drawn around. How far more beautiful that attractive grace and elegant simplicity of manners, which adorn the true female character -that peculiar charm, which, although it may be indescribable, throws a halo around a form whose beauty, placed as upon a throne of state, reigns supreme-that unobtrusiveness of demeanour which is so mingled with innocent confidence, as to enchain all hearts-proceeding as a stream from the high fountain of unalloyed purity, mingling the sweet music of the voice with the sweeter music of the heart, making that heavenly which pertains to the earth-that ethereal which belongs to humanity—and causing the warm, pure heart to gush forth its countless blessings, even at the very name of-woman!

THE BELLE OF THE VILLAGE.

I may you not devise all hire beautee;
But thus much of hire beautee tell I may,
That she was like the bright morwe of May,
Fulfilled of all beautees and plesance.

CHAUCER. The Marchantes' Tale, v. 9617.

She was of feture and shappe semely, and bewteous, of stature goodly and high.-SIR T. MORE. Workes, p. 2.

THE beautiful Galatea lived-the beautiful Galatea loved-the beautiful Galatæa died and was buried. Disappointment fell to her portion. Yet the reward and the example of fidelity were bestowed upon, and presented in the fate of, her beloved Acis. She reared to herself a splendid monument. The music of his fate is eternal. When his rival, Polyphemus, crushed him to death with a portion of rock, the Gods, just and faithful in their supremacy, changed the faithful Sicilian shep

herd into a stream. That stream still floweth onwards with its ceaseless melody,—the personification of fidelity-the prosopopoeia of truth. In that bright mirror, let us behold the reflection of a second Galatæa. Let us discourse about the BELLE OF THE VILLAGE.

Say not that the words of severity have been showered upon the Village Coquette;-imagine not that the pencil which drew the portrait was embued with false colours;-utter not the expression that the pen itself, which confirmed the truth of the picture, was dipped in gall. No. If it were even deemed needful to plead guilty to any charge of a similar character, an incontrovertible vindication is supplied by the witty Knight of sack and sugar himself"What? Is not the truth the truth?"

The several qualities, remarkably striking, no doubt, in their particular degree, as well as wonderfully characteristic in their general exemplification-the qualities for which the Village Coquette is noted, have, as is generally the case, been acquired at what is termed the "Ladies' Seminary," through the instrumentality of a false, yet showy,—a seemingly elegant, but fallacious, system of education. It is one of the weaknesses of the present day to

aim at elevating a child beyond its proper sphere. Verily, under the plan alluded to, it has a bitter reward. It is also at the "Ladies' School" that the Belle of the Village has been trained. But the mode has been far different. Instead of the adoption of a course of propriety, unknown to that empty and artificial system which produces no good fruit-instead of instilling into the mind the lessons of substantial wisdom, tending towards the formation of a character which is calculated to ennoble the female name, and to last through all succeeding time-instead of that true elegance of manner and correctness of deportment which are the very antipodes of what is assumed to be refinement, but more correctly designated superciliousness, we behold exemplified in the Coquette the results of a system which mars the character that it professed to form, which gives a false gloss to what should be truly brilliant and attractive.

"Donde nace la escoba,

Nace el asno que la roa.

A far different course has been pursued with

An old Spanish proverb :

"Wherever is found the weed,

There's found the ass that on it will feed."

the Village Belle-a course which has been less of show, but more of reality-less of shadow but more of substance; and while, on the one hand, every thing useless has been wholly disregarded, so, on the other, every substantial acquirement has been sedulously and zealously enforced-putting aside all false delicacy, enforcing the maxims of true wisdom, inculcating the most useful knowledge from the purest sources, storing the mind with those treasures which will be available in future years, investing the manners and deportment with that elegance and propriety which are more attractive, because without effort and ostentation, and more enduring because the result of a rightly cultivated mind and the dictates of a heart, whose disposition has been directed and cherished for the accomplishment of all good purposes;-thus building up the female character, like a beautiful Grecian temple, attractive from its harmonious arrangement, elegant from its simplicity of design, and lasting from the correct adjustment of all its component parts.

There is no accomplishment, truly considered as such, in which the Belle of the Village cannot be considered a proficient. With all the