of the Aurora Borealis she has also told, reasoning on the principle of analogous and simultaneous phenomena.

And still her march is ever onward and upward. New discoveries she is ever making; new inventions continually crown her unceasing efforts. Action! action! is her watchword. She slumbers not, nor sleeps. Her happiness consists in striving to attain a something she does not possess. And when one object after another is gained, she successively hopes for, and reaches after more. Let her have nothing to hope for; no prospect of good in the distance not yet attained, and she is miserable indeed.

But, with all her greatness, how fallible is the human mind! Every day's experience gives us evidence of this. We perceive it in the judgments she pronounces; in the opinions she advances; in her vascillation and indecision; in her prejudices and biases. We perceive it in her literary productions, for the best of these contain contradictions, or opposing sentiments. True, then, it is, that here, in everything, we "see through a glass darkly," and that perfection is not in man.

Yet, this fallible mind is immortal. If not so, why her wonderful faculties?

-To toil and eat,

Then make our bed in darkness, needs no thought.

What superfluities are reasoning sonls!

Oh! give Eternity, or thought destroy."

And, Oh! man,

"Know'st the importance of a soul immortal?
Benold this midnight glory: worlds on worlds!

Amazing pomp; redouble this amaze;

Ten thousand add; add twice ten thousand more;
Then weigh the whole, one soul outweighs them all,
And calls th' astonishing magnificence

Of unintelligent creation, poor."

RANDOM THOUGHTS BY AN OCCASIONAL WRITER.

"Together let us beat this ample field;

Try what the open, what the covert yield."

POPE.

There is a difficulty attending an author's introduction to the public, of which no one, who finds himself in that attitude, will remain insensible.

Addison imagined it was quite essential to every reader to be

informed whether his author was a black or a fair man, mild or choleric in his temper, married or a bachelor.

While Dr. Johnson seems to have regretted that, in likeness to the conventional rules of common salutation, usage had not in this particular fixed on some universally acknowledged formulary, as convenient as the "Good morning, Sir," by which one arrests and holds the respectful attention of a stranger whom he has never seen before.

With the embryo author the important questions appear to be, what topic shall he introduce, what shall he say first; then, what account shall he give of himself, that, his motives and pretensions being known, his works may be duly appreciated.

So far as I find myself standing in the way of these reflections, I must be allowed to say that I have no very serious concern about them.

One who has always conceived more pleasure in satisfying himself that he is right, than in any favor with which others might look upon his views, is likely to bear with some composure the censure, which is implied by a difference of opinions.

And one who has never set up any pretensions to literary merit, cannot be greatly pained to find that he has not placed a proper estimate on his own genius; at the same time that he is conscious, from that fact, of being measurably shielded against the effects of criticism.

Nor need THE OCCASIONAL WRITER have more care for the subjects-first or last-which shall invite the powers of his fugitive

pen.

The "Western Journal" proclaims its devotion to Literature and Art. Here certainly is a wide field. Whether your correspondent chance to track along the paths of science, morals, or religion; whether you find him lingering around the shrines of the arts; or holding dalliance with the Muses in their retired seats, or wantoning in the realms of poesy he will have the consolation of knowing, he has not passed his proper limits; has not trespassed on forbidden ground.

It is, perhaps, best that the imaginative, the solid, and the various, should be mingled for alternate pleasure and instruction.

These changes would appear to be as necessary to the sound and healthy action of the mind, as the alternations of heat and cold, of rest and labor, in the body, to its pleasurable or salubrious habit.

Too much attention to one class of subjects tends frequently to contract and bias the intellectual faculties: while more extended and varied researches expand and liberalize them.

It is a subject for public congratulation that this most valuable and interesting journal offers so broad a field for the useful employment of every variety of talent and learning. This enlarged spirit of liberality, on the part of the proprietors, is not only highly

creditable to their taste and judgment, but is in happy unison with the spirit of the age.

It does not matter, at this time of day, that an Editor may have resolved to devote his paper to Politics entirely-to Religion entirely or to Science entirely.

Once an Editor, he can no longer stand on so narrow a platform.

His business, thenceforward, is with the world; and the human mind, in all its departments, is the mighty field of his labors.

To persuade, to instruct, to amuse, to bring light out of darkness, to make the crooked paths straight, to dispel the vapors of prejudice, to lead step by step back from the quagmires of error and blindness the minds of men to the highlands of truth and reason, is the difficult but ever glorious purpose of him who assumes the control of the public press. To effect such ends, he must needs draw upon the largest resources.

If the human mind, in all its vastness, is the theatre of his operations, human knowledge, in all its boundless variety, is the means which he must put into requisition.

What Quinctillian has said of the Orator, may be aptly applied to the modern Editor. "Whatever lies within the regions of speech," said that master of his art, "ought to command the attention of the orator.' Whatever the pen can write for the benefit of mankind, say I, deserves the consideration of the Editor. And why? Because, as a professor of mechanics would inform us, he can bring to bear so many more levers on the object he is lifting.

Mind, the public mind especially, is a mazy labyrinth, and he whose observations are most extensive, will discover the most avenues by which it may be threaded, will find the ways and means of opening a larger number of its clandestine portals and throwing the light of knowledge into the darksome chambers beneath.

Knowledge is a unit, and its devotees are brethren. The lights of the sciences burned on either side of the pathway that went up to the temple of wisdom and mutually illuminated the footsteps of the votaries who knelt at the shrine of Minerva. Why, therefore, may not an established fact in Optics shed light upon a difficulty in Hydrostatics, or the discoveries of the mental philosopher lend an argument to elucidate a vexed question in the abstruse science of Political Economy?

The foregoing reflections must plead my apology for aspiring to become an occasional, perhaps, a random writer for the "Western Journal."

I shall discuss, if you please, Messrs. Editors, no subject much in detail, and, in my correspondence with you, insist upon the privilege so long indulged by me, and now more than ever adapted to the infirmities of age, of doing much as I choose.

I shall therefore consult my own convenience as to how, when, and what, I shall write.

Maintaining a becoming respect towards all persons, I shall demand the same for myself. I shall never dogmatize with

-or browbeat my readers, nor set down to their miserable prejudices a failure to perceive the wisdom of my precepts, the beauty of my example.

In short, I have set up reason as my guide, and with the best resolution I have, I intend to follow her lead through evil and through good report. But stop, sirs! Why that frown, which my quizzing glass informs, is gathering on the brow editorial?

Ah, I have it :-You begin to imagine, I am one of those crabbed old fellows, who has grown so fond of himself, and formed such peculiar notions of REASON, that he can never observe her Ladyship's presence, unless she appears in a frock of dimity and a plaited ruff, according to the antiquated fashions of the age in which he was reared.

If such suspicions are really entertained, you will find on better acquaintance, I think, they are groundless.

It was an important part of my early teaching to distinguish between things and their appendages.

It is not the apparel of my mistress that endears her to me.

I could love her alike in a suit of lace, or in rudest buff; or glittering in jewels and diamonds, or without them.

It is the boldness and elevation of her countenance, ever beaming with a holy radiance; it is the fire of immortality that burns in her eye, and illumines her whole mien; it is the heavenly serenity and benignity of her temper, that proclaims her kindred of the Gods, and distinguishes her to my fancy from the thousand makeshifts of the day.

Thus sung the inspired bard :

"Truth is a towering dame, divine her air:

In native bloom she walks the world in state.

But falsehood is a meretricious fair,

That's painted mean, and hobbling in her gait :—
Dares not look up, with resolution's mien;
Sneaking hides, and hopes not to be seen;

Forever haunted by the ghost of doubt;

Trembling, lest the world should find her out."

I have looked into history and marked her progress among the nations; and seen her dispensing from both her hands the blessings of peace. I have observed where she paused; and on that spot of earth the simple power of her majestic presence enlarged the area of human rights, and shrunk the sinews of overgrown, relentless power.

I looked again whither her footsteps wandered, and saw plenty following after.

I have beheld her presiding in a Grecian Areopagus, a Roman Senate, a Parliament of Britain, and an American Congress, and always with equal admiration.

Strike me, but hear me, is the simple and touching eloquence of her tongue.

In Heathen, Jew, or Christian, I bow in willing homage to her beautiful behests.

To my fair readers, of whom it may be my lot to speak, I would say: I am too old and, I hope, too honest, for flattery.

If I speak for them, it will be in the hope of making them wiser and happier.

If ever my erring pen shall indite a line to stimulate a motive in one innocent female bosom to mar its own blessed peace, or place in the heart of husband, parent, friend, a thorn to rankle there for life; it shall indite a thousand more, to exorcise the horrid fiend, and expel it forever.

I am but too well satisfied that the most beautiful woman in the world, who has nothing to recommend her but the comeliness of her person, is a poor, poor thing:

"Frail as the leaf in Autumn's yellow bower;

Dust upon the wind, and dew upon the flower!"

a miserable mendicant upon the giddy crowd for favors unsubstantial as the wind; a seeker after alms who does not always receive from a cold, uncharitable world the pity that she craves.

I believe, too, that every good woman, whatever her sphere in life, is endued with an immortal beauty, more precious to her family and friends, than all the exquisite odors which are wafeed for many leagues from groves of spices, by the shores of "Araby, the Blessed."

"Ah, friend! to dazzle, let the vain design :

To raise the thought, and touch the heart, be thine!
That charm shall grow, while what fatigues the ring,
Flaunts and goes down an unregarded thing."