The deadest hour of night had long been passed already, when he dashed forth upon that desperate race. The pale, cold light of morning was streaming, broad but still, over the palisaded ditch and moated ramparts of the Spanish fortress, when Don Hernande de Leon pulled up his foaming stead before the drawbridge. Early, however, and untimely as was the hour, men were abroad already; a mounted servitor, in liveries of Isabel and silver, riding a coal-black jennet, and leading by the bridle-rein a tall bay charger, trapped and housed richly with the same colours, was retiring from the gates, which were just closing, toward the barrack-stables. Toward this steed, jaded and spent with toil, and all embossed with sweat and foam-flakes, and galled and bleeding at the flanks from cruel and incessant spurring, the savage bloodhounds, still in full cry, dashed, without check or stint; and would have pulled the bay horse down, had not the stern voice of their master checked them. He rode up to the groom, and in a deep voice, calm, slow, and perfectly unmoved, demanded-"Whose charger ?"

"Don Guzman de Herreiro's," replied the faltering menial. "He hath even now gone in the bridge is not yet lifted!"

"Excellent well!" replied the cavalier, "excellent well! mine ancient comrade, excellent well! my fellow-soldier, whose life I have thrice saved-once from the Moors, amid the mountain glens of Malaga-once from the surf, among the dread Antilles-and once here in this isle of Hispaniola, from the envenomed arrow of the Charib. Excellent well, Don Guzman !'

In the meantime, dismounting at the gates, he gave his charger and the hounds to the care of a favourite domestic, who awaited him; and with a firm, slow step, crossing the drawbridge, stopped, for a moment, to address the sentinel.

"So!" he said, "old Gaspar-thou keepest good watch-when went Don Guzman forth?"

66

"After we set the watch yestrene, fair sir!" replied the old Castilian, presenting, as he spoke, his partizan. Now I bethink me, it was scarce five minutes after thou didst ride forth into the forest."

"And he hath now returned?" "But now!"

No farther words were interchanged. The young knight slowly passed across the courtyard, entered the vaulted passage which led toward the chambers of Don Guzman, paused at the door, and without one word, struck on the door one strong blow. A stern voice from within cried "Enter!"--and he did enter, and closed the door behind him, and double-locked it, and though strange sounds were heard and fearful voices, above three hours passed ere any one came forth,

H.

THE SONG OF THE OCEAN SPIRIT.

BY ROBERT HAMILTON.

"May we not imagine that our world is but one of the innumerable gems dropped from the coronet of nature, and once inhabited by an anterior race of beings, rich in the bloom of beauty and of blossom." -MOORE.

ONE morning, from my shallop, I beheld
An unknown world spring from the eastern

wave:

Brightly and beauteous it to glory swelled,
While golden gleams did all its pathway lave.
Upon my ear broke sounds of music brave,
Flung from a thousand lyres unseen to view;
While echo caught them in her airy cave,
And rolled them o'er our boundless plains of
blue,

That mirrored back the sphere in Glory's radiant hue.

Forms, which before had never met my gaze,

Rose all around, from beauty's glowing mould; Rivers and streamlets held their fairy mazeWaved the green forests-towered the Alpines All marked that world, in freshest splendour bold,

rolled

By some convulsive throe from nature's womb; While to the heart its silent grandeur told

The might and mystery of the Eternal's doom, Whose smile is life, whose frown is dark destruction's tomb.

When fashioned into form of loveliness,

Breathing with life in all its colours bland, Like a young maiden 'neath the pure impress Of virtue's lip, blushed the young, beauteous strand.

Then innocence with love walked hand in hand
Around this isle of beauty, for secure
From discord's reckless, devastating brand,

They deemed their reign for ever might endure, Unmarred by hate, and crowned with pleasure's wreath all pure.

Swift o'er the waters, to this new-sprung isle,
I steered my bark to where a smiling bay,
With sparkling sands, gleamed 'neath the
golden smile

Of the clear sun, in majesty of day.
I entered, and in beauty's rich array

I saw I felt the soil all teeming bright With Nature's bounties, redolently gay ;Yea, every charm that could the sense delight, In dazzling glory burst upon my wondering sight!

For Nature's mantle, in its richest sheen,

Enwrapped this virgin island-every hue, Wove in the loom of Fancy, there was seen,

Sparkling in brilliance of the first-wept dew, Which lay like diamonds, dazzling to the view, While in the sky, the feathered minstrels flew Upon the turf, and in each flowret's bell;

On flittering wings; and music's mellow swell Upon my ear, in strains of love enchanting, fell.

The low, deep moan, borne on the viewless breeze

Like to the music of some hallowed pileCame from the murmuring of the sunny seas That heaved around this new-created isle ;

I paused, as happiness with golden smile Sunned on my cheek, and sparkled in mine eye;

For then unknown was the dark demon guile ! Then pain was not, nor sorrow lent a sigh, But over all was spread love's cloudless, glowing sky!

There freedom's banner woo'd the holy breath Of winds whose wings in balmy slumber lay, Peace spread his olive arms in joy beneath,

Smiling at fair creation's virgin day; Naught bore the emblem of this life's decay; All was one beauteous breast of summer bloom. Then stern dominion and despotic sway

Were slumbering in oblivion's unoped tomb-... Woe to the fatal hour when man first sealed his doom!

When sin his banner flung upon the breeze,

Then death and havoc followed in his train; Groans rent the air, and purple-glowing seas Of human blood rolled o'er creation's plain--Triumphed ambition, pride, and galling pain. Then innocence her snowy ensign furled, Bound was her fair form in oppression's chain, Enslaved to power, that demon of the world--God of the just, oh! to the dust his throne be

hurled!

Spirit of freedom, whither art thou fled?

What region claims thy thunderbolts of might? Art in the realms of air, or ocean's bed?

Awake! Arise! Speed on thy vengeful flight, Roll on thy car, and with thy vengeance smite The slave who breathes beneath oppression's reigu;

And with thy sword of meteoric light,

Sever the links that form his damned chain... Giving each despot lord to scorn's eternal pain. Yes! such for ever be the tyrant's fate,

Or, if his dust a monument should find,
Be it a mark where falls the world's deep hate,
An altar where the curses of mankind
Loudly do rise; and in each freeman's mind,
Spurned be his deeds-and o'er his pompous
bier,

Let no eye weep-but on the wings of wind
Scatter his ashes;-in creation's ear

Howl out his hated name, in accents deep

and drear!

Oh! I have seen the tempest and the storm

Level that nation, whose all conquering power Has laughed in mockery, and reared its form,

And dared to scoff at time's avenging hour! Yes, I have seen dark desolation lower

Its withering cloud, and pall an empire bright; And as the pride of some gay summer flower

Is scattered by destruction's wings of blight, So have the domes of power been strewn before my sight.

The mighty conqueror whose triumphant sword
Has waved a sceptre over earth afar-
Who, amidst kings, was undisputed lord,

And chief of warriors in the storm of war--I've seen to vanish, like a shrouded star,

And perish in his mightiness supreme ;And others mount ambition's gory car; Then, swift as snow-flakes, or a passing

dream

Like him, sink in the waves of dull oblivion's

stream!

But thou, old Time, hast ever held thy course, Unheeding nature and her changeful spheres, Smiling serene at ruin's ruthless force.

Thou hoary monarch of unnumbered years, 'Fore thee have rolled seas of destruction's tears! Around thee oft has swelled dread havoc's cry! But havoc's shrieks, and horror's maddening fears,

Ne'er pierce thy heart; nor close thy sleepless

eye!

No barrier stops thy march, sire of eternity! Thus glowing in the robes of beauty bright, Sprang the fair isle from the Eternal's hand: Then in my bosom lingered wishes light,

To reign, sole goddess of this beauteous strand; But 'fore my eyes our world did all expand

Its emerald isles and bowers of radiant hue; Its coral hills, and plains of sparkling sand, All to my heart in strong affection flew,

Till fervour swelled my heart, and filled mine
Plains of the blue waves, then, be ye my home!
eyes with dew.
With ye, for ever, be my heart imbued;
O'er thy free billows let me ever roam,
In tempest stern, or voiceless solitude.
Earth, with its baleful passions, stern and rude,
Can on thy breast no impress ever make,
On thee walks freedom, in her chainless mood,
No strength thy giant arm can ever break,
But at thy voice, earth's kings and mighty
rulers quake.

Yes, ocean! thou art freedom's spotless breast,
In sweet, calm beauty or when the white crest
No tyrant links thy form can e'er entwine
Of storm doth on thy weltering billows shine-
Oh! then to me thou'rt lovely and divine.

The earth, in flowery pride and cunning art, Glowing in brilliance 'neath the golden shrine Of the bright sun-no joy can e'er impart Like thee, blue queen, dear goddess of my spirit heart!

AMERICA, ITS POSITION AND
PROSPECTS.

ADDRESSED TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL

INQUIRER.

THE task or mission which America has assumed before the whole world, divides itself into two distinct parts. The first is claim the wilderness. The vast continent of physical. She has pledged herself to reNorth America-a howling desert at the landing of the first Anglo-Saxons-is to be civilized by their descendants. This part of her pledge, no one who sees what she has done and is doing, can doubt that she will redeem. The second is moral and political. She has undertaken to ameliorate the condi ion of the human race; for this is the theory of democracy. She has pledged herself, in short, to restore the republic.

A traveller then comes to the country to judge for himself, how far she has succeeded, and is likely to proceed, in fulfilling her great task. It is of no use to tell him how much of the wilderness is reclaimed. It is unnecessary to inform him that the republic still exists, and has existed for more than

fifty years. He knew this before he crossed the ocean. This is nothing. He sees that the eastern shores only of our vast territory are really occupied and peopled to any thing like the exte of which they are capable; that we have really taken possession of, and civilized, but a corner of our great inheritance. He knows, too, that "fifty years" in a nation's life is as one year to a man's. He comes to look at things in the country itself, that he may find out what are the reasons, if there be any, for believing that one race will at last subjugate the whole savage continent; and that this modern republic will prove more powerful, more permanent, and happier for its citizens, than the republics which have disappeared. If he be unwilling to believe at ouce in the redemption of the first portion of the pledge, a week's journey westward will show him the whole physical and industrial energies of the country, concentrated upon this one point as upon a lever, with so vast and accumulated a force as to satisfy him at once both with regard to her capacity and determination to accomplish it. If convinced, as we will suppose him to be, that a great Future awaits this country, whether united or divided, whether republican or monarchical, and desirous of no further proofs of it than the two great and irresistible ones-the plane tary law of civilization and the superior qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race-he will probably leave that branch of the subject, and direct his attention more particularly to the question, whether the republic is likely to succeed or to fail upon this continent. This is, after all, the great problem which presents itself to his inquiry, and the attempt at its solution necessarily leads to an examination and criticism of all the important characteristics of the nation.

Let him, however, before proceeding upon this examination, recall to inind the great historical advantage which America possesses, at the outset, over all modern nations, in the accomplishment of her republican task. She has always been a republic, and consequently up to the present day there is a singular conformity of all parts of her political system to each other, and of her whole present position to her past history and her future prospects. From the beginning of the seventeenth century then, up to the present moment, America has never experienced a revolution. We mean no paradox nor any other affectation. The American revolutionary war did not effect, but rather prevented, a revolution. The republic existed long before, not in name or in right perhaps, but in fact; and the Declaration of Independence was less its foundation than its proclamation. This, we think, shoud be the point from which the traveler in America should always take his departure, It is a

point which he cannot too strongly impress upon his memory, and without which he will never form a comprehensive and accurate idea of the character, position, and prospects, of the American people. He who imagines that the selection of a republican government by the United States, was dictated by accident, caprice, the love of novelty, or by even the triumphant feelings of a people successful against a former sovereign, will always be in the dark, and his opinions and observations will be comparatively worthless. who recognizes that the American republic was the resu't of causes long antecedent even to the settlement of America, will be apt to form a more definite notion of Ameri· can democracy of the present day.

He

Starting from this point, therefore, let the traveller go through the country and make his observations. Let him-without troubling himself about the peculiarities of the steam-boat dinners, or the physical and moral phenomena of his boarding-house, (which have been the chief themes of his prede. cessors, and which may be supposed to be fairly exhausted)-go straight forward and look at the great institutions of the country; its political, moral, and social inventions; and find out, if he can, what are the machines by which the republic is to be assisted or retarded in its movements, and by which the triumphant accomplishment of the nation's task is to be completed or prevented.

1. Let him look then at all the political inventions and institutions of the country. Let him examine the municipal, the state, and the federal constitutions. Let him investigate the nature and operation of the demo. cratic system, from the smallest township up to the federal congress. Let him penetrate into the principles and practice of the statute and the common law, in every county of every state. Let him, in a word, find out what is original and valuable in the executive, legislative, and political departments of the whole confederacy, and of each of the confederated states; the organization and practical relations of the minute republics of which the smallest community in the land is composed, and the general principles and tendencies of the congressional legislation, for the whole country. The written constitutions, the statutes, the judicial doctrines, and the popular customs, which preside over the political existence of the nation, should be the first objects of his attention, and are not to be mastered without time and study.

When he has fairly investigated and mastered the whole political system of the country, let him select for particular and profound study, those parts of it which appear to be original; the political inventions through which America possesses advantages over the ancient republics, and over all modern states desirous of democracy, For instance, and

as a single specimen of improved republican machinery, let him reflect that America is the only republic, nay, the only state, which ever fully understood or practised the system of representation; and let him reflect how absolutely necessary the system would now appear to be to the very existence of a republic. We have no reference to the question of universal or limited suffrage, but to the mere general system of representation. A great defect in the old republican governments was, that they were almost entirely ignorant of the whole subject, and yet it is difficult for us to conceive how they were able to exist a single century without it. When Peisander modified the democracy of Athens, he reduced the number of the general assembly to five thousand; and this reduction, although leaving an unwieldy body enough for all legislative purposes, was not unjustly considered a tyrannical disfranchisement of a large number of citizens. Moreover, as the Greeks were almost wholly ignorant, at least in practice, of another prodigious improvement of the moderns-the careful separation of the executive, legislative, and judiciary departments-and one which is of vital importance to the permanent existence and well-being of a republic, these very five thousand constituted the general legislative assembly, the executive tribunal, and the court of last appeal in civil and criminal cases. The five thousand were, in fact, the state, and those excluded from the general assembly were nothing. And yet Peisander was a moderate democrat, and the democratic party in Athens was predominant at that time. It was the mere want of representation-which it seemss trange they should never have hit upon, when they suffered so much from the want of it, and when they partially understood the system of delegation to conventions-which, for a moment, converted a pure democracy into a tyrannical aristocracy. A town meet ing was almost the only real political assembly which they seem to have known. A town meeting was their congress, their council, their supreme tribunal, and their police

court.

Let the traveller examine well this subject, and then, turning to America, let him reflect upon the full development of the representative system here'; upon the jealous and careful separation of the three departments of government throughout the country; upon the inestimable service of representation, by which the general diffusion of local self-government, as opposed to centralization, over so prodigious an extent of territory, is facilitated without danger to the stability and unity of the state -which, without representation, would be impossible even in idea-and then, pause a while to consider whether our superior fortune in respect to these great inventionsnot American indeed, but developed here to

their fullest extent, and unknown to the ancients-does not promise something for the future.

Without pretending, ourselves, to discuss it at all, however, and without delaying even to indicate many other governmental improvements, of which we have selected this one as an example, and which facilitates the republican action here; we proceed to hint at a few other classes into which we think the objects of his study distribute themselves.

2. From the political organization of the republic, let him turn to the state of its religion-a vast field for contemplation and discussion, and an almost boundless one to him who would thoroughly investigate the subject in all its original and national features, its universal and important relationsbut of which a patient and thorough examination is necessary before a definite notion of the situation and destiny of the country can be formed. Besides occupying himself with the more serious bearings of the subject, let him examine it with regard to its political relations and influences; and, moreover, let him, in this connection, examine all those extraordinary institutions, not peculiar to this country, certainly, because the legiti mate and universal fruits of Christianity, but unknown to the ancient republics, and in proportion to the age, the population, and the resources of this country, perhaps, more fully extended and developed here than elsewhere; we mean the charitable institutions, throughought the nation. Let him go into the hospitals and the various benevolent asylums, and particularly into the penitentiaries, the county jails, and the state prisons-for these, in their ameliorated form, are charitable institutions of the purest kind. Let him examine their organization, operation, and inventions, their experiments and results; let him inquire into the influence of the republic upon them and theirs upon the republic, and consider whether hopes or fears for the future are to be derived from their contemplation.

3. Turning from this important subject, which we have presumed to point out only and not to touch, let him pass to a kindred subject of almost equal extent and importance to the state of education. Let him familiarize himself with the system of public education adopted, and form his opinion of its advantages and disadvantages. Let him examine the results and obtain a correct idea of the quantity and quality of intelligence diffused throughout the country. Let him state, if he find it so, that the district school has flourished but at the expense of the academy of arts. Let him tell us whether he finds, that while the general average of edu cation is greater here than in Europe, that in the higher fields of learning and science

we are far below our transatlantic cotemporaries. If it be so, let him inquire into the connexion of this state of things with our forms of government, and whether it be a necessary incident of democracy, or but a temporary state justly attributable to the universal character of the period of conquest, from which, as we have said, the country has not yet emerged. Let him examine the whole subject fairly, and tell us whether he finds, that in the prosecution of a grand scheme of universal education, we are laying a purer and more solid foundation for our republic than those upon which rested the more splendid, but perhaps less durable de. mocracies of ancient days.

4. The state of territorial possession-the property in the soil-is another great branch of the subject. The distribution of the land among the population would probably strike the traveller as perhaps more purely republican than any state of property of which he had read in history. As great a difference as there was between the feudal conquest of Europe, in which the present system of European property is rooted, and the republican conquest of America, exists between the complicated and unequal division of the land among the inhabitants there, and the equal and republican distribution of the territory here. The European warriors of the middle ages carved the soil up with their swords, and lent it to their vassals in proportion to their respective valour and importance; the American territory was distributed like shares in a joint-stock company, in proportion to the original subscription that is to say, in proportion to the individual industry and perseverance exerted by each stockholder for himself in the great corporation which constitutes the state. Fully to appreciate the importance of the distribution of landed property, and of the laws which govern its division and descent, would require a profound acquaintance with the laws and usages of the different states, not to be acquired but by slow and careful study.

5. When he has satisfied himself upon this topic, let our traveller turn to the great industrial relations of the country. Let him study the great subject of American commerce, in all its manifold and complicated relations. Let him examine the singular, hotly-contested, and conflicting views, upon all financial subjects-let him penetrate into the fathomless gulf of the banking system, and pluck out the heart of its mystery, if he can. Let him say, if he have nerve enough, and he must be a bold man if he does, that the system of credit-in spite of the late shocking developements, the manifold and detestable abuses, the thousand corruptions which have gone far to justify, if any thing could justify, the perverse clamour raised against the system itself, because of the

abuses of the system-is an engine of vast and incalculable value, and one which, notwithstanding its ten thousand explosions, occasioned by recklessness, stupidity, or proffigacy, and productive of so much ruin and desolation, has insured to us a vast proportion of the national grandeur and power upon which we pride ourselves, and in the nature of things can never and will never be abandoned.

Let him examine the merits, public policy, and statistics, of all the various branches of commerce, agriculture, manufactures-the whole industrial system of the country. We do not mean that a traveller is to be a statistical compiler, but only that he should examine the results of other men's labour in this respect, in order to form his opinion of the situation and prospects of the country in its great industrial relations; in the very relations, moreover, in which, more than in any other, the nation has hitherto developed its energy and its genius. In this connexion, let him direct his attention to that colossal chain of railroads and canals, a portion of the instruments by which America is prosecuting her mission to subjugate the wilderness, and to take possession of her inheri tance. Let him look at that magnificent, and already partly executed, project of internal communication-beginning on the edge of the Atlantic, and striding over mountain, valley, and lake, in its gigantic march to the Pacific ocean, with a rapidity almost incredible to ourselves, and absolutely fabulous in the eyes of many other nations; and let him reflect a moment upon the different application of the credit system here, from that which has been made of it in the old world. Let him consider how, and to what end, a vast proportion of the public debts of other nations have been incurred, and that while their countless millions have been sunk and annihilated in unprofitable wars, which have left them for the most part where they found them, the United States have been lucky enough to derive some advantage for themselves and their posterity, even from their embarrassments; however much they may be accused of extravagance, and a too headlong precipitation upon their career. The system and progress of our internal commumications-itself but a subdivision of the great chapter of American industry-has been thought of sufficient importance by more than one European government, to authorize the mission of intelligent travellers for the purpose of investigation and examination. The examination of American railroads, in particular, was the task allotted by the French government to a recent traveller in this country-M. Chevalier.

But we have naturally enough, though very unphilosophically, been regarding the bright portions only of the picture. We are averse to proceeding in this manner, and