meal, and as the widgeon or blue-winged teal, or, perhaps, the breast of a turkey or a steak of venison, sends its delicious perfumes abroad, he enters into his parchment-bound journal the remarkable incidents and facts that have occurred in the course of the day.

4. Darkness has now drawn her sable curtain over the scene; bis repast is finished, and kneeling on the earth, he raises his soul to Heaven, grateful for the protection that has been granted to him, and the sense of the divine presence in this solitary place. Then wishing a cordial good-night to all the dear friends at home, the American woodsman wraps himself up in his blanket, and, closing his eyes, soon falls into that comfortable sleep which never fails him on such occasions.

EXERCISE LXXX.

SUSAN FENIMORE COOPER is the eldest daughter of the great American novelist. As a writer, she is best known by her "Rural Hours"—a work, in journal form, devoted to the record of scenes and circumstances in rural life, during the changes of the several seasons, all which bear the impress of fresh observation and the charm of easy, natural description. In 1860 appeared her last work-" Pages and Pictures from the Writings of James Fenimore Cooper." This we regard as a most valuable contribution to the history of literature: giving, as it does, in the form of notes, a most interesting view of the circumstances under which each of Cooper's novels came into being. The notes, moreover, discover no small sagacity in the matter of criticism. They show, also, thought, culture, refinement, high moral tone, good sense, and a style at once effective and graceful.

The following is from her note on the character of "Red Rover," who, according to the novel, despite of the happiest early training, had become firate, but is suddenly, by the sound of a sister's voice, awakened to the recollection of his better days, and thenceforward leads the life of a repentant, reformed man. The story is recited by her in order to show the probability of the fiction by an appeal to the recorded experience of fact.

OR NITH OLʼOGIst (Ornitho, bird, and Logist, a reasoner), is one who studies and reasons about birds, and, therefore, understands their habita character, and scientific classification.

13

THE MINISTRY OF THE DOVES.

SUSAN FERIM RE COOPER.

1. On the shores of Southern Florida, and among the rocky islets, or "keys," of the Gulf of Mexico, there is a rare and beautiful bird, to which the name of the Zenaïda Dove has been given by Prince Charles Buonaparte, the ornithologist. This creature is very beautiful in its delicate form and in its coloring of a warm and rosy gray, barred with brown and white on back and wing; its breast bears a shield of pure and vivid blue, bordered with gold, its cheeks are marked with ultramarine, and its slender legs and feet are deep rose-color tipped with black nails. Innocent and gentle, like others of its tribe, this little creature flits to and fro, in small family groups, over the rocky islets, and along the warm, sandy beaches of the Gulf-"Tampa's desert strand."

On that lone shore, loud moans the sea."

2. There are certain keys, where it loves especially to alight, attracted by the springs which here and there gush up pure and fresh among the coral rocks. The low note of this bird is more than usually sweet, pure, and mournful in its tone. But the doves are not the only visitors of those rare springs. A few years since, pirates haunted the same spots, seeking, like the birds, water from their natural fountains.

3. It chanced one day that a party of those fierce outlaws came to a desolate key to fill their water-casks, ere sailing on some fresh cruise of violence. A little flock of the rosy-gray doves and their flocks are ever few and rare-were flitting and cocing in peace about the rocky basin when the pirates appeared; in affright they took wing, and flew away. The casks were filled, and the ruffian crew rowed their boat off to their craft lying at anchor in the distance. For some reason, apparently accidental, one of the band remained awhile on the island alone. In a quiet evening hour, he threw himself on the rocks, near the spring, looking over the broad sea, where here and there a low desert islet rose from the deep, while the vessel with which his

own fate nad long been connected lay idle, with furled canvas, in the offing.

4. Presently the little doves, seeing all quiet again, returned to their favorite spring, flitting to and fro in peace, uttering to each other their low gentle notes, so caressing, and so plaintive. It may have been that in the wild scenes of his turbulent career the wretched man had never known the force of solitude. He was now gradually overpowered by its mysterious influences, pressing upon heart and mind. He felt himself to be alone with his Maker. The works of the Holy One surrounded him-the pure heavens hanging over his guilty head, the sea stretching in silent grandeur far into the unseen distance. One object alone, bearing the mark of man, lay within range of his eyethat guilty craft, which, like an evil phantom, hovered in the offing, brooding sin.

5. The sounds most familiar to him for years had been curse, and ribald jest, and brutal threat, and shriek of death. But now those little doves came hovering about him, uttering their guileless notes of tenderness and innocence. Far away, in his native woods, within sight of his father's roof, he had often listened in boyhood to other doves, whose notes, like these, were pure and sweet. Home memories, long banished from his breast, returned. The image of his Christian mother stood before him. Those little doves, still uttering their low, pure, inoffensive note, seemed bearing to him the far-off echoes of every sacred word of devout faith, of pure precept, of generous feeling, which, in happier years, had reached his ear. A fearful consciousness of guilt came over the wretched man. His heart was utterly subdued. The stern pride of manhood gave way. A powerful tide of contrition swept away all evil barriers. Bitter tears of remorse fell upon the stone on which his head rested. And that was to him the turning point of life.

6. He rose from the rock a penitent, firmly resolved to retrace his steps to return to better things. By the blessing of God, the resclution was adhered to. He broke away from his evil courses, thrust temptation aside, returned to his native soil to lead a life of penitence and honest toil. Many years later. a

own

stranger came to his cabin, in the wild forests of the southern country, a man venerable in mien, shrewd and kindly in countenance-wandering through the woods on pleasant errands of his The birds of that region were the stranger's object. The inmate of the cabin had much to tell on this subject; and, gradually, as the two were thrown together in the solitude of the forest, the heart of the penitent opened to his companion. He avowed that he loved the birds of heaven: he had cause to love them the doves, especially; they had been as friends to him; they had spoken to his heart in the most solemn hour of life! And then came that singular confession. The traveler was Audubon,* the great ornithologist, who has left on record in his works this striking incident. In olden times, what a beautiful ballad would have been written on such a theme: fresh and wild as the breeze of the forest, sweet and plaintive as the note of the dove!

EXERCISE LXXXI.

THE CHURCH AT BELEM.

T. NOON TALFOURD.

1. The church at Belem, a fortified place on the Tagus, three or four miles from Lisbon, where the kings and royal family of Portugal have, for many generations, been interred, must not be forgotten. It is one of the most ancient buildings in the kingdom, having originally been erected by the Romans, and splendidly adorned by the Moorish sovereigns. Formed of white stone, it is now stained to a reddish brown by the mere influence of years, and frowns over the water "cased in the unfeeling armor of old time."

2. Its shape is oblong, its sides of gigantic proportion, and its massive appearance most grand and awe-inspiring. The princi

*See Exercise LXXIX.

† See Note on Talfourd, Exercise XXXIX.

pal entrance is by a deep archway, reaching to a great hight, and circular within, ornamented above and around with the most crowded, venerable, and yet fantastic devices-martyrs and heroes of chivalry-swords and crosiers-monarchs and saints-crosses and scepters-" the roses and flowers of kings," and the sad emblems of mortality-all wearing the stamp of deep antiquity, all appearing carved out of one eternal rock, and promising, by their air of solid grandeur, to survive as many stupendous changes as those which have already left them unshaken.

3. The interior of this venerable edifice is not less awebreathing or substantial. Eight huge pillars of barbaric architecture, and covered all over with strange figures and grotesque ornaments in relievo,* support the roof, which is white, ponderous, and of a noble simplicity, being only divided into vast square compartments by the beams which cross it. Such a pile, devoted to form the last resting-place of a line of kings who have, each in his brief span of time, held the fate of millions at his pleasure, cannot fail to excite solemn and pensive thought. 4. And yet what are the feelings thus excited, to those meditations to which the great repository of the illustrious deceased in England invites us? Here we think of nothing but the perishableness of man in his best estate-the emptiness of human honors-the low and frail nature of all the distinctions of earth. A race of monarchs occupy but a narrow vault: they were kings, and now are dust; and this idea forced home upon us, makes us feel that the most potent and enduring of worldly things-thrones, dynasties, and the peaceable succession of high; families—are but as feeble shadows. We learn only to feel our weakness.

5. But, in the sacred place where all that could perish of our orators, philosophers, and poets, is reposing, we feel our mortality only to lend us a stronger and more ethereal sense of our eternal being. Life and death seem met together, as in a holy fane, in peaceful concord. While we feel that the mightiest must yield

* Relievo (re les' vo), prominence of figures in statuary, &c.