ly never task themselves with laying up aught in their minds, but depend altogether on a note book or "volume of extracts" for their mottoes, quotations, &c. The book is handsomely printed—has a beautiful frontispiece--and displays the good taste and diligent research of the compiler. But we missed one of our most gifted poets among the crowd of names-Bryant deserved a place with his beautiful poem "To the yellow fringed Gentian." The following will show the method of the work.

ROSE.

"Rose; English.-Le rose; French.-Rosa; Italian & Latin. The rose is at once the long acknowledged emblem of love, youth, and beauty—the queen of flowers-the favorite of the world!

Berkley, in his Utopia, describes lovers as declaring their affection by presenting a rose bud just opened; this, if fortunate, was succeeded by a rose fully blown, and the lady was considered engaged for life."

"Oh! sooner shall the rose of May
Mistake her own sweet nightingale,
And to some meaner minstrel's lay
Open her bosom's glowing veil,
Than love shall ever doubt a tone,
A breath of his beloved one."

FLORA DOMESTICA.

LALLA ROOKH."

Thus the history of the rose is continued by quotations from about seventy different writers, occupying nearly eighteen pages; but all who love roses; and what lady does not? will find sufficient of the beautiful and curious in the collection to reward their perusal.

OURIKA. A TALE FROM THE FRENCH. Boston, Carter & Hendee. We seldom meet with a story so original as this. It is the history of a negress, who was, in infancy, carried from Surinam to Paris-adopted and educated by an elegant and intelligent woman, in all the refinements of fashionable society. When Ourika is fifteen she discovers the prejudices of society which condemn her for the guilt of a dark skin, to ignominy. Her griefs and struggles are powerfully and touchingly told. But the christian religion at last spoke peace to her vexed spirit. There is joy in reflecting that God is no respecter of persons. The work is a translation from the French, and is very interesting.

TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

The notices of several books, prepared for this number of the Magazine, are omitted for lack of room. A number of communications are likewise on hand; yet not so many but what we could wish more, and better.

Farewell, farewell!-my course is bound
Across the roaring billow;

And I may rest on desert ground,
A wreath of snow my pillow-
There deep, dark forests stretch afar,
By savage footsteps trod :

Yet there the beams of Bethlehem's Star
Shall guide us to our God.

And there, in that lone world, we'll rear
To Him a shrine so pure,
Though guilty nations shake with fear
Our temple shall endure ;

And faith can see Jehovah bless
Our refuge with his grace,

And freedom make the wilderness
Her chosen resting place.

Farewell!-thy favorite rose I bear
To that far-distant land;

And fondly shall I tend it there,
And watch its buds expand;

The first sweet flower-I'll name it thine-
And ere the soft leaves wither
I'll lay them on this heart of mine,
That they may fade together.

Farewell, a last, a long farewell,

Since thus our fate must be-
Thou wilt not follow where I dwell,
Nor I return to thee:

The favor of the world thou hast,
But mine is heavenly peace-
And that like meteor's glare is past,
While this will never cease.

Farewell; the grove where oft we met,
Thou must now seek alone;
There should one tear of fond regret
Gush forth that I am gone-

O, hallow then to me that tear,
And be one, one prayer given,

That though our paths are severed here,
They may unite in heaven.

CORNELIA.

SKETCHES OF AMERICAN CHARACTER.

POLITICAL PARTIES.

MISS Thankful Pope lived and died an old maid in consequence of a difference in political sentiment between herself and lover; and she always declared, (after she and her lover separated,) party spirit was the bane of all social intercourse, and would sooner or later, prove the destruction of our liberties. Why she should make the last remark I never exactly understood, as she certainly retained her liberty in consequence of party disputes. Her own account of the matter, however, is the best explanation of her creed, and so I shall give her history just as she related it to her nieces, the two Miss Wiltons.

These young ladies were visiting at the house of their grandfather, and one forenoon of a summer day they accompanied aunt Thankful on a ramble. After proceeding some way along the high road which was skirted on the left by a wood, aunt Thankful suddenly struck into a bypath leading directly into the forest. She pursued its apparently untrodden windings, followed by her nieces, till they came to the banks of a considerable stream. The young ladies concluded their walk in that direction was terminated, till their aunt remarked there was a log across the river at a little distance, over which they might pass"and there is a spot on the other side I should like to have you visit," said she.

So they proceeded up the stream, and soon reached the rude bridge; Helen, the youngest girl, began to tremble, and fear her head might swim; but there being no cavalier at hand to whom her timidity might have been interesting, she finally listened to her aunt's sensible assurances, that there was no sort of danger "if she would only look straight before her, and not frighten herself by her own screams.' She followed this rational advice (which in a like emergency I recommend to all young ladies) and went over as safely as though the bridge had been made of iron, with a railing reaching to the moon.

Aunt Thankful proceeded onward for half a mile or more, the path still winding amid trees and shrubs, yet the

growth of bushes and briars had evidently sprung up after the land had once been, in the phrase of the country, cleared, till they came suddenly out on more open space, where a family had once dwelt. There were no buildings; but broken bricks half buried in the ground, scattered stones, and a cavity in the earth which had been a cellar, indicated the spot where the house had stood. The garden too might be traced by the proximity of shrubs and plants never indigenous in the same locality; and many flowers still blossomed there, in spite of the rank weeds and tall grass that seemed to grudge them a space for display. The north side of the ground which the garden had occupied, might be traced by a double row of lofty elms, most of them still standing, and forming, as they threw abroad their luxuriant branches in a variety of graceful curves and inclinations, an avenue grand and beautiful. At the termination of this

shaded walk was an enormous tree of the evergreen species, called, as aunt Thankful affirmed, "the balsam tree;" at a little distance, on one side of this, had formerly been a summer house, as was apparent from the lilac and rose bushes and other flowering shrubs clustered together; all overrun and nearly choked by a luxuriant woodbine that had been trained over the building. Further on, a fine clear spring bubbled up by the side of a rock; the water had once been collected in a reservoir-this was now filled with rubbish, and the stream ran off by a channel concealed by tall brakes and flags, till its course was lost in a thicket, formerly a nursery of fruit trees on the south. Beneath the balsam tree was a turf seat, whether natural or artificial the young ladies could not decide; wood-sorrel, with its pretty, yellow blossoms, mingled with the moss that grew near the roots of the tree, and little nameless flowers were peeping up amid the thick green grass which spread around, wearing that cool, moist look, which is so charming to the eye during the hot, sultry hours of a summer day.

The ladies sat down on the turf seat, while Helen, who had been, with her usual quickness, taking note of all, exclaimed hurriedly

"Who did live here, aunt? What could they mean by leaving such a sweet spot? They had no taste I am sure, thus to allow this pretty place to become a ruin !"

"O, yes and I thought there were no ruins in our