on his head; the umbrella stuck under his arm; the carpet-bag carried No; this non-exertion character is trailing it. Well, I declare! if he has not got on spectacles, too! A young fellow in spectacles! Bah! I'd wager a sixpence they are green - green as himself. You say they are neutral-tint; i'faith, not unlikely; neutral and hazy, like his mind. How stupidly he glowers under the shade of his raised hand; doubting, as well he might, the evidence of such neutral senses. This is a common character; useless to himself and to others. Boys, take warning; and when some procrastinating fellow says, Time enough,' remember that time enough' generally proves time little enough.' Therefore, 'take Time by the forelock,' and be twenty minutes too soon rather than one minute too late; and ever while you live, Strike while the iron is hot. This fellow is like a rusty gun. If you pull the trigger ever so hard, it will seldom go off; and when it does explode, it

bursts.

Look at this female figure, carrying a bucket, and walking away from us. How natural! Her habiliments portray her to be merely a peasant-girl; but how exquisitely graceful! Not the acquired, stiff, machine-jointed grace of the minuet-de-la-cœur, I grant. Sir Joshua Reynolds, no contemptible authority, by-the-by, says, 'A child is always graceful until put into the hands of the dancing-master.' No; nothing of that conventional and fashion-drilled grace is here visible. The artist possessed taste and judgment. He desired to exhibit natural grace, and accordingly culled his model from the mountains. This creature moves like the curve-crested billows of the ocean, with Nature's undulating grace; in her case, fashioned and brought forth into visible beauty by the untrammelled play of well-formed, elastic limbs, youthful blood, and buoyant hopes.

Turn your glance for an instant to that wild unmutilated steed, with lightning-eye and storm-cloud streaming mane, spurning away space from every hoof. Here is grace uninfluenced by reflection. Alas! poor steed! Shouldst thou be caught within the toils of tyrant man thou wouldst, if such should be the arbitrament of fashion, be hog-maned,' 'cropp'd' and 'dock'd!'

Say; ought Fashion to manacle this young girl's freedom of motion with its steel corsets? — and, ludicrously impious, assert an improvement upon God's formation by a bustle? Alas! fashion is more influential with the crowd, 'the little vulgar and the great,' than are the dictates of simplicity purity and truth! Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.' The truth of this axiom is applicable not only to the beauty of form and motion, and melody and harmony, but also to the mind's conduct in morals, and even in religion.

I can absorb my mind in the contemplation of this little figure until it expands and grows into life before me. I seem to feel the poise of the self-adjusting balance of that extended right arm, and can almost realize the idea of that slightly painful sensation which is exhibited at the first impulsive hitch-like motion which accompanies the re-directed, still recurring, counter-check movement of the right foot, to the pendulous swing of that bucket-sustaining left arm.

'Italian Peasants.' This miniature design contains abundant and fitting materials for the composition of a large and noble picture. 'T was supererogatory to write its title beneath it; their costume, attitudes and bearing emphatically characterize them as Italian peasants, and none other. Neither does the locality of the scenery admit of a doubt. There are the conical mountains; there the abrupt eminences crowned with splendid palazzas; the Mediterranean, feluccadotted, and Vesuvius in the distance; all bespeaking an Italian landscape, as viewed through that intensely bright yet somewhat gauzy atmosphere with, which light and heat radiate the sky of Italy.

Drooping Age resting on the Grave,' and dubiously reflecting on life, is a comprehensive and touching sermon. While the destitute soulless loafer' and the drunkard maudlin at the 'No Trust' bar, exhibit traits of Hogarthian conception, that enforce reflection. But these, and several others, demand a more deep investigation and extended scrutiny than I have hitherto employed; and I have already far outstretched the limits I purposed. I therefore respectfully withdraw; flattering myself with the hope that the little which I have said, however faintly expressed, yet coming as it does from the heart, may find responsive hearts that possess the means of raising the reputation of our artist, if a young one. Or if he be, as I do guess,' from the acumen displayed, a long-practised hand, with an observant mind, who throws off these little gems of a redundant genius during the cigar-smoking intervals of loftier conceptions, long may he continue so to amuse himself, delight the connoisseur, and instruct the rising generation! For the furtherance of which desideratum nothing can be more conducive, than that parents and instructors should point out and explain to their pupils, as I do now to my young 'cow-boy,' the beauty of thought, design and execution exhibited in the illustrations of this unpretending school-book.

Highlands, November, 1846.

Yours, very respectfully,

J. M. B.

CREATION'S heir, and Fancy's fav'rite child,
Thou canst, from India's wealth, or Afric's wild,
From far or near, from depth or dizzy height,
Cull thy rich stores, t' instruct us or delight:
Abundance draw from dearth, and radiance from night.

Thus, to th' alembic of thy glowing mind
All nature comes, but comes to be refined:
Each thought that feculence or grossness stains
Thy wit or judgment sublimates or strains,

Till all the alloy be purged, and nought but gold remains.

Thus Ocean drinks the foul and turbid tide,
When flood and torrent plough the mountain's side;
But soon in genial showers he sends them forth,
Pure as the pearls that deck Aurora's birth,

To feed the famish'd land, and cheer the jocund earth.

THE

SPY OF THE MOHAWK.

BY WILLIAM W CAMPBELL.

WHO has not seen the beautiful valley of the Mohawk? As the iron-horse draws the long train, now winding around the base of some lofty hill, and now almost suspended over the foaming waters of the river, the traveller, seated at his ease, and looking out upon the varied beauties of the shifting scene, can have but an imperfect idea of the toils and trials of those who seventy years ago traversed this same valley. Then, days and weeks were occupied in passing from Schenectady to Utica. The old-fashioned keel-boat was forced up against the rapid current with great labor; and when the river was swollen in the spring, the navigation was even considered dangerous. And yet, in the old French war, a large army, with all its muniments and equipage, passed through the valley on its way to the western and northern frontier; and in the revolution the bold scheme was devised of sending a division of the American forces, intended to operate against the Six Nations, up the Mohawk to Canajoharie, and thence to the head of Otsego lake.

It was a hazardous and toilsome expedition; and that old soldier, General JAMES CLINTON, was appointed to the command. It was a fitting post for the man who had from early youth been inured to the dangers and hardships of border wars. Early in the spring of 1779 he reached with his detachment the point now occupied by the village of Canajoharie, and which was formerly the site of an Indian castle of the same name. From here large parties were sent out to clear the way, and open a road to the head of Otsego lake, over which the batteaux used upon the river could be transported. It was a laborious enterprise, and required all the energy of the commander, and taxed the patience and patriotism of officers and men in its execution. The distance was some twenty miles, and the route lay over the high range of land which there separates the tributaries of the Mohawk from the head-waters of the eastern branch of the Susquehanna. Spring had gone and summer had come before the batteaux were carried over the mountains, and launched for the first time upon the bosom of that beautiful lake. While this portion of the American army lay at Canajoharie, the events occurred which it is proposed here briefly to relate. It was at the close of a long day in early summer. low in the west, and its rays, no longer holding dalliance with the clear waters of the Mohawk, were taking their farewell kiss of the green old forest-trees which covered the tops of the surrounding hills. Straggling parties of soldiers, in their fatigue-dresses, were moving slowly down the winding road, returning to camp wearied from their hard day's toil; some of them reflecting upon the plea

The sun was

sant scenes which they had left, and calling to mind their own distant homes, where their wives and their little ones, at such an hour in days gone by, had looked out and watched their return; and resolving never again to leave those quiet scenes for the rude and hard life of a soldier. The evening parade was over; the roll of the evening drum was ended; the watch-fires were kindled, and here and there a light twinkled through the small windows of the houses of the German settlers, which were even at that day thickly sprinkled along this portion of the valley.

Around the house occupied by the General as his head-quarters, there seemed on this evening to be an unusual gathering of officers, and from the hurrying to and fro of subordinates, it was evident that preparations were making for some occurrence of more than ordinary interest. Indeed it was no secret in the camp that two persons had been arrested on the previous day as spies, and that a courtmartial would assemble that evening, before which they would be arraigned. It is hardly necessary to observe, that the war of the revolution found the settlements along the upper part of the valley of the Mohawk, and upon the head-waters of the Susquehanna, in a very exposed situation. Sir WILLIAM JOHNSON died in 1774. For more than a quarter of a century he had exerted a great influence over the inhabitants of that region, and over the Indian tribes, and especially over that tribe which even then had their dwelling-places on the banks of the river to which they had given the name, and who by their skill and prowess stood at the head of the great confederacy of the Indians of New-York. The influence which was possessed by Sir William was retained by his son-in-law, GUY JOHNSON, especially over the Indians, most of whom in the following year left their pleasant homes, and went with him to Canada. He was followed also by a large number of the white inhabitants, who espoused the cause of the mother country. Many of these men afterward enlisted into a regiment organized and commanded by Sir JOHN JOHNSON, (a son of Sir William,) and known in the border wars of New-York by the name of Johnson's Greens.' Others joined with the Indians, and assuming the Indian garb and adopting the Indian mode of warfare, made incursions into the settlements, and laid them waste, marking their progress by deeds of wanton and savage cruelty. Two of these men who had been engaged in this border warfare had been, as before observed, arrested as spies in the camp of General Clinton, and were now to be tried for their lives.

The preliminary arrangements having been made, an order was given to bring in the prisoners. The charges were few and briefly stated. They set forth that the prisoners had in the first instance abandoned their country in her hour of need, and having gone over to the enemy, did afterward enter into that enemy's service, and did commit acts of aggression upon the true and patriotic inhabitants of the Province of New-York; and being thus engaged in the service of the enemy, did come into the camp as spies.'

The trial proceeded. Witnesses were examined, who testified to