the brighter glory. They are both beautiful as dreams, with their celestial purity unstained by the smoke of earth. They seem like good spirits sent down from heaven, wandering, hand in hand, through this vale of tears, and singing praises as they go. They bring before us the peace, the joy, the sunshine and the bloom of that undying world" where the weary are at rest and the wicked cease from troubling." The artist has succeeded entirely in blending the charm of infantile beauty with the power and brightness of an immortal nature. The spirit of a seraph is shining through those round limbs and animating those fairy features. As I am not an artist, I am unable to point out their beauties and defects, as a work of art, and on that account, I am probably not able to give their author half his due, as I cannot appreciate the nature of the difficulties to be overcome. I looked at them very hard to see if I could detect any fault, and I confess I was unable to; perhaps sharper eyes than mine have been more successful. The flesh has all the firmness, roundness and smoothness characteristic of a healthy infant, and the fidelity with which he has copied all the delicate undulations, the lights and shadows of the figure, shows him to have industry and accuracy of observation as well as genius, and to be deficient in no quality necessary to obtain the very highest place in his profession. Any one who has ever noticed the creases in the back part of the infant's leg (I am a plain-spoken man) will be amazed to see how true to nature those of the statues are. The artist seems never to have become tired of his work, nor to have hurried through it in a fever of impatience, and the minutest portions are carved with a finish and accuracy rivalling that of nature itself. Look, for instance, at the hair of the shorter figure; how exquisitely it is executed and how much like life. It seems as if the hand of a mother had just smoothed it down, and that the next breeze would ruffle its silky evenness. The group is full of minute beauties, which it would be tedious to enumerate, and which not more than one half the world will ever observe; but this is a misfortune, which Mr. Greenough must be content to share in common with all men of genius, whatever be their department. To him, the perfect success, which has crowned his first efforts, is not much, one way or another. He, who has been so long silently studying the works of the "dead kings" of beauty, and measuring himself with them, needs not the approbation of the world to teach him how much he was capable of. Genius seldom makes a wrong estimate of its own powers, and the applause of the world is but an echo of the voice that speaks within. The young and nameless artist, when he takes his chisel in hand, and, with throbbing heart, begins his first work, is as well aware of the eminence he shall attain, and knows as well the extent of his powers, as when his name is pronounced in the language of every civilized nation, and men make pilgrimages to bow before the beauty, which his potent spell has conjured into marble. But to us, his friends and countrymen, it is a great deal. It proves to us that our young townsman is of the stuff, out of which the true artist is made. We knew that he had genius some five or six years ago, but we did not know then what we now do, that he had the patience, the industry and the sense of responsibility arising from the possession of great powers, without which genius is no better than the flash of a 4 rocket or the wing of a flying-fish. We hope that our liberal and wealthy community will exercise a generous spirit of patronage, so that Mr. Greenough need not be obliged to choose between one of two evils, a perpetual exile from his native land or the romantic fate of starvation. It is true that genius is its own great reward, and if a man could live upon applause, or clothe himself with praise, in their literal senses, he would do very well in the world; but even sculptors and poets require some of the substantial goods of life. There is a Utilitarian spirit abroad, which, if carried to the length, which some of its advocates advise, would make life as bare and as cold as the topmost rock of the Andes. We hope that, in this case, that kind of folly may be exerted, which we should call wisdom, and a creator of mere beauty go not unrewarded. The "heart of a nation" comes as well from poetry, sculpture and painting, from all that warms the blood, that makes the past and the future predominate over the present, and that lifts the thoughts above the smoke and dust of earth, as from the deductions of reason, the inventions of science, the discoveries of philosophy and the exercise of the practical arts. He, who would strip life of all that ornaments and embellishes, that smooths its rough edges, that exists only in the imagination and gratifies that airy essence called taste, and bring us down to the bare and hard surface of utility, shews himself to be a poor patriot, as well as a shallow philosopher, and does not imitate the wisdom of the Creator, who made the world beautiful as well as good, and dressed the wildflower in robes such as kings never wore. A man, who has been reared in a prison or a cloister, will be neither so wise nor so good as one, who has drank from childhood the beauty of the universe; so a nation, whose citizens are wholly occupied with the body and its concerns, will be less great and truly glorious, than one, in which the people, not neglecting these things, yet feed with proper food the appetite for the unseen, the ideal and the beautiful, and give a roseate hue to the dusky shapes of reality. We hope that our rich men will think of these things and suffer a gifted countrymen to glean a few ears of that golden harvest, of which foreigners have often reaped the ripe luxuriance. TYRO. LINES WRITTEN IN SADNESS. My days are in their morning prime, The numbness and the damps of age The lightning from my veins is fled; My character, indeed, I would favor you with, but that I am cautious of praising myself, lest I should be told my trumpeter 's dead: and I cannot find in my heart at present to say anything to my own disadvantage. FRANKLIN. I AM a Schoolmaster in the little village of Sharon. A son of NewEngland, I have been educated in all her feelings and prejudices. To her maternal care I owe the little that is good within me; and upon her bosom I hope to repose hereafter, when my worldly task is done, and my soul, like a rejoicing schoolboy, shall close its weary book, and burst forth from this earthly schoolhouse. My childhood was passed at my native village, in the usual amusements and occupations of that age; but, as I grew up, I became satiated with the monotony of my life. A restless spirit prompted me to visit foreign countries. I said with the Cosmopolite, "The world is a kind of book, in which he, who has seen his own country only, has read but one page." Guided by this feeling I became a traveler. I have trav ersed France on foot; smoked my pipe in a Flemish inn; floated through Holland in a Trekschuit; trimmed the midnight lamp in a German University; wandered and mused amid the classic scenes of Italy; and danced to the gay guitar and merry castanet on the borders of the blue Guadalquiver. When I had read thus far the volume of the world, I closed it with a sigh, and turned back to that long neglected page, in which are recorded the name and history of New-England. The beauty of its rural scenes rose up before me; and when I called to mind the moral feeling which pervades the land, and the healthy virtues of its national character and institutions, I felt proud that it was my Native Land. Amid all the novelties of the old world, and the quick succession of images, that was continually calling my thoughts away, there were always fond regrets and longings after the land of my birth, lurking in the secret corners of my heart. When I stood by the sea-shore, and listened to the melancholy and familiar roar of its waves, it seemed but a step from the threshold of a foreign land, to the fireside of home; and when I saw the outbound sail, fading away over the water's edge, and losing itself in the blue mists of the sea, my heart went with it, and I turned away fancy-sick with the blessings of home, and the endearments of domestic love. At times I would sit at midnight in the solitude of my chamber, and give way to the recollections of distant friends. How delightful it is thus to strengthen within us the golden threads, that unite our sympathies with the past,-to fill up as it were the blanks of existence with the images of those we love! How sweet are these dreams of home in a foreign land! How calmly across life's stormy sea blooms that little world of affection, like those Hesperian isles, where eternal summer reigns, and the olive blossoms all the year round, and honey distils from the hollow oak! Truly the love of home is interwoven with all that is pure, and deep, and lasting in earthly affection. Let us wander where we may, the heart looks back with secret longing to the paternal roof. It is there the scattered rays of affection concentrate. Distance may enfeeble them; the storms of the world obstruct them; but they will at length break through the cloud and storm, and glow, and burn, and brighten around the peaceful threshold of home. At length I returned to my native village, "the world's tired denizen;" and, unwilling to lead any longer a useless life, I took the village school. I chose this humble occupation because I am naturally indolent, and moreover love the guileless disposition and artless prattle of children. Who can look into the face of a young and innocent child, without reading, in the serene brow and unclouded eye, the story of a spotless heart? Who can listen to its guileless prattle, its unskilful song, or the merry peal of its laughter, without wishing that a spirit as pure and joyful dwelt in him? Alas, the face of childhood, and its clear sweet voice, rebuke us gently for all our errors and pollutions. The World-how its touch blights, and withers, and consumes us! How we are misled by shadows: how we grasp at unsubstantial things! Our passions become raging as the sea; our ambition, boundless as the wind. But the heart of a child has no desires beyond the circle of the paternal fireside. The paternal threshold is a limit, beyond which its thoughts do not wander. The little world of its joys and sorrows goes on within the narrow sphere of home. It is there that gush gently forth those fountains of continual joy, that freshen the green years of childhood, and brighten continually upon the receding eye through the long vista of time and the breaks and intervals of wordly care. When deceived by the friend we trusted, we think of a love that never deceived us; when beset by the cares of the world, and sick of its vain ambition, its empty pomp, its hollow and heartless pleasures, we remember, with unavailing regret, that season of life, when the weary heart threw down the little burden of its cares at the footstool of maternal love. Master of the village school, I am also the playmate of my scholars. I join in all their games and pastimes; help them build stone bridges, and dam the brook with mud and leaves; and enter into all their little plans for a holiday or a Saturday afternoon. No sooner do I abdicate my humble throne, and shut the schoolhouse door behind me, than all the terrors vanish from the master's eye, and all severity from his voice. Sometimes I gather my young pupils around me, and sitting in the shade of a tree, tell them tales drawn from history, and such adventures as will instruct as well as amuse. I always choose such stories as have a moral in them, and endeavor to impress upon the tender mind the maxim, that the good only are truly great, or happy. In this manner I have passed many happy years of my life, in stillness and obscurity, but not without the reward of an approving conscience. Indeed, I look upon the profession I have embraced, in a far nobler and more elevated point of view than many do. I cannot help believing, that he who bends in a right direction the pliant disposition of childhood, and trains the ductile mind to a healthy and vigorous growth, does more real service to his country, than all that crowd of busy politicians, who are noisy in proportion as they are empty, and positive in proportion as they are ignorant. And beside this, I take an inexpressible delight in watching the gradual dawn of intellect in the youthful mind. "The pure cleane witte of a sweete yong child," says that prince of schoolmasters, Roger Ascham, "is like the newest wax, most liable to receive the fairest printing; and like a new bright silver dish never occupied, to receive and keep cleane any good thing that is put into it." What a wide field of affectionate interest lies open to me, as I thus watch over and direct the growth of the youthful mind! How beautiful it is to see the gradual opening and unfolding of intellect, as it puts forth its bud, and expands its blossom, with all the delicacy and freshness of a flower! We speak of the beauties of Spring-we delight in the fragrance of the early blossom, and the balm of the morning air; but there is a Spring of more surpassing beauty, whose fragrance comes from a flower, that shall bloom forever, and in whose atmosphere there is a balm, that heals the soul; it is the Spring of the youthful mind-the opening of the intellectual principle-the unfolding of the moral nature! It is true, I am not exempt from all the ills of life. Sometimes a mischievous urchin throws sand into the ink-bottle; stops the keyhole with dirt; or puts a crooked pin into my leather-bottomed chair. But as I make it a point never to let these petty vexations ruffle my |