tion, the mad pursuit of wealth, the suspicion engendered by rivalry, leave little chance for the spontaneity, the abandon, the hearty sympathy which give the charm to social meetings and make the exercise of hospitality one of the highest pleasures. We have attempted to dignify our simple republicanism by far-away melancholy imitations of the Old World; but the incongruity between these forms and the true spirit of our institutions is such, that all we gain is a bald emptiness, gilded over with vulgar show. Real dignity, such as that of John Adams when he lived among his country neighbors as if he had never seen a court, we are learning to despise. We persist in making ourselves the laughing-stock of really refined people, by forsaking our true ground and attempting to stand upon that which shows our deficiencies to the greatest disadvantage. When shall we learn that the "spare feast-a radish and an egg," if partaken by the good and the cultivated, has a charm which no expense can purchase? When shall we look at the spirit rather than the semblance of things-when give up the shadow for the substance? P. HAMILTON MYERS Is the author of a series of well written, popular American historical romances, commencing with The First of the Knickerbockers, a tale of 1673, published by Putnam in 1848, and speedily followed by The Young Patroon, or Christmas in 1690, and The King of the Hurons. Mr. Myers is also the author of four prize tales, for two of which Bell Brandon or the Great Kentrip Estate, and The Miser's Heir or the Young Millionaire, he received two hundred dollars each, from the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper. The others were entitled The Gold Crushers, and Ellen Welles, or the Siege of Fort Stanwix. P. Hamilton Myess These stories are of a pleasing sentiment, and neat in description. The author is a native of New York, born in Herkimer village, Herkimer county, in August, 1812. He is a lawyer by profession, and now a resident of Brooklyn, New York. In addition to his story-telling faculty, Mr. Myers is an agreeable essayist. In 1841 he delivered a poem, Science, before the Euglossian Society of Geneva College. THOMAS MACKELLAR Was born in the city of New York, August 12, 1812. His father came from Scotland to New York, and married into the Brasher family, once possessed of a considerable portion of the city lands. Young Mackellar was provided with a good education by his father, whose failing fortunes soon required his son's aid. Compelled early in life to seek a living, he learnt the business of a printer, and among other engagements in the calling became proof-reader in the office of Messrs. Harper & Brothers, doubtless qualified for the post by a diligent application to books which had become habitual to him. At this time in his seventeenth year, he constantly penned verses. In 1833 he left New York for Philadelphia, entered the stereotype foundry of Mr. L. Johnson as proof-reader, became foreman, and finally a partner in this important establishment, to which he is now attached. Mr. Mackellar's volumes of poetry, Droppings from the Heart, or Occasional Poems, published in 1844, and Lines for the Gentle and Loving in 1853, are written with earnestness and fluency, inspired by a devotional spirit and a tender feeling to the claims of family and friendship, expressive of the author's hopeful and hearty struggle with the world. They indicate a courage which meets with success in life, and a sympathy which finds a ready response from the good and intelligent. True to his Scottish lineage, Mr. Mackellar has a turn for humor as well as sentiment in his verses. His volume, Tam's Fortnight's Ramble and other Poems, puts his notions and opinions vented in the course of a holiday excursion on the Hudson River in a highly agreeable light, as the record of a manly personal experience. A POET AND HIS SONG. He was a man endowed like other men With strange varieties of thought and feeling: His bread was earned by daily toil; yet when A pleasing fancy o'er his mind came stealing, He set a trap and snared it by his art, And hid it in the bosom of his heart. He nurtured it and loved it as his own, And it became obedient to his beck; He fixed his name on its submissive neck, And graced it with all graces to him known, And then he bade it lift its wing and fly Over the earth, and sing in every ear Some soothing sound the sighful soul to cheer, Some lay of love to lure it to the sky. SINGING ON THE WAY. Far distant from my father's house But gird my soul and hasten on, And sing! and sing! The skies are dark, the thunders roll, And sing! and sing! The night is long and drear, I cry; I see the morning-star arise, And sing! and sing! When care and sickness bow my frame, I'll ask Him for his promised grace, And sing! and sing! He'll not forsake me when I'm old, And sing! and sing! When grace shall bear me home to GoD- I'll enter in the pearly gates, And sing upon the way! And sing! and sing! An everlasting day! WILLIAM STARBUCK MAYO. DR. MAYO is a descendant from the Rev. John Mayo, a clergyman of an ancient English family, who came to New England in 1630, and was the first pastor of the South Church at Boston. On his mother's side he traces his descent through the Starbuck family to the earliest settlers of Nantucket. He was born at Ogdensburg, on the northern frontier of New York, whither the family had removed in 1812, and was educated at the school of the Rev. Josiah Perry, a teacher of high local reputation. At the age of twelve years he entered the academy of Potsdam, where he received a good classical education; and at seventeen commenced the study of medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the city of New York. After receiving his diploma, in 1833, he devoted himself for several years to the practice of his profession. He then, urged in part by the pursuit of health and in part by the love of adventure, determined to make a tour of exploration to the interior of Africa. He was prevented, however, from penetrating further than the Barbary States. After an excursion in Spain he returned home. ROBERTS SC N I Mayo In 1849 Dr. Mayo published Kaloolah, or Journeyings to the Djebel Kumri, a work which he had written some time before. It purports to be the Autobiography of Jonathan Romer, a youth who, after various romantic and marvellous adventures in his native American woods, goes to Africa, where he rivals Munchausen in his traveller's experiences. He finally penetrates to a purely fictitious Utopia, where he indulges in some quiet satire at the usages of civilization, and in his description of the great city of the region furnishes some valuable hints on municipal sanitary reform. He marries Kaloolah, a beautiful princess" not too dark for a brunette" -whom he has rescued from a slave barracoon and protected through many subsequent scenes of danger, and settles down to domestic felicity in the city of Killoam. The story is crowded with exciting and varied incident, and the interest is maintained throughout with dramatic skill. Kaloolah was favorably received by the public, and was followed in 1850 by The Berber, or the Mountaineer of the Atlas, a story the scene of which is laid in Africa at the close of the seventeenth century. It is of more regular construction than Kaloolah, and equally felicitous in dramatic interest. Both abound in descriptions of the natural scenery and savage animals of the tropics and other regions, minutely accurate in scientific detail. Dr. Mayo's next volume was a collection of short tales, which he had previously published anonymously in magazines, with the title suggested by the prevalent California excitement of the day-Romance Dust from the Historic Placer. He soon after married and spent a year or two in Europe. Since his return he has resided in New York. A LION IN THE PATH. It was early on the morning of the sixth, that, accompanied by Kaloolah and the lively Clefenha, I ascended the bank for a final reconnoissance of the country on the other bank of the river. It was not my intention to wander far, but, allured by the beauty of the scene, and the promise of a still better view from a higher crag, we moved along the edge of the bank until we had got nearly two miles from our camp. At this point the line of the bank curved towards the river so as to make a beetling promontory of a hundred feet perpendicular descent. The gigantic trees grew quite on the brink, many of them throwing their long arms far over the shore below. The trees generally grew wide apart, and there was little or no underwood, but many of the trunks were wreathed with the verdure of parasites and creepers, so as to shut up, mostly, the forest vistas with immense columns of green leaves and flowers. The stems of some of these creepers were truly wonderful: one, from which depended large bunches of scarlet berries, had, not unfrequently, stems as large as a man's body. In some cases, one huge plant of this kind, ascending with an incalculable prodigality of lignin, by innumerable convolutions, would stretch itself out, and, embracing several trees in its folds, mat them together in one dense mass of vegetation. Suddenly we noticed that the usual sounds of the forest had almost ceased around us. Deep in the woods we could still hear the chattering of monkeys and the screeching of parrots. Never before had our presence created any alarm among the denizens of the tree-tops; or, if it had, it had merely excited to fresh clamour, without putting them to flight. We looked around for the cause of this sudden retreat. "Perhaps," I replied to Kaloolah's inquiry, "there is a storm gathering, and they are gone to seek a shelter deeper in the wood." We advanced close to the edge of the bank, and looked out into the broad daylight that poured down from above on flood and field. There was the same bright smile on the distant fields and hills; the same clear sheen in the deep water; the same lustrous stillness in the perfumed air; not a single prognostic of any commotion among the elements. I placed my gun against a tree, and took a seat upon an exposed portion of one of its roots. Countless herds of animals, composed of quaggas, zebras, gnus, antelopes, hart-beests, roeboks, springboks, buffalos, wild-boars, and a dozen other kinds, for which my recollection of African travels furnished no names, were roaming over the fields on the other side of the river, or quietly reposing in the shade of the scattered mimosas, or beneath the groups of lofty palms, A herd of thirty or forty tall ungainly figures came in sight, and took their way, with awkward but rapid pace, across the plain. I knew them at once to be giraffes, although they were the first that we had seen. I was straining my eyes to discover the animal that pursued them, when Kaloolah called to me to come to her. She was about fifty yards farther down the stream than where I was sitting. With an unaccountable degree of carelessness, I arose and went towards her, leaving my gun leaning against the tree. As I advanced, she ran out to the extreme point of the little promontory I have mentioned, where her maid was standing, and pointed to something over the edge of the cliff. Oh, Jon'than!" she exclaimed, "what a curious and beautiful flower! Come, and try if you can get it for me!" Advancing to the crest of the cliff, we stood looking down its precipitous sides to a point some twenty feet below, where grew a bunch of wild honeysuckles. Suddenly a startling noise, like the roar of thunder, or like the boom of a thirty-two pounder, rolled through the wood, fairly shaking the sturdy trees, and literally making the ground quiver beneath our feet. Again it came, that appalling and indescribably awful sound! and so close as to completely stun us. Roar upon roar, in quick succession, now announced the coming of the king of beasts. "The lion! the lion!-Oh, God of mercy, where is my gun?" I started forward, but it was too late. Alighting, with a magnificent bound, into the open space in front of us, the monster stopped, as if somewhat taken aback by the novel appearance of his quarry, and crouching his huge carcass close to the ground, uttered a few deep snuffling sounds, not unlike the preliminary crankings and growlings of a heavy steam-engine, when it first feels the pressure of the steam. He was, indeed, a monster!-fully twice as large as the largest specimen of his kind that was ever condemned, by gaping curiosity, to the confinement of the cage. His body was hardly less in size than that of a dray-horse; his paw as large as the foot of an elephant; while his head!-what can be said of such a head? Concentrate the fury, the power, the capacity and the disposition for evil of a dozen thunder-storms into a round globe, about two feet in diameter, and one would then be able to get an idea of the terrible expression of that head and face, enveloped and set off as it was by the dark frame-work of bristling mane. The lower jaw rested upon the ground; the mouth was slightly open, showing the rows of white teeth and the blood-red gums, from which the lips were retracted in a majestic and right kingly grin. The brows and the skin around the eyes were corrugated into a splendid glory of radiant wrinkles, in the centre of which glowed two small globes, like opals, but with a dusky lustrousness that no opal ever yet attained. For a few moments he remained motionless, and then, as if satisfied with the result of his close scrutiny, he began to slide along the ground towards us; slowly one monstrous paw was protruded after the other; slowly the huge tufted tail waved to and fro, sometimes striking his hollow flanks, and oc casionally coming down upon the ground with a sound like the falling of heavy clods upon a coffin. There could be no doubt of his intention to charge us, when near enough for a spring. And was there no hope? Not the slightest, at least for myself. It was barely possible that one victim would satisfy him, or that, in the contest that was about to take place, I might, if he did not kill me at the first blow, so wound him as to indispose him for any further exercise of his power, and that thus Kaloolah would escape. As for me, I felt that my time had come. With no weapon but my long knife, what chance was there against such a monster? I cast one look at the gun that was leaning so carelessly against the tree beyond him, and thought how easy it would be to send a bullet through one of those glowing eyes into the depths of that savage brain. Never was there a fairer mark! But, alas! it was impossible to reach the gun! Truly, "there was a lion in the path." I turned to Kaloolah, who was a little behind me. Her face expressed a variety of emotions; she could not speak or move, but she stretched out her hand, as if to pull me back. Behind her crouched the black, whose features were contracted into the awful grin of intense terror; she was too much frightened to scream, but in her face a thousand yells of agony and fear were incarnated. I remember not precisely what I said, but, in the fewest words, I intimated to Kaloolah that the lion would, probably, be satisfied with attacking me; that she must run by us as soon as he sprang upon me, and, returning to the camp, waste no time, but set out at once under the charge of Hugh and Jack. She made no reply, and I waited for none, but, facing the monster, advanced slowly towards himthe knife was firmly grasped in my right hand, my left side a little turned towards him, and my left arm raised, to guard as much as possible against the first crushing blow of his paw. Further than this I had formed no plan of battle. In such a contest the mind has but little to do-all depends upon the instinct of the muscles; and well for a man if good training has developed that instinct to the highest. I felt that I could trust mine, and that my brain need not bother itself as to the manner my muscles were going to act. Within thirty feet of my huge foe I stoppedcool, calm as a statue; not an emotion agitated me, No hope, no fear: death was too certain to permit either passion. There is something in the conviction of the immediate inevitableness of death that represses fear; we are then compelled to take a better look at the king of terrors, and we find that he is not so formidable as we imagined. Look at him with averted glances and half-closed eyes, and he has a most imposing, overawing presence; but face him, eye to eye; grasp his proffered hand manfully, and he sinks from a right royal personage into a contemptible old gate-keeper on the turnpike of life. I had time to think of many things, although it must not be supposed from the leisurely way in which I here tell the story that the whole affair occupied much time. Like lightning, flashing from link to link along a chain conductor, did memory illuminate, almost simultaneously, the chain of incidents that measured my path in life, and that connected the present with the past. I could see the whole of my back track "blazed" as clearly as ever was a forest path by a woodman's axe; and ahead! ah, there was not much to see ahead! Twas but a short view; death hedged in the scene. In a few minutes my eyes would be opened to the pleasant sights beyond; but, for the present, death commanded all attention. And such a death! But why such a death? What better death, except on the battlefield, in defence of one's country? To be killed by a lion ! Surely there is a spice of dignity about it, maugre the being eaten afterwards. Suddenly the monster stopped, and erected his tail, stiff and motionless, in the air. Strange as it may seem, the conceit occurred to me that the motion of his tail had acted as a safety-valve to the pent up mus cular energy within: He has shut the steam off from the 'scape-pipe, and now he turns it on to his locomotive machinery. God have mercy upon me! -He comes!" But he did not come! At the instant, the light figure of Kaloolah rushed past me: "Fly, fly, Jon'than!" she wildly exclaimed, as she dashed forward directly towards the lion. Quick as thought, I divined her purpose, an 1 sprang after her, grasping her dress and pulling her forcibly back almost from within those formidable jaws. The astonished animal give several jumps sideways and backwards, and stopped, crouching to the ground and growling and lashing his si les with renewed fury. He was clearly taken aback by our unexpected charge upon him, but it was evident that he was not to be frightened into abandoning his prey. His mouth was ma le up for us, and there could be no doubt, if his motions were a little slow, that he considered us as good as gorge 1. Fly, fly, Jon'than!" exclaimed Kaloolah, as she struggled to break from my grasp. "Leave me! Leave me to die alone, but oh! save yourself, quick! along the bank. You can escape-fly!" Never, Kaloolah," I replied, fairly forcing her with quite an exertion of strength behind me. "Back, back! Free my armn! Quick, quick! He comes!" 'Twas no time for gentleness. Roughly shaking her relaxing grasp fro.n my arm she sunk powerless, yet not insensible, to the ground, while I had just time to face the monster and plant one foot forward to receive him. He was in the very act of springing! His huge carcass was even rising under the impulsion of his contracting muscles, when his action was arrested in a way so unexpected, so wonderful, and so startling, that my seases were for the moment thrown into perfect confusion. Could I trust my sight, or was the whole affair the illusion of a horrid dream? It seemel as if one of the gigantic creepers I have mentioned had sud lenly quitted the canopy above, and, endowed with life and a huge pair of widely distendel jaws, had darted with the rapidity of lightning upon the crouching beast. There was a tremendous shaking of the tree tops, and a confused wrestling, and jumping, and whirling over and about, amid a cloud of upturned roots, and earth, and leaves, accompanied with the most terrific roars and groans. As I looked again, vision grew more distinct. An immense body, gleaming with purple, green, and gold, appeared convoluted around the majestic branches overhead, and stretching down, was turned two or three times around the struggling lion, whose head and neck were almost concealed from sight within the cavity of a pair of jaws still more capacious than his own. Thus, then, was revealed the cause of the sudden silence throughout the woods. It was the presence of the boa that had frightened the monkey and feathered tribes into silence. How opportunely was his presence manifested to us! A moment more and it would have been too late. Gallantly did the lion struggle in the folds of his terrible enemy, whose grasp each instant grew more firm and secure, and most astounding were those frightful yells of rage and fear. The huge body of the snake, fully two feet in diameter where it depended from the trees, presented the most curious appearances, and in such quick succession that the eye could scarcely follow them. At one moment smooth and flexile, at the next rough and stiffened, or contracted into great knots-at one moment overspread with a thousand tints of reflected color, the next distended so as to transmit through the skin the golden gleams of the animal lightning that coursed up and down within. Over and over rolled the struggling beast, but in vain all his strength, in vain all his efforts to free himself. Gradually his muscles relaxed in their exertions, his roar subsided to a deep moan, his tongue protruded from his mouth, and his fetid breath, mingled with a strong, sickly odor from the serpent, diffused itself through the air, producing a sense of oppression, and a feeling of weakness like that from breathing some deleterious gas. I looked around. Kaloolah was on her knees, and the negress insensible upon the ground a few paces behind her. A sensation of giddiness warned me that it was time to retreat. Without a word I raised Kaloolah in my arms, ran towards the now almost motionless animals, and, turning along the bank, reached the tree against which my gun was leaning. Darting back I seized the prostrate negress and bore her off in the same way. By this time both females had recovered their voices, Clefenha exercising hers in a succession of shrieks, that compelled me to shake her somewhat rudely, while Kaloolah eagerly besought me to hurry back to the camp. There was now, however, no occasion for hurry. The recovery of my gun altered the state of the case, and my curiosity was excited to witness the process of deglutition on a large scale which the boa was probably about to exhibit. It was impossible, however, to resist Kaloolah's entreaties, and, after stepping up closer to the animals for one good look, I reluctantly consented to turn back. The lion was quite dead, and with a slow motion the snake was uncoiling himself from his prey and from the tree above. As well as I could judge, without seeing him straightened out, he was between ninety and one hundred feet in length-not quite so long as the serpent with which the army of Regulus had its famous battle, or as many of the same animals that I have since seen, but, as the reader will allow, a very respectable sized snake. I have often regretted that we did not stop until at least he had commenced his meal. Had I been alone I should have done so. As it was, curiosity had to yield to my own sense of prudence, and to Kaloolah's fears. We returned to our camp, where we found our raft all ready. The river was fully half a mile wide, and it was necessary to make two trips; the first with the women and baggage, and the last with the horses. It is unnecessary to dwell in detail upon all the difficulties we encountered from the rapid currents and whirling eddies of the stream; suffice it that we got across in time for supper and a good night's sleep, and early in the morning resumed our march through the most enchanting country in the world. WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING, A GRADUATE of Harvard in 1829, and of the Cambridge divinity school in 1833, is a nephew of the late Dr. William Ellery Channing, and the son of the late Francis Dana Channing. He is the author of several valuable biographical publications, including the Memoirs of the Rev. James II. Per kins of Cincinnati, an important contribution to the Margaret Fuller Memoirs, and in 1848 a comprehensive Memoir of William Ellery Channing, with Extracts from his Correspondence and Manuscripts. In the arrangement of these works Mr. Channing, in addition to his own sympathetic comments, has preserved to the extent of his original materials an autobiographic narrative of the lives of the subjects, and has drawn together ample illustrations from various other sources. 1840 he translated for Mr. Ripley's series of Specimens of Foreign Literature, Jouffroy's Introduction to Ethics, including a Critical Survey of Moral Systems. In A few years since he had charge of an independent congregation in New York, and edited a weekly reform journal, The Present, in the interests of transcendental socialisin, which lasted not beyond two years. He is now minister of the Unitarian church in Liverpool, lately under the care of the Rev. John Hamilton Thom, the biographer of Blanco White. Mr. Channing is not of the Strauss or Parker school of rationalists, but more devotional and affirmative, at times approaching Swedenborgianism in his disposition to unite a bold spiritual philosophy with church life and social reorganization. He has rare talents as an extempore speaker and preacher. WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, also a nephew of the late Dr. Channing, from whom his name is derived, and the son of Dr. Walter Channing, the medical writer and professor at Harvard, is the author of two series of Poems, published in Boston in 1843 and 1847; of a series of psychological essays in The Dial of 1844, entitled Youth of the Poet and Painter; a volume of thoughtful observations, Conversations in Rome: between an Artist, a Catholic, and a Critic, published in 1847; and The Woodman and other Poems, 1849. There is much originality and a fine vein of reflection in both this author's prose and verse,— touching on the themes of the scholar, the love of nature, and the poetic visionary. THE POET. Each day, new Treasure brings him for his share, For though his sorrows fall like icy rain, The figures of his Landscape may appear His springs are fed by an unfailing fount, WILLIAM HAGUE. THE Rev. William Hague, a prominent clergyman of the Baptist denomination, is a native of the state of New York. He was graduated at Hamilton College, N. Y., in 1826, and has since filled important stations in the pulpit of his denomination at Providence, in Boston, at Newark, N. J., and at his present station of Albany, New York. He is the author of numerous occasional addresses and orations, including Discourses on the Life and Character of John Quincy Adams, and the missionary Adoniram Judson. He has lately, in 1855, published two volumes, Christianity and Statesmanship, with Kindred Topics, and Home Life, a series of lectures. In the former he has treated of the various relations of government and religion in matters of home regulation, and especially the condition of Eastern Europe, now rapidly rising into new importance: in the latter he pursues the most prominent circumstances of domestic and social life. In both cases he shows the man of reading and of sound moderate opinions. Margaret Fuller, who met Mr. Hague at Providence in 1837, has happily characterized his force as a preacher and lecturer in a passage of her diary:-" He has a very active intellect, sagacity, and elevated sentiment; and, feeling strongly that God is love, can never preach without earnestness. His power comes first from his glowing vitality of temperament. His moral attraction is his individuality. I am much interested in this truly animated being." 11** THE CULTIVATION OF TASTE. Nothing is beautiful but what is true," say the Rhetoricians. This is a universal maxim. Conformity to truth is beauty, real and permanent. Study nature. Seek truth. The laws of nature are distinguished by simplicity, and simplicity has an abiding charm whether it appear in literature or art, in character or manners. Thence affectation always displeases when it is discovered. Though affectation be the fashion, yet it appears contemptible as soon as it loses the delusive charm of novelty or a name. In France, fashion once declared for an affected ne • Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoll, i. 184. |