ing. It was the loss of their main prop. The father, who was already infirm, grew heartless and melancholy, and sunk into his grave. The widow, left lonely in her age and feebleness, could no longer support herself, and came upon the parish. Still there was a kind of feeling toward her throughout the village, and a certain respect, as being one of the oldest inhabitants. As no one applied for the cottage in which she had passed so many happy days, she was permitted to remain in it, where she lived solitary and almost helpless. The few wants of nature were chiefly supplied from the scanty productions of her little garden, which the neighbors would now and then cultivate for her. It was but a few days before the time at which these circumstances were told me, that she was gathering some vegetables for her repast, when she heard the cottage-door, which faced the garden, suddenly opened. A stranger came out, and seemed to be looking eagerly and wildly around. He was dressed in seaman's clothes, was emaciated and ghastly pale, and bore the air of one broken by sickness and hardships. He saw her and hastened toward her, but his steps were faint and faltering; he sank on his knees before her, and sobbed like a child. The poor woman gazed upon him with a vacant and wandering eye-“O, my dear, dear mother! don't you know your son! your poor boy George!" It was, indeed, the wreck of her once noble lad; who, shattered by wounds, by sickness, and foreign imprisonment, had, at length, dragged his wasted limbs homeward, to repose among the scenes of his childhood.

I will not attempt to detail' the particulars of such a meeting, where joy and sorrow were so completely blended: still he was alive! he was come home! he might yet live to comfort and cherish her old age! Nature, however, was exhausted in him; and if anything had been wanting to finish the work of fate, the desolation of his native cottage would have been sufficient He stretched himself on the pallet on

which his widowed mother had passed many a sleepless night, and he never rose from it again.

The villagers, when they heard that George Somers had returned, crowded to see him, offering every comfort and assistance that their humble means afforded. He was too weak, however, to talk — he could only look his thanks. His mother was his constant attendant; and he seemed unwilling to be helped by any other hand.

--

There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood; that softens the heart, and brings it back to the feelings of infancy. Who that has languished, even in advanced life, in sickness and despondency; who that has pined on a weary bed, in the neglect and loneliness of a foreign land; but has thought on "the mother that looked on his childhood," that smoothed his pillow, and administered to his helplessness? O! there is an enduring tenderness, in the love of a mother to a son, that transcends all the other affections of the heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment; she will glory in his fame, and exult in his prosperity :— and, if adversity overtake him, he will be the dearer to her by misfortune; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him; and, if all the world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him.

Poor George Somers had known well what it was to be in sickness, and have none to soothe lonely and in prison, and none to visit him. He could not endure his mother from his sight; if she moved away, his eye would follow her. She would sit for hours by his bed, watching him as he slept. Sometimes he would start from a feverish dream, and look anxiously up until he saw her venerable form bending over him; when he would take her hand, lay it on his bosom, and

fall asleep with the tranquillity of a child. In this way he died.

My first impulse, on hearing this humble tale of affliction, was to visit the cottage of the mourner, and administer pecuniary assistance, and, if possible, comfort. I found, however, on inquiry, that the good feelings of the villagers had prompted them to do everything that the case admitted; and as the poor know best how to console each other's sorrows, I did not venture to intrude.

The next Sunday I was at the village church; when, to my surprise, I saw the old woman tottering down the aisle to her accustomed seat on the steps of the altar.

She had made an effort to put on something like mourning for her son; and nothing could be more touching than this struggle between pious affection and utter poverty: a black riband or so a faded black handkerchief, and one or two more such humble attempts to express, by outward signs, that grief which passes show. When I looked round upon the storied monuments; the stately hatchments; the cold marble pomp, with which grandeur mourned magnificently over departed pride; and turned to this poor widow, bowed down by age and sorrow at the altar of her God, and offering up the prayers and praises of a pious, though a broken heart, I felt that this living monument of real grief was worth them all.

I related her story to some of the wealthy members of the congregation, and they were moved by it. They exerted themselves to render her situation more comfortable, and to lighten her afflictions. It was, however, but smoothing a few steps to the grave. In the course of a Sunday or two after, she was missed from her usual seat at church, and before I left the neighborhood, I heard, with a feeling of satisfaction, that she had quietly breathed her last, and gone to rejoin those she loved, in that world where sorrow is never known and friends are never parted.

*Pron. rib-bin.

THE name of Commonwealth is past and gone,
Over three fractions of the groaning globe :
Venice is crushed, and Holland deigns to own
A sceptre, and endures a purple robe :
If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone
His chainless mountains, 't is but for a time;
For tyranny of late has cunning grown,
And, in its own good season, tramples down
The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime,
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean
Are kept apart, and nursed in the devotion
Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and
Bequeathed a heritage of heart and hand,

And proud distinction from each other land,
Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion
As if his senseless sceptre were a wand,

Full of the magic of exploded science
Still one great clime, in full and free defiance,
Yet rears her crest, unconquered and sublime,
Above the far Atlantic! She has taught
Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag,
The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag,
May strike to those whose red right hands have bought
Rights cheaply earned with blood. Still, still forever
Better, though each man's life-blood were a river,
That it should flow, and overflow, than creep

Through thousand lazy channels in our veins,
Dammed, like the dull canal, with locks and chains,
And moving, as a sick man in his sleep,

- better be

Three paces, and then faltering : —

Where the extinguished Spartans still are free,

In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ,
Than stagnate in our marsh ;-

or o'er the deep

Fly, and one current to the ocean add,
One spirit to the souls our fathers had,
One freeman more, AMERICA, to thee!

LESSON LVII.

An Evening Sketch.

- BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

THE birds have ceased their song,

All, save the black cap, that, amid the boughs
Of yon tall ash-tree, from his mellow throat,
In adoration of the setting sun,

Chants forth his evening hymn.

"Tis twilight now;

The sovereign sun, behind his western hills,
In glory hath declined. The mighty clouds,
Kissed by his warm effulgence, hang around
In all their congregated hues of pride,
Like pillars of some tabernacle grand,
Worthy his glowing presence; while the sky,
Illumined to its centre, glows intense,
Changing its sapphire majesty to gold.
How deep is the tranquillity! the trees
Are slumbering through their multitude of boughs,
Even to the leaflet on the frailest twig!
A twilight gloom pervades the distant hills;
An azure softness mingling with the sky.
The fisherman drags to the yellow shore
His laden nets; and, in the sheltering cove,
Behind yon rocky point, his shallop moors,
To tempt again the perilous deep at dawn.

The sea is waveless, as a lake ingulfed

Mid sheltering hills-without a ripple spreads