Excepting the fearful prevalence of cholera in various parts of the country, the United States have continued in the enjoyment of political, moral, and social blessings; and we may hope that Providence will continue to smile on the efforts of its patriots to sustain the institutions with which their country is blessed, and to make each citizen sensible of the vast advantages he enjoys over the subjects of foreign powers. And if God, who hitherto has poured out his choicest favors on our beloved land, should vouchsafe his blessings hereafter, we may see her wielding power for the good of mankind, and teaching other nations the true use of government. Not doubting but this will be the case, we think we see down the vista of time our country becoming the mild dictator to the world, and her peaceful government sheltering the injured from other lands and correcting the injurer. And while such a prospect is held out we may look, as the cause and consequence thereof, for peace and moral worth, and
From Darien to Davis one garden shall bloom
When war’s wearied banners are furled,
And the far-scented zephyr that wafts its perfume
Shall silence the storms of the world.
——
PROSPECTIVE!—1850.
My dear Jeremy,—Have you ever taken a long-bill on the wing of a July morning? Not a note at eight months, flying in the market at a heavy discount—but a genuine long-bill, an old woodcock, springing up at your feet with whistling and whirring wings, and doing his uttermost to get out of the way, without waiting for the formality of invitation expended upon a certain Mr. Tucker? “You have not.” Well, I shall not attempt the task of teacher after Herbert, but you can have no conception of the cool head and steady nerve required to do it well. To an old hand, with dog and gun, with a constitution inured by exercise, it is the glory of the world’s excitements, and as far above the lust of money-getting, as poetry is above note-shaving.
I took my tramp this summer, of three months, among the hills and marshes where this bird—which is a bore in one way only—loves most to congregate, and saw our old friend, “the iron pump” of copper notoriety looking as dry as his purchasers and quite as rusty. I could not resist the impulse to take a crack at him, at forty yards, with my double-barrel, as at an imaginary copper-head. The excavations looked like the ready-made graves of speculators, who somehow or other had not come there to be buried. The very faces of the rocks had been twisted into grimaces, and seemed with their yellow eyes to be grinning at one; so shouldering my gun, and whistling to give strength to an imaginary band playing
“Over the river to Charley,”