lending and endorsing, since they are the only pleasures which their wealth can procure them!

I knew a pious lady who, thinking her brother's mind was too much engrossed by his business, began to talk to him about preparing for another and a better world. "A better world!" he replied, "this world is good enough for me." This man was either a fool or a saint; he was either to be envied or despised. He was either humble in spirit and felt that his fate equaled his deserts, or he was proud of himself and his gettings, and thought this life "hard to beat." He was not one of those ascetics who denied himself the pleasure of lending or endorsing, because such acts gave him no pleasure at all, and therefore he refrained from them.

In a state of existence where there are about 478 different pleasures, there can be no necessity for pleasure parties, such as we have here, where the real pleasure consists in getting away from them, The pleasure of entertaining one's friends, in a fashionable sense, is a purely terrestrial enjoyment. Entertaining angels unawares is half celestial; but that is a different kind of entertainment. Angels have never manifested a partiality for gas-lights, that I ever heard of; neither do they visit in white satin or patent leather. Fashionable people, therefore, can never hope to entertain angels, but they often furnish a good deal of entertainment for their friends, when they have no thought of entertaining them. In this way they may sometimes entertain angels-fallen ones-quite unawares. As this is a purely terrestrial pleasure, one that angels, even, can have no knowledge of, I cannot resist the temptation to give an account of one of these pleasures in which I participated a few months ago. The lady who had the pleasure of entertaining her friends, was but in moderate circumstances, although she had a circle of rich acquaintances who had once been poor, and were now, as a matter of course, fond of displaying their wealth. Her house was small, and when all the rooms were emptied of their furniture, they were capable of containing fifty persons comfortably, provided they all stood up, and stood still. One of the rooms was to be appropriated for dancing, another for the supper, and the third which was one of those little closets called a tea-room-for conversation, music and flirting. The guests invited num

bered one hundred and fifty, and they all came to enjoy the pleasure of witnessing the discomfort of each other, and laughing at their entertainers. They began to assemble at nine, and by ten the rooms were so full that those who came after had to return without being able to get their feet into the little passage which was good-humoredly called the hall. When the fiddlers attempted to play for the dancers, they could not make room for their elbows. But a couple of Mons. Chanaud's pupils, who had got into the middle of the floor for a waltz, succeeded in whirling round to the piping of a clarionet, as though they turned on a pivot. It was impossible to talk, because the breath was squeezed out of everybody's lungs. Several of the gentlemen fainted. The ladies being accustomed to tightlacing, stood the squeeze better. A good many corns were ground beneath heavy heels, and no toll taken. After much suffering, the doors of the supper-room were thrown open about midnight. A rush was made for the tables so sudden and impetuous, that a pair of decanters and a trencher of oyster soups were swept off, and trampled under foot. Those who had succeeded in grasping something, found themselves so closely pinioned by the crowd, that they could not carry their hands to their mouths. One gentleman, who had secured the leg of a boned turkey on his fork, had his hand suddenly forced above his head, and being unable to retain his hold, the fork fell upon the head of somebody behind him, and a third making a desperate grasp for the choice morsel, pulled off the gentleman's entire head of splendid chesnut hair. This misfortune was considerably heightened by the gentleman who had displaced the head of hair attempting, in the confusion, to fasten it upon the wrong head. In a very short time the supper-table was completely cleared, but nobody succeeded in getting anything to eat. In addition to the decanters and the trencher, a solar lamp and a cut glass efugne were dashed to pieces. Finding that supper was out of the question, the guests began to leave as fast as they could disentangle themselves, and about daylight the givers of the feast crept wearily to bed with the pleasant reflection of having wasted half a year's income in rendering their friends miserable for an entire evening, and themselves ridiculous for the remainder of their lives.

It would be an easy matter to get up an

is ignorance. Wisdom and pleasure are synonymous words in the Bible. The body is unquestionably a clog to the keenest perceptions of which the soul is capable, but if it blunt the edge of our pleasures, it does the same to our pains. When the preacher declared that all here was vanity, he only meant all vain employments. Love to God, charity, mercy, pity, conjugal love, friendship, the sweets of industry, the delights of a pure life, the innocent enjoyments of rural occupations, the satisfaction of a right use of our talents, the placidity of a quiet conscience, are all earthly pleasures, they are not vain, for we shall enjoy the same in Heaven, and the zest of their enjoyment will be heightened by the recollection of their enjoyment here. But men will frequently seek enjoyment in objects which they know will yield them none: they will do so, too, even while they caution others against the same conduct. Joseph Andrews was justly astonished in observing that fashionable people thought to gain the respect of their friends by filling their houses with costly furniture, while they laughed at their neighbors for doing the same thing. There is probably not a lady in Broadway who feels the slightest degree of respect, or veneration, or love, or friendship, for the stock in trade of any upholsterer between Union Square and Bowling Green, and yet there is hardly a lady in the same distance that will not pride herself on the possession of a new suit of curtains, or a set of rosewood chairs. The chairs and curtains will give pleasure to nobody, but the cost of them might produce inconceivable happiness if dispersed among the poor and needy.

we

We look at a fine house, a fine picture, or a fine park, and admire them; perhaps we inquire the name of the artist who produced them; but we never be stow a thought on their owner. If wish to look at handsome furniture we can drop in at Boudoine's or Meeks'. Mrs. Johnson is not elevated a hair's breadth in our esteem for having the articles in her drawing-room, which we saw exposed in an auction-room last week. What do we care whether Mr. Jones or Mr. Brown be the owner of a picture by Page, or of a statue by Powers? All our love and admiration are bestowed upon the artists and their works, not upon Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown, whom we like or dislike without any regard to their property, which may pass into

other hands to-morrow. But Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown expect to receive pleasure from possessing things which would afford none if they were not possessed.

Swedenborg has not designated the nature of the four hundred and seventyeight pleasures experienced by the dwellers in the lower heaven, where that number are found, but there is one which he mentions in another place, that exactly resembles one of the grand plea sures of this lower world. It is the delight of a parent's heart upon the entrance into life of the first-born. Is there conception in this pleasure? Is it of the earth, earthy? or is it not pure and celestial, free from all taint of selfishness and sin? Speaking of infants in heaven, Swedenborg says, "when they entered, the flowers above the entrance glittered most joyfully." Will not all parents whose little ones have been taken from them put faith in Swedenborg? But while those celestial flowers glittered with joy in heaven, what blackness and anguish issued from the portals through which the innocents had passed hence. We are not among the disciples of Swedenborg, but it is not the smallest of our pleasures to suffer the sweet delusion of faith in his revelation concerning the State of Infants in Heaven:

"How all things are insinuated into them by delightful and pleasant things, which are suited to their genius, has been also shown to me, for it was given me to see infants handsomely clothed, having around the breast garlands of flowers, resplendent with the most beautiful and heavenly colors, and likewise around their tender arms. Once it was also given me

to see infants with their tutoresses, together with virgins, in a paradisaical garden beautifully adorned, not so much with porticoes with paths conducting towards trees as with laurel espaliers, and thus the interior parts; the infants themselves

were then clothed in like manner, and when they entered, the flowers above the entrance glittered most joyfully. Hence it may be manifest what delights they have, and also that by things pleasant and delightful they are introduced into the goods of innocence and charity, which goods are by those things continually in

sinuated into them from the Lord."

If we believe in this, shall we not be more solicitous to get to Heaven that we may know, and converse with the tutoress who has been charged with the precious care of our little boy?

H. F.

fection. How awfully descriptive is the instrumental music while Florestano lies in exhausting slumber in the dungeon. We hear, but do not listen, to the groaning of the basses, the wailing of the violins, and moaning of the horns, for Beethoven has made the instruments not suggestive of themselves, but a part of the scene which lies before us. And when the heart is depressed even to gloom and despondency, by the sadness which enters at eye and ear, the emaciated prisoner wakes. At first, his notes are feeble and unconnected, but excited by the madness of his own imaginings, he pours out his terror and his love in such frenzied tones, that the heart beats fitfully, and breathing is a care, till he drops exhausted on his stony couch. And when the tyrant is baffled, and husband and wife stand once more united amid the happy and wondering crowd, how fiercely joyous is the final chorus. The exulting theme bursts now from one, now from another; the instruments are not mere accompainments, nor adjuncts, but each seems to have a voice, and to pour its enlivening and boisterous joy as if involuntarily. The crowd still the expression of their own happiness to hear that of the reunited husband and wife, whose glad tones now rise above the rest, so full of that calm, gushingforth of tenderness from the heart, which comes only from those who are supremely happy, that we think they are about to die away into eloquent stillness; but they are again caught up by, and mingled with, a new burst from chorus and orchestra, which is the last and fullest expression of exulting joy.

The Mount of Olives is matchless as an expression of majestic wo, but has not the chaste gravity which the oratorio demands. The last chorus, "Hallelujah to the Father," is a noble piece of choral writing, and the gem of the composition, but challenges a depreciating comparison with the Hallelujah Chorus

of the Messiah.

But it is in his symphonies that most become acquainted with Beethoven's music. His chamber music is heard but among the professors and the very small class of amateurs before alluded to, and his masses nowhere on this side of the Atlantic, and at rare times and places in Europe. Indeed he wrote but two, one in C and one in D; though the score of another in C Minor, claiming to be his, has been published, but on doubtful authority.

The first of these is sublime, and the second may be, but it is almost unsingable and altogether incomprehensible. His symphonies which are the most general, are also the best means of becoming acquainted with his style, for these are the channels of his greatest thoughts, which here, preserving the purity and sweetness of their first spring, and swelled by knowledge, experience and self-reliance, flow on in unequaled depth and majesty. In the fullness of his power just at the time when the orchestra had reached its richest combination of instruments, he found in it a weapon fit for his gigantic grasp, a voice capable of expressing his big emotions. He writes a Pastoral Symphony, a subject which pale, interesting young gentlemen and sentimental young ladies connect with a one-keyed flute, and walks into the fields to write upon scraps of paper, ideas which he will utter through the voices of an army of instruments. And how beautifully does he cause them to tell their tale, making all from flute to double bass

babble of green fields." How sunny and refreshing are the melodies, how inspiriting the modulations; a blind man could hardly desire a better summer. He brings before us a bright summer day: and the rustling winds, and clear, deep shadows of the woods induce calm reverie and dreamy delight. He takes us to the side of a rivulet, and a gentle murmuring melody runs through the orchestra, till the ear is almost sated with its dreamy tones in "linked sweetness long drawn out." The water ripples past waving grass and yellow corn, the bee hums by, the breeze whispers in our ear, and the nightingale, the cuckoo and the quail call from the rustling trees. He shows us the peasants dancing on the green; we can see their vigorous steps and hear the clatter of their wooden shoes; the festivity becomes boisterous, the music, so thoroughly rustic and exciting in its character, accelerates in time till it seems as if both weary musicians and panting dancers must give out, when all are driven to shelter by the terrific thunder-storm. The distant muttering of the thunder and moaning of the wind, the heavy flash of the first huge drops of rain, the sudden burst of the hurricane, the vivid lightning flash, the bellowing thunder, and the sheets of water which sweep across the fields, are brought be. fore the mind's eye in all their terrific reality. The storm passes off, the thun

is ignorance. Wisdom and pleasure are synonymous words in the Bible. The body is unquestionably a clog to the keenest perceptions of which the soul is capable, but if it blunt the edge of our pleasures, it does the same to our pains. When the preacher declared that all here was vanity, he only meant all vain employments. Love to God, charity, mercy, pity, conjugal love, friendship, the sweets of industry, the delights of a pure life, the innocent enjoyments of rural occupations, the satisfaction of a right use of our talents, the placidity of a quiet conscience, are all earthly pleasures, they are not vain, for we shall enjoy the same in Heaven, and the zest of their enjoyment will be heightened by the recollection of their enjoyment here. But men will frequently seek enjoyment in objects which they know will yield them none: they will do so, too, even while they caution others against the same conduct. Joseph Andrews was justly astonished in observing that fashionable people thought to gain the respect of their friends by filling their houses with costly furniture, while they laughed at their neighbors for doing the same thing. There is probably not a lady in Broadway who feels the slightest degree of respect, or veneration, or love, or friendship, for the stock in trade of any upholsterer between Union Square and Bowling Green, and yet there is hardly a lady in the same distance that will not pride herself on the possession of a new suit of curtains, or a set of rosewood chairs. The chairs and curtains will give pleasure to nobody, but the cost of them might produce inconceivable happiness if dispersed among the poor and needy.

We look at a fine house, a fine picture, or a fine park, and admire them; perhaps we inquire the name of the artist who produced them; but we never bestow a thought on their owner. If we wish to look at handsome furniture we can drop in at Boudoine's or Meeks'. Mrs. Johnson is not elevated a hair's breadth in our esteem for having the articles in her drawing-room, which we saw exposed in an auction-room last week. What do we care whether Mr. Jones or Mr. Brown be the owner of a picture by Page, or of a statue by Powers? All our love and admiration are bestowed upon the artists and their works, not upon Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown, whom we like or dislike without any regard to their property, which may pass into

other hands to-morrow. But Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown expect to receive pleasure from possessing things which would afford none if they were not possessed.

Swedenborg has not designated the nature of the four hundred and seventyeight pleasures experienced by the dwellers in the lower heaven, where that number are found, but there is one which he mentions in another place, that exactly resembles one of the grand pleasures of this lower world. It is the delight of a parent's heart upon the entrance into life of the first-born. Is there conception in this pleasure? Is it of the earth, earthy? or is it not pure and celestial, free from all taint of selfishness and sin? Speaking of infants in heaven, Swedenborg says, "when they entered, the flowers above the entrance glittered most joyfully." Will not all parents

whose little ones have been taken from them put faith in Swedenborg? But while those celestial flowers glittered with joy in heaven, what blackness and anguish issued from the portals through which the innocents had passed hence. We are not among the disciples of Swedenborg, but it is not the smallest of our pleasures to suffer the sweet delusion of faith in his revelation concerning the State of Infants in Heaven:

"How all things are insinuated into them by delightful and pleasant things, which are suited to their genius, has been also shown to me, for it was given me to see infants handsomely clothed, having around the breast garlands of flowers, resplendent with the most beautiful and heavenly colors, and likewise around their tender arms. Once it was also given me

to see infants with their tutoresses, together with virgins, in a paradisaical garden beautifully adorned, not so much with trees as with laurel espaliers, and thus porticoes with paths conducting towards the interior parts; the infants themselves

were then clothed in like manner, and when they entered, the flowers above the entrance glittered most joyfully. Hence it may be manifest what delights they have, and also that by things pleasant and delightful they are introduced into the goods of innocence and charity, which goods are by those things continually insinuated into them from the Lord."

If we believe in this, shall we not be more solicitous to get to Heaven that we may know, and converse with the tutoress who has been charged with the precious care of our little boy?

H. F.