to chains and slavery. On the return of Mr. Braxton from Congress the next autumn, he took his seat in the first Virginia legislature convened under their republican constitution, having been elected the May previous. A formal vote of thanks to him and Thomas Jefferson for their faithful services in Congress, is upon the records of that body, dated the 13th of October, 1776. From that time to his death, he was often a member of the legislature of his state, sometimes in one branch and sometimes in the other. He was a member of council when he died, and was in his seat only four days previous to his decease.

During the war, he had lost a large portion of his fortune by the British, and after its close he was extremely unfortunate, and was reduced to indigent and perplexing circumstances. For a time, he led his friends into speculative projects in order to resuscitate his adverse circumstances, all of which proved abortive, injuring them without benefiting him, and he finally sunk under a load of affliction, which produced an excitement that was followed by paralysis, a second attack of which ended his useful and eventful career, at Richmond, Virginia, on the 10th of October, 1797. Under all these trying circumstances, his reputation did not suffer, he lost none of his well earned fame as an able and faithful public servant, and an honest and worthy man. His private character was of the most amiable kind; he was a perfect gentleman, and fulfilled all the relations of life with fidelity. His name is justly placed high upon the list of enduring fame, as a man who was a faithful sentinel in the cause of equal rights, who contributed largely in consummating that independence we now enjoy, that freedom of which we boast, that liberty which we are bound to cherish, protect, preserve, and perpetuate.-Norfolk Beacon.

JEFFERSON ON EUROPEAN SOVEREIGNS.

LOUIS XVI. was a fool of my own knowledge, and in despite of the answers made for him at his trial. The King of Spain was a fool; of Naples the same. They passed their lives in hunting, and despatched two couriers a week, one thousand miles, to let each other know what game they had killed the preceding days. The King of Sardinia was a fool. All these were Bourbons. The Queen of Portugal, a Braganza, was an idiot by nature. And so was the King of Denmark. Their sons, as regents, exercised the powers of government. The King of Prussia, successor to the Great Frederick, was a mere hog in body as well as mind. Gustavus of Sweden, and Joseph of Austria, were really crazy, and George of England you know, was in a strait waistcoat. There remained then, none but old Catharine, who

had been too lately picked up to have lost her common sense. In this state Bonaparte found Europe: and it was this state of its rulers which lost it with scarce a struggle. These animals had become without mind and powerless; and so will every hereditary monarch be after a few generations. Alexander, the grandson of Catharine, is yet an exception. He is able to hold his own. But he is only of the third generation. His race

is not yet worn out. And so endeth the Book of Kings, from all of which the Lord deliver us.

THE INTEMPERATE HUSBAND. BY CHARLES SPRAGUE.

It is, my friend, in the degradation of a husband by intemperance, where she who has ventured every thing, feels that all is lost.Who shall protect her, when the husband of her choice insults and oppresses her? What shall delight her, when she shrinks from the sight of his face, and trembles at the sound of his voice?

The hearth is indeed dark, that he has made desolate. There through the dull midnight hour, her griefs are whispered to herself, her bruised heart bleeds in secret. — There, while the cruel author of her distress is drowned in revelry, she holds her solitary vigil, waiting, yet dreading his return, that is only to wring from her by unkindness, tears even more scalding than those she sheds over his transgression.

To fling a deeper gloom across the present, memory turns back, and broods upon the past. The joys of other days come over her as if only to mock her grieved and weary spirit.

She recalls the ardent lover, whose graces won her from the home of her infancy; the enraptured father, who bent with such delight over his new born children; and she asks, if this can be the same; this sunken being, who has nothing for her but the sot's disgusting brutality; nothing for those abashed and trembling children, but the sot's disgusting example!

Can we wonder, that amid these agonizing moments, the tender cords of violated affection should sunder? that the scorned and deserted wife should confess, "there is no killing like that which kills the heart?"—that though it would have been hard to kiss for the last time the cold lips of a dead husband, and lay his body for ever in the dust, it is harder still to behold him so debasing life that even death would be greeted in mercy?

Had he died in the light of his goodness, bequeathing to his family the inheritance of an untarnished name and the example of virtues that should blossom for his sons and daughters from the tomb, though she would

THE pious Mr. who, by the way, is suspected of being no better than he should be, notwithstanding all his professions, a short time since rebuked a well-known merchant of this city for using profane language.

"Your discourse is ungentlemanly and impious," said Mr. "You should break yourself of such an abominable practice."

"I know it," returned the dealer in cottonbales and profanity; "but most men fall into some error or other unknown to themselves, yet they are entirely innocent of all intention to do wrong, notwithstanding their little inaccuracies;—now I swear a great deal, and you pray a great deal, yet neither of us, I'm confident, means any thing by it."

The doctor, it is said, did not relish the joke.

DOCTORS are fond of ridiculing each other, and their controversies are at times quite amusing. Now it is well known that the practitioners of the old school have a mortal antipathy to the disciples of the new. Among your regular Galens, homœopathia is exceedingly unpopular-they scout it on all occasions. A lady called on Dr. Francis, an eminent practitioner, and an adherent of the Sangrado system, with an imaginary complaint of the heart, and was recommended by him in derision to try Dr. Hahnemann's method. "What is that ?" asked the invalid. 66 Why, madam,” said he, "it is a sovereign remedy for every complaint under the sun. In your case I would advise you to dissolve one grain of muriate of soda (common salt) in a hogshead of water, and take a teaspoonful every three months." The lady followed the advice thus given, and strange to say, after two doses, was entirely cured of her complaint, and recommended it to others as a specific in all similar cases. Such is the power of the imagination!

DURING the "panic" in the money market some few years ago, a meeting of merchants was held in the Exchange, to devise ways and means to extricate themselves from their pecuniary difficulties. The great hall was crowded, addresses were made, resolutions passed, committees appointed, and everything done that is usual and necessary. After all this, one of the company moved that the meeting stand adjourned until some future day, when up jumped a little jobber, in a great state of excitement, and requested the merchants to linger a moment, as he had something of the greatest importance to communicate. The jobber was known to be a very diffident person; and as he had never ventured on the responsibilities of a speech on any former public occasion, all were anxious to hear what he had to say. "Gentlemen," said he, with evident emotion, and in the most emphatic, feeling and eloquent manner, "what's the use of talking of some future day? We want relief, I tell you! immediate relief!" and down he sat amidst an universal roar of laughter.

The next day he failed.

THE late Charles Gilfert, the quondam manager of the Bowery Theatre, was a peculiar fellow, and one of the most fascinating men of his day. At Albany he met with a Mr. Lemair, a Frenchman, of whom he borrowed money until he nearly ruined him. Lemair was one day in a towering rage at the cause of his misfortunes, and used to tell the following characteristic story of his friend :-" "Monsieur Charles Gilfert, he come to Albany.

He have ruin me in my business-mes affaires. He borrow de l'argent from me to large amount. He go to New York, and promise to send him, right avay, ver quick. But, voyez-vous, when I write him, he return me von réponse inconvenante, von impudent answer, and say, I may go to de devil for look for him. I leave Albany instantly, determined to have the grand personal satisfaction for the affront he put upon me. I walk straight avay from de bateau à vapeur, de steamboat. I go to my boarding-house. I procure von large stick, and rush out of de pension to meet him. By-and-by, bientôt, I see him von large vay off, very remotely. I immediately button up my coat vith strong determination, and hold my stick fierce in my hand, to break his neck several time. Ven he come near, my indignation rise. He put out his hand. I reject him. He smile, and look over his spectacles at me. I say, you von scoundrel, coquin infame. He smile de more, and make un grand effort, a great trial, to pacify my grande indignation, and before he leave me, he borrow twenty dollare from me once more, by gar! A ver pleasant man vas Monsieur Charles Gilfert; ver nice man to borrow l'argent, ma foi !"

GILFERT, like Sheridan, was in the habit of borrowing money from every body, very little of which was ever paid back; but he always intended to return it at the time he promised. He was a visionary man, and did not make the best calculations in the world. We heard of his meeting a friend in the Bowery, one day, when the following circumstance took place:

"Ah," said Gilfert, "you are the very man I wanted to see. Lend me two hundred dollars."

"I would, in a moment," replied his friend, "but it is impossible. I have a note to pay, and I don't know where to get the money." "A note," said Gilfert, "so have I. me see your notice."

Let

The gentleman produced it from his pocketbook.

"Well," said Gilfert, "how much are you short?"

"About two hundred dollars," said his friend. To his utter surprise, Gilfert handed him the

ward man exhibited the last instalment of a mildewed straw hat, the contingent remainder of half a shirt, and a small quantity of pantaloons; and he boasted that he had not had on a shoe for three months." The inner man, of course, was all rum.

Negro shrewdness.—A gentleman sent his black servant to purchase some fish.-He The fishwent to a stall and took up a fish. monger observing him, exclaimed,

"Hollo, you black rascal, what do you smell my fish for." The negro replied, "Me no smell."

"What are you doing then, sir?" " Why me talk to him, massa, me ask him what news at sea-dat's all, massa.'

"And what does he say to you."—" He say he don't know-he no been dere dese tree weeks!"

A love letter.-Miss Mary ModerationMadam: Most worthy of estimation; after long consideration and much meditation on the great reputation you possess in the nation, I have a strong inclination to become your relation; on your approbation of this declaration, I shall make preparation to remove my situation to a more convenient station to profess admiration; if such oblation deserves observation, and can obtain commisseration, it will be an aggravation beyond all calculation of the joy and exultation of yours,

SANS DISSIMULATION.

Dangerous fire.-An old lady of corpulent dimensions, who had the misfortune not to wear a bustle of the modern kind, but an old-fashioned pocket in place thereof, lately sat down quite suddenly on a box of lucifer matches, which she had stowed away in her pocket. The suddenness and weight of the concussion had the instantaneous effect of making the matches burst into a flame, causing the adjacent parts of the lady's dress to give way to the devouring element, which in a few moments, did not leave her fit to be seen. Happily, prompted by her own presence of mind, she rushed to the kitchen, where a large washing-tub, filled with rainwater happened to be conveniently placed, and sat down in the hostile element in time to arrest the flames. The loss is not mentioned, nor is it stated whether the premises had been insured.

A Daniel come to Judgment.-Some Solon has just discovered that pure gold in leaf will preserve beauty. What has this fellow been doing all his life?-Does he not know, that pure gold in any state will not only preserve, but that it will create beauty out of ugliness?

The Boston Post says: There is a man down South who celebrates his birth day by paying for all his newspapers. Another editor asks, why not make him President?

THE INDIAN FIGHTER.

By the Author of "FRANCIS BERRIAN.' WHOEVER has travelled far, and seen many men, has seen much sorrow. That lonely man of singular habits, so well known, by those who navigate the Upper Mississippi, by the name of Indian Fighter, or the Hermit of Cap au Gris, has at length paid his last debt; and I am released from my promise, not to relate the passages of his life, until he was no more. I well know that the life of man is everywhere diversified with joy and wo; and that his story is but one of countless millions, varied only in the lights and shades. But it seemed right to me, to declare to the proud inhabitants of cities, that scenes of tragic interest, and incidents of harrowing agony, rise on the vision and pass away unrecorded in the desert. As I sojourned on the prairies of Illinois, I experienced for one night, the well known and ample hospitality of the hermit, and over his cheerful autumnal fire heard the following narrative of the more prominent events of his life.

"The pride of life hath long since passed away from me. But it is due to the simplicity of fact, to declare, that my family in

VOL. I.

Britain was patrician, of no ignoble name, or stinted possessions. A hereditary lawsuit deprived us of all but the mere wreck of our fortunes. We came over the seas, to escape from the scene of our pride and humiliation. We crossed the western mountains. We were borne down the forests of the beautiful Ohio. We ascended the majestic father of waters, and debarked on the devious and secluded Maccoupin, which, after winding through the central woods and prairies of Illinois, pays its tribute to the Upper Mississippi, some leagues above the mouth of the Missouri.

"With us emigrated a band of backwoodsmen, who sought their homes on these fair and untrodden plains. As friends knit by the ties of common pursuits, and the strong bond of intending to be fellow dwellers in the desert, we selected contiguous farms on the open grass plains; and our cabins rose under the peccans and sugar maples, that formed a skirt of deep and beautiful forest on the banks of the stream. We were fresh from the fastidious creations of luxury and art. I well remember the day when our ten's were first pitched in the wild. Here all was fresh nature, as in our forsaken home

K

all had been marked with the labour of men. The sky was beautifully blue and cloudless; and the mild south gently rustled the trees, as it bore fragrance in soft whispers along the flowering wilderness. The huge straight trees were all moss-covered; and their grey trunks rose proudly, like columns. The starting hares, and deers, and the wild denizens of the woods bounded away from our path. Eagles and carrion vultures soared above our heads. Birds with brilliant plumage of red, green, and gold, sang among the branches. The countless millions of water dwellers, awakened from the long sleep of winter, mingled their cries in the surrounding waters. We added to this promiscuous hymn of nature the clarion echoes of our bugles, the baying of our dogs, all the glad domestic sounds of animals that have joined partnership with man, the hearty blows of the woodcutter's axe, the crash of falling trees, and the reckless wood notes of the first songs which these solitudes had heard from the creation. I look back upon these pleasant, and too fond remembrances, as a green island in the illimitable darkness of the past.

"We consecrated our cabin in this forest with the affecting and tender name of home. I have seen many a spot since, where nature is beautiful in privacy and seclusion, as it should seem, for her own solitary joy; but none more like Eden than this. I had scarcely lived twenty years. I had seen the richly dressed and haughty fair of my native country and of American cities, as an equal, and all with the same indifference. It may be that the heart has more tender sentiments, the eye keener perceptions, and the imagination more vivid and varied combinations, in places like these, than amidst the palling and commonplace associations of art. Little had I dreamed that in these wild forests I was to see a vision of loveliness, which will for ever remain impressed upon my memory and my heart, like the stamp of the seal upon wax. Here is the image of the loved one, I hope innocently worn along with that of my Saviour. I pass my eye from one to the other; and while I remember that they are both in heaven, I long to rejoin them."

His voice failed for a moment; and he took from his bosom, where it hung with a crucifix, on which, engraven on a gem, was the head of a Jesus, a miniature of a beautiful girl, with raven locks, and radiant eyes of piercing blackness. It showed a countenance of uncommon loveliness even to me, who saw with impartial view.

But the eye of a lover discovers perfection where less entranced vision sees only common beauty. As I intensely viewed the miniature in different lights, he proceeded, in the luxuriant amplification of a lover's poetry, to paint his beloved with a pencil dipped in sunbeams.

The am

brosial curls, the divine expression of a melting eye, the lily and the rose in her cheek, the snowy neck, the majestic form, in short, the usual illustrations of that vocabulary were all put in requisition.

"She, too," he resumed, replacing the miniature in his bosom, "before she had seen sixteen summers, had seen reverses; and her piercing eye sometimes swam in a languor, which told a tale of sorrow. Her father had ventured all on the seas; and his wealth had been merged in the fickle element. His proud spirit, like mine, brooked not the affected pity of those who had shared in the hospitality of his better days. He sought repose in the same forests, and had selected his home on the same stream a few leagues above. In passing near our cabin, his horse, affrighted by the starting of a hare from his path, had thrown him. I found him, bore him home, and nursed him, during his lameness, till he was able to return to his own house. Next time we saw him, he brought his lovely daughter with him on a visit to our settlement. I no longer complained of the tedium of slumbering affections, or spoke in derision of the mock torments of love.

The

"The time of her visit was a sweet April evening; and the place an extensive sugar camp, near our cluster of cabins. The greater portion of our settlement were gathered round the caldrons and the blazing fires in that pleasant valley. The sugar maple poured its rich syrup abundantly; and the tree itself, the fairest of the American forest, had begun to start the germs of its leaves beneath its brilliant red flowers, fresh air told that the snow had not yet all melted from the higher hills. But violets, columbines, the white clover, the cornel, and red bud already mingled their fragrance in the evening breeze. A requiem to departing day was lulling the song birds to rest among their branches. A number of black servants engaged in the work, sang, in the strain of their spicy native groves, songs, at once gay and plaintive, which breathed remembrances of the lote and the palm. Steaming above the bright fires arose the fragrance of the forming crystals. The aged parents sat under the trees, and told their feats of hunting buffaloes and bears, and their still sterner contests with the Indians. The young men and their elected maidens were grouped apart. A fat and joyous black, as laughing and as reckless as though he had neither heard nor known the import of the word slave, scraped his violin. At the note the scattered groups left their satisfying privacy for the more exciting sport of the dance. The Africans, meanwhile, enacted their own under plot of still more boisterous gladness; and, when weary with laughter, sipped the syrup, and, imitating the phrase of the adja