time? That we too may set our thoughts afloat upon the ocean of the future, and feel, that long after we have passed forever away, they will exert an influence to ennoble and refine?

Next to that ardent craving after a higher and holier state of existence, if there be any one thing which, more than another, attests that there is something ethereal, Godlike, more than human in man, it is the fact, that while his mortal frame decays and returns to the dust, the productions of his intellect, in all their young life and vigor, with all they have of beauty and inspiration, flow onward forever, and the gifted mind, in the remotest generations, beneath their hallowed influence, will bear witness that that was a spirit of a loftier mould. The Grecian bard tuned his lyre to more than earthly minstrelsy; the numbers re-echoed along the unexplored wilderness of time; kindred spirits caught their witchery, and prolonged the soul-thrilling strain from one to another across the interval of ages. No where in its direct relations, is the superiority of mind over body more conspicuous than here. The latter, after a few short years of peril, toil, and suffering, sinks forever to nothingness; the former is immortal upon earth, for its thoughts and emotions live-and what is mind but a splendid tissue of thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, under a thousand thousand different and ever varying forms and hues, bearing to each other an inconceivable number of analogies and relations, which may be multiplied, refined, and diversified by constant action among themselves, and by the addition of new and nobler life and vigor.

Immortality upon earth is indeed a gigantic acquirement, after which the giant intellect should alone aspire; yet is there a crystal stream of thought and intelligence, which, bursting forth from the bosom of the young world, has continued to pour onward its rich tide of waters-now sparkling beneath the clear sunlight of knowledge and refinement-now darkling amid the gloom of benighted reason-seeking its ocean, veiled in the shadows of futurity, whose current all may aid to swell. Upon its surface each may cast his pittance, and feel that it will be borne far into future ages, though men may never hear of the humble hand that set it in motion.

And here open upon the mind visions of its own future elevation and dignity, which wrap it in an almost delirium of delight. Nor can this high enthusiasm be too often or too deeply indulged, for with an influence pure as the purest fountains of moral emotion-potent as the strongest springs of human action, it comes. upon the soul to strengthen, ennoble, and inspire. Similar to that feeling which hallows the works of antiquity, and gives additional charms to the bright imaginings of the ancient muse, the grand yet benighted conceptions of the ancient philosopher, and the thundering eloquence of the ancient orator, it would

bear us away from the present and ourselves, and of consequence "elevate us in the scale of thinking beings." That innate emotion of the mind, which would lead it to exult in its own greatness in whatever age or clime, above all other influences, tends to expand the views and exalt the character. It is an emotion, too, which, in touching some of the deep seated chords of human sympathy and human ambition, sends a thrill through the soulthat awakes its dormant energies to life and action. How many intellects of great and commanding endowments, may literally be said to have been created by one grand conception. It flashes upon them, lights up the darkness that surrounded them, starts untried muscles into play, and leads them forth wondering at themselves, into another world of light, and life, and beauty. To distinguish what is great in our own nature, is the better half of greatness itself. And what more calculated to fill the bosom with high and sublime emotions, than to dwell upon the prospects which are opened before the enlightened mind, teeming with a thousand sources of rapturous delight, and alive with noble powers aroused to action, and splendid attainments reached and secured, of which the most gifted and refined, of by-gone days, could not have formed the remotest conception. Peak rises upon peak, still to be mounted, growing higher and brighter, until their summits are lost in the pure blue of heaven.

And this brings us to the consideration of a source of high and refined enjoyment, known only to the educated mind, and fully known only by a complete development of all its capacities, which, more intimately connected with the social relations of man with man, is consequently more comprehensive in its bearings-more general and potent in its results. We allude to that power exerted by cultivated mind over the passions, aims, and destinies of men. It is a source of the noblest and most elevated happiness, for its exercise is to ennoble, to elevate, to make happy. An ardent desire for power, kindled and blazing in the bosoms of those whom talent or fortune has raised above their fellow men, has ever convulsed society, has roused nations from the sleep of ages, has breathed life into the arts and sciences, has moulded the character, and colored the history, of all mankind. The attainment of power, is, after all, the ultimate end of human exertion. The annals of our race read to us a dismal lesson of what that desire has effected, when uncurbed by moral feeling and inflamed by passion. By what did the empires of the past fall, unless by the hand of some favorite and cherished son? The clash of arms, the blood of hosts, have marked the struggles of opposing heroes who leaped upon the stage of action, contended amid clouds of ignorance for a brief supremacy, and then passed forever away, without leaving a single ray of intellectual light to shine through and disperse the gloom. Such is

not the power to which we allude. That is a power over the minds and thoughts, over the moral, and not the physical nature of man, by whose influence, intelligence and morality are to be diffused, government improved, and the world reformed. And in its exercise, is there nothing to delight? nothing to ennoble ? What more splendid spectacle of mental perfection could be drawn, than that of the orator upon which Cicero loved to dwell, until it rooted in his being, grew and blossomed in himself! And could we picture that orator under the inspiration which comes from heaven, with every power, every faculty of his mind in vigorous play-with outstretched arm and blazing eye-while, by the magic of his tongue, a countless audience is hushed to repose, and borne with the mystic influence of a midnight dream, into another existence of different thoughts, feelings, volition can we believe, that in the exercise of such a Godlike gift, the speaker himself would not become more like a God? Would not a sense of superiority kindle at his heart, and burn through every vein, as we might suppose him in the delirium of his eloquence to exclaim, "Ye gods, I am an orator!" Not the low vanity which never did, nor ever can accompany true mental greatness, but a consciousness of power, which in whispering, that it may be used to work out tremendous harm, would fill the bosom with a high and holy philanthropy.

Nothing to the contemplative mind can be more productive of elevated thought and refined enjoyment, than the ennobling confidence, that desire is the germ of capability; that ardent hopes and aspiring aims can never, or rarely exist without the power to realize the former, and secure the latter. This single conviction will tend to add an energy to purpose, to inspire a sanguine assurance of success, which will strengthen and sustain the mind through the sternest contests and the darkest trials. Seeking, as we are, to trace this poetic sensation through some of the thousand channels it has opened for itself, pouring its sweet and fertilizing waters over the holiest places of the soul, we may be borne beyond the ordinary thoughts and emotions, which are excited in our journeyings over the trodden and dusty highway of life. But who is there, among the reflecting and ambitious, who has not, at times, experienced his dark, his fearful misgivings-who has not trembled at the moment's conviction, that nature has cursed him with the desire, without furnishing the means of its gratification; that tantalized he stands with parched, and burning lips, unable to slake his tormenting thirst in the plenteous waters around him, while nature arrays herself in her funeral garments, and life becomes the darkest hell. And then how vivifying the transition, as the glad certainty darts upon him, that this cannot be so: that the mind of man, with all its mighty, its fearful machinery, is capable of working out miracles, yet un

dreamt. Instantly the whole world becomes to him a paradise, and, exulting in his own nature, he stalks abroad a mental and moral giant. What extrinsic sources of delight can the mind, under the control of such emotions, desire. It longs to be alone, to hold converse with itself, to lose every care in the consideration of its own noble destiny; and whether the world is bright or dark, whether the sun shines or the tempest lowers,-it stands amid the warring elements, still and unchangeably the

Let other joys unwept depart:
There is one kindly ray,

That yet may smile upon the soul,
The twilight of its day.

Yes dearest Friendship shall remain-
That gem shall still survive ;
When fancy's sun-light beams depart,
Kind Friendship yet shall live.

Not so with him who vainly boasts
The world are all his friends;
For he shall all too quickly find
How dark his prospect ends;

Curse his mad folly in despair,

His loneliness and gloom

Mourn o'er the death of all his hopes

The cypress of their tomb.

G. H.

MIXUM GATHERUM, ALIAS HOTCH-POTCH.

No. II.

"Titles and mottos to books are like escutcheons and dignities in the hands of a king-the wise sometimes condescend to accept of them; but none but fools imagine them of any real importance. We ought to depend upon intrinsic merit, and not the slender helps of titles. For my part, I am ever ready to mistrust a promising title; and have at some expense, been instructed not to hearken to the voice of an advertisement,-let it plead never so loudly or never so long.

"A countryman coming one day to Smithfield, in order to take a slice of Bartholomew fair, found a perfect show before each booth. The drummer, the fire-eater, the wire-walker, and the salt-box, were all employed to invite him in. Just a going the court of the king of Prussia, in all his glory; pray, gentlemen walk in and see. From people who generously gave so much away, the clown expected a monstrous bargain for his sixpence; the curtain is drawn; when too late, he finds that he had the best part of the show for nothing at the door."

MAUGRE all these fine lucubrations of Dr. Goldsmith, I shall not, most respected and respectable reader, entertain a single doubt as to the aptness or pungency of my title. That it is more available than any other I could adopt, all I think will allow, who reflect how obnoxious are the authors of this day to the charge of wandering. A charge so formidable as this can never be urged against me, shielded as I am behind so redoubtable a caption as Mixum Gatherum. Besides, do we not my friends exist in a sort of hotch-potch age? An age of anties and ultras; of nice distinctions and fine-spun theories long-drawn out; an age of hair