despised. When you give glory to Mahomet, from WHOм do you withdraw it?

This worship is only carried on by disregarding the processes of right reason, and by men who plainly avow that the thinking and moral nature are but different phases of the same indissoluble unity, the living mind, and only distinguished from each other by the necessities of speech. All distinction between inclination and duty is banished, and Virtue is deprived of her paramount authority. This facility in blending energy with earnestness; in extolling the proportions of the high-built genius, which hath no heart for its foundation,' as the harmony of heaven; in making the worst best, because they are brightest in intellect, and the meanest god-like, because they are Satantically sublime; can only find a parallel in the wonderful generation of polyps as discovered by Trembly. He found that these vegetable animals can be made to change heads; for the head of one may be engrafted on the body of the other; and if the tail of one be placed in the mouth of the other, the two heterogeneous extremities readily unite, so as to confound all our notions of personal identity!

It is to be regretted that this huge fallacy of hero-worship is not confined to mere literature. Our country, as a people governing themselves, will feel the influence resulting from confounding greatness in one department with greatness in another. Because a man can fight bravely, many conclude that he can govern wisely; and vice-versa. Benton and Taylor are by no means reciprocal terms; let us suggest, without detracting from either in their appropriate spheres. Still the one might have made a great General, and the other may make a good President, without destroying our argument.

If you want an object for your veneration, cast off the shackles of personal homage, and pay devotion to principle. If you will worship, allow us to show you an object. Take Junius as your hero. There he is! an abstract man; an embodied principle; a living truth! Would you know who he is? It is enough to know and feel that a mighty heart beat beneath that brilliant rhetoric with its antithetic brilliant and searching interrogatory. There he is, and from his cloudy throne,

'In glory unobscured

And with the majesty of darkness round,'

he speaketh like an oracle, whether as the hater of corruption, the Scourge of hypocrisy, the champion of the press, the mentor of lords, the censor of commons or the teacher of royalty. Dark is he? Dark to silly curiosity; but a bright and breathing soul to him who is tinctured with no Boswellian servility to the man, and no Carlylish worship of heroes.

But rejoice, friend of independent Thought, for a better day is dawning. Mackay, in his inimitable way, has caught the inspiration, and sings its promised advent:

'WHEN greedy authors wield the pen,

To please the vulgar town,

Depict great thieves as injured men
And heroes of renown:

Pander to prejudices unclean,
Apologize for crime,

And daub the vices of the mean

With flattery like slime :

For MILTON's craft, for SHAKSPEARE's tongue,
We blush, but yet reply,

Grub little moles, grub under ground

There's sunshine in the sky!'

All these darling fallacies which we have enumerated are not alone the bantlings of vulgar minds, but are caressed by those who know better. Hence they have become deep rooted in our midst. In such a juncture, we hail with peculiar delight a work like that of Mr. Mill, of which we promised to say something. Such a work, coming as it does brightly and beautifully stamped from his clear, pure and analytic mind, doubly refined by passing the ordeal of his own unsurpassed critical acumen, will do much to straighten the crooked paths of fallacy into which we are straying. His singular boldness, extensive research, familiar acquaintance with ancient and modern philosophy, and his extraordinary power of classification, give him a shield almost as potent against Fallacy as was the diamond one of Prince Arthur, which could turn men into stones, stones into dust, and dust into nothing. It matters not where he meets the fallacy; whether in the vulgar errors recorded by Sir Thomas Browne, in the à priori speculations of Descartes, Leibnitz, Spinoza; in the domain of numbers and mathematics ruled by Pythagorus, Playfair and Newton; in the regions of metephysics where Kant and Coleridge reign sublime, or in the mystic realms of the Platonists, Vedas and Hegelians; whether in the morals of Cicero, the ecclesiastical polity of old Hooker, the Organon of Bacon, the socialism of Rousseau and Hobbes, the philosophy of Couisin, or the theories of Malthus: any where, any where, in the world,' he lays it open with his keen scalpel, with a kind, earnest and honest mind. Before his logic, not alone vulgar error but the most ingeniously-wrought sophistry cannot stand. He unravels with equal ease the linsey-wolsey of the house-wife and the web of Arachne. His work richly deserves the commendations it has received in England, and which, for the honor of American mind, we hope it will receive here. His social science, Historical Method,' and his moral and political logic, which follow his analysis and classification of fallacies, and which form the conclusion of his able work, would, if truly pondered, arrest the thousand vagrant reformatory projects and fallacies which are enervating the public mind. He is an Englishman such as an American may delight to honor; liberal in his politics, with no false veneration for the past, with no servility to greater minds, and with a true sense of the progressiveness and dignity of mankind. What one man can do, to scatter the chaff of error, and teach men how to sow, reap and garner the golden grain of truth, that has Mr. Mill accomplished. But much, almost every thing, depends on the individual. He who receives, must cast out the fallacy. The sword of Telephus was the best cure for its own wounds.

It is no trifling question of casuistry, no theme for ridicule, how

shall a man best subserve his own happiness and maintain his mental vigor, not only in society, but in solitude? Solitude comes to us all. Disappointment drives many a noble soul to seek its refuge. It is needless for any one, who is accustomed to reflect, to pretend to such an immersion in worldliness that he does not need an anchor, sure and steadfast within, to stay him amid storms, and make him confident against prospective adversity. Where will he find that anchor? Hope, although symbolized by the anchor, is not sufficient. The loose delusions of paradoxy, the filmy visions from fancy's loom, and the beauties of a false philosophy, cannot be relied upon, in the self-searching hour of solitude. Fallacy, in all its forms, is too wavering and unsubstantial. Truth alone is firm and improgressive; for, as De Quincy well says, 'truths are held by a principle of strong internal cohesion.' Truth, strange as it may seem, does not move. She draws by her attractiveness other shining particles to herself. These form the 'great bases for Eternity.' You will not find her always in the enchanted chambers of power, nor reposing on the couches of luxury; but you will find her where old Burton sought her, in woods where waters are. In solitude, she appears as she did to him,' with her shining light and sparkling countenance, so as ye may not be able lightly to resist her.' To contemplate is to worship her; and her's is no mock hero worship.' He who counts her rosary will receive the purest spiritual aliment. Let us look upon her as the Knight of Holiness looked upon her beautiful embodiment, Una, in the cave of Despair, when he was about to yield to the morbid sophistry which, like 'dropping honeie,' fell from the subtle tongue of the grisly Enchanter; and even forlorn and squalid Misery will be robed in her celestial light. Certainly,' says Bacon, 'it is a heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in Charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of Truth.'

Rochester, Aug., 1847.

MYSTERIOUS Lights! that paint the northern sky,
And tinge the sombre dome of silent night
With streakings of AURORA's rosy light,
As sparkling, flashing zenith-ward ye fly:
Strange beams! how oft to superstitious eye
Your solemn flickerings and changes bright
Seem fiery chariots rushing to the fight;
Dread signs that the last awful day draws nigh!
To me ye happier fancies bring to mind:
Let cold Philosophy assign thy cause,

And hedge thy beauties round with rules and laws;
'Tis Angels, gentle POETRY would say,

Whose glory, as to heav'n they wing their way,
Leaves bright and glowing tracks behind.

THE FACE O F THE DEAD.'

THE dignity with which DEATH invests his victim inspires us with an awe no living thing can create. We shrink with horror from the touch of that hand which but yesterday was firmly clasped in our own.' MARRIAGE: A NOVEL,

I.

WE gaze with deep awe on the face of the dead,
As they lie in their solemn and dreamless repose;
And we shrink from their presence with feelings so dread,
That the heart in its terror seems suddenly froze.

II.

It little avails though the loved one now cold,

When life-warm, was gentle as Music's own breath;
The arm that our infancy once could enfold

Has a touch how repulsive, when stiffened by Death!

III.

Ah! well I remember the morning in June,

Though twenty long years have since vanished away,
When first my young heart learned its dirge-notes to tune,
As my Angel of Youth' in her winding-sheet lay!

IV.

The eyes whose mild light on my spirit first shone

For ever had ceased in their sweetness to beam,
And her smiles, which in sickness no dimness had known,
Like tender young orphans, did holier seem.

V.

Yet I could not approach her and touch her pale lips,
Though the first that my infantile cheek did e'er meet,

And though sweet as the dew that the honey-bee sips
Were the prayers I had caught there, and learned to repeat.

VI.

I thought as I gazed on her cold livid face,

That the Angel of Death, who the havoc had wrought,

Was lingering still in that sanctified place,

Which seemed with the presence of DEITY fraught.

VII.

O GOD! must the child that now looks in my eye,
And smiles as its sweet little image it sees,
When the mirror is hidden, and pulseless I lie,
Behold me with awe which its feelings shall freeze?

VIIL.

O call me away to the home of my hopes,

When afar from the few who may cherish my name,
And then, when the morn of their sorrowing opes,
No death-cloud shall shadow grief's love-kindled flame.

J. O.

The Egyptian Letters.

NUM ER RIGHT.

LETTER TWENTY-FOURTH.

FROM ABD' ALIATI OMAR TO SEYD AHMAD EL HAJI, CHIEF SECRETARY OF THE CEADER AT CAIRO.

In the course of my rambles through this great city, it is not unusual with me to step into the place where justice is administered. I am curious to see what difference exists between this country and my own, in this particular; and as the nation believes itself to be the most enlightened in the world, beside possessing the most approved method of discovering and punishing guilt, of securing the rights of individuals, of curbing the oppressor and protecting the oppressed, it is quite natural I should wish to acquire knowledge that may be useful to me in after life. In your quality of 'Bash-Katil' (chief Secretary to the Ckadee) it behooves you also to seek wisdom, even though it come from Infidels, so that you may be prepared to combat any new form of guilt, or be able more effectually to shield the innocent. Our blessed Ckoran, which contains the rule of faith, is also filled with precepts which meet all questions of civil law, yet it wisely permits us to open our ears to instruction from every source, trusting that Allah in his kindness will lead our thoughts to that part only which is pure.

Go with me then to one of the Halls of Justice. It is a large room, the doors of which are ever open for the entrance of persons who desire to observe legal proceedings. At one end is a raised platform where sit the judges. There is nothing in their external appearance to distinguish them from the by-standers. The Moof'tee, who has the highest seat, and the Fellah who gapes at him from below, are both dressed alike. He has no turban on his head, no prayer carpet is spread for him, and he keeps his sandals on his feet. He has not with him his pipe, yet he lets you see, by a variety of ways, that he uses and is fond of tobacco. A little below and near the Moof'tee's seat is a large enclosure where assemble the lawyers; those who have causes pending rise whenever they have occasion to speak; the others are silent, or talk in a low voice to their neighbors, cut pieces of wood with a knife, to quicken the thoughts that are afterward to be uttered, and throw their legs on tables made for the purpose, so that they may not be soiled when they spit upon the floor. At the side is a row of seats for a number of men, who when assembled in this place are called the jury. In legal language this is composed of a certain number of men sworn to inquire into and try a matter of fact, and to declare the truth upon such evidence as shall appear before them.' This body is treated by the lawyers