had touched his feelings.

I knew it would. A waiter's heart is

open to a wink, when words are useless.

'Get me some peas, and fresh salmon, on a clean plate.'

The fellow's eyes concentrated into their deepest squint, as he looked inquiringly, first into my face, and then at the space between my thumb and fore-finger. Apparently not seeing there what he had expected, his sprightly, helpful manner died away very suddenly, and his answer, as he stared mechanically up the table, was unqualifiedly brief.

'Guess there ar' n't any here; do n't see any.'

I pointed to my thumb and fore-finger. A quarter-dollar filled the space so lately vacant.

'Do you see any now?'

The mouth opened wide, and assumed an amiable grin, and the eyes an extra squint, and for half a minute glanced scrutinizingly around the table.

'I think I does!' said he. His sight was completely restored.

'I thought you would,' said I, dropping the coin into his horny palm. What wonders the root of all evil' can accomplish! It makes the best vegetable pills in the world, and 'may be used with equally astonishing success in all climates.'

Here! you squint-eyed rascal' roared out Vinegar, who for the last ten minutes had been unceasingly cursing every servant within hearing, 'I saw you take that bribe! Bring me my soup, or I'll expose you. Pretty joke! Have to pay landlord exorbitant charge for dinner, and then pay, beside, a lubberly set of lanthorn-jawed waiters for helping you to it! I won't submit to such treatment, and those who will, are ninnies! I won't stand it. I'll make them change their tone. I'll publish the landlord. I'll blow his hotel to the devil. I'll-I'll-I'll have my soup! Here, you laughing hyena, with your teeth out of doors, bring me my soup!'

The disinterested servant brought me the peas and salmon, with great alacrity, and looked as if he would like to have the silver dose repeated, but I had no farther use for him, and stared coldly upon his enthusiasm. He was a philosopher, and a deeply-read student of human nature. He understood that cold look, as readily as he had done the wink, and, to adopt a western phrase, quickly absquatulated.' Helping myself to a portion of the viands which I had been so fortunate as to obtain, I passed the remainder to my modest neighbor. He appeared very grateful, but was too much embarrassed to thank me. Having helped himself to salmon, he was proceeding (leisurely, lest he should seem indecorous,) to take some peas, when the dish was unceremoniously seized, and carried to the obése, who had bribed the waiter with a shilling to execute the manœuvre. Whereupon my modest friend looked very blank, and Vinegar took occasion to dilate sarcastically upon the expense of feeding pigs in the west; in which the fat man, unsophisticated, and seeing no allusion, coincided with fervor. He had swine to sell, and crying up the expense of fattening them, would tend to increase their value in the market. And here ensued a confab between the wag and the obése, in which the latter was made the unwitting butt of a thousand and one small shafts, touching his professional and personal affinities.

'Clear the tables!' sang out the authoritative voice of one decked in a short white apron, who brandished, in a masterly manner, a huge carving-knife and fork. This was no less a personage than the headwaiter, or 'butler,' as he directed his fellow-servants to style him. He knew the responsibility of his situation, and filled it with great dignity. His own talents had raised him, step by step, from the comparatively low office of a knife-scourer and cook's errand-boy, to the high stand which, knife in hand, he now occupied. His history is an excellent illustration of the old maxim, that 'talent, like water, will find its level.' I could dwell upon the hopes and aspirations of the lowly knife-scourer; his surcharged bosom overflowing in the lonely watches of the night, as he plied his rag and 'rotten-stone;' his longings for the birth of porter; the attainment of his wish; his enthusiasm upon his first début with Day-and-Martin; his still craving ambition; in short, his whole rise and progress, and final attainment to that pinnacle of usefulness, the situation of head-waiter.

My modest neighbor, supposing that the last-named order was intended as an insinuation that the guests had ate enough, arose and walked off. Upon reaching the door, and turning round, he seemed to perceive his mistake, and that the order was but for the clearance of the meats, to make room for the pastry; but, ashamed to expose his ignorance of etiquette,' by returning to the table, he left the room, hoping, I doubt not, from the bottom of his soul, that those he had left behind him would ascribe his withdrawal to surfeit rather than ignorance. He probably adjourned to a neighboring eatinghouse, to appease his tantalized appetite.

What pudding is this, waiter?' said a gentleman opposite.

It's a pud-ding, Sir-r,' was the satisfactory reply.

We know it's a pudding, but what kind of a pudding is it? Find out what pudding it is.'

That's aisily done!' said he, as with the utmost sang froid he perforated the crust of the doubtful dish with his dirty thumb. Sure, gintlemen, it's a rice !'

'You ignorant ape! ought to be lynched!'

don't you know better than that? You

He would be, if he was in our parts!' said the fat gentleman, swallowing a glass of champagne, which he had taken, uninvited, from my bottle.

'Look here, cabbage-head!' said Vinegar, tweaking the offender's ear; bring me my soup!'

I left the table. It was my last hotel dinner.

SONNET.

'LET the floods clap their hands; let the bills be joyful together.'

GOD!

- the eternal torrents shout thy name,

And the hoarse thunders, smothered in the cells

Of the huge mountains; there thy presence dwells
Through the gray centuries, for aye the same,
Bathing the cloud-girt pinnacles of snow,

That soar up through the cold blue atmosphere,
And stirring where the tumbling cataracts rear
Their billowy crests, and avalanches throw
The awful thunder of their mighty creed,

To thee, their fashioner; earth, air and sea,

The piping winds, which through the sky do speed,

And the rock-rending earthquakes worship THEE:
But Man, of immortality the heir,

Rears in his heart false shrines, and makes his homage there.

Utica, (N.Y.,) July, 1838.

SHAKSPEARE'S SEVEN AGES.

AGE SEVENTH.

H. W. R.

'Last scene of all

That ends this strange, eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion;

Sans eyes, sans teeth, sans taste, sans every thing.'

How poor and abject a creature man would be, were he not immortal! How aimless and futile all his wants, and struggles, and sufferings; all his joys, and hopes, and aspirations! Deprive us of our claim to another life, and we sink beneath the worm, in the scale of creation and this is a claim founded no less upon a promise, than the nature of the soul itself. The bird, the fish, the very toad, have a duty, an office, an end, to answer, commensurate to the scope of their powers. All animated things, (and inanimate, too, but this does not belong to our argument,) minister, directly or indirectly, to the comfort and convenience of man; either forming links in the chain of existences that ends in his person, or immediately united to him by service of food, carriage, or clothing. They do not live to no purpose. Natural history is daily unfolding their purpose. Every day and year adds new proofs of the design and plan of the Almighty in his creation. From what we already know, it is fair to infer as much design in the forming of the minutest mote that quivers in the sun-beam, as in the universal principle of gravitation. Why should we pretend to divide the operations of God into important and unimportant? A world is to him the production of a will; and so is the smallest insect in creation. Who will pretend to say that things would go on as they now do, if the common house-fly were exterminated? Who knows how necessary to our health this troublesome little buzzer may be? Did you ever watch one? It wheels about in the upper air of our rooms, unless tempted by larger

booty upon the table, in interminable circles, like the swallow out of doors; tacks like the hound; evinces order, passion, and perseverance. What battles have we fought, when half asleep, with some old fly, who insisted upon feeding upon our nose!

The fly may seek the upper air of apartments because it is lighter, and is filled with impurities. The air above doors and windows is rarely removed by the common methods of ventillation; this is the fly's business. Do not kill flies!

It is said that during the first season of the cholera, in one of our western cities, not a fly was to be seen. It is possible that they saw the evil was too great for their scavenger carts, and so departed to better-rewarded labors.

Some of our readers may not know, that there are animalculæ so small, that four millions of them make a mass no larger than a grain of sand: and yet these have all the machinery of life, digestive organs, and all the powers of locomotion, appetites, and passions, of larger creatures. Very small animalculæ, if kept in distilled water, grow lean and fierce; and, when changed into water not distilled, devour the prey there found with great eagerness, swallowing it whole and alive, for the latter have been seen to move in the intestines of their destroyers.*

The mechanic shows his skill and nicety, by forming little watches, or a steam-engine in a nut-shell; we look at these facts in creation, as specially wonderful, not recollecting that to God there is no great, no small, no difficult, no easy. They are here adduced to show, that there is a system, commencing with very minute living things, by which animals feed each other, up to man, who, in his better parts, feeds nothing. And allowing that man does feed the worm, and reptile, we are led in a circle. Now there is a connection in all things, but it is the union of a straight line, and not of a circle. We are nearer to God in our nature than the worm, or the 'lily of the field.' He clothes the lily, and feeds the worm, as he clothes and feeds us, but he has given us other desires than theirs, which he will equally satisfy.

If the life of some animals is short, so is their office small. The frame of a living thing seems proportional in duration, elegance, and strength, to the object of its life. The more perfect, according to our notions, the mechanism of a creature, the more important seems its operations. Some live but one summer; some only a day; many are born, grow old, and die, all in the space of an hour. Still how important, in the whole, may these brevitic existences be!

As far as our knowledge of nature extends, then, we say, that nothing is made in vain, or without an object adequate to its formation; that all things tend to some higher service than that of self. Man is the ultimum of this lower world, the link that binds the temporal to the eternal, as the vegetable unites the animal and mineral kingdoms. From man is made the angel, as the worm becomes the butterfly. Creation is a chain, unbroken, not disunited; a long

*SPALLANZANI.

† For a more full view of this idea, we refer our readers to BARNES' Essay, prefixed to BUTLER'S Analogy; an essay rendered almost useless, by straining a noble thought,

succession of causes and effects; each cause being in its turn both an effect and a cause.

And does man alone tend to nothing? Shall every thing else have a satisfactory end, and man alone end the drama of life, by lying down in the cold ground, and being resolved to earth again? Is it for this, he has suffered and toiled through life? Is he endowed with acute sensitiveness to pain, and a susceptibility of deep joy, for this? The better part of him finds no home here, in this life. How large are his powers! How terrific his settled passion; how devilish his hate; how angelic his generosity! What noble ambitions possess him! What sacrifices will he not make for his friend, his country, his religion! How gentle and divine his pity; how deep his tears; how despairing his sorrow and grief! Why does he know the pleasures of friendship - the solace of Christ, when on earth - the excitement of intellectual intercourse, the refined enjoyments of society, the reciprocation of love, the sympathy of divine worship? Are these the attributes of a temporal being? If they are, then the better part of man has no object.

'Know ye not,' says the Apostle, 'that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you,' which cannot die. And hear Cicero: Nam corpus quidem quasi vas est, aut aliquod animi receptaculum.' Avert not your eyes, kind reader, as I point you to new proofs. See the disappointed man, the ruined spendthrift, the murderer, the drunkard, the thief, the liar, the traitor. Imagine their feelings. They are men. You have your faults -you know you have. You cannot despise them. The very feeling that tells you you are their superior, in all points, convicts you of inferiority. Oh, pity not the poor, for labor sweetens rest; pity not the sick, the lame, the blind, the mourning mother, the orphan child-pity not these, as you pity the wicked! Vice is the accident of early education. Men are scattered like the seeds in the field of the world; some fall in good ground, some in stony places, some in rank, weedy spots. Oh, pity the wicked! They have still the power of reason, know what virtue is, and remember their early years, and the peace that goodness breathes around the heart; peace like the serenity of early morning in the country. They stand with their immortal natures all soiled and polluted. The bitter taunt and neglect of the world keeps them in mind of what they are, and the soul talks to itself in language bitterer than human fiend can utter to another. Language,' says a benevolent and eloquent clergyman, implying scorn of our fellow beings, should not be used without extreme caution and discrimination, and without a feeling of evident pity and regret, that a being so nobly gifted, should so degrade himself. The meanest knave, the basest profligate, the reeling drunkard — what a picture does he present of a glorious nature in ruins! Let a tear fall, as he passes. Let us blame and abhor, if we must, but let us reverence and pity still. What hopes are cast down! what powers are wasted! what means, what indefinite possibilities of improvement, are turned into gloomy

true, upon the whole, into the paltry object of accounting for a scheme of human theology, but which, nevertheless, contains valuable thoughts, ingenious reasonings, and rich language.