ner of accounting for the nature
and origin of falling stars should be unsustained by sound astronomical
data, and utterly discountenanced by Herschel and Bond. There is
something in the theory very pleasant and very flattering to human
nature; and there are passages in the history of our race that might
make its promulgation not unacceptable. When, among the innumerable
"patines of bright gold" that strew the floor of heaven, we see one part
from the sphere of its undistinguished fellows, and, filling its pathway
with radiant light, vanish noiselessly into annihilation, we cannot but
be reminded of those characters that, with no apparent reason for being
segregated from the common herd, are, through some strange conjuncture,
hurried from a commonplace life by modes of death that illuminate their
memory with immortal fame. It is thus that the fulfilment of the vow
made in the heat of battle has given Jephthah's name a melancholy
permanence above all others of the captains of Israel. Mutius would long
ago have been forgotten, among the thousands of Roman soldiers as brave
as he, and not less wise, who gave their blood for the good city, but
for the fortunate brazier that stood in the tent of his enemy. And
Leander might have safely passed and repassed the Hellespont for twenty
years without leaving anything behind to interest posterity; it was
failure and death that made him famous.

Eighty years ago a tragedy was consummated by the river Hudson, which,
in the character of its victim and the circumstances of his story, goes
far to yield another example to the list of names immortalized by
calamity. On the 2d of October, 1780, a young British officer of
undistinguished birth and inconsiderable rank was hanged at Tappan.
Amiable as his private life was, and respectable as were his
professional abilities, it is improbable that the memory of John Andre,
had he died upon the battle-field or in his bed, would have survived the
generation of those who knew and who loved him. The future, indeed, was
opening brilliantly before him; but it was still nothing more than the
future. So far in his career he had hardly accomplished anything better
than the attainment of the mountain-top that commanded a view of the
Promised Land. It is solely and entirely to the occasion and the
circumstances of his death that we are to ascribe the peculiar and
universal interest in his character that has ever since continued to
hold its seat in the bos