amusement with that forgotten nation. Many stones bear long inscriptions in a very fair, unique character. A shrewd linguist has lately learned to read them. Their mythological figures seem but an improved edition of the highest order of Egyptian gods, being similar in form and raiment. In an old book of the Museum library, I found these lines, also by the Hon. Mrs. Ann Bradstreet, our first American poetess, written A. D. 1642.

Rise of Nineveh.

When Time was young, and World in infancy,
Man did not strive for sovereignty,

But each one thought his petty rule was high,
If of his house he held the monarchy.

This was the golden age, but after came

The boisterous son of Cush, (grand-child to Ham,)
That mighty hunter, who, in his strong toils,
Both beasts and men subjected to his spoils —
The strong foundation of proud Babel laid,
Erech, Accad, and Calneh also made.
These were his first; all stood in Shinar land,
From thence he went Assyria to command;
And mighty Ninivie he there begun,
Not finished, till he his race had run.
Resen, Calah, and Rehoboth likewise,

By him to cities eminent did rise;
Of Saturn he was the original,

Whom the succeeding times a god did call.

PICTURES OF LIFE IN ENGLAND.

MANCHESTER, England,
Friday, Oct. 19, 1849.

Life in the Great Town of Spindles.

A LIVE Down-East Yankee is quite a phenomenon here among the robustious aristocrats, and meek plebeians. His paler face and calculating aspect attract the special notice of the latter numerous class, from the "Missus" of a donkey coal-cart down to the wretched starveling, that chases you about begging ha'penny to buy bread, because his father's dead, his mother's sick, and he has been two days without food.

It rains constantly in Manchester, owing doubtless to the heat, and smoke arising from the bituminous coal burned in the manufactories.

England appears very dull and gloomy in comparison with our sunny, go-ahead land. But I have not seen much of it yet.

Voyage across the Atlantic.

We had a delightful passage over the vast ocean, with the exception of one melancholy occurrence. On the bright morning of our departure from your city, one hundred and three passengers assembled on board the beautiful packet ship

Anglo-American, after a tender parting from their friends and relatives, who had followed them to the water's edge. There were five of us in the cabin, and of the number one young lady with large black eyes, dark hair, and a countenance of generous and intelligent expression. She was going to visit a brother in Liverpool, whom she had not seen from early childhood.

At length all things being in readiness, the cables are loosed, and we move slowly outward, while farewell cheers reëcho from the thronging shore, and a harsh song from the jovial band at the capstan rings out upon the breeze.

"I can't but say it is an awkward sight,

To see one's native land receding through

Like the bird of Jove among the clouds, our ship glances through the yielding sea, outstripping every vessel that comes in our way.

Returning Emigrants.

Oh! haven't we a motley, harlequin batch of beings forward, among the old spars and oakum, tubs and barrels? flap-eared, onion-eyed, crooked-legged, broken-backed men; and smutty-faced, mop-haired, scow-footed women, snarled up among a swarm of ragged children, some with pealed heads emerging out of their father's old coats, and up to their ears in soleless boots, others with one-legged breeches, and pudding bags on their heads for caps. An old tobacco-pipe is always suspended from the mouth of each man and woman, so that one unacquainted with the genus would be apt to take it for a natural elongation of the proboscis.

I approached one old fellow, as he sat on an inverted tub, and asked him how long he had been in America, and why he returned to poor old Ireland again.

"and

"Och! yer honor, about one month is it," said he; I'm going back because indade is Ameriky a bad counthry intirely, and I can live asier at home without the Yankees to chate and ruin me jist."

The absurd anticipations of these ignorant creatures respecting the facilities for earning a livelihood in the United States often induce even those destitute of the means of paying their passage on board the packets to attempt a clandestine emigration; and they conceal themselves in the hold. But the device does not often succeed; for as the vessel is on the point of sailing, brimstone is ignited under the closed hatches, and its suffocating fumes soon rout the unlucky rogues, and drive them forth like stifled bees from the sulphurous hive. But, what aggravates their sorry condition, the taunting sailors stand ready with the preparation, and bedaub them from head to foot with nasty tar.

On the bounding billows.

Now we are far out on the blue sea, rocking upon the backs of the great billows, and the late merry countenances of the passengers begin to look as if they were thinking of their sins. Even our fair friend looks decidedly serious, and there is a shade of sadness on the doctor's open brow.

"The best remedy is a beef-steak
Against sea-sickness,"

says Byron; but I tried it, and found it injurious. The best preventive of the cruel pest in my case was abstemiousness and exercise on deck. The steerage folks made doleful exclamations in their agonies. As two unfeeling, clumpy old fellows, whom the cholera couldn't hurt, sat on a bag of turnips, plying their pipes, and jeering at the wry faces of their friends, down came a great surge like an avalanche against the staggering ship, dashing a flood of spray over the deck' and tumbling the old smokers head over heels down the scut

tle, among the hens and pigs. One of the officers, hearing an outcry among the fowls, ran down and belabored the jokers soundly for attempting to rob the hen-roost.

"A devil of a sea rolls in that bay

As I, who've crossed it oft know well enough,
And standing upon deck, the dashing spray
Flies in one's face and makes it weather-tough."

An Ocean Scene.

In the afternoon the wind ceased, and, as the refulgent sun was sinking behind the glowing clouds, the sea grew calm, and the crooked-winged gulls and stormy petrels careered about between the solar bars of light, occasionally alighting, and standing a few seconds upon their webbed feet. Not a vessel is visible in all the boundless expanse of ocean, nor a cloud in the blue arch of heaven. Porpoises are leaping and other two huge whales are

playing on one side, and on the spouting jets into the air like the smoke of chimneys, and lashing the water till it foams like yeast. The departed rays of the sun have swept away the white veil of the celestial dome, and the glorious realm beyond gleams out through a thousand little apertures.

Hark! methinks I hear the celestial symphony, —

Ave, Sanctissime! we lift our souls to thee;

Ora pro nobis ! 'tis night-fall on the sea."

It is the sweet voice of Miss P., our female passenger.

Patriotism or Philanthropy?

We enjoyed many a pleasant hour during the voyage, in conversation. From speaking one evening of the laws and customs of our several native countries, the manifest partiality of each for the land that gave him birth became the topic.

"Do you not think," inquired Miss P., "a person may