though exhausting effort, not sink from mere bootless weariness in sustaining myself till the morning shall bring relief.

The sides of the place seemed to grow higher as I now kept my watery course beneath them. It was not altogether a dead pull. I had some variety of emotion in making my circuit. When I swam in the shadow it looked to me more cheerful beyond in the moonlight. When I swam in the moonlight I had the hope of making some discovery when I should again reach the shadow. I turned several times on my back to rest just where those wavy lines would meet. The stars looked viciously bright to me from the bottom of that well; there was such a company of them; they were so glad in their lustrous revelry; and they had such space to move in? I was alone, sad to despair, in a strange element, prisoned, and a solitary gazer upon their mocking chorus. And yet there was nothing else with which I could hold communion?

I

I turned upon my breast and struck out almost frantically, once more. The stars were forgotten, the moon, the very world of which I as yet formed a part, my poor Mary herself was forgotten. thought only of the strong man there perishing; of me in my lusty manhood, in the sharp vigor of my dawning prime, with faculties illimitable, with senses all alert, battling there with physical obstacles which men like myself had brought together for my undoing. The Eternal could never have willed this thing! I could not and I would not perish thus. And I grew strong in insolence of self-trust; and I laughed aloud as I dashed the sluggish water from side to side.

You

Then came an emotion of pity for myself-of wild, wild regret; of sorrow, oh, infinite for a fate so desolate, a doom so dreary, so heart-sickening. may laugh at the contradiction if you will, sir, but I felt that I could sacrifice my own life on the instant, to redeem another fellow creature from such a place of horror, from an end so piteous. My soul and my vital spirit seemed in that desperate moment to be separating; while one in parting grieved over the deplorable fate of the other."

And then I prayed!

It was

I prayed, why or wherefore I know not. not from fear. It could not have been in hope. The days of miracles are passed, and there was no natural law by whose providential interposition I could be saved. I did not pray; it prayed of itself, my soul within me.

Was the calmness that I now felt, torpidity? the torpidity that precedes dissolution, to the strong swimmer who, sinking from exhaustion, must at last add a bubble to the wave as he suffocates beneath the element which now denied his mastery? If it were so, how fortunate was it that my floating rod at that moment attracted my attention as it dashed through the water by me. I saw on the instant that a fish had entangled himself in the wire noose. The rod quivered, plunged, came again to the surface, and rippled the water as it shot in arrowy flight from side to side of the tank. At last driven towards the southeast corner of the Reservoir, the small end seemed to have got foul somewhere. The brazen butt, which, every time the fish sounded, was thrown up to the moon, now sank by its own weight, showing that the other end must be fast. But the cornered fish, evidently anchored somewhere by that short wire, floundered several times to the surface, before I thought of striking out to the spot.

You

The water is low now and tolerably clear. may see the very ledge there, sir, in yonder corner, on which the small end of my rod rested when I secured that pike with my hands. I did not take

him from the slip-noose, however; but standing upon the ledge, handled the rod in a workmanlike manner, as I flung that pound pickerel over the ironrailing upon the top of the parapet. The rod, as I have told you, barely reached from the railing to the water. It was a heavy, strong bass rod which I had borrowed in "the Spirit of the Times" office; and when I discovered that the fish at the end of the wire made a strong enough knot to prevent me from drawing my tackle away from the railing around which it twined itself as I threw, why, as you can at once see, I had but little difficulty in making my way up the face of the wall with such assistance. The ladder which attracted your notice is, as you see, lashed to the iron railing in the identical spot where I thus made my escape; and for fear of siinilar accidents they have placed another one in the corresponding corner of the other compartment of the tank ever since my remarkable night's adventure in the Reservoir.

We give the above singular relation verbatim as heard from the lips of our chance acquaintance; and although strongly tempted to "work it up" after the fantastic style of a famous German namesake, prefer that the reader should have it in its American simplicity.

LUCRETIA MARIA AND MARGARET MILLER DAVIDSON.

THE sisters Lucretia Maria and Margaret MiIler, were the daughters of Dr. Oliver Davidson, and Margaret Miller his wife. The parents were persons of education and refinement; and the mother, herself a poetess, had enjoyed the instructions of the celebrated Isabella Graham at New York. She was sensitive in body as well as mind, and subject to frequent attacks of sickness. Her daughter Lucretia was born at Plattsburgh, on the shore of Lake Champlain, September 27, 1808. Her infancy was sickly, and in her second year an attack of typhus fever threatened her life. She recovered from this, however, and with it the lesser disorders with which she had been also troubled, disappeared. At the age of four she was sent to school and soon learned to read and form letters in sand. She was an unwearied student of the little story books given her, neglecting for these all the ordinary plays of her age. We soon hear of her making books of her own. Her mother one day, when preparing to write a letter, missed a quire of paper; expressing her wonder, the little girl came forward and said, "Mamma, I have used it." Her mother, surprised, asked her how? Lucretia burst out crying and said, "she did not like to tell." She was not pressed to do so, and paper continued to disappear. Lucretia was often found busy with pen and ink, and in making little blank books; but would only ery and run away if ! questioned.

When she was six years old, these little books came to light on the removal of a pile of linen on a closet shelf, behind which they were hidden. “At first," says her biographer Miss Sedgwick, "the hieroglyphics seemed to baffle investigation. On one side of the leaf was an artfully sketched picture; on the other, Roman letters, some placed upright, others horizontally, obliquely, or backwards, not formed into words, nor spaced in any mode. Both parents pored over them till they ascertained the letters were poetical explanations in metre and rhyme of the picture in the reverse.

n

In K Gad of th Timy ist!

In the spring vacation she returned home. Her mother was alarmed at the state of her health, but the physician called by her father to aid him in the treatment of her case recommending a change of scene and air, she was allowed to follow her wishes and return to school, the establishment of Miss Gibson at Albany being at this time selected. She had been there but a few weeks when her disease, consumption, assumed its worst features. Her mother hurried to her, and removed her home in July. It is a touching picture that of her last journey. "She shrunk painfully from the gaze her beauty inevitably attracted, heightened as it was by that disease which seems to delight to deck the victim for its triumph." She reached home. "To the last she manifested her love of books. A trunk filled with them had not been unpacked. She requested her mother to open it at her bed--ide, and as each book was given to her, she turned over the leaves, kissed it, and desired to have it placed on a table at the foot of her bed. There they remained to the last day, her eye often fondly resting on them." She wrote while con.fined to her bed her last poem:

There is a something which I dread,
It is a dark and fearful thing;
It steals along with withering tread,
Or sweeps on wild destruction's wing.
That thought comes o'er me in the hour
Of grief, of sickness, or of sadness:
'Tis not the dread of death; 'tis more-
It is the dread of madness.
Oh! may these throbbing pulses pause,
Forgetful of their feverish course;
May this hot brain, which, burning glows
With all a fiery whirlpool's force,
Be cold and motionless, and still
A tenant of its lowly bed;
But let not dark delirium steal-
[Unfinished.]

The fear was a groundless one, for her mind was calm, collected, and tranquil during the short period that intervened before her death, on the 27th of August, 1825, one month before her seventeenth birthday.

Oh then say not the wide world is lonely and drear!

There are fears that are anxious, yet sweet to the breast,

Some feelings, which language ne'er told to the ear,

Which return on the heart, and there lingering rest, Soft whispering, this world is not lonely and

drear.

KINDAR BURIAL SERVICE-VERSIFIED. We commend our brother to thee, oh earth! To thee he returns, from thee was his birth! Of thee was he formed, he was nourished by thee; Take the body, oh earth! the spirit is free.

Oh air! he once breathed thee, thro' thee he sur vived,

And in thee, and with thee, his pure spirit lived:
That spirit hath fled, and we yield him to thee;
His ashes be spread, like his soul, far and free.

Oh fire! we commit his dear reliques to thee,
Thou emblem of purity, spotless and free;
May his soul, like thy flames, bright and burning
arise,

To its mansion of bliss, in the star-spangled skies.

Oh water! receive him; without thy kind aid He had parched 'neath the sunbeams or mourned in the shade;

Then take of his body the share which is thine, For the spirit hath fled from its mouldering shrine.

MARGARET MILLER DAVIDSON, at the time of her sister's death, was in her third year, having been born March 26, 1823. Her life seems in almost every respect a repetition of that of her departed sister. The same precocity was early developed. When she was six years old she read the English poets with "enthusiastic delight." While standing at the window with her mother she exclaimed

See those lofty, those grand trees;
Their high tops waving in the breeze;
They cast their shadows on the ground,
And spread their fragrance all around.

At her mother's request she wrote down the little impromptu, but committed it to paper in a consecutive sentence, as so much prose. The act was, however, the commencement of her literary career, and she every day, for some time after, brought some little scrap of rhyme to her parent. She was at the same time delighting the children of the neighborhood by her improvised stories, which she would sometiines extend through a whole evening.

Her education was conducted at home, under her mother's charge. She advanced so rapidly in her studies that it was necessary to check her ardor, that over exertion might not injure her health. When about seven years old, an English gentleman who had been much interested in the poems of Lucretia Davidson, visited her mother, in order to learn more concerning an author he! so much admired. While the two were conversing, Margaret entered with a copy of Thomson's Seasons in her hand, in which she had marked the passages which pleased her. The gentleman, overcoming the child's timidity by his gentleness, soon became as much interested in the younger as in the elder sister, and the little incident led to a friendship which lasted through life.

During the summer she passed a few weeks at Saratoga Springs and New York. She enjoyed her visit to the city greatly, and returned home with improved health. In the winter she removed with her mother to the residence of a married sister in Canada. The tour was undertaken for the health of her parent, but with ill success, as an illness followed, which confined her for eighteen months to her bed, during which her life was often despaired of. The mother recovered, but in January, 1833, the daughter was attacked by scarlet fever, from which she did not become free until April. In May the two convalescents proceeded to New York. Margaret remained here several months, and was the life and soul of the household of which she was the guest. It was proposed by her little associates to act a play, provided she would write one. This she agreed to do, and in two days "produced her drama, The Tragedy of Alethia. It was not very voluminous," observes Mr. Irving, “but it contained within it sufficient of high character and astounding and bloody incident to furnish out a drama of five times its size. A king and queen of England resolutely bent upon marrying their daughter, the Princess Alethia, to the Duke of Ormond. The Princess most perversely and dolorously in love with a mysterious cavalier, who figures at her father's court under the name of Sir Percy Lennox, but who, in private truth, is the Spanish king, Rodrigo, thus obliged to maintain an incognito on account of certain hostilities between Spain and England. The odious nuptials of the princess with the Duke of Ormond proceed: she is led, a submissive victim, to the altar; is on the point of pledging her irrevocable word; when the priest throws off his sacred robe, discovers himself to be Rodrigo, and plunges a dagger into the bosom of the king.

Alethia instantly plucks the dagger from her father's bosom, throws herself into Rodrigo's arms, and kills herself. Rodrigo flies to a cavern, renounces England, Spain, and his royal throne, and devotes himself to eternal remorse. The queen ends the play by a passionate apostrophe to the spirit of her daughter, and sinks dead on the floor.

"The little drama lies before us, a curious specimen of the prompt talent of this most ingenious child, and by no means more incongruous in its incidents than many current dramas by veteran and experienced playwrights.

"The parts were now distributed and soon learnt; Margaret drew out a play-bill in theatrical style, containing a list of the dramatis personæ, and issued regular tickets of admission. The piece went off with universal applause ; Margaret figuring, in a long train, as the princess, and killing herself in a style that would not have disgraced an experienced stage heroine."

In October she returned home to Ballston, the family residence having been changed from Plattsburgh, as the climate on the lake had been pronoured too trying for her constitution. She amused he family, old and young, during the winter, by writing a weekly paper called The Juvenile Aspirant. Her education was still conducted by her mother, who was fully competent to the task, and unwilling to trust her at a boarding-school. She studied Latin with her brother, under a private tutor. When she was eleven her delicate frame, rendered still more sensitive by a two months' illness, received a severe shock from the intelligence of the death of her sister, resident in Canada. A change of scene being thought desirable, she paid another visit to New York, where she reinained until June. In December she was attacked by a liver complaint, which confined her to her room until Spring. During this fit of illness her mind had remained in an unusual state of inactivity; but with the opening of spring and the faint return of health, it broke forth with a brilliancy and a restless excitability that astonished and alarmed. 'In conversation,' says her mother, her sallies of wit were dazzling. She composed and wrote incessantly, or rather would have done so, had I not interposed my authority to prevent this unceasing tax upon both her mental and physical strength. Fugitive pieces were produced every day, such as The Shunamite, Belshazzar's Feast, The Nature of Mind, Boabail el Chico, &c. She seemed to exist only in the regions of poetry." We cannot help thinking that these moments of intense poetical exaltation sometimes approached to delirium, for we are told by her mother that 'the image of her departed sister Lucretia mingled in all her aspirations; the holy elevation of Lucretia's character had taken deep hold of her imagination, and in her moments of enthusiasm she felt that she had close and intimate communion with her beautiful spirit.'"

In the autumn of 1835 the family removed to a pleasant residence, "Ruremont," near the Shot Tower, on Long Island Sound, below Hell Gate.

Here Mrs. Davidson received a letter from her English visitor, inviting Margaret and herself to pass the winter with him and the wife he had recently married at Havana.

May art M. David ar

The first winter at the new home was a mournful one, for it was marked by the death of her little brother Kent. Margaret's own health was also rapidly failing-the fatal symptoms of consumption having already appeared. The accumulated grief was too much for the mother's feeble frame. "For three weeks," she says, "I hovered upon the borders of the grave, and when I arose from this bed of pain-so feeble that I could not sustain my own weight, it was to witness the rupture of a blood-vessel in her lung, caused by exertions to suppress a cough."

66

Long and anxious were the days and nights spent in watching over her. Every sudden movement or emotion excited the hemorrhage. 'Not a murmur escaped her lips,' says her mother, during her protracted sufferings. "How are you, my love? how have you rested during the night?"" Well, dear mamma; I have slept sweetly." I have been night after night beside her restless couch, wiped the cold dew from her brow, and kissed her faded cheek in all the agony of grief, while she unconsciously slept on; or if she did awake, her calm sweet smile, which seemed to emanate from heaven, has, spite of my reason, lighted my heart with hope. Except when very ill, she was ever a bright dreamer. Her visions were usually of an unearthly cast: about heaven and angels. She was wandering among the stars; her sainted sisters were her pioneers; her cherub brother walked hand in hand with her through the gardens of paradise! I was always an early riser, but after Margaret began to decline I never disturbed her until time to rise for breakfast, a season of social intercourse in which she delighted to unite, and from which she was never willing to be absent. Often when I have spoken to her she would exclaim, "Mother, you have disturbed the brightest visions that ever mortal was blessed with! I was in the midst of such scenes of delight! Cannot I have time to finish my dream?" And when I told her how long it was until breakfast, "it will do," she would say, and again lose herself in her bright imaginings; for I considered these as moments of inspiration rather than sleep. She told me it was not sleep. I never knew but one except Margaret, who enjoyed this delightful and mysterious source of happiness-that one was her

departed sister Lucretia. When awaking from these reveries, an almost ethereal light played about her eye, which seemed to irradiate her whole face. A holy calm pervaded her manner, and in truth she looked more like an angel who had been communing with kindred spirits in the world of light, than anything of a grosser nature.'"

It was during this illness that Margaret became acquainted with Miss Sedgwick. The disease unexpectedly yielding to care and skill, the invalid was enabled during the summer to make a tour to the western part of New York. Soon after her return, in September, the air of the river having been pronounced unfavorable for her health, the family removed to New York. Margaret persevered in the restrictions imposed by her physicians against composition and study for six months; but was so unhappy in her inactive state, that with her mother's consent she resumed her usual habits. In May, 1837, the family returned to Ballston. In the fall an attack of bleeding at the lungs necessitated an order from her physicians that she should pass the winter within doors. The quiet was of service to her health. We have a pleasant and touching picture of her Christmas, in one of her poems written at the time.

TO MY MOTHER AT CHRISTMAS.

Wake, mother, wake to hope and glee,
The golden sun is dawning!
Wake, mother, wake, and hail with me
This happy Christmas morning!
Each eye is bright with pleasure's glow,
Each lip is laughing merrily;
A smile hath passed o'er winter's brow,
And the very snow looks cheerily.
Hark to the voice of the awakened day,

To the sleigh-bells gaily ringing,
While a thousand, thousand happy hearts
Their Christmas lays are singing.

"Tis a joyous hour of mirth and love, And heart is overflowing! my Come, let us raise our thoughts above, While pure, and fresh, and glowing. 'Tis the happiest day of the rolling year, But it comes in a robe of mourning, Nor light, nor life, nor bloom is here Its icy shroud adorning.

It comes when all around is dark, "Tis meet it so should be,

For its joy is the joy of the happy heart,
The spirit's jubilee.

It does not need the bloom of spring,
Or summer's light and gladness,
For love has spread her beaming wing,
O'er winter's brow of sadness.

Twas thus he came, beneath a cloud
His spirit's light concealing,
No crown of earth, no kingly robe

His heavenly power revealing.
His soul was pure, his mission love,
His aim a world's redeeming;
To raise the darkened soul above

Its wild and sinful dreaming.
With all his Father's power and love,
The cords of guilt to sever;
To ope a sacred fount of light,
Which flows, shall flow for ever.