MY FISHING GROUND,

NUMBER THREE

GENTLE READER! - you who have enjoyed with me my spring and summer musings - desert me not amid the richer and more eloquent glories of autumn.

The birds have nearly all left me, for other climes. A dejectedlooking crow alone sits hard by, upon a blasted oak, apparently lonely, heart-broken, and weary of life, screaming dismally to a sable companion, who answers him from another quarter of the wood. There is an autumnal wail in his very voice; a dirge-like strain ; something that bespeaks the death of the year.

The whole forest around me is one blaze of golden pomp and splendor. The trees are mantled with robes more gorgeous than the robes of kings. The whole valley is arched with rainbows. Every hue is there; blood-red, scarlet, green, and brown. There is nothing, save the ever-greens, but doth suffer a change. The silent sky is filled with withered leaves, circling solemnly around, and gradually descending to the earth. A thin blue mist wraps the distant hill

, softening its gaudy richness, yet hiding none of its beauties. All is solemn, and quiet, and impressive. • Autumn, like a faint old man a-weary,' seems resting himself from the toils of the year.

Far above me, on the plain, orchards are bending with their affluent abundance. Plenty staggers over the earth, loaded with blessings. The heavy wain creaks along the distant landscape. There is the soft peach, with its tender blush, and melting flavor ; pyramids of apples, reared to the memory of cider, and long winter evenings ; corn, whose yellow ears lie imbedded in the husk, like pure gold in the ore; pumpkins, plump and round as the goodly periphery of an alderman, recline lazily over the field, in luxurious ease; with eccentric squashes, crooked and perverse. It is the banquet of the year; the gathering-in of good things; the consummation of labor and

There is a wild, withered fragrance wandering in the wood. It is not the all-pervading incense of spring, but the sweetness of decay; a chastened odor ; a something that has been touched with blast. It is from the pennyroyal, on the upland, the dying fern, the faded herbage; from the piles of drifting foliage, amid the dim aisles below; from the purple grape, hanging leatless upon the tree ; from the heavy autumnal flowers that flame along the water-courses, secure from early frosts; from the ever-green pine, and from thousands of medicinal herbs, that linger amid the sorrowing rains of waning Autumn.

The dirge-like murmur of the cricket and grass-hopper is faintly heard along the hills. It is a sad thing, but the grass-hopper must leave me. He has been gossiping around all summer, with his green Quaker coat, dissipating his time, in frolics with his gay companions, and in gadding from field to field. His day of reckoning has come. The cold frosty nights are “a caution' to him already, and they will soon VOL. XIV.

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• be the death of him.' But the cricket, that little household insect, will sing to us from the hearth-stone, when the tempest is loud on the hills. He spends his winter months at home, roving only in the sum

He is a hostage for the return of another season. When the fire is crackling high, and the family circle close around it, and the heavens scowl without, the garrulous cricket talks to us from his warm retreat, telling us of brighter hours, of green fields, soft winds, and blooming flowers.

Through the whole wood, the rabbit and squirrel are busy, gathering in their winter stores. Clattering up the trees, spluttering forth his words in great confusion, labors the uneasy squirrel, all the livelong day. This is his harvest. From the chestnut and the walnut tree he rattles down his food, as though he were sole proprietor of the forest. Pert and saucy, nothing daunts him. He has ever a word ready for any one who may affront him. There are three orders of these gentlemen around me; the red, the gray, and the black. And they are always at swords' points, if squirrels carry swords. The royal sceptre appears to be in the hands of those in red uniforms, and they are most exterminating tyrants; the grays are barely tolerated, but the blacks' are annihilated at once, without judge or jury. They are seldom seen, owing to the oppression of their rulers.

Hark to the roar of the sportsman's gun, and the deep bay of his dogs! How the hills echo back their forest revelry! The sharp crack of the rifle rings in every nook and corner of the wood, but not with the muffled tone of spring. The dogs are half inspired with their task. Bounding over the sere leaves, overturning the underbrush, scenting the rocks, and peering up, with a solemn look, into the tall trees.

The setting sun wears low. The whole west is overspread with autumnal clouds, gorgeously streaked with hues of red and scarlet ; some floating lazily along, like golden ships becalmed upon an ocean of crystal ; some like misshapen towers, with banners streaming from their peaks; castles, islands, and landscapes, are fantastically figured in the glorious congregation. In the distance, the giant hills stand up in their majesty, hazy with a purple mist. Nearer by, the river, like a mighty serpent, winds around the promontories which invade its path, lying as sluggish as though it were a work of silver, the foliage upon its banks standing double in the transparent waters. The farmer, as he moves homeward, is followed by a giant shadow, which keeps ever at his heels, while that of the church steeple encroaches upon the soil of another parish. How solemn and how glorious ! Burning and glowing with the beauty of death, yet how calm and beautiful! What sermons are here, in the great cathedral of nature ! What preachers are the hills, at such an hour! What an awe and solemnity invest the earth and sky! And these are the teachings of My Fishing GROUND.

H. H. R.

AN ALBUM PRAGMENT.

When you were born, those who stood by

Smiled glad, while you were crying;
So live, that all around shall cry,

And you may smile, when dying.

C. H.

I set down my adventures daily in a journal, and, like a good merchant, usually post up, and do the correspondence,' of a Sunday morning; but being upon this occasion on short allowance of time, I will merely refer you to the original entries. An ominous beginning this, and savoring of bills payable, debtor to cash,' in the postscript,

SUNDAY. — The whole night long sat up in writing home, and slept ‘as fast as ever husband by his mate,' until past noon of Monday ; then rose and walked out, with a fashionable air, and paid a morning visit. I have been three weeks only in London, and have already an acquaintance. The English are so liants. Here two girls were conversing, by a kind of dactylology, across the street. I sat dictating to

a the one, who translated in signs to the other. I asked her fifty kisses, and she bantered me, like Leonidas, to come and take them! Put my letter in the post-office, containing, in my humble opinion, some of the best remarks extant upon English churches. In comparing one's self to Archbishop Tillotson, Warburton, or the like, one ought, in consulting the prejudices of the world, envious of living merit, to place one's self at a graceful distance, by some parenthetical phrase ; "if I may presume, will do. It gives a chance of recommending one's modesty, at the same time. I belong to a literary club in America, the . Namby Pamby. We are often negligent of this necessary prudence.

Looked in upon an exhibition of needle-work, as if Iris herself, and not Miss Linwood, had woven it. Here were an infinity of pieces, stitched after Raphael, Carlo Dolci, Carracci, and others, with an art that, under the Greeks, would have entitled the author to the jealousy of Minerva. Arachné had surely not half her skill, whose progeny now spread their webs for the morning-dew so prettily upon the Duke of Devonshire's lawn. Walked through the Strand, in quest of a breakfast. Being unused to London, stopped to see a cab upset. It is a tender scene; the cabman sympathizing with the passenger for not having broken his neck; the latter scrambling out from the horses' legs, on hands and knees, the other looking at his watch: Take your shilling, Sir, if your honor pleases; time's up.' At number 333, had fried sole, a slice of rump, of rosy and delicate complexion, bread and ale-one and six pence; and then went up into Summerset House, a delightful retreat, where one can sit twiddling his thumbs by the hour, looking at the girls, now in front of a Murillo, now a Dominichini. Next went into Pall-Mall, (in Yankee doric Poll-Moll,) to the 'Persian Kiosk ;' paid entrance a shilling, and for this had a cup of coffee, a cigar, the news, and the enjoyment of a well-furnished room. Smoked, and looked over the index of a magazine: Turnips;' 'Modesty ;' O'Connell ;' and the errata: For Martingale,' read nightingale; for bottom,' read button; for bitter halves' of these Englishmen, read better halves. Thought of the distress of the writers; and recollected one at New-York, who, having occasion to write 'Pope Gregory,' found it printed off Tom!' He was a virgin author, and came with his finger on it, with a very long face, and a look so imploringly expostulating, that even the bookseller relented, and agreed to cancel the sheet. He went home, most grateful; slept soundly, making up for the loss of the preceding night; and out it came next morning, 'Pope Tom Gregory!'

persons of gentler blood, but has a good many ducks and geese swimming in its lakes, and fat mutton feeding on its pastures. A lady of quality does sometimes look over the fence, in descending to Hyde Park through Piccadilly ; but the saint has, generally speaking, to put up with his original associates, the 'publicans and sinners.' I sat here by myself, and felt very lonely. I have seen a picture of an old Roman standing by a tree, who says ' Non solus sum.' I think this an ugly situation. If such were the destiny of men and women, they would run wild in the forests, or grow up at the side of each other, like cabbages, and other vegetables. Persons bred in villages, grow into an immense conceit of themselves, and think there are no greater men than those of Lilliput. One of these, dropped into London, pines in his loneliness, and seems almost annihilated. Europeans suffer, in America, from the opposite evil. An Englishman called Allan, growing weary of the quiet comforts of his home in London - there is nothing so distressing as the monotony of a wellregulated house — took into his head to pay a visit to the States.' After a long voyage, with three in a state-room, he arrived in NewYork, in the very effervescence of American travelling, and found himself there a guest with two hundred at the same table, and a sleeping partner with twenty others in the same chamber at night. He set off early next day, disgusted and ill-natured, on his tour. All Ohio and Mississippi live upon the steamer, chewing, spitting, whitling. The bell rang, but modest Allan had no more of the dinner than the Pious Æneas upon the island of the Stroppades.' He arrived at Philadelphia, where I saw him, again involved in the vortex of a crowded hotel. He procured, however, a private room, and there, after an apology from the landlord for leaving him without company, he bolted his door, and sat alone. A tear often started in his eye; he thought of Magna Charta, and trial by jury; recalled the quiet hearth, the Carlton Club, the sweet society of his friends, and his wife and children gathered about his heart! He reproached himself for any neglects of them, and resolved to treat them, should he ever return, with a constant tenderness. He then slept, and set out again with the day-light. It was before steam-engines had begun to climb the Alleghany, and having rattled over corderoy bridges, and roads, which showed how far human nature is behind Mr. M’Adam in turnpiking, he reached Pittsburgh; ribs broken, and a hat from Jupp's irretrieveably smashed. Here he found the same gregarious multitude, the same annoyances; and attempting to descend the Ohio, next morning, was blown up by the steam-boiler. * Et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos.' So ended poor Allan, without even a consciousness of the privilege, so satisfactory to an American, of having three or four score of his fellow creatures as travelling companions to eternity. The

eye of evening was now half closed, and the moon looked on, though not without blushing, while the sun was undressing and going to bed; yet I sat still musing, and the twilight kindly spread her gray mantle over me - one is grateful for any kind of politeness in London - and I should probably be sitting there yet, but there came up, I know not by the instrumentality of what divinity, a Frenchman, otherwise a very clever man, whom I had known in Paris. Quæ