Oft in the stilly night, Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me.

Who has not felt the pleasure, - to some temperaments, perchance, a melancholy one, - of calling up from the deep hidden recesses of the mind the memories of happy hours long since numbered with things departed - of people with whom we were in former days familiar, and of places once as accustomed to our steps as our own household porch, but to which our footfall is now that of the stranger. They who have been reared in the quiet privacy of the country are perhaps more susceptible to such impressions than those whose childhood was passed in the throng and bustle of a city, where change is marked on every object, where houses, the landmarks of a former day when "progress" and speculation were less rife, give way to the march of improvement, where block upon block yearly encroaches on the suburbs, where the adventures of to-day pass away unheralded and forgotten, to give place to some new speculator on the morrow, and where even the gilding of the merchant's sign scarce has time to tarnish, ere it yields to that of some fresh commercial aspirant.

In the country, on the contrary, though there be indeed too much household change, too little among us of that fine old English feeling which secures to our descendants, or impresses them with the desire to preserve our own paternal acres and our "ancestral trees," still we are not deprived the pleasure of at least recognizing objects with which our eye was once fondly familiar, and to which we again turn as to the face of an old friend from whom we may have been temporarily parted; - to trees, for instance, under which we once stripped and sung, or "Inscribed with Friendship's yotive rhyme, The bark now silvered by the touch of Time.

In a humor to conjure up thoughts of the past, with the soft mellow haze of the Indian summer, so peculiar to our climate, pervading the atmosphere, shedding its genial influence on the senses, blending distant objects, and creating a pleasing illusion as the eye wandered over the landscape, making man more at peace within, and all surrounding him, than may at other times a clearer sky and brighter sunshine, - I started alone and on foot to revisit localities with which I had been familiar in the days of my boyhood. A walk of an hour brought me to the Schuylkill, at the point where once floated "the old Gray's ferry bridge," a remnant of the Revolution, and with which the locality has associations connecting it with that period - its history indeed precedes "the days which tried men's souls," and is brought down to those of modern railroads. In place of the old, to me well-known bridge, with its moss, grown logs, rickety rail, and draw, through which the lazy shallop was permitted to pass, after sounding its tin horn, the preconcerted signal of approach, I found a structure upon piers, with double avenues, one devoted to cars, the other to ordinary travel.

Emerging from its western .terminus, how changed the scene! "The cliffs, " once the family residence of the Says, perhaps of the naturalist himself, so identified with our Academy of Natural Sciences, was no longer there. The solid granite hill, of commanding height, on which the mansion once stood, overlooking the distant city and the Schuylkill in its meandering course, had disappear ed - levelled by the hand of "progress," which consigns to a common fate the noblest tree or venerated structure. The antique ferry-house, - the scene of so much festivity and joyous mirth in days lang syne, where in its season the tinkling sleigh-bell kept tune to the merry laugh, or where at other times the sober follower of Izaak Walton regaled himself after bis lengthened walk, where Martin ministered planked shad or Oliver concocted punch as best suited the taste of their "parishioners" - remained. The steps to the adjacent garden, hewn out of the solid rocks, trodden by so many a Philadelphian in his youthful days, when locks now grey were golden, like their visions of the future, when "Fancy fluttered on her wildest wing," and exciting astonishment scarcely less than that which Petre may have inspired in their maturer years, - still stood, - worn and riven by many a winter's storm, monuments of the day when our city's utmost bound was scarcely a tithe of its present extent, and drab-coated Pennsylvania had no cause to blush that her interests and her honor were sacrificed at the shrine of politicians.

The garden, or rather the grounds, with indistinct outlines of avenues and sinuous paths were still there, but many a tree, under which I had once gamboled, had disappeared, - had yielded to the axe, perhaps some to time, enough remained to bring back fresh as yesterday, days gone by, and Rogers' sweet lines gave expression to my thoughts and feelings:

"As thro' the garden's desert paths I rove, What food illusions swarm in every grove 1 Childhood's loved group revisits every scene, The tangled wood-walk and the tufted green. "

Proceeding onward, I reached the "Battery" whose earthen walls were designed to curb the inroads of the British in the war of 1812. The lapse of time since then is indicated by the growth upon the artificial mound, - thrown up in part by school-boy hands, in patriotic fervor. - How many of those who participated in the work are now stilled by death, or tremulous by age 1

At a short distance southward from this point stands the "Sorrel Horse," a noted stopping place when the "swiftmail" coach accomplished the trip between Philadelphia and Baltimore in something less than two whole days.

Immediately opposite this hostelry, still stands, as it has stood for half a century or more, bleaching in the summer's sun, a plain one-storied structure, where Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, once was the presiding genius, the pedagogue of the Hamlet school, and doubtless the wonder of the unlettered throng, "That one small head could carry all he knew".

Uninteresting in itself as is the hut, for it is little else, what reflections it induces. The bell is now mute, and '

" Unheard the shout that rent the noontide air, When the slow dial gave a pause to care," but around the spot cluster associations which must ever be held sacred by all who cherish the love of nature. Here the simple-minded man probably conceived and planned the work which will hand down his name to the remotest generations. From this spot we can imagine him departing on many a tramp of observation, returning with specimens of birds, and knowledge to be recorded of their haunts and habits. Within these rude walls he probably indicted the glowing descriptions of the objects he so much loved. His happy style and expressive diction adding charms to a charming subject, and giving impulse to the study of a science to which he was devoted, heart and soul, whilst his diligence was such that years afterwards, when Charles Bonaparte published his supplementary volume, he had not been able to discover, in Pennsylvania, a single bird undescribed by Wilson. I lingered around the spot sacred to science, conjuring up fantasies of the past, and revelling in imagination on other days.

Here he who had been in his youth a humble Paisley weaver first felt the love of nature, and burning within his breast the fire of genius, which was one day to burst forth and leave its impress on the age - for so long as the admiration of nature's works shall be an impulse of humanity, so long shall his memory be held in affectionate esteem. How soothing in this utilitarian age, when effort is too often measured by the wealth which it produces, and the glitter of gold blinds the perception of modest merit, to steal away into the quiet country, and give full scope to natural affections - to do homage to genius, and silently pay our tribute of respect to those whose works contribute to present pleasure, and that of generations yet unborn. Whilst living, he was fond in his intimacy with the Bartram family, from whom he no doubt derived encouragement and useful information, and afterward when he had removed to the city, and adopted literature as a profession, he was for several successive summers resident at their delightful homestead.

Wilson, with the impulsive love of nature which so thoroughly imbued him, had expressed a wish to be buried at the Bartram garden, under the umbrageous foliage of familiar trees, and, in his own words, "where the birds might sing over his grave," but he was debarred the wish. He died in Philadelphia in 1813 whilst the then proprietor of the grounds was with the army on the Canadian frontier; he found his last resting-place at the "Old Swedes Church," near the navy-yard. Peace to his ashes.

The declining day admonished me I had a walk ahead, and so absorbed had I been by the reflections I have attempted to express, I was almost unconscious of the gorgeous beauty of the surrounding landscape, burnished by the oblique rays of the setting sun. The early frost had done its work . each leaf was tinged as in a fairy scene; some, as the ash, the hickory, and the birch, were of a golden hue; others, as the oak, the scarlet maple and the gum, were of varied tints of lighter or deeper purple, the whole forming a glowing gallery not to be witnessed, of equal beauty, elsewhere than on our continent. Such a sight, with its associations, was worth a life spent in the bustling haunts of trade, and when I reached my home I trust I was wiser and better than when I started on my solitary ramble. L.