mind cannot flee from inaction, which is worse than fatigue. Hence arises the love of play, of intrigue, and of other pernicious amusements. How much more innocent and useful, as recreations, would be the study of the sciences, than gaming, balls, and other insipid diversions. How much better it would qualify women to instruct their sons and daughters, and to dispel from their own minds many vulgar errors and ridiculous caprices.

They would not then confine their whole attention to dress, and the ornaments of their person; nor would they evince such a passionate attachment to extravagant fashion, more expensive than their fortunes allow, or conditions require; and luxury, finding less aliment, would decline. They would study a modest elegance and neatness of appearance, which, saving many a misspent hour, and many useless cares, would render them more esteemed. And even should not this effect follow, they would improve their understanding, which would secure them higher respect in their intercourse with society; would induce many of the other sex to cultivate their minds, and abate a little, that pride of superior knowledge, which they are prone to cherish.

I would, by no means be understood to say, that young ladies ought not to be instructed how to perform their appropriate labors; on the contrary, that should be the principal object in every system of female education. They should be accustomed to employment from their earliest youth; the love of it should be inculcated in preference to that of literature and the sciences; for it is of more real utility to their families, and has a most happy influence upon their habits and manners. Attachment to labor I consider the most excellent characteristic of our sex. By means of it they avoid the torments and temptations of indolence; it prevents their thoughts from dwelling on forbidden amusements and insipid trifles, whence often flow the grief and ruin of families.

Should Heaven grant me daughters, I would endeavor to moderate their passions and desires, and would thus address them. Daughters, true it is, you are born noble and rich, and necessity does not compel you to labor; but labor

will be useful to you, for you know not what may be the events of futurity. Misfortunes are frequent in this world, and from them, neither nobility nor riches can protect us. That which has happened to others may happen also to you. This will not appear impossible nor unlikely, when you bring to mind the numerous examples of powerful and illustrious lords, who, from the hatred of the government, failure in law suits, the disasters of war, their own misconduct or vices, behold their families reduced to poverty or altogether ruined. And if, by the misfortunes of your husbands, such should be your fate, you would then reap the reward of those habits of improvement acquired in youth. Even the lords of highest rank and greatest riches, consider this an excellent quality in a lady, although she be noble. The most opulent and illustrious families have limits beyond which they cannot rise. Great riches lead to great expenses; the greatest may be exhausted, and demand the constant care of the mistress of the family, and increased attention and industry, when her children are numerous."

E. H.

THE DEAD MOTHER.

I mark'd at morn a blissful scene,

Arrayed in colors bright-
Where lovely woman's brow serene
Diffus'd a pure delight.

She caroll'd to her sleeping son

Who on her bosom lay,
While at her feet a lisping one
Indulged in gambols gay.

And he, the partner of those joys,
Bent o'er her brow the while,
To gaze upon his cherub boys,
And share their mother's smiles.

At eve I came,-but floods of grief
O'erwhelm'd that manly eye;—
Those moaning infants ask'd relief,-
Where was the fond reply?

Go, join the thronging tides that roll
On toward the house of prayer,
Such harrowing question to the soul
Is better answered there.

That coffin'd form, that lip of stone,
Those eyes which darkness seal,
Where every mild affection shone,
The fearful truth reveal.

Breathes forth the dirge its strain of wo,

The orizon upward tends,

And truths in hallow'd accents flow,

To which the mourner bends.

"Tis o'er !-'Tis o'er !-Come child of dust, And lift yon sable pall,

If earthly charms e'er won thy trust,
See here the end of all.

Weep too, if thou hast learn'd to prize
What heaven itself holds dear ;-
Meek Hope that builds above the skies,
And Faith, and Love sincere.

Go,-lay her in the earth's cold breast
With cheek so pure and fair,-
That silent cell hath many a guest,
Though none salute her there.

Returning spring, with violets sweet
Shall deck the humid clay,-
And when a few more seasons fleet
On noiseless wing away,-

Perchance those beauteous forms may come

In careless childhood blest,

To pluck a rosebud from her tomb,

And bind it on their breast.

Lightly their little feet will tread
Where Love its vigil keeps:
"Child!-Child!-within that lowly bed
Your angel-mother sleeps."

Oh! tell how oft her cradle hymn
Has sooth'd their hour of pain,-
And how her eye when glaz'd and dim
Return'd for them again,—

Then while their filial sorrows flow,

Point to a mansion fair,

And warn them by a Saviour's wo

To meet their mother there.

H.

SKETCHES OF AMERICAN CHARACTER.
NO. XII.

A WINTER IN THE COUNTRY.

DID you ever live in the country? I dont mean a residence of some six or seven weeks, just to escape the burning, boiling, stifling atmosphere of the crowded city, when the thermometer stands at 93° in the shade, and clouds of dust render promenading through Washington Street almost as dangerous as would be a march through the desert, to explore the ruins of Palmyra. But there is the Mall. Oh! the Mall is unfashionable ;-and what lady, having a proper sense of her own dignity and delicacy, but would prefer suffocating at home, to the horror of a refreshing walk in an unfashionable place? They must resort to the country. But never should those ladies imagine their experience of pastoral life, makes them competent to decide on rural pleasures and rural characters; or gives them the right to bestow those convenient epithets, dull, ignorant, plodding,

on our country farmers, or uneducated, unfashionable, dowdyish, on their wives and daughters.

Summer and autumn are the seasons, during which our city people visit the country. In summer, all who feel a sensibility for the beautiful, are charmed. The green woods, the flowery fields, the soft lulling waters and calm bright skies, are successively admired and eulogized. The sweet scenery is extolled, be-rhymed, sketched-left and forgotten. Autumn scenery makes a far deeper impression on the feelings. There is something in the decay of nature that awakens thought, even in the most trifling mind. The person who can regard the changes in the forest foliage,that can watch the slow circles of the dead leaf, as it falls from the bough of some lofty tree, till it mingles with the thousands already covering the ground beneath, and not moralize is—not a person that I would advise to retire to the country, in search of happiness. He or she had better stay in the city and be amused. Those who cannot think have, in my opinion, a necessity (which goes very far towards creating a right) for amusement.

But the season when the scenery of the country makes the most delightful impression on the traveller's senses, or awakens his mind to reflection, is not the time to form a correct estimate of the social pleasures and mental advantages, which the inhabitants in our interior towns enjoy. Labor, unceasing labor is, during summer and autumn, the lot of the farmer, and usually of all his family. The city lady or gentleman, who visits in the country, regards this industry as oppressive, almost slavish. And truly it is sometimes so; but still there is a satisfaction to those industrious people, in seeing how much their hands have accomplished; and there is a positive pleasure in the rest that night allows, and above all, which the Sabbath brings, that persons ever occupied in amusements or busy about trifles, cannot comprehend, any better than a blind man could the effect of colors on the eye. I may be told, that such happiness only refers to animal sensations, that mind has no part in the bliss which mere respite from the plough allows the farmer, any more than to the repose it brings the cattle that assisted his labors. If mind had no influence VOL. I.--NO. XII.

68