Of heavy heels breaks on the awful stillness! Now rest thee, King, and banish every fear, A Z. WE WOULD BE REMEMBERED. THERE is nothing from which we shrink with a more shuddering chill at the heart, than from the thought that we may be forgotten. It brings a feeling of faintness over the soul; and warm as may be the gush of present feelings and hopes, they will curdle at the icy idea, that the affections we now share, and the bonds that now bind us to memory and mention, may fail; that those affections may gather coldness, and those bonds, under the influence of fortune or frailty, be sundered forever. We love to be remembered; and in the hours of business or grief, when years have dealt harshly with our early recollections, when the mates of our childhood and the names of home are but dimly recalled, how will the eye brighten and the blood thrill at the assurance, that we are not forgotten in those scenes of first love-that there our names are not dead, nor our being oblivioned. Within the narrow circle of friends, to be mentioned with feelings of kindness and regard, is, alone, worth more to the heart, than all fame that the world can give. The estimation in which society may hold us, and the construction it may put on our actions, are certainly to be matters of interest. But while our part in life is acted well, our relations to men fully sustained, and our duty all and nobly done, whether the world shall trumpet or forget the fact is a question of slight concern, so far as the happiness of the heart is involved. It may be sweet to feel that our names are honored, and our actions crowned with the approbation of men; but with all the music fame may breathe over the brain, it cannot reach the still chambers of the soul. A voice to penetrate there, and wake a kindred tone, must be a voice in which the affections of the heart find utterance; and they, who have won for themselves the most dazzling meed of this world's glory, have deepest felt its coldress and utter destitution of feeling and sincere regard. Y Yet for an immortality of such honor, how many a sigh is breathed-how many a life spent in weary restlessness and yearning anxiety! Our few brief years are not enough: we would build a name that shall live when we are dead, and tax the tongues of all coming time to do it reverently the homage of utterance. Perhaps it is for good this aspiration is so universally and prominently a trait of our nature. It furnishes a motive to action and noble endeavor, more powerful than all others. Its appeal is to those better principles, which stir the spirit from its slumbering, and call into action its utmost energies. It holds forth for an object, not merely the brightness of present fame, and a life for this hour in the thoughts of men; under its influence, the immortal spirit covets for its actions while on earth a kindred immortality. This prize of perpetual existence has been awarded to but very few of our race; and of those few, a life of virtue and noble well-doing has not always been the excellence. This, like all other motives, may operate perversely. Preeminence in brilliant crime has conferred on more villains than one, a celebrity as wide and as lasting, as has fallen to the lot of those, whose hearts were pure and whose being was a blessing to the world. After all that may be said of greatness and fame, 'tis a cold heart that will deem these enough. Our nature demands the intercourse of friend with friend-the communion of soul with those we love; and without these there will be a blank that the world can never fill. The man of genuine sensibility will find in these a livelier joy, a higher happiness, than in all the reputation of talents or power. In this humble sphere the affections find constant exercise; the social and moral sense is kept lively and on the alert; and these emotions are at the bottom of by far the largest share, if not of the sum total, of all true enjoyment. It may be difficult to convince the heartless aspirant of fame and the sordid man of gold, that, except as means of advancement or gain, friends and kindred are of any consequence to him. But if there be on earth one kind heart, in which you, reader, prize the place you hold-one memory, from which you would weep that your idea should be erased; if there be yet one humble hearth, around which you love to think your name is breathed, not seldom, and with affection the holiest on earth; to you, there needs no effort to show the pleasure resulting from cherished affections and a cultivated heart. Here too is the place to ensure for ourselves lasting remembrance. On the memory of those, who have best known and most faithfully loved us, we may so essentially stamp our image, that absence or death shall have no power to obliterate the impression. In their hearts we may live now, and there may we most surely fix, and forever, some memorial of our once having been. Though a miserable existence be preferable to a forgotten grave, yet how is he better than the dead, who is doomed to stand alone in the world, to share in no sympathy of friends, and hope no remembering thought from them when he is gone? For him the wide world might be a home-but it would be as a home in the desert. But, while the world may refuse the fame of greatness and the tribute of its idolatry, he, who holds with others a community of affections, who is rich in the hearts of but a humble few, shall be remembered when he is in his grave, and the tear of first sorrow, that falls on the fresh turf of his rest, shall not be the last. a THE STRANGER, OR A HISTORY OF THE PISCATORIANS. CHAPTER V. Cumano, garnish well that hook of thine, with gorgeous bait, that thou mayst hook up right good company, to cheer our hours of dullness. PISCATORIAN MANUSCRIPTS. WE fear that those of our readers, who vaunt themselves on being of the true Chesterfield stamp, are ready to cry out against the company, into whose presence we introduced them in the last chapter. Perhaps some of our unclassic friends have been enticed to visit ground they have never trod before. But permit us to plead our old excuse we are relating a true story; and if any one is displeased with the region of our subterranean peregrinations, or unwilling to associate with such frail, unsubstantial personages as dwell there, we engage that his journey back shall be safe, and moreover free of all expense, since the price Achates paid was sufficient to satisfy Charon for a whole day's toil at the oar; for this old Knight of the short-jacket and tarpaulin hat is far less exorbitant in his demands, than the captains of our modern steam-boats, although he is sure to convey us with less ceremony to the same place where we shall most likely land, if we embark in one of your clattering, steaming, up-blowing, man-boiling, high pressure despatches. However gloomy the journey may have been to Achates or the reader, Logan never felt half the pleasure in a voyage from Grassy Mount to Sycamore Island, that he experienced while following the Father of the Piscatorians, through the various windings of his gloomy way. Yea, more, he imagined that these Manuscripts would prove, for him, a stepping stone to the temple of Fame. It is related of Byron, that he went to bed one night, an obscure personage, and on awaking the next morning found himself a great man. But Logan sailed to Sycamore Island one day, with no other design than to see--it is of no consequence why he went, but when he returned he felt as if he had no associates in Vermont. He felt as if to be ranked with the great benefactors of man, Newton, Columbus and Fulton, was no more than his rightful due. In short, he was so raised above his old associates, that he began to seriously think, that Miss Ann- confusion seize this traitor pen of mine, no matter what he thought, but it was not a little amusing to hear what he said, as he soliloquized one evening on his voyage homeward; "O happy discovery! let the proverb, "Fortune favors the brave," be changed to, fortune favors the lucky.--Logan the most lucky of all men. Ah! Virgil, your day of glory has expired. Myself am the only man (Logan had passed the Rubicon of twenty one, three days before) who can solve the mystery which has so long puzzled the learned--how you was able to write the history of one who lived so many centuries before your own day. The truth is, you had seen the Piscatorian Manuscripts. And better had it been for you, bad you not filched what belonged to another nation, to garnish the Roman name. Presumptuous man! to suppose you would be able to purchase immortality, by dressing up your country's heroes in plumage, you stole from others. But I shall soon devote you and your fame to the altar of my country's glory. The foolish Dryden should have employed his time in some nobler purpose, than translating a work which must so soon sink, with its author, into merited and disgraceful oblivion. And although it come late, justice shall yet be done to the great Achates. Every one of his posterity shall hereafter sing pæans of glory to his name; Americans shall honor the memory of Achates. Nor shall Logan be forgotten. His country shall honor him, as the lucky man, who was destined to promulgate the most important, mysterious and sublime imformation ever communicated to any nation. Yes, the mother shall teach her infant to lisp the name of Logan the Lucky. Ye hills of Vermont, echo the name of Logan! Ye mountains of Chatagee, re-echo the name of Logan! Oh, Logan Logan! "Phebus, what a name, To fill the speaking trump of future fame! ” And may that name be wafted round and round"-splash into the water fell "Logan, the Lucky," headlong; for in his antic gesticulations he had thrown his line of direction without his base, and suddenly found himself floundering in the Lake. Misfortune on misfortune! in his attempts to climb into the boat, he only overset the treacherous craft and was obliged to swim kicking and spouting along with it in tow, while the grotesque appearance he made was mistaken by his friends on shore, for a fresh-water sea-serpent.But the poor fellow is cold, dripping wet, and in no trim for company, so we may as well dismiss him while we resume the story of Achates. After the close of the last chapter is a short space which was not translated. It is then continued : "Achates, "said she," already have you spent too much time in viewing those things which are of little consequence to you; come on, and see the unembodied ones, who are to become the future heroes "among the Piscatorians"-" Piscatorians, you shadow of a shade," (she frowned all gloomily,) "Alexa, what have I to do with the Piscatorians ?"--" Alas! how slow you are to comprehend. Achates, I hail you as the Father of the Piscatorians, the most cunning, noble and famous men of every future age; whose posterity shall descend to the latest times, and show themselves forth, as the master spirits in every nation where they may chance to dwell. Why they shall be called Piscatorians, you will learn when you have gone to the upper world again. But be assured, they will never belie their name-all shall be most redoubtable Fishers, although each one shall fish for that game which suits his own taste, and never shall one of them toil in vain. Do you see the form of that arch fellow yonder, Eupiscatorius ? He will be more cunning than the famous Ulysses, who laid such stratagems for the Trojans. His art shall teach the great general to fish for Sabine wives. Look at him now as he practices in his avocation; carefully spreading the bait in the form of a luxurious feast; then laughing to see the greedy Sabines catch at the alluring cheat.Look at that bold warlike spirit, who is busy all the day in fishing |