he has vanished; and his place supplied by the pirate shark, hungry after his prey.

- for there

I turned, as in a dream, and almost unconsciously followed on with my hand on Charley's arm. The remarks of my companions were unnoticed. Fair vision!' I apostrophized, with what an intoxicating effect have you burst upon my 'wildered senses! Whence came you? Who are you? I know not the name that the holy father pronounced at your baptism, so I will name you 'Mi Alma'-my soul you have indelibly impressed your image; like the reflection of the rock in the mirrored waters beneath, it is always there. Other causes may ruffle the surface and cause the image to disappear for a moment, but it is only hidden in the depths; the first still interval, and it reäppears in all its calm and holy beauty. 'Mi Alma!' I will think of you by that name; I will implore and supplicate you in my dreams by that name; I will pray for you by that name! I leave to those rude people by whom she may be surrounded, her every-day name; that will do for her every-day friends, in every-day life; but to me, she is Mi Alma!' No one knows her by that name, and with it I will ever recall her image to my imagination. What if we never meet again? I have seen her once, and that once is to me for ever! Henceforth I will dote upon her memory, and ravish my soul with the remembrance of her charms. Does Nature fill my mind with beauty? that beauty will take her form. Does the soft murmuring of the forest entrance me with melody? 't is because in it I hear the music of her voice. In the stillness of the night-watch at sea, do the stars seem fraught with intelligence, and do I in answering to their sympathizing regards hold silent converse with them? 't is because in them I feel her pitying glance. Do odoriferous groves of roses and hyacinths, with creeping honeysuckle, overpower my senses? 't is because in imagination, my head pillowed on her bosom, her sweet breath fans my heated brow, and I languish with delight. I will seek the lonely places aloft, at sea, and watch the clouds weaving mystic garlands round thy name! On shore, I will wander far from the filthy traffic of men, and lay me down upon the beach where the mysterious element gently washes the sands, for there I will hear the spirit of the wave softly whispering thy name, 'Mi Alma'!'

Here a hearty slap on the shoulder interrupted my rhapsodies, and Charley burst in with:

'Avast there, mess-mate! won't that kind spirit be sufficiently obliging to whisper the aunt's name, occasionally?"

I was thunderstruck; in my absent mindedness, I had been dreaming aloud! Fortunately, we had sauntered on alone, and no one else had heard me. Before I could express my vexation, he interrupted me with: 'Why, old fellow, I would not have believed that a man who had been knocking about the world for the last dozen years, as you have done, should have such soft, romantic spots left in his heart!'

'I don't see,' said I, why, because one has travelled far and seen much, he should look upon mountains and valleys merely as so much earth; regard the heaving ocean simply as a vast expanse of water; or, still less, glance carelessly and unmoved upon the graceful form and

features of a lovely woman, the crowning glory to the beautiful in creation. Why should we depopulate the woods and glens, the seas, heavens, and winding rivulets of the fancied creatures of our imaginations, and look upon all but as so much earth, air, wood, and water, formed of such and such component parts? Still less, why should we divest each fair being that we meet, of that mantle of womanly virtues of which her face may be the index? Hang this spirit of materialism! say I: I'll none of it! There is already about us too much of this matter-offact, plodding, reducing-things-to-first-principles sort of life.'

Perhaps so; but think you that while you are dreaming, there is no danger that you may neglect some of the important duties of life, or that you may become unfitted for its rough buffetings and stern realities?'

'I hope not, Charley; I have never yet been so carried away by my meditations, as not to rise tacks and sheets' at the proper time. I don't allow myself to be fancy-smitten until I have time to spare; and to prove it to you, I'll bet you I'll beat the launch' (which, by the by, had preceded us on our trip) 'back to the ship.'

It was amusing to see the sailors beating down over the sand: one with a load of onions, another a basket of eggs; one poor fellow bothered with a vigorous turkey under each arm, each flapping his wings lustily, reminding us of Barney's brig,' caught in a squall with both main-tacks aboard'; and others again, with bunches of chickens, all cracking their jokes upon each other, and full of fun as the ship's pet pig after the pipe to dinner.

Both boats were soon under way, but the wind was light and baffling, being the interval between the land and sea-breezes. The launch stretched away outside, while we kept in under the land; in consequence, when the land-breeze set in as evening fell, we caught it first, and were enabled to run our course with an easy sheet, while the launch, when she got it, was so far to leeward as to be obliged to beat. We soon had as much wind as we wanted; and our boat, which was large and schooner-rigged, flew through the flashing water as I held back on the weather-helm, dashing onward toward the Southern Cross, which gleamed, placid and beautiful, ahead.

It was not long before we mounted the side of our floating home, and descended to refresh ourselves in our quarters, and recount to our mess-mates the events of our cruise. The launch did not arrive till long after us; and without waiting her return, I retired to my lonely berth to rest, and in my dreams again to enjoy the blissful companionship of 'Mi Alma.'

LITERARY NOTICES.

NORTH-AMERICAN REVIEW for the July Quarter. Boston: CROSBY, NICHOLS AND COMPANY. New-York: C. S. FRANCIS AND COMPANY.

WE shall doubtless be considered as somewhat late in the day' with our notice of the current number of our venerable Quarterly; but the explanation is a very simple one; the notice was crowded out of our last number. The articles, including the usual cluster of briefer 'Critical Notices,' are twelve in number, and are upon the following subjects: Mr. BELLOws' Sermon on 'The Moral Significance of the Crystal Palace;' WHITTIER'S Writings in Prose and Verse; 'Records of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New-England;' 'American Hospitals for the Insane;' 'The Works of JOSEPH ADDISON;' 'A History of the Island of Cuba, its present Social, Political, and Domestic Condition; also its Relation to England and the United States;' 'ROGET's Thesaurus of English Words;' 'The Chinese Rebellion;' 'MARTINEAU'S Translation of COMTE's Philosophy; 'Annual of Scientific Discovery, or Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art, for 1854;' and 'The Literature of Youth;' with twenty brief 'Critical Notices' of recent publications. The review of Dr. BELLOWS' Address upon the theme of the Crystal Palace has very little to do with that eloquent production, but is rather an essay, in itself apart, although upon a cognate theme. It is admirably written, as the subjoined passage (illustrating the point that the artificially disclosed qualities of matter have an equal, frequently a higher, utility and charm, than the materials in a natural condition) will sufficiently attest:

THE pavement on which we tread was part of a shapeless mass of stone, cropping out from some hill-side. As one feature of a picturesque scene, breaking up the monotony of smoothly-sloping ground, contrasting its solidity with the light grace of tree and stream, and its neutral color with the unvaried green around, it would have reminded us of the MAKER's wisdom. New, clearer signs of his forethought are revealed, however, when the rock is quarried, and we find that by the forces in operation many ages since, the stone was cleft into thin, smooth plates, and even cut by Nature into perfect parallelograms. We pause before a suburban villa. The wood of which the house is composed was beautiful and serviceable in its native state. Not to mention the vital necessity of its chemical influence, a tree is a marvel of strength and grace; it is a servant of man, patiently standing and holding out its living baskets of fruit, and holding up its regal canopy; it is a palace of the birds, domed, windowed,

and draperied, for their abode. But the trees have hidden capabilities for human habitations; they can be cut into shining smoothness, put together into combined strength, carved into ornamental shapes, the whole process resulting in an artificial growth, more varied and useful, and equally symmetrical. In the Gothic order, the curving lines of native beauty are preserved; in other styles, the rectangular form, with its severer moral significance, is substituted. And the compactness and fine texture of the tree are more evident now that it is transformed; the rough-bound book is opened; we read its fair pages, and wonder that Nature has helped us to build our roomy homes out of mere gases and liquids. The frail tenement, when completed by a fair coating, which is made from gross earths and ores, and may be mixed to any shade which the most fastidious fancy may choose, seems converted to marble, or freestone, or even to a huge prism of gray basalt, or an opaque crystal of yellow topaz. Nay, its connection with the gross earth is cut off, and its terrestrial nature laid aside; it is associated with the heaven of home, and the tall column and casing are glorified shapes, when contrasted with the rough body of a tree, rooted in the ground. And the same pleasure, in view of an imagined change from a lower to a higher stage of existence, is felt when the material is brick or stone; the inorganic clay or rock appears to be gifted with life, and to be growing up, day by day, into form; it is raised from dust and darkness, to enjoy a limited immortality in the sun-light.

There are sermons in stone buildings, books in bricks, and good in every thing. All needful transfigurations of substance are but little lower than angelic. And although it be a change to less external beauty, yet the higher human purpose served lends a higher beauty; so that an unsightly telegraph-pole may be more noble than the tree from which it was formed, and a city may be grander than a forest. It is no new sentiment that the loveliness of a landscape is less than that of the human virtues its soil may nourish, and that the glory of the sea is not so great as that of the commerce which floats upon it. The universe is not simply a gallery of paintings for our diversion; it is a great school of design, of industry, and of holiness, for the developinent of souls.

'Evidently, the final combination of many materials in a finished dwelling entered into the plan of creation; qualities were put into matter for this precise end among others. With this faith, we will not loiter at the porch of the villa, but enter it. The door-lock has an elasticity, polish, and power that were not in rough ore, and were received in the process of manufacture. We look, perhaps, through a hall-window, stained with gold-color, and behold Nature sublimated to fairy-land or the luminous loveliness of Paradise; the glazier's mere mechanic art has secured

THE light that never was on sea and land,

The consecration and the poet's dream.'

We tread upon a carpet, the fibres and hues whereof were once interesting as the clothing of sheep, the scarlet of cochineal insects, and the various colors of chemical production; nevertheless, the combining of these in a fabric of fair pattern and mossy surface, to be pressed by the sovereign step of civilization, creates for the humble substances a beauty as royal as that of a flowery field, and a dignity as great as that of a courtier's mantle spread in the pathway of a queen. All the kingdoms of nature, the animal, vegetable, and mineral, lend their contributions to a floor-carpet, be it neither Wilton nor Axminster, only a cheap double-ply; all the fairies brought their gifts in the natal hour of its invention, although the hag of ruinous extravagance, instead of the witch of good-fortune, may have flung her shoe after it. The wall and wall-paper were originally sand, lime, cotton, and earths; now, mingled, smoothed to a surface as delicate as the lily's, or starred with constellated patterns, and lit with reflected sunshine or the soft light of lamps, our rooms inclose us around in a narrower sky, fair as a white veiled heaven suffused with moon-light.'

Had we but space, we should be glad to follow the writer throughout his extended catalogue raisonné, but as it is, we must refer the reader to his arguments in detail, in the Review itself.

In the paper upon 'WHITTIER and his Writings,' justice is rendered to that 'strong-minded,' forcible, often exquisitely imaginative, and at all times thoroughly American poet. We quote two or three paragraphs:

'THE Quakerism in which WHITTIER was reared, and which he has always professed, stands, as we have already said, in strange conflict with the belligerent tone of many of his writings. We should hardly have expected so rude and martial a strain from the quiet, drab-coated professor of the mild tenets of his sect. Perhaps his tone is more in accordance with the spirit of the early founders of the denomination than the comparatively uninteresting dullness of the modern type. Of late years, the Quakers

have lost their desire for propagandism, and have become more accommodating and worldly-wise. But in early times, no sect had so zealous and wide-awake champions as the Society of Friends. GEORGE Fox, JAMES NAYLER, and even WILLIAM PENN show that their Quakerism had not wholly subdued their combative tendencies. We are naturally led, from the consideration of our author's Quakerism, to that strong religious fervor which is manifested in every part of his writings. So deeply-rooted is it, and apparently so blended with his imaginative powers, that in some of his productions one can hardly tell which predominates. His religious views embrace a simple faith in the Quaker doctrine of the inward light, combined with an intense apprehension of the brotherhood of man. In order to show his devotional spirit, we quote the concluding stanza of 'The Quaker of the Olden Time:'

"O SPIRIT of that early day,

So pure, and strong, and true!
Be with us in the narrow way
Our faithful fathers knew!
Give strength the evil to forsake,
The cross of Truth to bear,
And love and reverend fear to make
Our daily lives a prayer!'

'The poems entitled 'FOLLEN,' 'Questions of Life,' 'My Soul and I,' and others of a similar kind, are exquisite in their delicacy of thought and expression, and show a wrestling with some of the gravest and most perplexing questions that come under the consideration of meditative minds.

'WHITTIER rarely writes without being so impressed with some strong feeling, that he cannot fail to awaken a corresponding emotion in his reader. Of this his verses written in memory of his friends bear witness. We would refer emphatically to the 'Lines to a Friend on the Death of his Sister,' and to the perfect poem entitled 'Gone.' For the same reason, he writes with such energy as not to give himself much concern about the customary ornaments of poetical diction. His imagery, when he introduces it, comes without an effort, as the natural accompaniment of his verse, never obtruding itself on the reader's attention, or seeming other than an essential part of the whole.'

THE free and dexterous use of proper names is another characteristic of our poet. With an affluence of these his extensive knowledge supplies him, and he displays uncommon skill in weaving them harmoniously into his verse. Even the long sesquipedalian Indian words present no insuperable difficulties. There is something strangely impressive in the effect of the introduction of a melodious or sonorous name, particularly if it indicates a place of which we have no personal knowledge. The imagination is touched in that vague and mysterious way in which it delights, and the burden is put upon the reader of supplying the requisite beauty or sublimity to fill out the supposed conception of the author. In this art MILTON is the great master, and he had his originals in the epic poets of antiquity, while GOLDSMITH furnishes a rather ludicrous instance in the well-known line,

'On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side,'

the locality of Pambamarca never having been precisely ascertained. In 'The Bridal of Pennacook,' WHITTIER, describing the Indian marriage-feast, gives us the following tempting bill-of-fare:

STEAKS of the brown bear, fat and large,
From the rocky slopes of the Kearsarge;
Delicate trout from Babboosuck brook,
And salmon speared in the Contoocook;
"Squirrels which fed where nuts fell thick,
In the gravelly bed of the Otternic;
And small wild hens, in reed-snares caught,
From the banks of Sondagardee brought;

Pike and perch from the Suncook taken,

Nuts from the trees of the Black Hills shaken;
Cranberries picked in the Squamscot bog,
And grapes from the vines of Piscataquog."

'Of WHITTIER'S prose style we have already spoken at some length. It is classical, vigorous, and never dull, with a vein of humor running through it, which lacks abandon, and seems somewhat inflexible and metallic. We subjoin, as favorable specimens of his humor, two anecdotes from the 'Supernaturalism of New-England':

Nearly opposite to my place of residence, on the south side of the Merrimack, stands a house which has long had a bad reputation for ghosts. One of its recent