The ship speeds on; her sanguine freight,
A motley little world,
Revelling in the thousand scenes
By future hopes unfurled.

She creeps along 'mid cloudless calms,
Or dashes through the blast,
Till cheerless days and nights and weeks,
And weary months are passed.

At length the Captain shouts, " Stand by!"
The boatswain sounds his call;
" Trice up the yards and clear the decks
Secure against the squall."

Shipwreck and death! The doom is sealed,
A bolt has riven the mast;
"We will not die—we must be saved,
The ship shall brave the blast!"

Pallor is on the strong man's cheek,
Woe in the mother's heart,
For round her throb those kindred ties
No power but death shall part.

A rending peal, a shuddering crash,
A wail of agony;
The shattered bark, with many a soul,
Sinks headlong in the sea.

Morning breaks o'er the world of waves,
But finds no Fairy Queen,
One single, tiny boat is all
To tell that she has been.

A crowded remnant of the wreck
With naked life escape,
No land for twenty souls—all sea,
Relentless, vast, agape.

Lighten the boat! or every soul
Will perish suddenly;
Enquiring eyes and throbbing hearts
Ask all, "Will it be I?"

A boy sits silent in the bows
Bereft of earthly tie;
He must be told: "Say, friendless boy,
Are you afraid to die?"

"Why should I die? My father's dead,
Mother and sister too;
O! let me not be drowned alone,
But live or die with you."

He pleads in vain. " A moment then,
A moment longer spare! ''
With fervent heart and lifted eyes,
He breathes his simple prayer.

Awe, deep and silent, struck each heart
As on that trembling tongue,
"Father in Heaven, thy will be done!"
In trustful accents hung.

He lightly steps upon the prow,
And, gathering up his strength,
Unblenched scans his yawning grave,
To feel its depth and length.

Who seals the doom? No hand is raised,
None hear the spirit knell;
A sudden plunge, a thrilling cry
Breaks in upon the spell.

They search the boat, they search the sea;
The noble boy is gone,
Gone, let us hope, where angels are,
Self-martyred and alone.

THE MIND OF BRUTES.

THE Phalansterian publishers who give as
their address Quai Voltaire, Paris, have this
year offered to the world a second edition of
L'Esprit des Bêtes, a passional zoology of the
mammifers of France, by MONSIEUR TOUSSENEL.
Whatever may be its merits in other
respects—on which we defer expressing our
own private notions—it is certainly one of
the most remarkable works on natural history
which has appeared in any country for many
years.

The author, now advanced in life, states
that the title of his work explains the spirit in
which it has been conceived. It is a treatise
on zoologie passionette, that is, a mode of
zoologizing on which there are no lectures at the
Sorbonne in Paris, or at the Royal Society
of London. It is a conscientious and faithful
abstract of the ardent studies of a sportsman,
who, after having lived for more than thirty
years in intimate acquaintance with the
animals of his country, and spent many
pleasant hours with them, feels compelled to
offer them a public testimony of his esteem
and gratitude. Many writers have described
animals; but no historian has hitherto regarded
them in the special light of passional
analogy, that is to say, in the point of their
moral, intellectual, and physical resemblance
to man. In consequence of which omission
the world is burthened with such a number of
incomplete treatises on zoology. Beasts, says
their boon companion, are the images of men,
as man is the image of God. Poets only have
understood the veritable character of animals,
and have now and then made them speak in
suitable language. The author's object is to
complete the work which poetry has begun,
and to supply, he contends, an enormous gap
in science. On this account he has thought
it necessary to begin by a few indispensable
considerations concerning the origin of
animals.

One sole law, he says, governs the universe;
love. Love is the divine irresistible motive
cause, which attracts the earth towards the
sun, the lover to his mistress, the sap to the
extremity of the boughs, the professedly
insensible metallic molecule towards the
molecule of the same nature. Whether this
power be entitled love, attraction, or atomic
affinity, the name has nothing to do with the
thing. It is one and the same;—the universal
principle of motion and of life. It is a power
proceeding from on high, and all created
beings rejoice to yield to its influence. Wise
men have called this power passion, from a
part of the latin verb pati, to suffer, to express
the idea of the passiveness of man, and his
compulsory obedience to the superior law.