RURAL LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND.

IT has often seemed to me, that, while the world is progressing in the mechanic arts and in the refinements of civilized life, we are losing ground in that healthful simplicity that marked the habits of our ancestors. Epicures taught that the secret of happiness is to preserve our tranquillity. Practical philosophy has not discovered anything in contradiction of this maxim, though the instincts of men prompt them to seek excitement. There is a kind of sentimental yearning for the quiet and simplicity of rural life, but there is a more active impulse in the breast of the young, that draws them away from humble pursuits, and forces them into the march of ambition and fortune-hunting. The wisest are those who content themselves with simple rustic occupations, without falling into habits of indolence and apathy. He is a happy man who can preserve his calmness and self-possession without losing his energy; who can sit in councils of state, and not be carried away by party zeal and ambition, and, on the other hand, can swing a scythe or hold a plough without entirely discarding more thoughtful employments. The great are they who are not controlled by those circumstances that give to other men their principal hues of character.

The life of a farmer has been a theme for the praises of poets and orators from the earliest ages. The pleasures and comforts attending his labors have been so often eulogized, that the praise bestowed upon them has come to be considered one of the platitudes of ordinary