The day had died in storm; and the chamber of Alexander was closed and lighted. He lay on his couch in the restlessness and pain of a fever from which he was never to recover. He was attended only by a young Persian girl, who watched his lightest word and sign with far more than the carefulness of servility. There was all the intensity of passionate affection in that pale cheek, those tearful eyes, and that quivering forehead. She moved silently through the splendid room at the least hint of the patient's want, and, when it was satisfied, she would sit down and weep in silence. It was early in the evening when he said, "Abra, I would speak with Perdiccas." She flew from the chamber, and in a few moments returned with the person named, and then retired to the ante-chamber, where, among slaves, guards, attendants, and physicians, she hid her face in her hands, and sobbed bitterly, while she thought that the man she loved would so soon breathe his last.

Perdiccas entered the room silently and slowly, and sat beside the bed. After a few moments of heavy breathing, the King turned towards his friend, and told him to move the lamp so that it might throw no light upon the couch. He then proceeded thus:

"Perdiccas, you will remember having once found me in India, at the tomb of ZAMOR. I have revealed to no man what I saw there; but I will now disclose it to you. The circumstances which led me thither are of but little importance. Suffice it that

I presented myself at the iron gates, and that they opened to admit me. I proceeded down a long and dark flight of steps, then through a passage, then down other steps, and had at last advanced to an immense distance through the rock. I thought for a moment of returning, but I went on, and travelled, as it seemed, league after league. At length I reached an iron grating, which with some difficulty I pushed open, and found myself in a large chamber. On the opposite wall there appeared to be a faint glimmer of light, and to it I proceeded. I touched the spot, and it felt like the side of a tent, and, in truth, I found that it was a curtain, covering an aperture. I pulled it aside, and a broad pale light burst upon me through the opening, which also gave me a view of another, and far larger chamber than that in which I stood.

"The room into which I looked was a vast gallery, which stretched its dreary vista almost beyond the sight. The floor was of black marble, and the sides of polished porphyry. Along the walls thrones were ranged at equal spaces, to an interminable distance. Those on one side were all occupied, except the nearest, which bore the name of ZAMOR, but which his late penitence and imperfect reparation had saved the ancient conqueror from occupying. The throne opposite to this-the first in the vacant line-was inscribed Alexander.' And, O Perdiccas! could I speak with the tongue of one of those Athenian poets whose renown will be as great as mine, I should yet be unable to express the

velries and intoxications, which, at last, have brought me death, though they have never bestowed forgetfulness. I shall soon be among those dreary and tormented shadows of departed power and dearly-bought renown. Take you this ring," (and he gave him the emblematic signet,) "and when you look upon it, remember, that not the image you see upon it, of immortal life and unbroken happiness, will dwell with the remains of kings and conquerors, but the polluting earth-worm and the stinging scorpion."

PHILOSOPHERS and divines have made many fruitless efforts to remove that general perversity in mankind, which leads it to despise simple pleasures, and eagerly search out those that possess no value but in their rarity, or the estimation of a senseless fashion. Ages will, I fear, elapse before the world can be amended in this respect, and individuals be taught to calculate the worth of a thing by its intrinsic, or its relative merits, without borrowing their opinions from others. Many will not enjoy what would afford them great pleasure, because such enjoyment is not sanctioned by usage. This is particularly the case as respects cheap and simple pleasures. Simplicity is but little followed, and yet it always obtains admiration. I went the other day to a fashionable ball, where unwieldy dowagers and rich nabobesses promenaded the rooms, adorned with costly pearls, and glittering in jewels, the spoils of every climate under the sun. Even the younger and more beautiful part of the company were attired in the extreme of the ton, and in an exuberance of ornament. There was one lovely girl amongst them who attracted every eye, and far eclipsed those who had exhausted the decorative art of half the milliners and tirewomen of St. James's. Every heart did her homage, and she moved in the bril

liant assemblage like some "fairy" vision of the "element." She had no jewels about her person, which was but of the middle stature. A single flower alone decorated her fine head of light brown hair. Her dress was white with little of flounce or furbelow, but her gait was elegant and graceful. There were other ladies present, as young and beautiful as she was, but they did not seem to attract half so much admiration, for they had too many of the "adulteries of art” about them; she reigned queen "of the ascendant." This, I am convinced, arose solely from the simplicity of her attire, where there was so much artificial decoration. There is something of propriety in our natural feelings that informs us what is true taste, and gives us an intuitive knowledge of the really elegant. Let this illustrate the value of simplicity in everything, in the fine arts, in pleasure, and in our domestic enjoyments. Of the latter, it is astonishing how many that are highly tasteful are within the reach of all, but for that reason deemed too cheap to be practicable, notwithstanding their value.

When summer's delightful season arrives, rarely in this country too warm to be enjoyed throughout the day in the open air, there is nothing more grateful than a profusion of choice flowers around and within our dwell

ings. The humblest apartments ornamented with these beautiful productions of nature have, in my view, a more delightful effect than the proudest saloons with gilded ceilings and hangings of Genoa velvet. The rich ness of the latter, indeed, would be heightened, and their elegance increased, by the judicious introduction of flowers and foliage into them. The odor of flowers, the cool appearance of the dark green leaves of some species, and the beautiful tints and varied forms of others, are singularly grateful to the sight, and refreshing at the same time. Vases of Etruscan mould, containing plants of the commonest kind, offer those lines of beauty which the eye delights in following; and variform leaves hanging festooned over them, and shading them if they be of a light color, with a soft grateful hue, add much to their pleasing effect. These decorations are simple and cheap. They offer to every class their redundant variety of beauty, at the price of a little labor to him who is disposed to rear them for himself, and at a very trifling expense in a large city to those who choose to purchase them. It is true the apartments of some few persons are always adorned with them, and their aid is called in somewhat incongruously to set off the midnight ball-room, but they are not half as common in dwelling-houses as they should be. They offer their rarer varieties to the wealthy, and those not blessed by fortune have a profusion of a cheaper kind at command, they being among those blessings bestowed upon us by our common mother which are within the reach of all. Lord Bacon, whose magnificence of mind exempts him from every objection as a model for the rest of mankind, (in all but the unfortunate error to which perhaps his sordid pursuit in life led him, to the degradation of his nobler intellect,) was enthusiastically attached to flowers, and kept a succession of them about him in his study and at his table. Now the union of books and flowers is more particularly agreeable.

Nothing, in my view, is half so delightful as a library set off with these beautiful productions of the earth during summer, or, indeed, any other season of the year. A library or study, opening on green turf, and having the view of a distant rugged country, with a peep at the ocean between hills, a small fertile space forming the nearest ground, and an easy chair and books, is just as much of local enjoyment as a thinking man can desire,— I reck not if under a thatched or a slated roof, to me it is the same thing. A favorite author on my table, in the midst of my bouquets, and I speedily forget how the rest of the world wags. I fancy I am enjoying nature and art together, a consummation of luxury that never palls upon the appetite—a dessert of uncloying sweets.

Madame Roland seems to have felt very strongly the union of mental pleasure with that afforded to the senses

by flowers. She somewhere says, "La vue d'une fleur carresse mon imagination et flatte mes sens à un point inexprimable; elle réveille avec volupté le sentiment de mon existence. Sous le tranquil abri du toit paternal, j'étois heureuse dès enfance avec des fleurs et des livres; dans l'étroite enceinte d'une prison, au milieu des fers imposés par la tyrannie la plus revoltante, j'oublie l'injustice des hommes, leurs sottises, et mes maux, avec des livres et des fleurs." sures, however, are, like the unjewelled girl at the ball, too simple to be universally felt.

These plea

There is something delightful in the use which the eastern poets, particularly the Persian, make of flowers in their poetry. Their allusions are not casual, and in the way of metaphor and simile only; they seem really to hold them in high admiration. I am not aware that the flowers of Persia, except the rose, are more beautiful or more various than those of other countries. Perhaps England, including her gardens, green-houses, and fields, having introduced a vast variety from every climate, may exhibit a list unrivalled, as a whole, in

odor and beauty. Yet flowers are not with us held in such high estimation as among the Orientals, if we are to judge from their poets. For whatever belongs to nature, and is prized nationally, is sure to be prominently introduced into that department of literature which belongs to imagination. Bowers of roses and flowers are perpetually alluded to in the writings of eastern poets. The Turks, and indeed the Orientals in general, have few images of voluptuousness without the richest flowers contributing towards them. The noblest palaces, where gilding, damask, and fine carpeting abound, would be essentially wanting in luxury without flowers. It cannot be from their odor alone that they are thus identified with pleasure; it is from their union of exquisite hues, fragrance, and beautiful forms, that they raise a sentiment of voluptuousness in the mind; for whatever unites these qualities can scarcely do otherwise.

Whoever virtuously despises the opinion that simple and cheap pleasures, not only good, but in the very best taste, are of no value because they want a meretricious rarity, will fill their apartments with a succession of our better garden flowers. It has been said that flowers placed in bedrooms are not wholesome. This cannot be meant of such as are in a state of vegetation. Plucked and put into water, they quickly decay, and, doubtless, give out a putrescent air; when alive and growing, there need not be any danger apprehended from them, provided fresh air is frequently introduced. For spacious rooms, the better kinds, during warm weather, are those which have a large leaf and bossy flower. Large leaves have a very agreeable effect on the senses; their rich green is grateful to the sight of this kind, the Hydrangea is remarkably well adapted for apartments, but it requires plenty of water. Those who have a green-house connected with their dwellings, have the convenience, by management, of changing their plants as the flowers 27 ATHENEUM, VOL. 1, 3d series.

decay; those who have not, and yet have space to afford them light and occasionally air, may rear most of those kinds under their own roof, which may be applied for ornament in summer. Vases of plaster, modelled from the antique, may be stained any color most agreeable to the fancy, and, fitted with tin cases to contain the earthen pots of flowers, to prevent the damp from acting on them, will look exceedingly well.

The

There is a great advantage, in families, in keeping the most pleasing and correct images of every kind of object before the eyes of youth. It causes, almost insensibly, an affinity between the objects so familiarized to them and the symmetry of thought (if I may so express myself), independently of forming a correct taste. region of fancy will be filled with more correct images; and a distorted or ill-proportioned object will be more immediately perceived by those who have been always accustomed to have the beautiful before them. In this sense, natural flowers are far better than embroidery, and the tapestry roses of our starched ancestors.

The infinite variety of roses, including the Guelder Rose; the Rhododendron, and other plants of similar growth, are fitted for the saloon, but they please best in the library. They should be intermingled with the bookcases, and stands filled with them should be placed wherever practicable. They are a wonderful relief to the student. There is always about them a something that infuses a sensation of placid joy, cheering and refreshing. Perhaps they were first introduced at festivals, in consequence of their possessing this quality. A flower-garden is the scene of pleasurable feelings of innocence and elegance. The introduction of flowers into our rooms infuses the same sensations, but intermingles them more with our domestic comforts; so that we feel, as it were, in closer contact with them. The succession might be kept up for the greater part of the year; and even in winter, evergreens