has risen from 6 to 10 per cent. to the other, "Why these Portuguese, I don't Cupid and Hymen drive bargains with such like 'em-I don't understand any of their gib-rapidity at Gloucester, Mass. that rent has berish-not I-I am sure ours is the right language; for as for the sun, moon, and stars, I am sure 'tis the right names for 'em, and they were always called the same, and always will be, and our English names be the only right ones for all these things," A Mr. Brown, of Edinburgh, has satisfied himself that plants, wood, and even rocks, are composed of congeries of living atoms! "That man himself, the food he consumes, the clothes he wears, the buildings that shelter him, the air, perhaps, which he breathes, the dust that flies around his head, the solid earth that lies under his feet; with all the plants and animals it nourishes, are but so many groups or masses of animated beings; that matter, so far from being inert or dead, is pregnant with unextinguishable life in all its forms; that the whole globe, in short, is literally alive." The time we live ought not to be computed by the number of years, but by the use that has been made of it.-Addison. . WORCESTER, SATURDAY, FEB. 7, 1829. We deem it an unpleasant and thankless task to criticise new publications-one in which it is difficult to please even a part of the reading community, for no one pretends to please all. The idea of Sterne, upon a good natured reader, is strongly expressive of that kind of satisfaction which many take in carping at the productions of the author they are reading. "I would go fifty miles on foot, to kiss the hand of that man, whose generous heart will give up the reins of his imagination into his author's hands, be pleased, he knows not why, and cares not wherefore," says he, and it is a remark worthy to be kept in remembrance by all who read for amusement.These remarks premised, will save us a long detail of reasons, &c. for liking some of the works recently published, and disliking others-We like the "Western Souvenir," and "Pelham," and think "Zillah, or a Tale of the Holy City," to be a feeble and inferior work, one that is unworthy so much notice as has been bestowed on it. ITEMS. An elegant silver monumental Vase has been presented to Gen. Lafayette by the Midshipmen of the United States frigate Brandywine. It was executed in Paris, under the direction of Mr. Barnet our Consul, and presented to the General by His Excellency Mr. Brown. Elsie Whipple, whose husband was shot in Albany two or three years since by Strang, her paramour, and who came near being hung with him, was recently married in New Brunswick, N. J. to a Mr. Nathaniel Freeman.They were once school-mates in that place. Some of the wags attribute the accident which befel Don Miguel to his having taken Madeira. A human skeleton, supposed to be an Indian has been found in Haverhill, Mass. in a garden on the bank of the Merrimack, a quarter of a mile west of Haverhill Bridge. The Essex Gazette thinks it has seen there 200 years -it was found in a gully, washed out by the late heavy rains. Six manufacturing companies were incorporated by the last legislature of North Caroli na. The third trial for Representatives to Congress in the fifth district of Vermont has failed. It is said to be the anti-masonic feeling which produces these results. A grandee and peer of Spain has latterly been breaking stones on a high road in the neighbourhood of London, at the rate of 1s. a day, to support his wife and three children. Men reckon themselves possessed of what their genius inclines them to, and so find all their ambition to excel in what is out of their reach.-Spectator. Applause and admiration are by no means to be counted among the necessaries of life. Johnson. Placid and soothing is the remembrance of a life passed with quiet, innocence, and elegance.-Steele. Every one ought to fence against the temper of his climate, or constitution, and frotions which may give him a serenity of mind. quently to indulge in himself those considera[Addison. Captiousness and jealousy are easily offended: and to him who studiously looks for an affront, every mode of behavior will supply it.-Johnson. Peevish displeasure, and suspicions of mankind, are apt to persecute those who withdraw themselves altogether from the baunts of men. [Blair. 184 POETRY. THERE'S JOY WHEN THE ROSY MORNING. BY SUSANNA STRICKLAND. There's joy when the rosy morning floods The purple east with light; When the zephyr sweeps from a thousand buds The pearly tears of night: There's joy when the lark exulting springs From the blossomed thorn when the blackbird And the merry month is May. There's joy abroad when the wintry snow When the floating clouds reflect the light There's joy in April's balmy showers, There's joy when the pale, pale moon comes With all her starry train When the woods return the reaper's shout, There's joy in childhood's silvery voice, When the laugh rings blithe and clear, And the sounds that bid young hearts rejoice, Are music to the ear: There's joy in the sweet romance of youth, Across the radiant brow of truth, To mar the soul's repose. There's joy in the youthful lover's breast, There's joy-above-around-beneath- The world's stern strife, the hand of death, But there's a deeper joy than earth With all her charms can give, Which marks the spirit's second birth, When man but dies to live. THE SPIRIT'S LAND. The Spirit's land-where is that land, Beyond the bright and starry sphere, The phantom flight of thought. There, fadeless flowers their blossoms wave, And there the latest lingering tear Is wiped from every eye; And souls beneath the trees of life, Repose upon that blessed shore, And yet, methinks, a chastened woe When strains from angel harps may stray On heavenly airs of mortal birth, Ah! then, perchance, their saddening spell, And loved ones left behind. THE Worcester Talisman. NO. 24. FEBRUARY 21, 1829. MISCELLANY. HANNAH BINT. BY MISS MARY RUSSELL MITFORD. The Shaw, leading to Hannah Bint's habitation, is a very pretty mixture of wood and coppice; that is to say, a track of thirty or forty acres covered with fine growing timber-ash, and oak, and elm-very regularly planted; and interspersed here and there with large patches of underwood, hazel, maple, birch, holly, and hawthorn, woven into almost inpenetrable thickets by long wreaths of the bramble, the briar, and the briar-rose, or by the pliant and twisting garlands of the wild honey-suckle. In other parts, the Shaw is quite clear of its bushy undergrowth, and clothed only with large beds of feathery fern, or carpets of flowers, primroses, orchises, cowslips, ground-ivy, crane's-bill, cotton-grass, solomon's seal, and forget-me-not, crowded together with a profusion and brilliancy of color, such as I have rarely seen equalled even in a garden. Here the wild hyacinth really enamels the ground with its fresh and lovely purple; there, "On aged roots, with bright green mosses clad, Dwells the wood-sorrel, with its bright this leaves Heart-shaped and triply folded, and its root Creeping like beaded coral; whilst around Flourish the copse's pride, anemones, With rays like golden studs on ivory laid Most delicate; but touched with purple clouds, Fit crown for April's fair but changeful brow." The variety is much greater than I have enumerated; for the ground is so unequal, now swelling in gentle ascents, now dimpling into dells and hollows, and the soil so different in different parts, that the sylvan Flora is unusually extensive and complete. VOL. I. vine-covered dwelling of Hannah Bint rises from amidst the pretty garden, which lies bathed in the sunshine around it. The living and moving accessories are all in keeping with the cheerfulness and repose of the landscape. Hannah's cow grazing quietly beside the keeper's pony; a brace of fat pointer puppies holding amicable intercourse with a litter of young pigs; ducks, geese, cocks, hens, and chickens, scattered over the yard; Hannah herself sallying forth from the cottagedoor, with her milk-bucket in her hand, and her little brother following with the milking stool. My friend, Hannah Bint, is by no means an ordinary person. Her father, Jack Bint, (for in all his life he never arrived at the dignity of being called John; indeed, in our parts, he was commonly known by the cognomen of London Jack,) was a drover of high repute in his profession. No man, between Salisbury Plain and Smithfield, was thought to conduct a flock of sheep so skilfully through all the difficulties of lanes and commons, streets and high-roads as Jack Bint, and Jack Bint's famous dog, Watch; for Watch's rough, honest lace, black, with a little white about the muzzie, and one white ear, was as well known at fairs and markets, as his master's equally honest and weather-beaten visage. Lucky was the dealer that could secure their services ; Watch being renowned for keeping a flock together, better than any shepherd's dog on the road-Jack, for delivering them more punctually, and in better condition. A rheumatic fever came on, one hard winter, and finally settled in his limbs, reducing the most active and hardy man in the parish to the state of a confirmed cripple; then his reckless improvidence stared him in the face, and poor Jack, a thoughtless, but kind creature, and a most affectionate father, looked at his three motherless children with the acute misery of a parent, who has brought those whom he loves best in the world, to abject destitution. He found help, where he probably least expected it, in the sense and spirit of his young daughter, a girl of twelve years old A sudden turn brings us to the boundary of the Shaw, and leaning upon a rude gate, we look over an open space of about ten acres of ground, still more varied and broken than that which we have passed, and surrounded on all sides by thick woodland. The pasture of which so great a part of the waste consists, looks as green as an emerald; a clear pond, with the bright sky reflected in it, lets light into the picture; the white cottage of the keep-been accustomed to take the direction of their er peeps from the opposite coppice; and the domestic concerns, to manage her two broth Hannah was the eldest of the family, and had, ever since her mother's death, which event had occurred two or three years before, ers, to feed the pigs and the poultry, and to keep house during the almost constant absence of her father. She was a quick, clever lass, of a high spirit, a firm temper, some pride, and a horror of accepting parochial relief, which is every day becoming rarer amongst the peasantry; but which forms the surest safeguard to the sturdy independence of the English character. Our little damsel possess ed this quality in perfection; and when her father talked of giving up their comfortable cottage, and removing to the workhouse, whilst she and her brothers must go to service, Hannah formed a bold resolution, and, without disturbing the sick man by any participa. tion of her hopes and fears, proceeded, after settling their trifling affairs, to act at once on her own plans and designs. fortunately, amongst the indispensable necessaries of housekeeping. To your thorough bred Londoner, who, whilst grumbling over his own breakfast, is apt to fancy that thick cream, and fresh butter, and newlaid eggs, grow, so to say, in the country-form an actual part of its natural produce-it may be some comfort to learn, that in this great grazing district, however the calves and the farmers may be the better for cows, nobody else is; that farmers' wives have ceased to keep poultry, and that we unlucky villagers sit down often to our first meal in a state of destitution, which may well make him content with his thin milk, and his Cambridge butter, when compared to our imputed pastoralities. Hannah's Alderney restored us to one rural privilege. Never was so cleanly a little milkmaid. She changed away some of the cottage finery, which, in his prosperous days, poor Jack had pleased himself with bringing home; the China tea-service, the gilded mugs, and the painted waiters, for the more useful utensils of the dairy, and speedily established a regular and gainful trade in milk, eggs, butter, honey, and poultry-for poultry they had always kept. Careless of the future as the poor drover had seemed, he had yet kept clear of debt, and by subscribing constantly to a benefit club, had secured a pittance that might at least assist in supporting him during the long years of sickness and helplessness to which he was doomed to look forward. This his daughter knew. She knew, also, that the employer in whose service his health had suffered so severely, was a rich and liberal cattle-dealer in Her domestic management prospered equalthe neighborhood, who would willingly aid an ly. Her father, who retained the perfect use old and faithful servant, and had, indeed, of his hands, began a manufacture of mats and come forward with offers of money. To assist- baskets, which he constructed with great niceance from such a quarter Hannah had no ob- ty and adroitness; the eldest boy, a sharp and jection. Farmer Oakley and the parish were clever lad, cut for him his rushes and oziers; quite distinct things. Of him, accordingly, erected, under his sister's directions, a shed she asked, not money, but something much for the cow, and enlarged and cultivated the more in his own way-" a cow! any cow! garden (always with the good leave of her old or lame,or what not,so that it were a cow! kind patron, the lord of the manor) until it beshe would be bound to keep it well; if she did came so ample, that the produce not only not, he might take it back again. She even kept the pig, and half-kept the family, but afhoped to pay for it by and by, by instalments, forded another branch of merchandize to the but that she would not promise!" and partly indefatigable directness of the establishment. amused, partly interested by the child's ear- For the younger boy,less quick and active, Hannestuess, the wealthy yeoman gave her, not nah contrived to obtain an admission to the as a purchase, but as a present, a very fine charity-school, where he made great progress young Alderney. She then went to the lord-retaining him at home, however, in the hayof the manor, and, with equal knowledge of character, begged his permission to keep her cow in the Shaw common. "Farmer Oakley had given her a fine Alderney, and she would be bound to pay the rent, and keep her father off the parish, if he would only let it graze on the waste;" and he, too, half from real good nature-half, not to be outdone in liberality by his tenant, not only granted the requested permission, but reduced the rent so much, that the produce of the vine seldom fails to satisfy their kind landlord. Now, Hannah showed great tact in setting up as a dairy-woman. She could not have chosen an occupation more completely unoccupied, or more loudly called for. One of the most provoking of the petty difficulties which beset people with a small establishment, in this neighborhood, is the trouble, almost the impossibility, of procuring the pastoral luxuries of milk, eggs, and butter, which rank, un making reaping, and leasing season, or whenever his services could be made available, to the great annoyance of the schoolmaster, whose favorite he is, and who piques himself so much on George's scholarship (your heavy sluggish boy at country work often turns out clever at his book,) that it is the general opinion of the village, that this much-vaunted pupil will, in process of time, be promoted to the post of assistant, and may, possibly, in course of years, rise to the dignity of a parish pedagogue in his own person; so that his sister, although still making him useful at odd times, now considers George as pretty well off her hands, whilst his elder brother, Tom, could take an undergardener's place directly, if he were not too important at home to be spared even for a dav. In short, during the five years that she has ruled at the Shaw cottage, the world has gone well with Hannah Bint. Her cow, her calves, head. There they stand, as much like lovers as may be; he smiling, and she blushinghe never looking so handsome, nor she so pretty, in all their lives. There they stand, in blessed forgetfulness of all except each other; as happy a couple as ever trod the earth. There they stand, and one would not disturb them her pigs, her bees, her poultry, have each, in to the becoming,the suitable both in form and their several ways, thriven and prospered.- texture, which would be called the highest She has even brought Watch to like butter-degree of coquetry, if it did not deserve the milk, as well as strong beer, and has nearly better name of propriety. Never was such a persuaded her father (to whose wants and transmogrification beheld. The lass is really wishes she is most anxiously attentive) to ac- pretty, and Ned Miles has discovered that she cept of milk as a substitute for gin. Not but is so. There he stands, the rogue close at her Hannah bath had her enemies as well as her side (for he hath joined her whilst we have betters. Why should she not? The old wo- been telling her little story, and the milking man at the lodge, who always piqued herself is over!)--there he stands-holding her milk on being spiteful, and crying down new ways, pail in one hand, and stroking Watch with foretold, from the first, that she would come the other; whilst she is returning the comto no good, and could not forgive her for fals-pliment, by patting Neptune's magnificent ifying her prediction; and Betty Barnes, the flattering widow of a tippling farmer, who rented a field, and set up a cow herself, and was universally discarded for insufferable dirt, said all that the wit of an envious woman could devise against Hannah and her Alderney; nay, even Ned Miles, the keeper, her next neighbor, who had, whilom held entire sway over the Shaw common, as well as its coppices, grumbled as much as so good-natured and genial a person could grumble, when he found a little girl sharing his dominion, a cow grazing beside his pony, and vulgar cocks and hens hovering around the buck wheat destined to feed his noble pheasants. Nobody that had been accustomed to see that paragon of keepers, so tall and manly, and pleasant looking, with his merry eye, and his knowing smiles, striding gaily along, in his green coat, and his gold laced hat, with his noble Newfoundland dog, (a retriever is the sporting word,) and his beautiful spanie! flirt at his heels, could conceive how eskew he looked, when he first found Hannah and Watch hold ing equal reign over his old territory, the Shaw common. Yes! Hannah hath had her enemies; but they are passing away. The old woman at the lodge is dead, poor creature; and Betty Barnes, having herself taken to tippling, has lost the few friends she once possessed, and looks, luckless wretch, as if she would soon die too!-and the keeper?-why, he is not dead, or like to die; but the change that has taken place there is the most astonishing of all-except, perhaps, the change in Hannah herself. Few damsels of twelve years old, generally a very pretty age, were less pretty than Hannah Bint. Short and stunted in her figure,|| thin in face, sharp in feature, with a muddled complexion, wild sun-burnt hair, and eyes, whose very brightness had in them something startling, over-informed, super-subtle, too clever for her age. At twelve years old she had quite the air of a little old fairy. Now, at seventeen,matters are mended. Her complex. ion has cleared: her countenance, her figure, has shot up into height and lightness, and a sort of rustic grace; her bright, acute eye is softened and sweetened by the womanly wish to please; her hair is trimmed,and curled, and brushed, with exquisite neatness; and her whole dress arranged with that'nice attention for all the milk and butter in Christendom.- REMEMBER ME. Walk in There is not two other words in the language that can back a more fruitful train of past remembrances of friendship than these. Look through your library, and when you cast your eye upon a volume that contains the name of an old companion, it will say-remember me. Have you an ancient Album, the repository of the mementoes of early affection?-turn over its leaves, stained by the finger of time, sit down and ponder upon the names enrolled on them; each says, remember me. Go into the crowded church-yard, among the marble tombs, read the simple and brief inscriptions that perpetuate the memory of departed ones; they too have a voice that speaks to the hearts of the living, and says remember me. the scenes of early rambles: the well-known paths of the winding streams, the overspreading trees, the green and gently-sloping banks, will recal the dreams of juvenile pleasure, and the recollections of youthful companions; they too bear the treasured injunctions-remember me. And this is all that is left at last of the wide circle of our earthly friends. Scattered by fortune, or called away by death, or thrown without our band by the changes of circumstances or of character; in time, we find ourselves left alone with the recollection of what they were. Some were our benefactors, and won us by their favour; others, again, were models of virtue, and shared our praises and admiration. It was thus a little while, and then the chances of the world broke in upon the delightful intercourse, it ceased. Yet still, we do all we can to discharge the one sacred, and honest, and an honourable debt-we remember them. The tribute, too, of remembrance which we delight to pay to others, we desire for ourselves.-The wish for applause; the thirst for fame; the desire that our names would shine down to future posterity in the |