the bosom of one of those western wilds with which our infant country yet abounds, I was prompted by humanity as well as by duty to visit the lonely dwelling of a poor, afflicted, widow. The path that leads to this cottage is over a mountain and through a forest which has never echoed to the axe of the husbandman. As I climbed the toilsome solitary way, I asked myself, what unhappy beings, rent from the bosom of society, have chosen to bury their sorrows in this noiseless retreat. I had not imagined that I should find so lovely a being as I have named the Lily of the Mountain. As I advanced, a little opening presented the cottage sending up its solitary wreaths of smoke. There is a charm when one first emerges from the bosom of the wilderness, and catches the smoke of a dwelling, and hears the barking of the jealous watch dog, which can be described, and which can be realized only by experience.

I had now reached the cottage, and stooped to gain admission through the humble door. The building consisted of a pile of logs unceremoniously rolled together in the form of a dwelling, and supporting with more than the strength of Gothic architecture the half thatched roof. There was no chimney, and the smoke was permitted to struggle through the large aperture or to yield to the repulse of an adverse wind and circulate about the interior till it could escape through the interstices of the mansion. The fire necessary to expel the cold from this comfortless habitation, had turned to the semblance of ebony, and to the reality of charcoal, the adjacent logs, which were made to do the half office of a chimney; and the floor was of native earth, except some pieces of refuse boards, and some flat stones which served chiefly for a hearth.

There were no apartments in the dwelling, but a blanket venerable from age was suspended, as it seemed, for the purpose of half concealing the necessary domestic business from the couch of sickness and languishing. Some pieces of broken shingles fixed in the openings of the logs served for a shelf, and here were deposited some dusty tracts and an ancient family Bible. VOL. I.-7.

On a mat near the fire lay a son, the support of declining age, with a foot half amputated by an unfortunate blow from the axe. The wound had been dressed by an empyric of the neighboring settlement; and the patient, left to the care of his widowed mother, was perusing a much worn tract. Near by, upon the only couch, lay the interesting form which constitutes the subject of my narrative. The victim of consumption, she resembled indeed, the beautiful, but fading lily. Confined from the sun and air, her complexion had assumed a delicate whiteness, and the slow wasting fever had tinged her cheeks with a most beautiful color. Her disease had reached that stage in its progress, which gives a transparency to the skin, and throws around the female form the loveliness of an angel, awaking those mingled emotions which I shall not attempt to describe, and which excite the earnest prayer that death, having rendered his victim so pensively beautiful, may relinquish his purpose. With indescribable feelings I drew near the couch of this interesting sufferer. Her expressive eye spoke of happier days, and the raven tresses that lay dishevelled on her pillow, seemed to whisper that had this flower, thus

-born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air,

been transplanted to the parterre, it might have surpassed in beauty and fragrance its sister flowers. But was anxious to learn the approaching destiny of the spirit that animated this form of loveliness. (To be continued.)

EXAMPLES FROM HISTORY.

ON ENVY-SENTIMENTS.

"He who filches from me my good name, enriches not himself, but makes me poor indeed."

Envy is almost the only vice which is practicable at all times, and in every place; the only passion which can

never lie quiet for want of irritation: its effects are therefore every way discoverable, and its attempts always to be dreaded.

It is impossible to mention a name which any advantageous distinction has made eminent, but some latent animosity will burst out. The wealthy trader will want those who hint with Shylock, that ships are but boards, and that no man can properly be termed rich whose fortune is at the mercy of the winds.

The beauty provokes, whenever she appears, a thousand murmurs of detraction and whispers of suspicion. The genius suffers persecution from innumerable critics, whose acrimony is excited merely by the pain of seeing others pleased, of hearing applauses which another enjoys.

The frequency of envy makes it so familiar, that it escapes our notice; nor do we often reflect upon its turpitude or malignity, until we happen to feel its influence. When he that has given no provocation to malice, but by attempting to excel in some useful art, finds himself pursued by multitudes whom he never saw, with implacability of personal resentment; when he perceives clamour and malice let loose upon him as a public enemy, and incited by every stratagem of defamation; when he hears the misfortunes of his family, or the follies of his youth, exposed to the world; and every failure of conduct, or defect of nature, aggravated and ridiculed; he then learns to abhor those artifices at which he only laughed before; and discovers how much the happiness of life would be advanced by the eradication of envy from the human heart.

It is, above all other vices, inconsistent with the character of a social being, because it sacrifices truth and kindness to very weak temptations. He that plunders a wealthy neighbor, gains as much as he takes away, and improves his own condition in the same proportion as he impairs another's; but he that blasts a flourishing reputation, must be content with a small dividend of additional fame; so small as can afford very little consolation to balance the guilt by which it is obtained.

PLUTARCH Compares envious persons to cuppingglasses, which ever draw the worst humors of the body to them: they are like flies, which resort only to the raw and corrupt parts of the body; or, if they light on a sound part, never leave blowing upon it until they have disposed it to putrefaction. When Momus could find no fault with the face in the picture of Venus, he picked a quarrel with her slippers; and so these malevolent persons, when they cannot blame the substance, will yet represent the circumstance of men's best actions with prejudice. This black shadow is still observed to wait upon those that have been the most illustrious for virtue, or remarkable for some kind of perfection and to excel in either has been made an unpardonable crime.

EXAMPLES.

MUTIUS, a citizen of Rome, was noted to be of such an envious and malevolent disposition, that Publius one day, observing him to be very sad, said, "Either some great evil has happened to Mutius, or some great good

to another."

DIONYSIUS the tyrant (says Plutarch) out of envy punished Philoxenus the musician, because he could sing; and Plato the philosopher, because he could dispute better than himself.

In the reign of Tiberius Cæsar there was a portico at Rome that bowed outwards on one side very much. A certain architect undertook to set it right and straight; he underpropped it in every way on the upper part, and bound it about with thick cloths, and the skins and fleeces of sheep; and then, with the help of many engines, and a multitude of hands, he restored it to its former uprightness, contrary to the opinion of all men. Tiberius admired the fact, and envied the man; so that though he gave him money, he forbade his name to be inserted in the annals, and afterwards banished him from the city. This famous artificer afterwards presented himself in the presence of Tiberius, with a glass he had privily about him; and, while he implored the pardon of Tiberius, he threw the glass against the

ground; which was bruised and crushed together, but not broke, and which he readily put into its first form; hoping by this act to have gained his good favor and grace. But Tiberius's envy still increased; so that he caused him to be slain; adding, "That if this art of malleable glass should be practised, it would make gold and silver but cheap and inconsiderable things;" nor would he suffer his name to be put in the records.

MAXIMIANUS, the tyrant, through envy of the honours conferred on Constantine, and the virtues attributed to him by the people, contrived all that a desperate envy could invent, and a great virtue surmount. He first made him general of an army which he sent against the Sarmatians, supposing he would there lose his life. The young prince went thither, returned victorious, leading along with him the barbarian king in chains. On his return from this battle, the tyrant engaged him in a perilous encounter with a lion, which he purposely had caused to be let loose upon him. But Constantine, victorious over lions as well as men, slew him with his own hand, and impressed an incomparable opinion in the minds of his soldiers, which, easily gave him a passage to the throne, by the same degrees and means which were prepared for his ruin.

NARSES, the eunuch, was of the bed-chamber to Justinus the emperor; and from a seller of paper and books, arrived to the honor of succeeding the famous Belisarius in the place of generalissimo. After he had distinguished himself by a thousand gallant actions, at last, through envy or his ill-fortune, or the accusation of the people, he fell under the hatred of the emperor Justinus and his empress, insomuch that the emperor sent him letters full of disgrace and reproach, advising him to return to the spindle and distaff. Narses was

so incensed at this, that he swore he would weave them such a web as they should not easily undo again: and thereupon, to revenge the injury he conceived to be done him, he called in the Lombards to the invasion of the Roman territories, (which they had been long desirous of, but had hitherto been restrained by himself,) and was the occasion of many miseries,