But where will mem'ry take her then?
Back to the gloomy past;

Sad whisperings will greet her ear,
Of future pictures dark and drear,
And sorrow to the last.

THE ANONYMOUS LETTER.

-ADDERS and asps are what they are:
Man is a meaner and more deadly thing
When he forgets the truth-and sneakingly
Sends venom to his neighbor's heart.

The foul winged messenger of surly face
Darts forth to stamp on some pure brow disgrace,
Too modest for its author's name to bring,
But not too vile with siren voice to sing.

It comes, with demon voice, to fill the ear
With dark, delusive tales—with stories drear:
It weaves a strain more doleful than the knell
Of hollow voices bidding earth farewell.

It comes with graceful bow and studied smile,-
Deception in its form, and rife with guile;
Snatched out of hades, and by demons thrown
To fire the bowers where friendship long has grown.

Robed in disguise, it hastens to unfold

False tales and dark, as none but fiends have told ; Tales basely penned at hateful gossips' will,

Whose deepest study is, how they shall kill.

ON MUSIC.

“The man that hath not music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus;

Let no such man be trusted."-Shakspere.

WHEN the Almighty fiat went forth, "let there be light," Music was baptized the child of heaven. The glowing stars caught the inspiration and joyously sang together. Each new illumined planet moved harmonious on its restricted orbit, echoing back sweet melodies to the sunlit earth,-for the earth itself heard the voice of Jehovah, and joined in the glorious concert of the shining sisterhood, looking beautifully down through the azure heavens. The morning and evening zephyrs bore on their wings harmonious breathings, like tones of cherub voices from the upper skies, and the beneficent Creator was pleased to listen to the sweetly blending harmonies of his own power. The insupportable gloom which must pervade the world without the voice of music, was foreseen by the Creator, who, with gracious finger touched the mystic harp of nature, whose cheering melodies filled the universe, to echo and re-echo,

From star to star in heaven's vast azure plain,
From shore to shore across the trackless main,
Through woodlands, and among the towering hills,
O'er flowery meads, and by the purling rills,
So long as heaven smiles on the world below,
Or mountains rise, or crystal fountains flow,

In spite of the world's cold calculation and groveling pursuits, we feel that there is poetry and a love for the beautiful interwoven with our spiritual existence; and we yearn for some medium more congenial or powerful than oral or written language, by which to express the deeper feelings.

This medium is music, which enables the soul to unbosom its innermost harmonies in the searching language of song; or breathe out, what the tongue may not tell, the heart's deep hidden sentiments through the agency of some musical instrument. It was this feeling that influenced the pen of one of nature's true poets, to say—

"Music! oh, how faint, how weak,
Language fades before thy spell :
Why should feeling ever speak,

When thou can'st breathe her soul so well."

The inhabitants of the great globe, whether found at the Artic pole, or at the Torrid zone; among the towering mountains of Europe, or bending before dumb idols in the remote corners of Asia; clustering near the sunny fountains, or roaming the wild jungles of Africa; at the loom, or the plough, or hunting in the green forests and mountains of America; whether civilized or uncivilized, all find existence irksome without music of some kind. Deprived altogether of this "original constituent of creation," what appalling silence and monotony would pervade the world! Haggard and grim spectres would visit us by night, and suspicious fears everywhere brood in our pathway by day. *

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Music and poetry conjointly arrayed are sorry comforters to despotism, slavery, bigotry or fanaticism.

A Byron or a Burns might pour forth from the soul of genius a single strain of fire, whose burning melody would light the worn and drooping spirits of a hesitating army, and lead them on to splendid victory.

A Shakspere might delineate the character, and expose the intrigues and hypocrisy of the world personified in a Hamlet, so that the music of his imagination would ring upon the dull ears of vicious millions, till they felt a deep sense of their errors, and returned to the path of virtue.

At a single sweep of his lyre, a Cowper might reanimate the bowed spirit, and rekindle the fires of liberty so high that slavery and abject servitude, in whatever form, would be seen only to be hated and hurled back to their original and stygian abode.

A Beethoven, a Haydn, a Mozart, a Mendelsohn, might hold at will the hearts of the listening multitude, so that nothing the grosser world could present, would induce them to disengage the feelings from the delicious enchantment of those minstrels of heaven-gifted genius.

A Madam Catalani, a Malibran, a Wood, a Jenny Lind, as commissioners to settle a war question, might present themselves before a garrison of ready musketry and artillery, and at their first harmonious overture the enemy, with hearts softened and souls entranced, would lay down their arms and hold up the olive branch of peace.

See the martyrs of old, with pinioned hands and feet suspended over the slow kindling faggots, consuming inch by inch-doomed to such barbarous fate by preposterous fools and nefarious villains—see them,-hear them singing songs of spiritual triumph over their sanctimonious

murderers. Even while consuming in the lurid flames, those martyrs could "associate music with the bliss which awaits the soul in another world."

Music awakens the slumbering chords of the soul to a vivid sense of the beautiful and good. The silken ties of affection are keenly susceptible to its electric touch. "It drives out of the heart vile passions and imaginations, and fills it with high and holy aspirations. Judiciously used, it will cheer the spirits, expand the soul with magnanimity, benevolence and compassion; sooth its anguish and elevate it to the sublimity of devotion."

It is of divine emanation, was coexistent with the universe, and is coeternal with the fadeless joys of Paradise.

FALSE COLORS.

SUGGESTED ON HEARING THE INNOCENT DEFAMED.

I'VE watched the ocean Rover,
With false colors to his mast,
In artful tack, survey the bark
That struggled in the blast.
And seen him, like a seabird skim
Along the crested main,

Till he could grapple with the prize
His fiendish heart would gain.

"Luff boys," the Rover hoarsely cries,
"Let fly the signal black,