to all mankind; who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; who blessed those who cursed him, and prayed for those who despitefully used and persecuted him! What, then, can give rise to this uncharitable, this unhuman custom among the disciples of a master so gentle and forgiving? It is that fiend politics, Asem,—that baneful fiend which bewildereth every brain, and poisons every social feeling ; which intrudes itself at the festive banquet, and like the detestable harpy, pollutes the very viands of the table; which contaminates the refreshing draught while it is inhaled; which prompts the cowardly assassin to launch his poisoned arrows from behind the social board : and which renders the bottle, that boasted promoter of good-fellowship and hilarity, an infernal engine charged with direful combustion.

O, Asem! Asem! how does my heart sicken when I contemplate these cowardly barbarities! let me, therefore, if possible, withdraw my attention from them forever. My feelings have borne me from my subject; and from the monuments of ancient greatness, I have wandered to those of modern degradation. My warmest wishes remain with thee, thou most illustrious of slave-drivers; mayst thou ever be sensible of the mercies of our great prophet, who, in compassion to human imbecility, has prohibited his

disciples from the use of the deluding beverage of the grape; that enemy to reason that promoter of defamation-that auxiliary of

POLITICS.

Ever thine,

MUSTAPHA.

No. XVII.—Wednesday, Nov. 11, 1807.

AUTUMNAL REFLECTIONS.

BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ.

WH

HEN a man is quietly journeying downward into the valley of the shadow of departed youth, and begins to contemplate, in a shortened perspective, the end of his pilgrimage, he becomes more solicitious than ever that the remainder of his wayfaring should be smooth and pleasant; and the evening of his life, like the evening of a summer's day, fade away in mild uninterrupted serenity. If haply his heart has escaped uninjured through the dangers of a seductive world, it may then administer to the purest of his felicities, and its chords vibrate more musically for the trials they have sustained-like the viol which yields a melody sweet in proportion to its age.

To a mind thus temperately harmonized

thus matured and mellowed by a long lapse of years there is something truly congenial in the quiet enjoyment of our early autumn, amid the tranquillities of the country. There is a sober and chastened air of gayety diffused over the face of nature, peculiarly interesting to an old man; and when he views the surrounding landscape withering under his eye, it seems as if he and nature were taking a last farewell of each other, and parting with a melancholy smile; like a couple of old friends, who, having sported away the spring and summer of life together, part at the approach of winter with a kind of prophetic fear that they are never to meet again.

It is either my good fortune, or mishap, to be keenly susceptible to the influence of the atmosphere; and I can feel in the morning, before I open my window, whether the wind. is easterly. It will not, therefore, I presume, be considered an extravagant instance of vainglory when I assert that there are few men who can discriminate more accurately in the different varieties of damps, fogs, Scotch mists, and northeast storms, than myself. To the great discredit of my philosophy, I confess, I seldom fail to anathematize and excommunicate the weather, when it sports too rudely with my sensitive system; but then I always endeavor

to atone therefor, by eulogizing it when deserving of approbation. And as most of my readers—simple folks!-make but one distinction, to wit, rain and sunshine; living in most honest ignorance of the various nice shades which distinguish one fine day from another, I take the trouble, from time to time, of letting them into some of the secrets of nature. will they be the better enabled to enjoy her beauties, with the zest of connoisseurs, and derive at least as much information from my pages as from the weather-wise lore of the almanac.

So

Much of my recreation, since I retreated to the Hall, has consisted in making little excursions through the neighborhood; which abounds in the variety of wild, romantic, and luxuriant landscape that generally characterizes the scenery in the vicinity of our rivers. There is not an eminence within a circuit of many miles but commands an extensive range of diversified and enchanting prospect.

Often have I rambled to the summit of some favorite hill; and thence, with feelings truly tranquil as the lucid expanse of the heavens that canopied me, have noted the slow and almost imperceptible changes that mark the waning year. There are many features peculiar to our autumn and which give it an indi