62 YOUNG MEN'S LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. tance. 'Is the stage gone?' 'Are you hurt, sir?' said the bar-keeper, who now came forward with lights. What a thundering house you keep!' cried a cross old fellow from his chamber door- there is nothing but tramping up and down stairs from night to morning.' And among the rest, who should appear but the doctor and his friend; divested of their coats and vests, and having, apparently, just sprung from bed! 'No bone broke, I hope!' said the doctor-where is the injury, sir?-shall be happy to render you any professional assistance, sir.' The poor man was fairly distracted with the inquisitive sympathy of the spectators; but, assuring them that he was only slightly injured, he inquired despairingly-' for conscience sake, gentlemen, tell me is the stage gone?' The bar-keeper soon made him easy upon that subject; and the doctor, assuring him of his belief, that it would wait long enough for him to wash his bruises, retired triumphantly to take possession of the empty bed. YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROMOTION OF LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. A SENTIMENT having prevailed for some time among the young men of our community, favorable to a more direct developement of mind than is generally effected by common literary societies, together with a disposition to adopt measures calculated to bring out the literary and scientific spirit incited by the numerous institutions for the diffusion of useful knowledge, it was thought expedient to convene such young men as were supposed to be interested in the cause of general improvement. Accordingly a meeting was called on the evening of Oct. 24, 1831, and after various remarks approving of the design, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted: Resolved, That notwithstanding the auspicious results of Lyceums and similar institutions, there still exists among the young men of our community a want of active and efficient interest in literature and science. Resolved, That the propagation of a literary and scientific spirit among the young men would greatly favor the interests of mental and moral progress. Therefore resolved, That it is expedient to form an Association for effecting this object. YOUNG MEN'S LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 63 At an adjourned meeting, a committee appointed to draft a Constitution made their report, and after sundry amendments the following was unanimously adopted: PREAMBLE. We, the undersigned, holding in high estimation the interests of literature and science, and believing that an active interest in these subjects among the young men of our community, would be highly conducive to moral and intellectual improvement, have associated ourselves together for the purpose of promoting this object; and for our government do hereby ordain and establish the following Constitution. ART. 1. The name of this association shall be, the 'Young Men's Association for the Promotion of Literature and Science.' ART. II. The organization of the Association shall be effected by the election of a President, Vice President, Recording Secretary, Corresponding Secretary, Treasurer and Board of Censors, to be elected on the evening of the second Monday of December annually. ART. III. It shall be the duty of the President to preside at all meetings of the Association, to announce all subjects for consideration, and to preserve in faithful exercise the rules established by parliamentary usage. ART. IV. It shall be the duty of the Vice President to perform the duties of the President in his absence. ART. V. It shall be the duty of the Recording Secretary, to keep a fair and correct account of the proceedings of the Association; to read at every meeting the proceedings of the previous one; to give notice of the time and place of meeting; to notify all officers of their election, and candidates of their admission, and to perform such other duties as may be directed by the Association. ART. VI. It shall be the duty of the Corresponding Secretary, to conduct, under the direction of the Association, an epistolary correspondence with similar societies and with individuals. ART. VII. It shall be the duty of the Treasurer to take charge of the pecuniary and other property, and to keep an accurate account of the financial concerns of the Association. ART. VIII. The officers shall present reports of their doings and of the condition of the several interests under their charge, on the evening of the second Monday in December annually. ART. IX. It shall be the duty of the Board of Critics to examine, criticise and amend, if necessary, such compositions as may be presented for the acceptance of the Association. It shall also be the duty of this Board to perform such other offices as may be directed by the Association. ART. X. It shall be the duty of the members of the Association, by individual and united efforts, and by the faithful use of every laudable expedient to advance the objects of the Association. ART. XI. The interests of literature, science and the arts, shall be promoted by this Association, by such means as circumstances and experience may afford, but especially by the publication of facts and the dissemination of views and sentiments on the passing events in the literary, scientific and polite world, through the medium of a periodical entitled the ESSAYIST; said compositions to be subject to the veto of the Association, and the vote of two-thirds of the members present being requisite to publish them. ART. XII. Candidates for admission, proposed by a member of the Association, receiving the votes of two-thirds of the members present, may POLISH STANDARDS. become members by signing the constitution and paying the sum of one dollar annually. ART. XIII. The President may call special meetings of the Association at such times as the Board of Censors, or eight members, may think it expedient. ART. XIV. The regular meetings of the Association shall be held on the evening of the second Monday in every month. ART. XV. In case of the vacation of any office, it may be filled at any subsequent meeting, notified for that purpose. At subsequent meetings the several offices were filled, with the exception of the Board of Censors, which as yet is incomplete. The result of the election was as follows: B. B. THATCHER, President. I. MCLELLAN, JR., Vice President. Members were appointed to write on the following subjects: Living American Literature; Mount Auburn Cemetery; Analogy; Allston's New Picture; The Man of Circumstance; Early Education, with reference to the infliction of Punishinent; Reflections in a Grave Yard; Relation of the Living to the Dead; The Valley of the Mississippi; Morality of Method. POLISH STANDARDS. In accordance with a vote of the Polish Committee, at their last meeting, we insert the reply of Gen. Lafayette to the letter which accompanied the Standards to France, together with the answer, forwarded a week or two since. It is our intention to record everything of general interest relating to the Standards. To the Polish Committee. GENTLEMEN-Your kind and most gratifying letter, your admirable address, the beautiful, sympathetic and ingenious pair of Standards, have reached my hands at a time when heroic Poland has become the prey of conquering despotism; it is no more possible for Dr. Howe to convey the noble present to its destination. Honored as I was with your so precious and ever experienced confidence, I have endeavored to preserve, in the best way I could, the meaning of your resolutions, and to anticipate the new instructions which I shall, at any time, be happy to receive. Several of the most distinguished Poles are already arrived. They expect other members of the two houses, of their executive and principal officers of their army; they, in the mean while, have formed a provisionary committee; to them, and to all new comers, I have presented the colors and address. The Standards have, at their request, been for the present deposited at my lodgings, where they become an object of patriotic pilgrimage. An American Polish Committee, of which Dr. Howe is now the Chairman, assemble every week in this city. We consult together upon the best mode to dispose of the donations received from the United States, now more useful than in the actual state of Poland, when so many of her sons either proscribed, or threatened with a deadly exile to Siberia, or disdaining to submit to the Russian Yoke, are wandering through the western parts of Europe, and especially expected in France. How much delighted I have been with this new specimen of Bostonian sympathy for the cause of freedom and patriotic freedom, and with an additional token of your kindness to me, nobody in your beloved city will question. I however beg you to present the young men of Boston, the worthy grand-sons of my revolutionary companions, with a particular tender of my gratitude and devoted affection. Expecting further and ever most gratifying communication with you on the subject of the charge entrusted to my care, I have the honor to be, Gentlemen, your obliged and affectionate friend, To General Lafayette. LAFAYETTE. SIR-The Committee of the Young Men of Boston acknowledge, with great pleasure, the receipt of your very gratifying reply to their letter of September last, which accompanied the Standards destined for the Poles. The flattering terms in which you are pleased to speak of the tokens confided by them to your charge-and still more the estimate you have set upon the principles and motives under which they have acted-command their warmest gratitude, and go, farther than any other circumstance, to alleviate the deep sorrow which, in common with yourself and all the friends of freedom, they cannot but feel for the melancholy fate of that brave and unfortunate people. Suspending their own opinion of the course proper to be adopted in the conveyance or retention of the Standards-as they always have done -upon the decision of your own greater information and better judgment, they should have deemed it unnecessary to transmit to you any farther communications respecting them; but they consider it their duty, as it is their pleasure, to regard your own wishes upon this subject, as expressed in the reply they have had the honor of receiving. Permit us then, Sir, to repeat our solicitations, that you will suffer the Standards to remain in your charge until some ultimate disposition of them may occur to yourself or to us, and that you will continue to embrace every fit occasion of presenting them to the sight of any individuals of your own nation and of the nation for whom they were destined, and assuring them that the same feelings of deep sympathy which prompted their execution in hope, still remain burning in the bosoms of the myriads that weep for Poland. May they be consoled when they look upon these fraternal symbols. Let them be reminded how dear to the world-to Americans above all-is the cause for which they have struggled and suffered; and how dear-in whatever event may under Providence await their native country—will be the names and the memory of those brave men who bled upon the plains of Praga, and around Warsaw's smouldering walls. GEORGE W. LIGHT, Secretary. JAMES BLAKE, JR., As. Secretary. WILLIAM R. STACY, Chairman. ESSAYIST ROOM. A PLEASANT friend intimated to us the other day, that our second number must have commenced the Fatal Sleep' which we predicted was reserved for it on the last page of No. I. We are happy in being able to say, however, not only that the wand of that drowsy god, Somnus, has been removed, but that in all probability, from the new sources which we are now permitted to draw upon for assistance in our undertaking, the magazine will hereafter prove to be more wide awake' than ever before, and doubtless is not doomed to be again subject to the influence of that somniforous deity. We shall not trouble our readers with a detailed account of the circumstances which have occasioned the delay in the publication of this number. It is only necessary to mention, that in consequence of a generous offer made by the literary Association lately formed in this city, to afford their aid in making the work as useful and entertaining as possible, it has been thought advisable to make several new arrangements, which have rendered the delay unavoidable. We trust this brief explanation will be satisfactory to those who have already favored us with their subscriptions, when we assure them that the magazine will hereafter be published regularly on or before the fifteenth of every month. It is our design to give brief notices of most of the new publications of the day. Deeming it, however, more in accordance with the station in which it is our lot to labor, to notice in a particular manner the works of the younger class of writers among us, we shall make this department of literature one of our chief objects of regard. The first production to which we would call the attention of our readers this month, is the work recently published by Messrs. Waitt & Dow of this city, entitled TALES OF THE INDIANS,' being prominent passages from the history of the North American Natives, taken from authentic sources, by B. B. Thatcher. Mr. Thatcher has been known among us for some time as an able contributor to our most respectable periodicals, as well as the annuals, and is, moreover, the writer, as we strongly suspect, of several popular works which have appeared before the public without a name. To the subject of the volume which lies before us, containing about two hundred and fifty pages, he has for a number of years past devoted not only particular and continued attention, but has spared no pains in |