memorable lines on the Nineteenth Psalm. Simplicity and dignity wait upon the close of a march of thought which has been attended by grandeur and order from the beginning. Mr. Everett thus concludes:

There is much by day to engage the attention of the Observatory; the sun, his apparent motions, his dimensions, the spots on his disc, (to us the faint indications of movements of unmingled grandeur in his luminous atmosphere,) a solar eclipse, a transit of the inferior planets, the mysteries of the spectrum-all phenomena of vast importance and interest. But night is the astronomer's accepted time; he goes to his delightful labors when the busy world goes to its rest. A

dark pall spreads over the resorts of active life; terrestial objects, hill and valley, and rock and stream, and the abodes of men disappear; but the curtain is drawn up which concealed the heavenly hosts. There they shine and there they move, as they moved and shone to the eyes of Newton and Galileo, of Kepler and Copernicus, of Ptolemy and Hipparchus; yes, as they moved and shone when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. All has changed on earth-but the glorious heavens remain unchanged. The plough passes over the site of mighty cities-the homes of powerful nations are desolatethe languages they spoke are forgotten; but the stars that shone for them are shining for us-the same eclipses run their steady cycle-the same equinoxes call out the flowers of spring and send the husbandman to the harvest-the sun pauses at either tropic as he did when his course began; and sun and moon, and planet and satellite, and star and constellation and galaxy, still bear witness to the power, the wisdom and the love which placed them in the heavens, and upholds them there.

A city friend supplies us with a missing page from that delightful little book, entitled " Richmond in By-gone Days," to which we cheerfully give a place here.

Mr. Editor:-As the following interesting and apropos particulars are omitted in the "Sketch of Richmond," recently published, it is but just to individual enterprise and merit, that they should be given elsewhere. You are, therefore, requested, by a Subscriber, to record them on a page of your "Messenger."

Col. John Mayo, of Belleville, was a

refined Virginia gentleman of the "old school," and a most energetic and enterprising man. In his youth he studied and graduted at Christ Church College, Oxford, in England. A few years after his return to his native Country, he married a Northern lady, and settled in Richmond, and he it was who designed and built the first bridge connecting Manchester with Richmond, and designated as "Mayo's bridge."

The undertaking was at the time considered as so Herculean and doubtful an experiment, that when he proposed to many individuals to form a joint stock company, and aid him in it, none would consent to incur the risk, so alone and unassisted, he achieved his project.

The expense was enormous! He was often reduced to the greatest straits for funds, forced to borrow largely and on several occasions, absolutely placed within prison limits; and the late Mr. Benjamin Sheppard, then sheriff of the county, whose duty compelled him to serve these executions on Col. Mayo, was repeatedly heard to express astonishment at his perseverance, and say, "that he did not believe there was another man in Virginia who would have prosecuted his purpose so steadily and undauntedly, amid such heavy impediments and difficulties."

The labour, fatigue, and frequent exposure he underwent during the progress of the work, impaired his health and probably shortened his earthly career, which closed in the fifty-seventh year of his age.

To show how chimerical the plan of throwing a bridge across the rapid and powerful tide of James River at this point, was then regarded, we will mention that when Col. Mayo obtained from the Virginia Legislature a charter for his bridge, it was remarked that, "perhaps, the next application would be for a charter to raise a ladder to the moon!"

Our gifted contributor, 'Amie," "whose heart-strings are a lute," and whose delicious verses, published from time to time in the Messenger, have every where touched the sympathies of the lover of true poetry, writes us the sweetest little note in trochaics, which, though designed only for our editorial eye, we cannot be blamed for putting in type. 'Amie' can no more help writing poetry than the skylark can help pouring out his unpremeditated song at the gates of the morning, and though it has been said that

scribe. I had occasion, a few weeks since to take the early train from Providence to Boston, and for this purpose rose at two o'clock in the morning. Everything around was wrapt in darkness and hushed in silence, broken only by what seemed at that hour the unearthly clank and rush of the train. It was a mild, serene, midsummer's night, the sky was without a cloud, the winds were whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen, and the stars shone with a spectral lustre, but little affected by her presence. Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day; the Pleiades just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in the East; Lyra sparkled near the zenith; Andromeda veiled her newly discovered glories from the naked eye in the South; the steady pointers, far beneath the Pole, looked meekly up from the depths of the North to their Sovereign.

Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we proceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible; the intense blue of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars, like little children, went first to rest; the sister beams of the Pleiades soon melted together; but the bright constellations of the West and North remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of angels hidden from mortal eyes shifted the scenery of heaven; the glories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn. The blue sky now turned more softly gray; the great watch stars shut up their holy eyes; the East began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushed along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the flowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down from above in one great ocean of radiance; till at length, as we reached the Blue Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and turned the dewy teardrops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. In a few seconds, the everlasting gates of the morning were thrown wide open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, began his course.

I do not wonder at the superstition of the ancient Magians, who in the morning of the world went up to the hill tops of Central Asia, and, ignorant of the true God, adored the most glorious work of his hand. But I am filled with amazement, when I am told that in this enlightened age, and in the heart of the Christian world, there are persons who can witness this daily manifestation of the power and wisdom of the Creator,

no means exhausted its be there is an elevation of thor sentences we are about to marks the Christian philosop

It may be thought that co these are calculated rathe than to elevate us in the s that banished as he is by plations to a corner of crea reduced to an atom, man s ingness in this infinity of second thought corrects These vast contemplations lated to inspire awe, but Mind and matter are in An immortal soul, even " "this muddy vesture of the eye of God and res sence than the brightest the depths of heaven. human eye, instinct wit which, gazing through travels up to the cloud handle of Orion's swo blaze forth into a galax stands higher in the or all that host of lumin lect of Newton, whic law that holds the revoi er, is a nobler work of ( of universes of unthin

If still treading the analogy, we adopt the I own the grateful su countless planetary w these countless suns & tional beings like ma ing back from this e feeling of insignifica viduals of our race w in the infinity of be the contrary, as a nature, that it belon no man can numbe like itself. In the may stand beneath above us; he may his place who is than the angels."

We have drawn rett's discourse, L readers will thank and would gladly The conclusion iperformance and