Vesuvius—but now there was a sadness about his heart which rarely lighted up, and, as I have observed, it was only under momentary excitement that he blazed into brilliant entertainment. As the fresh breeze wafted us swiftly onwards, Venus, mid the stars trembling in unnumbered myriads, rivalled with her silvery rays the great round-orbed moon, sailing joyously in her career high in the heavens above us,—and soon the bright beacon on the plantation shore, lighted for our guidance, shone steadily over the dark water, and ere long we were all quietly seated at the supper-table, with our beautiful hostess at its head,—again in Tom’s cottage on the banks of the Potomac. NOTE.—The incidents related in the above article are derived from “Lee’s Southern Campaigns” and “Col. Gardner’s Military Anecdotes,” where, if he has not already perused them, the reader will find much to interest and amuse him. HUDSON RIVER. Here we are met again, all booted and spurred, and ready for another journey. Come, let us make the most of our time on this mundane sphere, for verily we are but two of the automata of the great moving panorama which is so rapidly hastening o’er its surface—two of the unnumbered millions who, lifted from our cradles, are hurrying with like equal haste towards the great dark curtain of the future, where, drawing its gloomy folds aside, we shall pass behind and disappear for ever. Therefore let us hasten; for though some of us complacently imagine that we are bound on our own special road and chosen journey, yet, surely we are but travelling the path which has been marked out for us by an all-seeing Providence; and though, like soldiers, we may be marching, as we suppose, to good billets and snug quarters, yet perhaps, before the day’s route be closed, we shall be plunged into the centre of the battle-field, with sad curtailment of our history. Tempus fugit! Therefore let us hasten, for, in a few short years, some modern Hamlet o’er our tomb-stones thus shall moralize: “Here be two fellows tucked up right cosily in their last quarters, ‘at their heads a grass-green turf, and at their heels a stone.’ Humph! for all their stillness, I warrant me, they’ve strutted their mimic stage, and flaunted with the best; they’ve had their ups and downs, their whims and fancies, their schemes and projects, their loves and hates,—have been elated with vast imaginings, and depressed to the very ocean’s depths; and now their little day and generation passed, they’re settled to their rest. The school-boy astride on one’s memento, with muddy heels kicks out his epitaph, while the other’s name is barely visible among the thistle’s aspiring tops,—yet both alike have rendered, with the whole human family, the same brief epitome of history. ‘They laughed—they groaned—they wept—and here they are,’ for such are but the features of bright, confiding youth, stern manhood’s trials, and imbecile