Miss St. Clair flattered herself the exhibition was now over, and was again taking leave, when, to her dismay, the squires of the whip and the trumpet rushed in, proclaiming that it was pouring of rain. To leave the house was impossible; and, as it was getting late, there was nothing for it but staying dinner. The children of this happy family always dined at table, and their food and manner of eating were the only subjects of conversation. Alexander did not like mashed potatoesand Andrew Waddell could not eat broth-and Eliza could live upon fish—and William Pitt took too much small beer —and Henry ate as much meat as his papa-and all these peculiarities had descended to them from some one or other of their ancestors. The dinner was simple, on account of the children; and there was no dessert, as Bobby did not agree with fruit. But to make amends, Eliza's sampler was shown, and Henry and Alexander's copy-books were handed round the table, and Andrew Waddell stood up and repeated "My name is Norval," from beginning to end, and William Pitt was prevailed upon to sing the whole of "God save the King," in a little squeaking, meally voice, and was bravoed and applauded as though he had been Braham himself. To paint a scene in itself so tiresome is, doubtless, but a poor amusement to my reader, who must often have endured similar persecution. For who has not suffered from the obtrusive fondness of parents for their offspring? and who has not felt what it was to be called upon, in the course of a morning visit, to enter into all the joys and the sorrows of the nursery, and to take a lively interest in all the feats and peculiarities of the family? Shakspeare's anathema against those who hated music, is scarcely too strong to be applied to those who dislike children. There is much enjoyment, sometimes, in making acquaintance with the little beings; much delight in hearing their artless and unsophisticated prattle, and something not unpleasing even in witnessing their little freaks and wayward humors; but when a tiresome mother, instead of allowing the company to notice her child, torments every one to death in forcing or coaxing her child to notice the company, the charm is gone, and we experience only disgust. LESSON LXVII. Local Associations.-H. G. OTIS. THERE are none, who have paid even a superficial attention to the process of their perceptions, who are not conscious that a prolific source of intellectual pleasures and pains, is found in our faculty of associating the remembrance of characters and events, which have most interested our affections and passions, with the spot whereon the former have lived and the latter have occurred. It is to the magic of this local influence, that we are indebted for the charm, which recalls the sports and pastimes of our childhood, the joyous days of youth, when buoyant spirits invested all surrounding objects with the color of the rose. It is this, which brings before us, as we look back through the vista of riper years, past enjoyments and afflictions, aspiring hopes and bitter disappointments, the temptations we have encountered, the snares which have entangled us, the dangers we have escaped, the fidelity or treachery of friends. It is this, which enables us to surround ourselves with the images of those, who were associates in the scenes we contemplate, and to hold sweet converse with the spirits of the departed, whom we have loved honored in the places which shall know them no more. But the potency of these local associations, is not limited to the sphere of our personal experience. We are qualified by it to derive gratification from what we have heard and read of other times, to bring forth forgotten treasures from the recesses of memory, and recreate fancy in the fields of imagination. The regions, which have been famed in sacred or fabulous history; the mountains, plains, isles, rivers, celebrated in the classic page; the seas, traversed by the discoverers of new worlds; the fields, in which empires have been lost and won,—are scenes of enchantment for the visiter, who indulges the trains of perception which either rush unbidden on his mind, or are courted by its voluntary efforts. This faculty it is, which, united with a disposition to use it to advantage, alone gives dignity to the passion for visiting foreign countries; and distinguishes the philosopher, who moralizes on the turf that covers the mouldering dust of ambition, valor, or patriotism, from the fashionable vagabond, who flutters among the flowers, which bloom over their graves. Among all the objects of mental association, ancient buildings and ruins affect us with the deepest and most vivid emotions. They were the works of beings like ourselves. While a mist, impervious to mortal view, hangs over the future, all our fond imaginings of the things, which “eye hath not seen nor ear heard," in the eternity to come, are inevitably associated with the men, the events and things, which have gone to join the eternity that is past. When imagination has in vain essayed to rise beyond the stars, which "proclaim the story of their birth,” inquisitive to know the occupations and condition of the sages and heroes, whom we hope to join in a higher empyrean, she drops her weary wing, and is compelled to alight among the fragments of "gorgeous palaces and cloud-capped towers," which cover their human ruins, and, by aid of these localities, to ruminate upon their virtues and their faults, on their deeds in the cabinet and in the field, and upon the revolutions of the successive ages in which they lived. To this propensity may be traced the sublimated feelings of the man, who, familiar with the stories of Sesostris, the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies, surveys the pyramids, not merely as stupendous fabrics of mechanical skill, but as monuments of the pride and ambitious folly of kings, and of the debasement and oppression of the wretched myriads, by whose labors they were raised to the skies. To this must be referred the awe and contrition, which solemnize and melt the heart of the Christian, who looks into the holy sepulchre, and believes he sees the place where the Lord was laid. From this originate the musings of the scholar, who, amid the ruins of the Parthenon and the Acropolis, transports his imagination to the age of Pericles and Phidias ;—the reflections of all, not dead to sentiment, who descend to the subterranean habitations of Pompeii-handle the utensils that once ministered to the wants, and the ornaments subservient to the luxury, of a polished city-behold the rut of wheels upon the pavement hidden for ages from human sight-and realize the awful hour, when the hum of industry and the song of joy, the wailing of the infant, and the garrulity of age, were suddenly and forever silenced by the fiery deluge, which buried the city, until accident and industry, after the lapse of nearly eighteen centuries, revealed its ruins to the curiosity and cupidity of the passing age. LESSON LXVIII. To Seneca Lake.-J. G. PERCIVAL. ON thy fair bosom, silver lake, The wild swan spreads his snowy sail, On thy fair bosom, waveless stream, The waves along thy pebbly shore, As blows the north-wind, heave their foam, As late the boatman hies him home. How sweet, at set of sun, to view Thy golden mirror spreading wide, And see the mist of mantling blue Float round the distant mountain's side. At midnight hour, as shines the moon, Light clouds, like wreaths of purest snow. On thy fair bosom, silver lake, LESSON LXIX. Lake Superior.-S. G. GOODRICH. FATHER OF LAKES, thy waters bend Boundless and deep the forests weave Pale Silence, mid thy hollow caves, Sends the hoarse wolf-notes of thy woods. Nor can the light canoes, that glide Yet round this waste of wood and wave, The thunder-riven oak, that flings |