should steep the senses in
forgetfulness of the world and its cares? On a sudden he starts from his
couch with an appearance of frenzy!--his nostrils dilated, his eyes
gleaming with immoderate excitation--an incipient curse quivering on his
lips, and every vein swelling--every muscle tense with fearful and
passionate energy of purpose. Is he possessed with a devil, or does he
meditate suicide, that his manner is so wild and hurried? With impetuous
velocity he rushes to the window, and beneath his vehement but futile
strokes, aimed at a scarcely visible, and certainly impalpable object,
the fragile glass flies into fragments, the source of future colds and
curtain lectures without number. The immediate author of so much
mischief, it is true, is the diminutive vampire which is now making its
escape with cold-blooded indifference through a very considerable
fracture in one of the panes; but surely the person who saved from
destruction, and may thus be considered to have given existence to the
cause of all this loss of temper and of property, cannot conscientiously
affirm that _his_ withers are unwrung! Mercy and forbearance are very
great virtues when exercised with proper discretion; but man owes a
paramount duty to society, with which none of the weaknesses, however
amiable, of his nature should be allowed to interfere. It is no mercy to
pardon and let loose upon the community one who, having already been
convicted of manifold delinquencies, only waits a convenient season for
adding to the catalogue of his crimes; and what is larceny, or felony,
or even treason, compared with the perpetration of the outrages above
attempted to be described?--We pause for a reply.

Summer is a most delectable--a most glorious season. We, who are fond of
basking as a lizard, and whose inward spirit dances and exults like a
very mote in the sun-beam, always hail its approach with rapture; but
our anticipations of bright and serene days--of blue, cloudless, and
transparent skies--of shadows the deeper from intensity of surrounding
light--of yellow corn-fields, listless rambles, and lassitude rejoicing
in green and sunny banks--are allayed by this one consideration, that

Waked by the summer ray, the reptile young
Come winged abroad. From every chink
And secret corner, where they slept away
The wintry storms; by myriads forth at once,
Swarming they pour.

Go where you will, it is not possible to escape these "winged reptiles."
T