They have a Queen, who, like the sovereign lady, That of the honored nation's city, holds

The tiny throne and sceptre, is the mother

General of the mermal swarm, the eye,

That scans each throbbing of the general pulse,

Its current healing. Like Hyppolyta's,
Famed mistress of Mars' glory zone, and queen
Of single-breasted maids, unhusbanded,
Abhorring men, her words are statues firm
Binding the state; her will, the legislature,
Fixing the reign of Justice and their Gods;
And, graced with eloquence, though dumb, her arm,
With gentle wave, conveys a mightier wave
Of joy or sorrow o'er th' obedient realm.

She has a palace from the city's core,
Whose flaming foreheads front to every wall,
To frown rebellion and base tumult down
A disembowel'd mountain. Petra's cliffs,
Where cormorant and bittern build their nests,
And satyrs howl a nation's requiem,

Though erst Edumea's sons there braved the world,
Within their excavated bosoms boast

No shadow of such grandeur. When the Russians,
Fur-clad and shaggy, on the Finland coast
Hewed for imperial Catharine a home
Out of the marble waters, she'd not heard of
This ocean-palace, else her great empire
Had slept a frozen burden on the wave.
Annihilation seems to seize on all
Beneath its pillared porches; from on high
Amazement, brooding o'er the roof sublime,
Awes with returning glance the gazing soul.

Close 'neath its roof th' eyes' shrinking shutter creeps;
Wide-spread th' iv'ry portals of the mouth;
And the astonished fingers, high upreared,
Point to all quarters of the Stars' blue throne.
How shall I paint thy beauties, palace? How
Describe the wonders of thy matchless form?
Interior and exterior thou dost bear,
In golden soil, crops of supernal flowers,
Gemmed rarer than Golconda's coronet,
So multiform and curious, that the eye
Of upper man ne'er rests on such delights.
Who carved those rich mosaics? Who impressed
Those speaking emblems in thy coral walls,
Historic emblems of a distant age,

Of pearl and conch, and figured gold inwrought,

Thy lineage long, and story of thy queens?

A thousand suns blaze o'er thee, when the flames Of naphtha and bitumen, calx and nard,

A mixture aromatic, and defies

Fire's liquid foe, prey on the nightly censers,
Hung multitudinous, that from their lips,
Flamif'rous, breathe a cloud of pure aroma,
Which, though the wat'ry atmosphere diffused,
Conveys and offers to th' admiring sense
A burden of delight. Oh! for a pen,
With inspiration burning, fresh from heaven,
To character in fire thy lustrous Queen,
By far the fairest of this fairy race,
Transcendent: she, in state or pastime sweet,
Among her courtly ladies peerless moves,
As Luna 'midst the star-eyed troops above.
When Calm, peace-bearing power, her potent arm
Sweeps o'er the troubled bosom of the sea,
Smoothing its tumult, with a nymphly train,
She to the threshold of her kingdom mounts,
Where air and ocean battle in the storm.
Now ocean smiles on them, disporting wide,
Some in the element, and some reclined

On shells, sea-chariots, and by dolphins drawn,
All beauteous. Heaven rebounds their joyful peals.
But as the Nautilus, before the breeze

Exulting at the distant tread of man,

Furls all her canvas, and o'erwhelms her bark;

So when they feel, though sight compels them not,

The slightest ripple of approaching sail,

With sudden fright they gather in their shouts,

And silent hasten to their safe retreat.

Thus have I faintly pictured, what had else,

Had not a spirit told it in mine ear,
Defied belief; that ocean-dwelling city,
Magnificent; its semi-human race;

Their wondrous mode of living submarine;

And their strange manners, customs, government. Herein is much, that seems to give the lie

To simple Nature, as she dwells with us;

But, critic, know, earth, heaven, and sea yet hold Food for philosophy, and Isaac Newton.

ISTS AND ISMS.

THE present age has been, not inappropriately, styled "an age of isms." New-fangled notions and gossamer theories are as plenty as mushrooms after a long rain, and many of them quite as unsubstantial and ephemeral. They often remind one of the gourd of Jonah-very pleasant and refreshing shades for the fancy to revel in, but withered and burnt up the moment they come into the light of practice. Every conceited blockhead who pants after notoriety, but without the slightest chance of gaining it by legitimate means, now sets on foot some unheard-of theory-the more wild and impracticable the better-forthwith claps an ism to the end of his name, and is lauded to the skies by a gaping multitude. There is a class of men, and not a small one, who, like the crowds of the Areopagus, "spend their time in nothing else but either to tell or hear some new thing." And while the name of these isms is legion, their character is as motley as their number is great. We have Fourierists, who would cast the elements of society and government into the boiling caldron of anarchy, and, by some weird-like spells, spirit up a "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness;" Agrarians, who would give every man a piece of God's earth big enough to yield him food, and clothing, and a penny to lay by for a rainy day;" Peace-men, who are trying with the silken, but strong cords of Love, to fetter the gory wheels of that Juggernaut, under which so many myriads of deluded humanity have been crushed; and Abolitionists, who would strike off the manacles of the slave, and bid the down-trodden and oppressed go free. We have, too, those who would, by a new system of spelling, turn our good old English tongue into an inexplicable jargon-if we may use the expression, "knock it into a cocked hat ;" and then we suppose they want the old folks to go to school again to learn their letters; and last, but not least, we have ists in religion, of every hue and grade, from the Swedenborgian transcendentalist, reveling in the etherialized felicities of a Mesmeric Heaven, to the Millerite fanatic, who, fancying he hears afar off the last dread trump, soars away from the house-top in robes of white, and to his amazement finds himself rather unceremoniously landed on uncivil terra firma. And, as if all this were not enough, Mesmerism must give us a new Bible," and invest the preachings of human reason with the authority of revelation.

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The characteristics of these isms are well worthy of inspection, for they are the characteristics of the age-the outward indices of a deep and mighty working of the great human mind. In general we notice they are bold and independent. Their very extravagance indicates their originality and excursiveness of thought. They take no man for their god-father-no creed for their compass-but strike out fearlessly on the broad ocean of thought, heedless of ancient landmarks. The barriers that prejudice and superstition once raised effectually against new notions and theories, are now quietly demolished by the repeated and

tremendous shocks of the dashing waters of opinion. It seems as if no opinion could be advanced, however exclusive and paradoxical-no theory, however chimerical and Utopian-but would find its able and enthusiastic adherents. Customs and doctrines which, in another age, would have been spared, if for nothing else, at least on the score of antiquity and hallowed associations, are now ruthlessly satinized and brought to "toe the mark" of a new standard-a standard of Utility and Right. Reform is the cry taken up and reëchoed; and as it rings across the surface of society, the huge mass rocks, and heaves, and groans, convulsed as by a moral earthquake. Old forms and institutions are leveled with the dust, and swallowed up; new forms and creations spring as if by magic out of the ruins. However extravagant and absurd many of these isms may be, there is in most of them meaning and power; they are the exponents of new systems—the offspring of bold, unfettered, original minds.

Again, these isms are practical. By this we do not mean that they are not visionary and theoretical in their doctrines. Many of them are highly so. But they are practical in their object-they have an application direct and important. They are concerned with questions of mighty import, affecting human life and happiness-human action and destiny. We have in them no nice theological hair-splittings, and finespun theories about the origin of the world, and of matter and mind, and a hundred other like things beyond the mind's depth and comprehension. The idle vagaries of Thomas Aquinas and the Schoolmen— their voluminous discussions and musty lore, spent in speculations as to the probable relative position of Heaven, Purgatory, and Tophet, or the form and elements of an angel's body, find little sympathy in the spirit of our day. Men no longer leave unexplored,

"Truth useful and attainable with ease,

To search forbidden deeps, where mystery lies
Not to be solv'd, and useless if it might."

Curious and interesting as such mysteries may be to men of lore and leisure, the subject of man's deplorable condition is, to the masses, of far paramount interest and moment. What care they whether the earth is made of fire, water, or "what-not," or whether angels eat and drink, as long as stern tyranny wrings their passive necks, relentless famine stalks through their dwellings, and lean, haggard children, clamor for bread? Here is the point: men are beginning to discover (what it would have been well, had they taken it for granted long since) that the world has a real, veritable being, and men a being in it; and that most probably both men and earth were made for some certain and momentous purpose. They are beginning to wonder why the great human body has been doomed to struggle, and sweat, and groan, in order that one or two dainty limbs may be petted and humored, and let grow fat and sleek. Strange this evil had not been thought of and mended long since! Whatever has been, however, it is an undeniable fact, that, leaving these recondite speculations to the past, the isms of our day are chiefly occupied in searching for the most feasible methods

of working out the great problem of Human Progress and Destiny. A principle when discovered remains not as formerly, like the pearl, embedded in the hard shell of theory; but is extracted and polished, and fitted for use. It is illustrated, and embodied, and brought to bear with power upon the popular mind; and with the locomotive-hurry of the day it speeds on its course to work its wonders.

Another feature in this state of things is the hearty devotedness and strong enthusiasm of these self-styled Reformers. Many indeed by their zeal have won the appellation of "men of one idea." Some have imagined that novelty was the inciting motive to the advocacy of these opinions; but the depth of feeling, and enthusiastic, self-denying toil, that frequently characterizes their advocates, prove this supposition groundless. Men would not, like Gerrit Smith, distribute five hundred thousand acres of land to poor men gratuitously, without any feeling of Right or Duty in the matter. A city like Nauvoo, with its massive temple, could not have risen in a day, without a fixedness of belief, and an enthusiastic devotion, that is above the world's opinion of their acts. A Fourier would not have persisted for twenty-five years in intense studies, forced to bear the gibes and sneers of those around him, had he not been inspired with a fervent zeal and strong love for Humanity, and believed that he was digging up hidden truths, that would have a mighty bearing upon Human Destiny. We do not notice this characteristic as unusual. The Crusader, his eye lighted with holy fire, and his heart glowing with religious fervor, marching to spill his blood in the Holy Land, the Huguenot, courting death at the stake, and chanting Te Deums while his flesh is frying on his bones, both furnish us with quite as striking examples of burning enthusiasm and high resolve in a darling cause. But we mean to say that these isms have power and energy-that, like the smoke and ashes of the volcano, they indicate the deep convulsion and earthquake underneath the warring and turmoil of elements deep in the bowels of society.

Behold, then, here an outline of the isms of the day, roughly sketched and imperfect, yet, we trust, not wanting in some of their boldest features. They are independent, often startling, not unfrequently visionary and extravagant; showing conclusively that they come from minds that "swear in the precepts of no master"-follow the leadingstrings of no guide. Though bold and original, however, they are not all mere 66 castles in the air;" they have the end of human action-the achievement of human destiny-as their grand and avowed object. Inspired with the glory of their ultimate aim, and undoubtedly somewhat stimulated by the spice of novelty in their opinions, the advocates of these isms press their point with an unwonted singleness of purpose and fervor of enthusiasm. Their number is a token of the universality of their spirit, and that the cause of their prevalence is deep and radical.

Their causes we will make the subject of brief inquiry. As might be inferred from what has been said, we do not doubt many of these ists are artful knaves and demagogues, many others harebrained en