SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER:

EVERY DEPARTMENT OF

LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II, NUMBER 9

THE RULER'S FAITH: by Mrs. L. H. Sigourney

SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY and Present Condition of Tripoli, with some accounts of the other Barbary States (No. XI.): by Robert Greenhow

STANZAS: by W. Gilmore Simms

THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION: by Judge Joseph Hopkinson

TO ——: by W. Gilmore Simms

A REMINISCENCE: by Dr. Francis Lieber

THE OLD MAN'S CAROUSAL: by James K. Paulding

PISCATORY REMINISCENCES

ISRAFEL: by E. A. Poe

JUDGMENT OF RHADAMANTHUS: by James K. Paulding

SCENES IN CAMPILLO: by Lieut. A. Slidell

THE PINE WOOD: by Dr. Robert M. Bird

THE BATTLE OF LODI: by Major Henry Lee

MARCUS CURTIUS: by Omega

BRITISH PARLIAMENT IN 1835 No. II. The House of Lords

TO A TORTOISE-SHELL COMB: by Mrs. E. F. Ellet

INFLUENCE OF NAMES: by H.

THE CITY OF SIN: by E. A. POE

A HINT, TOUCHING THE GREEK DRAMA: by Borealis

SACRED SONG: by W. Maxwell

A TOUR TO THE ISTHMUS: by a Yankee Dauber

LINES: by P. P. Cooke

THE LEARNED LANGUAGES: by Mathew Carey

FOURTH LECTURE on the faults of scholars: by James M. Garnett

A CASE NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY OF THE BOOKS

MSS. OF JOHN RANDOLPH
    LETTER IV
    LETTER V
    LETTER VI

A POLITE STRUGGLE

A PROFESSION FOR LADIES: by Mrs. Sarah J. Hale

EDITORIAL
    RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION.
    PINAKIDIA.

CRITICAL NOTICES
    THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW: by the Reverend Orville Dewey
    RICHARDSON'S DICTIONARY: by Charles Richardson
    BOOK OF GEMS: by poets and artists of Great Britain
    SOUTH-SEA EXPEDITION: by the Committee on Naval Affairs
    ELKSWATAWA: by James S. French
    THE VIRGINIA SPRINGS: by Peregrine Prolix
    A YEAR IN SPAIN: by Lieutenant Slidell
    ADVENTURES IN SEARCH OF A HORSE: by Caveat Emptor
    LAFITTE: by Professor Ingraham
    DRAPER'S LECTURE: by John W. Draper, M.D.
    LIEBER'S MEMORIAL: by Francis Lieber
    HISTORY OF TEXAS: by David B. Edward
    INKLINGS OF ADVENTURE: by N. P. Willis

AUTOGRAPHY

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

THE RULER'S FAITH.

SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY

AND PRESENT CONDITION OF TRIPOLI, WITH SOME ACCOUNTS OF THE OTHER BARBARY STATES.

By the evening of the 3d of July, the preparations for the bombardment of the Emperor's castle were completed; ditches had been dug to the extent of more than two thousand yards, and the batteries some of which were within musket shot of the walls, were armed with six sixteen-pounders, ten twenty-four-pounders, four eleven-inch mortars and six nine-inch howitzers. In order to secure themselves against any general attack, the French had likewise established communications between the different bodies of their forces by roads across the field and gardens, while they had barricaded or otherwise fortified the lanes and passes which separated their positions from those of their enemies. All this was done notwithstanding the bold and persevering efforts of the Algerines, who maintained an almost constant though ill-directed fire on the workmen from their batteries, and annoyed them by frequent sorties.

At day break on the morning of the 4th, a rocket was thrown up from the quarters of the French commander as a signal for the commencement of the attack, and all the batteries were instantly opened on the devoted fortress. Its dauntless defenders returned the fire, which they continued for some time with great spirit but with little effect, their balls and shells causing scarcely any damage to the persons or works of the besiegers. The walls of the castle, high and entirely exposed, soon exhibited evidences of the skill of the French artillerists; the materials of which they were built, crumbled under the “iron shower” falling incessantly upon them; and the embrasures, made unnecessarily wide, afforded but little protection either to the guns or to those engaged in serving them.

By eight o'clock the guns of the castle were nearly all dismounted, and the number of its effective defenders had been so much diminished, that it was found necessary to desert the ramparts, and retire within the great tower, which from the thickness of its walls offered at least a temporary security. On this last place of refuge, the Hasnagee hoisted a black flag, in token of his determination to die rather than yield, according to the promise which he had made to his master. He was however released from this promise by a signal from the Casauba indicating the Dey's wish that the fortress should be abandoned; this was accordingly done and the garrison escaped just as the French had effected a practicable breach in its wall. General Hurel who commanded the nearest battery, was then in the act of advancing with his men towards the opening, when suddenly the earth shook, the towers of the castle were seen to totter, flashes of flame and dense clouds of smoke rose above them, and an explosion ensued which momentarily stunned the ardent soldiers. The [p. 526] Algerines, before they evacuated the castle, had fired a slow match communicating with the powder magazines in its vaults, and the last and strongest defence of Algiers was utterly destroyed. As the smoke vanished, the walls of the fortress were seen rent and shattered by the terrible concussion; the great tower was reduced to a few shapeless masses, and the ground in the environs was covered with fragments of wall, corpses and even cannon, which had been projected into the air by the violence of the explosion. The French soon recovered, and rushing forward with shouts of triumph, planted their standard among the smoking ruins; scarcely too was this done, ere the prompt and skilful engineers were directing the workmen to clear away the interior of the place, and stop the breaches in its outward walls, so as to protect it against the assaults of its former possessors. The ruins of the Star fort were also occupied, and preparations were made for erecting batteries on them for the bombardment of the city.

Algiers was now completely exposed; in a few hours the artillery which had so rapidly overwhelmed its strongest defence, would be levelled against the palace of the Dey and the dwellings of the citizens. Hussein and his subjects had done all that men could do in defence of their country; and it was unnecessary farther to provoke a foe who held them at his mercy. At two o'clock Sidi Mustapha, the Dey's private secretary, appeared under a flag of truce at Bourmont's head quarters, to offer on the part of his master, the surrender of those claims against France which had led to the war, as well as the payment of the expenses occasioned by the expedition, provided the French would leave the country. It is scarcely necessary to say that this proposition was rejected with scorn. “I hold in my hand,” was the reply, “the fate of your city; nothing less than its unconditional surrender can save the Dey and inhabitants from being buried in its ruins.” With this answer Mustapha returned to the Casauba, exclaiming, says Bourmont, “When the Algerines are at war with France, they should obtain peace before the evening prayer.” Such a speech may have been uttered by the trembling secretary, but when repeated in the despatch of the victorious general it became a mere fanfaronade.

A few bombs were immediately thrown into the town which produced the desired effects. Hussein saw that his fate was in the power of his enemies, and his whole anxiety was to obtain as good terms as possible for himself and his own immediate followers; he accordingly despatched a Turk named Mahmoud, and Bouderba a Moor who had lived in Marseilles and spoke French, to entreat that the firing might be stopped, promising a similar cessation on the side of the Algerines. They received at first the same answer which had been given to the Secretary; however a conference ensued between them and Bourmont, which resulted in a suspension of hostilities.

As soon as the Dey had received the first answer of the French General, he sent to entreat the intervention of the British Consul. Mr. St. John instantly obeyed the summons, and after an interview with the Dey, proceeded to Bourmont's head quarters which were by this time established among the ruins of the Emperor's castle, in order to learn with exactness the conditions required by him. Bourmont at first objected to his interference, but subsequently thought proper to treat with him. The plan of a Convention was in consequence drawn up between them, by the terms of which, the Casauba and all the other fortresses of the city were to be delivered to the French early on the following morning; the Dey and soldiers were to quit Algiers with their families and private property; the inhabitants were to be protected in the enjoyment of their personal liberty, property and religion; their women were to be respected, and their commerce and industry to remain undisturbed.

This Convention was sent to the Dey and immediately returned with his seal and signature affixed in token of his own assent; he however required time to consult his Divan without whose approbation it could not be legally executed. Bourmont agreed to wait until the next morning; he did not however suspend his preparations for the investment of the place, which were continued with unabated activity.

The debate in the Divan lasted the whole night of the 4th, and it was probably stormy; the younger and poorer members of the body proposed, it is said, to murder Hussein, then divide the treasures of the Casauba and escape with them to the interior of the country; the older Turks who had wives and other valuables to lose, found the conditions so much better than was expected, that they only doubted as to their being observed by the French commander. The morning's sun however put an end to the discussion, by enabling them to see every height around the place occupied by the batteries of their enemy; they therefore resigned themselves to their fate, and Mahmoud and Bouderba were despatched to announce their acceptance of the conditions proposed by the conqueror. The envoys were likewise charged if possible to obtain a delay of twenty-four hours before the entry of the French troops into the city; this was peremptorily refused by Bourmont, who probably conceiving that within that period the treasures of the Casauba might become the “private property” of the Turks, insisted that the port, the forts and the town should all be delivered to him before noon. The Dey of course assented to this demand, and prepared for his retreat to a house in the town which he had occupied before his elevation to the throne; the Beys of Tittery and Constantina made their way with their surviving followers to the country; the forts were evacuated, and the Turks and citizens sullenly retired to their houses.

The French troops were in the meantime collected under arms; every flag was unfurled, and all the pomp and circumstance of warlike triumph was displayed, to render the serious ceremony more imposing. At two o'clock the fleet was anchoring in security under the dreaded batteries of the Mole, and the famous Algezr Al Ghazie so long the terror as well as the reproach of Christian Europe, was in the possession of the Franks.

Bourmont met at the gate the French prisoners who had been liberated, and after receiving their felicitations he hastened to the Casauba, whither a guard had been already despatched. The Dey was just taking his departure, and his followers were endeavoring to appropriate to themselves the rich shawls, hangings, plate, &c. which had not been secured, when the appearance of the French grenadiers put them to flight. The General received from Hussein the keys of the treasury, and accompanied by Commissioners who had [p. 527] been appointed to that effect he proceeded to inspect its contents.

Whether the amount of treasure found in the Casauba differed from that stated in the report of the commissioners will probably ever remain a subject for speculation. Shaler reckoned it at fifty-two millions of dollars in 1818, when Ali Cogia transferred his residence to the Casauba; his calculations were however founded only upon the number and the probable values of the burthens of the mules employed to transport it. The British Consul, when he visited Hussein on the evening previous to the surrender of the city, “was admitted by him” says Campbell,¹ “to the chamber of his treasures. It was paved with stone, for no wooden floor would have borne the weight of them—golden coins literally in millions were heaped up like corn in a granary several feet high.” A French officer who accompanied Bourmont in his first visit describes rather more minutely the number and size of the rooms containing these precious articles.

¹ Letters from Algiers by Thomas Campbell, published in the London New Monthly Magazine. These letters give an agreeable and interesting picture of Algiers as it now is; the historical statements are, however, in almost every instance erroneous.

Such appear to be the only data from which we can estimate the treasures in the Casauba previous to its surrender. Gold, silver and jewels, to the value of forty-one millions of francs (seven millions seven hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars,) declared by the General and Commissioners appointed to superintend the affair, to be the whole contents of the Algerine treasury, were transmitted to France immediately after the conquest of the city.

To these fruits of the expedition are to be added, wool and other articles found in the Magazines of the Regency, worth three millions of francs, and brass cannon valued as old metal at four millions, thus giving to the government an immediate return of more than nine millions of dollars, besides ammunition, materials of various sorts and public property to a vast amount. The whole expenses of the armament, to the middle of September following the capture of the place were reckoned at eight and a quarter millions of dollars, to which should however be added nearly half as much more for the cost of the blockade since June, 1827. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, the French Government was probably the gainer in the contest at the time of the capture of Algiers.

How many lives were lost during the war it is impossible to determine with accuracy; between the 14th of June, the day on which the French landed at Sidi Ferruch, and the 5th of July when Algiers was surrendered, it is supposed that not less than six hundred of their men were killed and two thousand five hundred wounded. Of the loss on the side of the Algerines we have no accounts, but it was probably greater than that of the French.

On the 11th of August the news of the surrender of Algiers reached Paris, and was received with the utmost enthusiasm by all classes of the population. The liberals could afford to rejoice as it came just too late to produce any effect on the elections, the result of which was known to be fatal to the Ministry. The Court was perhaps somewhat disappointed by the failure of what was in reality the principal object of the expedition; the baton of Marshal of France was indeed sent to Bourmont, but the crosses (only three) to be distributed among his officers were much less numerous than had been expected.

The British Ambassador immediately offered his congratulations to Prince Polignac, expressing at the same time his conviction, that the French Government “would keep its faith with his Court and would not fall from the assurances given in the name of the Sovereign, that the expedition was undertaken for the sole purpose of vindicating the national honor, and not with views of acquisition or conquest.” The Prince in answer “declared his readiness to repeat his former assurances, from which he protested that their late success had given the French government no inclination to depart.”

With this repetition of former assurances terminated all correspondence on the subject between the government of Great Britain and that of Charles X. His successor on the 10th of August, immediately after his establishment on the throne, and before his government was acknowledged by that of Great Britain, verbally declared to Lord Stewart “his intention to fulfil the engagements of the preceding government relative to Algiers.” We have already seen how vague were those engagements. Charles the Tenth declared his readiness, “in case the existing government of Algiers should be overthrown, to concert immediately with the other Powers, the new order of things to be there established, for the greatest advantage of the Christian world.” The change produced in the political relations of the European Governments, by the Revolution of July, has rendered any such “concert” with regard to Algiers impossible; and the engagement of the French King may be considered as obsolete as that made by Great Britain at the peace of Amiens, to restore Malta to the Knights of Saint John.

To return to Algiers. Immediately after their occupation of the city, the conquerors took measures to conciliate the inhabitants, and to free the country from the presence of the Turks. For the former purpose administrative institutions were established, similar at least in name and form to those which had previously existed; they were however soon found to be inefficient, and were replaced by others which have been also since abandoned. With regard to the Turks a considerable number had perished in the conflicts, others went off with the Beys of Tittery and Constantina, and only about three thousand five hundred were left in the place. Of these the elder, and such as had wives and houses, obtained permission to remain in Algiers under certain conditions until they could dispose of their property; the others were sent without delay to Turkey, each man receiving five dollars on his departure.

On the 11th of July, Hussein embarked with his son-in-law the Aga Ibrahim, and their families and attendants to the number of a hundred, on board the frigate Jeanne d'Arc for Mahon, carrying with them, it was said, upwards of a million of dollars. As he has no farther connection with this history, it may be here stated, that from Mahon he proceeded to Naples where he had the satisfaction to learn that the Sovereign who had ordered, and the General who had effected his overthrow were themselves in exile; from Naples he went to Leghorn, in the vicinity of which he passed a year; [p. 528] in 1831 he visited Paris, where he was of course the object of universal attention; his piety afterwards led him to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, and he died in Egypt in 1835, aged about 70 years. Notwithstanding his dethronement and exile, he was perhaps in every respect, the most fortunate of the Deys of Algiers.

The Bey of Oran, on learning the fall of the capital, made his submission to the conquerors and received their troops as garrisons into the principal places on the coast of his province. Achmet Bey of Constantina retired with the remnant of his forces and some Turks, towards his capital, determined to resist the invaders to the last extremity. As a first measure against him a division of the fleet under Admiral Rosamel was sent with a detachment of troops commanded by General Damremont to occupy Bona.

The Bey of Tittery appeared in person at Algiers on the 8th of July; and after a conference with the General in Chief took the oath of allegiance to the French before the Moorish Cadi or principal municipal officer of the place, and was confirmed in his government. He then invited Bourmont to make an excursion to Blida, a small town at the foot of the great chain of Mount Atlas about twenty-four miles south of the capital, assuring him that his presence there would tend to quiet the apprehensions of the inhabitants, and induce them the more readily to submit to the French. The Ex-Dey Hussein, on being consulted with regard to the propriety of making this excursion, declared his total want of confidence in the assurances of Abderrahman, whom he described a designing and treacherous knave. Notwithstanding this premonition, on the 23d of July the Marshal (he had just received his baton) left Algiers with about two thousand men and several of his principal officers for Blida, which place they reached in the evening after a fatiguing march across the Metijah. They were received with every demonstration of joy by the inhabitants, who came out to meet them bringing fruits and refreshments of all kinds; some uneasiness was indeed excited by the number of the Kabyles, who appeared loitering about the place and its vicinity; however no distrust was manifested by the French, the soldiers bivouaced in an open square, and the Marshal having occupied the best house in the place, was about to retire to rest, when some musket shots were heard under the window. One of his aid-de-camps went out to ascertain the cause and was immediately brought back mortally wounded; the assailants increased in numbers, and the French soldiers were soon completely surrounded and exposed to a murderous fire. In this state of things it was determined to retreat without delay to Algiers; the men although fatigued with their day's march were formed in order, and the party proceeded back to the city exposed during the way to the unceasing attacks of their daring enemies.

The ill success of this first attempt on the part of the French to penetrate the country, rendered the wandering tribes of Arabs and Kabyles more bold and more determined to resist the invaders, who were soon almost shut up within the walls of the capital. Several expeditions have been subsequently sent from Algiers in the same direction, the events of which are described in glowing colors in the despatches of their commanders; in one of them the treacherous Bey of Tittery was made prisoner and sent to Paris, where he strutted his hour rather as a prince than as a captive; this and the glory of planting the standard of France on a new soil, appear to have been the only beneficial results obtained from these excursions.

During the first ten days of August, no news was received from France. On the 11th of that month, a corvette appeared in the bay; she was recognized as French, but instead of the white flag of the Bourbons the tri-color of the revolution appeared on her mast head. The despatches brought by her were delivered to Bourmont, but notwithstanding all his efforts to keep their contents secret, the astounding details of the events which occurred in Paris during the three days of July, soon became known. Bourmont assembled a council of his principal officers and proposed to them to retain the white cockade, and sail back to France with the army, in order to defend the cause of Charles the Tenth. His arguments were however unavailing; the majority declared in favor of the new state of things, and the tri-colored flag had been already hoisted by the fleet. At length after some days spent in hesitation, or in hopes that the cause of the Bourbons might not be lost, he at length decided to obey the orders which he had received, and his soldiers were gratified by seeing that standard which they considered as the symbol of victory, waving over the towers of the Casauba.

On the 2d of September Marshal Clausel arrived from France to assume the command of the forces, in the name of King Louis Philippe; on the same day, Bourmont accompanied by his two sons and carrying with him the embalmed heart of the third who had fallen in action, embarked on board an Austrian trading vessel for Malaga. He has since been a wanderer in exile; and except for a few weeks, during which he endeavored unsuccessfully to retrieve the fortunes of a fiendish despot, his active spirit has been unemployed. The Duke d'Escars and some other officers whose attachment to the cause of the fallen dynasty, was either too strong or had been too conspicuously manifested, also retired from the army; the general popularity and good management of Clausel however soon reconciled the majority of the disaffected to the change of rulers, and restored the troops to discipline.

The division of the fleet commanded by Admiral Rosamel, consisting of two ships of the line, three frigates and four smaller vessels, which quitted Algiers on the 26th of July, arrived before Bona on the 7th of August. That town was instantly occupied by the troops under Damremont, who endeavored to repair the fortifications and render them tenable against the Bey of Constantina as it was expected that he would soon attack them. The Kabyles however soon after appearing in great numbers about the place, it was judged prudent by the French Commander to withdraw with his troops to Algiers. The wretched inhabitants, who relying upon the assurances of the conquerors had quietly submitted to them, were thus left until the spring of 1832, to maintain themselves as they could against the savage mountaineers.

After the troops had been landed at Bona the French squadron proceeded eastward and on the 7th of August was seen at the entrance of the harbor of Tunis, where its appearance contributed to hasten the conclusion of the negotiation then in progress between the Consul of France and the Bey of that Regency. The result of the [p. 529] negotiation was a treaty, signed at Tunis on the 8th of August, the provisions of which were apparently more liberal and more nearly universal in their application, than those of any convention previously made between a Christian State and a Barbary Power. The Bey of Tunis here distinctly renounced for himself and his successors, the right of cruising against any nation, which should renounce or have renounced the right of cruising against Tunis. Christian prisoners of war were not to be enslaved under any circumstances, but to be treated according to the usages of European nations. Foreign vessels wrecked on the coasts of the Regency were not to be plundered; their crews were to receive every assistance; those guilty of maltreating or robbing them were to be punished, and the government was made answerable for all injuries to their persons or property. Foreign nations were to have the privilege of establishing consular and commercial agents in any part of the Regency, and no tribute or present was to be exacted from or on account of them, on any occasion whatsoever. The subjects of foreign nations were to be at liberty to trade in all parts of the Regency, without being subject to any other than the established duties; and the government was to exercise no right of pre-emption or of monopoly, with regard to any goods which they may wish to buy or sell. Finally, the Bey gives to the French the full right of fishing for coral on certain parts of the coast of Tunis without any tribute or duty. These conditions appear to evince a degree of liberality on the part of France and of regard for the interests of other nations, which her former diplomatic proceedings had not prepared us to expect. However on examining the subject more minutely, it will be seen that although something may have been gained for the cause of civilization, by the formal admission of such principles, yet nothing was in reality secured to any other Power than France; for no other nation could or would avail itself of these provisions, as France could not be expected to enforce their observance, in any other cases than those in which the interests of her own subjects were concerned. The treaty was received with great dissatisfaction at Tunis; for which there was indeed just cause, as it not only prescribed new rules for intercourse with foreign nations but also interfered materially with the internal administration of the country.

Having produced the desired effect at Tunis, Admiral Rosamel sailed for Tripoli, off which he appeared on the 9th of August.

Ever since the precipitate departure of Baron Rousseau, the French Consul, from Tripoli, in August 1829, the Pasha of that Regency had been vainly endeavoring through the intercession of the Spanish Consul, to avert the vengeance which he knew would fall upon him, for his share in that affair. The news of the fall of Algiers left him without hope; and therefore as soon as the French squadron had come to anchor, he sent Hadji Mohammed the Bet-el-Mel or Judge of inheritances, on board the Admiral's ship, with full powers to conclude an arrangement. A convention was accordingly signed on the 11th, containing besides the same general stipulations to which the Bey of Tunis had agreed on the 8th, some severe and humiliating engagements on the part of the Pasha. In the first article, he agreed to deliver to the Admiral a letter, addressed to the Emperor of France, in which he entreats his Majesty to accept his most humble excuses for the circumstances which had obliged the French Consul to quit his post; disavows all participation in the calumnious reports circulated with respect to that agent; and expresses his anxious desire for the restoration of friendly intercourse between the two countries, as well as for the return of Rousseau, to whom the excuses were to be repeated on his arrival. Yusuf moreover agreed to pay 800,000 francs, one half immediately, the remainder in December following, in exoneration of all demands of French subjects against him.

The 400,000 francs were with some difficulty procured and delivered in a few days after the signature of the Treaty; in December 200,000 more were paid and the revenues of the province of Bengazi were pledged for the remainder. Yusuf was however spared the mortification of being obliged to receive Rousseau again as French Consul in Tripoli; his place was supplied by M. Schwebels, who appears to be superior in capacity, acquirements and character to the generality of such agents.

The forced loans and other acts of violence by means of which these sums were raised, increased the unpopularity of the Pasha's government and contributed to excite disturbances in his dominions. In the spring of 1831, a formidable insurrection broke out in Fezzan, to quell which the Bey Ali was sent with a large force. Of the circumstances of the war we can obtain no accounts; its result was the discomfiture of the Tripolines and the return of the Bey to the capital. The rebels appear to have been headed by Abdi Zaleel, who has been already mentioned as the grandson of the celebrated Sheik Safanissa, and the Chief of the Arab tribe called the Waled Suleiman. The successful issue of this revolt encouraged many of the wandering tribes to throw off the authority of the Pasha, and his difficulties were soon after increased by another heavy demand on his treasury from abroad.

As soon as it was known that the French had obtained payment of nearly all the debts due to their subjects, the British Government of course insisted on a similar settlement in favor of its own merchants, which the Pasha, according to the immemorial custom of Princes and people in the East, evaded by every means in his power. Warrington at length declared that he would be put off no longer; accordingly on the 14th of July 1832, a British squadron of two frigates and a sloop of war appeared in the bay, and Yusuf was summoned immediately to pay a hundred and eighty thousand dollars to satisfy the demands of his English creditors. The Pasha in vain repeated the oft urged plea of poverty; in vain appealed to his sons, to his wives, to his ministers, and to the citizens of Tripoli; the sum could not be obtained, and although sixty per cent on the whole amount was tendered in part payment, the inexorable Consul refused to receive it. Yusuf in despair then determined to levy a contribution by force on the inhabitants of the Messeah, the rich and populous plain near the city; the attempt was resisted, the soldiers who were sent to collect the tax were repulsed, and the people of the Messeah raised the standard of rebellion.

A new actor now appeared on the scene.

It has been stated that on the death of the Pasha's [p. 530] eldest son Mohammed, the claims of Emhammed the son of the deceased Prince to the succession, had been set aside by Yusuf, in favor of Ali his second son, who had been raised to the dignity of Bey. Emhammed had now attained manhood, and though closely watched by his uncle and grandfather had succeeded in forming a small party among the people, who looked to him for deliverance from the tyranny and oppression under which they groaned. In this he had been assisted and encouraged by the British Consul, who hating Ali on account of his connection with the D'Ghies family, and his well known partiality to France, adopted this means to satisfy his vengeance. Warrington has indeed been supposed to have carried his views still farther, and to have fomented disturbances in Tripoli, in order to obtain possession of the country for Great Britain. The sequel will show how far such suppositions were warranted.

As soon as the insurrection in the Messeah broke out, the neighboring Arab tribes came in crowds to join the rebels, and Emhammed, having succeeded in making his escape from the city, was proclaimed by them Pasha of Tripoli. The Bey Ali immediately assembled his adherents, and on the 27th of July 1832, a battle was fought on the sea shore between them and the insurgents. Emhammed's party was successful; the Bey's troops were driven back into the city, and the insurgents, receiving daily accessions to their forces, were soon able to close effectually all the communications of the place on the land side; a battery was also established by them at the entrance of the harbor on its eastern shore, in order to prevent the entrance of vessels. In a few days the city was completely invested by the besiegers, who began to bombard it; and the supply of provisions from the country being thus cut off, the inhabitants were threatened with the horrors of famine. The Consuls were however informed by Emhammed, that they might be furnished with necessaries for their families, by means of boats sent under the flag of a Christian nation to his batteries.

In the meantime, the British Consul had struck his flag, and the besiegers were in hopes that an attack would be made on the place by the squadron. These expectations were however disappointed by the sudden departure of the ships, in consequence it was supposed of an order from Malta, to which island Colonel Warrington shortly after sailed with his family in an Austrian brig.

Things continued in this state of uncertainty until the 12th of August, when the Consuls were informed by Yusuf, at a public audience, in the presence of his Divan and the principal persons of the place, that he had abdicated the throne in favor of his son Ali, whom he requested them to consider as Pasha of Tripoli. Letters were at the same time delivered to the Consuls addressed to the heads of their respective Governments, formally communicating the same intelligence, and soliciting from each the speedy recognition of the new sovereign. The means by which the old man was thus induced to transfer his powers to his son are not known; there is reason to believe however that he was impelled to it by the threats of Ali, and the promises and representations of the French Consul, both of whom had cause to apprehend that an admission of Emhammed's claims to the succession might otherwise be extorted from him by Warrington on his return from Malta. Ali immediately assumed the authority and title of Pasha, appointing as Prime Minister his brother-in-law Mohammed d'Ghies, (the younger, the old minister of that name died in 1831) who has been already mentioned in connection with the affair of Major Laing's papers.

STANZAS.

THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION.

Dear Sir—I am well aware that my letter on the Right of Instruction, published in your June number, will encounter, in Virginia and elsewhere, names of high and deserved authority, and talents of great power, if it shall be thought worthy of any attention. I must therefore beg you to allow me to explain my views of this interesting subject, a little more fully than was necessary or proper in a letter to a friend. The additions, however, will be briefly made. I am particularly desirous to sustain myself by the countenance of our distinguished patriots and jurists, especially those who, having assisted in framing the government, may be presumed to understand its mechanism at least as well as the politicians of a later date; who are, as I have suggested, the authors of the doctrine of instructions. It was unknown to those who made the constitution—as well as to those writers and speakers who afterwards attacked and defended it.

It is a matter of familiar history that from the commencement of this government, there has been a party, [p. 531] particularly in the South, powerful by its talents, its character and the public confidence, who have cherished and propagated, with unwearied efforts, a jealous fear of the power of the general government. They have taught and, I may not doubt, truly believed that this power would swallow the independence of the states, or so depress their influence and strip them of their rights, that they would finally become mere subordinate corporations, living and acting by the will of a master. I do not stop to examine the justice of this apprehension, nor to show that the federal government, constitutionally administered, (and no fair argument can be drawn from usurpation and violence,) has more to fear from the power of the states than the states from it. This is not my present purpose. I would show how the doctrine of instructions was introduced among us. It was one of the devices and means resorted to—and invented by the party I have alluded to, to cripple the federal power, and, in this way, to give the states a control over the action of the general government, which they could not exercise directly under any power or rights given or reserved to them in the constitution they had adopted. Thus by binding their representatives in Congress by the obligation of obedience to their instructions, and by limiting and fettering the powers of the federal body by their doctrines of constitutional construction, they would acquire an ascendancy over the federal operations which would reduce that body to a bloodless, fleshless skeleton.

In looking for a support for my opinions upon this subject, I was naturally led to open the volume of the “Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Convention,” published from the notes of Chief Justice Yates. In this volume we find also the information communicated, by Luther Martin, Esq. a delegate to the federal convention from the state of Maryland, to the legislature of Maryland, relative to the proceedings of the convention. This communication occupies about ninety pages of the book, and contains a string of resolutions, amounting to nineteen, reported to the convention by a committee of the whole house. The fourth of these resolutions proposed “That the members of the second branch of the legislature ought to be chosen by the individual legislatures, to be of the age of thirty years at least, to hold their offices for a term sufficient to insure their independence, namely, seven years,” &c. There is another provision in this resolution which shows an intention to make the senators equally independent of the several states and of the United States. It is that they are “to be ineligible to any office by a particular state—or under the authority of the United States—except those peculiarly belonging to the functions of the second branch, during the term of service, and under the national government for the space of one year after its expiration.”

Mr. Martin was a decided opponent to the adoption of the constitution; he was opposed to federal power—a friend of state power—and seeking every means by which he could restrain the first and strengthen and enlarge the latter. He especially feared the senate; but he never thought of this controlling right of instructions by which the states might direct the federal legislation at their will, and make their senators, in the language of Mr. Tyler, “mere automata to move only when they are bidden—and to sit in their places like statues, to record such edicts as may come to them.” Mr. Martin's objection to the construction of the second branch of the federal legislature is, that the senators are independent of the states appointing them. He objects that they are chosen for six years; that they are not paid by the respective states, but from the treasury of the United States; that they are not liable to be recalled during the period for which they are chosen. This very able and ingenious lawyer could not have made this objection if he had conceived the cunning device of making it the constitutional duty of a senator to resign his place at the will of the legislature of his state.—After stating these objections, Mr. Martin proceeds: “Thus, sir, for six years the senators are rendered totally and absolutely independent of their states, of whom they ought to be the representatives, without any bond or tie between them. During that time, they may join in measures ruinous and destructive to their states, even such as should totally annihilate the state governments; and their states cannot recall them, nor exercise any control over them.” Such was his understanding of the constitution, and of the rights of senators and state legislatures, under it. His objection was that they are not precisely what the advocates for instructions say they are. He saw nothing in the instrument that gives the state legislatures any right to instruct their senators, accompanied by a duty on the part of the senators to obey or resign. This is practically to give the legislatures a power to recall their senators, as instructions may always be given which must be disobeyed by an honest man.

On considering the question whether the second branch of the general legislature should or should not be appointed by the state legislatures, Mr. Wilson (the most democratic of all the members of the convention) said, “It is improper that the state legislatures should have the power contemplated to be given to them. A citizen of America may be considered in two points of view; as a citizen of the general government, and as a citizen of the particular state in which he may reside. We ought to consider in what character he acts, in forming a general government. I am both a citizen of Pennsylvania and of the United States; I must, therefore, lay aside my state connexions and act for the general good of the whole. We must forget our local habits and attachments. There ought to be a leading distinction between the one and the other; nor ought the general government to be comprised of an assemblage of different state governments.” Mr. Wilson was opposed to the election of the senators by the state legislatures.

Mr. Ellsworth was for the state legislatures. He thought the choice by them would be more judicious. “In the second branch we want wisdom and firmness, to check hasty and inconsiderate proceedings of the first branch.”

Gov. Randolph, speaking of the senate, says: “This body must act with firmness. The state governments will always attempt to counteract the general government.” His opinion, of course, was, that it was the duty of the senators to resist these attempts, to protect the general government against them, and not to yield to them as bound and bidden slaves, and abandon to their caprices and will the sacred trust reposed in them.

Mr. Madison says: “We are proceeding in the same manner that was done when the confederation was first [p. 532] formed. Its original draft was excellent, but in its progress and completion it became so insufficient as to give rise to the present convention. By the vote already taken, will not the temper of the state legislatures transfuse itself into the senate? Do we create a free government?” We see then that Mr. Madison was of opinion that the mere power of appointing the senators by the state legislatures, would give those legislatures so much influence in this branch of the federal legislature as to impair its necessary power and independence. He asks: “Do we create a free government?” What would he have said had he supposed that to this power of appointment, there was to be added as flowing from it, an imperative and constitutional right of instruction, under the penalty of a forfeiture of the place by disobedience?

At another period of the debate, on the constitution of the senate, Mr. Madison says: “That great powers are to be given, there is no doubt; and that these powers may be abused, is equally true. It is probable that members may lose their attachments to the states that sent them; yet the first branch will control them in many of these abuses. But we are forming a body on whose wisdom we mean to rely, and their permanency in office secures a proper field in which they may exert their firmness and knowledge. Democratic communities may be unsteady, and be led to action by the impulse of the moment.” After showing the dangers that may arise from popular bodies without some wholesome check and control of another body, he says: “The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability.”

On the debate on the question whether the senators should be paid from the national treasury or by the states, Mr. Wilson said: “The states may say, although I appoint you for six years, yet if you are against the state your table shall be unprovided. Is this the way you are to erect an independent government?” But the doctrine of instructions comes to the same end by a much shorter and more certain operation. Obey or resign. Men might be found who, to render a great service to their country, or from personal motives of inclination or ambition, would continue in their seats, although their compensation were withdrawn. But they have no such choice, when the action of the legislature comes upon them in the shape of instructions.

On the same question, Mr. Madison said: “I do assert that a national senate, elected and paid by the people, will have no more efficiency than congress; for the states will usurp the general government.”

In looking over this column of debates, I have made my selections as few and brief as possible. Not a syllable is found any where, or from any body, which hints at this right of instruction to senators, as a means by which the states may control or interfere with the constitutional action of the federal government, or add to their own power and influence. Every proceeding of the convention, every argument and word having any bearing upon the question, has a contrary tendency. The whole doctrine has been got up at a later date, to serve particular interests and purposes; and, unfortunately, is so palatable to state pride and state politicians, that it has found a reception too favorable for the safety of our government and the preservation of the Union.

I have not referred to the opinion of Mr. Burke, so often quoted, because I think the argument stands here on a different and a stronger ground. We have a number of sovereign states which have, by their own will, placed themselves under one government; and for this purpose, they have mutually agreed upon the extent and manner in which each shall have a participation in the government of the whole. No one has a right to control or interfere with the government of the whole to any further extent or in any other manner than those which have been thus agreed upon. They may elect their senators by their legislatures respectively; having done this, their power over that body is fulfilled. The senators of each become the senators of all, and the power of each over them is merged in the power of the whole for the period for which they are elected. The senators from Virginia are as independent of Virginia as those from Massachusetts. Any control over, or interference with them, except by their periodical election, would verify the prediction of Mr. Madison, that “states will usurp the general government,” and that “the greatest danger is from the encroachments of the states upon the general government.”

If you will now do me the favor to republish some observations I had printed in the “National Gazette,” on the perusal of Mr. Tyler's letter, by which he resigned his seat in the Senate of the United States, I shall have the satisfaction to see, in your valuable journal, all I have to say upon a question which, in my view, is of vital importance to the existence of our national government, and the continuance of this happy and prosperous Union.

[The following is the article alluded to.]

A man may pertinaciously assert an error in the face of truth and his own better judgment; but the moment he attempts to defend it, be assured that he will seldom fail to destroy the delusion by the very arguments he brings to support it. Like a brilliant bubble, the moment you would test it by the touch, it is gone. This truth is forcibly illustrated in the letter addressed by Mr. Tyler to the Legislature of Virginia, resigning his seat as a Senator of the United States. Let any one examine his reasons for refusing to obey the instructions of his legislature,—for refusing to do what they require of him, for he does refuse, and his reasons for it are absolutely unanswerable,—and then say whether the same reasons do not as decidedly prove that the legislature had no lawful right to give the instructions as that Mr. Tyler had the right to disobey them. There could not be a constitutional right to give an order, the obedience to which would be “to violate the Constitution.” This is a plain absurdity, and it is equally clear that if there was no right to give the order there could be no duty to obey it. Assuredly the pointed and pregnant question put by Mr. Tyler applies to the whole subject of instructions. He asks—“whether the representatives of a sovereign State are such mere automata, as to move only when they are bidden, and to sit in their places like statues to record such edicts as may come to them?” Mr. Tyler implies in his answer, that Senators are not such passive machines, and yet he consents to become one, in a modified way. On this particular [p. 533] case he says to the Legislature, “To obey your instructions would be to violate the Constitution of the United States.” One would suppose that this was a full and definite answer to the demand, and to the right to make it. Of course Mr. Tyler will not do the deed; he will not with his own hand strike the blow which is to wound the sacred body which his country had put under his protection. But does this fulfil his duty? does it discharge the obligations of his oath of office? That oath is not answered by merely abstaining from the wrong himself; it does not stop with this negative duty; he has sworn to support and defend it against violation and wrong from any quarter. Did he not desert this high and solemn duty when he abandoned his post in order that another might take it with the avowed design of violating the Constitution; for that such is the act to be done is the conscientious belief of Mr. Tyler himself. To resign, to surrender his power for such a purpose, is hardly an evasion of the high principles which Mr. Tyler assumes as his rule of duty; it is, in effect, to sacrifice them. Where is the difference between the sentinel who turns his own arms upon the citadel he was bound to defend, and one who gives up his trust to the enemy, that he may do the work of ruin which the conscience of the latter forbids. In my opinion, the very time and occasion where a Senator should not resign, are where his place is wanted for such a purpose. It is then peculiarly his duty to keep his post, because it is always his paramount duty, as a Senator of the United States, to protect the Constitution of the United States. May he put it at the mercy of a State Legislature, issuing, from year to year, or from month to month, its contradictory orders, as party or caprice may prevail? What is the Constitution, under such a dictation, but a fabric built upon the sand; a rag floating in the wind? It has neither permanency nor strength.

It is to be lamented that good and talented men, sometimes unadvisedly and without looking far enough to consequences, entangle themselves in theories, which afterwards embarrass and constrain them, in the sound and practical exercise of their understanding, and compel them to participate in acts condemned, at once, by their judgment and conscience. In such cases it is more honest, more safe and noble, to shake off the webs which their own ingenuity has wound around them, and give a free use and exercise to their better knowledge and true convictions. There is a sensible maxim in common life which is equally wise in public affairs—that “the shortest follies are the best.”

Mr. Tyler tells the Legislature that he would have complied with their wishes, if they had put them in another form; indeed it is only a change of form—he would have voted, at their bidding, to rescind or repeal the offensive resolution of the Senate. Why would he do so, unless he thought it ought to be rescinded or repealed? If he did not think so, he was as much bound by a conscientious performance of his duty to vote against the repeal as the expunging. If the latter be a stronger case, the principle is the same. But will he say, that in the one case he is called upon to violate the Constitution, in the other only to give up an opinion upon the conduct of the President? This is altogether an illusion; there is in truth no difference in the cases. In the one case he was of opinion that the President had transcended his constitutional powers; he is of the same opinion still, but his Legislature do not think so, and he yields his opinion to theirs, or rather he votes against his own opinion to give effect to theirs. In the other case he holds the opinion that to expunge a part of the records of the Senate is a violation of the Constitution, but his Legislature are of opinion that it is not so; it is a question of opinion between them, and nothing more. Why, then, should he not give up this opinion to their power or their judgment, as well as the other? Why must he not on this question surrender his judgment and conscience, and become the “mere automaton” of the majority of the members of the Virginia Assembly? He casts off and treads upon the robes of a Senator of the United States, to bind himself in a straight jacket, fashioned by heads and hands which would acknowledge no power but their own. There is no such thing as dividing or modifying this State claim to instruct the Senators of the United States. It is a full, perfect, and universal right, or it is no right. It binds every limb and muscle of the Senator, or none of them. If he may move a finger in opposition to it, his whole body is free. It is an absolute, despotic power in all cases, or it must be reduced to that voluntary respect and serious consideration which a wise representative will always give to the opinions and wishes of those from whom he derives his office. There will always be subserviency enough; the danger is from too much.

I do not see where Mr. Tyler gets his alternative to obey or resign. This is not his instruction, it is “not so nominated in the bond.” He is ordered to vote, to act—not to fly the field. If the command is lawful, he should obey the mandate of his “approved good masters,” as they have issued it. He might equally disappoint their object by leaving his seat, as by voting in opposition to their wishes. How impossible it is to be consistent in the pursuit of a false principle. When a man splits a hair to get a principle or rule of action, he must go on splitting hairs to modify or get rid of it.

I have said that I cannot see the distinction taken by Mr. Tyler between a vote to rescind the resolution and one to expunge it. It cannot be replied, that a Senator may properly give up his opinion concerning a matter comparatively insignificant, but should refuse such a compliance on a question of more importance. If the argument be good it cannot help the present case; there is no such difference between the question to rescind and expunge; both refer to constitutional rights and powers, and there is the same obligation on a Senator to give up or not to give his opinion in both cases. They are of equal dignity, but in importance, as to consequences, the advantage is infinitely on the side of the vote to rescind. What is to be rescinded? A resolution of the Senate on the subject of the power of the President over the treasury and revenue of the United States. Can any question under the Constitution arise of more vital importance to the liberties and rights of the people? The other vote relates only to the power of the Senate over its own records. Both are to be decided by the Constitution, and the decision, in the one way or the other, gives an authoritative construction to that instrument, and becomes, while admitted, a part of it. This resolution has declared,—whether right or wrong, is of no importance to our present question—that the Constitution does not vest in the President of the United States the power that he has assumed over the treasure of the [p. 534] United States. This solemn declaration Mr. Tyler is willing to rescind, to take back, to disaffirm, although he believes that the resolution does express the true sense of the Constitution. Had his legislature only required this sacrifice of him, he would have made it, thus indirectly affirming a most dangerous power in the executive, to which Mr. Tyler thinks he is not entitled. He would ratify an usurpation of this alarming magnitude. But this was not enough to satisfy his hard masters; he must not only do the deed of rescision, but he must do it in the manner and form prescribed to him; he must expunge the offensive resolution from the journal of the Senate. Here he takes his stand; he will not do it, and shows by an unanswerable argument that he cannot honestly do it, because it is a violation of the Constitution. Now, was not the act of the President upon the treasury also, in his opinion, a violation of the same Constitution, and yet this opinion he was willing to surrender to his constituents, and record a vote on the same journal, affirming so far as his vote could do it, this violation of the Constitution. I confess there is a perplexity in these political metaphysics which surpasses my understanding, and confounds my notions of right and wrong. Here, then, we have a gentleman of fine talents, a lawyer and a statesman of great experience and eminence, who has often received and well deserved the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens, brought into a labyrinth of doubt and obscurity; entangled by errors and contradictions, merely by setting out on a false principle. How plain and satisfactory is the duty of a Senator who will steadily and fearlessly say, I am not “an automaton to move only when I am bidden; a statue to record the edicts that may come to me”—I am a Senator of the United States—I am bound by the most sacred obligations to my country and my God, to discharge this high trust with fidelity, firmness and truth, according to my best judgment, and the calm convictions of my conscience. I am bound to support, defend, protect the Constitution of the United States, whose officer I am, as I honestly and truly understand it—this is my first law. And it is my duty to pay a most considerate and respectful attention to the wishes and interests of my immediate constituents—this is my second law.

Contrast this plain, intelligible course, which requires no uncommon sagacity to discover it, no deep casuistry to explain it; which demands no prostration of personal character and independence, and is followed by no misgiving or remorse—with the incomprehensible, tortuous, humiliating doctrines of the school of instructions, as to which the most devoted professors do not agree, and which a novitiate, however docile, cannot comprehend. Let us try him. He would first inquire—am I bound to obey my orders strictly and implicitly to the letter, or is there some alternative left me? must I give the vote required, or may I in any way avoid it? He will be answered, in some cases—You must stand your ground and give your vote as directed; for instance, if you are called upon to rescind and repeal a recorded resolution of the Senate, in which you did or did not concur, you must record your vote for such repeal in the same journal which testifies your approval of it, but if you are instructed to come at this conclusion in another form, that is, by expunging it from the page on which it is written, then you are not bound to a strict obedience, but may make your bow, beg to be excused, raise a high question of honor and conscience about it, and go about your business. So far the scholar might understand that he must always either obey or resign, although it may puzzle him to know how to make the choice. He is, however, altogether mistaken in believing that he has got even this uncertain rule for a guide. He asks another learned Doctor in this science—Must I, in every case, either obey or resign? By no means, is the reply. There are cases in which you may do neither, such as an order to expunge the record of some act or opinion of the Senate; this is not a law, and you may do as you please with it. [See Mr. Leigh's Letter.] The anxious scholar proceeds to inquire, by what rule or sign can I distinguish and decide between these close cases; how may I know when I may act and think for myself, without infringing the sacred right of instruction? Truly there is no defined line or settled rule; it must depend upon the nature of the question and the circumstances of the case, which are very numerous and complicated, and sometimes require half a dozen columns of a newspaper to elucidate and apply them. [See the same letter.] The simple novitiate observes, this then is very like leaving the whole matter to myself after all. He is bewildered and lost in this maze of inexplicable rules and exceptions, principles and qualifying circumstances. Should he pass by these difficulties, he has others scarcely less formidable to encounter. He understands that he must obey the instructions of the Legislature of his State, because he is their agent or representative. What Legislature is he to obey? Not that only which de facto appointed him. But is this allegiance due to the Legislature of the last year or of this year? Certainly, he is told, the latter. But why so? They are equal and contrary weights; they act in opposition upon the same subject, with the same lights and by the same authority. Why not wait for another to decide between them? Why should he not, especially in Virginia, play for the rubber—take his chance for the third heat? There may be another change in the fortune of parties—another will of the State Legislature, to which he may run counter by a hasty submission. Again—must this State agent, miscalled a Senator of the United States, take the vote of the Legislature to be the will of the people, without regard to the state of the vote? may he inquire how the vote was constituted, how it was obtained—by what influence, misrepresentation or mistake? Suppose he should find that his orders came from a majority of the members present, but not a majority of the house, and he should know that the absent members would have turned the vote—may he refuse his obedience to what is, legally speaking, the act and will of the Legislature? If he should obey or resign, and then, in a full house, his instructions are revoked, what is his situation? He has perhaps inflicted a serious wound upon the Constitution of his country, which he cannot heal.

I will present one other difficulty which might distress the unlearned. A Senator may be presumed to know the members of his State Legislature—their general standing and character. He receives instructions passed by a majority of six or eight, on a vote of one or two hundred. He looks at the roll of yeas and nays. He finds in the majority a great proportion of men he knows to be of little knowledge, of strong passions and prejudices, with a servile adherence to party purposes; [p. 535] men, even if honest, on whose judgment he would not place the least reliance in the most common business—whose opinion he would not regard in any concern of his own of the value of a dollar. On the other side, he finds the names of men long distinguished for their learning and experience, of unsuspected integrity, dispassionate in judgment, and pure in their patriotism and purposes;—men to whom all the country has looked for years, with confidence and veneration. In a word, he sees the name of James Madison on the one hand, opposed by that of some violent, ignorant, interested demagogue on the other. Is he to shut his eyes and his understanding to such a state of things, and surrender his duty, his honor, and his conscience, to the dictation of ignorance, passion and prejudice, and turn a deaf ear to the voice of knowledge, virtue, and patriotism? Is he to decide a vital constitutional question by the will of such masters, who would not hold themselves bound by their vote? Mr. Tyler assures us that some of the voters for his last instructions were among those who but the year before gave him contrary orders on the same subject. Such an obedience is to make himself something worse than an automaton—it is to be an active, efficient, self-condemned agent in the consummation of designs he knows to be morally wrong, and deeply injurious to his country, to the whole people he has sworn to defend and protect, by the preservation, inviolate, of the great charter of their rights and liberties. This Mr. Tyler would not, could not do; it would be to contradict and disparage the whole course of an honorable and useful life. He has spurned such degradation. But I lament that he did not do more than this—that he could find an alternative in abandoning his post to the enemy.

I have alluded to Mr. Leigh's letter, but should be tedious were I now to make it a subject of particular comment, but cannot refrain from remarking that these gentlemen (Messrs. Tyler and Leigh) both professing to maintain the true and orthodox doctrines of “Instruction,” and exerting their powerful and cultivated intellects to explain them through many a labored column, at last bring themselves to opposite conclusions on the same case. Is it possible to give a more impressive illustration and evidence of the fallacy of the whole faith than that two such men, both indoctrinated in the same school, should, when brought to the practical application of their principles, so differ about their import and obligation?

This is a subject of vast and growing magnitude. In my judgment, it is of vital importance to the Constitution of the United States, which will be essentially if not fatally changed, if its powers and operations are to be in this way under the dictation and control of State Legislatures. It will no longer be a Government of the United States. The Senate and House of Representatives will be but the agents of the State Legislatures, “to move only when they are bidden, and to record such edicts as may come to them.”

In “Dodsley's Collection” is an old play called “Eastward Hoe!” It was written by Ben Jonson, and published in 1605 by George Chapman and John Marston. This probably suggested to our Paulding the title of his “Westward Ho!”

TO ——.

A REMINISCENCE.

Dear Sir—Your favor of Richmond, June 18—the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo—reached me here, a few minutes ago. The vacations of South Carolina College have begun, and I am here waiting for a vessel to carry me to the Island of Porto Rico, whither I intend to proceed for the sake of recreation! A strange way of getting cool, you will say, to go from South Carolina to the West Indies, from degree 31 northern latitude to degree 18—it is a more formidable experiment than the process of annealing, by which glass is passed into an oven not quite so hot as the first in which it was melted. I allow, it may be strange; still I shall go. But here I am, not only without any materials or memoranda, but confined to the sofa by a faux-pas, which has made of me, ever since, a lame man. Now if you sum up all these items—vacations just begun, without books or papers, lame and windbound in a seaport, a voyage of considerable interest before me, for which one ought to prepare himself a little—you will own that they are as many difficulties in the way of granting your request, which otherwise it would have given me much pleasure to comply with.

A lame man feels poor—helpless, much more so than a man with an injured arm. How interesting does not a young officer look with his arm in a sling; but his comrade with a crutch attracts nothing but bare, sheer pity. Limping—the mere idea of limping, makes all the difference. Has not the Prussian government [p. 536] decided, after the wars against Napoleon, that the old law, which prohibits a cripple from officiating as priest or minister, is to be interpreted, that an individual who has lost a leg is a cripple, but if he has lost an arm only, he is not to be considered such. They thought, perhaps, of the noble Cervantes, who lost his right hand in the battle of Lepanto, and wrote his immortal Don Quixotte with the left.

I am without books. Well! did not Ercilla write his Auracana in the very face of the Tudian enemy, and the conquering Spaniard, probably, carried no bibliothéque volante with him. True, but had he a dislocated toe, did he wait for wind, had he to buy a hundred trifles, and to make the place before his sofa a real bazaar? Napoleon, you reply, dictated some of his most inspired and inspiring proclamations, in the saddle. True, but it is easier to address an army before or after a battle, than to address the public through a monthly periodical before or after a sea voyage. Again you say—did not Walter Scott compose his Lady of the Lake chiefly in his bed, where most afflicting pains confined him? True, but he had his books and papers around him, and he did not wait for wind. Did not Körner compose his Adieu when wounded on the field of battle? True, once more, and so would I write a touching poem on dislocated toes—how limping Vulcan would inspire me!—were I master of the English tongue; but an article for a review is another thing. And then the heat—the thermometer stands this moment at—Impatience Boils—and the musquitos, who play their scornful music long around your frightened ear, before, at length, they yield to their Timour-like disposition, as the malicious servants of the Holy Inquisition tormented their victims long before the actual infliction of the refined torture, by showing and trying the racking instruments—and the tickling, inexhaustibly persevering flies, which have entered into a most malignant conspiracy against the human nose—what can you possibly expect? Nothing but an anecdote. But, sir, anecdotes, however witty or trifling, are like the glorious pictures which a Raphael painted for the altars of his church—they lose much of their merit if out of their place. Still, I should like to give what is so kindly asked for, and ——

The wind has changed—to-morrow morning we sail—I have to get some ice packed (free intercourse distributes comfort like a blessing far and wide; how could we otherwise have northern ice!) and other things to attend to; my writing will be a hurried business, and I am afraid my communication turn out as so many administrations or notes do—the introductory or promissory part will be the best of it, however poor even this may be. Now, sir, pray let the following succeed immediately after the and above: if you think that the subsequent lines will do, they are quite at your service, though I consider it hard that I must give, whatever I may send, “with my name”—a condition you have underlined. If you think you had better “lay it on the table to be taken up this day six months,” I shall have no objection.

Prussia had been humbled, almost annihilated in the battle of Jena; one Prussian fortress after the other surrendered, except Colberg on the Baltic. She retained what is called in German military language, her maiden reputation. Nettelbeck, an old sea captain and Major Schill, contributed most by their patriotic exertions, to the holding out of this place against the French, who overflooded all the Prussian provinces. Schill had been seriously wounded in the battle at Auerstædt, near Jena; but this did not prevent him from collecting some scattered infantrists and cavalrists and forming them into a corps, motley from without, but unanimous within. He restored to them confidence, and from the rallying of this small band must be dated, perhaps, the regeneration of Prussia. Schill's perseverance and the brave obstinacy of Colberg altogether, had a good effect upon Königsberg, whither the king and queen had fled, and a powerful one upon the whole kingdom. The mere idea—there is one spot at least, where the sweeping eagles of Napoleon have not been able to perch—became a moral rallying point for the stunned hearts of the Prussians. Schill was made lieutenant colonel, and he had the honor of being the first Prussian soldier that returned to the capital.

The effect of the misfortune which had befallen the royal house, was not that of alienating the subjects from the afflicted king and his beautiful consort. During the seven years war, the Prussians had become proud of their name; the government under Frederick William II, had certainly done much to cool all attachment of the people; now, after the disaster of Frederick William III, who was universally known to love justice, every one felt again strongly attached to the government, the country, the name of Prussia. The French, at whose hands the people received such galling insult and grinding oppression, were hated—calmly, thoroughly hated. No wonder then that the inhabitants of Berlin prepared for this day in the spring of 1808 as for a great festival. My father considered it so with the rest.

His youthful years had fallen in that momentous time when Frederick the Great made the Prussians a nation. As the great Dante has raised the Italian idiom from a “vulgar dialect” to a language stamped with his gigantic mind, and erected at once the most noble and most enduring monument with it, so has Frederick of Prussia elevated his people to a nation, stamped it with his mind, and at once led it into the temple of glory. There was no greater man in all the pages of history, for those who lived under Frederick, than himself. How often have I heard my grandfather describe the pillage of Berlin by the Russians after the unfortunate battle at Cunersdorf, how they stripped him of every thing, wounded him, and took him away as prisoner, ill-treating him in all possible ways. Still he would always end his story by—“But that was nothing; my greatest grief was about Frederick.” Nor can I forget the intensity of veneration with which my father would explain to us children some engravings on the walls of our sitting-room, representing some memorable actions of “his great king.” His greyhounds were forgotten on few of them.

My father went early with us to see the entrance of Schill. Coaches were out of question; they could not have proceeded in the throng. We soon lost my brothers in the dense crowd; but they were old enough to look out for themselves; I only remained with my father, and he grasped my hand firmly, to pull me through the almost impenetrable masses of loyal people. I suffered considerably, for I was very little, and [p. 537] frequently did I look from my lower regions at the patches of blue sky which now and then appeared above the heads of my taller equals, with a longing desire for some pure air and free breathing. After much tossing and pulling we found a place, where, as my father believed, I might see the whole procession from the top of a garden gate; he placed himself beneath me. It seems to me that we waited fully two hours, when, at length, the rumbling sound “he comes, he comes,” rolled toward us from a great distance. The sound was swelling, the trumpets could be discerned in the roaring noise of the crowds, and the yelling “vivat Schill” of the boys. I stretched my neck, I saw the four hussars, who opened the procession, cutting with great labor, their way through all the patriotism and loyalty; they approached, they were close by us, but with them had also come an irresistible, compact mass. Where is Schill? There he comes; do'nt you see?—and in this moment the wedge-like crowd broke down the fences, and I tumbled from the place where I had been envied by thousands of passers by. I fell upon another crowd, which had conglomerated behind the fence, and was carried along like an Imperator of old,—like a Franconian king after his election. But I did not remain long in this elevated situation, for the searching eyes of my father had discovered me. “This is my boy”—he exclaimed, “this is my boy!” while he was striving to press through the crowd; but when has a crowd listened to any thing? On it went, and I floated on a sea of heads and hats. At last my father, impelled by a parent's anxiety, almost driven by despair, succeeded in severing this piece of human mosaic. He grasped my foot, and down I went. My situation was in no way bettered, for the current of men continued to roll on; as Socrates threw himself over his beloved Alcibiades or Epaminondas over Pelopidas (I compare the great to the small) so resolved my father to form a shield over his urchin. This necessarily soon created a mountain of tumbling and scrambling individuals over me, and I should surely have been suffocated, had not most happily the layer over my father consisted of a huge grenadier, who, torn or driven from his line, had met with this living stumbling block. “There is a boy below,” he shouted, with a stentorian voice; “by G— he sha'nt be killed.” I considered this a very sensible speech, quite to the purpose; and felt happy indeed, when my Trim—if he was no sergeant, I would have given him the cheveron on the spot, had I possessed the power—succeeded in excavating me. Oh, with what feeling I drew breath! but Schill was gone; I heard the music at a distance long past by, while my father hugged me, his eyes beaming with joyful gratitude for my delivery.

We now mingled with the soldiers, and my father picked out three or four, to take quarters with us. So great was the ardor of the citizens of Berlin, to have some of the followers quartered with them, and in such a degree was all military order broken into, that it was impossible for the commanding officer to give any orders before his followers were dismissed, and he was obliged, the next morning, to publish the order, where and when the rendezvous should take place, through the police of the city. My father had caught an officer and several privates; we made them tell us of Colberg the whole livelong day, and pestered them with a thousand questions.

I had not seen Schill, the object of our wishes, but, soon after his arrival at Berlin, I began to make a heraldic collection, and it struck me, that it would be a fine beginning, could I place at the head the seal of Schill. So I went one day to his quarters and told the sergeant in waiting that I wished to see Schill. I peremptorily refused to tell him my business, and after some conversation, was admitted. I found Col. Schill in the garden, shooting with the pistol at a target. He asked me what I wanted. Your seal, sir, said I. And why my seal? was the reply. Because, said I, I love you, and wish to begin my collection with your coat of arms. Does your father love me too? he asked. Yes, replied I, all the Berlin people do. He seemed much moved, turned toward the other officers, while he treated me in the kindest manner, and said something which I now forget, but the import of which may be easily surmised. He then asked me to take luncheon with them, and I remember that he helped me to a glass of wine, saying—“Boy, be ever true to your country; here, let's touch our glasses on its welfare.” I remember nothing of his appearance, except the kind expression of his large blue eyes. I was a great man among my school-fellows the next day, and refused to exchange one of the seals which Col. Schill had given me, for the arms of the Emperor of Austria. When the signet of the King of Saxony was added, I parted with one of Schill's, but still I thought the advantage of the bargain on the other side.

Schill, you know, marched in 1809, when the Tyrolese had risen under Andrew Hofer, against the French, to second an insurrection, which had broken out in Westphalia, under Count Dörnberg. Schill marched, without order of his government, had several fights with the French, but could do nothing, as the insurrection in Westphalia was soon put down, after the brilliant success of Napoleon's army in the campaign of 1809 against the Austrians. Schill took Stralsund, and fortified it in haste; but on May 31 it was taken by Dutch troops, and Schill fell after a valiant resistance. His head was sent in spirits of wine to Holland; the King of Westphalia had offered ten thousand francs for it, when yet on his shoulders.

Twelve officers of the corps of Schill were taken prisoners, and sent to Wesel; a French court-martial sentenced them to be shot; for they were treated as common robbers. A maid of honor, at the court of Jerome, King of Westphalia, obtained, through the latter, a pardon from Napoleon for one of the officers under sentence of death. It arrived before the execution, but he firmly refused it, if it could not be extended to all. He was shot with the rest. Twelve trees designate to this day the spots where this brotherhood in death sank into the grave.

I have heard a calm and prudent kind of a reasoner, maintain that the officer had no right to refuse his pardon; that his action approached very closely to suicide. To me, it approaches rather to that offering of our life for our friends, which the Scripture designates as so holy a deed. Yet however that may be, a boy of stern and noble metal surely he must have been, and he is worthy to be mentioned together with the brave Van Spyke, who blew up himself and his crew rather than see the flag of his country insulted.

When we hear the word Dutch, we generally [p. 538] connect the idea of wide breeches, a long clay pipe and a placidly puffing mouth with it—things not very poetical in their association. And yet, these Dutch people have erected the most poetic monument to their youthful hero. A penny collection has been made throughout the country, for the amount of which they have erected a light-house far out in the sea, off the estuary of the Scheldt; and on the light-house stands written with colossal letters of iron, VAN SPYKE—nothing more. There, to direct the lonely mariner on the dangerous coast by night, burns the guiding light, and reminds him of a great deed; and when he passes in the day, the white pile, reared out of the tossing waves, he reads that name, which he, to whom it once belonged has added—a noble bequest—to the rich inheritance which his brave people—foremost in liberty, foremost in enterprize, foremost in readiness to die for religion—possess in the many pages of their proud annals.

Let us not laugh at the Knickerbockers and Rip Van Winkles, but rather imitate their nation and inscribe, with the single names of the bravest sailors, our naval history on the many light-houses which garnish our shores. Thus they would form instructive annals, intelligible to every hand before the mast—each light-house a chapter, telling a great story, inciting the commander as well as the aspiring youth, when they pass it to carry into distant seas our stripes and stars, and with them respect to our name, or greeting them with the best welcome a sailor desires, when they return from long and ardent cruizes. Long ere the wife or brother could welcome them, would thus their country have cheered their hearts by these simple but speaking monuments of acknowledged faithfulness to home and country. Let Congress decree, as the best reward for the noblest actions at sea, that the commander's name shall stand in huge letters of bronze on these warning or guiding beacons—the pyramids of modern industry and modern civilization—to indicate that as the sea shall never wash away these names, so shall no tide of time wash them out of the grateful hearts of their countrymen. And now Sir, I must take leave; the captain wants me on board. I am, &c. &c.

To Edgar A. Poe, Esq.

THE OLD MAN'S CAROUSAL.

PISCATORY REMINISCENCES.

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them,” and so it is with angling. Some are born fishermen, some acquire the art, and it is thrust upon some by necessity. I read myself into it. My first penchant for angling was created by that prince of good fellows and good fishermen, Izaak Walton. I well remember one sunny spring morning, while reclining indolently in my little piazza with the “complete angler” open before me, I was suddenly smitten with a love for the “cool shaded stream” and the exercise of the angling rod. What a happy time of it hath the fisherman, thought I. How quietly his life passeth away; his spirits are always unruffled, and his bosom unknown to the cares that harass the rest of mankind. Here am I, always excited or depressed, and eternally ruminating upon dollars and cents, without ever allowing myself time to breathe the pure air of heaven in peace. I will turn fisherman, quoth I to myself, and immediately proceeded to purchase a rod and tackle just such as is recommended in the “complete angler,” mentally repeating all the while, one of honest old Izaak's wishes.

Duly accoutred according to the directions of master Izaak, I wended my way with a light heart and impatient step, to the slippery banks of old Neuse, chasing and catching grasshoppers for bait, as I passed through a meadow that lay in my way. When arrived at the [p. 539] river I ensconced myself “secretly behind a tree,” fastened a grasshopper on my hook, and let it down to the water “as softly as a snail moves,” nothing doubting that I should soon draw forth a chub of the first water. There I sat with all the patience recommended by the “complete angler,” for two good long hours, expecting every moment to see the writhing grasshopper taken down by some monster of a chub. But nothing disturbed the poor fellow's kicking, except an impudent dragon fly that alighted on him, and sat there, floating lazily on the water and basking his bright wings in the warm sun, very prejudicially, as I thought, to Mr. Walton's manner of fishing. About this time I began to have some doubts as to the practice of master Izaak's rules for chub fishing in our uncivilized streams, and was pretty well cured of my fishing mania. I must say, though in justice to my preceptor, that I lacked one essential qualification for a fisherman—devotion, though I swore not an oath, sorely tempted as I was. This was doubtless the reason of my bad luck. After seeing the poor grasshopper make his last effort to get loose, without the least interruption from a chub, I despaired of ever being an angler, and “drew up stakes” to make for home, consoling myself with the reflection that “angling is like poetry—men are born to it.” As I trudged leisurely along I could not help thinking that I had been vastly more taken with the oddities and eccentricities of the devout old fisherman, than with the practice of his art in these unromantic regions, and inwardly assented to Swift's definition of angling—“a stick and a string, with a fool at one end and a worm at the other.” Ever since that day, I have been pointed at as the man that fished by the book, much to the gratification of my rustic neighbors, and mortification of myself.

ISRAFEL.¹

¹ And the angel Israfel who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures.—Koran.

JUDGMENT OF RHADAMANTHUS.

One day, Rhadamanthus, the stern and wise judge of the dead, sat in the shades, passing sentence on the crimes, follies, and virtues of the human race, that flocked in myriads to his awful tribunal. On his right hand extended a delicious region, fragrant with flowers of unnumbered tints and odors, musical with the song of myriads of happy birds, and glowing in glories brighter than sunbeams, for they were reflected from the smiling face of an approving deity. On his left lay the kingdom of darkness and despair, where though nothing could be seen, the wretchedness of its tenants was sadly indicated by groans and howlings of suffering and despair, which might aptly represent the universal chorus of human misery. To the former, Rhadamanthus beckoned the good with a benignant and approving smile—to the latter, he condemned the wicked with a withering frown.

Few—alas! few and far between, were they who were beckoned to the land of delight, while crowds of wicked beings expiated in the region of howling darkness, the crimes of a guilty life. At length there approached a proud stately woman, clad carelessly in attire not the most cleanly, her cap on one side, her hands begrimed with ink, and a hole in either stocking. Pride and conceit sat on her brow, and she was passing to the right of the judge, towards the region of the blest, before receiving judgment, when Rhadamanthus stopped her, and demanded an account of her doings in the other world.

She seemed mightily indignant at this, and after muttering something about “an old ignoramus,” proceeded as follows:

“Your worship surely cannot be ignorant of the services I have rendered the present age, as well as posterity, in writing six folio volumes on political economy, the duties of kings, princes and governors, the character of different nations, and the true principles of government. That I might the more exclusively devote myself to these great objects, I resolved never to marry, lest the care of my household and children might interfere with the desire I had to be useful.”

“Humph,” quoth Rhadamanthus—and the woman of six folios mistaking this for an approving fiat, was about to pass into the happy region, when he sternly bade her remain where she was. Whereupon she tossed her head, cocked her chin, and took a pinch of snuff, half of which she flourished in the face of the judge.

At this moment there approached a respectable matronly female, of an open, contented, and happy countenance, which seemed the index of a virtuous mind. She was dressed in plain attire of exquisite neatness, and as she came before the judgment seat, made a low obeisance, reverent, yet devoid of fear. The judge returned the salutation with a bow, and asked in a voice of kind encouragement what she had been doing in her past life.

With timid modesty, she told her tale of usefulness. She had married a worthy man, whose house she tried to make a happy home, and whose moderate means she exerted all the becoming arts of domestic economy to render sufficient for the supply of all the rational wants of life. She had borne him six children, four sons and two daughters; of the former of whom, one was now fighting in defence of his country at the head of its armies; another was a judge administering the laws to the people with justice and mingled mercy; a third was cultivating his father's land, and watching over his declining age; and a fourth imitating the faith of his forefathers both by precept and example. The daughters were all happily married, and living a life of virtue, in the midst of their children.

The lady of the six folios listened to this detail of modest usefulness with unutterable scorn, but far different were the feelings of Rhadamanthus, who nodded and smiled approbation at every sentence.

“Approach,” cried he to the mother of six children, and the writer of six folios. “Thou,” addressing himself to the former—“Thou that hast made thy husband happy by thy cares and thy economy, and thy children useful to their country by thy precepts and example, pass into the region of the blest, and enjoy thy reward in an eternity of happiness. But thou”—and he frowned majestically—“thou that has preferred the quill to the spindle; to instruct mankind rather than teach thy children the ways of virtue; and to be the mother of six musty books, rather than of as many sons and daughters, to honor their parents, serve their country, and worship their God, thou shalt return again to the earth, where thy punishment shall be to give advice which none will follow, and write books that nobody will read.”

The happy mother passed into the region of bliss, and the instructer of nations returned to the earth, with a resolution to write another folio, contesting the decision of Rhadamanthus, and pointing out the abuses of his system of jurisprudence.

SCENES IN CAMPILLO.¹

¹ These hitherto unpublished Scenes in Campillo are from a new edition (now in press) of the “Year in Spain.” We are indebted for them to the kindness of the author and of the Messrs. Harpers.

The Andalusian village of Campillo is built on a plain, with regular and well-paved streets, houses in good repair and neatly whitewashed, each with its stone seat at the door, and grated cage projecting from the window and garnished with shrubs and flowers, the scene of many a tender parley and midnight interview. Everything in Campillo, to the village church and village posada, bespeaks a pervading spirit of order and cleanliness, and the little room into which I was installed, partook largely of these qualities. It looked upon the principal square of the village, having in front the church, with its Gothic tower surmounted by the simple emblem of our faith, and embellished with the unwonted decoration of a clock, under whose promptings a hoarse old bell muttered forth the passing hours. On another side of the square was the hotel of the Ayuntamiénto, which contained the offices of the municipal authorities and police; while opposite was a guard-room, in which were a few ill-fed soldiers, shabbily accoutred in dirty belts and rusty muskets. In the middle of the square was a plain granite fountain, surrounded by a kerb, which formed a reservoir for watering cattle.

For want of better occupation, I passed a great part of the day in gazing from my window upon the moving scene below. Sometimes a stable boy would bring a train of jaded mules to the fountain, give them water, and wash their backs where they had been galled by the pack-saddles. Next would come a party of mules, heavily laden; each muleteer having his carbine slung securely beside him. These would pause a moment, refresh their cattle at the fountain, and then pass on and leave the arena again solitary, until some modern Sancho came ambling across the square, sitting upon the end of a mouse-colored ass, which he would guide at pleasure by means of a staff, touching the animal first on one side of the neck, then on the other. He too would pause at the fountain, renew his journey, and then have a contest with the animal about stopping at the open door of the posada, disappearing at length in a rage, and at a full gallop.

While the middle of the square seemed given up to passing travellers, the sides were more exclusively occupied by the native worthies of Campillo. In the guard-house, the soldiers were all sleeping away the heat of the day upon wooden benches in the interior; while the one on post sat under the shade of the portico, with his musket leaning against the wall beside him, occupied in cutting up tobacco on a board to make paper cigars. Immediately under my window was a group of the village notables, seated upon the stone bench that ran along the whole front of the building, or gathered round the more important personages of the assemblage. I amused myself in assigning to each a character, and in guessing at the import of his discourse.

That well-fed royalist, with silver shoe and knee buckles, and the red cockade in his hat, is doubtless the Alcalde of Campillo. He is declaiming upon the [p. 541] late successes of the insurgent royalists in Portugal; and of those two who listen to him, and seem to catch the words that fall from his lips, the one is our own innkeeper paying his court to the powers that be, and the other, with the thin legs and long nose, who is followed by a half-starved dog, equally miserable with his master, is certainly the village doctor, the Sangrado of Campillo. He is evidently looked on contemptuously by the rest of the assembly, who are aware of his ignorance, and know that he owes his situation, and the right to kill or cure the good people of Campillo, rather to two ounces of gold opportunely bestowed on the Alcalde, than to any acquaintance with the healing art. The thick-set man in the oil-cloth cocked hat, with scowling look and bushy whiskers, who is fingering the hilt of his sabre, is the commandant of the royalist volunteers. He has become terrible to the “negros,” who will tell you that he is no better than he should be, that he began the world after the manner of Robin Hood, and passed in due season to the command of a royalist guerrilla. But who is that tall sharp featured individual, walking across the Plaza, with the village curate on one side and a capuchin on the other? That is doubtless the intendant of police, who has just received intelligence of some pretended revolutionary plot, and who will soon go with a force in search of persons and papers.

THE PINE WOOD.

A SONG—WRITTEN IN GEORGIA.

¹ The greater wood-pecker.

THE BATTLE OF LODI.

¹ We are pleased at an opportunity afforded us of presenting our readers in anticipation with an extract of great beauty from the second volume of Major Lee's Life of Napoleon. This volume will not be published for some time—many laborious investigations operating to delay the work much longer than was anticipated by its author. We are indebted to Major Lee himself for the MS,—who sends it to us from Paris.

Bonaparte, having despatched the affairs which on the evening of the action of Fombio called him back to Placentia; having adjusted the amount of contribution imposed on that town, provided for the immediate passage of his rear division across the Po, and signed an armistice with the commissioners of the Duke of Parma, hastened to rejoin his advance, and to resume the personal direction of its movements. He arrived at Casal Pusterlengo at 3 o'clock on the morning of the 10th, and marched without delay in pursuit of Beaulieu. Early in the forenoon, and at some distance in front of Lodi, with the grenadiers under Lannes, he reached the Austrian rear guard, composed of the grenadiers of Nadasti, and two squadrons of hussars, with two field pieces; which detachment, Beaulieu, that he might gain time to withdraw his main body, encumbered with a heavy train of artillery, across the Adda, had directed to defend to the last the approach to Lodi. The ground they occupied was found to be so strong that it was necessary to execute several manœuvres before they could be advantageously attacked. The onset of the French was made with that ardor which the presence of their general, and the confidence of victory [p. 542] inspired. The defence, which was as obstinate as the post was important, was persisted in until the French battalions pouring along in succession, the Austrians were nearly surrounded. They at last gave way, leaving their killed and wounded, with one field piece, on the field; and were pursued so closely into Lodi, that they could neither shut the gates nor cross the river before the French van-guard was in possession of the town.

Beaulieu's main body, upon which the fugitives retreated, consisting of 12,000 infantry, 4,000 horse, and 30 pieces of artillery, was drawn up behind field-works on the left bank of the Adda, and immediately opposite to Lodi; the artillery, in front, looking on the bridge, and the cavalry, a little withdrawn, on the flanks. From this position, in which he felt at last safe and unassailable, the Austrian general directed a violent cannonade on the town of Lodi, as soon as he perceived it was occupied by the French; and expecting rather to dislodge his adversary than to be himself disturbed, he declined destroying the bridge over the Adda, and thus interrupting his direct communication with Milan. To avoid and to mitigate the effect of this cannonade, Bonaparte sheltered his infantry and horse, as fast as they came up, behind the rampart of the town, which ran along the bank of the river; and planting advantageously his own artillery, opened a fire, which though supported by fewer guns, was more effectual than the enemy's, inasmuch as the Austrians were uncovered. Notwithstanding the strength of Beaulieu's ground, Bonaparte perceived, that with men like his, it was not impregnable; and persevering in his design of intercepting Wukassowich and Colli in their retreat to Mantua, he resolved, even under the Austrian guns, to force the passage of the Adda. The attempt was hazardous; but the soul of the enterprise consisted in its danger, and the main chance of success, in its apparent impossibility, which, so long as the bridge remained entire, was only apparent. To prevent its destruction, he proceeded in person, in full exposure to the Austrian artillery, to place two guns in such positions that their cross fires, which assisted by Berthier he himself tried, covered the farther end of the bridge, and rendered all approach to it impracticable. The freedom with which he exposed himself while making his skill as an artillery officer, instrumental to his success as their general, delighted the troops extremely, and was the occasion of their conferring on him that rank, which rendered him famous in the annals of the bivouac, as “the Little Corporal.” Then, comparatively at leisure, he made his preparations for forcing the passage, ordering the artillery officers to maintain their fire with unabated spirit, and directing Massena to give the rest of the troops, who were drawn up behind the rampart, and had been in constant exertion from 3 o'clock in the morning, a hasty breakfast and a short repose.

The force which he had in hand at Lodi was more formidable in character than numbers, consisting of three brigades of Massena's division, the grenadier corps lately commanded by Laharpe, and a reserve of light cavalry under general Beaumont, in all about 13,000 men; Gen. Kilmaine with the principal part of the horse, and Gen. Mesnard with a brigade of infantry, had been detached in the morning from Casal; the first to the left for the double purpose of keeping free that wing of the army, and of hanging upon the flank of the Austrian divisions in their retreat from Milan to Cassano; the second to the right, for security on that side, and with instructions to observe and act against the garrison of Pizzighitone. Serrurier's division being the last in crossing the Po, and having been directed to occupy Pavia, was at some distance in the rear; while Augereau's, which had encamped the previous night at Borghetto, was following by the way of Casal the progress of the advance. To this General, therefore, as additional force might be required at Lodi, orders were sent to expedite his march, and close up with the front as soon as possible.

Although the chief reliance for success in this undertaking, was to be on the courage and alacrity of the troops engaged in it, two circumstances enabled Bonaparte to bring its issue, in some degree, within the range of calculation. One of these was the information of the inhabitants, that at the present stage of the water, the Adda was fordable for cavalry, at a point half a league above the town; and the other, his own observation, that the Austrian commander, in order to shelter his troops from the French artillery as the French were sheltered from his own, had withdrawn his mass of infantry and his corps of horse behind a swell in the surface of the ground, to a position so much in the rear, that it placed them farther from the Austrian guns, than the French grenadiers would be when prepared to rush across the bridge. In the first he perceived an opportunity of annoying the right flank of the enemy, and distracting his attention at a critical moment; in the second, and more important one, the practicability, by a sudden and impetuous charge, of reaching his guns before his infantry could interpose; and in both the probability that his own column of attack, would be exposed but for an instant, to the enemy's artillery. Upon the edge of this sharp inference, which few minds would have had the acuteness to shape or the firmness to act upon, the fate of the day was to turn.

At 5 o'clock in the afternoon, when the men were refreshed, and when Augereau's immediate junction might be counted on, he directed Gen. Beaumont with the cavalry and four pieces of light artillery, to pass the Adda at the ford above, and having gained a footing on the opposite bank, to cannonade the right flank of the Austrians, and if practicable, to charge them. A column of attack 4,000 strong, composed of grenadiers, and having the second battalion of carabiniers or light infantry grenadiers, in front,² was formed under the orders of Massena behind the rampart of the town, with the leading sections so close to the gate, that by merely facing to the left, they would be ready to spring upon the bridge. The rest of Massena's troops had orders to follow in the charge instantly. The time required for the detour of the cavalry, Bonaparte employed in passing through the ranks of the grenadiers, by a few energetic expressions encouraging their zeal and rousing their intrepidity. Shouts of “long live the republic!” repeated by a thousand voices, welcomed his appearance, and proclaimed, that troops who had [p. 543] turned the Alps and traversed the Po, were not to be stopped by the Adda.³ The cannonade was continued with fury on both sides; when the guns of Beaumont being heard on the left, and the Austrian fire seeming to slacken at the sound, Bonaparte himself gave the word to advance. The drums beat the charge; and the assailants issuing from behind the wall, like a band of giants sprung from the earth, suddenly changed the face of the conflict and quickly brought it to a closer decision. Wheeling to the left, the leading sections rushed upon the bridge against a storm of fire, which at the first onset, was so fatal, that the head of the column reeled under its destruction. Bonaparte, aware that his attempt must prove instantly successful or dreadfully abortive, perceived the disorder in a moment, and in a moment repaired it. He hastened to the front, and seconded by Berthier, Massena, Cervoni, d'Allemagne, Lannes, Dupat, and the Commissary Salicetti, gave a fresh impulse to the charge; and the column closing its ranks and quickly redressing its disordered front, sprang forward with more determined valor and more ardent steps. The bridge, two hundred yards long, was instantly cleared. Dupat was the first officer across; Bonaparte himself was next after Lannes. The soldiers, impatient to get across, and crowding on their leaders, were seen as they approached the shore, some sliding down the timbers of the bridge, others leaping off into the water, and then speeding up the bank to close with the enemy. Displaying as rapidly as they passed, they threw in a close and a deadly fire, and falling upon the Austrian artillery before it could be supported, dispersed the men or killed them at their pieces. Then with fury they rushed upon the infantry, which, neither in time for rescue, nor in spirit for revenge, was advancing. A struggle too fierce to be lasting, ensued. The Austrians, discouraged by frequent defeats and constant misfortunes, were unnerved by this unexpected attack, which like a blast of death had swept across the river; and their line was already pierced and mangled, when Augereau coming up with his light brigade under Gen. Rusca, led it keenly into action and completed this double victory, which at one blow, severed a strong line of defence, and routed a formidable army. Part of Beaulieu's force fled, with their general, into the Venetian territory to Crema, part to Pizzighitone, some even to Cremona. His hussars endeavoring to cover the retreat, made several charges, which, owing to the firmness of the French infantry, were not successful.

² When Alexander's officers dissuaded him against attempting the passage of the Granicus, and particularly at a late hour in the day, he said—“The Hellespont would blush, if after having crossed it, I should be afraid of the Granicus.”—Plutarch's Life of Alexander.

³ Napoleon in his despatch reporting to the government the battle of Lodi (Moniteur, 20th May, 1796) says, his column of attack was formed of grenadiers, with the “second battalion of carabiniers in front.” In the French army there are both foot and horse carabiniers, the former of which were employed at Lodi, and are the grenadiers of the light infantry.

But the marches and fighting of the day had so much exhausted the victorious troops, that though still eager for glory they were panting for breath, and the pursuit was not carried far beyond the field of battle. The Austrians left on the ground 1,200 men killed and wounded, and in possession of the French 1,000 prisoners, 600 horses, 20 guns, and several stand of colors. Bonaparte's loss scarcely exceeded 200 in killed and wounded; such was the rapidity and effect of a movement which, with the nicest calculations of judgment, seemed to combine the wild boldness of inspiration.⁴

⁴ Formally announcing to his readers a minute description of the battle of Lodi, (vol. iii. p. 128) the author of Waverley prefaces it by assuring them that the Adda falls into the Po at Pizzighitone, a town at least twenty-five miles above its mouth; which is like saying that the Tiber falls into the sea at Rome. Another error into which he falls, requires more serious notice, because he founds on it a general prospective imputation of untruth against Napoleon, in reference to his military despatches, and his posthumous works. At page 134, this free and fanciful historian says—“Bonaparte states that they only lost 200 men during the storm of the passage. We cannot but suppose that this is a very mitigated account of the actual loss of the French army. So slight a loss is not to be reconciled with the horrors of the battle, as he himself detailed them in his despatches; nor with the conclusion, in which he mentions, that of the sharp contests which the army of Italy had to sustain during the campaign, none was to be compared with that ‘terrible passage of the bridge of Lodi.’”

Now the truth is, Napoleon never “details” nor even mentions, “the horrors of the battle” of Lodi, in any of his despatches. In that of the 22d Floreal, 11th of May, he says—“Although since the commencement of the campaign we have had some severe affairs, and it has frequently been necessary to expose the troops to fire in the freest manner, none of our struggles has come up to the terrible passage of the bridge of Lodi.” Here is certainly no “detail of the horrors of a battle,” implying a conflict and slaughter of some duration. On the contrary, in the body of the same despatch, he had previously described the severity of the affair, as existing only for a moment. “The grenadiers presented themselves on the bridge, which is 200 yards in length; the fire of the enemy was terrible; the head of the column seemed even to hesitate; a moment's hesitation and all would have been lost. The generals sensible of this, threw themselves in front, and decided the struggle while it was yet balanced. This formidable column overthrew every thing opposed to it; the enemy's artillery was instantly taken. In the twinkling of an eye his army was completely dispersed.” Salicetti's despatch is conceived in similar terms. The charge was made “with the rapidity of lightning”—the column hesitated “for an instant”—and renewing the charge, carried the Austrian artillery “in a moment.” In his account dictated to Montholon, (vol. iii. p. 214) Napoleon, who could hardly have anticipated a calumny of this kind, says—“the column traversed the bridge at a running pace, in a few seconds,” and “was not exposed to the fire of the enemy, except at the very moment when it wheeled to the left upon the bridge.” All this shows that the “storm of the passage” instead of consisting of a “detail of horrors,” was a momentary hurricane of shot, which swept off in an instant from the head of the column 200 men. Now the head of the column, could only have been a certain portion of the whole column. As the second battalion of carabiniers was in front, let us suppose this battalion constituted the head, and had got upon the bridge. We learn from a previous statement of Napoleon's, which is not disputed, (Montholon, t. 3, p. 205) that the ten battalions of grenadiers collected at Tortona, composed a force of 3,500 men. They had been marching and fighting ever since; but let us estimate the second carabiniers at 300; supposing them all on the bridge when the Austrians fired, and we have two thirds of them killed and wounded in a single instant! If this was not a sharp affair, a hot fire, a terrible passage, it is doubtful whether the annals of war furnish any thing that is. Cæsar lost but 200 men at the battle of Pharsalia, although the struggle had been at one moment so warm, that the brave Crastinus and thirty centurions fell.—Bello civili. L. 3, C. 99.

The head of the column being thus shattered, had the Austrian artillery quickly repeated and vigorously sustained their fire, the attempt of Napoleon must have failed. But it is evident that they were daunted and confused by the sudden rush of the French upon the bridge, by the opening of Beaumont's guns upon their flank, and by the want of support from their own infantry; and after delivering one fire, served their guns unsteadily and made little effectual resistance; for of all the distinguished persons who sprang to the front of the column, eight in number, not one was even wounded. This agrees perfectly with another passage of Napoleon's report, which is of itself a [p. 544] refutation of Sir Walter's calumny. “If we have lost but few men, it is owing to the promptitude with which the charge was executed, and to the sudden effect produced on the enemy, by the imposing mass and dreadful fire, of our intrepid column.”

But the author of Waverley, finding that no authentic narrative of this action furnished the desired “horrors of the battle,” resolved, it seems, in order to color his charge of wilful and habitual misstatement against Napoleon, to prepare a set of horrors of his own, expressly for the occasion. At page 133, therefore, he asserts, in opposition to the report of Napoleon, that of Salicetti, the memoires of Napoleon, the histories of Jomini and Desjardins, all of which were in existence when he wrote, that “from the windows of the houses on the left side of the river, the soldiers who occupied them, poured volley upon volley of musketry on the thick column as it endeavored to force its way over the long bridge.” This detail seems with little variation to be transposed from his own spirited account of the battle of Bothwell bridge. “But the bridge was long and narrow, which rendered the manœuvres slow as well as dangerous, and those who first passed had still to force the houses, from which the covenanters continued to fire.”—Old Mortality, chapter xxxii. After this it would be needless to remark upon the next passage in Sir Walter's commentary, which runs thus: “In fact, as we may take occasion to prove hereafter, the memoranda of the great general, dictated to his officers at St. Helena, have a little too much the character of his original bulletins; and while they show a considerable disposition to exaggerate the difficulties to be overcome, the fury of the conflict, and the exertions of courage by which the victory was attained, show a natural inconsistency, from the obvious wish to diminish the loss which was its unavoidable price.”

The French cavalry, with the exception of a small party headed by Marmont, and composed mostly of Bonaparte's escort, took no part in the action, and received none of the General's praise. It was alleged that the ford was found less practicable and the circuit more extensive, than had been counted upon. But the conduct, or rather the nullity of this corps, at Lodi could hardly have lessened the dissatisfaction which Bonaparte expressed the day before in a letter to Carnot. “I will confess to you, that since the death of Stengel, I have not a single fighting man among the superior officers of cavalry. I wish you would send me two or three Adjutants General, who have risen in the dragoons, possess a spark of military fire, and are firmly resolved never to make skilful retreats.” It was not until the French had reached the borders of the Mincio, and by capture or contribution had furnished their troopers with heavy horses; and when Murat, being returned with promotion from Paris, had an opportunity of displaying that unbounded courage which gave a romantic splendor to the technical force of his charges, that the cavalry of the army of Italy began to prove worthy of their General's skill in war, and to rival the infantry in prowess.⁵ The conduct of the grenadiers, and particularly of the battalion of carabiniers, was above praise or description. When Bonaparte asked for the names of the men who formed the leading section of the column, for the purpose of mentioning them honorably in his report, the names of the whole battalion were handed him. Léon, a sergeant of the thirty-second, whose courage had been noticed at Monteligino and Montinotte, and Laforge, a grenadier of the twenty-first, remarkable for activity and strength, appear however to have been most conspicuous. The sergeant, after passing the bridge in the front section, led the assault upon the Austrian batteries. The grenadier, throwing himself into the enemy's intrenchments, slew five men with his own hand. Among the generals in like manner, the gallantry of Berthier was judged pre-eminent. To these circumstances Bonaparte made allusion in his report. “Were I to mention all who distinguished themselves, I should be obliged to name all the carabiniers and grenadiers of the light division, and almost all the officers of the staff. But I must not forget the intrepid Berthier, who himself acted as gunner, horseman, and grenadier, on this memorable day.”⁶ Yet however excellent the spirit of the troops and the conduct of the officers, few victories were ever, in so great a degree, the result of the General's sagacity and courage, as that of Lodi.⁷ His modesty in making no reference to himself in his report, was as heroic as his conduct in the battle.

⁵ This account of the French cavalry at Lodi is confirmed by the words of Napoleon's report—“the ford being found very bad, the cavalry was greatly retarded, and could not charge.” It corresponds with the observation respecting them in his memoires (Montholon, t. 1, p. 4.) Yet Lockhart insists, that at the battle of Lodi and during the charge of the French grenadiers, “Beaumont pressed gallantly with his horse upon the Austrian flank.” The same critical historian, who appears to have written for the sole purpose of repeating or inventing misrepresentations, copies devoutly Sir Walter's errors; one importing that the vanguard of grenadiers who first passed the Po, was commanded by Andreossi, and the other that the Adda falls into the Po at Pizzighitone.

⁶ In the report, neither of Napoleon nor of Salicetti, is it stated that they were personally engaged in this charge. But at St. Helena, “some one having read an account of the battle of Lodi, in which it was said that Bonaparte displayed great courage in crossing the bridge; and that Lannes passed it after him—‘Before me,’ said Bonaparte, with much warmth; ‘Lannes passed first and I only followed him. It is necessary to correct that on the spot’—and the correction was accordingly made in the margin of the book.” (Haylitt, vol. i. p. 449. See also Lockhart, t. 1, p. 47.) Here first must mean before me; for in his despatch to the Directory of the 22d July, (Moniteur of the 1st of August,) in reporting a successful assault on the outworks of Mantua, and extolling the conduct of the officers engaged in it, Napoleon says—“The chief of battalion Dupat, who commands the brave fifth battalion of grenadiers, is the same officer who passed the first the bridge of Lodi.” In his despatch, Bonaparte tells the Directors that Salicetti was constantly at his side, a fact which shows the latter was in the charge, and which otherwise would probably not have been mentioned. He also says—“the army is under real obligations to him,” referring no doubt by the word real, to the false pretensions set up, by Salicetti and his colleagues, or for them, in regard to the storming of Little Gibraltar at Toulon, which are noticed in the first volume (p. 365) of this work.

⁷ After this anecdote, the author of Waverley lugs into his narrative, the following compliment to the national vanity of his countrymen. (Vol. iii, p. 137.) “This somewhat resembles the charge which foreign tacticians have brought against the English, that they gained victories by continuing, with their insular ignorance and obstinacy, to fight on, long after the period when if they had known the rules of war, they ought to have considered themselves as completely defeated.” Such impertinence and bad taste deter imitation, or it might be said, this charge against Sir Walter's compatriots has never been urged by officers of the army or navy of the United States—neither on the lakes nor on the ocean; at Saratoga, nor at New Orleans, where the “flower of the peninsular veterans,” as Sir Walter himself admits, (vol. viii. p. 474,) led by the disciple and brother-in-law of Wellington—sought a combat with an inferior force of western militia, and were perfectly sensible of a total defeat.

Although the possession of Milan and the submission of Lombardy were consequences of the battle of Lodi, Bonaparte was disappointed in one of the principal objects which he hoped to gain by it. Wukassowich and [p. 545] Colli, feebly annoyed by Kilmaine, had crossed the Adda at Cassano, in the forenoon of the day; he forced a passage at Lodi, and taking the upper route, by the way of Brescia, to Mantua, were beyond the reach of interception. Relinquishing, therefore, further efforts against these Generals, he determined to attack Pizzighitone before it could be put in a state of defence, and marched for that purpose on the morning of the 11th, down the left bank of the Adda. The flight of a few shells seconded by the cannonade of Mesnard from the right bank of the river, compelled the garrison of three hundred men, which Liptay had left behind him, to surrender. Cremona, a more important fortress, opened its gates the same day to General Beaumont, who after charging a body of the fugitives from Lodi, appeared before it with an advance guard of cavalry.

From this point, which was the present limit of his career, Bonaparte determined to lead back his forces in order to secure the country they had overrun; and turning his views toward Milan, resolved to impress on that capital and other cities of Lombardy, the stamp of French authority, in the room of that which his victories had expelled. This operation, which first called into exercise his abilities for government, appears to have awakened the germs of that high ambition, which, nurtured by the possession of great civil qualities, placed him so far above all the other Generals of his age, and conducted him to a sphere of elevated greatness which a mind supported by military talents alone, and ambitious only of success in war, can never reach. In recurring to the events of his early life, he afterwards said—“Neither my success on the thirteenth of Vendemiaire, nor in the campaign of Montenotte, made me believe myself a superior man. It was not until after the battle of Lodi, that I began to think I might become a decisive actor on our political theatre. Then it was, that the first spark of high ambition was kindled in my soul.”

Suspending for the moment his further advance towards the Adige, he thus disposed of his troops: The light division lately commanded by Laharpe, was distributed along the Adda from Como to Cassano; and that of Serrurier, which had been under orders to occupy Pavia, was recalled and posted at Lodi, Pizzighitone and Cremona, so as to complete the possession of the line of the Adda. From this last place, he was to observe the discomfited forces of Beaulieu, who were reassembling behind the Oglio and the Mincio. Augereau was directed to take possession of Pavia, and to exhibit in that celebrated city, which was next to Milan itself in importance, one of the finest divisions of the invading army; while to Masséna was assigned the still more honorable duty, of receiving the keys of the noble capital of Lombardy. At the head of his division, this distinguished General marched from Lodi, on the 13th of May.

The hostile forces being now separated, the imperialists collecting their shattered battalions within the Venetian frontier, and the republicans spreading their victorious divisions over the plains of Lombardy, the reader's attention will be inclined to turn from the constant success of the one, and the uniform defeat of the other party, to the conduct of their respective commanders. He will observe that while a lamp of foresight guided the French General, the Austrian was bewildered in a cloud of uncertainty. Though active, courageous, and experienced, Beaulieu was throughout the struggle, as distracted in his efforts as a sightless pugilist, who knows neither where to aim nor to expect a blow; and although operating in the open field and in a populous quarter of his own country, was invariably subjected to the effect of surprise. The passage of the Po, the combat of Fombio, the victory of Lodi, operations which constituted the leading acts of this brilliant section of the campaign, were, each of them, the result of an attempt, which had it been foreseen, might have been frustrated. But while Beaulieu was guarding the Po at Valenza, Bonaparte had passed it at Placentia; while he was preparing to support Liptay at Fombio, that General was already defeated; and while he felt unassailable and meditated offensive operations at Lodi, he was himself overthrown by a blow of such quick and incalculable energy, that it was impossible to fear, withstand, or recover from it.

The confusion and dismay which these circumstances spread through the ranks of the imperial army, are aptly exemplified by the anecdote which Bonaparte records of an old Hungarian captain, with whom among other captives he fell in, while making the rounds of his camp, the night after the surrender of Pizzighitone. The prisoner, who did not know to whom he spoke, being asked by the General what he thought of the state of the war, replied—“nothing could be worse, and that it was altogether incomprehensible.” “We have to do,” he added, “with a young General who is at one moment in our front, at another in our rear, and the next on our flanks. One knows not how to take him. This manner of making war, against all rules, is insupportable.”

Bonaparte on the other hand, seizing the initiative by his boldness and maintaining it by his activity, divined the intentions of his adversary on all occasions, and confounded them, as with the overruling force of destiny. Accordingly, though operating with little more than his vanguard, he predominated irresistibly in the campaign, defeating the corps which came in his way, terrifying those which kept out of it, and in defiance of obstructions that seemed to others insurmountable, by an electric shock of genius and audacity, hurling to the ground the military strength and political power of his once gigantic antagonist.

MARCUS CURTIUS.

Richmond, July 25.

BRITISH PARLIAMENT IN 1835.

NO. II.

The chamber of the House of Lords is close to that of the Commons. The constant communication between these two bodies, renders it necessary that they should sit within the same palace. The recent destruction of the old Parliament House, by fire, has not separated them. Their temporary chambers are connected by temporary passages, leading from one to the other. Along them Members of the House of Commons, personally, carry their bills to the bar of the Peers; while the Peers despatch their messengers to lay their own before the representatives of the people.

The Ministers do not fail to avail themselves of this proximity. Being entitled to a seat only in that chamber to which they belong as Members of Parliament, when any struggle between themselves and the opposition is going on at the same time in both houses, they are at least enabled to exchange messages, from minute to minute, and to regulate their movements accordingly.

Thanks to this proximity, the noise and uproar of the popular branch, has alone, more than once, made the members of the more aristocratic body tremble on their seats. While the fanatical coalition of the Lords, temporal and spiritual, assailed the intrepidly defended, but badly fortified ministry of Lord Melbourne, more than once, the thundering voice of the Commons has relaxed the fury of the assailants, and encouraged the resistance of the besieged. The victorious cry of the reformers, led by Lord John Russell, often threw into confusion the conquered conservatres of Sir Robert Peel.

But it is necessary to describe this second arena of political warfare.

The chamber of the Lords is of the same form as that of the Commons—a lengthened square. The benches are generally placed in the same way; but the decorations are of a more striking appearance. Looking from the only gallery, common to the public and the reporters, you behold the throne immediately in front. This throne is not, as in France, a piece of furniture placed in the chamber every year, on the first day of the session. Here it is immovable.

Below is the celebrated woolsack, the seat of the real President of the assembly. Custom has determined that this must be a sort of sack—a bench without a back.

The apartment for the clerks is separated from the woolsack by two benches, on which two places are reserved for the Masters in Chancery, the official messengers of the chamber.

The covering and drapery of the throne, the hangings of the walls, the carpet, the screens, the benches, cushions and backs, every thing is red in this hall. Red is the aristocratic color. When the Peers, on the occasion of a visit from the King, are seated in state, with their red mantles, the whole appearance of the chamber is more dazzling than imposing. The appearance of the Commons at the bar, in their simple every day dress, presents a striking contrast. One smiles in spite of himself on reflecting that those are not the masters, who are thus sumptuously dressed in garments of purple.

This hall, in which the Lords are temporarily convened, was formerly the bed-chamber of Edward the Confessor. One can well imagine that if the four hundred and thirty nobles should take it into their heads to meet at the same time, that this room would with great difficulty contain them; but this fancy rarely ever seizes them. It is a great occasion which draws together even two hundred. The Peers enjoy a singular privilege which renders personal attendance almost unnecessary. They can vote by proxy. So that, when any one of them desires to travel on the continent, he leaves, if he choose, a power with some Peer of his own party, who exercises this delegated right of voting as often as he pleases, when he pleases, and how he pleases, except in divisions of a committee. Formerly the royal authority alone could render these powers available. Now even this is not required. At the present time, the Duke of Wellington, for instance, has his pocket full of tory votes.

The Peers who are in the habit of attending Parliament, find the present hall very small and uncomfortable. The government, which is building a new Parliament House, has consulted them on its dimensions; and it has been decided that it shall be neither very large nor very small. No one ever thought of building it on the supposition that the whole of the Peers would assemble at one time within its walls. This hypothesis has never even been suggested. The number of Peers present at the same time, has never been greater than on the question of the passage of the principal amendment attempted against parliamentary reform, the 7th of May, 1832. On that occasion there were two hundred and sixty-seven members in the house. That number was taken as the maximum: each member will be allowed three feet square. It is evident that the noble Lords are divided between the desire to be seated comfortably, and the fear of having too large an apartment, in which on some day or other a crowd of intruders may lodge themselves.

One word on the constitution of this chamber. Nothing can be more various than the elements of which it is composed. It has, first, its Peerages hereditary under the law of primogeniture—these are the English Peerages, and are beyond all comparison the most numerous; next, the Scotch and Irish Peerages, which are elective, but on different principles. The Scotch Peers are nominated only for a single Parliament; the Irish are for life. There are besides Ecclesiastical Peers, Archbishops and Bishops, English or Irish, who sit, the former on their own right, and for life, the latter by turns, every year, four by four.

In England the Peerage forms the only nobility possessed of any real title. One who is not a Peer has no legal title. The sons of Peers are not authorized to assume, in their public acts, any title of nobility. Even the eldest sons are only Lords by general consent and courtesy. The official list of the Peerage is the only official list of the nobility. The peerages are of different ranks; and among those of the same class, the most ancient has precedence. Thus there are in the first place, Dukes, then Marquises, Earls, Viscounts, and Barons. The Bishops and Archbishops, known as Lords Spiritual, are ranked according to their respective [p. 548] dignity. The Archbishops of England have the rank of Dukes, and even precede them. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the primate and head of the church, is a sort of English Pope, and follows immediately after the Princes of the blood. He is the first Peer of the House of Lords. The Lord Chancellor (when there is one) is, in virtue of his office, the second; and the Archbishop of York is the third. The Bishops are ranked as Barons, and have precedence of them.

The Barons of Kingsale, like the Grandees of Spain, enjoy the exclusive and hereditary privilege of remaining uncovered in the presence of the King. The Peers have no other privileges, (excepting the peculiar style in which they are addressed, as “his grace,” or the “right honorable,”) which are not common to them all. Their chief privileges are those which prevent the seizure of their goods, their being arrested for debt, or judged by default in any civil action. They cannot be held to answer any criminal process but before their Peers. The reason of the inviolability of their persons in these and many other cases, is to be found in the fiction by which the Peers are all considered as counsellors of the King, and therefore secured in this perfect personal freedom, that they may be always ready to serve the necessities of the crown.

The House of Lords can only exclude a member and deprive him of the privileges of his rank, by convicting him of some capital or infamous crime. However, Blackstone mentions that, during the reign of Edward IV, George Neville, Duke of Bedford, was degraded by act of Parliament, on account of his poverty, which prevented his keeping up a style suited to his rank as a Peer. This fact is the more curious, as it is the only one of the kind, in the whole history of Parliament. Subsequently, a practice the very reverse has prevailed. So that, recently, the Earl of Huntingdon, though reduced to extreme indigence, has succeeded in establishing a contested claim to the Peerage, and the King has endowed him to enable him to sustain his rank as becomes a nobleman.

In England the aristocracy is firmly established. Each Peerage rests, at least fictitiously, on a real title, based on landed property. France and Spain, with a much larger and more ancient and illustrious nobility, have, however, never had a powerful and deeply-rooted aristocracy. If the French noblesse of the States-General had formed a political body strongly seated, properly supported, and distinctively marked, the revolution could not have overthrown them with as much ease as it did. Louis XVIII undertook, in 1814, to construct an upper house; he was too late—the materials were wanting—he built with sand on a foundation of sand.

It is now two years since M. Martinez de la Rosa also endeavored to form one in Spain. Well! in the country where every body is a hidalgo, he was unable to find grandees and tilulos for his frail edifice. He went to work like the French political masons in 1831; he took political economists, philosophers, judges, lawyers, poets, merchants, and mixed them all up with the little of true nobility that remained. With this mortar he built his proceres, destined to last about as long as the new Peers of France.

It is certain that the British Peerage has no longer the solid strength it once possessed; but, though weakened and shaken, it maintains itself by the vigor of its original organization; it does not absolutely arrest the popular torrent, but it resists, even in letting it pass along. However, this flood will not always dash without injury, around the House which forms an obstacle to its course; it is fast undermining its foundations; and will soon or late overthrow the whole mass. It will have been long submerged while Westminster Abbey still mirrors itself in the Thames. Such is the lot of the works of the middle ages. Its buildings outlive its strongest institutions.

The British Peerage is not only a legislative body; it is at the same time a court of justice—not an extraordinary court for the trial of its own members or persons accused of high treason, but a permanent and regular court—a supreme court of appeals in civil matters. These two attributes are, however, as distinct as the unavoidable consequences of this double capacity will permit; good sense has corrected in practice, the theoretical absurdity of the law. Although every Peer is born a competent judge in every cause, as he is a born legislator, the House of Lords only sits as a common tribunal when it is represented by the lawyers belonging to its own body. For example, Lord Brougham or Lord Lyndhurst, both Ex-Chancellors, usually sit in the morning, and give a final judgment on civil suits brought to that court.

No divorce can be pronounced but by act of Parliament. The Peers decide on all process for separation. As in these cases the only question is about facts which no legal knowledge is required to comprehend, they are decided indifferently by the Law-Peers, or any others present at the commencement of the political session. So the House of Lords is at the same time a court and a legislative chamber; a barbarous amalgam.

If the strict rules of ceremony were preserved, the Peers should sit according to their ranks; that is to say, Dukes on the first benches, Marquisses on the second, and the Barons on the third. This order is, however, not observed. They range themselves like the Commons, according to the political party to which they belong, Barons, Earls, Dukes or Marquisses indiscriminately. During the session just closed, the ministry of the whigs and their friends, occupied the seats to the right of the woolsack; the opposition of the tories, those on the left.

We use the terms “whigs” and “tories,” for these words are most suitable to the House of Lords. The whole aristocracy being centered in that House, the Peers only represent themselves; they do not express the will of such or such a party, but their own will. Lord Durham and Lord Brougham, both radicals, are anomalies and differ entirely from their fellows.

The political classification of the House of Lords, is more simple and easy than that of the Commons. There is at present, as during the last century, in the Upper House, two different shades of aristocracy, which fiercely contend for power and the emoluments of office; the tories, consistent at least with their anti-liberal principles, the triumph of which, if such triumph could be accomplished peacefully and without a revolution, would be the only safety for the Peerage; the whigs, very much embarrassed by their pretended popular opinions, of the sincerity of which proofs by acts and not by words, are begun to be required.

Numerically these two divisions are far from being [p. 549] equal. Counting consciences, you would have ten tories for one whig. However, in 1832 the whig minority forced the tories to capitulate; and, since that time assisted by the pressure from without, it has more than once dictated the law to its adversaries. But the period is rapidly approaching when the true majority will attempt to break the yoke, perceiving that concessions can no longer avail to secure its safety. It would be at least as becoming to seize the sword, and fall in defending its ramparts, as to wait seated on its curule chairs, the political death which threatens it.

The rules and customs of the two chambers in some respects resemble, and in others differ from each other.

In the House of Lords the members remain covered as in the Commons; and in the former chamber more etiquette is preserved. It is more rare to see their Lordships convert their benches into beds, or imitate with their legs the signs of a telegraph. The murmurs of the House are more subdued and civilized, the disapprobations expressed with more courtesy; the arena of discussion generally presents less animating and striking scenes; there is more concession, and more unity. You witness none of that strife of common-places which exasperate to so great a degree the patience and the politeness of the Lower House. There, for one eloquent harangue, you will have to submit to ten stupid ones, which serve no other end than to lengthen and injure the discussion. In the Lords able speakers are not so common, and do not abuse to so great a degree their right of speaking. It is true that the Peerage is but a groupe, but a little intrenched garrison; and you should not expect either reserve, or discretion, or discipline, in such a multitude as the Commons; an impatient army bivouacing whole nights on the benches, and where each soldier wishes to be a conqueror.

TO A TORTOISE-SHELL COMB.

Being an humble imitation of the style of some modern poets, by the prism of whose fancy the most common objects are invested with the hues of poesy, even as the sunbeam turneth to diamonds the dews which heedless night hath flung over the earth.

New York, 1836.

INFLUENCE OF NAMES.

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”—Shakspeare.

Shakspeare was mistaken. There is a great deal—there is almost every thing in names. Their influence is felt at all times, and under all circumstances. In war and peace—in morals, literature and religion—in the world of fashion—and above all, in politics, the despotism of names is all powerful, universal and irresistible. Nay, Shakspeare himself is authority against Shakspeare. Does he not make the gentle Juliet say to her lover, “'Tis but thy name that is my enemy”—that fatal name which separated two devoted hearts—which planted thick sorrows in their path, and finally shrouded them in one common sepulchre! Does he not put into the mouth of one of Antony's captains, “I'll humbly signify what in his name, that magical word of war, we have effected.” And again, speaking of the great Pompey, “his name strikes more than could his war resisted.” Names indeed govern the world; and it is not among the least ingenious of all human contrivances that the world should be so governed. I do not wish to speak of the moral guilt and future accountability of those who combine to delude the ignorant—who chain mens' minds to some false idol, or enlist them in some scheme of abomination, whose iniquities are artfully veiled under the names of virtue, patriotism, and the like. If the denunciations of the eloquent Hebrew prophet against those who call evil good, and good evil—who put darkness for light, and light for darkness—who call bitter sweet, and sweet bitter—are not sufficient to alarm such delinquents, it would avail nothing for uninspired tongues and pens to attempt their conviction and reform.

In literature, how remarkable and how injurious is the influence of names, apart from any actual or intrinsic merit. How common is it to estimate an opinion or sentiment, not by the wisdom of the one or the purity of the other, but by the authority of him who pronounces [p. 550] it. A false, immoral, or stupid passage in a book, which bears on its title-page the name of a popular writer, is often received with favor, when precisely the same offence in an unknown author would be almost certain to bring down upon him the lash of criticism. Take for example one of England's most renowned bards—one, not more known even in his own country than on this side of the Atlantic—whose “Melodies” are lisped by our amorous youths and sentimental maidens, and whose name has become a “household word”—a passport to every festival where music, love and wine are the sources of enjoyment. Among his “National Airs” so called, Mr. Moore has written the following lines, which have no doubt been admired by every pretty miss in the country, as the very perfection of poetry, sentiment, and even good sense.

Now the plain English prose of all this, when divested of the magic of Mr. Moore's numbers, is something like the following. “Take, gentle river, these pretty flowers which I fling upon thy surface, and before thou reachest the great ocean, be pleased to flow into the bower of my fair Ella; and if it be not miracle enough, good river, for thee to rush into a lady's bower, without either drowning her or wetting her garments, be pleased to perform another wonderful feat and speak to her—tell her if she will only marry me, our joys whilst we are floating down life's current, shall resemble these wreaths which are borne upon thy bosom. But mark me, river!—if this insensible girl is resolved that she will not accept a good offer, why then roar like another cataract, toss these worthless wreaths on the shore to wither and rot, and tell this cruel Ella that she will live and die an ugly, neglected old maid.”

Now, whilst it is fully conceded that the figure of personification is perfectly legitimate, especially in poetry; yet there are certain degrees of it which should never be attempted, unless connected with subjects of great dignity, or which inspire powerful emotion—and it must not be forgotten that the excellence of poetry does not consist so much in the form or arrangement of its words as in the value and beauty of the thoughts and sentiments which it expresses. A gentle zephyr stealing into a lady's bower and lulling her into repose, or whispering in her ear the sighs of an absent lover, is natural and agreeable enough; but a river, or even rivulet, turning from its course and performing the same office, is a conception which would be very ridiculous in any other than a popular poet. It would be tedious to point out other examples of similar extravagance in Moore, and one only shall suffice—a song which has occasioned abundant fluttering in female hearts, and which for impious hyperbole was never excelled:

In which said song the poet very calmly shows that all that is bright, and fair, and sweet in creation, was made purposely to resemble some young lady of his acquaintance. And yet all these trifles and absurdities, to say nothing of the frequent obscene allusions of the same author, have acquired an extensive popularity under the influence of a popular name.

It would be no difficult task to extend these remarks so as to embrace a long list of distinguished writers, both in prose and verse, who have perpetrated various offences against sound morals as well as good sense, but with whom the lustre of reputation, like the mantle of charity, has not only shielded them from censure, but imparted a kind of dignity and splendor to their failings. Enough perhaps has been said to illustrate the influence of names in the empire of literature.

How is it in the empire of the church? But here I tread upon sacred ground, and must use both brevity and caution. That truth exists in religious doctrine as well as in other things, will not be denied, except by unthinking scepticism or perverted reason. The difficulty has always been in finding her out—in distinguishing her sacred vestments and celestial carriage from the skilful imitations of imposture. The diamond may be known, by the tests of experiment, from the gems which mimic its lustre; but there is no moral chemistry which can separate truth from error, and resolve each into its proper elements. In fact, it seems to be one of the fallacies which have obtained currency among mankind, that truth and error are natural antagonists. So far from it, they are scarcely ever to be found in a state of disunion or repulsion. Error winds itself around the stately column of truth, as the creeper folds in its poisonous embrace the sturdy oak of the forest. Not that they are not in themselves essentially different—but so are the gasses which are found in combination in the water we drink, or in the atmosphere we breathe. What tremendous influence has been wielded by the simple word church, from the very first ages of christianity down to the present time! That name alone has covered a multitude of sins, and sanctified innumerable crimes. What torrents of blood have been shed under the crimson banner of orthodoxy, and how many meek and conscientious heretics have fled from the tender embraces of that holy and infallible mother, who has assumed the supreme government of the soul in this world, as well as the direction of its immortal destiny hereafter. But I only dwell upon this subject in order to show how much we are deceived by empty, unmeaning names. That there is such a treasure as “pure and undefiled religion,” none but the hardened infidel or remorseless libertine will deny. That it is always necessarily found under the priestly robe, or connected with the “sober brow,” neither candor nor charity itself will contend for—and yet, some how or other, the world has identified the sacred gift with a certain sanctimonious exterior, and with certain peculiar ceremonials, and there are few, perhaps, who reflect that it may be more frequently traced in the abodes [p. 551] of humility and wretchedness, in the sighs of a contrite heart, and in the tears of penitential guilt.

But how is it in the world of fashion? What is fashion? Many attempts have been made to define what in truth is undefinable. It is an empty name—a mere shadow, and yet is of substance sufficient to be felt and seen and understood almost every where. A popular English novelist, writing of his own country, says—“The middle classes interest themselves in grave matters: the aggregate of their sentiments is called OPINION. The great interest themselves in frivolities, and the aggregate of their sentiments is termed FASHION. The first is the moral representative of the popular mind—the last of the aristocratic.” But this definition is unsatisfactory. Fashion executes its decrees with as much energy and effect upon those who are excluded from its mystic circle, as upon them who reside within its pale; upon the popular mind as well as the aristocratic. Its frivolities bewilder and dazzle the multitude who abjure them, as well as the chosen few with whom they originate. Imagine this mysterious agent, or whatever it may be called, personified, and endowed with the majesty and power of a queen,—and what are her attributes? A fickle, inconstant, inscrutable and unscrupulous being—selecting her subjects from every rank and condition, and with every diversity in morals and intellect—yet investing them with an uniform and exclusive badge of distinction; exacting from her followers the most unbounded homage, and repaying them often with the sacrifice of peace, health, fortune, self-respect and virtue; instilling into those who throng around her throne the poison of impure and corrupting pleasures, and in those who are banished to the outer courts, awakening the worst passions of envy, discontent and hatred, added to a debasing sense of inferiority. Fortune is not more capricious in dispensing her favors than this empress of smiles and frowns. By her command, dullness is transformed into wit, and deformity into grace. The withered maiden of forty is arrayed in the matchless charms of blooming seventeen, and the notorious libertine becomes transmuted into the fascinating and agreeable companion. If a despot of bodily shape and form, were to cause his power and caprice to be felt in all the minute concerns and occupations of society; if he were to ordain laws regulating the dress—furniture—social intercourse and amusements of his subjects, and in so doing should levy an oppressive tax upon their fortunes, time and comforts—the spirit of freedom would circulate like the electric fluid from one end of the community to the other; the tyrant would be resisted with fearless and determined perseverance. And yet doth fashion issue her imperial decrees equally as despotic and calamitous in their effects, without other aid than the influence and magic of her name—whilst her subjects, so far from opposing resistance, render an implicit and delighted obedience to her mandates. And what is this inexorable arbitress at last but a name? What is this capricious and mysterious intermeddler in human affairs but a vain shadow? a creature of imagination only, and yet as powerful as Cæsar and Napoleon in all their glory! Shakspeare was wrong; there is much—there is every thing in names.

In that great concern of human society—the structure and action of the political machine, how does the matter stand? Are the governed portion of mankind—I mean a majority of them—influenced by things or names? The recorded experience of past ages, and our own particular observation, will answer the question. The master spirits who have ruled mankind with success, have studied the genius of the people with whom they lived. National glory was at one time, if it be not now, the passion of the French, and Napoleon well knew how to avail himself of a moral lever of such tremendous force. Administering to that all devouring and never satiated appetite, he found it an easy task to wade through tears and blood to the goal of his ambition. Preceding the period of his meteor-like and almost miraculous career, the French nation had been intoxicated by seraphic dreams of liberty and equality. Awakening from a long and gloomy night of slavery, they became suddenly bewitched by the doctrines of a new philosophy, (to them at least new,) which proclaimed the sovereignty of the people—and it was long before the horrors of Revolution could dispel the enchantment. The leaders in that dark and bloody episode of human history, retained their ascendancy so long as the names of liberty and equality could be skilfully employed for their purposes. An appeal to the people, or a compliment to their sovereign power, wisdom and virtue, was the daily prologue to those scenes of human butchery, which posterity will regard as incredible fictions. “Oh liberty!” said the beautiful Madame Roland, as she bowed her neck to the guillotine—“what crimes are committed in thy name!”

Are we free in our day from these disastrous influences? Have names no fatal magic with us—sufficiently fatal to unloose the bands of society—to subvert institutions, long cherished and venerated, and finally to dissolve the fairest fabric which ever realized the visions of hope, or the speculations of philosophy? Alas! have we not studied human nature enough to know, that all men are not honest and patriotic, and that some are sufficiently selfish, cunning, cruel and ambitious to work out their own designs, and accomplish their own evil desires, although calamity should overspread society, and millions go supperless to bed? Are there not hundreds of demagogues who are willing to flatter and wheedle and delude the people into final enslavement, if in the whirlwinds of their own creation they can ride into power and office? With what calm and shameless effrontery do such men constantly exert before our eyes a controlling power over the yet doubtful destinies of this infant republic! To fulfil the purposes of ambition, the vilest appeals are made to the lowest and basest passions of the multitude. The pride of democracy is a never failing chord to be skilfully touched, when some wicked design or atrocious mischief is meditated. The popular good—the welfare of the dear people—is the favorite string played upon by worn out political hacks and corrupt aspirants to office. Does a well tried and virtuous patriot stand in the way, and refuse his sanction to the bold assaults, or disguised and no less dangerous encroachments of power? He is instantly denounced as an odious and insidious aristocrat, and is forthwith delivered over to the tender mercies of the faithful—the great democratic republican family—the self-styled conservators of the only true and genuine principles of liberty—whose peculiar province it is to keep the republic pure, by a patriotic monopoly of all its [p. 552] offices and honors. It would indeed be perfectly amusing, if it were not at the same time a subject of sad contemplation, to hear the terms aristocratic and democratic, in the party contests of the day—familiarly applied to things and persons having no one quality—to justify such idle distinctions. The man for example who is “clothed in purple and fine linen, and fares sumptuously every day”—who drives his splendid equipage with liveried servants, who “lies down in luxury and rises in sloth”—that man is a member, or if you choose, the leader of the plain republican party—whilst the humble homespun pedestrian, who walks by the wheels of the other's chariot—whose bread is earned by the sweat of his brow, but who is sufficiently independent to think for himself—is denounced as an aristocrat, or what is worse, a Federalist of the genuine stamp—and is thought unworthy of all communion with the faithful, or at least of all participation in equal political benefits. Epithets are the powerful weapons with which bad and ambitions men have in all countries finally succeeded in overturning all that was valuable and good—all that was wise and beneficent; and unless the people of these States shall in time become sufficiently enlightened, to distinguish the qualities of things from their names, we shall assuredly ere long add another to that gloomy procession of republics, WHICH HAVE VANISHED FOREVER FROM THE EARTH.

THE CITY OF SIN.

A HINT,

TOUCHING THE GREEK DRAMA.

While there is an active literary faction in America, who decry the study of the ancient classics, it is still pleasing to observe, upon a comprehensive survey, that these consecrated remains are assuming in public esteem the place which they deserve. I hope therefore to meet with some indulgence when I offer a few desultory remarks, not in behalf of classic lore in general, so much as in commendation of a single branch. The observations which follow are meant to shew some reasons why our scholars should devote special attention to the Greek Tragedies.

It is believed that these relics, unfortunately not more than thirty in number, have been more neglected in our schools and among our private scholars than any portion of ancient letters. That this has not been the case in England will be very apparent to any one who is familiar with the lives and labors of such men as Bentley, Porson, Markham, and Blomfield. Especially in the University of Cambridge the ardor with which these works have been restored to purity of text, and elucidated by indefatigable research, has been almost excessive.

The intrinsic difficulties in the Greek plays are not such as should deter any well grounded scholar. After an ordinary training in the Attic idioms of Zenophon, Plato, and Demosthenes, the labor will be small. From the nature of the versification, there is a limit to the construction, so that the sense cannot be thrown beyond a few lines. And the metres themselves, except in the most difficult choral parts, have been robbed of their intricacies by the labors of the critics.

There is this obvious inducement for the scholar to take up a Greek tragedy, that it is short. Even if he [p. 553] study with minute analysis, a few days will complete his task. But he who begins the Odyssey is loth to lay it aside until he has finished it, which is the work of months. The tragedy is complete in itself, “totus teres atque rotundus.”

It has been maintained by some scholars, that no human productions have the perfection of literary finish, as it is possessed by the dramas of Euripides. And we may include his two great predecessors in the remark, that their works, like the Hellenic sculptures, will remain unrivalled, the models of all who aim to present nature idealized to its utmost point.

The ancient tragedy, from its very nature, contains the concentration of high passion. This was the very notion of it, as tragedy. And this quality renders it an indispensable study to all those whose province it is to scrutinize or to awaken the active powers; in other words, to the metaphysician, the poet, and especially the orator. No doubt it was this view of the subject which led a man no less visionary than Mr. Fox to declare, as he does in his correspondence with Dr. Parr, that if he had a son to educate for the senate, he would cause him to be profoundly versed in the writings of Euripides.¹ And yet so far as mere passion is concerned, we find it more strongly developed in the “desolate simplicity” of Aeschylus, than in either of his followers. This use of dramatic composition is doubtless involved in that celebrated and vexed passage of Aristotle's Poetics, in which tragedy is said to be efficacious to purge the passions. Barker quotes Jamblichus, in illustration of this παθηματων καθαρσις, where he says: “By contemplating the passions of others in tragedy and comedy, we settle our own passions, render them more temperate, and purify them.” Milton also, whose whole soul was steeped in Grecian poesy, alludes in the introduction to his Samson Agonistes, to this same remark of Aristotle, where tragedy is said “to be of power by raising pity and fear or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions, that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure.”

¹ See Appendix to Parr's Works, Johnstone's edition. Vol. vii. and viii.

Alike in name, ancient and modern tragedy scarcely belong to the same species. The grand distinction of the former is the chorus, which is altogether inadmissible in the latter. According to the most specious hypothesis this was the nucleus of the Greek drama, around which, by slow degrees, the dialogue was gathered. It was the chorus, as a train of personages unconnected with the plot, that relieved the tedium or directed the excitement of the dialogue. Sometimes, as they appear in significant dance, they advise, exhort, or suggest a moral; sometimes they echo back the feeling of the actors, and always augment the grandeur of the pageant. Thus we find the chorus ever and anon breaking in to temper the unnatural rage of Medea, and in this respect discharging the duty indicated by Horace,

The mere English reader will have a fair conception of this singular ingredient of the ancient drama, by perusing Milton's tragedy above-named, which is cast in the most rigorous Attic mould; and which, we are tempted to imagine would have been received even at Athens, if it could have been brought out in the astonishing Greek version of Glasse. If Gray had not dissipated his matchless powers upon mere fugitive efforts, he might have done more than all other scholars to produce a spirited repristination of the antique chorus. Mason's Elfrida on the same plan has been thought a failure. His estimate of the ancient chorus however merits attention. “Shakspeare” says he, speaking of the poetic element in the drama, “had the power of introducing this naturally, and what is most strange, of joining it with pure passion; but I make no doubt, if we had a tragedy of his formed on the Greek model, we should find in it more frequent, if not nobler, instances of his high poetical capacity. I think you have a proof of this in those parts of his historical plays, which are called choruses, and written in the common dialogue metre. And your imagination will easily conceive, how fine an ode the description of the night preceding the battle of Agincourt would have made in his hands, and what additional grace it would receive from that form of composition.” He also shows that the chorus augmented the pathetic, both in its odes and dialogue; by music, by the dance, by aiding and carrying forward the impression, and by showing to the spectators other spectators strongly affected by the action. These remarks are cited merely to throw light on this cardinal attribute of the ancient drama, not to recommend its revival among the moderns. The German scholar will find the “Iphigenia in Tauris” perhaps the severest and happiest imitation of the antique; yet it does not “come home to our business and bosoms.”

The relative importance of these great productions should cause them to be placed in a commanding position at our great schools. This has already been effected in England. A taste for this branch of study is fostered by the rank which it is made to hold in the university examinations. Porson's noted prize is awarded annually to the best translation into Greek verse of a given passage of Shakspeare. In the Cambridge examinations, the three great objects of competition in classical literature, are the University Scholarships—the Classical Tripos, and the Chancellor's Medal. Among other exercises demanded of candidates, they are expected to translate into English verse any given portions of the three tragedians, as well as of Aristophanes. A passage, usually from Shakspeare or Milton, is assigned, to be translated into Greek verse. The metre is generally Tragic Iambic; sometimes Tragic Trochaic; sometimes Anapæstic; rarely Heroic, and still more seldom Comic Iambic. The obvious tendency of such measures, is to excite the most intense emulation in the whole literary corps, and to keep before the mind of the learned the highest models. Familiarity with these amazing conflicts of passion is not merely a literary luxury; it is a great preparative for those real scenes in which the statesman, the advocate and the orator, are called upon to reach the hidden springs of human action, to sway the motives, and wield “at will the fierce democraty.” The American student therefore who is awake to his own interest, will not deem it beneath his notice to work in this mine, and will say with Milton,

N. Jersey.

SACRED SONG.

A TOUR TO THE ISTHMUS:

Tuesday, May 26, 1835. Hurrah! there she goes! Free and fast,—free and fast! Hurrah! Here am I on the green waters of the Chesapeake,—my craft a little clipper, my companion one of the best fellows in creation; and his sister, a bright-eyed French girl, whose spirits seem to rise with every knot our tight little vessel makes upon the dancing waves. Did you ever see a Baltimore clipper under full way? Then you have seen a fair sight. I never saw any craft get over the waves so fast. Her peculiar build, and her yet more peculiar rig fit her for this, and she takes the wind out of any thing and every thing she essays to compete with. We have left a steamboat behind since we left Baltimore. We are just now entering Hampton Roads, and here we are to anchor. “Old Point Comfort,” is the name given to a fortification on our right, which, in the dense mirk of the night looks like any thing but the abode of comfort. We are riding at anchor upon the surging waves, and beneath dark and heavy clouds piled one above another in voluminous masses, from which the lightning is playing incessantly. It is a most grand and yet most fearful scene. I stand, with Mariette, my little French companion, and, as if spellbound, look into the depths of cloudland, watching for every opening of those yawning chasms disclosed by the perpetual play of the lightning, regardless of the warning of the captains, (for we “serve two masters”) who are foreboding a fearful night. Excitement! what are we not willing to sacrifice for it,—a new scene, something strange,—a fresh feeling! Here are we, tempests threatening us from every point, the wind veering incessantly from every quarter of the heavens, and the chances that we shall be driven ashore increasing with the lapse of every moment, and yet all is so new, and so exciting, that we are really rather amused than fearful. But then, capitaine, if you insist upon it, why, I suppose we must e'en go below!

28th. Just returned from a visit to what one of the men who accompanied us called “the last post office I ever did see, any how!” It is located in the centre of the grand fort, planned by the most celebrated engineer of his own and Napoleon's time, General Bernard. They mount three hundred guns, and the work, I understand is, or is to be the finest piece of military architecture in the United States. But it was too dark while we were there to observe any thing minutely. We are now approaching blue water very fast. The Rip Raps or Fort Calhoun on our left, will soon be lost to our view. This fortification is only a few feet above the water as yet, nor will it be finished for some years. I do not know who was the projector of it, but presume from the name it bears that it was originally projected by that celebrated South Carolinian statesman, while he was minister of the war department. It is to be built on a similar plan to that of Cherbourg in France, by filling large boats or rafts with stone, and sinking them. This mass is then covered with loose stone, over all which a composition or cement is poured, acting as a binder. This work is about gun distance from Old Point Comfort, and the two, by a cross fire, form a most admirable barrier to James River, thus protecting the ports of Richmond and Norfolk completely. I do not see that Baltimore is by any means adequately guarded, its only protection being a small fort a dozen miles below the town, which might be very easily evaded by a skilful foe.

29th. Only think of a stager of my standing and experience being sea-sick! I am ashamed of myself, after defying Old Nep. in his very lair, in two or three regular marches across his domains, to be here, turning pale in the face from encountering the Capes of Virginia. But so it is, and as that droll Yankee Liston whom I saw in Boston, but whose name I forget,¹ was wont to say, “it can't be any 'tisser.”

¹ My friend means Finn.

June 4. After all, this sea life is an intolerably monotonous and stupid way of getting along in the world. I would rather be a dormouse or a hedgehog; indeed I might as well be either,—for my only life now is lying in the sun all day, eating if my qualms will allow me, and drinking whether they will allow me or no,—merely pour passer le temps: sleeping from seven o'clock, P.M. until seven o'clock, A.M. besides taking a nap in [p. 555] the morning, and a siesta to boot. I have seen the flying fish, the whale, and the Portuguese man of war, which Mariette says is “sans doute le Nautile,”—and now I close my log till I shall see a dolphin. “This do I swear, and now let's have a song!” as the renowned Artaxomines saith.

After a lapse of many days, I resume my sketches, to give you some account of my going ashore in the West Indies, after my long and tedious voyage. Since I shut up the port-folio nothing worthy of remark has occurred. The same succession of two-knot breezes, of lazy floating gulf-weed and of flying fish; the same rolling of the vessel all the first part of our voyage, to make us sick, and then six days of severe squalls, during light and dark, to make us mad, were our only amusements. My comrade was on his back, a martyr to this combination of horrors. Mariette, poor thing! looks the spectre of herself; and as for myself, I have conjugated that bore of a verb ennuyer in all its moods and tenses, until I began to fancy myself a marine Mazeppa, tied on a seahorse, and doomed to ride the waste of waters forever for my sins.

What a relief was it, and how did it stir my sluggish blood, to hear the captain say that there was a pirate in full chase of us, one squally morning. We were a fore and aft schooner—with a two and a half knot wind—while the chase was square rigged, and neared us every moment. The wind had not blown from any quarter steadily for six days, but was rising and lulling every half hour,—and it was to this peculiarity in the weather that we owed our escape, after a smart chase of seven hours. Our craft was a very fast vessel on the wind, and a breeze springing up, we distanced the enemy in a little time, and soon run her clear out of sight. So much for the speed of the far famed Baltimore clippers! This sea-devil appears to be well known by sailors in these waters; and one of our crew told me that she carries no guns, but only small arms, which are easily stowed, or plausibly accounted for,—and if she is overhauled by a government vessel, that she shows merchants' papers. When she attacks she makes sure work, and quiets all babblers: “dead men tell no tales.” Upon our arrival at St. Thomas, we heard of preparations being made to pursue this very craft, which had been carrying on its bloody trade in the vicinity of that island. Arrived at St. Thomas on the last day of June.

This island belongs to the government of Denmark, and its latitude is about 18 deg. 30 min. It seems to me one of the most interesting places I ever visited, which feeling, in advance of all experience upon its shores, must arise from the impression of novelty which every thing I see around me has produced. The principal harbor (Porto Franco) is one of the loveliest bays in the world; it is round and small, and filled with vessels displaying the flags of every nation on the globe. Among these I observed that the stars and stripes of your free land predominated greatly. Entering this harbor, you see only a dense mass of mountain and wood, until within a few miles you see the Moro, or fort, on the right, and a dilapidated structure on the left, of an entrance scarcely a half mile across. Passing the latter fortification, as it is called, the whole town rises grandly before you, compactly built on a succession of undulations or spurs of the grand hill which composes the island, reaching quite down to the water's edge. The wharves are built on piles, as are many of the stores or warehouses for the deposit of heavy goods, as tobacco, sugar, &c. in which an extensive trade is carried on by the people of the island.

The town does not make so imposing an appearance from the harbor as it would do were the houses more than one or two stories high; and one is disappointed on going ashore, to find a much more dense and extensive population than he was prepared to see. The streets are refreshed with the shade of banana and cocoa trees, and here and there you meet with a market place or parade ground, with these tropical trees growing in thick luxuriance around them. I have observed that several parts of the town have of late been thickly planted with them, but as they are six years in attaining their growth, they are yet very small compared with the others I have described.

Many, I may say most of the houses are built of stone, and this renders them much cooler and more agreeable places of residence than they would otherwise be. Yet the preference of this material arose less from choice than necessity. There was a most calamitous fire in the island in the year 1832, which devastated nearly the whole town. Since that time the government have prohibited the erection of buildings from any other material than stone. These are low, but neat and commodious enough.

The country around (if that may be called so which is a continued ascent to the elevation of about 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, rising abruptly from the harbor) is surpassingly rich in verdure, every description of tropical shrub and underwood growing spontaneously. Many of these, and indeed most of them, are gay and brilliant in their flowering, but singly are, like other wild flowers, scentless. Yet on the hills, their united or concentrated aroma is often overpowering.

In the morning, upon rising and coming on deck, while the heavy dew is yet lying upon all around me, I observe that the water outside the harbor, being very deep, is of the most intense blue; while inside the harbor it is of the brightest green,—brighter than any thing I have ever seen, excepting some very light shades of foliage,—and realizing the clearness of Claude's water pieces. And when the early sun shines upon the waters, they present shades of emerald, which, were I to be so daring as to convey them to my canvass, would be invariably condemned by all beholders as fictitious. This, by the way, is one of the painter's greatest obstacles; to surmount which, indeed, he finds it impossible: he must paint nature with art as his model, before he can be called natural; yet he knows full well that

In the centre of the town is a very substantial fort of dark blue stone, an excellent garrison, and paved with a kind of fire-brick or tile. The guns are very small but beautifully cast. They are of brass, and are handsomely mounted. The men are all clean, well dressed, and under admirable discipline. Their light Danish complexion strikingly contrasts with the swarthy [p. 556] countenances of the islanders. The pale fair faces, flaxen hair, sandy mustachios and light blue eyes of the soldiery, mark them at once among the smooth-chinned, black-eyed, curly-haired Creoles and natives. The streets are filled with blacks of every grade and shade, all thinly clad; and the coquettish manner in which the Madras dress their heads in their striped handkerchiefs, with the hair long and straight, or braided and hanging in clubs around the forehead and temples, and a peculiar style of gait in the women, combine to give them a certain air, which at first gives you rather a ludicrous idea of them; but as you see more of it, it becomes rather pleasing than otherwise. The girls of fifteen or sixteen are frequently met walking in pairs, as erectly as possible, clad in a single garment, generally of white cotton or linen, either falling down to the feet in folds, or tied round the waist; with a kerchief, and the folds partially drawn up to this belt, to aid the wearer in walking. This gives them a certain air which we sometimes call classic, and which is associated rather with the idea of an Egyptian or a Hindoo. When young they are mostly beautiful; but age, though it does not destroy that erectness of gait which I have described, gives them an unsteadiness in their carriage which is quite marked and very general. I have observed too, that the old people of the laboring classes, are either grossly fat or wretchedly thin and emaciated. It is curious to see the precision and ease with which they carry their burthens, invariably upon their heads, and which they balance, be they ever so heavy, with great nicety. I yesterday saw two girls coming from the well with their water pots. These are entirely Egyptian in their fashion, being large and round, with long necks, and a handle on each side. They are made of red clay, and are very strong. I could not but stay to watch the group. The figures of the girls were faultless, their faces pleasing, though black; and then their thin white flowing draperies setting off their slender graceful forms and small neat feet to great advantage. The back ground to this scene was formed by a row of latticed houses, shaded by cocoa trees.

The stores for the sale of fancy articles and dry goods are large, commodious and cool,—fire proof, by ordinance of the government, with large open doorways, displaying the interior almost entirely, and attended by the whole family—fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, and slaves. Articles of all descriptions are cheaper here than in New York, though I confess the currency puzzles me no trifle, the Spanish dollar being here worth only seventy-five cents, and that is divided into so many “stivers” and “bits,” that a stranger is cheated every hour in the day in spite of his teeth.

July 7th. I have just returned from one of the most whimsical scenes I ever witnessed. About half a mile from the town rises a chain of hills, divided by ravines running from the summit to the spot I visited, a distance of perhaps two miles. This being the bight of the hills, is always moist, even in the hottest weather. A small stream which is constantly trickling down, keeps the place cool, and the foliage is the richest and purest green I ever witnessed. Tropical trees and shrubs of every kind, glow here spontaneously; the lofty silk cotton tree,—the mango, with its dense foliage, than which there is no shade from the sun, or shelter from the rain more agreeable,—the graceful pomegranate,—the quivering tamarind with leaf like the locust tree, but more graceful and fragile, and a thousand other plants, all in blossom, and bearing ripe fruit and green at the same time. One would fancy the place the chosen spot of Oberon, for the scene of his fairy revels,—although at present a very different kind of fairies were disporting themselves in this lovely wilderness. The spot is called by the very unromantic name of “Buck's Gut,” from the circumstance, I believe, of its being the property of a Mr. Buck. However this may be, it is private property, and the owner derives a profit from it by farming it out to a tenant, who has built a dam at the head of the stream, which is but a little drizzle of water an half inch deep or thereabouts. Thus he makes a pool, in which he sells the right of washing linen at the rate of ten stivers, or twelve cents per diem. The parties hiring this privilege, assemble over night and form lesser pools, by building smaller dams at intervals from the top to the bottom of the ravine, out of stones, mud, and old rags. Round these pools congregate persons of every color and shade—but no white—dressed in every degree, from the dress in which their Maker sent them into the world, to the fashionable muslin slip in which “Missy Rosa, lubby fine,” danced with her amiable ebony Adonis last evening,—during which pastime his spurs (all ride, and many walk here à la militaire, with spurs, the shanks of which are of bright brass, and six inches long at least) must have caused “that envious rent,” through which I perceived the ladies' flesh-colored stockings and sky-blue shoes with pink rosettes.

The process of washing was curious enough. The pool soon becomes of the consistency of batter from the large number of clothes washed in it, but still the wretches wash and wash until they only gain in dirt instead of losing, until the hour of noon, when you see them in all their glory—some on their knees, thumping their duds into very rags with a short mallet—others, mid-deep in the pool, more tenderly treating their clothes—some lying on the bank, lazily basking in the sun, and singing some negro song, in which the whole group at times unite in full chorus. One old woman stood among the enormous roots of a gigantic silk cotton tree, cooking soup for the good of the community, with a half dozen children sitting contentedly around her, in primitive nudity. In this latter particular the adults are not much better off, however, than the children; for of them not more than a twelfth part have any more covering than a single kerchief tied round the middle of their persons. Now, though some of these yellow girls are straight and well limbed, the generality of them would hardly serve as models for a Venus.

But hark! what noise is that! what screaming and shouting! what roar of waters! the sluices at the head of the stream are just opened, and the fresh water is coming down in all its force. Open gush all the pools, to be dammed up again directly, so as to allow the laundresses an opportunity to rinse the clothes they have been attempting to wash. The water, in its descent, is accompanied by shouts from group to group, apprising those below of what is coming—and such an infernal hubbub never before did I hear. Having finished my pencilling of the scene, I took my leave.

July 8th. I took a walk this evening a little way out [p. 557] of the town, passing along the sea-side for about two miles, westward. After passing through the suburbs, which are composed of houses remaining from the recent fires, which are of course old and dirty, I came to the burial grounds. That belonging to the Jews is well kept, very neat, and surrounded by a high wall strongly built of stone. Every tomb is handsome, and some are really elegant. But the English and Catholic grounds are very much neglected, the only fence being a hedge of aloes, with a prickly pear interspersed here and there. The tombs are small and mean, many of the graves being marked only by a wooden cross. From this yard you have a fine scope of the whole harbor presented to your view, and an admirable panoramic prospect of the town; while on the other side of the road the hills rise amphitheatrically, covered with perennial green, with a hedge of cocoa trees between the burial grounds and their base.

A mile farther on, you come to a walk of cocoas, the road on each side being hedged with this beautiful tree. On one side of the road runs a small bay of about three miles in circumference, sweeping closely up to the road, its tiny waves fairly breaking on the passing traveller. Seen through the foliage, this sheet of water is most picturesque. I have attempted a sketch of it, which I hope you will recognize among those in the port folio. At the end of this walk stands the most remarkable curiosity in the island,—a silk cotton tree of such gigantic dimensions as literally to astonish all who behold it. The trunk at the base occupies ground of at least fifty feet in circumference. It is not very high, but spreads abroad its enormous limbs until one would imagine that it must fall asunder by its own weight. Each branch would form a stately forest tree, if growing separately. It extends its foliage-covered boughs far over the way in every direction, and on every bend of the limbs you see grasses of various descriptions growing; and on one in particular, I noticed a vigorous stalk of sugar cane flourishing finely. The foliage hangs densely and gracefully from every bough, and is of a deep green teint. I assayed a sketch of this wonderful tree, but fear I have given you, by the conjoined aid of pen and pencil, but a very inadequate idea of its magnificence and rare beauty.

July 9th. Started from St. Thomas', with the assurance that our little schooner was awaiting us at Chagres. We all longed to see the wee craft once more, and to be again with her upon the waves; and indeed we regretted her, clipper as she was, with as much fondness as if she were the most stately man-of-war. I close my portfolio for the present; where I shall open it next, Fate knows, not I. But wherever it may be, for your eyes and yours alone, my friend, are these “types of travel” recorded. I do not write for the public eye; I leave that to your friend N. P. W. and to my friend Mrs. Trollope, content, when again we meet, and shake hands once more after my wanderings, to hear you say, in the language of Old Will—Well, Ned, “thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel.”

Wherever the Inquisition had power, the word fata was not allowed in any book. An author wishing to use the word, printed in his book facta, and put in the errata “for facta read fata.”

LINES.

THE LEARNED LANGUAGES.

So much has been written on the advantages and disadvantages of studying these languages, and such a diversity of opinions prevails on the mode of teaching them, among those who are in favor of the study, that little of novelty can be adduced on this mooted subject; and a writer can scarcely expect to find readers at all disposed to favor his lucubrations with a perusal, or, if they condescend to peruse, they will rarely come to the task with unprejudiced minds. This is very discouraging, and might well forbid any but a bold writer from entering the arena. The importance of the subject induces me, however, to venture. If I fail of producing conviction, I shall only share the same fate as numbers who have preceded me.

One among the discouragements to the discussion, is the unfair means employed by the friends of the prevailing system, to decry their antagonists—whom they represent as ignoramuses, incapable of appreciating the value of the classics, and therefore, like the fox in the fable, depreciating what they have not attained, and cannot attain. It requires some courage to incur the risque, indeed the certainty, of being classed in the category of idiots or fools.

To enable us to judge correctly of any system, it is necessary to be able to form a correct idea of its objects, and the means adopted to attain them. These two points I shall touch as briefly as possible.

The objects of the system of education, pursued in our academies, colleges, and universities, so far as classical learning is concerned, are, 1. To acquire a knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages so as to be able not only to read and understand them correctly, but to write and speak them. 2. To relish their beauties. 3. To be incited by emulation to imitate the noble examples scattered through the histories of Greece and Rome; and, 4. To instil into the minds of youth the sublime principles of morality to be found in their poets.

Having these objects clearly presented to the mind's eye, it remains to investigate the means employed to attain them, and to ascertain whether there is a due proportion between the means and the end, and whether the end, in all its amplifications, is worthy of the means employed for its attainment. To simplify the subject, I shall, for the present, confine myself to the Latin language. The reasoning will apply, with at least equal force, to the Greek. Let it be observed that I chiefly refer to the cases of young men intended for active business, to which they are generally devoted, from the age of fifteen or sixteen. The reasoning is, in a great degree, inapplicable to those destined for the learned professions.

Lads usually commence learning the Latin at seven, eight, or nine years of age. But to afford the friends of the system the fairest chance in the argument, I will date from nine—and suppose them to enter college at fourteen. The chief portion of the valuable period between those ages, is spent in the dry, irksome, and revolting task of learning the grammar; and if translations of the authors studied, be excluded, as is the case in many schools, they are engaged for tedious hours in hunting in dictionaries for the meaning of the words in the books they are studying, and, when they find, as they frequently do, ten or a dozen meanings to one word, in deciding on the most appropriate one for their purpose. It is difficult to conceive of a more irksome or vexatious employment, especially for the lively, jocund, and merry-hearted lads on whom this penance is imposed.

When the term of probation at school is completed, the lads are transferred to a larger scene of action—a college—where they are destined to remain four or five years more, of which term probably a third part is consumed in the study of the two languages in question; thus making on a fair computation, four or five years employed in learning languages of which little use is made in after life.

To facilitate the judgment on this system, I will venture to assume as postulates,

1. That the advantages of the acquirement of a foreign language may be considered under three points of view—the capacity of correctly reading—of writing—or of speaking it.

2. That not one, in one thousand of our citizens, ever has occasion to write or speak Latin.

3. That not above one in a hundred of those who learn Latin in this country, is capable, were it necessary, of correctly writing or conversing in that language.

4. That lads of moderate capacity and no very extraordinary application, frequently acquire the French language in twelve or eighteen months, so as to be able not merely to read it understandingly, but to comprehend it when spoken, and to make themselves tolerably well understood in conversation.

5. That sometimes in addition they acquire the Spanish within that period.

6. That the Latin language is not more difficult than the French—indeed I believe not so difficult. On this point I shall rely on the opinion given, and the fact stated, by Locke, to be offered in the sequel.

7. That the French being attainable in twelve or eighteen months, and the Latin not being more difficult, it follows that it is an error to consume three, four, five, or six years in the attainment of the latter.

8. That in the common intercourse of life, which “comes home to the business and bosoms of men,” the French is more useful than the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic.

9. That except to the members of the learned professions, and men of leisure and curiosity, the learned languages, to the mass of mankind, are of no use whatever beyond the ability to understand authors, and quotations from them, in those languages.

10. That, therefore, for lads intended for trades or business, all the time bestowed on learning Latin, beyond the capacity to read and understand it, is literally thrown away.

Some of these assumptions may be questioned, and, perhaps, are questionable, without materially affecting the proposed plan. Be this, however, as it may, I shall fortify myself with such an array of authorities, as, if it do not convince the reader of the soundness of the doctrines here advocated, will shield me from the charge of empiricism for advancing them.

“How many years of life are spent in learning Latin? How much labor, pain and imprisonment, are endured by the boy? How much anxious drudgery by the master? How much disgust of literature is engendered? How many habits are formed of reluctance to regular employment? In short, how much misery has been produced, is being produced, and will continue to be produced, in teaching the Latin language? This appears to us to be a very important question, and will, we think, appear so to our readers, after a little consideration.

“We sometimes figure to ourselves an inhabitant of another world coming among us, and examining with an unprejudiced eye the value of our pursuits. If this idle speculation could be realized, who, we should be glad to know, would be Quixotic enough to undertake a defence of the usual course of instruction in Latin? Nobody, certainly. For, in the first place, not two boys out of three who follow it, ever become able to read even the easier classic authors with fluency. Of these, perhaps one half, from the painful associations which they have attached to Latin books, never open one after they leave school. If we add to the account, as Rousseau would, the numbers who die during the schoolboy age, we shall find the list of those who use the knowledge, gained with so much pain to master and scholar, dwindle into a very small one.”—Essay on Public Education, p. 12. London, 1822.

“I object to the practice of sending, almost indiscriminately, every male child, whose parents are above the laboring class of the people, to undergo the painful [p. 559] drudgery of committing to memory the rules of a Latin Grammar, and to sacrifice four of the years of his existence to a pursuit which is ultimately to be of no service to him.”—Russel's View of the Scotch System of Education, p. 85.

“Does it savor of our characteristic sagacity to send almost every boy of a certain age, to a grammar school, to learn the elements of Latin, and afterwards to enter him to business, with no other qualifications for it than those which he may have derived from a partial and ill-directed attention to writing and accounts?”—Idem, p. 79.

“Many children are whipped into Latin, and made to spend many of their precious hours uneasily on it, who, after they are once gone from school, are never to have more to do with it as long as they live. Can there be any thing more ridiculous, than that a father should waste his own money, and his son's time, in setting him to learn the Roman language, when at the same time he designs him for a trade, wherein he, having no use of Latin, fails not to forget that little which he brought from school, and which it is ten to one he abhors, from the ill usage it procured him? Could it be believed, unless we had every where amongst us examples of it, that a child should be forced to learn the rudiments of a language, which he is never to use in the course of life that he is designed for, and neglect all the while,” &c.—Locke on Education, p. 289.

“The themes are written in Latin, a language foreign to their country, and long since dead every where—a language which your son, 'tis a thousand to one, shall never have occasion to make a speech in, as long as he lives, after he comes to be a man—a language, wherein the manner of expressing one's self is so far different from ours, that to be perfect in that would very little improve the purity and facility of his English style.”—Idem, p. 308.

“A young Englishman goes to school at six or seven years old; and remains in a course of education till twenty-three or twenty-four years of age. In all this time his sole and exclusive occupation is learning Latin and Greek; he has scarcely a notion that there is any other kind of excellence, unless he goes to the University of Cambridge, and then classical studies occupy him about ten years, and divide him with mathematics for four or five more.”—Edinburgh Review, Vol. XV. p. 45.

In a letter prefixed to the Port Royal Latin Grammar, is the following complaint. “The grammar which is in use in all our schools, has been, it is true, compiled by a learned man—but is so prolix, that boys can scarcely learn it in four years.”

The friends of classical learning in Great Britain assume, that the illustrious men whose education has been completed at either of the universities, and who reflect honor on the nation, have owed their celebrity and the development of their talents to those great establishments. The Edinburgh Review repudiates this idea as destitute of truth.

“It is in vain to say we have produced great men under this system. We have produced great men under all systems. Every Englishman must pass half his life in learning Latin and Greek—and classical learning is supposed to have produced the talents, WHICH IT HAS NOT BEEN ABLE TO EXTINGUISH.”—Edinburgh Review, No. XXIX, p. 50.

Having offered some of the arguments against the prevailing system of classical education, it is but fair to exhibit some of those of its advocates.

“I believe I may say, though not without danger of offending the conductors of English academies, that no man who does not understand Latin, can understand English!”—Knox on Education, p. 82.

“Latin themes, Latin declamations and Latin lectures are constantly required of academical students.”—Idem, p. 78.

“Another argument in favor of the Latin exercises in our seminaries, is, that it has a natural tendency to improve the student in English composition.”—Idem, p. 79.

“To write Latin in youth is an excellent preparation for that vernacular composition which some of the professions require.”—Idem, p. 79.

“As soon as the grammar is perfectly learned by heart, [perfectly learned by heart!!] I advise that the practice of our ancient schools should be universally adopted—and that passages of the best classics, construed as a lesson in the day, should be given as a task to be learned memoriter at night.”—Idem, p. 101.

“I recommend that the scholar's week shall be thus employed: Monday evening, in Latin themes; Tuesday evening, in Latin verse; Wednesday evening, in English or Latin letters; Thursday evening, in English verse; Friday evening, in Latin verse, or in translating English into Latin; and the interval, from Saturday to Monday, in a Latin or an English theme.”—Idem, p. 59.

This is the “toujours perdrix, toujours perdrix” of the king of France.

“The exercise of mind, and the strength of mind acquired in consequence of that exercise, are some of the most valuable effects of a strict, a long, and a laborious study of the grammar, at the puerile age.”—Idem, p. 46.

“Exercises in Latin verse, and in Latin prose, are usual in our best schools, and at the university. They are attended with very desirable effects, and pave the way for improvement in every kind of vernacular composition.”—Idem, p. 99.

“A boy will be able to repeat his Latin grammar over two or three years before his understanding is open enough to let him into the reason of the rules; and when this is done, sooner or later it ceases to be jargon, so that all this clamor is wrong-founded—and therefore I am for the old way in schools, since children will be supplied with a stock of words, at least, when they come to know how to use them.”—Felton.

Muretus, a name of considerable celebrity in his day, goes far beyond all the other advocates of classical education. He appears to believe that every thing good or great, in art or science, depends on a thorough knowledge of the Greek. It is observable that Vicesimus Knox quotes him as one of his authorities.

“In the first place I would inform the gentlemen who have conceived a dislike to Greek, that all elegant learning, all knowledge worthy the pursuit of a liberal man, in a word, whatever there is of the politer parts of literature is contained in no other books than those of the Greeks!!!”—Muretus, quoted by Knox, p. 109.

“I may venture to predict, that if our countrymen should go on a little longer in the neglect of the Greek, inevitable destruction awaits all valuable arts!”—Idem, p. 140.

The system of classical education at present in use, has by no means improved with the general improvement of society. Classical studies occupy nearly as much of the invaluable time of a student, as they did two hundred years ago, when the Latin language was, if not the sole, at least the chief medium of communication between the literati throughout Christendom. At that period, it was nearly as necessary to study that language as it is now to study the vernacular tongue.

Again. Within that period, knowledge, of various kinds, has greatly expanded. Branches are now cultivated extensively that were only superficially attended to at that period. Political economy and politics are among these, as are chemistry, botany, and mineralogy. Geology may be almost said to be a new science altogether, as all that was then known of it, compared with its present state, is only as the Hill of Howth to Mount Caucasus. While such an extension of human knowledge has taken place, requiring long periods of devotion to new studies, ought not such portions of the old system as require, and will admit of, pruning, to experience a salutary curtailment?

I proceed to show how two of the great advantages of a classical education, stated in the fifth paragraph of this essay, (No. 3. and 4.) may be secured by this system to at least as great an extent as by the prevailing one; that is, No. 3, the familiarity with the illustrious examples of patriotism, public spirit, magnanimity, bravery, generosity, and other virtues, to be found scattered through the Grecian and Roman histories—the effect of which, on the youthful mind, has always proved eminently beneficial, and led to some of the most noble efforts of the elite of mankind; and No. 4, the impressing on the minds of the students the sublime moral lessons to be found in their poets.

If the question at issue were, whether we were to give up those advantages, of to give up the present system of classical education, the decision might be attended with some difficulty. But, fortunately, that is not the alternative. The system need not be absolutely abandoned in order to remove the solid objections to it, and to secure all its advantages. It only requires to be modified and rendered more conformable with the present state of society, the extension of human knowledge, and the wants of the students. It is merely proposed to circumscribe that study to the all-important capacity to read those languages with facility and correctness—in a word, to prune off, as worthless for the present purposes of society, those portions of the study which appear to demand a capacity to speak and write them—a capacity which is never required, and never employed, by above one man in five thousand of the inhabitants of the British dominions and of this country. The case is different with some of the inhabitants of the Continent of Europe. “But that is none of our concern.”

The major part, perhaps I might say nearly the whole, of the heroic deeds, which shed such a glorious lustre on the Grecian and Roman histories, are most judiciously collected in the “Selectæ e profanis,” one of the best books ever produced by human industry, compiled with nice tact and discrimination. They are accompanied by applications and moral reflections calculated to make a deep and lasting impression on the minds of the young. I think I risque but little in stating an opinion, that thus concentrated and enforced, they are likely to produce more powerful and lasting effects than when scattered through the original histories, where a large portion of them never meets the eye of a student.

It is greatly to be regretted that this admirable book, calculated as it is to produce the most salutary consequences on society, has through the prurient desire of novelty, been injudiciously excluded from many schools, and has given way to substitutes incomparably inferior.

The fourth advantage is impressing on the minds of youth the splendid moral maxims to be found in the Latin poets. No man can have a higher opinion of the excellence of those effusions than I have. But though I believe their intrinsic value cannot easily be overrated, yet, I am persuaded, their amount is. Horace has more of those than any other Latin author—yet in a judicious selection of the ethics of this poet and others, it appears that he has only three hundred and seventeen lines of that character, a great part of which, and of those of other Latin poets, are introduced into the Latin primer to illustrate the rules of the grammar.

One of the advantages of the proposed system, and by no means an inconsiderable one, assuming that to read the Latin language may be acquired in twelve or eighteen months, would be, that the door of that language might be advantageously opened to nearly all the lads in our public schools, possessed of talent and application, and without interfering with their other studies. Thus, instead of circumscribing the acquisition of that language, it would be immensely extended—and being learned when the memory was strong, would greatly facilitate at a future day the acquisition of the French, Spanish, and Italian, which have borrowed so largely from the Latin.

Young men intended for the learned professions, after acquiring the Latin on this plan, would find the study of the grammar incomparably easier than on the existing system, and probably make more progress in it, in one year, when its extreme irksomeness would be done away, than on the present system in two or three.

It now remains to state what substitute is proposed for, or rather what modification of, the system at present universally prevalent.

Of the grammar, to which so much time and mental labor are now devoted, nearly all that is necessary to be studied on the proposed plan, is the declensions of nouns and conjugations of verbs, which can be committed to memory in a week or two. And the study of Clarke's Cordery, Æsop's Fables, and Erasmus, with literal translations, and afterwards Clarke's Justin and Mair's Cæsar should proceed regularly. When these works, or such parts of each as may be judged necessary, are carefully studied, the student will have acquired a sufficient supply of words to enable him, with slight occasional aid from a dictionary, to read understandingly the higher authors. The very day on which a lad commences with the declensions and conjugations, Cordery may be put into his hands, which will be a relief from the task of committing them to memory.

There is an objection zealously enforced by men of great weight, against the use of translations, that they encourage idleness and indolence in the student, by the facility they afford, of attaining his task; whereas they say that explanations sought in a Dictionary, make an indelible impression on the mind.

This objection was fully obviated a century since, by [p. 561] John Clarke, who translated a number of the lower Latin school books. He advises, when a translation is allowed, to double the number of lines that is regarded as a task without a translation. His reasoning on the subject is irrefutable—and further, that the student be obliged, not merely to translate the Latin into English, but the latter into the former, and, if necessary, twice over. This will as effectually fix the meaning in his mind as if he had spent his precious time in poring over a Dictionary.

On the subject of the extreme facility of learning Latin, the testimony of Locke is conclusive.

“Whatever stir there is made about Latin, as the great and difficult business, his mother may teach it him herself, if she will but spend two or three hours in a day with him, and make him read the Evangelists in Latin to her: for she need but buy a Latin Testament, and having got somebody to mark the last syllable but one, where it is long, in words above two syllables (which is enough to regulate her pronunciation and accenting the words) read daily in the Gospels, and then let her avoid understanding them in Latin if she can. And when she understands the Evangelists in Latin, let her, in the same manner, read Æsop's Fables, and so proceed on to Eutropius, Justin, and other such books. I do not mention this, as an imagination of what I fancy may do, but as of a thing I have known done, and the Latin tongue with ease got in this way.”—Locke, p. 319.

Philadelphia, August, 1836.

P. S. May I not assume that the knowledge of Greek and Latin, acquired by lads in Grammar schools, before they go to college, is superficial and of little use in after life? If this be granted, as I presume it will, it follows as the whole number of students in all the colleges in the United States is only about five thousand;¹ that the time devoted to those languages, by all the other scholars, who never enter a college, might be much better employed.

¹ See American Almanack for 1836, p. 11.

FOURTH LECTURE

Of the Course on the Obstacles and Hindrances to Education, arising from the peculiar faults of Parents, Teachers and Scholars, and that portion of the Public immediately concerned in directing and controlling our Literary Institutions.

On the present occasion, I shall attempt to expose the obstacles to all correct education, arising from the peculiar faults of youth, during the period of their pupilage.

In all schools having a sufficient number of scholars to embrace much variety of character, the pupils may be divided into four distinct classes or castes, which may be thus described. The first, not content with doing merely what is required of them, in a manner barely sufficient to avoid a violation of the rules established for their government, exert every faculty, at all times, to do their best. They love knowledge and virtue for their own sakes—not from merely selfish considerations; and their earnest desire to obtain them for the sake also of their fellow creatures, gives additional power and efficacy to their efforts. Their constant study is, to please all with whom they are connected or concerned: they sedulously cultivate every source of moral and intellectual improvement, and they ardently desire to secure their own happiness by promoting that of other people. In a word, they constitute spectacles in the moral world, as refreshing and delightful to the eyes of the mind, as those enchanting spots of the physical world, found only in the great desarts of Africa, are to the eyes of the exhausted traveller perishing with intolerable heat, thirst and hunger. They console us for much of the evil which we anticipate, in beholding the many thousands of the rising generation growing up in ignorance and all its consequent vices: they encourage our efforts to labor in the noble cause of education, while they cheer our hearts and animate our hopes in pursuing that course which we believe to be the only available one for permanently promoting human happiness. The pride and joy of their parents' hearts—the highly prized objects of warmest affection among all their other relatives, and of esteem and regard to every one who knows them—they constitute, in fact, our country's only sure reliance for the preservation of its honor—the promotion of its welfare—the security of its happiness. How supremely important then, is it to increase their number! But my present object being rather to expose faults, than to eulogize good qualities, I shall say no more of this first class, than to wish them, from my inmost soul, every blessing to be enjoyed in the present life, and all the felicity of the life to come.

The second class consists of those who always keep within the strict letter of the law, leaving its spirit for other people to regard, who may have any such fancy. To go a single hair's breadth beyond the exact words of whatever requisition may be made of them, would be deemed, not only a great waste of time, but a grievous breach of duty to themselves. They acknowledge the authority under which they are placed, and will do nothing which can fairly be ascribed to a spirit of insubordination. But the performance of what might be called extra duty, however beneficial to themselves, they would consider a very unwise thing, if not the extremity of folly. All, over and above the most scanty compliance with the demands of their teachers; every thing more than is barely necessary to save appearances, would be shunned with infinitely more care, than they are capable of exerting in any voluntary act of real praise-worthy conduct. Whatever they do, is done—because it is required by their laws—not because they desire to do it on account of its being right in itself, or for the pleasure it might give their instructers, who are no more the objects of their regard, than would be so many men or women in the moon. The scholars of this class all die, as they have lived—by none respected—by none beloved: no regret will be felt for their loss, and a few days will suffice to extinguish the remembrance of them forever in every bosom but that of their unfortunate parents. Like horses in a bark-mill, they will have travelled their appointed time, and will have performed with equal exactness their regular, daily task; but beyond this the record of their lives will be as entirely blank, as if they had always continued to form component parts of their elemental and kindred dust. If the whole mass of mankind had always [p. 562] consisted of such people, the world would have remained to this hour as stationary and immovable, in regard to improvement of all imaginable kinds, as the central point of the universe.

The third class, although distinguished by general habits of insubordination, utter idleness and frivolity, are subject to occasional spasms of good intention. By fits and starts they will make a great show of exerting themselves. But these convulsive movements soon cease; and being unnatural, unsustained by any fixed principle of rectitude, produce only something of no real use, and are succeeded by increased incapacity for performing even that something, which they had vainly persuaded themselves might procure for them the praise of well directed—well sustained effort.

The fourth and last class are entirely destitute of every thing—even approaching towards what is called laudable ambition. Altogether reckless in regard to the consequences of their conduct, they are deaf to advice—hardened against reproof—utterly averse to all learning—cursed with an ever restless propensity to mischief, and incapable of taking pleasure in any thing but the doing of what they are forbid to do. Their condition resembles in one striking particular, that of persons infected with some dangerous disease—being objects of careful avoidance to all who feel at liberty to keep out of their way—objects whose cure is far beyond the reach of any thing but the special mercy of God.

Although all the classes might deserve to be ranked with the first, if they would only strive “in spirit and in truth” to gain a station so truly noble and glorious, yet those who really belong to it, are, comparatively speaking, (if I may borrow the language of a Latin poet in an English dress,) “scarcely as numerous as the gates of Thebes, or the mouths of the fertile Nile.” Among the remaining classes, the third is beyond comparison the largest; and the reason seems to be, that their occasional efforts to do right, being strong in proportion to their spasmodic and evanescent character, have the effect, for the time, of completely deceiving the actors themselves, as well as many of their friends, into a belief that what appears to be so vividly felt, must be the result of motives, at once highly laudable and permanent; although, in fact, it is nothing better than the fruitless whim or impulse of the moment. But persons of much experience in life always distrust these very fitful people, and never calculate upon their exertions producing much good, simply because they exceed the common and natural measure of effort used by those who earnestly intend to do their duty well, and to do it long.

Having done with the classification of scholars, let me now proceed with the exposure of their prevalent faults. By far the most common, and probably most pernicious in the end, is aversion to learning. This continually prompts them to act in regard to their school—wheresoever that may be—as if the word still retained the meaning of its primitive Latin—schola, a loitering place, from the Greek skole—leisure. If we trace this aversion to its origin, we shall find that in almost every case, it is attributable chiefly to the circumstance, that “to learn their book” (according to the common phrase,) has been generally inflicted on them as a punishment, instead of being invariably recommended with suitable earnestness and zeal, as a pleasurable occupation. Hundreds of times have I heard a sharp, angry, parental reprimand for misconduct, wound up by some such order as the following: “sit down instantly to your book, you good for nothing thing, and don't let me see you stir from your seat for the rest of the day, or you shall be well whipt, as sure as you live. Not many days more shall pass over your head, before I pack you off to school.” When, to this hopeful discipline are added the real difficulties of learning many things of which they were before ignorant, and which they are often required to learn, without either aid or encouragement from the teacher, it is no wonder that scholars should so frequently be found, not only destitute of all inclination to acquire knowledge, but hating every object connected in any way with the attempt. At the head of these stand the teachers themselves, and very naturally, if not deservedly too, especially when they also proceed upon the plan of prescribing study as a punishment, and tasks in their books as the penalties to be paid by their scholars, for misconduct of almost every kind. Hence, all school exercises are taken rather as physic than food, and the unfortunate young patients of such mental doctors, instead of being led to think with the admirable Milton, that “a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up for a purpose to a life beyond life,” they learn to loathe books of every kind with unconquerable aversion and disgust. But there is still another cause for the hatred of mismanaged children to school, which is very different from the last, as it may be said to arise rather from the merit, than the demerit of the teachers. For example, many young persons dislike school for the same reason that many of the parents who have spoiled them dislike church—because they are there forced to behold a picture of themselves so unlike the one which their own self-love, the overweening partiality of their parents, or the flattery of others has drawn for them, that they cannot bear the sight. The veil of self-delusion is there most painfully torn from their eyes—their foibles, faults and vices, are made to appear in their own native deformity; and all their pride and vanity must be prostrated at the shrine of truth, before any thing like reformation can be effected. Such clearing of the mental vision—such purification of the heart must be made in regard to all spoiled children, and it requires all the skill and all the prudence of the wisest, most experienced teachers, to make it in such a manner as not to defeat their own object. This process, however managed, is too humiliating to be easily borne, especially by those who have never been taught the indispensable duties of self-examination and self-control; and it is one great cause, in addition to the first mentioned, of the repugnance so often manifested by children to scholastic institutions of every grade and character. The worst of it too, is, that this repugnance will always be found greatest among those who most need the instruction to be derived from them.

Another great fault of scholars is, that they generally look upon their teachers as far inferior to their parents in every way whatever. Of course they treat them with less respect, less deference, less obedience, and consequently listen, (if they do at all) with very inadequate regard either to their commands or persuasions. It matters not a straw whether their instructers deserve [p. 563] this disregard or not; the effect on the scholar's mind is nearly the same in both cases, and insubordination, not unfrequently accompanied by ill-concealed contempt, is the sure consequence.

Another fault of almost universal prevalence among wrong-doers at school, is the constant and laborious effort to put their teachers in the wrong, instead of laboring to preserve themselves in the right, and to exult, in utter recklessness of consequences, when they believe they have been successful. Such pupils never make any allowance for infirmities of temper or error of judgment in their teachers. Hence a single instance of either kind, when detected by themselves, becomes in their eyes a perpetual justification of all their own faults.

Another fault, common in both boys and girls, is to behave towards the masters and mistresses of boarding schools, as if the payment of a pecuniary compensation for board and tuition actually absolved the payers not only from all obligation to observe the ordinary rules of civility and politeness towards the receivers, but also purchased the privilege of using or abusing, at their pleasure, every species of property possessed by the latter. In the school-creed of all such pupils, it would really appear to be an established article, either that there could not well be any manner too rude, nor any conduct too unjust to be exercised towards the keepers of boarding schools; or, that the nature both of justice and politeness changed according to the characters and occupations of the persons with whom they had intercourse—having nothing in itself, invariably either right or wrong. The greatest evil of this juvenile, but highly culpable practice, is, that either rudeness or injustice indulged in early life, even although confined at first to keepers of boarding schools, is apt to become habitual, and deeply to injure both the manners and principles of youth in regard to all other persons, after these thoughtless offenders arrive at years of maturity. They should ever bear it in mind, that politeness is not a holiday-suit, to be put on for particular occasions only; but is a decent, becoming, most appropriate every-day dress, without which they should never appear, either at school, at home, or in general society.

There is still another fault of a similar character, which defeats, while it lasts, nearly every effort to instruct—especially in moral duty—let the teachers themselves possess what qualifications they may. This is, the very prevalent notion (if we can infer what they believe from what they do,) that if rules of moral conduct for pupils do not actually exist, of a nature far less rigorous than such as are to govern grown persons—yet that these last moral regulations were never designed for youth, who therefore cannot suffer any of the consequences of their violation. Hence they very often act as if they thought no fault too great, nor scarcely any vice too dangerous for them to commit with impunity while at school. They are, apparently, at least altogether unconscious, that although they may escape legal punishment, they frequently acquire characters for worthlessness, which they never can shake off in after life. Lying and pilfering, for example, are among the vices which, if known to be committed in youth, will indelibly blacken the reputation of the perpetrators to the latest hour of their existence. Yet both boys and girls often violate, not only their obligations “to speak truth at all times,” but also that of holding sacred all the rights of property. This too is done without the slightest apparent conviction, that they are identically the same vices which bring adults either to penitentiaries or the gallows, or degrade them forever in the estimation of all the honest, virtuous part of mankind. The robbing of orchards, gardens, melon-grounds, and even poultry yards, are often considered by boys as mere frolicks and peccadillos, serving only to form good stories in after life, for the amusement of their friends, to be laughed at and enjoyed—most strange to say, even by the parents and near connections of the offending parties. I have sometimes heard, and from the parties themselves too, of actions nearly, if not quite as bad, achieved by girls at school, which have furnished high entertainment for years, to a certain class of mothers and grave matrons, whose only comment, even in the presence of their daughters, probably would be—“ah! to be sure, they were sad, wild girls, and deserved to be well whipt for their pranks; but we should remember that we were so too, at their age, yet have we gone on pretty well since.” And so have many children also gone on pretty well, after being almost miraculously rescued from deep waters and blazing fires into which they had fallen. But would not any parents be thought stark mad who would venture, for such a reason, to throw their offspring into rivers and furnaces? The truth is, that neither folly, vice, nor crime can be altered, either in their nature or consequences, simply by the age of the perpetrators, provided only that they be old enough to know thoroughly the difference between right and wrong. Infection, contagion, and death by bodily diseases, never spare young victims any more than old ones; and the only difference between them and moral diseases, is altogether in favor of the first—since they can only destroy our perishable bodies a few days, weeks, or months, before they must naturally and inevitably decay; whereas the last may bring everlasting misery on our immortal souls. Terrific and intolerable as would be the pangs and agonies of mortal maladies in their utmost extremity, yet would they be beyond all powers of calculation or comprehension better, than to remain for endless ages under all the threatened torments of the damned. But where, I would anxiously inquire, where is the hope or prospect of escape for our children, if we suffer them to wander unrestrained through all the various paths of temptation, which, although they have some few stopping places in them, as certainly lead us more and more rapidly towards the commission of criminal and unpardonable deeds, as that time leads us to death. Let no one then, for a moment, incur the deadly hazard of regarding this language as a mere exaggeration, for it expresses no more, although in very far inferior language, than the blessed gospel itself. And let all such parents as I have just alluded to, as well as their poor, thoughtless, but not less guilty children, forever bear in mind, that few miracles would be greater, than for either boys or girls to become men and women without the least moral taint whatever, if from infancy to adult age they had been almost continually exposed to the atmosphere of vice, and the contagion of vicious example. Almighty power might achieve such a work, but it is as far beyond all human means, as would be the creation of man himself.

Another fault of scholars which does infinite mischief, [p. 564] is that of believing, or at least acting as if they believed any other time better than the present, for increasing their knowledge and improving their morals. Hence their innumerable little tricks to avoid their school exercises—their continual efforts to escape from study, and their passion for holidays. The possession of life is viewed—if not as a perpetuity—at least, as an estate to be enjoyed for a very long period, the first part of which is the only season for the enjoyment of vivid, highly exciting and never to be neglected or rejected pleasures. As a season of preparation and the only one—not only for the faithful performance of all the duties of the present life, but for securing an inheritance in the life to come, it is rarely ever viewed by young persons at school. If a human being leaves an estate in trust to other beings like himself, for beneficent uses, the whole world is ready to cry out “shame—shame!” should these trustees violate their trusts. Yet is this same world either entirely silent, or takes little notice of the infinitely more criminal breach of trust committed towards the God of the universe, by every individual in regard to his own soul, whenever he neglects to exercise its powers as he has been ordered, by one having supreme authority to command, and unlimited power to punish eternally, for disobedience. It would seem as if each person really believed his life and all his faculties actually constituted a kind of estate, for which he was indebted to no one, and which he had a full and perfect right to use or abuse as he pleases. But would this be so—could it possibly happen, almost as a matter of course, if the first and the last lessons which our youth received at every place of instruction from the nursery to the college, were accompanied and fortified by this most momentous truth, presented to them in all its terrors, when necessary—or recommended, where this seemed best, in all its attractions? Would they not first fear to neglect their moral and religious duty—then love it—then cherish a sense of it in their hearts, as their vital blood—and lastly, make it the governing motive of their whole lives? Religious and moral principles should be the paramount objects of all instruction, and their constant inculcation the imperative duty of all instructers, from the humble teachers of our alphabet, to the most learned and dignified professors of our colleges and universities. As to the moral malady, procrastination—which led to the preceding remarks, it is certainly not peculiar to scholars, for it afflicts the old as well as the young. But it is equally certain, that unless it be contracted in youth, it rarely, if ever, appears in after life. Every scholar then, who feels the slightest symptom of this disease, should apply as a remedy, the cardinal rule—“obsta principiis”—“resist beginnings;” and he should strive with might and main to guard against the first approaches, if he wishes his old age to be exempt from a malady, at once so distressing and so fatal. To postpone any useful act, any thing from which we ourselves, or others, may derive the least benefit, is bad enough; but to defer so essential a duty as constant attention to our scholastic studies, in the vain expectation that some future day will answer as well as the present, is like drawing a pecuniary order on an unknown person, without naming any time, and for money to which we have not even the shadow of right or title. The resemblance holds good, too in another important particular: neither the person, we know, nor the future day, will ever answer the draft, for the first is not under the smallest obligation to do so, and the last has no power to change, even to accommodate idlers, that irreversible law of nature, which assures us that time once abused is lost forever. It may be said, perhaps by some, that this is a truism odiously trite and wearisome. But let the young and the old, too, beware how they neglect or despise it on this account. Education and all its blessings, great and glorious as they most assuredly are, depend entirely upon the strictest regard being paid to this truism: nor can either the scoffs of the idle, the taunts of the infidel, or the lamentations of sufferers abate one tittle—one jot of the fatal consequences which inevitably follow, when we disregard or contemn it.

In close connexion with this fault of procrastination, is that of disobedience in general, for the last is the offspring of the first. Whether it arises in all those cases where it exists, from utter incapacity to comprehend the true grounds of the sacred obligation, “to obey those who have the rule over them,” or from unconquerable aversion to do what they believe to be right and necessary, is more than I can tell. But the fact of general disobedience is unquestionable, to the woeful experience of all who have had any thing to do with the government of children, in any way whatever, requiring authority to be exercised over them. It is true, we have the often quoted “video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor” of a Latin poet, to prove that we may see, approve, and yet fail to do our duty; but I have always doubted its general applicability to disobedient children. Most of them appear to have neither eyes nor brains to check their culpable inclinations, or to prevent their vicious deeds; but awful indeed, is the inquiry, how this has happened. Parents and teachers alike, are utterly disregarded by them, when out of sight, unless from a principle of fear; and that is of no more efficacy in relation to their moral improvement, than would be the ringing of bells in their ears. Even the devils, it is said, “fear and tremble,” but we are not any where told, that such tremors and fears can work any reformation. No, never—for this to be effectual, must be the joint effort of the heart and understanding, aided by “the Spirit of God, working with our spirits both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Unless the minds of children can be first thoroughly and deeply impressed with this truth, and with their solemn, sacred obligation to regard it as of vital importance, it is labor completely thrown away to try to control them effectually, except on account of guarding other people from being injured by them. It is true, they will not be quite so expert in mischief, if you can so manage as to keep them a long time out of practice, “the having one's hand in” being a great matter. But the inclination “to keep it in” will still remain, nor can it ever be entirely eradicated without some much more active medicine than mere abstinence. The seat of the disease lies too deep—its action on the heart is too constant, to yield to such regimen alone—excellent, as it confessedly is, when made to co-operate with powerful moral remedies. Teachers and parents too, may labor this matter as long as they please; they may even wear out their lungs, if they fancy such an experiment, with scolding, reproaching and threatening, but all will prove far worse than useless to accomplish their object, unless [p. 565] they adopt an entirely different course from the most common one, and pursue it, both with body and soul. They must learn to consider children—not as machines and spinning tops, to be governed by whips, cords, springs, pullies and levers—not as mere living animals, incapable of any other impulse than fear or ambition, but as rational beings, made after God's own image, and gifted by him with immortal souls, whose appropriate regulators are the high, celestial, ever glorious attributes of reason, judgment, and understanding—all which are to be kept in continual exercise by the ardent love of truth, wisdom, knowledge, and virtue. The faults of children will all continue to grow with their growth, and strengthen with their strength; nay, they will live and die with them, as surely as that death itself will come to them all, unless their treatment in all future time, be made to conform, from the nursery even unto the college, to the principles just stated. This is not said in any spirit of presumptuous dictation; for neither is the principle itself any discovery of my own, nor have there been wanting many writers of great ability and experience in teaching, to recommend it most earnestly and zealously. But it is a thing of such deep and universal importance to the happiness—not only of the present generation, but to that of millions yet unborn, that it cannot be too frequently insisted upon—especially while so many parents and teachers are to be found, who appear almost entirely to disregard it. If this were not strictly true, could we possibly find either so many private families or schools as we do find, wherein it is manifest, that unpolished manners and awkwardness of person appear to be infinitely more dreaded, than deformities of mind or diseases of temper; where external attractions are evidently prized far above all intellectual acquirements, and where children in fact are educated much more assiduously for all the purposes of the present life, than for any of that everlasting life which is to come?

Having now finished the particular examination of the faults and vices most common among parents, teachers and scholars, which form the mass of obstacles to education, there are many general reflections that suggest themselves as proper to be stated—so many indeed, that the present lecture cannot embrace them all, without trespassing too far on your time. A few of them however, I beg leave to present on the present occasion. To describe in general terms all the hindrances heretofore attributed to the three great classes who establish, fill, and regulate schools, we may say, that there is not, in the first place, sufficient care, either in the selection of suitable means, nor subsequently, in regard to the best means of applying them. Parents themselves are too often badly educated, or not at all. They are too frequently incompetent, either from sheer ignorance—from defects in temper and principle—or from utter blindness to their children's faults, to direct in the great business of their education. Teachers are much too often suffered to decide on their own qualifications, and are encouraged to proceed in the vital undertaking, without any thing like an examination into their fitness by competent judges. Scholars too, are not unfrequently suffered to choose for themselves, not only what, but where, and how they shall learn, as well as to decide on the time to be devoted to scholastic pursuits; although it is most manifest, on a moment's reflection, that none are competent to form a correct judgment on all these important points, but those who have already received a liberal education, and have some experience in the ways of the world, as well as knowledge of the various advantages and disadvantages of its chief callings, trades and professions. Upon the prevalent let-alone-plan, boys and girls are often left to do, as their immature judgments may direct, what their criminally neglectful fathers and mothers ought to do for them; and an inverse order of proceeding is thus established, which cannot possibly end in any thing but “confusion worse confounded.” A still more fatal error than this transfer of the right and duty of judging for their children to the children themselves is, that the religious principles (I do not mean sectarian opinions,) of their teachers are rarely ever made a subject of inquiry, much less of anxious solicitude. They may be heathens, or confirmed infidels, for aught that is known or cared about them; neither is any concern felt or taken to know what particular provision is made in schools for the moral and religious instruction of the many thousand children, who are there to form their principles of conduct for all future time. Yet, if the question were asked, whether any thing in the whole circle of sciences and the arts, be at all comparable in importance with these principles, a negative answer would assuredly be given, even by the most careless of all those persons who have the control of the whole subject of education in all its parts. That the peace, comfort, prosperity, and happiness of all orders in society, depend upon the soundness of their moral and religious principles, none, I believe, will be either so foolish or wicked as to deny. And yet, where shall we find the schools in which the acquisition of knowledge in various other matters, such as physical science, foreign languages, and what are called polite accomplishments, is not made the chief, if not the sole object of pursuit? The great springs of all human action—the powerful regulators of all human conduct—such as it ought to be, are either not thought of at all, or it is taken for granted that the whole have been so carefully adjusted while the poor children were taking pap in their nurseries, or conning over their alphabet, while under their good mother's supervision, as to require no farther care.

When we consider well the nature, tendency, and general prevalence of the faults which I have enumerated among all the parties concerned in the great business of education, together with the errors so commonly committed in regard to its chief ends and purposes, or rather in the choice of means for their attainment, and then endeavor to measure the destructive power of their combined influence, the contemplation is truly appalling. It is in vain to turn our eyes to the bright region of science and the arts, displaying all their glories, and diffusing their innumerable blessings over the whole face of our happy country. None can rejoice in such a delightful prospect, nor give more heartfelt thanks to God for it, than I do. But alas! I cannot always avoid the sight of the dark, portentous, and terrific clouds of vice and crime which always obscure, in some direction or other, and often threaten to destroy this heavenly view. I cannot avoid asking myself why these things should be; nor have I the power to shut the eyes of my understanding against the soul-sickening [p. 566] conviction, that we have abundant means at our command of making a glorious change, but will not use them. These means, I am most thoroughly persuaded, are neither more nor less, than to require and to see, that in all places of instruction, from the lowest to the highest, the moral and religious principles of the students be made the chief—the paramount objects of pursuit. But what proportion of our schools, either public or private, will the most partial advocate of modern improvements in education say, that we shall find to be conducted on these principles? The whole number taken together, counting all kinds, will constitute a mere drop compared to the entire aggregate. For, let any individual try the experiment, by naming to himself all that he knows or has heard of, wherein the true motives and means to mental improvement are uniformly inculcated. Their great scarcity, I will venture to assert, would surprise him very much. Temporal riches—temporal honors—temporal fame, will be found, in a vast majority of them, to be the ends continually kept in view; and the fear of temporal punishment, or the desire to surpass others in science and literature, the means relied upon to insure the great literary acquirements which are to serve as so many stilts to ascend the various eminences aimed at. But let all these advantages be appreciated at ten thousand times their real intrinsic value, and what must be the final judgment pronounced upon them by reason and common sense? Why, that they are all utterly worthless, when compared with the true uses and ultimate objects of moral and religious cultivation. The sum and substance of all our sober reflections and reasonings upon this deeply interesting topic will be, that all superstructures of education, either under the parental roof, or elsewhere, not built upon the everlasting foundations of the Gospel of Christ, can be but little better than so many toy houses erected upon sand. They must all soon fall, although the best of them may possibly attain a considerable degree of elevation, splendor and magnificence. What are these indestructible foundations, the grand architect of which was no other than the Savior of the World? Neither more nor less than the love and practice of all our duties, of every nature and kind whatever, springing from the love of God—from full faith in his promises—and entire reliance on his justice, his wisdom, his power, and his mercy. If we do what appears to be right, from any other motive, it is not worth a rush; and yet, almost the constant aim in a vast majority of schools is, to secure at least the appearance of right conduct by a much shorter and more practicable process. This is to manage them chiefly, by the instrumentality of a sentiment, continually at war with every principle and precept of Christianity in relation to the proper motives of human conduct. I have before noticed it; but its influence is so pernicious, so utterly destructive, as I most conscientiously believe to all just principles of education, that I can never suffer any suitable occasion to pass without raising my humble voice against it. The sentiment is—emulation, than which nothing can well be worse as regards the heart, which many believe to be the source of all motives. It is true, that like the physical power of steam, emulation is capable of producing truly wonderful effects; for by its operation alone, that matchless machine—man, may be propelled to the performance of almost incredible deeds. But the great question with all who believe in a future state of rewards and punishments is, how far will the most marvellous of those deeds—proceeding as they do from the usual worldly motives—go towards the procurement of eternal salvation? Not the length or breadth of a mathematical point,—if there be any truth in Scripture,—any reliance on the conclusions of right reason,—any trust to be reposed in the word of that holy immaculate Being, who is truth itself. Can it then be consistent with common sense, and a due regard to the safety of our immortal souls, any longer to neglect at least an effort to reform our prevailing systems of education: such an effort too as shall be sufficiently earnest, zealous and persevering to afford some rational prospect of success? Indeed, my friends, is it any thing short of actual madness, to delay for an instant so momentous a work, when we have every reason to believe that God has placed the remedy in our own hands, for a very great portion of the vice and consequent misery which we see in our country? The reform of which I speak, regards more the motives to study and mental culture, than the things generally taught. In these last, I am not disposed, were it in my power, to make much change: languages, the sciences and arts, with all kinds of accomplishments, are well taught in a large portion of our schools. But in relation to motives, every reflecting person must be convinced of the necessity of a radical change, who considers but a moment the incentives to application which are almost universally held out to our youth—even from the schools of the lowest grade to the universities themselves. These are so far from having any intimate connexion with religious principles, that they are in direct hostility to them. Thus, instead of genuine Christian humility, we have insatiate worldly ambition; in place of a permanent and ardent desire to promote the happiness of the whole human race, we have the selfish passion of seeking our own—even at the expense of others—if it cannot be otherwise obtained; and in lieu of the love of God, we are taught to estimate the love and admiration of his creatures, as the chief object of pursuit in this life. Our sons are educated to make money and acquire distinction by professions; and our girls, to get rich husbands, if they get nothing else. The great concerns of eternity, are postponed to a less busy time; a time that may never arrive to a vast majority of mankind, and which—if it does come—will probably find them as destitute of the efficient inclination to repent, as they will generally be of the power any longer to commit most of the sins which rendered repentance necessary. But even suppose life may last so long, and the inclination really may come, just as the wretched victims of such a system are sinking into their graves; the only offering they can then make to their God will be, “of the Devil's leavings;” and no great prophetic skill will be required to conjecture what will be the chance of acceptance.

To recommend, in detail, any effectual means for removing all the foregoing obstacles to education; to effect a radical cure of all such deadly evils, is very far beyond my ability. Indeed I have given no promise—even to make the attempt: my only effort has been, so to describe the symptoms of the various moral diseases now working so much mischief among us, that other more able moral physicians might devise the necessary [p. 567] remedies. But I would respectfully suggest, that the prevalent—I may almost say, total—unconcern in regard to the principles of conduct taught, and left untaught in our schools; the minutiæ of their moral discipline; the reciprocal deception and counteraction between parents, teachers, and scholars: the directing almost all efforts to the excitement of wrong and highly culpable motives for study, must be entirely abandoned, or all the movements of pupils in pursuit of knowledge and virtue, will be departures, more and more remote from the true course,—and leading to endless mischief. Not only must universal education become the grand, the vital object of pursuit to all classes of our citizens; but the true means of making it what it should be, must also become objects of equal solicitude, of ceaseless, zealous, and ardent investigation.

But I must postpone to another opportunity, many views of this all-important subject, which I wish still to present by way of recapitulation, as well as to supply several omissions. Before I conclude however, suffer me to address a few remarks to you on our approaching Anniversary, as it will not be in my power—much as I wish it—to attend on that interesting occasion.

Some notice, I believe, having been given of such remarks being intended for our present meeting, I hope its unusual size will justify me in concluding, not only that none of our first members have become weary of their membership, but that many others who have not yet united with us, have now determined to join this Lyceum. Is any old member then ready to join me in expressing this hope, I will not say to him as Henry the 5th did to Westmoreland before the battle of Agincourt: “Wish not, good cousin, one man more;” much rather would I wish for as many more as the largest room in your town could contain. Neither can I quote Henry's language in regard to any who may be disposed to quit us, (if there are any such,) by adding,

In truth we have no crowns to spare for any such self-destructive purpose. It accords much better with my feelings, as well as with the confidence I have in the intelligence and public spirit of the citizens of Fredericksburg, to believe that our funds will be increased rather than diminished; that all of you desire to cherish this social institution; and that even those who make the lowest estimate of its benefits to themselves and others, still rate them as cheaply purchased by their very moderate annual subscription, the amount of which is daily lavished by hundreds of us for that which has really as little substantial good in it, as the mere “shadow of a shade.” I would assert the cheapness of the purchase in regard to every one who had acquired the knowledge only of one single useful fact, which he had not known before; and who is there among us who can truly say, that he has made no such acquisition? Much more, then, may it be urged in regard to all who feel that they now know many more such useful facts, of which twelve months ago they were entirely ignorant. The pleasure alone of witnessing once a week the highly gratifying proof, that so many of you as here meet together, are cordially united for mutual improvement, is worth incalculably more than is given for it. In this behalf, I would respectfully say to each member, are you a father, and yet unconcerned about increasing your own knowledge for the sake of augmenting that of your own offspring, yet ignorant that it is a most sacred duty? Are you a mother, and can you be destitute of that never-dying affection for the children of your bosom, which should impel you with resistless power to seek every opportunity of hearing something, be it ever so little, which you can apply for their benefit? Are you a son, a daughter, a brother, or a sister, and yet so regardless of the welfare and happiness of all connected with you, so destitute of the love of kindred, nay of self-love itself, in its only laudable form, as to have no taste, no desire, no anxiety, for moral and intellectual culture? I will not for a moment, suffer myself even to suspect that these questions could be answered in the affirmative by any to whom I now address myself. Rather let me continue to believe, even if in error, that I behold in all of the present assembly, ardent and zealous friends to all the objects of our association; friends, not for fashion sake, nor novelty, nor idle curiosity, nor a mere time killing purpose, but true, earnest, abiding friends to the great cause of mutual improvement. And by what means, I would confidently ask, so cheap, so convenient, so gratifying, as nightly meetings once a week, for an hour or two, could this cause be better promoted by persons occupied, as most of us are, in daily business and daily duties of indispensable obligation? Whatever is calculated to strengthen our convictions of the superiority of intellectual and moral enjoyments to such gratifications as are merely physical and sensual; whatever can elevate our minds so far above our animal appetites as to assure us that they were never given to be our masters; whatever can lead us to look beyond the present life for the final consummating of all our aspirations after happiness, and the fulfilment of our present duties to God, to man, and to ourselves, as the sole means of attaining this happiness—all these together, constitute the proper objects of education. And the more we study, the more we love, the more we strive to attain them, the greater share shall we here gain of every earthly blessing—the larger portion shall we enjoy hereafter of every felicity that an all-bounteous God hath promised to the most faithful of his children in the life to come. These momentous considerations, my friends, require us to devote to them all our thoughts and all our time not devoted to other equally indispensable duties; and I am ignorant of any associations that might lead us to engage in them more advantageously, during what are called our leisure hours, than Lyceums for mutual improvement, would we only avail ourselves of them, as we well might do. To effect this, all should be “hearers” in the cause, but many should be “doers” also. The exercises of such associations should never be left to be performed by only a very few of the members. They should not be so very diffident of their own powers, as always to be mere listeners; for a large portion usually have some that might be beneficially exerted. The merit of good intentions would always be awarded to them, and that should suffice, even where their efforts fell short of their own wishes. But the great means to preserve, as well as to establish associations like ours, are for their members to cherish for each other benevolence, sympathy, and brotherly love. Such a bond of union wants nothing to make it indissoluble (for it already possesses all the other [p. 568] elements of perpetuity) but christianity. This connects and surrounds these endearing sentiments with associations which diffuse over them a brighter light, and give them an infinitely higher value than they could have without it. “Christianity not only reveals to us the Infinite One, the great Supreme, as the Father alike of all men; it not only instructs all whom it addresses in looking over, and as far as we may, in looking into, and through the mighty universe, to say and to feel ‘our Father made it all;’ it not only says to each individual, and to all the race, ‘all ye are brethren;’ and requires each one to cherish for the rest a brother's interest, and sympathy, and affection; but it requires us also, when we pray, to carry with us these sympathies and affections to the throne of infinite mercy and love, and there to strengthen and hallow the feeling of our connexion with our fellow-men, through our common relation to God, by addressing him as—not my, but ‘our Father who art in Heaven.’ Who, indeed, can feel that he is a child of God—that he has an immortal nature—that in his intellectual and moral powers, and in his capacity of eternal progress, he has also the capacity of an eternal advancement in likeness to God himself, and therefore in all which can forever exalt his nature, and secure and increase his happiness; who can feel all this, and at the same time, (what it is equally important we should feel,) that the most untaught, the poorest, and most degraded of our race, possesses the principles of a common nature with ourselves, and is equally a child of God, and as such, our brother;—who can thus comprehend his own soul, and thus feel his relation to his fellow-man, without feeling his heart drawn out in sympathy with human weakness, and ignorance, and want, and wretchedness, and sin?”

With these convictions deeply, and I hope indelibly engraven on my heart, I cannot bid adieu to you on the present occasion, without most earnestly entreating you to make them your own as speedily as possible, if this has not already been done. In making this request, I address myself principally to such of my auditors, of both sexes, as are still the subjects of scholastic instruction and discipline. Upon you, and others of your age, will chiefly depend the welfare and happiness of yourselves and the next generation—nay, I may add, of all future generations, since each age is most materially affected by that which has immediately preceded it. The hope of rendering you, my young friends, some small service, was my chief object in coming here this evening; and could I depart with the confident expectation that my humble efforts might contribute in any degree towards leading even one of you to your God, it would afford me a gratification—a joy which I have no language to express. Few are the enjoyments left, in a great majority of cases, to those who, like myself, are fast approaching the verge of their graves; but it is in the power of the young to multiply these enjoyments far beyond what they themselves are able to conceive. It is in the power of such as you, my youthful hearers, to furnish the generally gloomy and painful close of long protracted life with intellectual repasts infinitely more delightful than can possibly be afforded by the sensual gratifications of the most ardent of all the sinful passions of youth. It is in the power of such as yourselves to invigorate with unspeakable pleasure the feebleness of old age—to raise their sinking hearts with the most animating anticipations of your future prosperity, fame and happiness—to banish forever from their minds the utter misery of leaving you in the broad road to destruction—and even to surround the bed of a beloved and aged parent's death with joys and foretastes of future felicity to each, such as none but a mother's or father's imagination can possibly conceive. Leave not this room then, leave it not, I beseech you, without an unalterable determination to exert this power from the present moment to the end of your lives. Let your temporal destiny then be what it may,—no earthly bereavement—none of what are called the calamities and miseries of life, can possibly deprive you of that greatest of all earthly blessings—conscious rectitude; nor of that last, that highest reward of all christian hope—a never fading inheritance in a world of endless duration and perfect beatitude.

A CASE

NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY OF THE BOOKS.

Barney Cunningham was dancing with all his might, while Pat O'Leary was playing Paddy Carey on his Jews Harp, and Jemmy Callahan sitting quietly looking on, smoking his pipe on the head of an empty whiskey barrel. All of a sudden the Divil got into Pat, who changed the tune to Molly put the kettle on, which, as it were, brought Barney up all standing, and caused him to bite his tongue almost through. Upon this, Barney, without saying a word, quietly marches up to Pat and gives him a black eye, and upon that Pat appeals to Jemmy Callahan whether this was not offending against good manners. Whereupon Jemmy decides, that Pat had no right to change the tune without giving the gentleman notice, and so the matter was settled to the satisfaction of all parties.

MSS. OF JOHN RANDOLPH.¹

¹ We are indebted for the letters now published, to the same personal friend of Mr. Randolph, who furnished us those for the July number of the Messenger. We hope to be able to procure others for September.

² Five days after the Richmond Theatre was burnt.

My Dear Madam,—Under that most severe visitation of Divine Providence, which it is your fate to suffer, I well know how worse than useless—how almost cruel and insulting may appear any mention of comfort, or consolation on the part of a friend. I have none such to offer: yet I cannot resist the feeling which impels me, at this awful moment, to speak to you: to remind you that our Heavenly Father chasteneth whom he loveth; that his eye is upon us, who died for our sins; who, having partaken of our nature, looks with pity upon its errors and its sufferings, and offers to our acceptance a sure and eternal refuge from the calamities of this life and of the next. It is he who calls upon us to endure, [p. 569] not with stoical apathy, but with meek and Christian fortitude, the miseries inseparable from our mortal condition—to endure them, for his sake! Can we resist this appeal to our gratitude, made by him, who writhed upon the cross, that we might escape the eternal wrath of God? In him alone is our trust:—and when the troubled dream of life is past, let us humbly hope, that we shall awake to everlasting joy through his all atoning merits; that we shall be re-united (never more to part) to those who have preceded us in the voyage of eternity. They are released from those duties, which we are yet called upon to perform—upon the faithful discharge of which must depend our becoming acceptable in the sight of him who made us: our duty towards God; and our duty towards our neighbor;—our fellow sufferers in humanity. The wide-spread desolation that hath overwhelmed your house, hath yet left connexions the most sacred and most dear, who call for the exercise of all the charities of life. Fix your eye alone upon the survivors, and put your trust in God! It is my present sense of duty to Him, that alone hath emboldened me to hold this language to you. I almost shudder at my own rashness—may he whose grace “surpasseth all human understanding” support, comfort and bless you! All other hope is vain. It is from him, and him only, that we can receive strength in this life, or mercy in the life to come. Human learning and human devices avail nought. But where am I rambling? My dear madam, I would, but cannot express my sensations. I turn away my eyes from this world, and endeavor to fix them upon the next, as the only remedy against that stupefaction of grief, that at times overcomes me; and yet addressing myself to you, shall I dare to talk of my grief? May God, in his mercy, restore and comfort you! So prays, dear madam,

I did not receive your letter of the 26th until last evening, and then I was obliged for it to my good old neighbor Col. Morton, who never omits an occasion of doing a favor however small. The gentleman by whom you wrote is very shy of me, nor can I blame him for it: no man likes to feel the embarrassment which a consciousness of having done wrong to another is sure to inspire, and which the sight of the object towards whom the wrong has been done never fails to excite in the most lively and painful degree. My neighbor Col. C., who goes down to Petersburg and Richmond tomorrow, enables me to answer (after a fashion) your question—“how and where I shall pass the summer months?” To which I can only reply—as it pleases God! If I go to any watering place it will be to our Hot Springs, for the purpose of stewing the rheumatism out of my carcase, if it be practicable.

It would have been peculiarly gratifying to me to have been with you when Leigh, Garnett, W. Meade and I must add M——, were in Richmond. If we exclude every “party man and man of ambition” from our church, I fear we shall have as thin a congregation as Dean Swift had when he addressed his clerk “Dearly beloved Roger!” What I like M. for, is neither his courtesy nor his intelligence, but a certain warm-heartedness, which is, now-a-days, the rarest of human qualities. His manner I think peculiarly unfortunate. There is an ostentation of ornament (which school boys lay aside when they reach the senior class) and a labored infelicity of expression that is hurtful to one's feelings—we are in terror for the speaker—but this fault he has already in some degree corrected, and by the time he is as old as you or I, it will have worn off. I was greatly revolted by it, on our first acquaintance, and even now, am occasionally offended—but the zeal with which he devotes himself to the service of his friends and of his country makes amends for all. It is sometimes a bustling activity of little import to its object, but which is to be valued in reference to its motive.

I am not surprised at what you tell me of our friend. We live in fearful times, and it is a perilous adventure that he is about to undertake. In a few years more, those of us who are alive will have to move off to Kaintuck or the Massissippi, where corn can be had for sixpence a bushel, and pork for a penny a pound. I do not wonder at the rage for emigration—what do the bulk of the people get here, that they cannot have for one-fifth of the labor in the western country? Surely that must be the Yahoo's paradise where he can get dead drunk for the hundredth part of a dollar.

What you tell me of Milnor is quite unexpected. He was one of the last men whom I should have expected to take orders—not so much on account of his quitting a lucrative profession as from his fondness for gay life. I am not sure that it is the safest path—The responsibility is awful—it is tremendous.

Thanks for your intelligence respecting my poor sister. If human skill could save her, Dr. Robinson would do it: but there is nothing left to smooth her path to that dwelling whither we must all soon follow her. I can give Mrs. B. no comfort on the subject of ——. For my part, it requires an effort to take an interest in any thing—and it seems to me strange, that there should be found inducements strong enough to carry on the business of the world. I believe you have given the true solution of this problem, by way of corollary from another—when you pronounce that free will and necessity are much the same. I used formerly to puzzle myself, as abler men have puzzled others, by speculations on this opprobrium of philosophy. If you have not untied the Gordian knot, you have cut it, which is the approved methodus medendi of this disease.

My neighbor C., who is the bearer of this, is called by the world a hard man—but I like him because he has a manliness of character—not common in this age of base compliance with what is and what is not (but supposed to be) the ruling opinions.

Write to me when you can do no better. Worse you cannot do for yourself, nor better for me. You can't imagine what an epoch in my present life a letter from you or Leigh constitutes. If I did not know that you could find nothing here beyond the satisfaction of mere animal necessity, I should entreat Mrs. B. and yourself to visit my solitary habitation. May every blessing attend you both.

I had begun to fear that my long visitation of last winter and spring, had put you so much out of the habit of writing to me, that you would never resume it—but your letter of the sixth (just received) encourages me to hope that I shall hear from you as formerly. It was a sensible relief to me—but I will say nothing about my situation.

Poor St. George continues quite irrational. He is however very little mischievous, and governed pretty easily. His memory of persons, things, events and words, is not at all impaired—but he has no power of combination, and is entirely incoherent. His going to the Springs is out of the question—and mine, I fear, equally so—although my rheumatism requires the warm bath. By this time, you are on your way thither—except that it is too cold, the weather could not have been finer. What a climate we live under!

As to peace, I have not a doubt that we shall have it forthwith. Our folks are prepared to say that the pacification of Europe has swept away the matters in contestation, as M. the Secretary of State has it. All that we see in the government prints, is to reconcile us the better to the terms which they must receive from the enemy. From the time of his flight from Egypt, my opinion of the character of Bonaparte has never changed, except for the worse. I have considered him from that date a coward, and ascribed his success to the deity he worships—Fortune. His insolence and rashness have met their just reward. Had he found an efficient government in France on his abandonment of his brave companions in arms in Egypt, and return to Paris, he would have been cashiered for ruining the best appointed armament that ever left an European port. But all was confusion and anarchy at Paris, and, instead of a coup de fusil, he was rewarded with a sceptre. He succeeded in throwing the blame of Aboukir on poor Brueys. He could safely talk of “his orders to the admiral,” after L'Orient had blown up. His Russian and German campaign is another such commentary on his character; it is all of a piece.

If the Allies adhere to their treaty of Chaumont, the peace of Europe will be preserved—but in France I think the seeds of disorder must abound. Instead of the triple aristocracy of the Noblesse, the Church and the Parliaments, I see nothing but janissaries and a divan of ruffians: Algiers on a great scale. Moral causes I see none—and I am well persuaded that these are not created in a day. Matters of inveterate opinion, when once rooted up, are dead never to revive: other opinions must succeed them. But I am prosing—uttering a string of common place, that every one can write, and no one can deny. But you brought it on yourself—you expected I would say something, and I resolved to try. I can bear witness to the fact of Mrs. B's prediction respecting Bonaparte's retirement. I wish I were permitted to name five ladies who should constitute the Cabinet of this country: our affairs would be conducted in another guess manner. This reminds me of Mrs. G., of whom I have at last heard. Mr. G. wrote me late in February from London. They were going to Bath, and “if circumstances on the continent would permit, meant to take a tour through France.” How well timed their trip to Europe has been.

I am here completely hors du monde. My neighbor Clark, with whom I have made a violent effort to establish an intercourse, has been here twice by invitation. W. Leigh as often, on his way to court, and on Saturday I was agreeably surprised by stumbling on Frank Gilmer, who was wandering to and fro in the woods, seeking my cabin. He left me on Tuesday for his brother's in Henry. Except my standing dish, you have my whole society for nine weeks. On the terms by which I hold it, life is a curse, from which I would willingly escape, if I knew where to fly. I have lost my relish for reading—indeed I could not devour even the Corsair³ with the zest that Lord Byron's pen generally inspires. My plantation affairs always irksome are now revolting. I have lost ¾ of the finest and largest crop I ever had.

³ It is very inferior to the Giaour or the Bride. The character of Conrad is unnatural. Blessed with his mistress, he has no motive for desperation.

Dr. Dudley is (as you may suppose) a treasure to me above all price. Without him what should I do? He desires his respects to you both.

As to an English constitution for France, they will have one when they all speak the English language, and not before. Have you read Morris's oration on the 29th of June? His description of Bonaparte's “taking money for his crown” is very fine. It is a picture. I see him. There are some cuts in the same page that our fulminating statesman will not like.

I am compelled to be at Prince Edward Court tomorrow, and the weather is now so intensely hot that I shall go a part of the way this afternoon, and put my letter in the Farmville P. O. whence it will go direct to Richmond, instead of waiting five days on the road. Our crops lately drowned, are now burning up, and I begin to feel the effects of the fresh in my health as well as my purse. Dudley and myself have both experienced the ill consequences of our daily visits to the low grounds. The negroes, however, continue healthy: out of more than 200, not a patient since I came home. Who is it that says “il-y-a tant de plaisir à bavarder avec un ami!” Perhaps you will reply that the pleasure is not so great etre bavardè.

At Charlotte Court House yesterday, I saw Dr. Merry, who told me that your trip to the Springs was postponed. Pray let me hear from you. If you write by Saturday morning's post, address your letter to this place—otherwise, to Roanoke. We hear that you are in great consternation at Richmond, in consequence of Cochrane's appearance in the Chesapeake. Not a week ago it was ostentatiously announced that Porter was master of the South Pacific! The mail will arrive in less than half an hour, which brings the official account of his capture.

Again my best wishes and respects to Mrs. B., with whom, I fear, I have fallen out of favor. Compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Wickham.

Messieurs,—Vous étes priés d'assister au convoi et enterrement de la trés haute et trés illustre et trés puissante Citoyenne République Française; une, indivisible et iméprissable, décédée le 28me Floreal (18 May) en son Palais Conservateur—et á son service, qui se sera le 14me Juillet prochain.

N. B. “Le Fils” ne se porte pas bien aujourdhui. 18me juin, 1815.

A POLITE STRUGGLE.

Terence Brannagan and Davy Dougherty were sworn brothers, and reckoned very much of the gentlemen, and happening to run against each other in turning a corner, stopped to make apologies.

“It was all my fault Davy my jewel,” says Terence.

“By St. Dan O'Connell, but it was all mine,” says Davy.

“By the honor of a gentleman, it was mine,” says Terence.

“By the Holy Poker, I say it was mine,” says Davy.

“Do you doubt the honor of a gentleman? I thought you had more politeness. Better manners to you say I,” says Terence.

“Do you reflect on my manners you spalpeen? If you wont take a genteel apology, take that,” says Davy, hitting Terence a click aside of his pate, which Terence returned with interest, and so they had a bloody battle all about politeness.

A PROFESSION FOR LADIES.

Many good men, who really feel solicitous for the improvement and elevation of the female sex, doubt the expediency of bestowing on young ladies a regular scientific education. They doubt this, because there is no profession in which the talents of women may be employed without injury to the female character—to that retiring modesty which should ever

No person of reflection and good judgment, who wishes to promote the happiness and respectability of woman, would seek to place her in the lecture room of the physician—in the forum—the desk—or the halls of legislation. The attempt to inspire our sex with the ambition to appear like men, is too absurd to merit discussion. Would any lady consider herself competent to direct the management of a ship in a storm, or a fire-engine at a conflagration? The storms of the political ocean, and the fires of party spirit, would as little accord with her moral delicacy of mind and feeling. Still she was not formed to be a trifler on earth. She has mental powers which, if not equal with those of man, are yet far too precious to be wasted in indolence, or allowed to rest in ignorance of their duties. Women have a vast influence on society, which nothing can prevent; this influence will be beneficial or deleterious in proportion to the reasonable and enlightened manner in which it is exerted. To secure it on the side of virtue and intelligence, should be the aim of every person who wishes to promote individual and social improvement and happiness, and our national prosperity and glory. There is no country where the right direction of female influence is so necessary as in America, because here the popular breath guides and impels as it were, the bark of state. Our people must, therefore, be educated—not made learned in ancient lore merely, or even instructed deeply in modern sciences, but trained to the love of excellence, and habituated to the control of the passions. The heart and the understanding must alike be cultivated, and this can never be effected without the co-operation of women.

It is in the department of teaching, that women exert their greatest power. Important as is their influence in the nursery, the task of education is but commenced there. Females might be extensively employed in school keeping. Why should not a department so peculiarly fitted to their talents, feelings and station, be more generally appropriated to them? In New England, it is true, this has partially been done; and to that, more than to any other single cause, may be traced the general diffusion of learning among all classes of our people. Had only men been permitted to teach a common or district school, the expense would have prevented schools from being continued in our thinly settled towns, except for a small part of each year. Then, it is a truth, which few will feel disposed to question, that the young imbibe instruction more readily from female teachers than from those of the other sex. Another, and very important consideration, is the effect which the employment has had on those females engaged in it. Their own minds have been disciplined and strengthened, and when married, they have carried into their own families those habits of attention to intellectual improvement, which have qualified them to judge of the talents and to direct the studies of their own children. Thus, their influence on society has been continually active in promoting the fashion of learning,—that peculiar mode of thinking, which, even among our poorest class, attaches infamy to ignorance, and incites the dullest laborer to consider himself disgraced if his children cannot at least read and write.

Here, then, is the profession to which I would direct the talents and energies of my own countrywomen. The field is wide enough for the display of all their genius, and there are laurels sufficient to satisfy the most ambitious. Many distinguished female writers have likewise been distinguished as teachers of children and youth. Mrs. Hannah More was greatly indebted to her situation as an instructress for the cultivation and [p. 572] development of her extraordinary talents. Mrs. Barbauld owed much of her literary excellence to the necessity she felt of assisting her husband in the education of his pupils. Miss Edgeworth, though not ostensibly a teacher, was nevertheless stimulated in her literary career—first entered upon to promote education—by the practical illustrations of its benefits, which she daily witnessed while assisting her father in the instruction of his numerous family. Among the French ladies, Madame de Genlis, and Madame Campan, were distinguished for their skill in teaching youth; and the genius and writings, of the first especially, are well known. The present king of the French was her pupil, and to her wise and efficient management, owes much of that practical knowledge and energy of character which has distinguished his career.

Indeed, there is no method by which a lady can, with safety and credit to herself, so surely and speedily acquire that very necessary knowledge for a popular writer—the knowledge of the human heart—as by becoming an instructress of the young. Let American ladies, who wish for literary distinction, if such there are, enter the school-room as their temple of fame—and then they will be useful if they are not celebrated. I shall be told that they cannot do this—that men have engrossed the employment of school-keeping, as well as that of every other, by which money can be acquired; and that female teachers are excluded from all schools excepting those of the very youngest scholars. This is too true. Ought it thus to be?—Is it for the public benefit, to employ men to teach schools, when women could do that duty better,—even were the same compensation to be allowed to the female as to the male?

It has become a proverb, that none but a man of inferior abilities, will keep a school from choice—that it is a drudgery, in which no man of genius will engage, but from necessity,—or persevere in, but from pecuniary motives. Allow this repugnance to the business of instruction to proceed, as perhaps it does, from man's superior talents,—say, that it is not in accordance with the strong powers and stirring energies of his mind, to rest contented in the prison of a school-room; yet to women, less gifted with confidence in their own abilities, and having so few objects of pursuit, it would furnish an employment congenial as well as honorable. There is no branch of learning taught in our common schools which females would not be capable of teaching. They should also be employed, as assistants, in every school and seminary, where there are pupils of their own sex. One very important object to be effected by this arrangement, would be the saving of expense. Women can afford to teach for a less reward than men, even should they prove, as they often doubtless would prove, the more capable instructors. To make education universal, it must be afforded cheap. It is a false principle, which estimates the benefits of a privilege by the money it costs. If it were true, our Republican government would be a miserable one, in comparison with those of royal magnificence. It is, usually, the abuses of our privileges, which form the largest item in their expense. Our nation has need of all the talents of its citizens, exerted in the most beneficial manner, to keep pace with the spirit of the age. Why then, refuse the assistance of female intellect, when it might be so usefully and appropriately exerted?—There are now, as it is reported, about ten thousand schoolmasters in the State of New York. One half of that number might, undoubtedly, be employed more profitably to the country, and pleasantly to themselves, in other business, and their duties, as teachers, better as well as cheaper, performed by intelligent women. There are many such to whom even a moderate compensation would be wealth, and would stimulate to unwearied exertion.

But above all, women should be at the head of establishments for the education of their own sex. If it be found necessary, let gentlemen be employed as teachers and lecturers occasionally,—but a lady should always preside as directress. This is invariably practised in every country, save America; and such a preposterous fashion, as that of committing the scientific education of young girls, mostly to men, cannot much longer continue here. Women will feel what is due to their own character and dignity, sufficiently to rouse themselves to the education, at least, of their own sex. The example of Mrs. Willard, Principal of the Troy Female Seminary, and that of Miss Catharine Beecher, not to mention others, demonstrate that ladies are capable of understanding the philosophy of the human mind, and of preparing works which facilitate the acquisition of knowledge. And then a lady, with talents and energy, unites those feminine accomplishments which men cannot know or teach.

In short, though there should be no encroachment on the prerogative or duties of the men, yet women should remember that they too have duties,—which they ought not, which they cannot, consistently with duty and delicacy, surrender. One of these duties, is the superintending the education of their own sex. This must not be abandoned. Then, should men commit to their care the tuition of boys, till the age of ten, twelve, or even later, they would probably find the effect very beneficial. The influence of a sensible, intelligent and pious woman, has a tendency to soften the turbulent dispositions, and foster the kindly affections of boys—to instil the love of virtue, and a horror of vice. Remember, the culture of the heart, as well as the head, is essentially necessary to make men good citizens of a Republic. A strong argument in favor of employing ladies as instructors of children, may be found in their purity of principles and feelings. A female advocating infidelity, or endeavoring to weaken the bonds of moral and social order, is a phenomenon. Can the same be said of the other sex?

Swift's “Liliputian Ode” is an imitation from Scarron. The French poet concludes a long tri-syllabic poetical epistle to Sarrazin, who had failed to pay him a visit, in the following words.

Editorial.

In the article published by us this month, on the Right of Instruction, Judge Hopkinson has alluded to some opinions of Edmund Burke. It may perhaps be as well to copy here one or two of the paragraphs to which we suppose allusion is made.

In his speech in 1780, at the Guildhall in Bristol, upon certain points relative to his parliamentary conduct, we have what follows.

Let me say with plainness, I who am no longer in a public character, that if by a fair, by an indulgent, by a gentlemanly behavior to our representatives, we do not give confidence to their minds, and a liberal scope to their understandings; if we do not permit our members to act upon a very enlarged view of things, we shall at length infallibly degrade our national representation into a confused and scuffling bustle of local agency.

Again, in the same speech—

What, gentlemen, was I not to foresee, or, foreseeing, was I not to endeavor to save you from all these multiplied mischiefs and disgraces? Would the little, silly, canvass prattle of obeying instructions, and having no opinions but yours, and such idle, senseless tales which amuse the vacant ears of unthinking men, have saved you from the “pelting of that pitiless storm” to which the loose improvidence, the cowardly rashness of those who dare not look danger in the face, so as to provide against it in time have exposed this degraded nation?

Again—

I did not obey your instructions. No—I conformed to the instructions of truth and nature, and maintained your interest against your opinions, with a constancy that became me. A representative worthy of you ought to be a person of stability. I am to look indeed to your opinions; but to such opinions as you and I must have five years hence. I was not to look to the flash of the day. I knew that you chose me, in my place, along with others, to be a pillar of the state, and not a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted for my levity and versatility, and of no use but to indicate the shiftings of every fashionable gale.

And farther—

As to the opinion of the people which some think, in such cases, is to be implicitly obeyed; near two years tranquillity, which followed the act, proved abundantly that the late horrible spirit was, in a great measure, the effect of insidious art, and perverse industry and gross misrepresentation. But suppose that the dislike had been much more deliberate, and much more general than I am persuaded it was.—When we know that the opinions of even the greatest multitudes are the standard of rectitude, I shall think myself obliged to make those opinions the masters of my conscience. But if it may be doubted whether Omnipotence itself is competent to alter the essential constitution of right and wrong, sure I am that such things as they and I, are possessed of no such power. No man carries farther than I do the policy of making government pleasing to the people. But the widest range of this politic complaisance is confined within the limits of justice.... “But if I profess all this impolitic stubbornness I may chance never to be elected into Parliament.” It is certainly not pleasing to be put out of the public service. But I wish, in being a member of Parliament, to have my share of doing good and resisting evil. It would therefore be absurd to renounce my objects in order to obtain my seat.

In his speech, upon his arrival at Bristol, and at the conclusion of the poll in 1774, he says—

I am sorry I cannot conclude without saying a word on a topic touched upon by my worthy colleague. I wish that topic had been passed by, at a time when I have so little leisure to discuss it. But since he has thought proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my poor sentiments on that subject. He tells you that the “topic of instructions has occasioned much altercation and uneasiness in this city,” and he expresses himself (if I understand him rightly) in favor of the coercive authority of such instructions. Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative, to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions to theirs; and, above all, ever and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure—no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgment, and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. My worthy colleague says his will ought to be subservient to yours. If that be all the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination—and what sort of reason is that in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?

Under the head of “Random Thoughts,” “Odds and Ends,” “Stray Leaves,” “Scraps,” “Brevities,” and a variety of similar titles, we occasionally meet, in periodicals and elsewhere, with papers of rich interest and value—the result, in some cases, of much thought and more research, expended, however, at a manifest disadvantage, if we regard merely the estimate which the public are willing to set upon such articles. It sometimes occurs that in papers of this nature may be found a collective mass of general, but more usually of classical erudition, which, if dexterously besprinkled over a proper surface of narrative, would be sufficient to make the fortunes of one or two hundred ordinary novelists in these our good days, when all heroes and heroines are necessarily men and women of “extensive acquirements.” But, for the most part, these “Brevities,” &c. are either piecemeal cullings at second hand, from a variety of sources hidden or supposed to be hidden, or more audacious pilferings from those vast storehouses of brief facts, memoranda, and opinions in general literature, which are so abundant in all the principal libraries of Germany and France. Of the former species, the Koran of Lawrence Sterne is, at the same time, one of the most consummately impudent and silly; and it may well be doubted whether a single paragraph of any merit in the whole of it may not be found, nearly verbatim, in the works of some one of his [p. 574] immediate cotemporaries. If the Lacon of Mr. Colton is any better, its superiority consists altogether in a deeper ingenuity in disguising his stolen wares, and in that prescriptive right of the strongest which, time out of mind, has decided upon calling every Napoleon a conqueror, and every Dick Turpin a thief. Seneca; Machiavelli;¹ Balzac, the author of “La Maniere de bien Penser;” Bielfeld, the German, who wrote, in French, “Les Premiers Traits de L'Erudition Universelle;” Rochefoucault; Bacon; Bolingbroke; and especially Burdon, of “Materials for Thinking” memory, possess, among them, indisputable claims to the ownership of nearly every thing worth owning in the book.

¹ It is remarkable that much of what Colton has stolen from Machiavelli, was previously stolen by Machiavelli from Plutarch. A MS. book of the Apophthegms of the Ancients, by this latter writer, having fallen into Machiavelli's hands, he put them nearly all into the mouth of his hero, Castrucio Castricani.

Of the latter species of theft, we see frequent specimens in the continental magazines of Europe, and occasionally meet with them even in the lower class of periodicals in Great Britain. These specimens are usually extracts, by wholesale, from such works as the “Bibliotheque des Memorabilia Literaria,” the “Recueil des Bons Pensées,” the “Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses,” the “Literary Memoirs” of Sallengré, the “Melanges Literaires” of Suard and André, or the “Pieces Interressantes et peu Connues” of La Place. D'Israeli's “Curiosities of Literature,” “Literary Character,” and “Calamities of Authors,” have, of late years, proved exceedingly convenient to some little American pilferers in this line, but are now becoming too generally known to allow much hope of their good things being any longer appropriated with impunity.

Such collections, as those of which we have been speaking, are usually entertaining in themselves, and, for the most part, we relish every thing about them save their pretensions to originality. In offering, ourselves, something of the kind to the readers of the Messenger, we wish to be understood as disclaiming, in a great degree, every such pretension. Most of the following article is original, and will be readily recognized as such by the classical and general reader—some portions of it may have been written down in the words, or nearly in the words, of the primitive authorities. The whole is taken from a confused mass of marginal notes, and entries in a common-place-book. No certain arrangement has been considered necessary; and, indeed, so heterogeneous a farrago it would have been an endless task to methodize. We have chosen the heading Pinakidia, or Tablets, as one sufficiently comprehensive. It was used, for a somewhat similar purpose, by Dionysius of Harlicarnassus.

The whole of Bulwer's elaborate argument on the immortality of the soul, which he has put into the mouth of the “Ambitious Student,” may be confuted through the author's omission of one particular point in his summary of the attributes of Deity—a point which we cannot believe omitted altogether through accident. A single link is deficient in the chain—but the chain is worthless without it. No man doubts the immortality of the soul—yet of all truths this truth of immortality is the most difficult to prove by any mere series of syllogisms. We would refer our readers to the argument here mentioned.

a line in one Mr. Odiorne's poem, “The Progress of Refinement,” is pronounced by the American author of a book entitled “Ante-Diluvian Antiquities,” “the very best alliteration in all poetry.”

The Turkish Spy is the original of many similar works—among the best of which are Montesquieu's Persian Letters, and the British Spy of our own Wirt. It was written undoubtedly by John Paul Marana, an Italian, in Italian, but probably was first published in French. Dr. Johnson, who saw only an English translation, supposed it an English work. Marana died in 1693.

is a much admired line in Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming—but the identical line is to be found in the poems of the American Freneau.

Corneille's celebrated Moi of Medea is borrowed from Seneca. Racine, in Phœdra, has stolen nearly the whole scene of the declaration of love from the same puerile writer.

The peculiar zodiac of the comets is comprised in these verses of Cassini—

Speaking of the usual representation of the banquet-scene in Macbeth, Von Raumer, the German historian, mentions a shadowy figure thrown by optical means into the chair of Banquo, and producing intense effect upon the audience. Enslen, a German optician, conceived this idea, and accomplished it without difficulty.

A religious hubbub, such as the world has seldom seen, was excited, during the reign of Frederic II, by the imagined virulence of a book entitled “The Three Impostors.” It was attributed to Pierre des Vignes, chancellor of the king, who was accused by the Pope of having treated the religions of Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet as political fables. The work in question, however, which was squabbled about, abused, defended, and familiarly quoted by all parties, is well proved never to have existed.

The word Τυχη, or Fortune, does not appear once in the whole Iliad.

The “Lamentations” of Jeremiah are written, with the exception of the last chapter, in acrostic verse: that is to say, every line or couplet begins, in alphabetical order, with some letter in the Hebrew alphabet. In the third chapter each letter is repeated three times successively.

The fullest account of the Amazons is to be found in Diodorus Siculus.

Theophrastus, in his botanical works, anticipated the [p. 575] sexual system of Linnæus. Philolaus of Crotona maintained that comets appeared after a certain revolution—and Æcetes contended for the existence of what is now called the new world. Pulci, “the sire of the half-serious rhyme,” has a passage expressly alluding to a western continent. Dante, two centuries before, has the same allusion.

Cicero makes finis masculine, Virgil feminine. Usque ad eum finem—Cicero. Quæ finis standi? Hæc finis Priami fatorum—Virgil.

Dante left a poem in three languages—Latin, Provençal, and Italian. Rambaud de Vachieras left one in five.

Marcus Antoninus wrote a book entitled Των εις εαυτον—Of the things which concern himself. It would be a good title for a Diary.

Lipsius, in his treatise “De Supplicio Crucis,” says that the upright beam of the cross was a fixture at the place of execution, whither the criminal was made to bear only the transverse arm. Consequently the painters are in error who depict our Savior bearing the entire cross.

The stream flowing through the middle of the valley of Jehoshaphat, is called, in the Gospel of St. John, “the brook of cedars.” In the Septuagint the word is κεδρον, darkness, from the Hebrew Kiddar, black, and not κεδρων, of cedars.

Seneca says that Appion, a grammarian of the age of Caligula, maintained that Homer himself made the division of the Iliad and Odyssey into books, and evidences the first word of the Iliad, Μηνιν, the Μη of which signifies 48, the number of books in both poems. Seneca however adds, “Talia sciat oportet qui multa vult scire.”

The tale in Plato's “Convivium,” that man at first was male and female, and that, though Jupiter cleft them asunder, there was a natural love towards one another, seems to be only a corruption of the account in Genesis of Eve's being made from Adam's rib.

Corneille has these lines in one of his tragedies;

which may be thus translated,

Over the iron gate of a prison at Ferrara is this inscription—“Ingresso alla prigione di Torquato Tasso.”

Hedelin, a Frenchman, in the beginning of the 18th century, denied that any such person as Homer ever existed, and supposed the Iliad to be made up ex tragediis, et variis canticis de trivio mendicatorum et circulatorum—à la maniere des chansons du Pontneuf.

The Rabbi Manasseh published a book at Amsterdam entitled “The Hopes of Israel.” It was founded upon the supposed number and power of the Jews in America. This supposition was derived from a fabulous account by Montesini of his having found a vast concourse of Jews among the Cordilleras.

The word assassin is derived according to Hyle from Hassa, to kill. Some bring it from Hassan, the first chief of the association—some from the Jewish Essenes—Lemoine from a word meaning “herbage”—De Sacy and Hammer from “hashish” the opiate of hemp leaves, of which the assassins made a singular use.

“Defuncti injuriâ ne afficiantur” was a law of the twelve tables.

The origin of the phrase “corporal oath” is to be found in the ancient usage of touching, upon occasion of attestation, the corporale or cloth which covered the consecrated articles.

Montgomery in his lectures on Literature (!) has the following—“Who does not turn with absolute contempt from the rings and gems, and filters, and caves and genii of Eastern Tales as from the trinkets of a toyshop, and the trumpery of a raree-show?” What man of genius but must answer “Not I.”

The Abbè de St. Pierre has fixed in his language two significant words, viz: bienfaisance, and the diminutive la gloriole.

There is no particular air known throughout Switzerland by the name of the Ranz des Vaches. Every canton has its own song varying in words, notes and even language. Mr. Cooper, the novelist, is our authority.

is neither in Virgil nor Ovid, as often supposed, but in the “Alexandrics” of Philip Gualtier a French poet of the thirteenth century.

Under a portrait of Tiberio Fiurilli who invented the character of Scaramouch, are these verses,

A curious passage in a letter from Cicero to his literary friend Papyrius Pætus, shows that our custom of annexing a farce or pantomime to a tragic drama existed among the Romans.

In Cary's “Dante” is the following passage—

Gray has also

Marmontel in the “Encyclopedie” declares that the Italians did not possess a single comedy worth reading—therein displaying his ignorance. Some of the greatest [p. 576] names in Italian Literature were writers of comedy. Baretti mentions a collection of four thousand dramas made by Apostolo Zeno, of which the greater part were comedies—many of a high order.

A comedy or opera by Andreini was the origin of “Paradise Lost.” Andreini's Adamo was the model of Milton's Adam.

Milton has the expression “Forget thyself to marble.” Pope has the line “I have not yet forgot myself to stone.”

The noble simile of Milton, of Satan with the rising sun in the first book of the Paradise Lost, had nearly occasioned the suppression of that epic: it was supposed to contain a treasonable allusion.

Campbell's line

is a palpable plagiarism. Blair has

In Hudibras are these lines—

Young in his “Love of Fame” has the following—

Goldsmith's celebrated lines

are stolen from Young; who has

The character of the ancient Bacchus, that graceful divinity, seems to have been little understood by Dryden. The line in Virgil

is thus grossly mistranslated,

There are about one thousand lines identical in the Iliad and Odyssey.

Macrobius gives the form of an imprecation by which the Romans believed whole towns could be demolished and armies defeated. It commences “Dis Pater sive Jovis mavis sive quo alio nomine fas est nominare,” and ends “Si hæc ita faxitis ut ego sciam, sentiam, intelligamque, tum quisquis votum hoc faxit recte factum esto, ovibus atris tribus, Tellus mater, teque Jupiter, obtestor.”

The “Courtier” of Baldazzar Castiglione, 1528, is the first attempt at periodical moral Essay with which we are acquainted. The Noctes Atticæ of Aulus Gellius cannot be allowed to rank as such.

These lines were written over the closet door of M. Menard,

Martin Luther in his reply to Henry VIIIth's book by which the latter acquired the title of “Defender of the Faith,” calls the monarch very unceremoniously “a pig, an ass, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a basilisk, a lying buffoon dressed in a king's robes, a mad fool with a frothy mouth and a whorish face.”

The Psalter of Solomon, which contains 18 psalms, is a work which was found in Greek in the library of Ausburg, and has been translated into Latin by John Lewis de la Cerda. It is supposed not to be Solomon's, but the work of some Hellenistical Jew, and composed in imitation of David's Psalms. The Psalter was known to the ancients, and was formerly in the famous Alexandrian MS.

is a line in Cowley's famous description of the Creation.

It is probable that the queen of Sheba was Balkis—that Sheba was a kingdom in the Southern part of Arabia Felix, and that the people were called Sabæans. These lines of Claudian relate to the people and queen,

Sheridan declared he would rather be the author of the ballad called Hosier's Ghost, by Glover, than of the Annals of Tacitus.

The word Jehovah is not Hebrew. The Hebrews had no such letters as J or V. The word is properly Iah-Uah—compounded of Iah Essence and Uah Existing. Its full meaning is the self-existing essence of all things.

The “Song of Solomon” throwing aside the heading of the chapters, which is the work of the English translators, contains nothing which relates to the Savior or the Church. It does not, like every other sacred book, contain even the name of the Deity.

In the Vatican is an ancient picture of Adam, with the Latin inscription “Adam divinitus edoctus, primus scientiarum et literarum inventor.”

The word translated “slanderers” in I Timothy iii, 2, and that translated “false accusers” in Titus ii, 3, are “female devils” in the original Greek of the New Testament.

The Hebrew language contains no word (except perhaps Jehovah) which conveys to the mind the idea of Eternity. The translators of the Old Testament have used the word Eternity but once.

“The slipper of Cinderella,” says the editor of the new edition of Warton “finds a parallel in the history of the celebrated Rhodope.” Cinderella is a tale of universal currency. An ancient Danish ballad has some of the incidents. It is popular among the Welch—also among the Poles—in Hesse and Swerhn. Schottky found it among the Servian fables. Rollenbagen in his Froschmauseler speaks of it as the tale of the despised [p. 577] Aschen-possel. Luther mentions it. It is in the Italian Pentamerone under the title of Cenerentola.

Porphyry, than whom no one could be better acquainted with the theology of the ancients, acknowledged Vesta, Rhea, Ceres, Themis, Priapus, Proserpina, Bacchus, Attis, Adonis, Silenus, and the Satyrs to be one and the same.

Servius on Virgil's Æneid speaks of a bearded Venus. The poet Calvus in Macrobius speaks of Venus as masculine. Valerius Soranus among other titles calls Jupiter the Mother of the Gods.

In Suidas is a letter from Dionysius, the Areopagite, dated Heliopolis, in the fourth year of the 202d Olympiad (the year of Christ's crucifixion) to his friend Apollophanes, in which is mentioned a total eclipse of the sun at noon. “Either,” says Dionysius “the author of nature suffers, or he sympathizes with some who do.”

The most particular history of the Deluge, and the nearest of any to the account given by Moses is to be found in Lucian (De Dea Syria.)

The Greeks had no historian prior to Cadmus Milesius, nor any public inscription of which we can be certified, before the laws of Draco.

So great is the uncertainty of ancient history that the epoch of Semiramis cannot be ascertained within 1535 years, for according to

The book of Jasher, said to have been preserved from the deluge by Noah, but since lost, was extant in the time of Joshua, and in the time of David. Mr. Bryant thinks, however, very justly, that the ten tables of stone were the first written characters. The book of Jasher is mentioned Joshua x. 13, and 2 Samuel i. 18.

Andrè Chenier, imprisoned during the French Revolution, began thus some lines on his unhappy situation,

At this instant Andrè Chenier was interrupted by the officials of the guillotine.

Archbishop Usher, in a MS. of St. Patrick's life, said to have been found at Louvain as an original of a very remote date, detected several entire passages purloined from his own writings.

An extract from the “Mystery of St. Denis” is in the “Bibliotheque du Theatre Francois, depuis son origine, Dresde. 1768.” In this serious drama, St. Denis, having been tortured and at length decapitated, rises very quietly, takes his head under his arm and walks off the stage in all the dignity of martyrdom.

The idea of “No light but rather darkness visible” was perhaps suggested to Milton by Spenser's

In the Dutch Vondel's tragedy “The Deliverance of the Children of Israel” one of the principal characters is the Divinity himself.

Darwin is indebted for a great part of his “Great poem” to a Latin one by De La Croix, published in 1727 and entitled “Connubia Florum.”

Mr. Bryant in his learned “Mythology” says that although the Pagan fables are not believed, yet we forget ourselves continually and make inferences from them as existing realities.

The shield of Achilles in Homer seems to have been copied from some Pharos which the poet had seen in Egypt. What he describes on the central part of the shield is a map of the earth and of the celestial appearances.

Anaxagoras of Clazomenæ is said to have prophecied that a stone would fall from the sun. This is a mistake of the learned. All that Anaxagoras averred may be seen in the Scholiast upon Pindar (Olymp. Ode. 1.) It amounts only to this, that Petros was a name of the sun.

The Hebrew language has lain now for two thousand years mute and incapable of utterance. The “Masoretical punctuation” which professes to supply the vowels was formed a thousand years after the language had ceased to be spoken, and disagrees in many instances with the Seventy, Origen and other writers.

James Montgomery thinks proper to style M'Pherson's Ossian, a collection “of halting, dancing, lumbering, grating, nondescript paragraphs.”

The paucity of spondees in the English language, is the reason why we cannot tolerate an English Hexameter. Sir Philip Sidney, in his Arcadia, thus speaks of Love in what is meant for Hexameter verse:

is a very remarkable passage in Milton's Paradise Lost, wherein a person is personified.

It is certain that Hebrew verse did not include rhyme: the terminations of the lines where they are most distinct, never showing any thing of the kind.

Francis le Brossano engraved these verses upon a marble tomb which he erected to Petrarch at Arqua.

“Statua Statuæ” was an inscription handed about at Paris for the equestrian statue of Louis XV, begun by Bouchardon and finished by Pigal. The following also,

And another,

Bochart derives Elysium from the Phœnician Elysoth, joy, through the Greek Ἠλυσιον. Circe from the Phœnician Kirkar, to corrupt—Siren from the Phœnician Sir, to sing—Scylla from the Phœnician Scol, destruction—Charybdis from the Phœnician Chor-obdam, chasm of ruin.

Attrogs, a fruit common in Palestine, is supposed to have been “the forbidden.” It has a rough rind, and resembles a citron or lemon.

The following quaint sentence is found in Saint Evremond. “I own I do not envy him, when I consider that there are in the next world such people as Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Eacus.”

The standard of Judas Maccabæus displayed the words “Mi camoca baelim Jehovah”—Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the Gods? This being afterwards intimated by the first letter of each word, in the manner of the S. P. Q. R., gave rise to the surname Maccabæus—for the initials in Hebrew form “Maccabi.”

Josephus, with Saint Paul and others, supposed man to be compounded of body, soul, and spirit. The distinction between soul and spirit is an essential point in ancient philosophy.

Lord Lyttleton acknowledged the authorship of two dialogues, in the first of which the personages were the Savior and Socrates, in the second king David and Cæsar Borgia.

Dante gives the name of sonnet to his little canzone or ode beginning

Boileau is mistaken in saying that Petrarch ‘qui est regardé comme le pere du sonnet’ borrowed it from the French or Provençal writers. The Italian sonnet can be traced back as far as the year 1200. Petrarch was not born until 1304.

The learned Menage has this epitaph on Sannazarius

The two reprehensible lines in Pope's Eloisa,

are to be found in the original letters of Eloisa—at least the thought.

Mercier, in “L'an deux mille quatre cents quarante” seriously maintains the doctrines of the Metempsychosis, and J. D'Israeli says there is no system so simple, and so little repugnant to the understanding.

One of the best epigrams affixed to the statue of Pasquin was the following upon Paul III,

Milton in Paradise Lost, has this passage,

Gray, in his Ode to Adversity, has

Gray tells us that the image of his bard, where

was taken from a picture by Raphael: yet the beard of Hudibras is also likened to a meteor,

The lines

are not to be found, as is thought, in Hudibras. Butler's verses ran thus;

The former are in a volume of ‘Poems’ by Sir John Mennes, reign of Charles II. The original idea is in Demosthenes. Ανερ ο φεογων και παλιν μαχησεται.

“Semel insanivimus omnes” is not from Horace but from Mantuanus, an Italian. In a work entitled “De honesto amore” is this line,

Dryden in ‘Absalom and Achitophel’ has these lines,

Pope in his Epistle to Arbuthnot has

Tickell's lines

are evidently borrowed from those of Boileau,

The expression, ‘nemorumque noctem' occurring in one of Gray's Latin odes, has been repeatedly found fault with—yet Virgil has ‘medio nimborum in nocte.’

Selden observes of Henry VIII, that he was a king with a pope in his belly.

In the ‘Nubes’ of Aristophanes, there are several Greek verses in rhyme.

Of the ten tragedies which are attributed to Seneca, (the only Roman tragedies extant,) nine are on Greek subjects.

Ariosto says of one of his heroes, that, in the heat of combat, not perceiving that he was a dead man, he continued to fight valiantly, dead as he was.

The author of ‘La Maniere de bien Penser’ speaks of a French divine who, to prove that young persons sometimes die before old ones, cited the text, ‘Prœcucurrit citius Petro Johannes et venit primus ad monumentum.’

There is no passage among all the writings of antiquity more sublime than these lines of Silius Italicus. The words are addressed to a young man of Capua, who proposed to assassinate Hannibal at a banquet.

These lines of Tasso are a curious specimen of literary robbery—being made up entirely of passages from Lucan and Sulspicius. Lucan says of Troy

and Sulspicius in a letter to Cicero says of Megara, Egina, Corinth, &c.—“Hem! nos homunculi indignamur si quis nostrum interiit, quorum vita brevior esse debet, cum uno loco tot oppidorum cadavera projecta jaceant.”

An epigram upon the subject of Francois de Bassompiere being released from the Bastille upon the death of Richelieu, is a strange mixture of lofty thought and puerile conceit.

The line, “France, Je sors de ma prison,” is the anagram of Francois de Bassompiere.

The epigrams of the Greek Anthology are characterized more by náiveté than point. They are for the most part insipid.

Longinus calls pompous and inflated thoughts, “reveries of Jupiter”—insomnia Jovis.

A French writer of celebrity dedicated a book to Richelieu in terms of the most blasphemous flattery. But being disappointed in his expectations, he suppressed all his praises in a second edition, and re-dedicated his volume “á Jesus Christ.”

The following inscription intended for the Louvre, possesses both simplicity and dignity:

Under a fine painting of St. Bruno in solitude, some Italian wrote these words, “Egli è vivo, e parlerebbe se non osservasse la rigola del silentio.” Malherbe has taken the hint in his epigram upon a picture of Saint Catherine.

A fine sample of galimatias is to be found in an epigram of Miguel de Cervantes:

Quintillian mentions a pedant who taught obscurity, and who was wont to say to his scholars, “This is excellent—I do not understand it myself.”

An Italian metaphysician to disprove that greatness of mind is proportioned to the size of the skull, argues thus: “Non sano, che la mente è il centro del capo; e il centro non cresce per la grandezza del circolo.”

A horse is often seen on ancient sepulchral monuments. Caylus quotes a passage from Passeri, “de animæ transvectione,” implying that the horse designates the passage of the soul to Elysium.

The Satyre Menippée of the French is, in prose, the exact counterpart of Hudibras in rhyme.

A remarkable instance of concord of sound and sense is to be seen in the following stanza by M. Anton. Flaminius:

Voltaire's ignorance of antiquity is laughable. In his Essay on Tragedy, prefixed to Brutus, he actually boasts of having introduced the Roman senate on the stage in red mantles. “The Greeks,” as he asserts, “font paraitre ses acteurs (tragic) sur des especes d'echasses, le visage couvert d'un masque qui exprime la douleur d'un coté et la joye de l'autre!” The only circumstance upon which he could possibly have founded such an accusation is, that in the new comedy masks were worn with one eyebrow drawn up and the other down, to denote a busy-body or inquisitive medler.

Several ancient tragedies, viz: Eumenides, Philoctetes, and Ædipus et Colonos, besides many pieces of Euripides, have a happy and enlivening termination.

The only historical tragedies by Grecian authors [p. 580] were The Capture of Miletus by Phrynicus and the Persians of Æschylus.

The foundation of all the erroneous opinions on the subject of the old Greek comedy (Voltaire's opinion particularly) may be found in the comparison between Aristophanes and Menander, in Plutarch.

Schlegel says justly, that Harlequin and Pulcinello descend in a direct line from the buffoons of the ancient Romans. On Greek vases are seen also dresses like theirs—long breeches and waistcoats with arms, articles worn by neither Greeks nor Romans except upon the stage. At present Zanni is one of the names of Harlequin, and Sannio in the Latin farces was a buffoon who had a shaven head, and a dress patched together of all colors.

In Racine's Berenice Antiochus says to the queen

and to give a direct proof of his intention, recites immediately no less than fifty verses in a breath.

In Voltaire's scruples about unity of place he has committed a thousand blunders. In the Mort de Cæsar the scene is in the Capitol, but the people seem not to know their precise situation. On one occasion Cæsar exclaims, “Courons au Capitole!”

Denis de Sallo's “Journal des Sçavans,” in 1665 may be considered as the origin of Literary Journals or Reviews.

was Le Sage's epitaph.

These lines although extremely French are forcible,

On Cardinal Richelieu, Benserade made the following epitaph:

The Jesuits called Crebillon ‘Puer ingeniosus, sed insignis nebulo.’

Dr. E. Young published “A true Estimate of Human Life, Part I,” dedicated to Queen Anne, and describing the shades of existence. The second part, however, which should have contained the lights never appeared.

The “Batrachomyomachia,” is nothing more than a burlesque poem, much in the manner of Aristophanes, and doubtfully attributed to Homer. Philip Melancthon however, wrote a commentary to prove the poet's object was to excite a hatred for tumults and sedition. Pierre La Seine going a step farther, thinks the intention was to recommend to young men temperance in eating and drinking.

“Amare et sapere vix Deo conceditur,” is not Seneca's as generally supposed.

The heathen poets are mentioned three times in the New Testament. Aratus in the seventeenth chapter of Acts—Menander in the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians—also Epimenides.

was a line written during the pontificate of Alexander VI. Sextus Tarquinius provoked by his tyranny the expulsion of the kings of Rome. Urban VI began the great schism of the West. Alexander VI astonished the world by the enormity of his crimes, and Pius VI did not falsify the saying.

A letter was once addressed from Rome “Alla sua Excellenza Seromfidevi,” in London. It caused much perplexity at the Post-office and British Museum, and after foiling the acumen of a minister of state, was found to be intended for Sir Humphrey Davy.

The vulgar Christian era is the invention of Dionysius Exiguus.

The book of Judith was originally written in Chaldee, and thence translated into Latin by St. Jerom. There are several particulars in our English version which are not to be found in St. Jerom's, and which seem to be those readings which he professes to omit as vicious corruptions.

The proverb, “Evil communications corrupt good manners,” which is found in Corinthians, is a quotation, intended as such, from Euripides.

Varro reckons three epochs: the first from the beginning of the world to the first flood, which he calls uncertain; the second from the flood to the first Olympiad, fabulous; the third from the first Olympiad to his own time, historical.

Politian, the poet and scholar, was an admirer of Alessandra Scala, and addressed to her this extempore:

In the Latin version of Herodotus, the lowest of the towers forming the temple of Belus, is said to be a furlong thick and a furlong high; and some writers concluding each of the eight to be as high, make the whole one mile in height. In the Greek text, however, the lowest tower is merely said to be a furlong through—nothing is said of its height. Strabo makes the temple a furlong altogether in altitude.

Jacobus Hugo was of opinion that by the Harpies Homer intended the Dutch; by Euenis, John Calvin; by Antinous, Martin Luther; and by the Lotophagi, Protestants in general.

“Impune quæ libet facere id est esse regem,” is a definition of a king to be found in Sallust.

The first collection of the Iliad was by Pisistratus, or some of the Pisistratidæ. There were, after this, innumerable editions—but Aristarchus in the reign of Ptolemy Philometer, B.C. 150, published from a collection of all the copies then existing, a new edition, the text of which has finally prevailed.

Some one after the manner of Santeuil, composed the following quatrain for the gates of the market to be erected on the site of the famous Jacobin Club at Paris,

A version of the Psalms was published in 1642 by William Slatyer, of which this is a specimen:

At the bottom of an obelisk which Pius VI was erecting at great expense near the entrance of the Quirinal Palace in 1783, while the people were suffering for bread, were found written these words,

Constantine Koliades wrote a book to prove that Homer and Ulysses were one and the same—but Joshua Barnes attributes the authorship of the Iliad to Solomon.

In Σ. xviii. 192, of the Iliad, Achilles says none of the armor of the chieftains will fit him except the shield of Ajax: how then did his own armor fit Patroclus?

In the reign of Edward VI, Dr. Christopher Tye turned the Acts of the Apostles into rhyme. They begin thus,

Empedocles professed the system of four elements, and added thereto two principles which he called ‘principium amicitiæ and principium contentionis.’ What are these but attraction and repulsion?

The Count Bielfeld's definition of poetry is ‘L'art d'exprimer les pensées par la fiction.’ The German terms Dichtkunst, the art of fiction, and Dichten to feign, which are used for Poetry, and to make verses, are in full accordance with his definition.

The Germans have epic poems composed in metre of sixteen and seventeen syllables.

The following Vaudeville is one of the drollest of its kind:

On ancient monuments are often found the letters A. E. R. A. meaning Annus erat Regni Augusti. The ignorance of copyists may probably have formed of these letters the single word ÆRA. Would it not be a better derivation than the Latin ÆS?

The work of John Albert Fabricius, the Hamburg professor, entitled Bibliotheca Græca, in which his sole object is to render an account of the Greek authors extant, occupies fourteen thick volumes in quarto.

The usual derivation of the word Metaphysics is not to be sustained. Meta physicam is tortured into meaning super physicam, and the science is supposed to take its name from its superiority to physics. The truth is, that Aristotle's treatise on Morals is next in succession to his Book of Physics, and this order he considers the rational order of study. His Ethics consequently commence with the words Μετα τα φυσικα, &c. from which the word Metaphysics.

The commentators upon Mr. Beckford's Vathek say that the locusts derive their name from having been so called by the first English settlers in America. The word comes evidently from loco usto, the havoc they made wherever they passed leaving the appearance of a place desolated by fire.

M. Patru was convinced that in all his prose writings no sentence or part of a sentence could be found so cadenced as to form a verse. A friend, however immediately pointed out to him the words in his ‘Plaidoyers’

Despreaux speaking of the cæsura in French versification, asserts,

M. Despreaux seems to have forgotten that hemistich is a composite Greek word signifying a demi-line, and that consequently his own admired verses have no meaning at all.

Every one is acquainted with the excellent commencement of the Annals of Tacitus. From this, principally he has acquired his reputation for concision. It is singular that no notice has ever been taken of the extreme prolixity of their conclusion.

There is a dissertation upon Hebrew, or Samaritan medals by Père Soucier, in which he proves the existence of Hebrew money struck by the Jews upon the model of the coins current before the captivity. All the Hebrew medals, however, bearing a head of Moses or of Christ, are manifestly forgeries.

There is a book by a Jesuit, Père Labbe, entitled La Bibliothèque des Bibliothèques. It is a catalogue of all authors in all nations who have written catalogues of books.

Lucretius, lib. v. 93, 96, has the words,

Ovid the lines,

Albert in his Hebrew Dictionary, pretends to discover in each word, in its root, in its letters, and in the manner of pronouncing them, the reason of its signification. Loescher in his treatise De causis Linguæ Hebreæ, carries the matter even farther.

In Judges is this expression, ‘And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter.’ The phrase ‘to smite hip and thigh’ arises from these words. No meaning, however, can be attached to them as they stand—but the original will admit of a different signification, viz: ‘He smote them with his leg on the thigh,’ and alludes to the wrestling matches which were common in the east. In this sense the phrase exactly answers to the ‘crus femori impingere’ and the σκελιξειν or αποσκελιξειν of the ancients.

It is a remarkable fact, that during the whole period of the middle ages, the Germans lived in utter ignorance of the art of writing.

The silver shekel of the Hebrews has on its face the rod of Aaron with the inscription, Jeruschalaim Hakkedoucha, Jerusalem the Holy, and on the reverse a cup with the words Chekel Ischrael, money of Israel.

The Masoretical punctuation is a kind of critique upon the Hebrew text invented by the Jewish teachers to prevent its alteration. The first original being lost, recourse was had to the Masore as an infallible method of fixing the text. The verses, words, and even letters are there counted, and all their variations recorded.

Among the Hebrew text of the Old Testament are mingled a few passages of Chaldaic. All the characters as we have them now, are properly speaking Chaldaic.

A version of the Psalms in 1564, by Archbishop Parker, has the following—

A part of the 137th Psalm runs thus: ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,’ which has been thus paraphrased in a version of the Psalms,

CRITICAL NOTICES.

The Old World and the New; or, a Journal of Reflections and Observations made on a Tour in Europe. By the Reverend Orville Dewey. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Mr. Dewey assures us, in the beginning of his Preface, that his volumes are not offered to the public as an itinerary—but it is difficult to say in what other light they should be regarded. To us they appear as strictly entitled to the appellation as any book of travels we have perused. They are indeed an itinerary of the most inartificial character—a journal in which unconnected remarks follow one upon another—object upon object—day upon day—and all with a scrupulous accuracy in regard to dates. Not that we have much objection to this methodical procedure, but that we cannot understand Mr. Dewey in declaring his book not to be what it most certainly is, if it is any thing at all. His subsequent remark, that every American traveller to the old world enjoys a vantage ground for surveying the institutions, customs, and character of his own country is what we can readily appreciate. We think, also, that in many respects our author has made excellent use of this advantage. But we would be doing our conscience a great wrong in recommending the work before us as a whole. Here is some amusement—great liberality—much excellent sense—a high spirit of sound morality and genuine philanthropy; but indeed very little, so we think, of either novelty or profundity. These two latter qualities are, however, of a nature so strictly relative, and liable to so many modifications from the acquirements or character of the reader, that we feel some hesitation in what we say—and would prefer leaving a decision where it must finally be left—to the voice of the public opinion.

One remarkable feature in the Old World and the New, is its amusing naiveté of manner—a feature which will immediately arrest the attention of every reader. We cannot do better than give a few specimens.

What a pity it is [says Mr. D., and so it is undoubtedly] that cities, or at least streets in cities, could not, like single edifices, be built upon some regular and well considered plan! Not that the result should be such regularity as is seen in Philadelphia or Dublin; the plan indeed would embrace irregularity. But there might be an arrangement, by which a block of buildings, a street, or indeed a whole city, might stand before us as one grand piece of architecture. If single specimens of architecture have the effect to improve, humanize, and elevate the ideas of a people; if they are a language, and answer a purpose kindred to that of literature, poetry and painting, why may not a whole city have this effect? To secure this result, there must, I am afraid, be a power like that of the autocrat of Russia, who, I am told, when a house is built in his royal city of St. Petersburg which does not conform to his general plan, sends word to the owner that he must remove that building and put up another of a certain description.

And again, speaking of the Menai bridge—

A celebrated lady (since dead) in speaking of this stupendous work, said that she first saw it from the Isle of Anglesea, so that it was relieved against the lofty mountains of North Wales; and she added in a strain [p. 583] of eloquent and poetical comparison familiar to her, that Snowdon seemed to her a fit back ground for the Menai Bridge.

All this may be very true, but then only think of the eloquent and poetical comparison of Snowdon being a back ground for the Menai Bridge!

Mrs. Hemans and our author go to church together.

She spoke (says he) of the various accompaniments of the service, and when she came to the banners she said ‘they seemed to wave as the music of the anthem rose to the lofty arches!’ I ventured here to throw in a little dash of prose—saying that I was afraid that they did not wave, that I wished they might, and looked up to see if they did, but could not see it.

Mr. Dewey does not like oatmeal cake.

In good truth I should never desire to have any thing to do with it save as a specimen; for of all the stuff that ever I tasted, it was the most inedible, impracticable, insufferable, dry, hard, coarse, rasping, gritty, chaffy: I could not eat it, and it seemed to me that if I could, it would be no more nourishing than gravel kneaded into mud, and baked in a lime-kiln. As to drink—whiskey! whiskey! the boatman said was the only thing, and the thing indispensable. I tasted of it—and truly it had not the usual odious taste of our American whiskey!

We quote these passages merely as specimens of the singular simplicity—more properly naiveté—which is the prevailing feature of the book.

Mr. Dewey left New York for England on the 8th June 1833, and arrived in St. George's channel on the 24th of the same month, having a fair wind and smooth sea during the entire passage. Leaving England, he visited Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France, Belgium, Prussia, Switzerland, and Italy. Returning by way of Liverpool, he reached home on the 22d of May, 1834.

A New Dictionary of the English Language: By Charles Richardson. London: William Pickering—New York: William Jackson.

The periodical nature of this publication absolves us from what would otherwise be a just charge of neglect in not speaking of it sooner. Five numbers have been issued, and twenty-five more are to be added, at intervals of a fortnight. These numbers are of quarto form, and contain eighty pages in triple columns. The paper is excellent, and the matter beautifully stereotyped. The whole will form, when the publication is completed, two very large quarto volumes, of which the entire cost will have been fifteen dollars. We say when the publication is completed—the work itself is already so—a consideration of great importance, and sure to be appreciated by the thousands of subscribers to the many costly periodicals which have failed in completing their issue, and thus thrown a number of odd volumes upon the hands of the public. In what farther we have to say of this Dictionary, we shall do little more than paraphrase the very satisfactory prospectus of Mr. Richardson himself.

When Dr. Johnson, in 1747, announced his intention of writing a Dictionary of the English language, he communicated the plan of his undertaking in a letter to Lord Chesterfield. The plan was as follows. He would give, first—the natural and primitive meaning of words; secondly, the consequential—and thirdly the metaphorical, arranging the quotations chronologically. The book, however, was published in 1755, without the plan, and strange to say, in utter disregard of the principles avowed in the letter to the Earl of Chesterfield. That these principles were well-conceived, and that if followed out, they would have rendered important service to English lexicography, was not doubted at the time, and cannot be doubted now. Moreover, the necessity for something of the kind which was felt then, is more strongly felt now, for no person has as yet attempted to construct a work upon the plan proposed, and the difficulties which were to have been remedied, are greatly aggravated by time. Eighty years have passed, and not only has no new work been written upon the plan of Dr. Johnson—but no systematic work of reform upon the old basis.

The present Dictionary of Mr. Richardson is, distinctly, a new work, upon a system never attempted before—upon the principles of Horne Tooke, the greatest of philosophical grammarians, and whose developments of an entirely novel theory of language have excited the most profound interest and respect in the minds of all who think.

In the Diversions of Purley, it is positively demonstrated that a word has one meaning and one only, and that from this one meaning all the usages of the word must spring. “To discover this meaning,” says Mr. Richardson, “etymological research was indispensable, and I have stated the results of such research with conciseness, it is true, yet with a fullness that will enable the more learned reader to form a judgment for himself, and the path of deeper investigation is disclosed to the pursuit of the curious inquirer.” In tracing the usages of words, Mr. R. has availed himself of the materials collected by Johnson and his editors, “the various supplements and provincial vocabularies, the notes of editors and commentators upon our older poets, and of abundant treasures amassed for his own peculiar use.” The quotations are arranged chronologically, and embrace extracts from the earliest to the latest writers of English. The etymology is placed distinctly by itself for the convenience of hasty reference. As an example of the arrangement of the work, we will give the word Calefy.

But crystal will calefie into electricity; that is, a power to attract straws or light bodies and convert the needle freely placed.—Brown. Vulgar Errours, b. ii. c. 1.

As [if] the remembrance of calefaction can warm a man in a cold frosty night.—More. Philos. Poems, c. 2, Pref.

But ice will dissolve in any way of heat; for it will dissolve with fire; it will colliquate in water, or warm oyl; nor doth it onely submit unto an actual heat, but not endure the potential calidity of many waters.—Brown. Vulgar Errours. b. ii. c. 1.

Since the subterranean caliducts have been introduced. Evelyn.

In his prospectus, Mr. Richardson has had occasion to speak in no measured terms of the Dictionary of Dr. Webster. We here repeat his observations because we think them entirely just.

The author is conscious that he should be chargeable with great want of courtesy if he passed unnoticed the American Dictionary of Dr. Webster. His censure however must be short. Dr. Webster disarmed and stripped himself for the field, and advanced unaided and unshielded to the combat. He abjured the assistance of Skinner and Vossius, and the learned elders of lexicography; and of Tooke he quaintly says, ‘I have made no use of his writings.’ There is a display of oriental reading in his Preliminary Essays, which as introductory to a Dictionary of the English Language, seems as appropriate and useful as a reference to the code of Gentoo laws to decide a question of English inheritance. Dr. Webster was entirely unacquainted with our old authors.

We believe the North American Review has remarked of the work before us, that its definitions are in some measure too scanty, and not sufficiently compact. This defect, which cannot altogether be denied, and which is, to say the truth, of more importance to the mass of readers than to the philologist, will be found, upon examination, a defect inseparable from the plan originally proposed, and which insists upon an arrangement of derivatives under primitives. We are not tempted, however, to wish any modification of the principal design, for the sake of a partial, and not very important amendment.

We conclude in heartily recommending the work of Mr. Richardson to the attention of our readers. It embraces we think, every desideratum in an English Dictionary, and has moreover a thousand negative virtues. Messrs. Mayo and Davis are the agents in Richmond.

The Book of Gems. The Poets and Artists of Great Britain. Edited by S. C. Hall. London and New York: Saunders and Otley.

This work combines the rich embellishments of the very best of the race of Annuals, with a far higher claim to notice than any of them in its strictly literary department. If we regard this volume as the only one to appear, the title will convey no idea of the design—but we are promised a continuation. The whole, if we comprehend, will contain specimens of all the principal poets and artists of Great Britain. In the present instance we have the poets as far as Prior, including a period of about four hundred years, with extracts from Chaucer, Lydgate, James I, Hawes, Carew, Quarles, Shirley, Habington, Lovelace, Wyatt, Surrey, Sackville, Vere, Gascoigne, Raleigh, Spenser, Sidney, Brooke, Southwell, Daniel, Drayton, Shakspeare, Walton, Davies, Donne, Jonson, Corbet, Phineas Fletcher, Giles Fletcher, Drummond, Wither, Carew, Browne, Herrick, Quarles, Herbert, Davenant, Waller, Milton, Suckling, Butler, Crashaw, Denham, Cowley, Marvell, Dryden, Roscommon, Dorset, Sedley, Rochester, Sheffield, and Prior. Of these, all the autographs have been obtained and are published collectively at the end of the book, with the exception of the nine first mentioned. The work is illustrated by fifty-three engravings, each by different artists. A sea-side group by Harding, and L'Allegro and Il Penseroso by Parris, are particularly good—but all are excellent.

We had prepared some observations in regard to the book itself, (over which we have been poring for many days with intense delight) and in regard more especially to the character and justice of that deep feeling with which most men, having claim to taste, are wont to look, even through a veil of exceedingly troublesome obscurity and antiquity, upon the writings of the elder poets and dramatists of Great Britain. But we have been so nearly anticipated in our design by a paper in the American Monthly Magazine for July, that what we should now say, and say con amore, would be looked upon as little better than a rifacimento of the article we mention. At the same time it would be an ill deed to remodel our thoughts, and proceed to think falsely, for the mere purpose of proving that we can think originally. In this dilemma then, we will merely express our general accordance in the opinions of the Northern Magazine, copy, of its critique, a portion which seems to embody, in little compass, much of what we have said less forcibly and more diffusely, and add some few additional observations which have lately suggested themselves.

“Among the early English poets, so called,” says the American Monthly, “there is combined with marked individuality, a sort of general resemblance, not easily defined, but readily perceived by a discriminating reader. They lived in an age of invention, and wrote from a pleasurable impulse which they could not resist. They did not borrow from one another, or from those who had gone before them, nor pass their time in pouring from one vessel into another. Thus, however different their styles, however various their subjects, whether the flight of their genius be high or low, there is the same aspect of truth and naturalness in the poetry of them all; as we can trace a common likeness in all faces which have an open, ingenuous expression, however little resemblance there may be in the several features. Most of them were well acquainted with books, and many of them were deeply learned; and an air of ripe scholarship sometimes degenerating into pedantry, pervades every thing they wrote. As a class too, they are remarkable for a healthy, intellectual tone, defaced neither by moody misanthropy, nor mawkish sentimentality. The manly Saxon character beams out from every line; and that vigorous good sense, so characteristic of the English stock, every where leaves its impress. Another trait which, with a few exceptions, honorably distinguishes them, is the purity of their sentiments, and their high moral feeling, especially in all that touches the relation of the sexes. We shall find many coarse expressions, such as a man would not read aloud to his family; but very rarely any thing bordering upon heartless profligacy, or studied licentiousness, or any intimation of a want of respect for the great principles of the moral law. Due reverence is always shown for those high personal qualities which constitute the best security for the greatness and prosperity of a people. Homage is always paid to honor in man, and chastity in woman. The passion of love, in its multitudinous forms and aspects, supplies a large proportion of their themes, and it is treated with equal delicacy and beauty. In the amatory strains of the old English poets, we perceive a romantic self-forgetfulness, an idealization of the beloved object, a tenderness and respectfulness of feeling, in which the passion is almost wholly swallowed up in the sentiment, and a wooing with the best treasures of the intellect as well [p. 585] as the heart, such as can be found in no other class of poets.”

Notwithstanding the direct truth of what has been here so well advanced, it cannot, we think, be a matter of doubt with any reflecting mind, that at least one-third of the reverence, or of the affection, with which we regard the elder poets of Great Britain, should be credited to what is, in itself, a thing apart from poetry—we mean to the simple love of the antique—and that again a third of even the proper poetic sentiment inspired by these writings should be ascribed to a fact which, while it has a strict connection with poetry in the abstract, and also with the particular poems in question, must not be looked upon as a merit appertaining to the writers of the poems. Almost every devout reader of the old English bards, if demanded his opinion of their productions, would mention vaguely, yet with perfect sincerity, a sense of dreamy, wild, indefinite, and he would perhaps say, undefinable delight. Upon being required to point out the source of this so shadowy pleasure, he would be apt to speak of the quaint in phraseology and of the grotesque in rhythm. And this quaintness and grotesqueness are, as we have elsewhere endeavored to show, very powerful, and if well managed, very admissible adjuncts to Ideality. But in the present instance they arise independently of the author's will, and are matters altogether apart from his intention. The American Monthly has forcibly painted the general character of the old English Muse. She was a maid, frank, guileless, and perfectly sincere, and although very learned at times, still very learned without art. No general error evinces a more thorough confusion of ideas than the error of supposing Donne and Cowley metaphysical in the sense wherein Wordsworth and Coleridge are so. With the two former ethics were the end—with the two latter the means. The poet of the Creation wished, by highly artificial verse, to inculcate what he considered moral truth—he of the Auncient Mariner to infuse the Poetic Sentiment through channels suggested by mental analysis. The one finished by complete failure what he commenced in the grossest misconception—the other, by a path which could not possibly lead him astray, arrived at a certainty and intensity of triumph which is not the less brilliant and glorious because concentrated among the very few who have the power to perceive it. It will now be seen that even the “metaphysical verse” of Cowley is no more than evidence of the straight-forward simplicity and single-heartedness of the man. And he was in all this but a type of his school—for we may as well designate in this way the entire class of writers whose poems are bound up in the volume before us, and throughout all of whom runs a very perceptible general character. They used but little art in composition. Their writings sprang immediately from the soul—and partook intensely of the nature of that soul. It is not difficult to perceive the tendency of this glorious abandon. To elevate immeasurably all the energies of mind—but again—so to mingle the greatest possible fire, force, delicacy, and all good things, with the lowest possible bathos, baldness, and utter imbecility, as to render it not a matter of doubt, but of certainty, that the average results of mind in such a school, will be found inferior to those results in one (ceteris paribus) more artificial. Such, we think, is the view of the older English Poetry, in which a very calm examination will bear us out. The quaintness in manner of which we were just speaking, is an adventitious advantage. It formed no portion of the poet's intention. Words and their rhythm have varied. Verses which affect us to day with a vivid delight, and which delight in some instances, may be traced to this one source of grotesqueness and to none other, must have worn in the days of their construction an air of a very common-place nature. This is no argument, it will be said, against the poems now. Certainly not—we mean it for the poets then. The notion of power, of excessive power, in the English antique writers should be put in its proper light. This is all we desire to see done.

We cannot bring ourselves to believe that the selections made use of in the Book of Gems, are such as will impart to a poetical reader the highest possible idea of the beauty of the school. Better extracts might be made. Yet if the intention were merely to show the character of the school the attempt is entirely successful. There are long passages now before us of the most utterly despicable trash, with no merit whatever beyond their simple antiquity. And it is almost needless to say that there are many passages too of a glorious strength—a radiant loveliness, making the blood tingle in our veins as we peruse them. The criticisms of the Editor do not please us in a great degree. He seems to have fallen into the common cant in such cases. In one instance the American Monthly accords with him in an unjust opinion touching some verses by Sir Henry Wotton, on the Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I, and about which it is said that “there are few finer things in our language.” Our readers will agree with us, we believe, that this praise is exaggerated. We quote the lines in full.

In such lines we can perceive not one of those higher attributes of the Muse which belong to her under all circumstances and throughout all time. Here everything is art—naked or but awkwardly concealed. No prepossession for the mere antique (for in this case we can imagine no other prepossession) should induce us to dignify with the sacred name of Poesy, a series such as this, of elaborate and threadbare compliments, (threadbare even at the time of their composition) stitched apparently together, without fancy, without [p. 586] plausibility, without adaptation of parts—and it is needless to add, without a jot of imagination.

We have been much delighted with the Shepherd's Hunting, by Wither—a poem partaking, in a strange degree, of the peculiarities of the Penseroso. Speaking of Poesy he says—

But these verses, however good, do not bear with them much of the general character of the English antique. Something more of this will be found in the following lines by Corbet—besides a rich vein of humor and sarcasm.

The Maiden lamenting for her Fawn, by Marvell, is, we are pleased to see, a favorite with our friends of the American Monthly. Such portion of it as we now copy, we prefer not only as a specimen of the elder poets, but, in itself, as a beautiful poem, abounding in the sweetest pathos, in soft and gentle images, in the most exquisitely delicate imagination, and in truth—to any thing of its species.

How truthful an air of deep lamentation hangs here upon every gentle syllable! It pervades all. It comes over the sweet melody of the words, over the gentleness and grace which we fancy in the little maiden herself, [p. 587] even over the half-playful, half-petulant air with which she lingers on the beauties and good qualities of her favorite—like the cool shadow of a summer cloud over a bed of lilies and violets, and “all sweet flowers.”

The whole thing is redolent with poetry of the very loftiest order. It is positively crowded with nature and with pathos. Every line is an idea—conveying either the beauty and playfulness of the fawn, or the artlessness of the maiden, or the love of the maiden, or her admiration, or her grief, or the fragrance and sweet warmth, and perfect appropriateness of the little nestlike bed of lilies and roses, which the fawn devoured as it lay upon them, and could scarcely be distinguished from them by the once happy little damsel who went to seek her pet with an arch and rosy smile upon her face. Consider the great variety of truth and delicate thought in the few lines we have quoted—the wonder of the maiden at the fleetness of her favorite—the “little silver feet”—the fawn challenging his mistress to the race, “with a pretty skipping grace,” running on before, and then, with head turned back, awaiting her approach only to fly from it again—can we not distinctly perceive all these things? The exceeding vigor, too, and beauty of the line

which are vividly apparent when we regard the artless nature of the speaker, and the four feet of the favorite—one for each wind. Then the garden of “my own,” so overgrown—entangled—with lilies and roses as to be “a little wilderness”—the fawn loving to be there and there “only”—the maiden seeking it “where it should lie,” and not being able to distinguish it from the flowers until “itself would rise”—the lying among the lilies “like a bank of lilies”—the loving to “fill” itself with roses,

and these things being its “chief” delights—and then the pre-eminent beauty and naturalness of the concluding lines—whose very outrageous hyperbole and absurdity only render them the more true to nature and to propriety, when we consider the innocence, the artlessness, the enthusiasm, the passionate grief, and more passionate admiration of the bereaved child.

Report of the Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred memorials from sundry citizens of Connecticut interested in the whale fishing, praying that an exploring expedition be fitted out to the Pacific Ocean and South Seas. March 21, 1836.

That a more accurate, defined, and available knowledge than we at present possess, of the waters, islands, and continental coasts of the great Pacific and Southern Oceans, has long been desirable, no unprejudiced individual conversant with the subject, is likely to deny. A portion of the community unrivalled in activity, enterprise and perseverance, and of paramount importance both in a political and commercial point of view, has long been reaping a rich harvest of individual wealth and national honor in these vast regions. The Pacific may be termed the training ground, the gymnasium of our national navy. The hardihood and daring of that branch of our commercial marine employed in its trade and fisheries, have almost become a proverb. It is in this class we meet with the largest aggregate of that cool self-possession, courage, and enduring fortitude, which have won for us our enviable position among the great maritime powers; and it is from this class we may expect to recruit a considerable proportion of the physical strength and moral intelligence necessary to maintain and improve it. The documentary evidence upon which the report before us is based, forms an appendix to it, and is highly interesting in its character. It awakens our admiration at the energy and industry which have sustained a body of daring men, while pursuing a dangerous and arduous occupation, amid the perils and casualties of an intricate navigation, in seas imperfectly known. It enlists our sympathies in the hardships and difficulties they have combatted, places in strong relief the justice of their claims upon the nation for aid and protection, and shows the expediency of the measure which has at last resulted from their representations. The report itself is clear, manly, decided—the energetic language of men who, having examined the data submitted to them with the consideration the interests it involved seemed to require, are anxious to express their sentiments with a force and earnestness suited to their views of the urgent occasion and of the course they recommend.

It is a glorious study to contemplate the progress made by human industry, from stage to stage, when engaged in the prosecution of a laudable object. Little more than a century ago, only the crews of a few miserable open boats, too frail to venture far from land, waged a precarious warfare with the great leviathans of the deep, along the shores of Cape Cod and Nantucket—then occupied, at distant intervals, by a few inconsiderable fishing stations. The returns even of these first efforts were lucrative, and more appropriate vessels for the service were fitted out. These extended their cruises northward to Labrador, and southward to the West Indies. At length the adventurers, in vessels of yet greater capacity, strength and durability, crossed the Equator and followed their hardy calling along the Eastern Shore of the Southern Peninsula and on the Western and North Western coast of Africa. The Revolution of course operated as a temporary check to their prosperity, but shortly thereafter these dauntless mariners doubled Cape Horn, and launched their daring keels into the comparatively unknown waste beyond, in search of their gigantic prey. Since that fortunate advent, the increase in the shipping, extent, and profits of the fishery, has been unprecedented, and new sources of wealth the importance of which it is at present impossible to estimate, have been opened to us in the same quarter. The trade in skins of the sea-otter and seal, in the fur of land animals on the North West coast, &c. has been extensive in extent and avails. The last mentioned animal, besides the valuable ivory it affords, yields a coarse oil which, in the event of the whale becoming extinct before the perpetual warfare of man, would prove a valuable article of consumption. Of the magnitude of the commercial interest involved in different ways in the Pacific trade, an idea may be gathered in the following extract from the main subject of our review. Let it be [p. 588] borne in mind, that many of the branches of this trade are as yet in their infancy, that the natural resources to which they refer are apparently almost inexhaustible; and we shall become aware that all which is now in operation, is but as a dim shadow to the mighty results which may be looked for, when this vast field for national enterprise is better known and appreciated.

“No part of the commerce of this country is more important than that carried on in the Pacific Ocean. It is large in amount. Not less than $12,000,000 are invested in and actively employed by one branch of the whale fishery alone; in the whole trade there is directly and indirectly involved not less than fifty to seventy millions of property. In like manner from 170 to 200,000 tons of our shipping, and from 9 to 12000 of our seamen are employed, amounting to about one-tenth of the whole navigation of the Union. Its results are profitable. It is to a great extent not a mere exchange of commodities, but the creation of wealth by labor from the ocean. The fisheries alone produce at this time an annual income of from five to six millions of dollars; and it is not possible to look at Nantucket, New Bedford, New London, Sag Harbor and a large number of other districts upon our Northern coasts, without the deep conviction that it is an employment alike beneficial to the moral, political, and commercial interests of our fellow-citizens.”

In a letter from Commodore Downes to the Honorable John Reed, which forms part of the supplement to the report, that experienced officer observes—

“During the circumnavigation of the globe, in which I crossed the equator six times, and varied my course from 40 deg. North to 57 deg. South latitude, I have never found myself beyond the limits of our commercial marine. The accounts given of the dangers and losses to which our ships are exposed by the extension of our trade into seas but little known, so far, in my opinion from being exaggerated, would admit of being placed in bolder relief, and the protection of government employed in stronger terms. I speak from practical knowledge, having myself seen the dangers and painfully felt the want of the very kind of information which our commercial interests so much need, and which, I suppose, would be the object of such an expedition as is now under consideration before the committee of Congress to give.

“The commerce of our country has extended itself to remote parts of the world, is carried on around islands and reefs not laid down in the charts, among even groups of islands from ten to sixty in number, abounding in objects valuable in commerce, but of which nothing is known accurately; no not even the sketch of a harbor has been made, while of such as are inhabited our knowledge is still more imperfect.”

In reading this evidence (derived from the personal observation of a judicious and experienced commander) of the vast range of our commerce in the regions alluded to, and of the imminent risks and perils to which those engaged in it are subjected, it cannot but create a feeling of surprise, that a matter of such vital importance as the adoption of means for their relief, should so long have been held in abeyance. A tabular view of the discoveries of our whaling captains in the Pacific and Southern seas, which forms part of another document, seems still further to prove the inaccuracy and almost utter worthlessness of the charts of these waters, now in use.

Enlightened liberality is the truest economy. It would not be difficult to show, that even as a matter of pecuniary policy the efficient measures at length in progress to remedy the evils complained of by this portion of our civil marine, are wise and expedient. But let us take higher ground. They were called for—Firstly: as a matter of public justice. Mr. Reynolds, in his comprehensive and able letter to the chairman of the committee on Naval Affairs, dated 1828, which, with many other conclusive arguments and facts furnished by that gentleman, forms the main evidence on which the late committee founded their report—observes, with reference to the Pacific;

“To look after our merchant there—to offer him every possible facility—to open new channels for his enterprise, and to keep up a respectable naval force to protect him—is only paying a debt we owe to the commerce of the country: for millions have flowed into the treasury from this source, before one cent was expended for its protection.”

So far, then, we have done little as a nation to facilitate, or increase, the operations of our commerce in the quarter indicated; we have left the adventurous merchant and the hardy fisherman, to fight their way among reefs of dangerous rocks, and through the channels of undescribed Archipelagos, almost without any other guides than their own prudence and sagacity; but we have not hesitated to partake of the fruits of their unassisted toils, to appropriate to ourselves the credit, respect and consideration their enterprise has commanded, and to look to their class as the strongest support of that main prop of our national power,—a hardy, effective, and well disciplined national navy.

Secondly. Our pride as a vigorous commercial empire, should stimulate us to become our own pioneers in that vast island-studded ocean, destined, it may be, to become, not only the chief theatre of our traffic, but the arena of our future naval conflicts. Who can say, viewing the present rapid growth of our population, that the Rocky Mountains shall forever constitute the western boundary of our republic, or that it shall not stretch its dominion from sea to sea. This may not be desirable, but signs of the times render it an event by no means without the pale of possibility.

The intercourse carried on between the Pacific islands and the coast of China, is highly profitable, the immense returns of the whale fishery in the ocean which surrounds those islands, and along the continental coasts, have been already shown. Our whalers have traversed the wide expanse from Peru and Chili on the west, to the isles of Japan on the east, gathering national reverence, as well as individual emolument, in their course; and yet until the late appropriation, Congress has never yielded them any pecuniary assistance, leaving their very security to the scientific labors of countries far more distant, and infinitely less interested, than our own.

Thirdly. It is our duty, holding as we do a high rank in the scale of nations, to contribute a large share to that aggregate of useful knowledge, which is the common property of all. We have astronomers, mathematicians, geologists, botanists, eminent professors in every branch of physical science—we are unincumbered by the oppression of a national debt, and are free from many other drawbacks which fetter and control the measures of the trans-Atlantic governments. We possess, as a people, the mental elasticity which liberal institutions inspire, and a treasury which can afford to remunerate scientific research. Ought we not, therefore, to be foremost in the race of philanthropic discovery, in every [p. 589] department embraced by this comprehensive term? Our national honor and glory which, be it remembered, are to be “transmitted as well as enjoyed,” are involved. In building up the fabric of our commercial prosperity, let us not filch the corner stone. Let it not be said of us, in future ages, that we ingloriously availed ourselves of a stock of scientific knowledge, to which we had not contributed our quota—that we shunned as a people to put our shoulder to the wheel—that we reaped where we had never sown. It is not to be controverted that such has been hitherto the case. We have followed in the rear of discovery, when a sense of our moral and political responsibility should have impelled us in its van. Mr. Reynolds, in a letter to which we have already referred, deprecates this servile dependence upon foreign research in the following nervous and emphatic language.

The commercial nations of the earth have done much, and much remains to be accomplished. We stand a solitary instance among those who are considered commercial, as never having put forth a particle of strength or expended a dollar of our money, to add to the accumulated stock of commercial and geographical knowledge, except in partially exploring our own territory.

When our naval commanders and hardy tars have achieved a victory on the deep, they have to seek our harbors, and conduct their prizes into port by tables and charts furnished perhaps by the very people whom they have vanquished.

Is it honorable in the United States to use, forever, the knowledge furnished by others, to teach us how to shun a rock, escape a shoal, or find a harbor; and add nothing to the great mass of information that previous ages and other nations have brought to our hands.

The exports, and, more emphatically, the imports of the United States, her receipts and expenditures, are written on every pillar erected by commerce on every sea and in every clime; but the amount of her subscription stock to erect those pillars and for the advancement of knowledge is no where to be found.

Have we not then reached a degree of mental strength, which will enable us to find our way about the globe without leading-strings? Are we forever to take the highway others have laid out for us, and fixed with mile-stones and guide boards? No: a time of enterprise and adventure must be at hand, it is already here; and its march is onward, as certain as a star approaches its zenith.

It is delightful to find that such independent statements and opinions as the above, have been approved, and acted upon by Congress, and that our President with a wisdom and promptitude which do him honor, is superintending and facilitating the execution of legislative design. We extract the following announcement from the Washington Globe.

Surveying and Exploring Expedition to the Pacific Ocean and South Seas.—We learn that the President has given orders to have the exploring vessels fitted out, with the least possible delay. The appropriation made by Congress was ample to ensure all the great objects contemplated by the expedition, and the Executive is determined that nothing shall be wanting to render the expedition in every respect worthy the character and great commercial resources of the country.

The frigate Macedonian, now undergoing thorough repairs at Norfolk, two brigs of two hundred tons each, one or more tenders, and a store ship of competent dimensions, is, we understand, the force agreed upon, and to be put in a state of immediate preparation.

Captain Thomas A. C. Jones, an officer possessing many high qualities for such a service, has been appointed to the command; and officers for the other vessels will be immediately selected.

The Macedonian has been chosen instead of a sloop of war, on account of the increased accommodations she will afford the scientific corps, a department the President has determined shall be complete in its organization, including the ablest men that can be procured, so that nothing within the whole range of every department of natural history and philosophy shall be omitted. Not only on this account has the frigate been selected, but also for the purpose of a more extended protection of our whalemen and traders; and to impress on the minds of the natives a just conception of our character, power, and policy. The frequent disturbances and massacres committed on our seamen by the natives inhabiting the islands in those distant seas, make this measure the dictate of humanity.

We understand also, that to J. N. Reynolds, Esq. the President has given the appointment of Corresponding Secretary to the expedition. Between this gentleman and Captain Jones there is the most friendly feeling and harmony of action. The cordiality they entertain for each other, we trust will be felt by all, whether citizen or officer, who shall be so fortunate as to be connected with the expedition.

Thus it will be seen, steps are being taken to remove the reproach of our country alluded to by Mr. Reynolds, and that that gentleman has been appointed to the highest civil situation in the expedition; a station which we know him to be exceedingly well qualified to fill. The liberality of the appropriation for the enterprise, the strong interest taken by our energetic chief magistrate in its organization, the experience and intelligence of the distinguished commander at its head, all promise well for its successful termination. Our most cordial good wishes will accompany the adventure, and we trust that it will prove the germ of a spirit of scientific ambition, which, fostered by legislative patronage and protection, shall build up for us a name in nautical discovery commensurate with our moral, political, and commercial position among the nations of the earth.

Elkswatawa; or the Prophet of the West. A Tale of the Frontier. New York: Harper and Brothers.

This novel is written by Mr. James S. French, of Jerusalem, Virginia—the author, we believe, of “Eccentricities of David Crockett,” a book of which we know nothing beyond the fact of its publication. The plot of Elkswatawa is nearly as follows. About the period when rumors were abroad in our frontier settlements, and elsewhere, of contemplated hostilities by the Indians under Tecumseh, one Mr. Richard Rolfe, “a high-toned and chivalrous Virginian,” is a resident of Petersburg. He is left an orphan in early life—is educated under the guidance of an uncle, completes a course of studies at William and Mary, and finally practises law. His uncle now dying, he is left pennyless; and his want of perseverance precludes any hope of professional advancement. In this dilemma he falls in love. The young lady is “a gentle, quiet, little creature,” has hazel eyes, auburn hair, and “the loveliest face my eyes ever beheld.” Moreover, she is “intellectual without being too much book-learned, kind without seeming to intend it, and artless without affectation.” “Not a dog” says Mr. French, “but read her countenance aright, and would follow her until he obtained his dinner.” Besides all this, she has some little [p. 590] property, a penchant for Mr. Richard Rolfe, and a very pretty appellation, which is Gay Foreman. But that the course of true love may not run altogether smooth, the young lady's father “knows a thing or two,” and will have nothing to do with our hero. The damsel too refuses to run away with him, and so he is forced to run away by himself. In a word, he resolves “to leave the scene of his unhappiness and seek a home in the western wilds.” “Oh poverty! poverty!” says Mr. Richard Rolfe, in throwing his leg over the saddle, “how often hast thou been sketched in some humble sphere, as fascinating in the extreme—and indeed lovely art thou—in the abstract!”—a very neat and very comfortable little piece of positive fact, or as Ben D'Israeli would call it—of æsthetical psychology.

Our hero is next seen in Kentucky, where we find him, on the night of the 10th of August 1809, in the woods, on the banks of the Ohio, in company with one Mr. Earthquake, a hunter. A cry is suddenly heard proceeding from the river. Stealthily approaching the banks, Mr. R. and his friend look abroad and discover—nothing. Earthquake, however, (whom our hero calls Earth for brevity) is of opinion that the Indians have been murdering some emigrant family. While deliberating, a light is discovered on the Illinois bank of the river, and presently a band of Indian warriors become visible. They are dancing a war-dance, with a parcel of bloody scalps in their hands, and (credat Judæus!) with Mr. Rolfe's very identical little sweetheart in their abominable clutches! “Is there a human bosom callous to the appeals of pity?” here says Mr. Richard Rolfe, attorney at law, placing his hand upon his heart. Mr. Earthquake, unfortunately, says nothing, but there can be no doubt in any reasonable mind, that had he opened his mouth at all, “Humph! here's a pretty kettle of fish!” would have come out of it.

It appears that Mr. Rolfe having decamped from Petersburg, old Mr. Foreman, as a necessary consequence, becomes unfortunate in business, fails, and goes off to Pittsburg—or perhaps goes to Pittsburg first and then fails—at all events it is incumbent upon him to emigrate and go down the Ohio in a flat-boat with all his family, and so down he goes. He arrives, of course, before any accident can possibly happen to him, exactly opposite the spot where that ill-treated young attorney, Mr. Rolfe, is sitting as aforesaid, with a very long face, in the woods. But having got so far, it follows that he can get no farther. The Indians now catch him—(what business had he to reject Mr. Rolfe?) they give him a yell—(oh, the old villain!) they kill him—(quite right!) scalp him, and throw him overboard, him and all his family, with the exception of the young lady. Her they think it better to carry across to the Illinois side of the river, and set her up on the top of a rock just opposite our hero, with a view, no doubt, of letting that interesting young gentleman behold her to the greatest possible advantage.

But the glaring improbability of this rencontre (an incident upon which the whole narrative depends) is perhaps the worst feature in Mr. French's novel. Matters now proceed in a more rational manner. The Indians, eight in number, having finished their war-dance, make off with their prey. The two hunters (for Mr. R. has turned hunter) swim the river and proceed to follow in pursuit, with the view of seizing any favorable opportunity for rescuing the young lady. There are now some points of interest. At one time, our friends, hiding in the trunk of a tree, are near being discovered by the red men, when these latter are turned from the path by the rattling of a snake. This is a manœuvre on the part of Earthquake, who carries the rattles about his person. Something of the same kind, however, is narrated by Cooper. At another period, one of the eight becoming separated from the party, is waylaid and dexterously slain. Mr. Rolfe too, manages to obtain a glimpse of the face of the captive, and is convinced of her being his inamorata. The pursuit, however, is unsuccessful, and the maiden is carried to the camp of Tecumseh.

We have now a description of this warrior—of his brother Elkswatawa, the Prophet—of Net-nok-wa, the female chief of the Ottawas—and of Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa her daughter. The two latter are on a visit to Tecumseh, who refuses, for state reasons, the proffered hand of Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa. This princess, becoming interested in the fate of our heroine, begs her of the Prophet as a slave. The Prophet yields, and Miss Foreman is carried by Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa to visit some of the latter's friends on the Wabash, before setting off for the more distant regions of her tribe. In the meantime, our hunters, arriving at the camp, and having reconnoitred it in vain for any traces of the captive, boldly enter the camp itself, and demand the maiden at the hands of the Prophet. His hostile intentions not being yet sufficiently ripe, Elkswatawa receives them with kindness, and gives them fair words, but disclaims any knowledge of Miss Foreman. Being desired, however, to aid the search by means of his power as a Prophet, the Indian finally points out the true route of Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa's party, and our hunters taking leave, determine, as nothing better can be done, to return home for assistance. On their way they come across the body of the Indian, who, it will be remembered, was separated from his party and killed by our friends. Upon his person they find, among other articles, a handkerchief marked with the letters R. Rolfe, in the hand-writing of our hero. He remembers having exchanged handkerchiefs with Miss F. on the day of his leaving Petersburg, and his doubts are now, consequently, resolved into certainty. This incident determines Rolfe to proceed immediately up the Wabash. Here, too, he fails in the object of his search, and the hunters commence their return. On the route an Indian woman is discovered, bearing a torch, and looking for her son whom she supposes to have been murdered by the whites. Touched with pity, our friends aid her in the search, and the son is found, grievously wounded, but not dead. In her lamentations, the mother drops some few words about a white maiden who has taken shelter in her wigwam, and the hopes of Rolfe are rekindled. They bear the wounded man to the hut, and the white maiden, who is found dead, proves not to be Gay Foreman. But the kindness of Rolfe and his companion have excited a deep gratitude in the breasts of the Indian mother and son—the latter is called Oloompa. They pledge their aid in recovering the lady—and, Rolfe having entrusted Oloompa with a letter for his mistress, the hunters resume their journey. Reaching Indiana, they find that, owing to the unsettled state of Indian affairs, no assistance can be rendered them in regard [p. 591] to the rescue of Miss Foreman. They proceed to Kentucky. Earthquake is made sheriff. Rolfe practises law, and having written to Petersburg in relation to Miss F. receives an answer inducing him to believe himself mistaken in regard to the identity of the captive. In the meantime Netnokwa, Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa and Miss Foreman are living on the banks of the Red River. The lady is, in some measure, reconciled to her fate by the kind attentions of her Indian friends—who are only prevented from restoring her to the settlements, through dread of the Prophet's resentment. Elkswatawa and Tecumseh are busied in uniting the Indian tribes with the view of a general attack upon the whites. An emissary is thus sent to the wigwam of Netnokwa. Influenced by Miss Foreman the princesses treat the messenger with contempt and laugh at the pretensions of the Prophet. He returns home vowing vengeance, and Elkswatawa is induced to send a party of six warriors for the purpose of bringing all the inmates of Netnokwa's cabin to his camp.

The friendly Indian, Oloompa, determines, in the meantime, to redeem his promise made to the two hunters, finds out the wigwam of Netnokwa, delivers the letter of Rolfe, receives an answer from Miss Foreman, proceeds with it to Kentucky, searches out our hero, and returns with him as a guide to the dwelling of the Indian princess. Earth accompanies them. The cabin is found deserted—the inmates having been carried off the day before in the direction of the Prophet's camp. But the ingenuity of Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa has contrived to leave, on a shelf of the cabin, a letter for the perusal of Oloompa—whose return was, of course, expected. This letter consists of a parcel of little clay figures, representing Netnokwa, Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa, and Miss Foreman, driven by six Indians in the direction of the camp of the Prophet. Upon this hint our hero starts with his two companions in pursuit. They fail, however, in overtaking the Indians in time to accomplish a rescue. The captive with her friends is carried to Tippecanoe, where the Prophet (Tecumseh having gone to the South) is expecting an attack from the American army under General Harrison. Entering the camp, Oloompa mingles with the Indians and finally discovers the tent in which are the princesses and Miss Foreman. Learning that the Prophet has granted to Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa the privilege of passing in and out of the tent at pleasure, restricting her only to the limits of the camp, he obtains an interview with her, and prevails upon her to disguise Miss Foreman to represent herself, (the princess) and thus enable the captive to pass out. The scheme succeeds, and our heroine is restored to the arms of Mr. Rolfe, who is awaiting her beyond the lines. In the meantime, the impatient Indians urge the Prophet to a night attack upon Gen. Harrison. They are repulsed, and at the conclusion of the battle, our friends make their way into the American army. All difficulties now vanish. The lovers are married, and the narrative is brought to a conclusion.

The dry compendium we have given will of course do little more than afford some idea of the plan of the novel. Its chief interest depends upon matters which we have avoided altogether, as being independent of this plan, and as forming a portion of our Indian history. Here Mr. French has been very successful. The characters of Tecumseh and of Elkswatawa appear to us well drawn, and the manœuvres skilfully detailed by means of which the vast power of the Prophet was attained. It is possible however, that the bear, tiger, Indian, and snake stories of our friend Earthquake, (with which the volumes are plentifully interlarded,) will be considered as forming the better portions of Elkswatawa. We have already adverted to the gross improbability of the main incident upon which the narrative is hinged. In the entire construction of the tale Mr. French has fallen too obviously, we think, into some mannerisms of Sir Walter Scott.

In him (Sir Walter) these mannerisms, until the frequency of their repetition entitled them to such appellation, being well managed and not over-done, were commendable. They added great force and precision to the development of his stories. They should now be avoided—as a little too much of a good thing. And to a man of genius the world of invention is never shut. There is always something new under the sun—a fact susceptible of positive demonstration, in spite of a thousand dogmas to the contrary. The mannerisms we particularly allude to in Mr. French, are involved in what he so frequently calls the “bringing up” of his narrative. Fixing in his mind, every now and then, some particular epoch of his tale, he deems it of essential importance (when it is by no means so) that the action of his various characters should be “brought up,” with entire regularity, to this epoch. The attention is no sooner engaged in one train of adventure, than a chapter closes with some such sentence as the following. “Leaving him to prosecute his journey, and the hunters with a perfect knowledge of the route he had taken, we return to the camp of the Prophet,” see chapter 21—or with “Leaving the hunters to hover about the temporary camp of the Indians, we must bring forward other parts of our story,” see chapter 3—or with “Thus amusing themselves, they continued their journey, to perform which we must leave them, while we bring forward other parts of our story,” see chapter 8—or “And now having brought up the history of the Prophet to the period of which we are writing we will proceed with our narrative,” see chapter 14—or “Leaving Rolfe to attend to his profession, and Earthquake to discharge the duties of the office which had just been conferred on him, let us proceed with other parts of our story,” see chapter 15. Many of the chapters commence in a similar strain, and even in the middle of some of them the same interruptions occur. And this adjustment of the date is so frequently repeated that Mr. French's readers are kept in a constant state of chronological hornpipe.

There are some inadvertences to which the author's attention should be called. When Rolfe, and his companion Earthquake, are in the woods on the banks of the Ohio, at the time of the murder of Mr. Foreman's family, they are represented (see page 32, vol. i,) as hearing a sudden cry—upon which, proceeding to the river bank, they look around and see—nothing. The boat containing the family had sunk before their appearance and no traces remained. Yet on page 113 of the same volume, we find the hunters giving to the Prophet a detailed account of the massacre and burning—things of which they could know nothing whatsoever.

When Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa (that acute young lady) is about leaving her wigwam on the Red River—forced [p. 592] away by the six Indians of the Prophet, she goes to much trouble in making little dirt babies as a means of informing Rolfe and Oloompa, when they shall arrive, of the disaster which has befallen her. The six Indians, it is possible, would have taken notice of the dirt babies and destroyed them before their departure—for we are told they were set upon a shelf in the wigwam. At all events, the young princess should have had a less opinion of her own ingenuity, and have requested Miss Foreman to write a bona fide epistle to her lover. In this manner she would have saved herself no little dabbling in the mud.

In his dialogues, our author will observe that he makes a far too frequent use of the names of the speakers. Earthquake, for example, cannot say a word to Rolfe, without calling him Rolfe, to commence with—and Rolfe does nothing but Earth Mr. Earthquake to the end of the chapter. This has the most ludicrous effect imaginable. The colloquy might as well proceed, too, without so excessive an use of the word “said.” The “said Earths” and “said Rolfes” have put us in a positive fever. The general style of Mr. French is intrinsically good—but has a certain air of rawness which only time and self-discipline will enable him to mellow down. In depicting character, the novelist is unequal. Earth is natural, and although drawn with force, still free from the usual exaggerations. We have already spoken of Elkswatawa and Tecumseh. Oloompa is a bold and chivalrous Indian, with a fine ideal elevation of manner. Miss Foreman we dislike, because we cannot comprehend her. In vain we endeavor to form of her, from the portrait before us, any definite image. She is a young lady—and we are told a very pretty one—but Mr. F. must pardon us for saying that she has—no character whatsoever.

Upon the whole we think highly of “Elkswatawa,” as evincing a capacity for better things. But if the question were demanded—What has Mr. French here done for his reputation?—we would reply possibly, upon the spur of the moment—“very little.” Upon second thoughts we should say—“just nothing at all.”

Letters Descriptive of the Virginia Springs—the Roads leading thereto and the Doings thereat. Collected, Corrected, Annotated and Edited by Peregrine Prolix. With a Map of Virginia. Philadelphia: Published by H. S. Tanner.

In our late notice of a Pleasant Peregrination through the Prettiest Parts of Pennsylvania, we had occasion to mention in high terms of commendation these Letters Descriptive of the Virginia Springs. Seeing them now advertised (very opportunely) as for sale in the city of Richmond, we take the liberty of calling attention more particularly to their merits. Every person about to pay a visit to our Springs, should read the book of course—and every person not about to pay them a visit, should most especially read it that he may have the pleasure of changing his mind. The volume is a very small one—a duodecimo of about 100 pages—but is replete with information of the most useful and the most enticing nature to the tourist. It is moreover, as the title implies, increased in value by the addition of a Tanner's Map of Virginia, in which the usual routes to the Springs are marked in colored lines. The volume has already been so freely quoted by all parties, that we can do no more than just copy a few words in relation to the Red Sulphur Springs of our old and highly esteemed friend, Mr. Burke, and to the Grey Sulphur of Mr. Legare.

The distance to the Red Sulphur (from the Salt Sulphur) is eighteen miles over a mountainous and woody region, which grows wilder and more romantic as you proceed. You pass two or three little valleys, into which the sun's rays penetrate between the branches and trunks of the gigantic trees, which have been robbed of their leafy honors by the process of girdling: the ground below being occupied by Indian corn. After ascending several successive elevations, the road reaches the top of a narrow mountain ridge, along which it runs for several miles, and affords a prospect into the deep and precipitous valley on either side. After descending from this ridge the road follows for several miles the bank of a beautiful creek, and brings you to the Red Sulphur Spring. This is one of the most beautiful and interesting objects in the Virginia Mountains. It flows from the rock into a quadrangular reservoir, composed of four slabs of white marble, the lower edges of which rest on the rock from which the water gushes. The reservoir is about six feet long, five wide, and four and a half deep; and a beautiful red and mysterious substance covers the bottom, which extending some distance up the sides, sheds through the transparency of the water its own lovely hue. The water is clear and cool, (its temperature being fifty-four of Fahrenheit,) is very strongly charged with sulphuretted hydrogen gas, and contains portions of several neutral salts. It possesses in a high degree the valuable property of lowering an exalted pulse, and is generally diuretic and aperient. To a Philadelphian palate its coolness is very gratifying. The spring is situated near one side of a little triangular plain, almost buried in mountains, and therefore cut short of its fair proportion of sunshine. The buildings, consisting of two large and commodious hotels, and three rows of cabins, are conveniently arranged upon the plain. The best row of cabins is called Philadelphia row, and is built of brick, each cabin containing two good rooms, in one of which is a fire-place. The table and other accommodations are very good, and Mr. Burke, the proprietor, is making every effort by new and expensive improvements to increase the comforts of his future guests.

We have only to add, that Mr. B. has since been successful in making the Red Sulphur every thing which the tourist or the valetudinarian could desire.

At 10 A.M. on the 10th September, [says Mr. Prolix] we left the Red Sulphur Spring in a private carriage, to pay a visit to the Gray Sulphur, situated at the distance of nine miles in a south-west direction, just within the border of Giles county.

This is a new establishment, grown up by magic since the first of June last. It belongs to John D. Legare, Esq. of South Carolina, a gentleman of established literary talent, who by his great enterprise and good taste, has made this lovely wilderness blossom like the rose, and bring forth the fruits of civilization and comfort. There is a comfortable new brick house standing near the middle of a gently sloping plain of about twenty acres, nearly cleared of trees, and entirely surrounded by forest-covered mountains, between whose base and the house are several beautiful conical hills, rendering the view from the portico exceedingly pleasing. Every thing here is conducted after the polished and agreeable manner of South Carolina. All is redolent of the Palmetto, and a little pleasant circle from that state, may generally be found here.

There are two springs under the same cover, within ten feet of each other; one containing, inter alia, bicarbonate of soda, which is an excellent anti-dyspeptic, [p. 593] and is well taken an hour after dinner, which is always so good here that every body eats too much. The other contains some sulphuretted hydrogen and several neutral salts, rendering it aperient and diuretic. It should be taken an hour before breakfast. The breakfasts and suppers are capital, furnished forth with various cakes, in form and color new to the northern eye, of rice, of corn and wheat; and in discussing these interesting subjects, a quiet deliberation reigns, affording the epicure the double opportunity of curing hunger and gratifying taste. The wine is so good, that he who drinks it, falsifies the old adage, that omnes errorem bibunt,—there is no mistake about it.

A year in Spain. By a Young American. Third Edition, enlarged. New York. Harper and Brothers.

We have more than once recorded in the Messenger the high pleasure afforded us by the pages of Lieutenant Slidell. The “Year in Spain” with the exception of its third volume, is no novelty, we are sure. Its well-limned natural scenery—its exceedingly happy groups of banditti, and boleros, and mouse-colored asses, and muleteers, and modern Sancho Panzas, and Sangrados, and primitive Alcaldes, and pallazzos, and plazas, and posadas, are still passing before the eyes of a great majority of our readers in a Kaleidescopal freshness and variety, unimpaired, and unimpairable. It would hardly be worth our while then to tell the public what the public know quite as well as ourselves—that the book has a vigorous interest—has received a great deal of commendation—and deserves it. The third volume in the present edition is superadded to the English imprimatur, and embodies what we consider the most effective portion of the narrative—an account of the author's visit to Grenada. The mechanical execution of the book is honorable to the Messieurs Harpers. The vignettes in each of the volumes, are particularly good. We would sincerely recommend our friends to procure a copy of the work forthwith—to give it a niche in their libraries—and to remember that it may safely be referred to upon occasion, as a most creditable specimen of American talent.

The Adventures of a Gentleman in Search of a Horse. By Caveat Emptor, Gent. One, Etc. Philadelphia: Republished by Carey, Lea and Blanchard.

This book, to say nothing of its peculiar excellence and general usefulness, is remarkable as being an anomaly in the literary way. The first 180 pages are occupied with what the title implies, the adventures of a gentleman in search of a horse—the remaining 100 embrace, in all its details, difficulties, and intricacies, a profound treatise on the English law of horse-dealing warranty!—and this too, strange as it may seem, appears to be the first and only treatise upon a subject so interesting to a great portion of the English gentry. Think of law, serviceable law too, intended as a matter of reference, compiled by a well known attorney, and dedicated to Sir John Gurney, one of the Barons of his Majesty's Court of Exchequer—think of all this done up in a green muslin cover, and illustrated by very laughable wood-cuts. Only imagine the stare of old Coke, and of the other big wigged tribe in white calf and red-letter binding, as our friend in the green habit shall take his station by their side upon the book shelf!

The adventurous portion of the book is all to which we have attended, and so far we have found much fine humor, good advice, and useful information in all matters touching the nature, the management, and especially the purchase of a horse. We would advise all amateurs to look well, and look quickly into the pages of Caveat Emptor.

Lafitte: the Pirate of the Gulf. By the author of the South-West. New York: Harper and Brothers.

The “author of the South-West” is Professor Ingraham. We had occasion to speak favorably of that work in our Messenger for January last. “Lafitte,” the book now before us, may be called an historical novel. It is based, in a great degree, upon a sketch in Mr. Flint's “Valley of the Mississippi,” of the great Baratarian outlaw; and many of the leading incidents narrated may be found in the “Louisiana” of Marboi, and the “Memoirs” of Latour. We are not, however, to decide upon the merits of the story—which runs nearly thus—by any reference to historical truth.

An expatriated Frenchman resides upon the banks of the Kennebeck. He has two sons—twins—their mother having died in their infancy. Their names are Achille and Henri—the former proud, impetuous and ambitious—the latter of a more gentle nature. We are introduced to this little family when the boys are in their fifteenth year. At this epoch a jealousy of his brother, never felt before, and founded on the obvious preference of the father for Henri, arises in the bosom of Achille. Gertrude, now, a niece and ward of the old gentleman, becomes an inmate of the house. She is beautiful, is beloved by both the sons, but returns only the affection of Henri. Jealousy thus deepens into hatred on the part of Achille. This hatred is still farther embittered by an accident. Henri saves the life of his mistress, and, in so doing, rejects the proffered assistance of Achille. The lovers meet too by moonlight, and are overheard by the discarded brother, who in a moment of phrensy, plunges a knife in the bosom of Henri, hurries to the sea-coast, and, seizing the boat of a fisherman, pushes out immediately to sea. Upon the eve of being lost, he is picked up by a merchant vessel, and proceeds with her on a voyage to the Mediterranean. The vessel is captured by the Algerines—our hero is imprisoned—escapes by the aid of a Moorish maiden, whom he dishonors and abandons—is recaptured—escapes again in an open boat for Ceuti—is again captured by Algerines—unites with them, and subsequently commands them—is taken by the Turks—is promoted in their navy—turns Mussulman—becomes the chief of an armed horde—combats in the Egyptian ranks—becomes again a pirate—is taken by the Spaniards—is liberated and becomes a corsair again, and again. His adventures so far, however, from the period of his attack upon Henri—adventures occupying a period of fifteen years—are related by the novelist in language very little more diffuse than our own. We are now introduced, at full length to Achille, in the character of Lafitte. The scene is Jamaica, and we find the freebooter planning a descent upon the house of a [p. 594] wealthy Mexican exile, Velasquez. He has a daughter, Constanza, very beautiful, and a nephew, very much of a rascal. The nephew is in league with the robbers, and admits them to the house for the sake of sharing the booty. The adventure ends in the death of the traitor by a pistol-shot from the hands of Velasquez—the death of the old man himself through agitation—and the carrying off of the maiden, and much booty, by Lafitte. The lady however, is treated with great deference by that noble-spirited and fine-looking young man the cut-throat, who wears a grey cloak with a velvet collar, folds his arms, gnashes his teeth, and has, we must admit it, a more handsomely furnished cabin than even the Red Rover himself. We are assured that his only object in carrying the damsel off at all, was to shield his person by means of her own, from the shots of his pursuers. Accordingly, a merchantman, bound for Kingston, heaving in sight, Constanza is set at liberty and put on board of it, with an old negro wench Juana (all lips) and a young pirate boy Theodore, (all sentiment) to attend upon her orders and convoy her safely into port. We now have a storm (in the usual manner) a wreck, and a capture. The dismasted vessel is taken by one of the galleys of Lafitte, and the lady again falls into the clutches of the buccaneers, who carry her to one of their rendezvous, a very romantic cavern, at the head of the bay of Gonzales, in the island of St. Domingo.

In the meantime the lover of the fair Constanza, one Count D'Oyley, commander of the French frigate, Le Sultan, going to visit his mistress at her paternal residence, is made aware of her disaster, follows immediately with his frigate's tender in pursuit of Lafitte, and fails in meeting him, but has the satisfaction of being taken prisoner by one of the freebooter's small vessels, and carried to the identical rendezvous in which lies the object of his search. The lovers repose in different caverns, and are totally unsuspicious of the so near presence of each other. But the maiden, of course, sings a song, made on purpose improviso, and all about love and the moon, and the lover, hearing every word of it, breaks through the wall (also of course) and—clasps her in his arms! But we are growing scurrilous. Lafitte arrives, and promises the two captives their freedom and a passage to Port-au-Prince in the morning. Count D'Oyley, however, having dreamed in succession four very ugly dreams, thinks it better to put no faith in the freebooter, and getting up in the middle of the night, makes his escape from the rendezvous with his mistress and Juana. In so doing he has only to dress his mistress as a man, and himself as a woman, to descend a precipice, to make a sentinel at the mouth of the cave drunk, and so walk over him—make another drunk in Lafitte's schooner, and so walk over him—walk over some forty or fifty of the crew on deck—and finally to walk off with the long-boat. These things are trifles with a man of genius—and an author should never let slip an opportunity of displaying his invention. D'Oyley's frigate happens just precisely at the right moment to be in the offing, and has no difficulty whatever in picking up all hands.

We are now brought to Barataria—and some scenes follow of historical interest. An offer on the part of the British is made to Lafitte. He demands time for reflection, and proceeds to lay the pacquet of proposals before the Governor of Louisiana, demanding a free pardon for himself and associates as the reward of his information, and the price of his adherence to the States. After some trouble he succeeds in his application. He is present, and fights valiantly, at the battle of New Orleans. In the heat of the contest he is attacked pointedly and with vehemence by an individual in the uniform of a British naval officer—is wounded, and carried to the hospital. Here he discovers, as a nun, his cousin Gertrude, who after the attack by Achille upon Henri, has taken the veil, by way of atonement for her share in the disaster. Henri, she informs Lafitte, is not killed, but gone to France with his father. Our hero now, having recovered of his wound, vows to devote to penitence, among the monks of St. Bernard, the remainder of his life. His first object, however, being to restore, as far as possible, his ill-gotten wealth to the proper owners, he finds it necessary to purchase a vessel with the view of collecting his treasures. He does so, and proceeds to accomplish his purpose.

The naval officer who attacked him so fiercely on the ramparts at Orleans is now discovered to be D'Oyley, although it does seem a little singular that Lafitte, who knew D'Oyley well, should not have discovered this matter before. The Frenchman, it appears, having rescued his mistress from the cavern, as before shown, and having reached his frigate in safety, can think of no more commendable course than that of returning for the purpose of dispersing the pirates, and hanging the preserver of his own life, and of the life and honor of his mistress. With this laudable design, he drops anchor at the mouth of the cavern. In the night time, however, the poor tossed-about lady is carried off thro' a port-hole, by Cudjo, an old negro, for some wise purposes of his own. Upon learning this occurrence the Count is very angry, and just then perceiving a schooner making her way out of the harbor, jumps at once to the conclusion that his lady is on board, and that Lafitte is the person who put her there. It is really distressing to see what a passion the Count is in upon this occasion. “Lafitte,” says he, “thou seared and branded outlaw!—cursed of God and loathed of men!—fit compeer of hell's dark spirits!—blaster of human happiness!—destroyer of innocence! Guilty thyself, thou would'st make all like thee! Scorner of purity, thou would'st unmake and make it guilt! Like Satan, thou sowest tares of sorrow among the seeds of peace!—thou seekest good to make it evil! Renegade of mankind!—thou art a blot among thy race—the living presence of that moral pestilence which men and holy writ term sin!” The beauty and vigor of all this are not at all diminished by the fact that the “scorner of purity” and “renegade of mankind” was necessarily deprived of the pleasure of hearing a word of it, being otherwise busily engaged in the State of Louisiana.

The Count, having overtaken the schooner, and found out his mistake, goes to Barataria, and thence, proceeding to New Orleans, arrives on the day of the battle. Lafitte is there discovered upon the ramparts, and the combat ensues as heretofore described. D'Oyley imagines that Lafitte is mortally wounded. In a few days, however, the newly-purchased vessel of the corsair, with the corsair on board, is pointed out to him as it is leaving the harbor, and he again starts with his frigate in pursuit. Lafitte meanwhile has proceeded to the [p. 595] rendezvous at which we left Constanza in the clutches of Cudjo, rescues her, and placing her safely in his vessel, determines to put her forthwith in the hands of her lover. He is met, unfortunately, by the frigate of the enraged D'Oyley. The vessels are thrown together, and the Count springs with his boarders on the deck of the schooner—turning a deaf ear to explanation. The corsair is mortally wounded by the Count. The cap of the latter falling off in the tumult, he is discovered to be Henri—the brother of Achille, or Lafitte. An old man on board, called Lafon, is at the same moment opportunely discovered to be the father. Explanations ensue. Lafitte dies—the lovers are happy—and the story terminates.

It must not be supposed that the absurdities we have here pointed out, are as obtrusive in the novel of Professor Ingraham as they appear in our naked digest. Still they are sufficiently so. “Lafitte,” like the “Elkswatawa” of Mr. French, is most successful, we think, in its historical details. Commodore Patterson and General Andrew Jackson are among the personages who form a portion of the story. The portrait of the President seems to us forcibly sketched. But our author is more happy in any respect than in delineations of character. Some descriptive pieces are well-drawn, and admirably colored. We may instance the several haunts of the pirates, the residence of Velasquez, the house of the council at New Orleans, and the private cabin allotted by the corsair to Constanza. The whole book possesses vigor, and a certain species of interest—and there can be little doubt of its attaining popularity. The chronological mannerism noticed in “Elkswatawa” is also observable in “Lafitte.” Some other mannerisms referrible to the same sin of imitation are also to be observed. As a general rule it may be safely assumed, that the most simple, is the best, method of narration. Our author cannot be induced to think so, and is at unnecessary pains to bring about artificialities of construction—not so much in regard to particular sentences, as to the introduction of his incidents. To these he always approaches with the gait of a crab. We have, for example, been keeping company with the buccaneers for a few pages—but now they are to make an attack upon some old family mansion. In an instant the buccaneers are dropped for the mansion, and the definite for the indefinite article. In place of the robbers proceeding in the course wherein we have been bearing them company, and advancing in proper order to the dwelling, they are suddenly abandoned for a house. A family mansion is depicted. A man is sitting within it. A maiden is sitting by his side, and a quantity of ingots are reposing in the cellar. We are then, and not till then, informed, that the family mansion, the man, the maiden and the ingots, are the identical mansion, man, maiden and ingots, of which we have already heard the buccaneers planning the attack.—Thus, at the conclusion of book the 4th, Count D'Oyley has rescued his mistress from the cavern, and arrived with her, in safety, upon the deck of his frigate. He has, moreover, decided upon returning with the frigate to the cavern for the laudable purpose, as aforesaid, of hanging his deliverer. We naturally expect still to keep company with the ship in this adventure; and turn over the page with a certainty of finding ourselves upon her decks. But not so. She is now merely a frigate which we behold at a distance—a stately ship arrayed in the apparel of war, and which “sails with majestic motion into the bay of Gonzales.” Of course we are strongly tempted to throw the book, ship and all, out of the window.

The novelist is too minutely, and by far too frequently descriptive. We are surfeited with unnecessary detail. Every little figure in the picture is invested with all the dignities of light and shadow, and chiaro 'scuro. Of mere outlines there are none. Not a dog yelps, unsung. Not a shovel-footed negro waddles across the stage, whether to any ostensible purpose or not, without eliciting from the author a vos plaudite, with an extended explanation of the character of his personal appearance—of his length, depth, and breadth,—and, more particularly, of the length, depth, and breadth of his shirt-collar, shoe-buckles and hat-band.

The English of Professor Ingraham is generally good. It possesses vigor and is very copious. Sometimes, however, we meet with a sentence without end, involving a nominative without a verb. For example,

“As the men plied their oars, and moved swiftly down the bayou, the Indian, who was the last of his name and race, with whom would expire the proud appellation, centuries before recognized among other tribes, as the synonyme for intelligence, civilization, and courage—THE NATCHEZ!—the injured, persecuted, slaughtered and unavenged Natchez—the Grecians of the aboriginal nations of North America!” See p. 125. Vol. 2.

Many odd words, too, and expressions, such as “revenge you,” in place of “avenge you”—“Praxitiles,” instead of “Praxiteles”—“assayed” in lieu of “essayed,” and “denouément” for “dénouement”—together with such things as “frissieur,” “closelier,” “self-powered,” “folden,” and “rhodomantine” are here to be found, and, perhaps, may as well be placed at once to the account of typographical errors.

Our principal objection is to the tendency of the tale. The pirate-captain, from the author's own showing, is a weak, a vaccillating villain, a fratricide, a cowardly cut-throat, who strikes an unoffending boy under his protection, and makes nothing of hurling a man over a precipice for merely falling asleep, or shooting him down without any imaginable reason whatsoever. Yet he is never mentioned but with evident respect, or in some such sentence as the following. “I could hardly believe I was looking upon the celebrated Lafitte, when I gazed upon his elegant, even noble person and fine features, in which, in spite of their resolute expression, there is an air of frankness which assures me that he would never be guilty of a mean action,” &c. &c. &c. In this manner, and by these means, the total result of his portraiture as depicted, leaves upon the mind of the reader no proper degree of abhorrence. The epithet “impulsive,” applied so very frequently to the character of this scoundrel, as to induce a smile at every repetition of the word, seems to be regarded by the author as an all-sufficient excuse for the unnumbered legion of his iniquities. We object too—decidedly—to such expressions on the lips of a hero, as “If I cannot be the last in Heaven, I will be the first in Hell”—“Now favor me, Hell or Heaven, and I will have my revenge!”—“Back hounds, or, by the holy God, I will send one of you to breakfast in Hell,” &c. &c. &c.—expressions with which the volumes before us are too plentifully besprinkled. [p. 596] Upon the whole, we could wish that men possessing the weight of talents and character belonging to Professor Ingraham, would either think it necessary to bestow a somewhat greater degree of labor and attention upon the composition of their novels, or otherwise, would not think it necessary to compose them at all.

Introductory Lecture to a Course of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy. Delivered in Hampden Sidney College. By John W. Draper, M.D. Richmond: T. W. White.

Mr. Draper's peculiar reputation is well known—and deservedly acquired. In this Introductory Lecture he has given direct evidence of scientific attainment—of comprehensiveness of mind, and of a thorough acquaintance with the philosophy of instruction. He has inspired us, and we have no doubt that he has succeeded in inspiring all his hearers, with an earnest desire to hear what farther he shall say in the lectures which are to come. We take the liberty of copying a passage of unusual interest and beauty from the pages now before us.

Knowledge, like wealth hoarded up, has its compound interest, increasing in an almost geometrical ratio. A single discovery in one science sheds a light on all kindred knowledge, which is reflected back again. It is thus that modern discovery proceeds with such rapid steps. A first investigator, groping his way in the dark, cannot form a just idea of the nature and position of objects he may encounter, until time and circumstances make them more familiar. Change of opinion is often produced by more extensive information, and the possession of one new fact at variance with received theories, often leads to an entire reformation of scientific faith. But though our theories alter, our facts remain unchanged; and hence we ought not to be discouraged, remembering that theory is only useful so far as it enables us to collate and reason upon fact.

How many are the triumphs which the world of science can boast of, even in our recollection! How much increased is the amount of all knowledge within the present century! We have a new chemistry, a new science of light, that has almost furnished us with one sense more than nature intended we should have. Astronomy has had its Laplace. Mechanics has produced its steam boats and rail roads. Many of the most interesting geographical problems have received their solution—the Niger has been navigated—and the British standard planted on the magnetic pole. The magnet, that riddle of antiquity, has been made to tell its secret in characters of fire. Electricity has furnished its galvanic battery. Physiology has developed more of the nervous structure of man than all the dreams of metaphysicians could have painted. Geology has sprung from the dust and given us animals and plants, the earliest tenants of this earth. New planets have been found, and the periods and orbits of new comets determined. The laws of the elementary constitution of bodies have been fixed, and the relative weight of their ultimate atoms assigned. Botany, mineralogy, and indeed every science, has advanced with rapid steps, and the last half century has added more to human acquirements than the preceding thousand years.

On every hand philosophy still continues to push her conquests, and discoveries crowd upon us. EHRENBERG has opened to us a new world in his use of the microscope; those little insects, thousands of which might stand on a needle's point, show to us how multiplied and how minute the mechanism of the parts of living things may be. By feeding these creatures on the purest carmine, and then bathing them in distilled water, he has seen through their transparent bodies parts which might rival for complexity the organs of the largest animals. In another branch, FARADAY has explained all the phenomena of voltaic electricity, in a series of experimental researches, unrivalled since the time when Davy demonstrated that the alkalies and earths were metallic oxides. In France, DUTROCHET has built up the doctrine of Endosmose and capillary attraction, which has been extended in this country, and furnished some remarkable results. The newly detected facts of esormorphism and plescomorphism, are shaking chemistry and mineralogy to their very foundation. The discovery of the mode of polarising light—a subject upon which I propose to dwell at some length, if time permits—has given us, to use the words of an eloquent writer, new and infinitely refined perceptions of touch. We are enabled, with mathematical precision, and demonstrative certainty, to assign the exact form of atoms, millions of times beyond microscopic power. We tremble upon the brink of discovering the elementary constitution of the material world. We can feel as it were the molecules of light itself, that most subtle of all fluids. We can almost perceive their sides and their ends, and can actually control, regulate and arrange the constituent parts of a sunbeam!

Memorial of Francis Lieber, Professor of History and Political Economy in the South Carolina College, relative to Proposals for a Work on the Statistics of the United States.

This is a Congressional Document of about seventeen pages, and should be read by all who feel an interest in the welfare of America. Professor Lieber has herein laid before the Federal Legislature, with remarkable clearness of thought, and force of lucid arrangement, the plan of a proposed work on the Statistics of the Union—the word Statistics to be understood in its truest and most expanded acceptation, as a view of the actual state of the country. In the pages before us, a most comprehensive exhibition is afforded of all the points of interest to the student of political philosophy. Should Congress do nothing in the matter, the author of the Memorial (of which twice the usual number of copies have been printed,) will still have rendered his adopted country a service of no common value, in diffusing among our citizens, by means of the document itself, a vast amount of needful and accurate knowledge on a subject of pre-eminent interest. Should, however, the proposals so ably presented for consideration, be finally adopted, a consummation to be expected as well as desired, America will have the honor of taking the most important step ever yet taken in aid of the most important of sciences. There can be no doubt of this, we think, in the mind of any person at all conversant with the subject, who will examine the well-arranged and extensive plan of the work in contemplation.

Professor Lieber is well known as a writer of untiring industry, great mental activity, and extensive attainments. His first work, we believe, was entitled “Journal of my Residence in Greece,” written at the instigation of the historian Niebuhr, and issued at Leipzig in 1823. Since then he has published “The Stranger in America,” a piquantly written work, abounding in various information relative to the States—and a volume on the subject of Education, which was submitted to the Trustees of the College of Girard, and which evinces a well-grounded and philosophical knowledge of the { [p. 597] science of instruction. We had nearly forgotten the interesting “Reminiscences of Niebuhr,” lately published. Dr. Lieber, however, is still more widely and more favorably known as Editor of the Encyclopædia Americana, a monument, which will not readily decay, of great enterprize, industry, and erudition.

The History of Texas: or the Emigrant's, Farmer's, and Politician's Guide to the Character, Climate, Soil, and Productions of that Country; Geographically Arranged from Personal Observation and Experience. By David B. Edward, formerly Principal of the Academy, Alexandria, Louisiana; Late Preceptor of Gonzales Seminary, Texas. Cincinnati: J. A. James & Co.

This should be classed among useful oddities. Its style is somewhat over-abundant—but we believe the book a valuable addition to our very small amount of accurate knowledge in regard to Texas. The author, who is one of the Society of Friends, assures us that he has no lands in Texas to sell, although he has lived three years in the country, and that, too, on the frontiers—that he made one of a party of four who explored the province in 1830, from side to side, and from settlement to settlement, during the space of six months,—and that, in 1835, he had the curiosity to spend six months more in examining the improvements made throughout every locality, “in order that none should be able to detect a falsehood, or prove a material error which could either mislead, or seriously injure those who may put confidence in this work.” For ourselves we are inclined to place great faith in the statements of Mr. Edward, and regard his book with a most favorable eye. It is an octavo of 336 pages, embracing, in detail, highly interesting accounts of the People, the Geographical Features, the Climate, the Savages, the Timber, the Water, &c. of Texas. Much information in regard to Mexico, is included in the body of the work, and, in an Appendix, we have a copy of the Mexican Constitution. We give, by way of extract, a flattering little picture of Texian comfort and abundance.

The people en masse can have a living, and that plentifully too, of animal food, both of beef and pork, of venison and bear meat, besides a variety of fish and fowl, upon easier terms at present, especially the wild game, than any other people, in any other district of North America; which must continue to be the case, for one of the best reasons in the world—at least in Texas: as the wild animals decrease, the domesticated ones will increase!

And, as they have not commenced, except in a few cases (comparatively speaking) upon the border lands of the Gulf, to export corn, they have by just dropping the seed and afterwards stowing away the increase, more bread stuff than they well know sometimes what to do with, it being out of the question to feed their hogs on it, except they were to raise them on such food altogether, which would be a pity, while they have so much mast in the woods, and so many roots in the prairies.

And, as their milch cattle increase in numbers, and that very frequently too faster than they can attend to their milking, they have more, as to family use, much more milk, than they know how to dispose of, except they are well stocked with farrow sows, or have around them pet mustang colts.

With these three main stays of a farmer's life, come, by very little more exertion than just the picking and gathering in, those condiments and relishes, which not only garnish the table, but replenish the appetite, from a source of such plentiful variegation, as the gardens and the fields, the woods and the waters, of a Texas country!

Inklings of Adventure. By the Author of Pencillings by the Way. New York: Saunders and Otley.

These volumes are inscribed “to the distinguished American orator and statesman, Edward Everett,” and are introduced by a Preface over the signature of N. P. Willis, in which “the papers which are to follow,” are said to record some passages in the life of a certain Philip Slingsby. Mr. W. assures us that although his name stands in the title-page of the book as its author, (which, upon reference, we find not to be the case) he can only take to himself that share of the praise or blame which may attach [be attached] to it as a literary composition. Most assuredly (setting all this badinage aside, which may possibly have a fuller meaning than lies upon its surface) we can see no reason for praising or blaming Mr. Willis except in his character of literateur, for any thing to be found in the volumes before us. We cannot sufficiently express our disgust at that unscrupulous indelicacy which is in the habit of deciding upon the literary merits of this gentleman by a reference to his private character and manners, and feel, indeed, a species of indignation in the thought, that when we propose to say a few words, without any such reference, about the present “Inklings of Adventure,” we are proposing a course of indisputable originality.

Subjoined is the Table of Contents. Pedlar Karl—Niagara; Lake Ontario; The St. Lawrence—The Cherokee's Threat—F. Smith—Edith Linsey (including Frost and Flirtation; Love and Speculation; A Digression; and Scenery and a Scene)—Scenes of Fear (containing the Disturbed Vigil; the Mad Senior; and the Lunatic's Skate)—Incidents on the Hudson—The Gipsey of Sardis—Tom Fane and I—Larks in Vacation (embracing Driving Stanhope pro. tem.; Saratoga Springs; and Mrs. Captain Thompson)—A Log in the Archipelago—and Miscellaneous Papers (being the Revenge of the Signor Basil; Love and Diplomacy; Minute Philosophies; and the Mad-house of Palermo.)

It will be seen that a great many of these papers (we believe all of them) have been published before. It is not our design, therefore, to speak of them in detail. Perhaps an outline of some individual sketch, with an occasional reference to others, will be found to impart a sufficient idea of the general character of the whole. We open the book at random, and here are six or seven pages with the running title of Niagara. It will be a matter of some interest to see how a poet (one whom we know to be such) will think it proper to handle a subject so momentous.

Mr. Willis—Mr. Slingsby we mean—commences by dating his visit to the Falls, with reference not to any positive or acknowledged æra, but, relatively, to an æra in his personal experience. He does not say I went in 1810—or in 1820. “It was in my senior vacation,” says he, “and I was bound to Niagara for the first time.” We are thus slyly made acquainted with a trio of items, which, when duly considered, are to give weight and character to the subsequent details. We are informed, firstly—that Mr. Slingsby has been to college—secondly, and presumptively, that he [p. 598] graduated, (it is his senior vacation) and thirdly, that he has since paid other visits to Niagara, (he is on his way thither for the first time.) But in the narration of a trip to the great waterfall, some wit, some repartee, has been thought indispensable, and wit cannot so effectively be displayed, as by means of a foil. Our author, therefore, has a companion, and describes him. He is an ugly fellow, of course—seven feet high, ill-dressed, solemn, and sensible. We now see the advantage of all this—and are prepared for the Rembrandtities of contrast. To enjoy them in perfection we must imagine Mr. Slingsby (whom we never saw) as a delicate little gentleman, with a pretty face and figure—fair, funny, fanciful, fashionable, and frisky.

The friends leaving Buffalo cross the outlet of Lake Erie at the ferry, and take horses on the northern bank of the Niagara for the Falls. Mr. Slingsby during the ride, is now lost in admiration of the “noble stream hurrying on headlong to its fearful leap, as broad as the Hellespont, and as blue as the sky,” and now excessively merry at the expense of his ally and foil, “who rides along,” we are told, “like the man of rags you see paraded on an ass in the carnival.” Thus the narrative proceeds in a vein of mingled sentiment and very-good-joke. Let us give another example of this. “The river,” says Mr. Slingsby, “now broke into rapids foaming furiously, and the subterranean thunder increased like a succession of earthquakes, each louder than the last. [A bull.] I had never heard a sound so broad and universal. It was impossible not to suspend the breath, and feel absorbed, to the exclusion of all other thoughts, in the great phenomenon with which the earth seemed trembling to its centre. A tall misty cloud, changing its shape continually, as it felt the shocks of the air, rose up before us, and with our eyes fixed upon it, and our horses at a hard gallop, we found ourselves unexpectedly in front of a large white——hotel!”

Having eaten dinner at the large white hotel, Job Smith, the foil, is made to utter some of his solemn drolleries, forcing Mr. Slingsby [oh the quiz!] to leave the table and walk with a smile towards the window. A belle, Miss ——, is thus discovered, and introduced. Of her, “every soul of the fifteen millions of inhabitants between us and the Gulf of Mexico have heard.” She is, moreover, “one of those miracles of nature that occur, perhaps, once in the rise and fall of an empire.” Besides all this, she is “kind, playful, unaffected, and radiantly, gloriously beautiful.” Mr. Slingsby, therefore, adopts her as foil No. 2, for a species of sentimental gallantry—Job Smith being only foil No. 1, for light wit. It must now be seen at a glance that our author can hardly fail to make a decided hit of his visit to Niagara.

Having made an appointment with Miss —— to accompany her in the morning behind the sheet of the Fall, Mr. Slingsby goes to bed. Getting up at daybreak, however, he determines upon paying a solitary visit to the cataract. But Job (that droll fellow!) has anticipated him in this manœuvre, and “the angular outline of his tall gaunt figure, stretching up from Table Rock in strong relief against the white body of the spray,” is the first object that meets Mr. Slingby's eye as he descends. We have now his first impressions of Niagara. These are, in general terms, awe, and intense admiration, mingled with a little disappointment. We cut short the impressions (herein following the author's example) for the sake of some witticisms at the expense of Mr. Smith. It may be best to copy a page or two with a view of showing the pervading air with which the narrative is conducted.

“A nice fall, as an Englishman would say, my dear Job.”

“Awful!”

Halleck the American poet (a better one never “strung pearls”) has written some admirable verses on Niagara, describing its effect on the different individuals of a mixed party, among whom was a tailor. The sea of incident that has broken over me in years of travel, has washed out of my memory all but the two lines descriptive of its impression upon Snip:

“Shall we go to breakfast, Job?”

“How slowly and solemnly they drop into the abysm!”

It was not an original remark of Mr. Smith's. Nothing is so surprising to the observer as the extraordinary deliberateness with which the waters of Niagara take their tremendous plunge. All hurry and foam and fret, till they reach the smooth limit of the curve,—and then the laws of gravitation seem suspended, and, like Cæsar, they pause and determine, since it is inevitable, to take the death leap with becoming dignity.

“Shall we go to breakfast, Job?” I was obliged to raise my voice to be heard, to a pitch rather exhausting for a empty stomach.

His eyes remained fixed upon the shifting rainbows bending and vanishing in the spray. There was no moving him, and I gave in for another five minutes.

“Do you think it probable, Job, that the waters of Niagara strike on the axis of the world?”

No answer.

“Job!”

“What?”

“Do you think his Majesty's half of the cataract is finer than ours?”

“Much.”

“For water, merely, perhaps. But look at the delicious verdure on the American shore, the glorious trees, the massed foliage, the luxuriant growth even to the very rim of the ravine! By Jove! it seems to me things grow better in a republic. Did you ever see a more barren and scraggy shore than the one you stand upon?”

“How exquisitely” said Job, soliloquizing “that small green island divides the fall! What a rock it must be founded on, not to have been washed away in the ages that these waters have split against it!”

“I'll lay you a bet it is washed away before the year two thousand—payable in any currency with which we may then be conversant.”

“Don't trifle!”

“With time or geology do you mean? Is'nt it perfectly clear, from the looks of that ravine, that Niagara has backed up all the way from Lake Ontario? These rocks are not adamant, and the very precipice you stand on has cracked, and looks ready for the plunge. It must gradually wear back to Lake Erie, and then there will be a sweep I should like to live long enough to see. The instantaneous junction of two seas, with a difference of two hundred feet in their levels will be a spectacle—eh, Job?”

“Tremendous!”

“Do you intend to wait and see it, or will you come to breakfast?”

He was immovable. I left him on the rock, went up to the hotel and ordered mutton-chops and coffee, and when they were on the table, gave two of the waiters a dollar each to bring him up nolens-volens. He arrived in a great rage, but with a good appetite, and we finished our breakfast just in time to meet Miss ——, as she stepped like Aurora from her chamber.

The adventure beneath the sheet is now detailed. The party descend to the bottom of the precipice at the side of the Fall—equip themselves in dresses of coarse linen—and proceed. The guide going first, takes the right hand of Miss ——, Mr. Slingsby is honored with the left, and Job brings up the rear. The usual difficulties of wind and water are encountered and surmounted, and the chamber behind the sheet finally attained in safety. The same medley of tone, however, still prevails. For example—“Whatever sister of Arethusa inhabits there,” says Mr. Slingsby, “we could but congratulate her on the beauty of her abode. A lofty and well lighted hall, shaped like a long pavilion, extended as far as we could see through the spray, and with the two objections, that you could not have heard a pistol at your ear for the noise, and that the floor was somewhat precipitous, one could scarce imagine a more agreeable retreat for a gentleman who was disgusted with the world, and subject to dryness of the skin. In one respect it resembled the enchanted dwelling of the Witch of Atlas, where Shelley tells us,

It is lucky for Witches and Naiads that they are not subject to rheumatism.”

It will not be difficult to foretell, from the general air of the narration (as observed up to this date) in what manner Mr. Slingsby will think it incumbent upon him to wind it up. He will give it a melo-dramatic finale? Most assuredly. The lady is adventurous, and has walked over a narrow ledge, which has broken with her weight. The guide seizes Mr. Slingsby by the shoulder. He turns—and “what is his horror” at beholding Miss —— standing far in behind the sheet, upon the last visible point of rock, with the water pouring over her in torrents, and a “gulf of foam” between the lady and the gentleman, which the gentleman “can in no way understand how she has passed over.” This gulf is six feet across, and, of course, says Mr. Slingsby, “it was impossible to jump it.” [We have jumped one and twenty feet six inches ourselves, but then we are no Mr. Slingsby, and never could make a joke about Niagara.] That gentleman does not jump, but he does something nevertheless. He “fixes his eyes upon the lovely form standing like a spirit in the misty shroud of the spray,” and endeavors “to sustain her upon her dangerous foot-hold—by the intensity of his gaze.” He may possibly, however, with this end in view, have made use of an eye-glass.

There being nothing better to be done, the guide having absconded, and the lady being upon the eve of destruction, our friend Job, and his legs, are brought into requisition. He stands upon one edge of “the foaming gulf,” and stretches himself across to the other. Miss —— is so kind as to make use of him as a bridge. The guide returns with a rope, pulls up the bridge by means of a running-noose around one of its legs—and the “Visit to Niagara” terminates with an Io Pean in honor of the “foaming gulf,” the “supernatural strength” of Mr. Smith, and the “intensity of the gaze” of the devoted Mr. Slingsby.

The paper of which we have just given an outline will afford a very fair conception of the usual merits and demerits of the sketches of Mr. Willis. Here are many comparatively long passages of a force, or delicacy, or beauty—shall we say unsurpassed by any similar passages in any writer of English? We shall not say too much if we do. The bantering humor interspersed is of the best order. Who can read the endeavor (quoted above) of Mr. Slingsby to get Mr. Smith to his breakfast, without feeling at once impressed with a keen sense of the mingled wit, broad drollery, dramatic effect, and gentlemanly insouciance of the whole affair? The final question of Mr. S. (after amusing his friend with the idea of a junction, some hundred years hence, between Ontario and Erie)—“Do you intend to wait and see it, or will you come to breakfast?”—is inimitably brought about—very quiet, and very quizzical. The catastrophe of the two waiters, and the arrival in a great rage, but with a good appetite, of Mr. Smith, is a palpable hit not to be attained, and not to be appreciated by the rabble. Of force, we have abundant specimens in such sentences, as “Job flounced up, like a snake touched with a torpedo, and sprang to the window”—“I can imagine the surprise of the gentle element, after sleeping away a se'nnight of moonlight in the peaceful bosom of Lake Erie, at finding itself of a sudden in such a coil”—or “As far down towards Lake Ontario as the eye can reach, the immense volumes of water rise like huge monsters to the light, boiling and flashing out in rings of foam, with an appearance of vexation and rage that I have seen in no other cataract of the world.” The little sentence, “Whatever sister of Arethusa inhabits there, we could but congratulate her upon the beauty of her abode,” is, among many other similar things, sufficient evidence of a rare delicacy of expression—and we feel at once that writer to be a poet—an Idealist—who tells us “that Miss —— in her uncouth habiliments, looked like a fairy in disguise,” and that the sheet of Niagara is “what a child might imagine the arch of the sky to be where it bends over the edge of the horizon.”

The minor defects are few. Among these few it is sufficient to specify a too frequent allusion to the “axis of the world,” and the absurdities, gravely narrated, which go to make up the catastrophe of the sketch, in the rescue of the young lady. Upon the whole, we may speak of the mere wording as in every respect worthy of a man of taste and a scholar. With the exception of “soubriquet,” written for sobriquet, (a very common error) it would be difficult to find any verbal fault, in the present instance, to which a critic would be pardoned for alluding.

But the whole narrative is disfigured, and indeed utterly ruined, by the grievous sin of affectation. It is this sin, and not, we are convinced, any imbecility in the conceptions of Mr. Willis, (with our readers' leave we will drop Mr. Slingsby) which has beguiled him into the egregious folly of writing a long article, in a jocular manner, about the cataract of Niagara. He may say, a pleasant sketch is intended, no more—and that the intention is fulfilled. But the utter want of keeping, consequent upon handling such subject in such manner, is sufficient to convince us at a glance, that his intention, even such as it is, is not, in any due degree, fulfilled. The question is not whether the thing pleases, (one who writes as well as Mr. Willis will please in spite of a thousand faults,) but whether, if otherwise handled, it might not have pleased the more. While laughing at the mystification of our friend Job, we are in no proper [p. 600] frame of mind for the grandeur of the fall—and while absorbed in the majesty of the monarch of cataracts, we are aware of an oppressive revulsion of feeling if disturbed for the absurd fripperies and frivolities, or the still more absurd melo-dramatic adventures, of the fop and the woman of fashion. This matter is too obvious for denial. A writer, then, who, in despite of common sense, shall be continually endeavoring to reconcile these obstinate oils and waters of the soul, will be continually laboring at a disadvantage—and this latter point, neglected by gentlemen who should know better, is a point to which the most dunder-headed artizan would not forget to give a proper attention in the making of a pair of breeches, or the building of a pig-stye. If all ethics be not at fault, those mental impressions, however vivid, will be necessarily evanescent, which are deficient in unity. In a word, it may safely be asserted, that a writer neglectful of the totality of effect, will fall short of his end, if that end be a remembrance in the “language of his land.” Compositions grossly failing in this essential, have been habitually discharged from the memory of man. And in this essential Mr. Willis invariably fails—we should rather say, this essential Mr. Willis invariably disregards. He seems especially to have fallen into that heresy (now common in literary, although deduced from mere fashionable life) which would brand as a species of Rosa-Matilda-ism any sustained and unmingled severity of sentiment. Never, surely, in whatever light we regard it, was a heresy more untenable. When applied to the brief essay, or short tale, it is ridiculous—and Mr. Willis should remember that he is an essayist, or nothing.

In the particular here pointed out, we have accused our author of affectation. It is a sin of which the public loudly accuse him, and in general terms. When we say the accusation is just, we wish to be understood as speaking positively. In a relative view, the case is different. Mr. Willis is not a jot more entitled to be called “affected,” than nine-tenths of the gentlemen who are in the habit of so calling him—than nine-tenths of the most popular writers in our land. But his affectation, differing from the tone of their own, is in some measure more readily perceptible. It is, however, a positive folly, no doubt, which induces so clever a writer so frequently to disclaim all knowledge of geography and “figures”—to speak bad French in preference to good English—to talk about Niagara being “as fine a thing as I have seen in my travels,” and about having “pic-nic'd from the Simplegades westward”—to think “gave upon the bay” a forcible phrase, merely because it is a Gallicism—to begin a quotation with “Saith well an American poet,” &c. &c.—to delight in such inversions as “She looked loveliest when driving, did Blanche Carroll”—to inform us that “he never looks back in composition,” and to make use of such pretty little expressions on his title-pages as Pencillings by the Way, and Inklings of Adventure.

Niagara is by no means the best of the sketches before us—it may, very possibly, be the worst. None of them are entitled to the merit of plot. And indeed it appears an idiosyncrasy in Mr. Willis that he has little feeling for incident. In an exceedingly delicate vein of sentiment he is peculiarly at home. Edith Linsey is thus, we think, the happiest effort of his pen. Here is indeed some very beautiful writing. The imitation of Elia is not only an exquisite imitation, but evinces a close affinity of intellect between the imitator and the imitated. We are quite sure no man in America can, more fully than Mr. Willis, enter into the soul of Charles Lamb. In a graceful badinage our author pre-eminently excels. To originality he has little claim—his manner—the touchstone of the essayist—is not peculiarly his own. His scholarship is sufficient and available—his command of language very great. In a vigorous figurative expression—a quality seldom allowed him—he has indeed few equals. As this point is disputed, we will adduce from the volumes before us one or two instances, more to show what we mean by vigor of expression, than to prove our position by a number of quotations.

“You ask, in England, who has the privilege of this water?—or you say of an oak, that it stood in such a man's time; but with us water is an element unclaimed and unrented, and a tree dabbles in the clouds as they go over, and is like a great idiot, without soul or responsibility.”

“As you walk in the long porticoes of the hotel, the dark forest mounts up before you like a leafy wall, and the clouds seem just to clear the pine-tops, and the eagles sail across from horizon to horizon, without lifting their wings as if you saw them from the bottom of a well.”

“As far down towards Lake Ontario as the eye can reach, the immense volumes of water rise like huge monsters to the light, boiling and flashing out in rings of foam, with an appearance of vexation and rage that I have seen in no other cataract of the world.”

“He who has soiled his bright honor with the tools of ambition—he who has leant his soul upon the charity of a sect in religion—he who has loved, hoped, and trusted in the greater arena of life and manhood—must look back on days like these, as the broken-winged eagle to the sky—as the Indian's subdued horse to the prairie.”

“The chain of the Green Mountains, after a gallop of some hundred miles from Canada to Connecticut, suddenly pulls up on the shore of Long Island Sound, and stands rearing with a bristling mane of pine trees, three hundred feet in air, as if checked in mid career by the sea.”

“Next to their own loves ladies like nothing on earth like mending or marring the loves of others; and while the violets and already-drooping wild flowers were coquettishly chosen or rejected by those slender fingers, the sun might have swung back to the east like a pendulum, and those seven and twenty Misses would have watched their lovely school-fellow the same.”

An autumn forest—“It is as if a myriad of rainbows were laced through the tree-tops—as if the sunsets of a summer—gold, purple and crimson—had been fused in the alembic of the west, and poured back in a new deluge of light and color over the wilderness.”

“The gold of the sunset had glided up the dark pine-tops, and disappeared, like a ring taken slowly from an Ethiop's finger.”

“Just above, there is a sudden turn in the glen, which sends the water like a catapult against the opposite angle of the rock, and, in the action of years, it has worn out a cavern of unknown depth, into which the whole mass of the river plunges with the abandonment of a flying fiend into hell, and, re-appearing like the angel that has pursued him, glides swiftly, but with divine serenity, on his way.”

We believe that the high powers of Mr. Willis are properly estimated by the judicious among his countrymen. His foibles, his faults, and his deficiencies—let us not forget to say, his merits—are quite as well known to himself as to us. His intellect, if not of the loftiest order, very closely approaches it—and he has stepped upon the threshhold of nearly every species of literary excellence.

AUTOGRAPHY.¹

¹ See Messenger for February last.

Our friend, Joseph A. B. C. D. &c. Miller, has called upon us again, in a great passion. He says we quizzed him in our last article—which we deny positively. He maintains, moreover, that the greater part of our observations on mental qualities, as deduced from the character of a MS., are not to be sustained. The man is in error. However, to gratify him, we have suffered him, in the present instance, to play the critic himself. He has brought us another batch of autographs, and will let us have them upon no other terms. To say the truth, we are rather glad of his proposal than otherwise. We shall look over his shoulder, however, occasionally. Here follow the letters.

Dear Sir,—Will you oblige me by not writing me any more silly letters? I really have no time to attend to them.

Your most obedient servant,                                                   
                

JOSEPH A. MILLER, Esq.

Mr. Sparks' MS. has an odd appearance. The characters are large, round, black, irregular and perpendicular. The lines are close together, and the whole letter wears at first sight an air of confusion—of chaos. Still it is not very illegible upon close inspection, and would by no means puzzle a regular bred devil. We can form no guess in regard to any mental peculiarities from this MS. From its tout-ensemble, however, we might imagine it written by a man who was very busy among a great pile of books and papers huddled up in confusion around him. Paper blueish and fine—sealed, with the initials J. S.

My Dear Sir,—It gives me great pleasure to receive a letter from you. Let me see, I think I have seen you once or twice in——where was it? However, your remarks upon “Melanie and other Poems” prove you to be a man of sound discrimination, and I shall be happy to hear from you as often as possible.

Yours truly,                                  
                

JOSEPH B. MILLER, Esq.

Mr. Willis writes a very good hand. What was said about the MS. of Halleck, in the February number, will apply very nearly to this. It has the same grace, with more of the picturesque, however, and, consequently, more force. These qualities will be found in his writings—which are greatly underrated. Mem. Mr. Messenger should do him justice. [Mem. by Mr. Messenger. I have.] Cream colored paper—green and gold seal—with the initials N. P. W.

Dear Sir,—I have to inform you that “the pretty little poem” to which you allude in your letter is not, as you suppose, of my composition. The author is unknown to me. The poem is very pretty.

Yours, &c.                                           
                

JOSEPH C. MILLER.

The writing of Miss Gould resembles that of Miss Leslie very nearly. It is rather more petite—but has the same neatness, picturesqueness and finish without over-effeminacy. The literary style of one who writes thus is sure to be forcibly epigrammatic—either in detached sentences—or in the tout ensemble of the composition. Paper very fine—wafered.

Dear Sir,—Herewith I have the honor of sending you what you desire. If the Essay shall be found to give you any new information, I shall not regret the trouble of having written it.

Respectfully,                                                   
                

JOSEPH D. MILLER, Esq.

The MS. of Professor Dew is large, bold, very heavy, abrupt, and illegible. It is possible that he never thinks of mending a pen. There can be no doubt that his chirography has been modified, like that of Paulding, by strong adventitious circumstances—for it appears to retain but few of his literary peculiarities. Among the few retained, are boldness and weight. The abruptness we do not find in his composition—which is indeed somewhat diffuse. Neither is the illegibility of the MS. to be paralleled by any confusion of thought or expression. He is remarkably lucid. We must look for the two last mentioned qualities of his MS. in the supposition that he has been in the habit of writing a great deal, in a desperate hurry, and with a stump of a pen. Paper good—but only a half sheet of it—wafered.

Dear Sir,—In reply to your query touching the “authenticity of a singular incident,” related in one of my poems, I have to inform you that the incident in question is purely a fiction.

With respect, your obedient servant,                                                   
                

JOSEPH E. F. MILLER, Esq.

The hand-writing of Mr. Mellen is somewhat peculiar, and partakes largely of the character of the signature annexed. It would require no great stretch of fancy to imagine the writer (from what we see of his MS.) a man of excessive sensibility, amounting nearly to disease—of unbounded ambition, greatly interfered with by frequent moods of doubt and depression, and by unsettled ideas of the beautiful. The formation of the G in his signature alone, might warrant us in supposing his composition to have great force, frequently impaired by an undue straining after effect. Paper excellent—red seal.

Dear Sir,—I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, but thank you for the great interest you seem to take in my welfare. I have no relations by the name of Miller, and think you must be in error about the family connection.

Respectfully,                                                                    
                

JOSEPH G. H. MILLER, Esq.

The MS. of Mr. Simms resembles, very nearly, that of Mr. Kennedy. It has more slope, however, and less of the picturesque—although still much. We spoke of Mr. K.'s MS. (in our February number) as indicating “the eye of a painter.” In our critique on the Partisan we spoke of Mr. Simms also as possessing “the eye of a painter,” and we had not then seen his hand-writing. The two MSS. are strikingly similar. The paper here is very fine and wafered.

Dear Sir,—I have received your favor of the —— inst. and shall be very happy in doing you the little service you mention. In a few days I will write you more fully.        Very respectfully,

Your most obedient servant,                                           
                

JOSEPH I. K. MILLER, Esq.

Lieutenant Slidell's MS. is peculiar—very neat, very even, and tolerably legible, but somewhat too diminutive. Black lines have been, apparently, used. Few tokens of literary manner or character are to be found in this writing. The petiteness, however, is most strikingly indicative of a mental habit, which we have more than once pointedly noticed in the works of this author—we mean that of close observation in detail—a habit which, when well regulated, as in the case of Lieut. Slidell, tends greatly to vigor of style. Paper excellent—wafered.

Dear Sir,—I find upon reference to some MS. notes now lying by me, that the article to which you have allusion, appeared originally in the “Journal des Sçavans.”

Very respectfully,                                                   
                

JOSEPH L. M. MILLER, Esq.

The writing of Professor Anthon is remarkably neat and beautiful—in the formation of particular letters as well as in the tout-ensemble. The perfect regularity of the MS. gives it, to a casual glance, the appearance of print. The lines are quite straight and at even distances—yet they are evidently written without any artificial aid. We may at once recognise in this chirography the scrupulous precision and finish—the love of elegance—together with the scorn of all superfluous embellishment, which so greatly distinguish the compilations of the writer. The paper is yellow, very fine, and sealed with green wax, bearing the impression of a head of Cæsar.

Dear Sir,—I have looked with great care over several different editions of Plato, among which I may mention the Bipont edition, 1781–8, 12 vols, oct.; that of Ast, and that of Bekker, reprinted in London, 11 vols. oct. I cannot, however, discover the passage about which you ask me—“is it not very ridiculous?” You must have mistaken the author. Please write again.

Respectfully yours,                                                   
                

JOSEPH N. O. MILLER, Esq.

The MS. of Professor Lieber has nearly all the characteristics which we noticed in that of Professor Dew—besides the peculiarity of a wide margin left at the top of the paper. The whole air of the writing seems to indicate vivacity and energy of thought—but altogether, the letter puts us at fault—for we have never before known a man of minute erudition (and such is Professor Lieber,) who did not write a very different hand from this. We should have imagined a petite and careful chirography. Paper tolerable and wafered.

Dear Sir,—I beg leave to assure you that I have never received, for my Magazine, any copy of verses with so ludicrous a title as “The nine and twenty Magpies.” Moreover, if I had, I should certainly have thrown it into the fire. I wish you would not worry me any farther about this matter. The verses, I dare say, are somewhere among your papers. You had better look them up—they may do for the Mirror.

                

JOSEPH P. Q. MILLER.

Mrs. Hale writes a larger and bolder hand than her sex generally. It resembles, in a great degree, that of Professor Lieber—and is not easily decyphered. The whole MS. is indicative of a masculine understanding. Paper very good, and wafered.

Dear Sir,—I am not to be quizzed. You suppose, eh? that I can't understand your fine letter all about “things in general.” You want my autograph, you dog—and you sha'nt have it.

Yours respectfully,                                                   
                

JOSEPH R. S. MILLER, Esq.

Mr. Noah writes a very good running hand. The lines, however, are not straight, and the letters have too much tapering to please the eye of an artist. The long letters and capitals extend very little beyond the others—either up or down. The epistle has the appearance of being written very fast. Some of the characters have now and then a little twirl, like the tail of a pig—which gives the MS. an air of the quizzical, and devil-me-care. Paper pretty good—and wafered.

Mister—I say—It's not worth while trying to come possum over the Major. Your letter's no go. I'm up to a thing or two—or else my name isn't

                

JOSEPH T. V. MILLER.

The Major writes a very excellent hand indeed. It has so striking a resemblance to that of Mr. Brooks, that we shall say nothing farther about it.

Dear Sir,—I am exceedingly and excessively sorry that it is out of my power to comply with your rational and reasonable request. The subject you mention is one with which I am utterly unacquainted—moreover it is one about which I know very little.

Respectfully,                                                                    
                

JOSEPH W. X. MILLER, Esq.

Mr. Stone's MS. has some very good points about it—among which is a certain degree of the picturesque. In general it is heavy and sprawling—the short letters running too much together. From the chirography no precise opinion can be had of Mr. Stone's literary style. [Mr. Messenger says no opinion can be had of it in any way.] Paper very good and wafered.

My Good Fellow,—I am not disposed to find fault with your having addressed me, although personally unknown. Your favor (of the —— ultimo) finds me upon the eve of directing my course towards the renowned shores of Italia. I shall land (primitively) on the territories of the ancient Brutii, of whom you may find an account in Lempriére. You will observe (therefore) that, being engrossed by the consequent, necessary, and important preparations for my departure, I can have no time to attend to your little concerns.

Believe me, my dear sir, very faithfully your                                           
                

JOSEPH Y. Z. MILLER, Esq.

Mr. Fay writes a passable hand. There is a good deal of spirit—and some force. His paper has a clean appearance, and he is scrupulously attentive to his margin. The MS. however, has an air of swagger about it. There are too many dashes—and the tails of the long letters are too long. [Mr. Messenger thinks I am right—that Mr. F. shouldn't try to cut a dash—and that all his tales are too long. The swagger he says is respectable, and indicates a superfluity of thought.]