"This new and gorgeous garment INCESSANT, earnest, ardent, is There are a few ingredients in the composition of earthly Happiness which are indispensable, and for which no substitute can be admitted: over the lonely inmate of the bed of pain and sickness, whose pangs poverty exasperates, whose once kind nurses death has removed, even religion's holy influence must fail; her angel smile and soothing whispers of better things to come can only avert despair, and produce a R ATHENEUM VOL. 10. state of patient calmness and quiet hope. Extreme misery, however, is as rare as extreme felicity; and with the exception of those who dig out their own wretchedness as eagerly as if they were digging for diamonds, and of a few others, intended, perhaps, as perennial proofs of a future state of retribution, Happiness is more equally and more generally diffused than is usually imagined. A mighty magician, silent and invisible in his operations, is ever at work to produce this equilibrium; and few are the circumstances of life which can resist the incessant touch of his powerful fingers. This magician is Habit, the friend of heaven, who renders self-denial easy and pleasant to the virtuous; the ally of hell, by whom the wicked are familiarized to crime. It is Habit that takes away the relish for the luxuries of the rich, and makes the coarse fare of the peasant palatable and sweet;-that renders the cloister pleasant to the once weeping nun, the ball-room insipid to the once raptured debutante; that makes the husband gaze uncharmed on the thousand beauties which enchanted the lover, and listen unirritated to those querulous tones and sharp rebukes which, in earlier days, nearly drove him distracted. Habit, wonderful Habit, can teach the proud bride to clasp her diamond necklace without one throb of exultation, and the captive or the Corinthian* to wear his fetters or his stays without a groan can bid us gaze unmoved by wonder or gratitude on suns setting in glory, and heavens spangled by a thousand stars, while a comet or a coronation will set all England in a bustle of admiration and delight. To those possessed of a clear conscience, of Christian hopes, of health, and ease and competence, it would appear that happiness ought to be a close companion-an inseparable handmaid; yet this is not the case; and we frequently find more fretfulness and complaining, more vapid days and restless nights among the children of affluence, surrounded by a thousand blessings, than among those who rise every morning to a routine of hardship and of labour. A few directions may be of service to those prosperous people of whom "much joy has dried away the balmy dew" of content and gratitude. First, let no one expect ecstasies in this life, but consider the absence of pain as pleasure, seize every moment of calm enjoyment with grateful alacrity, and duly estimate the blessings of peace and of repose. Joy is a wild and transitory feeling, unfitted to our present state of existence ;-so unfitted that we know not how to denote its excess but by tears. "Few and far between" are its visits. The recovery of a dear friend from dangerous sickness, the return of another after a long absence, the first moments of happy love, when doubt and fear fly before the delicious certainty of mutual affection, the first sight of one's offspring, or their noble conduct in after life; these are a few of those "bright sunny spots," which, if unshaded by counterpoising sorrows, glitter upon the waste of human life like the fair Oases of the desert. But rare, indeed, are moments of this description, and seldom are we able to resign ourselves to their full enjoyment; they make not up the sum of human life, and those are the wisest among us who, seizing joy gratefully when it comes, look not forward to it with any sanguine expecta tion; in other words, who are well pleased to see a haunch of venison on their table, but can dine contentedly on mutton every day. Again, let us not consider any circumstance as insignificat which can have the slightest effect upon our tempers and comforts. For what is a happy life? Is it not so many happy years and days; and are not days made up of hours and minutes? Every minute, therefore, from which we can subtract dullness or discontent every trifling arrangement which can stop complaint and impart even momentary pleasure will have a beneficial effect on the sum total of our annual felicity. He whose temper is under the influence of the weather, and who grows gloomy as the sky grows dull, he who is annoyed by the cries in the London streets, or fretted by the creaking of his servant's shoes, is less happy than the man over whom such minute distresses have no effect; for every querulous exclamation, every feeling of vexation impairs the comfort of the moment, and may, by continual dripping, wear out the stone upon which our daily Happiness rests. Some persons travel, go abroad, and look about them in order to lose instead of gaining pleasure; they purchase the sight of a chef-d'œuvre by the dissatisfaction of the rest of their lives, and spend their time in making unfavourable comparisons between what they see to-day, and what they saw yesterday. If they have once beheld St. Peter's or the Bay of Naples, no other church or prospect is worth seeing,-the beauty of an English landscape is lost in the remembrance of Italian scenery; and while others can derive a refreshing delight from the view at Richmond-hill, or even the unpretending beauties of a few sloping fields and waving woods, these unfortunate travellers are shut out from all gratification, turn away their eyes in contempt, and despise the ignorant pleasure of their companions. Surely, if the height of admiration, once experienced, is to forbid all lower degrees The ignorant are informed that this most elegant appellation has superseded its predecessor Dandy, once so popular in every rank. Sic transit, &c. of it in future, better is it never to travel at all-better never to lose the capability of being gratified by those objects among which our lives are to be passed. There are few things which tend more decidedly to promote our Happiness, to give vigour to the mind and animation to the spirits, than the pursuit of some useful possession or honourable attainment, and perhaps there if nothing more useful and honourable, than the pursuit of knowledge. "Literature, like virtue, is its own reward," and possesses every charm which can win us to its embrace. It is full of variety and beauty; it is inexhaustible; it has just so much difficulty as to excite interest in the contest, and triumph in the victory; it raises us in the scale of social and intellectual beings, and brings us into a sort of mysterious communion with the wise of every age and nation. In Marmontel's words, "c'est un plaisir qui coute peu, qu'on trouve partout, et qui jamais ne lasse." In the words of Owen Feltham, "Knowledge is the guide of youth, to manhood a companion, and to old age a cordial and an antidote. If I die to-morrow my life will be somewhat the sweeter to-day for knowledge." If we look around us, we shall be speedily convinced, that most men feel the importance of a pursuit, and shall be amused by the curious expedients and strange substitutes to which those have recourse who refuse to take pleasure in rational employment. Some pursue the improvement of their own persons, hunt out fashionable tailors, study the tie of their neckcloth, and muse upon the arrangement of their hair; some collect trinkets, hang seals to their watches by dozens, doat upon diamond rings, and adore musical snuffboxes; others aim at the high art of rowing and sailing, or seek the reputation of being capital cricketers, or ruin their constitution by pedestrianism, or their fortunes by racing. Then there are the male collectors of illegible and unreadable books, of counterfeit coins, defaced statues, Claudes which were born in England, and Cuyps of yesterday's production: and the female fanciers of china covered with unnatural figures and hideous designs, of preserved butterflies, and of shells and fossils with forgotten names. Most single women, indeed, have one great object of pursuit for which they dress by day, of which they dream by night, and which fixes their attention from sixteen to sixty; while those who are married hunt for cooks who never over-roast the meat, or oil the meltedbutter, "faultless monsters whom the world ne'er saw," or strive to brighten plain children into beauties, or dull ones into prodigies, or emulate the gay parties of some fashionable contemporary, and spend three hundred and sixty-four days of the year in contriving plans for cheating, or coaxing, or worrying, or scolding their husbands into giving a ball that shall half-ruin them on the three hundred and sixty-fifth. Young ladies ought to be happy; they have always some innocent little pursuit in view, besides the great object of their existence, which, like the under-plot in the play, may fill up the dull moments of their drama of life, and occupy the attention till the hero of the piece appears. Sometimes they collect impressions of seals; sometimes surrounded by new bread and Prussian blue they make the seals themselves; sometimes they fill a dozen fairy musicbooks with the scarcely visible notes of waltzes and quadrilles, or cover the beautiful paper of a large and splendid volume with old bon-mots and stupid riddles and silly songs. Others imitate Indian work, or Brussels lace, and injure the brilliancy, and diminish the use, of their eyes, while they pore over the minute tracery of a cabinet, or the miniature embroidery of a veil; others again paint velvet by wholesale, and look forward with high ambition towards the glorious time when the curtains, and sofas, and cushions of their mother's drawing-room shall be flaring with poppies and pionies, yellow lilies and flaunting tulips, all the produce of their own fingers-the offspring of their own labours. Some degree of difficulty, however, is necessary, in order to give interest to an object and eagerness to our pursuit of it; and it is the ease with which the rich and the great obtain all they desire, which so frequently renders their lives vapid and spiritless, and sends them to the gambling-table for excitement and animation. There, and perhaps there only, they are placed on an equality with their companjons; chance is no aristocrat, the dice stop not even by the command of a sceptre; there they experience the alternations of hope and fear, the excitation of danger and of doubt; and while love palls because it always smiles, luxuries are insipid because they court acceptance, and the path of life is rendered dull by the very pioneer who makes it so invariably smooth; they rush like madmen to the table where the choking interest of an hour may be purchased at an enormous price-may be followed by ruin and by death. Most true it is that Happiness most frequently takes up her abode in the middle ranks of life. The mind of man is so constituted as to take more pleasure in anticipating a future good than enjoying a present one: ease is ten times sweeter when gained by our own exertions; rest is never truly delightful till purchased by previous labour; what we procure for ourselves seems more precious than any inherited possessions; and the little acquisiions and indulgences, for which we work, and for which we economize, are pleasanter amusements in pursuit, and greater blessings in enjoyment, than all the luxury and splendour to which the rich and noble are familiarized from their birth, and which spring not in the remotest degree from their own merit or exertions. There are some men whose names seem to irradiate the age in which they are born, whose every step in life forms an epoch in science, and who, as if Nature herself were sedulous to guard them as her historians, escape unhurt through perils that would alike appal the mind, and overwhelm the bodies, of less enthusiastic, less gifted individuals. Such is Humboldt, every addition to whose travels is an addition to our stock of knowledge. In him all the qualities that are requisite for a philosopher and a man of science are most happily combined, whilst the energies of his mind seem to transform themselves into physical powers of more natural strength, to enable him to follow whither his ardour leads him. The termination of his "Personal Narrative" has made its appearance, and the last part is no way inferior to the first, in vigour of research, truth of inference, and beauty of moral reflection. It is not easy for persons who stay quietly at home, to imagine the exceeding energy of mind which must be called up to bear the privations, the perplexities, of a man exposed to every variation of climate, and to peculiarities attendant on each, of which he may be totally ignorant. N.M.M. A FEW weeks since, when this ad dition to the valuable labours of M. Humboldt appeared, we paid it that immediate attention which a work so replete with information demanded; and having conducted our readers through one of the two 8vo. vols. into which it is divided, we left the second for a future convenient opportunity. That opportunity the autumnal sterility of the press affords us, and we return with pleasure to an author than whom the present period does not possess one more full of entertainment and intelligence, though addicted in too great a degree to the formation of general systems, and given to too much technicality of expression. Without retracing, to connect our statements, we will beg our readers to plant themselves at Esmeralda, on the Upper Oroonoko, the most solitary and remote Christian settlement in those regions. Here there is a bifurcation of the river, and the granitic mountain of Duida rises to the height of nearly 8000 feet. The mission contains about eighty inhabitants, and yet no fewer than three Indian languages are spoken the Idapimanare, the Catarapenno, and the Maquiritan. "Esmeralda, (says M. H.) is the most celebrated spot on the Oroonoko for the fabrication of that active poison which is employed in war, in the chase, and, what is singular enough, as a remedy for gastric obstructions. The poison of the ticunas of the Amazon, the upas-tieute of Java, and the curare of Guyana, are the most deleterious substances that are known. Raleigh, toward the end of the sixteenth century, had heard the name of urari pronounced as being a vegetable substance, with which arrows were envenomed; yet no fixed notions of this poison had reached Europe, The missionaries Gumilla and Gili had not been able to penetrate into the country where the curare is manufactured. Gumilla asserts, that this preparation was inveloped in great mystery; that its principal ingredient was furnished by a subterraneous plant, by a tuberose root, which never puts forth leaves, and which is called the root, by way of eminence, raiz de si misma; that the venomous exhalations, which arise from the pots, cause the old women (the most useless) to perish, who are chosen to watch over this operation; finally, that these vegetable juices never appear sufficiently concentrated, till a few drops produce at a distance a repulsive action on the blood. An Indian wounds himself slightly; and a dart dipped in the liquid curare is held near the wound. If it make the blood return to the vessels without having been brought into contact with them, the poison is judged to be sufficiently concentrated." I shall not stop to refute these popular tales collected by Father Gumilla. "When we (he continues) arrived at Esmeralda, the greater part of the Indians were returning from an excursion which they had made to the east beyond the Rio Padamo, to gather juvias, or the fruit of the bertholletia, and the liana which yields the curare. Their return was celebrated by a festival, which is called in the mission la fiesta de las juvias, and which resembles our harvest homes and vintage feasts. The women had prepared a quantity of fermented liquor, and dur ing two days the Indians were in a state of intoxication. Among nations that attach great importance to the fruits of the palm-trees, and of some others useful for the nourishment of man, the period when these fruits are gathered is marked by public rejoicings, and time is divided according to these festivals, which succeed one another in a course invariably the same. We were fortunate enough to find an old Indian less drunk than the rest, who was employed in preparing the curare poison from freshly-gathered plants. He was the chemist of the place. We found at his dwelling large earthen pots for boiling the vegetable juice, shallower vessels to favour the evaporation by a larger surface, and leaves of the plantain-tree rolled up in the shape of our filters, and used to filtrate the liquids, more or less loaded with fibrous matter. The greatest order and neatness prevailed in this hut, which was transformed into a chemical laboratory. The Indian, who was to instruct us, is known throughout the mission by the name of the master of poison amo del curare ;) he had that self-sufficient air and tone of pedantry, of which the pharmacopolists of Europe were formerly accused. 'I know,' said he, that the whites have the secret of fabricating soap, and that black powder, which has the effect of making a noise, and killing animals, when they are wanted. The curare, which we prepare from father to son, is superior to any thing you can make down yonder (beyond sea.) It is the juice of an herb which kills silently, without any one knowing whence the stroke comes.' "This chemical operation, to which the master of the curare attached so much importance, appears to us extremely simple. The liana (bejuco,) which is used at Esmeralda for the preparation of the poison, bears the same name as in the forests of Javita. It is the bejuco de mavacure, which is gathered in abundance east of the mission, on the left bank of the Oroonoko, beyond the Rio Amaguaca, in the mountainous and granitic lands of Guanaya and Yumariquin. The juice of the liana, when it has been recently gathered, is not regarded as poisonous; perhaps it acts in a sensible manner only when it is strongly concentrated. It is the bark and a part of the alburnum, which contains this terrible poison.-Branches of the |