He said he is still slow in acquir- of which Mr. L lent a polite ing knowledge, till he gets at the attention-attributing it in part principle; when he has a place to to party feeling, in Virginia, and rest his foot on, then all is smooth. rather by inuendo, than word, He said Mr. Burke expresses this feeling well when he said, there was an uneasiness about him till he could understand the subject.

supposing that perhaps Mr. Calhoun might view matters through highly excited party feeling.

JUNE 1sT.--Mr. Calhoun amused us to-night by relating an adventure that happened to him when a young man.

FEBRUARY, 1835.-Last night Mr. Calhoun conversed with me upon Fate, fore-knowledge, &c., and said, so firmly convinced was Old Mr. S, a baptist preachhe that all things are progressivein er, invited him to a large baptist this life, tending to some ultimate meeting, when to his surprise, he good for the whole that he pro- was as an honored guest asked up foundly acquiesces in whatsoever into the pulpit, feeling very awkhappens to him individually-that ward he insisted on Mr. Sthough he be crushed, all matters are right, because so ordered. This he says in a philosophic, not a Christian sense. However, when there arose the question, he acquiesces better in theory than in practice. He is sadly chafed wife's sister. Some one of the at the position he now holds as a public man.

He remarked to me that all men were subject to censure and slauder, and that he had not escaped, "but," (and his eyes blazed with almost preternatural lustre) "the worst they had said of him was

going with him. There they sat listening very gravely to the arguments on Church Government,

whether a man might marry his

members said it involved a legal question, and that as there was a distinguished member of the Bar present, they would be glad of his opinion. So they called on Mr. Calhoun, who rose and said the law had laid down no rules on the subject, but followed what was

that he was ambitious, and true, laid down in the Bible. Pretty he was ambitious-ambitious of soon he took occasion to leave and being know to posterity as one and rode home, lest some other who fore-saw the evils this govern- knotty point should be submitted ment was falling into, and saw to him. the remedy too. That much as they might say it, none would believe he was aiming at the Presidency. Suddenly turning to Mr.

JUNE 2ND.---Two strange looking men came in to see Mr. Calhoun. I left him entertaining them by extracting information from them. Mr. Calhoun learns

L-, a Virginian, he mourned more than any one I know, by over, Virginia as having utterly conversation. He has the knack fallen from her high estate; he of getting something from every said her instructions to her Sena- one he talks with, partly resulting from his kind feeling, which tors to expunge, had sealed her leads him to induce people to talk infamy, that the very name of on subjects they best know and Virginia would be odious." To all like.

THE ELOQUENCE OF RUINS.

High on a desert, desolated plain
In the far Orient, a stately band
Of giant columns rise. Above the sleep
Of devastated cities, mouldering,
Yet haughtily they stand; grim sentinels
Calling the watches of a vanished race,
And, guarding still from Ruin's felt-shod tread
The mutilated chronicles of Eld.

Heavy with melodies all vast and vague,
Lifts up a solemn voice where Ages lie
Entombed with empires, in the crumbled pride
Of old Byzantium. Dark Egypt's lore
Lies in her catacombs; her histories
In fallen temples; while her Pyramids
Like ponderous old tomes upon the sands,
Teem with the hidden records of the Past.
Amid their gloomy mysteries, the Sphinx
A gaunt-eyed oracle, essays to speak,
And the weird whisper of her stony lip
Sounds o'er the tumult of the rushing years.

Greece! how her shattered domes reverberate
The thunders of a thousand gods, that dwelt
On Ida and Olympus! Porticoes
That droop above their portals, like to brows
Of meditative marble over eyes

Dim with the haze of revery, still speak
Of ancient Sages; and her pillars tell
Of Heroes who have sought the Lethean wave,
And shores of Asphodel. Then, rising where
The yellow Tiber flows, some stately shaft,
Like a proud Roman noble in the halls
Of the great Forum, stands-the orator
Of nations gone to dust. The obelisk,
Girt with resistance, gladiator-like,
From his arena challenges a host
Of stealthy-footed centuries!

The lone

Dark circle of the Druid, with its stones
Rugged and nameless, hath a monotone

VOL. III. No. IV.

23

Wild as the runes of Sagas at the shrine
Of Thor and Odin. Slow and silently
The pallid moonlight creeps along the walls
In the old abbey shadow. Timidly
It creepeth up, to list the tales they tell
Of Beauty and of Valor, laid to sleep
In the low, vaulted chancel. Ivy-crowned,
And crumbling to decay, how loftily
Rise the old castle towers! Its corridors
Resound with elfin echoes as the bell,
Wind-rocked upon its turret, sends a knell
From cornice to cavazion. The owl,
A dim-eyed warder, watches in his tower;
And zephyr, like a wandering troubadour
Sports on the ruined battlement, and sings
To broken bastion, shattered oriel,
And fallen architrave.

The western wild

Spreads out before us, and her voice of might
Shakes the old wilderness. Alone it swells,
Where tropic bloom, and gray corrosion strive
To crush the deep and restless mutterings
Of hoary-headed ages. Dim and strange,
The priest, the vestal, and the dark Cazique,
Rise on the Teocallis; and below

Flit the swart shadows of the nameless tribes
That peopled Iximaya. Ruins all-
Yet mighty in their magic eloquence!

Oh! "Land we Love!" oh! Mother, with the dust
And ashes on thy robe and regal brow-
Deeper, and wilder, more melodious far,
The voice of melancholy, wailing o'er
Thy desolated homesteads! That awakes
Its echo in the memory; it brings-
(Alas! that it should be but memory!)
The carol of the robin-and the hum
Of the returning bee, -the winds at eve,
And the low, bell-like tinkle of the brook
That rippled round the garden. Then we see
The great elm-shadow, with the threshold stone
That garnered up the sunshine; and the vine
That crept around the colonnade, and bloomed,
Close-clinging as a love unchangeable.

We dream of gay boy-brothers, sleeping now
'Neath grasses rank on lonely battle-fields-
And seem to feel perchance, the blesséd light
Of our sweet mother's smile-the holy breath
Of a good father's benison. We think

Of the white marbles where their hearts are laid
Down to a dreamless slumbering;-ah! then
Rush the thick blinding tears-and we can see
No more!

THE HAVERSACK.

We have been frequently asked Black Agnes, the celebrated whether, "Aunt Abby, the Irre- Countess of March; who, when pressible" was a real character, defending her castle of Dunbar and whether there were many against the English Earl of Salismore "sich " in the Old North bury, used to show herself with State. The indomitable fighting her maids on the battlements after qualities of our North Carolina an assault, and proceed to wipe soldiers proved that they came away the dust raised by the fallfrom the right kind of mothers- ing of the stones cast by his women of energy, pluck and en- military engines, as though he durance. Aunt Abby's character could do her castle no harm, has not been over-drawn. She which a clean towel could not wipe lives in her own proper person, as we trust that she will live in the history of her State.

The following additional incidents, in her career, have been furnished the Haversack:

away.

When General Lee had his army entrenched at the Wilderness, Aunt Abby made one of her usual trips to it, and was present at a sharp attack, in which the Confederate troops were driven by

From among a number of anecdotes respecting "Aunt Abby, sharp-shooters from a portion of the Irrepressible," which have the entrenchments, which it was been sent me since she appeared important to defend. While the in the Land we Love, there are officers were attempting to rally two that are worthy of the Haver- the men, Aunt Abby, with a hop, sack, and, as they came too late skip and jump, mounted the to be embodied in the sketch of works and went dancing along in her, I send them for that deposi- full view of the enemy, calling tory of good things. out, "Hand me up a broom, boys;

The first is quite equal to that and the ole woman will sweep the related by Sir Walter Scott in his bullets out'en your way if its "Tales of a Grand-father, of them you are affear'd on." Those who have heard a Confederate the camp and bring you back for battle-yell, can imagine the fifty cents, and don't you pay shout with which those works him a cent more." "No child, were remanned, but I cannot describe it.

that I won't, you are a good boy, Henry M, and your old Aunt Abby ain't gwine to forget you in a hurry." So saying, she turned on the driver, and having received his assurance that he

The second I give in the words of the young officer who related it: I had just put on my new uniform, as a Major in the Con- would only charge her fifty cents, federate army for the first time, for the ten miles, and her's "that ef and about the largest man in he darred to ask eny more, she'd Richmond, in my own estimation; give him a piece of her mind," the observed of all observers, she drove off happy, and I saw I was standing at the fashionable her no more during my stay in promenade hour at the Spotswood Richmond.

A lady sends us from Gainesville, Va., an anecdote of one of the juveniles:

Hotel, in company with half a dozen officers, when I heard some one shout out, "Lord bless my soul! if thar aint Henry M —," and before I could turn round, Under the orders of the general, Aunt Abby was clasping me who never saw the face of his round the neck, and in a loud foe, the whole country passed over tone relating her troubles with "a by his troops was given up to good for nothing cheat of an pillage. Seigle's corps was enIrishman who wants to charge camped around our premises, and me ten dollars, honey, jest to most faithfully did they carry out take me five miles to the camp." the orders of their distinguished Disengaging myself as I best chief, who "knew nothing of could, I told her I would go off lines of retreat." Hogs, sheep, and get a hack for her, if she calves, ducks, chickens-every would just step into the hotel a living thing was seized by the moment, and turning round the Dutchmen "for de use of de gran corner, I was out of sight as Oonion Army." The stealing of

quickly as possible; hacks were not hard to find, and in a few moments I had one, and asking the fare to the camp, was told ten dollars; taking nine dollars and a half out, I handed it to the dri. ver, who received it and my directions with a grin, and re turned to Aunt Abby, whom I found where I had left her. "Now Aunt Abby," I said, to her as I put her into the carriage, "this man has promised to take you to

the chickens was a special grief to my little brother; and as we had been Union people ourselves, he could not understand how Union soldiers could act in that way.As he saw the pitiless Dutchmen wringing off the neck of his favorites, he said to me, "Sister, didn't we use to be Union folks." I replied, "yes we did." "Well, sister, when we was Union folks, did us steal chickens too!"

S. M. M.