medical books tell us fat is a disease. Eat a piece of that huge porker slaughtered lately in Boston, weighing eight hundred and fifty pounds, and ten to one you eat a fever or a dysentery. What has become of the geniuses?' we ask; 'have they been happy men?' A thousand voices from the crowd cry: 'I would be willing to suffer all that genius ever suffered; its pangs and crosses; its poverty and neglect; woes that out-speak the Newgate Calendar; only let me be famous, like Shakspeare or Milton; only let me die in the midst of conquest, like Alexander! What glory to die in despair, like Brutus what splendid horror! No; I think I would be Bonaparte, strutting about in military boots upon St. Helena, and imagining the white-crested waves that beat upon the rocky prison to be troops of white-plumed horsemen coming furiously to the charge!' And I,' lisps an ambitious little miss of sixteen, 'thould like to die like Mithith Jordan, on a thofa, after fathinating a printhe; my heart broken with tender melancholy!'

Genius is good to look at, not to take. It pays for its high vocation. It coins its blood; its sweet voices are sighs from a broken heart; its pathos is real wo; and that sound that comes to our ears, softened by distance, is a piercing shriek of agony where it originates. Be a Byron, my youngster, penning burning words. about a wife you loved, separated from you by seas, and worse still, by an incapacity to understand a poet's soul; see your daughter turn away from you as if you were a snake; and with a heart yearning for love and affection, be desolate and lonely like him—and you had better be an apothecary or measure tape.

But perhaps, my reader, you aim at political distinction. You are now only a voter in the sixth ward. Nobody knows you but your baker and butcher and milk-man. They know you, and mean to know you. You can't get away from them. Let me ask you, is this small fame always agreeable? Would you not like sometimes, about quarter-day, to be unknown even to these three humble individuals? What then will be your state when, mounted on a chair above the multitude, not only the baker and butcher and milkman look after you, but twenty millions cry out at once ' Mr. Polk!' What hope of escape? There is no corner where you can be unknown for a moment; you cannot any more look at the new prints in the book-sellers' windows; you cannot lounge any more, and read the papers at ease. You are the cockerel on the top of the meeting-house steeple; every body can see you that wants to, and you feel every gust of popular air. You obey the strongest party, as the aforesaid cockerel obeys the strongest wind; and the most you get for your eminence is the title of 'fickle.' Depend upon it, you are better off as an humble voter in the sixth ward.

'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.'

Is the glitter of royalty, the pomp of courts, any recompense for the fear in which most princes live? Would you be Louis Philippe, and ride in a carriage to be shot at every now and then? Compare a ride in your neat buggy out to Harlem with that of a king in his

coach-and-four, trembling with every turn of the wheels lest a musket-ball pass through his head. Have you read history for nothing? Do you still pine for eminence? Become a candidate for office in a country-district, and see the things that will be said of you. The dear people of the opposite party will fish up something true, and invent what cannot be proved. You may be elected; but while you gain office, ten to one you lose character and standing in your community. The fact may be, you are not good enough to be eminent. Dirt is a very good thing in a garden, but bring it into the house and it becomes odious.

Here is a young lady who grows thin because she is not a belle. Has she considered what the life of a beauty is? To be flattered by every body, besieged with 'blarney' and lies, mock affection and insincere friendship; to be stared at in the street, and to be conscious that beauty is preferred to worth; to feel inferior and be superior in place; to be obliged to still every true emotion of the heart; never to love, but to be married in obedience to what the fashionable world says she ought to do; finally to wear paint and false hair, false teeth, and to be false in every thing; and dying, give directions about the grave-dress, as becoming or not. My dear young lady, be a milk-maid; dress your rich tresses in the glass of the still water; love some honest lad who will doat upon you; become the mother of good men; die with some sense that you have not lived in vain; leave the memory of good deeds to the poor; that you were a good mother, a kind neighbor, a nice house-keeper, a frugal wife; and such a reputation is worth all the homage beauty receives, a thousand times over.

And you, Sir, would be tall, and knock your new hat to pieces in a stage-coach; find your feet dangling out of bed in a countryinn, on a cold night; pay extra for your broad-cloth cloak; wear low-heels, and let your feet into the mud; fall in love with a short woman of fortune, and give up the match to escape ridicule; make a constant obeisance in garden-walks; never taste a mouthful of warm soup, and live upon cold potatoes, on account of the distance between the plate and your mouth, every morsel being cooled in a long current of air; be called 'lathy' if you are lean, and a monster' if you are fat. Have you considered, Sir, all these conditions of escaping your modest mediocrity of five-feet-six ?

Truly he is most happy who occupies a middle ground as to money, fame and size. The respectable men and women of the world enjoy life, while the extremes are miserable; the one from surfeit, the other from hunger. It might be shown that there is a near resemblance between the highest (so called) and the lowest society. The same reckless disregard of public opinion; only in the one it is called independence, in the other desperation. Kings and heroes murder, and attain their ends by violence, and so do robbers and house-breakers. Very fashionable people turn night into day, and so do thieves and cut-throats and gamblers. Dandies change their dress many times in a day, and so do those who disguise themselves for plunder or to escape the police. The wealthy ride in coaches;

so do their servants, only on the outside; and the best part of the turkey often goes into the kitchen. It is said that the nobility of England are proverbially careless about dress; so are beggars.

It is not denied that there is great virtue in high places, often; but so is there in low and humble ones. But as man in his best estate is neither fat nor lean, neither tall nor short, so we contend he is in that condition neither rich nor poor, neither famous nor insignificant. Genius, in a popular sense, is unpractical. The men who live for fame live for themselves, not for the world. Wealth does not fulfil the expectations of the rich; office does not exempt from care and vexation; beauty is more flattered than loved; and in short, the general level is more accordant to nature, and therefore most likely to be happy. Give me then,' the wise man says, 'to live a calm life, away from disputes and rivalries, in the enjoyment of the works of GoD, where I may feel myself growing in self-control and self-respect, and more anxious about how I stand before my CREATOR than before man.'

A VISIT TO LAFITTE.

Tax following authentic narrative of stirring adventure is derived from an eye-witness of the interesting events which it describes. We cannot permit it to pass to our readers without remarking that it is to such men as the brave and wary officer who had command of the boats on the occasion referred to, that the United States' Navy is indebted for its high renown throughout the world. A may be proper to add, that a prominent incident of that excellent and popular work, 'Conquest and Self-Conquest,' is confirmatory of the authenticity of one scene in the present narrative.

ED. KNICKERBOCKER.

In the winter of 1819, when the late Commodore Patterson commanded the United States' naval forces in the Gulf of Mexico and on the coast of Louisiana, the United States' schooner Lynx, then commanded by the gallant and lamented Lieutenant J. H. Madison, was ordered to cruise between the mouths of the Mississippi river and the harbor of Galveston, at which place LAFITTE had a force of some three hundred and fifty men. The prizes captured from the Spaniards by the privateers of Lafitte were taken to Galveston, and in lieu of money the crews were paid off with certain portions of the cargo, which ultimately were irregularly introduced into the United States, in boats through our western rivers, the Sabine, Memento and Calcasiu. It was to prevent this illicit trade, and to protect our citizens on that coast, that decided the Commodore to give the Lynx that destination.

On arriving off the Memento river the schooner was brought to anchor, there not being sufficient water on the bar for her to enter. Boats were despatched immediately, under charge of her First Lieutenant, (the present Commander J. M. MCINTOSH,) who, very soon after getting into the river, overhauled a fishing-boat, from a settlement some distance up the river, and learned from the crew that two armed boats, with some eight or ten men in each, had left the previous night for the Sabine; that these boats belonged to Galveston, and that the men pretended to be cruising under authority from Lafitte. They had ascended the rivers Memento and Calcasiu, and in many instances had robbed the citizens and horribly abused the females. Lieutenant McIntosh also ascertained that a small privateer, cruising under the orders of Lafitte, had captured on the Campeachy bank a Spanish schooner, and had succeeded in getting the privateer and schooner over the bar of the Calcasiu river, had ascended it some hundred miles, and were still trading with the inhabitants, who were few and widely scattered apart; and that apprehension was felt that after disposing of their goods they might maltreat them. It was soon discovered that one of the crew of the fishing-boat was more intelligent than the rest, and a pilot, for they seldom visited rivers except for the purposes already alluded to; there was therefore little time lost in making an agreement with him and taking him to the Lynx. The information was no sooner communicated to the active and vigilant commander of the schooner

than the hoarse voice of the boatswain was heard: All hands up anchor, ahoy! It was soon secured, and all sail set for the Sabine, Lieutenant Madison wishing first to get possession of the armed boats. The shoal water at the mouth of the Sabine runs off a long distance, and the schooner had again to be anchored and the boats despatched; now, under charge of the sailing-master, Mr. King, and a midshipman. The boats of the Lynx were necessarily small, for she was but about one hundred tons' burthen, and it was advisable not to overload them with men, lest it should impede them in pulling, as the boats they were after were described as being very fast.

Just before night Mr. King left with his two boats and ten men, with instructions to guard the mouth of the river closely during the night, so as to prevent the boats escaping, and at day-light to ascend the river until he found them. He had not however proceeded far before they were in sight, and the chase commenced. For two hours the boats from Galveston held their own, but after that our boats gained rapidly, and the chase soon terminated by the piratical boats running ashore, and the men jumping out and concealing themselves in the immense cane-swamps which arise on the sides of this stream near its mouth. Mr. King, finding it impossible to get the men, and aware of the anxiety of his commander to proceed at the earliest moment to the Calcasiu river, in hopes of securing the privateer, took his two prizes (both fine boats) in tow, and before the sun had left us for the day, he was on board. The captured boats could not be hoisted in, but were soon dropped astern; and again the little Lynx spread her canvass, looking northerly for the Calcasiu. The distance between the mouths of these rivers, the reader must recollect, is not great; and as the morning broke, the pilot pointed out the mouth of the river; and when abreast of it, and as near as safety would permit the schooner to be carried, she was anchored, and preparations were commenced to ascend the river. Lieutenant McIntosh was ordered to take command of the expedition, and Purser Fanning, since dead, volunteered to command one of the boats. The two prize-boats were selected, from their size and for being equally fast with those of the Lynx. One week's provisions for twelve men and their officers, a musket and pistol for each, and good tarpaulins for keeping them dry, were provided, and the expedition started.

There was but little of interest for the first fifty or sixty miles. The land on each side of the river was low; the river itself sinuous and abrupt in its turnings, but gradually becoming more fresh, with less current. About the commencement of the second night, however, after having passed through several lakes, some of which were so large as to make it difficult to see the opposite shores, the river contracted; the land became more elevated, with a most luxuriant and large growth of forest-trees. The pilot now informed Lieutenant McIntosh that it would be necessary to proceed with great caution, as he believed they were getting in the neighborhood of the search. The oars were immediately muffled, and the boats