I consider that woman most likely to make an agreeable companion, who can draw topics of pleasing remark from every natural object ; and most likely to be cheerful and contented, who is continually sensible of the order, the harmony, and the invariable benificence, that reign throughout the beautiful world we inhabit.'

But,' added he, smiling, 'I am betraying myself into a lecture, instead of merely giving a reply to your kind offer. Permit me to take the liberty, in return, of inquiring a little about your own pursuits. You speak of having finished your education ; but of course you have a line of private study and mental occupation marked out; for you must know the importance, both in point of interest and happiness, of keeping the mind employed. May I ask what system you observe in your intellectual exercises ?'

• Oh, as to system,' I observed, 'I could never bring myself into any thing of the kind. I thought it best to let my genius take its own course, as it always acted the most vigorously when stimulated by inclination.'

Mr. Somerville shook his head. “This same genius,' said he, “is a wild quality, that runs away with our most promising young men. It has become so much the fashion, too, to give it the reins, that it is now thought an animal of too noble and generous a nature to be brought to the harness. But it is all a mistake. Nature never de signed these high endowments to run riot through society, and throw the whole system into confusion. No, my dear Sir; genius, unless it acts upon system, is very apt to be a useless quality to society; sometimes an injurious, and certainly a very uncomfortable one, to its possessor. I have had many opportunities of seeing the progress through life of young men who were accounted geniuses, and have found it too often end in early exhaustion and bitter disappointment; and have as often noticed that these effects might be traced to a total want of system. There were no habits of business, of steady purpose, and regular application, superinduced upon the mind : every thing was left to chance and impulse, and native luxuriance, and every thing of course ran to waste and wild entanglement. Excuse me, if I am tedious on this point, for I feel solicitous to impress it upon you, being an error extremely prevalent in our country, and one into which too many of our youth have fallen. I am happy, however, to observe the zeal which still appears to actuate you for the acquisition of knowledge, and augur every good from the elevated bent of your ambition. May I ask what has been your course of study for the last six months ?'

Never was question more unluckily timed. For the last six months I had been absolutely buried in novels and romances.

Mr. Somerville perceived that the question was embarrassing, and with his invariable good breeding, immediately resumed the conversation, without waiting for a reply. He took care, however, to turn it in such a way as to draw from me an account of the whole manner in which I had been educated, and the various currents of reading into which my mind had run. He then went on to discuss briefly, but impressively, the different branches of knowledge most important to a young man in my situation ; and to my surprise I found him

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a complete master of those studies on which I had supposed him ignorant, and on which I had been descanting so confidently.

He complimented me, however, very graciously, upon the progress I had made, but advised me for the present to turn my attention to the physical rather than the moral sciences. These studies,' said

• ' be, 'store a man's mind with valuable facts, and at the same time repress self-confidence, by letting him know how boundless are the realms of knowledge, and how little we can possibly know. Whereas metaphysical studies, though of an ingenious order of intellectual employment, are apt to bewilder some minds with vague speculations. They never know how far they have advanced, or what may be the correctness of their favorite theory. They render many of our young men verbose and declamatory, and prone to mistake the aberrations of their fancy for the inspirations of divine philosophy.'

I could not but interrupt him, to assent to the truth of these remarks, and to say that it had been my lot, in the course of my limited experience, to encounter young men of the kind, who had overwhelmed me by their verbosity.

Mr. Somerville smiled. I trust,' said he, kindly, 'that you will guard against these errors. Avoid the eagerness with which a young man is apt to hurry into conversation, and to utter the crude and illdigested notions which he has picked up in his recent studies. Be assured that extensive and accurate knowledge is the slow acquieition of a studious life time ; that a young man, however pregnant his wit, and prompt his talent, can have mastered but the rudiments of learning, and, in a manner, attained the implements of study. Whatever may have been your past assiduity, you must be sensible that as yet you have but reached the threshhold of true knowledge; but at the same time, you have the advantage that you are still very young, and have ample time to learn.'

Here our conference ended. I walked out of the study, a very different being from what I was on entering it. I had gone in with the air of a professor about to deliver a lecture; I came out like a student, who had failed in his examination, and been degraded in his class. * Very young,' and on the threshhold of knowledge! This was

' extremely flattering, to one who had considered himself an accomplished scholar, and profound philosopher !

• It is singular,' thought I ; "there seems to have been a spell upon my faculties, ever since I have been in this house. I certainly have not been able to do myself justice. Whenever I have undertaken to advise, I have had the tables turned upon me. It must be that I am strange and diffident among people I am not accustomed to.

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I wish they could hear me talk at home!'

• After all,' added I, on farther reflection, ' after all, there is a great deal of force in what Mr. Somerville bas said. Some how or other, these men of the world do now and then hit upon remarks that would do credit to a philosopher. Some of his general observations came so home, that I almost thought they were meant for myself. His advice about adopting a system of study, is very judicious. I will immediately put it in practice. My mind shall operate henceforward with the regularity of clock-work.'

How far I succeeded in adopting this plan, how I fared in the farther pursuit of knowledge, and how I succeeded in my suit to Julia Somerville, may afford matter for a farther communication to the public, if this simple record of my early life is fortunate enough to excite any curiosity.

TO BE CONTINUED.

"Tis silent on the cold hill side;

The winds are sunk in dewy sleep;
No sound comes through the forest wide,
Save where the tinkling waters creep:
Hoo!-hoo! How wild those echoes sound,
Borne through the forest's dim profound!

Now will I spread my shadowy wing,

Through glades and moon-lit vallies gliding,
Where sings the gray-winged whip-poor-will,"
Like me, a thing in darkness biding.

Too-whoo! too-whoo! We love the night,
And gloomy woods and cold moonlight!

Swift, swift I glance along the hill,

Or skim the meadow's spongy breast,
Now through the vine-entangled copse,
Where the sly Hermit hangs her nest.
Too-whoo!-too-whoo! That mournful cry
Sad mingles with the wind's low sigh.

THE 'AMERICAN OURANG-OUTANG.'

"This is some monster, with four legs! Where the devil should he learn our language? If I can recover him, and keep him tame, and get to France with him, he shall pay for him that hath him, and that roundly!'

FREE SHAKSPEARE.

There is no occupation more interesting to the inquiring mind, than the contemplation of the manifold freaks and vagaries with which dame Nature, in her sportive mood, is wont to amuse herself.

To trace the division-lines between her kingdoms, even, has been a stumbling-stone to philosophy; and the difficulty increases as you proceed, until finally, in attempting to follow her in her various windings, to her ultimate subdivisions, our discriminating faculties are utterly confounded. The unfeathered biped,' in the fulness of his vanity, has flattered himself that, formed in the image of his Maker, there is no connecting link between him and the next in rank, in the descending scale of creation; that there is an impassable gulf which must ever separate the mere creature of instinct from that higher order of beings, possessed of mind and reason.

I will not stop to investigate this question, although sufficient evidence might be adduced to humble our pride: for 1 might tell of the wonderful sagacity of certain dogs ; of learned pigs, that would put to the blush some of our mathematical professors; and I could quote the official report of one of our naval commanders, of his voyage to the coast of Africa, wherein he states that he saw the monkeys making baskets, and suggests whether they might not be employed to advantage in our navy-yards: but I will proceed with my story, which, unlike most stories, is literally true. It will at least show, that the enlightened population of Paris was once at fault, and that a human being was palmed upon them as an American ourang-outang ! A gentleman of the town of —, in Virginia, owned a slave by

the name of Paul. He was a native African, about sixty years of age, four and a half feet high, with a short body, and uncommonly long arms. He had two small, twinkling eyes, which would have been in a remarkable state of propinquity, but for the intervention of a nose of ample latitude, barely elevated above the plane of his face. He had no chin, but what he lacked in this respect, was fully compensated by his under lip, which, with its partner, extended nearly from ear to ear; so that when he laughed, to use an old comparison, his head was just half off. His knotty wool descended to within an inch of where his eye-brows should have been, over a forehead receding abruptly backward from his twinkling orbs; his ears were small and transparent; made apparently of the material of which bat's wings are formed. His face was shrivelled and wrinkled, and, from age or deformity, his body had an undue inclination forward, with a compensating projection à posteriori. Such was Paul, and í shall hardly be accused of profanity when I say, that he might have been worshipped without a violation of the commandment.

It was Paul's good or bad fortune, as he was basking one August day, on the sunny side of the street, to attract the attention of a peri

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patetic dealer in tin ware and essences. He stopped and gazed long and wistfully at Paul. Vague, undefined, and novel notions coursed through the pericranium of the pedler. He took a step forward, hesitated, then crossed over, and finally, with speculation in his eye,' addressed Paul. He inquired to whom he belonged, and whether he was willing to be sold. He told him that if he was willing, he would huy him, make him a free man, and pay him well for his services beside. The pedler's ways were very insinuating; and after a little farther parley, Paul surrendered at discretion, went to his master, and insisted on being sold.

Now Paul's master was one of the most benevolent, charitable, and humane men in the world. He had owned him forty years, and would just as soon have thought of selling one of his children, as selling Paul. He refused at once. Paul begged - the pedler importuned. Human nature could stand no more. Paul was sold.

Some time after this event, a gentleman who had been residing abroad, returned to Virginia, and gave me the following account. He was passing, he said, through one of the thoroughfares of Paris, when his progress was impeded by a great crowd, and his attention directed to an avant-courier, or herald, who was announcing the exhibition of an · American ourang-outang,'a most wonderful animal, and the only one ever exhibited in Europe. His curiosity was excited, and elbowing his way through the multitude, he gained admission to the show. Ye gods and goddesses ! what was his amazement, on recognizing, in this marvellous lusus naturæ, his old acquaintance Paul ? Paul — on whom, in by gone days, he had played so many a school-boy prauk — here in an iron cage, playing the monkey in Paris, to a delighted audience! The harmless, quiet, and inoffensive Paul, who would not have hurt a fly, confined like a felon, with a chain around his waist ; skipping aboui his prison-house, chattering, jabbering, and grinning, and munching, with Simian avidity, the nuts thrown to him by the crowd! He was dressed in a full suit of red regimentals, in the French style, bedizzened with gold lace; and on his head was an enormous chapeau-bras; while from an eyelet-bole, in the seat of his inexpressibles, protruded a bonâ-fide tail, of due proportions, which he whisked about, as though it had been a thing of life. Anon be would throw himself on one side, tickle himself the while with his long nails ; then gallop on all fours around his cage; and finally, when fairly tired out by exertion, quietly seat himself in a corner, and throwing aside the monkey, resume the stolid gravity of the man.

The first idea of my friend was to expose the fraud; but a sly wink of recognition from Paul, determined him to humor the joke. He played to admiration ; all Paris was agog; and nothing was talked about but the "American ourang-outang.

Months had passed away, and Paul's adventures had faded from my memory, when one day, passing in a steamboat through Hampton Roads, a signal was made from a vessel that had just cast anchor. A boat, with a man in her stern-sheets, was shoved off, and in a few moments she was alongside the steam-boat: and if old Neptune himself had risen from the waves, I could not have been more surprised than I was to recognise in our new passenger my old friend Paul!

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