Small as is the number of our alphabetic signs, they are proved to be capable of more than six hundred thousand millions of billions of different horizontal arrangements. What a power is thus entrusted to the hand at the dictate of the mind—a power which, whether its range, its variety, or its permanence be considered, is alike unparalleled! When the costliest fabrics are moth-eaten, and the colors of the picture have fled, and the marble statue is defaced, and the proud and towering edifice is hurled into ruins, the written words may live, retaining all their power to strike on the mind, to touch the inmost chords of the soul. “Words,” it has been said, “are the only things that last for ever.” “The images of men’s wits,” says Lord Bacon, “remain unmaimed in books for ever, exempt from the injuries of time, because capable of perpetual renovation. Neither can they properly be called images, because they cast forth seeds in the minds of men, raising and producing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages; so that if the invention of a ship was thought so noble and wonderful, which transports riches and merchandise from place to place, and consociates the most distant regions in participation of their fruits and commodities—how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships passing through the vast seas of time, connect the remotest ages of wits and inventions in mutual traffic and correspondence!” To write is therefore the noblest of the arts of life, and fearful is the responsibility of its exercise. Happy is he who constantly remembers it; and whose maturest thoughts, fixed in the palpable and deathless form of words, enlighten, elevate, and bless, even when the verdant grass is flourishing over his ashes. ----- [2] Atherstone. * * * * * =TO A WHIP-POOR-WILL= =SINGING IN A GRAVE-YARD.= =BY E. ANNA LEWIS.= Why, melancholy singer, Dost thou hover here at eve, Like one who loves to linger Around the dead and grieve? Why, in the night-time only, Do we hear thy pensive lay? Why art thou ever lonely— Why shunnest the garish day? Art thou minstrel born from Heaven, Who comest to our earth, At the silent hour of even, To mock the voice of mirth; And to soothe the sad and weary, Who steal away to weep, In the church-yard lone and dreary, Or by the mountain-steep?