d especially for Mr. Madison, and never out of the possession of
the family. Besides these there were portraits of three discoverers,
Vespucius, Columbus, and Cabot, and many other very valuable paintings.

From Leigh Hunt's Journal.

THE FIRST SHIP IN THE NIGER.

BY WILLIAM ALLAN RUSSELL.

'Tis tropic noon! and not a single sound
Breathes on the eternal stillness all around;
'Tis tropic noon! and yet the sultry time
Seems like the twilight of some fairy clime.
Spreading in lone luxuriance round is seen
The mangrove's tangled maze of sombre green;
Thro' mists that dwell those baneful fens upon
Large orbed and pale peers out the shrouded Sun,
And struggling sickly thro' the vaporous day,
Dull on the windless waters falls the pallid ray.
So slumb'ringly the glassy river goes,
The water-lily dips not as it flows;
The swallow, haunter of the charmed spot,
Skims through the silence, and awakes it not;
Perch'd as in sleep, the gray kingfisher broods,
A sentinel among the solitudes;
And faints the breeze beneath the heavy sky,
Nor bends the bulrush, as it loiters by
Thro' long green walls of forest trees, that throw
Unwavering shadows in the flood below;
And droops from topmost boughs (like garlands dight
By elfin hands) the gaudy parasite:
Crowning the wave with flow'rs; and high above,
The tall acacia moves, or seems to move
Its feathery foliage in the enamor'd air,
That seems, tho' all unheard, to linger there:
Might'st fancy all, the earth, the air, the stream,
Still unawaken'd from Creation's dream.
When, hark! there sounds along the lonely shore
A voice those wilds had never heard before;
The wild bird dipp'd--the diamond-eye'd gazelle
Started and paused,--then fled into the dell;
Stirr'd by no breeze, the tree-tops seem'd to sigh--
When, lo! again the still repeated cry;
Hark! 'tis the leadsman, chanting loud and clear
The changing fathoms, as a ship draws near,--
And all at once rings out the Briton's hearty cheer!

_Historical Review of the Month._

THE UNITED STATES.

The Thirty-first American Congress, after a session of a little more
than three months, closed on the 4th of March. The conclusion of the
session was much more interesting and important than its commencement.
Our record of the previous month closed with the passage by the Se