Chapter III: Of the Imagination of the Principle Called Instinct

IMAGINATION is regarded as one of the highest of the mental faculties; but since it is manifested in thought rather than in actions, an additional difficulty is presented of discovering the exhibitions of this quality, by animals. It will therefore be a doubtful undertaking, to furnish proof that instinct is endued with this creative ability 'to fabricate images of things that have no existence;' and an approximation only can be expected.

The young dog exhibits his native fierceness while shaking a stick; does he not for the time raise an image of some other animal with whose properties he invests it? The same of a cat, while in the act of crouching and springing to seize a pebble. On a kindred principle, the mere boy rides his willow pony, and the infant Miss hushes her doll to sleep.

The proximate causes of playfulness in youth are the pictures raised in the mind by the fancy or imagination. This faculty, says Kaimes, 'is the great instrument of recreation.' The mind is exhilarated by the cheerfulness with which surrounding objects have been invested by its touch; and the sports of childhood, together with the gayety of youth, are mainly referable to its activity. It is not uncommon to discover the boy and his spaniel at play with a ball as a go-between. The beautiful animal, with open mouth, pricked up ear, and eyes sparkling with vivacity, now eagerly watches every motion of the ball, and of his play-mate, and now seeks for either or both, in their hiding-place. It would be difficult to determine from their actions, which exhibited the quickest perception, the most ingenuity, or the most ardent relish for the amusement. A similar playfulness is seen in most young animals. The manifestations are alike in both; hence the causes cannot be very diverse.

The birds of the air constantly change their habitations in the same latitude, as well as migrate from South to North, and back again. If they did not picture to themselves images of other regions, more beautiful, more abundantly supplied with the means of subsistence, and more agreeable in climate, where is the motive to change? Hunger with them is a motive to exertion, and danger, to flight; but they could have no conception of another place, unless by imagination they might, from the scenes around them, picture another, with more of such parts as were desirable, and less of such as were not; and this would be an inducement to depart; but if they could picture no such prospect, the principle of self-preservation would prompt them to remain. To fabricate such a picture is the exact office of Imagination, and is its best definition.

A bright and still summer morning fills the mind with pleasant images, and the effect is cheerful looks and conduct. The matter-of-fact man, however, with little imagination, would be indifferent; while the poet would surrender himself to the inspiration of the scene. The birds also 'sing out their thankfulness,' and express enjoyment of the scene, by their merry notes. The very formation of song seems to be an imaginative art. On the other hand, a dull morning not only hushes the vocalist of the grove, but fills the mind with unpleasant reflections. And as Imagination 'bodies forth the forms of things unknown,' we are seized with uneasiness, and perhaps with melancholy.

Animals are known to dream, from physical indications during sleep, especially the dog. We see him agitated in every limb, and uttering low, angry growls. He sees nothing in reality; but the imagination must have created images in his instinct of real scenes, probably of conflict, as his movements would lead us to infer. The fact that some animals dream is as well understood as that the phenomena of dreaming are treated in intellectual philosophy as some of the singular results of our mental constitution.

We are forced to see the analogies between the manifestations of mind and of instinct; and any candid observer will find it as difficult to detect a distinction, (except in the degree of power,) as to prove that these analogies do not exist. The strong and uninterrupted current of analogies in animal life, also, which subsist between man and the various species of animals, furnishes an indirect support to the views hitherto advanced. They have the senses, natural affections, and propensities, in common with man. In some they excel. They are 'hurt by the same weapons, and warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer.' They have also bone, muscle, and nerve; the vital fluid, and the organs of circulation, operating in such as possess them, on the same principles as in man. They have the brain; and so situated with reference to the organs of sense as to derive their knowledge of external objects by the same physical agencies that he does. They experience hunger and thirst, pleasure and pain; and some of them exhibit courage and fear; pride, anger, envy, jealousy, and hatred: others,

'Attachment never to be weaned or changed
By any change of fortune: proof alike
Against unkindness, absence, and neglect;
Fidelity, that neither bribe nor threat
Can move or warp; and gratitude for small
And trivial favors, lasting as the life.'

The existence of these functions, properties, appetites, and passions is freely admitted; the proof being drawn from physiology on the one part, and their actions on the other; and yet it is as evident, and as easy to prove, that an animal remembers as that he hears; that he exercises reason in given cases, as that he sees; and as easy that he has imagination, as that a majority of the human race possess it, seeking for the proof in their actions exclusively.

Let us now consider for a moment the manner in which a knowledge of external objects is attained. The eye is directed, for example, to a dangerous animal. Its image is imprinted upon the retina of the eye; and this impression having been conveyed by the optic nerve to the brain, which is the organ of the mind, the mind has then a perception of the animal; upon this perception, reflection ensues; of its power to destroy; its menacing attitude; the necessity and means of escape. A dog likewise directs his eye to the same animal; an image is formed upon the retina of his eye, and this being conveyed by the optic nerve to the brain, which, by parity of reason, is the organ of the principle called instinct; instinct also has a perception of the animal. The modes thus far are perfectly analogous; but here inquiry has rested; and man absolutely denied that instinct could make a rational use of the perception, which he could not deny it had obtained. He did not or would not reflect, that if the DEITY had bestowed upon animals an eye of wonderful mechanism like his own; an optic nerve and brain, and a principle to take knowledge of impressions conveyed to it by the organs of vision; together with all the other senses requisite for perception; some of them most delicate, others most powerful; there was no reason why he should render them nugatory by denying to this principle the ability to reflect upon such perceptions and arrive at conclusions. He did not consider that the dog discovered the object in question to be dangerous as quick as he did; and exhibited this conclusion by fleeing as soon as he; but insisted, in the face of unyielding facts, that a blind, unfathomable impulse urged the creature to escape, while the man arrived at the same determination by a most simple process of reasoning.

In another and concluding number, the reason or judgment of the principle called Instinct will be considered at large.

OCTOBER.

BY H. W. ROCKWELL.

'THE robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day.'

BRYANT.

I.

WHERE is the summer-light?--alas!
It shines upon the land no more;
No leaf-shade spots the withered grass,
No fountain sings upon the shore;
Gone are the days of golden June,
Gone her sweet dews at night-fall cool,
And the young leaves that knew her moon,
Float sere and reddened in the pool.

II.

No spice-fed airs are here, to stir
The flowers which they so lately fanned,
No murmur but the wind-smote fir,
Or ground-birds chirping on the sand;
Too meekly brief was summer's light,
Too fleetly sweet the tints she wore,
Yet they are gone, and dusky night,
And autumn, sadden hill and shore!

III.

I heard a bird in yonder glen--
It sang with all too gay a heart,
For ere I sought the wild again,
The cold had warned her to depart;
Afar beyond the southern bound
Where wind of autumn never grieves,
She sings in some sweet isle, around
Whose shore the soft blue ocean heaves.

IV.

No snow-charged tempest there shall chide
The forest by the silvery deep:
No wintry whirlwind there shall ride,
To break the sweet sea's summer sleep;
Though cold and brief the northern day,
The noon-tide lingers longest there,
Merry with winds that fling the spray
High in the fresh, brisk ocean air.

V.

Leave me and the cold north forgot,
While autumn paints the woods again,
For sweeter than a fresher spot,
Is the sad beauty of the glen!
I'll gaze far through the thickening night
While the leaves rustle o'er my head,
Muse on the days which once were bright--
Feel that they all are cold and dead!

THE INFLUENTIAL MAN.

A SKETCH OF TINNECUM.

THE citizens of the little suburb of Quog pressing on to the accomplishment of any town measure would remind you of the sheep-flocks of their own extensive plains and pasture-grounds, urged helter-skelter, yet all in one direction, and that too by the agency of a single shepherd. Whoever threw himself in the way, must either press onward with the throng, or be trampled down and overcome. Yet plastic as they were in the hands of their own chosen guides, the people of Quog were an unconquered Democracy, and breathed the voluptuous air of freedom. Every man was 'as good' as his fellow, none better. Socially, morally, politically, they considered themselves on one dead level, like the country around them. Quog was the very grave of all distinctions; but although its citizens submitted to no dictation, and would not be 'druv,' yet what amounted to the same thing, they could be impelled in a pretty compact body, whether for good or for ill, by the seductive gentleness of a force applied _a tergo_; that is, not so much to their reasoning faculties, as to their baser propensities.

Uncle BILLY PINE was beyond all question the great man of Quog; the umpire, the last court of appeal in complex cases. 'If he _says_ so, I guess it will have _to be_ so,' was a common saying, should any one be so obdurate as to persist in an opinion of his own. It was marvellous how two or three words from him would alter the complexion of cases which had just before been flooded with light by the eloquence of some confident orator. Arguments piled upon arguments, until they got to be highly cumulative, were thrown down in ruinous confusion, the moment his carbuncled nose appeared in sight. The school-master succumbed to him, but the school-master was seldom 'abroad' in Quog. The minority, which was ridiculously small, (for there _was_ a minority on all important questions,) were forced to acknowledge, 'He is an influential man--an influential man.' How he came to acquire so much respect, I know not; it was a sentiment which sprang up, and gradually gained strength, in the bosom of his townsmen; and which they explained in no more philosophical way than this, that 'there was something about him.' He possessed the common rudiments of education; but although he always _did_ take his regular potations, and always _would_, by reason of which his face had become as ruddy as a lobster, he claimed it as a positive virtue, on the strength of which he expected to inherit heaven, that he was unflinchingly honest, that he 'never robbed nobody,' and that so long as he was above ground, or had any thing to say, he meant to see justice done between man and man. He possessed what was esteemed a handsome property in land, which enabled him to smoke his pipe at the ale-house in a very leisurely way; and here perhaps he laid the foundation of his influence, by the fascination of his social powers, his practical democracy, his cordial familiarity, and his uniform system of _treating_ all alike. He slurred over his ignorance very handsomely by being fluent on all public topics, and by a display of what his fellow-citizens denominated 'good common sense.' Such was the '_Influential Man_.'

Quog was a maritime place, at least pretty near to the salt-meadows on Long Island, and carried on a vigorous trade in clams, eels, cockles, horse-feet, fish of various kinds, and wild duck. The inhabitants were unlearned, and so were their ancestors before them, down to the first settlement. There was no occasion for this; they might have been highly educated to a man, had they desired learning, and that too without money and without price. There was a source of revenue among them, which could be instantly developed, richer than could be derived from creeks, bays, and fishing-grounds in a century. They might have varied the intervals of toil with the delight of books, whereas in the existing state of things there was not so much as a bible or an almanac to be found along the whole shore. Some philanthropists in a remote part of the town undertook to abate this ignorance, and to make the people of Quog wise. These however resented this meddling impudence with great fury, and raised up such a storm of prejudice and bad feeling as had never been known to rage within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. It was a very dangerous experiment on the part of the minority; the 'judicious Hookers' among them were fain to acknowledge that the attempt was ill-judged and premature. There were town-lands belonging to the town of Quog to the amount of some thousand acres, lying in their state of natural wildness, without fence, but capable of producing good crops, and being richly cultured. From so much waste ground but a small and partial benefit fell to the share of each inhabitant. The imagination of the philanthropist loved to picture those extensive plains, which now stretched as far as the eye could reach, without tree or shrub, in one melancholy extent of barrenness, converted into rich farms, covered with waving harvests, and giving sustenance to men inured to the noblest of all labor, the culture of the soil. There was now indeed one pleasing, picturesque sight, of which the eye never wearied; multitudes of cattle, dotting the plain in large companies, quietly grazing, or standing in reflective attitudes, almost as if they were painted on the canvass. Seen at a little distance, on the naked plain, and relieved by no near object these variegated groups would cause the eye which loves the beautiful or picturesque to dance with rapture. The air of quietude and repose diffused over these dumb creatures, recalls to the mind every picture of rural happiness, the fondest we have conceived in dreams, or read of in the lucubrations of the poets.

It was desirable to dispose of these lands for a moderate price, and convert the revenue into a fund for the education of every child in the town of Quog. There were a few who had long anxiously reflected on this subject, and brought every plausible argument to bear upon the inhabitants. They should relinquish no privilege, they should reap inconceivable advantages for themselves and their posterity, and education should shed down its blessings upon all; in short, nobody could foresee what a revolution would take place among the people of Quog, if they would but sell the town-lands. There was no use however of stirring up the matter. Uncle Billy said it should not be done; no, never, _never_, while his head was above ground; and 'if he _said_ so, it would have to _be_ so.'

Years passed away, and still the light of education had never dawned on that benighted people. They were yet addicted to their old pursuits, spending most of the time in taking eels and clams, and seemed not to have a single wish beyond satisfying their present hunger. They sent their cows to pasture on the great plains; and this was a heritage which their fathers enjoyed, and which, in spite of all modern reform, they meant to transmit undiminished to their children. Mr. William Pine grew fonder of the bottle as he grew older, and was held in more affectionate respect. He threw out his disjointed philosophy with a most unstudied air, during the interval of his whiffs; and whether on general politics, or local measures, his sentiments crept abroad, and formed a standard of opinion for the whole town of Quog. So subtle a thing is _influence_. It is not riches, it is not talent, it is not eloquence; it is the _je ne sais quoi_.

At last the reform party, who had kept quiet a good while, with a forlorn hope of a better state of things, expecting moreover in the course of nature that it would please divine Providence to remove out of this mortal life their obdurate neighbor, began with a very cautious foot to stir up the old project of selling the town-lands. They talked very indefatigably, but in a gentle, subdued tone, with all their neighbors, smoothing down their asperities of temper, and presenting the subject in a great many plausible lights. Nor did their labor seem wholly in vain. Those who listened urged nothing in reply, and were even willing to acknowledge that what they had stated 'was all well enough.' These good reformers persevered in their peripatetic philosophy, and even flattered themselves that they had obtained a good position, and had got a lever adjusted with which they would move the mountain of old prejudice, and get rid of that terrible stumbling-block in the way of all good measures, that blind and ignorant, but _influential_ old man!

The crisis had now come, when, according to their judgment, it would be judicious to bring into play their new strength, and test the whole matter by a public vote at the next meeting of the town. In the mean time, they spared no pains to seek out the most violent opposers, to reason with them emolliently; and to spread out, simplify, and explain the subject to those of extreme stupidity. At last a great many said that they were well enough satisfied, and 'thought it like enough that they would vote for the measure.' The 'friends of education' held a caucus, which was attended with great animation and rubbing of hands. A committee, appointed for the purpose, presented the draught of a school-house on an improved plan. Public opinion seemed to have become so leavened by these new and enlightened views, as to leave scarcely a single doubt of the most unqualified success. One could mention three or four who were wavering; another a half a dozen who had made up their minds; another a dozen who declared expressly that they would vote for the measure. All this diffused encouraging smiles over the faces of the members, and led many of them to declare boldly that they could have carried their point some years ago, if they had only thought so; that it only required tact, management, and perseverance; and that they had vastly overrated the importance of the Influential Man.

What had hitherto produced as much popular effect as any thing at the town-meetings, was a patriotic song, composed by Uncle Billy Pine, which will serve to show the literature of Quog, and which was frequently sung with great zest, and an overpowering chorus:

'SO when the Session it came around,
All for to make laws for our town,
We made our laws, and thus did say,
You shall not take our common rights away:
Ti de id lo, ti de a!
You shall not take our common rights away.

'Now gentlemen, we are in duty bound,
To support the common rights of old Quog town;
And this we will do until doom's-day,
For we will not give our rights away.
Ti de id lo, ti de a!
For we will never give our rights away!'

The jingle of the above song, which consisted of a good many verses, and which was thoroughly learned by all the population of Quog, still sounded in the ears of the 'friends of education,' and they sincerely hoped that by the time of the approaching contest it would be forgotten.

The day at last arrived, the important day, and the townsmen, for want of a better covering, were assembled to vote beneath the open sky. The reform party were there in full force, and with an adequate degree of spirits. When other business had been transacted, the chairman said:

'Gentlemen, it is proposed to sell the town-lands; those who are in favor of this measure, will please signify it by holding up their hands.'

Then it was that the orator of the above party, being loudly called upon, spoke out. He was a thin-faced man, pale and agitated with the importance of his message, which he desired to present in the most translucent way; for he knew the benefits of education, having come to that benighted region from the very heart of New-England, where its blessings are as free as air. 'My respected friends,' said he, 'we want you all to be satisfied in your own minds. It doos seem to be a pity that all this land should lie idle, when you might just as well sell it for thousands of dollars, and have the money in your own pockets; or what is a great deal better, edicate your children with it. Just këount up what it would come to, if there's any of you acquainted with arithmetic, and you'll find there's plenty, kalkalating only the interest, for all purposes of eddication. And what good do you gëit ëout of it nëow? Why every man sends his këow to pastur', and it's mighty _poor_ pastur', that's a fact. (_Cheers._) Wal, I s'pose some folks will say the poor man and the rich man get served both alike, for when the mashes are mowed, both have the same right. That isn't so, my respected friends. For the rich man can afford to send four times as many hands, and carry off four times as much hay. (_Cheers._) Now the time doos seem to be come to remedy this evil, and to get a fair distribution of the proceeds. We don't _want_ to 'take your rights away,' my christian friends; we want to give every man his _own_ rights. I've got reason to think that many of you look at this matter in the right light, sence it's been set before you, and made all plain; and this speaks much for that wonderful nat'ral-born intelligence which is common to the people of Quog. (_Cheers._) _Nëow_ is the time to decide this matter; that's the only fault, that you've been a-thinkin' about it too long; but my friends, you can make up for lost time; put your shoulder to the wheel, and whatever you do, do it nëow! _nëow!_ NËOW!'

This praiseworthy speech produced considerable sensation on the ground. One said it was reasonable enough; another said he couldn't pick any flaw in what the speaker had set forth; another declared he was a smart man. In short, a very general buzz of approbation ran through the assembly; and the slow dawn of intelligence beginning to break gradually over the faces of those present, gave evidence that 'the cause' had never before made such a long stride in the town of Quog. The question was now about to be taken, when somebody requested the chairman to 'hold on a minute; it was well enough to hear all sides first; and may be Uncle Billy had got a word to say.' The reform party looked a little frightened, as they had augured very favorably from not having discovered the 'Influential Man' upon the ground. He had only retired to the bar-room, however, and held himself in readiness as soon as the proper moment should arrive. He now edged his way up to the tribune, with a smiling, rubicund face, and swinging his hat around, 'Boys,' said he, with a gay, familiar tone, 'don't you hold up your hands for no such thing. Now you've got something to give to your children when you die, and they can't spend it, nor run away with it. Let the aristocrats get hold of the money, and they'll put it into their pockets, and then see where you'll be; the plains, mashes, money, all gone. That aint all. The next thing they'll do will be to sell your fishing-privileges; (_great excitement;_) and when you go upon the grounds you'll be druv off. What'll you do then? No clammin', no eelin', and no pastur' to feed your cow onto. That's what it'll nat'rally lead to. Now you see, I'm an old man, and know how these things work; but by ----! I won't stand by, not while my gray hairs is above ground, and see your rights taken away. So hold on to your rights, boys! hold on to your rights!'

A shout arose, a triumphant shout, from the whole mass, the above Doric eloquence having turned them completely about. Who would have thought that the aspect of things could become so changed? But this comes of having the last word. Pleasant smiles were diffused over the face of Uncle Billy; and the meeting being now ripe for the question, it was put, and the inhabitants, as it were with one voice, decided that the town-lands should remain 'just as they were.' The philanthropists departed from the ground wofully chapfallen, amid the jeers and calumniations of the crowd; and the old chorus met their ears from the tavern-doors and windows as they passed:

'I HEARD a song the other day,
Made in old Quog, as they do say,
And all the tune that they could play,
Was to take our common rights away.
Ti de id lo, ti de a!
To take our common rights away!'

It is a good maxim never to despair; and perseverance in a just cause will at last accomplish its most difficult ends. For the present generation it is to be feared that nothing can be done. Their case is indeed peculiar. They never will sell the town-lands until they get education, and they never will get education until they sell the town-lands. Thus the matter stands; and it grieves me to say, in conclusion, that never was the pall of ignorance more dark than that which hangs at this moment over the benighted regions of Quog.

F. W. S.

THE BROKEN VOW.

----'SHE was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all.'

* * * * *

HE has learned a sad lesson! he trusted away
A heart that loved wildly, but oh! how sincere!
He deemed that such happiness could not decay,
But the full-flowing fountain has shrunk to a tear.

He thought that the sun, which at morn shone so bright,
Would surely shine on, till the star-light appeared;
But sorrow came down on the cold wings of night,
And all his best feelings were trampled and seared.

The being he worshipped, as angels adore,
The bird he had nestled so close to his heart,
That one! oh, no other can ever restore
The joys of his Eden; from her he must part!

He must strive to forget her, and never again
Send a dove to the world with the hope of return;
He must close every portal but sighing and pain,
In a bosom that sorrow can never unlearn.

J. T. F.

_Boston, Oct., 1843._

CHRONICLES OF THE PAST.

NUMBER TWO.

THE application of names to places is often a matter of mere fancy, without a semblance of appropriateness. The belligerent little State of Rhode-Island, for example, bears no more likeness to the Isle of Rhodes, from which it takes its name, than does a West Indian war-club to the queue of a Chinese mandarin. The Bay State is no more the State possessing a bay, than are half the sea-board States in the Union; nor has Connecticut any more claim to the river which enriches her meadows, nor Vermont to the greensward of her hills, than has Massachusetts to the one, or Western Virginia to the other. Far more mal-apropos, however, than all we have mentioned, is the application of _palmetto_ to the chivalrous land of nullification, since neither on upland nor lowland, rice field nor cotton-field, saving only the dwarf specimens upon the sand-banks of Sullivan's Island, is that fantastic tree of the tropics to be found any where within the State. In truth, as a general thing, there is neither character nor cleverness in the application of names to places; and he who should form his notions of the different sections of our country from the appellations they have received, would be much in the condition of Bossuet's student of history, who had taken for his text-books Gulliver's Voyages and Rabelais's Pantagruel.

There is, however, _one_ notable exception to the general fact. New-Hampshire is rightly and truly designated the Granite State. Not only in the bare sides of her stupendous mountains, and the broad bases of her rugged hills, does she partake largely of this firm conglomerate, but in her people also she seems to have compounded no small share of the hard material. Stern, unbending, indomitable, with physical frames like the gnarled oak, and characters rough as the huge boulders upon her soil, New-Hampshire may boast a race of men unequalled for energy and endurance by any other in the world. It would seem as if the old Saxon legend, which makes Tor, the war-god, hew the first man, with hammer and chisel, out of a block of stone, and give him life with a flash of lightning, were fully verified in these hardy sons of the mountains; for they are almost literally men of granite, with electric spirits. It has been my fortune, in a not uneventful life, to have travelled over many portions of the world's surface, and to have seen much of human manners and character; and I can truly say that I have always returned to the barren soil of New-Hampshire with a higher respect and a warmer love for the rude virtues of her sons; and it is now my firm belief, should the day ever come, which may Heaven avert! when dissensions will rend asunder that great charter of our freedom, the Constitution, that Liberty, like the bird we have chosen for her emblem, scared from her resting-place in the capitol, would find her last and secure home among the dwellers on the hill-sides of the Granite State.

This is not equally true, however, of every portion of New-Hampshire. Along the southern borders of her territory the spindle and shuttle have introduced a race who are strangers to the simple virtues of her husbandmen; so that even they, tempted by the lucre of gain, have sadly fallen from the primitive plainness which was once their most enviable characteristic. Neither upon the rich intervales of the Connecticut, where wealth comes unattended by her handmaid labor, will you find the true specimens of her stalwart yeomanry. It is in the distant up-country only, among the townships far removed from the bustle of the manufactory and the crowd of the market-place, that the rough husbandmen of the hard soil, the sterling democracy of our degenerate age, are to be sought and known. There they dwell, the honest country-folk of by-gone days, undisturbed by the changes which time brings over other portions of the world, contented lords of the heritage of their fathers.

Whether it is to be attributed to some peculiarities of climate or of soil, or to some one of those other thousand influences which are ever operating upon the physical frame, it is certain that the maximum of bodily size and human life, over a considerable portion of the Granite State, is at a higher standard than in any other part of our country. It is capable of being demonstrated by the student of history, that more of pure, unadulterated Saxon blood runs in the veins of the backwoodsmen of New-Hampshire, than in any other class of our people; but whether this has any thing to do with the fact we have stated, cannot of course be determined. That fact, however, is established beyond a doubt; and he who would see a peasantry of sturdier frames and greater age than is to be found elsewhere in the whole world, may find them scattered over the rough soil and along the narrow valleys of the White Mountains. Six feet in height, and one hundred and sixty pounds in weight, make elsewhere a man above the customary standard; but in New-Hampshire scores of young men, from six feet two inches to six feet five, and weighing a hundred and ninety pounds, never deem themselves above the ordinary size. I have in my mind's eye at this moment ten young men, who would weigh two hundred pounds, _without a single ounce of surplus flesh_, and I doubt not thousands over the State could be found to match them in every way.

The portion of the State of which this is peculiarly true, lies north of the Winnepisseogee lake. It is a country of all others most uninviting to the farmer, and one wonders what could have tempted its first settlers to have selected it as a home. Huge rocks, tumbled from the mountains, lie thickly scattered over the tillage-ground and pastures; ledges, bare or covered with dark green moss, run for miles often through farms and homesteads; precipitous banks and abrupt precipices swell and break over the whole landscape; and the entire country is ploughed with deep ravines, and barren with a scanty soil, beyond what any description can convey. To the lover of nature, indeed, it is a country full of beauty. Those old hills, black with forests of Norway pine, lying like the sleeping guardians of the beautiful lake by their side; and those rustic cottages, scattered along the narrow valley which the retreating waters have left between themselves and the mountains; and finer than all, the numerous water-falls that leap and dash and gurgle onward over scaur and precipice and wooded cliff toward the Winnepisseogee, which seems waiting like some gentle mother to welcome her joyous children to her bosom; are well worth the journey of many a long mile to the scenery-loving tourist. But the people are poor. Toiling from year to year with unceasing industry, they gain from the hard soil a bare livelihood, from youth to old age. Happy indeed in their poverty; contented, unaspiring, and satisfied if the last days of December shall find them no poorer than they commenced the year, and the produce of the farm has proved sufficient to pay the tax of poll and parsonage, and yield a sufficiency for the winter's store.

The features of the country strike the eye accustomed to a more dense population as singularly unique. One may travel those roads, winding through the mountain passes and along the high palisades, for days, and see neither village nor hamlet, nothing indeed but the low, unpainted houses, sometimes prettily covered with jessamine and ivy, but more often bare of all taste or adornment, saving the solitary lilac-trees which stand in the corners of the court-yards, or the old scented thorn-bushes by the side of the door. Looking down sometimes from an elevation he has gained, they seem to the traveller, those cottages, like martins' nests, dotting the curving shores of some beautiful bay; and again from some deep ravine, they appear like fairy domicils, perched high on the cliffs and ramparts of the mountains. Interspersed in every few miles are the district school-houses and the parish churches, the one almost invariably standing upon the fork of two or more roads, and the other crowning the summit of the highest hill attainable by horse and vehicle. And then the country tavern, whose long shed and sanded hall give surety to the stranger and his beast of a comfortable noon-tide baiting; or, in the more solitary townships, where the places of entertainment are few and far between, the quiet nook by the forest road-side, where the dipper hangs beside the overflowing water-trough, and the guide-board measures out the long miles between him and his evening resting-place; each and all objects of pleasant recollection to the traveller, as he muses upon his journeyings in after life.

The effect of a mountain atmosphere upon the health and spirits of mankind has long been known to the medical faculty, and has been treated of by its most distinguished writers. Its equal tendency to the extension of human life, however, naturally as it seems to follow from the other, has been entirely overlooked. And yet this is as capable of satisfactory demonstration as any fact connected with the animal economy. Nor is this the only fact of interest in regard to this subject, which presents itself to the attentive and accurate observer. It is also capable of proof, that up to a certain distance from the equator, the length of life increases in a steady ratio with the degrees of latitude. In some recent statistics which have been carefully taken, and which upon their completion will be given to the world, it has been ascertained that the average length of human life is thirteen per cent. greater in the mountain districts of New-Hampshire than it is upon the sea-board country of Massachusetts or Maine; fourteen per cent. greater than in New-York or Pennsylvania; seventeen per cent. greater than in Virginia; and twenty-two per cent. greater than in any State south of the parallel of thirty-five degrees. There are indeed other causes to be taken into the account, to which we cannot now refer, which are every where recognized as having an important influence upon the _physique_, if not indeed upon the _morale_, of the human race. But entirely aside from these, the principle of an increasing age directly following a diminishing temperature, can be most satisfactorily shown; so that the rough mountaineer of New-Hampshire has as much right to calculate upon the good old age of eighty-six, as has the lordly planter of the Sea Islands to the premature decrepitude of three-score.

This extreme old age to which the agriculturalists of New-Hampshire attain, is perceptible to the most casual observer. Over the whole country we have described, evidences of the truth of this force themselves upon his attention, wherever he goes. The old man of seventy-five years still mows his swath in the summer, and bends his sickle in the autumn, with the elastic vigor of the prime of manhood. The barn rings with the heavy strokes of the flail, swung in alternate succession by the veteran and his grandson. The cozy couple, who could tell you stories of their own experience in revolutionary days, ride each Sabbath morning side by side upon the pillioned saddle to the house of GOD. The simple head-stones in the church-yard also, though they may often record the premature decay of some bright blossom of the social circle, more frequently point out the resting-places of those who were gathered to their graves like the shock of corn that cometh in in its season. In the town of Moultonborough, for example, where the population scarcely reaches to thirteen hundred souls, no less than forty-four persons have died since 1833, _whose average ages were ninety-eight years_. Of these forty-four, twenty-six had exceeded a century, and the youngest of the band was cut off at the premature age of eighty-seven. 'Think of that, Master Brook!' But the oldest of the group, he who was for many years the banner-veteran of our worthies, and whose memory, we opine, will still be foremost for many years to come; he, our hearty Scotchman, whose monument rises by the church-yard gate, he, unshrinking, undismayed, stood erect under the accumulated weight of _six score and seven full-told years_!

Brave old DONALD MCNAUGHTON! thrice honored be thy memory! Year after year didst thou live on in the very greenness of decrepitude; and though old Time filched one by one the glories of thy manhood, it mattered little, so long as listeners would come to thy long stories of the feats of daring at Louisburg and the Plains of Abraham! Thou type of graceful covetousness, thou realization of penurious modesty, it irks me to think that thou, at the last, malgré thy unwearied care and long delay, shouldst have been forced to pass the Lethean stream in leaky Stygian wherry! But Death took thee unawares; and he whom thou hadst so long defied, impatient of the delay, and distrusting perchance his skill to meet thee in open day, stole upon thee in thy midnight slumbers, and carried thee, a poor forked shape, unresisting because unconscious, to the pale kingdom.

The history of Donald McNaughton's life would be replete with worldly wisdom. Commencing life a 'puir bairn,' to use his own phrase, though at the time to which he alluded he must well-nigh have completed his fiftieth year, by unremitted industry and careful economy he amassed a fortune, remarkable in a new and unproductive country. Up to his one hundredth year he labored daily in the field, and his best workmen could seldom surpass him in the amount of labor. Even at that age it was not the decrepitude of years but of an accidental injury, which laid the old man by, and to the very day of his confinement, which preceded his death but a single week, he personally superintended all the business of his homestead. At the distant market-town in the coldest winter weather; at the polls on every day of election through the 'sleety dribble' and miry roads of earliest spring; at church and funeral, auction-sale and country gathering, he was ever the foremost man. Indeed in all matters, whether of state or church, public or private, he prided himself upon his superior sagacity; and not without reason. Shrewd, careful, far-sighted, firm in the tenacity with which he held, and cool in the manner with which he expressed, his opinions, he retained over three generations the undisputed sway of a superior man.

The secret of the great age to which he attained was in contravention of all the principles of dietetics. No man was ever more imprudent in his diet, or in his exposure to the weather. He was, however, habitually cheerful; a consequence rather than a cause of his continued healthfulness; and no war-worn hero ever better loved, by the fireside of the wintry night, or under the summer shade of his broad roof-tree, 'to count his scars, and tell what deeds were done,' than did old Scotch Donald. How well I remember the lighting up of his bright hazle eye as he would commence in his broad highland accent some tale of flood or field; and how readily we boys would quit the game of cricket or marbles, to listen to a story of the wars by old 'Gran'fth McNaughton!'

Nor was it in narrative alone that the old man excelled. No man better loved a ready joke, and no man better turned one, than did he. I remember a pedler one day riding up to his door, the poor beast he bestrode being ladened from shoulder to haunch with the variety of wares which he had to dispose of. Greatly to our surprise, old Donald met him at the door with a most cheerful greeting, for we well knew that pedlers were his utter abomination, and, offering him a chair, inquired what he had to sell. 'Oh, every thing, Sir; every thing,' replied he of the packs; 'ribbons, silks, calicoes, combs, thimbles, needles, scissors, gloves, belts, sewing-silk--every thing, Sir, every thing! What will you have?' 'Got any grind-stones?' asked the old man. 'Oh, no Sir, I came a horse-back.' '_Ah, I thought you came a foot!_' was the reply, uttered in a tone and manner that sent the poor hawker out at the door with a speed that no maledictions could have effected.

For many years Mr. McNaughton was the only justice of the peace in the town where he resided; and a history of the cases which came before him, and of his decisions thereupon, would furnish a new chapter in civil jurisprudence amusing enough. Whatever may have been the landmarks in law which influenced those decisions, it is certain that they generally gave satisfaction, and were considered by the parties in dispute as final beyond resort. Nothing gave the old man more satisfaction in his judicial capacity than to puzzle the lawyer, for we had but one in the county in those days, by the decisions he pronounced, and his frequent reply to the objections urged. 'So ye dinna ken my reasons, ye say, Mr. Bartlett, for the decision I mad' to-day? Weel, weel, I ken them mysel', an' that's a' sufficient in the law, nae doubt!' became almost proverbial in the mouths of the people. I remember two men being brought before him upon a charge of stealing the poultry of a poor widow, who lived in the outskirts of the parish, for whose conviction, Esquire Bartlett, from some personal pique, had made extraordinary efforts. The men had been taken the night previous about ten o'clock, one in bed and asleep, the other sitting up by his kitchen fire. There was but little evidence of their guilt, and the advocate had to make the most of every circumstance, in order to show a semblance of justice in binding the men over for appearance at a higher tribunal. Of course the situation in which each was found was strongly insisted upon as a proof of guilt; and while one was awake at the dead of night, stung by remorse for his crimes beyond the power of sleep to quiet, the other was shown to be even more deep in iniquity, by the utter indifference he manifested in going to sleep upon his pillow, after the perpetration of the horrible deed. Without perceiving the inconsistency of the two parts of his argument, the lawyer rested his case, and waited for the decision, which the old justice was not slow in giving. Calling the two culprits before his chair, he arose and said: 'I dinna ken what lawyer Bartlett would ha'e a mon do, at ten o'clock at night. Gin he sits up by his fire, he is a rogue for sure; an' gin he gang to bed, he is nae honest mon! Here, you John Wilkins, you may gang free this time, only never let me hear you sitting up ayont ten at night again; and you, Sam Wilkins, you may gang free too, gin you promise ne'er to shut your e'en till eleven o'clock, whenever you rob a hen-roost!'

Although Donald McNaughton was the oldest man in the town, yet there was not after all that visible contrast between him and his associates, which a stranger would have expected. At that day, the minister who sat above him in the pulpit, and who, though he did not preach, still deemed himself able to do so, and the deacon who administered the sacramental ordinance, were both nearly a century in age. Of the former, one of that staunch little band of clergymen, who, from the time the constitution was accepted up to the close of the administration of Jefferson, stood manfully on the democratic side, and lived, and preached, and prayed for the people's rights, we have many anecdotes to relate at another time. If any man ever deserved a record in the hearts of freemen, it was he, the faithful pastor, the unswerving champion of the truth; and though it is a long time since

'His labors all were done,
And the work he loved the best,'

yet it is fitting to call up from the past the spirits of those who won for us the liberty we enjoy.

But the Deacon, good old Deacon Richardson, was in political sentiment, as in every thing else, the very antipodes of the minister. He too, however, was a veteran of the war of the Revolution; and the stories he told, though not equal in interest to the old Scotchman's, were yet not without their merit. Of his years, the Deacon was the most agile person I ever saw; and up to the age of ninety-four, would mount his horse, and ride over hill and dale to church or tavern, with the speed of a reckless plough-boy. Indeed he had a physical frame which seemed never to feel the effects of old age; one of those lean, tough, shrivelled bodies that wilt early, but decay late, and which, however seared by increasing winters, still cling to life, like the last leaf to the tree. At fifty years the good Deacon looked as old, and felt as old, as he did forty years after. Through Saratoga, and Monmouth, and Breed's Hill encounters, he had escaped unscathed; and but for the untoward fall of the last forest-tree he ever chopped, there was no reason apparent why he might not have lived through another century. Cheerful, merry, and frolicksome as a lamb at midsummer, the dapper little centenarian would frisk about among the matrons and spinsters at our country parties, like the licensed beau of a boarding-school. But with all his partialities for the sex, the Deacon was never married. Why this was so, no one could ever tell, unless, from a habit of stuttering, which nearly overcame him when he was embarrassed, he found it difficult to get out words enough for a proposal. And yet there were those among our lone damsels, who, one would have thought, would have eked out the sentence when it was once fairly begun, for the solitude of no man had ever more commiseration from the gentler sex than did his.

Speaking of the Deacon's stuttering habit of talking, reminds me of a reply he made to some brethren of the church, who had been deputed to converse with him upon his known disaffection to a new clergyman, whom the parish were about to settle. The _real_ objection which he had to the minister was never known, but the _avowed_ one was the inferior mental endowments which the sermons he had preached showed him possessed of. This he urged upon the committee from the church, and this they in turn combated and denied. At last, finding the Deacon's objections to be indomitable, beyond the hope of removing, one of the brethren said: 'Well, Deacon Richardson, let us grant you all that you say, still I think you are wrong. We must not expect a man of first-rate abilities in our little congregation. We must be content with one of moderate talents. You know the Bible says, that 'one star differeth from another star in glory.'

'Humph!' replied the Deacon, 'I sh-sh-shouldn't care if you would give us a _st-st-star_, but we do-do-don't want a _lightning-bug_!' The minister was settled over the flock, however, and the old man lived to overcome all his objections, despite his naturally obstinate disposition.

Although Deacon Richardson was possessed of many excellent traits of character, he was by nature rather inclined to an eager grasping after wealth, a disposition which his solitary state greatly confirmed and increased. For the last twenty years of his life the attainment of wealth seemed to be his ruling passion, and he went on, adding farm to farm, and mortgage to mortgage, until it began to be feared that he would live to gain possession of all the property in town. Apropos to this: I remember that a Methodist clergyman, who had spent the night at my father's house, addressed a little boy, (who happened to be passing while he was performing his ablutions at the 'sink' by the door,) and received his answers somewhat in this wise, greatly to the amusement of all within hearing:

MINISTER. Little boy, what is your name?

BOY. John, Sir.

MINISTER. John what?

BOY. John Berry, Sir.

_Minister._ Don't you think it is time for you to be thinking about your soul, my boy?

BOY. Sir?

MINISTER. Don't you think it is best for you to be making preparation for a future state? Is it not time for you to be thinking about _another world_?

BOY. Yes, Sir; I think it is time, for father says Deacon Richardson's _going to have all there is in this world_!

But the Deacon has long gone to his last home, and far be it from us to recall his foibles, 'or draw his frailties from their dread abode.' He did many a kindly act, and the blessing of the fatherless rested upon his head.

But we have wandered from our subject, and it is too late to resume it now. We believe there is much in that sterling democracy of New-Hampshire, much of real gold, though it lack the guinea's stamp, which has never been revealed to the world. Not only can all that we have claimed for the _physique_ of those hardy yeoman be incontestably proven, but it can be shown with equal clearness, that in intellectual endowments and moral qualities they are seldom equalled and never surpassed. And if, in some simple sketches of these people and their progenitors, we can illustrate a page in our national history which is yet unwritten; if we can impress upon our own age the worth of those who lived before us, not for themselves alone, but to achieve our independence; if we can show what they were who framed the charter of our freedom, and what they would be now in the agitations of this hurrying age, what they did and what they would have us do, our 'chronicles' will not have been written in vain.

SUNDAY AT PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS.

BY REV. WILLIAM B. TAPPAN.

'TIS good for us to rest to-day,
And keep the precept well;
'Tis good in village church to pray,
At warning of the bell.

'Tis good in fair and noble towns,
By brilliant thousands trod,
Or where the forests wear their crowns,
To stay and worship GOD.

'Tis is good upon the bounding seas
To pray with soul and lip;
God sees the sailor on his knees,
Aboard the merchant ship.

And _here_, where our forefathers sleep,
Who crossed of yore the waves,
'Tis good the Sabbath day to keep
Among their ancient graves.

'Tis good to dwell where they have dwelt;
'Tis good a while to stay
And pray at altars where they knelt,
As they were wont to pray.

Though from our rites the thoughtful eye
May wander where are seen
The tokens of the dead that lie
In ranks of summer green:

Who, while we wait upon the LORD,
That blessings may distil,
For us, their sons, keep watch and ward
On yonder silent hill:

We (as did they) in pilgrimage
Lean on these Sabbath hours;
Theirs, in each past eventful stage,
O present GOD, be ours!

THE TOP OF NEW-YORK.

BY S. W. MANSFIELD.

THREE frosts in succession; and now, with extra flannels, a day that was omitted last summer is dropped down here by mistake; and nerves that were braced up to a fine tone collapse to a broken fiddle. Men rush at the soda-shops, looking daggers at each other, and women go careless of corsets, and showing their natural color. Coal falls off again; ice-creams go up; NIBLO has another 'crack night;' the beggars are happy, and so am I.

Do you remember your first julep? The gradual mounting to the brain, like the rush of joy to a sick heart that takes it doubtingly; the quick grouping and glancing of thought from your ideality; the uncorking of fancies bottled in your teens; and at last a sudden ballooning of the whole head, that brings out the stars, and the heavens opening, with angels passing to and fro, (Broadway always, after a julep,) and you forget the dun of the morning, and the girl that jilted you last night out of a week's passion. You forget her as such, but you remember, rather you repeat, the heart-flutterings of the first night; the hand gently withdrawn of the second; the delicious half-embrace (interrupted) of the third; and the fourth, body, soul, and lips, all melting innocently together, with pulses and Fahrenheit mounting the hundred! If after that she gave you the kiss coyly at the door, with ears up like an antelope's, and said it was very naughty, you remember that her dress was too airy to be disarranged; and ah! she's only timing you a little; and so God bless her forever!

Not that such things happen; never. But the julep makes you think so. Well, do you remember the charming confusion of that first julep; its beautiful bewilderment; (I premise, of course, that it surprised an unbrandied stomach;) and would you like to repeat the sensation, without breaking your late pledge? 'Juleps be hang'd!' says you. Very well, you are in trouble to-day. Your wife made you get up first, and the world rolls the wrong way with you; the sun rose in the west, you say. Exactly so. It rose to me, no'th-west and a point off, only yesterday. (Lobster salad for supper; ten devils and a young one for bed-fellows, and the universe knock'd into a cocked hat; saw it myself; every star went past my window; took an observation in the morning: sun in the north-west; the needle running round like a kitten after its tail, and the earth bound to the north star! Fact! Nobody knew it but me; but it's all right now.) Well, the sun rose in the west; your children teething, perhaps, and the nurse has a child of her own, just arrived; and you think it probable that your wife has eloped with her cousin, who urged you to marry her. Are any of these things so?--or, worst of all imaginings, have you _breakfasted badly_? Then, Sir, _Come up to the top of New-York_!

If you have strained your eyes, looking up, half a life-time, take the stair-case, the easiest way in the world of getting up in it, and look down, or overlook, as you like. We have a cream left, and a dash of curacoa that colors better than strawberries. Come up, Sir, and open your lungs to the original element; quick! or you'll be carried away with the rush. A dam across Broadway for half an hour would gather a Waterloo army.

Well, here you are; sit down, Sir, and don't shout, or you will have a park-full looking at you, and probably an alarm of fire. Let the people pass. We have been through the play, and found that the farce in real life is the only tragedy. Keep your heart fresh, my young boy, and away from shilling seductions. Pass on, children; we can't 'make believe' sufficiently to-day, and will just overlook you a little. Fix your eye, Sir, upon that baboon coming out of a flue, till your nerves steady a little, and think what a sweep of mind he must have after the confinement of a chimney. You observe, the world is neither before us nor behind, for we are atop of it. How the eye blunders about amid the sea of house-tops, and what variety of chimney architecture not meant for the eye! Now and then a spire points up, like the stray pines of a southern barren, and outside are the tops of the shipping, hedging in the city like bayonets. Farther on, the white sails dash about in all directions, sweeping past each other with the untouched precision of a street-walker, bowing gallantly with a touch of the beaver. The steam-ferries cross with the straight-forward bearing of a militaire, as though they took no pleasure whatever in the goings-on; and here and there, with sails all out, top-gallantly, a tall ship moves among the crowd, with the emphasis of royalty.

Rather airy, up here! The cream of those small seas in the harbor has cooled the breeze for us, and the light over all, unless the sun-spots have grown since, is the unmixed original of the first day. The groaning of the streets comes up softened occasionally with a shout, or merry laugh, like a mocking-bird's in a menagerie; and overhead, a few clouds float about, idle to all appearances, yet each one is doing its errand of the morning, with a perfection far beyond your particular range. Some are rolling over and over in the sunshine; some just touching and parting, like women with dresses too large to salute; and in the upper heavens, a few long fellows, like ships upon the sea, are scudding in an entirely different direction. Just as you are up or down in the world, Sir, will the wind carry you.

Having looked about us, you may laugh or be sad, as you please. I advise neither; but there below us is the material, from the smile to the tear, and thousands of hearts now leaping to one or the other. Some perhaps at this moment making their first exclamation in the world, to large points of admiration from the just-made mother; and some dropping a last broken word upon the bounds of another world. Between these points are the variety of interjections, the oh! ah! pish! pah! hurra! and Hallelujah! that make up human life.

There has been a lull for a while; and now New-York has dined, and the soft pattering of feet tells us that beauty is thronging down the pavé, to settle the dinner, and the pleasures of the evening.

Has your brain cooled? Take that glass, and tell me if the archangel Gabriel has unsexed and fallen--into Broadway. How elate that motion, as though she were walking on a mountain-top, and as the whole world were beneath her, but not too far for her to be a part, and the glory of it! Beauty and grace go with her, like sunshine playing on a fountain. One who has just passed is sunning his heart in the delusion that she looked at _him_. Poor fool! Her thoughts are not promenading. Some things in this world are rather riddlesome--rather. You would not say that sorrow had touched her heart, and that passions are coiled there like serpents sucking her very life-blood; some half-dead with gorging, and some casting their coats for new life and vigor. Lost? As the star that is falling, which nothing but the hand of God can stay! Follow her home, and as the street-look is laid aside with her scarf, how sad that face! Calm and still, with now and then a faint smile flashing over it; but sheet-lightning, my dear Sir, for with her the storm had passed. The flash shows the cloud, to be sure; and to-morrow's sun may nurse it into more thunder; but these are unpleasant reflections. We should not have looked down.

There comes another, whose heaven is in another part of the universe, separate entirely. She needs study, like an old painting; but even with that, you never would know her, unless you were of the same Heaven. Her sweet voice would be like any other, with a difference that you would wonder at, but never understand.

And now the up-towns have gone up again, and night comes on, with the stars out in the upper heavens, and the lights as stars below. Between two heavens will not do, when either can be reached.

'Ride _up_--Broad-w-a-y!' The boy has music in him. Good night to the Top of New-York!

JULIAN.

THE BIRTH-DAY.

ANOTHER year is added to thy life,
And it hath left its impress; we can see
The change that one short year hath worked in thee;
In thy full eye, with deeper meanings rife,
And in thy form--a scarce expanded flower,
Just blushing into perfectness. Thy words,
The mingled melody of warbling birds,
Express maturer thoughts and deeper power,
And they too mark the change. O! may the day
That prompts these simple lines, ne'er bring the truth
That hearts like thine, in changing from their youth,
Can change in their affections; that I may
Keep it as now, from other days apart,
Shrined like a second Sabbath in my heart!

R. S. CHILTON.

_New-York, July, 1843._

THE EXILE'S SONG.