III.

The scene hath changed! The red-man's reign is o'er,
His painted crown of feathers spurned in dust:
No more is caught the flashing of his oar;

His lance and axe are tarnished o'er with rust.
Their race is run; their life-sands ceased to flow;
Their names forgot; their lowly graves profaned:
From the fair earth they melted like the snow,

And of their glory scarce a sign remained.
Scarce o'er their land the pilgrim's curious gaze
Their ancient forts and strong-holds may espy;
All unconcerned the squatter's infant plays

O'er grass-grown mounds, where low the sachems lie.
Tradition tells that oft by forest-edge,

'Neath the white moon, the haunting tribes are seen: Some muse dejected o'er the craggy ledge,

Or view their ancient realms with looks serene.
Here a tall warrior leans upon his spear,
Or lifts his bow as if a foe drew near;
And damsels move in spectral dances round,
Yet silent all as dead beneath the ground!

IV.

A mingled race of every tongue and clime
Hold all the land in its extent sublime;
Their voices sound o'er green New-England's hill,
Their crowding steps its every valley fill:
By Mystic's wave, Connecticut's fair shore,
The swarming myriads still increasing pour;
Far up the Mohawk's soft enchanting vale
The sound of rural labor cheers the gale;
E'en where Niagara through its rocky gate
Shoots its vast tide, magnificently great,
The new race pours, still pressing on its way
O'er the blue lakes toward the setting day.
Before the wood-man's wasting axe and fire,
The shadowy woods of Michigan retire;
Wisconsin opes her flowery prairies, where
The hardy farmer guides the gleaming share;
The bold frontiers-man by Missouri's fount
Sows the rich glebe and tills the fertile mount;
The hunter yields, the red men disappear
Before the thrifty husbandman's career.

Lo! where it sweeps! a broad, majestic land,
Lovely with vales, with rugged mountains grand!
From sea to sea the country of the free,
From Northern Lake to smiling Mexic sea.
See where they move, in graceful circles round
The sister States, with laurel garlands bound;
The wreath of Union all around them rolled,

Twined with their banner's striped and spangled fold.
Long may they keep unsullied their domain,
Free as the breeze o'er Alleghany's chain;
Free as the tides their western valleys boast,
Free as the surge that thunders on their coast!
Boston, May, 1853.

MR. BROWN'S PIGS.

ONE evening, not a great while since, I dropped in at the Sociable Club, of which, I flatter myself, I am not altogether an undistinguished member. Indeed, I believe every one of us has a good opinion of himself, founded on a consciousness of some merit which no other member gainsays or denies. Certainly, for a club-man to decry his fellow would be a species of self-stultification, like abusing one's wife to one's neighbor. Whether we recognize this principle, or whether it be that we are all of a happy, generous disposition, there is no doubt that, almost without exception,

we are on the best of terms with each other and with ourselves.

But whatever vanity there may be among us individually, in our collective capacity, and as the world sees us, we make no great pretensions. We have not yet reached the full-blown dignity of house-keeping, and are content with a pair of rooms and an ante-chamber, conveniently located over Briggs, the cigar and liquor-merchant, with whom we store our wines, and whose clerk serves us as a butler without pay; while above us is Madame Frisbie's fashionable millinery-establishment, which affords us an opportunity of meeting a good many fine ladies on the stairs, and some of the prettiest little coiffeuses in the world.

As for that 'society,' as it is called, which so many men and women, boys and girls, fools and, indeed, wits, 'go into,' we do not, as a general thing, see much of it except at a respectful distance. If I were to assert that we object to several of its requirements; that we dislike standing an hour at a time, with no means of escape, hopelessly endeavoring to entertain some heavy lady to whom we have nothing to say; that young Masters Polky and Swell, tearing round the room, each with an armful of young woman, distribute hotness as they pass, beside treading on one's toes; and that we are decidedly unwilling to stand in halls or on landings, exposed to draughts, elbowings, and tray-corners-I might, perhaps, expose our Club to unmerited suspicion, and be asked if the grapes were not sour; so I shall only say that, while a great many persons find pleasure in the above amusements, we are moderately contented in our secondstory club; and while Masters Polky and Swell are pulling on those agonizing boots of theirs, or getting up those immense cravat-ties, which always remind me of the old-fashioned telegraph, in full play, that used to swing above the Exchange cupola, we, in quiet clothes, are passing the evening without any sort of martyrdom whatever.

There is an air of sociability about the rooms of our Club that authorizes its title at once. John, Black John, our Purveyor, Under-Secretary, Commissary-General, and Mercury-at-large, who weighs fourteen stone and treads like Camilla, opens the door, and welcomes you with an expansive smile beaming over the whole of his broad face, that I can only liken to a hemisphere in sun-shine. There is the cheerfullest of fires in the grate in the winter-season, the most fragrant lilacs bloom there in spring, and the greenest asparagus-tops in mid-summer. Upon the walls are one or two pictures, which, if not very gratifying as specimens of art, are yet calculated to inspire sociability and good-humor. Over one mantel is an

engraving of the Literary Tea-Party; while the other is decorated with a print after Leslie's picture of Uncle Toby and the Widow; and at the late sale of the Art-Union property—which, as sociable fellows, we regretted as much as any body-we purchased a fine, large fruit-piece, delineating half a water-melon, a cantelope, several peaches, and a knife and silver salver, which, when fruit is not in season, is very refreshing.

As for our other furniture, it is decidedly more useful than ornamental; more comfortable than costly. Jo Mallet, the celebrated auctioneer, who is a member of our Club, and who, after knocking down lots of the most elegant, fashionable, and costly furniture in this metropolis, will yet come into the Club of an evening and tell his story or enjoy a joke without any airs or the least pretension-Jo Mallet, even, would fail in attempting to make the contents of our rooms fetch any handsome sum of money. Far distant be the day when he shall be called on for such a purpose! May it never be his duty to stand up on the mahogany he has sat down to so often!

And here let me fervently hope the kind reader will not accuse us of parsimony for the modest manner of our club-keeping. Above all, let me deprecate the degrading imputation of poverty-that 'lower deep' of infamy in this golden age. No, no; we may have our faults, but not quite that. If we chose to go in the very face and eyes of the fundamental principle of our clubbed existence, we might, with a little financiering, manage to be splendid. But, ah! we have heard of the dismal sociability of many elegantly-appointed mansions in our Belgravia. We know the Gorgon influence of superb upholstery. We listened, at the Club the other evening, to the story of the country-gentleman at one of the new hotels, who sat on his trunk all night, afraid of doing something not quite genteel in the presence of so much good furniture. By all odds, we prefer chintz and sociability to brocatelle and a fear of using it. us plain Brussels for our floors, and leathern-cushioned arm-chairs for our sedent refreshment, and let us put our feet on the sofa and smoke, and be sociable.

Give

Among the members of the Club, Rinkle is, perhaps, the greatest authority in matters of literature and taste. Without being engaged in any one pursuit, a moderate income enables him to gratify his passion for lounging in libraries and book-stores, and poring over the maga zines, and occasionally to buy a new publication. He has been told that he ought to write for the periodicals, but he professes too much regard for the fraternity of authors to interfere with their perquisites. No, no,' he says: if publishers want articles, let them pay for them, and let them go to the men that want the money. I take the bread out of no man's mouth.' On matters of every-day interest, however, he does not hesitate to put pen to paper. Those are his initials, 'Q. R.,' which you occasionally see in the newspapers underneath a brief but cogent argument in favor of sweeping the streets by steam-power at midnight; or attached to a statement of the fact, that the thermometer stood at ninety degrees Fahrenheit at Montreal last Wednesday, and at seventy-five degrees in Wall-street at the same time, which accounted for the cold southerly gale yesterday morning.

He was entered in the club-register when proposed as Mr. Q. Rinkle,

and some body immediately dubbed him Queer; but his card was found afterward on one of the tables, from which we learned that he had been christened Quentin.

Another prominent member is Mr. Fred Daw, who, being something of a bon vivant, and considered a good judge of wines, may be set down as the Club's gastronomic oracle. Fred is a rising young lawyer, and has been a rising young lawyer any time these fifteen years. Considering the slowness with which legal gentlemen culminate, and Fred's fondness for good cheer, I think it may be assumed that by the time Mr. Daw falls into the grave, he will be pronounced, in a professional way, to have just

risen.

I take extreme pleasure in further introducing to the reader Mr. Wycherly Cribbs, of Wall-street. Of the exact nature of Mr. Cribbs's business I am not aware. I was unable to discover his name in the Directory when I once wished to see him on the affairs of the Club, but after some search found him, fat and comfortable as ever, in an under-ground apartment, counting over an immense number of faded bank-bills, and, as it appeared to me, with his eyes shut. He is our reference on financial matters, and has furnished Rinkle with many valuable statistics. He can always tell us how many shares the great Mr. Flam is long or short in the ruling fancy; and although I believe he is not a member of the Board, he seldom fails to give us the full particulars of any exciting scene on the Stock Exchange. If he has a weakness, it is to be considered a sporting character; but I firmly believe him innocent of any proficiency that would warrant the title, and am inclined to think he gets his intelligence at second-hand. In spite of this failing. Mr. Cribbs is held in high estimation at our rooms; and it is my intention, when the copy-right treaty is fairly under way, to consult him on the subject of investments.

But the gentleman to whom the reader and myself may at present be said to be under the deepest obligation, inasmuch as he has been the cause-logically remote, and legally innocent, to be sure- - of the lines I am now writing, is Mr. Rawdon Brown; and if I have not looked upon Mr. Brown hitherto with that glow of friendship with which I regard some other members, it is not that I have any personal feelings of hostility toward him. HEAVEN forbid! I trust I am at peace with all the world. Nor is it because I grudge him the gold spoon with which he was born; dear me! why should I care whether my spoon be gold or pewter, so long as I have my egg, and the appetite to relish it? But the cause of any coolness Brown may have observed in me is an unpleasant suspicion I have had of the out-and-out genuineness of his sociable sentiments, judged by the Club-standard of orthodoxy.

As a proof of my freedom from that serra animæ — envy — I do frankly admit that Brown is the youngest and best-dressed man among us, and that he has given some capital dinners at the Club. But still I must be allowed to say I have observed with pain his evident penchant for that domestic conglomerate called fashionable society, and his illconcealed reverence for the titles and unmeaning gew-gaws of foreign aristocracies. I have met him twice in the street of an evening wearing a high and very white cravat; and I confess that, on those occasions, the general stiffness, and reserve, and unsociability of his air, inspired me with

disgust. For several months past, Brown has not been seen at the Club. At first his absence was noticed, for we liked his dinners and smiling face. But learning that he was out of town on some private business, we consoled ourselves after the fashion of most sociable men, and turned to other dinners and other faces, and in the fulness and perfection of our sociability, got on so well without him, that I had not heard his name mentioned for weeks until the evening to which I have referred, when, as my wont is, I dropped in at the Club.

On this occasion, I was gratified to find Rinkle, Fred Daw, and Mr. Cribbs in the rooms. It was early, and no one else was present-pardon me, Black John, thou wast there with thy great shining face; but thou art a necessity to our comfort, John, and like many of our comforts, we shall often forget thee until thou art gone.

John took my over-coat and umbrella as I approached the fire-it was a rawish night—and his glowing countenance, which is as good as another fire in a room on a cheerless day, disappeared into his private ante-chamber on the landing. I found Rinkle seated at the table, dallying with the magazines; Cribbs was comfortably ensconced in an armchair, sleepily holding a letter in his hand; and Fred, reclining on a sofa, was devoting the evening remnant of his legal energies to making rings with tobacco-smoke.

'A letter from Brown,' said Cribbs, as I entered.

'What Brown?' I suddenly asked: and I now acknowledge the unsociable treachery of my memory.

'You are fined,' said Rinkle, in a low, solemn voice, looking at me over his spectacles, for sociable heterodoxy and schism. The Brown referred to is a member of a Club to which one Smither-Smith also belongs.' (That is my own name, dear reader, and you will admire the delicacy with which I have refrained from introducing it myself.) I bowed my acquiescence in his decision, and desired to know the nature of the fine. That shall be decided presently. Meanwhile, we are endeavoring to account for Brown's conduct.'

A faint surmise that Brown had secretly married into fashionable life, and had sent in his resignation, arose in my mind as I inquired into the gravamen criminis.

'Pigs,' replied Fred.

'Pigs?'

Ah! pigs indeed,' said Cribbs, mournfully.

'It seems,' said Rinkle, with an explanatory gesture, that our friend Brown, than whom a better fellow does n't breathe, has, for some unexplained cause, been withdrawing himself from the amenities of civilized life, and amusing his leisure with agricultural, or, to speak more correctly, zoological pursuits. Though they have proved disastrous, I am the last man, and I hope, gentlemen, you are the last men '

'Hear!' cried Fred.

'Of course,' said Cribbs.

And I nodded approval

To condemn failure when the motive has been worthy, and the effort has corresponded thereto. I only wish,' he continued, speaking slowly, and looking at Fred, as though there was an important criminal trial