing in all that to laugh about."

The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and proportioned as though it had been moulded by the hands of

some cunning Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. He was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions, that dame Nature, with all her sex's ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his back-bone, just between the shoulders. His body was oblong, and particularly capacious at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking. His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to sustain; so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of those lines and angles which disfigure the human countenance with what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy firmament; and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll of everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and streaked with dusky red, like a spitzenberg apple.

His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty. Such was the renowned Wouter Van Twiller-a true philosopher, for his mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares and perplexities of this world. He had lived in it for years, without feeling the least curiosity to know whether the sun revolved round it, or it round the sun; and he had watched, for at least half a century, the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling, without once troubling his head with any of those numerous theories by which a philosopher would have perplexed his brain, in accounting for its rising above the surrounding atmosphere.

JOHN PIERPONT, 1785.

THIS noble and bold reformer, as well as true poet, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on the 6th of April, 1785. His great-grand

father was Rev. James Pierpont, the second minister of New Haven, and one of the founders of Yale College. The poet received his collegiate education at Yale College, and graduated in 1805. The next year he went to South Carolina, and was private tutor in the family of Colonel Williams Allston, where he commenced his legal studies. In 1809 he returned home, and entered the celebrated law school of his native town, and in 1812 was admitted to the bar of Essex County, Massachusetts, and practised in Newburyport. He soon, however, as other poets have done, abandoned the dry pursuits of the law, determining to find his pleasure and his occupation in literary pursuits; and in 1816 he published "The Airs of Palestine," which was at once, and most deservedly, received with great favor. Soon after the publication of this admirable poem, he entered the theological school of Harvard University, seriously determined to devote himself to the ministry. He left that school in October, 1818, and in April, 1819, was ordained as a minister of the Hollis Street Church, in Boston. In 1835 and 1836, he visited Europe for his health, going through the principal cities of England, France, and Italy, and extending his tour to the East, visiting Athens, Corinth, Constantinople, and Asia Minor. Soon after his return home, he collected and published, in 1840, all his poems, in one volume, in the preface to which he says: "If poetry is always fiction, there is no poetry in this book. It gives a true, though an all too feeble expression of the author's feelings and faith-of his love of right, freedom, and man, and of his correspondent and most hearty hatred of everything that is at war with them; and of his faith in the providence and gracious promises of God. Nay, the book is published as an expression of his faith in man; his faith that every line, written to rebuke high-handed or under-handed wrong, or to keep alive the fires of civil and religious liberty-written for solace in affliction, for support under trial, or as an expression, or for the excitement, of Christian patriotism or devotion; or even with no higher aim than to throw a little sunshine into the chamber of the spirit, while it is going through some of the wearisome passages of life's history-will be received as a proof of the writer's interest in the welfare of his fellow-men, of his desire to serve them, and consequently of his claim upon them for a charitable judgment, at least, if not even for a respectful and grateful remembrance." Mr. Pierpont's longest poem is "The Airs of Palestine." The subject is music, principally as connected with sacred history, but with occasional digressions into the land of mythology and romance. Though this subject, so congenial to the "poet's verse," had been often handled from Pindar to Gray, yet our author, nothing daunted, did not shrink

from trying his own powers upon it. It is enough to say that he has succeeded. For beauty of language, finish of versification, richness of classical and sacred allusions, and harmony of numbers, we consider that it takes rank among the very first of American poems, and will be among those that will survive their century. But Mr. Pierpont has aimed at something more than gratifying his own scholarly tastes, and meeting in his readers the love of the beautiful. He is a reformer, a whole-hearted and a fearless one, and a large proportion of his fugitive pieces have been written to promote the holy causes of temperance and freedom. So early did he take his stand upon these subjects, and so faithfully did he preach upon them, that the consciences of his hearers could endure it no longer, and they preferred many charges against him, to remove him from his post. His answers to these charges are as triumphant as they are full of wit and humor, and those who preferred them would be glad now, if they could, to have that page in their history blotted out forever. But there it must stand to their disgrace, and to his everlasting honor.'

CLASSICAL AND SACRED THEMES FOR MUSIC.

Where lies our path ?-though many a vista call,
We may admire, but cannot tread them all.
Where lies our path?—a poet, and inquire

What hills, what vales, what streams become the lyre?
See, there Parnassus lifts his head of snow;

See at his foot the cool Cephissus flow;

There Ossa rises; there Olympus towers;

Between them, Tempè breathes in beds of flowers,
For ever verdant; and there Peneus glides
Through laurels, whispering on his shady sides.
Your theme is MUSIC: Yonder rolls the wave,
Where dolphins snatched Arion from his grave,
Enchanted by his lyre: Citharon's shade
Is yonder seen, where first Amphion played
Those potent airs, that, from the yielding earth,
Charmed stones around him, and gave cities birth.
And fast by Hamus, Thracian Hebrus creeps
O'er golden sands, and still for Orpheus weeps,
Whose gory head, borne by the stream along,
Was still melodious, and expired in song.
There Nereids sing, and Triton winds his shell;
There be thy path-for there the muses dwell.
No, no-a lonelier, lovelier path be mine:
Greece and her charms I leave, for Palestine.

Read Isaiah lxvi. 5.

There, purer streams through happier valleys flow,
And sweeter flowers on holier mountains blow.
I love to breathe where Gilead sheds her balm;
I love to walk on Jordan's banks of palm;
I love to wet my foot in Hermon's dews;
I love the promptings of Isaiah's muse;
In Carmel's holy grots I'll court repose,

And deck my mossy couch with Sharon's deathless rose.

SONG OF THE SHEPHERDS.

While thus the shepherds watched the host of night,
O'er heaven's blue concave flashed a sudden light.
The unrolling glory spread its folds divine

O'er the green hills and vales of Palestine;
And lo! descending angels, hovering there,
Stretched their loose wings, and in the purple air
Hung o'er the sleepless guardians of the fold:
When that high anthem, clear, and strong, and bold,
On wavy paths of trembling ether ran:
"Glory to God-Benevolence to man-

Peace to the world :"-and in full concert came,
From silver tubes and harps of golden frame,
The loud and sweet response, whose choral strains
Lingered and languished on Judea's plains.
Yon living lamps, charmed from their chambers blue
By airs so heavenly, from the skies withdrew:
All?-all, but one, that hung and burned alone,
And with mild lustre over Bethlehem shone.
Chaldea's sages saw that orb afar

Glow unextinguished;-'twas Salvation's Star.

THE MUSIC IN THE CONVENT.

Hark! 't is a convent's bell: its midnight chime; For music measures even the march of time: O'er bending trees, that fringe the distant shore, Gray turrets rise: the eye can catch no more. The boatman, listening to the tolling bell, Suspends his oar: a low and solemn swell, From the deep shade, that round the cloister lies, Rolls through the air, and on the water dies. What melting song wakes the cold ear of night? A funeral dirge, that pale nuns, robed in white, Chant round a sister's dark and narrow bed, To charm the parting spirit of the dead. Triumphant is the spell! with raptured ear, That uncaged spirit hovering lingers near ;Why should she mount? why pant for brighter bliss, A lovelier scene, a sweeter song, than this!