hands, saying something kind and consoling, while the r gifts were munificent.

The princesses shed tears over the sufferings they beheld, and enclosed their delicate hands in the iron grasp of Jack, as he lay restless on his couch of pain; but still he was an object of envy to me, as the beauteous Marie Antoinette bent over him with looks of pity, that an angel might have envied, while her coral lips gave utterance to the most melodious sounds that ever extracted the sting from the anguish of the suffering, either in mind or body.

The last object of attention to the royal party, was my excellent friend and brother signal-midshipman, Mr. West; the chaplain making way for us. Here was a change shocking to behold the fine apple-cheeked, bold boy, had shrunk into a withered, and apparently old man, by his sufferings; fevered, emaciated, and wan, he lay a ghastly spectacle. Lord Nelson, with great feeling, took him by the hand, praised his courage, told him he was promoted by him, and hailed him as Lieutenant West. No emotion was shown by the heroic boy, no other word uttered by him than “drink : the young princess, with great promptitude, divided an orange, and squeezed the juice on his parched lips.

Lord Nelson introduced the Queen of Naples and her fair daughters as mourning his misfortunes, in which, in truth, they took a deep interest, as they stood by his cot in tears: he exhorted him to look forward to long life, and high rank in his profession: the surgeon shook his head, and whispered, an hour was the utmost tenure he held of this world, as the wound had gangrened. The good-natured hero seemed much shocked, and showed great emotion. The boy, finding relief and gratification from the kind exertions of the princess, opened his eyes with a death-like stare, as she bent over him at once he seemed to comprehend his situation; the blood again rallied to the heart; the pulse that had nearly ceased, again resumed its beat; animation lighted up his eyes as he surveyed the beautiful vision, he, no doubt, thought of his far-distant home, and its affectionate inmates. I heard him audibly sigh, and saw him make a feeble attempt to kiss the fair hand that had so kindly administered to his wants. It was the last effort of expiring nature: the gallant boy dropped on his pillow, his fine eyes assumed the glazed hue of death, the rattles in the throat gave notice of the difficulty of respiration; and the surgeon announced him to be in his last agonies.

Who, 'mid his elements of being, wrought,
We know not: · Heaven can tell.

Rise, sculptured pile!

And show a race unborn, who rests below;
And say to mothers what a holy charge

Is theirs, with what a kingly power their love
Might rule the fountains of the new-born mind.
Warn them to wake at early dawn, — and sow
Good seed, before the world hath sown her tares;
Nor in their toil decline; that angel-bands
May put the sickle in, and reap for God,
And gather to his garner.

Ye, who stand,

With thrilling breast, to view her trophied praise,
Who nobly reared Virginia's godlike chief,-
Ye, whose last thought upon your nightly couch,
Whose first at waking, is your cradled son,
What though no high ambition prompts to rear
A second Washington, or leave your name
Wrought out in marble, with a nation's tears
Of deathless gratitude;

yet may you raise

A monument above the stars,

a soul

Led, by your teachings and your prayers, to God!

EXERCISE CLXIX.

FEMALE SENTIMENTALISTS.

Mrs. Sandford.

THE sympathy which works of fiction excite, though it has in it something tender and romantic, by no means involves real feeling. The young woman who is versed in romances, will, no doubt, acquire the language of sentiment. She will have a sigh and a tear for every occasion, a languishing look, and a nervous palpitation; she will condole with every tale of distress, and be exuberant, at least, in her professions of sympathy. She will even imagine it very pretty and picturesque to appear in a cottage, to drop a guinea on a poor man's table, and to receive, with blushing modesty, his lavish thanks. But when the effort is really to be made, when she finds that charity involves self-denial

and exertion, that she must rise from her luxurious couch, and soil her silken sandals, and encounter, perhaps, rudeness and ingratitude from the objects of her relief; and that all this is to be done without observation or applause; that there is no one to overhear her silver voice, or to watch her gliding footsteps, or to trace her fairy form as she passes down the village street, then her philanthropic ardour cools; — she shrinks from the painful duty, and discovers that what is very interesting and poetic in description, is very dull and irksome in practice.

The very morbidness of her sensibility, is a bar to the real exercise of benevolence: she cannot bear to look upon pain. There is so much that is offensive in human misery, and unromantic in its detail; there is so much that is appalling in scenes of misery, and sickness, and death, that she recoils from the mere observation of such calamities, and shuts her eyes, and closes her ears to genuine distress, — from the same feelings that cause her to scream at the approach of a spider, or faint at the sight of blood. Yet she delights to nurse imaginary griefs, to live in an ideal world, and so to pamper her fancy, and excite her sensibility, that they alone become to her prolific sources of unhappiness.

Who

There is a romance in grief, that is highly poetic. There is something sublime, in the extremity of human woe. does not feel its pathos, when he reads of Antigone, or of Hecuba, of the daughter of Aiah, or of the widow of Nain? Who does not feel it, when he witnesses or experiences the too frequent tragedies of ordinary life?

Yet here there is also danger in the indulgence of sentiment. There may be a pride in the excess of grief. There may be a luxury in the exuberance of tears. There may be a dreaming trance, in which the sufferers find almost pleasure, and from which they will not descend. And thus they may shroud themselves in their grief, and discard every thing which would divert them from its contemplation, and indulge in a fond and sentimental reverie, which they may almost imagine it a desecration to disturb.

This is not unfrequently the case with women whose minds are sensitive, but weak, and who seem to make a merit of giving way to sorrow. But it is a perversion of feeling, not its consequence. For that sentiment is, in reality, most intense that does not indulge itself in expression; that grief most affecting that is not selfish; that emotion most noble and

I see thee still;

Here was thy summer noon's retreat,
Here was thy favourite fireside seat;
This was thy chamber, - - here, each day,
I sat and watched thy sad decay;
Here, on this bed, thou last didst lie,
Here, on this pillow, thou didst die.
Dark hour! once more its woes unfold;
As then I saw thee, pale and cold,
I see thee still.

I see thee still;

Thou art not in the grave confined,
Death cannot claim the immortal Mind.
Let Earth close o'er its sacred trust;
But goodness dies not in the dust :
Thee, O my Sister 'tis not thee
Beneath the coffin's lid I see;
Thou to a fairer land art gone : — 、
Then, let me hope, - my journey done,—
To see thee still!

EXERCISE CL.

A DIRGE. Moir.

WEEP not for her!-Oh! she was far too fair,
Too pure to dwell on this guilt-tainted earth!
The sinless glory, and the golden air

Of Zion seemed to claim her birth:

A Spirit wandered from its native zone,
Which soon discovering, took her for its own :
Weep not for her!

Weep not for her!-Her span was like the sky Whose thousand stars shine beautiful and bright; Like flowers, that know not what it is to die;

Like long-linked, shadeless months of polar light Like music floating o'er a waveless lake, While Echo answers from the flowery brake: Weep not for her!

If there be a period in life, when the heart is moved to tenderness, and the more susceptible feelings of our nature are softened in grief, with the wanness of melancholy hovering on the cheek, it is when we linger near the couch of a dying relative or friend: it is when we listen to the faint accents of expiring love, and bid adieu to the cold mortal remnant with a trembling grasp; or clasp, in agonizing sorrow, the object in which was once centred all we held dear of earthly things. The sudden change occasioned by such an event, is an incident that rends the soul, and leaves it for a moment callous to every other object, but that upon which it would pour its last effusion of doting grief, and then resign it to the protection of a higher than earthly power, and the realization of a state of bliss, purer than earthly felicity.

And it is death, then, that causes this blank in human happiness, and invades, with its palsying touch, the animation of the social circle; that tends for a time to divest life of its charms, and poison the cup of its enjoyments with a bitter dreg!

We

Funeral ceremony is most natural to the heart it is the last debt we can pay to the memory of departed worth. cannot but acquiesce in the tendency it has to fit the mind for serious reflection, and prepare it for those subjects of eternal interest, which lay claim to the deepest consideration.

There is something peculiarly impressive in accompanying the "sable bier" to its last place of deposit, and in witnessing the last ceremonics of interment. In the high-wrought feelings of the moment, we can only contemplate the spectacle before us, while the more engaging objects of life and nature seem to have lost their chief delights. The placid stillness of a rural funeral, is calculated to enhance these feelings.

These remarks have been elicited, as appropriate to the subject of Moravian funerals; as their peculiarities render them the more impressive, and more congenial with the nature of heartfelt sorrow.

It may, perhaps, be objected, that music is something too intrusive to the feelings, when occupied by the corroding