But an Oyster dandy saw the maid

"Oh, split me," said he, "miss, if I am afraid!”
So tighter he brac'd his corset shell,

And strutted away with a Broadway swell.
And he told the maid, as he twirled his seal,
"He'd die at her feet, if a dandy could kneel."
"Oh, sir," said she, "since that can't be,
You know you can hang yourself on a tree.
And the Oyster raved-"But no," said she,
“You never shall die of scorn from me."
So she gave him her ruby red hand to kiss,
And he felt like a fish in a sea of bliss ;
But the Crab, he cocked his hat in their faces,
And challeng'd the Oyster to fight at two paces.
The ground was marked, and they took their stand,
And a Barnacle gave the word of command;
They took their aim, and the Oyster fell!
But, alas, the worst of the tale is to tell;
For while he weltering ay in his shell,
A giddy young Muscle that passed that way,
And saw the end of the fatal affray,

Declared that the Lobster's love was a sham,
For he'd just seen her married that morn to a Clam

ELEGY.

"Her voice was ever soft,

Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman."

APOLLO's lyre is in my hand, but where's the minstrel god, Whose matchless voice of old was heard by mountain, 'vale, and

flood?

These chords his magic fingers should alone awake-and why? The beautiful alone may mourn the beautiful that die.

My lyre! I charge thee whisper in thy selectest tone,
Why thou in leaves of cypress art o'er my shoulder thrown?
Speak mournfully and softly, since thou hast dared to try
In song, the wildly changing light that fills the dying eye!

Thou sayest, I sing of her who lived, but now is dead and gone; Of hearts now broke as dew-drops break, which meet and melt

to one:

Of death, the swift familiar-of smiles, when life had flown, Like the lingering streaks of sunshine when the orb itself is

down.

The laughing May is coming soon, but thou shalt come no more !

The birds will sing, the flowers will bloom, as sweetly as before;

But thine own rapturous melody-thy roses, white and red— Where are they? fled to that lone land of things remembered!

Few days are past, since to our lips the sparkling cup we raised;

Thy health we drank, while brightly by the happy fireside blazed;

Oh how our eyes hung over thee, our hearts toward thee

burned,

In wishes, that thy golden hair to silver might be turned.

The archangelic trump shall sound and wake the world's long sleep,

And awfully o'er land and sea its thunder-peals shall leap! The dead of ages then shall quake, but to thy slumbering ear, Like the silver voice of seraph harps, oh may its blast appear!

N.

A NIGHTMARE.

"A foal of nightmare; marry, and well named."-Old Play.

"Well, December has set in, and we shall find the nights long enough for all our dreams. Even Bob Noodle, that was wont to snooze away July afternoons behind hay-stacks, can now keep about house without nodding "-Old Almanack.

THAT "all men are born free and equal," is the great political axiom under which our country has grown vastly powerful and happy. The lawyers talk of beautiful fictions of the law-mere fictions, on which principles of jurisprudence are made to rest, solid and philosophical, and of the most beneficent tendency; but to speak of a fiction in politics, would, doubtless, be as absurd as to prate of a fiction in ethics or mathematics; it would be a palpable solecism. All men, in one sense, at least, are, it would seem, brought to a level so that there is, after all, one common ground upon which we can all

meet-and I am very glad to hear it; for I had been ruminating upon the varieties and contradictions of tastes, and temper and disposition, physical, moral, and intellectual, until I had grown almost to conclude, that society was getting out of joint, and an ideal chaos was fast picturing itself to my brain; when, as I puffed my segar, and watched the graceful foldings and curvings of the cloudy volumes I poured forth, a quieting influence luckily came to my relief. A drowsy inertness began to gather upon my faculties-a calm so thorough had spread itself over my nervous system, that sense itself seemed ebbing gradually away. There appeared, however, a glimpse of intellect left, but it seemed as a dim taper placed in the midst of wild and fantastic images that excited wonder, without the power of satisfying curiosity. Every thing was mystical and strange about me. I was conscious of some kind of existence; but whether it was purely spiritual, or whether a corporeal nature pertained to it, I could not well determine. There were some circumstances which inclined me to the latter conclusion. I thought I could discern an uncomfortable compression of my limbs; then, as I attempted to extend them, something so very like the annoying properties of sharp pointed rafters and unclenched nails saluted the extremities, that I became almost convinced that I was not free from the ills of humanity. I made an effort to rub my eyes, and grasped something soft, which, after maturely debating the matter with myself, I made out to bear very much the resemblance of a cobweb. It also seemed to me, that my sense of smelling was not totally lost; I was ready to swear to a dry, pent up, woody effluvia, which at first threatened me with suffocation. But I was again confounded at the wonderful readiness with which my organs, if I had any, accommodated themselves to this state of atmosphere. I thereupon felt encouraged, and essaying again my ability at vision, clearly perceived a ray of light at a great distance above me in a perpendicular line. I lay motionless some time, speculating upon my situation. Had I fallen into the crater of some extinguished volcano, or got rammed by mistake into one of Queen Ann's pocket-pieces? or was I under the operation of some spell of enchantment? I tried to call to mind all that I had ever read or heard about

witchcraft and necromancy. A pantomime occurred to me, wherein I had seen upon the stage the process of animating Harlequin. First, a leg had been made to move by a touch of the magic wand, then an arm, until, by degrees, a wonderful activity was imparted to every limb in his body. I cast my eyes up to the light over my head, and then thought of the VOL. II.

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wonderful feats of Harlequin, until I found myself actually on the ascent. Thus encouraged, I scrambled and climbed, and at last got my head upon a level with four panes of glass, which it seemed were the medium through which that light had been admitted that had caused me such doubt. I straightway peeped out, and found my encasement to be no other than a tall spire, or turret, belonging to a church. I cast my eyes anxiously around, and became almost convinced that I was still a human being, and overlooking the bustle of a great city. Huge masses of stone and brick were heaped in every direction below me; tiles glittered under my gaze, and great gullying streets sent upward the hum of perpetual clamour and motion. Men and women looked like the figures of a puppet-show; their diminutive eagerness of action caused me to laugh. Here is Lilliput in good earnest, thought I. Oh! ye petty dwellers in dust and difficulty! here am I, mounted above ye all, and can overlook ye all! In truth, I waxed marvellously selfcomplacent, and had no one to oppose my humour, as there was no living thing in my vicinity excepting a large black spider, who inhabited a cranny of the old turret, and the martins that fluttered about the weathercock. Nevertheless, my complacency soon wore off with the sense of novelty, and a weight of listlessness began to press upon my heart. I saw a boy blowing soap bubbles out at a garret window, and two doves cooing upon the roof of a house, and fell into a mood of sentimental sadness. The idea of distance, let me turn my head which way I would, was always most prominently before me, and it cannot therefore be wondered at, if my meditations were carried quite back to my schoolboy days. I thought of the little damsel, with a checked tire, that the schoolmaster almost flogged the tender passion out of my nature for penning a copy of verses to-of the tear that stood in her soft blue eye the while-of her growing malapert as she grew up, and at last marrying an alderman, and turning out a dash. Here my own eyes grew dim, and I was fain to seek relief for my sensibilities by thrusting forth my moralizing vein, to expatiate at large over the great panorama of life. But I soon found that the springs of the most enduring delights, as well as the sources of the most acute and bitter sorrow, are only to be found within a narrow circle. Spread over a wide surface, thought becomes thin, and feeling superficial. Objects and points of interest to the moral and intellectual, as well as the material vision, are scattered and made dim by distance. Chequered and various as the world is, yet, viewed in the general, the effect of contrast and picturesque arrangement, and all that gives relief and

beauty to the individual landscape, are effaced and lost to the sense. One unvaried tameness stretches throughout the whole. Nor will the mind, thrown upon itself, fail soon to become weary and dissatisfied. But if the recluse, who, from excessive refinement, cherishes his sympathies apart from the world, dreading the contact of vanity or of artifice as a blight upon their purity, tastes the heaviness of solitude, and is in danger of sinking under a moody misanthropy; how much more pitiable must he be, who, looking down upon his fellow men, has not only the languor of loneliness, but the weight of his own vanity to sustain. And yet a fallacious promise is for ever uttering itself forth in the breath of the million. The cravings of ambition are pampered by it; and in the swell of exultation, and the short-lived ecstacy of triumph, men are seen to take a willing leave of every real good, and renounce, in the levity of intoxication, all chance of solid happiness. The truth is, that action and passion, the strong and quickening impulses, as well as the less obtrusive and more delicately constituted order of our perceptions, owe their highest power and their best influences to an innate acknowledgment of nearness-a home-bred claim of communion-a principle by which warmth and freshness is given to the affections, and freedom, and life, and healthful vigour, is thrown around the social character. I was almost startled to find myself drawing such positive deductions, for a strange sense of being and not being still adhered to me. An invisible spell seemed exercising a fantastic power over me, which I could not control or account for; and I know not but under its influence I might have been held to tenant my old tower as perseveringly as the Egyptian kings their pyramids, had not an incident occurred, which suddenly translated me into new regions of wonder. I have mentioned the large black spider that occupied a nook at my elbow. Reverential and decorous in his carriage, he at first attracted my notice and good will. By degrees, he became to me as a humble companion and pet, and, odd as it may seem, I began to have a sort of an affection towards him. The last recollection I have of my steeple abode, was seeing this spider crawl from his nest, and get upon a beam, when, in the midst of a sympathetic intercourse of kindness between us, he suddenly disengaged his hold and dropped. At that instant I became possessed with the sensation of one falling with great rapidity, seated upon a woolsack and unreeling silk, until I found myself landed safely in a spacious piazza below. In my journey downward, I experienced, as I drew nearer to fresh air, all my fancies about Harlequin to be returning, and as my