98 THE LAOCOON, AT ROME. And to the tower of Pallas make their way: And dared to violate the sacred wood."-ÆNEIAD II, 269. It will be perceived that the poet details the occasion and the progress of the calamity which fell upon Laocoon. Let us now turn to the plate, and we shall see the calamity itself. The first glance at the beautiful engraving will show the difference in the designs of the poet and sculptors. The sculptors have not coiled the snakes around the body of the father, but around his limbs, that the body might be fully exposed to show the greatness of the sufferings. These are seen not merely in the contortions of the limbs, but chiefly in the mental anguish expressed in the countenance, and the superhuman efforts which he makes to disengage the monsters. The anatomical expressions are very true and powerful. It is remarkable that the son on the left of the father seems to be more astounded by the inexpressible anguish of the parent than concerned for his own safety. The other son, on the right, is almost powerless, and seems rapidly sinking. As I stood before the sufferers, I could hear their bones crack, and their loud, violent screams of anguish die away into the low, heavy, asthmatic death struggle, under the slow but irresistible contractions of the hideous monsters. "Go see Laocoon's torture dignifying painA father's love and mortal's agony With an immortal's patience blending: vain The struggle-vain against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, The old man's clench: the long envenomed chain Rivets the living limbs-the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp." BYRON. In an adjoining hall is the group of Niobe, whom Apollo and Diana punished for vaunting herself against their mother, Latona, and refusing to worship her; because she was the parent of only two children, while Niobe could boast seven fine sons and as many beautiful daughters. These were pierced from the skies in an hour-the sons by the shafts of Apollo, the daughters (except one) by the darts of Diana. The moment of her offspring being transfixed, and the sudden horror and agonized supplication of the mother which followed, is the time seized by the artist. As I entered the hall Niobe stood before me, half bent over her little boy, who had taken refuge in the folds of her garment, and threw up his hand toward heaven to ward off the shafts of Apollo, which the mother also endeavored to intercept, by interposing a portion of her robe raised aloft by her left hand, while she covered her child with her right. All the mother was seen in that full womanly form bending over her last born, while one manly son lay pierced before her, and her other offspring were being transfixed in her presence by the angry gods. It is thought that this series of statues (for each is detached, except the boy in the folds of his mother's robe) once adorned the pediment of some temple devoted to Apollo or Diana, or both. And Pliny says it was doubtful whether it was the work of Scopos or Praxiteles. I would gladly conduct the reader to the church of Sante Croce, (Holy Cross,) and show him the magnificent expressions of science and religion achieved by modern sculptors, in the beautiful monuments which they have built there to the glorious dead. There is the tomb of Michael Angelo, beneath which weep Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting. And well may they sit in sadness by his sepulchre; for they have had no such master since the palmy days of the Grecian republic. There, too, is the monument of Dante, which Florence has recently erected to her most gifted son. His bust crowns the beautiful sarcophagus, while a fine Fame stands below and directs attention to the poet whom Italy laments, as she leans weeping on his manuscripts, with a rejected crown in her hand. There, likewise, is the tomb of the much injured yet immortal Galileo, who, because he was suspected of heresy, was made to sleep for a hundred years under the porch of the church, into which he has been admitted but recently, and not without difficulty. But he had long before been installed in the skies, and become a brilliant object of admiration to the world. Here he sits above his tomb with his left hand resting on a globe and some books, his right holds a telescope, and his eyes are piercing the heavens. On his left stands Philosophy, distracted with grief at the loss of her favorite son; but Astronomy, on his right, is looking calmly up into heaven. Sante Croce is to Italy what Westminster is to England. It is the home of her honored dead. While walking amid its magnificent tombs, one cannot but wish that the chapel of the Medici family had been built in Sante Croce. It has been for two centuries in process of building in the church of St. Lawrence, and is designed for the sepulchral monuments of the Merchant Dukes of Tuscany. Then, among other rich treasures of art, we should have had added to the unrivaled mausolea of Sante Croce the wonderful statues of Morning and Evening, of Night and Day, designed and executed by the terrible genius of Michael Angelo. Until I looked upon these, I had not conceived that cold marble could have been made to express the cheerfulness of morning, the pensiveness of evening, the glory of noon, and the gloom of night. These figures are recumbent upon the tombs of two of the Medici. "HE who prays as he ought," says Dr. Owen, "will endeavor to live as he prays." WHEN I WAS YOUNG. WHEN I WAS YOUNG. BY BISHOP MORRIS. 99 When I was young, girls, if not at school, swept the house, brushed the furniture, washed dishes, and spun wool all day, and mended their frocks and knit their stockings at night; but in these days of refinement, girls sleep, dress, and primp, make calls, and distribute cards all day, and at night receive company, sit upon the sofa and nurse their delicate hands, and chatter and laugh about fashions, beaus, and parties, or, if they happen to have a leisure hour, spend it in reading some chaffy novel. WHEN I was young-ah! how times have changed!-what were then considered matters of interest, are now rapidly disappearing. The age of improvement has crowded so many new things upon us as nearly to supersede the old. Some of our western customs, which formerly occupied the thoughts and interested the feelings of the community, have already flown, others are thrown into the background of the picture, and soon "the march of improvement" will have swept them all away, unless those who have them laid up in the store-house of memory will transfer them to paper. To lose the knowledge of those early customs of the west alto-patching the domestic business, were frequently gether, would be a misfortune, in one respect at least; for, unless they be compared with those of this generation, how could they who come after us know the difference? I, therefore, beg indulgence while I inflict upon the readers of the Ladies' Repository a few short items. When I was young, children regarded themselves as children, because they were called children, and treated as such; but now they are called masters and misses, and of course regard themselves as being entitled to much attention. When I was young, it was supposed to be the right of parents to rule, and the duty of children to obey; but such notions are now nearly out of fashion, and, therefore, practically going out of use. What a pity! When I was young, boys, if not at school, worked all day in the field, or shop, and chopped wood, picked wool, or pounded hommony with a hand pestle at night, and read their books afterward; but now boys shoot marbles and play bandy, or sail paper kites and ride ponies all day, and at night clan together to serenade wedding-parties, with tinpans and trumpets, to shoot squibs, to set stables on fire in order to get the engines out, and have "lots of fun." When I was young, a sensible young woman expected to be called by her proper name, as Catherine, Mary, or Caroline; but now the fashionable way to address a young lady is to call her Kate, Mol, or Cal. What an improvement! Marvelous! When I was young, our long evenings, after dis spent by forming a semicircle around a blazing wood fire, and listening to some member of the family reading Rollin's Ancient History, Josephus, Mason's Self-Knowledge, or the Bible, and singing spiritual songs; then came the apples, the hickory nuts, or the roasted sweet potatoes; but the present fashion is to attend a lecture, or a concert, or a party, where, instead of the old dull custom of speaking one at a time, while the others were attentive, they adopt the more lively and time-saving plan of speaking all at once, but on a great variety of topics. When I was young, the ordinary topics of evening conversation among the old people, to which of course the children and youth attended with profound interest, were hunting stories, Indian stories, "the old settlement" from which they had emigrated, and the American Revolution; but now they talk of voyages to the Pacific, tours in the east, Christian alliance, magnetic telegraphs, railroads to Oregon, Mexican war, &c. When I was young, our fathers took their produce to New Orleans in flatboats, and brought up their groceries in keelboats, making the trip in six or eight months; but now they ship it there in steamboats, sell out, and return in three weeks. When I was young, if a man had any important business, requiring him to make a journey of two or three hundred miles, he sighed over it for weeks, took counsel of his friends, and, if they thought it advisable to undertake such a perilous enterprise, he put up his horse to fat him for the service; and after borrowing a pair of saddle-bags, and packing his clothes and money in one end, and his provisions in the other, and getting all ready, on the day appoint When I was young, I occasionally saw an old man sitting in the corner, drawing his pipe, and blowing the smoke up the chimney; but now I frequently see boys a little over knee high, walking the streets with lighted cigars in their mouths. It is feared their mothers have turned them out of their leading-strings before they were prepared for it. When I was young, a few wicked very hardened in crime, used profane language, and there-ed, his friends and neighbors assemble to take a sol men, much by rendered themselves ridiculous; but now boys of eight or ten years of age, swear as many big oaths over a game of marbles, as the most reckless desperadoes do over a pack of cards and a bottle of brandy. How shocking it is to the moral sense of every decent man! They ought to attend Sabbath school and learn better. emn and affecting leave of him, feeling very doubtful whether he could ever accomplish such a journey and get back to his family alive; but it is nothing uncommon now for a man to leave Cincinnati, and visit New York and Boston, ay, London and Paris, and return home, before one half of his neighbors learn that he has been absent. 100 A DAY AT NIAGARA FALLS. irrevocable verge only sixty rods below! Up the stream the coming waters present the picture of a miniature ocean of crested and tossing billows. It is a glorious view; but we shall not attempt to describe it. We have but just stepped upon the threshold of a single portal of this theatre of won When I was young, there were many western boys that ploughed and hoed corn barefooted and bareheaded in the summer, and wore moccasons, wool hats, and linsey-woolsey hunting-shirts in the winter, who are now men of wealth, respectability, and influence; and there were at the same time some young gentlemen of fashion, dress, and pleasure,ders, when a scene at once grand and unexpected, that looked down with contempt upon those boys, who have long since taken the benefit of the insolvent act, or gone to When I was young, I knew some flaxen-headed urchins which carried their dinner-basket in one hand, and Dilworth's Spelling-Book in the other, as they ran through the woods to the little log schoolhouse, who have since figured in the halls of Congress, and on the benches of the higher courts, and as presidents of colleges, and in other high places of Church and state. Truly, times have changed since I was young, though I am not quite fifty-three years old myself. A DAY AT NIAGARA FALLS. BY REV. F. WENTWORTH, A. M. bursts upon the vision, which, like the prelude of an oratorio, awes and subdues the soul, and fits it for instant and willing captivation by the sublimer scenes yet to follow. There is a feeling of relief when we are once more upon terra-fifma. We must not forget to pay our respects to the toll-house erected by the proprietor of the few acres of soil that have won immortal fame by braving the torrents of Niagara. A moment after, with pockets lightened of a trifle, and our names added to the swelling register of devotees at this mighty shrine, we are perambulating the romantic woods of Goat Island. Goat Island! It has haunted our imaginations from childhood, as a barren and rocky acre or two, struggling for precarious existence in the midst of floods that sweep past it in resistless grandeur. How rarely does preconception coincide with fact! Here are forty acres of substantial woodland, covered with lofty trees, interspersed with rural walks, and exhibiting little or nothing to advertise us, who are now sauntering along in its cool and quiet shades, of the immediate proximity of one of the most stupendous wonders of the world. The guide-books and guide-boards say, "Keep to the right." We keep to the right, and in a few minutes our beautiful wildwood walk terminates at the western corner of the American Fall. Springing down the bank, and across the dashing streamlets, we seat ourselves upon the edge of the precipice at the very verge of Luna Island, and watch for a long time, without any very extraordinary emotions, the snowy columns tumbling from that precipice into the fardown abyss. Satisfied with the view from this point, we ascend the bank, and take our way along the flowery forest path leading to the perpendicular stair-case, dropped, at the instance of the great "Nick Biddle," from the top of the precipice to the river bank below. Look up when you have reached the bottom of those circling stairs. The height appears vaster than was the depth before your descent! Turn first to the right, and scramble over the disintegrated masses heaped irregularly along the base of this tremendous overhanging mural precipice, until, after a toilsome walk, you come to the base of the lone and lofty fall on the American side. Here is the "Cave of the Winds." You peer into the THE great current of western travel is usually as direct as the course of the Gulf Stream; but it makes a sudden bend at Buffalo-everybody goes to Niagara. An hour's chase after a sluggish locomotive along the valley of the broad and placid river brings us suddenly in sight of the white-crested rapids, some three-quarters of a mile above the Falls. In ten minutes the cars come to a halt in the centre of a crowd of porters, and in the heart of the little village whose godfather is the mighty cataract. Happily, we have no baggage to care for: let us elbow our way, with all consistent expedition, through the mob of jostling carriers, rending the air with the annoying shouts, "Baggage for the Cataract House!" " Baggage for the Eagle Hotel!" and "baggage for" half a dozen other wooden palaces of lesser note, each bearing some one of the highsounding titles usually appropriated by these flaunting shrines of fashion and folly, and all included under the aristocratic genera: "First class houses and hotels." If we cared to be heterodox with custom and the guide-books, we would pass directly to the top of the bank near "Porter's Railway," and view the cataract as a whole, before proceeding to the various points of interest, commended in shilling pamphlets to the polite attentions of uninitiated tourists. We may not be singular: let us diverge to the left, at a right angle from the rail-misty dwelling of the raging subjects of Eolustrack. A brief walk brings us to the river, and thence to the centre of the rustic, yet substantial bridge, whose arches spring from pier to pier for a whole furlong, and claim firm foothold in the midst of the agitated floods, wildly careering to the you glance upward upon the snowy, interminable torrents gliding in slow and measured grandeur from the terrific heights above-you listen to the tremulous undertone thunder of the main fall, and start back from the ragings of the tortured floods HOME-MOTHER-HEAVEN. falling on the rocks at your feet. It is here that sublimity possesses the soul. Here a thousand minds have been overwhelmed with conceptions that never took tangible shape-here have been uttered the few effusions of poesy any way worthy of their incomparable subject. Art has always failed in its attempts to sketch Niagara. I have seen it on canvas a single point of view-one, out of a thousand, beautiful in suggestive forms and colors, and dispositions of sun and shade, but lacking the motion and the roar, two essential elements of the grand and beautiful, reigning in the enraptured mind, paying its homage to the inimitable fall. I have seen it in verse, more mysterious and impenetrable than the clouds of mist that shroud, eternally, the feet of the Cataract King! I have seen it in descriptions, good enough in their way, but, like the epitaphs of the great, falling infinitely short of the merits of their theme. I have seen it in reality; but have not attempted, and will not attempt to describe that which approaches so nearly the indescribable. Reader, if you would learn all of the stupendous and beautiful, comprehended in the term Niagara, you must go there yourself. Pen or tongue can give you no adequate conceptions of it. Let us retrace our steps to the stair-case, and ramble thence as far in the opposite direction to the American end of the Crescent, or Horse-Shoe Fall. Every point is full of interest upon this bank of tumbling ruins, isolated, but for the genius of Biddle, from the living world! What a toilsome ascent back to Christendom! Another long and delightful stroll along the margin of the precipice that severs us from the far-down level of the retreating river, and we come once more to the American end of the Crescent Fall, though somewhat elevated above our last point of observation. Here you may run out upon a rude bridge, leap from rock to rock, and climb some of the detached masses of limestone that sleep securely in the lulling consciousness of their own massiveness upon the edge of the overhanging verge, and in the midst of the madly-leaping waters, and look, if your brain be sufficiently steady, into the gulfs beneath. Climb the stone tower that has been erected here for a look-out. Look up the river. The inclined plane is alive with dancing rapids, and dotted with beautiful islands. Look across the river. The eye follows with delight the graceful curve of the main fall, winding from Goat Island to the distant Canada shore. Look upon the river. Eternal clouds vail the point of junction between the fall and the milk-white sheet slowly retiring from its base. Look down the river. Such is the proportion of part to part, that one wakes by degrees to the idea of the magnificence of the scale upon which this grand panorama is projected. Take, for the unit of measure, those men creeping like the merest insects upon the rocks near the foot of yonder staircase, and you may form some conception from their 101 known dimensions of the vastness of the distances within the field of your vision. If you are not yet fatigued, make the circuit of Goat Island, to feast the eye on the innumerable beauties scattered all over the landscape. The trees are covered with the names of aspirants after immortality. There stands a whiskered carver in a yellow vest, mutilating the innocent bark. "J-o-n-a-t-h" (he is evidently a Yankee) has already escaped from beneath the point of his desecrating blade. He will soon be the possessor of a beech-bark notoriety, which might have failed him for ever but for this fortunate embarkation in the wake of the fashionable world! Some of those fine old trees have been killed by the ruthless knives of these merciless sculptors. We must leave their pleasant shades, and seek "Porter's Railway." From this point the entire sheet is visible. Descend the inclined plane in miniature cars, if you willseat yourself in a canoe at its foot, and dare the passage of the agitated waters only a few rods below the American Fall-pass up the Canada shore-seek the celebrated view from Table Rock-go down once more that frightful precipice to the river level below-perform the distinguished feat of passing behind the great Crescent Fall at the expense of a thorough drenching, and then retire to note in your diary, as one of the most remarkable in your life, the first day at Niagara Falls! HOME-MOTHER-HEAVEN. BY REV. R. SAPP. THE above are three of the sweetest words in our rich language. They are freighted with much good to thousands of aching, but grateful and affectionate hearts, that are now wandering through this world of change, of joy, and of sorrow. Like pure, gushing fountains in the midst of the desert, surrounded and overhung with rich and beautiful foliage, at which the wearied traveler stops to quench his burning thirst, rest his wearied limbs, and anew gird himself for his toilsome task, these pilgrims of life often seat themselves in their journey, and as they ponder these delightful words, and the pure associations and bright hopes they bring to the mind, take fresh courage, and gird up their souls for the trials and conflicts still ahead. HOME. This is an interesting place, where our innocent childhood, our joyful and frolicsome youth, and, perhaps, some of the years of our man and womanhood were spent the place where we joyfully joined brothers, sisters, and playmates in the rustic sport upon the green sward in front of the white cottage, or wandered after flowers upon the hillock's side, in the beautiful meadow, and woodland vale, or caroled upon the bank of the rivulet, picking up the pebble, Mother, thou wert the chief joy of that once beautiful, but now smitten and forsaken habitation. Thou didst dwell as a ministering angel in the midst of thy band of little ones, and didst, with a mother's tenderness, watch their sleeping hours while in the infant cradle, and imprint the kiss of love upon their tender brows, with joy guide their feeble footsteps in their first trials to begin the journey of the world, counsel and correct them when about entering the wayward path of youth, and still let thy affections and prayers cling around their riper years. And though thou hast quit this vale of trials and woe, and hast gone to that pure and radiant world lit up by the glory of God and the light of the Lamb, still, mother, thou shalt have the chief seat in my soul, and the purest affections of my manhood's heart. "Ay, well thy name might wake spontaneous gush, of Revelation, it will be a fit residence for mother, and every jewel which may be gathered from this earth. How charmingly do these words, their memories, affections, and hopes, blend and make melody for the human heart: "Home, mother, heaven! Home, mother, heaven! be they blended all, When the free spirit, disenthrall'd from earth, Essays its upward wing!" GLEN COTTAGE. BY E. M. B. It was an ordinary farm-house, of rather contracted dimensions, presenting to the mind simply the idea of the necessaries and comforts, but none of the luxuries of life. The grounds surrounding were unembellished; yet the general appearance of the whole bespoke that careful attention to management which characterized the occupant as one of regular habits and industry. At another season of the year, the situation would have elicted admiration, as one of peculiar beauty. The Ohio-la belle riviere-bearing on its bosom the mighty steamers of the west, rolled its refluent tide at the base of the slight eminence on which the cottage stood, while in the rear the gigantic forest trees lifted their lofty branches to the skies, as though nature had intended to rival the design of the builders of the tower of Babel, and present here a refuge from the overwhelming inundations of the flood. But the distin Reader, hast thou a mother yet living? and one whose love is like the fountains of many waters? Honor that mother, love her, obey and comfort her;guishing hues of the birch, the maple, the ash, and and as she comes nearer to her resting-place in the grave and heaven, smooth her pathway, and soothe her sorrows. The privilege will soon be denied thee of ministering to that angel mother of thine. Mine has gone to heaven. HEAVEN. "Eye hath not seen this temple of our God, But it is the pure, serene place, where the rich treas the cedar, glowed not now in their vivid coloring of orange, crimson, brown, and green, rendering the foliage of our western forests so unique in beauty and luxuriance. The blasts of winter had succeeded to the livery of autumn, without adorning the leafless branches with the fairy frost-work which is that season's own peculiar decoration. The mist hung in heavy masses over the water, giving additional cheerlessness to the scene; and sad, indeed, it was to know that the desolation of nature was but a faint emblem of that which reigned within the ures of our stricken homes and of earth are gath-silent dwelling. The windows on the one side of ered. The Scriptures contain many promises in reference to this inheritance prepared for man in the future world, and hold out some bright symbols, typical of its character as the Sabbath of rest and worship, the land of Canaan, the spiritual kingdom of Christ, the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse, and which are like stars looking down through the clouds and storms that envelop the skies, and inspire hope in the sinking heart, and cheer the pilgrim in his journey through the world. If the reality itself transcends in glory and beauty the transcendently magnificent description given by John in the book the house were entirely closed, while those shutters in the front that were opened, were yet unfastened, as though hastily thrown aside to admit the light of day, while yet the inmates were too much absorbed to do aught that was not absolutely necessary. The past night had been to them one of no common interest: the father of that family lay on his dying bed; and assembled in the apartment were those united to him by the nearest and strongest ties-the ties of kindred blood, of kindred affection, and of kindred intellect. The almost unexampled suffering that had marked the last years of his life had but the |