Soon for me, the light of day Shall for ever pass away; Thou who sinless, yet hast known CALEB CUSHING. CALEB CUSHING, the son of Captain John N. Cushing, an eminent shipowner of Salisbury, Massachusetts, was born at that place January 7, 1800. He was fitted for College at the Public School, and graduated at Harvard with the honors of the salutatory oration, at the early age of seventeen. He delivered a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa Society in 1819, and an oration on the durability of the Federal Union, on taking his degree of Master of Arts. In 1819 he was appointed a tutor at Harvard, an office which he filled until July, 1821. In 1822 he commenced the practice of the law, in 1825 was elected to the House of Representatives, and the next year to the Senate of the State. In the same year he published a History of Newburyport, and a treatise on The Practical Principles of Political Economy. In 1824 he married a daughter of Judge Wilde of Boston. In 1826 he was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Federal House of Representatives. He passed the years from 1829 to 1832 in foreign travel, and on his return published two small volumes of tales and sketches entitled Reminiscences of Spain-the Country, its People, History, and Monuments, and a Review, Historical and Political, of the late Revolution in France, and the Consequent Events in Belgium, Poland, Great Britain, and other parts of Europe -also in two volumes. In 1833 and 1834, Mr. Cushing was again elected by the town of Newburyport to the State Legislature, where his speech on the currency and public deposits attracted great favor. Aleching In 1835 he was elected to Congress, and remained a member of the House of Representatives until 1843. In 1836 he delivered an eloquent vindication of the New England character in reply to an onslaught by Benjamin Hardin, of Kentucky. He was an active member in the debates and business of the House. In 1840 he wrote a popular campaign Life of General Harrison. He afterwards supported the administration of President Tyler, by whom he was appointed, in 1843, Commissioner to China for the negotiation of a commercial treaty. He sailed in July in the steam-frigate Missouri. The vessel was burnt on the twenty-second of August, while off Gibraltar, and the minister proceeded by the overland route to his destination. A treaty was negotiated and signed July 3, 1844. He returned home by way of the Pacific and Mexico. In 1846 Mr. Cushing was elected to the Legislature, and the next year was an unsuccessful candidate for the governorship of his State. He advocated an appropriation of twenty thousand dollars for the benefit of the Massachusetts volunteers in the Mexican war, but without success. He was elected colonel by these volunteers, and accompanied them to Mexico, where he was appointed a brigadier-general, and took part in the battle of Buena Vista. He was afterwards, at his request, transferred to the army of General Scott, under whom he served during the remainder of the war. On his return, in 1849, he was again elected to the State Legislature. He was chosen in 1851 the first mayor of Newburyport, and in 1852 was appointed Attorney-General of the United States by President Pierce. Mr. Cushing is the author of several addresses delivered on various anniversary occasions, and has contributed a number of articles to the North American Review.* Activity and energy have characterized his course whether in or out of office. An epigrammatic epitaph by Miss Hannah F. Gould, and the reply of Mr. Cushing, illustrate the character and the ready talent of the man:-Lay aside all ye dead, For in the next bed Reposes the body of Cushing, He has crowded his way THEODORE, the eldest son of Theodore Sedgwick, one of the judges of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, was born in Sheffield, Berkshire, Mass., on the last day of the year 1781. He passed his boyhood at Stockbridge, where his father removed in 1788, completed his literary studies at Yale College in 1799, studied law in the office of Peter Van Schaack in Kinderhook, New York, and commenced practice in Albany in partnership with Harmanus Bleecker, afterwards the representative of the United States at the Hague. In 1808 he married Miss Susan Ridley, a granddaughter of Governor Livingston. He rapidly rose to eminence at the bar, but, finding his health failing, retired from practice in 1822 to the estate * Oration at Newburyport, July 4, 1882. Oration, July 4, 1883, for the American Colonization Society. Address before the American Institute of Instruction, 1834. Eulogy on Lafayette, delivered at Dover, N. H., 1884. Popular Eloquence, an Address before the Literary Societies of Amherst College, Aug. 23, 1836. Progress of America, an Oration delivered at Springfield, Mass., July 4, 1839. Oration on the Errors of Popular Reformers, delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, 1889. Articles on Americus Vespuccius, Boccaccio, and Columbus, North Am. Review, xii. 418; xix. 68; xxi. 398. + Loring's Boston Orators, pp. 518–524. left by his father, who died in 1813, at Stockbridge. In 1824 he was elected a member of the state house of representatives, and was again chosen in 1825 and 1827. He was twice nominated for Congress, but failed of his election owing to the minority of his party. He was an active politician though not a violent partisan, and expressed himself with clearness and decision on all the great questions and issues of the day. He took much interest in agriculture, and was twice president of the Berkshire Agricultural Society. In 1836 Mr. Sedgwick published the first part of a work entitled Public and Private Economy. In this he traces the history of property and poverty, and the means to acquire the one and avoid the other, in a clear and interesting manner, showing the absolute necessity to a community of a spirit of thrift, economy, and industry-and of a safe system of currency and credit, based upon actual values, for the successful prosecution of its business relations. In 1838 and 1839 Mr. Sedgwick enlarged his work by the addition of a second and third part, principally devoted to an account of his observations in England and France during a tour in the summer of 1836. The condition of the masses in these countries, the extravagance of government, and the lack of provision for cheap conveniences or essentials of social life, are the chief topics discussed. On the 6th of November, 1889, Mr. Sedgwick, who had just completed an address at a political meeting at Pittsfield prior to the state election, was seized by a fit of apoplexy which soon after caused his death. beyond the limits of such publications, she was induced by the solicitations of her friends to extend it to the size of a novel. Its success warranted their anticipations, and induced the writer to continue in the career so auspiciously commenced. In 1827 she published Redwood, a novel of the ordinary two-volume length. Hope Leslie, or Early Times in America, a novel of the same size, followed in the same year; Clarence, a Tale of our Own Times, in 1830; Le Bossu, in 1832; and the Linwoods, or Sixty Years Since in America, in 1835. A collection of shorter tales published by her in various magazines, appeared in the same year. In 1836 she published The Poor Rich Man and the Rich Poor Man, a popular tale, designed to show the superior advantages for happiness of a life of cheerful labor and domestic content in a comparatively humble sphere, over one of extra vagance and makeshift in a more prominent position. The success of this soon led to the publication, in 1838, of a story of a similar character, Live and Let Live; and a delightful volume of juvenile tales, A Love Token for Children, which was followed by Stories for Young Persons. Means and Ends, or Self-Training, an attractive and sensible little volume of advice to young ladies on education and the formation of character, appeared about the same time. In 1840 Miss Sedgwick published Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home, in two volumes; a pleasant, sketchy account of some of the places she had seen, and the people she had met, during a recent tour in Europe. Miss Sedgwick has contributed to the Lady's Book, Milton Harvey, A Huguenot Family, Scenes from Life in Town, Fanny McDermot, and other tales. She has also written for other periodicals. Miss Sedgwick's life has been principally passed in the place of her birth, where she still resides. Stockbridge is one of the most beautiful villages of Berkshire, but its wide-spread celebrity is to be ascribed far more to the reputation which Miss Sedgwick's descriptions and works have given it, than to its great natural advantages. The best trait of Miss Sedgwick's writings is the amiable home-sentiment which runs through them: her pen is always intent to improve life and cultivate its refinements; but besides this practical trait she has cultivated the imaginative element in American fiction with success. Indian character in Hope Leslie is identified in the local feeling with the streams and mountain scenery of the region in which the author resides. The THEODORE SEDGWICK, a nephew of Miss Sedgwick, and a lawyer of the city of New York, is the author of a carefully prepared Life of William Livingston of New Jersey, published in 1833; of an elaborate work, A Treatise on the Measure of Damages, or an Inquiry into the Principles which govern the Amount of Compensation recovered in Suits-at-Law; and of numerous articles on social, literary, and political topics in the periodicals of the day. In 1840 he prepared a collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett. Mr. Sedgwick was the first president of the New York Crystal Palace Company. THE RESCUE OF EVERELL BY MAGAWISCA-FROM HOPE LESLIE Magawisca, in the urgency of a necessity that could brook no delay, had forgotten, or regarded as useless, the sleeping potion she had infused into the Mohawk's draught; she now saw the powerful agent was at work for her, and with that quickness of apprehension that made the operations of her mind as rapid as the impulses of instinct, she perceived that every emotion she excited but hindered the effect of the potion. Suddenly seeming to relinquish all purpose and hope of escape, she threw herself on a mat, and hid her face, burning with agonizing impatience, in her mantle. There we must leave her, and join that fearful company who were gathered together to witness what they believed to be the execution of exact and necessary justice. Seated around their sacrifice-rock-their holy of holies they listened to the sad story of the Pequod chief with dejected countenances and downcast eyes, save when an involuntary glance turned on Everell, who stood awaiting his fate, cruelly aggravated by every moment's delay, with a quiet dignity and calm resignation that would have become a hero or a saint. Surrounded by this dark cloud of savages, his fair countenance kindled by holy inspiration, he looked scarcely like a creature of earth. There might have been among the spectators some who felt the silent appeal of the helpless, courageous boy; some whose hearts moved them to interpose to save the selected victim; but they were restrained by their interpretation of natural justice, as controlling to them as our artificial codes of laws to us. Others, of a more cruel or more irritable disposition, when the Pequod described his wrongs and depicted his sufferings, brandished their tomahawks, and would have hurled them at the boy; but the chief said, "Nay, brothers, the work is mine; he dies by my hand-for my first-born-life for life; he dies by a single stroke, for thus was my boy cut off. The blood of sachems is in his veins. He has the skin, but not the soul of that mixed race, whose gratitude is like that vanishing mist," and he pointed to the vapor that was melting from the mountain tops into the transparent ether; " and their promises like this," and he snapped a dead branch from the pine beside which he stood, and broke it in fragments. "Boy as he is, he fought for his mother as the eagle fights for its young. I watched him in the mountain-path, when the blood gushed from his torn feet; not a word from his smooth lip betrayed his pain.' Mononotto embellished his victim with praises, as the ancients wreathed theirs with flowers. He brandished his hatchet over Everell's head, and cried exultingly, "See, he flinches not. Thus stood my boy when they flashed their sabres before his eyes and bade him betray his father. Brothers: My people have told me I bore a woman's heart towards the enemy. Ye shall see. I will pour out this English boy's blood to the last drop, and give his flesh and bones to the dogs and wolves." He then motioned to Everell to prostrate himself on the rock, his face downward. In this position the boy would not see the descending stroke. Even at this moment of dire vengeance the instincts of a merciful nature asserted their rights. Everell sank calmly on his knees, not to supplicate life, but to commend his soul to God. He clasped his hands together. He did not-he could not speak; his soul was Rapt in still communion, that transcends At this moment a sunbeam penetrated the trees that inclosed the area, and fell athwart his brow and hair, kindling it with an almost supernatural brightness. To the savages, this was a token that the victim was accepted, and they sent forth a shout that rent the air. Everell bent forward and pressed his forehead to the rock. The chief raised the deadly weapon, when Magawisca, springing from the precipitous side of the rock, screamed "Forbear!" and interposed her arm. It was too late. The blow was levelled-force and direction given; the stroke, aimed at Everell's neck, severed his defender's arr., and left him unharmed. The lopped, quivering member dropped over the precipice. Mononotto staggered and fell senseless, and all the savages, uttering horrible yells, rushed towards the fatal spot. "Stand back!" cried Magawisca. "I have bought his life with my own. Fly, Everell-nay, speak not, but fly-thither-to the east!" she cried, more vehemently. Everell's faculties were paralysed by a rapid succession of violent emotions. He was conscious only of a feeling of mingled gratitude and admiration for his preserver. He stood motionless, gazing on her. "I die in vain, then," she cried, in an accent of such despair that he was roused. He threw his arms around her, and pressed her to his heart as he would a sister that had redeemed his life with her own, and then, tearing himself from her, he disappeared. No one offered to follow him. The voice of nature rose from every art, and, responding to the justice of Magawisca's claim, bade him "God speed!" To all it seemed that his deliverance had been achieved by a miraculous aid. All-the dullest and coldestpaid involuntary homage to the heroic girl, as if she were a superior being, guided and upheld by supernatural power. Everything short of a miracle she had achieved. The moment the opiate dulled the senses of her keeper, she escaped from the hut; and aware that, if she attempted to penetrate to her father through the semicircular line of spectators that enclosed him, she would be repulsed, and probably borne off the ground, she had taken the desperate resolution of mounting the rock where only her approach would be unperceived. She did not stop to ask herself if it were possible; but, impelled by a determined spirit, or rather, we would believe, by that inspiration that teaches the bird its unknown path, and leads the goat, with its young, safely over the mountain crags, she ascended the rock. There were crevices in it, but they seemed scarcely sufficient to support the eagle with his grappling talon; and twigs issuing from the fissures, but so slender that they waved like a blade of grass under the weight of the young birds that made a nest on them; and yet, such is the power of love, stronger than death, that with these inadequate helps Magawisca scaled the rock and achieved her generous purpose. ! and the whole body is guided and governed by "elder brothers" and "elder sisters," whose "gifts" of superior wisdom, knowledge, or cunning, obtain for them these titles, and secure to them their rights and immunities. There are gradations of rank, or, as they choose to designate their distinctions, of "privilege" among them; but none are exempt from the equitable law of their religious community, which requires each individual to "labor with his hands according to his strength." A village is divided into lots of various dimensions. Each inclosure contains a family, whose members are clothed from one storehouse, fed at the same board, and perform their domestic worship together. In the centre of the inclosure is a large building, which contains their eating-room and kitchen, their sleeping apartments, and two large rooms, connected by folding-doors, where they receive their visitors, and assemble for their evening religious service. All their mechanical and manual labors, distinct from the housewifery (a profane term in this application), are performed in offices at a convenient distance from the main dwelling, and within the inclosure. In these offices may be heard, from the rising to the setting of the sun, the cheerful sounds of voluntary industry-sounds as significant to the moral sense, as the smith's stroke upon his anvil to the musical ear. One edifice is erected over a cold perennial stream, and devoted to the various operations of the dairy-from another proceed the sounds of the heavy loom and the flying shuttle, and the buzz of the swift wheels. In one apartment is a group of sisters, selected chiefly from the old and feeble, but among whom were also some of the young and tasteful, weaving the delicate basketanother is devoted to the dress-makers (a class that obtains even among Shaking Quakers), who are employed in fashioning, after a uniform model, the striped cotton for summer wear, or the sad-colored winter russet; here is the patient teacher, and there the ingenious manufacturer; and wherever labor is performed, there are many valuable contrivances by which toil is lightened and success insured. The villages of Lebanon* and Hancock have been visited by foreigners and strangers from all parts of our Union; if they are displeased or disgusted by some of the absurdities of the Shaker faith, and by their singular, worship, none have withheld their admiration from the results of their industry, ingenuity, order, frugality, and temperance. The perfection of these virtues among them may, perhaps, be traced with propriety to the founder of their sect, who united practical wisdom with the wildest fanaticism, and who proved that she understood the intricate machine of the human mind, when she declared that temporal prosperity was the indication and would be the reward of spiritual fidelity. The prosperity of the society's agriculture is a beautiful illustration of the philosophical remark, that" to temperance every day is bright, and every hour propitious to diligence." Their skilful cultivation preserves them from many of the disasters that fall like a curse upon the slovenly husbandry of the farmers in their vicinity. Their gardens always flourish in spite of late frosts and early frostsblasts and mildew ravage their neighbors' fields without invading their territory-the mischievous daisy, that spreads its starry mantle over the rich meadows of the "world's people," does not presume to lift its yellow head in their green fields-and even the Canada thistle, that bristled little warrior, armed at all points, that comes in from the north, The village at Lebanon is distinguished as the United Societies' centre of union. extirpating in its march, like the hordes of barba rous invaders, all the fair fruits of civilization, is not permitted to intrude upon their grounds. It is sufficiently manifest that this felicity is the natural consequence and appropriate reward of their skill, vigilance, and unwearied toil; but they be lieve it to be a spiritual blessing-an assurance of peculiar favor, like that which exempted the Israelites from the seven Egyptian plagues an accomplishment of the promise that every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundred fold." The sisters, too, have their peculiar and appropriate blessings and exemptions. They are saved from those scourges of our land of liberty and equality, "poor help," and "no help." There are no scolding mistresses nor eye-servants among them. It might be curious to ascertain by what magical process these felicitous sisters have expelled from their thrifty housewifery that busy, mischievous principle of all evil in the domestic economy of the "world's people,” known in all its Protean shapes by the name of "bad luck;" the modern successor of Robin Goodfellow, with all the spite, but without the genius of that frolic-loving little spirit, he who Frights the maidens of the villagery, Skims milk, and sometimes labors in the quern, How much broken china, spoiled batches of bread, ruined tempers, and other common domestic disasters might be avoided by the discovery of this secret; what tribes of mice, ants, flies, and other household demons, might be driven from their strongholds! Perhaps those provoking solvers of mysteries, who are so fond of finding out the “reason of the thing," that they are daily circumscribing within most barren and inconvenient limits the dominion of the imagination, will pretend to have found the clue to this mystery in the exact -order and elaborate neatness of the sisterhood. The sisters themselves, certainly, hint at a sublime cause of their success, when in reply to a stranger's involuntary admiration of their stainless walls, polished floors, snow-white linen, and all the detail of their precise arrangement and ornamental neatness, they say, with the utmost gravity," God is the God of order, not of confusion." The most signal triumph of the society is in the discipline of the children. Of these there are many among them; a few are received together with their "believing" parents; in some instances orphans, and even orphan families are adopted; and many are brought to the society by parents, who, either from the despair of poverty or the carelessness of vice, choose to commit their offspring to the guardianship of the Shakers. Now that the first fervors of enthusiasm are abated, and conversions have become rare, the adoption of children is a substantial aid to the continuance and preservation of the society. These little born rebels, natural enemies to the social compact, lose in their hands their prescriptive right to uproar and misrule, and soon become as silent, as formal, and as orderly as their elders. We hope we shall not be suspected of speaking the language of panegyric rather than justice, if we add that the hospitalities of these people are never refused to the weary wayworn traveller, nor their alms to the needy; and that their faith (however absurd and indefensible its peculiarities) is tempered by some generous and enlightened principles, which those who had rather learn than scoff would do well to adopt. In short, those who know them well, and judge them equitably, will not withhold from them the praise of moral conduct which they claim, in professing themselves, as a community, a "harmless, just, and upright people." HANNAH F. LEE. MRS. HANNAH F. LEE, the author of numerous popular writings, is a native of Newburyport, Massachusetts, the daughter of an eminent physician of that place. She has been for many years a widow. Her residence is at Boston. FF Lee. In 1832, when the autobiography of Hannah Adams appeared, the "notices in continuation by a friend," forming half of the volume, were from her pen. Her first distinct publication was a novel, Grace Seymour, published at New York, the first edition of which was mostly burned in the great fire of 1835. In 1838, appeared anonymously, The Three Experiments of Living, a work which she wrote as a sketch of those times of commercial difficulty, without reference to publication. By the agency of the eminent philologist, John Pickering, it was brought be fore the public, and attained at once extraordinary success. This was followed immediately by a volume of romantic biography, Historical Sketches of the Old Painters, taking for the subjects the lives of Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Correggio, and others. With a similar view of popularizing the lessons of history, Mrs. Lee wrote the works entitled Luther, and his Times; Cranmer, and his Times; and the Hugue nots in France and America; books of careful reading and graphic description. Mrs. Lee is also the author of a series of domestic tales, illustrating the minor morals of life and topics of education, as Elinor Fulton; a sequel to Three Experiments of Living; Rich Enough, the title of which indicates its purpose. Rosanna, or Scenes in Boston, written for the benefit of a charity school; The Contrast, or Different Modes of Education; The World before you, or the Log Cabin; and in 1849 a volume of Stories from Life, for the Young. Still regarding the tastes of youthful readers, with a style and subject calculated to gain the attention of all, she published, in 1852, a familiar History of Sculpture and Sculptors. A Memoir of Pierre Toussaint, a negro, born a slave in St. Domingo, who lived in New York to an advanced age, and who had been a devoted humble friend of her sister, Mrs. Philip Schuyler—a curious and interesting biography, published at Boston in 1853-completes the list of Mrs. Lee's useful and always interesting productions.* GEORGE WOOD, THE author of Peter Schlemihl in America, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and was Mrs. Hale's Woman's Record. department. He was connected with the Treasury department from 1822 to 1845, for thirtythree years, when he came to New York to reside. In the latter city he wrote his Peter Schlemihl in America, which was published in Philadelphia in 1848. It is a sketchy satirical work of the school of Southey's "Doctor," adopting a slight outline of incident from the famous invention of Von Chamisso, and making it a vehicle for the humorous discussion of social manners, fashionable education and affectations, the morals of the stock exchange; and above all some of the religious and philosophical notions of the day, as Puseyism and Fourierism. The author's humorous hits are not equally successful, but his curious stores of reading are always entertaining; and with a better discipline in the art of literature his matter would appear to more advantage. After the publication of this book he returned to Washington, where he has since resided. A second work from his pen is announced at Boston with the title, The Modern Pilgrims. THE CIRCLE OF FINANCIERS FROM PETER SCHLEMIHL, I It is now some twenty years since I came to this city, merely to pass the winter and spring, and to return to Europe in June following. I had not been in the country for some years, and wishing to be as quiet as possible, I took private rooms at the "Star Hotel," and entered my name as Thomas Jones, and for a while was perfectly secure in my incognito; but accidentally meeting with some old friends, who had become conspicuous operators in Change Alley, I was drawn out from my retreat and almost compelled to accept their earnest and most hospitable invitations to their several houses. I assure you was not at all prepared for the astonishing changes I found in their circumstances. Men whom I had left dealing in merchandise and stocks, in small sums, living in modest houses at a rent of four or five hundred dollars a year, now received me in splendid mansions, costing in themselves a fortune, and these were filled with the finest furniture, and adorned with mirrors of surpassing size and beauty. Their walls were covered with pictures, more remarkable for their antiquity than any beauty I could discern in them, but which they assured me were from the pencils of the "old masters." One of them even showed a Madonna in the Chair," of which he had a smoky certificate pasted on the back, stating it to be a duplicate of that wonder of the art in the Pitti palace; and another had a "Fornarini," which he convinced me was genuine, though I was somewhat |