winter and summoning forth the diffident flowers, the autumn blighting their beauty and gathering them to the tomb, are all, to her, tokens and oracles-they are the interpreters of events that betide her future experience; for her unlettered and unpretending philosophy ranges but little beyond the simple persuasion that coming events cast their shadows before. These intimations all point to one object, and to the good or ill of which this object must be the source this single, engrossing, and eventful object is Love; aside from this she has no solicitude, no fears; beyond she has nothing to anticipate; and short of it, there is nothing to desire. It is to her the sole charm that makes the earth lovely, that lends music to its thousand voices, and fills the face of nature with light. Break this single spell, and her existence becomes a blank! It is no wonder, therefore, with these sentiments, that she should train herself to the caprices of her idol, that she should mould herself to the very shape of the passion existing there; and that this devotedness, so earnest and entire, should at length render her own heart as vivid and ardent as the object of her worship. The mirror, held to the sun, collects not only its light, but its heat. In all the perplexities and promises of this devotion, in which her heart trembles like a star betwixt night and day, she has essentially no teachings but those of nature. She has no philosophical analysis of the sentiment she must awaken, no practical exposition of the means she must employ; she has never, perhaps, once read the early history of an attachment, or pondered for a moment the circumstances that gave it maturity and strength: she is left entirely to the instincts of her untutored heart; she obeys each impulse from within; if these bear her wrongly, she casts the failure upon her destiny, and reconciles herself to the calamity because it is inevitable. The seclusion to which the habits of her nation consign her, deprive her of all those opportunities through which, in other lands, youth and beauty obtain their triumphs. She never openly encounters the face of the one upon whom her fancy or affections may have fixed; she never meets him at rout, or ball, or masquerade; she never breaks upon his presence in the frequented way, or timidly crosses his solitary path; she may never exchange a word, a glance, or smile, with him, at the hearth of her father; she may not even betray her feelings through the attentions of a younger sister; nor once touch the harp to those notes upon which affection would linger and prolonging — linger still yet she will not despair; the rose which she entrusted to a confidential hand may perchance reach his breast; the rich face and overpowering eye, which she stealthfully unveiled at her lattice as he passed, may have sunk into his heart. If she wins the object of her credulous regard, and can succeed in confining his ranging de sires to herself, she repays his fidelity by a devotedness the most intense and entire a devotedness which station cannot dazzle, or a devotedness which lives on poverty chill, or rival undermine through all changes, and is still green and fresh amid the frosts of years. If she becomes a mother, her offspring engrosses her solicitude from its birth. She nourishes it at her own breast-lulls it to sleep with her own sweet voice-bends fondly over its cradled rest-suppresses the pulsations of her own heart, to listen again and ascertain if its breathings be clear-and when it wakes, hers is the first face that its young eyes meet. She watches in it each intimation of dawning intelligence-garners up in her very soul each tender growth of thought exults as she views it catching a knowledge of objects around-and when it stretches to her its little arms, and smiles up into her face its look of infant.love, she clasps it to her breast with that yearning ecstasy which only a mother can feel. If a change betide its playful spirit—if sickness comes - she is near to watch its first tokens of approach-to ward off or allay the weight of its visitation; she trusts this difficult and delicate office to the fidelity of no one she pours the simple cordial, or applies the soothing application, with her own hands unremits her assiduities through the wearisome day, and continues her anxious vigil through the long night; the color may fade from her cheek, her spirits droop, and her strength fail amid these watchings; but she still clings to the side of her stricken child, forgetting her own life in her tender solicitude for that of one to whom her maternal anguish has but just given existence. If the dread event which her fears foreboded, finally steals on apace, and the pulsations, scarcely perceptible now, become still fainter and fewer, and the mortal change spreads itself so coldly over that once sweet face; she presses again its unbreathing lips — doubts for a moment if it be death- and then yields to her bursting, irrepressible grief! Her child is borne by friendly hands to its short and slight grave in the cypress grove; she soon follows, in loneliness, to linger near it to think over what it was what it might have been to her and to weep. She plants the aromatic shrub, with the earliest and latest flowers of the year, about its rest; and by the gifts which she brings, tempts the birds to hover there, and lighten with their song its lonely sleep. O! tell me not of that mother, Christian though she may call herself, who is a stranger to these feelings who can read her bible, hear its lessons of maternal obligation, and then abandon her helpless infant to the care of one who has no interest in it if it lives, and no grief for it if it dies. Give me rather the simple, the uneducated wife of the Osmanlee, who at least has this virtue, she nurses and rears her own offspring; she will not desert it from any suggestions of pride, personal ease, or selfish gratification: and the son, whom she thus - rears into youth and manly promise, repays her solicitude and care in the depth and fidelity of his filial affection. He can never be happy while she is wretched; he can never smile and she be in tears and if misfortune comes upon his father's house, he places her, so far as it may be in his power, above the reach of its evils. He becomes to her what she has been to him, a kind, assiduous, and devoted guardian; and when she is called to pay the debt of nature, and his willing offices can go no further, though forbid by his stern creed to wear the demonstrations of woe, yet there is a grief in his heart which all the sable symbols of sorrow can never express. Ah! the human heart will always leap kindly back to kindness. This affection for his mother is a most amiable and redeeming trait in the character of the Moslem, and it the more surprises us that a plant of so much sweetness and beauty should be found in such an ungenial and unfavored soil. It might be expected where the Sun of Righteousness had cast his benign beams; we might justly be shocked not to find it in a disciple of Him, who, as he hung on the cross, bent his last look of love to her that had yearned over his infant slumber. Alas! how changed the scene to Him from all that it then was. Instead of those fond, encircling arms, an agonizing cross instead of that soft and soothing hand, a crown of thorns - instead of that cherishing caress, the bloody nail and spear instead of that meek, maternal kiss, vinegar and gall—instead of that deep and overflowing heart, the coldness and bitterness of mockery—instead of that countenance filled with tenderness, light, and love, a departed God and a darkened world! Yet in the very extremity of this change, when the last pangs of its cruelty and agony were upon Him, the sufferer forgot not the future condition and happiness of her whose cares once so sweetly availed Him. But this transcendant example of filial piety and attachment has perhaps never been unfolded to the Musselman ; he is devoted and constant, even without the sacred incentives which it conveys. It is for those who call themselves Christians, to ponder and admire, walk away and forget! But that callous being, to whatever creed he may belong, who can forsake his mother, who can forget the sorrows and anxieties of her who gave him birth, and nourished his unrequiting infancy, is a dishonor to his name, a burning blot upon human nature. The earth which he treads and disgraces might in justice deny him the sanctity of a grave! ANECDOTE FROM A PRIVATE JOURNAL. TWENTY-FIVE years ago, an envoy from Great Britain visited Boston. He seemed to be of a bearing somewhat lordly, and he appeared as the associate of a few persons who were considered especially complaisant towards his government. His official successor was of very retired habits. About this time the United States' minister to Great Britain resided a few miles from London. The court did not attract him to a residence near to itself. The French envoy at Washington, occupying the delightful mansion of the United States' minister to France, cultivated the good will of his neighbors: and thus our minister was received in France with all kindness and honor. It was arranged that his credentials should be presented at a grand levee, the assembly of all the dignitaries connected with that court; when Napoleon audibly expressed his gratification in receiving a minister from the United States, and especially one well known as a scholar, and who, from previous long residence in France, was acquainted with its people and government. In the foreign news, as then published in the Parisian journals, the art. United States was habitually precedent. Among the English subjects then detained there, was a youth, whose return to England was anxiously desired on account of certain domestic arrangements. A French general, detained in England, was in vain offered in exchange. The mediation of the United States' minister was solicited as a person in distinguished favor. Napoleon answered-"Such accordance cannot be made to the representative of a nation; but I freely resign the youth to the United States' minister, individually, without exchange." The above events, which I witnessed, I narrated shortly after at the table of Dr. William Saunders,* in Westminster, partly in answer to some queries then made as to the disposition of the United States relative to France and England; a subject about which I had but little knowledge or interest. Next day I received a request to call at the house of Sir Walter Farquhar, in Sackville street, at seven P. M., when he requested me to repeat the remarks which he had been informed that I had made at Dr. Saunders's. Next day I received a request to call at the office of Sir William Hamilton, Secretary of State under Lord Sidmouth, in Downing-street, at two P. M., * Who was then called, " Physician extraordinary to the Prince Regent." |