particulars respecting the crow and the icicle above | If I do not remember the moment of my birth, this mentioned, I was told, while yet smarting under moment I should never forget, were I to live to the the pain of the accident, by my neighbour and gos- age of the oak. Amidst the innumerable objects, sip, a withered sprig of spear-grass, which had al- all beautiful and new, above and around, -the birds ready outlived two winters, and was notoriously flitting through the air, the insects creeping among the greatest gossip that grew for ten fields round. the herbage, the flowers of many hues that blosBy this merry blade I was taught the rudiments somed on my native bank, mine ancient gossip, of useful knowledge; and whether you believe the spire of dry grass with two withered blades me or not, I will venture to affirm that my precep- hanging down, and high over all, the patriarchal tress was as good a schoolmistress as any old wo-oak, towering, and, as it appeared to me, touching man of eighty within the ring of our bells, and the sky,-nothing caught my attention longer than myself as good a scholar, at the week's end, as any while I cast a glance across it. As soon as I had little boy or girl three hundred times my age, and looked thus hastily about me, I fixed my eye on ten thousand times my bulk. During my minority, the sun, coming forth from his golden palace:-as that is, till my blossom opened, I was blind; and he rose in the firmament, my petals spread wide to in truth I had then only two of the five senses by receive his ray, and my breath grew sweeter; while which you animals vainly imagine that you are dis- I sighed in the delight of beholding him all day tinguished above us vegetables: but let me tell you, long, with the occasional intervention of a cloud, that I could feel as exquisitely as yourself, Madam. and the floating shadows of taller plants around Indeed I doubt whether an icicle a quarter of an that alternately crossed and cleared my sight, I inch long, falling upon your head, would have cost traced the splendid luminary in his course to the you half the anguish, that such an infliction cost meridian, and downward through a crimson colourme. And as for hearing, certainly you will not ed sky, till behind the old oak he vanished from me. pretend to measure your ears with mine: I dare I felt my lively spirits sinking as he declined: when say you never heard a stalk of grass speak in your he was gone, vision began to fade; the objects near life; I have heard one uttering oracles all day long, me lost their colour, then their form; I was alarm-aye, and all night too; for my neighbour talked ed; I thought that my primitive blindness was reas much in her sleep, and as much to the purpose, turning; the air grew chill; I bowed upon my bed, and oppressed with indescribable dejection, I fell into a deep slumber.

as when she was awake.

"Now while I was blind, I had nothing to do but to grow wiser and bigger every day;-bigger I did grow, for I could not help it, and wiser, but I must not boast, lest I should prove myself a fool: I may say, however, that I do not recollect that I ever lost a moment in all my schooling, with the old beldame of our bank-side, or under a much higher and more accomplished tutor, at whose feet I was brought up, and by whom I was as carefully instructed, as if, instead of a few spring-days, my life was to equal your grandmother's. This august and venerable personage was no other than a majestic oak, that had outlasted twenty generations of your long-lived race, and five hundred of ours; nay, it had stood so long against the strokes of time and death, that it had survived two-thirds of itself, being only a ruin, yet, even in decay, more magnificent than a forest of brambles in their glory. This oak, which was, or pretended to be, for I could not help suspecting some unacknowledged gaps in the avenue of his genealogy, my honoured tutor having only one weak point about him, and that was a certain pride of ancestry incomprehensible to us ephemeral things,-a very commendable pride, you will perhaps say, in the stump of an old tree! -Be it so, but I must begin the last sentence again. This oak, which was, or pretended to be, the twelfth in descent from one that grew on the same slope at the creation, was a marvellous linguist, having in the course of its own five centuries, acquired all the knowledge that had been accumulated in its family, and transmitted by due inheritance from sire to son, for nearly six thousand years. ****

"My Royal Oak, however, was very kind and condescending to me; and from his sage lessons I learned as much of the works of nature and art. of the actions of animals human and brute, of ethics and English grammar, as you might suppose a violet of tolerable parts, improving every instant, could acquire in ten days; so that when I came of age on the eleventh, I was prepared to begin the world to advantage, having pretty clear ideas of every thing I might expect to behold when the universe became visible to me,-for you will recollect that I was blind during the whole of my nonage.

"At sun-rise on the eleventh of April, my eyelids were opened on the creation; and in the same moment when I first saw the light, I first breathed the air, fresh, cool, and fragrant, amidst a thick group of sister-violets, stealing and giving odours,' as the breeze of morning swept the dew-drops from our leaves. Heretofore I had only felt the warmth of the sun, and the pleasantness of the breeze, cherishing and expanding my bud; now the light of heaven seemed to dart not only into my eye, but through my veins down into my very root, and the spirit of the wind was like a living soul within me. I

pounded to me and my sisters (for the rest of our
vegetable neighbours were asleep) the next morn-
ing; and though a violet's existence is computed
by minutes instead of years, I thought it worth
while having been born a flower to see this.
"But the charm was abruptly broken by a hide-
ous scaring noise directly over our heads. To-
hoo! Tohoo! Tohoo!' it cried, and forth from the
hollow of the oak issued a giant of a screech-owl.
Plumb into the midst of the rejoicing assembly he
plunged, when all the fays and fairies (for so I un-
derstand they are called in the language of men)
with a sound as if the strings of a thousand musical
instruments were at once snapt asunder, vanished
in the twinkling of a dew-drop,-except Robert
Goodfellow, the merriest elf among them all, who
had been playing his antics with me and my sisters
all night, and was then standing on his head, fiddling
with his legs in the air, on one of my topmost pe-
tals. Neck and heels, in his fright, poor Robin!
he tumbled, a height of three statute-inches at
least, into the hollow of one of my footleaves,
where he lay stunned for a full half-second, and
then I saw no more of him.

LETTER II.

VIOLA.

"Dear Madam, "I did not awake out of this second sleep till the sun had given his own colour and lustre to the morning-clouds; but the dew, into which an early hoar-frost had resolved itself, lay white upon the ground, and there was a globule, as big as a lady's tear, in my eye, that entirely filled it. * * *

"The owl, with another cry of triumph more horrible than the first, hurried back to his den among the ivy of the oak; the moon was beclouded, and I fell asleep again. Lest you should do the same, or rather that you may do the same,Madam, I will here make a break in my narrative "Thanks to the sweet deceiver, Sleep! In my to you. But I must continue it by myself, and bedream (for flowers dream as well as sleep, whatever queath the remainder to you in my will; for though botanists may say,) the glorious image of the sun I am up to the neck in water, the only means of arose on my imagination, and I spent my day over prolonging my life, after I had been mortally again in the night. From this delicious trance, I wounded by one of the fairest hands in the world, was awakened by strains of music so inspiring, as you will learn hereafter,-I feel that I shall not that I found myself and sisters involuntarily,-and live till to-morrow morning. Meanwhile, and with yet, oh! how willingly!-dancing with all our my sweetest breath, and last, I am, leaves and blossoms to the melody, which came Yours, for ever, nearer, and grew merrier every moment. There was a very pale twilight in the air, when glancing upward, I perceived a dark cloud with a silver margin; in the middle of which there appeared a bright spot, that became thinner and thinner, as if melting away, till a beautif. orb broke through it. It was the moon, a little on the wane, which had risen after my eye closed, and was now half-way up the sky. She was not so gorgeous as the sun; but in the first joy of discovering her, I thought her a thousand times more lovely; for just then I recol- "At half-past nine o'clock in the forenoon, a lected, that while I was falling asleep, I had fancied butterfly, the first that I had seen,-indeed the first that I was losing my sight. In the transport of of the season, came fluttering over us. Our chat having this restored, I had no ear for music: I was was immediately suspended, and every eye followall eye, and that eye was all moon, for I saw noth-ed the brilliant stranger, while he sported to and ing else; till suddenly her beams appeared alive, and in motion toward me. Millions, aye millions, of little beings, in form like the lords of creation, and as brilliant as if they had been born in ladies' eyes, came pouring upon our bank-side, and covered it as thick as dew-drops. The music, which was as much too exquisite for human ears as these shapes were too fine for human sight, continued meanwhile to swell and fall, and float, and quicken, and languish. It seemed a moving spirit among these lively little things; sometimes they ran out in lines all the way up to the moon and back again; anon they wheeled in rings so swift as to be individually indistinguishable; again they intermingled in measures so slow, that every feature of the smallest face was easily discerned. Love, joy, grief, hope, fear, and every passion, were expressed in their countenances, carolled in their songs, and represented in their dances. They flew among us and over us, with steps so light that we bent not our heads beneath their volatile feet; but when they touched us, we felt in ourselves the very affection, whether joyous or mournful, that possessed them at the time. It would take more hours than I have to live, to describe all the scenes of this wonderful spectacle;-it was a pantomime in miniature of your great world, in which all the horrors and glories of war, the labours and pastimes of peace, the business of the field, the court, the senate, the bar, the college, the town, and the country, were at once exemplified. In a word, there was then presented to us a perfect masquerade of luman life, the detail of which the reverend oak ex-I

fro, displaying his elegant form and gay apparel in
every attitude; hovering here, descending there,
alighting nowhere. We violets breathed our sighs
of sweetness to allure him; the daisies,-poor
things, how I pitied them!--blushed to the tips of
their petals, for it was plain that he despised them;
the primrosss shivered with spleen, for they were
in the shade, and he never went near them; the
butter-cups blazed out in golden splendour, and
they seemed his favourites, for now he dipt towards
one, then towards ano.her of them, till, to the chagrin
and astonishment of all, he at length settled on a
glaring yellow dandelion, the vulgarist flower on the
bank,-with which not one of us would even ex-
change a word; and there he sate in the sun, open-
ing and shutting his burnished wings, with ineffable
self-complacency; for it was soon evident that the
coxcomb chose the gaudy weed, not for the love of
it, but because its broad disk afforded him a con-
venient resting-place, on which he could expand
his gold and purple finery to the admiration, as he
thought, of all that beheld him.
We were so pro-
voked, that we tried to look any way and every
way, rather than at him; and yet we caught our
eyes continually turning, as it were by instinct,
again to him, for really he was a very pretty fellow,
and would have been a thousand times more so if
he had not known it. At last he whisked away.*

***

"We were very silent and pouting for nearly an hour, when a bee came humining along the lane; and soon as he had wheeled around the corner of the old oak, darted down upon one of us,-it was upon me. I was frightened out of my wits, the as

sailant seemed so rough and warlike in form; nay, so unceremonious were his manners, if manners they may be called, that he instantaneously saluted me, bore me down to the ground, and began suck ing my breath till I was ready to faint; then off he flew, singing as he went, without noticing another blossom on the bank. When I had a little recovered from the confusion occasioned by this rencontre, I perceived that my neighbours were all sneering at me, and sneering, so enviously that I soon found, instead of being angry at the honest bee for rifling my honey, I ought to have thanked him for his condescension in taking it by storm; and it was evident, to me at least, from his preference and their jealousy, that I was the sweetest and handsomest flower of the party. This notion so delighted my vanity, that I become quite giddy, and eyed my companions whom nature had made less attractive than myself, with a kind compassionate contempt. Down from a branch of the oak, that moment, fell a great sprawling spider full on my bosom, where he lay wriggling on his back, five seconds, I am sure, an age of misery to me!-before Le could gather his legs together, and throw himself, rolled up like a ball, on one of my lowest leaves, where he remained to my unutterable annoyance, considering how he should further dispose of himself. The flowers, which had been hitherto stifling their spleen against me, or muttering it in low whispers, now tittered aloud at this ridiculous mischance, while I was so paralyzed that I could not even cry out for help. *

"At this crisis, the clouds, which had long been lowering, broke suddenly, and poured down rain in torrents on our heads. The mole, neither liking the air nor the water from above, burrowed his way back again into his subterranean abode, without doing any harm, except humbling the pride of the dandelion, for which we were all very much obliged to him. It was only an April storm; towards evening, the sun broke through the gloom, and spread a beautiful rainbow from one end of heaven to the other, as it appeared to me. The blue sky cleared, the earth glowed with verdure; every leaf and sprig of plant and flower, glittered with diamonds of the first water. All nature looked smiling and joyous. The gnats, by myriads, were dancing in circular clouds over our heads, repeatedly assembling, though as often dispersed by the swallows that darted to and fro in the open space between the hedges of the lane, and sometimes skimmed athwart our bank, bending our heads with their delicate breasts, or striking the dew-drops out of our bells, with sudden touches of the tips of their wings. A black-bird, perched on the old oak, chanted in his loudest notes a simple tale, about a few sticks and straws in a neighbouring wood, which he and his true-love had gathered in the rambles of their courtship, and woven into what they called a nest, where five chirpers had been disclosed from the shells that very morning. This had awakened, for the first time since he himself was hatched, all the rapturous tenderness of a parent in his heart, from the fulness of which he poured forth such a song as

These

barrels, and an occasional clodpole, in his smock tinuous existence, and its history might be
frock, whistling as he went for want of thought," written, as if it were that of an individual.
a little company of human beings, consisting of There were ages when it rejoiced in the
yourself, and a few of your friends of either sex,
came sauntering down the lane.
While I was gaz-
novelty of existence; when it bounded rap-
ing with delightful astonishment on the apparition, idly along in a career of developement and
one of you-I won't say who-stept aside, and discovery, with little regard to detail, and
plucked me. O the pang of that separation! may yet less to objections. Now there are, and
you never feel one so sharp, or, if you must, may
it be as momentary;-for the next instant I was the long have been, established principles, and
happiest flower in the world ;-it was a lady who recognised axioms, which keep the thoughts
had plucked me, and she placed me in her bosom. within the travelled road, and prevent all
There I should have been content to die, but, wheth- aberration into darkness or light. Then in
er my brain was turned by my good fortune, or its infancy, the mind, bound by no fetters,
whether the south-wind was envious of my felicity, and following no footsteps, gathered, in its
and blew me away, certain it is, that I had no great wide wanderings, brighter thoughts, and
cause to be proud of the lady's partiality, for she
was so regardless of me, that, before I had gone ten more beautiful conceptions, and wilder fan-
paces, I fell from my high estate, and what morti- cies, and more extravagant errors, than
fed me most was she never missed me. Then have entered into the imaginations of men
indeed, had I perished miserably in the dust, in the subsequent ages of reason.
or been trampled to death by some hob-nailed shoe,
had not another personage in your train, he who has glowing thoughts, these all-embracing
acted as my amanuensis in writing these memoirs, truths, these excessive errors, remained,
picked me up, carried me home, and placed me in not perhaps in themselves, but in their in-
a lachrymatory, filled, as he assures me, with pure fluence and their consequences. For in-
Castalian dew, in which I have lived long enough to stance, the religious fables of classical
tell you the fable of my life, and, with my dying Greece, and the more distorted supersti-
words, to say, that if you find no moral in it, the
fault is not mine. Farewell.
tions of eastern climes, were probably but
the embodying into a tangible and tradi-
tional form, of the conceptions and the be-
lief of earlier ages, as to the origin, the pow-
ers, and the destinies of nature. Perhaps,
in most of those fables there is little mean-
ing; they may be but arrangements and
modifications of a few simple and original
allegories, if we may so call them; and
they may have been made, alike without
method, purpose, or reason; but in those few
which were in the most exact sense of the
word, primitive and elementary, it is cer-
tainly possible that many distinct traces
might be found of the earliest belief, as to
the causes, the connexions and dependen-
cies of all existences, spiritual as well as
natural.

MISCELLANY.

MY DEAR MR EDITOR,

VIOLA.

I fully intend to make a book; but cannot exactly tell when, or upon what; I have only determined to publish an 8vo, which shall greatly benefit the public, and myself, by selling very well. Of course, I want a subject of stainless novelty; one, which mortal man has never breathed upon,-nor about. It is not the easiest thing in the world, to find such a theme; but, at present, I think I can't do better than write a History of the Human Intellect. This may not be absolutely, in all its parts, an untrodden field; but, in this quoting, borrowing, stealing age, which is decidedly of the composite order,-it is idle to hope for an entirely new thing. But such a History, as a whole, has never been written; which rather surprises me, as it certainly might be executed, and, if well done, would excite as much interest, and teach as useful truth, as the relation of any series of external events. The materials for a work of this kind, are sufficiently abundant, and made me wish that I had been born "with such a available. The direct record of man's pair of wings" as his, "and such a head between em;" for that little home was all the world to thought, is but slightly imperfect in the him;-aye, and he had a right to be happy in his ages of classical antiquity, and is hardly own way, and to tell every body of his happiness, lost, when we are with the days that lie though none besides himself cared a straw about eith-shrouded in the outer darkness of history. er his nest, his mate, or his young ones. Meanwhile We have means of ascertaining the charac-forms they have assumed in various ages, the firmament above rang with the carolling of larks; the thrushes answered each other from tree ter, the power, and the direction, of the to tree; and in the hedges, linnets, chaffinches, and minds of the eminent of former days, in wrens were playing on their small pipes as many their systems of natural and intellectual tunes as there were minstrels among them, yet form- philosophy, and their various theories, ining one harmonious concert. Above all, the cuckoo, tended to explain the mystery, or regucontinually changing his place, but never changing late the conduct of human existence; and his note, made glad the ear that hearkened to him, while the eye in vain sought him out. All was for the mass of mankind, are there not in peace and concord around, and we flowers, forget- the history of their purposes and their ting our little enmities and rivalships, enjoyed the achievments, their traditions and their subreeze that mingled our sweets, and wafted them perstitions, their prevalent wants and their favourite pleasures, records of their mental character, legible, and imperishable.

as incense to heaven.

In the height of our festivity, a little company of human beings, the first whom I had seen above the rank of milk-boys, jolting along on their asses, with

There are not many things, which all men concur in believing; some few truths, however, have been acknowledged by all nations, in all ages. If we assume that these truths were acquired by the exercise of reflection and ratiocination, and thus gradually, but universally discovered, we meet almost insuperable difficulties in accounting for the variety of errors which now enwrap them. We are called to explain the fact, that the same powers which taught themselves to read these truths in the course, the bounty, the wonders, or the beauty of nature, should afterwards see them only with false and perverted vision; and to trace to its efficient cause the infinite difference which exists between the and among various nations. If we pursue these speculations, we are almost compelled to believe, that there was a time when all men saw these truths distinctly, not by the clouded light of erring reason, not as the boundless discovery of a finite and feeble intelligence, but as a direct emanation of living truth, from its only source;-a beam which fell from heaven to earth, bright with the lustre of eternal and inherent radiance. If this be true, what an accession would it give to the stores of human knowledge, could we gather any portion of the

different thing from easy reading, and it with the tide of publication by reading was some time before the former amuse- them. Readers, like the epicure, who ment gave entire way to the latter. At would eat but one bite from the sunny length, with the powerful assistance of the side of a peach, must have the essence of press, the change was accomplished, and these new books served up to them; hence books supplanted the lance and the sword, many works are written with little other and became the established playthings of purpose or effect, than to save the trouble almost all men of a certain rank. Of of reading many others. In Great Britcourse, the number of readers was very ain, and many parts of the continent, men much increased, and with it increased the of letters, of the finest minds and highest demand for books; it therefore became cultivation, almost devote themselves to unnecessary for authors to look to pos- to the work of describing and criticising terity for their recompense of fame. Men the writings of others; occasionally, by always calculate their goods for the nearest way of variety, making a short and brilliant market; of course, writers of books suited essay, for which the name of some recent their wares for the immediate use of their book may serve as a running title. own days, as soon as they found their cotemporary readers were numerous enough to pay them for their exertions a sufficiency of reputation. Lord Bacon wrote the Novum Organum ;-and he "bequeaths his name to posterity after some generations shall be passed;" and posterity have encircled that name with a never-dying splendor. Stewart, too, wrote as a philosopher, but he wrote for his own days, and he has lived to see the star of his reputation culminate, and perhaps depart from the zenith on a downward road. Milton expected not popularity; he wrote for fame and for future ages, and he wrote the Paradise Lost. Lord Byron knows, or rather knew, that the reading public waits for him, and is sure that his works will be bought and praised first, and then criticised; consequently he wrote Childe Harold.

glory of a life; so it must be with books, employment forced upon them by the needs tations; and having uniformly succeeded in and we must not hope to see in our degene- of their condition, could have nothing to this, nothing that the public can say, or rate days a marble statue, instinct with the do with. Now, almost every man reads, do, will alter our opinions a jot. We esteem life and the spirit of loveliness, for the and is somewhat influenced in his every day it, however, a source of farther congratuvery same reason which forbids our expect- life by what he reads, and the good effects lation to this most thinking public, that ing another Novum Organum or Paradise of this radiate from one to another through- they have lately shown so much more of Lost. out all the ramifications of society; every sensibility towards literary excellence than In this state of things there is both good man has some friend, or some friend's friend, we ever supposed they had; in consequence and evil; and it may be a question, which who receives directly, and reflects around of which we have conceived such an ardent predominates. It is evil, that in these days him, the ameliorating, purifying, and ele- affection for the great mass of our fellowthere are not as grand and ennobling dis-vating influence of letters. Thus, litera- citizens, that we intend without more ado plays of intellectual vigour and exertion, ture and science are brought within the to let them into a number of little plans as in former times, because thereby the reach of almost every one, and institutions which we have at different times projected standard of excellence is lowered, and men are every where made and zealously foster- for their interest and happiness. think, and are thought to do great things, ed, to spread this useful light of knowledge when they do far less things than their an- yet more widely; to make it pierce yet cestors have done; and far less than they more deeply, and illustrate yet more brightmight do. It is somewhere said, that though ly, the business, the interests, and the relaour knowledge is much greater than that of tions of social life. As all share in this former days, as our field of vision is much blessing, so all are beginning to be awake wider, and we see much clearly, which to to its advantages, and look to its uses with them was wrapt in darkness, yet we have an attention somewhat proportionate to not the strength which the intellects of those their value. A scientific man is no longer days exhibited, and are but as dwarfs on the eminent according to the amount of his backs of giants. This is only true with knowledge, but as he is sagacious and sucrespect to that sort of strength which grows cessful in applying that knowledge to the out of discipline and the habit of steady immediate demands and comforts of society. exertion; but as to this, there is certainly The uses of a thing begin to be the meaa lamentable falling away. sure of its value, and it is not a little thing in praise of the present intellectual condition of the world, that it has done somewhat towards establishing the great truth, which lies at the bottom of all wisdom; that no knowledge is valuable, no acquisition worth the making, and no action of body or mind, good, but so far as they subserve the actual interests of humanity, and affect with a good influence the governing principles of the life and character, and thus promote, not only the enjoyments, but the great purposes of life.

Again, there is evil in it, because ages of great intellectual vigour and advancement, have ever produced, or been produced by certain exceedingly distinguished individuals, who seemed to collect all the scattered rays which rendered the darkness visible, to possess over them a power of concentration and direction, and to throw them in full radiance on the forward path. Now, whether we consider such men but as the effects and signs of their ages, or the master-spirits who impress upon their times their own character, and awaken and direct the progressive tendencies which lie within man's moral nature, it seems almost equally unfortunate, that there are not only no such men, but such fixed habits of mental action and enjoyment, as must go far to resist the production of such men.

But we have said there are both good WE heartily congratulate you and the and evil, in this state of things, and the public on our appearance in these columns, good is to be looked for in the infinite dif- which we beg you and them to look upon fusion and very great amount of knowledge as a miracle of good luck. For since we which now exists, and in the consequent at the Symposium are all men of fame, destruction or decay of ancient ignorance, fashion, family, and fortune, as well as wits of and of many prejudices, which, protected the first water, it is evident that nothing by the sanctity of age and the strength could tempt us to write, but an irresistible of universal habit, enthralled and enfeebled the energies of man, almost through all time. Science and literature, were formerly pent up within very narrow channels, but they now pour themselves beyond their former bounds, with a searching and thorough spread;-it is like the overflow of a mighty river; a part of its waters may rush too impetuously among the rocks and sands of their new channels, and work a wide destruction; but still its treasures are not wasted, for they are seen glittering in the sun-light, and fertilizing the parched soil in the remotest corners of the land.

It has been thought, that study was a work utterly removed from the uses of life a work, which they who had other

passion for our own amusement, and the
reformation of mankind. But alas! there
is no knowing how soon we may become
tired of the one and despairing of the other.
It is with these views solely that we have
undertaken occasionally to furnish you with
loose thoughts upon all scientific, literary,
and other subjects under the sun; a task to
which we feel ourselves perfectly compe-
tent-as who shall say, that we are not?
It is true, we are extremely fastidious in
matters of taste, and require a degree of
excellence in our own compositions which
few persons have nous enough to relish be-
sides ourselves; but then we were always
firmly resolved whenever we did put goose-
quill to paper to outdo our own expec-

In the first place then be it known, that it is the intention of the Symposium to scrutinize with great exactness the manners and morals of our beloved townspeople,-" to hold as 'twere the mirror up to Boston"and by pointing out occasionally a shade or two in the picture, throw its numberless beauties into stronger relief. By these means our fellow-citizens will come at last to acquire a just sense of their own importance, and we shall be well assured, as we have often slyly suspected, that we are in truth by far the greatest people now breathing under the sun. In the next place, it is intended to reform the literary taste of the age; to put down the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and North American Reviews, which we consider mere nuisances in the republic of letters, and erect ourselves into a grand Court of Appeals with full power to redress all wrongs and grievances of injured authors. Thirdly, we intend at the next session of the Legislature to get ourselves incorporated, under the name of the Death and Marriage Insurance Company, and open books for the information of underwriters, containing a full registry of the age, character, condition, and circumstances, of unmarried persons of both sexes, together with accurate lists of reported engagements, and recent cases of yellow fever, smallpox, or dyspepsia. The consequence of this authentic record of dates and facts will be, that scandal and gossiping will be totally abolished, and the conversation of belles and beaux at a waterparty, whether hot or cold, become absolutely rational; besides that we shall unquestionably relieve the mercantile community from a great share of its present embarrassments-for by devoting an office exclusively to the business we propose, we shall take off from the frequenters of the present insurance offices a great pressure of other people's affairs, and enable them to attend more effectually to their own. Fourthly, we design to establish a New University at Lechmere's Point, which we have pitched upon by reason of its great natural advantages, as well as for the sake of a competition with Harvard. Infants will be admitted into this Seminary as soon as they are weaned, and will immediately be put under a course of tuition in the higher branches of pure and mixed mathematics, moral, metaphysical, and political philosophy, together with the ancient and modern languages, biblical criticism, and polemic divinity. The whole system

of instruction, including religious exercises, a windy day, and treated with as little | this grand design is in sufficient forwardwill be carried on without the intervention veneration as the very dust with which ness, it will be exhibited for the benefit of of professors and tutors, by Perkins' newly they are mingled. The best of these will the Lunatic Hospital. In the mean time, invented patent Steam Engine, operating be selected, carefully cleansed, and pasted subscription papers will be opened for all on a machine constructed for that purpose, into leaves and volumes, so as to form an the abovementioned societies at No. 1, which will complete the abovementioned agreeable miscellany for light summer Cornhill. JAMES ROBBINS, course in forty-eight lessons! reading. We have procured a gentleman who has already shown much zeal in the cause of literature and the fine arts to superintend the establishment; and we have no doubt, that in a few months, out of this mere waste and refuse of learning, the shelves of the Franklin-place collection will be doubled in value-the Nahant library enriched with much excellent matter, and perhaps a new one formed for the benefit of the gulls,-upon Egg Rock.

Corresponding Secretary of the Symposium, and all the other Societies abovementioned. P. S. Voted unanimously in the Symposium, that the Editor of the United States Literary Gazette be kindly permitted to publish the late prize Ode upon Whiskey, which we herewith inclose.

[Thank you, Gentlemen.-EDITOR.] [Whiskey punch having been recently introduced into the fashionable circles, and especially adopted We have in our heads the skeletons of at the Symposium, as a common circulating medium, to the great satisfaction of all concerned, a similar institutions, too numerous to men- prize was offered by the President for the best Ode, tion. At present we will only add to the or other poem, that should be written thereon. list a Cent Society for the encouragement of The prize proposed, was a gallon of whiskey. Undomestic manufactures; which is designed der the influence of such a prodigious stimulus, one thousand and one odes, sonnets, epics, &c. to buy up all the copies of the 4th of July were produced at the next meeting, from among Orations, and other patriotic addresses which the following obtained the prize, after long "illustrative of American character," which deliberation among the judges. The doubt, howare left on the booksellers' hands, and con- ever, was occasioned solely by a resemblance, savert them, by a very simple process, into vouring somewhat of plagiarism, which some of excellent wearing apparel for rainy weath- us imagined we discovered in it, to Gray's Ode on the Progress of Poesy. We were all well satiser. The society, clothed uniformly in the fied, however, before awarding the prize, that the panoply of independence, will dine together coincidences (some of which are pointed out in the once a year in "the cradle of American lib-notes subjoined) were entirely accidental.] erty." After the cloth is removed every member will have the privilege of making a speech upon the new Tariff, and the society, one and all, will annually resolve, that the proceedings of Congress are highly derogatory to the dignity of our national character, and ruinous to the best interests of the country. The table is to be furnished with nothing but staple commodities, and, to avoid excess, the toasts of the day will be drunk in molasses and water.

We have farther thought that a few societies are much wanted among us, and we have accordingly taken the pains to project a number of useful and charitable institutions, which, we doubt not, will meet a hearty encouragement from this munificent and thinking public. One of these is a society for the education of cats in the art of singing. It is well known that there are among that tribe many voices of great compass and exquisite sweetness, which, with the addition of a few scientific graces, and a little power of modulation, would enable them to supply new-married couples (to the great relief of the grooms-men) with moonlight serenades, much softer than have been given them on some former occasions, and (which, in these times, is not to be overlooked) at a much more moderate expense. We were at first under apprehensions that our harmonious plan might be disconcerted by the dogs, with whose personal liberty the Mayor and Aldermen (to their everlasting honour be it spoken) have so far interfered and with such wonderful effect, that they (i. e. the dogs) are now required not to appear in public without a collar about their necks; but with that admirable and very sufficient security against all disturbance of the public peace, they are still generously permitted to perambulate our streets in great numbers, often barking and howling so vociferously in the dead of the night, as to endanger the tranquil slumbers of the city watch. To remedy this evil, as well as to confer a great charity on a very nu- The next object to which we shall turn merous class of their distressed fellow-cit- our attention is the state of the fine arts. izens, we have proposed to the Common The taste of Boston in this department is Council to open an asylum for indigent fortunately beyond all commendation; but, dogs, together with a hospital for the in- that it may be more generally diffused sane. If we should be seconded in these throughout the continent, we have procurbenevolent views, we have little doubt, ed accurate draughts to be made of that, with the assistance of the Intemperate the Chauncey-place meetinghouse and the Society, we should be enabled, in a short new one in Essex street, which we detime, to secure the community effectually sign to exhibit gratis in all the Southern against the dreadful ravages of hydrophobia; cities. We have likewise in contemplation while all Humane, Benevolent, and Peace a miniature model of the State House upon Societies would find their interests strongly an improved plan. The basement will be promoted in the suppression of the civil of South Boston brick, the body of Conwars which are now constantly raging at our necticut freestone, the pillars of Eastern own doors and firesides, between these nat-pine, and the cornices of Chelmsford granural enemies as they certainly are, to all ite. There are to be twenty-three entire new orders of architecture in the front. Another project which we have on foot, The rear is to be fancifully decorated with is a Fragment Society for the benefit of the choicest pieces from the New England Decayed Authors and Infant Literary In- gallery of paintings. Each of the wings is stitutions. The plan is to collect, or cause to be surmounted with an equestrian statue to be collected at a trifling expense, all of Washington charging at full speed (being those rags and tatters of learning, which a characteristic attitude); the area is to be are now uniformly wasted or abused, and filled with effigies of the Handel and secure to their respective authors that Haydn Society, singing in full chorusmeed of immortality, which they so just-Break forth into joy"-(the music to be ly deserve. Hundreds of invaluable scraps, performed by a concealed hand-organ); swept out of book-stores, printing-offi- while personifications of Liberty and Equal ces, and school-rooms, may be seen at ity will be seen rushing into each others every corner, blowing about our streets on arms on the top of the cupola. As soon as

human comfort.

& THE PROGRESS OF WHISKEY.
A Pindaric Ode.(1)
I. 1.

Awake, Hibernian lyre,(2) awake!

Club, give to rapture, all thy grey goose quills. (3)
From Usquebagh's(4) harmonious stills,
A thousand runs (5) their 'mazing(6) progress
take;

Quaff sweet rebellion as they flow.
The Orange flowers that round them blow,(7)

1. The author of the Progress of Poesy says, that he was advised even by his friends to subjoin some few explanatory notes; but had too much respect for the understanding of his readers to take that liberty. As the author of the Progress of Whiskey has not so much respect for the understanding of his readers, he has ventured to improve upon that great master in this particular.

In the first stanza the various sources and effects

of Whiskey, which gives life and inspiration to all slow, majestic march through Scotland and Engit touches, are described;-its rise in Ireland, its land, enriching every country, whether scantily producing the barren oat, or abounding in beef and pudding, with a pomp of diction and luxuriant harmony of numbers; and its more turbulent effect, afously landing upon our shores, in the most impetuter its passage across the Atlantic in bulk, tumultuous verse.

2. The Hibernian muse is properly invoked, because Ireland is the birth-place of Whiskey. 3. Variation. "Club give to rapture all 4.Usquebagh." The Irish name for whiskey. 's goose quills." 5. "Runs." The Kentuck for "rivulets." 6. "Mazing." Poetice for "amazing." Some read "mazy progress;" but the former reading is preferred.

7. "The orange flowers that round them blow Orange flowers is figurative for Orange Boys, the Quaff sweet rebellion as they flow." Irish cut-throats, who are said to blow, as men do when they drink, about the Whiskey stills, filling themselves with rebellion, as they are well known to do, at every draught. They are called flowers, ed by the free use of whiskey; and also because by reason of the blooming appearance occasionof the great valour that is consequent upon it