ing up their bare legs in the air. The wicker gate gradually opened, and an aged man, with white locks, approached, leaning on the top of his staff. It is father Williams,' said Mrs. Kushow, and with a kind alacrity, ran to place a cushioned chair in the porch.

"Young folks think old folks fools,' began the patriarch, with difficulty, bending, and fetching a sigh in the interim, but old folks know young ones to be so;' and he immediately began to caution Robin against selling the estate.' He said that he had lived fifty years in the neighborhood of Black-Stump, and had not lived all that time for nought. That he had seen such 'carryings-on' before, and that the end of them all was ruination. He did not say that Crow Hill might not be sold for ten thousand dollars, but he did say it would be the worst thing that could happen to its owner. For those whom Fortune favors with her golden smiles, are most likely, in the end, to be irretrievably ruined. He told him to 'let well enough alone;' that ' all was not gold that glistened,' and in many a homely adage and proverb, 'none the worse for wear,' went on to caution him. But it did not produce the good effect intended. His mind was made up.' The more he listened to reason, the more stiff-necked he became; and when he found no answer to argument, his mind took refuge in unalterable resolution. The old man gave up disputing with him, and told him to take his own way.

On the eve of the expected day of sale, Robin retired to bed at an early hour, but could not for a long time sleep, for thinking. He lay on his back, smiling in the dark, carried away with sweet anticipations. At last, nature could hold out no longer; his eyes grew heavy, and he slept. But it was a disturbed repose, not like the wellearned reward of toil. He muttered like a guilty man, threw his arms wildly about, started up, snorted abruptly, and nearly kicked his wife out of bed. In the midst of his slumbers, he had a dream. He dreamed that the trial was past, that the long agony was over, It was even as he had predicted, and he was rich. No more ploughing, no more sowing, no more earning his bread by the sweat of his brow. He delivered the homestead to strangers, and turned his back upon the hill. He set out on a long journey to visit his parents. They were old and decrepid, and he wished to see them before they died. A year passed away, for in dreams time is nothing, and he returned to his old abode. He did not know the place. The spirit of change had been busy. A great town had sprung up. Instead of the voice of the bird, he heard the hum of men, and the rattling of wheels, instead of the croaking of bull-frogs. The duckpond was become a beautiful lake, and the clap-boarded hovel a stately mansion, colonnaded, and with windows down to the floor, the future residence of Robert Kushow. He was revelling in the very clover of this dream, when he awoke.

It was morning, a beautiful morning. The unclouded sun was brilliantly rising, as if to give earnest of a bright and prosperous day. Robin sprang from his bed, threw up the sash, and looked out. The refreshing breath of the morning met him, and the sweet song and carol of the birds. He heard the dear familiar voice of the quail, distinctly aspirating from the distant fields, B..o..b Wh-ite! B..o..b Wh-ite!' He plunged his whole head into a basin of water, dressed

himself expeditiously, and with the most buoyant spirits, burried forth to attend to his necessary affairs, and to make his arrangements to go to the city. I shall record his subsequent adventures and successes, in another and concluding number.

THE HURON WIDOW'S FAREWELL.

Ir a Huron woman dream thrice of her deceased husband, she believes that he requires her preence in the 'land of souls,' and immediately obeys the summons by a voluntary death, commonly putting a period to her existence by a dose of poison.' OLD NEW-YORK MAGAZINE.

We have met! - we have met! I have seen him now,
With his stately step, and his lofty brow;

We have met in the beautiful land of dreams,'

And he rov'd with me there by the still blue streams,

'Neath a brighter sun and a purer sky

Than hath ever yet beamed on my waking eye.

In the beautiful land of dreams we met,
And I heard his voice I can hear it yet!
With its deep, rich, musical tones, that stole
Like a spell of enchantment, o'er my soul;
And how did my bounding heart rejoice

At the long-hush'd sound of my warrior's voice!

Farewell! fare ye well! I have heard his call
Earth, sea, and bright sky! I must leave ye all;
No more shall I dwell in the hut of my sire,
Or move with the dance, round our council-fire;

I must leave the green earth, which methinks never wore
An aspect so fair in my fancy before.

And fare thee well, also, my warrior's son;

We are parting for ever, unconscious one;

Dost thou laugh my boy?- for the last time thou

Art clasp'd to a parent's bosom now;

Thou wilt sport on my grave at eve, nor know

That the heart which most loved thee, lies mould'ring below.

Thou hast tortures to bear, a proud fame to be won,

And the death of thy sire to avenge, like his son;

May thy name be the dread of our foeman's ear,

Son of a race that are strangers to fear!

But I shall not hear, with a mother's joy,

Of thy deeds on the war-path, my Huron boy!

And to thee, oh my sire! must another bring
Thy drink at eve from the crystal spring;
No more shall the hand of a daughter guide
Thy light canoe o'er the clear blue tide,
Nor again shall I join the choral throng,

When the deeds of my sire are the theme of song.

Farewell to thee, father! I know that thou,
'Neath the weight of years, art bending now;
Yet I go from thee, father! I must depart,
And childless I leave thee, all old as thou art!
Thine eyes must be clos'd by a stranger's hand,
When thou wingest thy way to the spirit land.'

And fare thee well, mother! I grieve for thee-
Lonely and sad will thy dwelling-place be;
Thou hast wept o'er the fall of thy valiant sons,
And I only am left of thy cherish'd ones!
Thy grief will be such as time softeneth not,
For the heart of a mother hath ne'er forgot!

Yet my smile at thy waking must cheer thee no more,
Nor my song when thy daily toils are o'er;
There is none, oh my mother! I leave thee none,
To sooth thee in sorrow, when I am gone;
But the summons hath come, and I must depart,
Though unsolaced I leave thee to anguish of heart.

Yet lament not, my mother! our souls shall greet
In that land where the dead and the living meet,
Where the friends we have wept come around once more,
With the smiles which their living features wore,
Oft my spirit shall come, by the calm moonbeams,
To gladden thy soul in the land of dreams.'

But farewell!- for I hear the rejoicing sounds
That come from the 'happy hunting-grounds;'
And the voice of my husband hath met mine ear,
Yet I still am a faint-hearted lingerer here;
Farewell! fare ye well! I have heard his call
Son! mother! and sire! I must leave ye all!

Newport, (Rhode-Island,) July, 1838.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

ITS MORAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE ON AMERICA, AND THE WORLD AT LARGE.

BY J. R. TYSON, ESQ.

&.&. C.

THE state of Europe, at the period of the American Revolution, is too well known to require elucidation. On the continent, despotism was personified in the sovereigns, and servitude in the people. Political writers declaimed about liberty in the abstract, but popular equality was not supposed to constitute a part of rational freedom. Religion, over all Europe, wore the frowning aspect of intolerance. That atrocity, known as the African slave-trade, received the countenance and favor of princes. Papal supremacy was sought to be perpetuated in Spain and Portugal, by the cruel tyranny of the Inquisition. The doctrines of jurisprudence were perplexed by the subtlety of feudal dialectics; and the very forms of legal proceeding, embarrassed by conflicting authorities, or confounded by opposing principles, were more intricate and complicated than the ultimate question to be decided. Wager of Battel,' that barbarous remnant of a barbarous age, famous at least as the parent of modern duelling, was permitted to deform the boasted system of English law. Europe presented, in her penal codes, a spectacle of cruelty, only equalled by the remorseless spirit in which they were administered.

Morality and virtue could scarcely flourish in a soil so unpropitious to their vegetation. France, during the reigns of Louis the Fourteenth and Fifteenth, presented the lowest condition of moral feeling which can characterize a nation at large. In the eloquent language of Sir James Mackintosh, a great part of that period was the consummation of whatever was afflicting and degrading in the history of the human race.' 'On the recollection of such scenes,' says he, 'I blush as a scholar for the prostitution of letters; as a man, I blush for the patience of humanity.'

But Europe had something to expect from a country upon which she had bestowed all the benignant influences of her genius, refinement, and knowledge. The world had something to hope from the recognition of a new principle, on a new theatre. It might naturally be expected that human nature, incited by more powerful motives of action, surrounded by new objects, and less shackled by the restraints and prejudices of older systems of society, would exhibit itself in more interesting and striking aspects than before. Let us then briefly examine how these expectations have been fulfilled, and what contribution has been made in payment of the debt, which, as a nation, we owe to the common cause of science and humanity.

The experiment of self-government, that is, the competency of man to govern himself, was the great problem which we solemnly engaged, in the eyes of all Europe and the world, to solve. We assumed this task in adopting a form of government which Montesquieu and other speculative philosophers had denounced as impracticable, in a large community. History presented no instance of success in a republic, and no example whatever, upon the basis of representation. In the democracies of Greece, the people were not numerous, and the territories were small. They assembled in a plain, and performed those acts of legislation, which, in larger and more populous districts, could only have been accomplished through the agency of representatives. The government of the United States, therefore, presents the example of a political structure, which in its extent and machinery, is wholly new. It is daring enough to challenge a prototype in the long history of ages. In an age of paganism or ignorance, without the aids of the press, and the enlightening influence of Christianity, such an effort would have proved more visionary than the Eutopia of Plato. But with these auxiliaries, happiness, prosperity, and enterprise, moral advancement and intellectual vigor, have been the results. It has quickened mind into action, in every department of life. It has given to it the wholesome direction of a more ardent pursuit after new and beneficial truths. It has turned the attention of the human mind from the busy idleness of a vain erudition, into channels more conducive to sound science, and the exaltation of the human race.

Let us mark the course of this principle, in its onward movement, and trace its diffusive and beautiful career in this country and abroad. Religious freedom was too intimately blended with political liberty, to be overlooked in the category of human rights. A free-born conscience demanded that religion should be purified from the taint of intolerance, and that no man should be excluded from office, nor rest under civil disability, on account of his religious belief. The principles of Coddington, Williams, Lord Baltimore, and Penn, were at once engrafted into the constitution of the government established at the revolution. They found in their adopted trunk a soil prepared for their reception. They sent forth their heaven-directed branches high into the air; offering to the bereaved and outcast sectary, of every creed, a shade and security from the heats of persecution. What but these have removed the legal burthens of the Jews in Maryland, and the Catholics in North Carolina? What but these were the means of proclaiming Catholic emancipation in Great Britain; and exciting in that kingdom the recent though unsuccess

ful attempt in behalf of the Jews? What but these have proclaimed religious freedom in the kingdom of Denmark, and the cantons of Switzerland? And what but these are sundering the fetters imposed by bigotry and superstition in other parts of Europe?

From the recognition of political and religious liberty, as the proper attribute of man, it might be inferred that the destruction of legal servitude would follow. But that burthen, which was imposed by Elizabeth, has not been removed in the age of Victoria. Though the acclaim of 'universal emancipation,' which burst from these shores, has resounded in the dull ears of despotic Austria, and penetrated to distant India, the anomaly of existing bondage is exhibited under the freest form of government, and amidst the contagion of the most liberal ideas, which prevail upon earth. Aside from other considerations, it offers to the philosophic mind a subject for reflection, under the weight of which Philosophy herself must stagger. It shows at least how hard it is, by the mere potency of an abstract doctrine, however aided by policy and humanity, to break down the prejudices which have been nursed by time, and strengthened by interest. Though the early and signal effort of colonial Pennsylvania to abolish the slave trade in 1712, and that of South Carolina in 1760, were frustrated by the cupidity of the British merchants, yet the effect of the great idea adopted at the revolution, was soon afterward felt. The slave trade was carried on in England with unexampled rapacity, and under the protecting guardianship of her laws, at a time when Pennsylvania abolished servitude itself. In surveying the progressive effects of the doctrines of the revolution, let it not be forgotten, that in eleven years after that epoch, was formed a memorable association, by whose benevolent instrumentality the African slave trade was uprooted in Great Britain. Notwithstanding the power of this combination, and the determined vigor by which it was animated—an union composed of the friends of freedom and humanity in America and Europe-it eluded their pursuit, and resisted their perseverance, for a period of twenty years! Such a truth conveys a mortifying but impressive lesson. great must have been the tenacity of interest, how dull the insensibility of habit, to require a period of twenty years to abolish a traffic, which is now, by the united voice of civilized states, denounced as inhuman, and punished as piratical!

How

The natural aliment of that freedom which the national independence secured, is intelligence among the people. Knowledge is not merely the parent of liberty, but constituting an element of its nature, is as essential to its existence as the air is to animal life. The child of mental light, each new idea must impart to it nourishment and strength; and its growth must be in exact proportion to the inlets of science. If science be erroneous or impure, so must that essence be diseased or healthy, which depends upon it for vitality and nurture. Perhaps no country can present a population more intelligent and informed than the United States. No longer confined to the professed scholar, or the cloistered clerk, knowledge is distributed over the community with the undistinguishing profusion of the breath of heaven:

'Her handmaid, Art, now all our wilds explores,
Traces our waves, and cultures all our shores.'