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Title: The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 5, April, 1836

Author: Various

Editor: Edgar Allan Poe

Release date: August 18, 2022 [eBook #68785]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: T. W. White, Publisher and Proprietor

Credits: Ron Swanson


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, VOL. II., NO. 5, APRIL, 1836 ***


THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER:

DEVOTED TO EVERY DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS.


Au gré de nos desirs bien plus qu'au gré des vents.
                                      _Crebillon's Electre_.

As _we_ will, and not as the winds will.


RICHMOND:
T. W. WHITE, PUBLISHER AND PROPRIETOR.
1835-6.


{293}


SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

VOL. II.  RICHMOND, APRIL, 1836.  NO. V.

T. W. WHITE, PROPRIETOR.  FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.


MSS. OF BENJ. FRANKLIN.[1]

[Footnote 1: It is with great pleasure that we are enabled, through
the kindness of a friend in Philadelphia, to lay before our readers
an Essay, _never yet published_, from the pen of Benjamin Franklin.
It is copied from the original MS. of Franklin himself, and is not
to be found in any edition of his works. The Letters which succeed
the Essay are also copied from the original MS., but were first
published in the Doctor's _Weekly Pennsylvania Gazette_, which was
commenced in 1727. The Epistle from Anthony Afterwit appeared in No.
189--that from Celia Single in No. 191. Although these Letters are
to be found in the file of the Gazette at the Franklin Library in
Philadelphia, still they are not in either the 1809 or the 1835
edition of the writer's works. We therefore make no apology for
publishing them in the Messenger.]


A LECTURE

On the Providence of God in the Government of the World.


When I consider my own weakness and the discerning judgment of those
who are to be my audience, I cannot help blaming myself considerably
for this rash undertaking of mine, being a thing I am altogether
unpracticed in and very much unqualified for; but I am especially
discouraged when I reflect that you are all my intimate pot
companions, who have heard me say a thousand silly things in
conversation, and therefore have not that laudable partiality and
veneration for whatever I shall deliver that good people commonly
have for their spiritual guides; that you have no reverence for my
habit nor for the sanctity of my countenance; that you do not
believe me inspired or divinely assisted, and therefore will think
yourselves at liberty to assert or dissert, approve or disapprove of
any thing I advance, canvassing and sifting it as the private
opinion of one of your acquaintance. These are great disadvantages
and discouragements, but I am entered and must proceed, humbly
requesting your patience and attention.

I propose at this time to discourse on the subject of our last
conversation, the Providence of God in the government of the world.
It might be judged an affront to your understandings should I go
about to prove this first principle, the existence of a Deity, and
that he is the Creator of the Universe, for that would suppose you
ignorant of what all mankind in all ages have agreed in. I shall
therefore proceed to observe that he must be a being of infinite
wisdom, as appears in his admirable order and disposition of things,
whether we consider the heavenly bodies, the stars and planets and
their wonderful regular motions, or this earth compounded of such an
excellent mixture of all the elements; or the admirable structure of
animate bodies of such infinite variety, and yet every one adapted
to its nature and the way of life it is to be placed in, whether on
earth, in the air, or in the water, and so exactly that the highest
and most exquisite human reason cannot find a fault and say this
would have been better so, or in such a manner, which whoever
considers attentively and thoroughly will be astonished and
swallowed up in admiration.

That the Deity is a being of great goodness, appears in his giving
life to so many creatures each of which acknowledge it a benefit, by
their unwillingness to leave it; in his providing plentiful
sustenance for them all, and making those things that are most
useful, most common and easy to be had; such as water, necessary for
almost every creature to drink; air, without which few could
subsist; the inexpressible benefits of light and sunshine to almost
all animals in general; and to men the most useful vegetable such as
corn, the most useful of metals as iron &c. the most useful animals
as horses, oxen and sheep he has made easiest to raise or procure in
quantity or numbers; each of which particulars, if considered
seriously and carefully, would fill us with the highest love and
affection.

That he is a being of infinite power appears in his being able to
form and compound such vast masses of matter, as this earth and the
sun and innumerable stars and planets, and give them such prodigious
motion, and yet so to govern them in their greatest velocity as that
they shall not fly out of their appointed bounds, nor dash one
against another for their mutual destruction. But 'tis easy to
conceive his power, when we are convinced of his infinite knowledge
and wisdom; for if weak and foolish creatures as we are by knowing
the nature of a few things can produce such wonderful effects; such
as for instance, by knowing the nature only of nitre and sea salt
mixed we can make a water which will dissolve the hardest iron, and
by adding one ingredient more can make another water which will
dissolve gold, and make the most solid bodies fluid, and by knowing
the nature of saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal, those mean
ingredients mixed, we can shake the air in the most terrible manner,
destroy ships, houses and men at a distance, and in an instant,
overthrow cities, and rend rocks into a thousand pieces, and level
the highest mountains; what power must he possess who not only knows
the nature of every thing in the universe, but can make things of
new natures with the greatest ease and at his pleasure?

Agreeing then that the world was at first made by a being of
infinite wisdom, goodness and power, which being we call God, the
state of things existing at this time must be in one of these four
following manners--viz.

1. Either he unchangeably decreed and appointed every thing that
comes to pass, and left nothing to the course of nature, nor allowed
any creature free agency.

2. Without decreeing any thing he left all to general nature and the
events of free agency in his creatures which he never alters or
interrupts; or,

3. He decreed some things unchangeably, and left others to general
nature and the events of free agency which also he never alters or
interrupts; or,

4. He sometimes interferes by his particular providence and sets
aside the effects which would otherwise have been produced by any of
the above causes.

I shall endeavor to show the first three suppositions to be
inconsistent, with the common light of reason, and {294} that the
fourth is most agreeable to it and therefore most probably true.

In the first place. If you say he has in the beginning unchangeably
decreed all things and left nothing to nature or free agency, these
strange conclusions will necessarily follow, 1. That he is now no
more a God. It is true indeed before he made such unchangeable
decree, he was a being of power almighty; but now having determined
every thing he has divested himself of all further power, he has
done and has no more to do, he has tied up his hands and has now no
greater power than an idol of wood or stone; nor can there be any
more reason for praying to him or worshipping of him than of such an
idol, for the worshippers can never be better for such worship.
Then, 2. He has decreed some things contrary to the very notion of a
wise and good being; such as that some of his creatures or children
shall do all manner of injury to others, and bring every kind of
evil upon them without cause; that some of them shall even blaspheme
him their Creator, in the most horrible manner; and which is still
more highly absurd, that he has decreed, that the greatest part of
mankind shall in all ages put up their earnest prayers to him both
in private and publicly, in great assemblies, when all the while he
had so determined their fate that he could not possibly grant them
any benefits on that account, nor could such prayers be in any way
available. Why then should he ordain them to make such prayers? It
cannot be imagined that they are of any service to him. Surely it is
not more difficult to believe the world was made by a God of wood or
stone, than that the God who made the world should be such a God as
this.

In the second place. If you say he has decreed nothing, but left all
things to general nature and the events of free agency which he
never alters or interrupts, then these conclusions will follow; he
must either utterly hide himself from the works of his own hands and
take no notice at all of their proceedings natural or moral, or he
must be, as undoubtedly he is, a spectator of every thing, for there
can be no reason or ground to suppose the first. I say there can be
no reason to imagine he would make so glorious a universe merely to
abandon it. In this case imagine the deity looking on and beholding
the ways of his creatures. Some heroes in virtue he sees are
incessantly endeavoring the good of others: they labor through vast
difficulties, they suffer incredible hardships and miseries to
accomplish this end, in hopes to please a good God, and attain his
favors which they earnestly pray for, what answer can he make then
within himself but this? _Take the reward chance may give you, I do
not intermeddle in these affairs._ He sees others continually doing
all manner of evil, and bringing by their actions misery and
destruction among mankind, what can he say here but this, _if chance
rewards you I shall not punish you, I am not to be concerned._ He
sees the just, the innocent, and the beneficent in the hands of the
wicked and violent oppressor, and when the good are at the brink of
destruction they pray to him, _Thou O God art mighty and powerful to
save, help us we beseech thee!_ He answers, _I cannot help you, it
is none of my business, nor do I at all regard these things._ How is
it possible to believe a wise and an infinitely good being can be
delighted in this circumstance, and be utterly unconcerned what
becomes of the beings and things he has created? for thus, we must
believe him idle and inactive, and that his glorious attributes of
power, wisdom, and goodness are no more to be made use of.

In the third place. If you say he has decreed some things and left
others to the events of nature and free agency, which he never
alters or interrupts; still you _un-God_ him if I may be allowed the
expression--he has nothing to do; he can cause us neither good nor
harm; he is no more to be regarded than a lifeless image, than Dagon
or Baal, or Bell and the Dragon, and as in both the other
suppositions foregoing, that being which from its power is most able
to act, from its wisdom knows best how to act, and from its goodness
would always certainly act best, is in this opinion supposed to
become the most inactive of all beings, and remain everlastingly
idle: an absurdity which when considered or but barely seen, cannot
be swallowed without doing the greatest violence to common reason
and all the faculties of the understanding.

We are then necessarily driven to the fourth supposition, that the
Deity sometimes interferes by his particular Providence, and sets
aside the events which would otherwise have been produced in the
course of nature or by the free agency of men, and this is perfectly
agreeable with what we can know of his attributes and perfections.
But as some may doubt whether it is possible there should be such a
thing as free agency in creatures, I shall just offer one short
argument on that account, and proceed to show how the duty of
religion necessarily follows the belief of a providence. You
acknowledge that God is infinitely powerful, wise and good, and also
a free agent, and you will not deny that he has communicated to us
part of his wisdom, power and goodness; that is, he has made us in
some degree, wise, potent and good. And is it then impossible for
him to communicate any part of his freedom, and make us also in some
degree free? Is not even his infinite power sufficient for this? I
should be glad to hear what reason any man can give for thinking in
that manner. It is sufficient for me to show it is not impossible,
and no man, I think, can show it is improbable. Much more might be
offered to demonstrate clearly, that men are in some degree free
agents and accountable for their actions; however, this I may
possibly reserve for another separate discourse hereafter, if I find
occasion.

Lastly. If God does not sometimes interfere by his providence, it is
either because he cannot, or because he will not. Which of these
positions will you choose? There is a righteous nation grievously
oppressed by a cruel tyrant, they earnestly intreat God to deliver
them. If you say he cannot, you deny his infinite power, which [you]
at first acknowledged. If you say he will not, you must directly
deny his infinite goodness. You are of necessity obliged to allow
that it is highly reasonable to believe a providence, because it is
highly absurd to believe otherwise.

Now, if it is unreasonable to suppose it out of the power of the
Deity to help and favor us particularly, or that we are out of his
hearing and notice, or that good actions do not procure more of his
favor than ill ones; then I conclude, that believing a providence,
we have the foundation of all true religion, for we should love and
revere that Deity for his goodness, and thank him for his benefits;
we should adore him for his wisdom, fear him for his power, and pray
to him for his favor and protection. And this religion will be a
powerful {295} regulator of our actions, give us peace and
tranquillity within our own minds, and render us benevolent, useful
and beneficial to others.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER FROM ANTHONY AFTERWIT.

_Mr. Gazetteer_,--I am an honest tradesman who never meant harm to
any body. My affairs went on smoothly while a bachelor; but of late
I have met with some difficulties of which I take the freedom to
give you an account.

About the time I first addressed my present spouse, her father gave
out in speeches that if she married a man he liked, he would give
with her 200_l_. in cash on the day of marriage. He never said so
much to me, it is true, but he always received me very kindly at his
house, and openly countenanced my courtship. I formed several fine
schemes what to do with this same 200_l_. and in some measure
neglected my business on that account; but unluckily it came to pass
that when the old gentleman saw I was pretty well engaged and that
the match was too far gone to be easily broke off, he without any
reason given, grew very angry, forbid me the house, and told his
daughter that if she married me he would not give her a farthing.
However (as he thought) we were not to be disappointed in that
manner, but having stole a wedding I took her home to my house,
where we were not in quite so poor a condition as the couple
described in the Scotch song, who had

  Neither pot nor pan
  But four bare legs together,

for I had a house tolerably furnished for a poor man, before. No
thanks to Dad, who, I understand, was very much pleased with his
politic management; and I have since learned that there are other
old curmudgeons (so called) besides him, who have this trick to
marry their daughters, and yet keep what they might well spare, till
they can keep it no longer. But this by way of digression, a word to
the wise is enough.

I soon saw that with ease and industry we might live tolerably easy
and in credit with our neighbors; but my wife had a strong
inclination to be a gentlewoman. In consequence of this, my old
fashioned looking glass was one day broke, as she said, _no one
could tell which way_. However, since we could not be without a
glass in the room, _My dear_, saith she, _we may as well buy a large
fashionable one that Mr. Such-a-one has to sell. It will cost but
little more than a common glass, and will look much handsomer and
more creditable._ Accordingly, the glass was bought and hung against
the wall, but in a week's time I was made sensible by little and
little, that _the table was by no means suitable to such a glass_;
and a more proper table being procured, some time after, my spouse,
who was an excellent contriver, informed me where we might have very
handsome chairs _in the way_; and thus by degrees I found all my old
furniture stowed up in the garret, and every thing below altered for
the better.

Had we stopped here it might have done well enough. But my wife
being entertained with tea by the good women she visited, we could
do no less than the like when they visited us, and so we got a tea
table with all its appurtenances of china and silver. Then my spouse
unfortunately overworked herself in washing the house, so that we
could do no longer without a maid. Besides this, it happened
frequently that when I came home at one, the dinner was but just put
in the pot, and _my dear thought really it had been but eleven_. At
other times when I came at the same hour, _she wondered I would stay
so long, for dinner was ready about one and had waited for me these
two hours_. These irregularities occasioned by mistaking the time
convinced me that it was absolutely necessary _to buy a clock_,
which my spouse observed was _a great ornament to the room_. And
lastly, to my grief, she was troubled with some ailment or other,
and _nothing did her so much good as riding, and these hackney
horses were such wretched ugly creatures that_--I bought a very fine
pacing mare which cost 20_l_.; and hereabouts affairs have stood for
about a twelvemonth past.

I could see all along that this did not at all suit with my
circumstances, but had not resolution enough to help it, till lately
receiving a very severe dun which mentioned the next court, I began
in earnest to project relief. Last Monday, my dear went over the
river to see a relation and stay a fortnight, because she could not
bear the heat of the town air. In the interim I have taken my turn
to make alterations, viz.--I have turned away the maid, bag and
baggage--(for what should we do with a maid, who beside our boy,
have none but ourselves?) I have sold the pacing mare and bought a
good milch cow with 3_l_. of the money. I have disposed of the table
and put a good spinning wheel in its place, which methinks looks
very pretty: nine empty canisters I have stuffed with flax, and with
some of the money of the tea furniture I have bought a set of
knitting needles, for to tell you the truth _I begin to want
stockings_. The fine clock I have transformed into an hour glass, by
which I have gained a good round sum, and one of the pieces of the
old looking glass squared and framed, supplies the place of the
great one, which I have conveyed into a closet where it may possibly
remain some years. In short the face of things is quite changed, and
methinks you would smile to see my hour glass hanging in the place
of the clock,--what a great ornament it is to the room! I have paid
my debts and find money in my pocket. I expect my dear home next
Friday, and as your paper is taken at the house where she is, I hope
the reading of this will prepare her mind for the above surprising
revolutions. If she can conform herself to this new manner of
living, we shall be the happiest couple perhaps in the province, and
by the blessing of God may soon be in thriving circumstances. I have
reserved the great glass because I know her heart is set upon it; I
will allow her when she comes in to be taken suddenly ill with _the
headache_, _the stomach ache_, _fainting fits_, or whatever other
disorder she may think more proper, and she may retire to bed as
soon as she pleases. But if I should not find her in perfect health
both of body and mind the next morning, away goes the aforesaid
great glass with several other trinkets I have no occasion for, to
the vendue that very day--which is the irrevocable resolution

  Of, Sir, her loving husband and
    Your very humble servant,
      ANTHONY AFTERWIT.

P. S. I would be glad to know how you approve my conduct.

_Answer_. I dont love to concern myself in affairs between man and
wife.

       *       *       *       *       *

{296} LETTER FROM CELIA SINGLE.

_Mr. Gazetteer_,--I must needs tell you that some of the things you
print do more harm than good, particularly I think so of the
tradesman's letter, which was in one of your late papers, which
disobliged many of our sex and has broken the peace of several
families, by causing difference between men and their wives. I shall
give you here one instance of which I was an eye and ear witness.

Happening last Wednesday morning to be at Mrs. W.'s when her husband
returned from market, among other things he showed her some balls of
thread which he had bought. My dear, says he, I like mightily those
stockings which I yesterday saw neighbor Afterwit knitting for her
husband, of thread of her own spinning. I should be glad to have
some such stockings myself. I understand that your maid Mary is a
very good knitter, and seeing this thread in market I have bought it
that the girl may make a pair or two for me. Mrs. W. was just then
at the glass dressing her head, and turning about with the pins in
her mouth, Lord, child, says she, are you crazy? What time has Mary
to knit? Who must do the work, I wonder, if you set her to knitting?
Perhaps, my dear, says he, you have a mind to knit them yourself. I
remember, when I courted you, I once heard you say that you had
learned to knit of your mother. I knit stockings for you, says she,
not I, truly! There are poor women enough in town who can knit; if
you please you may employ them. Well, but my dear, says he, you know
a penny saved is a penny got, and there is neither sin nor shame in
knitting a pair of stockings; why should you have such a mighty
aversion to it? And what signifies talking of poor women, you know
we are not people of quality. We have no income to maintain us but
arises from my labor and industry. Methinks you should not be at all
displeased when you have an opportunity of getting something as well
as myself. I wonder, says she, you can propose such a thing to me.
Did not you always tell me you would maintain me like a gentlewoman?
If I had married the Captain I am sure he would have scorned to
mention knitting of stockings. Prythee, says he, a little nettled,
what do you tell me of your Captain? If you could have had him I
suppose you would, or perhaps you did not like him very well. If I
did promise to maintain you as a gentlewoman, methinks it is time
enough for that when you know how to behave yourself like one. How
long, do you think, I can maintain you at your present rate of
living? Pray, says she, somewhat fiercely, and dashing the puff into
the powder box, dont use me in this manner, for I'll assure you I
wont bear it. This is the fruit of your poison newspapers: there
shall no more come here I promise you. Bless us, says he, what an
unaccountable thing is this? Must a tradesman's daughter and the
wife of a tradesman necessarily be a lady? In short, I tell you if I
am forced to work for a living and you are too good to do the like,
there's the door, go and live upon your estate. And as I never had
or could expect any thing with you, I dont desire to be troubled
with you.

What answer she made I cannot tell, for knowing that man and wife
are apt to quarrel more violently when before strangers, than when
by themselves, I got up and went out hastily. But I understand from
Mary who came to me of an errand in the evening, that they dined
together very peaceably and lovingly, the balls of thread which had
caused the disturbance being thrown into the kitchen fire, of which
I was very glad to hear.

I have several times in your paper seen reflections upon us women
for idleness and extravagance, but I do not remember to have once
seen such animadversions upon the men. If we were disposed to be
censorious we could furnish you with instances enough; I might
mention Mr. Billiard who loses more than he earns at the green
table, and would have been in jail long since had it not been for
his industrious wife. Mr. Husselcap, who every market day at least,
and often all day long, leaves his business for the rattling of half
pence in a certain alley--or Mr. Finikin, who has seven different
suits of fine clothes and wears a change every day, while his wife
and children sit at home half naked--Mr. Crownhim always dreaming
over the chequer board, and who cares not how the world goes with
his family so he does but get the game--Mr. Totherpot the tavern
haunter, Mr. Bookish the everlasting reader, Mr. Tweedledum and
several others, who are mighty diligent at any thing besides their
proper business. I say, if I were disposed to be censorious, I might
mention all these and more, but I hate to be thought a scandalizer
of my neighbors, and therefore forbear; and for your part I would
advise you for the future to entertain your readers with something
else besides people's reflections upon one another, for remember
that there are holes enough to be picked in your coat as well as
others, and those that are affronted by the satires that you may
publish, will not consider so much who wrote as who printed, and
treat you accordingly. Take not this freedom amiss from

  Your friend and reader,
    CELIA SINGLE.




TO THE EVENING STAR.


  'Star of descending night!'
    How lovely is thy beam;
  How softly pours thy silv'ry light,
  O'er the bright glories of the west,
  As now the sun sunk to his rest,
    Sends back his parting stream
  Of golden splendor, like a zone
  Of beauty, o'er the horizon!

  'Star of descending night!'
    First of the sparkling train,
  That gems the sky, I hail thy light;
  And as I watch thy peaceful ray,
  That sweetly spreads o'er fading day,
    I think and think again,
  That thou art some fair orb of light,
  Where spirits bask in glory bright.

  'Star of descending night!'
    Oft hast thou met my gaze,
  When evening's calm and mellow light,
  Invited to the secret bower,
  To spend with God the tranquil hour,
    In grateful pray'r and praise,--    {297}
  Then thy soft ray so passing sweet,
  Has beamed around my hallowed seat.

  And I have loved thee, star!
    When in night's diadem,
  I saw thee lovelier, brighter, far
  Than all the stellate worlds, and thought
  Of that great star the wise men sought,
    And came to Bethlehem,
  To view the infant Saviour's face,
  The last bright hope of Adam's race.

T. J. S.

_Frederick Co. Va._




GENIUS.


Pope says in the preface to his works, "What we call a genius is
hard to be distinguished, by a man himself, from a strong
inclination." Such a distinction is certainly hard to make, and in
my opinion has no existence. Genius, as it appears to me, is merely
a decided preference for any study or pursuit, which enables its
possessor to give the close and unwearied attention necessary to
ensure success. When this constancy of purpose is wanting, the
brightest natural talents will give little aid in acquiring literary
or scientific eminence: and where it exists in any considerable
degree, it is rare to find one so ill endowed with common sense as
not to gain a respectable standing.

Genius is of two sorts, which may be termed philosophical and
poetical. When the mind takes most pleasure in the exercise of
reason, the genius displayed is philosophical; when the fictions of
fancy give the greatest delight, the cast of mind is poetical. All
the operations of the human intellect may be referred to one of
these, or to a combination of both. Books of this last character are
much the most numerous; for we seldom find a work so severely
argumentative as to exclude all play of imagination even as
ornament, or so entirely poetical as never to allow the restraint of
sober reason.

These two kinds of genius require different and peculiar faculties.
In philosophy, where the great end proposed is the discovery of
truth, the coloring of imagination should be carefully avoided as
useless and deceptive. It is necessary to divest the mind as far as
possible of all pre-conceived opinions, that so the proofs presented
may make just the impression which their character and importance
demand. No prejudice or association of former ideas must be allowed
to bias the judgment; but the question should be decided in strict
accordance with the deductions of the sternest reason. And yet this
perfect freedom from prejudice, however necessary to the proper use
of right reason, is perhaps the most difficult effort of the human
mind. "Nemo adhuc," says Lord Bacon, in a passage quoted by Stewart
in the introduction to his mental philosophy, "Nemo adhuc tanta
mentis constantia inventus est, ut decreverit et sibi imposuerit
theorias et notiones communes penitus abolere, et intellectum
abrasum et æquum ad particularia de integro applicare. Itaque illa
ratio humana quam habemus ex multa fide et multo etiam casu, necnon
ex puerilibus quas primo hausimus notionibus, farrago quædam est et
congeries. Quod si quis, ætate matura et sensibus integris et mente
repurgata, se ad experientiam et ad particularia de integro
applicet, de eo melius sperandum est." Such was the opinion of the
great father of modern philosophy.

On the other hand these vulgar errors and superstitions, these
"theoriæ et notiones communes," supply the means of producing the
strongest effect of poetry. The dull scenes of real life can never
be suffered to chill the ardor of a romantic imagination. And as the
poet finds truth too plain and unadorned to satisfy his enthusiastic
fancy, he is compelled to seek subjects and scenery of more
faultless nature and brighter hues than this world affords. He
delights in combinations of the most striking images. The grand and
imposing, the dark and terrific, the furious and
desolating--whatever serves to fill the mind with awe and wonder,
are his favorite subjects of contemplation. The legends of
superstition contribute largely to the effect of poetical
composition. The enthusiast loves to fancy the agency of
supernatural beings, and endeavors to feel the influence of those
emotions which such a belief is suited to inspire. This seems to be
the spirit of Collins in the following lines of his ode to fear.

  "Dark power, with shuddering meek submitted thought,
     Be mine to read the visions old
     Which thy awakening bards have told;
     And lest thou meet my blasted view,
     Hold each strange tale devoutly true."

In combinations of poetical images, no regard is had to their
consistency with truth and reason. It is the part of philosophy to
discover relations as they exist in nature; but to search out and
combine into one glowing and harmonious whole the brightest and
grandest images which art or nature supplies--this is the province
of poetry. The utmost calmness and most collected thought are
necessary to that patient and laborious reasoning by which progress
is made in the science of truth. The fury of impassioned feeling, on
the other hand, supports the loftier flights of poetry. Hence
philosophy and poetry rarely meet in the same individual. Yet the
smallness of the number of those who have gained renown both as
poets and philosophers, is to be ascribed less to any
incompatibility between the habits of mind peculiar to each, than to
the fact that the short space of human life will not allow to both
the attention necessary for their highest attainments. I speak now
of poetical and philosophical genius, not of poetry and philosophy.
Between the two last there _is_ an incompatibility, as may easily be
shown. Euclid's elements, for example, contain as pure specimens of
mere reasoning as can be conceived; but in them simplicity,
clearness and precision of terms are all the ornament they need or
will admit: nor can poetical language be used by any arrangement
without producing obscurity and disgust. And the wild conceptions of
unbridled fancy will as little brook the restraint of heartless
reason. In short, poetry and philosophy are so distinct and opposed
in character, that neither can ever be used to heighten the proper
effect of the other.

A most extraordinary combination of poetical and philosophical
talent in one individual was displayed by Lucretius. I might
challenge the whole circle of science or literature to furnish
examples of clearer, closer and more irrefutable argument than his
work presents. And for purity, sublimity, delicacy, strength and
feeling, passages of his poetry might be selected scarcely {298}
inferior to any effort of ancient or modern times. Yet his work may
well be chosen to furnish proof that even the brightest genius
cannot combine austere logic and gorgeous poetry, so as that each
shall produce its due effect. For although where the reasoning is
not deep the embellishments of fancy may be borne and even relished,
yet where the argument requires close and laborious thought, the
reader is willing to sacrifice all the ornaments of poetry to the
simpler grace of perspicuity. But it is mostly in episodes and
illustrations that the fire of his poetic genius burns so brightly;
and here we see him throw off the fetters of truth to wander in the
haunted fields of fiction. And although his work displays intense
thought and burning poetry, we rarely find them united in the same
passage.

Confirmed habits of philosophical reflection, it is not improbable,
will in time give a character of sobriety and apathy to the mind.
Quick susceptibility of impressions is one mark of a poetical
temperament; and of course if habits of calm reasoning destroy this
sensibility, philosophy and poetry cannot exist in perfection in the
same mind. But this apathetic coldness appears not to be the
immediate effect of philosophical habits, but rather to result from
disuse of the imagination while the attention is turned to graver
studies. Lucretius has shown what attainments may be made in pure
philosophy without lessening the strength and grace of fancy. He was
a man of the most acute and accurate observation, and of the most
rigid and cautious reasoning, yet possessed a quick perception of
the grand and beautiful, and had imbibed the warmest spirit of
poetic enthusiasm.

Poetry delights in personifications. According to Dryden,

  "Each virtue a divinity is seen:
   Prudence is Pallas, beauty Paphos' queen;
   'Tis not a cloud from which swift lightnings fly,
   But Jupiter that thunders from the sky;
   Nor a rough storm that gives the sailor pain,
   But angry Neptune ploughing up the main;
   Echo's no more an empty, airy sound,
   But a fair nymph that weeps her lover drown'd:
   Thus in the endless treasure of his mind,
   The poet does a thousand figures find."
                                    _Art of Poetry, Canto 3_.

Philosophy on the contrary seeks to disrobe the subject of every
factitious charm, and present it to the mind in its naked
simplicity. It dispels the clouds of error, though gilded with the
bright colors of fancy; and boldly brings even objects of
superstitious veneration to the light of reason.

These conflicting qualities are eminently shown in Lucretius; and it
is not without interest to mark how he contrives to blend in the
same work the solid simplicity of argument with the lighter graces
of imagination. As a poet he opens his work with an address to Venus
the mother and guardian of the Roman people, whose aid he invokes as
the companion of his song. He prays her to avert the frowns of
rugged war from the nation by the softening power of her charms. He
tells her that she alone governs the universe; that nothing springs
into the light of day without her; and ascribes to her, as the
source of all pleasure, whatever is joyous or lovely.

  "Nec sine te quidquam dias in luminis oras
   Exoritur, neque fit lætum neque amabile quidquam."

Yet in the next page the philosopher avows his intention of waging
eternal war with superstition; and gives exalted praise to Epicurus
because he suffered no feelings of religious awe to interfere with
his philosophical investigations. In this passage superstition (or
religion, to use his own term) is personified, and represented as
some hideous monster thrusting her head from out the skies, and
regarding mankind with an awful and terrible aspect. The whole image
presented is eminently grand and poetic.

  "Humana ante oculos fede quam vita jaceret
   In terris oppressa gravi sub religione;
   Quæ caput a cœli regionibus obtendebat,
   Horribili super adspectu mortalibus instans;
   Primum Graius homo mortaleis tollere contra
   Est oculos ausus, primusque obsistere contra:
   Quem neque fama deum, nec fulmina, nec minitanti
   Murmure compressit cœlum; sed eo magis acrem
   Inritat animi virtutem effringere ut arta
   Naturæ primus portarum claustra cupiret."

Thus we see that although one great part of his purpose was to
divest the mind of popular superstitions, he found the language of
philosophy too barren, and the images which truth presented too cold
and lifeless to supply the materials of poetry. Hence his
personifications, and his digressions, which abound in the richest
ornaments of fancy.

As a philosopher Lucretius was led to reject the legends of ancient
superstition, because such terrors kept the human mind in darkness
and error.

  "Nam velutei puerei trepidant, atque omnia cæcis
   In tenebris metuunt; sic nos in luce timemus
   Interdum nihilo quæ sunt metuenda magisquam
   Quæ puerei in tenebris pavitant, finguntque futura.
   Hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque, necesse est,
   Non radiei solis neque lucida tela diei
   Discutiant; sed naturæ species, ratioque."
                                             Lib. 2, lin. 54.

But the spirit of poetry alone would have persuaded him to increase
the gloom and mists of superstition; for fancy's favorite range is
among regions darkened by the shades of ancient and venerable error.
The intrusion of cold reason is always unwelcome to a romantic
imagination. There is a passage of Campbell, (I cannot remember the
words,) in which he laments the dispersion by the clearer light of
reason of some fanciful notions in regard, I think, to the rainbow,
which had formerly been the delight of his youth. Collins too
regrets the restraint of imagination imposed by philosophy. He bids
farewell to metaphysics, and declares his purpose of leaving such
barren fields of speculation, and of retiring

                  "to thoughtful cell
  Where fancy breathes her potent spell."

So much to mark the difference between poetical and philosophical
genius. The remainder of this essay shall be devoted to the
peculiarities which distinguish the genius of poetry in particular.

It has been often remarked that men of brilliant fancy are never
satisfied with the productions of their own minds. The images of
grandeur or beauty continually present to their imaginations, it
would seem, are so far superior to all efforts they can make to
embody them in language, that their own works never yield them the
pleasure which they give others. The following quotation is from the
seventh chapter, sixth section, of Stewart's Elements of the
Philosophy of the Human {299} Mind. "When the notions of enjoyment
or of excellence which imagination has formed are greatly raised
above the ordinary standard, they interest the passions too deeply
to leave us at all times the cool exercise of reason, and produce
that state of the mind which is commonly known by the name of
enthusiasm; a temper which is one of the most fruitful sources of
error and disappointment; but which is a source, at the same time,
of heroic actions and of exalted characters. To the exaggerated
conceptions of eloquence which perpetually revolved in the mind of
Cicero; to that idea which haunted his thoughts of _aliquid immensum
infinitumque_, we are indebted for some of the most splendid
displays of human genius: and it is probable that something of the
same kind has been felt by every man who has risen much above the
level of humanity either in speculation or in action." To the want
of this high imaginary standard of excellence, Dr. Johnson ascribes
the dullness of Blackmore's poetry. "It does not appear," he says,
"that he saw beyond his own performances, or had ever elevated his
views to that ideal perfection which every genius born to excel is
condemned always to pursue and never overtake. In the first
suggestions of his imagination he acquiesced; he thought them good
and did not seek for better. His works may be read a long time
without the occurrence of a single line that stands prominent from
the rest."

Examples of such ardent aspirations after the _grande et immensum_,
are frequent among our best poets. Let the following from Lord Byron
suffice. In this will plainly appear that _agony_ in giving birth to
the sublime conceptions of his imagination, which metaphysicians say
is a sure mark of lofty genius. After describing a terrific
thunderstorm in language suited to the majesty of his subject, he
proceeds:

   "Could I embody and unbosom now
    That which is most within me,--could I wreak
    My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw
    Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak,
    All that I would have sought, and all I seek,
    Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe--into _one_ word,
    And that one word were lightning, I would speak;
    But as it is, I live and die unheard,
  With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword."

The same burning enthusiasm prevails throughout the odes of Collins,
whose works breathe as much the soul of poetry as is shown by any
bard of Greece or Rome.

This trait of genius often betrays young writers into a style of
affected grandiloquence, which their feebleness of thought makes
doubly ridiculous. Yet this pompous style of writing is often a
genuine mark of superior powers. Quintilian thinks extravagance a
more favorable sign in a very young writer, than a more sedate
simplicity; for his maturer judgment may be safely left to prune
such luxuriance, but where the soil is barren by nature, no art of
cultivation will produce a vigorous growth. Scarcely any writer was
ever guilty of more extravagance than Lucan; but his poem was
written in the earliest spring of manhood, and shows such strength
of genius as would probably have made him equal to Homer, had his
rising powers been suffered to reach their utmost elevation, and
receive the corrections of his finished taste.

But here it may not be amiss to mention that a style of such
affected pomp is tolerable only in young writers. When the fancy is
fresh and vigorous, and the judgment unformed, redundance in words
and ornament may be pardoned; but it is a sure evidence of feeble
genius to continue the same style in riper age. Hortensius, Cicero's
rival, was in his youth admired for his florid oratory; but in after
life was justly despised for the same childish taste. The most
elegant writers always select the simplest words. Learning should
appear in the subject, but never in the language. Even the powers of
Johnson were too weak to preserve his ponderous learned style from
ridicule. It may be assumed as a universal rule, that when two words
equally express the same meaning, the shortest and simplest is
always the best.

When the enthusiasm of poetry is joined with a correct and chastened
judgment, the utmost fastidiousness in composition is often
produced. To this may be ascribed the small number and extent of
writings left by some of our best authors. "I am tormented with a
desire to write better than I can," said Robert Hall in a letter to
a friend: and yet his works are said by Dugald Stewart (himself an
admirable writer in point of style) to combine the beauties of
Addison, Johnson and Burke, without their defects, and to contain
the purest specimens of the English language. And of Pascal too, it
is told that he spent much time in revising and correcting what to
others appeared from the first almost too perfect for amendment.
Gray, who had genius to become a pre-eminent poet, was never content
with the polish which repeated revisions were able to give his
works. The conclusion of Boileau's second Satire is so appropriate
to my purpose, that I will give it in full.

  "Un sot, en écrivant, fait tout avec plaisir:
   Il n'a point en ses vers l'embarras de choisir;
   Et toujours amoureux de ce qu'il vient d'écrire,
   Ravi d'étonnement, en soi-meme il s'admire.
   Mais un esprit sublime en vain veut s'élever
   A ce degré parfait qu'il tache de trouver;
   Et, toujours mécontent de ce qu'il vient de faire,
   Il plait a tout le monde, et ne saurait se plaire."

And in a note on this passage, "Voila, s'écria Molière, en
interrompant son ami a cet endroit, voila la plus belle vérité que
vous ayez jamais dite. Je ne suis pas du nombre de ces esprits
sublimes dont vous parlez; mais tel que je suis, je n'ai rien fait
en ma vie dont je sois veritablement content." Horace too speaks
much the same language in several places.

Of Shakspeare, the greatest poetical genius probably which the world
ever produced, our ignorance of his life permits us to speak only
from his works. But the fact that he scarcely ever condescended to
revise his plays, and took no care to preserve them from oblivion,
is ample proof how little his mind was satisfied with its own
sublime productions. Shakspeare is an illustrious example of
transcendent genius joined with unfinished taste. He had to depend
entirely on his own resources, for the best models he had access to
were not more faultless than his own writings, while they fell
infinitely below him in every positive excellence. His works, in
parts, show sublimity, delicacy, and grace of poetry, unequalled
perhaps by the productions of any writer before or since. Yet his
warmest admirers are often scandalized by the strange conceited
witticisms and other evidences of bad taste so abundant in his
writings. Still, the Bard of Avon's works will ever rank among the
noblest efforts of dramatic poetry.

Poetical genius is always united with a love of {300} sympathy. This
is the reason why men of warm imaginations so seldom fully relish a
poem when read alone. Robert Hall, in one remarkable passage, says,
that the most ardent admirer of poetry or oratory would not consent
to witness their grandest display on the sole condition that he
should never reveal his emotions.

It is also generally, and perhaps always, joined with a thirst of
fame. This feeling impels the poet to make arduous exertions. It is
the passion which, as metaphysicians say, is implanted in the human
breast as an incentive to deeds beneficial to society. Whether it be
in its nature culpable or not, is perhaps a difficult question.
Quintilian says that if it be not itself a virtue, it is certainly
often the cause of virtuous actions; and this assertion few will
venture to question. And at all events, this passion has ever been a
characteristic of the greatest men. Few have risen to eminence
without its aid. It existed largely in Byron. In verses written
shortly after the publication of his English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers, he says:

  "The fire in the cavern of Ætna concealed,
     Still mantles unseen in its secret recess;
   At length in a volume terrific revealed,
     No torrent can quench it, no bounds can repress.

   Oh, thus the desire in my bosom for fame
     Bids me live but to hope for posterity's praise:
   Could I soar with the Phœnix on pinions of flame,
     With him I could wish to expire in the blaze."

How happy for the world had his genius led him to seek applause in
works designed for the good of mankind--in recommending religion and
virtue by the melody of his verse and the influence of his life,
instead of adorning vice with the beauties of poetry!

When the thirst of glory is disappointed, the aspirant is apt to
become a gloomy misanthropist, who envies others the reputation
which he cannot attain. Much of the sullen melancholy shown by men
of genius may doubtless be ascribed to the perverted operation of
this principle. The portion of fame which falls to their share is
not sufficient to satisfy their wishes.

But after all, the most brilliant genius will avail nothing without
study. No illiterate man ever gained renown as a writer. Some have
become great without the aid of foreign learning; but all have read
and thought. No man is born a poet in the ordinary sense of the
word. Whatever his own conceptions may be, he cannot reveal them
without the use of words; and this knowledge can be acquired only by
diligent study. In all time it has been true that they who have read
and thought most, have made the greatest writers, whatever line of
science or literature they pursued. Or perhaps there ought to be
exceptions made in cases where the mind has been misdirected, as
among the schoolmen, who spent their lives in perplexing themselves
and others with subtle questions which it was of no use to solve.
But however fruitless such labors as wasted their energies may be,
this at least is certain, that without study no man will become
great, whatever be his natural talents. Even such towering geniuses
as Homer, Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil, Shakspeare, Bacon, Newton, and
Byron were not exempt from this necessity.

To conclude: Locke has sufficiently proved that all our ideas are
originally derived from the senses. These first impressions form the
basis of all human knowledge. General conclusions drawn from
comparison of such sensations are abstract thought. Reasoning and
reflection on these abstract ideas thus obtained, constitute
speculations of still greater refinement. Comparing and combining
ideas in the mind, for the purpose of discovering relations as they
exist in nature, is argument. Such comparisons and combinations made
for the purpose of pleasing, are works of fancy, or poetry. He then
who most carefully preserves his impressions, most attentively
considers and revolves his ideas, and most closely and accurately
compares them for the purpose of discovering such combinations as
nature has made, or of combining anew the separate images into such
grand and beautiful fabrics as may suit the taste of fancy, is
likely to make the best philosopher or poet, as his attention is
mainly turned to one or the other. Some difference in natural
faculties no doubt exists, but this is probably small.[1]

[Footnote 1: Of course no Editor is responsible for the opinions of
his contributors--but in the present instance we feel called upon in
self-defence to disclaim any belief in the doctrines advanced--and,
moreover, to enter a solemn protest against them. The Essay on
Genius is well written and we therefore admitted it. While many of
its assumptions are indisputable--some we think are not to be
sustained--and the inferences, generally, lag far behind the spirit
of the age. Our correspondent is evidently no phrenologist.--_Ed._]




A LOAN TO THE MESSENGER.

No. II.


Here is a scrap from another of my poetical friends, which has never
seen the light, and which I will lend to the readers of the
Messenger for the month. I give it as it came to me, apology and
all, and doubt not it will be well received by those to whom I now
dedicate it.

J. F. O.


_My Dear O_,--Instead of writing something new for your collection,
I copy a few lines from a bagatelle, written a few days ago to a
woman who is worthy of better verses: and, as they will never be
published, of course, they may answer your purpose.

  Very truly yours,
    WILLIS.

_Boston, August, 1831_.


TO ------.


  Lady! the fate that made me poor,
    Forgot to take away my heart,--
  And 'tis not easy to immure
    The burning soul, and live apart:
  To meet the wildering touch of beauty,
  And hear her voice,--and think of _duty_:
    To check a thought of burning passion,
  When trembling on the lip like flame,--
    And talk indifferently of fashion,--
  A language choked till it is tame!
    Oh God! I know not why I'm gifted
  With feeling, if I may not love!
    I know not why my cup is lifted
  So far my thirsting lips above!
    My look on thine unchidden lingers,
    My hand retains thy dewy fingers,
    Thy smile, thy glance, thy glorious tone
    For hours and hours are mine alone:    {301}
  Yet must my fervor back, and wait
    Till solitude can set it free,--
  Yet must I not forget that fate
    Has locked my heart, and lost the key;
  These very rhymes I'm weaving now
  Condemn me for a broken vow!

N. P. W.

N. B. My friend soon recovered from this sad stroke, and he has
since recovered the "key," and locked within the fate-closed casket
a pearl, I learn, of great price. So much for a sophomore's
Anacreontics!

If this "loan" prove acceptable, I have a choice one in store for
May.

O.




SOME ANCIENT GREEK AUTHORS.

CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED.


Whether Homer or Hesiod lived first has never been determined.
Herodotus supposes them both to have lived at the same time, viz.
B.C. 884. The Arun. marbles make them contemporaries, but place
their era B.C. 907. Besides the Iliad and Odyssey, Homer wrote,
according to some, a poem upon Amphiaraus' expedition against
Thebes; Also, the Phoceis, the Cercopes, the small Iliad, the
Epiciclides, the Batrachomyomachia, and some Hymns to the Gods.

_Hesiod_ wrote a poem on Agriculture, called The Works and Days,
also Theogony, which is valuable for its account of the Gods of
antiquity. His Shield of Hercules, and some others, are now lost.

_Archilocus_ wrote elegies, satires, odes and epigrams, and was the
inventor of Iambics; these are by some ascribed to Epodes. Some
fragments of his poetry remain. He is supposed to have lived B.C.
742.

_Alcæus_ is the inventor of Alcaic verses. Of all his works, nothing
remains but a few fragments, found in Athenæus. B.C. 600.

He was contemporary with the famous Sappho. She was the inventress
of the Sapphic verse, and had composed nine books in lyric verses,
besides epigrams, elegies, &c. Of all these, two pieces alone
remain, and a few fragments quoted by Didymus.

_Theognis_ of Megara wrote several poems, of which only a few
sentences are now extant, quoted by Plato and some others. B.C. 548.

_Simonides_ wrote elegies, epigrams and dramatical pieces; also Epic
poems--one on Cambyses, King of Persia, &c. One of his most famous
compositions, The Lamentations, a beautiful fragment, is still
extant.

_Thespis_, supposed to be the inventor of Tragedy, lived about this
time.

_Anacreon_. His odes are thought to be still extant, but very few of
them can be truly ascribed to Anacreon.

_Æschylus_ is the first who introduced two actors on the stage, and
clothed them with suitable dresses. He likewise removed murder from
the eyes of the spectator. He wrote 90 tragedies, of which 7 are
extant, viz. Prometheus Vinctus, Septem Duces contra Thebas, Persæ,
Agamemnon, Chöephoræ, Eumenides and Supplices.

_Pindar_ was his contemporary. Most of Pindar's works have perished.
He had written some hymns to the Gods,--poems in honor of
Apollo,--dithyrambics to Bacchus, and odes on several victories
obtained at the Olympic, Isthmian, Pythian and Nemean games. Of all
these the odes alone remain.

_Sophocles_ first increased the number of actors to three, and added
the decorations of painted scenery. He composed 120 tragedies--7
only of which are extant, viz. Ajax, Electra, Œdipus, Antigone, The
Trachniæ, Philoctetes and Œdipus at Colonos. B.C. 454.

_Plato_, the comic poet, called the prince of the middle comedy, and
of whose pieces some fragments remain, flourished about this time.

Also, _Aristarchus_, the tragic poet of Tegea, who composed 70
tragedies, one of which was translated into Latin verse by Ennius.

_Herodotus_ of Halicarnassus, wrote a history of the Wars of the
Greeks against the Persians from the age of Cyrus to the battle of
Mycale, including an account of the most celebrated nations in the
world. Besides this, he had written a history of Assyria and Arabia
which is not extant. There is a life of Homer generally attributed
to him, but doubtfully. B.C. 445.

_Euripides_, who lived at this time, wrote 75 or, as some say, 92
tragedies, of which only 19 are extant. He was the rival of
Sophocles.

About the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, flourished many
celebrated authors, among whom was _Aristophanes_. He wrote 54
comedies, of which only 11 are extant.

Also, _Cratinus_ and _Eupolis_, who with Aristophanes, are mentioned
by Horace--they were celebrated for their comic writings. B.C. 431.

Also, the mathematician and astrologer, _Meton_, who, in a book
called Enneadecaterides, endeavored to adjust the course of the sun
and moon, and maintained that the solar and lunar years could
regularly begin from the same point in the heavens. This is called
the Metonic cycle.

_Thucydides_ flourished at this time. He wrote a history of the
important events which happened during his command. This history is
continued only to the 21st year of the war. It has been divided into
eight books--the last of which is supposed to have been written by
his daughters. It is imperfect.

Also _Hippocrates_;--few of his writings remain.

_Lysias_, the orator, wrote, according to Plutarch, no less than 425
orations--of these 34 are extant. B.C. 404.

Contemporary with him was _Agatho_, an Athenian tragic and comic
poet--there is now nothing extant of his works, except quotations in
Aristotle and others.

_Xenophon_, whose works are well known, lived about the year 398
before Christ.

_Ctesias_, who wrote a history of the Assyrians and Persians, which
Justin and Diodorus have prefered to that of Herodotus, lived also
at this time. Some fragments of his compositions have been
preserved.

The works of _Plato_ are numerous--they are all written, except
twelve letters, in the form of a dialogue. 388.

Of the 64 orations of Isæus, 10 are extant. Demosthenes imitated
him. 377.

About 32 of the orations of _Isocrates_, who lived at the same time,
remain.

All the compositions of the historian _Theopompus_ are lost, except
a few fragments quoted by ancient writers. 354.

{302} _Ephorus_ lived in his time--he wrote a history commencing
with the return of the Heraclidæ and ending with the 20th year of
Philip of Macedon. It was in 30 books and is frequently quoted by
Strabo and others.

Almost all the writings of _Aristotle_ are extant. Diogenes Laertes
has given a catalogue of them. His Art of Poetry has been imitated
by Horace.

_Æschines_, his contemporary, wrote 5 orations and 9 epistles. The
orations alone are extant. 340.

_Demosthenes_ was his contemporary and rival.

_Theophrastus_ composed many books and treatises--Diogenes
enumerates 200. Of these 20 are extant--among which are a history of
stones--treatises on plants, on the winds, signs of fair weather,
&c.--also, his Characters, a moral treatise. 320.

_Menander_ was his pupil; lie was called prince of the new comedy.
Only a few fragments remain of 108 comedies which he wrote.

_Philemon_ was contemporary with these two. The fragments of some of
his comedies are printed with those of Menander.

_Megasthenes_ lived about this time. He wrote about the Indians and
other oriental nations. His history is often quoted by the ancients.
There is a work now extant which passes for his composition, but
which is spurious.

_Epicurus_ also lived now. He wrote 300 volumes according to
Diogenes.

_Chrysippus_ indeed, rivalled him in the number, but not in the
merit of his productions. They were contemporaries. 280.

_Bion_, the pastoral poet, whose Idyllia are so celebrated, lived
about this time. It is probable that _Moschus_, also a pastoral
poet, was his contemporary--from the affection with which he
mentions him.

_Theocritus_ distinguished himself by his poetical compositions, of
which 30 Idyllia and some epigrams remain--also, a ludicrous poem
called Syrinx. Virgil imitated him. B.C. 280.

_Aratus_ flourished now; he wrote a poem on Astronomy, also some
hymns and epigrams.

_Lycophron_ also lived at this time. The titles of 20 of his
tragedies are preserved. There is extant a strange work of this
poet, call Cassandra, or Alexandra,--it contains about 1500 verses,
from whose obscurity the author has been named Tenebrosus.

In the Anthology is preserved a most beautiful hymn to Jupiter,
written by _Cleanthes_,--of whose writings none except this is
preserved.

_Manetho_ lived about this period,--an Egyptian who wrote, in the
Greek language, a history of Egypt. The writers of the Universal
History suspect some mistake in the passage of Eusebius which
contains an account of this history.

This was also the age of _Apollonius_ of Perga, the Geometrician. He
composed a treatise on conic sections in eight books--seven of which
remain. It is one of the most valuable remains of antiquity.

_Nicander's_ writings were held in much estimation. Two of his
poems, entitled Theriaca, and Alexipharniaca, are still extant. He
is said to have written 5 books of Metamorphoses, which Ovid has
imitated. He wrote also history. 150.

About this time flourished _Polybius_. He wrote an universal History
in Greek, divided into 40 books; which began with the Punic wars,
and finished with the conquest of Macedonia by Paulus. This is lost,
except the first 5 books, and fragments of the 12 following. Livy
has copied whole books from him, almost word for word--and thinks
proper to call him in return "haudquaquam spernendus auctor."

P.




TO AN ARTIST,

Who requested the writer's opinion of a Pencil Sketch of a very
Lovely Woman.


  The sketch is somewhat happy of the maid;
    But where's the dark ethereal eye--
    The lip of innocence--the sigh,
  That breathes like spring o'er roses just betrayed?
  And where the smile, the bright bewitching smile
    That lights her youthful cheek with pleasure,
    Where health and beauty hoard their treasure,
  And all is loveliness unmixed with guile?
  The spirit of the bloomy months is she,
    Surrounded by the laughing hours:
    Her very foot-prints glow with flowers!
  And dared'st thou then successful hope to be?
  Presumptuous man! thy boasted art how vain!
    Too dull thy daring pencil's light
    To shadow forth the vision bright,
  Which flowed from Jove's own hand without a stain.
  What mortal skill can paint her wond'rous eye
    Or catch the smile of woman's face,
    When all the virtues seem to grace
  Its beams with something of divinity?
  None but Apollo should the task essay;
    To him alone the pow'r is given
    To blend the radiant hues of heaven,
  And in the look the very soul portray;
  Then hold, proud Artist! 'tis the God's command;
  Eugenia's face requires thy master's hand!

M.




MARCH COURT.


Court day!--what an important day in Virginia!--what a day of bustle
and business!--what a requisition is made upon every mode of
conveyance to the little metropolis of the county! How many debts
are then to be paid!--how many to be _put off_!--Alas! how
preponderate the latter! If a man says "_I will pay you at Court_,"
I give up the debt as hopeless, without the intervention of the
_la_. But if court day be thus important, how much more so is March
court! That is the day when our candidates are expected home from
Richmond to give an account of their stewardship; at least it used
to be so, before the number of our legislators was lessened with a
view of facilitating the transaction of business, and with a promise
of _shortening_ the sessions. But somehow or other, the public chest
has such a multitude of charms, it seems now to be more impossible
than ever to get away from it.

  "'Tis that capitol rising in grandeur on high,
   Where bank notes, by thousands, bewitchingly lie,"

as the song says, which makes our sessions "_of so long a life_,"
and there is no practicable mode of preventing the _evisceration_ of
the aforesaid chest, but deferring the meeting of the Assembly to
the month of February, {303} and thereby compelling the performance
of the Commonwealth's business within the two months which would
intervene till the planting of corn. However, this is foreign to my
present purpose, which is to describe a scene at which I have often
gazed with infinite amusement. Would I had the power of Hogarth,
that I might perpetuate the actings and doings of a March court; but
having no turn that way, I must barely attempt to group the
materials, and leave the painting to some regular artist to perfect.
Picture to yourself, my gentle reader, our little town of
_Dumplinsburg_, consisting of a _store_, a _tavern_, and a
_blacksmith shop_, the common ingredients of a county town, with a
court house and a jail in the foreground, as denoting the superior
respect to which they are entitled. Imagine a number of roads
diverging from the town like the radii of a circle, and upon these
roads horsemen and footmen of every imaginable kind, moving, helter
skelter, to a single point of attraction. Justices and
jurymen--counsellors and clients--planters and
pettifoggers--constables and cakewomen--farmers and
felons--horse-drovers and horse-jockies, and _so on_, all rushing
onward like the logs and rubbish upon the current of some mighty
river swollen by rains, hurrying pell mell to the vast ocean which
is to swallow them all up--a simile not altogether unapt, when we
consider that the greater part of these people have law business,
and the law is universally allowed to be a vortex worse than the
Maelstrom. Direct the "fringed curtains of thine eyes" a little
further to the main street--a street well entitled to the epithet
main in all its significations, being in truth the principal and
only street, and being moreover the political arena or cockpit, in
which is settled pugilistically, all the tough and knotty points
which cannot be adjusted by argument. See, on either side, rows of
nags of all sorts and sizes, from the skeleton just unhitched from
the plough, to the saucy, fat, impudent pony, with roached mane and
bobtail, and the sleek and long tailed pampered horse, whose coat
proclaims his breeding, all tied to the _staggering_ fence which
constitutes the boundary of the street. Behold the motley assemblage
within these limits hurrying to and fro with rapid strides, as if
life were at stake. Who is he who slips about among the "_greasy
rogues_," with outstretched palm, and shaking as many hands as the
Marquis La Fayette? It is the candidate for election, and he
distributes with liberal hand that _barren chronicle_ of legislative
deeds, denominated the list of laws, upon which are fed a people
starving for information. This is a mere register of the titles of
acts passed at the last session, but it is caught at with avidity by
the sovereigns, who are highly offended if they do not come in for a
share of the Delegate's bounty. The purchase and distribution of
these papers is a sort of _carmen necessarium_, or indispensable
lesson, and it frequently happens that a member of the Assembly who
has been absent from his post the whole winter, except upon the yeas
and nays, acquires credit for his industry and attention to business
in proportion to the magnitude of the bundle he distributes of this
uninstructive record.

See now he mounts some elevated stand and harangues the gaping
crowd, while a jackass led by his groom is braying at the top of his
lungs just behind him. The jack takes in his breath, like Fay's
Snorer, "_with the tone of an octave flute, and lets it out with the
profound depth of a trombone_." Wherever a candidate is seen, there
is sure to be a jackass--surely, his long eared companion does not
mean to satirize the candidate! However that may be, you perceive
the orator is obliged to desist, overwhelmed perhaps by this
thundering applause. Now the crowd opens to the right and left to
make way for some superb animal at full trot, some Highflyer or
Daredevil, who is thus exhibited _ad captandum vulgus_, which seems
the common purpose of the candidate, the jack, and his more noble
competitor. But look--here approaches an object more terrible than
all, if we may judge from the dispersion of the crowd who _ensconce_
themselves behind every convenient corner and peep from their
lurking holes, while the object of their dread moves onward with
saddle bags on arm, a pen behind his ear, and an inkhorn at his
button hole. Lest some of my readers should be ignorant of this
august personage, I must do as they do in England, where they take a
shaggy dog, and dipping him in red paint, they dash him against the
signboard and write underneath, this is the Red Lion. This is the
sheriff and he is summoning his jury--"Mr. Buckskin, you, sir,
dodging behind the blacksmith's shop, I summon you on the jury;" ah,
luckless wight! he is caught and obliged to succumb. In vain he begs
to be let off,--"you must apply to the magistrates," is the surly
reply. And if, reader, you could listen to what passes afterwards in
the court house, you might hear something like the following
colloquy--Judge. "What is your excuse, sir?" Juror. "I am a lawyer,
sir." Judge. "Do you follow the law now, sir?" Juror. "No, sir, the
law follows me." Judge. "Swear him, Mr. Clerk." Ah, there is a
battle!!! see how the crowd rushes to the spot--"who fights?"--"part
'em"--"stand off"--"fair play"--"let no man touch"--"hurrah,
Dick"--"at him, Tom." An Englishman thinking himself in England,
bawls out, "sheriff, read the riot act"--a Justice comes up and
commands the peace; _inter arma silent leges_; he is unceremoniously
knocked down, and Justice is blind as ought to be the case. Two of
the rioters now attempt to ride in at the tavern door, and for
awhile all Pandemonium seems broke loose. To complete this picture,
I must, like Asmodeus, unroof the court house, and show you a trial
which I had the good fortune to witness. It was during the last war,
when the vessels of Admiral Gordon were making their way up the
Potomac to Alexandria, that a negro woman was arraigned for killing
one of her own sex and color; she had been committed for murder, but
the evidence went clearly to establish the deed to be manslaughter,
inasmuch as it was done in sudden heat, and without malice
aforethought. The Attorney for the commonwealth waived the
prosecution for murder, but quoted _British authorities_ to show
that she might be convicted of manslaughter, though committed for
murder. The counsel for the accused arose, and in the most solemn
manner, asked the court if it was a thing ever heard of, that an
individual accused of one crime and acquitted, should be arraigned
immediately for another, under the same prosecution? At
intervals--boom--boom--boom went the _British cannon_--_British
authorities!_ exclaimed the counsel; _British authorities_,
gentlemen!! Is there any one upon that bench so dead to the feelings
of patriotism as at such a moment to listen to _British
authorities_, when the British cannon is shaking the very walls of
your court house to their {304} foundation? This appeal was too
cogent to be resisted. Up jumped one of the Justices and protested
that it was not to be borne; let the prisoner go; away with your
British authorities! The counsel for the accused, rubbed his hands
and winked at the attorney; the attorney stood aghast; his
astonishment was too great for utterance, and the negro was half way
home before he recovered from his amazement.

NUGATOR.




THE DEATH OF ROBESPIERRE.


SCENE I.

ROBESPIERRE'S HOUSE.

_Robespierre and St. Just meeting._

_St. Just._--Danton is gone!

_Robespierre._--Then can I hope for all things,
  Since he is dead whose shadow darken'd me;
  Did the crowd cheer or hiss him?

_St. Just._--Neither, sir:
  Save a few voices, all look'd on in silence.

_Robes._--Ha! did they so?--but when the engine rattled,
  And the axe fell, didst thou perceive him shudder?

_St. Just._--He turn'd his face to the descending steel,
  And calmly smil'd. A low and ominous murmur
  Spread through the vast assemblage--then, in peace,
  They all dispers'd.

_Robes._--I did not wish for this.

_St. Just._--No man, since Louis Capet----

_Robes._--Say no more
  My worthy friend--the friend of France and freedom--
  Hasten to guard our interest in yon junto
  Of fools and traitors, who, like timid sheep,
  Nor fight nor fly, but huddle close together,
  Till the wolves come to gorge themselves among them--
  And in the evening, you and all my friends
  Will meet me here, deliberate, and decide
  To advance, or to recede. Be still, we cannot;
  And hear me, dear St. Just--A man like you,
  Firm and unflinching through so many trials,
  Who sooner would behold this land manured
  With carcases and moistened with their blood,
  Than yielding food for feudal slaves to eat,
  True to your party and to me your _brother_--
  For so I would be term'd--has the best claim
  That man can have to name his own reward
  When France is all our own. Bethink you then
  What post of honor or of profit suits you,
  And tell me early, that I may provide,
  To meet your views, a part in this great drama.

_St. Just._--Citizen Robespierre--my hearty thanks;
  Financial Minister, by any name
  Or trumpery title that may suit these times,
  Is what I aim at--gratify me there
  And I am yours through more blood than would serve
  To float the L'Orient.[1]

[Footnote 1: A French line of battle ship. Burnt at the battle of
Aboukir.]

_Robes._--'Tis well, St. Just,
  But wherefore citizen me? I have not used
  The term to you--we are not strangers here.

_St. Just._--Pardon me, sir, (or _Sire_, even as you please)
  The cant of Jacobins infects my tongue,
  I had no meaning farther. One word more
  Before we part--now Danton is cut off,
  We may be sure that all his partisans
  And personal friends are our most deadly foes,
  And it were politic and kind in us
  To spare their brains unnumbered schemes of vengeance
  And seize at once the power to silence them.
  To give them time were ruin; some there are
  Whose love of gold is such that were it wet
  With Danton's blood they would not less receive it.
  These may be brib'd to league with us. Farewell.

_Robes._ (_solus_.) Blood on its base--upon its every step--
  Yea, on its very summit--still I climb:
  But thickest darkness veils my destiny,
  And standing as I do on a frail crag
  Whence I must make one desperate spring to power,
  To safety, honor, and unbounded wealth,
  Or be as Danton is, why do I pause?
  Why do I gaze back on my past career,
  Upon those piles of headless, reeking dead?
  Those whitening sculls? those streams of guiltless blood
  Still smoking to the skies?--why think I hear
  The shrieks, the groans, the smothered execrations
  That swell the breeze, or seem as if I shrank
  Beneath the o'ergrown, yet still accumulating,
  Curse of humanity that clings around me?
  Is not my hate of them as fixed, intense,
  And all unquenchable as theirs of me?
  But they must tremble in their rage while I
  Destroy and scorn them.
                              (_reads a letter_.)


  "Exert your dexterity to escape a scene on which you are to appear
  once more ere you leave it forever. Your dictatorial chair, if
  attained, will be only a step to the scaffold, through a rabble
  who will spit on you as on Egalité. You have treasure enough. I
  expect you with anxiety. We will enjoy a hearty laugh at the
  expense of a people as credulous as greedy of novelty."


                  He but little knows,
  Who wrote this coward warning, what I am.
  I love not life so well, nor hate mankind
  So slightly as to fly this country now:
  No, I will ride and rule the storm I have rais'd,
  Or perish in its fury.
                              (_Madame de Cabarus enters_.)
                    Ha! a woman!
  How entered you?

_Lady._--Your civic guard were sleeping;
  I pass'd unquestioned, and my fearful strait
  Compels appeal to thee, great Robespierre!
  Deny me not, and Heaven will grant thy prayer
  In that dread hour when every mortal needs it.
  Repulse me not, and heaven thus at the last
  Will not repulse thee from eternal life.
  I am the daughter of the unhappy Laurens,
  Who hath but one day more to live on earth.
  Oh, for the sake of all thou holdest dear,
                              (_kneeling before him_.)
  Spare to his only child the misery
  Of seeing perish thus her much lov'd sire.
  His head is white with age--let it not fall
  Beneath yon dreadful axe. Through sixty years
  A peaceful and reproachless life he led.
  Thy word can save him. Speak, oh speak that word,
  For our Redeemer's sake redeem his life,
  And child and father both shall bless thee ever.

_Robes._ (_aside_.) I know her now--the chosen of Tallien
  How beautiful in tears! A noble dame  {305}
  And worthy to be mine. 'Twould sting his heart
  To lose his mistress ere I take his head;
  If I would bribe her passions or her fears,
  As well I trust I can, I must be speedy.
  Those drunken guards--should any see her here,
  Then what a tale to spread on Robespierre,
  The chaste, the incorruptible, forsooth----
                              (_coldly approaching her_.)
  Lady, I may not save your father's life--
  Duty forbids--he holds back evidence
  Which would convict Tallien; nay, do not kneel,
  I cannot interfere.

_Daughter._--Oh, say not so.
  He is too peaceful for intrigues or plotters--
  Too old, too helpless for their trust or aid.
  Oh, for the filial love thou bearest thy sire,
  Thy reverence for his years----

_Robes._--If he were living
  And spoke in thy behalf, it were in vain.

_Daughter._--For the dear mother's sake who gave thee birth
  And suffer'd agony that thou might'st live----

_Robes._--Not if her voice could hail me from the tomb,
  And plead in thy own words to save his life.

_Daughter._--If thou hast hope or mercy----

_Robes._--I have neither.
  Rise and depart while you are safe--yet stay,
  One path to his redemption still is open--
  It leads to yonder chamber--Ha! I see
  Thou understandest me.

_Daughter._--I trust I do not.
  I hope that Heaven beholds not--Earth contains not
  A being capable of such an offer.

_Robes._--And dare you scorn me, knowing who I am?
  Bethink you where you stand--your sire--and lover--
  And hear my offer. Life and wealth for them,
  Jewels and splendor and supremacy
  Shall wait on thee--no dame shall breathe in France
  But bends the knee before thee.

_Daughter._--Let him die.
  Better he perish now than live to curse
  His daughter for dishonor. Fare you well.
  There is a time for all things, and the hour
  May come when thou wilt think of this again.

_Robes._ (_laughing_.) Ha! ha! Wouldst thou depart to spread this
      tale?
  Never, save to such ears as will not trust thee!
  Choose on the spot between thy father's death,
  Thy lover's and _thine own_, or my proposal.

_Daughter._--My choice is made, let me rejoin my sire.

_Robes._--I'll furnish thee a passport--guards awake!
                              (_seizing her arm_.)
  Without there! murder! treason! guards come hither!
                              (_Jacobins rush in and seize her_.)
  A watchful crew ye are, to leave me thus
  To perish like Marât by the assassins;
  See that you guard her well, and keep this weapon
  Which, but I wrench'd it from her, would have slain me.

_Daughter._--And thus my father dies and one as dear.
  'Tis joy to suffer with them, though I perish.
  I feel assured thou canst not triumph long--
  And I adjure thee by the Heaven thou hast scorn'd,
  Whose lingering fires are not yet launch'd against thee,
  And by the Earth thou cumberest, which hath not
  Yet opened to entomb thee living, come,
  Meet me, and mine, and thy ten thousand victims,
  Before God's judgment seat, ere two days pass.
                              (_the guards take her out_.)

_Robes._--She must have thought in sooth I was a Christian.


SCENE II.

TALLIEN'S HOUSE.

_Tallien with a letter in his hand._

  In prison!--In his power!--to die to-morrow!
  My body trembles and my senses reel.
  This is a just and fearful retribution--
  Would it were on my head alone! Oh Heaven,
  Spare but this angel woman and her father,
  And let me die--or might my life be pardon'd,
  The criminal excess to which these times
  Have hurried my rash hand and wilful heart,
  I will atone to outrag'd human nature,
  To her and to my country. Wretched France!
  Once the fair home of music and of mirth,
  So torn, so harrassed by these factions now,
  That even the wise and good of other lands
  Cannot believe a patriot breathes in this!
  And she complains that I am grown a craven!
  My acts of late may justify the thought,
  But let to-morrow show how much I fear him.
                              (_A Servant enters_.)

_Servant._--The Minister of Police----

_Tallien._--Attend him hither--
  Fouché--perhaps to sound me; let him try--
  I yet may baffle him, and one more fatal----
                              (_Fouché enters_.)

_Fouché._--So you are in the scales with Robespierre,
  And which do you expect will kick the beam?

_Tallien._--Why should you think that I will stake my power,
  Friends, interest, and life, in useless efforts
  To thwart the destined ruler of the land?

_Fouché._--Yourself have told me so. I did but mean
  That he had risk'd his power and party strength
  Against your life. You mean to strike at his.
  Your faltering voice and startled looks betray
  The secret of your heart, though sooth to say,
  I knew it all before.

_Tallien._--You see too far,
  And are for once wise over much, Monsieur;
  I never sought to oppose your great colleague,
  But would conciliate him if I might.

_Fouché._ (_sternly_.) And do you hope to throw dust in my eyes?
  What means this note from Madame de Cabarus
  Now in your bosom--sent to you this morning--
  And this your answer? (_producing a billet_.) Have I fathom'd you?
  The mystic writing on the palace wall
  Scar'd not Belshazzar more than this does you.
                              (_Tallien goes to the door_.)
  Nay, never call your men or make those signals,
  I have foreseen the worst that you can do.

_Tallien._--Chief of Police, while you are in this house
  Your life is in my hands--when you are gone,
  Mine is in yours. Now tell me why you came?

_Fouché._--To show you that I know of your designs.

_Tallien._--And is that all?

_Fouché._--Not quite. To offer service--  {306}
  A politician should not start as you do
  At every word.

_Tallien._--Ah--can I--dare I trust you?

_Fouché._--I do not ask created man to trust
  Honor or oath of him whose name is Fouché.
  I know mankind, and study my own interest--
  Interest, Tallien--that mainstring of all motion--
  Chain of all strength--pole star of all attraction
  For human hearts to turn to. Let me see
  My interest in supporting you, and I
  Can aid and guard you through the coming peril.

_Tallien._--Name your terms.

_Fouché._--My present post and what
  Beside is mentioned in this schedule.
                              (_giving a paper_.)

_Tallien_.--Your _price_ is high, but I am pledged to pay it.
                              (_giving his hand_.)

_Fouché._--Thou knowest I never was over scrupulous,
  But he whom I was link'd with, Robespierre,
  Can stand no longer. Earth is weary of him.
  The small majority in the Convention
  He calculates upon to be his plea
  For wreaking summary vengeance on the heads
  Of all who, like yourself, are not prepared
  To grant him supreme power or dip their hands
  In blood for any, every, or no profit.
  A ravenous beast were better in the chair.
  Henriot and the civic force here, stand
  Prompt to obey him. Were we only sure
  To raise the citizens, these dogs were nothing--
  But, sink or swim, to-morrow is the day
  Must ruin him or us. Do you impeach him,
  And paint his crimes exactly as they are;
  Have a decree of arrest, and I and mine
  Will see he quits not the Convention Hall
  But in the custody of friends of ours.
  'Tis true I bargain'd to assist the fiend
  The better to deceive him. Mark, Tallien,
  A presage of his fall--not only I
  Abandon him, but I can bring Barrère
  And all his tribe to give their votes against him.
  Give me _carte blanche_ to pay them for their voices.

_Tallien._--But think you I can move them to arrest him?

_Fouché._--That is a _chance_ unknown even to myself,
  There are so many waiters on the wind,
  Straws to be blown wherever it may list
  That surety of success we cannot have,
  But certain ruin if we pass to-morrow.

_Tallien._--Is't true she aim'd a weapon at his life?

_Fouché._--A lie of his invention. I have seen
  The weapon he pretended to have snatch'd
  From her fair hands, and know it for his own.
  Though I seem foul compar'd to better men,
  I claim to appear an angel match'd with him.


SCENE III.

ROBESPIERRE'S HOUSE.

_Robespierre, Fouché, Henriot and others._

_Henriot._--All things are ready now, six thousand men
  And twenty cannon wait your word to-morrow.

_Robes._--Henriot, I have a word to say to thee:
  Thou hast _one_ vice that suits not with a leader,
  If that thou hopest to thrive in our attempt,
  Taste not of wine till victory is ours.

_Henriot._--I thank your caution.

_Fouché_.--I have seen Tallien
  And offered peace between you; he knew not
  That Laurens' daughter had assail'd your life,
  Or he had mentioned it. Nor did he dream
  Of what will peal upon his ears to-morrow.

_Robes._--Then, friends, farewell until to-morrow dawns.

_Fouché._--And ere its night sets in we hail thee Ruler,
  Dictator of the land.

_Robes._--If such your will--
 Without you I am nothing--fare you well.
                              (_they leave him_.)
 (_looking up to the stars_.)--Unchang'd, unfading, never-dying
      lights--
  Gods, or coeval with them! If there be
  In your bright aspects aught of influence
  Which men have made a science here on earth,
  Shed it benignly on my fortunes now!
  Spirit of Terror! Rouse thee at my bidding--
  Shake thy red wings o'er Liberty's Golgotha--
  Palsy men's energies and stun their souls,
  That no more foes may cross my path to-morrow
  Than I and mine can drown in their own blood;
  Or, let them rise by thousands, so my slaves
  Fight but as heartily for gold and wine
  As they have done ere now. When I shall lead them,
  Then 'mid the artillery's roar and bayonet's flash
  I write my title to be Lord of France
  In flame and carnage, o'er this den of thieves.
  Beneath th' exterior, frozen, stern demeanor,
  How my veins throb to bursting, while I think
  On the rich feast of victory and revenge
  The coming day may yield me! Yes, this land
  Of bigot slaves who tremble at a devil,
  Or frantic atheists who with lifted hands
  Will gravely VOTE their Maker from his throne,
  This horde of dupes and miscreants shall feel
  And own in tears, blood, crime and retribution,
  The iron rule of him they trampled on--
  The outrag'd, ruin'd, and despised attorney.
  Though few the anxious hours that lie between
  My brightest, proudest hopes, or sure destruction,
  All yet is vague, uncertain, and obscure
  As what may chance in ages yet to come.
  How if the dungeon or the scaffold--Ha!
  That shall not be--my hand shall overrule it--
  Ingenious arbiter of life and death!
                        (_looking to the charge of a small pistol_.)
  Be thou my bosom friend in time of need!
  No--if my star is doom'd to set forever,
  The cheeks of men shall pale as they behold
  The lurid sky it sinks in. Should I fall
  Leading my Helots on to slay each other,
  Then death, all hail!--for only thou canst quench
  The secret fire that rages in my breast;
  If there be an hereafter, which I know not,
  He who hath borne _my_ life may dare its worst,
  And if mortality's last pangs end all,
  Welcome eternal sleep!--annihilation!


SCENE IV.

THE HALL OF THE NATIONAL CONVENTION.

_Couthon concluding a speech from the Tribune. Tallien, Fouché,
Carnôt, and others, standing near him. Robespierre, St. Just, and
others, in their seats._

_Tallien_ (_to Fouché_.)--Are you ready?  {307}

_Fouché._--Doubt not my aid--denounce him where he stands--
  And lose no time--this hour decides our fate.

_Couthon_ (_to the Convention_.)--Our country is in danger--I invoke
  Your aid, compatriots, to shield her now!
  Fain as I am to avoid confiding power
  Without control, in even patriot hands,
  We cannot choose--and much as I abhor
  To see blood flow, let punishment descend
  On traitors' heads, for this alone can save us.

_Tallien_ (_approaching him_.) Thou aged fangless tiger! not yet
      glutted?
  Torrents of blood are shed for thee and thine--
  Must thou have more? Descend--before I trample
  Thee to the earth. Thou art not fit to live.
                              (_he drags Couthon down by the hair of
                                  his head and mounts the Tribune_.)
  (_addressing the Convention_.) Yes, citizens, our country is
      imperiled,
  And by a band of dark conspirators,
  Soul-hardened miscreants, in whose grasp the ties
  That bind mankind together are rent asunder
  By spies--by fraud--by hope of power and spoils--
  By baser fears, and by increasing terror
  Of their dread engine, whose incessant strokes
  And never failing stream astound mankind.
  These men have pav'd the way, that open force
  May crush the hopes of France, and bend our necks
  Unto a despotism strange as bloody.
  And who, my countrymen, hath been their leader?
  Ye know him well--and every Frenchman breathing
  Hath need to rue the hour which gave _him_ birth--
  A wretch accursed in heaven--abhorred on earth,
  Hath dared aspire to sway most absolute
  In this Republic--and the dread tribunals
  Which for the land's protection were established
  When pressed by foreign arms and homebred treason,
  He hath converted to the deadly end
  Of slaughtering all who crossed his onward path.
  His black intrigues have occupied their seats
  With robbers and assassins--whose foul riot,
  Polluted lives, and unquenched thirst of gold,
  Have beggar'd France and murdered half her sons.
  Witness those long--long lists of dire proscription
  Prepar'd at night for every coming day,
  Even in the very chamber of the tyrant!
  Witness the wanton, groundless confiscations,
  Which ruin helpless men, to feed his minions!
  Witness the cry of woe too great to bear,
  That hath gone up to heaven from this fair land!
  Yes--hear it, every man who loves his country--
  France, for a ruler now, is ask'd to choose
  The vampire who would drain her dearest blood:
  A sordid slave, whose hideous form contains
  A mind in moral darkness and fierce passions
  Like nothing, save the cavern gloom of hell,
  Which knows no light but its consuming fires!
  I need not point to him. Your looks of terror,
  Disgust and hatred turn at once upon him.
  Though there be others of his name, this Hall--
  This City--France--the World itself contains
  Only one--Robespierre.
                              (_the Assembly in great confusion_.)

_Robes._ (_to St. Just_.) This blow is sudden.

_St. Just._--Up to the Tribune--speed--your life--our power
  All hang upon a moment. Art thou dumb?

_Tallien_ (_continuing_.) The evil spirit who serv'd abandons him,
  And I denounce him as the mortal foe
  Of every man in France who would be free--
  Impeach him as a traitor to the State
  In league with Henriot, Couthon and St. Just.
  To overawe by force and crush the Assembly!
  I appeal for proof to those who plotted with him,
  But now repentant have abjur'd his cause.
  I move that he be instantly arrested
  With Henriot and all accomplices.

_Robes._ (_to St. Just_.) See how they rise like fiends and point
      the hand
  Of bitterest hatred at your head and mine,
  Our veriest bloodhounds turn and strive to rend us.
                             (_he rushes towards the Tribune, amid
                             loud cries of "Down with the tyrant!"_)

_Robes._--Hear me, ye members of the Mountain--hear me,
  Cordeliers, who have prais'd and cheer'd me on--
  Ye Girondists, give even your foes a hearing--
  Ye members of the Plain, who moderate
  The fury of contending factions--hear me
  For all I have done or have designed to do,
  I justify myself--and I appeal
  To God--and----
                              (_he pauses choked with rage_.)

_Tallien._--Danton's blood is strangling him.
  Consummate hypocrite!--darest thou use
  Thy Maker's name to sanctify thy crimes,
  Thou lover of Religion! Saintly being!
  The executioner! thou prayerless atheist!
  To thy high priest. The scaffold is thy temple--
  The block thy altar--murder is thy God.
  And could it come to this? Oh, France! Oh, France!
  Was it for this that Louis Capet died?
  For this was it we swore eternal hatred
  To kings and nobles--pour'd our armies forth--
  Crush'd banded despots and confirmed our rights?
  And have we bled, endur'd and toil'd, that now
  Our triumph should be to disgrace ourselves
  And bend in worship to a man whose deeds
  Have written demon on his very brow?
  What! style Dictator--clothe with regal honors
  And more than regal power this Robespierre,
  So steep'd in guilt--so bath'd in human blood!
  It may not be--France is at last awake
  From this long dreary dream of shame and sorrow,
  And may her sons in renovated strength
  Shake off the lethargy that drew it on!
  Spirits of Earth's _true_ heroes!--if ye see us
  From the calm sunshine of your blest abodes,
  Look with approval on me in this hour!
                              (_turning to the statue of Brutus_.)
  Thee, I invoke!--Shade of the virtuous Brutus!
  Like thee, I swear, should man refuse me justice
  I draw this poignard for the tyrant's heart
  Or for my own. Tallien disdains to live
  The slave of Robespierre. I do not ask
  Nor can expect him to receive the meed
  Which should be his. Death cannot punish him
  Whose life hath well deserv'd a thousand deaths,
  But let us purge this plague-spot from among us,  {308}
  And tell wide Europe by our vote this night
  That Terror's reign hath ceas'd--that axe and sceptre
  Are both alike disown'd, destroyed forever.
  Let us impeach him, Frenchmen, with the spirit
  That springs from conscious rectitude of purpose.
  Patriots arise! and with uplifted hands
  Attest your deep abhorrence of this man,
  And your consent that he be now arrested!
  (_members rising in disorder_.) Away, away with him--arrest him
      guards!
  To the Conciergerie--away with him!

(_President rising._) The National Convention have decreed
  The arrest of Maximilien Robespierre.

_Robes._ (_to St. Just_.) The day is theirs--with wrath and with
      despair
  My utterance is chok'd. Oh, were my breath
  A pestilential gale to sting their lives!
  (_to the President_.) Order me to be slain where now I stand,
  Or grant me liberty of speech.

(_President_.) Thy name is Robespierre--it is enough,
  And speaks for thee far more than thou wilt tell us.

_Robes._ (_to St. Just_.) Come thou with me--I see an opening yet
  To victory, or a funeral pile--whose light
  Shall dazzle France and terrify the world.
  (_Robespierre, St. Just and others taken out by the guards_.[2])

[Footnote 2: It may be well to recall to the reader's recollection,
that Robespierre subsequently escaped from his guards to the Hotel
de Ville. But such partisans as rallied around him speedily
deserted, when a proclamation of outlawry from the Convention was
issued against him, and enforced by pointing cannon against the
building. After an ineffectual attempt at suicide he was conveyed in
a cart to the guillotine, July 28th, 1794.

The language put into his mouth in the following pages, is of course
inconsistent with historical probability, as he had wounded himself
with a pistol ball in the lower part of his face.]


SCENE V.

ROBESPIERRE AND ST. JUST IN A CART CONDUCTED BY GUARDS TOWARDS THE
PLACE DE GRÊVE.

_St. Just._--So here ends our part in a tragic farce,
  Hiss'd off the stage, my friend--ha, ha!
                              (_laughing_.)
  I am content--I mean I am resigned--
  As well die now as later. Does your wound
  Pain you severely that you look so gravely?
  Cheer thee, my comrade, we shall quickly learn
  The last dread secret of our frail existence,
  Few moments more will cut our barks adrift
  Upon an ocean, boundless and unknown,
  Even to ourselves who have despatched so many
  To explore for us its dark and fathomless depths.
  Give me some wine. (_they give him wine_.) Here's to a merry
      voyage!
  What in the fiend's name art thou musing on!

_Robes._--My thoughts were with the past--the days of youth,
  And peace, and innocence, and woman's love,
  And ardent hope--the blossoms of a life
  So baleful in its fruits. This day, the last
  Of my career, is the anniversary
  Of one, from which my after life may date
  Its withering influence. Wouldst thou not think
  That I, whom thou hast known for a few years,
  Must ever have been, even from my earliest youth,
  A hard and cruel man?

_St. Just._--Much like myself.
  I think you were no saint even when a child.

_Robes._--Such is the common blunder of the world
  To think me, like the demon they believe in,
  From the beginning, "murderer and liar;"
  So let it be--I would not change their thoughts.
  But I, St. Just, strange as it seems to you,
  Even I, whose name, even in this age of crime,
  Must stand aloft alone a blood-red beacon
  And warning to posterity, was once
  Young, warm, enthusiastic, generous,
  Candid, affectionate, a son and brother,
  But proud and sensitive. I lov'd a maid--
  Yes, if entire and all-absorbed devotion
  Of life and soul and being to her, were love--
  If to be willing to lay down my life,
  My hopes of fame and honorable notice,
  And all the world holds dear, for her dear sake,
  May be call'd love, then I most truly lov'd her.
  I was a thriving lawyer, and could raise
  My voice without reward to shield the oppress'd,
  I lov'd my kind and bore a stainless name.
                              (_a funeral crosses the street_.)

_St. Just_ (_to the officer_.) Whose obsequies are these,
  That look as if the dead one had _not_ perished
  By trying our Republican proscription,
  The guillotine?

_Officer._--'Tis Madame de la Harpe.
  Your worthy friend there sent his satellites
  To bring her to the bar of your tribunal,
  The high-soul'd lady sooner than be made
  A gaze for all the outcasts in the city,
  As you are now, hurl'd herself from a window.

_Robes._--How strange a meeting this! Ah! foolish woman,
  Had she but dar'd to live another day,
  She might have died at ninety in her bed,
  And I, who sought to escape her threatened doom,
  Baffled of self-destruction, could not die.
                              (_they pass on_.)
  (_to St. Just_.) How small a thing may sometimes change the stream
  Of a man's life even to its source, to poison!
  A trifle scarcely worthy of a name,
  The sarcasms of a brute, while I was pleading
  An orphan's cause, convulsed the court with mirth,
  Marr'd all my rhetoric, and snatch'd the palm
  Of truth and justice from my eager grasp--
  My wrath boil'd forth--with loud and fierce reproach
  I brav'd the judge, and thunder'd imprecations
  On all around. This passion ruin'd me.
  And she too laugh'd among that idiot throng--
  Oh, tell not me of jealousy or hate
  Or hunger for revenge--no sting so fierce,
  So all tormenting to a proud man's soul
  As public ridicule from lips belov'd.
  Have they not rued it? Let yon engine tell:
                       (_pointing to the scaffold in the distance_.)
  What I have been since then mankind have seen,
  But could they see the scorpion that hath fed
  Where once a heart beat in this breast of mine,
  They would not marvel at my past career.
  I quit the world with only one regret,  {309}
  I would have shown them how the scrivener,
  Who with his tongue and pen hath rack'd this land,
  Could plague it with a sword. Had yonder cowards
  Who vainly hope to save themselves, but stood
  As prompt to follow me as I to lead them,
  Our faction would have rallied. Might the cries
  Of death and rapine through this blazing city
  Have been my funeral knell I had gladly died.
  Then had they seen my spirit whelm'd and crush'd,
  Yet gazing upward like the o'erthrown arch fiend
  To a _loftier_ seat than that from which he fell.
  But now----

_St. Just._--Regrets are useless! such as we
  May not join hands or say farewell, like others;
  But since we die together, let us face
  This reptile crowd, like men who've been their lords,
  And show them, though they slay, they cannot daunt
  Those who were born to sway their destinies.
                             (_men and women surrounding the cart_.)

_1st Woman._--Descend to hell, I triumph in thy death!
  Die, thou accurs'd of every wife and mother!
  May every orphan's wail ring in thy ears,
  And every widow's cry, and matron's groan!

_2d Woman._--Thine execution maddens me with joy:
  Monster, depart--perish, even in thy crimes,
  And may our curses sink thee into depths
  Whence even omnipotent mercy will not raise thee!
                              (_they shout and hiss him_.)

_Robes._--Silence awhile these shouts, unfetter'd slaves,
  Hear his last words, whose name but yesterday
  Struck terror to your souls! Dare ye so soon
  Think that your lives are safe, and I still breathing?
  Deem ye the blow that speeds my dissolution
  And gives my body to the elements,
  Will be the signal to call freedom hither?
  Will peace and virtue dwell among ye _then_?
  Never! ye bondmen of your own vile passions;
  For crested serpents are as meet to range
  At large and poison-fang'd among mankind,
  As ye who claim a birthright to be free.
  Thank your own thirst of plunder and of blood,
  That I, and such as I, could reign in France.
  A tyrant ye _must_ have. I have been _one_,
  And _such_ a one, that ages hence shall gaze,
  Awe-struck on my pre-eminence in blood,
  And men shall, marvelling, ask of your descendants
  If that my name and deeds be not a fable.
  I die--and, Frenchmen, triumph while you may!
  The man breathes now and walks abroad among ye,
  Who shall be my successor. I can see
  Beyond the tomb--and when ye dare to rise
  And beard the tyrant faction, now victorious,
  His rule commences. He shall spill more blood
  In one short day to crush your hopes of freedom,
  Than I in half my reign--but God himself
  Ne'er had the homage ye shall render _him_.
  Champions of freedom, ye shall _worship_ him,
  And in the name of liberty be plunder'd
  Of all for which your sons have fought and died;
  And in the name of glory he shall lead ye
  On to perdition, and when ye have plac'd
  Your necks beneath his feet, shall spend like dust
  Your treasures and pour forth your bravest blood
  To be the scourge of nations and of kings.
  And he shall plant your eagles in the west,
  And spread your triumphs even to northern snow,
  Tormenting man and trampling every law,
  Divine and human, till the very name
  Of Frenchmen move to nought but hate and scorn.
  Then heaven with storms, and earth with all her armies
  Shall rise against ye, and the o'erwhelming tide
  Of your vast conquests ebb in shame and ruin.
  Then--false to honor, native land, and chief!--
  Ye who could swarm like locusts on the earth
  For glory or for plunder, shall desert,
  Or Judas-like betray, the cause of freedom,
  And tamely crouch to your now banish'd king,
  When foreign swords instale him in his throne:
  And laugh and sing while Prussians and Cossacks
  Parade the streets of this vice-branded city,
  And see without a blush the Austrian flag
  And England's banner float o'er Notre Dame.

  Bye-word among the nations! Fickle France!
  Distant and doubtful is your day of freedom,
  If ever it shall dawn, which it ne'er will,
  Until ye learn, what my hate would not teach ye.
  On, to the scaffold! May my blood infect
  With its fierce mania every human heart--
  Mourn'd as I am by none! May ye soon prove
  Another ruler o'er this land like me.




WOMAN.


To woman is assigned the second grade in the order of created
beings. Man occupies the first, and to him she looks for earthly
support, protection, and a "present help" in time of need. The
stations which they occupy--the pursuits which they should engage
in--the legitimate aim to which their thoughts and wishes should
tend, are widely different, yet inseparably connected. To show the
error so prevalent in respect to these subjects, the improper mode
of education so generally adopted, and if possible, to assign to
woman her proper sphere, privileges and pursuits, is the object of
the present sketch. We have stated that woman is second _only_ in
the scale of created beings, and proceed to examine, first, the
important station which she occupies--secondly, the means usually
adopted for preparing her for this station--thirdly, the results
produced by those means--fourthly, the proper means--and lastly,
endeavor to illustrate the ideas advanced by the testimony of
history, and the observations drawn from real life.

1st. The important stations which she occupies. A daughter, a
sister--the friend and companion of both sexes and all ages--the
wife, the mistress, the mother--stations high, honorable, important.

In the second place, we will examine the means usually adopted for
preparing her for these elevated and important duties. View her
first the helpless infant--her heart uncorrupted by external
influences, and her mind, like the unsullied mirror, to be made the
reflector of those images and lessons, to which it is to be
subjected and exposed. Soon, however, the innocence of the infant
gives way to the frowardness and turbulence of the child. Generally,
no restraints of a salutary nature have been exercised over her
mind. The hacknied axiom, that "she is too young to understand," has
prevented any examination into her powers of perception or
reflection, and she has been left to follow {310} the desires of her
own heart. The petulance of a nurse, impatience or thoughtlessness
of a mother, may have frequently thwarted her little plans, or
denied her some indulgence. Her feelings were most frequently soured
by these restraints, ill humor or obstinacy was the usual
result--both either suffered to pass by unnoticed, or treated in a
manner calculated to engender feelings and passions, which in future
life are destined to exercise a powerful and painful influence over
her own happiness and that of others. Soon the child exchanges the
nursery for the school room. If her circumstances in life are
prosperous and _refined_, humorous studies and indiscriminately
selected accomplishments are forced upon her mind, or crowded upon
her hands; the former, impaired by early neglect, and enervated by
improper indulgences, is wholly incompetent to the task assigned it.
A superficial knowledge of many things is the usual result, while
her vanity, long fed by the praises of menials and imprudent
commendations of friends, visitors, &c. steps in and whispers to her
credulous ear, that she _is_, or _will_ be, all that woman _can_ or
_ought_ to be. During these school-day exercises, her mind has
frequently been edified by relations of future scenes of pleasure in
ball-rooms, theatres, assemblies, &c.--that she may shine in them
being the object of her present course of study; while tales of
rivalry, conquest, hatred and revenge, are frequently related in her
presence, or placed in her hands; things which, if not really
praiseworthy in themselves, are related and heard with an _eclat_,
that induces the belief that they are the inevitable attendants on
fashionable pleasures and high life. If a stimulant is applied to
urge her on to diligence, it is to excel some companion, or some
other like inducement, which must inevitably foster feelings of envy
or emulation, calculated to poison the fountain from which is to
flow the future stream of life. Such is a fashionable or popular
education. The next stage on which we behold her, is the broad
theatre of gay life. The duties of the daughter and sister she was
never taught, and is now acting under her third station--that of the
companion and friend of both sexes and most ages. If possessed of
personal attractions, she moves about--the little magnet of her
circle. Meeting with no events to arouse evil passions, she contents
herself with exercising a petty tyranny over the hearts of the
admiring swains, who follow, bow to, and flatter her. After a few
brief months or years of pleasure, she determines to marry; and at
length selects from her _train_ the wealthiest, handsomest, or most
admired of her suitors. Her heart has no part in this transaction.
Ignorant of the nature of love--ignorant of the principles necessary
to ensure happiness in the married state, she remains ignorant of
the exalting, ennobling influence, which it exercises over minds
capable of appreciating or enjoying its blessings. She is now the
wife--the mistress--the mother. Thus are rapidly crowded on her
duties, for which she was never prepared by education, and which she
is consequently incompetent to perform. Perhaps, for a season, the
current of her life runs smooth. Her husband--either blindly devoted
to her, or bent on the gratification of his own pleasures--allows
her unrestrained to mingle in the same pleasures and gay scenes in
which he found her. She is still seemingly amiable, and perhaps
considered quite a notable woman by the most of her companions.

But a change comes! the sun of prosperity withdraws his rays. She is
now forced to abandon that, which has hitherto formed all her
happiness. Need I describe the result. Her heart, unaccustomed to
disappointments or restraints, unfortified by holy principles,
unsustained by mental resources, and perhaps too little influenced
by conjugal devotion or maternal tenderness, either frets away the
smile of peace and rose of health; or, sunk in self-consuming
mortification, envy or some unholy passion, abandons itself to the
darkness of despair, the rust of inactivity, or the canker of
discontent. Her husband, if his pride and principles have survived
his ruined prospects, may struggle for a time to keep up the dignity
of a man; but his heart is chilled, his exertions are
paralyzed--domestic happiness he cannot find, and too frequently he
is driven abroad in search of those comforts and that peace, which
can be found at home alone.

This is no ideal picture--it is only one of the thousands which may
be found in real life. If we leave our own land and direct our
attention to those countries where women hold the reins of state, we
will only see the principles of early education more powerfully
displayed. Among savage nations (and what but want of early culture
makes a savage?) see the horrid Zingha, queen of Matamba and Angola.
Nursed in scenes of carnage and blood, what could she be but a
monster, the existence of whom would fain be believed to have sprung
but in the heated imagination of a dream? In a more civilized
country, behold Christina of Sweden. She was reared by her father to
be any thing but a useful woman. She knew no restraint when young,
and when she ascended the throne, knew no law but her own will--and
what was the result? Despised at home, and finding that even on a
throne she must in self-defence yield some of her feelings to
demands of others, rather than do so she abdicated it, and leaving
her native land, roamed among other nations, a reproach to her sex
and a general object of disgust. Look at Mary, Queen of England. Her
first lessons were malice and revenge, and faithfully did she
practise them when exalted to power. And we may name the beautiful
Anne Boleyn. Ambition was the goal to which all her early energies
were directed, and to ambition she sacrificed honor, humanity, and
eventually her life. In more modern times, the lovely lady Mary W.
Montague may be noticed. Endowed with talents, accomplishments,
beauty, rank, fortune, she seemed formed to move a bright and
favored star in the world's horizon. But no early discipline had
prepared her to be happy. United to a man who idolized her, and whom
she loved--what but the want of self-control and submission to the
will of others, caused her separation from a husband every way
worthy of her? But why enumerate other cases? These are but a few,
taken from among thousands of both modern and ancient times.

In the fourth place, we proceed to point out the remedy for these
evils, by briefly shewing some of the proper plans to be adopted in
education. We again assert, that in the nursery are first sown the
seeds of future character. Where is the prudent and observing
parent, that will not acknowledge, that at a very early age the
infant is capable of forming good or bad habits, and of
discriminating between the approbation or {311} displeasure shown
towards it. None, we presume, will gainsay this point. As soon then
as this intelligence on the part of a child is discovered, so soon
does a parent's duties begin, and if faithfully discharged, the task
of rearing up a useful and ornamental member of society, will be
found comparatively easy.

If taught then to yield its desires to parental wishes and
commands--taught that the path of duty is the path of
pleasure--convinced by every day's experience that the object of all
restraints is her good, and proving continually that her happiness
is her parent's great delight, she soon becomes, both by habit and
nature, submissive,--and consequently is at peace with herself and
all around her. If a sister, early does she learn, that affection
and tenderness to those so closely united to her, is a duty, the
performance of which, brings a sweet reward. Gradually are her
duties enlarging, and gradually is she prepared by judicious
government and good habits, to fulfil them.

When the nursery is exchanged for the school room, easy is the task
to lead that child on from knowledge to knowledge. The mind is not
crowded with many and incongruous studies--but gradually is it
enlarged, and its wants supplied by a well regulated course. If in a
situation to permit the acquirement of ornamental branches, she is
taught to regard them as the light dressings of the mind, intended
not to interfere with what is useful and solid, but as a recreation
and source of future pleasure to herself and friends. When the
mental powers are sufficiently expanded, to digest what is presented
to them, books of general knowledge and taste are allowed, while the
manners have been formed by good society, and the ideas arranged by
conversation, &c. If intended to mingle in a gay circle for a
season, her character is so formed as to be able to resist, in a
great degree, the snares to which such scenes usually expose the
young and thoughtless. Taught to regard these things as trifles
compared to the other pursuits of life, she enjoys without abusing
them, and willingly returns to the sweet domestic fireside, and the
pleasures and amusements within her own bosom.

The feelings which will exist between that daughter and her parents,
deserve to be considered. The filial care and tenderness which was
exercised over her mind, will not be forgotten or unrepaid. In all
times of doubt or difficulty, to a parent's bosom and counsel will
she fly, as her surest refuge. If about to settle in life, prudence
and the heart directs her choice. To her parents she confides the
feelings and hopes that agitate her bosom. On their judgment she
relies, and knowing their sentiments are governed by the desire to
see her happy, she is prepared to weigh all their reasons, and to
act with prudence. She was early taught to reflect, and is now
capable of acting, with dignity. Her heart is capable of _love_--she
has been taught the nature of the flame, and the only solid grounds
on which it could be reared. She is capable of discriminating
between a man of _ton_ and a man of worth. Most generally, such a
woman will marry well. The man of lightness, dissipation and folly,
rarely seeks her hand. He may and does admire her, but he feels his
own inferiority, and rarely wishes to form such an alliance.

The man of sense, of virtue, and of solidity, would seek such a
companion to share his pleasure and sooth his pain. Mutual
sympathies would engender mutual esteem, and on that foundation it
is easy, very easy to rear the altar of love. A union formed with
such feelings would most generally prove a happy one. If prosperous,
such a woman is qualified to use without abusing her blessings. The
lessons learnt at her first _home_ would be practised in her second,
and she would be likely to discharge with credit the duties of a
wife, a mother, and a mistress. If misfortunes came, she would be
prepared to brave the storm. Her affections, never set on earthly
pleasures and splendid scenes, would relinquish them without grief.
Her mind, stored with useful and ornamental information, would
furnish a treasury from whence her family and herself could draw
with profit and delight. In the humblest vale of poverty, such a
woman would be a blessing to her whole circle of associates, and in
most cases preserve the affection of her husband and raise a family,
respectable and useful. This too is no ideal picture. Such women
have been found in all ages, and such women may be raised up in
almost every circle of society. If denied the extended advantage
meant by a liberal or elegant education, the principles here laid
down may be carried to the peasant's cottage, as well as to the
splended domes of the rich and great. Among the biographies of women
in all civilized nations, many beautiful examples might be adduced.

Among the wives and mothers of our own land a rich collection might
be found. One thing is here worthy of record. In tracing the history
of nearly all the great men, with whose history we are acquainted,
whether remarkable for valor, piety, or any other noble attribute,
to a mother's influence is their eminence to be attributed, in a
greater or less degree. But it is needless to enumerate instances on
this occasion, as our sketch is already extended beyond the intended
limits. Should it give rise to inquiry and serious investigation on
this important subject, or furnish a hint worthy the attention of
the serious and anxious parent, the utmost ambition of the author
will be realized.

PAULINA.




LINES TO ----.


  While yet the ling'ring blush of day
    Hangs sweetly on the brow of even,
  And birds and flowers their homage pay
    In song and incense breathed to heaven,
  Accept this tribute of a friend,
    Whose heart of hearts for thee is glowing;
  Who prays thy path of life may wend
    Through light, and flowers forever blowing.

  I've seen the midnight Cereus bloom;
    Th' admiring throng around it gathered,
  And ere they dreampt its rapid doom,
    It breathed, it bloomed, collapsed and withered!
  Thus youth and beauty fill the eye,
    Dear lady! oft in bloomy weather,
  And time scarce rolls the season by,
    When with the leaf they fade together.

  Though nature 'wails the dying leaf,
    And sorrows o'er her silent bowers,
  She soon forgets her gloom and grief
    When dew-eyed spring revives her flowers;  {312}
  But when affection weeps for one,
    Whose daily life new charms imparted,
  Alas! what power beneath the sun
    Can cheer the lone--the broken-hearted!

  Friendship and love must ever mourn
    The faded wreath of promised pleasure,
  And though the flow'ers of hope lie torn
    Fond mem'ry hoards the heart's lost treasure.
  Oh! cherish then, that vestal flow'r!
    Simplicity, dear maiden, cherish!
  'Twill shed a fragrance o'er the hour
    When all thy mortal charms shall perish!

M.




READINGS WITH MY PENCIL.

No. III.

  Legere sine calamo est dormire.--_Quintilian_.


21. "There is a pride, in being left behind, to find resources
within, which others seek without."--_Washington Irving_.

I have pondered a good deal on this passage, and find a beautiful
moral in what, when I first read it, I was fain to fancy but a
misanthropic, or, at the least, an unsocial sentiment. I now feel
and acknowledge its truth. "There _is_ a pride in being left behind,
to find resources within, which others seek without." What concern
have I in the greater brightness that another's name is shedding?
Let them shine on whose honor is greater. Their orbit cannot
interfere with mine. There may be something very grand and sublime
in the wide sweep of Herschel and Saturn: but planets, whose path is
smaller, are more cheered by the rays of light and warmth from the
sun, which is the centre of their revolutions.

22. "Oh the hopeless misery of March in America. Poetry, taste,
fancy, feeling,--all are chilled by that ever-snowing sky, that ever
snow clad earth. Man were happy could he be a mole for the nonce,
and so sleep out this death-in-life, an American six months'
winter."--_Subaltern in America_.

What a querulous noodle! He is one of those who can "travel from Dan
to Beersheba, and cry, All is barren!" It is March, and "March in
America," while I write. The air is bracing and full of reviving
springlike influences. I disagree with the would-be mole from whom I
quote. I love to watch every month's sweep of the sun,--while he is
performing his low wintry arc, as if almost ashamed to revolve
around the cheerless earth, and while he daily performs a wider and
wider circle, until at length he comes to stand nearly over my head
at noon. I enjoy the result the more intensely for watching its
progress. I love to watch him gradually calling out the green on the
black hills around me, whose only beauty now are the narrow stripes
of fading snow, forming white borders that intersect each other,
thus dividing the mould into something not altogether void of the
picturesque. So, on yonder field, where the sun now shines quite
cheeringly, there is a remnant of beauty. The dead grass, with its
yellow and reddish tinge, is divided by small crystal ponds and
canals, glistening in the bright ray, and seeming like the gratitude
of the poor,--able to return but little, yet determined to return
that little gladly.

23. "There is no motion so graceful as that of a beautiful girl in
the mazy meanderings of the dance. Nature cannot furnish a more
perfect illustration of the poetry of motion than this."--_Ibid._

Yes she can. I will give the traveller two far more perfect
illustrations. The _on deggiando_ movement of a light breeze, as it
passes, wave upon wave, over high grass: and the gradual and rapid
passing away of a shadow, when the sun leaves a cloud, from a hill
side of rich foliage.

24. "I have been thinking, more and more, of the probability of
departed friends' watching over those whom they have left
behind."--_Henry Kirk White_.

I have often done so; and whether the idea be a delusive one or not,
there is no delusion in believing that the Deity sees them and us at
the same instant. They turn, and we turn, at the same moment, to
him, and thus through him we enjoy a communion. If two hearts were
once preserved in reciprocal love by contemplating, when parted from
each other, the same star, how close will be the bond with those who
have gone before us, when, at such a distance, we are worshipping
the same God!

25. "_When one is angry, and edits a paper_, I should think the
temptation too strong for literary, _which is not always human
nature_."--_Lord Byron_.

There is a couple of young Irishmen who "edit a paper" not far from
the place of this present writing, who might furnish a striking
corroboration of this opinion of the noble poet. Think of a couple
of boobies, pretending to be oracles in literature, wreaking their
petty vengeance upon the productions of one against whom they have a
personal pique! Such and so contemptible are some of the "critics!"
God save the mark! of this generation!

J. F. O.




LINES TO ----.


  Lady!--afar yet loved the more--
    My spirit ever hovers near,
  And haunts in dreams the distant shore
    That prints at eve thy footstep dear.

  And say--when musing by the tide,
    Beneath the quiet twilight sky,
  Wilt thou forget all earth beside
    And mark my memory with a sigh?

  The wind that wantons in thy hair--
    The wave that murmurs at thy feet,
  Shall whisper to thy dreaming ear
    An answer--loving--true and meet.

  Oh! fancy not if from thy bower
    I tarry now a weary while,
  My heart e'er owns another's power
    Or sighs to win a stranger's smile.

  Those gentle eyes, which in my dream,
    With unforgotten love still shine--
  Shall never glance a sadder beam
    Nor dim with tears for change of mine.

  I gaze not on a cloud, nor flower
    That is not eloquent of thee--
  The very calm of twilight's hour
    Seems voiceless with thy memory.

  Like waves that dimple o'er the stream
    And ripple to the shores around,
  Each wandering wish--each hope--each dream
    Steals unto thee--their utmost bound.  {313}

  Oh! think of me when day light dies
    Among the far Hesperian bowers--
  But most of all 'neath silent skies,
    When weep the stars o'er earth's dim flowers.

  When the mysterious holiness
    Which spell-like lulls the silent air,
  Steals to the heart with power to bless,
    And hallows every feeling there.




A TALE OF JERUSALEM.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

  Intensos rigidam in frontem ascendere canos
  Passus erat------               _Lucan_--_de Catone_.

  ------a bristly _bore_------           _Translation_.


"Let us hurry to the walls"--said Abel-Shittim to Buzi-Ben-Levi, and
Simeon the Pharisee, on the tenth day of the month Thammuz, in the
year of the world three thousand nine hundred and forty-one--"let us
hasten to the ramparts adjoining the gate of Benjamin, which is in
the city of David, and overlooking the camp of the
uncircumcised--for it is the last hour of the fourth watch, being
sunrise; and the idolaters, in fulfilment of the promise of Pompey,
should be awaiting us with the lambs for the sacrifices."

Simeon, Abel-Shittim, and Buzi-Ben-Levi were the Gizbarim, or
Sub-Collectors of the offering in the holy city of Jerusalem.

"Verily"--replied the Pharisee--"let us hasten: for this generosity
in the heathen is unwonted; and fickle-mindedness has ever been an
attribute of the worshippers of Baal."

"That they are fickle-minded and treacherous is as true as the
Pentateuch"--said Buzi-Ben-Levi--"but that is only towards the
people of Adonai. When was it ever known that the Ammonites proved
wanting to their own interest? Methinks it is no great stretch of
generosity to allow us lambs for the altar of the Lord, receiving in
lieu thereof thirty silver shekels per head!"

"Thou forgettest, however, Ben-Levi"--replied Abel-Shittim--"that
the Roman Pompey, who is now impiously beseiging the City of the
Most High, has no assurity that we apply not the lambs thus
purchased for the altar to the sustenance of the body, rather than
of the spirit."

"Now by the five corners of my beard"--shouted the Pharisee, who
belonged to the sect called The Dashers (that little knot of saints
whose manner of _dashing_ and lacerating the feet against the
pavement was long a thorn and a reproach to less zealous devotees--a
stumbling block to less gifted perambulators)--"by the five corners
of that beard which as a priest I am forbidden to shave!--have we
lived to see the day when a blaspheming and idolatrous upstart of
Rome shall accuse us of appropriating to the appetites of the flesh
the most holy and consecrated elements? Have we lived to see the day
when"----

"Let us not question the motives of the Philistine"--interrupted
Abel-Shittim--"for to-day we profit for the first time by his
avarice or by his generosity. But rather let us hurry to the
ramparts, lest offerings should be wanting for that altar whose fire
the rains of Heaven cannot extinguish--and whose pillars of smoke no
tempest can turn aside."

       *       *       *       *       *

That part of the city to which our worthy Gizbarim now hastened, and
which bore the name of its architect King David, was esteemed the
most strongly fortified district of Jerusalem--being situated upon
the steep and lofty hill of Zion. Here a broad, deep,
circumvallatory trench--hewn from the solid rock--was defended by a
wall of great strength erected upon its inner edge. This wall was
adorned, at regular interspaces, by square towers of white
marble--the lowest sixty--the highest one hundred and twenty cubits
in height. But in the vicinity of the gate of Benjamin the wall
arose by no means immediately from the margin of the fosse. On the
contrary, between the level of the ditch and the basement of the
rampart, sprang up a perpendicular cliff of two hundred and fifty
cubits--forming part of the precipitous Mount Moriah. So that when
Simeon and his associates arrived on the summit of the tower called
Adoni-Bezek--the loftiest of all the turrets around about Jerusalem,
and the usual place of conference with the beseiging army--they
looked down upon the camp of the enemy from an eminence excelling,
by many feet, that of the Pyramid of Cheops, and, by several, that
of the Temple of Belus.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Verily"--sighed the Pharisee, as he peered dizzily over the
precipice--"the uncircumcised are as the sands by the sea shore--as
the locusts in the wilderness! The valley of The King hath become
the valley of Adommin."

"And yet"--added Ben-Levi--"thou canst not point me out a
Philistine--no, not one--from Aleph to Tau--from the wilderness to
the battlements--who seemeth any bigger than the letter Jod!"

"Lower away the basket with the shekels of silver!"--here shouted a
Roman soldier in a hoarse, rough voice, which appeared to issue from
the regions of Pluto--"lower away the basket with that accursed coin
which it has broken the jaw of a noble Roman to pronounce! Is it
thus you evince your gratitude to our master Pompeius, who, in his
condescension, has thought fit to listen to your idolatrous
importunities? The God Phœbus, who is a true God, has been charioted
for an hour--and were you not to have been on the ramparts by
sunrise? Ædepol! do you think that we, the conquerors of the world,
have nothing better to do than stand waiting by the walls of every
kennel, to traffic with the dogs of the earth? Lower away! I
say--and see that your trumpery be bright in color, and just in
weight!"

"El Elohim!"--ejaculated the Pharisee, as the discordant tones of
the centurion rattled up the crags of the precipice, and fainted
away against the Temple--"El Elohim!--_who_ is the God
Phœbus?--_whom_ doth the blasphemer invoke? Thou, Buzi-Ben-Levi! who
art read in the laws of the Gentiles, and hast sojourned among them
who dabble with the Teraphim!--is it Nergal of whom the idolater
speaketh?--or Ashimah?--or Nibhaz?--or Tartak?--or Adramalech?--or
Anamalech?--or Succoth-Benoth?--or Dagon?--or Belial?--or
Baal-Perith?--or Baal-Peor?--or Baal-Zebub?"

"Verily, it is neither--but beware how thou lettest the rope slip
too rapidly through thy fingers--for should the wicker-work chance
to hang on the projection of {314} yonder crag, there will be a
woful outpouring of the holy things of the Sanctuary."

       *       *       *       *       *

By the assistance of some rudely-constructed machinery, the
heavily-laden basket was now lowered carefully down among the
multitude--and, from the giddy pinnacle, the Romans were seen
crowding confusedly around it--but, owing to the vast height and the
prevalence of a fog, no distinct view of their operations could be
obtained.

A half-hour had already elapsed.

"We shall be too late"--sighed the Pharisee, as, at the expiration
of this period, he looked over into the abyss--"we shall be too
late--we shall be turned out of office by the Katholim."

"No more"--responded Abel-Shittim--"no more shall we feast upon the
fat of the land--no longer shall our beards be odorous with
frankincense--our loins girded up with fine linen from the Temple."

"Raca!"--swore Ben-Levi--"Raca!--do they mean to defraud us of the
purchase-money?--or, Holy Moses! are they weighing the shekels of
the tabernacle?"

"They have given the signal at last"--roared the Pharisee--"they
have given the signal at last!--pull away! Abel-Shittim!--and thou,
Buzi-Ben-Levi! pull away!--for verily the Philistines have either
still hold upon the basket, or the Lord hath softened their hearts
to place therein a beast of good weight!" And the Gizbarim pulled
away, while their burthen swung heavily upwards through the still
increasing mist.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Booshoh he!"--as, at the conclusion of an hour, some object at the
extremity of the rope became indistinctly visible--"Booshoh
he!"--was the exclamation which burst from the lips of Ben-Levi.

"Booshoh he!--for shame!--it is a ram from the thickets of Engedi,
and as rugged as the valley of Jehosaphat!"

"It is a firstling of the flock," said Abel-Shittim--"I know him by
the bleating of his lips, and the innocent folding of his limbs. His
eyes are more beautiful than the jewels of the Pectoral--and his
flesh is like the honey of Hebron."

"It is a fatted calf from the pastures of Bashan"--said the
Pharisee--"the Heathen have dealt wonderfully with us--let us raise
up our voices in a psalm--let us give thanks on the shawm and on the
psaltery--on the harp and on the huggab--on the cythern and on the
sackbut."

It was not until the basket had arrived within a few feet of the
Gizbarim that a low grunt betrayed to their perception a _hog_ of no
common size.

"Now El Emanu!"--slowly, and with upturned eyes ejaculated the trio,
as, letting go their hold, the emancipated porker tumbled headlong
among the Philistines--"El Emanu!--God be with us!--it is the
unutterable flesh!"

"Let me no longer," said the Pharisee wrapping his cloak around him
and departing within the city--"let me no longer be called Simeon,
which signifieth 'he who listens'--but rather Boanerges, 'the Son of
Thunder.'"




Lucian calls unmeaning verbosity, _anemonæ verborum_. The anemone,
with great brilliancy, has no fragrance.




LEAVES FROM MY SCRAP BOOK.


I.

  "I think Homer, as a poet, inferior to Scott."
                          _T. C. Grimckè--Pamphlet_.

The gentleman whose words I have just used, maintained on all
occasions the superiority of modern over ancient literature. He
prefers the better portions of Milman's "Samor, Lord of the Bright
City," to the better portions of the Odyssey; and contends that
"Scott's description of the battle of Flodden Hill, the midnight
visit of William of Deloraine to Melrose Abbey, &c., are unequalled
by anything in the Iliad or Æneid."

Now such comparisons are plainly unreasonable. "To read Homer's
poems, is to look upon a brightly colored nosegay whose odor is
departed," or, if not departed, at least lost to our dull and
ignorant sense. The subtle odor of idiom and provincial
peculiarity--the stronger odor of association are entirely lost to
us. I may better illustrate my idea. Every one will recollect the
following couplet in the description of William of Deloraine:

  "A stark moss-trooping Scot was he,
   As e'er couched border lance by knee."

Reversing the order of things, suppose these lines read by a Greek
of twenty-seven centuries ago; suppose him even well acquainted with
the English tongue--could he appreciate their beauty? Let the Greek
attempt to _translate_ the lines into his own language. He begins
with _stark_. The nice excellence of this word he knows nothing of.
He finds that its meaning is somewhere between _stout_ and _swift_,
and gives the Greek word "οχυς." The first downward step has been
taken. He next pounces upon the term, _moss-troopers_. He translates
this "Ληστης ιπποτʼ ανδρειος." _Couched_, is an idiom which he
cannot translate; he gives us by way of equivalent, "εβαλλε."
_Border lance_, is beyond his version. He contents himself with a
simple "δορυ,"--for how is the word _Border_ to be translated? It is
a word depending on collateral matters for its meaning. These
matters--involving the storied reyd and feud--must be known before
the word can be understood; and twenty centuries would blot out all
remembrance of the Percy and Douglas feuds. The word _Border_ is
therefore, wholly lost in the version.

The Greek version would read when completed--

  Ληστης, καλεδονος οχυς ην ιπποτʼ ανδρειος
  ʼΟυ, το δορυ μηδεις αθεμιστον, αμεινον εβαλλε,

which may be re-translated into

  This Scot was a swift horse-riding robber,
  And no one balanced spear by knee better,

--verses as little resembling the original as "an eyas does a true
hawk."

Translated into Latin, the original lines would read

  Scotticus fuit eques, strenuus raptoque pollutus
  Quo nullus hastam a genu tam apte librabat,

as great a failure as the Greek.

If Scott would suffer so much in the eyes of the Greek and Latin
reader, it is only fair to presume that Homer and Virgil suffer as
much in our eyes.

We perceive the merits of our modern poet; we are blind to the
merits of the ancient. We are consequently incapable of judging
between them. Mr. Grimckè's comparison is unreasonable.


{315} II.

"Humility is certainly beautiful, but vanity is not always
uncomely."--_Anon._

It is singular how little we appreciate the humility of some men.
Launce says, "I am an ass," and we, coinciding with him in the
sentiment, scarcely think of giving him credit for his humility. We
perhaps take the trouble to approve of his want of vanity--but this
is only a negative sort of approbation. Humility seems such a man's
province--as natural to him as the grass to a snail. To be
appreciated, humility must manifest itself in high natures. We are
captivated by the spectacle of highness contenting itself with
lowliness. The grass is natural to the snail, but the home of the
lark is the sky--and when he descends to the meadow, we, mindful of
his fleetness of pinion, marvel at his descent and love him for his
simple humility. The "great Lyttleton" was a man of the most perfect
modesty. A fine specimen of this may be found in the last paragraph
of his work upon the English laws, "And know, my son, that I would
not have thee believe, that all which I have said in these bookes is
law, for I will not presume to take this upon me. But of those
things which are not law, inquire and learn of my wise masters
learned in the law." Sir John Mandeville, who wrote in the
fourteenth century, was also remarkable for his modesty as a writer.
I will quote a fine sample of it. "I, John Maundeville, knyghte
aboveseyd (alle thoughe I be unworthi) have passed manye londes, and
many yles and contrees, and cerched manye fulle straunge places, and
have ben in manye a fulle gode honourable companye, and at manye a
faire dede of armes--alle be it that I dide none myself, for myn
unable insuffisance--etc."

VANITY in a weak man is disgusting; all pretension is disgusting.
But "vanity is not always uncomely." The vanity of a strong man is
sometimes beautiful. I remember an instance or two of this beautiful
vanity. Some lines of Spenser--a part, I believe, of the preface to
his Dreams of Petrarch, occur to me.

  "This thing he writ who framed a calendar;
   Who eke inscribed on monument of brass
   Words brillianter than lighte of moon or star
   And destinyed to lyve till alle things pass."

Southey too has given us a magnificent specimen of vanity in the
opening to "Madoc,"

  "Come listen to a tale of times of old:
   _Come, for ye know me; I am he who framed
   Of Thalaba the wild and wondrous song._"

The younger D'Israeli has placed in the mouth of Vivian Grey some
expressions which, regarded as outbreaks of lofty confidence, and
youthful reliance upon self, are strikingly beautiful. I refer more
particularly to the page or paragraph ending with the words--"_and
have I not skill to play upon that noblest of all instruments--the
human voice?_"


III.

"Love, despair, ambition, and peace, spring up like trees from the
soil of our natures."--_E. Irving_.

This idea, by a "singular coincidence," has been carried out in the
Chinese novel, 'Yu-Kiao-Li, or the Adventures of Red Jasper and
Dream of a Peartree,'--_traduit par M. Abel Remusat_. I translate
from the French translation.

"In a fresh soil under a pleasant sky--clouded, but spanned by a
rainbow--grew a green tree. Its branches were beautifully fashioned,
and wore leaves which seemed to be chiselled from emerald. The
moonlight fell upon the tree, and so intense was the reflection that
every portion of the surrounding scenery took upon itself a gaudy
and happy coloring. This tree was _Love_--it grew from the soil of a
young nature. Alas! its life cannot be the life of the amaranth.

"The second tree was in a soil torn up and bruised--the plants of
which were freezing under a cold wind. Its branches were matted and
black. No light penetrated them. The sky above was of ebony. The
rainbow was not there. This tree was _Despair_. Alas! for the beauty
of Love! Is it not pushed from its stool by Despair?

"The third tree was in a soil firm to the eye, but undermined by the
molewarp. Its scathed branches were entombed in the sky. Its peak,
jealous of the eagle, out-towered him. About its stem, and through
its haughty boughs a strange light played. It was neither the light
of the sun nor yet the light of the moon. It was a false glare--a
glare greatest about the region of decay. This tree was _Ambition_.
Alas! for the pride and the haughty yearning of mortal men!

"In the healthy soil of a valley, on which the eye of a bright day
seemed ever open, grew the fourth tree. Its branches neither towered
haughtily nor stooped slavishly. Health was in every bough; and lo!
the rainbow which had fallen from the sky of Despair had surely been
imprisoned among its leaves. The wind fanned these leaves healthily
and their transparent cups teinted by the sunlight--as red wines
teint the fine vases of porcelain--were beautiful to behold. This
tree was _Peace_. The moonlight of Love may grow dim; the sky of
Despair is of ebony; the light of Ambition dies in the ashes of its
fuel; but the sunlight of Peace is the light of an eye ever open.
The head may be white and bowed down, but the threads of the
angel-woven rainbow are wrapped about the heart of peaceful and holy
Eld."


IV.

"The chiefest constituent of human beauty is the hair; after which
in degree is to be ranked the eye; and lastly come the color and the
texture of the skin. The varieties of these, cause it to happen that
not unfrequently men differ in opinion as to what is comely and what
is uncomely; this man maintaining black to be the better color for
the hair as for the eye; that man maintaining a lighter color to be
the better for both."--_Burton_.

Poets are generally persons of taste, and if we could find one of
them certainly unbiassed by early recollections and the thousand
trifles which warp taste, we might consider his judgment in regard
to "the rival colors of the hair," as going far to exalt the color
of his choice above its rivals. But the first of the modern
philosophers loved squinting eyes because in his youth he had been
in love with a little girl who squinted; and no taste is free from
the influence of early recollections. Spenser's cousin, the lady who
discarded him, "had hair of a flaxen hue." He ever after preferred
this "hue," to all others. Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald was "of a
stately person and gifted with pale glossy hair, with a sunny tinge
about it." Lord Surrey sang of these "mixed ringlets" until the day
of his death. I do not know that Ben. Jonson ever had a sweetheart,
but he surely had a taste as good as if it had never been biassed by
love for one. He speaks very well of--

             "Crisped hair
  Cast in a thousand snares and rings
  For love's fingers and his wings:
  Chesnut color or more slack
  _Gold upon a ground of black_."

Leigh Hunt says that Lucrecia Borgia had hair "perfectly golden."
Neither auburn nor red, but "perfectly {316} golden." He has written
some pretty verses upon a lock of this golden hair. He speaks of
each thread as,

  ----"meandering in pellucid gold."

I forget the lines. This was the color beloved by a thousand poets;
and one was found who forgot in contemplating the rare masses that,
stained with it, lay upon the brow of Lucrecia Borgia, the "dark and
unbridled passions" which led her to the bed of one brother and to
the murder of another--and which have doomed her to "an immortality
of evil repute."

Anacreon preferred auburn hair.

  "Deepening inwardly, a dun;
   Sparkling golden next the sun,"

conveys nearly the same idea with that expressed in Jonson's "Gold
upon a ground of black."

I have two or three more verses upon hair, which I recollect to have
seen in an old English poem. They are descriptive of "Hero the _nun
of Venus_--the lady beloved of Leander." These are the lines--three
in number,

  "Come listen to the tale of Hero young,
   _Whom pale Apollo courted for her hair,
   And offered as a dower his burning throne_."

We often meet with double tastes. Tasso loved two Leonoras. Leonora
D'Este had a fair skin. The other was a brunette.

  "Bruna sei tu ma bella
   Qual virgini viola."

It is difficult to decide between the rival colors of the eye. This
difficulty is set forth in a little poem called the "Dilemma," which
I find in an old number of the New England Magazine.

  "I had a vision in my dreams,
   I saw a row of twenty beams;
   From every beam a rope was hung,
   In every rope a lover swung.
   I asked the hue of every eye
   That bade each luckless lover die;
   Ten livid lips said heavenly blue
   And ten accused the darker hue."

Before ending this "scrap" I will quote some sentences written by a
friend of my own long ago--a very eccentric man, and indeed a
melancholy one. He had been crossed in love, and could rarely speak
or write without recurring to the origin of his unhappiness. He had
a great many faults, but he is dead now, and has been so for many
years; I am not anxious to say any more about them. The paragraph
which I copy from his manuscript, is a portion of a flighty book,
the aim or meaning of which I could never discover. It owes its
fanciful extravagance, I rather think, to the influence of opium
upon the author's nerves. After pointing out the numerous
particulars in which "nature imitates our women," he proceeds to
observe after the following fashion,


"In the hair, nature is most an imitator. The cascade caressing the
precipice with the threads of its silver locks, which the teeth of
the granite comb have frizled, and which the winds play at gambol
with, is only a copy. So with the vine on the rock--the great vine
whose metallic tendrils I have looked on and wondered at when the
sunshine spanned them with a cloven halo. So with the drooping
moss--the _Barba Espagna_, with its drapery of gold held by threads
of spun alabaster, hanging in _hard_ festoons from the tree beside
the Lagoon and sighing when its hues die with the sunlight. And so
with the boughs of our weeping trees. O, but are not these last most
beautiful? Place your ear to the soft grass-blades on the brink of a
valley brook, and listen to the monotone of the willow's stirred
ringlets, and watch them as the wind lifts them from the eddy
beneath to float, bejewelled by adhering globules. And then look
upon them as with the abating wind they sink lower and lower,
leaving their cool rain upon your cheek. See them trail in the
pebbly waters and conjure up in each detached leaf an Elfin barque
laden with its rare boatmen and tiny beauties. Hear the tinkle of
the little bells and the shrieks of the wrecked mariners, as they
cling to the hair of the willow (as Zal clung to the locks of his
mistress) and splash the brook into foam. And now they leap to the
backs of their skipper steeds, and ply the spur of the thistle seed,
and gallop off for the green shore, wringing their hands and
bewailing the ill fate of their holiday trim. Such marvellous
fancies, if you are fanciful, will prick your brain until the drowsy
sough of the tree-hair and the renewed trickle of the raining spray
lend your eyes sleep and call forth the dream spirit, as the fly
from its cocoon, and give it the wings of wilder vagary to flutter
away withal--whither? _Mine_ would return to my wanderings by Goluon
with her whose tomb in the valley of sweet waters often pillows my
head."


Alas for my poor friend Bob! He died of a broken heart--that is to
say _mediately_. He died _im_-mediately of hard drinking. Napoleon
remembered the Seine on his death-bed and asked to be buried upon
its sunniest bank; Bob remembered Goluon when his great temples had
the death-damp upon them. His vision had failed him; his nose had
become peaked; his body, like a jaded and worn hack, had fallen
under the spirit, which like a stout horseman had long kept it to
its paces; but the little abiding place of memory had not been
destroyed, and poor Bob muttered at times of a dead lady with fair
hair--of a valley of sweet waters--of a grave with two willows above
it--of pleasant Goluon--and died with an unuttered prayer upon his
lips, and with a strong desire at his heart. The prayer was, that I,
his friend, would bury him between the two willows--on the evening
bank of Goluon--side by side with Betty Manning his old sweetheart.
Poor Bob! May God take kind care of his soul!


V.

  "I much lament that nevermore to me
   Can come fleet pulse, bright heart, and frolic mood;
   I much lament that nevermore may be
   My tame step light, my wan cheek berry-hued."

In the lines just quoted, the poet (old Philip Allen, a Welshman)
strikes the proper key. When we have ceased to derive pleasure from
that which once afforded it to us, we should regard the change as
_in ourselves_. The grass of the hill is as green as it ever was,
but the step once "light" has become "tame." The bird sings as
sweetly as ever, but the "bright heart" into which the "honey drops
of his constant song" once fell, has been dimmed and darkened by
human passions. The berry-clusters are still in the fringe of the
thicket, but the palate has no longer any relish for them. _We have
changed._ Yet we are apt to believe the change any where rather than
in ourselves. Indeed we are for the most part like Launcelot in the
play.


_Gobbo_.--"Lord worshipped might he be! What a beard hast thou got!
Thou hast more hair on thy chin than Dobbin my thill horse, has on
his tail."

_Launcelot_.--"It would seem then that Dobbin's tail grows backward.
I am sure that he had more hair on his tail than I had on my face
when I last saw him."


It was the chin of Launcelot that had undergone the change, and not
the tail of his father Gobbo's thill horse Dobbin.


{317}


_Editorial_.


THE LOYALTY OF VIRGINIA.

In our last number, while reviewing the Ecclesiastical History of
Dr. Hawks, we had occasion to speak of those portions of Mr. George
Bancroft's _United Slates_, which have reference to the loyalty of
Virginia immediately before and during the Protectorate of Cromwell.
Since the publication of our remarks, a personal interview with Mr.
Bancroft, and an examination, especially, of one or two passages in
his History, have been sufficient to convince us that injustice (of
course unintentional) has been done that gentleman, not only by
ourselves, but by Dr. Hawks and others.

In our own review alluded to above, we concluded, in the following
words, a list of arguments adduced, _or supposed to be adduced_, in
proof of Virginia's disloyalty.

"6. Virginia was infected with republicanism. She wished to set up
for herself. Thus intent, she demands of Berkeley a distinct
acknowledgment of her Assembly's supremacy. His reply was 'I am but
the servant of the Assembly.' Berkeley, therefore, was republican,
and his tumultuous election proves nothing but the republicanism of
Virginia." To which our reply was thus.

"6. The reasoning here is reasoning in a circle. Virginia is first
declared republican. From this assumed fact, deductions are made
which prove Berkeley so--and Berkeley's republicanism, thus proved,
is made to establish that of Virginia. But Berkeley's answer (from
which Mr. Bancroft has extracted the words, 'I am but the servant of
the Assembly,') runs thus. 'You desire me to do that concerning your
titles and claims to land in this northern part of America, which I
am in no capacity to do: for I am but the servant of the Assembly:
neither do they arrogate to themselves any power farther than the
miserable distractions in England force them to. For when God shall
be pleased to take away and dissipate the unnatural divisions of
their native country, they will immediately return to their
professed obedience.'--_Smith's New York_. It will be seen that Mr.
Bancroft has been disingenuous in quoting only a _portion_ of this
sentence. _The whole_ proves incontestibly that neither Berkeley nor
the Assembly _arrogated to themselves any power beyond what they
were forced to assume by circumstances_--in a word it proves their
loyalty."

We are now, however, fully persuaded that Mr. Bancroft had not only
no intention of representing Virginia as disloyal--but that his
work, closely examined, will not admit of such interpretation. As an
offset to our argument just quoted, we copy the following (the
passage to which our remarks had reference) from page 245 of Mr.
B.'s only published volume.

"On the death of Matthews, the Virginians were without a chief
magistrate, just at the time when the resignation of Richard had
left England without a government. The burgesses, who were
immediately convened, resolving to become the arbiters of the fate
of the colony, enacted 'that the supreme power of the government of
this country shall be resident in the assembly, and all writs shall
issue in its name, until there shall arrive from England a
commission which the assembly itself shall adjudge to be lawful.'
This being done, Sir William Berkeley was elected governor, and
acknowledging the validity of the acts of the burgesses, whom it was
expressly agreed he could in no event dissolve, he accepted the
office to which he had been chosen, and recognized, without a
scruple, the authority to which he owed his elevation. 'I am,' said
he, 'but a servant of the assembly.' _Virginia did not lay claim to
absolute independence; but anxiously awaited the settlement of
affairs in England._"

It will here be seen, that the words italicized beginning "Virginia
did not lay claim," &c. are very nearly, if not altogether
equivalent to what we assume as proved by _the whole_ of Berkeley's
reply, viz. _that neither Berkeley nor the Assembly arrogated to
themselves any power beyond what they were forced to assume by
circumstances_. Our charge, therefore, of disingenuousness on the
part of Mr. Bancroft in quoting only a portion of the answer, is
evidently unsustained, and we can have no hesitation in recalling
it.

At page 226 of the History of the United States, we note the
following passage.

"At Christmas, 1648, there were trading in Virginia, ten ships from
London, two from Bristol, twelve Hollanders, and seven from New
England. The number of the colonists was already twenty thousand;
and they, who had sustained no griefs, were not tempted to engage in
the feuds by which the mother country was divided. They were
attached to the cause of Charles, not because they loved monarchy,
but because they cherished the liberties of which he had left them
in undisturbed possession; and after his execution, though there
were not wanting _some_ who favored republicanism, _the government
recognized his son without dispute. The loyalty of the Virginians
did not escape the attention of the royal exile._ From his retreat
in Breda he transmitted to Berkeley a new commission, and _Charles
the Second, a fugitive from England, was still the sovereign of
Virginia_."

This passage alone will render it evident that Mr. Bancroft's
readers have been wrong in supposing him to maintain the disloyalty
of the State. It cannot be denied, however, (and if we understand
Mr. B. he does not himself deny it,) that there is, about some
portions of his volume, an ambiguity, or perhaps a laxity of
expression, which it would be as well to avoid hereafter. The note
of Dr. Hawks we consider exceptionable, inasmuch as it is not
sufficiently explanatory. The passages in Mr. B.'s History which we
have noted above, and other passages equally decisive, were pointed
out to Dr. Hawks. He should have therefore not only stated that Mr.
B. disclaimed the intention of representing Virginia as republican,
but also that his work, if accurately examined, would not admit of
such interpretation. The question of Virginia's loyalty may now be
considered as fully determined.


CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL.

It is with great pleasure, at the opportunity thus afforded us of
correcting an error, that we give place to the following letter.


_Philadelphia, March 25, 1836_.

SIR,--A mistake, evidently unintentional, having appeared in the
February number of your journal for {318} this year, we feel
convinced you will, upon proper representation, take pleasure in
correcting it, as an impression so erroneous might have a
prejudicial tendency. Under the notice of the Eulogies on the Life
and Character of the late Chief Justice Marshall, it is there stated
that "for several years past Judge Marshall had suffered under a
most excruciating malady. A surgical operation by Dr. Physick of
Philadelphia at length procured him relief; but a hurt received in
travelling last Spring seems to have caused a return of the former
complaint with circumstances of aggravated pain and danger. Having
revisited Philadelphia in the hope of again finding a cure, his
disease there overpowered him, and he died on the 6th of July, 1835,
in the 80th year of his age."

Now, sir, the above quotation is incorrect in the following respect:
Judge Marshall never had a return of the complaint for which he was
operated upon by Dr. Physick. After the demise of Chief Justice
Marshall, it became our melancholy duty to make a _post mortem_
examination, which we did in the most careful manner, and
ascertained that his bladder did not contain one particle of
calculous matter; its mucous coat was in a perfectly natural state,
and exhibited not the slightest traces of irritation.

The cause of his death was a very diseased condition of the liver,
which was enormously enlarged, and contained several tuberculous
abscesses of great size; its pressure upon the stomach had the
effect of dislodging this organ from its natural situation, and
compressing it in such a manner, that for some time previous to his
death it would not retain the smallest quantity of nutriment. By
publishing this statement, you will oblige

  Yours, very respectfully,
    N. CHAPMAN, M.D.
    J. RANDOLPH, M.D.

  _To T. W. White, Esq._


MAELZEL'S CHESS-PLAYER.

Perhaps no exhibition of the kind has ever elicited so general
attention as the Chess-Player of Maelzel. Wherever seen it has been
an object of intense curiosity, to all persons who think. Yet the
question of its _modus operandi_ is still undetermined. Nothing has
been written on this topic which can be considered as decisive--and
accordingly we find every where men of mechanical genius, of great
general acuteness, and discriminative understanding, who make no
scruple in pronouncing the Automaton a _pure machine_, unconnected
with human agency in its movements, and consequently, beyond all
comparison, the most astonishing of the inventions of mankind. And
such it would undoubtedly be, were they right in their supposition.
Assuming this hypothesis, it would be grossly absurd to compare with
the Chess-Player, any similar thing of either modern or ancient
days. Yet there have been many and wonderful automata. In Brewster's
Letters on Natural Magic, we have an account of the most remarkable.
Among these may be mentioned, as having beyond doubt existed,
firstly, the coach invented by M. Camus for the amusement of Louis
XIV when a child. A table, about four feet square, was introduced,
into the room appropriated for the exhibition. Upon this table was
placed a carriage, six inches in length, made of wood, and drawn by
two horses of the same material. One window being down, a lady was
seen on the back seat. A coachman held the reins on the box, and a
footman and page were in their places behind. M. Camus now touched a
spring; whereupon the coachman smacked his whip, and the horses
proceeded in a natural manner, along the edge of the table, drawing
after them the carriage. Having gone as far as possible in this
direction, a sudden turn was made to the left, and the vehicle was
driven at right angles to its former course, and still closely along
the edge of the table. In this way the coach proceeded until it
arrived opposite the chair of the young prince. It then stopped, the
page descended and opened the door, the lady alighted, and presented
a petition to her sovereign. She then re-entered. The page put up
the steps, closed the door, and resumed his station. The coachman
whipped his horses, and the carriage was driven back to its original
position.

The magician of M. Maillardet is also worthy of notice. We copy the
following account of it from the _Letters_ before mentioned of Dr.
B., who derived his information principally from the Edinburgh
Encyclopædia.

"One of the most popular pieces of mechanism which we have seen, is
the Magician constructed by M. Maillardet, for the purpose of
answering certain given questions. A figure, dressed like a
magician, appears seated at the bottom of a wall, holding a wand in
one hand, and a book in the other. A number of questions, ready
prepared, are inscribed on oval medallions, and the spectator takes
any of these he chooses, and to which he wishes an answer, and
having placed it in a drawer ready to receive it, the drawer shuts
with a spring till the answer is returned. The magician then arises
from his seat, bows his head, describes circles with his wand, and
consulting the book as if in deep thought, he lifts it towards his
face. Having thus appeared to ponder over the proposed question, he
raises his wand, and striking with it the wall above his head, two
folding doors fly open, and display an appropriate answer to the
question. The doors again close, the magician resumes his original
position, and the drawer opens to return the medallion. There are
twenty of these medallions, all containing different questions, to
which the magician returns the most suitable and striking answers.
The medallions are thin plates of brass, of an elliptical form,
exactly resembling each other. Some of the medallions have a
question inscribed on each side, both of which the magician answered
in succession. If the drawer is shut without a medallion being put
into it, the magician rises, consults his book, shakes his head, and
resumes his seat. The folding doors remain shut, and the drawer is
returned empty. If two medallions are put into the drawer together,
an answer is returned only to the lower one. When the machinery is
wound up, the movements continue about an hour, during which time
about fifty questions may be answered. The inventor stated that the
means by which the different medallions acted upon the machinery, so
as to produce the proper answers to the questions which they
contained, were extremely simple."

The duck of Vaucanson was still more remarkable. It was of the size
of life, and so perfect an imitation of the living animal that all
the spectators were deceived. It executed, says Brewster, all the
natural movements {319} and gestures, it eat and drank with avidity,
performed all the quick motions of the head and throat which are
peculiar to the duck, and like it muddled the water which it drank
with its bill. It produced also the sound of quacking in the most
natural manner. In the anatomical structure the artist exhibited the
highest skill. Every bone in the real duck had its representative in
the automaton, and its wings were anatomically exact. Every cavity,
apophysis, and curvature was imitated, and each bone executed its
proper movements. When corn was thrown down before it, the duck
stretched out its neck to pick it up, swallowed, and digested it.[1]

[Footnote 1: Under the head _Androides_ in the Edinburgh
Encyclopædia may be found a full account of the principle automata
of ancient and modern times.]

But if these machines were ingenious, what shall we think of the
calculating machine of Mr. Babbage? What shall we think of an engine
of wood and metal which can not only compute astronomical and
navigation tables to any given extent, but render the exactitude of
its operations mathematically certain through its power of
correcting its possible errors? What shall we think of a machine
which can not only accomplish all this, but actually print off its
elaborate results, when obtained, without the slightest intervention
of the intellect of man? It will, perhaps, be said, in reply, that a
machine such as we have described is altogether above comparison
with the Chess-Player of Maelzel. By no means--it is altogether
beneath it--that is to say provided we assume (what should never for
a moment be assumed) that the Chess-Player is a _pure machine_, and
performs its operations without any immediate human agency.
Arithmetical or algebraical calculations are, from their very
nature, fixed and determinate. Certain _data_ being given, certain
results necessarily and inevitably follow. These results have
dependence upon nothing, and are influenced by nothing but the
_data_ originally given. And the question to be solved proceeds, or
should proceed, to its final determination, by a succession of
unerring steps liable to no change, and subject to no modification.
This being the case, we can without difficulty conceive the
_possibility_ of so arranging a piece of mechanism, that upon
starting it in accordance with the _data_ of the question to be
solved, it should continue its movements regularly, progressively,
and undeviatingly towards the required solution, since these
movements, however complex, are never imagined to be otherwise than
finite and determinate. But the case is widely different with the
Chess-Player. With him there is no determinate progression. No one
move in chess necessarily follows upon any one other. From no
particular disposition of the men at one period of a game can we
predicate their disposition at a different period. Let us place the
_first move_ in a game of chess, in juxta-position with the _data_
of an algebraical question, and their great difference will be
immediately perceived. From the latter--from the _data_--the second
step of the question, dependent thereupon, inevitably follows. It is
modelled by the _data_. It must be _thus_ and not otherwise. But
from the first move in the game of chess no especial second move
follows of necessity. In the algebraical question, as it proceeds
towards solution, the _certainty_ of its operations remains
altogether unimpaired. The second step having been a consequence of
the _data_, the third step is equally a consequence of the second,
the fourth of the third, the fifth of the fourth, and so on, _and
not possibly otherwise_, to the end. But in proportion to the
progress made in a game of chess, is the _uncertainty_ of each
ensuing move. A few moves having been made, _no_ step is certain.
Different spectators of the game would advise different moves. All
is then dependant upon the variable judgment of the players. Now
even granting (what should not be granted) that the movements of the
Automaton Chess-Player were in themselves determinate, they would be
necessarily interrupted and disarranged by the indeterminate will of
his antagonist. There is then no analogy whatever between the
operations of the Chess-Player, and those of the calculating machine
of Mr. Babbage, and if we choose to call the former a _pure machine_
we must be prepared to admit that it is, beyond all comparison, the
most wonderful of the inventions of mankind. Its original projector,
however, Baron Kempelen, had no scruple in declaring it to be a
"very ordinary piece of mechanism--a _bagatelle_ whose effects
appeared so marvellous only from the boldness of the conception, and
the fortunate choice of the methods adopted for promoting the
illusion." But it is needless to dwell upon this point. It is quite
certain that the operations of the Automaton are regulated by
_mind_, and by nothing else. Indeed this matter is susceptible of a
mathematical demonstration, _a priori_. The only question then is of
the _manner_ in which human agency is brought to bear. Before
entering upon this subject it would be as well to give a brief
history and description of the Chess-Player for the benefit of such
of our readers as may never have had an opportunity of witnessing
Mr. Maelzel's exhibition.

[Illustration]

The Automaton Chess-Player was invented in 1769, by Baron Kempelen,
a nobleman of Presburg in Hungary, who afterwards disposed of it,
together with the secret of its operations, to its present
possessor. Soon after its completion it was exhibited in Presburg,
Paris, Vienna, and other continental cities. In 1783 and 1784, it
was taken to London by Mr. Maelzel. Of late years it has visited the
principal towns in the United States. Wherever seen, the most
intense curiosity was excited by its appearance, and numerous have
been the attempts, by men of all classes, to fathom the mystery of
its evolutions. The cut above gives a tolerable representation of
the figure as seen by the citizens of Richmond a few weeks ago. The
right arm, however, should lie more at length upon the box, a
chess-board should appear upon it, and the cushion should not be
seen while the pipe is held. Some immaterial alterations have been
made in the costume of the player since it came into the possession
of Maelzel--the plume, for example, was not originally worn.

{320} At the hour appointed for exhibition, a curtain is withdrawn,
or folding doors are thrown open, and the machine rolled to within
about twelve feet of the nearest of the spectators, between whom and
it (the machine) a rope is stretched. A figure is seen habited as a
Turk, and seated, with its legs crossed, at a large box apparently
of maple wood, which serves it as a table. The exhibiter will, if
requested, roll the machine to any portion of the room, suffer it to
remain altogether on any designated spot, or even shift its location
repeatedly during the progress of a game. The bottom of the box is
elevated considerably above the floor by means of the castors or
brazen rollers on which it moves, a clear view of the surface
immediately beneath the Automaton being thus afforded to the
spectators. The chair on which the figure sits is affixed
permanently to the box. On the top of this latter is a chess-board,
also permanently affixed. The right arm of the Chess-Player is
extended at full length before him, at right angles with his body,
and lying, in an apparently careless position, by the side of the
board. The back of the hand is upwards. The board itself is eighteen
inches square. The left arm of the figure is bent at the elbow, and
in the left hand is a pipe. A green drapery conceals the back of the
Turk, and falls partially over the front of both shoulders. To judge
from the external appearance of the box, it is divided into five
compartments--three cupboards of equal dimensions, and two drawers
occupying that portion of the chest lying beneath the cupboards. The
foregoing observations apply to the appearance of the Automaton upon
its first introduction into the presence of the spectators.

Maelzel now informs the company that he will disclose to their view
the mechanism of the machine. Taking from his pocket a bunch of keys
he unlocks with one of them, door marked 1 in the cut above, and
throws the cupboard fully open to the inspection of all present. Its
whole interior is apparently filled with wheels, pinions, levers,
and other machinery, crowded very closely together, so that the eye
can penetrate but a little distance into the mass. Leaving this door
open to its full extent, he goes now round to the back of the box,
and raising the drapery of the figure, opens another door situated
precisely in the rear of the one first opened. Holding a lighted
candle at this door, and shifting the position of the whole machine
repeatedly at the same time, a bright light is thrown entirely
through the cupboard, which is now clearly seen to be full,
completely full, of machinery. The spectators being satisfied of
this fact, Maelzel closes the back door, locks it, takes the key
from the lock, lets fall the drapery of the figure, and comes round
to the front. The door marked 1, it will be remembered, is still
open. The exhibiter now proceeds to open the drawer which lies
beneath the cupboards at the bottom of the box--for although there
are apparently two drawers, there is really only one--the two
handles and two key holes being intended merely for ornament. Having
opened this drawer to its full extent, a small cushion, and a set of
chessmen, fixed in a frame work made to support them
perpendicularly, are discovered. Leaving this drawer, as well as
cupboard No. 1 open, Maelzel now unlocks door No. 2, and door No. 3,
which are discovered to be folding doors, opening into one and the
same compartment. To the right of this compartment, however, (that
is to say the spectators' right) a small division, six inches wide,
and filled with machinery, is partitioned off. The main compartment
itself (in speaking of that portion of the box visible upon opening
doors 2 and 3, we shall always call it the main compartment) is
lined with dark cloth and contains no machinery whatever beyond two
pieces of steel, quadrant-shaped, and situated one in each of the
rear top corners of the compartment. A small protuberance about
eight inches square, and also covered with dark cloth, lies on the
floor of the compartment near the rear corner on the spectators'
left hand. Leaving doors No. 2 and No. 3 open as well as the drawer,
and door No. 1, the exhibiter now goes round to the back of the main
compartment, and, unlocking another door there, displays clearly all
the interior of the main compartment, by introducing a candle behind
it and within it. The whole box being thus apparently disclosed to
the scrutiny of the company, Maelzel, still leaving the doors and
drawer open, rolls the Automaton entirely round, and exposes the
back of the Turk by lifting up the drapery. A door about ten inches
square is thrown open in the loins of the figure, and a smaller one
also in the left thigh. The interior of the figure, as seen through
these apertures, appears to be crowded with machinery. In general,
every spectator is now thoroughly satisfied of having beheld and
completely scrutinized, at one and the same time, every individual
portion of the Automaton, and the idea of any person being concealed
in the interior, during so complete an exhibition of that interior,
if ever entertained, is immediately dismissed as preposterous in the
extreme.

M. Maelzel, having rolled the machine back into its original
position, now informs the company that the Automaton will play a
game of chess with any one disposed to encounter him. This challenge
being accepted, a small table is prepared for the antagonist, and
placed close by the rope, but on the spectators' side of it, and so
situated as not to prevent the company from obtaining a full view of
the Automaton. From a drawer in this table is taken a set of
chess-men, and Maelzel arranges them generally, but not always, with
his own hands, on the chess board, which consists merely of the
usual number of squares painted upon the table. The antagonist
having taken his seat, the exhibiter approaches the drawer of the
box, and takes therefrom the cushion, which, after removing the pipe
from the hand of the Automaton, he places under its left arm as a
support. Then taking also from the drawer the Automaton's set of
chess-men, he arranges them upon the chess-board before the figure.
He now proceeds to close the doors and to lock them--leaving the
bunch of keys in door No. 1. He also closes the drawer, and,
finally, winds up the machine, by applying a key to an aperture in
the left end (the spectators' left) of the box. The game now
commences--the Automaton taking the first move. The duration of the
contest is usually limited to half an hour, but if it be not
finished at the expiration of this period, and the antagonist still
contend that he can beat the Automaton, M. Maelzel has seldom any
objection to continue it. Not to weary the company, is the
ostensible, and no doubt the real object of the limitation. It will
of course be understood that when a move is made at his own table,
by the antagonist, the corresponding move is made at the box of the
{321} Automaton, by Maelzel himself, who then acts as the
representative of the antagonist. On the other hand, when the Turk
moves, the corresponding move is made at the table of the
antagonist, also by M. Maelzel, who then acts as the representative
of the Automaton. In this manner it is necessary that the exhibitor
should often pass from one table to the other. He also frequently
goes in rear of the figure to remove the chessmen which it has
taken, and which it deposits, when taken, on the box to the left (to
its own left) of the board. When the Automaton hesitates in relation
to its move, the exhibitor is occasionally seen to place himself
very near its right side, and to lay his hand, now and then, in a
careless manner, upon the box. He has also a peculiar shuffle with
his feet, calculated to induce suspicion of collusion with the
machine in minds which are more cunning than sagacious. These
peculiarities are, no doubt, mere mannerisms of M. Maelzel, or, if
he is aware of them at all, he puts them in practice with a view of
exciting in the spectators a false idea of pure mechanism in the
Automaton.

The Turk plays with his left hand. All the movements of the arm are
at right angles. In this manner, the hand (which is gloved and bent
in a natural way,) being brought directly above the piece to be
moved, descends finally upon it, the fingers receiving it, in most
cases, without difficulty. Occasionally, however, when the piece is
not precisely in its proper situation, the Automaton fails in his
attempt at seizing it. When this occurs, no second effort is made,
but the arm continues its movement in the direction originally
intended, precisely as if the piece were in the fingers. Having thus
designated the spot whither the move should have been made, the arm
returns to its cushion, and Maelzel performs the evolution which the
Automaton pointed out. At every movement of the figure machinery is
heard in motion. During the progress of the game, the figure now and
then rolls its eyes, as if surveying the board, moves its head, and
pronounces the word _echec_ (check) when necessary.[2] If a false
move be made by his antagonist, he raps briskly on the box with the
fingers of his right hand, shakes his head roughly, and replacing
the piece falsely moved, in its former situation, assumes the next
move himself. Upon beating the game, he waves his head with an air
of triumph, looks round complacently upon the spectators, and
drawing his left arm farther back than usual, suffers his fingers
alone to rest upon the cushion. In general, the Turk is
victorious--once or twice he has been beaten. The game being ended,
Maelzel will again, if desired, exhibit the mechanism of the box, in
the same manner as before. The machine is then rolled back, and a
curtain hides it from the view of the company.

[Footnote 2: The making the Turk pronounce the word _echec_, is an
improvement by M. Maelzel. When in possession of Baron Kempelen, the
figure indicated a _check_ by rapping on the box with his right
hand.]

There have been many attempts at solving the mystery of the
Automaton. The most general opinion in relation to it, an opinion
too not unfrequently adopted by men who should have known better,
was, as we have before said, that no immediate human agency was
employed--in other words, that the machine was purely a machine and
nothing else. Many, however maintained that the exhibiter himself
regulated the movements of the figure by mechanical means operating
through the feet of the box. Others again, spoke confidently of a
magnet. Of the first of these opinions we shall say nothing at
present more than we have already said. In relation to the second it
is only necessary to repeat what we have before stated, that the
machine is rolled about on castors, and will, at the request of a
spectator, be moved to and fro to any portion of the room, even
during the progress of a game. The supposition of the magnet is also
untenable--for if a magnet were the agent, any other magnet in the
pocket of a spectator would disarrange the entire mechanism. The
exhibiter, however, will suffer the most powerful loadstone to
remain even upon the box during the whole of the exhibition.

The first attempt at a written explanation of the secret, at least
the first attempt of which we ourselves have any knowledge, was made
in a large pamphlet printed at Paris in 1785. The author's
hypothesis amounted to this--that a dwarf actuated the machine. This
dwarf he supposed to conceal himself during the opening of the box
by thrusting his legs into two hollow cylinders, which were
represented to be (but which are not) among the machinery in the
cupboard No. 1, while his body was out of the box entirely, and
covered by the drapery of the Turk. When the doors were shut, the
dwarf was enabled to bring his body within the box--the noise
produced by some portion of the machinery allowing him to do so
unheard, and also to close the door by which he entered. The
interior of the Automaton being then exhibited, and no person
discovered, the spectators, says the author of this pamphlet, are
satisfied that no one is within any portion of the machine. This
whole hypothesis was too obviously absurd to require comment, or
refutation, and accordingly we find that it attracted very little
attention.

In 1789 a book was published at Dresden by M. I. F. Freyhere in
which another endeavor was made to unravel the mystery. Mr.
Freyhere's book was a pretty large one, and copiously illustrated by
colored engravings. His supposition was that "a well-taught boy very
thin and tall of his age (sufficiently so that he could be concealed
in a drawer almost immediately under the chess-board") played the
game of chess and effected all the evolutions of the Automaton. This
idea, although even more silly than that of the Parisian author, met
with a better reception, and was in some measure believed to be the
true solution of the wonder, until the inventor put an end to the
discussion by suffering a close examination of the top of the box.

These bizarre attempts at explanation were followed by others
equally bizarre. Of late years however, an anonymous writer, by a
course of reasoning exceedingly unphilosophical, has contrived to
blunder upon a plausible solution--although we cannot consider it
altogether the true one. His Essay was first published in a
Baltimore weekly paper, was illustrated by cuts, and was entitled
"An attempt to analyze the Automaton Chess-Player of M. Maelzel."
This Essay we suppose to have been the original of the _pamphlet_ to
which Sir David Brewster alludes in his letters on Natural Magic,
and which he has no hesitation in declaring a thorough and
satisfactory explanation. The _results_ of the analysis are
undoubtedly, in the main, just; but we can only account for
Brewster's pronouncing the Essay a {322} thorough and satisfactory
explanation, by supposing him to have bestowed upon it a very
cursory and inattentive perusal. In the compendium of the Essay,
made use of in the Letters on Natural Magic, it is quite impossible
to arrive at any distinct conclusion in regard to the adequacy or
inadequacy of the analysis, on account of the gross misarrangement
and deficiency of the letters of reference employed. The same fault
is to be found in the "Attempt &c." as we originally saw it. The
solution consists in a series of minute explanations, (accompanied
by wood-cuts, the whole occupying many pages) in which the object is
to show the _possibility_ of _so shifting the partitions_ of the
box, as to allow a human being, concealed in the interior, to move
portions of his body from one part of the box to another, during the
exhibition of the mechanism--thus eluding the scrutiny of the
spectators. There can be no doubt, as we have before observed, and
as we will presently endeavor to show, that the principle, or rather
the result, of this solution is the true one. Some person _is_
concealed in the box during the whole time of exhibiting the
interior. We object, however, to the whole verbose description of
the _manner_ in which the partitions are shifted, to accommodate the
movements of the person concealed. We object to it as a mere theory
assumed in the first place, and to which circumstances are
afterwards made to adapt themselves. It was not, and could not have
been, arrived at by any inductive reasoning. In whatever way the
shifting is managed, it is of course concealed at every step from
observation. To show that certain movements might possibly be
effected in a certain way, is very far from showing that they are
actually so effected. There may be an infinity of other methods by
which the same results may be obtained. The probability of the one
assumed proving the correct one is then as unity to infinity. But,
in reality, this particular point, the shifting of the partitions,
is of no consequence whatever. It was altogether unnecessary to
devote seven or eight pages for the purpose of proving what no one
in his senses would deny--viz: that the wonderful mechanical genius
of Baron Kempelen could invent the necessary means for shutting a
door or slipping aside a pannel, with a human agent too at his
service in actual contact with the pannel or the door, and the whole
operations carried on, as the author of the Essay himself shows, and
as we shall attempt to show more fully hereafter, entirely out of
reach of the observation of the spectators.

In attempting ourselves an explanation of the Automaton, we will, in
the first place, endeavor to show how its operations are effected,
and afterwards describe, as briefly as possible, the nature of the
_observations_ from which we have deduced our result.

It will be necessary for a proper understanding of the subject, that
we repeat here in a few words, the routine adopted by the exhibiter
in disclosing the interior of the box--a routine from which he
_never_ deviates in any material particular. In the first place he
opens the door No. 1. Leaving this open, he goes round to the rear
of the box, and opens a door precisely at the back of door No. 1. To
this back door he holds a lighted candle. He then _closes the back
door_, locks it, and, coming round to the front, opens the drawer to
its full extent. This done, he opens the doors No. 2 and No. 3, (the
folding doors) and displays the interior of the main compartment.
Leaving open the main compartment, the drawer, and the front door of
cupboard No. 1, he now goes to the rear again, and throws open the
back door of the main compartment. In shutting up the box no
particular order is observed, except that the folding doors are
always closed before the drawer.

Now, let us suppose that when the machine is first rolled into the
presence of the spectators, a man is already within it. His body is
situated behind the dense machinery in cupboard No. 1, (the rear
portion of which machinery is so contrived as to slip _en masse_,
from the main compartment to the cupboard No. 1, as occasion may
require,) and his legs lie at full length in the main compartment.
When Maelzel opens the door No. 1, the man within is not in any
danger of discovery, for the keenest eye cannot penetrate more than
about two inches into the darkness within. But the case is otherwise
when the back door of the cupboard No. 1, is opened. A bright light
then pervades the cupboard, and the body of the man would be
discovered if it were there. But it is not. The putting the key in
the lock of the back door was a signal on hearing which the person
concealed brought his body forward to an angle as acute as
possible--throwing it altogether, or nearly so, into the main
compartment. This, however, is a painful position, and cannot be
long maintained. Accordingly we find that Maelzel _closes the back
door_. This being done, there is no reason why the body of the man
may not resume its former situation--for the cupboard is again so
dark as to defy scrutiny. The drawer is now opened, and the legs of
the person within drop down behind it in the space it formerly
occupied.[3] There is, consequently, now no longer any part of the
man in the main compartment--his body being behind the machinery in
cupboard No. 1, and his legs in the space occupied by the drawer.
The exhibiter, therefore, finds himself at liberty to display the
main compartment. This he does--opening both its back and front
doors--and no person is discovered. The spectators are now satisfied
that the whole of the box is exposed to view--and exposed too, all
portions of it at one and the same time. But of course this is not
the case. They neither see the space behind the drawer, nor the
interior of cupboard No. 1--the front door of which latter the
exhibiter virtually shuts in shutting its back door. Maelzel, having
now rolled the machine around, lifted up the drapery of the Turk,
opened the doors in his back and thigh, and shown his trunk to be
full of machinery, brings the whole back into its original position,
and closes the doors. The man within is now at liberty to move
about. He gets up into the body of the Turk just so high as to bring
his eyes above the level of the chess-board. It is very probable
that he seats himself upon the little square block or protuberance
which is seen in a corner of the main compartment when the doors are
open. In this position he sees the chess-board through the bosom of
the Turk which is of gauze. Bringing his right arm across his {323}
breast he actuates the little machinery necessary to guide the left
arm and the fingers of the figure. This machinery is situated just
beneath the left shoulder of the Turk, and is consequently easily
reached by the right hand of the man concealed, if we suppose his
right arm brought across the breast. The motions of the head and
eyes, and of the right arm of the figure, as well as the sound
_echec_ are produced by other mechanism in the interior, and
actuated at will by the man within. The whole of this
mechanism--that is to say all the mechanism essential to the
machine--is most probably contained within the little cupboard (of
about six inches in breadth) partitioned off at the right (the
spectators' right) of the main compartment.

[Footnote 3: Sir David Brewster supposes that there is always a
large space behind this drawer even when shut--in other words that
the drawer is a "false drawer" and does not extend to the back of
the box. But the idea is altogether untenable. So commonplace a
trick would be immediately discovered--especially as the drawer is
always opened to its full extent, and an opportunity thus afforded
of comparing its depth with that of the box.]

In this analysis of the operations of the Automaton, we have
purposely avoided any allusion to the manner in which the partitions
are shifted, and it will now be readily comprehended that this point
is a matter of no importance, since, by mechanism within the ability
of any common carpenter, it might be effected in an infinity of
different ways, and since we have shown that, however performed, it
is performed out of the view of the spectators. Our result is
founded upon the following _observations_ taken during frequent
visits to the exhibition of Maelzel.[4]

[Footnote 4: Some of these _observations_ are intended merely to
prove that the machine must be regulated _by mind_, and it may be
thought a work of supererogation to advance farther arguments in
support of what has been already fully decided. But our object is to
convince, in especial, certain of our friends upon whom a train of
suggestive reasoning will have more influence than the most positive
_a priori_ demonstration.]

1. The moves of the Turk are not made at regular intervals of time,
but accommodate themselves to the moves of the antagonist--although
this point (of regularity) so important in all kinds of mechanical
contrivance, might have been readily brought about by limiting the
time allowed for the moves of the antagonist. For example, if this
limit were three minutes, the moves of the Automaton might be made
at any given intervals longer than three minutes. The fact then of
irregularity, when regularity might have been so easily attained,
goes to prove that regularity is unimportant to the action of the
Automaton--in other words, that the Automaton is not _a pure
machine_.

2. When the Automaton is about to move a piece, a distinct motion is
observable just beneath the left shoulder, and which motion agitates
in a slight degree, the drapery covering the front of the left
shoulder. This motion invariably precedes, by about two seconds, the
movement of the arm itself--and the arm never, in any instance,
moves without this preparatory motion in the shoulder. Now let the
antagonist move a piece, and let the corresponding move be made by
Maelzel, as usual, upon the board of the Automaton. Then let the
antagonist narrowly watch the Automaton, until he detect the
preparatory motion in the shoulder. Immediately upon detecting this
motion, and before the arm itself begins to move, let him withdraw
his piece, as if perceiving an error in his manœuvre. It will then
be seen that the movement of the arm, which, in all other cases,
immediately succeeds the motion in the shoulder, is withheld--is not
made--although Maelzel has not yet performed, on the board of the
Automaton, any move corresponding to the withdrawal of the
antagonist. In this case, that the Automaton was about to move is
evident--and that he did not move, was an effect plainly produced by
the withdrawal of the antagonist, and without any intervention of
Maelzel.

This fact fully proves, 1--that the intervention of Maelzel, in
performing the moves of the antagonist on the board of the
Automaton, is not essential to the movements of the Automaton,
2--that its movements are regulated by _mind_--by some person who
sees the board of the antagonist, 3--that its movements are not
regulated by the mind of Maelzel, whose back was turned towards the
antagonist at the withdrawal of his move.

3. The Automaton does not invariably win the game. Were the machine
a pure machine this would not be the case--it would always win. The
_principle_ being discovered by which a machine can be made to
_play_ a game of chess, an extension of the same principle would
enable it to _win_ a game--a farther extension would enable it to
_win all_ games--that is, to beat any possible game of an
antagonist. A little consideration will convince any one that the
difficulty of making a machine beat all games, is not in the least
degree greater, as regards the principle of the operations
necessary, than that of making it beat a single game. If then we
regard the Chess-Player as a machine, we must suppose, (what is
highly improbable,) that its inventor preferred leaving it
incomplete to perfecting it--a supposition rendered still more
absurd, when we reflect that the leaving it incomplete would afford
an argument against the possibility of its being a pure machine--the
very argument we now adduce.

4. When the situation of the game is difficult or complex, we never
perceive the Turk either shake his head or roll his eyes. It is only
when his next move is obvious, or when the game is so circumstanced
that to a man in the Automaton's place there would be no necessity
for reflection. Now these peculiar movements of the head and eyes
are movements customary with persons engaged in meditation, and the
ingenious Baron Kempelen would have adapted these movements (were
the machine a pure machine) to occasions proper for their
display--that is, to occasions of complexity. But the reverse is
seen to be the case, and this reverse applies precisely to our
supposition of a man in the interior. When engaged in meditation
about the game he has no time to think of setting in motion the
mechanism of the Automaton by which are moved the head and the eyes.
When the game, however, is obvious, he has time to look about him,
and, accordingly, we see the head shake and the eyes roll.

5. When the machine is rolled round to allow the spectators an
examination of the back of the Turk, and when his drapery is lifted
up and the doors in the trunk and thigh thrown open, the interior of
the trunk is seen to be crowded with machinery. In scrutinizing this
machinery while the Automaton was in motion, that is to say while
the whole machine was moving on the castors, it appeared to us that
certain portions of the mechanism changed their shape and position
in a degree too great to be accounted for by the simple laws of
perspective; and subsequent examinations convinced us that these
undue alterations were attributable to mirrors in the interior of
the trunk. The introduction of mirrors among the machinery could not
have been {324} intended to influence, in any degree, the machinery
itself. Their operation, whatever that operation should prove to be,
must necessarily have reference to the eye of the spectator. We at
once concluded that these mirrors were so placed to multiply to the
vision some few pieces of machinery within the trunk so as to give
it the appearance of being crowded with mechanism. Now the direct
inference from this is that the machine is not a pure machine. For
if it were, the inventor, so far from wishing its mechanism to
appear complex, and using deception for the purpose of giving it
this appearance, would have been especially desirous of convincing
those who witnessed his exhibition, of the _simplicity_ of the means
by which results so wonderful were brought about.

6. The external appearance, and, especially, the deportment of the
Turk, are, when we consider them as imitations of _life_, but very
indifferent imitations. The countenance evinces no ingenuity, and is
surpassed, in its resemblance to the human face, by the very
commonest of wax-works. The eyes roll unnaturally in the head,
without any corresponding motions of the lids or brows. The arm,
particularly, performs its operations in an exceedingly stiff,
awkward, jerking, and rectangular manner. Now, all this is the
result either of inability in Maelzel to do better, or of
intentional neglect--accidental neglect being out of the question,
when we consider that the whole time of the ingenious proprietor is
occupied in the improvement of his machines. Most assuredly we must
not refer the unlife-like appearances to inability--for all the rest
of Maelzel's automata are evidence of his full ability to copy the
motions and peculiarities of life with the most wonderful
exactitude. The rope-dancers, for example, are inimitable. When the
clown laughs, his lips, his eyes, his eye-brows, and
eye-lids--indeed, all the features of his countenance--are imbued
with their appropriate expressions. In both him and his companion,
every gesture is so entirely easy, and free from the semblance of
artificiality, that, were it not for the diminutiveness of their
size, and the fact of their being passed from one spectator to
another previous to their exhibition on the rope, it would be
difficult to convince any assemblage of persons that these wooden
automata were not living creatures. We cannot, therefore, doubt Mr.
Maelzel's ability, and we must necessarily suppose that he
intentionally suffered his Chess-Player to remain the same
artificial and unnatural figure which Baron Kempelen (no doubt also
through design) originally made it. What this design was it is not
difficult to conceive. Were the Automaton life-like in its motions,
the spectator would be more apt to attribute its operations to their
true cause, (that is, to human agency within) than he is now, when
the awkward and rectangular manœuvres convey the idea of pure and
unaided mechanism.

7. When, a short time previous to the commencement of the game, the
Automaton is wound up by the exhibiter as usual, an ear in any
degree accustomed to the sounds produced in winding up a system of
machinery, will not fail to discover, instantaneously, that the axis
turned by the key in the box of the Chess-Player, cannot possibly be
connected with either a weight, a spring, or any system of machinery
whatever. The inference here is the same as in our last observation.
The winding up is inessential to the operations of the Automaton,
and is performed with the design of exciting in the spectators the
false idea of mechanism.

8. When the question is demanded explicitly of Maelzel--"Is the
Automaton a pure machine or not?" his reply is invariably the
same--"I will say nothing about it." Now the notoriety of the
Automaton, and the great curiosity it has every where excited, are
owing more especially to the prevalent opinion that it _is_ a pure
machine, than to any other circumstance. Of course, then, it is the
interest of the proprietor to represent it as a pure machine. And
what more obvious, and more effectual method could there be of
impressing the spectators with this desired idea, than a positive
and explicit declaration to that effect? On the other hand, what
more obvious and effectual method could there be of exciting a
disbelief in the Automaton's being a pure machine, than by
withholding such explicit declaration? For, people will naturally
reason thus,--It is Maelzel's interest to represent this thing a
pure machine--he refuses to do so, directly, in words, although he
does not scruple, and is evidently anxious to do so, indirectly by
actions--were it actually what he wishes to represent it by actions,
he would gladly avail himself of the more direct testimony of
words--the inference is, that a consciousness of its _not_ being a
pure machine, is the reason of his silence--his actions cannot
implicate him in a falsehood--his words may.

9. When, in exhibiting the interior of the box, Maelzel has thrown
open the door No. 1, and also the door immediately behind it, he
holds a lighted candle at the back door (as mentioned above) and
moves the entire machine to and fro with a view of convincing the
company that the cupboard No. 1 is entirely filled with machinery.
When the machine is thus moved about, it will be apparent to any
careful observer, that whereas that portion of the machinery near
the front door No. 1, is perfectly steady and unwavering, the
portion farther within fluctuates, in a very slight degree, with the
movements of the machine. This circumstance first aroused in us the
suspicion that the more remote portion of the machinery was so
arranged as to be easily slipped, _en masse_, from its position when
occasion should require it. This occasion we have already stated to
occur when the man concealed within brings his body into an erect
position upon the closing of the back door.

10. Sir David Brewster states the figure of the Turk to be of the
size of life--but in fact it is far above the ordinary size. Nothing
is more easy than to err in our notions of magnitude. The body of
the Automaton is generally insulated, and, having no means of
immediately comparing it with any human form, we suffer ourselves to
consider it as of ordinary dimensions. This mistake may, however, be
corrected by observing the Chess-Player when, as is sometimes the
case, the exhibiter approaches it. Mr. Maelzel, to be sure, is not
very tall, but upon drawing near the machine, his head will be found
at least eighteen inches below the head of the Turk, although the
latter, it will be remembered, is in a sitting position.

11. The box behind which the Automaton is placed, is precisely three
feet six inches long, two feet four inches deep, and two feet six
inches high. These dimensions are fully sufficient for the
accommodation of a man very much above the common size--and the main
{325} compartment alone is capable of holding any ordinary man in
the position we have mentioned as assumed by the person concealed.
As these are facts, which any one who doubts them may prove by
actual calculation, we deem it unnecessary to dwell upon them. We
will only suggest that, although the top of the box is apparently a
board of about three inches in thickness, the spectator may satisfy
himself by stooping and looking up at it when the main compartment
is open, that it is in reality very thin. The height of the drawer
also will be misconceived by those who examine it in a cursory
manner. There is a space of about three inches between the top of
the drawer as seen from the exterior, and the bottom of the
cupboard--a space which must be included in the height of the
drawer. These contrivances to make the room within the box appear
less than it actually is, are referrible to a design on the part of
the inventor, to impress the company again with a false idea, viz.
that no human being can be accommodated within the box.

12. The interior of the main compartment is lined throughout with
_cloth_. This cloth we suppose to have a twofold object. A portion
of it may form, when tightly stretched, the only partitions which
there is any necessity for removing during the changes of the man's
position, viz: the partition between the rear of the main
compartment and the rear of the cupboard No. 1, and the partition
between the main compartment, and the space behind the drawer when
open. If we imagine this to be the case, the difficulty of shifting
the partitions vanishes at once, if indeed any such difficulty could
be supposed under any circumstances to exist. The second object of
the cloth is to deaden and render indistinct all sounds occasioned
by the movements of the person within.

13. The antagonist (as we have before observed) is not suffered to
play at the board of the Automaton, but is seated at some distance
from the machine. The reason which, most probably, would be assigned
for this circumstance, if the question were demanded, is, that were
the antagonist otherwise situated, his person would intervene
between the machine and the spectators, and preclude the latter from
a distinct view. But this difficulty might be easily obviated,
either by elevating the seats of the company, or by turning the end
of the box towards them during the game. The true cause of the
restriction is, perhaps, very different. Were the antagonist seated
in contact with the box, the secret would be liable to discovery, by
his detecting, with the aid of a quick ear, the breathings of the
man concealed.

14. Although M. Maelzel, in disclosing the interior of the machine,
sometimes slightly deviates from the _routine_ which we have pointed
out, yet _never_ in any instance does he _so_ deviate from it as to
interfere with our solution. For example, he has been known to open,
first of all, the drawer--but he never opens the main compartment
without first closing the back door of cupboard No. 1--he never
opens the main compartment without first pulling out the drawer--he
never shuts the drawer without first shutting the main
compartment--he never opens the back door of cupboard No. 1 while
the main compartment is open--and the game of chess is never
commenced until the whole machine is closed. Now, if it were
observed that _never, in any single instance_, did M. Maelzel differ
from the routine we have pointed out as necessary to our solution,
it would be one of the strongest possible arguments in corroboration
of it--but the argument becomes infinitely strengthened if we duly
consider the circumstance that he _does occasionally_ deviate from
the routine, but never does _so_ deviate as to falsify the solution.

15. There are six candles on the board of the Automaton during
exhibition. The question naturally arises--"Why are so many
employed, when a single candle, or, at farthest, two, would have
been amply sufficient to afford the spectators a clear view of the
board, in a room otherwise so well lit up as the exhibition room
always is--when, moreover, if we suppose the machine a _pure
machine_, there can be no necessity for so much light, or indeed any
light at all, to enable _it_ to perform its operations--and when,
especially, only a single candle is placed upon the table of the
antagonist?" The first and most obvious inference is, that so strong
a light is requisite to enable the man within to see through the
transparent material (probably fine gauze) of which the breast of
the Turk is composed. But when we consider the _arrangement_ of the
candles, another reason immediately presents itself. There are six
lights (as we have said before) in all. Three of these are on each
side of the figure. Those most remote from the spectators are the
longest--those in the middle are about two inches shorter--and those
nearest the company about two inches shorter still--and the candles
on one side differ in height from the candles respectively opposite
on the other, by a ratio different from two inches--that is to say,
the longest candle on one side is about three inches shorter than
the longest candle on the other, and so on. Thus it will be seen
that no two of the candles are of the same height, and thus also the
difficulty of ascertaining the _material_ of the breast of the
figure (against which the light is especially directed) is greatly
augmented by the dazzling effect of the complicated crossings of the
rays--crossings which are brought about by placing the centres of
radiation all upon different levels.

16. While the Chess-Player was in possession of Baron Kempelen, it
was more than once observed, first, that an Italian in the suite of
the Baron was never visible during the playing of a game at chess by
the Turk, and, secondly, that the Italian being taken seriously ill,
the exhibition was suspended until his recovery. This Italian
professed a _total_ ignorance of the game of chess, although all
others of the suite played well. Similar observations have been made
since the Automaton has been purchased by Maelzel. There is a man,
_Schlumberger_, who attends him wherever he goes, but who has no
ostensible occupation other than that of assisting in the packing
and unpacking of the automata. This man is about the medium size,
and has a remarkable stoop in the shoulders. Whether he professes to
play chess or not, we are not informed. It is quite certain,
however, that he is never to be seen during the exhibition of the
Chess-Player, although frequently visible just before and just after
the exhibition. Moreover, some years ago Maelzel visited Richmond
with his automata, and exhibited them, we believe, in the house now
occupied by M. Bossieux as a Dancing Academy. _Schlumberger_ was
suddenly taken ill, and during his illness there was no exhibition
of the {326} Chess-Player. These facts are well known to many of our
citizens. The reason assigned for the suspension of the
Chess-Player's performances, was _not_ the illness of
_Schlumberger_. The inferences from all this we leave, without
farther comment, to the reader.

17. The Turk plays with his _left_ arm. A circumstance so remarkable
cannot be accidental. Brewster takes no notice of it whatever,
beyond a mere statement, we believe, that such is the fact. The
early writers of treatises on the Automaton, seem not to have
observed the matter at all, and have no reference to it. The author
of the pamphlet alluded to by Brewster, mentions it, but
acknowledges his inability to account for it. Yet it is obviously
from such prominent discrepancies or incongruities as this that
deductions are to be made (if made at all) which shall lead us to
the truth.

The circumstance of the Automaton's playing with his left hand
cannot have connexion with the operations of the machine, considered
merely as such. Any mechanical arrangement which would cause the
figure to move, in any given manner, the left arm--could, if
reversed, cause it to move, in the same manner, the right. But these
principles cannot be extended to the human organization, wherein
there is a marked and radical difference in the construction, and,
at all events, in the powers, of the right and left arms. Reflecting
upon this latter fact, we naturally refer the incongruity noticeable
in the Chess-Player to this peculiarity in the human organization.
If so, we must imagine some _reversion_--for the Chess-Player plays
precisely as a man _would not_. These ideas, once entertained, are
sufficient of themselves, to suggest the notion of a man in the
interior. A few more imperceptible steps lead us, finally, to the
result. The Automaton plays with his left arm, because under no
other circumstances could the man within play with his right--a
_desideratum_ of course. Let us, for example, imagine the Automaton
to play with his right arm. To reach the machinery which moves the
arm, and which we have before explained to lie just beneath the
shoulder, it would be necessary for the man within either to use his
right arm in an exceedingly painful and awkward position, (viz.
brought up close to his body and tightly compressed between his body
and the side of the Automaton,) or else to use his left arm brought
across his breast. In neither case could he act with the requisite
ease or precision. On the contrary, the Automaton playing, as it
actually does, with the left arm, all difficulties vanish. The right
arm of the man within is brought across his breast, and his right
fingers act, without any constraint, upon the machinery in the
shoulder of the figure.

We do not believe that any reasonable objections can be urged
against this solution of the Automaton Chess-Player.




CRITICAL NOTICES.


DRAKE--HALLECK.

_The Culprit Fay, and other Poems, by Joseph Rodman Drake. New York:
George Dearborn._

_Alnwick Castle, with other Poems, by Fitz Greene Halleck. New York:
George Dearborn._

Before entering upon the detailed notice which we propose of the
volumes before us, we wish to speak a few words in regard to the
present state of American criticism.

It must be visible to all who meddle with literary matters, that of
late years a thorough revolution has been effected in the censorship
of our press. That this revolution is infinitely for the worse we
believe. There was a time, it is true, when we cringed to foreign
opinion--let us even say when we paid a most servile deference to
British critical dicta. That an American book could, by any
possibility, be worthy perusal, was an idea by no means extensively
prevalent in the land; and if we were induced to read at all the
productions of our native writers, it was only after repeated
assurances from England that such productions were not altogether
contemptible. But there was, at all events, a shadow of excuse, and
a slight basis of reason for a subserviency so grotesque. Even now,
perhaps, it would not be far wrong to assert that such basis of
reason may still exist. Let us grant that in many of the abstract
sciences--that even in Theology, in Medicine, in Law, in Oratory, in
the Mechanical Arts, we have no competitors whatever, still nothing
but the most egregious national vanity would assign us a place, in
the matter of Polite Literature, upon a level with the elder and
riper climes of Europe, the earliest steps of whose children are
among the groves of magnificently endowed Academies, and whose
innumerable men of leisure, and of consequent learning, drink daily
from those august fountains of inspiration which burst around them
every where from out the tombs of their immortal dead, and from out
their hoary and trophied monuments of chivalry and song. In paying
then, as a nation, a respectful and not undue deference to a
supremacy rarely questioned but by prejudice or ignorance, we
should, of course, be doing nothing more than acting in a rational
manner. The _excess_ of our subserviency was blameable--but, as we
have before said, this very excess might have found a shadow of
excuse in the strict justice, if properly regulated, of the
principle from which it issued. Not so, however, with our present
follies. We are becoming boisterous and arrogant in the pride of a
too speedily assumed literary freedom. We throw off, with the most
presumptuous and unmeaning hauteur, _all_ deference whatever to
foreign opinion--we forget, in the puerile inflation of vanity, that
_the world_ is the true theatre of the biblical histrio--we get up a
hue and cry about the necessity of encouraging native writers of
merit--we blindly fancy that we can accomplish this by
indiscriminate puffing of good, bad, and indifferent, without taking
the trouble to consider that what we choose to denominate
encouragement is thus, by its general application, rendered
precisely the reverse. In a word, so far from being ashamed of the
many disgraceful literary failures to which our own inordinate
vanities and misapplied patriotism have lately given birth, and so
far from deeply lamenting that these daily puerilities are of home
manufacture, we adhere pertinaciously to our original blindly
conceived idea, and thus often find ourselves involved in the gross
paradox of liking a stupid book the better, because, sure enough,
its stupidity is American.[1]

[Footnote 1: This charge of indiscriminate puffing will, of course,
only apply to the _general_ character of our criticism--there are
some noble exceptions. We wish also especially to discriminate
between those _notices_ of new works which are intended merely to
call public attention to them, and deliberate criticism on the works
themselves.]

Deeply lamenting this unjustifiable state of public {327} feeling,
it has been our constant endeavor, since assuming the Editorial
duties of this Journal, to stem, with what little abilities we
possess, a current so disastrously undermining the health and
prosperity of our literature. We have seen our efforts applauded by
men whose applauses we value. From all quarters we have received
abundant private as well as public testimonials in favor of our
_Critical Notices_, and, until very lately, have heard from no
respectable source one word impugning their integrity or candor. In
looking over, however, a number of the New York Commercial
Advertiser, we meet with the following paragraph.


The last number of the Southern Literary Messenger is very readable
and respectable. The contributions to the Messenger are much better
than the original matter. The critical department of this work--much
as it would seem to boast itself of impartiality and
discernment,--is in our opinion decidedly _quacky_. There is in it a
great assumption of acumen, which is completely unsustained. Many a
work has been slashingly condemned therein, of which the critic
himself could not write a page, were he to die for it. This
affectation of eccentric sternness in criticism, without the power
to back one's suit withal, so far from deserving praise, as some
suppose, merits the strongest reprehension.--[_Philadelphia
Gazette_.

We are entirely of opinion with the Philadelphia Gazette in relation
to the Southern Literary Messenger, and take this occasion to
express our total dissent from the numerous and lavish encomiums we
have seen bestowed upon its critical notices. Some few of them have
been judicious, fair and candid; bestowing praise and censure with
judgment and impartiality; but by far the greater number of those we
have read, have been flippant, unjust, untenable and uncritical. The
duty of the critic is to act as judge, not as enemy, of the writer
whom he reviews; a distinction of which the Zoilus of the Messenger
seems not to be aware. It is possible to review a book severely,
without bestowing opprobrious epithets upon the writer; to condemn
with courtesy, if not with kindness. The critic of the Messenger has
been eulogized for his scorching and scarifying abilities, and he
thinks it incumbent upon him to keep up his reputation in that line,
by sneers, sarcasm, and downright abuse; by straining his vision
with microscopic intensity in search of faults, and shutting his
eyes, with all his might, to beauties. Moreover, we have detected
him, more than once, in blunders quite as gross as those on which it
was his pleasure to descant.[2]

[Footnote 2: In addition to these things we observe, in the New York
Mirror, what follows: "Those who have read the Notices of American
books in a certain Southern Monthly, which is striving to gain
notoriety by the loudness of its abuse, may find amusement in the
sketch on another page, entitled 'The Successful Novel.' The
Southern Literary Messenger knows -->_by experience_<-- what it is
to write a successless novel." We have, in this case, only to deny,
flatly, the assertion of the Mirror. The Editor of the Messenger
never in his life wrote or published, or attempted to publish, a
novel either successful or _successless_.]


In the paragraph from the Philadelphia Gazette, (which is edited by
Mr. Willis Gaylord Clark, one of the Editors of the Knickerbocker)
we find nothing at which we have any desire to take exception. Mr.
C. has a right to think us _quacky_ if he pleases, and we do not
remember having assumed for a moment that we could write a single
line of the works we have reviewed. But there is something
equivocal, to say the least, in the remarks of Col. Stone. He
acknowledges that "_some_ of our notices have been judicious, fair,
and candid, bestowing praise and censure with judgment and
impartiality." This being the case, how can he reconcile his _total_
dissent from the public verdict in our favor, with the dictates of
justice? We are accused too of bestowing "opprobrious epithets" upon
writers whom we review, and in the paragraph so accusing us we are
called nothing less than "flippant, unjust, and uncritical."

But there is another point of which we disapprove. While in our
reviews we have at all times been particularly careful _not_ to deal
in generalities, and have never, if we remember aright, advanced in
any single instance an unsupported assertion, our accuser has
forgotten to give us any better evidence of our flippancy,
injustice, personality, and gross blundering, than the solitary
_dictum_ of Col. Stone. We call upon the Colonel for assistance in
this dilemma. We wish to be shown our blunders that we may correct
them--to be made aware of our flippancy, that we may avoid it
hereafter--and above all to have our personalities pointed out that
we may proceed forthwith with a repentant spirit, to make the
_amende honorable_. In default of this aid from the Editor of the
Commercial we shall take it for granted that we are neither
blunderers, flippant, personal, nor unjust.

       *       *       *       *       *

Who will deny that in regard to individual poems no definitive
opinions can exist, so long as to Poetry in the abstract we attach
no definitive idea? Yet it is a common thing to hear our critics,
day after day, pronounce, with a positive air, laudatory or
condemnatory sentences, _en masse_, upon metrical works of whose
merits and demerits they have, in the first place, virtually
confessed an utter ignorance, in confessing ignorance of all
determinate principles by which to regulate a decision. Poetry has
never been defined to the satisfaction of all parties. Perhaps, in
the present condition of language it never will be. Words cannot hem
it in. Its intangible and purely spiritual nature refuses to be
bound down within the widest horizon of mere sounds. But it is not,
therefore, misunderstood--at least, not by all men is it
misunderstood. Very far from it. If, indeed, there be any one circle
of thought distinctly and palpably marked out from amid the jarring
and tumultuous chaos of human intelligence, it is that evergreen and
radiant Paradise which the true poet knows, and knows alone, as the
limited realm of his authority--as the circumscribed Eden of his
dreams. But a definition is a thing of words--a conception of ideas.
And thus while we readily believe that Poesy, the term, it will be
troublesome, if not impossible to define--still, with its image
vividly existing in the world, we apprehend no difficulty in so
describing Poesy, the Sentiment, as to imbue even the most obtuse
intellect with a comprehension of it sufficiently distinct for all
the purposes of practical analysis.

To look upwards from any existence, material or immaterial, to its
_design_, is, perhaps, the most direct, and the most unerring method
of attaining a just notion of the nature of the existence itself.
Nor is the principle at fault when we turn our eyes from Nature even
to Nature's God. We find certain faculties implanted within us, and
arrive at a more plausible conception of the character and
attributes of those faculties, by considering, with what finite
judgment we possess, the _intention_ of the Deity in so implanting
them within us, than by any actual investigation of their powers, or
any speculative deductions from their visible and material effects.
Thus, for example, we discover in all men a disposition to look with
reverence upon {328} superiority, whether real or supposititious. In
some, this disposition is to be recognized with difficulty, and, in
very peculiar cases, we are occasionally even led to doubt its
existence altogether, until circumstances beyond the common routine
bring it accidentally into development. In others again it forms a
prominent and distinctive feature of character, and is rendered
palpably evident in its excesses. But in all human beings it is, in
a greater or less degree, finally perceptible. It has been,
therefore, justly considered a primitive sentiment. Phrenologists
call it Veneration. It is, indeed, the instinct given to man by God
as security for his own worship. And although, preserving its
nature, it becomes perverted from its principal purpose, and
although, swerving from that purpose, it serves to modify the
relations of human society--the relations of father and child, of
master and slave, of the ruler and the ruled--its primitive essence
is nevertheless the same, and by a reference to primal causes, may
at any moment be determined.

Very nearly akin to this feeling, and liable to the same analysis,
is the Faculty of Ideality--which is the sentiment of Poesy. This
sentiment is the sense of the beautiful, of the sublime, and of the
mystical.[3] Thence spring immediately admiration of the fair
flowers, the fairer forests, the bright valleys and rivers and
mountains of the Earth--and love of the gleaming stars and other
burning glories of Heaven--and, mingled up inextricably with this
love and this admiration of Heaven and of Earth, the unconquerable
desire--_to know_. Poesy is the sentiment of Intellectual Happiness
here, and the Hope of a higher Intellectual Happiness hereafter.[4]
Imagination is its Soul.[5] With the _passions_ of mankind--although
it may modify them greatly--although it may exalt, or inflame, or
purify, or control them--it would require little ingenuity to prove
that it has no inevitable, and indeed no necessary co-existence. We
have hitherto spoken of Poetry in the abstract: we come now to speak
of it in its every-day acceptation--that is to say, of the practical
result arising from the sentiment we have considered.

[Footnote 3: We separate the sublime and the mystical--for, despite
of high authorities, we are firmly convinced that the latter _may_
exist, in the most vivid degree, without giving rise to the sense of
the former.]

[Footnote 4: The consciousness of this truth was possessed by no
mortal more fully than by Shelley, although he has only once
especially alluded to it. In his _Hymn to Intellectual Beauty_ we
find these lines.

  While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped
    Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
    And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
  Hopes of high talk with the departed dead:
  I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed:
    I was not heard: I saw them not.
    When musing deeply on the lot
  Of life at that sweet time when birds are wooing
    All vital things that wake to bring
    News of buds and blossoming
    Sudden thy shadow fell on me--
  I shrieked and clasp'd my hands in ecstacy!
  I vow'd that I would dedicate my powers
    To thee and thine: have I not kept the vow?
  With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now
  I call the phantoms of a thousand hours
  Each from his voiceless grave: they have in vision'd bowers
    Of studious zeal or love's delight
    Outwatch'd with me the envious night:
  They know that never joy illum'd my brow,
    Unlink'd with hope that thou wouldst free,
    This world from its dark slavery,
    That thou, O awful _Loveliness_,
  Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.]

[Footnote 5: Imagination is, possibly, in man, a lesser degree of
the creative power in God. What the Deity imagines, _is_, but _was
not_ before. What man imagines, _is_, but _was_ also. The mind of
man cannot imagine what _is not_. This latter point may be
demonstrated.--_See Les Premiers Traits de L'Erudition Universelle,
par M. Le Baron de Bielfield, 1767_.]

And now it appears evident, that since Poetry, in this new sense,
_is_ the practical result, expressed in language, of this Poetic
Sentiment in certain individuals, the only proper method of testing
the merits of a poem is by measuring its capabilities of exciting
the Poetic Sentiment in others. And to this end we have many
aids--in observation, in experience, in ethical analysis, and in the
dictates of common sense. Hence the _Poeta nascitur_, which is
indisputably true if we consider the Poetic Sentiment, becomes the
merest of absurdities when we regard it in reference to the
practical result. We do not hesitate to say that a man highly
endowed with the powers of Causality--that is to say, a man of
metaphysical acumen--will, even with a very deficient share of
Ideality, compose a finer poem (if we test it, as we should, by its
measure of exciting the Poetic Sentiment) than one who, without such
metaphysical acumen, shall be gifted, in the most extraordinary
degree, with the faculty of Ideality. For a poem is not the Poetic
faculty, but _the means_ of exciting it in mankind. Now these means
the metaphysician may discover by analysis of their effects in other
cases than his own, without even conceiving the nature of these
effects--thus arriving at a result which the unaided Ideality of his
competitor would be utterly unable, except by accident, to attain.
It is more than possible that the man who, of all writers, living or
dead, has been most successful in writing the purest of all
poems--that is to say, poems which excite most purely, most
exclusively, and most powerfully the imaginative faculties in
men--owed his extraordinary and almost magical pre-eminence rather
to metaphysical than poetical powers. We allude to the author of
Christabel, of the Rime of the Auncient Mariner, and of Love--to
Coleridge--whose head, if we mistake not its character, gave no
great phrenological tokens of Ideality, while the organs of
Causality and Comparison were most singularly developed.

Perhaps at this particular moment there are no American poems held
in so high estimation by our countrymen, as the poems of Drake, and
of Halleck. The exertions of Mr. George Dearborn have no doubt a far
greater share in creating this feeling than the lovers of literature
for its own sake and spiritual uses would be willing to admit. We
have indeed seldom seen more beautiful volumes than the volumes now
before us. But an adventitious interest of a loftier nature--the
interest of the living in the memory of the beloved dead--attaches
itself to the few literary remains of Drake. The poems which are now
given to us with his name are nineteen in number; and whether all,
or whether even the best of his writings, it is our present purpose
to speak of these alone, since upon this edition his poetical
reputation to all time will most probably depend.

It is only lately that we have read _The Culprit Fay_. This is a
poem of six hundred and forty irregular lines, generally iambic, and
divided into thirty six stanzas, of {329} unequal length. The scene
of the narrative, as we ascertain from the single line,

  The moon looks down on old _Cronest_,

is principally in the vicinity of West Point on the Hudson. The plot
is as follows. An Ouphe, one of the race of Fairies, has "broken his
vestal vow,"

  He has loved an earthly maid
  And left for her his woodland shade;
  He has lain upon her lip of dew,
  And sunned him in her eye of blue,
  Fann'd her cheek with his wing of air,
  Play'd with the ringlets of her hair,
  And, nestling on her snowy breast,
  Forgot the lily-king's behest--

in short, he has broken Fairy-law in becoming enamored of a mortal.
The result of this misdemeanor we could not express so well as the
poet, and will therefore make use of the language put into the mouth
of the Fairy-King who reprimands the criminal.

  Fairy! Fairy! list and mark,
    Thou hast broke thine elfin chain,
  Thy flame-wood lamp is quench'd and dark
    And thy wings are dyed with a deadly stain.

The Ouphe being in this predicament, it has become necessary that
his case and crime should be investigated by a jury of his fellows,
and to this end the "shadowy tribes of air" are summoned by the
"sentry elve" who has been awakened by the "wood-tick"--are summoned
we say to the "elfin-court" at midnight to hear the doom of the
_Culprit Fay_.

"Had a stain been found on the earthly fair" whose blandishments so
bewildered the litle Ouphe, his punishment had been severe indeed.
In such case he would have been (as we learn from the Fairy judge's
exposition of the criminal code,)

  Tied to the hornet's shardy wings;
  Tossed on the pricks of nettles' stings;
  Or seven long ages doomed to dwell
  With the lazy worm in the walnut shell;
  Or every night to writhe and bleed
  Beneath the tread of the centipede;
  Or bound in a cobweb dungeon dim,
  His jailer a spider huge and grim,
  Amid the carrion bodies to lie
  Of the worm and the bug and the murdered fly--

Fortunately, however, for the Culprit, his mistress is proved to be
of "sinless mind" and under such redeeming circumstances the
sentence is, mildly, as follows--

  Thou shalt seek the beach of sand
  Where the water bounds the elfin land,
  Thou shalt watch the oozy brine
  Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine,
  Then dart the glistening arch below,
  And catch a drop from his silver bow.

       *       *       *       *       *

  If the spray-bead gem be won
    The stain of thy wing is washed away,
  But another errand must be done
    Ere thy crime be lost for aye;
  Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,
  Thou must re-illume its spark.
  Mount thy steed and spur him high
  To the heaven's blue canopy;
  And when thou seest a shooting star
  Follow it fast and follow it far--
  The last faint spark of its burning train
  Shall light the elfin lamp again.

Upon this sin, and upon this sentence, depends the web of the
narrative, which is now occupied with the elfin difficulties
overcome by the Ouphe in washing away the stain of his wing, and
re-illuming his flame-wood lamp. His soiled pinion having lost its
power, he is under the necessity of wending his way on foot from the
Elfin court upon Cronest to the river beach at its base. His path is
encumbered at every step with "bog and briar," with "brook and
mire," with "beds of tangled fern," with "groves of nightshade," and
with the minor evils of ant and snake. Happily, however, a spotted
toad coming in sight, our adventurer jumps upon her back, and
"bridling her mouth with a silkweed twist" bounds merrily along

  Till the mountain's magic verge is past
  And the beach of sand is reached at last.

Alighting now from his "courser-toad" the Ouphe folds his wings
around his bosom, springs on a rock, breathes a prayer, throws his
arms above his head,

  Then tosses a tiny curve in air
  And plunges in the waters blue.

Here, however, a host of difficulties await him by far too
multitudinous to enumerate. We will content ourselves with simply
stating the names of his most respectable assailants. These are the
"spirits of the waves" dressed in "snail-plate armor" and aided by
the "mailed shrimp," the "prickly prong," the "blood-red leech," the
"stony star-fish," the "jellied quarl," the "soldier crab," and the
"lancing squab." But the hopes of our hero are high, and his limbs
are strong, so

  He spreads his arms like the swallow's wing
  And throws his feet with a frog-like fling.

All, however is to no purpose.

  On his thigh the leech has fixed his hold,
  The quarl's long arms are round him roll'd,
  The prickly prong has pierced his skin,
  And the squab has thrown his javelin,
  The gritty star has rubb'd him raw,
  And the crab has struck with his giant claw;
  He bawls with rage, and he shrieks with pain
  He strikes around but his blows are vain--

So then,

  He turns him round and flies amain
  With hurry and dash to the beach again.

Arrived safely on land our Fairy friend now gathers the dew from the
"sorrel-leaf and henbane-bud" and bathing therewith his wounds,
finally ties them up with cobweb. Thus recruited, he

      ----treads the fatal shore
  As fresh and vigorous as before.

At length espying a "purple-muscle shell" upon the beach, he
determines to use it as a boat, and thus evade the animosity of the
water-spirits whose powers extend not above the wave. Making a
"sculler's notch" in the stern, and providing himself with an oar of
the bootle-blade, the Ouphe a second time ventures upon the deep.
His perils are now diminished, but still great. The imps of the
river heave the billows up before the prow of the boat, dash the
surges against her side, and strike against her keel. The quarl
uprears "his island-back" in her path, and the scallop, floating in
the rear of the vessel, spatters it all over with water. Our
adventurer however, bails it out with the colen bell (which he has
luckily provided for the purpose of catching the drop from the
silver bow of the sturgeon,) and keeping his little bark warily
trimmed, holds on his course undiscomfited.

{330} The object of his first adventure is at length discovered in a
"brown-backed sturgeon," who

  Like the heaven-shot javelin
  Springs above the waters blue,
  And, instant as the star-fall light
  Plunges him in the deep again,
  But leaves an arch of silver bright,
  The rainbow of the moony main.

From this rainbow our Ouphe succeeds in catching, by means of his
colen-bell cup, a "droplet of the sparkling dew." One half of his
task is accordingly done--

  His wings are pure, for the gem is won.

On his return to land, the ripples divide before him, while the
water-spirits, so rancorous before, are obsequiously attentive to
his comfort. Having tarried a moment on the beach to breathe a
prayer, he "spreads his wings of gilded blue" and takes his way to
the elfin court--there resting until the cricket, at two in the
morning, rouses him up for the second portion of his penance.

His equipments are now an "acorn helmet," a "thistle-down plume," a
corslet of the "wild-bee's" skin, a cloak of the "wings of
butterflies," a shield of the "shell of the lady-bug," for lance
"the sting of a wasp," for sword a "blade of grass," for horse "a
fire-fly," and for spurs a couple of "cockle seed." Thus accoutred,

  Away like a glance of thought he flies
  To skim the heavens and follow far
  The fiery trail of the rocket-star.

In the Heavens he has new dangers to encounter. The "shapes of air"
have begun their work--a "drizzly mist" is cast around him--"storm,
darkness, sleet and shade" assail him--"shadowy hands" twitch at his
bridle-rein--"flame-shot tongues" play around him--"fiendish eyes"
glare upon him--and

  Yells of rage and shrieks of fear
  Come screaming on his startled ear.

Still our adventurer is nothing daunted.

    He thrusts before, and he strikes behind,
  Till he pierces the cloudy bodies through
    And gashes the shadowy limbs of wind,

and the Elfin makes no stop, until he reaches the "bank of the milky
way." He there checks his courser, and watches "for the glimpse of
the planet shoot." While thus engaged, however, an unexpected
adventure befalls him. He is approached by a company of the "sylphs
of Heaven attired in sunset's crimson pall." They dance around him,
and "skip before him on the plain." One receiving his "wasp-sting
lance," and another taking his bridle-rein,

  With warblings wild they lead him on,
    To where, through clouds of amber seen,
  Studded with stars resplendent shone
    The palace of the sylphid queen.

A glowing description of the queen's beauty follows; and as the form
of an earthly Fay had never been seen before in the bowers of light,
she is represented as falling desperately in love at first sight
with our adventurous Ouphe. He returns the compliment in some
measure, of course; but, although "his heart bent fitfully," the
"earthly form imprinted there" was a security against a too vivid
impression. He declines, consequently, the invitation of the queen
to remain with her and amuse himself by "lying within the fleecy
drift," "hanging upon the rainbow's rim," having his "brow adorned
with all the jewels of the sky," "sitting within the Pleiad ring,"
"resting upon Orion's belt," "riding upon the lightning's gleam,"
"dancing upon the orbed moon," and "swimming within the milky way."

  Lady, he cries, I have sworn to-night
  On the word of a fairy knight
  To do my sentence task aright.

The queen, therefore, contents herself with bidding the Fay an
affectionate farewell--having first directed him carefully to that
particular portion of the sky where a star is about to fall. He
reaches this point in safety, and in despite of the "fiends of the
cloud" who "bellow very loud," succeeds finally in catching a
"glimmering spark" with which he returns triumphantly to Fairy-land.
The poem closes with an Io Pæan chaunted by the elves in honor of
these glorious adventures.

It is more than probable that from among ten readers of the _Culprit
Fay_, nine would immediately pronounce it a poem betokening the most
extraordinary powers of imagination, and of these nine, perhaps five
or six, poets themselves, and fully impressed with the truth of what
we have already assumed, that Ideality is indeed the soul of the
Poetic Sentiment, would feel embarrassed between a
half-consciousness that they _ought_ to admire the production, and a
wonder that they _do not_. This embarrassment would then arise from
an indistinct conception of the results in which Ideality is
rendered manifest. Of these results some few are seen in the
_Culprit Fay_, but the greater part of it is utterly destitute of
any evidence of imagination whatever. The general character of the
poem will, we think, be sufficiently understood by any one who may
have taken the trouble to read our foregoing compendium of the
narrative. It will be there seen that what is so frequently termed
the imaginative power of this story, lies especially--we should have
rather said is thought to lie--in the passages we have quoted, or in
others of a precisely similar nature. These passages embody,
principally, mere specifications of qualities, of habiliments, of
punishments, of occupations, of circumstances &c., which the poet
has believed in unison with the size, firstly, and secondly with the
nature of his Fairies. To all which may be added specifications of
other animal existences (such as the toad, the beetle, the
lance-fly, the fire-fly and the like) supposed also to be in
accordance. An example will best illustrate our meaning upon this
point--we take it from page 20.

  He put his acorn helmet on;
  It was plumed of the silk of the thistle down:
  The corslet plate that guarded his breast
  Was once the wild bee's golden vest;
  His cloak of a thousand mingled dyes,
  Was formed of the wings of butterflies;
  His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen,
  Studs of gold on a ground of green;[6]
  And the quivering lance which he brandished bright
  Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight.

[Footnote 6: Chesnut color, or more slack,
             Gold upon a ground of black.
                                     _Ben Jonson_.]

We shall now be understood. Were any of the admirers of the _Culprit
Fay_ asked their opinion of these lines, they would most probably
speak in high terms of the _imagination_ they display. Yet let the
most stolid and {331} the most confessedly unpoetical of these
admirers only try the experiment, and he will find, possibly to his
extreme surprise, that he himself will have no difficulty whatever
in substituting for the equipments of the Fairy, as assigned by the
poet, other equipments equally comfortable, no doubt, and equally in
unison with the preconceived size, character, and other qualities of
the equipped. Why we could accoutre him as well ourselves--let us
see.

  His blue-bell helmet, we have heard,
  Was plumed with the down of the humming-bird,
  The corslet on his bosom bold
  Was once the locust's coat of gold,
  His cloak, of a thousand mingled hues,
  Was the velvet violet, wet with dews,
  His target was the crescent shell
  Of the small sea Sidrophel,
  And a glittering beam from a maiden's eye
  Was the lance which he proudly wav'd on high.

The truth is, that the only requisite for writing verses of this
nature, _ad libitum_, is a tolerable acquaintance with the qualities
of the objects to be detailed, and a very moderate endowment of the
faculty of Comparison--which is the chief constituent of _Fancy_ or
the powers of combination. A thousand such lines may be composed
without exercising in the least degree the Poetic Sentiment, which
is Ideality, Imagination, or the creative ability. And, as we have
before said, the greater portion of the _Culprit Fay_ is occupied
with these, or similar things, and upon such, depends very nearly,
if not altogether, its reputation. We select another example from
page 25.

  But oh! how fair the shape that lay
    Beneath a rainbow bending bright,
  She seem'd to the entranced Fay
    The loveliest of the forms of light;
  Her mantle was the purple rolled
    At twilight in the west afar;
  'Twas tied with threads of dawning gold,
    And button'd with a sparkling star.
  Her face was like the lily roon
    That veils the vestal planet's hue;
  Her eyes, two beamlets from the moon
    Set floating in the welkin blue.
  Her hair is like the sunny beam,
  And the diamond gems which round it gleam
  Are the pure drops of dewy even,
  That ne'er have left their native heaven.

Here again the faculty of Comparison is alone exercised, and no mind
possessing the faculty in any ordinary degree would find a
difficulty in substituting for the materials employed by the poet
other materials equally as good. But viewed as mere efforts of the
Fancy and without reference to Ideality, the lines just quoted are
much worse than those which were taken from page 20. A congruity was
observable in the accoutrements of the Ouphe, and we had no trouble
in forming a distinct conception of his appearance when so
accoutred. But the most vivid powers of Comparison can attach no
definitive idea to even "the loveliest form of light," when habited
in a mantle of "rolled purple tied with threads of dawn and buttoned
with a star," and sitting at the same time under a rainbow with
"beamlet" eyes and a visage of "lily roon."

But if these things evince no Ideality in their author, do they not
excite it in others?--if so, we must conclude, that without being
himself imbued with the Poetic Sentiment, he has still succeeded in
writing a fine poem--a supposition as we have before endeavored to
show, not altogether paradoxical. Most assuredly we think not. In
the case of a great majority of readers the only sentiment aroused
by compositions of this order is a species of vague wonder at the
writer's _ingenuity_, and it is this indeterminate sense of wonder
which passes but too frequently current for the proper influence of
the Poetic power. For our own parts we plead guilty to a predominant
sense of the ludicrous while occupied in the perusal of the poem
before us--a sense whose promptings we sincerely and honestly
endeavored to quell, perhaps not altogether successfully, while
penning our compend of the narrative. That a feeling of this nature
is utterly at war with the Poetic Sentiment, will not be disputed by
those who comprehend the character of the sentiment itself. This
character is finely shadowed out in that popular although vague idea
so prevalent throughout all time, that a species of melancholy is
inseparably connected with the higher manifestations of the
beautiful. But with the numerous and seriously-adduced incongruities
of the Culprit Fay, we find it generally impossible to connect other
ideas than those of the ridiculous. We are bidden, in the first
place, and in a tone of sentiment and language adapted to the
loftiest breathings of the Muse, to imagine a race of Fairies in the
vicinity of West Point. We are told, with a grave air, of their
camp, of their king, and especially of their sentry, who is a
wood-tick. We are informed that an Ouphe of about an inch in height
has committed a deadly sin in falling in love with a mortal maiden,
who may, very possibly, be six feet in her stockings. The
consequence to the Ouphe is--what? Why, that he has "dyed his
wings," "broken his elfin chain," and "quenched his flame-wood
lamp." And he is therefore sentenced to what? To catch a spark from
the tail of a falling star, and a drop of water from the belly of a
sturgeon. What are his equipments for the first adventure? An acorn
helmet, a thistle-down plume, a butterfly cloak, a lady-bug shield,
cockle-seed spurs, and a fire-fly horse. How does he ride to the
second? On the back of a bull-frog. What are his opponents in the
one? "Drizzly mists," "sulphur and smoke," "shadowy hands" and
"flame-shot tongues." What in the other? "Mailed shrimps," "prickly
prongs," "blood-red leeches," "jellied quarls," "stony star fishes,"
"lancing squabs" and "soldier crabs." Is that all? No--Although only
an inch high he is in imminent danger of seduction from a "sylphid
queen," dressed in a mantle of "rolled purple," "tied with threads
of dawning gold," "buttoned with a sparkling star," and sitting
under a rainbow with "beamlet eyes" and a countenance of "lily
roon." In our account of all this matter we have had reference to
the book--and to the book alone. It will be difficult to prove us
guilty in any degree of distortion or exaggeration. Yet such are the
puerilities we daily find ourselves called upon to admire, as among
the loftiest efforts of the human mind, and which not to assign a
rank with the proud trophies of the matured and vigorous genius of
England, is to prove ourselves at once a fool, a maligner, and no
patriot.[7]

[Footnote 7: A review of Drake's poems, emanating from one of our
proudest Universities, does not scruple to make use of the following
language in relation to the _Culprit Fay_. "_It is, to say the
least, an elegant production, the purest specimen of Ideality {332}
we have ever met with, sustaining in each incident a most bewitching
interest. Its very title is enough_," &c. &c. We quote these
expressions as a fair specimen of the general unphilosophical and
adulatory tenor of our criticism.]

As an instance of what may be termed the sublimely ridiculous we
quote the following lines from page 17.

  With sweeping tail and quivering fin,
    Through the wave the sturgeon flew,
  And like the heaven-shot javelin,
    He sprung above the waters blue.

  Instant as the star-fall light,
    He plunged into the deep again,
  But left an arch of silver bright
    The rainbow of the moony main.

  _It was a strange and lovely sight
    To see the puny goblin there;
  He seemed an angel form of light
    With azure wing and sunny hair,
    Throned on a cloud of purple fair
  Circled with blue and edged with white
    And sitting at the fall of even
    Beneath the bow of summer heaven._

The verses here italicized, if considered without their context,
have a certain air of dignity, elegance, and chastity of thought. If
however we apply the context, we are immediately overwhelmed with
the grotesque. It is impossible to read without laughing, such
expressions as "It was a strange and lovely sight"--"He seemed an
angel form of light"--"And sitting at the fall of even, beneath the
bow of summer heaven" to a Fairy--a goblin--an Ouphe--half an inch
high, dressed in an acorn helmet and butterfly-cloak, and sitting on
the water in a muscle-shell, with a "brown-backed sturgeon" turning
somersets over his head.

In a world where evil is a mere consequence of good, and good a mere
consequence of evil--in short where all of which we have any
conception is good or bad only by comparison--we have never yet been
fully able to appreciate the validity of that decision which would
debar the critic from enforcing upon his readers the merits or
demerits of a work by placing it in juxta-position with another. It
seems to us that an adage based in the purest ignorance has had more
to do with this popular feeling than any just reason founded upon
common sense. Thinking thus, we shall have no scruple in
illustrating our opinion in regard to what _is not_ Ideality or the
Poetic Power, by an example of what _is_.[8] We have already given
the description of the Sylphid Queen in the _Culprit Fay_. In the
_Queen Mab_ of Shelley a Fairy is thus introduced--

  Those who had looked upon the sight,
      Passing all human glory,
    Saw not the yellow moon,
    Saw not the mortal scene,
    Heard not the night wind's rush,
    Heard not an earthly sound,
    Saw but the fairy pageant,
    Heard but the heavenly strains
    That filled the lonely dwelling--

and thus described--

  The Fairy's frame was slight; yon fibrous cloud
  That catches but the palest tinge of even,
  And which the straining eye can hardly seize
  When melting into eastern twilight's shadow,
  Were scarce so thin, so slight; but the fair star
  That gems the glittering coronet of morn,
  _Sheds not a light so mild, so powerful,
  As that which, bursting from the Fairy's form,
  Spread a purpureal halo round the scene,
    Yet with an undulating motion,
    Swayed to her outline gracefully_.

[Footnote 8: As examples of entire poems of the purest ideality, we
would cite the _Prometheus Vinctus_ of Æschylus, the _Inferno_ of
Dante, Cervantes' _Destruction of Numantia_, the _Comus_ of Milton,
Pope's _Rape of the Lock_, Burns' _Tam O'Shanter_, the _Auncient
Mariner_, the _Christabel_, and the _Kubla Khan_ of Coleridge; and
most especially the _Sensitive Plant_ of Shelley, and the
_Nightingale_ of Keats. We have seen American poems evincing the
faculty in the highest degree.]

In these exquisite lines the Faculty of mere Comparison is but
little exercised--that of Ideality in a wonderful degree. It is
probable that in a similar case the poet we are now reviewing would
have formed the face of the Fairy of the "fibrous cloud," her arms
of the "pale tinge of even," her eyes of the "fair stars," and her
body of the "twilight shadow." Having so done, his admirers would
have congratulated him upon his _imagination_, not taking the
trouble to think that they themselves could at any moment _imagine_
a Fairy of materials equally as good, and conveying an equally
distinct idea. Their mistake would be precisely analogous to that of
many a schoolboy who admires the imagination displayed in _Jack the
Giant-Killer_, and is finally rejoiced at discovering his own
imagination to surpass that of the author, since the monsters
destroyed by Jack are only about forty feet in height, and he
himself has no trouble in imagining some of one hundred and forty.
It will be seen that the Fairy of Shelley is not a mere compound of
incongruous natural objects, inartificially put together, and
unaccompanied by any _moral_ sentiment--but a being, in the
illustration of whose nature some physical elements are used
collaterally as adjuncts, while the main conception springs
immediately _or thus apparently springs_, from the brain of the
poet, enveloped in the moral sentiments of grace, of color, of
motion--of the beautiful, of the mystical, of the august--in short
of _the ideal_.[9]

[Footnote 9: Among things, which not only in our opinion, but in the
opinion of far wiser and better men, are to be ranked with the mere
prettinesses of the Muse, are the positive similes so abundant in
the writings of antiquity, and so much insisted upon by the critics
of the reign of Queen Anne.]

It is by no means our intention to deny that in the _Culprit Fay_
are passages of a different order from those to which we have
objected--passages evincing a degree of imagination not to be
discovered in the plot, conception, or general execution of the
poem. The opening stanza will afford us a tolerable example.

  'Tis the middle watch of a summer's night--
  _The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright_
  Naught is seen in the vault on high
  But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky,
  And the flood which rolls its milky hue
  A river of light on the welkin blue.
  The moon looks down on old Cronest,
  She mellows the shades of his shaggy breast,
  And seems his huge grey form to throw
  In a silver cone on the wave below;
  His sides are broken by spots of shade,
  By the walnut bough and the cedar made,
  And through their clustering branches dark
  _Glimmers and dies_ the fire-fly's spark--
  Like starry twinkles that momently break
  Through the rifts of the gathering tempest rack.

There is Ideality in these lines--but except in the case of the
words italicized--it is Ideality _not of a high order_. We have it
is true, a collection of natural {333} objects, each individually of
great beauty, and, if actually seen as in nature, capable of
exciting in any mind, through the means of the Poetic Sentiment more
or less inherent in all, a certain sense of the beautiful. But to
view such natural objects as they exist, and to behold them through
the medium of words, are different things. Let us pursue the idea
that such a collection as we have here will produce, of necessity,
the Poetic Sentiment, and we may as well make up our minds to
believe that a catalogue of such expressions as moon, sky, trees,
rivers, mountains &c., shall be capable of exciting it,--it is
merely an extension of the principle. But in the line "the earth is
dark, _but_ the heavens are bright" besides the simple mention of
the "dark earth" and the "bright heaven," we have, directly, the
moral sentiment of the brightness of the sky compensating for the
darkness of the earth--and thus, indirectly, of the happiness of a
future state compensating for the miseries of a present. All this is
effected by the simple introduction of the word _but_ between the
"dark heaven" and the "bright earth"--this introduction, however,
was prompted by the Poetic Sentiment, and by the Poetic Sentiment
alone. The case is analogous in the expression "glimmers and dies,"
where the imagination is exalted by the moral sentiment of beauty
heightened in dissolution.

In one or two shorter passages of the _Culprit Fay_ the poet will
recognize the purely ideal, and be able at a glance to distinguish
it from that baser alloy upon which we have descanted. We give them
without farther comment.

  The winds _are whist_, and the owl is still
    The bat in the shelvy rock _is hid_
  And naught is heard on the _lonely_ hill
  But the cricket's chirp and the answer _shrill_
    Of the gauze-winged katy-did;
  And the plaint of the _wailing_ whippoorwill
    Who mourns _unseen_, and ceaseless sings
  Ever a note of wail and wo--

  Up to the vaulted firmament
  His path the fire-fly courser bent,
  And at every gallop on the wind
  _He flung a glittering spark behind_.

  He blessed the force of the charmed line,
    And he banned the water-goblins' spite,
  For he saw around _in the sweet moonshine,
  Their little wee faces above the brine,
  Giggling and laughing with all their might_
  At the piteous hap of the Fairy wight.

The poem "_To a Friend_" consists of fourteen Spenserian stanzas.
They are fine spirited verses, and probably were not supposed by
their author to be more. Stanza the fourth, although beginning
nobly, concludes with that very common exemplification of the
bathos, the illustrating natural objects of beauty or grandeur by
reference to the tinsel of artificiality.

  Oh! for a seat on Appalachia's brow,
  That I might scan the glorious prospects round,
  Wild waving woods, and rolling floods below,
  Smooth level glades and fields with grain embrowned,
  High heaving hills, with tufted forests crowned,
  Rearing their tall tops to the heaven's blue dome,
  And emerald isles, _like banners green unwound,
  Floating along the lake, while round them roam
  Bright helms of billowy blue, and plumes of dancing foam_.

In the _Extracts from Leon_, are passages not often surpassed in
vigor of passionate thought and expression--and which induce us to
believe not only that their author would have succeeded better in
prose romance than in poetry, but that his attention would have
naturally fallen into the former direction, had the Destroyer only
spared him a little longer.

This poem contains also lines of far greater poetic power than any
to be found in the _Culprit Fay_. For example--

  The stars have lit in heaven their lamps of gold,
  The _viewless_ dew falls lightly on the world;
  The gentle air _that softly sweeps the leaves_
  A strain of faint unearthly music weaves:
  As when the harp of heaven _remotely_ plays,
  Or cygnets _wail_--or song of _sorrowing_ fays
  That _float amid the moonshine glimmerings pale_,
  On wings of woven air in some enchanted vale.[10]

[Footnote 10: The expression "woven air," much insisted upon by the
friends of Drake, seems to be accredited to him as original. It is
to be found in many English writers--and can be traced back to
Apuleius who calls fine drapery _ventum textilem_.]

_Niagara_ is objectionable in many respects, and in none more so
than in its frequent inversions of language, and the artificial
character of its versification. The invocation,

  Roar, raging torrent! and thou, mighty river,
  Pour thy white foam on the valley below!
  Frown ye dark mountains, &c.

is ludicrous--and nothing more. In general, all such invocations
have an air of the burlesque. In the present instance we may fancy
the majestic Niagara replying, "Most assuredly I will roar, whether,
worm! thou tellest me or not."

_The American Flag_ commences with a collection of those bald
conceits, which we have already shown to have no dependence whatever
upon the Poetic Power--springing altogether from Comparison.

  When Freedom from her mountain height
    Unfurled her standard to the air,
  She tore the azure robe of night
    And set the stars of glory there.
  She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
  The milky baldric of the skies,
  And striped its pure celestial white
  With streakings of the morning light;
  Then from his mansion in the sun
  She called her eagle bearer down
  And gave into his mighty hand
      The symbol of her chosen land.

Let us reduce all this to plain English, and we have--what? Why, a
flag, consisting of the "azure robe of night," "set with stars of
glory," interspersed with "streaks of morning light," relieved with
a few pieces of "the milky way," and the whole carried by an "eagle
bearer," that is to say, an eagle ensign, who bears aloft this
"symbol of our chosen land" in his "mighty hand," by which we are to
understand his claw. In the second stanza, the "thunder-drum of
Heaven" is bathetic and grotesque in the highest degree--a
commingling of the most sublime music of Heaven with the most
utterly contemptible and common-place of Earth. The two concluding
verses are in a better spirit, and might almost be supposed to be
from a different hand. The images contained in the lines,

  When Death careering on the gale
  Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
  And frighted waves rush wildly back,
  Before the broadside's reeling rack,

are of the highest order of Ideality. The deficiencies {334} of the
whole poem may be best estimated by reading it in connection with
"Scots wha hae," with the "Mariners of England," or with
"Hohenlinden." It is indebted for its high and most undeserved
reputation to our patriotism--not to our judgment.

The remaining poems in Mr. Dearborn's edition of Drake, are three
Songs; Lines in an Album; Lines to a Lady; Lines on leaving New
Rochelle; Hope; A Fragment; To ----; Lines; To Eva; To a Lady; To
Sarah; and Bronx. These are all poems of little compass, and with
the exception of Bronx and a portion of the Fragment, they have no
character distinctive from the mass of our current poetical
literature. Bronx, however, is in our opinion, not only the best of
the writings of Drake, but altogether a lofty and beautiful poem,
upon which his admirers would do better to found a hope of the
writer's ultimate reputation than upon the _niaiseries_ of the
_Culprit Fay_. In the _Fragment_ is to be found the finest
individual passage in the volume before us, and we quote it as a
proper finale to our Review.

  Yes! thou art lovelier now than ever;
    How sweet 'twould be _when all the air
  In moonlight swims_, along thy river
    To couch upon the grass, and hear
  Niagara's everlasting voice
    Far in the deep blue west away;
  That dreamy and poetic noise
    We mark not in the glare of day,
  Oh! how unlike its torrent-cry,
    When o'er the brink the tide is driven,
  _As if the vast and sheeted sky
    In thunder fell from Heaven_.

       *       *       *       *       *

Halleck's poetical powers appear to us essentially inferior, upon
the whole, to those of his friend Drake. He has written nothing at
all comparable to _Bronx_. By the hackneyed phrase, _sportive
elegance_, we might possibly designate at once the general character
of his writings and the very loftiest praise to which he is justly
entitled.

_Alnwick Castle_ is an irregular poem of one hundred and
twenty-eight lines--was written, as we are informed, in October
1822--and is descriptive of a seat of the Duke of Northumberland, in
Northumberlandshire, England. The effect of the first stanza is
materially impaired by a defect in its grammatical arrangement. The
fine lines,

  Home of the Percy's high-born race,
    Home of their beautiful and brave,
  Alike their birth and burial place,
    Their cradle and their grave!

are of the nature of an invocation, and thus require a continuation
of the address to the "Home, &c." We are consequently disappointed
when the stanza proceeds with--

  Still sternly o'er the castle gate
  _Their_ house's Lion stands in state
    As in _his_ proud departed hours;
  And warriors frown in stone on high,
  And feudal banners "flout the sky"
    Above _his_ princely towers.

The objects of allusion here vary, in an awkward manner, from the
castle to the Lion, and from the Lion to the towers. By writing the
verses thus the difficulty would be remedied.

  Still sternly o'er the castle gate
  _Thy_ house's Lion stands in state,
    As in his proud departed hours;
  And warriors frown in stone on high,
  And feudal banners "flout the sky"
    Above _thy_ princely towers.

The second stanza, without evincing in any measure the loftier
powers of a poet, has that quiet air of grace, both in thought and
expression, which seems to be the prevailing feature of the Muse of
Halleck.

  A gentle hill its side inclines,
    Lovely in England's fadeless green,
  To meet the quiet stream which winds
    Through this romantic scene
  As silently and sweetly still,
  As when, at evening, on that hill,
    While summer's wind blew soft and low,
  Seated by gallant Hotspur's side
  His Katherine was a happy bride
    A thousand years ago.

There are one or two brief passages in the poem evincing a degree of
rich imagination not elsewhere perceptible throughout the book. For
example--

  Gaze on the Abbey's ruined pile:
    Does not the succoring Ivy keeping,
  Her watch around it seem to smile
    As o'er a lov'd one sleeping?

and,

  One solitary turret gray
    Still tells in melancholy glory
  The legend of the Cheviot day.

The commencement of the fourth stanza is of the highest order of
Poetry, and partakes, in a happy manner, of that quaintness of
expression so effective an adjunct to Ideality, when employed by the
Shelleys, the Coleridges and the Tennysons, but so frequently
debased, and rendered ridiculous, by the herd of brainless
imitators.

  Wild roses by the Abbey towers
    Are gay in their young bud and bloom:
  _They were born of a race of funeral flowers_,
  That garlanded in long-gone hours,
    A Templar's knightly tomb.

The tone employed in the concluding portions of Alnwick Castle, is,
we sincerely think, reprehensible, and unworthy of Halleck. No true
poet can unite in any manner the low burlesque with the ideal, and
not be conscious of incongruity and of a profanation. Such verses as

  Men in the coal and cattle line
    From Teviot's bard and hero land,
    From royal Berwick's beach of sand,
    From Wooller, Morpeth, Hexham, and
      Newcastle upon Tyne,

may lay claim to oddity--but no more. These things are the defects
and not the beauties of _Don Juan_. They are totally out of keeping
with the graceful and delicate manner of the initial portions of
_Alnwick Castle_, and serve no better purpose than to deprive the
entire poem of all unity of effect. If a poet must be farcical, let
him be just that, and nothing else. To be drolly sentimental is bad
enough, as we have just seen in certain passages of the _Culprit
Fay_, but to be sentimentally droll is a thing intolerable to men,
and Gods, and columns.

_Marco Bozzaris_ appears to have much lyrical without any high order
of _ideal_ beauty. _Force_ is its prevailing character--a force,
however, consisting more in a well ordered and sonorous arrangement
of the metre, and a {335} judicious disposal of what may be called
the circumstances of the poem, than in the true _materiel_ of lyric
vigor. We are introduced, first, to the Turk who dreams, at
midnight, in his guarded tent,

                         of the hour
  When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
    Should tremble at his power--

He is represented as revelling in the visions of ambition.

  In dreams through camp and court he bore
  The trophies of a conqueror;
  In dreams his song of triumph heard;
  Then wore his monarch's signet ring:
  Then pressed that monarch's throne--a king;
  As wild his thoughts and gay of wing
    As Eden's garden bird.

In direct contrast to this we have Bozzaris watchful in the forest,
and ranging his band of Suliotes on the ground, and amid the
memories, of Platœa. An hour elapses, and the Turk awakes from his
visions of false glory--to die. But Bozzaris dies--to awake. He dies
in the flush of victory to awake, in death, to an ultimate certainty
of Freedom. Then follows an invocation to Death. His terrors under
ordinary circumstances are contrasted with the glories of the
dissolution of Bozzaris, in which the approach of the Destroyer is

               welcome as the cry
  That told the Indian isles were nigh
    To the world-seeking Genoese,
  When the land-wind from woods of palm,
  And orange groves and fields of balm,
    Blew o'er the Haytian seas.

The poem closes with the poetical apotheosis of Marco Bozzaris as

  One of the few, the immortal names
    That are not born to die.

It will be seen that these arrangements of the subject are skilfully
contrived--perhaps they are a little too evident, and we are enabled
too readily by the perusal of one passage, to anticipate the
succeeding. The rhythm is highly artificial. The stanzas are well
adapted for vigorous expression--the fifth will afford a just
specimen of the versification of the whole poem.

  Come to the bridal Chamber, Death!
  Come to the mother's, when she feels
  For the first time her first born's breath;
    Come when the blessed seals
  That close the pestilence are broke,
  And crowded cities wail its stroke;
  Come in consumption's ghastly form,
  The earthquake shock, the ocean storm;
  Come when the heart beats high and warm,
    With banquet song, and dance, and wine;
  And thou art terrible--the tear,
  The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier;
  And all we know, or dream, or fear
    Of agony, are thine.

Granting, however, to _Marco Bozzaris_, the minor excellences we
have pointed out, we should be doing our conscience great wrong in
calling it, upon the whole, any thing more than a very ordinary
matter. It is surpassed, even as a lyric, by a multitude of foreign
and by many American compositions of a similar character. To
Ideality it has few pretensions, and the finest portion of the poem
is probably to be found in the verses we have quoted elsewhere--

  Thy grasp is welcome as the hand
  Of brother in a foreign land;
  Thy summons welcome as the cry
  That told the Indian isles were nigh
    To the world-seeking Genoese,
  When the land-wind from woods of palm
  And orange groves, and fields of balm
  Blew o'er the Haytian seas.

The verses entitled _Burns_ consist of thirty eight quatrains--the
three first lines of each quatrain being of four feet, the fourth of
three. This poem has many of the traits of _Alnwick Castle_, and
bears also a strong resemblance to some of the writings of
Wordsworth. Its chief merit, and indeed the chief merit, so we
think, of all the poems of Halleck is the merit of _expression_. In
the brief extracts from _Burns_ which follow, our readers will
recognize the peculiar character of which we speak.

  Wild Rose of Alloway! my thanks:
    Thou mind'st me of _that autumn noon
  When first we met upon "the banks
    And braes o' bonny Doon"_--

       *       *       *       *       *

  Like thine, beneath the thorn-tree's bough,
    My sunny hour was glad and brief--
  We've crossed the winter sea, _and thou
    Art withered--flower and leaf_.

       *       *       *       *       *

  _There have been loftier themes than his,
    And longer scrolls and louder lyres
  And lays lit up with Poesy's
    Purer and holier fires._

       *       *       *       *       *

  _And when he breathes his master-lay
    Of Alloway's witch-haunted wall_
  All passions in our frames of clay
    Come thronging at his call.

       *       *       *       *       *

  Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines,
  Shrines to no code or creed confined--
  _The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
    The Meccas of the mind_.

       *       *       *       *       *

  _They linger by the Doon's low trees,
    And pastoral Nith, and wooded Ayr_,
  And round thy Sepulchres, Dumfries!
    The Poet's tomb is there.

_Wyoming_ is composed of nine Spenserian stanzas. With some unusual
excellences, it has some of the worst faults of Halleck. The lines
which follow are of great beauty.

    I then but dreamed: thou art before me now,
    In life--a vision of the brain no more,
    I've stood upon the wooded mountain's brow,
    That beetles high thy lovely valley o'er;
    And now, _where winds thy river's greenest shore,
    Within a bower of sycamores am laid;
    And winds as soft and sweet as ever bore
    The fragrance of wild flowers through sun and shade
  Are singing in the trees, whose low boughs press my head_.

The poem, however, is disfigured with the mere burlesque of some
portions of Alnwick Castle--with such things as

      he would look _particularly droll_
  In his Iberian boot and Spanish plume;

and

      a girl of sweet sixteen
  Love-darting eyes and tresses like the morn
  _Without a shoe or stocking--hoeing corn_,

mingled up in a pitiable manner with images of real beauty.

_The Field of the Grounded Arms_ contains twenty-four quatrains,
without rhyme, and, we think, of a {336} disagreeable versification.
In this poem are to be observed some of the finest passages of
Halleck. For example--

  Strangers! your eyes are on that valley fixed
  Intently, as we gaze on vacancy,
    _When the mind's wings o'erspread
    The spirit world of dreams_.

And again--

  _O'er sleepless seas of grass whose waves are flowers_.

_Red-Jacket_ has much power of expression with little evidence of
poetical ability. Its humor is very fine, and does not interfere, in
any great degree, with the general tone of the poem.

_A Sketch_ should have been omitted from the edition as altogether
unworthy of its author.

The remaining pieces in the volume are _Twilight_; _Psalm_ cxxxvii;
_To ****_; _Love_; _Domestic Happiness_; _Magdalen_; _From the
Italian_; _Woman_; _Connecticut_; _Music_; _On the Death of Lieut.
William Howard Allen_; _A Poet's Daughter_; and _On the Death of
Joseph Rodman Drake_. Of the majority of these we deem it
unnecessary to say more than that they partake, in a more or less
degree, of the general character observable in the poems of Halleck.
The _Poet's Daughter_ appears to us a particularly happy specimen of
that general character, and we doubt whether it be not the favorite
of its author. We are glad to see the vulgarity of

  I'm busy in the cotton trade
    And sugar line,

omitted in the present edition. The eleventh stanza is certainly not
English as it stands--and besides it is altogether unintelligible.
What is the meaning of this?

  But her who asks, though first among
  The good, the beautiful, the young,
  The birthright of a spell more strong
    Than these have brought her.

_The Lines on the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake_, we prefer to any of
the writings of Halleck. It has that rare merit in compositions of
this kind--the union of tender sentiment and simplicity. This poem
consists merely of six quatrains, and we quote them in full.

  Green be the turf above thee,
    Friend of my better days!
  None knew thee but to love thee,
    Nor named thee but to praise.

  Tears fell when thou wert dying,
    From eyes unused to weep,
  And long, where thou art lying,
    Will tears the cold turf steep.

  When hearts whose truth was proven,
    Like thine are laid in earth,
  There should a wreath be woven
    To tell the world their worth.

  And I, who woke each morrow
    To clasp thy hand in mine,
  Who shared thy joy and sorrow,
    Whose weal and woe were thine--

  It should be mine to braid it
    Around thy faded brow,
  But I've in vain essayed it,
    And feel I cannot now.

  While memory bids me weep thee,
    Nor thoughts nor words are free,
  The grief is fixed too deeply,
    That mourns a man like thee.

If we are to judge from the subject of these verses, they are a work
of some care and reflection. Yet they abound in faults. In the line,

  Tears fell when thou wert dying;

_wert_ is not English.

  Will tears the cold turf steep,

is an exceedingly rough verse. The metonymy involved in

  There should a wreath be woven
    To _tell_ the world their worth,

is unjust. The quatrain beginning,

  And I who woke each morrow,

is ungrammatical in its construction when viewed in connection with
the quatrain which immediately follows. "Weep thee" and "deeply" are
inaccurate rhymes--and the whole of the first quatrain,

  Green be the turf, &c.

although beautiful, bears too close a resemblance to the still more
beautiful lines of William Wordsworth,

  She dwelt among the untrodden ways
    Beside the springs of Dove,
  A maid whom there were none to praise
    And very few to love.

As a versifier Halleck is by no means equal to his friend, all of
whose poems evince an ear finely attuned to the delicacies of
melody. We seldom meet with more inharmonious lines than those,
generally, of the author of _Alnwick Castle_. At every step such
verses occur as,

  And _the_ monk's hymn and minstrel's song--
  True _as_ the steel of _their_ tried blades--
  For _him_ the joy of _her_ young years--
  Where _the_ Bard-peasant first drew breath--
  And withered _my_ life's leaf like thine--

in which the proper course of the rhythm would demand an accent upon
syllables too unimportant to sustain it. Not unfrequently, too, we
meet with lines such as this,

  Like torn branch from death's leafless tree,

in which the multiplicity of consonants renders the pronunciation of
the words at all, a matter of no inconsiderable difficulty.

But we must bring our notice to a close. It will be seen that while
we are willing to admire in many respects the poems before us, we
feel obliged to dissent materially from that public opinion (perhaps
not fairly ascertained) which would assign them a very brilliant
rank in the empire of Poesy. That we have among us poets of the
loftiest order we believe--but we do _not_ believe that these poets
are Drake and Halleck.


SLAVERY.

_Slavery in the United States. By J. K. Paulding. New York: Harper
and Brothers._

_The South Vindicated from the Treason and Fanaticism of the
Northern Abolitionists. Philadelphia: Published by H. Manly._

It is impossible to look attentively and understandingly on those
phenomena that indicate public sentiment in regard to the subject of
these works, without deep and anxious interest. "_Nulla vestigia
retrorsum_," is a saying fearfully applicable to what is called the
"march of mind." It is unquestionable truth. The absolute and
palpable impossibility of ever unlearning what we know, and of
returning, even by forgetfulness, to {337} the state of mind in
which the knowledge of it first found us, has always afforded
flattering encouragement to the hopes of him who dreams about the
perfectibility of human nature. Sometimes one scheme, and sometimes
another is devised for accomplishing this great end; and these means
are so various, and often so opposite, that the different
experiments which the world has countenanced would seem to
contradict the maxim we have quoted. At one time human nature is to
be elevated to the height of perfection, by emancipating the mind
from all the restraints imposed by Religion. At another, the same
end is to be accomplished by the universal spread of a faith, under
the benign influence of which every son of Adam is to become holy,
"even as God is holy." One or the other of these schemes has been a
cardinal point in every system of perfectibility which has been
devised since the earliest records of man's history began. At the
same time the progress of knowledge (subject indeed to occasional
interruptions) has given to each successive experiment a seeming
advantage over that which preceded it.

But it is lamentable to observe, that let research discover, let
science teach, let art practice what it may, man, in all his
mutations, never fails to get back to some point at which he has
been before. The human mind seems to perform, by some invariable
laws, a sort of cycle, like those of the heavenly bodies. We may be
unable, (and, for ourselves, we profess to be so) to trace the
_causes_ of these changes; but we are not sure that an accurate
observation of the history of various nations at different times,
may not detect the _laws_ that govern them. However eccentric the
orbit, the comet's place in the heavens enables the enlightened
astronomer to anticipate its future course, to tell when it will
pass its perihelion, in what direction it will shoot away into the
unfathomable abyss of infinite space, and at what period it will
return. But what especially concerns us, is to mark its progress
through our planetary system, to determine whether in coming or
returning it may infringe upon us, and prove the messenger of that
dispensation which, in the end of all things, is to wrap our earth
in flames.

Not less eccentric, and far more deeply interesting to us, is the
orbit of the human mind. If, as some have supposed, the comet in its
upward flight is drawn away by the attraction of some other sun,
around which also it bends its course, thus linking another system
with our own, the analogy will be more perfect. For while man is
ever seen rushing with uncontrollable violence toward one or the
other of his opposite extremes, fanaticism and irreligion--at each
of these we find placed an attractive force identical in its nature
and in many of its effects. At each extreme, we find him influenced
by the same prevailing interest--devoting himself to the
accomplishment of the same great object. Happiness is his purpose.
The sources of that, he may be told, are within himself--but his eye
will fix on the external means, and these he will labor to obtain.
Foremost among these, and the equivalent which is to purchase all
the rest, is property. At this all men aim, and their eagerness
seems always proportioned to the excitement, which, from whatever
cause, may for the time prevail. Under such excitement, the many who
want, band themselves together against the few that possess; and the
lawless appetite of the multitude for the property of others calls
itself the spirit of liberty.

In the calm, and, as we would call it, the healthful condition of
the public mind, when every man worships God after his own manner,
and Religion and its duties are left to his conscience and his
Maker, we find each quietly enjoying his own property, and
permitting to others the quiet enjoyment of theirs. Under that state
of things, those modes and forms of liberty which regulate and
secure this enjoyment, are preferred. Peace reigns, the arts
flourish, science extends her discoveries, and man, and the sources
of his enjoyments, are multiplied. But in this condition things
never rest. We have already disclaimed any knowledge of the causes
which forbid this--we only know that such exist. We know that men
are always passing, with fearful rapidity, between the extremes of
fanaticism and irreligion, and that at either extreme, property and
all the governmental machinery provided to guard it, become
insecure. "Down with the Church! Down with the Altar!" is at one
time the cry. "Turn the fat bigots out of their styes, sell the
property of the Church and give the money to the poor!" "Behold our
turn cometh," says the Millenarian. "The kingdoms of this world are
about to become the kingdoms of God and of his Christ. Sell what you
have and give to the poor, and let all things be in common!"

It is now about two hundred years since this latter spirit showed
itself in England with a violence and extravagance which
accomplished the overthrow of all the institutions of that kingdom.
With that we have nothing to do; but we should suppose that the
striking resemblance between the aspect of a certain party in that
country then and now, could hardly escape the English statesman.
Fifty years ago, in France, this eccentric comet, "public
sentiment," was in its opposite node. Making allowance for the
difference in the characters of the two people, the effects were
identical, the apparent causes were the opposites of each other. In
the history of the French Revolution, we find a sort of symptomatic
phenomenon, the memory of which was soon lost in the fearful
exacerbation of the disease. But it should be remembered now, that
in that war against property, the first object of attack was
property in slaves; that in that war on behalf of the alleged right
of man to be discharged from all control of law, the first triumph
achieved was in the emancipation of slaves.

The recent events in the West Indies, and the parallel movement
here, give an awful importance to these thoughts in our minds. They
superinduce a something like despair of success in any attempt that
may be made to resist the attack on all our rights, of which that on
Domestic Slavery (the basis of all our institutions) is but the
precursor. It is a sort of boding that may belong to the family of
superstitions. All vague and undefined fears, from causes the nature
of which we know not, the operations of which we cannot stay, are of
that character. Such apprehensions are alarming in proportion to our
estimate of the value of the interest endangered; and are excited by
every thing which enhances that estimate. Such apprehensions have
been awakened in our minds by the books before us. To Mr. Paulding,
as a Northern man, we tender our grateful thanks for the faithful
picture he has drawn of slavery as it appeared to him in his visit
to the South, and as {338} exhibited in the information he has
carefully derived from those most capable of giving it. His work is
executed in the very happiest manner of an author in whom America
has the greatest reason to rejoice, and will not fail to enhance his
reputation immeasurably as a writer of pure and vigorous English, as
a clear thinker, as a patriot, and as a man. The other publication,
which we take to be from a Southern pen, is more calculated to
excite our indignation against the calumnies which have been put
forth against us, and the wrongs meditated by those who come to us
in the names of our common Redeemer and common country--seeking our
destruction under the mask of Christian Charity and Brotherly Love.
This too is executed with much ability, and may be read with
pleasure as well as profit. While we take great pleasure in
recommending these works to our readers, we beg leave to add a few
words of our own. We are the more desirous to do this, because there
is a view of the subject most deeply interesting to us, which we do
not think has ever been presented, by any writer, in as high relief
as it deserves. We speak of the moral influences flowing from the
relation of master and slave, and the moral feelings engendered and
cultivated by it. A correspondent of Mr. Paulding's justly speaks of
this relation as one partaking of the patriarchal character, and
much resembling that of clanship. This is certainly so. But to say
this, is to give a very inadequate idea of it, unless we take into
consideration the peculiar character (I may say the peculiar nature)
of the negro. Let us reason upon it as we may, there is certainly a
power, in causes inscrutable to us, which works essential changes in
the different races of animals. In their physical constitution this
is obvious to the senses. The color of the negro no man can deny,
and therefore, it was but the other day, that they who will believe
nothing they cannot account for, made this manifest fact an
authority for denying the truth of holy writ. Then comes the
opposite extreme--they are, like ourselves, the sons of Adam, and
must therefore, have like passions and wants and feelings and
tempers in all respects. This, we deny, and appeal to the knowledge
of all who know. But their authority will be disputed, and their
testimony falsified, unless we can devise something to show how a
difference might and should have been brought about. Our theory is a
short one. It was the will of God it should be so. But the
means--how was this effected? We will give the answer to any one who
will develop the causes which might and should have blackened the
negro's skin and crisped his hair into wool. Until that is done, we
shall take leave to speak, as of things _in esse_, of a degree of
loyal devotion on the part of the slave to which the white man's
heart is a stranger, and of the master's reciprocal feeling of
parental attachment to his humble dependant, equally
incomprehensible to him who drives a bargain with the cook who
prepares his food, the servant who waits at his table, and the nurse
who doses over his sick bed. That these sentiments in the breast of
the negro and his master, are stronger than they would be under like
circumstances between individuals of the white race, we believe.
That they belong to the class of feelings "by which the heart is
made better," we know. How come they? They have their rise in the
relation between the infant and the nurse. They are cultivated
between him and his foster brother. They are cherished by the
parents of both. They are fostered by the habit of affording
protection and favors to the younger offspring of the same nurse.
They grow by the habitual use of the word "my," used as the language
of affectionate appropriation, long before any idea of value mixes
with it. It is a term of endearment. That is an easy transition by
which he who is taught to call the little negro "his," in this sense
and _because he loves him_, shall love him _because he is his_. The
idea is not new, that our habits and affections are reciprocally
cause and effect of each other.

But the great teacher in this school of feeling is sickness. In this
school we have witnessed scenes at which even the hard heart of a
thorough bred philanthropist would melt. But here, we shall be told,
it is not humanity, but interest that prompts. Be it so. Our
business is not with the cause but the effect. But is it interest,
which, with assiduous care, prolongs the life of the aged and
decrepid negro, who has been, for years, a burthen? Is it interest
which labors to rear the crippled or deformed urchin, who can never
be any thing but a burthen--which carefully feeds the feeble lamp of
life that, without any appearance of neglect, might be permitted to
expire? Is not the feeling more akin to that parental στοργη, which,
in defiance of reason, is most careful of the life which is, all the
time, felt to be a curse to the possessor. Are such cases rare? They
are as rare as the occasions; but let the occasion occur, and you
will see the case. How else is the longevity of the negro
proverbial? A negro who does no work for thirty years! (and we know
such examples) is it interest which has lengthened out his
existence?

Let the philanthropist think as he may--by the negro himself, his
master's care of him in sickness is not imputed to interested
feelings. We know an instance of a negress who was invited by a
benevolent lady in Philadelphia to leave her mistress. The lady
promised to secrete her for a while, and then to pay her good wages.
The poor creature felt the temptation and was about to yield. "You
are mighty good, madam," said she "and I am a thousand times obliged
to you. And if I am sick, or any thing, I am sure you will take care
of me, and nurse me, like my good mistress used to do, and bring me
something warm and good to comfort me, and tie up my head and fix my
pillow." She spoke in the simplicity of her heart, and the tempter
had not the heart to deceive her. "No," said she "all _that_ will
come out of your wages--for you will have money enough to hire a
nurse." The tears had already swelled into the warm hearted
creature's eyes, at her own recital of her mistress's kindness. They
now gushed forth in a flood, and running to her lady who was a
lodger in the house, she threw herself on her knees, confessed her
fault, was pardoned, and was happy.

But it is not by the bedside of the sick negro that the feeling we
speak of is chiefly engendered. They who would view it in its causes
and effects must see him by the sick bed of his master--must see
_her_ by the sick bed of her _mistress_. We have seen these things.
We have seen the dying infant in the lap of its nurse, and have
stood with the same nurse by the bed side of her own dying child.
Did mighty nature assert her empire, and wring from the mother's
heart more and bitterer tears than she had shed over her foster
babe? None that {339} the eye of man could distinguish. And he who
sees the heart--did he see dissimulation giving energy to the
choking sobs that _seemed_ to be rendered more vehement by her
attempts to repress them? _Philanthropy_ may think so if it pleases.

A good lady was on her death bed. Her illness was long and
protracted, but hopeless from the first. A servant, (by no means a
favorite with her, being high tempered and ungovernable) was
advanced in pregnancy, and in bad health. Yet she could not be kept
out of the house. She was permitted to stay about her mistress
during the day, but sent to bed at an early hour every night. Her
reluctance to obey was obvious, and her master found that she evaded
his order, whenever she could escape his eye. He once found her in
the house late at night, and kindly reproving her, sent her home. An
hour after, suddenly going out of the sick room, he stumbled over
her in the dark. She was crouched down at the door, listening for
the groans of the sufferer. She was again ordered home, and turned
to go. Suddenly she stopped, and bursting into tears, said, "Master
it aint no use for me to go to bed, Sir. It don't do me no good, I
cannot sleep, Sir."

Such instances prove that in reasoning concerning the moral effect
of slavery, he who regards man as a unit, the same under all
circumstances, leaves out of view an important consideration. The
fact that he is not so, is manifest to every body--but the
application of the fact to this controversy is not made. The author
of "The South Vindicated" quotes at page 228, a passage from
Lamartine, on this very point, though he only uses it to show the
absurdity of any attempt at amalgamation. The passage is so apt to
our purpose that we beg leave to insert it.


The more I have travelled, the more I am convinced _that the races
of men form the great secret of history and manners_. Man is not so
capable of education as philosophers imagine. The influence of
governments and laws has less power, radically, than is supposed,
over the manners and instincts of any people, while the primitive
constitution and the blood of the race have always their influence,
and manifest themselves, thousands of years afterwards, in the
physical formations and moral habits of a particular family or
tribe. Human nature flows in rivers and streams into the vast ocean
of humanity; but its waters mingle but slowly, sometimes never; and
it emerges again, like the Rhone from the Lake of Geneva, with its
own taste and color. Here is indeed an abyss of thought and
meditation, and at the same time a grand secret for legislators. As
long as they keep the spirit of the race in view they succeed; but
they fail when they strive against this natural predisposition:
nature is stronger than they are. This sentiment is not that of the
philosophers of the present time, but it is evident to the
traveller; and there is more philosophy to be found in a caravan
journey of a hundred leagues, than in ten years' reading and
meditation.


There is much truth here, though certainly not what passes for truth
with those who study human nature wholly in the closet, and in
reforming the world address themselves exclusively to the faults of
_others_, and the evils of which they know the least, and which
least concern themselves.

We hope the day has gone by when we are to be judged by the
testimony of false, interested, and malignant accusers alone. We
repeat that we are thankful to Mr. Paulding for having stepped
forward in our defence. Our assailants arc numerous, and it is
indispensable that we should meet the assault with vigor and
activity. Nothing is wanting but manly discussion to convince our
own people at least, that in continuing to command the services of
their slaves, they violate no law divine or human, and that in the
faithful discharge of their reciprocal obligations lies their true
duty. Let these be performed, and we believe (with our esteemed
correspondent Professor Dew) that society in the South will derive
much more of good than of evil from this much abused and
partially-considered institution.


BRUNNENS OF NASSAU.

_Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau. By an Old Man. New York:
Harper and Brothers._

This "old man" is the present Governor of Canada, and a very amusing
"old man" is he. A review of his work, which appeared a year ago in
the North American, first incited us to read it, a pleasure which
necessity has compelled us to forego until the present time--there
not having been an American edition put to press until now, and the
splendid hot-pressed, calf-bound, gilt-edged edition from
Albemarle-street being too costly for very general circulation here.

The "bubbles" are blown into being by a gentleman who represents
himself as having been sentenced, in the cold evening of his life,
to drink the mineral waters of Nassau; and who, upon arriving at the
springs, found that, in order to effect the cure designed by his
physicians, the mind was to be relaxed as the body was being
strengthened. The result of this regimen was the production of "The
Bubbles," or hasty sketches of whatever chanced for the moment to
please either the eyes or the mind of the patient. He anticipates
the critic's verdict as to his book--that it is empty, light, vain,
hollow and superficial: "but then," says he, "it is the nature of
'bubbles' to be so."

He describes his voyage from the Custom House Stairs in the Thames,
by steamboat to Rotterdam, and thence his journey to the Nassau
springs of _Langen-Schwalbach_, _Schlangen-bad_, _Nieder-selters_,
and _Wiesbaden_. Here he spends a season, bathing and drinking the
waters of those celebrated springs, and describing such incidents as
occurred to relieve the monotony of his somewhat idle life, in a
most agreeable and _taking_ way. To call this work facetious, as
that term is commonly used, were not perhaps to give so accurate an
idea of its style as might be conveyed by the adjective whimsical.
Without subjecting the "old man" to the imputation of _copyism_, one
may describe the manner as being an agreeable mixture of _Charles
Lamb's_ and _Washington Irving's_. The same covert conceit, the same
hidden humor, the same piquant allusion, which, while you read,
place the author bodily before you, a quiet old gentleman fond of
his ease, but fonder of his joke--not a broad, forced, loud,
vacant-minded joke, but a quiet, pungent, sly, laughter-moving
conceit, which, at first stirring the finest membranes of your
_pericardium_, at length sets you out into a broad roar of laughter,
honest fellow as you are, and which you must be, indeed, a very
savage, if you can avoid.

Our bubble-blower observes everything within the sphere of his
vision, and even makes a most amusing chapter out of "The
schwein-general," or pig-drover of Schlangen-bad, which we wish we
had space for entire. As it is, we give some reflections upon "the
pig," {340} as being perfectly characteristic of the author's
peculiar style.


There exists perhaps in creation no animal which has less justice
and more injustice done to him by man than the pig. Gifted with
every faculty of supplying himself, and of providing even against
the approaching storm, which no creature is better capable of
foretelling than a pig, we begin by putting an iron ring through the
cartilage of his nose, and having thus barbarously deprived him of
the power of searching for, and analyzing his food, we generally
condemn him for the rest of his life to solitary confinement in a
sty.

While his faculties are still his own, only observe how, with a bark
or snort, he starts if you approach him, and mark what shrewd
intelligence there is in his bright, twinkling little eye; but with
pigs, as with mankind, idleness is the root of all evil. The poor
animal, finding that he has absolutely nothing to do--having no
enjoyment--nothing to look forward to but the pail which feeds him,
naturally most eagerly, or as we accuse him, most greedily, greets
its arrival. Having no natural business or diversion--nothing to
occupy his brain--the whole powers of his system are directed to the
digestion of a superabundance of food. To encourage this, nature
assists him with sleep, which lulling his better faculties, leads
his stomach to become the ruling power of his system--a tyrant that
can bear no one's presence but his own. The poor pig, thus treated,
gorges himself--sleeps--eats again--sleeps--wakens in a
fright--screams--struggles against the blue apron--screams fainter
and fainter--turns up the whites of his little eyes--and--dies!

It is probably from abhorring this picture, that I know of nothing
which is more distressing to me than to witness an indolent man
eating his own home-fed pork.

There is something so horribly similar between the life of the human
being and that of his victim--their notions on all subjects are so
unnaturally contracted--there is such a melancholy resemblance
between the strutting residence in the village, and the stalking
confinement in the sty--between the sound of the dinner-bell and the
rattling of the pail--between snoring in an armchair and grunting in
clean straw--that, when I contrast the "pig's countenance" in the
dish with that of his lord and master, who, with outstretched
elbows, sits leaning over it, I own I always feel it is so hard the
one should have killed the other.--In short there is a sort of "Tu
quoque, BRUTE!" moral in the picture, which to my mind is most
painfully distressing.


The author thus speaks in relation to the mineral water of
Wiesbaden.


In describing the taste of the mineral water of Wiesbaden, were I to
say, that while drinking it, one hears in one's ears the cackling of
hens, and that one sees feathers flying before one's eyes, I should
certainly grossly exaggerate; but when I declare that it exactly
resembles very hot chicken-broth, I only say what Dr. Granville
said, and what in fact everybody says, and must say, respecting it;
and certainly I do wonder why the common people should be at the
inconvenience of making bad soup, when they can get much better from
nature's great stock pot--the Koch-brunnen of Wiesbaden. At all
periods of the year, summer or winter, the temperature of this broth
remains the same, and when one reflects that it has been bubbling
out of the ground, and boiling over in the same state, certainly
from the time of the Romans, and probably from the time of the
flood, it is really astonishing to think what a most wonderful
apparatus there must exist below, what an inexhaustible stock of
provisions to ensure such an everlasting supply of broth, always
formed of exactly the same degree, and always served up at exactly
the same heat.

One would think that some of the particles in the recipe would be
exhausted; in short, to speak metaphorically, that the chickens
would at last be boiled to rags, or that the fire would go out for
want of coals; but the oftener one reflects on these sort of
subjects, the oftener is the old-fashioned observation repeated,
that let a man go where he will, Omnipotence is never from his view.

It is good they say for the stomach--good for the skin--good for
ladies of all possible ages--for all sorts and conditions of men.
For a headache, drink, the inn-keepers exclaim, at the Koch-brunnen.
For gout in the heels, soak the body, the doctors say, in the
chicken-broth!--in short, the valetudinarian, reclining in his
carriage, has scarcely entered the town, say what he will of
himself, the inhabitants all seem to agree in repeating--"_Bene bene
respondere, dignus est intrare nostro docto corpore!_"

There was something to my mind so very novel in bathing in broth,
that I resolved to try the experiment, particularly as it was the
only means I had of following the crowd. Accordingly, retiring to my
room, in a minute or two I also, in my slippers and black
dressing-gown was to be seen, staff in hand, mournfully walking down
the long passage, as slowly and as gravely as if I had been in such
a profession all my life. An infirm elderly lady was just before
me--some lighter-sounding footsteps were behind me--but without
raising our eyes from the ground, we all moved on, just as if we had
been corpses gliding or migrating from one church yard to another.

The door was now closed, and my dressing-gown being carefully hung
upon a peg, (a situation I much envied it,) I proceeded,
considerably against my inclination, to introduce myself to my new
acquaintance, whose face, or surface, was certainly very revolting;
for a white, thick, dirty, greasy scum, exactly resembling what
would be on broth, covered the top of the bath. But all this, they
say is exactly as it should be; and indeed, German bathers at
Wiesbaden actually insist on its appearance, as it proves, they
argue, that the bath has not been used by any one else. In most
places in ordering a warm bath, it is necessary to wait till the
water be heated, but at Wiesbaden, the springs are so exceedingly
hot, that the baths are obliged to be filled over night, in order to
be cool enough in the morning; and the dirty scum I have mentioned
is the required proof that the water has, during that time, been
undisturbed.

Resolving not to be bullied by the ugly face of my antagonist, I
entered my bath, and in a few seconds I lay horizontally, calmly
soaking, like my neighbors.


Here is a characteristic _crayoning_:


As soon as breakfast was over, I generally enjoyed the luxury of
idling about the town: and, in passing the shop of a blacksmith, who
lived opposite to the Goldene Kette, the manner in which he tackled
and shod a vicious horse amused me. On the outside wall of the house
two rings were firmly fixed, to one of which the head of the patient
was lashed close to the ground; the hind foot, to be shod, stretched
out to the utmost extent of the leg, was then secured to the other
ring about five feet high, by a cord which passed through a cloven
hitch, fixed to the root of the poor creature's tail.

The hind foot was consequently very much higher than the head;
indeed, it was so exalted, and pulled so heavily at the tail, that
the animal seemed to be quite anxious to keep his other feet on
_terra firma_. With one hoof in the heavens, it did not suit him to
kick; with his nose pointing to the infernal regions, he could not
conveniently rear, and as the devil himself was apparently pulling
at his tail, the horse at last gave up the point, and quietly
submitted to be shod.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Fay wishes us to believe that the sale of a book is the proper
test of its merit. To save time and trouble we _will_ believe it,
and are prepared to acknowledge, as a consequence of the theory,
that the novel of Norman Leslie is not at all comparable to the
Memoirs of Davy Crockett, or the popular lyric of Jim Crow.




{341} SUPPLEMENT.


At the solicitation of our correspondents, we again publish some few
of the _Notices of the Messenger_, which have lately appeared in the
papers of the day. The supplement now printed contains probably
about one fifth of the flattering evidences of public favor which
have reached us, from all quarters, within a few weeks. Those
selected are a fair sample of the general character of the whole.


From the Charlottesville Advocate.

_The Southern Literary Messenger_.--We have been favored by Mr.
White, the proprietor, with the March No. of this periodical. The
delay in the publication has been occasioned by the desire of Mr.
White to insert Prof. Dew's Address. However desirable a regular and
punctual issue may be, we are disposed to excuse the delay on the
present occasion, for the reason assigned.

As the Messenger has now passed through the difficulties attendant
on new enterprises, is on a permanent footing, and has vindicated
its claims to rank among the first of American Periodicals, we
commenced the perusal of the present number, predetermined to
censure whenever we could get the slightest pretext. We have read it
calmly and with a "critic's eye," and though it is not faultless,
for with two exceptions the poetry is below mediocrity, we have been
so delighted with most of the articles, as not to have the heart to
censure. We candidly regard it the best single number of any
American periodical we have ever seen. Mr. Dew's Address and Mr.
Stanton's Essay on Manual Labor Schools, are articles of enduring
and inestimable worth.

We subjoin the following notice of the contents from the Richmond
Compiler, with which we in the main concur.

From the Richmond Compiler.

We have already announced the appearance of the Literary Messenger
for March 1836. We always read the work with pleasure, and have
frequently awarded to it the high praise it so well deserves. In the
present instance, we are forcible struck with a sort of merit so
rare in publications of the kind, that, to a certain class of
readers, our praise may sound like censure.

We hazard nothing in saying, that in the pages before us, there is
more substantial matter, more information, more food for the mind,
and more provocative to thought, than we have ever seen in any
periodical of a miscellaneous character. A chapter from Lionel
Granby--a _jeu d'esprit_ from Mr. Poe--some of the reviews--and a
page or two of description--together with a very few metrical
lines--make the sum total of light reading.

We would not be understood to mean that the rest is heavy. Far from
it. But we want some word to distinguish that which ought to be read
and studied, from that which may be read for amusement only. He who
shall read the rest of the number, must be very careless or very
dull, if he is not edified and instructed. We will add, that his
taste must be bad, if he is not tempted to receive the instruction
here offered by the graces of style, the originality of thought, and
the felicity of illustration, with which the gravest of these
articles abounds.

This remark applies in all its force to Professor Dew's Address,
which all who cherish a well-balanced love, at once for the
Sovereignty and the Union of these States, will read with delight.
Those who have yet to acquire this sentiment, will read it with
profit. If there be any man who doubts the peculiar advantages,
moral, intellectual and pecuniary of a system of federative harmony,
contradistinguished from consolidation on the one hand, and disunion
on the other, let him read, and doubt no more.

A subject of less vivid interest has been treated in a style at once
amusing and instructive, by the author of the Essay on the Classics.
No one can read that essay, without feeling that there must be
something to refine and sublime the mind of man in the studies in
which the writer is so obviously a proficient. Are these the
thoughts? are these the images and illustrations? is this the
language, with which the study of the classics makes a man familiar?
Then it is true, as the poet has said:

  "Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
   Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros."

"_Mutatis mutandis_," we would award the same general praise to an
Essay on Education, and to the addresses from Judge Tucker of the
Court of Appeals, and Mr. Maxwell of Norfolk. As to the continuation
of the Sketches of African History, it is enough to say that it is a
continuation worthy of what has gone before.

The reviews are, as usual, piquant and lively, and in that style
which will teach writers to value the praise and dread the censures
of the critic. Among the articles reviewed, we are pleased at the
appearance of Dr. Hawk's historical work. We are delighted, too, to
find him, though not a Virginian, coming to the rescue of Virginia,
from the misjudged or disingenuous praises of men who knew not how
to appreciate the character of our ancestors. No. _It is a new thing
with Virginians to lean to the side of power._ Those who have taught
her that lesson, have found her an unapt scholar. The spirit of
Virginia tends _upwards_, and we have all seen

  "With what compulsion, and laborious flight,"

she has sunk to her present degraded condition.

To think of our fathers, as they stood 180 years ago, yielding with
undisguised reluctance to inevitable necessity; and, in the very act
of _submission_ to the _power_ of the usurper, denying his _right_,
and protesting that they owed him no _obedience_! And we, the
sons--what are we?

  "'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace
   Each step from glory to disgrace:
   Enough!--No foreign foe could quell
   Her soul, 'till from itself it fell;
   And self-abasement paved the way
   To villain bonds and despot sway."


From the Baltimore Patriot.

_The Southern Literary Messenger_, for March, is just out: late in
the day, it is true, but not any the less acceptable on that
account. We have just risen from a faithful perusal of its contents,
which are of uncommon richness and value. Its merits are solid, not
superficial: and therein it is more worthy of the support of the
lovers of literature, than any other literary Magazine published in
our country. We mean what we say, disdainful of the imputation of
being thought capable of a puff. It is a repository of works "to
keep," and not of the trash which "perisheth in the using." Still it
has variety. It combines the _utile et dulce_ in a most attractive
and pleasing degree, and there is no lack of that "change" of which
the poet says the "mind of desultory man" is "studious."

We will give the readers of the Patriot a bird's eye view of the
contents of the number we have just laid down, in illustration and
corroboration of what we have said in relation to its merits.

_Sketches of Tripoli, No. XI._--One may gather a very good idea of
the present condition of the Barbary States, from a perusal of these
graphic papers. We know no others extant so attractive and so
satisfactory. They are written in a pure and refined style, and form
a very valuable and interesting history.

"_The Classics_" is the title of one of the most splendid articles
we have ever perused in any shape. This one paper would be cheaply
purchased by the scholar, at the subscription fee for the volume. It
is a defence of the Classics and a classical education, against the
modern innovations of the romantic school. The writer makes out his
case most ably and convincingly,--showing himself to be well fitted
for the task he assumed, by the devotedness with which he has
worshipped at the pure shrine to which he would win his readers. We
wish we were sure that we had said enough to draw a general
attention to this admirable article.

{342} _A Loan to the Messenger_, including _Life_, a Brief History,
in three parts, with a sequel, by CUTTER, is not only "exceedingly
neat," but surpassingly beautiful. It is a rare instance of the
union of tender sentiment and epigrammatic point. For example--

  A purpose, and a prayer;
    The stars are in the sky--
  He wonders how e'en Hope should dare
    To let him aim so high!

  Still Hope allures and flatters
    And Doubt just makes him bold:
  And so, with passion all in tatters,
    The trembling tale is told!

_Readings with my Pencil_, No. III, a most excellent article--full
of poetical thoughts and, generally speaking, profound ones. We
agree with J. F. O. cordially, in his opinion of _Burns_, in the
case "_Burns vs. Moore_." Yet there are not many who will so agree
with him. _Reading No. 12_, is more regardful of words than things.
Dr. Johnson was right, we think, in saying that "the suspicion of
Swift's irreligion proceeded, in a great measure, from his dread of
hypocrisy," and J. F. O. is wrong in therefore concluding that
"Swift, according to Johnson, was afraid of being thought a
hypocrite and so actually became one." But of this J. F. O. was well
aware--he could not think, however of sacrificing the antithesis.
Let him examine the word _hypocrisy_ and ascertain its _popular_
meaning, for thereby hangs the tale. A man who feigns a character
which he does not possess, is not necessarily a hypocrite. The
_popular_ acceptation of hypocrisy requires that being vicious, he
shall feign virtue. This the very intelligent author of _Readings
with My Pencil_ will not fail to perceive at once. These readings
are far better than nine-tenths of the _fudge_ of _Lacon_--or the
purer _fudge_ of _Rochefoucault_.

_Halley's Comet_.--After Miss Draper's stanzas thus entitled, the
poet of "Prince Edward" should not have sent his to the Messenger.
We cannot call this poetry or philosophy,--it was not intended
obviously as burlesque.

  Art thou the ship of heaven, laden with light,
    From the eternal glory sent,
  To feed the glowing suns, that might
    In ceaseless radiance but for thee be spent?

_Epimanes_.--This is one of Poe's queerities. He takes the reader
back in supposition to the city of Antioch, in the year of the world
3830, and in that peculiar style, which after all must be called
_Poe-tical_, because it is just that and nothing else, he feigns the
enactment of a real scene of the times before your eyes. The actors
"come like shadows, so depart,"--but yet assume a most vivid reality
while they stay. We hope this powerful pen will be again similarly
employed.

"_To Helen_" is a pretty little gem, and from the same mine. It
shall glisten in the Patriot ere long.

In the _Poetry of Burns_, by JAMES F. OTIS, we see much of the fine
lyrical feeling which distinguishes the "_Readings with My Pencil_."
The subject, to be sure, is _au peu passe_--but we can hardly have
too much of BURNS. Mr. OTIS seems fully to understand and appreciate
him.

"_Change_"--pretty verses, but not poetry. The four last lines
should always be at least _as good_ as the rest. One judges of the
flavor of a fruit by the taste it _leaves_ in the mouth. Apply this
hint to these verses.

The next paper is an Address delivered before the Literary Institute
at Hampden Sidney College by Mr. STANTON, upon the importance of
"_Manual Labor Schools_," as connected with literary institutions.
It is an admirable production; and one of that class of papers which
go to make the "Messenger" what we have already designated it, the
only Literary Magazine now set up in this country deserving the
name.

An interesting description of a Natural Bridge in South America,
that the writer thinks more sublime than that in Virginia (which we
can hardly credit)--some dozen lines about Washington, good only for
filling in the spare nook they occupy, and an epigram without point,
next follow, and these are succeeded by another South American
sketch, describing a waterfall, of great beauty.

We cannot say much in favor of the "_Song of Lee's Legion_," nor
will we say much against it. We wish the poetry of the Messenger
were of a higher order. At present it does not hold equality with
the prose department, by any means.

"_Lionel Granby_" is written with much spirit, and the present (the
eleventh) chapter is one of the best. We will review this whole
story, at length, when completed. We think it equal to any of the
novellettes which it has now become so fashionable to publish in
this form: although that form, so full of interruptions as it is,
prevents that enjoyment in perusal which would be derived from the
possession of the work entire.

"_The Patriarch's Inheritance_."--Rich language, fine conception,
smooth versification. "T. H. S." improves.

_Americanisms:_ Captions.--We are too apt to bark before we are
bitten; and there was no especial need that "H." should growl at
BULWER, because he had made a very good terse word to express
_greedy_, from the Latin _avidus_, merely by way of vindicating our
people from old charges of a similar character.

Stanzas _To Randolph of Roanoke_, written soon after his death. We
cannot say that Hesperus has done enough in this effusion to induce
us to alter our verdict upon the poetry of the Messenger. As the
stanzas appear to be a matter of feeling with the author, we will
not enter into a discussion of the sentiments they contain. We would
advise him to try another kind of theme.

_Address_, by the Hon. HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER, before the Virginia
Historical and Philosophical Society--a most admirable paper. It was
delivered upon the distinguished author's taking the seat vacated by
the late Chief Justice MARSHALL, as President of the above named
Society; and is, mostly, a beautiful eulogy upon his illustrious
predecessor. It is just such a production as our knowledge of the
author would have led us to anticipate from him--alike creditable to
his head, stored with the lore of ages, and to his heart, full of
the kindest and most benevolent feelings.

Mr. MAXWELL'S Speech, before the Virginia Historical and
Philosophical Society, at its late annual meeting, another eloquent
eulogy upon the lamented MARSHALL. Virginia seems to be taking the
most serene delight in wreathing garlands around his tomb, and this
is one of the most verdant, and promises to be one of the most
enduring. It is short, but breathes eloquently forth a spirit which
will impress it upon the minds and memories of hearers and readers.
It is a high compliment to the MESSENGER, and a pregnant proof of
the estimation into which that journal has worthily grown that it is
made the medium of conveying such productions to posterity.

But the most valuable paper in the number is an Address on the
influence of the Federative Republican System of Government upon
Literature, and the Development of Character, by Professor Dew. We
have never perused a more able literary essay than this address. The
author traverses the whole field of literature, and draws from the
stores of antiquity lessons for the improvement of his own
countrymen in literature, art, and politics. We commend it to the
perusal of every American.

Then follow "_Critical Notices_." These are written by POE. They are
few and clever. The sledge-hammer and scimetar are laid aside, and
not one poor devil of an author is touched, except one "Mahmoud,"
who is let off with a box on the ear for plagiarism. The review of
"Georgia Scenes" has determined us to buy the book. The extracts are
irresistible.

The merit of this number consists in its solidity. The same amount
of reading, of a similar character, can certainly no where and in no
other form be furnished the reader on the same terms. It is our duty
no less than our interest to sustain 'the Messenger.'


{343} From the Norfolk Herald.

_Southern Literary Messenger_.--No. 4, Vol. 2, of this Journal is
just issued, and contains 16 pages of matter over and above its
usual quantity--that is, it contains 80 closely printed pages in
place of 64, its promised amount. A very slight inspection will
convince any one at all conversant in these matters that the present
number of the Messenger embraces as much reading matter (if not
considerably more) than four ordinary volumes, such for example, as
the volumes of Paul Ulric or Norman Leslie. Of the value of the
matter, or rather of its value in comparison with such ephemera as
these just mentioned, it is of course unnecessary to say much.
Popular opinion has placed the Messenger in a very enviable position
as regards the Literature of the South. We have no hesitation in
saying that it has elevated it immeasurably. To use the words of a
Northern contemporary "it has done more within the last six months
to refine the literary standard in this country than has been
accomplished before in the space of ten years."

The number before us commences with No. XI. (continued) of the
_Tripolitan Sketches_. We can add nothing to the public voice in
favor of this series of papers. They are excellent--and the one for
this month is equal to any in point of interest.

_The Classics_ is a most admirable paper--indeed one of the most
forcible, and strange to say, one of the most original defences of
Ancient Literature we have ever perused. We do not, however,
altogether like the sneers at Bulwer in the beginning of the
article. They should have been omitted, for they are not only
unjust, but they make against the opinions advanced. Bulwer is not
only a ripe scholar, but an advocate of classical acquirement.

_A Loan to the Messenger_, is beautiful--very beautiful--witness the
following--

  Sonnets and serenades,
    Sighs, glances, tears, and vows,
  Gifts, tokens, souvenirs, parades,
    And courtesies and bows.

  A purpose, and a prayer:
    The stars are in the sky--
  He wonders how e'en hope should dare
    To let him aim so high!

  Still Hope allures and flatters,
    And Doubt just makes him bold:
  And so, with passion all in tatters,
    The trembling tale is told!

_Readings with My Pencil, No. 2._ is a fine article in the manner of
Colton. A true sentiment well expressed is contained in the
concluding words: "I am one of those who are best when most
afflicted. While the weight hangs heavily, I keep time and measure,
like a clock; but remove it, and all the springs and wheels move
irregularly, and I am but a mere useless thing."

_Halley's Comet_----so, so.

_Epimanes_. By Edgar A. Poe--an historical tale in which, by
imaginary incidents, the character of Antiochus Epiphanes is vividly
depicted. It differs essentially from all the other tales of Mr.
Poe. Indeed no two of his articles bear more than a family
resemblance to one another. They all differ widely in matter, and
still more widely in manner. _Epimanes_ will convince all who read
it that Mr. P. is capable of even higher and better things.

_To Helen_--by the same author--a sonnet full of quiet grace--we
quote it in full.

  Helen, thy beauty is to me
    Like those Nicean barks of yore
  That, gently, o'er a perfum'd sea,
    The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
  To his own native shore.

  On desperate seas long wont to roam,
    Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
  Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
    To the beauty of fair Greece
  And the grandeur of old Rome.

  Lo! in that little window-niche
    How statue-like I see thee stand;
    The folded scroll within thy hand--
  Ah! Psyche from the regions which
    Are Holy land!

_On the Poetry of Burns. By James F. Otis_--a good essay on a
threadbare subject--one, too, but very lately handled in the
Messenger by Larry Lyle.

_Change_--has some fine thoughts, for example,

  ----My little playmate crew
  Have slept to wake no more

  Till Change itself shall cease to be,
  And one successive scene
  Of steadfastness immutable
    Remain where Change hath been.

_Manual Labor Schools--By the Rev. E. F. Stanton_ is an essay which,
while we disagree with it in some of its results, will serve to
convince any one of the absolute importance of exercise to men of
sedentary habits or occupations.

_Song of Lee's Legion_--very spirited verses.

_Natural Bridge of Pandi_, and _Fall of Tequendama_ are both
acceptable articles.

_Lines on the Statue of Washington in the Capitol_, although a
little rugged in conclusion, are terse and forcible, and embody many
eloquent sentiments. We recognize one of our most distinguished
men--a fellow-townsman too--in the nerve and vigor of these verses.
The _Epigram_ below them is not worth much.

_The Patriarch's Inheritance_--majestic and powerful.

_Americanisms_--a very good article, and very true.

_To Randolph of Roanoke_. These lines have some fine points and the
versification is good--but we do not like them upon the whole.

_Judge Tucker's Address_, and _Mr. Maxwell's Speech_ before the
Virginia Historical and Philosophical society, we read with much
interest. Things of this nature are apt to be common place unless
the speakers are men of more than ordinary _tact_. There is no
deficiency, however, in the present instance. Mr. Maxwell's speech,
especially, is exceedingly well adapted to produce effect in
delivery--more particularly in such delivery as Mr. Maxwell's.

The _Address of Professor Dew_ is, beyond doubt, an article of great
ability, and must excite strong attention, wherever it is read. It
occupies full 20 pages--which, perhaps, could not have been better
occupied. He has fully proved that a Republic such as ours, is the
fairest field in the world for the growth and florescence of
Literature.

The _Critical Notices_ maintain their lofty reputation--but as they
will assuredly be read by all parties, and as we have already
exceeded our limits, we forbear to enter into detail. The Messenger
is no longer a query, it has earned a proud name. It demands
encouragement and _will have it_.


From the Cincinnati Mirror.

_The Southern Literary Messenger for February_, is before us. It is
made up, as usual, of a very interesting miscellany of original
articles. This magazine is rapidly winning a high estimate for the
literature of the South. Its pages contain as good articles as any
other Monthly in the country. Its correspondents are numerous and
able, and its editor wields the gray goose quill like one who knows
what he is about, and who has a right to. Commend us to the literary
notices of this Magazine for genius, spice and spirit. Those which
are commendatory, are supported by the real merit of the books
themselves; but woe seize on the luckless wights who feel the savage
skill with which the editor uses his tomahawk and scalping knife.
The fact is, the Messenger is not given to the mincing of
matter--what it has to say is said fearlessly.


From the Boston Galaxy.

_Smarting under Criticism_.--Fay can't bear criticism. The Southern
Literary Messenger cut him up sharply--and Fay has
retorted--evincing that the sting rankles. A pity.


{344} From the Natchez Christian Herald.

_The Southern Literary Messenger_.--This elegantly printed Magazine
is issued monthly from the classic press of T. W. White, Esq.
Richmond, Va., and has, during the year elapsed since its
commencement, won a commanding share of public approbation and
attention. It is truly a high-minded and liberal specimen of
southern literature, on which is deeply engraved the impressions of
Southern character and feeling. We admire the periodical more on
that account. It has a glow of enthusiasm, offering to the public,
if not the very best, yet the best productions it can command, with
a sort of chivalrous hospitality which cannot but remind one of the
gentlemanly southron at his fireside.

Among the contributions of original articles for this magazine we
cannot but notice the able historical papers entitled "Sketches of
the history and present condition of Tripoli, with some account of
the other Barbary states." These finely written papers have appeared
in ten consecutive numbers of the Literary Messenger, and, together
with "Extracts from my Mexican Journal," and "Extracts from an
unpublished abridgement of the History of Virginia," furnish a
valuable mass of the most useful information. The poetic writers for
the Messenger, as a whole, are not the favorites of the Muses, and
will no doubt be summoned to give an account of the cruel manner in
which they have distorted the pure English in giving utterance to
the spasmodic emotions of the _fytte_ which they may have imagined
was upon them like an inspiration.

There is one department which we admire--the editorial criticisms.
Racy, pungent, and reasonable, the editor writes as one disposed to
test the true elements of authorship, and to weigh pretentions with
achievements in the opposite scale. He has gently, yet with almost
too daring a hand, taken apart the poetical attire of two or three
ladies, whose writings have long been ranked among the better
specimens of American poetry. He almost dares to hint that Mrs.
Sigourney has, by forcing her short scraps of poetry into half the
newspapers in the land, gained a wider fame than many a better poet
who may have spent a life in maturing and polishing one poem which
appears to the world, as poems should, in a dignified volume. He
also makes the same charge of the "_frequency_ of her appeals to the
attention of the public" against Miss Gould, and institutes the
following comparison between the productions of the two authors:
'The faults which we have already pointed out, and some others which
we will point out hereafter, are but dust in the balance, when
weighed against her (Mrs. Sigourney's) very many and distinguished
excellences. Among those high qualities which give her beyond doubt,
a title to the sacred name of poet, are an acute sensibility to
natural loveliness--a quick and perfectly just conception of the
moral and physical sublime--a calm and unostentatious vigor of
thought--a mingled delicacy and strength of expression--and above
all, a mind nobly and exquisitely attuned to all the gentle
charities and lofty pieties of life.

'We have already pointed out the prevailing characteristics of Mrs.
Sigourney. In Miss Gould, we recognize, first, a disposition, like
that of Wordsworth, to seek beauty where it is not usually
sought--in the _homeliness_ (if we may be permitted the word,) and
in the most familiar realities of existence--secondly _abandon_ of
manner--thirdly a phraseology sparkling with antithesis, yet,
strange to say, perfectly simple and unaffected.

'Without Mrs. Sigourney's high reach of thought, Miss Gould
surpasses her rival in the mere vehicle of thought--expression.
"Words, words, words," are the true secret of her strength. _Words_
are her kingdom--and in the realm of language she rules with equal
despotism and _nonchalance_. Yet we do not mean to deny her
abilities of a higher order than any which a mere _logomachy_ can
imply. Her powers of imagination are great, and she has a faculty of
inestimable worth, when considered in relation to effect--the
faculty of holding ordinary ideas in so novel, and sometimes in so
fantastic a light, as to give them all the appearance, and much of
the value of originality. Miss Gould will, of course, be the
favorite with the multitude--Mrs. Sigourney with the few.'

American prose writers and novelists are led under this keen
critic's knife, as sheep to the slaughter. In the name of literature
we thank Mr. White for his criticisms, that must purify the
literary, as lightning does the natural atmosphere.

The Southern Literary Messenger is published on the first day of
every month, containing 64 pages in each number, printed on good
paper with a beautiful type. The terms are only _five dollars a
year_, to be paid in advance.


From the Raleigh Star.

_Southern Literary Messenger_.--"We have received the first number
of the 2d volume of this valuable periodical. This work has justly
acquired a reputation superior to that of any similar publication in
the country, on account both of its elegant typographical execution,
and the rich, valuable, and highly entertaining matter (mostly
original) it contains. In the neatness and beauty of its
typographical appearance, the number before us surpasses any of its
predecessors; and its contents fully sustain its high literary
character. We have no room at present for a particular notice of the
articles. We hope that every Southron, who feels an interest in that
sort of _internal improvement_ in the South, which respects the
mind, will patronize this work."


From the Columbia (Geo.) Times.

_Southern Literary Messenger_.--We have received, some time since,
and wished to have given an earlier notice to, this really excellent
journal; at whose copiousness, variety and goodness of matter, we
were surprized. In literary execution, we think it fully equal to
any Journal of its class, in all the North; and in quantity of
matter, it far exceeds, we believe, any of them. It is also on a
full equality with them, as to its typography.

We are struck, in the _Messenger_, with this good point: the extent
of literary intelligence which it affords, by an unusual number of
critical notices of new publications, is exceedingly well judged.
Its criticisms, too, are in a sounder and more discriminating taste,
than that which infects the Magazines of the North, turning them all
into the mere vehicles of puffery for each man's little set of
associates in scribbling--and partners in literary iniquity. The
Messenger has also this feature, almost indispensable for a
successful Magazine, its Editorial articles are decidedly the best
that it contains. They seem to be almost uniformly good.

We had intended to give some extracts from the Messenger: but the
claims of more pressing matters compel us to postpone them. It is
published in Richmond (Va.) by Thomas W. White, contains 64 large
pages, in double columns, with small type; and is published monthly,
at $5 per annum.


From the National Gazette.

The number of the Southern Literary Messenger for March, has just
made its appearance, having been delayed in order to insert an
excellent address delivered by Professor Dew, of William and Mary
College, upon the influence of the federative republican system of
government upon literature and the developement of character. There
are various articles which may be read with equal pleasure and
profit. A short one upon "Americanisms" alludes to the word _avid_,
employed by Bulwer in his last production, the hero of which is said
to have been avid of personal power: and, the writer thinks it is
the coinage of the novelist, as he says he can find no authority for
it even in the latest dictionaries, nor in any author of repute. It
does not, however, proceed from Mr. Bulwer's mint. As far as we are
aware, Sir Egerton Brydges--who though not a first rate, is no mean
member of the scribbling confraternity--is the {345} first who has
employed it. His Autobiography, published a few years ago, and which
by the way, ought to have been re-published here as one of the most
interesting and singular works of the time, contains it often enough
to prove some feeling towards it in the author's breast akin to that
of paternal affection.

As the review of the book which appeared in the Edinburgh Quarterly,
was attributed to Bulwer, it is very probable that he fell in love
with it when engaged in the task of criticism--a moment when, it
ought to be inferred he was particularly alive to the correctness or
incorrectness of any intrusion upon the premises of the King's
English. The word is unquestionably a good and expressive one, and
has quite as much inherent right to be incorporated with our
language as any other Latin excrescence. It is only "Hebrew roots,"
we are informed by high authority, that "flourish most in barren
ground." No imputation, therefore, rests upon the soil from which
this sprang. Upon the subject of coining words, as upon so many
others, old Flaccus has spoken best:

        Licuit, semperque licebit,
  Signatum presente notâ procudere nomen.


From the North Carolina Standard.

_The Southern Literary Messenger_.--We have received the March No.
of this valuable monthly. It is as rich in matter, and its pieces
are as varied and interesting as any previous number; and we have
before said, that but few periodicals in the Union, and none _South_
of the Potomac, are superior to it.


From the Washington Sun.

_Southern Literary Messenger_.--We have received the _Southern
Literary Messenger_ for February. Its contents are rich, varied and
interesting. The critiques are particularly good, and evidence a
mind feelingly alive to the literary reputation of our country. The
collection of autographs will be examined with much interest. We can
safely recommend this periodical to the patronage of the public.


From the Tuscaloosa Flag of the Union.

_Southern Literary Messenger_.--We have received the last number of
this beautiful and valuable Magazine, and take great pleasure in
expressing the delight with which we have perused its contents. It
is certainly the best Magazine now published in the Union, and is an
honor to Southern literature and talent. The present number like its
predecessors, is replete with 'pearls, and gems, and flowers,' and
fully sustains the elevated character of the work. The Critical
Notices are peculiarly meritorious and sensible. The Messenger is
now under the editorial guidance of Edgar A. Poe, a gentleman highly
distinguished for his literary taste and talent.


From the Fincastle Democrat.

_Southern Literary Messenger_.--We have been furnished, by the
worthy publisher, with the February number of this "best of American
periodicals," as it is said to be by a distinguished Northern
contemporary. This number is pronounced, in all of the many notices
which we have seen, to be the best of the fifteen that have been
published; of this we are not competent to decide, not having been
favored with the previous numbers; but, be it as it may, we
cheerfully coincide in the annexed sentiment of the editor of the
Pennsylvanian:--"If it is not well supported by our brethren of the
South, no faith is to be placed in their sectional feeling; _it is
vox et præterea nihil_."


From the U. S. Gazette.

The Southern Literary Messenger for March, full of good matter, is
at hand--delayed with a view of giving the whole of Professor Dew's
address. We miss the racy and condemnatory criticism that
distinguishes the work, and which has been favorable to the
production of good books. We who publish no volumes, look with
complacency upon severe criticism.


From the Richmond Compiler.

The writer of the following judicious article, has performed a task
for which he is entitled to our thanks. A want of time and a lack of
the proper talent for criticism, have prevented us from giving our
opinion at length upon the last number of the Messenger; and this
sketch saves us the labor. We accord with most of the writer's
positions, and are pleased with the good sense, moderation and
delicacy with which he has discharged the office of censor.
Criticism, to be useful, must be just and impartial. This is both.

"_The Southern Literary Messenger_."--Virginia has cause of
exultation that her chief literary periodical bearing the above
title, has already attained a respectable rank in the United States,
and has won "golden opinions" from some of the highest dignitaries
in the empire of criticism. Whilst I do not think that the February
number which has just appeared, is superior to all its predecessors,
yet it may be considered a fair specimen of the general ability with
which the work is conducted. Its contents are copious--various in
their style and character, and, in candor be it spoken, of very
unequal merit. Whilst some articles are highly interesting--the
readers of the Messenger would have lost but little, if others had
been omitted. This remark is not made in the spirit of fault
finding; the Messenger has always _enough_ in its pages to admire,
without coveting an indiscriminate and unqualified praise of all
which it contains.

The very first article in the February number, on the importance of
_Selection in Reading_, though short, contains much matter for grave
reflection. The writer states, and states truly, that if a man has
forty years to employ in reading, and reads fifty pages a day, he
will only be able in that period of time, to accomplish about
_sixteen hundred_ volumes of 500 pages each. Highly favored as such
a man would be, beyond the mass of his fellow creatures, how
insignificant the number of volumes read by him, compared with the
millions which fill the libraries of the world, and the thousands
and tens of thousand that continually drop from the press. How
vastly important is it, therefore, to be well directed in the choice
of books!--and I may add, how great is the responsibility of those
whose province it is so to direct; to whom the task has been
confided of selecting our literary food, and of separating what is
healthful and nutritious from what is poisonous and hurtful. A well
established magazine, or periodical, undoubtedly exercises great
influence on the literary taste, as well as the literary morality of
the circle of its readers. Hence good taste, good feeling--just
discrimination and high rectitude, are essential qualities in the
conduction of such a work. That Mr. Poe, the reputed editor of the
Messenger, is a gentleman of brilliant genius and endowments, is a
truth which I believe, will not be controverted by a large majority
of its readers. For one, however, I confess, that there are
occasionally manifested some errors of judgment--or faults in
taste--or whatever they may be called, which I should be glad to see
corrected. I do not think, for example, that such an article as "the
Duc De L'Omelette," in the number under consideration, ought to have
appeared. That kind of writing, I know, may plead high precedents in
its favor; but that it is calculated to produce effects permanently
injurious to sound morals, I think will not be doubted by those who
reflect seriously upon the subject. Mr. Poe is too fond of the
wild--unnatural and horrible! Why will he not permit his fine genius
to soar into purer, brighter, and happier regions? Why will he not
disenthral himself from the spells of German enchantment and
supernatural imagery? There is room enough for the exercise of the
highest powers, upon the multiform relations of human life, without
descending into the dark mysterious and unutterable creations of
licentious fancy. When Mr. Poe passes from the region of shadows,
into the plain practical dissecting room of criticism, he manifests
great dexterity and power. He exposes the imbecility and rottenness
of our _ad captandum_ popular literature, with the hand of a master.
The public I believe was much delighted with the admirable scalping
of "Norman Leslie," in the December number, and likewise of Mr.
Simms' "Partisan," in the number for January; and it will be no less
pleased at the caustic severity with which the puerile abortion of
"Paul Ulric" is exposed in the present number.--These miserable
attempts at fiction, will bring all fictitious writing into utter
disrepute, unless indeed the stern rebukes which shall come from our
chairs of criticism, shall rectify the public taste, and preserve
the purity of public feeling.

It would be tedious to pronounce upon the merits and demerits of the
several articles in the number under review. Dr. Greenhow's
continuation of the Tripolitan Sketches is worthy of his calm and
philosophical pen. The re-appearance of "Nugator" in the pages of
the Messenger--after a long interval of silence--will be hailed by
its readers with great pleasure; his "Castellanus" is excellent. The
article on "Liberian Literature," will attract much attention. It
presents a very vivid picture of the wonderful progress which that
colony has made in most of the arts, and in many of the refinements
of life. Lionel Granby--the sketch of the lamented Cushing,--and the
sketches of Lake Superior, have each their peculiar merits, and will
be read with interest; of the _Critical Notices_, the sarcastic
power of the review of Paul Ulric, has been already spoken of. The
Review of "Rienzi," too, the last novel of Bulwer, is written in Mr.
Poe's best style,--but I must be permitted to dissent _toto cælo_
from his opinion, that the author of that work is unsurpassed as a
novelist by any writer living or dead.--There is no disputing about
tastes, but according to my poor judgment, a single work might be
selected from among the voluminous labors of Walter Scott, worth all
that Bulwer has ever written, or ever will write--and this I {346}
believe will be the impartial verdict of posterity, at least so long
as unaffected simplicity and the true moral sublime, are preferred
to the gaudy and meretricious coloring which perverted genius throws
around its creations. The Eulogy on the great and good Marshall, is
an elaborate and elegant performance. It is a powerful, yet familiar
sketch of the principal features in the life and character of that
incomparable man. The notices of Emilia Harrington; Lieutenant
Slidell's work, the _American in England_; _Conti_; the _Noble Deeds
of Women_; of _Roget's Physiology_, (one of the Bridgewater
Treatises) and of Mathew Carey's _Auto-Biography_--are all very
spirited articles, and are greatly superior to papers of the same
description in the very best monthly periodicals of our country. The
last article "Autography" is not exactly to my taste, though there
are doubtless many who would find in it food for merriment. The
writer of "Readings with My Pencil, No. 1,"--contests the generally
received maxim of Horace, that poets are born such; in other words,
he denies that there is an "original, inherent organization" of the
mind which leads to the "high Heaven of invention," or which,
according to the phrenologists, confers the faculty of "ideality."
It would require too much space to prove that Horace was right, and
that his assailant is altogether wrong. Mr. J. F. O. is greatly
behind the philosophy of the age. It is too late in the day to prove
that Shakespeare and Byron were created exactly equal with the
common mass of mankind, and that _circumstances_ made them superior.
Circumstances may excite and _develope_ mental power, but cannot
create it. Napoleon, although not born Emperor of the French, was
originally endowed with that great capacity which fitted him to
tread the paths of military glory and to cut out his way to supreme
power. Ordinary mortals could not have achieved what he did, with
circumstances equally favorable, or with an education far superior.

It is gratifying to learn that the "Messenger" is still extending
the circle of its readers. The wonder is,--supposing that we have
some love of country left on this side of the Potomac,--that its
patronage is not overflowing. It is the only respectable periodical,
I believe, south of that river; and with due encouragement, it might
not only become a potent reformer of literary taste, but the vehicle
of grave and solid instruction upon subjects deeply interesting to
the southern country. That with all our never-ending professions of
patriotism, however, there exists a vast deal more of selfishness
than public spirit, even in our sunny clime, is a lamentable
truth,--nor for one, am I sufficiently sanguine to unite with the
editor of the Messenger, in the answer which he gives to his own
interrogatory in the following eloquent passage, extracted from the
Review of "Conti;"--"How long shall mind succumb to the grossest
materiality? How long shall the veriest vermin of the earth who
crawl around the altar of Mammon be more esteemed of men, than they,
the gifted ministers to those exalted emotions which link us with
the mysteries of Heaven? To our own query we may venture a reply.
Not long--not long will such rank injustice be committed, or
permitted. A spirit is already abroad at war with it. And in every
billow of the unceasing sea of change--and in every breath, however
gentle, of the wide atmosphere of revolution encircling us, is that
spirit steadily, yet irresistibly at work." Alas! for this sea of
change and this atmosphere of revolution which are fast surrounding
us! For my part, I fear that all other distinctions but _wealth_ and
_power_ are about to be annihilated. What do we behold indeed in
society, but one universal struggle to acquire both? Moral and
intellectual worth are but lightly esteemed in comparison with the
possession of that sordid dross, which every brainless upstart or
every corrupt adventurer may acquire.

Though the Muses occupy a small space in the present number of the
Messenger, their claims are not to be disregarded. Miss Draper's
"Lay of Ruin," and Mr. Flint's "Living Alone" have both decided
merit. The "Ballad" is written by one who can evidently write much
better, if he chooses; and there is a deep poetical inspiration
about Mr. Poe's "Valley Nis," which would be more attractive if his
verses were smoother, and his subject matter less obscure and
unintelligible. Mr. Poe will not consent to abide with ordinary
mortals.

Upon the whole, the last number of the Messenger is one of decided
merit.

X. Y. Z.


From the Richmond Compiler.

_The Southern Literary Messenger_. Our critical correspondent of the
22d, is not borne out, in some of his remarks, by public opinion. We
allude to his observations on the _Duc de L'Omelette_, and Mr. Poe's
_Autography_. These articles are eliciting the highest praise from
the highest quarters. Of the Duc de L'Omelette, the Baltimore
American, (a paper of the first authority and hitherto opposed to
Mr. P.) says: "The Duc de L'Omelette, by Edgar A. Poe, is one of
those light, spirited, fantastic inventions, of which we have had
specimens before in the Messenger, betokening a fertility of
imagination, and power of execution, that would, under a sustained
effort, produce creations of an enduring character." The Petersburg
Constellation copies the entire "_Autography_," with high
commendations, and of the Duc de L'Omelette, says, "of the lighter
contributions, of the diamonds which sparkle beside the more sombre
gems, commend us, thou spirit of eccentricity! to our favorite,
Edgar A. Poe's '_Duc de L'Omelette_,' the best thing of the kind we
ever have, or ever expect to read." These opinions seem to be
universal. In justice to Mr. Poe, and as an offsett to the remarks
of our correspondent, we extract the following notice of the
February number from the National Intelligencer.

From the National Intelligencer.

_The Southern Literary Messenger_. The February No. of this
beautiful and interesting periodical has reached us, and it gives us
pleasure to learn that it will be distributed to a greater number of
subscribers than any previous one has been. This is creditable to
the taste of the people, to the industry of the proprietor, the
talents of its editor and contributors, and particularly to the
South, to whom Mr. White especially looks for the support of his
enterprise. The following notice of the contents of the present
number is from a friend of literary taste and discrimination:

The present number is uncommonly rich. It opens with some valuable
hints upon the necessity of selection in reading, a capital
discourse of a column and a half upon the startling text, "if you
have forty years to employ in reading, and can read fifty pages a
day, you will be able in those forty years to accomplish only about
_sixteen hundred volumes_, of 500 pages each." This consideration,
ably put by the editor, is an antidote, one would think, to
"smattering." The next is No. X. of a very interesting series of
Historical sketches of Barbary States. This number brings the
history of Algiers down to the close of Charles Xth's reign. Taken
together, these papers are very valuable, and will form a useful
reference hereafter. It is such papers as these that make a
periodical worth keeping. The next prose article is amusing. It is a
translation from the French, and gives a most humorous account of "a
Cousin of the Married," a man who acquired that quaint _sobriquet_
by attending all weddings, where there was a large company assembled
and making himself useful by proposing sentiments, reciting
_epithalamia_, and singing songs appropriate to those happy
occasions, until he was discovered by an aristocratic groom, and
compelled to vacate the premises. The paper contains a similar
narrative of "a Cousin of the Dead," who, having been advised to
ride for his health, and being too poor, used to go to all funerals
as a mourner, and thus obtained the medicine prescribed by his
physician, with no other cost than a few crocodile tears. Then comes
one of that eccentric writer, _Edgar A. Poe's_, characteristic
productions, "_The Duc de L'Omelette_," which is one of the best
things of the kind we have ever read. _Mr. Poe_ has great powers,
and every line _tells_ in all he writes. He is no spinner-out of
long yarns, but chooses his subject, whimsically, perhaps, yet
originally, and treats it in a manner peculiarly his own. "Rustic
Courtship in New England" has not the verisimilitude which is
necessary to entitle it to the only praise that such sketches
usually obtain; unless they were well done, it were always better
that Yankee stories be not done at all. We hate to be over-critical,
but would recommend to the "_Octogenarian_" to take the veritable
_Jack Downing_ or _John Beedle_, as his models, before he writes
again. Those inimitable writers have well-nigh, if not quite,
exhausted the subject of New England Courtship, and (we speak "as
one having authority, and not as the scribes," by which we mean the
critics) the writer before us has done but very indifferently what
they have done so well, as to gain universal applause. "Palæstine"
is a useful article, containing geographical, topographical, and
other statistical facts in the history of that interesting county,
well put together, and valuable as a reference.

We were much entertained with "_Nugator's_" humorous sketches of the
castle-building farmer. No periodical in the country, numbers one
among its contributors more racy than "Nugator." The article on
"Liberian Literature" gives the reader a very flattering idea of the
condition of that colony. The "Biographical Sketch" of _President
Cushing_, of Hampden Sidney College, we read with much pleasure. We
would recommend a series of similar sketches, from the same hand:
nothing can give a periodical of this kind more solid value than
such tributes to departed worth. Sketches of "Lake
Superior"--beautiful! beautiful! We feel inclined to follow the
track so picturesquely described by _Mr. Woolsey_, and make a
pilgrimage to the wild and woody scenery of the Great Lake. This is
a continuous series of letters, and we shall hail the coming numbers
with much pleasure. The last prose _contribution_ in the book is
entitled "Readings with my Pencil," being a series of paraphrases of
different passages, taken at random, from various authors. We like
this plan, and think well of the performance thus far. It is to be
continued.

The poetical department is not so rich as that in former numbers.
_Miss Draper's_ "Lay of Ruin" is irregular in the versification, and
shows the fair writer's forte to be in a different style altogether.
We wish she would give us something more like that gem of the
December number of the Messenger, "Halley's Comet in 1760." _Mr.
Flint's_ "Living Alone," capital; and _Mr. Poe's_ "Valley Nis,"
characteristically wild, yet sweetly soft and smooth in measure as
in mood. The "Lines" on page 166 do no credit to the Messenger; they
should have been dropped into the fire as soon as the first stanza
was read by the editor; and if he had gotten to the eleventh, he
should have sent the MS. to the Museum as a curiosity. Look! The
Bard addresses the Mississippi!

  "'Tis not clearness--'tis not brightness
     Such as dwell in mountain brooks--
   'Tis thy big, big boiling torrent--
     'Tis thy wild and angry looks."

This is altogether too bad. _Eliza's_ Stanzas to "Greece" are very
beautiful. She writes from _Maine_, and, with care and cultivation,
will, by and by, do something worthy of the name to which she makes
aspiration. So much for the poetry of the {347} number; which
neither in quantity or quality is equal to the last three or four.

In the "Editorial" department, we recognise the powerful
discrimination of _Mr. Poe_. The dissection of "Paul Ulric," though
well deserved, is perfectly savage. _Morris Mattson, Esq._ will
hardly write again. This article will as surely kill him as one not
half so scalpingly written did poor _Keats_, in the London
Quarterly. The notice of _Lieutenant Slidell's_ "American in
England" we were glad to see. It is a fair offset to the coxcombical
article (probably written by _Norman Leslie Fay_) which lately
appeared in the New York Mirror, in reference to our countryman's
really agreeable work. _Bulwer's_ "Rienzi" is ably reviewed, and in
a style to beget in him who reads it a strong desire to possess
himself immediately of the book itself. There is also an interesting
notice of _Matthew Carey's_ Autobiography, and two or three other
works lately published.

Under this head, there is, in the number before us, the best sketch
of the character and life of _Chief Justice Marshall_ we have as yet
seen. This alone would make a volume of the Messenger valuable
beyond the terms of subscription. It purports to be a Review of
_Story's_, _Binney's_, and _Snowden's_ Eulogies upon that
distinguished jurist, while, in reality, it is a rich and pregnant
Biography of "The Expounder of the Constitution."

The number closes with a most amusing paper containing twenty-five
admirably executed _fac simile_ autographs of some of the most
distinguished of our literati. The _equivoque_ of _Mr. Joseph A. B.
C. D. E. F. G._ &c. _Miller_ is admirably kept up, and the whimsical
character of the pretended letters to which the signatures are
attached is well preserved. Of almost all the autographs we can
speak on our own authority, and are able to pronounce them capital.

Upon the whole, the number before us (entirely original) may be set
down as one of the very best that has yet been issued.


From the Pennsylvanian.

The Southern Literary Messenger, published in Richmond, maintains
its high character. The March number, however, which has just come
to hand, would have been the better had the solid articles been
relieved, as in the previous numbers, by a greater variety of
contributions of a lighter cast. It is comparatively heavy, a fault
which should be carefully avoided in a magazine intended for all
sorts of readers. Sinning in the opposite direction would be much
more excusable.


From the Georgetown Metropolitan.

We have taken time to go through the last number of the Southern
Literary Messenger, and find it, with some slight exceptions, in the
articles of its correspondents, worthy, in every respect, of the
high reputation of the series. The editorial articles are vigorous
and original, as usual, and there are papers not easily to be
surpassed in any periodical. Such a one is that on the Classics,
which is not the saucy and flippant thing we were half afraid to
find it, but an essay of great wisdom, learning, and strength,--and
what we generally see combined with it,--playfulness of mind.

Another such article is the splendid address prepared by Professor
Dew, for delivery before the Historical and Philosophical Society of
Virginia. Its eloquence, vast compass, and subtlety of thought, will
amply and richly repay the attention.

We have time to-day for but a brief notice of the other articles.

Sketches of the Barbary States,--continues the description of the
French conquest, with the same clearness and ability which we have
before frequently commended.

"Epimanes" displays a rich, but extravagant fancy.

"To Helen," is pretty and classic, from the same hand--we will give
it in our next.

"Change" has many lines in it, of sweet, and what we like best, of
thoughtful poetry; we will publish it in our next.

"Manual Labor Schools."--Another "address," but practical and
sensible. We suggest, with deference, to the very able editor of the
Southern Literary Messenger, that the less frequently he admits
articles of this description into his columns, the better. Except in
rare circumstances, such for example as Professor Dew's, we think
they are unfit for a magazine,--the subject of the present one, is,
however, of great importance. "Georgia Scenes" makes a capital
article, and has excited, in our mind, a great curiosity to see the
book.


From the Georgetown Metropolitan.

The Southern Literary Messenger, for the present month, is unusually
rich. The articles evince depth, talent and taste, and there is all
the eastern vigor and maturity of learning, with all the southern
spirit of imagination. It is, in fact, nobly edited and supported,
well worthy of being considered the representative and organ of
Southern talent.

Of the articles in the present number, the general list as may be
seen by looking at the advertisement in another column, is very
attractive, and a perusal will not "unbeseem the promise." We have
not time to go over each as we would wish; but the historical sketch
of Algiers, which is brought down to the embarkation of the French
expedition, will command attention. "A _Lay of Ruin_," by Miss
Draper, has some lines of exquisite poetry, and Edgar A. Poe's
Sketch "The Duc de L'Omelette," is the best thing of the kind we
have seen from him yet. "Living Alone" by Timothy Flint, greatly
interested us. That this patriarch of American literature, in his
green and fresh old age, can write verses so full of the amaranthine
vigor of youth, is a delightful picture. We are sorry we cannot find
room for these pleasant verses. Among other attractions of the
number, we come upon a Drinking Song, by Major Noah, in which the
most agreeable and witty of editors, proves himself one of the most
moral and fascinating of lyrists. It is an anacreontic of the right
stamp, and does its author more credit than all the anti-Van Buren
articles he ever penned.

The Critical Notices are better by far, than those in any other
magazine in the country. Paul Ulric is too small game for the
tremendous demolition he has received--a club of iron has been used
to smash a fly. The article on Judge Marshall is an able and
faithful epitome of that great jurist's character; in fact, the best
which the press has yet given to the public. We agree with all the
other critiques except that of Bulwer's Rienzi. The most
extraordinary article in the book and the one which will excite most
attention, is its tail piece, in which an American edition of
Frazer's celebrated Miller hoax has been played off on the American
Literati with great success--and better than all, an accurate fac
simile of each autograph given along with it.

This article is extremely amusing, and will excite more attention
than probably any thing of the kind yet published in an American
periodical. It is quite new in this part of the world.

We commend this excellent magazine to our readers, as in a high
degree deserving of encouragement, and as one which will reward it.


From the Baltimore American.

The _Southern Literary Messenger_ for February is, we think, the
best of the fifteen numbers that have been published. Most of its
articles, prose and verse, are of good Magazine quality, sprightly
and diversified. The first, on "Selection in Reading," contains in a
brief space a useful lesson in these book-abounding times, when many
people take whatever publishers please to give them, or surrender
their right of selection to the self-complacent and shallow editors
of cheap "Libraries." Of the interesting "Sketches of the History
and present condition of Tripoli, with some account of the other
Barbary States," we have here No. 10, which concludes with the
preparations of the attack on Algiers by the French in 1830. "The
Cousin of the Married" and the "Cousin of the Dead" are two capital
comic pictures from the French. "The Duc de L'Omelette, by Edgar A.
Poe" is one of those light, spirited, fantastic inventions, of which
we have had specimens before in the Messenger, betokening a
fertility of imagination and power of execution, that with
discipline could, under a sustained effort, produce creations of an
enduring character. "Rustic Courtship in New England" is of a class
that should not get higher than the first page of a country
newspaper,--we mean no disrespect to any of our
"cotemporaries,"--for it has no literary capabilities.

The best and also the largest portion of the present number of the
Messenger is the department of critical notices of books. These are
the work of a vigorous, sportive, keen pen, that, whether you
approve the judgments or not it records, takes captive your
attention by the spirit with which it moves. The number ends with
the amusing Miller correspondence, of which we have already spoken.


From the Petersburg Constellation.

We briefly announced a few days ago, the receipt of the February
number of the _Southern Literary Messenger_. It is one of the
richest and raciest numbers of that Journal yet issued from the
Press. The judicious introductory article on the necessity of select
reading; the continuation of the Historical sketches of the Barbary
States; Palæstine; the Biographical notice of the late Professor
Cushing of Hampden Sidney College; the Review of the Eulogies on,
and Reminiscenses of the late Chief Justice Marshall, are among the
solid treasures of the Messenger of this month. Sketches of Lake
Superior in a series of Letters which are "_to be continued_;" the
Cousin of the Married and the Cousin of the Dead, a translation from
the French; Lionel Granby, Chapter 8; the Castle Builder turned
Farmer, and Rustic Courtship in New England, have each their
beauties, excellences and peculiarities. Of the lighter
contributions, of the diamonds which sparkle beside the more sombre
gems, commend us, thou spirit of eccentricity! forever and a day to
our favorite Edgar A. Poe's _Duc de L'Omelette_--the best thing of
the kind we ever have or ever expect to read. The idea of "dying of
an Ortolan;" the waking up in the palace of Pluto; of that
mysterious chain of "blood red metal" hung "_ parmi les nues_," at
the nether extremity of which was attached a "cresset," pouring
forth a light more "intense, still and terrible" than "Persia ever
worshipped, Gheber imagined, or Mussulman dreamed of;" the paintings
and statuary of that mysterious hall, whose solitary uncurtained
window looked upon blazing Tartarus, and whose ceiling was lost in a
mass of "fiery-colored clouds;" the _nonchalance_ of the _Duc_ in
challenging "His Majesty" to a _pass_ with the _points_; his
imperturbable, self-confident assurance during the playing of a game
of _ecarté_; his adroitness in slipping a card while his Infernal
Highness "took wine" (a trick which won the _Duc_ his game by the
by,) and finally his _characteristic_ compliment to the Deity of the
Place of "que s'il n'etait pas de L'Omelette, il n'aurait point
d'objection d'etre le Diable," are conceptions which for peculiar
eccentricity and graphic quaintness, are perfectly inimitable. Of
the criticisms, the most are good; that on Mr. Morris Mattson's
novel of "Paul Ulric," like a former criticism from the same pen on
Fay's "Norman Leslie" is a literal "flaying alive!" a carving up
into "ten thousand atoms!" a complete literary annihilation! If Mr.
Morris {348} Mattson is either courageous or wise, he will turn upon
his merciless assailant as Byron turned upon Jeffrey, and prove that
he can not only do better things, but that he deserves more lenient
usage! Last but not by far the least in interest, is Mr. Joseph A.
Q. Z. Miller's "Autography." We copy the whole article as a literary
treat which we should wrong their tastes did we suppose for a moment
would not be as highly appreciated by each and all of our readers,
as it is by ourself.


From the Baltimore Chronicle.

_The Southern Literary Messenger_. The last number of this
periodical is, perhaps the best that has appeared, and shows that
the favor with which its predecessors have been received has only
added stimulus to the exertions of its enterprising proprietor and
very able Editor. The number consists of 70 pages, all of which are
taken up with original matter. The prose articles are generally of
high merit--but the poetry of the present number is inferior to that
of some of the preceding. The critical notices are written in a
nervous style and with great impartiality and independence. The
Editor seems to have borne in mind the maxim of the greatest of
reviewers--"the judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted."
The application of this severe rule to all criticism would impart
greater value to just commendation and render the censure of the
press more formidable to brainless pretenders. The public judgment
is constantly deluded and misled by indiscriminate puffing and
unmerited praise. The present Editor of the Messenger is in no
danger of doing violence to his feelings in this respect.


From the Boston Mercantile Journal.

_The Southern Literary Messenger_.--This is a periodical which it is
probably well known to many of our readers, was established a little
more than a year since, in Richmond, Va. It is issued in monthly
numbers of about seventy pages each, and is devoted to every
department of Literature and the Fine Arts. Containing much matter
of a brilliant and superior order, evidently the productions of
accomplished scholars and Belles Lettres writers, with able and
discriminating critical notices of the principal publications on
this side the Atlantic, the Southern Literary Messenger is equal in
interest and excellence to any Monthly Periodical in the country,
and we are glad to learn from the February number that it has
already received extensive and solid patronage.


From the Norfolk Beacon.

_The Southern Literary Messenger_ for February appears in all its
freshness. The sketches of the history of the Barbary States
contained in the present number include the period of the equipment
and departure of the French fleet destined for the attack on
Algiers. The account of the diplomatic movements of England and
France on the subject of the proposed capture is novel and
instructive. The tribute to the memory of Cushing we hail with
pleasure. If it be not a faultless production, it is written in a
right spirit. The review of Paul Ulric is written with great freedom
and unusual severity. The reviewer wields a formidable weapon. The
article on Judge Marshall groups within a small compass much
valuable and interesting intelligence respecting the late Chief
Justice. It is not executed, however in a workmanlike manner. The
ungenerous allusion to Chapman Johnson was wholly gratuitous. There
is also a seasoning of federal politics, not referring to long past
times, that ought to have been spared us. But the article on
Autography is a treat of no common order. We have seen nothing of
the kind before in an American periodical. It must have cost Mr.
White a great deal of labor and expense in its typographical
execution. What has become of the excellent series of essays on the
sexes, ascribed to the pen of a distinguished professor of Wm. &
Mary?


From the Baltimore American.

The publication of the Southern Literary Messenger, for March, was
delayed beyond the usual time, for the purpose of inserting in it an
Address by Professor Dew, of Wm. and Mary College, prepared to be
delivered before the Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society.
The first copy sent to us having miscarried, we have been further
disappointed in the receipt of this number, which has just now
reached us. As yet we have read but one article in it, but that is
one of such merit on so interesting a subject, that it were nearly
sufficient alone to give value to the number, without the aid of Mr.
Dew's Address, to which we shall hereafter refer, doubting not to
find it of high excellence, as his reputation leads us to
anticipate.

The article to which we allude is on 'Manual Labor Schools, and
their importance as connected with literary institutions.' The
introduction of manual labor as a regular department of the school
exercises is, we believe, one of the greatest improvements of the
age, in the most important branch of human endeavor--the _culture_
of man. We make no apology for frequently recurring to this subject.
As reasonable would it be to expect apologies from the municipal
authorities for directing their efforts daily, and with unrelaxed
watchfulness, to the keeping pure and healthy the atmosphere of a
city. The culture or education of human beings is a subject of
unsurpassed moment and of never ceasing interest. The principles
upon which this culture is to be conducted, and the modes of
applying them, involve the well being of communities and nations. We
are glad therefore, to perceive, that in our new and promising race
of literary monthlies, education receives a large share of
attention.

The paper before us in the Messenger, prepared by the Rev. Mr.
Stanton, is peculiarly interesting, because it embodies a quantity
of experience of the results produced by manual labor--results,
which though derived from comparatively few sources, the number of
institutions where the system has been introduced being as yet
small--are of the most emphatic and convincing character. They
already suffice to prove that the connexion of manual labor
establishments with literary institutions, is conducive not only in
the highest degree to health, but to morals, and to intellectual
proficiency. Moreover--and this is a point of incalculable
importance--in some of these institutions, a _majority_ of the
students have by their labor diminished their expenses about one
half; a portion of them have defrayed the whole of their expenses,
and a few have more than defrayed them--enjoying at the same time
better health, and making more rapid advances in knowledge than
usual. The distinct testimony of the pupils as well as
superintendents, is adduced to prove the beneficial effects upon
body and mind, of three hours agricultural or mechanical labor every
day. One of these effects is described in the following language.
"This system is calculated to make men hardy, enterprising, and
independent; and to wake up within them a spirit perseveringly to
do, and endure, and dare."


From the New Yorker.

_The Southern Literary Messenger_.--The February No. of this
periodical is before us--rich in typographical beauty as ever, but
scarcely so fortunate as in some former instances in the character
of its original contributions. Such at least is our judgment; and
yet of some twenty articles the greater number will be perused with
decided satisfaction. Of these, No. X. of the "_Sketches of the
History of Tripoli_" and other Barbary States, affords an
interesting account of the series of outrages on the part of the
Algerine Regency which provoked the entire overthrow of that
infamous banditti and the subjugation of the country. [We take
occasion to say here that we trust France will _never_ restore the
Algerine territory to the sway of the barbarian and infidel, but
hold it at the expense, if need be, of a Continental War.]

"_The Cousin of the Married and the Cousin of the Dead_" is a most
striking translation, which we propose to copy.

"_Living Alone_," by Timothy Flint, forms an exception to the usual
character of the poetry of the Messenger, which we do not greatly
affect. Mr. Flint, however, writes to be read--and is rarely
disappointed or disappoints his readers.

There are some amusing pictures of Virginia rural life and domestic
economy in the papers entitled "Lionel Granby" and "Castellanus;"
and the biographical sketch of the late President Cushing, of
Hampden Sidney College, indicates a just State pride properly
directed. The "Sketches of Lake Superior" are alike creditable to
the writer and the Magazine. "Greece" forms the inspiration of some
graceful lines. But the 'great feature' of this No. is an Editorial
critique on Mr. Morris Mattson's novel of "Paul Ulric," which is
tomahawked and scalped after the manner of a Winnebago. If any young
gentleman shall find himself irresistibly impelled to perpetrate a
novel, and all milder remedies prove unavailing, we earnestly advise
him to read this criticism. We are not sufficiently hard hearted to
recommend its perusal to any one else.

The concluding paper will commend itself to the attention of the
rational curious. It embraces the autographs, quaintly introduced
and oddly accompanied, of twenty-four of the most distinguished
literary personages of our country--Mrs. Sigourney, Miss Leslie,
Miss Sedgwick, Messrs. Washington Irving, Fitz Greene Halleck,
Timothy Flint, J. K. Paulding, J. Fenimore Cooper, Robert Walsh,
Edward Everett, J. Q. Adams, Dr. Channing, &c. &c. We note this as
an evidence of the energy no less than the good taste of the
publisher, and as an earnest of his determination to spare no pains
or expense in rendering the work acceptable to its patrons.


From the New York Evening Star.

The Southern Literary Messenger, for March, has been received, and a
particularly good number it is. There is one point in which this
Messenger stands pre-eminent, and that point is candor. If there is
any thing disgusting and sickening, it is the fashion of magazine
and newspaper reviewers of the present day of plastering every thing
which is heralded into existence with a tremendous sound of
trumpets--applaud every thing written by the twenty-fifth relation
distant of a really great writer, or the author of one or two
passable snatches of poetry, or every day sketches.


From the Natchez Courier.

Last but not least, as the friends of a literature, emphatically
_southern_, we welcome the February number of the "Southern Literary
Messenger," a work that stands second to none in the country. Its
criticisms we pronounce to be at once the boldest and most generally
correct of any we meet with. True, it is very severe on many of the
current publications of the day; but we think no unprejudiced man
can say it is a whit too much so. The country is deluged from Maine
to Louisiana, with a mass of _stuff_ "done up" into _books_ that
_require_ the most severe handling. The Messenger _gives it to
them_. It is a work which ought to be in the hand of every literary
_southerner_, in particular. It is published by _T. W. White
Richmond, Va._




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