such an opportunity of marking its genial effect upon those who have been looking the inclement weather in the face. In the course of the day our clergyman himself strides forth, perchance to pay a round of pastoral visits, or, it may be, to visit his mountain of a wood-pile, and cleave the monstrous logs into billets suitable for the fire. He returns with fresher life to his beloved hearth. During the short afternoon, the western sunshine comes into the study, and strives to stare the ruddy blaze out of countenance, but with only a brief triumph, soon to be succeeded by brighter glories of its rival. Beautiful it is to see the strengthening gleam-the deepening light-that gradually casts distinct shadows of the human figure, the table, and the high-backed chairs, upon the opposite wall, and at length, as twilight comes on, replenishes the room with living radiance, and makes life all rosecolor. Afar, the wayfarer discerns the flickering flame, as it dances upon the windows, and hails it as a beacon-light of humanity, reminding him, in his cold and lonely path, that the world is not all snow, and solitude, and desolation. At eventide, probably, the study was peopled with the clergyman's wife and family; and children tumbled themselves upon the hearth-rug, and grave Puss sat with her back to the fire, or gazed, with a semblance of human meditation, into its fervid depths. Seasonably, the plenteous ashes of the day were raked over the mouldering brands, and from the heap came jets of flame, and an incense of night-long smoke, creeping quietly up the chimney.

Heaven forgive the old clergyman! In his latter life, when, for almost ninety winters, he had been gladdened by the fire-light-when it had gleamed upon him from infancy to extreme age, and never without brightening his spirits as well as his visage, and perhaps keeping him alive so long-he had the heart to brick up his chimneyplace, and bid farewell to the face of his old friend for ever! Why did not he take an eternal leave of the sunshine too? His sixty cords of wood had probably dwindled to a far less ample supply, in modern times; and it is certain that the parsonage had grown crazy with time and tempest, and pervious to the cold; but still, it was one of the saddest tokens of the decline

and fall of open fire-places, that the grey patriarch should have deigned to warm himself at an air-tight stove.

And I, likewise-who have found a home in this ancient owl's nest, since its former occupant took his heavenward flight-I, to my shame, have put up stoves in kitchen, and parlor, and chamber. Wander where you will about the house, not a glimpse of the earth-born, heaven-aspiring fires of Etna-him that sports in the thunderstorm-the idol of the Ghebers-the devourer of cities, the forest rioter, and prairie sweeper-the future destroyer of our earth-the old chimney-corner companion, who mingled himself so sociably with household joys and sorrows-not a glimpse of this mighty and kindly one will greet your eyes. He is now an invisible presence. There is his iron cage. Touch it, and he scorches your fingers. He delights to singe a garment, or perpetrate any other little unworthy mischief; for his temper is ruined by the ingratitude of mankind, for whom he cherished such warmth of feeling, and to whom he taught all their arts, even that of making his own prison-house. In his fits of rage, he puffs volumes of smoke and noisome gas through the crevices of the door, and shakes the iron walls of his dungeon, so as to overthrow the ornamental urns upon its summit. We tremble, lest he should break forth amongst us. Much of his time is spent in sighs, burthened with unutterable grief, and long-drawn through the funnel. He amuses himself, too, with repeating all the whispers, the moans, and the louder utterances or tempestuous howls of the wind; so that the stove becomes a microcosm of the aërial world. Occasionally, there are strange combinations of soundsvoices, talking almost articulately within the hollow chest of iron-insomuch that fancy beguiles me with the idea, that my firewood must have grown in that infernal forest of lamentable trees, which breathed their complaints to Dante. When the listener is half asleep, he may readily take these voices for the conversation of spirits, and assign them an intelligible meaning. Anon, there is a pattering noise

drip, drip, drip-as if a summer shower were falling within the narrow circumference of the stove.

These barren and tedious eccentrici

ties are all that the air-tight stove can bestow, in exchange for the invaluable moral influences which we have lost by our desertion of the open fire-place. Alas, is this world so very bright, that we can afford to choke up such a domestic fountain of gladsomeness, and sit down by its darkened source, without being conscious of a gloom?

It is my belief, that social intercourse cannot long continue what it has been, now that we have subtracted from it so important and vivifying an element as fire-light. The effects will be more perceptible on our children, and the generations that shall succeed them, than on ourselves, the mechanism of whose life may remain unchanged, though its spirit be far other than it was. The sacred trust of the household-fire has been ⚫ transmitted in unbroken succession from the earliest ages, and faithfully cherished, in spite of every discouragement, such as the Curfew law of the Norman conquerors; until, in these evil days, physical science has nearly succeeded in extinguishing it. But we at least have our youthful recollections tinged with the glow of the hearth, and our life-long habits and associations arranged on the principle of a mutual bond in the domestic fire. Therefore, though the sociable friend be for ever departed, yet in a degree he will be spiritually present to us; and still more will the empty forms, which were once full of his rejoicing presence, continue to rule our manners. We shall draw our chairs together, as we and our forefathers have been wont, for thousands of years back, and sit around some blank and empty corner of the room, babbling, with unreal cheerfulness, of topics suitable to the homely fireside. A warmth from the past-from the ashes of by-gone years, and the rakedup embers of long ago-will sometimes thaw the ice about our hearts. But it must be otherwise with our successors. On the most favorable supposition, they will be acquainted with the fireside in no better shape than that of the sullen stove; and more probably, they will have grown up amid furnace-heat, in houses which might be fancied to have their foundation over the infernal pit, whence sulphurous steams and unbreathable exhalations ascend through the apertures of the floor. There will be nothing to attract these poor children to one centre. They will never

behold one another through that peculiar medium of vision—the ruddy gleam of blazing wood or bituminous coalwhich gives the human spirit so deep an insight into its fellows, and melts all humanity into one cordial heart of hearts. Domestic life-if it may still be termed domestic-will seek its separate corners, and never gather itself into groups. The easy gossip the merry, yet unambitious jest-the life-like, practical discussion of real matters in a casual way-the soul of truth, which is so often incarnated in a simple fireside word-will disappear from earth. Conversation will contract the air of a debate, and all mortal intercourse be chilled with a fatal frost.

In classic times, the exhortation to fight 'pro aris et focis'-for the altars and the hearths-was considered the strongest appeal that could be made to patriotism. And it seems an immortal utterance; for all subsequent ages and people have acknowledged its force, and responded to it with the full portion of manhood that Nature had assigned to each. Wisely were the Altar and the Hearth conjoined in one mighty sentence! For the hearth, too, had its kindred sanctity. Religion sat down beside it, not in the priestly robes which decorated, and perhaps disguised, her at the altar, but arrayed in a simple matron's garb, and uttering her lessons with the tenderness of a mother's voice and heart. The holy Hearth! If any earthly and material thing or rather, a divine idea, embodied in brick and mortar-might be supposed to possess the permanence of moral truth, it was this. All revered it. The man, who did not put off his shoes upon this holy ground, would have deemed it pastime to trample upon the altar. It has been our task to uproot the hearth. What further reform is left for our children to achieve, unless they overthrow the altar too? And by what appeal, hereafter, when the breath of hostile armies may mingle with the pure breezes of our country, shall we attempt to rouse up native ___valor? Fight for your hearths? There will be none throughout the land. FIGHT FOR YOUR STOVES! Not I, in faith. If, in such a cause, I strike a blow, it shall be on the invader's part; and Heaven grant that it may shatter the abomination all to pieces!

On the verge of one of those umbrageous groves that skirt the broad prairies of Illinois, stands a long range of log huts, they having been erected one after another, in several successive years, as the necessities of an increasing business and increasing family required; the proprietor of this respectable array of cabins combining in himself the threefold occupation of farmer, tavernkeeper, and blacksmith; all not unfrequently united in a country where division of labor is as yet little heard of and less understood.

Though uncouth and unpromising in the exterior, there may, nevertheless, be found many unexpected comforts in this mansion, or rather mansions, as each is separately complete in itself, though for convenience communicating by covered porches with the others; but as to the precise locale, it may be a difficult point to ascertain; be it sufficient for our purposes to say, it is situate not a hundred miles from the clear and rapid Rock River. These groves being as oases in the grassy desert, are always especially designated by some appropriate name; but whether the particular one to which we refer, be yclept Cherry, or Maple, or Papow, or Hickory, or Elkhorn, or Buffalo, Broadaxe, or Plumhollow, we cannot pretend to say; we shall not even venture to denominate the place as the Lost Grove, though such a one lies not very far north of it, with a terrible legend from which the cognomen is derived, and about which, perchance, we shall have somewhat to speak of hereafter.

A dull misty autumn day had closed in with the low, prophetic growl of a coming storm, which soon verifying its warning, swelling and roaring in its wild wrath, as it swept over the long dry grass of the prairie, and whirled through the shivering limbs of the trembling forest, burst into cataracts of rain, such as are never seen but in the giant tempests of the west, when three travellers, stoutly facing the storm, rode up as fast as their jaded horses could carry them, to the welcome door of

Mr. Zebedee Jenkinson's hostelrie. With the assistance of the last men. tioned personage, their small, rough, reeking ponies were soon housed and fed-the offices of grooming being generally required of the western traveller, however indisposed for, or unacquainted with, its mysteries; but hastily dispatching the stable department, they were quickly divested of their blanket coats, overalls, and jack-boots, and luxuriously reposing before a superb fire, enjoying in soft anticipation the savory messes stewing and steaming under the superintendence of the buxom mistress of the house, whose ripe, round cheeks, and fair and large proportions, gave ample evidence of the profuse bounties of nature being here abundantly distributed.

The apartment in which our travellers sat, partook in its characteristic arrangements of kitchen, parlor, chamber, and hall; it was large and roomy, and well warmed by the immense fire which blazed and crackled in an unusually large, rough, stone fire-place. An attempt had been made to plaster the walls and ceiling; but whoever the ambitious workman might have been, it seemed he had carefully studied Hogarth's line of beauty, there being nothing either positively perpendicular or horizontal at top, bottom, or sides; neither right, obtuse, nor acute angles shocked the eye preferring to wander over the graceful sinuosities of the curve; neither had he apparently quite decided whether the Moorish or the Gothic arch should prevail in the ceiling; it being so diversified by shadowings of both, that the plaster had probably squabbled with the laths on the subject, and adhesiveness not being an essential quality of either, separation had very generally ensued,-to the disadvantage certainly of externals, if Mrs. Jenkinson had not found these "bare spots," as she called them, convenient places wherefrom to hang strings of onions, crook-neck pumpkins, bunches of dried herbs, woollen yarn, cakes of suet, sundry preparations

latter, "I have been considering how very few wants man has in reality, when one comes to divest oneself of the factitious encumbrances of civilisation. Now, it is but a short time since I should have scarce been able to spend such an evening as this, in any degree of comfort, with all the luxuries of wealth and charms of refined society." "Blur an 'ouns, man, d'ye pretend to say we're not ourselves as refined, as intelligent, and as cultivated a society as you could meet with in iver a city this side the Atlantic ?-without even including the pretty mistress, with the frying-pan in her sweet little hands there, bless her!-and barring our worthy landlord himself (Mr. may I trouble ye for your name, sir?)" respectfully requested the worthy gentleman of that leathern-faced elderly personage, who sat quietly lulling a fractious child on his lap, pausing for a moment to reply in a meek under tone, "Zebedee Eliphalet Jenkinson, I reckon."

"Then, upon my veracity, your gossips reckoned remarkably well, too, my good sir, when they counted ye up such a string of syllables as that; but, to return, Sol, I ask you, what is there of refined society we want at this present sitting? Our friend Hermann here, says not a word to defend the position I have taken against you, yet who so able to do it, and prove it to your satisfaction, too? He's a great traveller; speaks and writes several languages like a native. Astronomy 's his forte; he knows every trick of sun, moon, and stars by heart; you'd think he had a correspondent in the nucleus of every comet, for divil a one can whisk his tail aside but he tells you beforehand. As for geology, listen to him about primary, secondary, and tertiary formations, fossil remains, and so forth; wouldn't ye think he had crept up through all the strata that have been packed together since the creation? that he had run through antediluvian marshes from the ichthyosaurus, or hunted the mastodon among the fine ould oaks that make such charming bog-wood fires on a night like this? though, I believe, Hermann, as to the latter dating so far back, I'm under a small mistake there; but never mind, Sol can't defeat me."

"But Mr. Slaughter, sir," interrupted the latter, "refined society, ac

cording to my notion, comprehends ornamental, as well as scientific, cultivation; dancing, sir, and music-Rossini, sir, and Bellini, and

"Och, the old story, Sol! The back of my hand to ye, boy; if ye begin at the gamut ye'll silence my innocent pipe with its wood-notes wild, entirely. But even there I can compass ye; for have we not, at this moment, sir, the music of the winds without, and can't we explain to ye the music of the spheres within, mathematicians as we are; and, best of all, havn't we the music of the fireside, Sol, my dear? The bacon and grouse, making dimi-simi-quavers in the hissing pan; the onions and potatoes, lapping up and down, like the kays of a forte-piano, in the bubbling stew-the spitting venison steak, giving a tizz, like the strings of a well-tuned harp, as my lady here sprinkles the salt so neatly over it? And look beside you at the little girl there; with the rosy cheeks, and staccato giggle, isn't that Rose-ini for ye? and beyond, on my friend Mr. Zebedee's paternal knees, the delightful cherub just finishing its last sleepy adagio, isn't that Bello-ini for ye, to a semitone ?—while the happy father's rich, chromatic melody in addition, would rival and defy the science of a Moscheles or Hummel to equal it. Tut, man, if ye're so unrasonable as to desire more music than the elements out o' doors, and Mrs. Jenkinson within, have provided for your entertainment, may your next move for refined society be to the back of the Rocky Mountains. God defend us from harm!"

"Oh, Mr. Slaughter!" said the hitherto silent Hermann, breaking in while Mr. Solomon, strangling a fit of laughter, attempted to reply, "you do not exactly understand our young friend; he is at the age when the fascinations of woman, the, as yet, not experienced raptures of love, make up the insubstantial charms he, in truth, is seeking for, when he thus talks of refined society. I know, I know the early hopes, the ardent anticipations, the perfection of bliss, and the desolation of decay. Ah, Mr. Solomon, Mr. Solomon, fifteen years hence you will, perhaps, feel as I do; life, at best, is a very changeful, and too oft agonizing dream."

Mrs. Jenkinson, my dear madam,"