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Professor Olmsted's career as an author began in 1817, with the publication in the New Haven Religious Intelligencer of a series of essays, entitled, "Thoughts on the Clerical Profession." The same year he prepared a memoir of President Dwight for the Philadelphia Portfolio. In 1824 and '25 he furnished the papers above mentioned, "On the Gold Mines of North Carolina," and on the "Illuminating Gas," etc., for the American Journal of Science. Since that time, he has been a frequent contributor to that able and valuable quarterly. He has also furnished for it, as well as for the Christian Spectator, the American Quarterly Register, and the New Englander, numerous reviews and biographical sketches.

His "Introduction to Natural Philosophy" was published in 1831, and the "Introduction to Astronomy," in 1839. The substance of the latter was given to the public, in 1840, in a handsome 12mo, in the popular and attractive form of a series of letters addressed to a lady. One of his last works is the life and writings of his gifted and lamented pupil and friend, Ebenezer Porter Mason, a name which bade so fair to be one of the brighest stars in the sky of that science which both so deeply and so passionately loved.

Such is the biography of Professor Olmsted, copied from the Yale Literary Magazine.

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THOUGHTS IN A GRAVE-YARD.

BY EZRA D. BARKER.

VISIT to the city of the dead, when rightly improved, is never without its hallowed influence on the mind and heart. If we are giddy with the vanities of the world, if the present life seems a ceaseless existence, where we may pursue, undisturbed, the dissipating pleasures of time, or if the world seems so precious that we are disposed to make it our final home, it is good for us to guide our steps for once, in a thoughtful mood, to the place where the dead repose, and witness the end of all human honor, wealth, and pleasure.

If we are tired with the toils and cares

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of life, if we long for rest and retreat from the perplexities and afflictions of a wicked world, let us wend our way to the silent inclosure where rises the marble and bends the willow. There we may see the many turf-crowned mansions appointed for all the living. There we may find that safe retreat where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.

The wants and woes, the joys and sorrows that move and control the living multitudes around, are powerless to break the sweet and tranquil slumbers of the dwellers in the tomb. The golden light of day or the starry radiance of night, the wild tempests of winter or the calm dews of summer, can never charm them back to life or open for them the doors of the grave. The rolling thunder, the heaving earthquake, or the warring of angry elements disturb not that last, long sleep.

Here all is peace and quiet, and, save the murmur of flowing winds or the solemn chorus of falling waters, an everlasting stillness reigns. Here, side by side, lie friend and foe, mingling their common dust in the bosom of their mother earth. The lifeless clay forgets to war against itself, and the hand of tyranny is crumbling with the limbs it once bound. The tongue of scandal ceases its work of wickedness, and dissolves with the fair brow it once denounced and defamed.

Here rest those of every age, rank, and sex-those who might people an entire hamlet, or perform all the duties and sus tain all the relations of a world. Here they came, one by one, led by the painful hand of lingering disease, or struck from the midst of friends and pleasures by the keen scythe of Time without a moment's warning.

The laughing boy, with crimson cheek and pearly brow, as he played with glittering sands and pebbles by the purling brook, or chased the butterfly over the dewspangled meadow, obeyed the call of death, and, with an imploring look, turned away from weeping friends and the beautiful earth, and laid him down amid the bloom of youth and innocence to an early sleep in the sepulcher of his fathers.

The busy man, as he gravely pursued the affairs of business or state, and strained

The grave-yard-who does not like occasionally to enter its sacred inclosure, and invite to himself serious and profitable thoughts? Who is there, so far removed from the common lot of humanity, as not to have friends who are the voiceless inhabitants of its dark and silent halls?

Who is so thoughtless as not to look upon it as the final resting-place of his world-worn body, and his last and most enduring earthly home? And who would not wish that the grave which opens to receive his lifeless dust, might prove but the portal of his spirit to a brighter and happier world?

Viewed aright, the grave is but the storehouse of the gross and mortal part of our being, while the soul is made free and speeds its way to the land where gush the fountains of immortal life, and where shines the sun of eternal blessedness.

EXTRAVAGANT LANGUAGE.

FTEN have we been pained at listening to the frequent use of extravagant language by the young, and have wished that those who used it could but experience feelings like those produced in our own minds; for we are sure, did they but realize how it appears to others, they would break from the habit. The following, from the pen of the Rev. A. P. PEABODY, is the best we have seen on this subject, and we commend it to the careful attention of ALL, both young men as well as young ladies, who are under the influence of this pernicious practice.

There is an untasteful practice which is a crying sin among young ladies; I mean the use of exaggerated, extravagant forms of speech: saying splendid for pretty, mag

nificent for handsome, horrid for very, horrible for unpleasant, immense for large, thousands, or myriads, for any number more than two.

Were I to write down, for one day, the conversation of some young ladies of my acquaintance, and then to interpret it literally, it would imply that, within the compass of twelve or fourteen hours, they had met with more marvelous adventures and hair-breadth escapes, had passed through more distressing experience, had seen more imposing spectacles, had endured more fright, and enjoyed more rapture, than would suffice for half a dozen common lives.

This habit is attended with many inconveniences. It deprives you of the intelligible use of strong expressions when you need them. If you use them all the time, nobody understands or believes you when you use them in earnest. You are in the same predicament with the boy who cried "wolf" so often when there was no wolf, that nobody would come to his relief when the wolf came.

This habit has also a very bad moral bearing. Our words have a reflex influence upon our characters. Exaggerated speeches make one careless of the truth. The habit of using words without regard to their rightful meaning often leads one to distort facts, to mis-report conversations, and to magnify statements in matters in which the literal truth is important to be told. You can never trust the testimony of one who in common conversation is indifferent to the import, and regardless of

the

power

of words.

I am acquainted with persons whose representations of facts always need translation and correction, and who have utterly lost their reputation for veracity, solely through the habit of overstrained and extravagant speech. They do not mean to lie; but they have a dialect of their own, in which words bear an entirely different sense from that given them in the daily intercourse of discreet and sober people.

NOTHING is more noble than fidelity; faithfulness and truth are the best endowments of the mind.

TO THE MEMORY OF JAMES DIVINE.*

BY EZRA D. BARKER.

AND thou art gone, esteemed, lamented friendHast passed away from earthly scenes, to dwell Among the ransomed in the realms of peace And now thy mortal frame is resting where The early autumn beams are glancing down Thy native hills, and sparkling in sweet brooks, That lull thee to thy last repose with deep And plaintive melody.

It seems not so!

'Twas but as yesterday, when swelling buds
And tender spires were springing into life-
When messengers of spring began to hail
The opening year, and all the world seemed glad,
We met thee full of life and hope upon
The verge of manhood. Long and happy years
Then rose before thee in the glass of time,
And friends and fortune smiled to cheer thee on
To meet the duties of a busy world.

The hollow cheek and hoary head, when passed
Thy manly form, looked up to sigh and wish
Their prospects fair and bright as thine.

But soon the day of sickness came, and, stretched Upon thy couch, the lagging hours wore slow And wearily away. 'Twas then we met Once more. Still beamed thine eye undimmed, And ardor unsubdued, expectant smiled Upon thy brow, as fever burned within Thy veins and struggled with thy beating heart.

[*JAMES DIVINE was born Dec. 6, 1823. He graduated at the New York State Normal School, at Albany, in March, 1846. We first became acquainted with him a little more than eighteen months ago; he was then employed as a teacher in a Public School in this city. He remained in the same situation until last spring, when he entered a school at Jersey City, and was there engaged in teaching until some time in July last, when he was attacked with a remittent fever. He died Sept. 4, 1850. Mr. Divine was a young man of promising talents, self-reliant, ambitious, and full of energy. As a friend he was warm-hearted and ardent. He carried with him those pleasant feelings and sympathies, united with vi vacity, which shed a kind of sunshine wherever he went.

Who" doeth all things well," and close thine eyes Forever on the joys of earth.

Thou didst not die alone; around thy couch Stood weeping friends, and there, with deepest grief,

The sacred fountains of a mother's heart
Were stirred, as she beheld that arm, which once
She thought the stay of her declining years,
Lie cold and powerless.

There yet was one,
Whom hope forsook, as light and life forsook
Thine eye.
As clouds and tempests oft roll back
Upon the tranquil face of morning skies,
Obscuring all their brightness-so the shades
Of darkest sorrow came with sudden pall
Around the glowing visions of her young

And faithful love.

But thou art not forgot: With memory's fadeless laurels will we weave A living chaplet round the happy past, Where we may ever find those treasures dearThy fervent friendship, and exalted worth. And while we mourn thy loss, one radiant star Illumes the night of our affliction-'tis The blissful hope that WE SHALL MEET AGAIN.

FAREWELL MY NATIVE LAND!

[Written for Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh_(Geo. Copway), a Representative from the Northwest Tribes of American Indians, to the Peace Convention, at Frankfort-on-the Maine, Germany, and recited by him on board the British Steamship Niagara, at the hour of sailing from Boston, July 10, 1850.]

THE day is bright'ning which we long have sought,
I see its early light and hail its dawn;
The gentle voice of Peace my ear hath caught,
And from my forest home I greet the morn.
Here, now, I meet you with a brother's hand-
Bid you farewell-then speed me on my way
To join the white men in a foreign land,

And from the dawn bring on the bright noonday.
Noonday of Peace! O, glorious jubilee,
When all mankind are one from sea to sea.

Farewell my native land, rock, hill, and plain,

River and lake, and forest home adieu; Months shall depart e'er I shall tread again

Amid your scenes, and be once more with you I leave thee now; but whereso'er I go,

Whatever scenes of grandeur meet my eyes, My heart can but ONE native country know,

And that, the fairest land beneath the skies. America! farewell; thou art that gem,

improvement and elevation of his pupils.-ED.]

UMPHREY has a happy singularity in the presentation of moral lessons, and one which often produces a more permanent effect by its quaintness than a long lecture. Here is something from him too good to be lost.

Though no doctor, I have by me some excellent prescriptions; and as I shall charge you nothing for them, you can not grumble at the price. We are most of us subject to fits; I am visited with them myself, and I dare say you are also; and now then for my prescriptions.

For a Fit of Envy. Go to a wateringplace, and see how many who keep their carriages are afflicted with rheumatism, gout, and dropsy; how many walk abroad on crutches, or stay at home wrapped up in flannel; and how many are subject to epilepsy and apoplexy.

in this world, and at those which He has promised to His followers in the next. He wl.o goes into the garden to look for cobwebs and spiders, no doubt will find them, while he who looks for a flower may return into his house with one blooming in his bosom.

For all Fits of Doubt, Perplexity, and Fear. Whether they respect the body or the mind, whether they are a load to the shoulders, the head, or the heart, the following is a radical cure, which may be relied on, for I had it from the Great Physician: "Cast thy burden on the Lord, He will sustain thee."

BELL BIRD.

N the forests of Guiana there is a bird much celebrated with the Spaniards called campanero, or bell bird. Its voice is loud and clear as the sound of a bell; it may be heard at the distance of two or three miles. No song, no sound can occasion the astonishment produced by the tinkling of the campanero.

He sings morning and evening, like most other birds; at mid-day he sings also. A stroke of the bell is heard, a pause of a minute ensues; a second tinkling, and a pause of the same duration is repeated; finally a third ringing, followed by a silence. of six or eight minutes. Acteon," says

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an enthusiastic traveler, "would halt in the heat of the chase;" Orpheus would let fall his lute to listen; so novel, sweet, and romantic is the silver tinkling of the snow

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grave will soon be your bed-chamber, and the earth your pillow.

For a Fit of Repining.-Look about you for the halt and blind; visit the afflicted and deranged, and they will make you ashamed of complaining of your lighter afflictions.

For a Fit of Despondency.-Look on the good things which God has given you

from

This bird is about the size of a jay; its head arises a conical tube, about three inches long, of a brilliant black, spotted with small white feathers, which communicates with the palate, and which, when inflated with air, resembles an ear of corn.-—~ Selected.