Now bursts on us a genius of the most astounding kind—Pythagoras. Mighty as was his fame—great as the influence he exerted on posterity—Homer-like, it seems his doom was to have “no place of burial or of birth.” Iamblychus, in his life of Pythagoras, makes him appear even from his infancy a sage and a philosopher. Where he was instructed—how—by whom—we know not. There are accounts that he travelled far and wide in search of science, studied among the Egyptians for twenty-two years, and travelled so far as to meet and converse with the Indian Gymnosophists. His life was a varied one—now persecuted from town to town—now a prisoner at Babylon. With the sages of Egypt he doubtless there met with, and imbibed a portion at least of that God-revealed doctrine, which we have reason to believe had sent some glimmerings of its glorious radiance to Babylon, the Rome, the Athens of the East. In our days, when the genius of the press flits from clime to clime—when distance is annihilated, it seems a small matter to us to study the philosophy, to pour over the lucubrations of distant lands; but it was not so then. Each dogma was learned with difficulty and attained with labor; we may then judge how great was that philosophic spirit which prompted its possessor to so long and painful voyages, and how strongly circumstances favored him, turning even apparent obstructions into favorable events. For another paper we reserve the philosophy of Pythagoras. THE GIRL OF HARPER’S FERRY. Ah! tell me not of the heights sublime, The rocks at Harper’s ferry, Of mountains rent in the lapse of time— They’re very beautiful—very! I’m thinking more of the glowing cheek Of a lovely girl and merry, Who climb’d with me to yon highest peak— The girl of Harper’s ferry. She sailed with me o’er the glassy wave In yonder trim-built wherry; Shall I ever forget the looks she gave Or the voice which rang so merry? To the joy she felt, her lips gave birth— Lips, red as the ripest cherry— I saw not Heaven above, nor Earth— Sweet girl of Harper’s ferry! We clamber’d away over crag and hill Through places dark and dreary; We stooped to drink of the sparkling rill And gather the blushing berry; Dame Nature may sunder the Earth by storms And rocks upon rocks may serry, But I like her more in her fragile forms, My girl of Harper’s ferry. I followed her up the “_steps of stone_” To where the dead they bury; On Jefferson’s rock she stood alone, Looking on Harper’s ferry— But I, like Cymon, the gaping clown, Stood, lost in a deep quandary, Nor thought of the river, the rock, the town, Dear girl of Harper’s ferry.