the blessing of such as are ready to perish shall come upon him. To bring about an important reform is the highest dignity and satisfaction to which a human creature can attain. Political economists! cut off this fruitful source of bankruptcy! Legislators! if marriage is to be penal to one sex by law, at least let the penalty be mitigated! Procure this, or a better benefit, entire justice, and the exquisite congratulations addressed by Cicero on a certain occasion to Cæsar, may be applied to you "Nihil habet nec fortuna tua majus, quam ut possis, nec natura tua melius, quam ut velis servare quam plurimos" (plurimas.)

A COADJUTOR.

HYMNS TO THE GODS.

Bacchus.

WHERE art thou, Bacchus ?-on the vine spread hills
Of some rich country, where the red wine fills
The clustered grapes-staining thy lips all red
With generous liquor-pouring on thy head
The odorous wine, and ever holding up
Unto the smiling sun thy brimming cup,
And filling it with light; or doth thy car,
Beneath the light of the far northern star,
Pass over Thracia's hills, while all around
Are shouting Bacchanals, and every sound
Of merry revelry, while distant men
Start at thy noisings; or in distant glen
Reclinest thou, beneath green ivy leaves,
And idlest off the day-while each Fawn weaves
Green garlands for thee, sipping the rich bowl
That thou hast given him—while the loud roll
Of thy all conquering wheels is heard no more,
And thy strong tigers have lain down before
Thy grape-stained feet?

O Bacchus, come and meet

Thy worshippers, the while with merry lore

Of ancient song, thy godhead they do greet.

O thou, who lovest pleasure-at whose heart
Rich wine is always felt-who hast a part
In all air-swelling mirth-who in the dance
Of merry maidens joinest, where the glance
Of brightened eyes, or white and twinkling feet
Of joyous fair ones doth thy quick eyes meet,

Upon some summer green; maker of joy
To all care-troubled men-who dost destroy
The piercing fangs of grief-for whom the maids
Weave ivy garlands, and in pleasant glades
Hang up thine images, and with bright looks
Go dancing round-and shepherds with their crooks
Join the glad company, and pass about

With merry laugh, and many a gladsome shout-
Staining with rich dark grapes each little cheek
They most do love—and then with sudden freak,
Taking the willing hand, and dancing on
About the green mound-O thou merry son
Of lofty Jove!

Wherever thou dost rove

Among the grape vines-come, ere day is done,
And let us, too, thy sunny influence prove.

Where art thou, conqueror-before whom fell
The jewelled kings of Ind-when the strong swell
Of thy great multitudes came on them, and
Thou hadst thy thyrsus in thy red right hand,
Shaking it over them-and every soul

Grew faint, as with wild lightning, when the roll
Of thy great chariot wheels was on the neck
Of many a conqueror-when thou didst check
Thy tigers and thy lynxes at the shore
Of the broad ocean-and didst still the roar,
Pouring a sparkling and a pleasant wine
Into its waters-when the dashing brine
Tossed up new odors, and a pleasant scent
Upon its breath, and many who were spent
With weary sickness, breathed of life anew,
When wine-inspired breezes on them blew;
O thou who bringest all men to thy feet;

O thou with brow of light and smiles most sweet-
Make this, our earth,

A share to thy wild mirth,

Let us rejoice thy wine-dewed hair to greet,

And chaunt to thee that gavest young Joy his birth.

Come to our ceremony-lo! we rear

An altar of bright turf unto thee here,

And crown it with the vine, and pleasant leaf
Of clinging ivy-come, and drive sad grief
Far from us-lo! we pour thy turf upon,
Full cups of wine-and bid the westering sun
Fill the good air with odor-see! a mist

Is rising from the sun-touched wine-(ah!-hist!—
Alas! 'twas not his cry)-with all thy train
Of laughing satyrs-pouring out a strain
Of utmost shrillness on the noisy pipe;
O come, with eye and lip of beauty ripe
And wondrous rare-Oh let us hear thy wheels
Coming upon the hills, while twilight steals

Upon us quietly-while the dark night

Is hindered from her course, by the fierce light
Of thy wild tigers' eyes-oh let us see
The revelry of thy wild company,

With all thy train

And ere night comes again,

We'll pass o'er many a hill and vale with thee,
And raise to thee a loudly joyous strain.

A. P.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE VILLAGE OF

THIS is the golden age of legendary lore. The sober narrative of the settlement of towns and churches, and the details of the ecclesiastical disputes of the Pilgrims, have lost their interest with the lovers of the marvellous; and lest the important chronicles of the New England States should be left to slumber in their original mistiness, wonderful untruths must be imagined, or still more wonderful facts must be found among mouldering records, to serve as lures for those who but skim over the surface of history, as you would disguise the healthful medicine of a child in a sweet piece of confectionary.

Legends of heroism and enchantment have already made famous a few of the towns of New England and New York. Posterity will look upon the scene of Lovel's fight and of our own Bunker Hill as the classic land of the West; and while the Sketch Book is unforgotten, what traveller upon the Hudson will omit to stray along that gorge of the Kaatskills where old Rip Van Winkle passed his long sleep?

There is a pleasant village in New England in which, in times past, was a little Gothic school house, the high reputation of which used to draw the aspirants after collegiate honors from far and near.

I can remember the good master even now, a little dark looking man with a quick piercing black eye, and withal, the most good humored smile in the world except when he was in a passion. He was a sincerely religious man, but at times, when the higher scholars who were to be entered as Freshmen at the next College Commencement would become unruly in anticipation of their embryo dignity, and did not bear their honors as meekly as in reverence they should, the old gentleman would be transported beyond all bounds, and I have heard him use most uncanonical words, though, to say the truth, he would couch them in the learned languages for

fear of scandalizing the girls and the younger scholars. Thus I have heard him wish a laggard at his Livy lesson, "at the gates of Hades," and call Jupiter to witness the stupidity of the rising generation, in very classical Greek and Latin.

A mile or so below the village, winds a river which breaks here into the finest scenery which marks its whole course. For miles above it is a deep, silent stream, and there is a gloominess in its waters where the forest trees bend down their branches to the wave. You will fall while on its banks, into that repose of feeling which is so often caused by the sight of quiet waters. There is a calmness in Nature which extends itself to the mind, and you would not wish to disturb the repose of either by a heavy footstep or the rustling of a leaf.

But in a moment all this is changed. We may gather matter for a homily from the changes on the earth. How near together are the sublime and the lowly! We have but to turn from side to side to enjoy the varieties of Nature, which may raise the mind from the lowest ebb to the highest possible excitement of human feeling. Nay, how often, as we look upon the same well known spot in the varying of its seasons, may we find the waste of winter changed into springtime beauty, and the richness of the earth poured forth from places whose wintry desolation had almost determined us to forswear the haunts of our childhood.

At the point where the river sweeps round the village, it swells into a large basin studded with islands, and lined with craggy, broken rocks. You might think it a small lake but for two waterfalls situated one above the other, which extend the whole width of the river. The space between them is, in a calm day, a clear, glassy surface, where the water reposes for a moment from the upper fall ere it rushes on again with redoubled force. The islands and shores of this basin afford sites for an hundred mills, which continue in a ceaseless clangor from Martinmas till Yule.

At the foot of the lower fall extends, or did extend, a massive bridge. It was a crooked, irregular structure, and showed signs of having been built in the good old colony times, when timber was cheap, and the ideas of our fathers upon architecture were not the most definite or elegant in the world. It had a graceful sinuosity, which made the traveller at one end of it somewhat dubious whether he should pass dry shod to the other side.

On this bridge have I stood through many a summer evening to enjoy the beauty of the scenery, or to lose myself in the fancies suggested by the situation, to wander from reality,

and to imagine what had or might have occurred, when Nature presided here in her uncultivated greatness over the land and its inhabitants. I would picture to myself what had been in the olden times, the feats of the hunter of the hills, and I could see in every grassy mound the burial cairn of a warrior, or search some desolate spot for the mementos of Indian warfare. I could imagine the poetry, (as poetry there must have been,) in the early history of our Indians, and each wild cavern which was met with in my wanderings, might be converted into a holy grot, the place of divine communion of some Aboriginal Numa with his forest Egeria, and the relics of greatness might be found in the sublime scenery, as once the dwelling place of a people whose minds must have borne some proportion to the grandeur of their habitation.

But there is enough of interest in reality to those who have lived long in any place of extraordinary natural beauty. It is well to recall the impressions which were made on our minds at the first unfolding of Nature to our view. They will bring back the fresh feelings which commerce with the world has deadened. It is well to revisit every nook which has been the scene of a childish frolic, and to call up the recollection of the more hardy adventures of youth. I could visit the consecrated rock where, as school-boy tradition says, a love lorn swain was wont some score of years by gone to meet his ladylove, and the eddies are still boiling where he had adventured to save her from the waves. And I can call to mind some of my own "hair breadth 'scapes." The bridge had been once washed away by a spring freshet, and travellers were obliged to cross the river in the canoes of the raftsmen. Late one night a canoe had been procured (i. e. taken unceremoniously from her moorings) to transport a few erratic youths to their home from a country merry-making. All were seated but one, who was just stepping to the boat from a raft which stretched far into the river. He was a careless, jolly fellow, with a corporation like an alderman's. One foot was already in the boat, when the log on which he was standing turned. He lost his balance, overset the canoe, and he alone escaped from the chilly water. For a moment, all was hushed anxiety; but the crew were good swimmers, and as head after head rose panting to the surface, I can well remember the shout, the clear ringing peals of merriment which burst on the stillness of the clear moonshine. The days when sprites and guardian deities arose to punish the disturbers of their dwelling places, have long been buried in the tombs of the ancient