often and so thoroughly discussed as the weather. It is the breath of life to old and young, to rich and poor, and when it comes, so fiercely hot as during the last week, we suffer-and suffering there are few that do not complain. Besides, is it not a positive evil during the month of June, when the summer is in the freshness and beauty of her youth, the only month that in our northern region shadows forth a poet's spring, is it not an evil to be imprisoned in a city, to have your senses deprived of the nutriment prepared by Heaven to restore them to their natural ministry to the mind; for, do not the odors and the music of June (to say nothing of the strawberries!) awaken the dullest imagination?

A week in the city, in June, is then always a loss, but a week like the last, when the mercury, in our coolest apartments, stood at 80°, and in the warmest at a point that would not have seemed enviable to the wretches in the hottest circle of Dante's Inferno: after such a week's experience in town, the change to Rockaway makes one feel, as Dives might have felt if the gulph had not been impassable that divided him from Lazarus. For the last seven days not a drop of rain had fallen, the air was thick and heavy with impalpable dust, the very leaves on the trees seemed to feel it too hot to move-and the poor little caged birds that had been singing themselves and us into forgetfulness of our exile from Nature, were withdrawn from their airings, and were silently languishing in darkened apartments. We had cast off every garment that could be dispensed with; our flannels were forgotten friends. I was suddenly summoned here to join a very dear invalid friend, and I set off to do the most agreeable thing in the world with the delightful self-complacency resulting from the performance of a duty. The golden cup given to the miser in Parnell's apologue is an illustration of the profuseness, with which Providence throws golden pleasures into the scale of our duties. My companion was a charming school-girl, who enjoyed with a school-girl's relish the unexpected transition from her tasks to our excursion. As we hurried down Broadway to take the four o'clock rail-car at Brooklyn, the heat was intense. In the ferry-boat we felt the life-restoring sea-breeze that came sweeping up the bay; and when the cars began their flight, we were cooled down to the temperate point. At Jamaica, where we were transferred to Mott's waggon and entered on the pretty country road that leads to the beach, the wind was so cool that we wrapped our blanket shawls close around us, and here we have found them sitting with the windows down, and we feel as if we had jumped from a hot bath into a snow-bank.

and the sunbeams poured from the bright world above them and kindled in the east a rainbow that dropped its column of colored light into the ocean. I would commend any one afflicted with self-exaggeration to a solitary walk on a sea-beach. All selfism is lost in an overpowering sentiment of reverence. I had an almost painful feeling of illimitable power, but as I turned from the surf which was breaking magnificently, a sweet breath from the landward clover-fields met me, and filled my eyes with tears and my heart with sensations like those that answer the voices of kindred, or are called forth by the little beam that greets us from the candle in our own home, when we return from a stranger's dwelling.

is

Monday evening brought me three letters. Where do letters not come except, as Johnson lamented, not to the grave? Chance could hardly throw together the productions of three more remarkable women than my correspondents-the least of them in the world's eye the greatest, perhaps in the kingdom of heaven. has many high faculties, some almost preternatural powers that does not approach; clearer moral perceptions and loftier aspirations no one has. They are not unlike in that quality that, like a pure atmosphere gives vigor and effect to all others-naturalness. Neither has the varied and enriching experience, the glowing imagination and the almost unlimited ac quisitions of Mrs. —- -; but she has a healthier and therefore a happier spirit. She has the spontaneous richness and goodness that are God's gifts, and as superior to any acquired talents or results of virtuous efforts as sunlight to lamplight, or the gracious showers from the clouds to the pourings from a watering-pot Her mind seems, without an effort (for you see no fluttering of the wings) to rise to the highest altitude: and, kind and patient, without any apparent stooping, to come down to the least duty. While poor beating her golden feathers off if limits were prison walls, is singing on every bough, feathering every nest as well as her own, and feeding every chance bird.

against every limit as

Tuesday. The gay season for watering-places has not yet come, and beside the untiring and ever-exciting view of the sea, there is little to vary life here; there are drives on the beach, and when the tide is up, round the pretty rural lanes of the interior, past the farmhouses, where you see plenty of pig-nurseries and hen coops, where generations are preparing for the alldevouring jaws of the New York market. Then we have those three great daily events of all watering. places, breakfast, dinner and tea, diversified by the liberality of Messrs. Blake & Mead, and the ingenuity of French cooks. And we have arrivals and departures. At this moment there is standing before the piazza carriage built upon the model of an English mail-coach, with four grey horses, their master seated on the box with a friend; the coachman and footman in frock coats, shorts, and white top boots in the dickey, and the lady, her nurses and children, inside. The coach and harness are blazoned with stags' heads and other heraldic devi ces. Some impertinent whispers asking from which side of the house these anti-republican emblems are Monday, P. M.—I went alone to walk on the beach. derived, are suppressed from respect to the unpre There had been a storm, and the clouds that were wildly tending lady, who, with her pretty children, the pie scudding over the heavens here and there, broke away,ture of an American matron, is courteously smiling

And here before my window is the "great and wide sea." What an image of eternity it is at this moment shrouded in mist! You hear it's mighty voice-you know it's reality, and that "therein are things innumerable;" but beyond the line where human feet tread, you see nothing-There where the breakers fall, as upon the borders of human life, is all the din and uproar. Beyond, through that immeasurable distance, all seems repose; and seems so only because it is like eternity, hidden from our vision.

and bowing her adieux. The sarcasm is changed to a regret at the bad taste of appropriating unmeaning emblems.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR.

COMMENCEMENT ANNIVERSARY. GEORGETOWN
COLLEGE. THE DINNER, &c.

Wednesday morning.—Would that some one who bad Charles Lamb's art of putting les petits morales in picturesque lights, would write an essay upon the mo- My dear White :--As the appropriate vehicle of such infor ralities of a watering-place! Essays have been written mation, I beg to ask you to devote a page or two of the demonstrating that the most common extravagance interesting, intellectual, and social treats it has ever been my Southern Literary Messenger to the record of one of the most consisted in the thoughtless expenditure of hours and good fortune to partake of. I allude to the Annual Commenceshillings. Is there not a similar waste from carelessness ment of the Georgetown College, which took place on the 24th of those lesser moralities, which make up the sum of July, 1839. You and your work were remembered both in the most people's virtues? There are few (certainly few college, and at the festive board, upon that occasion, and in a women,) born to "point a moral or adorn a tale"-few manner, too, which would have given you much pleasure and pride to hear. Charlotte Cordays or Elisabeth Frys; but all, by The literary exercises were, in the main, highly respectable economising small but abundant opportunities of pro-to the students who had parts. Where all was so good, it would ducing, not great good, but agreeable sensations, may add materially to the sum of human happiness. At a watering-place, for example, if a gentleman, instead of casting a doubtful or sarcastic glance at a newly arrived stranger, bestow some trifling courtesy-if it be but a bow or a word of kind greeting, enough to express "we are fellow-beings"—especially if the new comer happen to be not fashionable, not comme il faut, and the saluter be so-it will be seen that a sunbeam has fallen across the stranger's path: and who can estimate the value of a sunbeam, a moral sunbeam?

be invidious, perhaps, to particularise; yet I must say a few words with regard to the performances of the four graduates, and one or two of the undergraduates, who had exercises, for prizes and premiums. Of those who graduated, young Doyle of New York, and Green of Washington, had the first parts. The valedictory of Doyle was very well written, but delivered very badly, on account of the imperfectness with which it had been committed. Another part, by the same young gentleman, in defence of Natural, as compared with Moral Philosophy, as a science, was far more creditable to him, both in matter and manner, and was, as well as the oration of Green, upon Ancient and Modern Republics, a very good specimen of youthful composition and eloquence. The latter was perhaps too strongly imbued with a sectional political feeling,-a fault, which the obAll the world are purveyors of pleasure for the vious good sense and judgment of the talented young author will fashionable and beautiful; but there are at all watering- most surely correct, whenever he finds it obtruding upon more places, unknown, unattractive and solitary beings, who practical efforts, hereafter. I would here remark, that it seemed are cheered by a slight courtesy expressing the courtesy to be the general impression that Green was entitled, all things of the heart. An invalid may be relieved of weary mo- honor, instead of Doyle. Young Ford took up the defence of ments by a patient listener to his complaints: this is Moral, against the oration of Doyle in favor of Natural Phiperhaps weakness, but never mind; let the weak losophy, as a science, and produced a very creditable essay, in profit by the strength of the strong, and an easy obe-point of composition. The manner of treating it was somewhat dience will be rendered to the great precept, one another's burdens." An old man may be gratified (at small expense,) by the offer of precedence at table, or a privileged seat on a sofa.

"Bear ye

I have known ladies, long disused to such courtesies, brightened for half an hour by a courteous picking up of a dropped pocket-handkerchief. There are small sins of commission, as well as of omission, thoughtlessly enacted. For instance, a wretched dyspeptic complained to me this morning that he lost his two hours' sleep (all the fiend allows him,) by reason of one of his neighbors taking a fancy to walk the gallery half the night in creaking boots. And at this moment half a dozen lawless children are shouting and screaming in the gallery adjoining the room of an invalid who is vainly trying to sleep. Are not these violations of the laws of humanity? and should creaking boots be worn by any but the confessed enemies of their race? and is it not enough to make a misanthrope of a Burchell, to have the music of children's footsteps converted into such an annoyance?

considered, and so far as those present could judge, to the first

common-place, however. Luckett of Maryland produced quite a sensation by his vigorous, spirited, and admirably delivered

argument against the senseless practice of duelling, and gave promise thereby, of future distinction, if his life be spared, and his present ambition holds, in the councils of his country. As he has now stepped but a single pace upon the stage, will he parhints as to manner? His style is very fine and effective, but he speaks far too rapidly; a fault which was remarked also in the performance of Green, which, beautiful as it was, was yet greatly marred by the extreme indistinctness consequent upon the rapidity with which he spoke. Mr. Luckett must alter his present mode of pronouncing those familiar words in our language, which terminate in ore, before he can become a finished speaker. He invariably gave that termination the sound of simple o or oe; as stoe for "store," befoe for "before,"-and the like. cannot forbear to add to this notice an expression of sincere and earnest hope that Mr. Luckett will carry out with him, from with regard to the absurd custom of duelling, which he so eloquently and forcefully denounced in this oration.

don an admirer of his talents for suggesting to him one or two

I

the University into the world, the same stern Roman sentiments

While on the subject of verbal criticism, I will notice a common mispronunciation of one other of the most familiar words

in the language, which struck my ear during the delivery of

Green's performance. It is an error into which members of congress, in both chambers, are continually falling, but derives Ah when shall we see the principle of brotherhood, from that fact, no good philological sanction. I allude to the that informs the great operations of philanthropists, pronunciation of "inalienable" as if spelt inaleenable, with the brought to bear upon the common charities of life-emphasis on the third syllable. Walker's Johnson gives the

upon the social relations in these summer resorts, where people "most do congregate ?"-How it would annihilate distances between man and man, bring down the loftiness of the lofty, and exalt the depressed!-How it would kindle up the evening horizon of the aged, and disperse the mists from the dawn of the young!

sound of this word thus: in-ale-ye-nable; which is certainly not only much easier to articulate, but is also a great deal more euphonical to the ear.

There were several performances from the pen of young

Lewis (an undergraduate) of Tennessee, which promise very brightly for the future poetical fame of the precocious author. He seems to have adopted the heroic measure as his forte, and gave some very pretty paraphrases of passages in Grecian and Roman history, somewhat in the manner of Pope and Dryden.

SCIENTIE MISCELLANEA.

BY A. D. G.

No. III.

same sense appears to be possessed, to an almost equal extent, by the sensitive plant (Mimosa sensitiva.) If you touch the oyster, it gives evidence of the possession of feeling, by closing its shell. Touch the sensitive plant, and immediately its leaves shrink, and, together with the branches, bend down towards the earth, as if in this way to escape further molestation.

This same difficulty meets us in attempting to draw dividing line between the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. The light floculent substance which often appears upon the surface of decaying fruit (commonly called mould,) is classed with vegetables; whilst the substance, precisely similar to it in appearance, which is found upon the walls of damp cellars, is certainly a mineral (nitrate of potassa, or saltpetre.) These difficulties have deterred most modern naturalists from attempting to run the boundary line between the three kingdoms of nature. Linnæus attempted it. His distinction was: "minerals grow; plants grow and live; animals grow, live and think." This distinction would seem at first thought correct enough, yet it will not bear examination; in fact, it only removes the difficulty a step further off, and the inquirer may turn upon his instructer with the questions: "what is it to live? what is it to think?" But even supposing these last mentioned inquiries answered, how many thoughts have ever entered the-I cannot say head of an oyster, for it has none; neither can I say brain, for this is also wanting;-have ever entered the body of an oyster. There is an absurdity in the very form of the question. No one, I suppose, ever attributed thought to an oyster.

DEFINITIONS IN NATURAL HISTORY. Plato is said, on a certain occasion, to have defined man to be "a featherless biped." The next day Di-a ogenes, having plucked a chicken, placed it upon the philosopher's desk, with this label-"Plato's man." This mistake arose, not from a want of acuteness on the part of the Grecian philosopher, but from the intrinsic difficulty of his subject. One would be led to believe, from the language of natural history, as well as from that of common society, that there existed in the world of created things well defined lines of distinction, separating between the different genera, classes, &c. But when we come to search a little more closely for these lines, they are nowhere to be found. Even the three great kingdoms of nature, animals, vegetables, and minerals, at their extremities, run so much into each other, that naturalists have puzzled themselves in vain to fix upon the exact boundary of each; some placing a species in one kingdom, which others have placed in another. In distinguishing the more perfect species of one kingdom from those of another, this difficulty does not exist; and I would by no means be understood as saying, that we could not easily point out a difference between a man and a tree, or between a tree and a rock. It is in distinguishing between the more imperfect species only, the extremities of the several kingdoms, that this difficulty is met with.

It would seem, at first thought, to be an easy matter to distinguish an animal from a vegetable. But let us examine this matter a little more minutely. Wherein does this difference consist? What characteristic feature is there which may serve to distinguish between them? One of the first which suggests itself, is the possession of a power of locomotion. Yet many testacea and all zoophites, (which are universally classed among animals) are found fastened to the rocks near the sea-shore, and spend their whole lives in the self same place where they were born;-whilst the sea-weed moves about continually upon the surface of the ocean, deriving nourishment from its waters.

The ability to move some of their parts by a power inherent in themselves, might seem characteristic of animals. Yet there are some vegetables which possess this power to a very considerable extent; whilst in some animals, it seems to be almost entirely wanting. A good instance of the possession of this power, by a plant, is afforded in the Venus flytrap, (Dionea musipula) a plant indigenous to the Carolinas. Its leaves are jointed and furnished with two rows of strong prickles. The upper surface of the leaf is covered with a sweet liquid, very tempting to flies. But no sooner does an unwary fly attempt to rob it of its treasures, than the two lobes of the leaf instantly rise up, the rows of prickles lock into each other and squeeze the poor captive to death.

The possession of some one or all of the senses, might seem characteristic of animals. Naturalists al low to the oyster only one sense, that of feeling. This

This gradual passage into each other, which characterizes the three great kingdoms of nature, is observable also in their subdivisions. The leather-winged bat is a connecting link between beasts and birds; lizzards between beasts and reptiles; reptiles themselves, between beasts and fishes. So in the vegetable kingdom, ferns and mosses, whose seeds are evident, serve as a connecting link between the more perfect plants and the numerous class of fungi, the most imperfect of vegetables. So also in the mineral kingdom. The numerous specimens, which assume a regular form by cleavage, serve to connect those which appear as rude and unshapen masses, with those which are presented to us, possessed of the high polish and all the beautiful regularity of form which characterize the perfect crystal.

An observation of these facts, probably gave rise to the "progressive theory," by which some philosophers have attempted to trace back the descent of man himself, through an indefinite line of ancestry, to simple organic mud. From so humble an original, they have, in imagination, seen him

"Rise each generation one key,

To Adam, who was but a monkey,"

At any rate, it is on such observations they have founded some of their most plausible arguments in support of their strange fancy.

No. IV.

DEVELOPMENT OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE.

There are few pages in the general history of our race, which more strikingly display the powers of the human mind, than those which are devoted to the hisVOL. IV-73

own.

tory of its achievements in the department of physical | under the earth," are full of it. In every department of science. Moral and religious truth man has received nature it is found to act a more or less important part. by special revelation;-political knowledge, whilst Go to the botanist, and he will tell you, that in the much of it is the result of experience and observation, bursting of a seed, and in the growth of a plant, he can yet its great principles have been learned from the trace its agency: go to the natural philosopher, and he pages of inspiration ;--physical science is entirely man's will tell you, that in the lightnings of heaven, in the auWho that has made himself acquainted with the rora which cheers the long night of polar regions, in the wide extended and accurate knowledge of some impor- directive power of the magnetic needle, (for even the tant subject, which is now in our possession, and has mystery of the earth's magnetism is at length satisfactotraced it back to its origin in some insignificant and now rily solved,) he acknowledges its power: go to the geoloalmost forgotten observation, has noticed with what gist, and he will point you to the volcano, as lighted by untiring perseverance the clue thus obtained has been its magic touch-to the metallic ores, as disposed in confollowed; has observed how, at each step, nature has been tinuous veins by its agency: go to the chemist, and he forced to yield up her choicest secrets, in answer to the will tell you, that in the course of a few years it has well directed inquiry of the philosopher ;-who is there changed entirely his whole science, proving that many that has observed all this, and has not found his concep- substances before considered simple, are in fact comtions of the powers of the human intellect greatly ex-pounds, separating their elements and presenting them alted above that which they were before? The his- for examination in a tangible form; that it has pointed tory of no particular branch of natural science presents out to him one of the simplest and most beautiful sys this subject in a better point of view than that of elec-tems of classification; and that, so far as he can see, it tricity. The progress of our knowledge respecting is likely yet to prove to be that which binds the ultithis agent, may be fitly compared to that of a stream mate particles of matter together, the very cement of whose fountain head is in some wild, sequestered spot, the universe. uninhabited and uninhabitable, but which in its course, It is at once the perfection of human science, and the receiving its tributaries on the right hand and on the glory of the human intellect, to be able to determine the left, swells at length into a mighty river, bearing upon manner in which the Creator has put this world toge its bosom the commerce of distant nations, and in a ther; and man may fearlessly appeal to it, as evidence thousand ways blessing mankind. The knowledge of of the greatness of the powers of the human mind, when electricity possessed by the ancients, appears to have those powers are properly developed. But how much been confined to one solitary fact. They knew that superior must be the power of that eternal mind, which when amber had been rubbed with a warm cloth, it could not only determine, but contrive and execute this would attract straws, or other light bodies to itself, and wondrous plan; could not only discover the same agent having held them in contact for a few moments, would in such a vast variety of forms, but could cause it to asrepel them. sume such forms; could fill the world, and even the When after a long period of ignorance, the attention human body, with the lightning of heaven, and yet of mankind was again turned to the study of natural keep it under such perfect control, that for centuries science, and they began to search among the records of man lived, and acted, and thought, and yet never dis antiquity for that which had been known to the old phi-covered its existence. In intellect, as well as in stature, losophers, this fact was all they found respecting elec-man may be said to stand tricity. The question might then have been asked, with much apparent good reason,-why notice so insignificant a fact as this?-of what importance can it be to investigate the nature of so feeble an attraction ?-what light can possibly be thrown upon the laws which govern matter, by ascertaining how it is, and why it is, that amber attracts a piece of straw? Notwithstanding the unpromising appearance of electrical science at its first entry into the world, it has received no inconsiderable share of the attention of philosophers; and as the DOCTOR WILLIAM CAREY. consequence, facts have been developed, surprising alike to the simpleton and the sage. Perhaps no discoveries This work was published in 1836, but it never fell have exerted a more powerful influence in directing at- under the notice of the writer till within a few days tention to this study, than that of our countryman past. It is not my purpose to review this production, Franklin, in which he ascertained the identity of light-because a great portion of the review would necessarily ning and the electric fluid; and that of Sir Humphrey be inappropriate to a literary work. The policy of Davy, in which, by means of electricity, he discovered the East India Company-the improvement of agri. the compound nature of the alkalies. These have culture in the British possessions-and the question given a new impulse to the zeal with which this study whether the religious code of the Hindoos should has been pursued; and now, that agent which the be supplanted by an ecclesiastical establishment from savage knows only as the lightning flash, and beholds England, are subjects which have been elaborately only to tremble before it, we can trace in the perform-discussed. For this reason, we have no desire to enter ance of a thousand works of mercy ;--that attraction into any speculations of the kind. Allow me further which was first made known to philosophers, in the mo-to say, that we are far from undervaluing either the tions of pieces of straw, is found to pervade all nature; sacred character or the missionary enterprise of the in"the heavens above, the earth beneath, and the waters dividual who is the subject of these memoirs. But an

"Mid-way from nothing to infinity." When we feel that our intellectual powers are no. thing, it is good to look beneath us; when we feel as if they were every thing, it is good to look above us.

MEMOIRS OF