forth a hundred liars, with a fair outside, to proclaim as many falsehoods to the world? These practices, alas! have fallen into the regular course of the business of many. All men expect them; and, therefore, you may say that nobody is deceived. But deception is intended; else, why are these things done? What if nobody is deceived? The seller himself is corrupted. He may stand acquitted of dishonesty, in the moral code of worldly traffic; no man may charge him with dishonesty; and yet, to himself, he is a dishonest man. Did I say that nobody is deceived? Nay; but somebody is deceived. The man, the seller, is grossly, wofully deceived. He thinks to make a little profit by his contrivances; and he is selling, by pennyworths, the very integrity of his soul. Yes, the pettiest shop where these things are done may be, to the spiritual vision, a place of more than tragic interest. It is the stage on which the great action of life is performed. There stands a man, who, in the sharp collisions of daily traffic, might have polished his mind to the bright and beautiful image of truth,-who might have put on the noble brow of candor, and cherished the very soul of uprightness. I have known such a man. I have looked into his humble shop. I have seen the mean and soiled articles with which he is dealing. And yet, the process of things going on there was as beautiful as if it had been done in heaven! But now, what is this man -the man who always turns up to you the better side of everything he sells — the man of unceasing contrivances and expedients, his life long, to make things appear better than they are? Be he the greatest merchant, or the poorest huckster, he is a mean, a knavish, and, were I not awed by the thoughts of his immortality, I should say, a contemptible creature; whom nobody that knows him can love, whom nobody can trust, whom nobody can reverence. Not one thing, in the dusty repository of things, great or small, which he deals with, is so vile as he. What is this thing, then, which is done, or may be done, in the house of traffic? I tell you, -though you may have thought not so of it, I tell you that there, even there, a soul may be lost!-that very structure, built for the gain of earth, may be the gate of hell! Say not that this fearful appellation should be applied to worse

places than that. A man may as certainly corrupt all the integrity and virtue of his soul in a warehouse or shop, as in a gambling-house or a brothel.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

1794-.

Mr. Bryant is a native of Cummington, Massachusetts, and a son of the distinguished Dr. Bryant, of that place. The father, early perceiving in his son indications of superior talents, carefully instructed him, and gave direction to his literary taste. At the age of thirteen, Bryant gave evidence of great precocity, in the production of the Embargo, and the Spanish Revolution. His Thanatopsis was written in his eighteenth year. He was educated at Williams College, and followed the profession of law, in Massachusetts, until 1825, when he came to New York, where he has since resided, most of the time officiating as editor of the New York Evening Post. Mr. Bryant's rank as a poet is among the very first in our country.

TO THE EVENING WIND.

SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day!
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow;
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,

Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray,
And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee

To the parched land, thou wanderer of the sea!

Nor I alone; a thousand bosoms round

Inhale thee, in the fulness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And, languishing to hear thy welcome sound,
Lies the vast inland, stretched beyond the sight.
Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,-
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!

Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,

Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse
The wide old wood from his majestic rest,
Summoning, from the innumerable boughs,

The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast;
Pleasant shall be thy way, where meekly bows
The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,
And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass.

Stoop o'er the place of graves, and softly sway
The sighing herbage by the gleaming stone;
That they who near the church-yard willows stray,
And listen in the deepening gloom, alone,
May think of gentle souls that passed away,
Like thy pure breath, into the vast unknown,
Sent forth from heaven among the sons of men,
And into the boundless heaven again.

gone

The faint old man shall lean his silver head

To feel thee; thou shall kiss the child asleep, And dry the moistened curls that overspread

His temples, while his breathing grows more deep; And they who stand about the sick man's bed

Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,

And softly part his curtains, to allow
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.

Go-but the circle of eternal change,

Which is the life of Nature, shall restore,
With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range,
Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more;

Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange,
Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore;
And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem
He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.,
THE melancholy days are come,

The saddest of the year,

Of wailing winds, and naked woods,
And meadows brown and sear.

Heaped in the hollows of the grove,
The withered leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust,
And to the rabbit's tread.

The robin and the wren are flown,
And from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow,

Through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers,
That lately sprang and stood,
In brighter light and softer airs,
A beauteous sisterhood?

Alas! they all are in their graves;
The gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds,

With the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie,
But the cold November rain
Calls not, from out the gloomy earth,

The lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet,

They perished long ago,

And the brier-rose and the orchis died

Amid the summer glow;

But on the hill the golden-rod,

And the aster in the wood,

And the yellow sun-flower by the brook,

In autumn beauty stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven,

As falls the plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone, From upland, glade and glen.

And now, when comes the calm, mild day,
As still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee
From out their winter home;

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard,
Though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light

The waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers

Whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood
And by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in
Her youthful beauty died,

The fair, meek blossom that grew up
And faded by my side;

In the cold, moist earth we laid her,
When the forest cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely
Should have a life so brief;
Yet not unmeet it was that one,
Like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful,
Should perish with the flowers.

Mr. Everett was born at Dorchester, Massachusetts. At the age of seventeen, he graduated at Harvard, with great reputation for talent and scholarship. He succeeded Mr. Buckminster, in the Brattle-street Church, Boston, when only nineteen years of age; but his success in this difficult situation answered the highest expectations of his friends. In about two years, he was appointed Professor of Greek, at Harvard, with permission to travel. After an absence of about four years and a half, in which he visited all the most important places in Europe, and became acquainted with many persons of distinction, in literature and the arts, he returned, and entered upon the duties of his office. He was, after this, successively editor and contributor of the North American Review, Representative to Congress ten years, Governor of Massachusetts four years, Minister to the Court of London five years, and finally President of Harvard University, the last of which offices he has recently resigned. His published writings consist chiefly of Essays, Orations and Speeches, upon literary and political subjects,