Of

THE truth of the matter is, that all mankind are mad, and womankind also. There breathes no man, woman, or child, who is not, on some point or other, hopelessly insane. The symptoms are various, but the disease is the same. The other day, an individual called to consult me professionally. He belonged to the Dr. Johnson class, albeit rather a minute specimen. Sir,' said he, 'I desire to state a case to you; to get your advice, promptly, clearly, categorically. I dislike circumlocution. I love brevity. Sir, a dog came on my premises yesterday; a white dog, Sir, with black spots, a cut tail, and long ears, Sir. I describe him, Sir, with this precision, because I know the necessity of your being acquainted with all the leading facts, before you venture an opinion. Sir, I hailed him; I repeated it - and again; you perceive, Sir, three times. I did thus to the dog, because I would do the same to the man, Sir. It is a part of the law of nature, Sir, that you should hail three times, before you shed blood, Sir. Well, Sir, as I said, I received no answer. course, I expected none; but I desired to preserve my consistency, Sir, and to act toward a beast with the same humanity I would exercise toward a man. They are both God's creatures, Sir. Well, Sir, I say I received no answer. I had a gun, a double-barrelled gun, Sir. I held it in my right hand, Sir observe, I say 'the right hand;' make yourself acquainted with the leading facts, Sir, before you venture an opinion. I raised it slowly. No answer yet, Sir; I expected none, Sir, of course. I cocked it. Still no answer. Of course, I expected none. I applied my finger to the trigger, Sir; I pulled it; I fired! He fell he bled he died. I did not fire the second barrel, Sir. I considered it unnecessary. I belong, Sir, to the utilitarian class. I do nothing that is unnecessary, Sir. Now, Sir, I am coming to the important point. Suppose, Sir, that instead of the white dog, with black spots, a cut tail, and long ears, suppose a man had entered my premises; that I had hailed him three times; you perceive, three times; I receive no answer; I raise my gun, I cock it, fire it. He falls he bleeds- he dies. Tell me, Sir, briefly, distinctly, categorically, without equivocation, Sir, what, in your opinion, would be the consequences.'

'Hanging,' said I.

'Sir, I deny it. I asked your opinion, Sir, as a matter of form, but my own judgment was made up long ago. No court on earth, Sir, could so far violate the primitive rules of nature, as to hang a man, Sir, who had hailed three times. Nature says, Sir, hail three times, and fire.'

'My good Sir,' I interposed, you forget that Nature has no blunderbusses how then can she command to fire?"

'She has no blunderbusses, Sir, as you truly, but, I regret to add, ignorantly and flippantly, remark, but she has sticks and stones, Sir, and she throws them in the way of the oppressed. I reason analogically, Sir, and progressively. Nature gives sticks and stones, Sir; nature gives man intellects, Sir; man makes blunderbusses. Now, Sir, observe the analogy; notice the progression; perceive the reasoning. Nature makes man; man makes blunderbusses; ergo, nature makes blunderbusses. Man is the agent of nature, the 'general agent,' Sir, as you lawyers call it, with unlimited powers — ' qui

facit per alium, facit per se.' Yes, Sir, nature makes blunderbusses, Sir. I have studied these things, Sir; I read nature, Sir. Her pages are not sealed books to me. I have the open sesame' to her most hidden treasures, Sir. There's your fee, Sir. Good morning, Sir.'

What a powerful intellect that man has!' said a good-natured and slightly-troubled-with-the-fool friend of mine, who had been a listener to our discourse; 'what a pity he is so eccentric! If he would only apply his vast learning to some useful object, if he were not quite so positive and rude, he would be a most estimable and distinguished man.'

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'What an ass you are!' I was tempted to say; but I checked myself. Now, reader, both these men were crazy - as mad as March hares.' The first imagined himself one of the master spirits of the age, and his rudeness he considered the sure indication of genius; and the base coin passed current with the other man. He mistook the coarse, rude, stubborn, digressive, and insane speech of his co-madman, for genuine intelligence, and commendable decision. And so it generally passes with the world. Kindness and gentleness of manner is regarded as the unerring index of a weak and vacillating mind, while the brute, who tramples on the feelings of all those on whom he dares to make the experiment, is looked upon as a man of energy and firmness, and as veiling under the exterior of a bear the gentleness and amiability of the dove. That anomalous class of mankind, 'merchant tailors,' show their judgment of human nature in this respect, when they hang a pea-jacket at their doors, to indicate that they have fine broad-cloth coats and linen shirts for sale within.

Now a sensible man, or, to speak more correctly, a man whose monomania was of a different kind, would have put the question thus: 'Sir, a dog broke into my ground yesterday, and after making three efforts to drive him out, I killed him. I am desirous to know what consequences would attach to the act, if, under similar circumstances, I should kill a man?' But this would have been regarded, by the bystander of whom I spoke, as mere common-place, while all his encomiums were lavished on the rigmarole stuff of the pompous maniac, in whose whole speech there was not a single word of meaning or common sense. Stop, reader; I take back the last assertion. There were three words in that speech, which were indicative of sound judgment, clear perception, and unclouded intellect. They were, if I may speak figuratively, the sun's ray amid the morning mist; the eye in the toad; the grain of wheat in the dung-hill; the green spot in the desert. The most acute observer of human nature, the soundest philosopher, the most kind-hearted and benevolent individual, could not have used more fit, more appropriate, more intelligible expressions. In truth, they softened my wrath, they mollified my displeasure. I forgot the stubbornness of the individual who stood before me, and I could not help thinking, after all, that my good-natured friend was half right; if he were not quite so positive and rude, he would be a most estimable and distinguished man. 'Can you guess the talismanic words ? No! Then I'll tell you. They are contained in the last sentence but one, when, suiting the action to the word, he observed: There's your fee!' SENEX.

FUNERAL OF SHELLY.

'You can have no idea what an extraordinary effect such a funeral pile has, on a desolate shore, with mountains in the back ground, and the sea before.'

BYRON'S LETTERL

W. H. C. H.

RANDOM PASSAGES

FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNAL AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE LATE MRS. SOPHIE MANNING PHILLIPS.

NUMBER TWO.

THE extracts which follow, complete the selections from the journal alluded to in our last number, kept in Providence, (R. I.,) previous to the marriage of the writer, and her removal to West Point. A wider field, novel scenes, and new affections and cares, will impart to the passages which are to follow, from other records, even an added interest and value.

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'WONDER Where our merriment comes from our laughter, our lightness, our pleasure? Oh, marvel past compare! that mirth, and misery, and fear, trust, doubt, despair, and hope, and discontent, and cheerfulness, should rule, all our lives long, in blessing or in chastisement, the self-same spirit! the same, yet turned and wrought upon, almost beyond our power of cognizance. How strange it seems, sometimes, to me, that we should think of any thing but the dust wherein we must lie and fade, even as it were to-morrow. Yet here we are, looking now to the past — that, to be sure, is certain! now to futurity; rarely- at least with me-pausing amidst, and appreciating, the present. The ties that bind our miserable flitting hours and days, what are they? A joy! a- nothingness! Broken, lost, forgotten, for ever and ever! Father! Sister! Lover! these are deep and gentle sounds; and yet they faint and die away, even as our lips unclose to utter them.

I will e'en to my dreams, and they sometimes are wondrous fair. Oh, how I love to dream! When night with her mysterious hours comes on, heaven! 't is a blessed thing to close our eyes in sleep! Strange, secret sleep; unguarded, unaware! Rain, flood your worst! I soon shall bid your dreariness good night! Ay, drip and drench; there may be brightening skies and sunny fields under my good curtains, whence your damp influence will surprisedly depart, to bother some waking and less fortunate mortal. It soon will matter not to me, I trow, whether there be storm or starlight above, or peace or turbulence below. Good night to lonely rooms, and repining thoughts, and wicked impatience, and unthankful misgivings! Good night to thee, my whilome near companion, and good night to beauteous Anna B-, whom I saw this evening at the Mansion House, and likened her to the Peris.

To me, who have known that happiness which, God forgive me! seemed high as the highest, and who now would fain be freed from trusting, as I have trusted, to human enjoyment- to me, the present is but a thankless boon; the future - I cannot tell; the past, oh, bright as Spring!' 'Often, after longing for change, for dissipation, do I acknowledge the wisdom that places me where Were the gaud, the glitter, of constant pleasure, such as I know exists for many, to encompass me, I should be less fit, even than now, to hold upon my daily course. As, it is, I do look

and as I am.

out upon the quiet stars at night, and hold communion with my eternal soul!

'FANNY H—, the youthful, the beloved, gone down in utter silence to the grave! Her beautiful name, when I speak of lighter things, and her sweet living face, rise before me with a vividness for which I cannot account. Who, oh! who, shall dare approach the mother's and the father's yearning grief, that have looked their last upon a child like thee?—that have stood together beside that unshared pillow, and bent them down to thine unanswering lips, and laid their trembling hands upon thy lifeless brow, and whispered Gone!' Oh, colder to them shall be the summer, with her bursting bloom, than any winter's hour when thou wert by, and spoke, and smiled! Death! it cometh to each; but to see a child of light like thee, laid thus within the trodden dust; to know the throbbing hopes, and joys, and brightened images, that must have lived in thee, and think upon thy grave,

'Doth mock us drearly, in our busy places.'

Dreary to-day as clouds, and cold, and cankered falling leaves, could make it. Felt more forlorn than tongue can tell. Hoped for a letter, hoped for - enfin, I hope for all things, strive for all, but the sure guidance of my Maker, in the way which leads to peace and perfect rest. Could I but feel the height and depth of heaven above earth; the immaculate truth of things celestial; the perishing ashes of things terrestrial; the folly of human wisdom; the falsehood of human promise! But I feel it not! With the very tears of disappointment, and impatience, and weariness, in my eyes, I feel it not! Knowledge and faith are different things; for I know that life is a sorrowful shadow, fleeing away into darkness; yet, trust not, as we are commanded, to the better and eternal meed beyond. I do not realize that bliss, before which the world's most real, most unmingled good, is but a dim and idle mockery.

*

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Eh bien ! it is well to know and to repeat, the past, the past is surely and for ever ours! Hope, happiness, confiding days, and kind and fairy eves, and blessed phantasies, have all been mine; and in the very winter of life's course, I will remember. Friends may forsake, foes may pursue, ties that bind all human beings with an undisputed power, be broken, lost, trampled; there are moments, oh, I KNOW it! which quit our memory but in the grave; and these, it may be, are they which mount with us in everlasting life hereafter.' 'I love not the life I'm leading. For the society I meet in P—, it amounts (la plus art) to just precisely 000. I join in it of an evening; talk, giggle, perhaps sing a song; and if I catch the sight of a star in heaven, or the moon stealing in upon nonsense and noise, off, off go my thoughts on their fleet-winged errands, bringing me back no likeness of aught which is near and around me. What has come over me? In other days, the most common have interested, the most simple have satisfied me.' If that man comes ever to see me again, I must be carried out insensible! Stiff, prosy, smiling wretch! What pauses, big with awfulness, I suffered to occur, in the 'dim, distant' hope that he would go; and there he sat,