in pomp, and triumph, and worldly glory; heralded with trumpets and with shawms; followed by glittering hosts of armed men, with earth-shaking steeds, and rustling banners; not thus came to the astonished Jews their Lord and King; for his kingdom was not of this world. But lo! a marvel! The divine Saviour of mankind came in the garb of blessed peace in meekness and humility-seated upon an ass! Be thou for ever venerable, above all other quadrupeds, for none were ever honored like unto thee. To benighted man thou borest the light of truth - the ambassador of God. Divinest mission from heaven! Messenger of infinite love! of infinite hope! * * Be thou for ever venerable; for that sublime spectacle, when, borne on thee, the lowly Jesus entered the favored city, taught to man how poor are all the pomps and outward shows of this vain world. Thou, too, wert then apostolic; a teacher, and an exemplar before mankind; chosen as the type and symbol of the greatest of Christian virtues - humility. I have said I love an ass. Would I could tell you, thoughtful reader, how much I reverence an ass. Would I could speak of the asses I have known, in my day; with whom I have associated; I as a kind master, they as humble and faithful servants and companions. In the vegas of Spain, on the mountains of Peru, among the rocks of Calabria, amid the sands of Africa, few friends have been to me kinder, faithfuller, or even more intelligent. In all these, my ass cheerfully encountered with me untold hardships; shared all my privations, faithfully bore my weary limbs-patiently the upbraidings of my vexed spirit; picked out for me the safest paths, found me the road which my own perversity or blindness had lost; sought me with perseverance, when I had become separated from him; and even evinced a woman's love, a dog's fidelity, a Christian's faith, and more than human sagacity.

Your jackass hath, indeed, a gentle and a loving spirit; a heart that yearneth in sympathy and affection toward all created things, from man to the humblest animal. His affection for his own kind is intense. Observe his ardor for his female, his love for his offspring. But this is not all. Mark his frequent friendships for the most dissimilar animals, such as the dog - even, it is recorded, with a goose; or, as I once remarked, with a monkey. This was on ship-board. I will tell you the story. We were approaching our rugged coast, in the icy month of December. Our monkey, as mischievous an imp as ever bore the monkey form, lost all his vivacity, and became very disconsolate, at the sudden sensation of cold, to which he had before been a stranger. The warmest place in the ship was of course at the cook's galley; but cooks have always been sworn enemies to all the inferior race cats, dogs, mokeys, et id genus omne-and had no bowels of compassion for poor Joco, whom they accused of taking sundry liberties with their sweetmeats and sauces. So they drave him forth, like Hagar's offspring, to the wilderness of the sea-washed deck. The searching cold brought him to his wits, and his wits were not long in discovering how warm a back had the donkey, who calmly munched his daily provender between two guns, without seeming to care whether the climate was cold or warm. Old Jack's meditations, however, were at first too rudely disturbed at the monkey's familiarity in making use of his long tail to ascend, not to show some symptoms of displeasure; but though his heels flew up with marvellous vigor, it was quite in vain to dislodge the pertinacious intruder; and Joco, finding the vital warmth of the back vastly agreeable, did not fail to repeat, daily, his unceremonious visit. At last, the donkey became accustomed to the thing, and seemed to expect it, as a matter of course. With imperturbable gravity, he would quietly allow the little imp to climb up his tail, and when he found him settled to his own satisfaction, would droop his long ears, and doze away the time, or silently chew the cud of patient reflection, until Joco saw fit to dismount. Sometimes he would look around, with a benevolent expression, upon his shivering visiter, as if to say: 'Well, stay there, unhappy monkey! thou hast a hard time of it, poor fellow! coming from thy own sunny clime into this cold country. For myself, I do not mind it, as I am not so thin-skinned; and sufferance is the badge of all my tribe. But if my warm back can be of any comfort to thee take it, and welcome!' Thus Joco and Jack became great friends. Spread out at full length, Joco would nestle there all day long, and fearful would be his outcries, when any mischief-loving sailor attempted to displace him. The kindness of his sturdy friend he would repay by solemnly scratching his long ears, and chattering to him in his vivacious language. Old Jack was the best of listeners; and not Bottom himself more delighted in being scratched. Sometimes, when his little friend was talking to him, he would give a Lord Burleigh nod, as if in approval; or, occasionally, lift up his mighty voice in a brief recitative, soon again relapsing into silence. At such times, Joco, who evidently preferred, like most talkative persons, having all the conversation to himself, would listen, either in fear or from deference, to his friend's brief oration, but would chatter still more vociferously when it ceased; and then never failed to evince some of his natural propensity to teaze; all of which old Jack bore with the most stoical composure.

At last, little Joco was lost overboard, and poor Jack became inconsolable. Full many a rueful look did he cast around for his friend, who came no more. It was a sad bereavement. None but an ass could tell how sad. He had lost his sprightly companion. Who now would scratch those ample ears, which seemed, since Joco's death, more attenuated than ever? Who now would play with that pendulous tail, which now

hung down listless and dispirited? His sonorous trumpet was heard less often, and seemed attuned to a lugubrious note, as if it pealed pour Joco's requiem. A mournful gloom rested upon his countenance. The lines of his face became deeper, sadder. He tookle ss pleasure in his food, and visibly lost in flesh. A heavy grief was at his heart. 'T was said he often sighed; and some of the more tender-hearted and imaginative sailors even told of tears that 'coursed adown his innocent nose, in piteous chase.' He continued to pine away, and before the end of the cruize, yielded up his weary life; dying, doubtless, of a broken heart. Was not this love?

'We men may say more, swear more, but indeed,
Our shows are more than will: for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love.'

It is consoling to know, however, that poor Jack had every respect paid to his memory, He was buried with all the honors of war. And when the funeral service was read, and the words, 'We commit our brother to the deep,' were spoken, there was not a dry eye in the ship.

Gentle reader! you who have listened to me to the end, will you not henceforth have a kindlier feeling for asses? 'Tis good for us thus to commune together; but it will be the better for us, if what I have said should increase your respect for the ass. When next you meet him, pass him not by with indifference, nor contempt; stay him awhile. By the mass, you may stay him,' if his master be willing; otherwise, do not, lest it get him a thrashing; stay him, and gossip awhile together. My word for it, you will quit him with a higher respect for his intelligence, and admiration for his good nature. The mute eloquence of his look is worth a world of lip oratory. Perhaps you have not yet learned what eloquence there may be in a look, unless you have been in love, when you could not have failed to have noted it. But look at an ass! It may not often be your good fortune to meet with one; for asses, in our infant society, are not yet common; but when you do, just stop him long enough to inquire after his health; pity his weary look; sympathize kindly with his trials; and at parting, bid him good speed; and if you do not feel your 'bosom's lord' sit more lightly on his throne, for doing this good action, I shall think the worse of you. Such profound respect I have for asses, that, when I reflect upon their estimable qualities, and their deplorable condition, I am often led to doubt the right which we two-legged humans have, to hold our poor four-footed brother as property. It is a monstrous usurpation; and at times I am tempted to get up a Donkey-abolition Society; or at least, enter a claim for his representation. Our biped beasts of burthen are represented, why not our quadrupeds? And if, waiving all proxy, we allowed him to be represented in kind, who can doubt that his speeches would be quite as intelligible? But I am touching a delicate subject. How the dome of that hall would reverberate to his mighty eloquence! Solitary and alone, what a notable ass he would become!

*

*

Who has not read of the daring invaders of the new world? - children of the sun; mounted on wondrous four-footed things, that seemed, to the astonished Indians, winged with might, majesty, and terror! But had those adventurous Spaniards been mounted on asses! Curious, though less imposing! Can we not imagine a whole army of such, in extended line, trotting sedately down to charge an enemy? Their riders' heels nearly touching the ground. Ears of the longest, rigidly erect above the solemn-looking head. And those trumpet notes! His sympathy with all his kind is so infectious, that had but one among them lifted up his voice, what a blast were there! Sounding their own charge, with that trombone note! What enemy had withstood it? The walls of Jericho fell with a sound: curious if America had been conquered by the braying of asses! We as yet dream not of the wisdom there is in the dumb brute. Nay, we as yet know not where to place him truly in the scale of creation. Each created thing has a symbolic and spiritual signification, so philosophers tell us, beside its mere material-and which we have yet to learn. Your Buffons, your Cuviers, should have abandoned their vain studies of material qualities and manifestations, and inquired into the higher and spiritual attributes of animated nature. Is there no Kant, no Cousin, to spiritualize the study of asses? Consider what a work yet remains for the metaphysician! The mental philosophy of asses! Who can say what wondrous visions visit him, even in dreams? Visions of what? Of the warm stable, kind grooms, fields of clover, stacks of grain?- or are they purely transcendental vision-airy? Is there poetry in that stolid-looking head? It may well be, when we find so many poets asses, an ass should sometimes be a poet. His life, we see, is wretchedly unpoetical; but is not the immortal mind distinct from and beyond life? But could he teach us, in prose or verse, preceptially, and find a publisher for what is in him, would he do more than he does now by his example?

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*

THERE breathes, in the note accompanying the annexed lines, written in 'Kosciusko's Garden,' at West Point, the true American spirit; and we join with the author

in the hope, that our writers will more frequently treat of native scenes and events, in the literary periodicals of the day:

THE subjoined is not altogether 'literary matter,' but is nevertheless written with so much spirit, and evinces so fine an eye for the grand and picturesque, with not a little of true national feeling, that we have pleasure in giving it publicity through our pages. The writer dates from that queen of western cities, Buffalo :

'GENTLEMEN: Oh, that 'DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER, JR.' could have been here to see what I saw this morning! I stood at the upper end of the 'Main-street' of this spirited town, and beheld, in the light of a glorious day, such a scene! The many-colored wo ods around me, landward, and along the Canada shore, were gleaming in the clear bright sunlight of an October morning; the city spread widely out its 'polypus arms' below, sprinkled with domes, steeples, and cupolas, which threw back the beams of the sun; and the broad blue sea, to whose borders the town descends with a gentle slope, stretched to hazy infinity in the distance, here sparkling in the day-beam, and there lying greenly in shadow. It was a sublime and beautiful sight; and as I was gazing at the numerous sail which were flitting into dimness on the verge of the western horizon, a fleet of some ten or twelve majestic steamers, with their colors flying, blackened a league's width of that blue waste, with rolling billows of thick smoke, which poured out from the chimneys, to die away far astern, spreading low, and dissolving upon the bosom of the waters. Fifty of these steam-craft are controlled here; and two thousand souls were borne to western regions, this morning, in those noble vessels ; a floating village, variously bound, along the linked lakes, whose united navigation is more than a thousand miles, stretching, in all directions, into the heart of the most ferule country in the world; a country alive with enterprise; teeming with embryo canals, railroads, and every species of internal improvement, which can be effected by associated individual capital, or state and government aid; a country, in short, where space is fast being annihilated; where, as Carlyle says, 'they may dig up certain black stones from the bosom of the earth, and say to them, Transport us and our products at the rate of thirty miles an hour,' and they will do it! And do you see, reader, as you look with me, in your mind's eye, upon this magnificent and far-reaching country, how this same town upon which I am looking down, (and in which, let me say, for fear of misapprehension, I am neither a land, tenement, nor property-holder,) do you see how it serves as the natural gate to the Atlantic sea-board, sitting, like New-York herself, in the midst of the sea -yes, of half a dozen seas and centering here, as at the apex of an opened fan, the advancing tides of those vast inland regions, stretched beyond the sight? What a focus of the East and West!-an occidental Constantinople-destined to sit, in more than eastern splendor, upon her high vantage-ground. Twelve or thirteen years

ago, I am informed, the town had not more than two thousand inhabitants; now it numbers upward of twenty-two thousand. What will it become, when that magnificent work, the Erie canal, shall have been widened to a navigable river?- when the Erie Rail-road, sweeping its long 'iron course' through fertile southern districts, and the

Boston and New-York Rail-road, traversing equally productive sections, both with diverging branches into rich vales, and to prosperous villages-what, I repeat, will the town become, when these works shall have been completed? Then, too, the important improvements going on, under government, in her far-famed harbor; the sale of the immense tracts of adjacent Indian lands; and the inexhaustible water-power at Black Rock, (already a part of the city,) and Niagara, both linked, even now, to the town by rail-road. This water power is inexhaustible, and available at all seasons- sufficient to convert into bread-stuffs all the grains of the great valleys of the Mississippi and its tributary streams, and the country bordered by the great lakes -a country that may be made the granary of the world, and which is capable of sustaining a population larger than that of China. What a point is this, for the exchange and transhipment of the merchandise of the east, and the products of the mighty west! The ships and steamboats traversing the western lakes and rivers, may dump' their stores at the very doors of the numerous mills already erected, or imperiously demanded, and while their cargoes, reduced, in effect, to bread, are sweeping to the sea-board, on an artificial river, the vessels are on their return trips, filled to overflowing with the merchandise demanded by the vast country of the lakes.'

Such is but one of the thousand views which may be taken, in different quarters of this great and growing country. Prophecy has always belied us, how extravagant soever her predictions. In fifty years, Buffalo will be larger than is now New-York. I put this (that is, I hope I do,) upon a permanent record, in your pages, and so the prediction will be tested. Is it doubted? I would ask how long ago it is, since the Indian roamed alone here, and the unscared stag came down to the shores of the 'great lake and river of the cataract,' painting a dancing shadow of his antlers in the blue water, then undivided by a keel, and undisturbed by the rush of the swift fire-ship? If in the weak infancy of our existence and improvement, we have seen such wonders, what marvels may not be deemed to exist in the onward distance? The energies of the American people are resistless. Revulsions are not only borne, but overborne, by native spirit and enterprise. We have seen the proof of this, very recently. It is bat a little while, since it might almost be said, that

through the ports which skirt our wide domain,

For trade's loud buzz, a lonely languor reigned;
The slumbering merchant o'er his desk reclined,
And round her grave the ghost of Commerce pined!'

But not long was there languor; for a brief space only, did the merchant slumber; and never yet dawned such an era of wealth and prosperity, as is rising upon us now.'

WE are at a nonplus. An ambassador from the printing-house' records 'eight pages over!' when that amount was deemed lacking. A great mistake. Hence, we must close the drawer, but only to open it again in due season. The favor of a kind friend, 'A Digest, etc., with Reflections,' is excluded, and a consideration of the following, postponed for a brief period: A Spark from an Old Crone's Pipe,' 'Down East and Soforth,' 'The Memories of the Past,' 'Autumn Evenings,' 'The Lioness and the Queen of Birds,' 'Nature,' 'A Father,' in brief thoughts on Education, 'Reminiscences of a New-England Teacher,' 'Lines written at Fort Putnam,' and 'nameless numbers moe,' which we have not time to specify.

MINIATURE PAINTING. Every now and then, we hear of some young native artist bursting into reputation, if we may so speak, as his pent-up talent finds room for enlargement and display. The West has furnished her full quota of artists of genius. POWELL, but recently arrived among us, has taken rank at once; and Mr. GEORGE H. HITE, a young miniature-painter from Kentucky, will remain here but a short time, before he also will make himself favorably known to the lovers of art. He has had considerable experience in his profession, in Louisiania, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, and has received the advantages of study with, and the counsel of, such eminent artists as FRAZER, MALBONE, etc. Mr. HITE's style is free, bold, and rich, and his taste refined and chaste. Some of his portraits of well known citizens are not more remarkable for their fine finish, than for the truth to nature which, as likenesses, they display. Mr. HITE's rooms are at the Astor House; and those who may desire to 'reign on ivory, lovers, children, sisters, friends,' may receive the requisite touches at the facile hands of our artist.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, FOR THE OCTOBER QUARTER.— We have read this number of the North American,' with more than common pleasure. There is a good variety in the reviews, while there is not one which can be pronounced dull, or a mere dissertation, in which the merits and character of the book under discussion are swallowed up and forgotten. The article on SPARKS' Life of WASHINGTON, in our copy, is disfigured with pencil-marks and dog's-ears; but for the extracts which they indicate, we have unfortunately little space. Of the necessity of the 'Life,' and its collateral records, and its importance in a national point of view, the reviewer eloquently observes:

'Of the auspicious influence of the principles of Washington over public opinion throughout the country, which happily is stll highly operative, much must be ascribed to the unexpended force of his person ascendancy, and the freshly-remembered power of his personal intercourse. These, with the lapse of time, m ist daily grow fainter. His contemporaries are nearly all gone. Of those, who in any way took counsel with him, scarce one remains to counsel us. One solitary eyewitness of his exploits and risks on Braddock's field is known to survive. Occasionally, at a public gathering, a fourth of July assemblage or a Cincinnati celebration, we have an opportunity of taking the hand which Washington had taken. That trembling old man, who is groping his way toward a seat, was, at a time when his hands could wield something more formidable than a crutch, one of his body-guard at Brandy wine and Germantown; and here is one who saw him, when, pale with indignation, be encountered General Lee on his retreat, at Monmouth. As you come down to the period of his Presideucy, the number of course increases of those who were entering on public affairs toward the close of his career; but the solitary survivor of the first Senate of the United States, and of the company who broke bread with the Father of his Country on the day of his first inauguration as President, has passed off the stage within a few months. A race has risen up who knew not Joseph, but to whom his revered memory, loaded with the praises of his country and mankind, has descended as a precious legacy.'

The influence of WASHINGTON'S example upon mankind at large, is set forth with felicitous force, in the annexed passage:

When men are ready, like Brutus, in despair to fly to the conclusion, that there is no sphere of activity for goodness, in the province of civil government; that this world belongs of necessity to a political anti-christ; a character like Washington arises, like the sun of righteousness, with healing in its wings. Virtue, sueered at and mocked, takes courage. Disinterested labor for the good of others, emerges from the parochial charity. The intelligence of the mass of mankind, long derided as visionary, and set at nought as impracticable, feels itself vindicated and fortified. The world for a while looks ou to incredulous wouder. Distrustful expectation watches the steps of the hero. His gracious words are heard with incredulity; his generous acts surveyed with doubt. The time is sorrowfully foreboded, when the delusion will be over, the mask be dropped, and the meagre, people-loving Consul, will expand into the sleek and purple Dictator. But, if he persevere in the path of patriotism and duty; if he march from victory to victory, with unelated brow, and cling to the cause in disaster as well as triumph; if he consecrate his sword to the protection of the law; and, when the warfare is ended, if he send his army to their homes, and abdicate the power which their devotion confers on him, then, indeed, it is cold praise to say he has served, or even saved, his country. He bas served, aud, humanly speaking, has saved his race. He has given ardor to virtue and confidence to truth.' He has led forth patriotism from a cell, and placed her on a throne. He has robbed the tyrant of his plea, and shown that it is not necessary that mankind should be enslaved; and from that time forward, till the voice of history is struck dumb, wheresover on the face of the globe an effort is made to establish constitutional government, there his example is present, to furnish an ever-ready answer to the ever-ready objection, that, though the theory is good, it is impossible to put it to practice.'

-We are glad to learn from this article, that the entire work is to be published in England, and all essential portions of it translated into French, by M. Grizor, and into German, by Mr. VON RAUMUR, assisted by the accomplished daughter of Professor TIECK. Thus will WASHINGTON be borne to the firesides of the hundred millions in Europe, who receive their supplies of intellectual food through the French and German languages.'

The 'Proceedings of the American Health Convention,' at Boston, furnish the text for the next paper, which treats that latest of ultra humbugs, the Grand North-American Dried-Apple and Potato Society,' with proper ridicule and contempt. Alluding to the position assumed by one of the clerical delegates to the Massachusetts Starvation Convention, that 'all disease and sickness is crime,' and that clergymen sin against great light, in praying for guilty bed-ridden sufferers in their churches, the reviewer says:

Sir, we must throw the responsibility of each person's health on himself, and make him alone feel accountable for it.' Avaunt, then, ye bed-ridden reprobates, whom only sentimental fools will pity and wish to succor. A gibbet for a cancerous eruption; a dungeon and hard labor for life for a pulmonary tubercle; imprisonment in the common gaol from thirty days to six months, for