admits of little variety of delineation. It is mostly a bare and naked ledge. At the top of this cliff, on the southern brow of the eminence, the executions are supposed to have taken place. The outline rises a little towards the north, but soon begins to fall off to the general level of the country. From that direction only can the spot be easily reached. It is hard to climb the western side, impossible to clamber up the southern face. Settlement creeps down from the north, and has partially ascended the eastern acclivity, but can never reach the brink. Scattered patches of soil are too thin to tempt cultivation, and the rock is too craggy and steep to allow occupation. An active and flourishing manufacturing industry crowds up to its base; but a considerable surface at the top will forever remain an open space. It is, as it were, a platform raised high in air. A magnificent panorama of ocean, island, headland, bay, river, town, field, and forest spreads out and around to view. On a clear summer day, the picture can scarcely be surpassed. Facing the sun and the sea, and the evidences of the love and bounty of Providence shining over the landscape, the last look of earth must have suggested to the sufferers a wide contrast between the mercy of the Creator and the wrath of his creatures. They beheld the face of the blessed God shining upon them in his works, and they passed with renewed and assured faith into his more immediate presence. The elevated rock, uplifted by the divine hand, will stand while the world stands, in bold relief, and can never be obscured by the encroachments of society or the structures of art,-a fitting memorial of their constancy. When, in some coming day, a sense of justice, appreciation of moral firmness, sympathy for suffering innocence, the diffusion of refined sensibility, a discriminating discernment of what is really worthy of commemoration among men, a rectified taste, a generous public spirit, and gratitude for the light that surrounds and protects us against error, folly, and fanaticism, shall demand the rearing of a suitable monument to the memory of those who in 1692 preferred death to a falsehood, the pedestal for the lofty column will be found ready, reared by the Creator on a foundation that can never be shaken while the globe endures, or worn away by the elements, man, or time— the brow of Witch Hill. On no other spot could such a tribute be more worthily bestowed, or more conspicuously displayed. The effects of the delusion upon the country at large were very disastrous. It cast its shadows over a broad surface, and they darkened the condition of generations. The material interests of the people long felt its blight. Breaking out at the opening of the season, it interrupted the planting and cultivating of the grounds. It struck an entire summer out of one year, and broke in upon another. The fields were neglected; fences, roads, barns, and even the meeting-house, went into disrepair. Burdens were accumulated upon the already overtaxed resources of the people. An actual scarcity of provisions, amounting almost to a famine, continued for some time to press upon families. Farms were brought under mortgage or sacrificed, and large numbers of the people were dispersed. One locality in the village, which was the scene of this wild and tragic fanaticism, bears to this day the marks of the blight then brought upon it. Although in the centre of a town exceeding almost all others in its agricultural development and thrift-every acre elsewhere showing the touch of modern improvement and culture-the "old meeting-house road," from the crossing of the Essex Railroad to the point where it meets the road leading north from Tapleyville, has to-day a singular appearance of abandonment. The surveyor of highways ignores it. The old, gray, moss-covered stone walls are dilapidated and thrown out of line. Not a house is on either of its borders, and no gate opens or path leads to any. Neglect and desertion brood over the contiguous grounds. Indeed, there is but one house standing directly on the roadside until you reach the vicinity of the site of the old meeting-house; and that is owned and occupied by a family that bear the name and are the direct descendants of Rebecca Nurse. On both sides there are the remains of cellars, which declare that once it was lined by a considerable population. Along this road crowds thronged in 1692, for weeks and months, to witness the examinations. The ruinous results were not confined to the village, but extended more or less over the country generally. Excitement, wrought up to consternation, spread everywhere. People left their business and families, and came from distant points, to gratify their curiosity and enable themselves to form a judgment of the character of the phenomena here exhibited. Strangers from all parts swelled the concourse, gathered to behold the sufferings of "the afflicted" as manifested at the examinations; and flocked to the surrounding eminences and the grounds immediately in front of Witch Hill, to catch a view of the convicts as they approached the place selected for their execution, offered their dying prayers, and hung suspended high in air. Such scenes always draw together great multitudes. None have possessed a deeper, stronger, or stranger attraction; and never has the dread spectacle been held out to view over a wider area, or from so conspicuous a spot. The assembling of such multitudes so often, for such a length of time, and from such remote quarters, must have been accompanied and followed by wasteful, and in all respects deleterious, effects. The continuous or frequently repeated sessions of the magistrates, grand jury, and jury of trials; and the attendance of witnesses summoned from other towns, or brought from beyond the jurisdiction of the Province, and of families and parties interested specially in the proceedings, must have occasioned an exten sive and protracted interruption of the necessary industrial pursuits of society, and heavily increased the public burdens. The destruction dealt upon particular families extended to so many as to constitute in the aggregate a vast, wide-spread calamity. George Denison Prentice. BORN in Preston, Conn., 1802. DIED at Louisville, Ky., 1870. LINES TO A LADY. [Poems. Edited by John James Piatt. 1876.] LADY, I've gazed on thee, And thou art now a vision of the Past, A spirit-star, whose holy light is cast That star-it lingers there As beautiful as 'twere a dewy flower, Soft-wafted down from Eden's glorious bower, It is, that blessed one, The day-star of my destiny-the first On all my years may lie The shadow of the tempest, their dark flow TO THE DAUGHTER OF AN OLD SWEETHEART. I LOVE thee, Juliet, for thy mother's sake, And were I young should love thee for thine own. Afresh in thee her early charms awake, And all her witcheries are round thee thrown; Thou art as lovely, though not yet as famed, Thine is her magic loveliness—but, oh, Whoe'er he be, oh, may his lot and thine Like his great prototype, thy Romeo, Half frenzied by his passion's raging flame, May fancy he might cut thy beauteous frame I paid the tribute of an humble lay To thy fair mother in her girlhood bright, To thee, oh, sweet young spirit of delight. Live to make rhymes, dear Juliet, to thy daughters ? PRENTICEANA. [Prenticeana. 1860.] PLACE confers no dignity upon such a man as the new Missouri senator. Like a balloon, the higher he rises, the smaller he looks. You may wish to get a wife without a failing; but what if the lady, after you find her, happens to be in want of a husband of the same character! The editor of the " Star" says that he has never murdered the truth. He never gets near enough to do it any bodily harm. About the only person we ever heard of that wasn't spoiled by being lionized, was a Jew named Daniel. A woman always keeps secret what she does not know.—Exchange. It is a pity that all men do not imitate her discretion. The most wonderful instance of presence of mind was that of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. In the midst of the fiery furnace, they kept cool. VOL. VI.-8 A William Leggett. BORN in New York, N. Y., 1802. DIED at New Rochelle, N. Y., THE MAIN TRUCK, OR, A LEAP FOR LIFE. 1839. SHOUT and a merry laugh burst upon my ear, and looking quickly round, to ascertain the cause of the unusual sound on a frigate's deck, I saw little Bob Stay (as we called our commodore's son) standing half-way up the main-hatch ladder, clapping his hands, and looking aloft at some object that seemed to inspire him with a deal of glee. A single glance to the main-yard explained the occasion of his merriment. He had been coming up from the gun-deck, when Jacko, perceiving him on the ladder, dropped suddenly down from the mainstay, and running along the boom-cover, leaped upon Bob's shoulder, seized his cap from his head, and immediately darted up the main-topsail sheet, and thence to the bunt of the main-yard, where he now sat, picking threads from the tassel of his prize, and occasionally scratching his side and chattering, as if with exultation for the success of his mischief. But Bob was a sprightly, active little fellow; and though he could not climb quite as nimbly as a monkey, yet he had no mind to lose his cap without an effort to regain it. Perhaps he was more strongly incited to make chase after Jacko from noticing me to smile at his plight, or by the loud laugh of Jake, who seemed inexpressibly delighted at the occurrence, and endeavored to evince, by tumbling about the boom-cloth, shaking his huge misshapen head, and sundry other grotesque actions, the pleasure for which he had no words. "Ha, you d―d rascal, Jacko, hab you no more respec' for de young officer den to steal his cab? We bring you to de gangway, you black nigger, and gib you a dozen on de bare back for a tief." The monkey looked down from his perch as if he understood the threat of the negro, and chattered a sort of defiance in answer. "Ha, ha! Massa Stay, he say you mus' ketch him 'fore you flog him; and it's no so easy for a midshipman in boots to ketch a monkey barefoot." A red spot mounted to the cheek of little Bob, as he cast one glance of offended pride at Jake, and then sprang across the deck to the Jacob's ladder. In an instant he was half-way up the rigging, running over the ratlines as lightly as if they were an easy flight of stairs, whilst the shrouds scarcely quivered beneath his elastic motion. In a second more his hand was on the futtocks. "Massa Stay!" cried Jake, who sometimes, from being a favorite, |