No. 199.] 339 



can be made a means of attracting to all greater regard, and conse- 

 quently more attention to improve them. 



It has been justly remarked, that " it was a deep and beautiful fancy 

 of the old painters, to crowd the back grounds of their pictures with 

 angels' heads and wings, and thus to surround their subjects with an 

 atmosphere of love and beauty." 



If beauty be not the lever which moves the world, it is generally a 

 powerful loadstone to attract it. Thus the sailor is attached to his 

 craft, as to a beautiful woman, when smitten by her graceful masts and 

 queen-like movements ; and every American is justly proud of the su- 

 periority in appearance of our own ships, usually, over the darker and 

 clumsier vessels of Europe and Asia. So the mechanic exhibits, with 

 gratification, his polished tools, his beautiful buildings, and his elegant 

 fabrics of cotton and silk, rivalling for common use what once adorned 

 only royal forms. And the farmer, though brown with toil, enjoys, 

 and points gladly to his blooming orchards, his luxuriant gardens, en- 

 livened by the music of his bees and birds, and damasked with flowers 

 of every rainbow hue ; to his golden harvests, his smiling pastures, his 

 waving woodlands, his picturesque hills and dales, and silver brooks 

 or glassy lake, bordered by fleecy flocks, noble bulls and finely formed 

 horses, till the whole landscape brightens into one more enchanting 

 than ever Claude Lorrain's or Doughty's — for "who. can paint like 

 nature." And amidst this, and by this, he is animated with all the 

 ambition to improve further, which distinguishes the most aspiring artist 

 or poet. 



There is a beauty, too, in hfe itself in all these pursuits, which 

 should still more be sought out and cultivated, and thus still more en- 

 dear them. For though the strong arm of the husbandmen may not 

 have idly buffetted the serf at Newport ; nor his lips have sipped in 

 luxury the sparkling fountains at Saratoga, yet he will, in time, learn 

 more, and more not to envy others thus employed, if left himself to 

 indulge in the healthier and richer enjoyments of the haying and har- 

 vesting of the north, (finding even labour a pleasure,) and in the ad- 

 miration of Nature's beauties and all her marvellous works around 

 him, and in the heartfelt welcome at home, by wife, children and 



