I need hardly add, that the consimilarity (which is indeed almost too slight to be worth mentioning,) was entirely accidental. The phrase," all ages, sexes, and conditions," I have lately had pointed out to me, (by an obliging friend, who had the goodness to look over the manuscript,) in the 'Declaration of Independence:' "an expression of so particular a kind, that its occurrence to two writers must appear an extraordinary event; for this reason I once determined to exclude it from the relation ; but, as it was truly unborrowed, and suited the place in which it stood, this seemed, on after-consideration, to be an act of cowardice, and the lines are, therefore, printed as they were written." These explanations could be corroborated by my learned friend, M—c▬| R—h, had he not unfortunately gone out on the late Exploring Expedition. "But I trust the reader will give me cre dit." THE BUFFALO BAITING. THE COPY-BOOK. NO. VI. Having long observed the prevalent fashion among❘ our younger writers, (and too often even among the older,) of stuffing and interlarding their (otherwise creditable) pages with quotations and extracts, stringing them into an absurd farrago, an incongruous patchwork, like Sancho Panza's proverbs, without order or relevancy—I, many years since, began to meditate a work, which, being perfectly free from such faults, might (if haply it should survive so long,) go down to future ages, a complete model of style in this particular. The following story is the result of my labors in this behalf, in which (if I am not most egregiously deceived,) I have succeeded in supplying an important desideratum in our literature. The ingenious reader cannot fail to remark the scrupulous care with which I have steered clear of the error of which I complain. It is true, a number of favorite passages, out of our best authors, in prose and in verse, (and some of them very apt to the matter in hand,) occurred to me while writing this story; but I had an object before me, and I was not to be diverted from it, either by the syren voice of habit on the one side, or example on the other. "It is (in the opinion of the poet Crabbe,) sufficient for an author, that he uses not the words or ideas of another without acknowledgment, and this, (says he) and no more than this, I mean by disclaiming debts of the kind; yet resemblances are sometimes so very striking, that it requires faith in a reader to admit they were undesigned." The expression in a following page,- we stepped softly and cautiously around him,"-I have (while these sheets were preparing for the press,) discovered, bear some faint resemblance to a line of Byron: "but not before The ground with cautious tread is traversed o'er.” "When wild, they are a fierce and formidable race; and there is no method of escaping them, but by climbing some immense tree. A tree of moderate size would be no security, for he can easily break them down; and many travellers have been instantly gored to death, and then trampled to pieces by their feet."-[Mrs. Trimmer's Nat. His., Art. Bison. When I was a small boy at school, under a teacher who predominated over us with a most despotic rod, we one day heard that a buffalo had come to town, and was going to have a most grand battle-royal with a whole parcel of bull-dogs. The news created a prodigious sensation-nothing was ever so enchanting. In accordance with the bill of rights, which recommends a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles, throwing ourselves back upon our reserved rights, a large and respectable number of us resolved, in the gloomy recesses of minds capacious of such things, to go it or bust; in three words, we played truant. True, as we set off we had our misgivings, our doubts, our forebodings; but, gay creatures of the element, insects on the wing, we careered in the balmy sunshine of the present hour, postponing all thought of the winter of our discontent; and all the clouds that lowered o'er our house were in the deep bosom of the ocean buried. It was the sweetest of all possible summer mornings, bridal of the earth and sky, when we crossed the sequestered little river, (where Pocahontas used to fish for minnows,) in Indian file, along an antiquated narrow foot-bridge,* (now, alas! consigned to the tomb of the Capulets, and numbered with the things that were; fuit Ilium, et ingens Gloria Hectoris.) On our right flank lay the island-like Robinson Crusoe's, inhabited by goatsthe river banks crowned with flowers and foliage, where the honeysuckle, the woodbine, and the wild rose breathed on the liquid air their freshest perfume; the • Hector McNeil's bridge. morning mists hung suspended o'er the water, the sun painting their fleecy skirts with gold; the cloistered thrush, in sere and tangled brush-heap, chanted his orisons, while the mockingbird exulting tuned his melodious pipes in a grove hard by. Oh! it was an oasis in the Zahara of life-one of those particularly green spots in the retrospect of an ordinary existence, to which, in after days, memory will often revert with fond emotion,--and all that sort of thing. Bill Dangerfield, (I have not seen him for years, but I well remember his mild face and sweet temper,) Bill, inspired by the occasion and the scene, recited like a young Garrick, Toby, or not Toby? that's the question. Tom Beverley followed with, Plato, thou reasonest well, else why this pleasing hope, this fond desire, this longing after immortality? Harry Mercer informed us that his name was Norval, on the Grampian hills-to which I replied, but no where else; and brought up the rear with Tityre tu patulæ recubans sub tegmine fagi; translating it—Tityrus, O thou, recubing under the tegmen of a patulous fagian. Happy group! the mildew had not yet fallen on our young hearts! happy hours! eheu quantum fugaces! We at length reached the scene of action; there stood Bison, as large as life--aloft in awful state, the warlike varmint stood; he stood in the centre of an area, which area was encircled by a barrier of rope-outside of which rope the spectators were to stand. Bison was made fast by a ring in his nose, and a stout cord to a stake planted in the centre of the area aforesaid. He excited our warmest admiration. He was the first of the species we had seen: we were happy of his acquaintance; still we were disposed to keep up a certain degree of ceremony with him; sudden intimacies are not to be approved of, especially with strangers from a distance. We stepped softly and cautiously around him, and reconnoitred his outlandish form, his short peculiar tail, his extrornary hump, his eyes glittering like diamonds, fierce as ten furies, black as two o'clock at night, and savage as a meat axe: monstrum, informe, ingens. By this time had assembled a large concourse of people, of all ages, sexes, and conditions; white, black, and mulatto; good, bad, and indifferent; men, women, and children; tag, rag, and bobtail: Then to the crowded circus forth they fare, The fight began: when lo! The den expands, and Expectation mute, Gapes round the silent circle's peopled walls,--Bounds with one lashing spring the mighty brute, And wildly staring, spurns with sounding foot, The sand,--nor blindly rushes on his foe; Here, there, he points his threat'ning front, to suit His first attack, wide waving to and fro His angry tail; red rolls his eye's dilated glow. The dogs rushed to the onset, and furious every bulldog barked, to join the dreadful revelry. Bison stamped, bellowed, reared up, fore and aft; poor fellow, they tore his nose awfully, but not with impunity; one of them, (a brindle,) he slung right up in the air, perpendicular, over his head, fifteen feet; and the way he yelped was curious--and when he landed, he lay there as limber as a dish-rag. On foams Bison, but not unscathed he goes; woes. When the buffalo made a dash at the dogs, the crowd gave way before him-and when he rushed on the other side, they closed up again behind him—thus receding and advancing like a wave of the sca, on Tampa's lonely shore. One gallant dog is stretched a mangled corse; And the way the folks hustled and jostled, and got rammed, and crammed, and jammed, topsy-turvy, pellmell, and higgle-de-piggledy, was no body's business. And among 'em they pretty near mashed off one of my toes, (it had the worst kind of a stone-bruise on it, where I stumpt it playing bandy-it was the next to my little toe on my left foot, or my right-I won't be positive.) In view of all these facts and circumstances, (and being always of a retired disposition,) I determined to climb up a tall cedar that nodded graceful over the field of battle. Oh! who can tell how hard it is to climb!-amid the baying of dogs, the Young, old, high, low, at once the same diversion share. shouts of battle, and the shock of arms, and most un- The butchers now stood ready to cry havock, and let slip the dogs of war. Hushed is the din of tongues. On that memorable day, I had on, for the first time, a pair of new blue breeches, (rather an epoch,) adorned with bell-buttons. I felt all the pleasing consciousness and individual satisfaction, which a circumstance so novel and so agreeable would naturally inspire, and strutted about pretty large; with my hands in the new and unaccustomed pockets, I decorated and cheered the elevated sphere, I just began to move in, glittering (that is the bell-buttons,) like the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. earthly roarings of the buffalo, and after encountering immense difficulties in the ascent, (I am no lizard, nor bear, to run up trees,) I at length, with a deal of wear and tear, gained the very pinnacle of the cedar: there I sate like a bird of prey, perched up, 'solitary and alone.' Our eyrie buildeth in the cedar's top, Wiping off the drops of perspiration (we called it sweat in them days,) that began to course one another down my innocent nose in piteous chase, I enjoyed, with complacency, all the pleasing advantages of my VOL V.-42 present elevated position. Secure, I speculated upon Oh! what a sight it was to see; qualis eram: and there lay the climber, distorted and Oh! bloodiest picture in the book of time,— I lay ab imo pectore gemens, resolving in my alter'd soul the various turns of fate below. Darius, great and good, by too severe a fate, fall'n, fall'n, fall'n, from his high estate, and weltering in his gore. O, what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion, that elevation and that fall. What shadows we are,-what shadows we pursue! Here rests, his head upon the lap of earth, A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown; And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. "Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, to peep at such a world; to see the stir of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd; to hear the roar she sends through all her gates, at a safe distance, where the dying sound falls a soft murmur on th' uninjured ear. Thus sitting and surveying, thus at ease, the globe and its concerns, I seem advanced to some secure and more than mortal height, that liberates and exempts me from them all. It turns, submitted to my view, turns round with all its generations;-I behold the tumult, and am still. The sound of war has lost its terrors ere it reach-felt the strongest moral assurance, quite as strong as if es me; grieves, but alarms me not. But, alas! I never sought a day's repose but some sharp thorn soon pierced my breast. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream: a rude sea of hoarse noises assailed my ears; the buffalo had broke loose-once more through all he bursts his thundering way. Then rose from earth to sky, the wild farewell; Then shriek'd the timid and stood still the brave; Then ensued a scene, the like of which no eye hath But in the harrowing recollections of that disastrous day, let me not be guilty of ingratitude; every trial in this transitory life of ours, carries with it some correspondent consolation; and as coming events cast their shadows before, I comforted my mind by ruminating on the probable nature and extent of two several flagellations-one at home about the breeches, the other at school in respect to my playing truant-of both which I I had a policy at the Phoenix office. The crowd had Oh! buffalo, where are the charms THE TIRED HUNTER. BY PARK BENJAMIN. Rest thee, old hunter! the evening cool C. C. Thou art very weary—oh, rest thee now! There's not a nook in the forest wide, Nor a leafy dell unknown to thee; Then rest thee!-thy wife in her cottage-door, Shading her eyes from the sun's keen ray, Peers into the forest beyond the moor, To hail thy coming ere fall of day;But thou art a score of miles from home, And the hues of the kindling Autumn leaves Grow brown in the shadow of Evening's dome, And swing to the rush of the freshening breeze. Thou must even rest! for thou canst not tread,Till yon star in the zenith of midnight glows, And a sapphire light over Earth is spread, The place where thy wife and babes repose. Rest thee awhile-and then journey on Through the wide forest and over the moor ;Then call to thy dogs and fire thy gun And a taper will gleam from thy cottage-door! THE PREDICTION. BY A LADY OF VIRGINIA. CHAPTER I. "Tell me, thou bright minister, whether my name be writ in thy calendar for good or evil." master Henrie-we will first take the fresh air, and when we come in, I will talk to you about your sweet mother." They withdrew from the apartment, which Jacinta carefully closed. It was one from which the boy hitherto had been excluded. A succession of childish sports were tried for his amusement, but all in vain. A new spring of emotion was opened in his bosom--the hidden fountain of love, which was to well up forever. The child was no longer to be put off-he again entreated Jacinta to begin her story. "Ah! master Henrie," murmured the sad voice of his faithful nurse; "it is a sweet thing to be loved even after we are dead, but sweeter still while we are living. Had she felt but one heart twining like the young tendril around her's." "Did not every body love her? Did not my father love her?" said the boy, in a low and suppressed tone. "You ought not to ask such questions; your father is a great man at court; people ought not to speak as they please about great men--they will not like it perhaps. You will be high and noble one day too." "I sha'nt, Jacinta," he replied, in an imperative tone. "I shall not live at court, as my father does. Who says I will ?" "Father Antonio read your fortune in the stars when you were born." "Did he?" replied Henrie, a pale hue overspreading his countenance. "What said the stars, Jacinta? Do they love me? Then I may be happy if they do--but tower--he talks with the evil one, Oswald says." "Nurse," exclaimed the young Henrie Montauban, (a bright smile lighting up his naturally pensive coun-I fear that father Antonio who lives in the wizard's tenance,) "pray come with me into the green room, and I will show you something so pretty. You will love it, Jacinta. I do, though I never saw it before." "What does the child mean?" said she, following the quick pace of the boy. "Look," uttered he, in the wildness of delight. "See! it smiles on me--it loves me! Tell me, sweet nurse, (embracing the melancholy form that stood gazing on the object which had excited so suddenly the attention of the child,) who is it, and when came she here?" "It is your mother's picture, Henrie." "My mother!" repeated the lips of the impassioned gazer, reaching his arms as if to clasp the portrait to his heart. "Yes it is-it is she, I know; the same sweet face you told me of, when she took me in her arms to bless me. Oh! nurse, will she stay here always? Can she love me still?" "Holy Mother! hear the child! What would the Baron and father Joseph say, if they heard you going on so?" "Well, go on nurse-I will be still." "About the time you were born, your father, the Baron, and Antonio, were shut up in the wizard's tower. My lady was sinking fast, and I sent Oswald to tell the Baron to come to her directly, for I feared the worst. He did not come for a long time, and I asked Oswald the reason. He told me that he looked through the shutter, and saw Antonio moving a great instrument, with which he showed the Baron the infant's destiny, as he called it." "Did he hear what answer the stars gave to the astrologer ?" inquired the anxious boy. "Oh! yes-he said there was shown the figure of a Tears stole down the withered cheeks of the meek bright crown on your temples, and signs to tell that you Jacinta, "She does love you, master Henrie; but it is as the angels love in Heaven;-there I almost think I see her now, without a shade of sorrow on her fair brows." Tears trickled down the sunny cheeks of little Henrie. were to receive the honor and submission of men; and all pleased the Baron mighty well, until a cloud came over the brightness-then he looked angry; but the astrologer set his mind at ease by explaining to him what the cloud meant. He called it 'the curse of heresy,' which was to tempt the Baron's heir to disobey the "I wish I could be with her there. Why, if she mandates of Mother Church, and ally himself with loved me, good Jacinta, did she leave me ?” "Ah! that was a sad day, master Henrie--it was the heaviest my poor heart ever saw, though it was the same your dear little self was born." "Will you tell me all about it now? Please, JacintaI will be quiet ever after, if you will tell me all she said that day." "Blessed Virgin! the child talks like he was inspired! How his little breast pants! You are not well, her enemies. The Baron swore he would guard against this-and said all the vengeance of the Holy See might fall upon his house if a son of his ever departed from the true faith." The child was awe-struck at the malediction, though he understood little of its import. He asked if his mother liked what was foretold about her child. Your mother never cared for the titles of this world. The kingdom that she loved was that of the heart-and she thought, at that moment, of nothing but the tender life of the babe she pressed to her bosom for the last time." The heart of the young listener swelled with the intensity of feeling. "Oh! that I could have been born to love and be loved! I would not be happy, nurse, unless I could make every body I loved so too." mystical agency in every great event. He frequently visited the wizard's tower, where dwelt the old astrologer, Antonio-and in secret counsel they consulted the horoscope of coming events by the bright luminaries on high. The approaching birth of an heir to his house, detained the Baron at his castle, for Antonio had warned him "Who says you may not? Your little brain is turn-that much would depend on casting the nativity of the ed, surely!" "But unless I can act as I please, how can I? The dark spirits will do with me just as they please." "Come, master Henrie, leave off fretting yourself; think of poor Jacinta. If you look cross or say strange things, the Baron will be angry with me, and then who will be sorry?" child. Great preparations were made on the part of the magician in awaiting the eventful moment, and lavish promises on that of the Baron, should the answer of destiny be favorable to the future prospects of his family. The wished for hour arrived--the Baron hastened to the tower, where the astrologer was fixed with his instruments; and so intently was his mind occupied "I will never say a word to trouble you, Jacinta. with the interpretation of the cabalistic symbols, that When do you expect him here ?" he heeded not the voice which told him that she who "The star of your son's destiny," said Antonio, “is bright,-it promises power, dominion,—the smile of princes-an alliance with the throne of France." The wizard paused. "It can," returned the other, in a solemn tone. "The cloud denotes the curse of heresy, which alone can blot out the glory of your house." "Oh! very soon-perhaps to-morrow; and he always had borne him a son, was sinking in the arms of death. watches all that is going on at the castle." The magician determined to gratify the wishes of the Henrie was the only descendant of the Baron Her-Baron, and at the same time make all subservient to man Montauban, a distant branch of the house of Me- the supremacy of Mother Church. The Baron waited dici, once so famed for its haughty and overbearing in anxious expectation. pretensions. The Baron, in the days of his youth, could boast of attractions beyond the common herd. Accomplished in all the gallantries of the French court, he added the fascinations of art to the natural advantages of superior personal grace and beauty. Such was "Enough! wise Antonio. I ask for no more," said the indescribable charm of his attractions, that it might the Baron, scarcely able to restrain his delight. be said he ruled like a wizard the realm of fashion "This is not all, Herman Montauban ;—a dark cloud and beauty, without ever appearing to be conscious of threatens to blot out the fair record and cover the lumihis power. And yet under this ingenuous exterior,nary in black night." flowed a current of deep disguise, dark intrigue, and "What does it portend? Can it be averted by huhidden policy, moved by the ever-restless spring of self-man power?" exclaimed the affrighted Baron. ish ambition. In early manhood, the heart of the Baron Montauban was not insensible to the passion of love. The beauty of the young Countess de Montfort was like the fresh and dewy light of morning-so new and "Never!" replied the determined voice of the Baron. so inspiring. The Baron saw her-and his feelings" Antonio, I swear before these symbols of thy mystewere wrought into intense and passionate love, and rious power, that I will see the last blood of the Monurged him to brave every difficulty to win so desirable taubans perish, ere a son of mine prove recreant to a prize. He foresaw the family prejudice to be over- Holy Church.” come-the favor of the father to be propitiated--and, hardest of all, the heart of a girl-whose fondness was all towards a religious life-to be moved and won. No magician ever waved his wand more successfully, than "Yes! he shall rival the highest," muttered the amdid the Baron ply his scheme of ingenuity to the at-bitious father, hastily descending to the chamber of the tainment of his object. The young Countess was borne, Baroness. He opened the door without warning. All like a timid bird, from the sheltering covert to the gay was still in that dim room. capital, where she mingled in the empty masquerade of pomp, without a single throb of pleasure, except in the smiles of him whose magic spell had won her from the shades of solitude. She too soon found these smiles passing away with the passion which had lighted them. The weary hearted Baroness saw her husband's look grow colder each day, while his days and nights were given to society of which she knew nothing. Her health began sensibly to decline, and the Baron was advised to remove her residence to the castle of Montauban, where she pined in solitary sadness, her seclusion seldom broken by the presence of the master. "It is done," replied the magician, taking up the rich purse which the Baron had laid on the table, and slowly leaving the apartment. "Ha! Jacinta-so silent! Where is the heir of the house of Montauban? I hope his lineaments accord with the destiny of the high-born." The trembling hand of the nurse pointed to the couch where reposed the dying Baroness-and her tears told more than words could express. Montauban started— his mind had been so absorbed in the predictions of the astrologer, that the situation of his wife had passed without notice. Now all too late-the memory of the hours of happiness he might have enjoyed with her, the loveliest in creation, came with the anguish of a scorpion's sting. He rushed to the bed, and seized her Though the Baron was endowed with a spirit of en-lifeless hand-the pulsation was gone. He called her terprise and endurance, never faltering in the attain-name--her last sigh was breathed, unconsciously, at ment of any end in view, yet there was in his constitu- the sound! Montauban stood a moment by the bed of tional temperament one weakness-a superstitious fear death, gazing on that placid, heavenly brow. The of invisible beings which led him to propitiate their waves of bitter recollection and regret rolled over his |