can music impart its highest delight, and change his midnight darkness to a noonday splendor. Who can estimate fully the influence of music upon the heart and the life? What can do more to soften and refine the feelings? to purify and elevate the whole nature? And why should it not exert as great a power now, as in the earlier ages of society? Why not have as much influence upon the civilized, as the savage man? Those who have been the most constantly affected by it, who are best capable of appreciating its effects, tell us that there is nothing that can so exalt and ennoble the moral and religious element. Who can calculate the influence it exerts in our churches? What is so well designed to lift the mind from earth to the contemplation of heaven? And then, too, consider the influence of music upon our social feelings. There is nothing like the concord of sweet sounds that can so move the heart to noble deeds and lofty daring, and that, at the same time, can prompt to that spirit of kindness and disinterestedness that softens and beautifies our social intercourse. However, the power to appreciate music is the gift of God. Shall I not say it is one of the noblest vouchsafed to man? Blessed is he who possesses it, and can appreciate it. For amidst all the vicissitudes of this strange life, he has within him that which can sustain and cheer him. It is a pleasant thing to see the smiling faces of those around you, to look upon the speaking countenances of your friends, to read the burning thoughts that come forth in each

glance of the eye. But the beautiful face soon becomes pale and emaciated; the eye soon loses its brilliancy and luster, the form its grace, and the step its elasticity; but the music of the voice can never die. Like the soul, it is divine and immortal. Great is his privilege for whom nature, with its myriad objects of beauty, has power to delight—who can look upon the green, beautiful earth-who can gaze upon the heavens, adorned with its innumerable lights. But there is yet a greater boon, there is a depth in music which transcends all else.

"O, say, is there a star above,

Like the low, sweet voice of one you love?"

There is no faculty I possess with which I would not part, rather than relinquish the high satisfaction which music affords. Gladly would I open these sealed orbs, and look out upon the vast, magnificent universe; but I would not accept so great a boon, if it must be obtained at the sacrifice of the deep delight, of the inexpressible joy, of the unutterable happiness, which music alone can impart.

MRS. S. H DE KROYFT.

"The darksome pines that o'er your rocks reclined,
Wave high, and murmur to the hollow wind,

The wandering streams, that shine between the hills,
The grots that echo to the tinkling rills,
The dying gales that pant upon the trees,
The lakes that quiver to the curling breeze;
No more these scenes my meditation aid,
Or lull to rest the visionary maid:
But o'er the twilight groves and dusky caves,
Long-sounding aisles, and intermingled graves,
Black melancholy sits, and round her throws,
A death-like silence, and a dread repose;
Her gloomy presence saddens all the scene,
Shades every flower, darkens every green,
Deepens the murmur of the falling floods,
And breathes a browner horror on the woods."

In the preceding biographical sketches, it has been our uniform purpose to collect all the authentic statistics, relative to the lives of our authors, we could find in either European or American literature, and form a chain of events, interspersed with such original remarks as the occasion and our own experience under similar circumstances, seemed to suggest.

But in noticing our present authoress, having been unable to procure any accounts of her strangely eventful and interesting history, save those she has given to the public in her beautiful and universally

admired volume, entitled, "A Place in Thy Memory," we deem it proper to digress from our former rule, and give them principally in her own language and connection.

The beautiful metaphoric drapery thrown around these references to her life and misfortunes, and the simple, natural, and deeply feeling manner in which she tells her tale of woe, form paragraphs so sacred that it seems like ruthless sacrilege to divest them of their original attire.

The following tender and pathetic lines, that must move every reader to tears, susceptible in the slightest degree to feel for others' woes, serve us as a partial introduction to her history:

ROCHESTER, October, 1846.

"DEAR CLARA :-Tis autumn, and to-day the winds howl mournfully among the trees. Four long weeks I have been pillowed on a sick couch, and though with much of its drapery around me, I can to-day sit in an easy chair. Fever still burns on my cheeks, and my brow is pressed with throbbing pain. Last night they fed me opium, and I slept a pleasant sleep. I dreamed of other days. I thought that we again, arm in arm, paced the halls of the old seminary, and talked confidingly of bright realities in the future. The chime of the welcome school-bell again rang in my ears, and I heard the halls echo with the familiar tread of many feet, and mingling voices, all buoyant with hope and love. This morning, I engaged a

friend to write for me, while I fancy myself whispering in your ear the story of all that grieves me, and wrings every joy from my heart. Truth is often stranger than fiction,' and the tale I shall tell you, needs no coloring. Clara, I am blind! forever shrouded in the thick darkness of an endless night. And now, when I look down the current of coming years, a heavy gloom settles on me, almost to suffocation.

"Is there any sympathy in your heart? Oh, then weep with me, for now, like an obstinate prisoner, I feel my spirit struggling to be free. But oh, 'tis all in vain, 'tis all over, misery's self seems stopping my breath, hope is dead, and my heart sinks within me. Clara, I am in a land of strangers, too. Stranger voices sound in my ears, and stranger hands smooth my brow, and administer to my wants. I see them not, but I know they have learned the laws of kindness. I love them, and pray Heaven to hold them in remembrance. But let me change the subject. The first year after we parted at school, my love of knowledge increased every day. I continued Italian with a success that pleased me. I read various French authors, besides translating most of the Old Testament Scriptures, reviewed Rollin, &c.

"In June last, Dr. DeKroyft was seized with hemorrhage of the lungs. He sent for me and I came to him. Every day his lips grew whiter, and the deep paleness on his brow alarmed me. Now, in a halfcoughing tone, I hear him say, 'Helen, I fear the