SHALL I SUCCEED?

A LEAF FROM LIFE.

'HOPE ever gets the better of distrust.'

' is it so ?

WE must part, then,' said Rosalie Ah, Eugene, I confess I tremble for you. Thrown out under such circumstances, at this time of life, to push your way in the world, what toils, disappointments, and sufferings may await you! What chance can there be for the young, poor, and friendless, where Prosperity laughs at Misfortune, Power tramples upon Weakness, and Temptation preys upon Inexperience?'

A dreadful picture is that you have drawn of the great world, my dear Rosalie,' said Eugene, smiling. Suppose we view it in another light. Let us consider it as one vast and glorious amphitheatre, upon whose arena, genius and industry, exertion and talent, are striving for the rewards which await the meritorious.'

And how many hearts,' rejoined Rosalie, sadly,' are broken in the conflict! How many are trodden down beneath the feet of the jostling aspirants! If one succeeds, yet how many fail! Beside, others have friends to help them on, you have none. None but one, and she can you are poor.

only aid you by her Others have wealth prayers. Your path is solitary before you. Neither influence nor fortune smiles upon it.'

Is it then under the most favorable circumstances that the greatest and most successful characters are formed?' replied Eugene, proudly. The oak of the mountain or the forest, is not nurtured in a hot-house, but it strikes its roots and rears its branches amid the winds and storms of its native skies. Look around you, Rosalie. Is it the nursling of wealth or fortune, who has been dandled into manhood on the lap of Prosperity, who carries away the world's honors, or wins its mightiest influences? Or, is it not rather the man whose earlier years, like mine, were scarcely cheered by a single proffer of aid, or smile of approbation, and who has drawn from adversity the elements of greatness? You take it for granted that I shall be weak, unsuccessful, unfortunate. I have the confidence to believe that, under God, I shall be neither.'

You know not the future, my dear Eugene. How many misfortunes may be in store for you! And at the best, how much toil, how many anxieties, how many sorrows, may cluster around your destined path, and must inevitably attend upon the duties and difficulties of the most arduous of professions!'

Out upon thee, for a bird of ill-omen!' said Eugene, laughing. Do you not know that fortune ever flees the faint heart? And as to difficulties, the greater the obstacles, the greater the conquest; the greater the conquest, the greater the glory. You speak of sorrows— they are in a degree the common lot of all.'

But most have friends, or other blessings, to aid in bearing them.'
True.'

But you, if you fail - if your favorite object eludes your grasp if your vision of ambition flees before you, or vanishes away - if treachery betrays and wounds you what have you then for consolation?'

Hope, Rosalie, — hope, and your sweet self.'

By your leave, no and so says that smile, which - pardon me demands return. There! I've done the deed!'-and now suffer me to tell you, Rosalie, that there is nothing which industry will not achieve, when combined with perseverance, and directed with an undivided aim to one great object. Think you that poverty is a sure prelude of failure? Do you recollect what Ragideau, the counsellor of Josephine, told her on the eve of her marriage with Napoleon? You are about to do a very foolish thing, Madame; you are going to marry a man who has not a second shirt to his back!'

'But you are not exactly a Bonaparte, I apprehend,' said Rosalie, smiling.

Humph! Well, never mind, I like splendid examples.'

'Bonaparte was a soldier, and not a lawyer. He was also aided by a rare concurrence of accidental circumstances,' continued Rosalie.

'Well, we will talk of lawyers, then. A wealthy English gentleman once asked Lord Kenyon what he thought of the probable prospects of his son, in the legal profession. Your son does not want talents,' was the reply; but he must first spend his own fortune-marry, and spend his wife's fortune, and then there will be some hopes of his succeeding at the law. Now, luckily, my dear, I have not the preliminary of spending two fortunes to go through, before I may succeed at the law.'

That is very true, but not very comfortable, Lord Kenyon to the contrary notwithstanding,' said Rosalie.

What think you, Rosalie? There was a young shoemaker out here in Connecticut, once on a time, who took it into his head to be a lawyer!'

A shoemaker!'

And why not? He was two-and-twenty years of age when the idea or fancy first struck him,- entirely uneducated, except in a common school, poor, and not only dependent, but having others dependent on him. Was not this folly?'

'What then?'

Why, he took his book and placed it before him, thus, and with his last upon his knee, and his hammer in his hand, he read and hammered, and hammered and read, from morning till night, vice versa.'

'And what was the result?'

'He did become a lawyer.'

'I suspected as much,' said Rosalie.

And a member of Congress,' continued Eugene, and Chief Justice of his State: in fine'

In fine?'

In fine, Roger Sherman.'

'Roger Sherman!' exclaimed Rosalie.

'The same. Shall I speak of Franklin?'

Ola! no,' said Rosalie-'his story is worn out, already.'
I could tell you a tale of English lawyers, for variety.'

'What is it?'

All in good time. There dwelt, during the last century, in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, (which by the way, my Lord Coke says is no part of England,)-no, I am wrong-in Newcastle-uponTyne, a coal-merchant, or corn-merchant, just as you please, by the

name of Scott. He had two sons, John and William. Owing to his embarrassed circumstances, he was unable to afford them the advantages of a university education, and could only send them to a grammarschool in their native town, where they accordingly began and completed their classical education. Was not this an inauspicious beginning?'

'Go on

go on,' said Rosalie.

Nay, remember that these youths were intended for the bar in England, too where the friendless and untitled are obliged to contend with ten times the difficulties which oppose them here. What would Rosalie have said, suppose this John or William were a lover of hers, and he were about to leave his home for the metropolis the great

London
Court?'

-

-to commence the study of his profession in the Inns of

go on.'

'Well, John and William occupied the same chambers together, and pursued the same studies. Poor, friendless, and unaided, twelve long, tedious years, (these English lawyers, by-the-by, have to undergo something of a quarantine,) twelve years they devoted themselves to their solitary pursuits. At the end of that time, the elder was admitted to

And how did he succeed?'

Why, but badly, at first. His awkwardness and timidity stood in his way few expected any thing of him; and some even ridiculed his attempts to succeed. But he found a friend. Friends are not such bad things, after all, my dear. His friend aided in bringing him out, and after some years of obscurity, he suddenly burst forth upon the world, a star of the first magnitude. His business rapidly increased; he became a member of parliament; then solicitor-general; then attorneygeneral; then Sir John Scott and then'

Then what ?'

'Lord Eldon, and Lord Chancellor of England.' 'And William?'

'Was made a judge, and became Lord Stowell.' 'Both lords?'

'Nothing more nor less, my dear girl. And the decrees of the one were as right and irreversible as those of Minos, while the decisions of the other are splendid monuments of his genius, acuteness, and wisdom.' 'Well, perhaps you may succeed. You are certainly sanguine enough and confidence is half the battle.'

'Possunt quia posse videntur.' You acknowledge so much, do you, my sapient little counsellor? But you were speaking of toils, Rosalie. Now as to this matter, I would adduce the opinion of Lord Chancellor King, (I like these great names,) whose motto was''What?'

'Labor ipse voluntas.'

4

Really, I am much the wiser.'

Which being interpreted, doth signify, (as my Lord Coke would say,) Labor is of itself a pleasure.'

There is no contending against such authorities.'

You give up, then, do you?' said Eugene, laughing.

'But stop!' said Rosalie; because Scott became Lord Chancellor, and Sherman Chief Justice, it does not follow that you are to be'

'Lord Chancellor, or Chief Justice? Not at all, my dear. But it does follow, I apprehend, that with industry and good fortune, I may, in the Far West,' provide for myself and Rosalie a home and a livelihood. So, Good bye! - don't cry, now. girl!'

God bless you, my dear

GIVE me that fond music,
That charmed my heart so sweetly:
Softly breathed its numbers,

Deep to my inmost soul.
The light-winged dance obeys it;
The maidens trip it featly;

All darker passion slumbers;
Full tides of gladness roll.

Still the sound is flowing,
Like summer brook at even,
Over pebbles leaping

In sparkling joy along.
The wind is faintly blowing;
The clouds are bright in heaven;
The spirits there are keeping
A festival of song.

Wake the sounding viol!
Dark eyes, with speaking glances,
New-Haven, Jaauary, 1836.

THE DUTIES OF THE AGE.

THE Duties of the Age, though they can scarcely be made to appear so interesting as those which spring from the more private and intimate relations of life, have nevertheless their importance, and may deserve at least an occasional discussion. They may not appear as really to be duties, as many others. We may scarcely feel that it is given to us to exert an influence on so large a scale. Yet in this, I see but the stronger reason for presenting them, if, as I believe, there are such duties. It is the very character of the moral signs of every age, that they elude observation: and the signs of these times, especially, are signals of duty. The great work to be done in the world, is a work to be done in the minds and hearts of men; nay, and in the minds and hearts of all men. The cause of human nature is the great cause now to be carried forward. Liberty is only an opportunity for its furtherance. Good governments are only auxiliaries. Nay, such governments, the wisest and freest, so far from being wonder-working engines for carrying forward the great cause of human welfare, are themselves to be sustained by the steady hands and faithful hearts of the whole body of the people.

Indeed, the main duty, I think, which we owe to the age, is the duty which we owe to our own institutions. The eyes of the world are upon us, it is often said; and they are fixed upon us, we may add, with a more and more intense interest. Thousands there are, in every enlightened nation of the world, who are hoping that their communities may enter upon the same or a similar career, and they are naturally looking to us, as the forerunners in the great race of political freedom. The advocates of despotic rule are as eagerly watching for our failure. They say that it is all very fair in theory, but will prove to be impracticable in the experiment. If it does prove impracticable, if the experiment does fail, a shock will be given to the hopes of political liberty, for which no man may dare to answer! - what do I say? - for which every man in this country, shall bitterly answer, in the overwhelming anarchy and misery that will follow. Nay more, if failure and overthrow do await the experiment here, the guilt as well as the ruin will be our own. The fault will not be in our stars, not in our circumstances, but in ourselves. The ruin will come, because we would not arouse ourselves to provide against it; because we would not see the signs of the times; because our pulpit, and our press, and our conversation, did not hold the right language, and because our practice did not conform to it.

There must be public spirit among such a people. If every man pursues his own private interest, with an eye to nothing else; if his whole soul is bent upon accumulation, or upon pleasure; if he thinks it but a dream of enthusiasm to have account of the public weal and the world's welfare; if he cannot understand even the old Roman patriotism, nor the Grecian citizenship, he is not faithful to the country, nor to the age in which he lives. He is not qualified to act his part now, and here. In some other period, when no hope was rising before the world, in some other land where all public spirit and all cheering promise were pressed down beneath the iron rule of arbi