politics and intrigue." "Hang S, cried Furnace-Face, "he's a little, pettifogging turncoat. I'd cast him and his lectures into rivers of flaming sulphur." "Here, said Rugged, I could endure it no longer, but burst into a fit of laughter, which caused them to move off. "Tis impossible to impart a conception of their ridiculous appearance by a verbal description. Their gravity, their self importance, their extreme ignorance, must have been seen to be enjoyed. They were, indeed, complete Literary Characters! and worthy to support the Atheneum. "But Rugged, why not allow these Athenian bees as you call them, to be men of Letters "Simply because they no more resemble them, than beggars do gentlemen; being the eaters of broken ideas, the crumb-scrapers of slovenly journalits; who never perused a good ponderous volume of antiquity in all their lives; but have subsisted their puny wit upon Miss Edgeworth's maggot broth, as Cowper says, Southey's fricassees; and such home made dishes as Dr. Beasley's Orthodox Metaphysics; a hash without seasoning, stewed up with bigotry and intolerance, and more adapted to a barbarous country in a dark age, than to a civilized and refined people of the 19th century. The age of priestcraft has passed. Priests to be respected must be liberal; or they disgrace the sacred cause which they are called upon to support. An intolerant zealot is a worse enemy of our religion than a professed infidel; because he propogates that very infidelity which the Atheist to fails to diffuse, by by being a declared foe to a good system.Nothing brings so much discredit upon our holy creed of charity, as malignity, bigotry, and a spirit of intolerance." "Why where have you wandered, my friend Rugged, cried ¡1."-"Only from the Library of Euclid, said he, to the volume on the shelf. However, I rejoice to perceive that the world justly appreciates this nauseous compound of dulness and bigotry; and permits it to sleep in congenial dust, undisturbed even by censure. It carries an antidote to its influence, in the virulence which stains and darkens its pages." "But what more of these Literary characters, and the American Literary Club," said I. English, not American, if you please, cried Rugged. The President is to be an Englishman; and all the members are required to be sound tories, schoolmasters excepted. This forms an indispensable qualification. Nothing American, you know succeeds, not even with the Ladies, one English rake being equal to twenty Americans of pure morals." "But what of the Atheneum, Rugged, said I?" It is the most splendid institution that ever existed, since the creation of-Tom-Cats, bibb'd Critics, or dry-nurse Lecturers. The bees of Attica were mere spiders, compared to the bugs of the Atheneum!" a 2 THE AUTHOR'S JEWEL. NUMBER XXI. THE YOUNG SOLDIER. But ever and anon of griefs subdued, A tone of music-summer's eve-or spring, Byron "The War begins to rage with aggravated fury," said an old officer of the Revolution, during the last War with Great Britain, who had retired from public life, to live on the income of an opulent estate-“ yes, with desolating fury," continued he with solemn emphasis, as he slowly folded up a newspaper he had just been perusing; while a settled gloom gathered on his venerable brow, as he seemed for a moment absorbed in an unpleasant reverie." How ma ny thousands of our innocent fellow-creatures,” said he, after a short pause, resuming his remarks," must welter in the gory bed of honour and of death, before the national resentment is appeased, and Peace shall once more return, to bless us with her mild and happy reign. Alas! the makers of War, little know, and seldom feel, the fruitful misery that follows in its train; for if they felt but half the pangs that I and hundreds more have, both in the field of battle, and in the bosom of my family, they would be the last to give birth to so many ineffable horrors!" "I hope there has not been another battle, my dear father," said the blooming and lovely daughter of the Colonel, in a feeble and faultering voice, as she cast her large blue eyes that glistened with humidity and feeling up towards her father, while the paleness of sickly apprehension spread over her countenance, and her heart palpitated with uncertain terrors.-Eliza had some cause to fear. She loved and was betrothed to an officer in the army, and that of. ficer, was the friend and protege of her father. Her bosom heaved with terror, as she impatiently looked towards her father for a reply. "Yes, my child, there has been a battle, and Charles may have won unfading laurels and glory, in the defence of his country against a foreign foe!— And he may too!-Alas' poor Charles !-Yes, his fate may have been decided, and he may have re paid all my anxious cares, by falling in defence of his country! It is a glorious death,and yet it is a melancholy one; at such a time of life too, with all the prospects of happiness opening before him-But why should we despond!! Perhaps he still lives, to be a comfort and solace to us all ;-perhaps his noble breast still swells with every generous emotion, and he is this moment thinking of his benefactor, his father, his Eliza.-Yes, he may have been distinguish |