strive to preach blasphemies from his grave; but it will be only another method of impressing the soul with a consciousness of immortality."

There was an old man by the name of Norton, noted throughout the island for his great wealth, which he had accumulated by the exercise of strong and shrewd faculties, combined with a most penurious disposition. This wretched miser, conscious that he had not a friend to be mindful of him in his grave, had himself taken the needful precautions for posthumous remembrance, by bespeaking an immense slab of white marble, with a long epitaph in raised letters, the whole to be as magnificent as Mr. Wigglesworth's skill could make it. There was something very characteristic in this contrivance to have his money's worth even from his own tombstone, which, indeed, afforded him more enjoyment in the few months that he lived thereafter, than it probably will in a whole century, now that it is laid over his bones. This incident reminds me of a young girl, a pale, slender, feeble creature, most unlike the other rosy and healthful damsels of the Vineyard, amid whose brightness she was fading away. Day after day did the poor maiden come to the sculptor's shop, and pass from one piece of marble to another, till at last she pencilled her name upon a slender slab, which, I think, was of a more spotless white than all the rest. I saw her no more, but soon afterwards found Mr. Wigglesworth cutting her virgin name into the stone which she had chosen.

"She is dead-poor girl," said he, interrupting the tune which he was whistling, "and she chose a good piece of stuff for her head-stone. Now which of these slabs would you like best to see your own name upon?"

"Why to tell you the truth, my good Mr. Wigglesworth," replied I, after a moment's pause,-for the abruptness of the question had somewhat startled me," to be quite sincere with you, I care little or nothing about a stone for my own grave, and am somewhat inclined to scepticism as to the propriety of erecting monuments at all, over the dust that once was human. The weight of these heavy marbles, though unfelt by the dead corpse or the enfranchised soul, presses drearily upon the spirit of the survivor, and causes him to connect the idea of death with the dungeon-like imprisonment of the tomb, instead of with the freedom of the skies. Every grave-stone that you ever made is the visible symbol of a mistaken system. Our thoughts should soar upward with the butterfly-not linger with the exuviæ that confined him. In truth and reason, neither those whom we call the living, and still less the departed, have any thing to do with the grave."

"I never heard anything so heathenish!" said Mr. Wigglesworth, perplexed and displeased at sentiments which controverted all his notions and feelings, and implied the utter waste, and worse, of his

whole life's labor,-"would you forget your dead friends, the moment they are under the sod!"

"They are not under the sod," I rejoined; "then why should I mark the spot where there is no treasure hidden! Forget them? No! But to remember them aright, I would forget what they have cast off. And to gain the truer conception of DEATH, I would forget

the GRAVE!"

But still the good old sculptor murmured, and stumbled, as it were, over the grave-stones amid which he had walked through life. Whether he were right or wrong, I had grown the wiser from our companionship, and from my observations of nature and character, as displayed by those who come, with their old griefs or their new ones, to get them recorded upon his slabs of marble. And yet, with my gain of wisdom, I had likewise gained perplexity; for there was a strange doubt in my mind, whether the dark shadowing of this life, the sorrows and regrets, have not as much real comfort in them-leaving religious influences out of the questionas what we term life's joys.

THE OLD SOLDIER REVISITING THE SCENE OF HIS

EARLY STRUGGLES.*

BY MELZAR GARDNER.

A weary way! yet, once again
My foot-print marks this holy soil;
This-this, the consecrated plain,
Where patriot hands by painful toil
Did Freedom's earliest altar rear;-

'Twas here our untaught army stood,
With lip compressed and brow severe,
When Freedom's sun uprose in blood!

The hand of time hath marked my brow,
And I have felt the icy chill

I have come to

"Ay," said the old veteran, "I was in the revolutionary war. this town to spend the last Fourth of July that I ever expect to see. I have come to spend it on the hallowed spot where, when I was of your age, I fought for my country. I have come to take a last farewell of Bunker Hill.”

"You walk as if you was very tired, my old friend.”

"I am tired, I have walked three or four miles this morning, and am very weary.”— Boston Morning Post, July 4, 1838.

Of age upon my heart; but now
My pulses leap with wilder thrill!
Now I can feel as then I felt,

And all I saw again can see;
And, kneeling here as then I knelt,
Am all that then I prayed to be!

Strange visions come, on rushing wing,
To bear me to the battle back,
And I can see the war-horse spring
Forward again, as when his track

Was marked with blood;-and though my ear
No sound can catch that speaks of strife,
My scattered comrades, gathered here,
Seem round and near me as in life.

"Twas like a glorious vision, seen

Through the dim vistas of a dream,
And thought or hope of freedom then,
Came like the ignis-fatuus gleam;
Now through the clouds of war it shone
Like a bright star-beam seen afar;
Then-closed the cloud-the vision gone-
Defeat and death had hid the star.

The cloud hath passed-the glorious sun
Of Freedom lights our pleasant homes!
To say the work was nobly done,

The pealing shout of triumph comes
Down from our mountain's craggy sides-
Up from each green and quiet vale!—

O long as ocean rolls its tides

May freemen's tongues repeat the tale!

Lead forth your chilaren to the field

Tell them where flowed the patriot's bloodShow where the hostile squadrons wheeledWhere Freedom's little phalanx stood! Bid them with bright perennial flowers, To deck the martyred patriot's grave; And let your monumental towers

First greet the eye from o'er the wave.

Tell them, our bright example, caught

By countless thousands o'er the main,
The tyrant's vassal there hath taught

:

In bitterness to gnaw his chain :-
And that the day is hastening on,

When Freedom's flag, here first unfurled,
Shall wave above earth's fallen thrones,

And its bright stars shall light the world!

Tell them what earnest prayers were said,
For father, brother, lover cherished,
Tell them what bitter tears were shed
Upon the graves of those who perished;
That all in vain those anxious fears,
If they forget the work we wrought,-
That all in vain those bitter tears,

If they keep not the prize thus bought.

Bid poesy, with words of fire,

The painter's art, the sculptor's stone,
And music's life-inspiring lyre,

Tell how the glorious prize was won!
And when about the cheerful hearth
The wonted faces all have come,
Tell them the proudest name on earth-
A patriot! strikes all titles dumb!

Thus shall each youthful heart be made
A shrine of Freedom, and the flame,
Here first upon her altar laid,

Be nourished by the patriot's fame.
Thus nourished, every cottage home,
And every freeman's heart, shall be
A temple where the oppressed may come
To light the torch of Liberty!

HARTFORD, CONN., July, 1838.

THE NORTHEASTERN BOUNDARY QUESTION.*

THE period has at length arrived at which this long vexed question has assumed an aspect so critical and delicate, that it addresses itself to the attention of every citizen of the Union as one of paramount importance and interest, with the merits of which every one is bound, by high considerations, to make himself thoroughly acquainted. It is not to be disguised, not only that a collision of force between the parties at issue upon it is possible at a day not far distant, but that, unless a change so total and speedy as to partake somewhat of the miraculous, take place in the counsels and course of Great Britain, in relation to it, such a consummation appears as inevitable as it would be disastrous and lamentable. The strength of a democratic republic, when placed in such a relation towards a neighboring power, consists in that unanimity of opinion, ardor of sentiment, and firmness of resolution, which can only spring from a righteous cause, clearly understood, and patriotically felt, by every citizen. Such a Public Opinion constitutes an irresistible moral power, giving to the cause thus supported an immense advantage over its antagonist, which can never fail to carry it with honor and success through whatever contest may be necessary for the maintenance of its rights. Such a Public Opinion we are anxious to see form itself on the present question, at the point of maturity which it has now reached, in support of the position in which it places us as a nation,-not alone for the sake of the national honor and dignity, but for the influence which the exhibition of such an united and imposing front may be well calculated to have on the course of the other party to the controversy. It may well be regarded as a subject of rejoicing, that this question has not yet been swallowed up in that insatiate vortex of party spirit which we see absorbing every other question of high national concern, as they successively rise to the surface of the public attention. We hope

* Document No. 126. House of Representatives. Executive. Twenty-fifth Congress, Second Session. Maine Boundary-Mr. Greely, &c.

Senate Document No. 319. Message from the President of the United States, transmitting all the correspondence between the United States and Great Britain on the subject of the Northeastern Boundary, in compliance with a resolution of the Senate.

Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Mr. Buchanan, Chairman. In Senate of the United States, July 4, 1838,-on the Bill to provide for surveying the Northeastern Boundary Line of the United States, according to the provisions of the Treaty of Peace of seventeen hundred and eighty-three.