MURA.T ON AMERICA. 



men of Kentucky, who go to spend their carnival in this Babylon of the 

 West. 



But the place, he says, where American society is seen with most 

 advantage, is Washington, during the winter. In summer, the American 

 capital is, as every one knows, almost deserted, being inhabited only by 

 the members and employes of the government. The first Monday of 

 December, the fixed period for the annual meeting of Congress, is the 

 time when the senators and representatives, accompanied by their 

 families, and followed by a long train of solliciteurs, may be seen nock- 

 ing in crowds to Washington. The change is instantaneous. To-day 

 the town is a desart, and to-morrow it overflows beyond the means pro- 

 vided for the general accommodation. The ministers and the diploma- 

 tic body give evening parties, and many of the members of Congress 

 give dinners ; so that if the day is passed in a whirlwind of discussion, 

 the night has also its vortex of gaiety and pleasure. Once a week, the 

 President receives company in the evening, when the house is open to 

 all who choose to go there. Nothing, says M. Murat, can be more 

 simple than the etiquette of the chief of the government, whose recep- 

 tions are only to be distinguished from the soirees of private individuals, 

 by the circumstance of their being more numerously attended. 



What chiefly surprises us, in this work of M. Murat, is the apology 

 lie makes for that system of slavery by which so many of the American 

 states are still tainted and disgraced. There are other points of hetero- 

 doxy in politics as well as in religion, which present themselves in the 

 course of the volume, but which we have only left ourselves space to 

 notice with this general caveat. 



SOLITUDE. 



And yet I yield thee an unwilling heart ; 



The rebel spirit thou hast made thine own 

 Has sternly struggled oft, to rend apart 



The capturing net thou hast around it thrown ; 



For higher, haughtier impulse it hath known, 

 A banned and baffled thirst for lofty fame, 

 Which hath but worn away a withering frame, 



And tempered its hot heart to live for thee alone. 



Thou hast constrained me to thee from a boy, 



When life's fresh spring-tide through my veins was welling, 



And Hope stood pointing to far-glancing Joy, 

 My breast was even then thy chosen dwelling, 

 All else shut out for thee, too well foretelling 



The shadowy gloom that cannot melt in tears, 



Shrouding the lustre of life's brightest years, 



And to their charnel-goal their goaded flight impelling. 



Thou hast constrained me to thee, Solitude ! 



Though I have striven to dissolve the spell 

 Coiled round my heart by thee, in merry mood, 



When revelling with the few I thought of well ; 



But in my soul thy sad voice, like a knell, 

 Has summoned my deserting thoughts again 

 Back to the thrall of pensiveness and pain, 



And 'gainst thy potent best they never dared rebel. 



M. M. No. 82. 2 F 



