fered not the grass to grow under the hoofs of his on the vital, paramount, absorbing topic of Amecavalry, but was carrying death into every family, rican Independence; and to arouse his hearers to and dismay into every heart-three states had re- the rescue of their country, whatever might be the turned to their allegiance, under the proclamation result. Accordingly when the hymn was read, of the British Chief-our shattered troops flying the General rose in full uniform, and led the music for safety-all hope of independence extinct, with as much ease as he would have commanded worse than all, a civil war raging with unmitigated his brigade in the day of battle. The divine now fury-fathers, sons, neighbors, arrayed against each dwelt on the horrors of war and the cruelty of the other-the flames of their dwellings, in the dark- enemy; but cheered the flock with telling them ness of midnight, illuminating the surrounding coun- that the race was not always to the swift, nor the try-famine doing her dreadful work; and desola-battle to the strong. "Your country, it is true, is tion had become the inmate of every household.

laid waste by a vandal foe-your wives and daughIn this journey through Carolina, he travelled one ters are outraged-your firesides and altars are deexceedingly sultry day, without any refreshment for secrated-your churches in ruins-the blood so himself or horse. Night came on; alone, hungry, fa- recently shed at Beaufort's defeat, cries for ventigued, ignorant of the road-he urged on his jaded geance-the bones of our countrymen are bleachanimal, until at length a distant light is seen. It ing alike amid the snows of Canada, and the sands issued from a large mansion belonging to General of Carolina. What though victory perched not on Isaac Williams, who afterwards fell at King's Moun- our standard either at Camden, Brandywine or tain. When he rapped at the front door, a female Germantown? yet see the stripes and stars unfrom within inquired if he were Whig or Tory. He folded to the breeze at Trenton, Princeton and replied that he was a preacher of the Gospel, lost Monmouth. The God of hosts led the armies of in a strange country; and implored protection and Israel: to them he was a cloud by day and a pillar refreshment for the night. He was immediately of fire by night-he is now the same Almighty welcomed to all the comforts of the house. At protector of all who trust in his divine help; and dawn of day, the General having returned from a he will yet rescue us out of the house of bonreconnoitering excursion during the night, entered dage.' Soon our armies will regain their good the missionary's room; and with all the courtesy fortune. The dark prospect now before us will be and chivalry of an accomplished soldier, greeted succeeded by the smile of inspiring hope-the his arrival. He was about thirty years old-six misfortunes of defeat and disaster will yield to the feet high, and admirably framed-lofty carriage-shout and joy of victory-the scourge of war will noble, animated countenance-full, piercing black cease, and peace will soon gladden every heart, and eye-hair curling over an expanded intellectual we shall become a great and prosperous people." forehead-dressed in full regimentals-with loaded So spake the missionary. On descending from pistols in his belt, and sword in its scabbard. "Sir," the pulpit, Williams embraced him with the most arsaid he, (sitting down familiarly on the bed side) dent affection-urged him to return to his house, "I am the leader of the Whigs in this vicinity, and where he might be free of expense, teach school and our land is sad and desolate with the ravages of preach the Gospel, and render the Whigs invaluathe enemy. A few nights ago, a party of Tories ble services in the war then going on. It was in hung one of my neighbors to the pole of his fodder vain. His promise to perform the tour of mishouse-another was shot while clasped in the arms sionary labor prevented his acceptance; and when of his wife, for no other offence than love of the moment of separation arrived, the stern and liberty-they came here recently to inflict a simi- fiery eye of the General was filled with tears. lar fate on myself, but the whole gang was repulsed, and here am I, resolved on independence or death; incessantly engaged in carrying on a war of extermination against our ruthless invaders. I have only to regret that I can die but once to save my country. But our cause is just. Heaven is on our side."

Should the reader ask, whether the minister of God had not violated the precepts of our meek and lowly Saviour, which inculcate forgiveness of injuries; I reply, that those principles apply to individuals, not to nations as such-and that the revolution was a case sui generis. We then saw the Rev. Mr. Muhlenburg, pastor of a Lutheran At this delightful residence the missionary re- congregation in the Shenandoah Valley, resigning mained until the morning of the ensuing Sabbath, his charge, that he might afterwards be engaged when he rose with the sun to ride ten miles, where as Brigadier General in many of the best fought by previous appointment he was to preach at 11 actions of the seven years' war; and in 1814, when o'clock A. M. A chariot and four appeared, in our army was beleagured at Plattsburg, a preacher which he took a seat with the General and his of Vermont took along a large portion of his concharming lady, and soon arrived at the church. A gregation; and after the return of peace, received large concourse of people was assembled. Williams urged the missionary to concentrate all the powers of his mind and the force of his eloquence,

from General Tompkins a splendid Bible to commemorate the courage and virtue of the patriot-band. We return to the missionary. He now quits

the very interesting scenes in which he lately par- | duty-like him, he shunned all human praise. Dr. ticipated, and is alone in a solitary road travelling to Balch lived in an extraordinary age. He saw a Maryland, and arrives in Georgetown to preach the nation born not in a day, but amid the throes and word of life. The flock consisted of ten members agonies of a long protracted war-our soldiers layonly, but which, afterwards, grew to be the most ing down their arms and returning to their peaceflourishing in the district. He also took the care of ful avocations-their Chief hiding himself from the a small congregation in Fredericktown, and every gaze of the world in the retirement of Mount fortnight rode there on horseback to promote their Vernon-the sword turned into the ploughsharespiritual welfare. Here he saw Wayne's division a republican form of government presented to the in full march for the South, to enter on the arduous people in 1787, and the Father of his Country setduties of that campaign which terminated on the ting up with his own hand, a Constitution which 19th October, 1781, in the surrender of the royal is the admiration of mankind. He saw his counarmy at York-Town. They had been encamped try seated aloft among the nations of the earthfor some weeks on the banks of the Monocaxy to her commerce whitening every sea-her agricul obtain rest and health. Their chief now appeared ture extended throughout this widely extended conat their head, mounted on a white charger, and federacy-her arts and sciences spreading their every soldier seemed proud to serve under the hero benign influence over the land—the rising generaof Stony Point. The slow and solemn step of the tions trained up in Colleges, Academies and Complatoons-the splendor of their arms-the soul- mon Schools-splendid cities springing up in the inspiring music--the smiles of the fair, and the valley of Mississippi like magic—and temples dedibenedictions of the pious on the heads of those now cated to God, where lately the beasts of the forest marching to meet the foe, recalled to the memory kept their dens. He saw too in 1812, the second of the preacher the thrilling scenes which had oc- war of independence. He beheld with his own curred on the banks of the Patuxent and the en- eye, the conflagration of our Capital, and blushed chanting plains of Carolina. for his country; but his aged heart bounded with Soon after his location in Georgetown, he opened joy, when his ear heard the roar of artillery on the a classical school. Here he educated several judges, Lakes, and our Northern Frontier. He saw the many members of Congress, and seventy-two cler- second war terminated, and peace once more reign gymen. He was of the old school, and practised throughout the land. All this was enough for one on the principles" spare the rod and spoil the child;" man to behold; and on the 22nd September, 1833, yet did all his scholars entertain for him the most he was summoned before the Judge of the quick ardent affection and unbounded veneration. From and the dead.

year to year, during his long life, did this amiable I recollect the last conversation I ever held with man, with untiring assiduity, dispense the Gospel this good man-about six months prior to his to his people-instruct the young-counsel the death. It was on a raw, cold gusty day in April. middle-aged-cheer the old with the consolations At his request we walked to the grave yard, where of the Holy Scriptures-heal divisions in the slept in undisturbed repose, the wife of his youthchurch-reconcile neighbors and former friends, a son who had fought at French Mills in 1813whose kindness to each other had been interrupted many connexions, and a long list of friends and pauphold every good institution—the life of the social rishioners. He was now in his eighty-seventh year. circle-an enemy to all vice, and the friend of Pulling off his hat, his long grey curls fell down on virtue. It was his pleasure, during his ministry, his shoulders-his eye beamed with almost prophetic to seek out the lonely widow and orphan, in order fire-his countenance was ruddy. Standing on the to assuage their sorrows-to penetrate the hovels confines of both worlds, he seemed as though of misery and want, that their wretched inmates neither apostle nor martyr could present a more might enjoy comfort and plenty; and notwithstand-sublime and enrapturing appearance. "Behold," ing his own path through life was not free from said he, "the ravages of intemperance. Yonder thorns, yet did he, in adversity, display a faith like tombstone hides from our view a man who was forthat enjoined in the 11th chapter of the Hebrews-merly a prominent member of our society; wealthy, for nearly fifty-two years, he stood unrivalled in useful, highly respected-he died a victim to this the hearts of his flock, and then "fell where he vice, having first condemned his family to want, fought," a soldier of the cross, without leaving an with no hope of future happiness as he passed enemy behind.

As to the honors of the world, he coveted none, and received but one—the degree of D. D., conferred on him by the trustees of New Jersey College in 1818.

Like Howard, he sought for the honor which fadeth not away-like him, the snows of winter and heat of summer prevented not the discharge of

alone through the dark valley of the shadow of death. Beyond him is the resting place of a youth of strong intellect, and great literary acquirements, who was one of my scholars. His eloquence might have electrified the forum and the halls of our national legislature-aroused his countrymen to deeds of valor in war, or guided the ship of state in time of greatest danger. He too fell at the foot of the

fancy--for his towering sublimity, than his calm he came to exhibit those on which all enduring beauty. He is at home in all, and bound to none. poetry must depend-principles, which indeed may But chiefly, which is the secret of his power, be run out into almost endless varieties, but which he has looked into the human heart; he has pene- are still the first great inviolate principles. He trated its obscurest recesses, and knows how to knew nothing of the Lake school, nor of the Cocktrace to their true source the contradictions of our ney school, nor of any other school, except that nature. He paints nature and man, not only in grand school of which he is the acknowledged their beauty and sublimity, but in their pure and head, and in which he receives his homage-the exalted forms. The ocean, when it slumbers in school of mankind. His knowledge of human napeace, is not more familiar to him, than when ture, (of which we have spoken,) and the expelashed by the tempest into terrific grandeur. Man, rience which his course in life had given him, were in all his diversified forms, appears before him. his great engines of power and success. MisforHe is not more acquainted with the palace, than tune had taught him too bitterly, that life is not the cottage the learning of the wise, than the gro-all pleasure; and he knew that it is not all misery. tesqueness of the fool,-the purity of youth, than He felt in his own soul, that man is not all dethe determined villainy of riper years, the strength pravity; and he was not so blind not to perceive, and holiness of love, than the strength and malig- that man is any thing but perfect purity; and he nancy of hate. Life, too-life, with its sunshine therefore degenerated neither into the chilliness of and shade, its smiles and tears, its piety and pro- misanthropy, nor the mawkishness and insipidity of fligacy;-life, with all its shocking incongruities, a too implicit faith in the instincts of our nature. is a scene on which his eye has been fixed with Milton may be ranked as the poet of Imaginapeculiar earnestness. Wherever there is any thing tion; Spenser the poet of Fancy; Byron the poet of poetry, his vision penetrates, and his muse grows of his Age, and Wordsworth the poet of Humanity; eloquent. He "glances from earth to heaven-from but Shakspeare alone is entitled to that proud apheaven to earth." He sweeps with his telescopic pellation, the Poet of Man.

vision the whole horizon of truth and man; his gaze is not arrested; it is chained alone by those mighty luminaries which attract the vulgar beholder. He calls up from the depths of darkness, "orbs of beauty and spheres of light," whose existence had never before been suspected.

As the fame of such a poet will be as extended, as universal as the human race, so it will be commensurate with the duration of time; for, it is based upon a foundation only to be destroyed with the destruction of the immutable principles of human nature. Such is the poet of man; and such (and perhaps of him only can it be said) was Shakspeare. Sublime, indeed, is his immortality. It is not written upon the hearts of a nation, nor of a sect; it is the universal tribute of mankind, speaking from every condition, age and climate, where human nature is the same. What Bacon was in philosophy, Shakspeare was in poetry. The former came not, like the rival philosophers of Athens, to set up a system which might differ in some of its features from those already taught, and attract by its specious novelty its separate class of disciples. His was a nobler object. He came to establish the only, the universal philosophy which covered and embraced all others; whose parts, indeed, might be extended and elucidated, but must still rest upou the broad foundation which he had laid; and being such, his philosophy is neither the philosophy of a Porch nor an Academy, neither Pythagorean nor Aristotelian, but the philosophy of man; and his disciples are the human race. Shakspeare came not as the champion of a particular school of poetry, as the interpreter and defender of any particular and exclusive set of principles; but

REGRET POUR LE PASSE.

Too soon-too soon! how oft that word
Comes o'er the spirit like a spell,
Awakening every mournful chord

That in the human heart may dwell!—
Of hopes that perished in their noon-
Of youth decayed-too soon-too soon!
Too soon-too soon! it is a sound

To dim the sight with many a tear-
As bitterly we gaze around,

And find bow few we loved, are here!
Ah!-when shall we again commune
With those we've lost?-too soon-too soon!

Too soon-too soon!-how wild that tone
Bursts on our dearest hours of bliss,
And leaves us silent and alone

To muse on such a theme as this;
To frown upon the quiet moon,
Whose parting light comes all too soon!
Too soon-too soon!--if e'er were thine
The joys, the fears, the hopes of love-
If thou hast knelt before the shrine

Of beauty-in some starlight grove-
Whose lips (young roses) breathed of June,
Thou'st wept these words-too soon-too soon'
Too soon, is stamped on every leaf

In characters of dim decay.
Too soon, is writ in tears of grief

On all things fading fast away!-
O! is there one terrestrial boon,
Our hearts lose not too soon-too soon?

F. W. E.