SYSTEMATIC name-Claytonia latifolia; Class V., Pentandria; Order I., Monogynia; Natural order-Portulaccea.

Generic Character.-Calyx formed of two valve-like leaves: corol five-petaled, retuse: stigma three-cleft: capsule one-celled, threevalved, three to five seeded.

Specific Character.-Leaves two, ovatelanceolate; raceme one-sided, rising from between the leaves: petals obovate, white, or pink, striped with red lines; yellowish green at their insertion on the receptacle; anthers red: calyx obtuse: root tuberous. The plant grows from four to six inches high: found in woods and hedges-a variety of the virginica.

Geography.-Indigenous to the Eastern, Western, and Middle States, and other places of corresponding climate. Other species are found farther south.

Properties.-Emollient, slightly tonic, antiseptic, and aperient. The C. perfoliata, however, is the only species whose virtues have been tested.

Remarks. This plant receives its generic name in honor of Dr. John Clayton, an eminent botanist and physician of Virginia. He was born in England in 1685, and came to America in 1705. He was elected member of several of the first literary societies in Europe, and corresponded with many of the greatest naturalists of that day. His practical researches were very extensive, having passed a long life in collecting and describing the plants of his country, and is supposed to have added as great a list to the botanical catalogue as any man that ever lived. He was the author of the " Flora Virginica," and of several interesting papers published in the Philosophical Transactions on the Culture of the different species of Tobacco. He also published a full and minute account of the medicinal plants he had discovered in Virginia, and even at the time of his death, in his eightyeighth year, he left two volumes of manuscript neatly prepared for the press, and a

hortus siccus, with marginal notes and references for the engraver who was to prepare the plates for the proposed work. His zeal for botanical research was so great, that in the year preceding his death he made a tour through Orange county, collecting his specimens with the same interest and delight te had ever manifested when thus employed.

The specific name, latifolia, is compounded of latus, a side, and folium, a leaf, so named because its leaves are inclined to one side.

Its common name (Spring Beauty) is just such a one as it would naturally receive from any who would contemplate its beauty but for a moment. With what joy did we hail this sweet little flower in the days of our boyhood. Scarcely would the snow be melted away from our New England forests, when this little fairy would come peeping up from among the dead leaves, and with gentle, modest blushes greet us at almost every step along "the deep tangled woodland." It is among the first to proclaim that the terrors of winter are over-that the Ice King has resigned his dominions, and the happy and peaceful reign of Spring has already commenced. Many, doubtless, who have always lived where the Spring Beauty smiles in every thicket and gladdens every forest glade, may say they never have seen it. Well, then, they must have trodden upon it, and had we been there we would have given them a lusty shove for so rash or heedless an act. We would ask our New England and western friends just to examine our engraving, which is next to nature herself, and then, about the time they are "doing off" the last "batch" of maple sugar, look along the hill-side or bank of rivulet, and they will discover our fair friend just expanding itself to enjoy the warm sunshine and inhale the bland zephyrs of spring. From that time till June, it is the belle of the forest. As often as we meet with this delicate flower in the far off and unfrequented woodland, we are reminded of these sweet lines of the poet

TELL me, ye sweet children of the rough, dark earth, who gave you your lovely forms, for in truth ye were spun by delicate fingers? What tiny spirits arose out of your cups? Tell me of your delight when goddesses rocked themselves upon your leaves! Tell me, gentle flowers, how they pursued their pleasant task-how they smiled and nodded to each other, as they spun the fine and countless meshes, and adorned and embroidered them so gaily!

But ye are silent, sweet children, wrapped in the enjoyment of your being. Well, the instructive fable shall tell me then that which your lips refuse to utter.

Of old, when the earth stood out a mass of naked rock, lo! a friendly band of nymphs brought the virgin soil, and favoring spirits appeared to cover the bare rock with flowers. To each was parcelled out a share of the varied task. First, beneath the snow and amid the cold wet grass, modest Humility began, and spun the shrinking violet. Hope followed her, and filled with cooling vapor the little cup of the refreshing hyacinth. Seeing their labors thus successful, a proud and gaudy choir of nymphs now approached, and the tulip raised her head aloft, and the

narcissus glanced around with its languishing

eyes.

Still other goddesses and nymphs betook themselves to the varied task, and decorated the earth, rejoicing over the lovely forms which arose beneath their hands.

And behold, when the greater part of their works had faded and lost their glory, and the delight of the nymphs was checked, Venus spoke to her Graces: "Why do you linger, sweet sisters? Away, and weave from your charms a mortal, visible emblem also."

They descended to earth, and Aglaia, the Grace of Innocence, formed the lily. Thalia and Euphrosyne, with united hand, spun the flower of joy and love, the virgin rose.

Many flowers of the field and of the garden envied one another; the rose and the lily envied none, and were envied by all. Like sisters, they bloom together upon the same field of time, and lend beauty and ornament to each other, for they were formed by the united hands of the sister Graces.

Upon your cheeks, oh maidens, bloom the lily and the rose; may their graces also, innocence, joy, and love, united and inseparable, dwell with them.

"Some perish of pleasure-some of study-
Some worn of toil-some of mere weariness-
Some of disease-some of insanity-

And some of wither'd, or of broken hearts;
For this last is a malady which slays
More than are numbered on the book of Fate,
Taking all shapes and wearing all names."

I CANNOT admire, neither would I cherish, that morbid sensibility which weeps over the novelist's scene of unreal sorrow, while the heirs of penury and suffering, thronging the daily paths of life, have no power to affect the heart and move the soul to action. There is enough of this surface sympathy in this age of sentimentalism and false philanthropy. Countless tears have been shed on the page of fiction and floor of theatres, while these same readers could make mirth at the ravages of sin around them, and coldly listen to the recital of grief, which had darkened for ever a once happy home.

The following truthful sketch is a single page from the history of a family circle; and while it illustrates the transcendent excellence of Christian character, breathes admonition to those who deem it a guiltless thing to break their vows and to trifle with the holiest feelings of the human heart.

On the first Sabbath in this month of beauty, which was the day following that of my arrival in my native village, after fifteen years' absence, I took an early walk to the old burial ground of the parish. It was on the brow of a sloping hill, and from this green summit I looked around with rapture upon the wild unshorn mountains which completely encircle the valley of my nativity, and off on to the beautiful river, whose murmur had lulled my spirit to life's purest dreams-then turned with sadness to the "silent city," many of whose mounds covered the ashes of playmates of my boyhood. And there was one neat enclosure, its turf within all covered with blooming flowers, and under the name of Ann, carved on the headstone, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord," round which I lingered with tears.

Ann, from her cradle dreams, was a gentle being. Her confiding heart was early imbued with the beautiful spirit of a mother's piety; and in the sweet retirement of her cottage

home, she grew to womanhood, pure in feeling as the lamb upon the lawn, but frail in form as the flowers she nurtured beneath her casement. Her songs in the sanctuary and round the family altar were like the warble of the sky-lark soaring heavenward.

While thus the happy favorite in the circle of society of which she was a member, William N―, a young man called handsome in person, and of winning manners, sought and won her love. She gave him her affection, hallowed by piety, and next to her Infinite Father, he was the object of sweetest thought, whose smile was bliss, and whose frown was the darkest shadow of life.

Years melted away, and he left his native hills to complete his education. But the gay world and new associations for awhile seemed to deepen his early attachment, and brighten the rainbow hopes of the future. But there came a change-the tone of his letters was altered, and the being who loved him still with a true woman's heart read them with tears. He finally asked to be released from his promise of marriage. I was permitted to read a part of their correspondence commencing at this period. There was no sickly sentimentality in her tender remonstrance against his cruelty. She reminded him of the past, and assured him her heart had been too long fixed to detach itself from its idol without a struggle. How could it be otherwise? She had known him from childhood, and suspicion of insincerity or unfaithfulness had never flung even a momentary gloom upon her joyous spirit.

She closed a beautiful letter written at this crisis with the following touching language: "I have lately heard your favorite piece of music, Long, long ago,' sung and played at the piano, and the effect on my own mind language cannot express. But I would assure you that your Ann is the same to you now that she was 'long, long ago;' and she would she could feel that her William is the same to her now she believes he was long, long ago.' She would request therefore that when you hear that piece sung again, you will bestow one thought at least upon her you 'long, long ago' professed to love."

He relented, and renewed his assurances of affection. The wedding apparel was prepar

ed, and friends at a distance invited, in harmony with his own wishes; and Ann was once more happy and blithesome as the song birds of her own blue mountains. But she was to learn in the bitterness of disappointment that "man may smile, and smile again, and be a villain" A letter came from her absent lover; she broke the seal with the ardor of expectant love; but as her eye ran over the page, the strife of an inward storm gushed forth in tears, and clouded with gloom the features of a face just now bright and peaceful as the sky in spring time.

It was the cold farewell of a faithless one that met her swimming eye. Though with Christian resignation she bore the shock, and made a martyr-like effort to be cheerful, her nightly pillow, bedewed with tears, told the tale of

silent sorrow,

Which can find no vent in speech."

In uncomplaining gentleness she sank in the arms of fatal decline. She died in a few brief months, the victim of a virtuous and delicate sensibility, and with a heart crushed by cruelty, which, whether fortune or pleasure were the motive of seeking the hand of another, will recoil upon the head of him who entered the family circle of confiding friends to blight its purest bliss, and wither in one broken heart the hopes and the joy of a household.

Upon the burial day the choir of the temple in which she worshipped wore the badge of mourning, and over her vacant seat hung folds