Conversation cannot be successfully conducted by the gentler sex with hands unemployed; the members must do business together; some advantage must be seen in the perspective always. No people under the sun are less beholden to others or can endure so long and to equal advantage their own society.

If social or formal demands on their time arise, they avail of a period to meet them when the least loss will accrue to the homestead from their absence. They cannot be weaned or tempted from employment even in the presence of the sick and the dying, always having tasks appropriate; to be out of work would mean to be out of their head; no where do the sick find more vigilance or devotion or see so much work going on.

If a son is stupid or lazy, he is most generally urged into a voyage to Canton or Calcutta, where he may witness the routine of life under different aspects, and have his faculties jogged into something like activity; he cannot easily escape from assuming some sort of responsibility, that may prepare him for man-ship.

The mere gratification of the eye is here a very secondary consideration, unless connected with some positively useful or inventive design: he who should have the boldness to collect a gallery of paintings, although childless, would feel the finger of society in his eye at every turn. The farmer would say, 'Why don't you lay your money out in reclaiming poor soils, and growing corn and cattle?' the merchant, Why don't you take an adventure in a voyage to the East or West Indies?' the professional man would say, That's a fine gallery of yours; how will your heirs like it?'

The tendency to prodigality and extravagance is slight even in New England cities; but there is a class in all such places that, with suddenly-acquired means and small range of intellect, estimate people more by what they carry on their heads than in them; and if a profuse expenditure is indulged to gratify an outward show, it is most likely confined to the above-mentioned class, and fortunately confined in its range and influence. Their example, however limited, is sufficiently pernicious, and many a young lady receives sneers instead of caresses, if she mingles in such society, undecked with frippery, but adorned with sense. Good breeding pervades the mass. The high-bred are few and far between; the constitution of society being unfavorable to the production of such a class. Where a devotion to family detail is hourly nurtured and deemed of the first importance, the cultivation of those habits and graces which might aid in the formation of the highest and purest standard of manners must be limited if not entirely neglected. To feel no restraint and perfectly comfortable in the presence of strangers, is not common with them; and however high the screen that they sometimes attempt to interpose to hide this deficiency, the practised eye can look over it and through it. It is not deemed an infringement of good taste with some of the wealthy to enlarge on the beauties of economy to those whom they know are compelled to practise it. They regard it probably as a ready-made poultice, to be applied in all cases of wounded pride and bruised hopes; and the exercise of this Samaritan virtue has a very soothing effect on such as do

not discover in the compound a large streak of toadyism. It is however much more commendable to toady down than up!

Public opinion seems to have received no peculiar bias here from any of the differing religious creeds, for no sect appears to exercise a controlling influence in secular affairs. To live in progress, no matter how, is their aim and their joy; and he who may mingle with them for a twelvemonth, with ordinary powers of observation, will attest the extraordinary fact. There are places out of New England where this characteristic may be remarked, but only here does it sway an entire community of two millions of people.

In times past we have known of a congress of nations convened to deliberate on the general weal of Europe, and to devise methods for the quickening of her industrial energies. If any convention is needed here, it would be to relax the ardor of industry, not quicken it. Here, the race is interrogating something more august than a body of allied sovereigns! The voluntary movement of human forces is more than a match for any and all the imperial patronage that can now be devised or exerted.

Suppose an individual should have fallen asleep twenty years ago at Springfield, and is awakened at this point of time; he walks forth and sees the earth strapped down with iron bands. The entire produce of a village conveyed en masse to the commercial capital in a space of two hours; his neighbors interrogating their friends in New-York like two canary birds in a cage; bargains struck five hundred miles off, for thousands, without the direct agency of the post-office or human voice, in the space of five or ten minutes; and sundry other operations that seem to him quite as miraculous.

What suddenly restored vision or consciousness could survive this array of wonders? The mortal life of such an adventurer would undoubtedly be endangered; he might possibly appreciate and withstand such a heaven of enchantment, and he might be struck dumb with astonishment and die.

Who can measure the joint operation of the rail-road and the electric telegraph over our future?

We have read sundry books of history; accounts of most remarkable voyages to most remarkable portions of our globe; a great many dazzling and astounding facts have come to our eyes and ears; but nobody has yet been sufficiently bold or successful as to invent a fiction that could stand for a moment beside this New England reality. The man that has not an eye to the bettering of his own condition by labor, or that of the soil, occupies a most uncomfortable position here; go where he may within the limits, some busier bee is buzzing about him if not stinging him.

This fighting with the soil and the hardships incident to securing a respectable appearance and a name in the world has so disciplined this people that they are eminently entitled to the term thorough-bred; and although there may be some who sneer at and would expel every vestige of Puritanism from the body politic, yet for our single self we venerate too highly its conservative power to witness unmoved the departure of a tithe of the precious leaven; and we can only contemplate

with the deepest regret any future, when extraneous influences may become so resistless as to obliterate a characteristic so majestic and commanding.

The great miracle of 1620 is still mightily working. The rod of the Puritan enchanter is still unbroken. Sometimes we have heard it breathed, not audibly announced, that New England has seen her best days. We do not believe that the prophet is yet born commissioned to predict even her decay. There is now more fuel, fire, vigor, muscle, energy, alertness, intelligence and wealth than ever, spread over her domain, and she will be the last in this hemisphere to part with even a tithe of her possessions, except for value received.

Many and frequent are the reflections which the New England character has occasioned; but we are inclined to think that the leading cause of the great power she has exerted for a century or more, over interests both small and great, has not been so fully recognised or understood as it ought.

She could not have achieved her present position unpossessed of that great element of social life, morality. It has been to her the nurse of good intentions, the promoter of noble deeds, and the monitor which has guarded and disciplined to harmonious action the body politic; in one word, it has been the chief aliment of her life. Not long since she awoke the whole continent from a statistic slumber by a simple enumeration of the sources of wealth comprised within the limits of one of her States. It struck the great mind of the country like a new revelation; it gave a new impulse to inquiry. And from that period every member of the confederacy commenced ciphering out' and estimating their own value. Her financial has gone hand in hand with her moral power; and that celebrated mart, the London Exchange, can furnish signal evidence of the fact, for when the English merchants and nobility were shaking with fear and stricken with dismay at our commercial aspect in '37 and '38, the holders of Massachusetts bonds stood comparatively erect and serene.

It was character, constructed on that immutable basis, moral accountability, that inspired confidence at that disastrous period. Wherever possessed, it will confer similar benefits; like the sun, radiating light and warmth to the remotest extremity.

This is the prominent power which imparts to all great enterprises in this region hope and dignity; and however startling their prospective utility may be, they rarely fail of reaching a satisfying maturity.

The construction of the Western Rail-Road is a signal illustration of this power. Mountains are not barriers to stout hearts. We can remember when it was considered a great enterprise to build a factory; he who should now attempt to build only one would be laughed at 'on change.' The time of small things has passed away, and a period of magnificent rivalry succeeded: it is no other than who shall be the founder of new cities.

The command goes forth from some of her knowing ones: Go ye into all the land, and seek water-power and build a city thereon.' Hardly a twelve-month elapses when we hear of some rude spot becoming the representative of millions in perspective, and ere long the

plough, the spindle and the sail are seen speeding their way, resultive and promotive of an enterprise which the keen eye of profit at length regards with more hope than fear.

New England has not, like some communities, adopted men of genius, but given birth to them: by her own unaided force and energy she is what she is. Those who in their ignorance or wilfulness choose to regard her as a mere association of economists and frugalists may consult with advantage both the historic and the living page, and find names that in every department of action reflect honor on the race; their varied genius embraces such as Franklin, Adams, Otis, Wolcott, Ames, Ellsworth, Sherman, Dexter, Cabot, Boylston, Whitney, Whittemore, Jacob Perkins, Morse, Dane, Parsons, Story, Davis, Cass, Sedgwick, Jackson, Silas Wright, Bowditch, Dwight, Stewart, Channing, Prescott, Bancroft, Sparks, Dana, Percival, Bryant, Allston, and that intellectual giant, Webster.

We have not the presumption to suppose that we could, on such a theme, observe entire impartiality; but we apprehend that few could rise from the contemplation of the topic which we have on the present occasion rather disturbed than illustrated, without imbibing an increased freshness of life and purpose.

For ourself we feel as much enamored of the scenes and perspective it unfolds, as the wanderer on the banks of a noble river, when he is first told that its waters in their entire passage from a remote source convey naught but benefits to its bordering neighbors and contribute a daily surplus to the great ocean for the comforting of the nations.

To such as can relish a tit-bit snatched from the historic larder of the Pilgrim fathers, we would recommend the Book that has recently issued from the press, entitled 'A History of Duxbury, by JUSTIN WINSOR.'

Thanks are due to the author for so kindly disturbing the bones of some of our ancestors, and bringing them up from the silence where they had been so long inurned, and investing them with a new and unexpected interest. To the minute and patient labor which he brought to the prosecution of this work, not a few are likely to acknowledge their indebtedness, in forms not now conceivable, and for ends accomplished not now even anticipated. Such works, however dry and unattractive to the general reader, are likely to possess exceeding value in the eye of posterity by the agency they must exert in removing or confirming doubts connected with genealogical descent, and throwing the needed light on what was previously traditionary darkness. Antiquarians will regard it with favor, and many a dainty morsel will they find worthy of being chewed and swallowed. The incidents and anecdotes recorded in the historical and ecclesiastical portions of the volume are exceedingly racy, and will surprise as much as amuse. If our limits permitted we should be glad to quote largely from them. There is a class of mind, however, but happily very limited, who if they open the work at all will run over it with only oneeye open. They are those who choose to live neither in the past nor the present; the wouldbe 'patrons' and heralds of a future; and unfortunately in their ranks may be found some of the gentler sex, whom a tormenting leisure has

essentially aided to convert, and to whom the personal pronoun I, which by grammatical usage always agrees with something, is made to disagree with every thing but itself!

In this category may be recognised many who, having been decently educated, and possessing fair intellectual endowments, but unacquainted with the world except through books and through the windows of their domiciles, exhibit a remarkable interest in what they term progress ;' indulging in severe commentaries on what the majority of society regard as wise and useful doctrines and manifesting a desire to sweep away much of what their predecessors held in veneration. So closely do they hug their favorite notions, that they become exceedingly restive, even when listening to words of wisdom from the lips of those capable of teaching, but who do not teach exactly in their way.

If the speaker or preacher does not jump over and above all the principles that bear on daily practical life, he does not jump high enough for them, and is deemed a lame, unprofitable servant.

The experience of a past age they unwillingly recognise and are averse to weaving it into the fabric of that in which they live; and it may almost be doubted whether their aspiring minds ever voluntarily draw from the pure fountain of Holy Writ any fitting inspiration.

You may pull out the 'march-of-mind' peg, or the progress-peg, or the 'old-abuses' peg, and as long as you choose to turn the crank, you may have an unfailing continuity of lucubration, with a very respectable average of meaning, and a good deal of briskness. In about half an hour you begin to reflect that you have gained nothing tangible except an aching arm and a little giddiness in the head.

Though it is all about man man is not in it.'

The state of mind to which we have alluded may often result from extreme culture; but its tendency, in seducing the less clever and uninformed inquirers into a path which they are much quicker to adopt than comprehend, and which consigns many of them to the hopeless mazes of a labyrinth, is what we chiefly regret; and if they ever emerge, they are very apt to enter the fold of the Romish church, where they may be relieved from thinking during the rest of their lives. The cardinal error of these transcendental leaders is to take the unit for the mass, the individual for the universal, the ego for DEITY.'

It requires no small degree of presumption in any mind to infer that it is itself in perfect harmony with all outward and inward existences. The attainment of so high and palmy a state the general mind is as yet unwilling to accord to the best of mortals; and until they can prove their position they will be regarded as false lights rather than the infallible guides of humanity. We are aware that views the most dissimilar are now entertained and urged in regard to the popular question, Which is the best path for human progress to take? Strong and ardent minds are constantly engaged in illustrating systems which their own reason has either invented or adopted, while others, of equal forecast and logical acumen, are content to leave the great problem unresolved, but at the same time manifesting and advocating a steady faith in the sufficiency of those means which a wise Providence has