The boy, having left the wonderful and romantic for the practical, discovers its existence, when upon a holyday he pays too much for a whistle, and he feels what it is to be its victim when returning home, he runs the gauntlet of the laughter and jokes awaiting him. When grown up and ripened into a philosopher, he will see that the human family is a company of brothers and sisters laughing at the credulous whistle-purchaser, and each one in turn the victim and the laughed-at. The young man sacrifices, upon the altar of some fickle beauty, the finest feelings of his heart, his peace of mind and happiness, and he learns that this foul spirit has a place even in woman's breast. The artless maiden has the truth impressed upon her heart in deep, enduring marks-in feelings of remorse and despair-and she bears it traced upon her brow, in blood-red characters of shame, when she has once listened to the artifice of man and become its victim. Thus step by step we might mount the ladder of life, till we could hear the old man on the top round railing against the humbuggery which he has experienced, observed, and perpetrated on his upward way, cursing in too many cases his fellow-travelers as a selfish, crafty, injury-inflicting race, and awaiting not unwillingly the jostle which will dash him to the earth from whence he started.

Whether we regard man as a friend, stranger, business-man, ruler, or philosopher, we shall find him making use of this propensity to assist him on his course. For instance, some men, actuated by principles of the purest benevolence-men, in whose hearts the milk of human kindness is bubbling up and running over-devote their time and efforts to the discovery of latent power in drugs, whereby the world may be blessed with all-powerful remedies for mortal ills. Pills enough, it is reckoned by shrewd calculators, have been rolled and swallowed within the present century, to form huge mountains, if men could only be persuaded to stop swallowing them long enough to make a trial of the experiment. Oceans of liquid medicines have flowed from the never-failing springs within the breasts of these same benefactors. Amid the great abundance of these things the world is left in a sad quandary, each new proprietor swearing, with all emphasis, that his production is "the sovereign'st thing on earth" for each and every ill that flesh is heir to.

Enterprising men get up a science. Scientific men are alarmed and people generally carried away with excitement. An astonished world -a blazoned name-listening crowds catching up their every word— staring-holding up their hands, and shouting "wonderful!"—above all else, a full and comfortable treasury-with such assistances as these they have a glorious time, they chuckle inwardly over an easily duped world, until, when at length the mist which a morbid love of novelty has thrown around the public eye begins to clear away, they sink into oblivion, and "their works do follow them."

Others, by keeping aloof from the world of common sense around them, and communing with musty books and their own more musty minds, conceive the idea that men and things have been moving along in a marvelous hap-hazard way, and that they are the first to discover

the true philosophy by which the mysteries of nature may be unfolded. They then start forth to collect a crowd at their heels, to confuse the ideas of all who hear them, and to make fools of many. These philosophers were particularly busy in ancient times. One gave to thousands of men the name and disposition of the dog; another told them that the living soul within them might have been in former time the nobler part of some snarling cur; whilst another still taught that to live and die in imitation of this same animal, or better yet, of swine, was 'man's chief end;' to eat, drink, sleep, and lie in the sunshine of ease, and pleasure, this life's summum bonum. And did these credulous disciples oppose this degrading transformation as beneath the dignity of human nature? Not in the least; but when new teachers came along they, forgetting past ill-treatment, began to fawn, and lick the dust, and whine most piteously for another change. Kings and princes humbug their subjects, they cheat them of their liberty. The fameseeking Cæsars of the earth by humbug gain the blood, treasure, and lands of men; they are in turn deprived of the influence and glory upon which they had congratulated themselves, and at death discover that they have cheated themselves of self-approbation, honest fame, and heaven.

There are still other and not less extensive manifestations which we shall notice very briefly. The dying groans of the victims in the days of witchcraft, as they rose to heaven, bore witness against this spirit. By it, too, are our graveyards made populous on dark and dismal nights with wandering spirits. The horror-struck visage and trembling limbs of the solitary traveler well attest its power. Banish this spirit and fortune-tellers will starve, jugglers hang themselves or commence an honest business, gipsey bands become a shaking of the head to every nation, and dream-interpreters no longer be regarded with reverence and awe. This it is which lights the evening Jack-o'lantern which leads the solitary wanderer a weary chase, through woods and swamps, into an inextricable labyrinth. Insinuating its etherial substance into his breast, man becomes a hypochondriac and boils as an imaginary kettle, in a most distressing manner, or transformed into a basket of eggs or vessel of glass, he is in a state of perturbation upon every demonstration of an approach, lest a general crash may ensue. Fashion (we mean ultra-Broadway fashion) is a child of this most prolific parent. If we attempt to imagine the number of pinches, pains, and vexations-to weigh the expense and sorrow-which are encountered in her service, a vivid idea may be formed of what humbuggery can accomplish. There is a vast deal of the ludicrous and the miserable between the two conditions of a toe in the tender mercies of a tight boot, and a family ruined or State overthrown. A wretched martyr in the cause of Fashion, and a pitiable spectacle of human weakness is a Chinese belle, tottering on a pair of feet whose bases would scarce support an ordinary baby. A flat-nosed Indian suffers in the cause; but our pretty country women require the greatest draught upon our sympathies. The Pekin maiden might look upon her little feet with pleasure, and thank her stars for having cast her lot

in the Celestial Empire, if she could see the wasp-like form of a New York promenader. She would certainly think her wooden shoes of trifling weight, when compared with the huge articles which our ladies, to create a bustle in the world, endure with such a stern spirit of martyrdom.

Such are a few of the ways in which the Spirit of Humbuggery manifests its presence in our world. "A few," we say, because we did not design, nor have we tried to give specimens of all its modes of operation. A dozen or two folios might probably accommodate the whole of such a narrative, though we should greatly fear their incapacity. Sufficient have been given, it is hoped, to exhibit our idea of this mighty power moving among men. The active minds of our readers, taking advantage of our brief hints, have doubtless anticipated us and made the reflections which the subject naturally suggests, so that the usual application would be superfluous. If all that we have said is not sufficient to exhibit the universality and influence of Humbuggery, we are satisfied that we could do absolutely nothing within the limits of a closing flourish. QUIS.

LINES,

SUGGESTED BY A FREQUENT AND EARNEST CONTEMPLATION OF THE CELEBRATED HEAD OF BEETHOVEN, IN THE IMPERIAL PALACE AT VIENNA.

Those who are familiar with the history of Beethoven, will readily appreciate the allusions to his character and career-the sensibility and genius so evident in his countenance and air-the iras cible and passionate temperament of the great composer, aggravated by unsuccessful love, and the base ingratitude of an adopted son-the deep dejection which settled upon him, as the sense of hear. ing, originally so exquisite and so prized, gradually decayed and became extinct-the intense sympathy which his presence excited, at the performance of his sublime productions-himself utterly excluded from the gratification he so richly afforded to others-last, his premature and melancholy end.

THOU hauntest me! Amid my dreams

Thy wild, unearthly aspect gleams:
The massive brow; the locks of gray;
The eye, whose fierce and fitful ray
Stares from beneath; the rigid lip,
Wont from the mingled bowl to sip
Its heated draught of joy and pain,
Till frenzy fired the fevered brain.

I dare not pity! yet my heart
Hath bled for thee: thine was a part
Mournful and varied in the show
Of life; the ceaseless ebb and flow
Of love and hate, of light and gloom,
Reached from the cradle to the tomb.

She, who around thy trusting heart
Had wound her web with fatal art,
Betrayed! The orphan, whom thy care
Rescued from want-the destined heir
To hard-earned gains-lived but to brave
The love that suffered and forgave!
Last, came the mighty grief that bowed
Thy spirit to the vulgar crowd!

'Twas not the rending bolt, that broke
In thunder down the rifted oak,
Leaving its seared and blasted form
The fury of the vengeful storm;
Rather the secret worm, that preyed
Unknown, save by the wreck it made.

Fainter and fainter came the din
Of the loud world-its sounds within
Died, one by one, until no breath
Disturbed the ever-living death;
The tinkling brook, the moaning surge,
The matin hymn, the evening dirge,
The cry of fear, the voice of love,

Grew silent as the stars above.

The wild-wood birds, whose carol sweet,

Once, a responsive smile would greet,

Pours forth her liquid lay, in vain,

The tribute of thy love to gain;

The choirs of sky, and earth, and sea,
Awake, in vain, their minstrelsy.

So, 'mid the loud-applauding throng,
Whose shouts the mighty notes prolong,-
Where the sonorous trumpet rings
Clear, 'mid a thousand quivering strings;
With roll of drum, and clang of steel,
And clarion's wild and wakening peal;
While, o'er the organ's heaving swell,
Floats woman's soft and wildering spell-

The master genius of the scene!
We watch thy dark and mournful mien :
Within thy soul, in depths profound,-
The grave of every earthly sound,-

Flows on the mighty tide of song,

Whose waves, in ceaseless notes, prolong,

With varied tone of dirge and glee,

The music of Eternity.