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 Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray, To the parched land, thou wanderer of the sea! Nor I alone; a thousand bosoms round Inhale thee, in the fulness of delight; Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest, Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast; Stoop o'er the place of graves, and softly sway 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 Go-but the circle of eternal change, Which is the life of Nature, shall restore, Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange, THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS., The saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, Heaped in the hollows of the grove, The robin and the wren are flown, Through all the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, Alas! they all are in their graves; With the fair and good of ours. 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, To call the squirrel and the bee When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, The waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers Whose fragrance late he bore, And then I think of one who in The fair, meek blossom that grew up In the cold, moist earth we laid her, 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, |