unrecorded their great achievements. They have erected a monument more durable than brass, more lofty than the pyramids.

Pardon this digression. It is good to turn aside to do obeisance to the old. I might select others worthy of mention from the general mass; but while crowds of every-day men are still pressing eagerly to deposit their votes, the clear orb of the sun sinks below the horizon, and they are too late! Who can tell whether the cause of evil may not have triumphed, by such neglect? It is an ill policy to defer a work of great moment until the eleventh hour. For while the powers of evil never 'slumber or sleep,' the lofty interests which are continually sacrificed, bear witness to the negligence of those who let the sun go down upon their folly.

The head-quarters of the Fink party presented a scene of great turmoil, on that last evening. The feverish excitement, which had been waxing greater for three whole days, had reached its acme. The noisy crowd still lingered, waiting for the returns from the next towns; drinking, and smoking, and preluding with oaths and curses, the tremendous outburst of their anticipated triumph. But a sudden disaster occurred, which arrested their attention, and brought them to their senses, for a moment. A noted politician, who had come from a distance, and had prevailed on a great many voters to exercise their franchise by a most generous system of 'treating,' was lifted into his carriage to go home. He was satisfied with the prospects of the election, and as he durst not trust himself any longer on the ground, he merely said, 'Gee-up!' and leaning back in his seat, gave loose reins to his horse, and let him go where he pleased. He knew the habits of the animal, and was well assured that he would go directly home. Now there was a sudden bend of the road, about a hundred yards from the head-quarters, which the horse turned in a very orderly manner, but the politician undoubtedly supposing that he was going right ahead, did not adapt himself to any new motion, and was precipitated at right angles into the road, and taken up for dead. A physician happened to be somewhere on the ground, for whom a messenger was immediately despatched.

Now Dr. Philpot, who had likewise come from a distance, had been on the ground pretty much all day; and when thus professionally called, was so peculiarly drunk, that he could with difficulty totter on his two legs. He was at the bar, and had just drained a stiff glass of brandy-and-water to the dregs, which, with the usual abandonment of the tippler, he flung upon the floor, when the messenger arrived, and told him, in breathless tones, that a man had been thrown out of his wagon, and was taken up killed, and that his services were wanted immediately. Dr. Philpot received the message with a stupid stare, and said nothing: nevertheless, being violently seized by the arm, he was carried off to the patient. The man lay stretched on a cot, in a wretched room, into which a great crowd was collected, bearing with them a volume of smoke, which rolled over their heads along the blackened ceiling. A personal friend of the victim, himself very tipsy, had stripped off his coat, and with red flannel sleeves rolled up, was rubbing away for dear life, illumined in his benevolent task by the dim light of a horse-lantern. 'Make way for the doctor!' shouted the crowd; and a passage having been cleared with difficulty,

Dr. Philpot staggered up to the patient. For several minutes he said nothing, but put on that wise look which was natural to him, and appeared to be lost in deep reverie. At last, being jostled by the gaping crowd, and having a confused idea that the patient had swallowed laudanum, he gave this sage counsel and advice: 'Let it work off as it worked on!' Being violently remonstrated with, he just rallied sufficiently to say, 'Send for another doctor!' and reeled off to the bar. The crowd still hovered around, with much anxiety. 'He do n't show no signs,' said one. 'There's no life in him,' added another.

'Oh! gin him time, gin him time!' said the man in the shirt sleeves, who continued vigorously rubbing;' he'll come to; it's only the liquor a-dyin' in him.'

There was something prophetic in this remark; for the result showed that he was not permanently injured, any more than if he had been a bag of sand. He soon gave an encouraging hiccough, slept sweetly all night, ate a hearty breakfast in the morning, paid his reckoning, ordered his horse, turned the corner in safety, and, having already felt the evils of intemperance, did not drink another drop of liquor-until he came to the next tavern.

Scarcely had the bustle occasioned by this accident died away, when a sulky dashed violently up to the head-quarters of the Fink party, and a courier leaped out among the expectant crowd. He had an important secret locked up in his bosom. It is impossible to describe the eager expectation which prevails at such a season, when, after one of those contests in which it is our continual fortune to be plunged, the combatants, having withdrawn from the lists, await the decision of the palm for which they have been so long engaged; for which they have pulled, and jostled, and fought, and wasted time, and labor, and honesty. I know of no occasion, when excitement is wrought up to so intense a pitch, save when the criminal, capitally tried, is called on to listen to the verdict of his judges; a verdict which restores the sweet boon of existence, or leaves him like a drowning man, to struggle at a straw.

This way, Bernard,' said a committee-man, who forthwith led the way into a room where the committee-men sat smoking their cigars, in solemn silence. The courier untied the icicled tippet from his ears. What news, Bernard?" asked the candidate, with a firm voice.' 'You're a winning horse,' said he; and immediately unbuttoned his coat, and took the majorities out of his pocket-book.

• What shall I say, gentlemen?" asked a tall personage, with pencil and tablets, who had insinuated himself into the half-open door, and who turned out to be a city reporter.

'Say fifty majority in the whole county,' replied the candidate. 'Very good, Sir;' and he was forthwith retiring, when he was called back to drink a glass of wine, which was now circulating pretty freely among the gentlemen of the committee.

No sooner were the fortunate tidings conveyed to the multitude without, than they hastened to celebrate their victory upon the spot. They seized a brass field-piece, already charged for the anticipated triumph, and dragged it, with loud huzzas, upon the green. Wild Harry lighted a match and applied it. A loud report, and bonfires which cast their illumination far and wide, soon brought all the faithful of the Fink party together. There was abundant cause of gratulation. They shook the hand of the member elect almost off, and lifting him up, bore him on their shoulders in a sort of triumph. Oh! how sweet was the victory to Mr. Silas Roe! Now were the ardent dreams, in which he had so long indulged, fulfilled; and he should find a field for those faculties which he had exercised so successfully on the stump.

But neither did the joy of his constituents know any bounds. Wild shouts mingled with the noise of the cannon. Wild Harry hastened to charge it again. A startling explosion followed. The white smoke rolled up like a scroll in the clear moon light. 'Huzza!' shouted the mob; 'Huzza! huzza! huzza.' A deep groan proceeded from the earth. A torch, snatched from the fire, and waved over the spot, revealed a most horrid spectacle. There lay Wild Harry, blackened and mangled, and weltering in his blood. 'Oh! my God! I am killed!' he ejaculated, writhing in intense misery; my poor wife - my children!'

They lifted him from the earth, and bore him into a neighboring house. Then, forming a litter, they prepared to carry him, all mangled as he was, to his own home; to a wife who awaited his return with solicitude, and to a family who depended upon him for bread.

The night was not far advanced, and they soon arrived at his cottage. It stood alone, in a solitary lane, and a light shone in the casement. The door opened to receive them, and they passed in, and laid down their burden. An unconscious infant slumbered in its cradle. The children broke out into shrill lamentations. But the wife received them with an absence of surprise, as if her heavy heart had forboded something. To her it could not be matter of astonishment that Wild Harry should come to a violent death. Pale and ghastly, she maintained a cool self-possession, and gazed at him with the fixedness of despair. She rendered the little assistance which she could, but it was of no use. A few deep-drawn sighs, a few groans, a few ejaculations over an ill-spent life, and the wounded man had ceased to breathe. He lay in his own house, a blackened corse; and the companions who had gone forth rejoicing with him in the morning, at midnight were called to lay him in the habiliments of the grave. For aught I know, it might have caused them to pause in their career of wickedness, and their faces might have revealed the workings of an impressive lesson; but for her, the wife of his bosom, as the dim light flickered over her wan countenance, it did not betray the course of a single tear. Tears are the outlet of a gentle sorrow, but they make a mock at mighty grief. There are times when the eyes cannot weep, and when the heart, if we may so speak, is too full to overflow. For it holds all its own grief, convulsing the frame with an oppressive heaviness, and will not know the alleviation of a tear. But nature bringeth her own balm on the morrow, letting the pent-up floods find egress, and softening into melancholy the dumb statue of despair.

At the head-quarters of the opposite faction, twelve committeemen sat together in a room. Their cigars were almost out; they were mum, and chewing the cud of sober reflection. They looked as drooping and disconsolate as the tail of a barn-yard cock, when the starch is out. Suddenly the door was thrown open, and a messenger revealed the sad tidings.

'What!' shouted they, in a breath.

Wild Harry has been blown to pieces with the brass fieldpiece!'

'Poor fellow!' they ejaculated, with instinctive commiseration. After gathering all the particulars of the sad accident, the committeemen threw down the stumps of their cigars, and as the night was somewhat advanced, retired to their own homes, commiserating the unhappy man, as they went, but qualifying their pity with the passing remark, that he might better have been attending to his own business, a dd sight!'

VOL. XIII,

THE WAIL OF THE BREEZE.

THERE's a wail upon the breeze,
A sad and mournful sound,
Thrilling amid the forest trees,
That wildly sweep around;
It strikes upon the startled ear,

Like moanings from the slain :
Breathe o'er the with'ring tale of fear,
Thou fitful breeze, again!

'I come from where bright waters flow,
Beneath the wild-wood shade,
To tell, in accents faint and low,

The wreck which death has made:
My path hath been by new-made graves,
With rude stones mantled high;
Nought save the rustling pine-tree waves,
Where death's cold sleepers lie!

'They passed in silence, one by one,
That quiet household band,
As from our vision sinks the sun,
To greet a fairer land;
Beside an ever-murmuring stream,
Their narrow beds are made,
And the mild day-beams gaily stream,
Where child and sire are laid.

'I came from o'er the glittering seas,
With dewy fragrance fraught;
From hills, with sweetly murmuring trees,
A witching tone I caught;
From flowers bathed in each liquid gem,
I brought a fragrant breath,
Yet my sweet voice was unto them
The hidden plague of death.'

They all are gone! The breeze goes by,
The night-bird sings her strain,
The vesper hymn is loud and high

Upon my ear again;

Yet come not with such melting power,

Glad sounds from land or sea,
As that low wail, at twilight hour,
Upon the breeze, to me.

67

ME. J.

THERE is no place in Holland, which presents a more beautiful and imposing object to the eye, than Rotterdam, when approached from the Maas. Every stranger is greatly struck by the delightful spectacle it affords. This effect is owing, in no small measure, to the appearance of the broad quay, or marginal street, along the Maas, planted with rows of high trees, from which it derives the well-known name of Boompjes. Large sightly edifices stand upon one side of this long and spacious street, all facing the water; while along the quay lie the numerous merchant-ships, which here discharge their cargoes, moored to a row of upright piles, forming a kind of palisade in front of the mole, to protect this from injury. Rising between the masts of the shipping, and the magazines and houses opposite them, are the thick verdant trees, that blend and contrast with surrounding objects; and beyond the whole, the great mass of buildings, composing a populous and extensive city. Such is the charming coup d'œil which greets the traveller on his arrival at Rotterdam from the sea.

Rotterdam is situated at the junction of the small river Rotte with the Maas, having been originally, as its name imports, the dam of the Rotte. It is in the form of a triangle, nearly equilateral, with its base resting on the Maas, and its apex being near where the Rotte enters the city, at the gate of Delft. Water from the Rotte and other sources is carried into canals, which constitute the two legs of the triangle, or sides of the city; and while many smaller canals pervade other parts of it, several irregular canals, of a larger size, admitting very considerable vessels, and bearing the name of havens, such as