"Ah," cried the chemist, with reviving glee,
"A perfect coalition here I see!"

Distilled from love this gentle fluid came ;-
And then he told the sage its Latin name;
Then looked again, to watch the process on,
But found, alas! the sage's prize was gone!
The sudden contact caused a heat extreme
It could not brook, so passed away in steam.
Alone the essence pale and watery lay ;—
The sage demands his treasure with dismay;
They search the cruet, and behold it hid,
At last, in pearly drops upon the lid.

Though foiled, the patient chemist will not stop,
But aiming still to decompose the drop,
A potent acid cautiously applies,

And straight it separates in wondrous wise.
For, first appears at bottom of the phial,
A large precipitate of self-denial;

Of patience, next, a copious layer is laid,
Of conscience, twenty scruples nicely weighed;
Humility and charity, they find

With half a dram of self-esteem combined;

Labor, attached to energy of soul,

And moderation to correct the whole;

Feeling and taste in airy gas unite,

And knowledge rises in a flame of light.

MISS JANE TAYLOR.

CXLVII.-MIND AND HEART IN THE COUNTENANCE.

BEAUTY depends much upon the attitudes and movements of the face, and not alone upon the shape of the features. We often see a face which is beautiful in repose, that becomes ugly the moment that it is in action, because the movements of the muscles are so ungainly. And, on the other hand, we often see faces which are quite at fault in the shape of the features, display great beauty when in action, from the movements which play so easily and gracefully among the muscles.

It is a great triumph of the spiritual over the physical, when the mind within thus puts its impress of beauty, upon a material form which is destitute of symmetry. When it does this, there is more to challenge our admiration, than when the sculptor chisels the marble

into beauty. And if he were to undertake, in imitation of what we often see in living nature, to put beauty into ill-shapen features, he would signally fail. This can be done only by the active mind within, moving plastic features by the subtle agency of nerves and muscles. In relation to the inadequacy of mere symmetry of form to meet our ideas of beauty in the living countenance, Addison has justly said, "No woman can be handsome by the force of features alone, any more than she can be witty only by the help of speech." There is nearly as much difference in skill in the use of the muscles of the face, as in the use of those in the hands. And we need not go to the accomplished orator or actor, as furnishing us alone with the higher examples of this skill. It is often seen exhibited in the ordinary intercourse of life, in those who have great capacity of expression, together with a mind uncommonly refined and susceptible. In them every shade of thought and feeling is clearly and beautifully traced in the countenance.

While this is the result of education of the muscles of expression, an education of which the individual is for the most part unconscious, no direct attempt in the training of these muscles will succeed, unless the mind itself be of the right character. Intelligence and kindness cannot be made to beam from the countenance, if they do not exist in the moving spirit within. They are often awkwardly counterfeited, the one by the bustling air assumed by the face of the shallow pretender, and the other by the smirk of him who smiles only to get favor or profit from others.

The counterfeit is often mistaken for the reality; and in relation to the truly intelligent and kind, there is often much error in the estimate put upon their intelligence and kindness, from the different degrees in which these qualities, when existing in the same amounts, are exhibited in the expression of the countenance. In some, the muscles of expression respond more readily and aptly to the thought and feeling within, than they do in others.

I know not of any more beautiful and striking exemplification of the influence of the mind and heart upon the expression of the countenance, than is to be seen in those institutions where juvenile outcasts from society are redeemed from their degradation by the hand of benevolence. You can often note more clearly the progress of the mental and moral cultivation in the lineaments of the face, as lively intelligence takes the place of stolid indifference, and refined sentiment that of brutal passion. Sometimes a few weeks suffice to change the whole character of the expression. The dull eye becomes bright, not from any change in the eye itself, but from the intelligence and sentiment which now play upon the muscles in its neighborhood. Those muscles which impart a lively and pleasant cast to the countenance when they are in action, are awakened from their long

continued dormant state by the magic wand of benevolence, and thus give outward expression to the thoughts and feelings, which genial influences are producing in the mind and the heart. The change is often as great in a little time, as it would be in the face of an idiot, if he could be suddenly brought into the full possession of the mental faculties.

The habitual expression of the countenance, depending as it does upon the habitual condition of the muscles, is seen after death. In the state of relaxation which immediately occurs at death the face is very inexpressive, because its muscles are, together with those of the whole body, so entirely relaxed. But very soon they begin to contract, and they assume that degree of contraction to which they were habituated during life, and therefore give to the countenance its habitual expression. It is when this has taken place-when the muscles, recovering from the relaxation of the death-hour, resume their accustomed attitude, as we may express it-that the countenance of our friends appear so natural to us, and we are held, as if by a charm, gazing upon the intelligence and affection beaming there amid the awful stillness of death, till it seems as if those lips must have language. And this expression is retained through all the periods of rigidity, till it is dissolved by the relaxation which succeeds this state and ushers in the process of decay.

It is thus that the soul, upon the noblest part of its till the last vestige of life is

as it takes its flight, leaves its impress tabernacle of flesh; and it is not 'effaced gone, and the laws of dead matter take possession of the body. The state of countenance which I have described is thus beautifully alluded to by Byron :—

"Ile who hath bent him o'er the dead,

Ere the first day of death has fled,

The first dark day of nothingness,

The last of danger and distress,

(Before decay's effacing fingers

Ilave swept the lines where beauty lingers),

And marked the mild angelic air,

The rapture of repose that's there,

The fixed yet tender traits that streak

The languor of the placid cheek,
And-but for that sad, shrouded eye,
That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now,
And but for that chill, changeless brow,
Where cold obstruction's apathy
Appals the gazing mourner's heart,
As if to him it could impart

The doom he dreads yet dwells upon;

Yes, but for these, and these alone,
Some moments. ay, one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant's power;
So fair, so calm. so softly sealed,
The first, last look by death revealed!"

DR. WORTHINGTON HOOKER.

CXLVIII. THE PACIFIC.

"No tidings of the missing steamer."

WHAT time the proud Pacific left our shore, "Walking the waters like a thing of life,"Exultingly, each gazer brave hopes bore

And hearts beat strong-and eager tongues were °rife
With "God-speeds!" "Go!" they cried-" a speedy trip,
And prosperous gales across the deep! proud ship!"

But now, what means, instead, that mournful cry,
Uttered in dirge-notes sad throughout the land?
The ship that left our port so gallantly,

Hath never homeward sailed from England's strand!
Thus say the people o'er, with anxious lip,
No tidings yet of the long-missing ship!"

I see a gentle woman-help her, Heaven!—
Sitting all day with folded, pallid hands,
Thinking of a sad time, when-kisses given—

Her heart's beloved went forth to foreign lands;

'Great God!" she murmurs o'er, with quivering lip,—

Why comes he not? why stays the tardy ship!"

A gray-hâired woman croucheth o'er the hearth,
Where, years agone, a boy played at her knee,
Brightening her widowed life with sunny mirth,-
'Tis altered now-for "Jamie's gone to sea!"
Morn, noon, and night, she mourns with withered lip,
"My poor, poor Jamie's in the missing ship."

Another mother! fair and haughty dame!
Her blazing diamonds would a monarch fee-
Why all night shrieketh she her darling's name,
All day implores, with white, clasped hands, the sea?

My jewels take"-she cries, with bloodless lip

'But send me back my boy! send home the ship!"

The merchant pauseth 'mid his golden gains-
Scanneth the "foreign news" with eager eye;
Perhaps, at last, met on the Atlantic plains,
The steamer's fate no more is mystery?
Vain hope!-the papers from his fingers slip,
He sighs "No tidings from the missing ship!"

How went that proud and noble vessel down
Into the mausoleum of the deep?

Was it, when underneath the heavens' dread frown,
Storms, maddened, over ocean's waste did sweep?
Shrieked the brave crew, with horror-stricken lip-
"She founders! Sinks! God save her! Save the ship!"

Or, some black night, when stars shrunk from the sky, Fearing the brooding tempest's wrathful gloomAdown the waves, as Arab coursers fly,

Another bark came rushing! Hark! that boom! That thunder crash! Was it the storm-king's whip, Lashing the waters? Gods! no! where's the ship?

Or yet, perchance, lithe forkèd tongues of flame
Ran coiling up the rigging, mast, and shroud,
O'er-leaped the bulwarks, till, hurled back again,
Fought by the water-mad, they hissed aloud
In conflict terrible! Which conquers? Mute each lip
The tale is hushed thereon. Ah, fated ship!

Or, sweeping downward from the polar seas,
Majestic icebergs came in towering wrath,
Tall, ghastly, terrible! Dread gaolers these,
Which fling their chains across the steamer's path!
Ice-locked, no gate can ope-no bar can slip!
O, glittering dungeon walls! O prisoned ship!

If rose that wild shout, "Fire !"—what agony!
They fled the flame to perish by the flood;
If in mid-ocean °foundered-one brief cry,
And every soul stood, hushed, before its God!
One little bubbling gåsp-then mute each lip,—
And mad waves danced in glee where sank the ship!

But if among the icebergs-day by day
New horrors come! The fire burns low-the food
Has failed-pale hunger leers! too weak to
pray-
Gäunt, famished-torpor creeps along their blood!
The fire goes out! they sleep! each stiffening lip
Bemoans no more the captive, ice-bound ship.

Alas! the wild winds breathe no whispering tale,
In sweeping from the ever-moaning seas:
Cometh no message on the tempest's wail;
Old Neptune guardeth well his mysteries!