We think no one should be accused of intending to clothe vice in meretricious attractions, merely for showing it allied, as it unfortunately sometimes is, with noble qualities. It is when vice is described as securing and enjoying the rewards of virtue, that we should launch our anathemas. The hero of 'Sadness' was as wretched as he could well be; he had no refuge from his own tossed and sinful mind but in 'death,'-the malefactor's doom, and the most terrible our laws can inflict for the worst of crimes. The confessions of his own bad thoughts ought no more to be considered an intended justification of his wickedness, than the last speech of a murderer, of his crimes.

Had Noel' depicted his hero as happy, or looking forward with anticipations of happiness, the example would have been injurious; but the writer would never have thus painted the effects of wrong principles. He wrote it as a lesson to the gifted and strong mind, which is sometimes inclined to feel the restraints of social and civilized life as shackles, to show the danger of grasping for more happiness than the condition of humanity renders innocent; and that in the subjection, not the indulgence of passion, we must seek for contentment. Perhaps the theme was not well chosen, or so very decidedly illustrated as it ought to have been, yet the two contrasted characters,―the one guilty and wretched, the other innocent and happy,—would seem to teach the moral plainly, and it does appear strange to us its aim could have been thus entirely mistaken; and when the writer was attempting to show that

Virtue alone is happiness below,'

he should have been deemed an enemy to virtue. His own opinions, however, respecting the character, influence and duties of a wife, may be learned in the present number of the Ladies' Magazine. The Influence of Woman on Society' is from his pen; it was written, and read at our Social Lyceum, before the poem, so much censured, was published; consequently the sentiments in the prose article have not been coined to suit the present occasion. We recommend it to the attention of our readers, confident that a careful perusal will remove all prejudices from the minds of the candid and good; that such will feel the principles of the writer are as pure his talents are promising.

LINES

On a picture of a young girl weighing Cupid and a butterfly : -the winged boy rises, as he should, and the motto beneath is, "Love is the lightest."

'LOVE THE LIGHTEST !'

Silly maiden! weigh them not!
Butterflies are earthly things.
Thou forget'st their lowly lot,
Gazing on their glittering wings.

Find a star-beam from the sky—
Find a glow-worm in the grass-
Will the earth-lamp rise on high?
Will that heaven-ray downward pass?

Love, ethereal, holy love,

Light, perchance, and proud, and free,
Maiden-see! it soars above

Worldly pride and vanity!

Drooping to its native earth,
Sinks the gilded insect-fly;
Love, of holier, heavenlier birth,
Rises towards his home on high,

Maiden! throw the scales away!
Never weigh poor Love again!
Even the doubt has dimmed the ray
On his pinions with its stain;

See! he lifts his wondering eye,
Half reproachfully to thee-
'Measured with a butterfly!

I'd try my wings, if I were he.

FLORENCE.

I stated there were two honorable exceptions to the low rate of wages paid to seamstresses. These are entitled to a high degree of applause, and are worthy examples which ought to be generally followed. The one is the Female Hospitable Society of Philadelphia,' the other the 'Impartial Humane Society of Baltimore.' Two thousand dollars in each of the three cities, Boston, New York and Philadelphia, on the plan of the Impartial Humane Society of Baltimore, would go a great way to elevate the character and relieve the distresses of the poor seamstresses.

M. Carey.

THE CALENDAR. JUNE.

Thoughts suggested by the season.

"Philosophy, baptized

In the pure fountain of Eternal Love,

Has eyes indeed; and viewing all she sees
As meant to indicate a God to man,

Gives Him his praise and forfeits not her own."

The name of this month originates from the Latin Junius, which some derive from Juno. Ovid, in the 6th of his Fasti or Calendars, introduces the goddess as saying:

"Junius a nostro nomine nomen habet."

June to our name is indebted for her own.

Others derive it a junioribus, i. e. juniors or young men, this being for young people what the month of May was for the old.

"Junius est juvenum; qui fuit ante senum."

June to young men is consecrated as the prior month to old.

In New England, June is the fairest month in the whole calendar. We have heard much of the beauties of May, and read more of its merry associations. Our ears from very childhood have been regaled with delightful narratives of the gay and fairy scenes of May-day, the sylvan crown, the flower wreath, and divers-colored garlands wherewithal the happy queen was wont to be decked in triumph, and thus elected to preside over the jokes and sports and joyous amusements of this popular rustic festival. We can even see in imagination the coy and blushing maiden as she advances in honest pride to receive from the hands of her peers the beautiful chaplet of flowers with which, as soon as her fair brow is invested, she is thereupon proclaimed "Queen of May" by a thousand merry voices. The rustic throne formed of branches wreathed with party-colored flowers, the Maypole standing in the centre of the green, intwined with many a trophy gay, and the fairy dance, fill up this pastoral

scene.

"Alas, for our gambols! our sports on the green!

Where Love keeps his court with young Beauty his queen;
Where each Grace, unsolicited, joins in the dance,

And each maiden looks kind for her swain to advance."

But though the poetical associations of May, as she reigns in

"Merry Old England," are fraught with beauty, and render this season a season of delight, yet cold reality and sober fact forbid our sympathies from clustering round her as she holds her court in the "Land of the Pilgrims." Here storms and raw Northeasters are her pavilion, and here she comes forth arrayed in comfortable cloaks and India rubbers, whilst the cowslip dares not raise its tender head. Some few misses, indeed, captivated with the praises of May as our poets have copied them from their transatlantic brethren into their own verse, fleeing at an early hour their downy couch, with its blankets and feather-bed, stroll forth to Dorchester heights in search of the early primrose. But a severe cold and an inflammatory rheumatism are the only trophies wherewith they return, unless it be that the extraordinary prematurity of the season may send them home laden with its uncommon tribute of a willow twig.

But June, the queen of the year, wears a different aspect. At her approach, all nature puts on her gayest garments. Her breath is the fragrance of the honeysuckle, her voice the melody of the lark. At this truly delightful season, the paradise of the months, it seems to be a fitting time to speak of the claims of botany, or the science of plants and flowers. We rejoice that the taste of our ladies is directed to this much neglected but exceedingly interesting study. We are also glad that they have been able to avail themselves of the researches of so accomplished a naturalist as the Lecturer on Botany at the university, who has been delivering this season, as we understand, a course of lectures on botany, at the hall of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, which, we trust, has been crowded by all true lovers of plants and flowers. In the wide range of the sciences, we venture to say, that there is none to be compared to this for the delicacy of taste which it calls forth, and the beautiful perceptions which it ministers to the mind, together with its manifold poetical associations; for it will not be forgotten that flowers are the language of Love. (See Flora's Dictionary.) We recommend the study of botany to all who love beauty in all its forms and modifications, from the brightest star in the firmament, as it pours from its silver urn sweet and delicious influences, to the smallest flower-cup which blends its tributary fragrance with the general incense of praise that is constantly rising throughout all nature" up to Nature's God."

It has been objected to the pursuit of physical science in ge

neral that

"Full often too

Our wayward intellect, the more we learn
Of nature, overlooks her Author more;
From instrumental causes proud to draw
Conclusions retrograde and mad mistake."

When will men learn the true essence of religion? God is Love. This great truth Jesus Christ came to declare. But it was no new truth. The whole universe was at once the offspring and the sublime type, expression and proof of God's infinite benevolence. But man looked blindly over the works of God with brutish gaze, and ignorantly saw there nought to turn his thoughts upward "to the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity." Wherefore revelation has poured a flood of light over His ways and works, the volumes of nature and providence are no longer sealed books, but "the wayfaring man, though a fool, may read therein;" so that there is now no excuse "for the fool who says in his heart there is no God." Whence we infer that science and philosophy, so far from setting aside the claims of revealed truth, are at once its copious and powerful illustration and confirmation.

To a devout mind, and without devotion there can exist no real and high perception of beauty, all nature, even in her minutest works, speaks loudly of infinite wisdom and goodness. We know of no science which has a more devotional and refining influence upon the mind than botany. True devotion and refinement go hand in hand. Every blossom is a body of sound practical divinity; every flower-cup is a beautiful commentary upon the character of God. He is restricted to no one particular channel for conveying to the immortal soul,—which he has made in his own image,-knowledge of his character and purposes. The mind which reads unimpressed a passage of "holy writ," may, perhaps, be taught a vivid lesson of the divine benignity from the humblest flower that "wastes its fragrance on the desert air ;" and thus touched and softened, be drawn by the cords of love to its Father in Heaven. It is thus that nature and revelation mutually aid each other. These are the two grand and leading sources of religious truth. Let them never be divorced. Would there were more love, aye, devoted love of the works of God! Can it be, that the study of nature will lead to skepticism? Is it true that physical science withdraws the mind from the great source of all created things? It is impossible. Revealed truth is the just interpreter of the outward creation. The world, with all its myriads of noble