Nor ask they idly, for uncounted lies
Float upward on the smoke of sacrifice;
When man's first incense rose above the plain,
Of earth's two altars, one was built by Cain !

Uncursed by doubt our earliest creed we take;
We love the precepts for the teacher's sake;
The simple lessons which the nursery taught
Fell soft and stainless on the buds of thought,
And the full blossom owes its fairest hue
To those sweet tear-drops of affection's due.

Too oft the light that led our earlier hours
Fades with the perfume of our cradle flowers;
The clear cold question chills to frozen doubt
Tired of beliefs we dread to live without.
Oh! then if Reason waver at thy side,
Let humbler memory be thy gentle guide;
Go to thy birthplace, and if faith was there,
Repeat thy father's creed, thy mother's prayer.

Faith loves to lean on Time's destroying arm,
And age, like distance, lends a double charm.
In dim cathedrals, dark with vaulted gloom,
What holy awe invests the saintly tomb!
There Pride will bow, and anxious Care expand,
And creeping Avarice come with open hand;

The gay can weep, the impious can adore

From morn's first glimmerings on the chancel floor
Till dying sunset sheds his crimson stains
Through the faint halos of the irised panes.

Yet there are graves whose rudely-shapen sod
Bears the fresh footprints where the sexton trod;
Graves where the verdure has not dared to shoot,
Where the chance wild-flower has not fixed its root,
Whose slumbering tenants, dead without a name,
The eternal record shall at length proclaim
Pure as the holiest in the long array

Of hooded, mitred or tiaraed clay!

Deal meekly, gently with the hopes that guide
The lowliest brother straying from thy side;
If right, they bid thee tremble for thine own,
If wrong, the verdict is for God alone.

What though the champions of thy faith esteem
The sprinkled fountain or baptismal stream;

Shall jealous passions in unseemly strife

Cross their dark weapons o'er the waves of life?

Let my free soul expanding as it can
Leave to his scheme the thoughtful Puritan ;
But Calvin's dogma shall my lips decide?
In that stern faith my angel Mary died,
Or ask if Mercy's milde creed can save,
Sweet sister risen from thy new-made grave?

True, the harsh founders of thy church reviled
That ancient faith, the trust of Erin's child ;-
Must thou be raking in the crumbled past
For racks and fagots in her teeth to cast?
See from the ashes of Helvetia's pile

The whitened skull of old Servetus smile!

Grieve as thou must o'er History's reeking page;
Blush for the wrongs that stain thy happier age;
Strive with the wanderer from the better path,
Bearing thy message meekly, not in wrath;
Weep for the frail that err, the weak that fall,
Have thine own faith,-but hope and pray for all!

I conclude with the following genial stanzas, worth all the temperance songs in the world, as inculcating temperance. They really form a compendium of the History of New England:

ON LENDING A PUNCH-BOWL.

This ancient silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old times,
Of joyous days, and jolly nights, and merry Christmas chimes;
They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave and true,
That dipped their ladle in the punch, when this old bowl was new.

A Spanish galleon brought the bar,- -so runs the ancient tale,-
'Twas hammered by an Antwerp smith, whose arm was like a flail ;
And now and then between the strokes, for fear his strength should fail,
He wiped his brow, and quaffed a cup of good old Flemish ale.

'Twas purchased by an English squire, to please his loving dame,
Who saw the cherubs, and conceived a longing for the same;
And oft, as on the ancient stock, another twig was found,
'Twas filled with caudle, spiced and hot, and handed smoking round.

But changing hands, it reached at lengtb a Puritan divine,
Who used to follow Timothy, and take a little wine,

But hated punch and prelacy; and so it was, perhaps,

He went to Leyden, where he found conventicles and schnaps.

And then, of course, you know what's next,-it left the Dutchman's shore, With those that in the Mayflower came,—a hundred souls and more,— Along with all the furniture to fill their new abodes,

To judge by what is still on hand,—at least a hundred loads.

'Twas on a dreary winter's eve, the night was closing dim,
When old Miles Standish took the bowl, and filled it to the brim;
The little captain stood and stirred the posset with his sword,
And all his sturdy men-at-arms were ranged about the board.

He poured the fiery Hollands in,—the man that never feared,—
He took a long and solemn draught, and wiped his yellow beard,
And one by one the musketeers-the men that fought and prayed,—
All drank as 'twere their mother's milk, and not a man afraid.

That night, affrighted from his nest, the screaming eagle flew,
He heard the Pequot's ringing whoop, the soldier's wild halloo;
And there the sachem learned the rule he taught to kith and kin,
"Run from the white man when you find he smells of Hollands gin."

A hundred years, and fifty more, had spread their leaves and snows,
A thousand rubs had flattened down each little cherub's nose,
When once again the bowl was filled, but not in mirth or joy,
'Twas mingled by a mother's hand to cheer her parting boy.

"Drink, John," she said, "'twill do you good,-poor child, you'll never bear

This working in the dismal trench out in the midnight air;

And if,-God bless me !-you were hurt, 'twould keep away the chill." So John did drink,—and well he wrought that night at Bunker's Hill!

I tell you there was generous warmth in good old English cheer;

I tell you 'twas a pleasant thought to bring its symbol here;
"Tis but the fool that loves excess. Hast thou a drunken soul?
The bane is in thy shallow skull, not in my silver bowl!

I love the memory of the past,-its pressed yet fragrant flowers,—
The moss that clothes its broken walls,-the ivy on its towers,-
Nay, this poor bauble it bequeathed,—my eyes grow moist and dim
To think of all the vanished joys that danced around its brim.

Then fill a fair and honest cup, and bear it straight to me;
The goblet hallows all it holds, whate'er the liquid be;
And may the cherubs on its face protect me from the sin

That dooms one to those dreadful words-"My dear, where have you

been ?"

S

Dr. Holmes is still a young man, and one of the most eminent · physicians in Boston. He excels in singing his own charming songs, and speaks as well as he writes; and, after reading even the small specimens of his poetry that my space has enabled me to give, my fair readers will not wonder to hear that he is one of the most popular persons in his native city.

He is a small, compact little man (says our mutual friend), the delight and ornament of every society that he enters, buzzing about like a bee, or fluttering like a humming-bird, exceedingly difficult to catch, unless he be really wanted for some kind act, and then you are sure of him.

XXXII.

LETTERS OF AUTHORS.

SAMUEL RICHARDSON

BESIDES the rich collection of State Papers and Historical Dispatches which have been discovered in the different public offices, and the still more curious bundles of family epistles (such as the Paxton correspondence) which are every now and then disinterred from the forgotten repositories of old mansions, there is no branch of literature in which England is more eminent than the letters of celebrated men.

From the moment in which Mason, by a happy inspiration, made Gray tell his own story, and by dint of his charming letters contrived to produce, from the uneventful life of a retired scholar, one of the most attractive books ever printed, almost every biographer of note has followed his example. The lives of Cowper, of Byron, of Scott, of Southey, of Charles Lamb, of Dr. Arnold, works full of interest and of vitality, owe their principal charm to this source. Nay, such is the reality and identity belonging to letters written at the moment, and intended only for the eye of a favorite friend, that it is probable that any genuine series of epistles, were the writer ever so little distinguished, would, provided they were truthful and spontaneous, possess the invaluable quality of individuality which so often causes us to linger before an old portrait of which we know no more than that it is a Burgomaster by Rembrandt, or a Venetian Senator by Titian. The least skillful pen, when flowing from the fullness of the heart, and untroubled by any misgivings of after publication, shall often paint with as faithful and life-like a touch as either of those great masters.

Of letter-writers by profession we have indeed few, although Horace Walpole, bright, fresh, quaint, and glittering as one of