Ay, curse them! How they will chuckle and grin on the weddingday!'

It would turn the laugh on your side, and show how little you feel the loss of the widow, if you could but get married first,' said I, plumping in my long shot.

am I to

So it would, Frank. Right, right; but where the d get a wife? I have spliced every body together that I could get at. There at but three single women in the neighborhood—the widow, Epsy, and the yellow girl at the doctor's.'

And a very nice girl she is, too,' said I, in all the pertness of punch. Mix me another pitcher, you amalgamating swab, and don't be impudent. As you say though, if I could but sail into the port of wedlock before her, it would be a great victory.'

The only thing to save your reputation, uncle — if you could but get some one to have you. I would give you up any body but Epsy, but really, I have taken so strong an interest in her

Epsy? ay, true you like her, eh?'

How could I help it? I listened with delight to her sweet toned voice, as she prattled in praise of my dear uncle.'

Eh! what? praise me?'

'I never heard a woman so eloquent. Indeed, she spoke more tenderly about you than I approved; and when she is my wife, I shall have to take care of my insinuating uncle.'

'She is a fine frigate rather too sharp built about the bows, but with a clean run abaft. She wants fresh rigging, though, and ought to be well manned.'

Ah, uncle, you have proved your love in giving me so great a prize- not a giddy girl, but a steady, experienced woman, with a sufficiency of this world's wealth to justify the match. A prize that all the young fellows of her day have been unable to obtain. Then too, how delightful the neighborhood! - so close to my dear uncle's house. Epsy tells me that her peach orchard joins your seven-acre lot. If you could but find another woman as desirable as Epsy, and be married upon the same day with your too happy nephew, what a glorious quadrangular batch of beatitude we should form.'

My uncle gave the burning logs a kick with his sound leg, and remained for some minutes in quiet cogitation. I knew that my intents were thriving, but I resolved to give them the coup de grace.

'Epsy tells me that the major is a conceited coxcomb, and offered to back his chance against you with the widow at two to one. The honor of the family is positively at stake. What a pity that there is no single lady of your acquaintance in the neighborhood-and the time is so short, too.'

My uncle rose, and commenced halting up and down the room.

Epsy tells me that the widow means to have a splendid day of it. She says that this is the first wedding, about here, for six years, in which you have not been concerned.'

This was a clincher, and brought him up all standing, as he would have said. He stopped right opposite to me, and filling up my tumbler, said, in a low, gentle tone of voice: 'Frank, I had no idea you were so smart a lad; I never heard you talk so well before. I have a little commission for you to execute in New-York- some private business,

requiring peculiar address. I shall get your despatches ready to night, and you must heave and away by day-break. Finish your punch; go down and see your pony fed, and then turn into your hammock.'

Go to-morrow, Sir? But Epsy, my dear Epsy 'I will see her in the morning, and make your excuses. You will have to stop at New-York for a couple of weeks; here's an L for your expenses. Do not leave your moorings there till I write to you. Good night get your traps together, and I'll meet you at breakfast about eight bells."

My trip to New-York was to take a letter to an old friend of my uncle; it could as well have gone by post, but I knew his meaning, and was but too glad to see him fall so readily into my trap.

In a few days I received the following letter:

'DEAR NEPHEW: I have just turned your wife that was to have been into your aunt that is I beg your pardon for marrying your intended without letting you know, but as you said, the honor of the family was concerned. We were spliced together more than ten minutes before the widow and her chum, so the major did not take precedence of the captain. Old Joe fired the pattereroes and gave the bunting a fly. I had ship's allowance on the lawn for all who liked to stop in; and black Sam came down with his bugle, and kept tootle-looing all day. We drove the enemy away before dinner. I never shall forget their looks as they galloped off. I will bet drinks they quarrelled before bed-time. I should have liked you to have been there, but it would not have been decent. Do not be dull; I will pick you a rib before long. Cruise about till my honey-moon is over; and then let me see you again. I have enclosed something for a new outfit, and your aunt sends her love, and thinks you had better go and see your mother. Your affectionate uncle, JABEZ SPRIGGS.'

Have I not reason to bless the operant powers of MY FIRST PUNCH?

N. B.

WOMAN.

THE world has had its mysteries - but none

More strange than this sweet riddle. From the hour
When she broke on the bowers of Paradise,

All lustre and all loveliness, the earth

Has had at once its wonder and its wo!

Nature assum'd new beauty when she came,

And through Creation's garden there went forth

A crowning creature mid its countless flowers.

To Man, the monarch of the earth he trod,

Great, yet disconsolate, amid his home,

She came like Mercy, robed beyond all dreams,

In such unvision'd mastery of form

With brow so pregnant with divinity

With eye so lumin'd from its god-like fount

With tongue so angel-toned, and voiced like lyres —

In everything, so chisel'd like the work

Of some Heav'n-guided sculptor, that she sat,
At once the guardian and the joy of man,

Bound to his leaping heart!

VOL. VII.

Was left unanswer'd - but with faint white lip,
The passing victims whisper'd - 'We are here!'

A change went o'er the world-and Man was chang'd.
His monarchy was lost his sceptre gone-
His empire, that of old he sway'd alone,
Thenceforth divided with the thing he spurn'd.
Reason, that erst in him confess'd her throne,
Found new abiding-place, and Man beheld
Matter triumphant rival of the Mind.

Yet Woman fell not, like some stricken star,
Forever from her sphere. She travel'd yet
On the same pilgrimage, and shared with Man
His greatness and his curse. She bode with him

In beautiful fidelity, though once
To her own soul unfaithful. She abode,
With Beauty yet like morning on her brow,
And joyance on her lips. With Mercy yet,
She walked beneath the roofs of weary men,
Smooth'd the low couch of sickness
Clos'd on the reeking path of pestilence,
With step unfaltering, where he who once
Rode as creation's lord earth's battle-field,
And launch'd on seas of blood for victory,

and unbow'd,

Had paled with fear or stretched with quiv'ring hand
The drug he dared extend to misery!

How the years sped, and what dim centuries

Left like a seal on Woman's destiny,

Gray history tells. The mem'ry of young days,
When in unsham'd dependency she sat,

At once the grace and glory of his bower,

Close to the heart of Man, now pass'd away
Before new aspirations. Crown and throne
No longer closed the vista of her dreams,

But both were hers. She heard deep voices call,
And saw hands beckon her to royalty;
And she became the ruler of great lands,
And saw men bow to her, as to old kings
That she had heard of- till she felt a power
Was in her that she knew not till that time:
And with the consciousness came a new hope,
And a new struggle and she turned from tears,
And all that made her beautiful, to try

A rivalry with Man in all that made

Man aught but an immortal! She would dare

To dally with those sterner elements,

In which the Tyrant oft has sunk the Man,

Or Man, like ideot, disgraced his power.

She rul'd and empires trembled. Her command
Was louder than the world had thought to hear,
From one whose voice was fashion'd to the tones

Of Nature's melting melodies. It rose,

Till its sound startled like the trumpet-blast,

And the heart quak'd to hear. She could command
Like despot, when his spirit is unrein'd,

And every light of Mercy has gone out

That should shine o'er his people.

Other lands

Beheld her in yet sterner vassalage
To passion and its power. Ambition rode,
A victor, through the vast world of her heart,
Strangling each blessed fountain at its head,
Or dashing streams with poison as they flow'd,
And giving to dim waste that wondrous soil,
So beautiful in fruitage and in bloom.

36

She gather'd, as a banner, beneath helm,
The locks that were her glory, and with plume
Tossing with charger's mane to battle-wind,
Led on to victory, in the thundering van

Of great o'ershadowing armies. The red sword
Wav'd in the mail'd white hand, that scarce could grasp
Its ponderous hilt, as some wild meteor blade,
Swung by the warrior through his murky field.
Men follow'd her, as a great captain, forth
Not on some errand, where the heart led on,
But where the spirit, black as demon's urg'd
On hellish mission to its grave of blood!

And such was Woman, as she left the sky!
And such did she become. The veil that rose,
As the years swept it, from the struggling mind,
Betray'd to her her sorrow and her power!

Yet did she see idolatry. The spell
Was round her like an atmosphere- and Man
Could not but worship, though the idol, then,
Had pass'd from its first loveliness. But still,
The charm was not unearthly. There were gems
From no Golconda of the spirit - but

A baser jewelry that lighted her,

And drew Man to his bondage. The quick fire
Of an unnatural beauty, and the flash
Of passion, in some splendid rivalry-
The fascination of a light, whose blaze
Is born of fashion, and with fashion dies,
Then made, and make Man's worship.

O, if now

Woman would lift the noble wand she bore,
Once so transcendant- and which still she wears,
Half-hidden, though not powerless - and again
Wave in its magic power o'er pilgrim Man,
How would she win him from apostacy,

Lure back the world from its dim path to wo,
And open a new Eden on our years!

Cambridge, (Mass.,) February, 1836.

GRENVILLE MELLEN.

MY WIFE'S BOOK.

NUMBER ONE.

ON a vacant shelf of my library, among pictures, relics, etc.,- (for I affect vertù,). removed from intrusive hands, and sacred from profane eyes, lieth a not portly, yet natheless not altogether thin quarto, in sadcolored binding, bearing stamped in letters of gold on its cover, this inscription-MY WIFE'S BOOK.' Its pages are the records of passing thoughts, incidents, and experiences, some sad and some merry, occurring to, and coming under the observation of, a quiet, and hitherto, I trow, unambitious pair-my wife and me.' Neither hath fiction, the diversion of an occasional idle hour, been altogether wanting. Although undesigned, and it may be little fit for the perusal of that great Fadladeen, the public, a certain mania to see myself in print, which hath suddenly possessed my spirit, induceth me to transcribe, with slight alterations, the opening article of the above-mentioned volume

the first (and perhaps the last) of those desultory productions which will ever meet the public eye.

RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS.

HALF a century has scarcely elapsed since Robert Burns, the great poet of Scotland, closed his brilliant, but restless and unfortunate career. He died at the early age of thirty-eight, and there are those yet living, who were the companions of his early life, who were familiar with the scenes and incidents which called forth, and were immortalized in, his verse. Their number is but few, and death is fast thinning the grayhaired band: but which of these aged men is there, whose eye will not rekindle with the fires of youth, at the name of Burns? Which of them will not grow garrulous in recounting anecdotes of

'the sweetest bard

That ever breathed the soothing strain !'

An American traveler, (the lamented CARTER,) gives a vivid instance of this, in his description of an interview with Davie,' the brother poet, to whom Burns addressed a well known ode. Others there are- and some have joined the tide of trans-atlantic emigration, carrying to the new world fervid recollections of scenes shared lang syne' with the departed bard. There is something touching in that enthusiasm with which even the most inconsiderable incidents connected with his name and memory are so long cherished, and are now so fondly and minutely narrated. Say not that the unimportant common-places of life, and even inanimate objects, borrow no interest from their association with the recollection of the glorious dead! Even a leaf which has waved on the ilexes of Pausilippo over the lowly mausoleum of Virgil, is a consecrated relic. The prolix and oftentimes really trivial personal anecdotes of a Boswell are read, and read with interest, while cotemporary productions, dignified with the title of ⚫ standards' in the higher departments of science and literature, are no longer taken from the dusty shelf.

It has been the good fortune of the writer of this article, to have been long and intimately acquainted with one who was the early friend and associate of Robert Burns - the sharer with him in many a youthful frolic and in after years, until 'seas between them braid had roared,' his confidant and steady correspondent. Burns and Kwere born near each other, in Ayrshire; were nearly of the same age; and their situation and prospects in life were similar. We are indebted to the octogenarian survivor for some interesting recollections, and several anecdotes of his illustrious friend, which may not be unacceptable to the reader. We shall present them as they occur to us, without any studied reference to chronological order.

Burns was above the middle height, with a frame whose more masculine than graceful proportions told of early toil and hardships. His bodily strength was great, and he had few competitors in the athletic exercises of the field. He could plough mair,' says K—, 'in a day, than ony twa in the parish,'-and it was in guiding this anything but poetical instrument, that he found his favorite and happiest moments for composition. The poetie genius of my country,' he says in his