a widow.' Language is powerless in describing the desolation of heart of that bereaved mother, when the dreadful intelligence reached her, that her bright, intelligent, affectionate boy-her last hope-had been immured in that insatiable sepulchre that spares neither age nor sex!

66

Capt. Thomas has left a wife and three young children to bewail the sudden and untimely loss of their husband and father. He was forty-five years old, and was an experienced and able shipmaster. His life, as it were, had been spent on the ocean; having been to sea from boyhood. He had been a shipmaster for twenty years, at least, if our memory serves us in this respect. He had been through many scenes of the mountain wave,' that would have deterred a less resolute man from tempting the treacherous

ocean more.

mates, and afterwards alone, he clung to the sheer wreck; and then succor came, and he was rescued, again to launch his bark fearlessly on the deep. But, enduring as he was, and as often as he had grappled with the sea in its every shape of horror, it has at last proved the conquerer."

THE WIFE.

BY ELIHU BURRITT, THE LEARNED BLACKSMITH.

There are new developments of human character, which, like the light of distant stars, are yet to visit the eye of man and operate upon human society. Ever since the image of the Godhead was first sketched in Eden, its great author and angels have been painting upon it; men have tried their hands upon it; influences, like the incessant breath of heaven, have left each its line upon the canvass; still the finishing stroke of the pencil will not be accomplished until the last, lingering survivor of "the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds" "is changed in the twinkling of an eye."

"He had been cast ashore, foundered at sea, and in various other perils that so often make the great deep one vast coffin for the hardy mariner. In this respect, Capt. T. seemed to wear 'a charmed life.' However frightful or imminent the disaster, although no shipmate could withstand the hardship, yet he survived, again to throw himself fear-studded all over with such pearls "and plalessly upon the deep for a livelihood.

"We recollect one adventure of his, some twelve or fifteen years since, which at the time made quite a stir in our quiet community. He sailed from this port in December" or January, in a brig for the West Indies. A few days out, and she foundered.

The hemisphere of the present age is

We are

tines of bright gold," as never shone before in the heavens of the human soul. In these latter days, the waves of time have washed up from depths that angels never fathomed, gems of purer light serene" than were ever worn before in the crown of man. now but half way advanced in the new cir"A small portion of the brig was left out cle of human history. The race is but just of water, and upon this huddled the survivors emerging from the long reaching shadows of of the gale. And there they remained, look- an iron age, and coming out into the starlight ing day after day, with strained eyes, over and sunlight of new influences. If, as we the vast expanse of water, during the short are assured, scores of new stars have taken days of that dreary season of the year, for rank with the heavenly hosts during the two some sail to heave in sight, to give them suc- centuries, stars brighter than they, have, in cor! Day after day elapsed, and no object the same period, kindled up new lights in relieved their aching eyes; but the everlast- the moral firmament. Among these new ing expanse of sea and sky. The small quan- stars, one, a little lower than that of Bethtity of food saved was diminished to a speck. lehem, has just appeared above the horizon. One after another of those stout men, fam- It is the Star of WOMAN'S INFLUENCE. Inished and chilled with the weather, fell from fluential woman is a being of scarcely two off their precarious footing, and passed away centuries: up to that period, and almost hithfrom the sight of those behind. Some, deli-erto, her influences have fallen upon human rious with suffering, fancied they saw every character and society, like the feeble rays of luxury that heart could wish, in the green a rising winter's sun upon polar fields of ice. waves about them, and with a sudden shriek, But her sun is reaching upward. There is a leapt in the sea. glorious meridian to which she shall as sure"Still no help came! Those left, dwin-ly come as to-morrow's rising sun shall reach dled to three, and two! One hardy fellow clung to life with a tiger's grasp! But at last he died, and there alone, in his frail cradle, Thomas was left. His iron constitution had triumphed over all; and he rode alone on that frail part of his vessel that yet appeared above the wave.

his in our natural heavens. What man will be, when she shall shine upon him then and thence, we are unable to divine; but we can found an anticipation from the influences of her dawning rays. Her morning light has gilded the visions of human sorrow. There has been no depth of human misery beyond "For thirty days in company with his ship-the reach of her ameliorating influence, nor

any height of human happiness which she though you are nothing to the world, you has not raised still higher. Whoever has are all the world to me." When that awful touched at either of these extremities, or at insanity of the drunkard sets in upon him, any of their intervening points, could attest with all its fiendish shapes of torture; while that "neither height, nor depth, nor princi- he lay writhing beneath the scorpion stings palities, nor powers, nor things present or to of the fiery phantasies and furies of delirium come," could divert or vitiate the accents and || tremens-there was woman by his side, enanodynes of her love. Whether we tracedowed with all the attributes of her loveliness. the lineaments of her character in the mild There was her tearful, love beaming eye, twilight of her morning sun, or in the living that never dimmed but with tears when the beams of her risen day, we find that she has black spirits were at him. touched human society like an angel. It would be irreverant to her worth to say, in what walks of life she has walked most like an angel of light and love; in what vicissitudes, in what joys or sorrows, in what situations or circumstances, she has most signally discharged the heavenly ministrations of her mission; what ordeals have best brought out the radiance of her hidden jewels; what fruitions of earthly bliss, or furnaces of affliction, have best declared the fineness of her gold.

Still, there is a scene which has escaped "the vulture's eye," and almost every other eye, where she has cast forth her costliest pearls, and shown such qualities of her native character as almost merit our adoration. This scene has been allotted to the drunkard's wife. How she has filled this most desperate outpost of humanity, will be revealed when the secrets of human life shall be disclosed" to more worlds than this." When the history of hovels, and of murky garrets shall be given in; when the career of the enslaved inebriate shall be told, from the first to the lowest degree of his degradation-there will be a memorial made of woman, worthy of being told and heard in heaven. From the first, she gave up her young and hoping heart and all its treasures into the hands of him she loved, to the luckless hour when the charmer, WINE, fastened around the loved one all the serpent spells of its sorcerydown through all the crushing of her young hopes-through years of estrangement and strange insanity-when harsh unkindness bit at her heart strings with an adder's tooththence down through each successive depth of disgrace and misery, until she bent over the drunkard's grave; through all these scenes, a halo of divinity has gathered around her, and stirred her to angel deeds of love.When the maddened victim tried to cut himself adrift from the simpathy and society of God and man, she has clung to him, and held him to her heart "with hooks of steel." And when he was cast out, all defiled with his leprous pollution-when he was reduced to such a thing as the beasts of the field would bellow at-there was one who still kept him throned in her heart of hearts; who could say over the fallen drivelling creature; "Al

There she stood alone, and in the lone hours of night, to watch his breathings, with her heart braced up with the omnipotence of her love. No! brute as he was, not a tie which her young heart had thrown around him in his bright days, had ever given away, but had grown stronger as he approached the nadir of his degradation. And if he sank into that dark, hopeless grave, she enswathed him in her broken heart, and laid it in his coffin; or if some mighty angel's arm or voice brought him up from the grave of drunkenness, the deepest ever dug for man, he came forth, Lazarus-like, bound fast and forever within the cerements of her deathless affection.

Such is her sceptre; such are the cords which she throws around the wayward and wandering, and leads him back to virtue and to heaven, saying, as she gives him in:"Here am I and he whom thou gavest me!"

From the Ladies' Companion.

IT IS NOT ALWAYS MAY.
BY PROF. H. W. LONGFELLOW.

The sun is bright, the air is clear,

The darting swallows soar and sing,
And from the stately elms I hear
The blue bird prophesying Spring.
So blue yon winding river flows,

It seems an outlet from the sky,
Where, waiting till the west wind blows,
The frightened clouds at anchor lie.
All things are new ;-the buds, the leaves,

That gild the elm tree's nodding crest,
And e'en the nest beneath the eaves;—
There are no birds in last year's nest.
All things rejoice in youth and love,

The fulness of their first delight;
And learn from the soft heaven's above,
The melting tenderness of night.
Maiden! that read'st this simple rhyme,
Enjoy thy youth-it will not stay;
Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime,

For oh! it is not always May!

Enjoy the Spring of love and youth

Forgetting not thy future rest—

For time will teach thee soon the truth-
There are no birds in last year's nest.

THE SHADDOCK TREE.

(See engraving opposite.)

From the Philadelphia Saturday Chronicle.
SPRING.-A SONNET.

BY HENRY J. BOGUE.

The Shaddock (Citrus decumana) is one
of the four distinct or leading species into
which the orange tribe of plants is divided.
The shaddock is larger than the orange, both
in the tree and the fruit. The tree has
spreading prickly branches: the leaves are
egg-shaped and rather acute, and the leaf-
stalks are furnished with remarkably large
heart-shaped wings: the flowers are white,
with reflexed petals, and very sweet-scented.
The fruit, which is from two and a half to
eight inches in diameter, is spheroidal, of a
greenish yellow color, and has twelve or
more cells, containing, according to the va-
riety, either a red or white pulp. The juice
is sweet in some varieties, and acid in others;
it is rather insipid, but excellent for quench-Tell me, who is this beauteous fair?

Fair o'er the earth the spring-shrubs spread their leaves
Of opening beauty, and the perfumed sky
Smiles, with its lure of softness brilliantly!

Air, earth, sky, ocean, mountain, valley, lives
In fragrance; and the gurgling spring glides still
And mellowly along its flower'd bed.

How beautiful is nature -All that tread

O'er nature's wide domain of vale and hill-
The brawling stream, that riots in its spray-
The sheeny sky that looks all bright and fair,
More bright than the blue heaven that's shrined there!
With all the flowers that laugh at past decay.
Oh! beautiful are earth and air, when Spring
Waves o'er the world the pinions of its breathing wing.

ing thirst. The rind, which is of a disagree-
able bitter flavor, is very thick, in consequence
of which the fruit can be much longer pre-
served during sea-voyages than that of any
other species of citrus.

The shaddock is a native of China, and the neighboring countries, where the name of "sweet ball" is given to it. Its common name is derived from Captain Shaddock, who brought it from China to the West Indies. It has, however, been neglected there, and is now but seldom entitled to its oriental name of sweet ball. Instead of propagating the shaddock by budding, as is done in China, and which is the only way it can be improved, or even kept from degenerating, they have reared it from seed, and have in consequence only obtained a harsh and sour sort, of little value. The shaddock came to England from the West Indies, and was cultivated by Miller, in 1739. In the West it is certainly the least valuable of the genus to which it belongs; and for the attention which it has received, it is chiefly indebted to the showiness both of the tree and the fruit. In its native country the fruit attains a much greater size than in the West. Thunberg says, that it is commonly the size of a child's head in Japan; Dr. Sickler describes it as weighing fourteen pounds, and as having a diameter of from seven to eight inches. Their accounts are confirmed by Bishop Heber, who thus describes the shaddock of India :-" The shaddock resembles a melon externally, but it is in fact a vast orange, with a rind of two inches thick, the pulp much less juicy than a common orange, and with rather a bitter flavor, certainly a fruit which would be little valued in England, but which in this burning weather I thought rather pleasant and refreshing." The shaddock has sometimes been sold under the mysterious name of " forbidden fruit."

SPRING

Hark! who is this, with tripping feet,
With sunny skies and voice so sweet,
With flow'ry ringlets in her hair—

I hear the warbling blue-bird's note,
I see the ground-bird's russet coat,
I see the red-bird's flashing wing,
I hear the distant robin sing;
Ah this-ah this-is beauteous Spring!
Hark! who is this that bounds along
With blithesome step, and joyous song,
That gilds the top of yonder hill,
And flashes on the opening rill?

I hear the squirrel chipp'ring loud,
I see the bright'ning azure cloud,
hear the forest vocal ring,
I hear rejoicing Nature sing,
All hail-all hail-O beauteous Spring!
Hark! who is this all clothed in light,
That scatters blossoms in her flight,
That bids the swelling buds be seen,
And decks the earth in robes of green?
A voice is in the dancing stream,
That glitters in the bright sunbeam,
I hear it as the willows swing,
Swayed by the zephyr's downy wing,
A welcome to returning Spring!
Say, who is this all decked with smiles,
Comes she from the Indian isles,
Where swift the sunny streamlets flow,
O'er diamond sands that glearn below?

She comes-she comes o'er land and main,
She breaks old winter's icy chain,
Then haste, ye maidens, chaplets bring,
Ay-trip it in the mazy ring,

And welcome bright, returning Spring!
Ah! this is Spring, the bright and gay,
Her reign is welcomed by the lay
Of thousand warblers, from the steep
Of mountain high and valley deep.

Ah! this is Spring, she treads the skies,
And brightens the cerulean dyes,
She spreads o'er earth her magic wing,
Then quickly shoots each living thing,
To welcome bright, returning Spring!