smile of Mary would make my mind all light and peace; and I would write such poetry as the world never saw.

"Something ought to be done for me," said he ; "I can't take care of myself. I ought to be sent to the asylum; or, wouldn't it be better to die? The moon shines through the willow trees on the graves in St. Paul's church-yard, and they look all covered with diamonds-don't you think they look like diamonds? Then there is a lake in Greenwood Cemetery; that would be a good cool place for me -I am not afraid to die. The stars of heaven look down on that lake, and it reflects their bright

ness."

The Mary to whom he alluded, was a wealthy young lady of this city; one of those whom his distempered imagination fancied was his lost half. Some giddy young persons, with thoughtless cruelty, sought to excite him on this favourite idea, by every species of joke and trickery. They made him believe that the young lady was dying with love for him, but restrained by her father; they sent him letters, purporting to be from her hand; and finally led him to the house, on pretence of introducing him, and then left him on the door-step. The poor fellow returned to the Carlton House in high frenzy. The next night but one, he was found in the streets, kneeling before a poor beggar, to whom he had just given all his money. The beggar, seeing his forlorn condition, wished to return it, and said, "Poor fellow, you need it more than I." When the watchman encountered them, Clarke was writing busily on his knee, the history of his companion, which he was beseeching him to tell. The cap was blown from his head, on which a pitiless storm was

pelting. The watchman could make nothing of his incoherent talk, and he was taken to the Egyptian Tombs, a prison where vagabonds and criminals

await their trial.

In the morning, he begged that the book-keeper of the Carlton House might be sent for; saying that he was his only friend. This gentleman conveyed him to the Lunatic Asylum, on Blackwell's Island. Two of my friends, who visited him there, found him as comfortable as his situation allowed. He said he was treated with great kindness, but his earnest desire to get out, rendered the interview very heart-trying. He expressed a wish to recover that he might write hymns and spiritual songs all the rest of his life. In some quiet intervals, he complained of the jokes that had been practised on him, and said it was not kind; but he was fearfully delirious most of the time-calling vociferously for "Water! water!" and complaining that his brain was all on fire.

He died a few days after, aged about forty-four. His friend of the Carlton House took upon himself the charge of the funeral; and it is satisfactory to think that it was all ordered, just as the kind and simple-hearted being would have himself desired. The body was conveyed to Grace Church, and the funeral service performed in the presence of a few who had loved him. Among these was Fitz-Greene Halleck, who it is said often befriended him in the course of his suffering life. Many children were present; and one with tearful eyes, brought a beautiful little bunch of flowers, which a friend laid upon his bosom with reverent tenderness. He was buried at Greenwood Cemetery, under the shadow of a pine tree, next to the grave of a little child-a

fitting resting place for the loving and childlike poet.

He had often expressed a wish to be buried at Greenwood. Walking there with a friend of mine, they selected a spot for his grave; and he seemed pleased as a boy, when told of the arrangements that should be made at his funeral. "I hope the children will come," said he, "I want to be buried by the side of children. Four things I am sure there will be in heaven; music, plenty of little children, flowers, and pure air."

They are now getting up a subscription for a marble monument. It seems out of keeping with his character and destiny. It were better to plant a rose-bush by his grave, and mark his name on a simple white cross, that the few who loved him might know where the gentle, sorrowing wanderer sleeps.

LETTER XVI.

A GREAT FIRE-JANE PLATO'S GARDEN-MONEY IS NOT WEALTH.

August 7, 1842.

WERE you ever near enough to a great fire to be in immediate danger! If you were not, you have missed one form of keen excitement, and awful beauty. Last week, we had here one of the most disastrous conflagrations that have occurred for a long time. It caught, as is supposed, by a spark from a furnace falling on the roof of a wheelwright's shop. A single bucket of water thrown on immediately, would have extinguished it; but it was not instantly perceived roofs were dry, and the wind

was blowing a perfect March gale. Like slavery in our government, it was not put out in the day of small beginnings, and so went on, increasing in its rage, making a great deal of hot and disagreeable work.

It began at the corner of Chrystie Street, not far from our dwelling; and the blazing shingles, that came flying through the air, like a storm in the infernal regions, soon kindled our roof. We thought to avert the danger by buckets of water, until the block opposite us was one sheet of fire, and the heat like that of the furnace which tried Shadrach, Meschech and Abednego. Then we began to pack our goods, and run with them in all haste to places of safety; an effort more easily described than donefor the streets all round were filled with a dense mass of living beings, each eager in playing the engines, or saving the lares of his own hearth-stone.

Nothing surprised me so much as the rapidity of destruction. At three o'clock in the afternoon, there stood before us a close neighbourhood of houses, inhabited by those whose faces were familiar, though their names were mostly unknown; at five, the whole was a pile of smoking ruins. The humble tenement of Jane Plato, the coloured woman, of whose neatly-kept garden and whitewashed fences I wrote you last summer, has passed away for ever. The purple iris, and yellow daffodils, and variegated sweet-williams, were all trampled down under heaps of red-hot mortar. I feel a deeper sympathy for the destruction of poor Jane's little garden, than I do for those who have lost whole blocks of houses; for I have known and loved flowers, like the voice of a friend-but with houses and lands I was never cumbered. In truth, I am ashamed to say how much I

grieve for that little flowery oasis in a desert of bricks and stone. My beautiful trees, too-the Ailanthus, whose graceful blossoms, changing their hue from month to month, blessed me the live-long summer; and the glossy young Catalpa, over which it threw its arms so lovingly and free-there they stand, scorched and blackened; and I know not whether nature, with her mighty healing power, can ever make them live again.

The utilitarian and the moralist will rebuke this trifling record, and remind me that one hundred houses were burned, and not less than two thousand persons deprived of shelter for the night. Pardon my childish lamentations. Most gladly would I give a home to all the destitute; but I cannot love two thousand persons; and I loved my trees. Insurance stocks are to me an abstraction; but stock gilliflowers, a most pleasant reality.

Will your kind heart be shocked that I seem to sympathize more with Jane Plato for the destruction of her little garden-patch, than I do with others for loss of houses and furniture?

Do not misunderstand me. It is simply my way of saying that money is not wealth. I know the universal opinion of mankind is to the contrary; but it is nevertheless a mistake. Our real losses are those in which the heart is concerned. An autograph letter from Napoleon Bonaparte might sell for fifty dollars; but if I possessed such a rare document, would I save it from the fire, in preference to a letter from a beloved and deceased husband, filled with dear little household phrases? Which would a mother value most, the price of the most elegant pair of Parisian slippers, or a little worn-out shoe, once filled with a precious infant foot, now walking with the angels?