CHAPTER SIXTH.
THE SUGAR CAMP.
'There might you have beheld one joy crown another.'—The Winter's Tale.
As soon as the snow began to melt, another important item of the spring work of the Vermont farmer demanded the attention of the household; no less a business than the making of maple sugar. To this all hands repair, in expectation of many a sweet lump not only of sugar, but of a taste of cherry lips and rosy cheeks. The lads and lasses of the green mountain region begin to lick their lips about the middle of March. The season of the frolic varies many weeks in different years. When warm spring days are succeeded by cool, freezing nights, when the light snows begin to fall, called the 'poor man's manure,' from an idea, true or false, that they fertilize the land, then the sap begins to run, and all hie to the sugar-camp to work and play by turns.
The place selected for operations is often near a clump of hemlock trees, amid whose thick branches a temporary shelter is erected. Boards, straw, and buffalo robes secure a warm and deep sleep after the excitement of the sugaring. Blazing fires burn up here and there, over which the huge kettles, containing the sap, are suspended on cross sticks, replenished now and then from the extempore buckets, troughs roughly hewn in blocks of hard wood, which hang to receive the drippings, drop by drop, from the incisions made in the tree. After it has been boiled to a proper consistency, it is suffered to cool, and with no more labor, becomes the famous maple sugar, the delight of all children and many full-grown people. It is run in fanciful moulds, and easily assumes any shape when in a moist, warm state. The Indians prepare it in bark, curiously ornamented with quill work and beads, and sell it to travellers at an exorbitant price.
Since the abolition movement, many of the members of which society make a virtue of consuming nothing raised by slave-labor, this sugar has become a more important article of trade, and the trees which produce it are guarded with great care. The temperance cause, too, is giving it a new value, as many have the idea that spirit cannot be extracted from it so well as from the West India molasses, which favorite 'sweet'ning' of the Yankee is getting into disrepute with the ultras; a fact which speaks louder for their zeal than their knowledge. So it is engaged in as a serious matter of profit, and the hilarity and fun that once were ripe in the sugar-camp is departed. In former days it yielded not to husking frolics in enjoyment; it was the vintage of the north; but those days are gone, with many a simple custom and innocent pastime which the spirit of modern improvement is frowning down.
Formerly the expedition lasted several days, and the sugar-makers slept in the woods; now the increased population of the State affords a house near to the orchards. Our friends were determined to make the most of the time, and Rufus was glad of a little amusement for the band, but newly leagued together, to wean the thoughts of the home-loving from their old to their new abode; to create pleasant associations about the place not yet honored with a name.
As soon as a light fall of snow was succeeded by a warm, sunshiny day, they all repaired to the woods, and a thrifty clump of trees having been found, commenced their work. The place was not a mile from their house, but a hut was erected as for a regular, old-fashioned encampment, and conveniences for sleeping were not forgotten. And it was well they were not omitted, for late in the afternoon, as they were thinking of returning home, there burst upon them a crowd of visitors from the neighboring settlements, who had waited for this time to make their introduction to their neighbors, wisely choosing a day of merriment, when the heart is open, to spur on their own bashfulness and insure a cordial reception.
If any one is surprised that the news of the contemplated gathering should get abroad so quickly, he has only to live in the country to discover that it is in vain to attempt secrecy in any thing. Whether birds, dogs, or cats carry news, we will not pretend to say; but all we know is, that one may gain information to any extent about any body, who is worth the notice, in a country village. The fact proves the skill that may be acquired in any art by persevering industry, and the fact is all we can state, leaving the wonder unsolved still, for the future investigation of some writer upon the mysteries of human life in general.
We say it was well the sleeping-berths were not omitted, for so numerous was the gathering, that when night drew on, our friends found that beside taking up all the spare beds in the house, and leaving a goodly number in the hut, they should be obliged to give others a bed in the barn, on the hay-mow. But to this the Vermonter does not object, occasionally, when on a frolic; and, indeed, one very essential part of a frolic in the country, and in the city, and in every place, is the doing of things, not better, more joyously and handsomely than usual, but differently. If a man sleep on feathers at home, and in a carpetted room, and eat with a silver fork, it is a frolic to him to eat with his fingers, drink from large leaves, and find rest even in a barn.
The hospitality with which the visiters were greeted, the trouble of having their home turned upside down, for one night, was no loss in any sense to the band; for on the next morning, as the day was favorable, they all turned out to assist in making sugar in earnest; and, before they departed, left the most ample proof of their good wishes and sense of Rufus's kindness. One remembered that he had brought a keg of butter in his sleigh, which his father had sent, begging Mr. Gilbert's acceptance; another unloaded baskets full of dried apples, as his offering of friendship with the new neighbors; a third, a brawny youth of eighteen, was tugging to lift alone a barrel of something from his sleigh, to show his strength to the girls; (every Green Mountain boy being required, before he can be considered marriageable, to load and unload his barrel of cider;) a task rather beyond his powers. John Stewart stepped forward to assist him, and asked the nature of the contents that made his lift so heavy.
'Some of our best cider; the first run from the orchard greenins,' said the youth.
'We drink no such stuff here,' said John; 'but Mr. Gilbert will be very glad to take it to make into vinegar.'
'Vinegar!' exclaimed the young man, opening his eyes to be certain he was not dreaming, 'make that cider into vinegar! It won't be made into vinegar. You might bring all the teetotallers at once to look sour at it; swear at it; damn it up hill and down, and finally keep it into the middle of eternity, and then pour out a mug, and it would sparkle as bright as ever.'
It was touching the young farmer on a tender point to speak disparagingly of his cider; and this has been the great obstacle to be got over in the Temperance reform. Thousands have refused to have any thing to do with the cause, because cider was forbidden in the pledge; and in our opinion the bigots in this cause (for Temperance has its bigots as well as other causes) have presented the question in an untenable form. They have attempted to show that a natural fruit of our region, which cannot be preserved for any length of time, except by expressing the juice, which is slightly mixed with alcohol, is a deadly poison. Now the farmer who has hundreds of bushels of apples yearly, beside those which are fitted to keep sound, knows no other course than to make them into cider; and he argues that the natural product of the soil on which he dwells cannot be a poison; he knows that the spirit, as he calls it, meaning the alcoholic principle, in the juice of the apple, preserves it; and when the Temperance apostle comes to him and tells him that this gift of God is a rank poison, he is disgusted with the whole subject, and doubts the sincerity and honesty of those who really are the friends of man, and who are laboring at a pecuniary loss for his and others' good.
The course of Rufus was quite otherwise. The noise attracted the attention of the whole party, and twenty or more young farmers gathered about the youth, who stood over his barrel of cider, ready to support its merits.
'Thank your father in my name,' said Rufus, approaching the place, 'for his kind offer. We will accept it gladly, and doubt not it is as good cider as any in Vermont; he no doubt will suffer us to use it in any way we please.' The opportunity was too favorable to be lost; so he went on to explain why he did not drink it, and the league which had been made with his companions, which in short hand amounted to this.
All the gifts of Providence are good in their place. Men have the power of perverting the blessings of Heaven to curses. It sometimes becomes necessary to abstain from innocent acts, because others deduce wrong inferences from them. Cider and wine, which in their nature contain alcohol, when drank in moderation, are salutary to health, and are nourishing to the body; but we agree to abstain from them because it is dangerous for those whose constitutions have been debilitated by intemperance to indulge in these luxuries. They bring back the old disease in such cases. And as Paul said he would eat no meat (a thing good in itself) if his doing so caused his brother to offend, so we have agreed to deny ourselves cider and wine, for the sake of our fellow-men.
It was evident from the looks of all, that they cared more for the reputation of their cider than for the liquor itself; and when Rufus had finished his remarks, the youth who had brought the barrel was the first to propose that it be emptied upon the ground. It was done with a shout; and so much influence had the words of Rufus, that, with one accord, they all joined in a compact, on the spot, to abstain from cider and all intoxicating drinks. Never did a sugar party terminate more agreeably or profitably for all concerned.
[SONG.]
I.
Oh! say, can honor lost,
And a bright, unspotted name
Come back to cheer the tempest-tossed,
And cleanse him of his shame?
II.
Say! can an erring heart,
That still has thoughts of good.
Return once more to the shining part
Of life, where once it stood?
III.
Can those who are more just
And innocent than he,
Refuse unto their kindred dust
Their love and sympathy?
IV.
Is man more just than Heaven?
Shall he, himself so weak,
Who needs each hour to be forgiven,
No words of pardon speak?
V.
Can they, who held him dear,
Forget his errors past,
And on his penitential tear
Affection's glances cast?
VI.
Oh! yes! all this may be—
But never, never more,
Will he feel the sweet and childlike glee
He felt in days of yore.
VII.
His eye can never more resume
Its calm and fearless gaze;
For the pureness of his heart is gone,
The freshness of his days!
Pensieroso.
[LITERARY NOTICES.]
Lectures on the Civil Government of the Hebrews. By E. C. Wines, Author of 'Two Years in the Navy,' Works on Education, etc. Delivered at the New-York Society Library Rooms.
When we first saw the advertisement of Mr. Wines in the public journals, it struck us that the theme he had chosen for his lectures was a dry one, and that it would scarcely be found to interest the general public; but we were greatly in error. It was not only an unhackneyed subject, of intrinsic interest, but it was one that had never before been treated in the manner in which it was presented by Mr. Wines. We are no longer surprised that the lectures should have drawn together overflowing audiences in Philadelphia, nor that they were received with the most marked approbation in our own metropolis. Although the chief authority whence the materials of the discussion are drawn is the Bible, a book in every body's hands, yet the facts in the record are brought by Mr. Wines into such new and sometimes almost startling relations, that while they impart important instruction on a subject venerable by its hoary antiquity, they have yet all the charms of novelty to recommend them. Even acute and diligent students of the Scriptures, after listening to his discourses, must confess that they have not exhausted its riches, especially so far as they treat of the great principles of social organization and constitutional government. Indeed, one of their best fruits will be to send the hearer with a keener spirit of inquiry, and with increased patience and industry of investigation, to the 'Lively Oracles.' The lectures are conceived in a liberal and philosophical spirit, and evince an ardent attachment to, and a firm faith in, our republican institutions. They are written with thorough scholarship and learning, and in a style always lucid and vigorous, often glowing and elegant. In a word, Mr. Wines takes hold of his subject like a man who is conscious of his strength, and he almost invariably carries the sympathies and convictions of his audience along with him, even when advancing opinions quite out of their ordinary habitudes of thought. He has shown how thoroughly a subject, which has been commonly regarded as belonging exclusively to scholars, can be brought within the grasp of the popular mind. Whatever currency his elaborate and most interesting disquisitions on the laws and government of the Hebrews may have, will be so much subtracted from the strength of infidelity, and added to the cause of sacred learning and religion.
The lecturer commenced with a reference to the magnificent sepulchral remains of an unknown city on the banks of the Ganges, in Central India, as an emblem of the uncertainty which accompanies most of our researches into the events of remote antiquity. The writings of the best of the Greek historians were represented as filled with contradictions, and with mutual charges of error and falsehood; and several striking instances of historical doubt were adduced; as, whether the famous Trojan war ever actually occurred or not; whether Semiramis lived two thousand or seven hundred years before Christ; and whether the Great Cyrus fell in battle near the snowy Caucasus, or died in peace in his palace at Persepolis. The noble historic record of Moses was contrasted with the confused and incredible fictions which disfigure all other ancient annals; and a just eulogium was passed upon its clearness and consistency. Mr. Wines's brief but clear analysis of the political and social institutions of the various ancient Asiatic dynasties, as also of Egypt, Sparta, Athens, and Rome, fully established his main position in reference to them, that they knew nothing about the true principles of civil liberty; but were, at all times, governed either by arbitrary men or arbitrary laws. A sober, rational, well-poised, and well-guarded national freedom was nowhere to be met with in the ancient world, except in Palestine, under the occupancy of the Hebrews; and all antiquity did not afford a single example of a state, where the PEOPLE exercised any just influence in public affairs, till we come to the Jewish republic. The far-famed Spartan Institutes were discussed with merited severity. Their barbarous and even brutal characteristics were drawn in strong relief, but without a single darker shade than truth required. It was admitted that the Spartans were the bravest, the most warlike, the best skilled in the art military, the most politic, the firmest in their maxims, and the most constant in their designs, of all the people of Greece; but in making them so, Lycurgus had stripped them of almost every quality of men, and caused them to put on the fierceness of savage beasts. The war-laws of ancient times were sketched in vivid but truthful colors. One cannot but regard with horror the spirit of barbarity and cruelty that reigned in almost every ancient nation. Death or slavery was the inevitable portion of the vanquished. Cities reduced to ashes; sovereigns massacred in cold blood, and cast out a prey to dogs and vultures; children crushed to death at the breast; queens dragged unworthily in chains, and outrage and humiliation added to the rigors of captivity; these were but the common consequences of victory. And to crown all, the horrible practice of poisoning the arrows to be used in battle was almost universal. The general military regulations of Moses were examined and contrasted with those of the other nations; and, though undeniably severe when compared with the war-laws of our day yet most essential modifications, tending to the progress of refinement and humanity, were introduced into his military code. The severities exercised toward the Canaanites formed no part of the general war-system, having been employed by special warrant and for a specific purpose—the punishment and prevention of idolatry and unnatural lusts.
The institution of slavery was next discussed at considerable length; and an interesting and instructive contrast was drawn between the condition of bond-service as it existed among the Hebrews and in the other nations. The relation of slavery is so ancient that its origin is lost amid the shadows and uncertainties of early legendary traditions. It is, however, a most curious fact, that probably more than one half of the human family have at all times been in bondage to the other, and have been looked upon as the rightful properly of their masters. Gibbon estimates the slave population of the Roman Empire at sixty millions, fully a moiety of the whole; and the proportion of the slaves to the free citizens in Greece almost exceeds belief, being, according to the accurate Mitford, more than four to one. In reference to Eastern nations, we are without these exact statistics; but we have every reason to believe that the slave population was immense. In all these nations the slaves were reduced to the lowest possible depression; and were, in every sense, at the absolute disposal of capricious, greedy, imperious, and merciless owners. They might be tortured, maimed, or put to death, without let or hindrance from the civil power. Mr. Wines gave a variety of deeply interesting details in illustration of these positions. Moses did not abolish slavery; he could not do it, without a miracle wrought upon men's minds. He was too wise to make the attempt, when failure would have been the certain consequence. But he so modified and softened the relation; he so fenced it about with checks, and restrictions, and guaranties; that it was disarmed of most of the evils flowing from it in other countries. Servitude, under the institutes of Moses, at least so far as Hebrew servants were concerned, resembled the system of apprenticeship in vogue in this country, where a child is bound out for a certain number of years for a stipulated compensation, to be paid to the parent at the end of that period. In no nation, either ancient or modern, has slavery existed under so mild a form, and guarding the rights and persons of the slaves with such jealous care, as among the ancient Hebrews. These topics, and some to which we have not had space to allude, were discussed in the opening lecture. In his second, the learned Professor drew a portrait of the illustrious Hebrew sage and law-giver, developed the general policy of his laws, and traced the obligations of other nations, in their legislation and philosophy, to his institutes. Moses was described as possessing, in an eminent degree, all those endowments, natural and acquired, which form the character of a consummate chief magistrate of a nation; an intellect of the highest order; a perfect mastery over all the civil wisdom of the age; a judgment cautious, penetrating, and far-reaching in its combinations; great promptness and energy in action; patriotism that neither ingratitude nor rebellion could extinguish, or even cool; a persuasive eloquence; a hearty love of truth; an incorruptible virtue; and a freedom from selfish ambition, and a greatness of soul, in which none of the most admired heroes of ancient or modern times has ever surpassed him. These positions were proved and illustrated at large; and the lecturer concluded his sketch with a beautiful parallel between the military and civic character of Moses and Washington; both were men whom their compatriots placed in the highest position, and both managed their authority so as to produce the 'greatest good of the greatest number.'
In entering upon his account of the political system of Moses, Mr. Wines insisted, with great earnestness, that all the essential principles of civil liberty and constitutional government were as thoroughly embodied in his constitution, as they are in ours; and in fact, that that great charter of human freedom, the Declaration of American Independence, which, like the writing on the wall of Belshazzar's palace, has troubled the thoughts of many a tyrant, and caused his knees to smite one against the other, was but an echo from the deep thunders of Mount Sinai. His great maxims of policy were remarkably sound and judicious. The entire and absolute political equality of the whole body of citizens; the discouragement of a spirit of war and military conquest; the appointment of agriculture as the chief employment of the nation; the universal education of the people, especially in the knowledge of the history, constitution, and laws of their own country; a firm union of hearts and sentiments; and the indispensable necessity of a well-contrived and well-guarded system of checks and balances between the several departments of the government; these were the organic principles on which he founded his civil polity. The lecturer laid down the proposition broadly and without qualification, that there never was a nation, ancient or modern, in which the people stood upon so perfect a level in regard to political rights and influence as the Jews under the Constitution of Moses. Property in the soil is the natural foundation of power, and consequently of authority. Hence, the natural foundation of every government is laid in the distribution of its territory. If the prince own the lands, as was the case anciently in Egypt, and is now in many Eastern governments, such prince will be absolute; for the people, holding of him, and at his pleasure, will be in the condition of slaves rather than of free men. If the land be shared among a few men, the rest holding as vassals under them, as in the feudal system, the real power and authority of government will be in the hands of an aristocracy, or nobility, whatever power may be lodged in one or more persons, for the sake of greater unity in counsel and action. But if the lands be equally divided among all the members of a society, the true power of such government will reside in all the members of the society, and the society itself will constitute a real democracy, whatever form of union may be adopted for the better direction of the whole as a political body. Now this last is an exact description of the provision of the Hebrew constitution in reference to property in the soil. Moses legislated for a people without land, and who had their territories to gain at the point of the sword. He was not therefore trammelled by any prescriptive rights, or long-established laws of inheritance. He was free to adopt any principle he might deem most expedient. The principle actually chosen by him was that of the equal division of all the conquered territories among the whole six hundred thousand citizens; and to render this equality solid and permanent, the tenure was made inalienable, and the estates thus originally settled in each family, were to descend, by an indefeasible entail, in perpetual succession, to all the heirs-male of the original proprietors. Such was the oldest of Agrarian laws. The wisdom of this provision was most refined and admirable. It made extreme poverty and overgrown riches alike impossible, and thus annihilated one of the greatest sources and engines of ambition. It gave every member of the body politic an interest in the soil, and consequently in the maintenance of public order and the supremacy of law over mob violence. It elevated labor to its just dignity, by making the virtues of industry and frugality necessary elements in every man's character. It cut off the sources of luxury, that corruptor and bane of states, by denying the means of it, and took away the strongest incitement to it in the example of others. It served to keep up that original equality of the citizens, which was fundamental to the legislation of Moses, and altogether conformable to its strong democratic spirit and tendency. It rendered it impossible for any Israelite to be born to absolute poverty, for it gave to each his hereditary modicum of land; a garden, an orchard, or an olive-grove. In preventing poverty, it cut off the most prolific source of emigration, and thus preserved unimpaired the strength and vigor of the state. It tended strongly to perfect the science of agriculture. And, finally, it served to bind every Hebrew to his native soil by almost indissoluble ties, and gave to the sentiment of patriotism an almost passionate fervor and intensity. The entire political equality of the citizens was proved by various other arguments, and illustrated with great copiousness of detail.
The system of checks and balances between the several powers of government, provided by the constitution of Moses, evinced the deepest political wisdom, and a most patriotic regard to the public liberties. History is full of proofs that restless and ambitious spirits are the growth of all times and nations. Now there are two principal methods of preventing the evils of ambition; either to take away the common occasions of ambitious views, or to make the execution of them difficult and hazardous. The Hebrew constitution made both these provisions in a manner equal, if not superior, to any known constitution of government in the world. Never did legislator labor with such eagle-eyed jealousy as Moses, to preserve the people from the dangers of ill-balanced power, or guard the public liberty with so many and so admirably-contrived defences against the projects of factions and restless ambition. We regret that we cannot follow the learned lecturer through his earnest and unanswerable argument in support of these positions. All who heard it will yield a full assent to the remark with which he concluded it, that the provisions of the Hebrew government to prevent faction and ambition incomparably surpass all the constitutions of the famed Spartan law-giver for the same purpose, so celebrated in ancient story; nor would they have missed their praise, had they been published by a Lycurgus, a Solon, a Numa, or indeed by any body but Moses. The great principles of the Jewish law early became known to the contemporaneous nations, and were powerfully felt in modifying their political institutions, their philosophical opinions, and their moral practices. This influence was traced in the clearest manner by Professor Wines, in respect both to ancient and modern nations. He drew his proofs from the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia; from the history of the Egyptian Ptolemies; from the writings of Hermippas, Theophrastus, Clearchus, Longinus, and even Aristotle, as well as those of Josephus and Philo; from the public records of France and Great Britain; and from the whole structure of our own government, and the history of our jurisprudence. He maintained with great force, that it is to the laws of Moses, and not the politics of Greece and Rome, that we moderns are indebted for the great and precious principles of civil freedom. He referred to the fact as not a little remarkable, that when the presidents and professors of our colleges are most of them ministers of religion, a contrary impression is permitted to remain upon the minds of the young men, who are there receiving their education to be American citizens. He administered a rebuke to those gentlemen, because they do not give the writings of Moses a more prominent place in their systems of instruction, and because they do not more distinctly inform their pupils that the true elements of republican liberty are to be sought in his institutions; but permit the Greek and Roman authors to monopolize their admiration and their gratitude. The very nations whose achievements in arts and arms these writers so eloquently commemorate, were not a little indebted to the genius of the Hebrew legislator for those principles and qualities in their institutions which awaken our youthful enthusiasm.
In his third lecture, Mr. Wines showed that to suppress and supplant idolatry was the grand design, and constituted, as it were, the very soul, of the Mosaic Institutes. He entered into an elaborate and erudite examination of the qualities and tendencies of polytheism, and of the nature, design, and limit of the theocracy. He showed that the theocratic feature of the government was not an arrangement of the commonwealth, fundamentally different from the monarchical, aristocratical, democratical, and mixed forms of government; but that, viewed as to its main design, it was nothing more than a name, or contrivance, employed the more effectually to exclude idolatry. God took the name of king, as a title that conferred honor on the Israelites, and the great object of it was to supplant idolatry, without an infringement of that essential and precious principle of civil liberty, that mere opinions are not to be cramped and restrained by the pains and penalties of the civil law. Having cleared the ground by these preliminary disquisitions, the lecturer entered upon the analysis of the constitution itself. This part of the discussion was exceedingly novel, philosophical, and luminous. Learned doctors in divinity acknowledged themselves instructed and charmed by his masterly dissection of the jus publicum of the Hebrews; the texture and frame-work of their government; the fundamental, organic law of their state. He proved, conclusively, that the government Moses instituted was a constitutional democracy, and that there were, properly speaking, neither nobles nor peasants under it, but a brotherhood of hardy and industrious yeomen, all politically equal, and having each an important stake in the maintenance of public tranquillity and order. The analogies between the Hebrew government and ours, in their substance, forms, and modes of administration, were shown to be, many of them, most close and surprising. The radical features of that ancient and venerable social compact were stated thus: Each of the twelve tribes formed a separate, and in some respects, independent state, with a local legislature and supreme court of judicature, having absolute power within the limit of its reserved rights. Nevertheless, so long as the Constitution of Moses was preserved unimpaired, there was both a real and a vigorous general government and national administration. The nation might, with strict propriety, have been denominated, 'The United States' of Israel. The government consisted of four departments; the chief magistrate, the senate, the oracle, and the congregation of Israel. This last was the popular branch, and consisted of deputies truly representing the nation, and faithfully embodying and carrying out the decrees of the popular will. The form of a legal enactment might have run thus: 'Be it enacted by the Congregation of Israel, the Senate advising, the Judge presiding, and the Oracle assenting.' There was a supreme national court at Jerusalem, to which difficult causes were adjourned from the local tribunals. And, finally, the organization of the tribe of Levi was such as to impart a vital action to the whole system, at the same time that it served as a sort of counterpoise to the democracy, and prevented its excesses. All these positions, and many others not here enumerated, were sustained with an array of convincing arguments, drawn from the sacred writings themselves.
The great Hebrew statesman foresaw that the time would come, when his countrymen, infected and dazzled by the example of the surrounding nations, would lose their relish for republican simplicity, and demand the splendors of a throne and a court. But it was neither his advice nor his wish that they should have a king. He used every means to prevent it. He reasoned; he dissuaded; he expostulated; he threatened; he uttered many solemn and fearful warnings against the dangers and horrors of despotism. If he could not wholly resist the headlong proclivity of his nation to the regal form of government, he at least postponed the issue which he dreaded; he fenced about the royal power with a thousand unwelcome restrictions; and, by his glowing and withering denunciations against every form and species of despotism, he showed how thoroughly his own spirit was impregnated with popular principles; how deep was his hatred of tyranny and usurpation; and how ardent and irrepressible his sympathy for the rights, the liberties, and the happiness of the people. Whoever, then, holds to the divine legation of Moses, and therefore necessarily believes that a constitutional and representative democracy is a form of government stamped with the seal of the divine approval, while the monarchy was but granted in anger to the mad clamors of the people, will hence derive a new and forcible argument to cherish and defend the precious charter of our own liberties, since its type and model came originally from the depths of the divine wisdom and goodness. We are glad to learn that these very able lectures of Professor Wines are to be re-modelled, extended to eight, and repeated the ensuing season. A syllabus of them lies before us, which we shall have pleasure in presenting, when the time for their delivery shall have arrived.
The Spanish Student. A Play in three Acts. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In one volume, pp. 174. Cambridge: John Owen. New-York: Wiley and Putnam.
With what regularly-progressive steps Henry W. Longfellow has trod the path of fame! We can scarcely call to mind an American writer who has exhibited the industry of patient acquisition, the increasing refinement of taste, the expansion of fancy, and the enhanced delicacy of execution, which have distinguished the literary career of the author of the volume before us. Nor in depth of thought, and power of expression, have Mr. Longfellow's writings fallen behind those of any of his contemporaries; while in that winning sympathy with humanity, which finds a response in every bosom, it would be difficult to name his superior. It is not however for this Magazine—which has been the source through which the best and most voluminous portions of Mr. Longfellow's poetical writings have been given to the public—to praise that which our readers know is its own best commendation. Nor can we, from the scores of pencilled and dog's-eared pages of the beautiful volume under notice, select a tithe of the passages which we indicated as we read, rather with the hope than the expectation of being able to find space for them in our crowded pages. For the beautiful story, we shall, in justice to the publishers and the author, refer our readers to the volume which contains it and its accessories, unmutilated; yet in the mean time we cannot resist an extract or two, as a sample of the execution of the verse. It is enough to 'make lovers of us all,' to read the annexed dialogue between the enamoured Preciosa and Victorian:
Prec. Dost thou remember when first we met?
Vic. It was at Cordova,
In the Cathedral garden. Thou wast sitting
Under the orange-trees, beside a fountain.
Prec. 'Twas Easter-Sunday. The full-blossomed trees
Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.
The priests were singing, and the organ sounded,
And then anon the great Cathedral bell.
It was the elevation of the Host.
We both of us fell down upon our knees,
Under the orange boughs, and prayed together.
I never had been happy, till that moment.
Vic. Thou blessed angel!
Prec. And when thou wast gone
I felt an aching here. I did not speak
To any one that day.
Vic. Sweet Preciosa!
I loved thee even then, though I was silent!
Prec. I thought I ne'er should see thy face again.
Thy farewell had to me a sound of sorrow.
Vic. That was the first sound in the song of love!
Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound.
Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings
Of that mysterious instrument, the soul,
And play the prelude of our fate. We hear
The voice prophetic, and are not alone.
If any doubt that Wordsworth's 'comfort in the strength of love' can be exaggerated, let him or her 'inwardly digest' the following picture of the power of this passion, drawn by Victorian:
What I most prize in woman
Is her affection, not her intellect.
Compare me with the great men of the earth—
What am I? Why, a pigmy among giants!
But if thou lovest—mark me, I say lovest—
The greatest of thy sex excels thee not!
The world of the affections is thy world—
Not that of man's ambition. In that stillness
Which most becomes a woman, calm and holy,
Thou sittest by the fireside of the heart,
Feeding its flame. The element of fire
Is pure. It cannot change nor hide its nature,
But burns as brightly in a gypsy camp
As in a palace hall.
How forcible are the following thoughtful lines:
Hyp. Hast thou e'er reflected
How much lies hidden in that one word now?
Vic. Yes; all the awful mystery of Life!
I oft have thought, my dear Hypolito,
That could we, by some spell of magic, change
The world and its inhabitants to stone,
In the same attitudes they now are in,
What fearful glances downward might we cast
Into the hollow chasms of human life!
What groups should we behold about the death-bed,
Putting to shame the group of Niobe!
What joyful welcomes, and what sad farewells!
What stony tears in those congealéd eyes!
What visible joy or anguish in those cheeks!
What bridal pomps, and what funereal shows!
What foes, like gladiators, fierce and struggling!
What lovers with their marble lips together!
But we are admonished of our lack of space; and are left only room to say to every lover—whether of some precious maid, or more precious 'wife and mother now,' or lover only of the beautiful and the true in poetry—to obtain the 'Spanish Student,' and lay 'its gentle teachings to the new-warmed heart.'
Classical Studies: Essays on Ancient Literature and Art: with the Biography and Correspondence of eminent Philologists. By David Sears, President of Newton Theological Institution; Professor B. B. Edwards, of Andover; and Professor C. C. Felton, of Harvard University. Boston: Gould, Kendall, and Lincoln.
This work will be warmly welcomed by scholars, and all true lovers of classical learning. Professor Edwards furnishes an essay upon the study of Greek literature, of classical antiquity, and upon the school of philology in Holland; President Sears presents the reader with an article upon the schools of German philology, a very voluminous correspondence between eminent philologists in Germany, together with a history of the Latin language: and Professor Felton contributes an admirable paper upon the Wealth of the Greeks in Works of Plastic Art; the superiority of the Greek Language in the use of its Dialects; the education of the Moral Sentiment among the Ancient Greeks; and, as we have reason, from internal evidence, to believe, the excellent 'Introduction.' We are glad to learn from this last-mentioned treatise, that amidst the din of practical interests, the rivalries of commerce, and the great enterprises of the age, classical studies are gaining ground in public estimation. It is a much more common thing now for young men to continue them after leaving college than in former days. 'The excitements of modern literature lend additional ardor to classical studies. The young blood of modern literature has put new life into the literature of the dead languages.' Goethe's 'Iphigenia,' Talfourd's 'Ion,' Milton's 'Samson Agonistes' and its Dorian choruses, and the creations of the myriad-minded poet of England, are cited, in proof of this position. In short, the benefits, direct and indirect, of classical study are so forcibly illustrated in this work, that we hope to see it widely diffused, as an offset against the declamations of the ignorant—who undervalue what they do not understand—against classical acquirements and sound learning.
The First Ten Cantos of the Inferno of Dante Alighieri. Newly translated into English verse. By T. W. Parsons. Boston: William D. Ticknor.
The well-printed pamphlet before us, as will be seen from its title-page, is merely a specimen of a larger, and as we infer, yet unfinished attempt. We can hardly believe however that it will long remain incomplete, if the approving voice of capable judges shall have weight with the author, to 'whet his purpose.' Although the work must needs abide a triple test, in a comparison with the original, with previous translations, and with finished English poems, it is our own belief, and that of others 'whose judgment cries in the top of ours,' that it will endure the ordeal with honor to the translator. We regard Mr. Parsons's translation as indeed excellent. The versification is melodious and smooth, and the translator has evidently been scrupulously careful to confine himself to the exact sense of the original. To the merits of the great creations of Dante, it is of course quite unnecessary to advert; but of the illustrious Italian's claims to the character of a philosopher it may not be amiss to speak. We glean from a comprehensive and instructive essay, addressed by the translator to the reader, that Dante was the greatest philosopher of his age. As early as the fourteenth century, he was familiar with the sphericity of the earth, and alluded to the existence of a western hemisphere. He was acquainted with the theory of winds, and had a curious insight into the phenomena of the production of rain. 'He hinted at the laws of gravitation, anticipated Newton's theory of attraction and repulsion, and announced the tendency of the magnet to the polar star. He anticipated also the discovery of the circulation of the blood; he described and explained the phenomena of the shooting stars; and long before the telescope of Galileo, he taught us that the milky way was nothing else than the combination of light with an immense number of smaller orbs.' The fine etching of the bust of Dante, which forms the frontispiece of the pamphlet before us, indicates we think, beside the other noble characteristics of the poet, this philosophical bent of his mind. The translator's lines on this bust are admirable. We annex a few forceful stanzas:
'See from this counterfeit of him
Whom Arno shall remember long,
How stern of lineament, how grim
The father was of Tuscan song.
There but the burning sense of wrong,
Perpetual care and scorn abide;
Small friendship for the lordly throng;
Distrust of all the world beside.
Faithful if this wan image be,
No dream his life was, but a fight;
Could any Beatrice see
A lover in that anchorite?
To that cold Ghibeline's gloomy sight
Who could have guessed the visions came
Of Beauty, veiled with heavenly light,
In circles of eternal flame?
The lips, as Cumæ's cavern close,
The cheeks, with fast and sorrow thin,
The rigid front, almost morose,
But for the patient hope within,
Declare a life whose course hath been
Unsullied still, though still severe,
Which, through the wavering days of sin,
Kept itself icy-chaste and clear.
Peace dwells not here; this rugged face
Betrays no spirit of repose;
The sullen warrior sole we trace,
The marble man of many woes.
Such was his mien, when first arose
The thought of that strange tale divine,
When hell he peopled with his foes,
The scourge of many a guilty line.'
We counsel Mr. Parsons to pursue the commendable task which he has allotted to himself, the commencement alone of which redounds so much to the credit of his taste, scholarship, and skill. He cannot fail of entire success.
[EDITOR'S TABLE.]
Early Writings of the late R. C. Sands: Fourth Notice.—We resume a consideration of the early writings of this true son of genius, in a brief review of a characteristic production of his pen, which we are sorry to say was never completed. It was the singular biography of 'The Man who Never Laughed.' It purported to be a 'German story;' but the veil of pretended translation was quite too thin to deceive the writer's friends, who perused the manuscript. It was entitled 'Tristan, the Grave.' The hero was the son of a German Baron in the Duchy of Bremen, in Lower Saxony, 'who traced his ancestry up to Bruno the First.' Tristan, when an infant, was a comely child, 'perfect in his parts and proportions, with a sober and serene countenance, which seemed to indicate that he was born to be a great dignitary in the church or in the state. His lady mother and her attendants soon noticed, however, a strange idiosyncrasy in the hopes of the family; which was, that he never laughed, nor indeed did his features assume the faintest appearance of smiling! He could cry, as other babes are wont to do, and shed as many tears as are usual in the period of childhood; but after the squall was over, and the cloud cleared away, no sunshine illuminated his face and sparkled in his eyes. He looked as sedate as a little stone angel on a monument; his lips were as rigidly fixed; and his gaze expressed but little more intelligence. In vain they tickled and tousled him; instead of chirruping and smiling, he showed his dissatisfaction at this appeal to his cutaneous sensibilities, by sneezing and snarling; and if it was prolonged, by obstreperous lamentation. In vain did the maids snap their fingers, distort their countenances, and make every variety of grimace and ridiculous posture before him. He seemed to look upon their monkey tricks with an eye of compassion, and relaxed not a whit the composed arrangement of his muscles.'
Little Tristan's imperturbable gravity was a great 'thorn in the flesh' of his mother, who attributed it to the diablerie of a suspicious-looking old beldame, who hung about the premises just before he was born, and wrought the unhappy charm upon him. The old baron, however, treated the subject of his wife's uneasiness with levity, and swore that when his son was old enough to understand Dutch, he would make him laugh till his sides ached. The learned Hieronymus Marascallerus, a great astrologer, who superintended at present the baron's kennel, and was to take charge of his son's education, when he should arrive at a suitable age, also stoutly denied the agency of any diablerie in the matter; but said that Tristan's sober demeanor was purely the result of natural causes, he having been born when Saturn and Jupiter were in conjunction in Libra. His temperament was therefore that of a generous melancholy; but whether he would make a great poet, or politician, or captain, Marascallerus could not yet decide, as part of his ephemeris had been eaten by the rats, and he could not adjust the horoscope to his satisfaction! As Tristan grew up to be a tall boy, and verged to man's estate, the same utter insensibility to ludicrous exhibitions and associations displayed itself in his physiognomy and character. He was not unsocial in his disposition, but very condescendingly joined with the younger fry of the village; and in all sports and games where violent exercise, or that dexterity which is called manual wit was concerned, he was distinguished for length of wind and ingenuity. When any one of his playmates tumbled head over heels, broke the bridge of his nose, or put any of his articulations out of joint, he saw nothing but the detriment done to the body of the suffering individual, and was incensed by the boisterous and to him inexplicable merriment of the others. He listened to a droll story as he would to a tragical one; taking an apparent interest in the incidents, but finding no farther relish in their strange combination, than as they might have been mere matters of fact. In a bull he saw nothing but the ignorance of the maker; and he did not detest puns, (if he ever heard any,) because he never suspected the jest. He heard his father's crack-joke without any other expression than that of wonder, as if he half thought the old gentleman was crazy.
As he grew in years, Tristan was greatly vexed to find that he lacked one of the common properties of his species, and that his company was by no means considered an acquisition in jovial society. A face all rosy and radiant with unquenchable laughter, though like that of one of Homer's divinities, was to him like the countenance of a baboon. He once asked Marascallerus whether he supposed any of the heroes, knights, and kings, recorded in ancient chronicles, ever wrinkled their faces and made hysterical noises, in the manner of those who were said to be laughing? He had several times practised before a mirror the detested corrugations which he had noted on the countenances of others; but on such occasions he succeeded in producing no other expression than that which a Dutch toy for cracking nuts would wear, without any paint; while his eyes seemed looking out above, in wonder and scorn at the performance of his lower features; and he turned with disgust from the image of himself. Time, who travels on at his jog-trot pace, whether men turn the corners of their mouths upward or downward, had carried Tristan along with him into the twenty-first year of his serious existence; when his father the baron received a letter from one of his old friends, a brother Freiherr, as nobly descended as himself. The writer stated that he was waxing old, and that the dearest object of his heart was to establish his only child, the fair Cunegunda, comfortably and according to her rank in the world, before he went out of it; and having heard much of the wisdom and good qualities of his old friend's son, he was anxious to effect a union of two illustrious houses. Tristan professed himself ready to set forward on the mission forthwith. Provided with a suitable answer to the epistle which had been received, and a slenderly-furnished purse, and mounted on the least carrion-like looking steed the old gentleman's stables could furnish, he set forth. Marascallerus stood by, wiping away his tears with the end of a dirty apron, which he wore at his more servile occupations, and beseeching his pupil not to go for three days longer, as the planetary influence was just then most malign to all about commencing a journey. But Tristan put spurs to his wind-galled charger, and in a short time reached the boundary of his father's domains. Here the beast came to a sudden stand, and exhibited violent symptoms of oppugnancy to the goadings and buffets he received, by way of encouraging him to proceed. Thrice did he wheel round, quivering in all his ill-assorted members, as if under the influence of powerful terror; and thrice did Tristan compel him to put his nose in the direction he wished to take. Then uttering a shrill and melancholy neigh, he started forward at his wonted miscellaneous gait. The natural curiosity of so grave a lover, touching the appearance and character of a mistress whom he had never seen, are forcibly depicted:
'All along the road the people at the inns treated him with great respect, taking him for a messenger intrusted with important secrets and despatches, from the sobriety of his looks and seriousness of his demeanor. After three days' journey he reached the town of Stade, and after making a disbursement to the improvement of his outward man, repaired to the residence of Baron Ehrenfriedersdorf, his father-in-law elect. The baron's dwelling stood in an old part of the town, and looked a little the worse for wear. Tristan felt a little queerish as he lifted the knocker, at the antiquated and half-ruined gate-way. What sort of a young lady was Cunegunda Ehrenfriedersdorf? Did she squint? and if so, was the obliquity single, double, or manifold? Had she a hump? and if so, where located? On her shoulder, or her back; or how was its topography? Was she subject to nervous spasms? If so, how did the twitchings exhibit themselves? All down one side of her face, or all over? Intermittently, or all the time? Had she had the smallpox? If so, were the cicatrices deep or shallow? Was her countenance rivelled by it, into longitudinal or latitudinal seams, or promiscuously? Was she a natural, or a virago? All these doubts passed over the mind of the suitor as the iron fell from his fingers. A hollow sound reverberated from the ruinous establishment, and the portal was opened by a decayed-looking serving-man, faded alike in years and in his livery. At sight of the grave-looking young man, he bowed respectfully, taking him for a candidate for holy orders, if not a licentiate, and marshalled him across the court.'
The first thing the grave Tristan heard, as he followed the seneschal, was 'an uproarious peal of laughter from an upper story and a female organ.' The Baron Ehrenfriedersdorf and his family were at the dinner-table; and finishing his third bottle, he was telling one of his favorite High Dutch stories; at which his guests, as in duty bound, including his fair daughter, were in a roar of laughter, of that sort which the little fat schepen died of, as related by Diedrich Knickerbocker. An antique figure of a man, at the right of the baron, with lantern-jaws and a long proboscis of a nose, tipped with a pair of green goggles, a dubious figure of fun, had a peculiar asthmatic 'Hugh! hugh! hugh!'—an ancient maiden of sixty or thereabout, sat near him, whose stiff, starched deportment belied the compulsory 'He! he! he!' which issued from her inward person—and by her side sat a reverend, round-faced, jolly-looking personage, from whose rosy gills and oral cavity issued an obstreperous 'Ho! ho! ho!' which seemed to have been fabricated in the inmost recesses of his præcordia. Other nameless, or from their German patronymics unnameable guests there were, with kindred voices and physiognomies, who expressed their delight in the same variety of intonation. The apparition of Tristan's wo-begone phiz in the midst of this assembly struck so forcibly the fair Cunegunda's perceptions of the ludicrous, that she burst into a peal of tremendous cachinnation; while the under-jaw of the baron fell convulsively, as he gazed upon 'the man who couldn't laugh,' and the merry notes of his guests died away into a quaver of consternation. This was a 'pretty fix' for the melancholy Tristan! He was taken all aback with the beauty of the lovely heiress of Ehrenfriedersdorf. Fair, plump, and just turned of eighteen, she might have served as a model for Hebe. A forehead smooth and white as Parian marble; arching brows, from beneath which glanced the fires of two of the brightest eyes that ever sparkled at a merry tale; cheeks tinted with the rose's deepest dye, and graced by a pair of dimples which seemed the impress of Love's own fingers; and two ruby lips, whose innocent smile disclosed a row of ivory, fairer and purer than the pearls which gemmed her bosom, formed a combination of beauty and expression that would well have become the laughter-loving goddess Euphrosyne in her happiest moments. Tristan made a profound obeisance to the lady, and endeavored to put a smirk upon his face, which the sage Marascallerus had tried to teach him, and which he had been practising upon the road; but it was such an utter distortion, that the young lady burst forth into another exorbitant peal of laughter. Being a comely-looking youth, however, and possessed of a sufficiency of the savor faire, he soon removed the unpleasant feelings which his ill-timed entrance had produced. He listened to, although he could not laugh at, the baron's stories; and that was such a novelty to the old gentleman, that it 'tickled the very cockles of his heart.' The fair Cunegunda began to feel a rising partiality for him: 'If he would only laugh a little, what a charming youth he would be!' He, on the other hand, could not help exclaiming mentally: 'What a happy mortal I should be, if she didn't laugh so much!' Tristan retires to rest at length, and dreams all night of his beautiful inamorata. In the morning he is awakened by the beams of the rising sun streaming gloriously through the casement:
'He leaned out of the window which looked down upon the baron's garden. It was a lovely morning in the month of June. The twittering of the swallows on the eaves of the roof, the hum of thousands of busy insects, the gentle murmur of the morning breeze, as it played among the leaves of the old elms, and the confused sounds, which, softened by distance, came upon his ear from the awakening city, produced a soothing effect upon Tristan. Two rosy-cheeked, rugged urchins were sporting up and down one of the gravel walks, in all the buoyancy and exuberant spirits of childhood. Every now and then, as some little incident occurred, they gave vent to their feelings in loud bursts of laughter. The sound grated upon Tristan's ear as he turned from the window in disgust. 'Why am I thus continually mocked?' exclaimed he, in the bitterness of his spirit; 'why am I for ever tormented by this strange noise, which I can neither imitate nor comprehend? Why am I alone of all mankind denied the privilege of throwing the muscles of my face into that congregation of wrinkles which men call smiling; or of making that incomprehensible sound to which they give the name of laughter? I can elevate and depress my eyebrows; I can wink, stare, or squint, with my eyes; I can puff out, and suck in my cheeks; I can open or pucker up my mouth. Why can't I smile? I can make all manner of noises too. I can cough. I can whistle, I can sneeze, I can sigh, I can groan; and I can blow the German flute. Why can't I laugh?' Here the unfortunate young man, in a paroxysm of impatience, gave himself several severe thumps on his head, as if to inquire why the organ of risibility had been jostled out of his cranium; and also several plunges in the side with his elbow, as if to know why his diaphragm would not vibrate spasmodically, like those of other people.'
The next evening he accompanies the baron and his daughter to the theatre, to see 'Punch and the Devil.' The audience are ready to die with laughter; but he preserves the most serene and staid deportment amidst the broad grins, suppressed titters, sudden guffaws, and obstreperous explosions, by which he is surrounded. He said, it is true, that it was all very fine, because he heard the others say so; and he joined in encoring the bravura of 'Ich bin der Herr Ponsch!' because Cunegunda said she 'would give the world to hear it again;' but that was the amount of his capability. His unaltered mien and composed, imperturbable expression, however, were attributed to his good breeding and polished manners, which prevented him from descending so far from his dignity. He was accordingly looked up to with increased reverence and admiration by the more risible plebeians. But alas for Tristan! the stream of love does not run more smoothly in Germany than any where else. A storm was brewing for him. Frau Eickenschnaucker and the venerable Grubenhausen propagated a report that he was under the influence of the Evil One! Grubenhausen whispered his insinuations, in confidence, to Schwillenaehlen, the red-nosed butler, who hiccupped the story over his cups, to Ohtzenstieler, the ostler, who told it to Schnippenbritschen, the tailor, with the addition, that Tristan was followed by a spirit in the shape of a black dog; Schnippenbritschen told the tale to Kettelpanschen, the fat landlord opposite the baron's, where Tristan used to take his bitters every morning, and he retailed it, with various additions, to his customers. Soon nothing was talked of in the town but 'the grave stranger, who was possessed by the Old Nick, and couldn't laugh.' As soon as the baron heard the report of witchcraft, he summoned Tristan before him, bluntly told him his own suspicions, and read him a long lecture on the danger of evil communications, and concluded by telling him that he 'must learn to laugh like other folks, or he could be no son-in-law of his.' Poor Tristan was astounded. In vain he expostulated with the baron on the unreasonableness of his demand; and tried to prove to him that it was undignified to express his satisfaction by twisting up the corners of his mouth, showing his teeth, and making a strange noise in his throat. In vain the fair Cunegunda, with an imploring look, deprecated her father's anger, and begged him to let her have a husband, even if he should not be able to speak. Her entreaties were in vain; and the baron swore with a High Dutch oath, that if he couldn't laugh, he shouldn't have his daughter. She then turned to Tristan, and with a look of love and a rosy smile, that would have extorted one in return from Heraclitus himself, besought him to gratify her father by one small snigger. It was all in vain. Threats and entreaties were equally useless, and Tristan, instead of growing pleasanter, became graver and graver every instant. In order, however, that the unfortunate youth might not complain of the want of a subject, or an opportunity to display his risible powers, the baron told him he would give him a fair trial the next day, when he meant to show him such droll sights, and tell such funny stories, that if he did not split his sides with laughter, the Devil must have got in him indeed. What the expedients of the baron were, and their effects upon Tristan, Sands's patient readers waited long to learn; but their curiosity was never gratified. Probably the very profusion of ludicrous incidents and situations which suggested themselves to the fertile imagination of the writer, prevented the fulfillment of his promise and design. But 'we trifle time' and space. Here endeth the fourth chapter.
The Washington Monument.—We never write the name of Washington, without a thrill of pride that his country is our country, and that, as an American, we hold a property in his undying fame. And we are rejoiced to perceive that a National Monument to this great and good man, a monument worthy his towering name, is at length to be erected in the great metropolis of America. An act was passed last winter by the Legislature of New-York, to incorporate the 'Washington Monument Association;' and we have been favored with an examination of the design for the magnificent structure, at the rooms of the architect, Mr. Pollard. It is in the form of a pentagon, and is to be erected of granite, in or fronting on Union-Square; to be finished in the Gothic style of architecture, richly and elaborately ornamented; with spacious rooms below for a Historical Library, Gallery for Paintings, etc., approached from the main rotundas. Its rich Gothic windows, columns, friezes, cornices, and balustrades; its buttresses, turrets, tower, and pinnacle; partake, in the ensemble, of the sublime in art; and when the structure shall have towered to its utmost height, the crochet of the pinnacle four hundred and twenty feet in the air, it will be pronounced the noblest monument in the known world. It is to be built by the voluntary contributions of the people of the United States, of one dollar and upward. Some of our wealthy citizens have already headed subscription-lists with five and ten thousand dollars; and arrangements for the immediate commencement of the enterprise are now fast maturing. 'May Heaven speed the good work!' for that monument will rise in honor of one who has 'stamped his impress on the centuries;' whose virtuous deeds and pure example will only lose their influence on the country which he loved and whose freedom he won, 'when rolling years shall cease to move.' If we turn over the pages of history, (says our renowned progenitor, the immortal Knickerbocker) that Man has written of himself, what are the characters dignified by the appellation of great, and held up to the admiration of posterity? Tyrants, robbers, conquerors, renowned only for the magnitude of their misdeeds, and the stupendous wrongs and miseries they have inflicted on mankind; warriors, who have hired themselves to the trade of blood, not from motives of virtuous patriotism, nor to protect the injured and defenceless, but merely to gain the vaunted glory of being adroit and successful in massacreing their fellow beings! What are the great events that constitute a glorious era? The fall of empires; the desolation of happy countries; splendid cities smoking in their ruins; the proudest works of art tumbled in the dust; the shrieks and groans of whole nations ascending unto heaven! How different the means, how different the results, in the case of Washington! Let a recent orator, an orator worthy his great theme, set forth in appropriate and adequate words what we would but could not hope to express:
'America has furnished Europe and the world with the character of Washington. And if our institutions had done nothing else, they would have deserved the respect of mankind. Washington—first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen—Washington is all our own. And the veneration and love entertained for him by the people of the United States are proof that they are worthy of such a countryman. I would cheerfully put the question to-day to the intelligent men of all Europe—I will say to the intelligent of the whole world—what character of the century stands out in the relief of history, must pure, most respectable, most sublime; and I doubt not that, by a suffrage approaching to unanimity, the answer would be Washington. That monument itself is not an unfit emblem of his character, by its uprightness, its solidity, its durability. His public virtues and public principles were as firm and fixed as the earth on which that structure rests; his personal motives as pure as the serene heavens in which its summit is lost. But, indeed, it is not an adequate emblem. Towering far above this column that our hands have built; beheld, not by the citizens of a single city or a single State, but by all the families of man; ascends the colossal grandeur of the character and life of Washington. In all its constituent parts; in all its acts; in all its toils: in its universal love and admiration, it is an American production. Born upon our soil; of parents born upon our soil; never having for a single day had a sight of the old world; reared amidst our gigantic scenery; instructed, according to the modes of the time, in the spare but wholesome elementary knowledge which the institutions of the country furnish for all the children of the people; brought up beneath and penetrated by the genial influence of American society; partaking our great destiny of labor; partaking and leading in that acmé of our glory, the War of Independence; partaking and leading in that great victory of peace, the establishment of the present Constitution; behold him, altogether an American! That glorious life,
'Where multitudes of virtues passed along,
Each pressing foremost in the mighty throng;
Contending to be seen, then making room
For other multitudes which were to come;'that life in all its purity, in all its elevation, in all its grandeur, was the life of an American citizen. I claim him—I claim Washington—wholly for America.'
No wonder that 'great cheering'—that 'enthusiastic,' 'prolonged,' 'deafening,' 'long-continued,' 'renewed' applause—followed the utterance of these sentences, from the united voices of a great multitude which no man could number! There swelled the National Heart; there went up to Heaven the voice of a great People, speaking to Posterity.
'The Poetry of Life.'—This volume by Mrs. Ellis, author of the 'Women' and 'Wives' of England, savors of professional book-making. Sitting deliberately down to tell her readers how much poetry may be extracted from the moon, trees, animals, evening, sound, language, grief, flowers, woman, rural life, and the like, strikes us as a 'dead set' at the sentimental; and however well the task may be accomplished, it is but bringing together a confused mass of pleasurable or other emotions, which may not be altogether common to all the world and Mrs. Ellis. In her description of the poetry of the Bible, she has omitted by far the most prominent exhibitions of that prevalent feature in the Sacred Word. The sublimity and exquisite beauty which characterize the book of Job; the unequalled story of Joseph and his Brethren; the touching pathos of Paul; it would not have been amiss, one would think, to have included in a notice of the poetry of the Bible. In her essay upon the 'Poetry of Language,' Mrs. Ellis presents the annexed interesting exhibition of verdancy:
'The introduction of unpoetical images may be pardoned on the score of inadvertency, but it is possible for such images to be introduced in a manner which almost insults the feelings of the reader, by the doggerel or burlesque style which obtains favor with a certain class of readers, chiefly such as are incapable of appreciating what is beautiful or sublime. One specimen of this kind will be sufficient. It occurs in a volume of American poetry:
'There's music in the dash of waves
When the swift bark cleaves the foam;
There's music heard upon her deck,
The mariner's song of home.
When moon and star-beams smiling meet
At midnight on the sea—
And there is music once a week
In Scudder's balcony.'The moonlight music of the waves
In storms is heard no more,
When the living lightning mocks the wreck
At midnight on the shore:
And the mariner's song of home has ceased;
His course is on the sea—
And there is music when it rains
In Scudder's balcony.''What could induce the poet to spoil his otherwise pretty verses in this manner, it is difficult to imagine; but as this is by no means a solitary instance of the kind, we are led to suppose that the minds, in which such incongruities originate must be influenced by the popular notion of imitating Lord Byron, in the wild vagaries which even his genius could scarcely render endurable.'
Isn't this rather rich, friend Halleck? We doubt whether Mrs. Ellis could take a joke, though it were shot at her from a cannon. Indeed, she would doubtless reply to this remark: 'But how can you shoot a joke out of a cannon? Surely, that can hardly be feasible!'
Gossip with Readers and Correspondents.—A Friend, writing to us from the City of Brotherly Love, under date of 'Sixth-month 15th,' respectfully inquires: 'Will the Editor accept a few remarks on the communication of 'N. S. D.', from a plain Quaker; one, whose ancestors were Quakers, and who, after a close historical scrutiny, is not ashamed to claim kith, if he cannot kin, with those of that profession who were hung on Boston Common, or were beaten at cart-tails from village to village throughout puritanic New-England?' To which we cheerfully answer: 'Yea, certainly, Friend 'N.' Lift up thy voice against the accuser of the brethren, and welcome:'
'From the days of Cotton Mather down to the present time, it has been the constant aim of the defenders of the reputation of the founders of New England, to cast upon the early Quakers all manner of aspersions. A few years since, a writer in the 'North-American Review,' having occasion to allude to the banishment of Mary Fisher and Anne Austin, the first Quakers who ever visited the western world, declared that it was for molesting and interrupting ministers in their places of worship. This assertion is also made by a clergyman of Philadelphia, in a discourse delivered on the anniversary of the landing of the 'Pilgrim Fathers;' with this addition, that one of these women went naked into a place of worship. These charges are not true. I do not believe the reviewer, nor the Doctor of Divinity (so called) wilfully misrepresented the truth; but I believe them culpable in taking for granted assertions of writers living long posterior to the events they describe, without examining for themselves the original documents remaining on the subject. The records of the Massachusetts Colony, as collected by Hazard, as well as the narratives published at the time by the friends of the sufferers, conclusively show that neither Mary Fisher nor Anne Austin had ever set foot on the shores of New England until they were taken as prisoners from the vessel in which they came passengers, and carried to the jail of the colony. Deputy governor Bellingham having received intelligence that two female Quakers were in the ship Swallow, then at anchor in the Bay, commanded that they should be closely confined therein, and that all their books should be taken from them, and burned by the hangman. A writer of that day, in reference to the person employed to effect this conflagration, quaintly remarks: 'O, learned and malicious cruelty!—as if another man had not been sufficient to have burnt a few harmless books, who, like their masters, can neither fight, strike, nor quarrel.' At that time there was no law against Quakers; but the council deemed that they were liable to the penalties of a law passed in 1646, against heresy and error, which decreed to banishment the opposers of the baptism of infants, and all such as denied the lawfulness of war. The order of council in this case is now before me, bearing date 'the 11th of July, 1656.' It commences with enumerating the former laws against heretics, and goes on to say, that, notwithstanding these, Simon Kempthorn had brought in two Quakers, who, on examination, are found to hold very dangerous and heretical opinions, which they acknowledge they came purposely to propagate. It directs that the books of the prisoners shall be burned; that the prisoners themselves shall be kept close, and none admitted to see them without leave from the governor, deputy-governor, or two magistrates; and that the said Simon Kempthorn is hereby enjoined, speedily and directly to transport, or cause to be transported, the said persons from hence to Barbadoes, from whence they came, he defraying all the charges of their imprisonment; and for the effectual performance hereof, he is to give security in a bond of one hundred pounds sterling, and on his refusal to give such security, he is to be committed to prison till he do it.'
'Of the four individuals put to death at Boston, after examining all the records extant in the respective cases, the apologies issued by John Norton and the 'General Court' of Massachusetts, I am prepared to say, that there is not the slightest evidence that they were disturbers of the public peace, or violators of public decorum. The charges brought against them prove indeed that they came to Massachusetts, alleging it was from a sense of religious duty, and that while there, as free-born citizens of England, they refused a voluntary submission to laws violating the rights guarantied them by Magna Charta, and the Common Law of England. I wish not to consume space, but would make a few remarks on the 'frequent occasions' in which the early Quakers, according to 'N. S. D.', went 'stark naked into the public assemblies.' Women of respectable connections, easy fortunes, liberal education, and modest demeanor and carriage, for preaching the gospel, and for merely coming to New-England to look after their rightful possessions, were from time to time stripped naked to the waist, and whipped from township to township; and yet the nice sense of modesty of the New-England folk of that day was not shocked. In 1664, when these scenes had been enacted for seven years, Lydia Wardell, who had been summoned repeatedly to appear before the congregation at Newbury, and whose mind was no doubt under much excitement in sympathy with her fellow-believers in their sufferings, went into the place of worship in that village, stripped in the manner the magistrates were continually stripping her friends. The modesty of the people was sorely offended; and seizing her and her female companion, they stripped the latter, and tying their naked bodies to the whipping-posts, with many lashes earnestly laid on, endeavored to heal the wounds inflicted on the sense of decorum of the gaping crowd.
'I have not taken up my pen to defend the conduct of Lydia, but merely to state the facts of the case. Beside this instance, one other individual, a few months afterward, under similar excitement, performed a similar action. Now to our conclusion. These cases, which are the only ones a close examination of the charges of contemporaneous enemies of the Society, and the defense of its friends exhibit any trace of, are brought forward at this day in justification of acts of oppression committed long before these occurred; Turn to the statements forwarded to England to excuse the murder of Stevenson, Robinson, Dyer, and Leddra; examine the reasons assigned by Norton and the 'General Court' for their proceedings. Their enmity to the Quakers is strong, but not the slightest hint is given that these suffered because of any indecent exposure, or that the general persecution the Society at that time endured was occasioned by acts of this or a kindred nature. And why? Because the first instance of the kind occurred more than three years after the death of Leddra, the last Quaker martyr in New-England. It is a remarkable fact, that soon after these two cases of voluntary exposure, the public stripping of Quaker women ceased. What effect these had in changing the feelings of the community, I cannot tell; but it is certainly a curious coincidence, that after this period the records of courts, and the copious annals of our Society, scarcely exhibit an instance of these cart-tail indecencies. The rest of the charges of 'N. S. D.' are equally unfounded; and, with sufficient space for quotations, might be satisfactorily confuted.
N.'
Religious or sectarian controversy is foreign to the purpose of the Knickerbocker; yet we could not decline the calm consideration of facts brought forward to correct alleged misstatements. 'If,' says the writer, 'N. S. D.' wishes information on a subject with which he seems to be unacquainted, I should like to refer him to works wherein he may find the original documents.' For our own part, we think, as we have already partly intimated, that 'the less said the better' touching the treatment of the Quakers and 'others of the Non-elect' by the New-England Puritans. Washington Irving has driven a long nail home on this theme: 'The zeal of these good people to maintain their rights and privileges unimpaired, betrayed them into errors, which it is easier to pardon than defend. Having served a regular apprenticeship in the school of persecution, it behooved them to show that they had become proficients in the art. They accordingly employed their leisure hours in banishing, scourging, or hanging, divers heretical Papists, Quakers, and Anabaptists, for daring to abuse the 'liberty of conscience,' which they now clearly proved to imply nothing more than that every man should think as he pleased in matters of religion, provided he thought right; for otherwise it would be giving a latitude to damnable heresies. Now as they were perfectly convinced that they alone thought right, it consequently followed that whoever thought differently from them, thought wrong; and whoever thought wrong, and obstinately persisted in not being convinced and converted, was a flagrant violator of the inestimable liberty of conscience, and a corrupt and infectious member of the body politic, and deserved to be lopped off and cast into the fire!' * * * We are indebted to a most kind correspondent for the following excerpt from his note-book. It is an extract made many years ago from some author, whose name and that of his work our friend has alike forgotten. How many just such thoughtless, rattle-brained, aimless talkers have we encountered! We rather like the practice of an old friend of ours in this regard! He makes it a point, he says, never to inquire after any body!
'Whoever has visited Cambridge, can hardly fail of recollecting Lady ——. The leading idea of her life was to do the pretty; to say civil things and make agreeable speeches. But alas! her ladyship was not infallible, and sometimes with the very best intentions would fail desperately. They relate of her at Cambridge, that during a series of concerts which Madame Catalani gave at the last grand commencement, this Queen of Song was staying at the house of her friend Mrs. F. At an evening party at D—— Lodge, Lady —— was invited to meet her. 'My dear Madame Catalani! how delighted, how transported I am to see you! When did you arrive? How is Monsieur Valbrique? and your dear little boy?' Catalani changed color; her lip quivered, and her fine dark eyes filled with tears, as she murmured: 'Ah! pauvre petit, je l'ai perdu!' 'What an engaging, interesting, elegant little creature he is!' 'Je l'ai perdu!' shrieked the foreigner, in a tone of agony. Lady —— had forgot her French. 'Is he, indeed? I am happy to hear it. I always said he would come out something extraordinary.' 'Je l'ai perdu! Je l'ai perdu!' cried poor Catalani, in a more piercing tone, and with increased emotion. 'Don't exert yourself; yes, yes; I understand you, perfectly; well, pray remember me to him very kindly, since he is not with you, and offer him my congratulations.' 'He is dead! he is dead! Lady ——,' said Mrs. F. impatiently. 'Dead! Why didn't somebody tell me so? Poor little fellow! And so he's dead! Well, I declare, I am very sorry for him! Dead! That's very surprising!' On another occasion she said to another distinguished guest: 'Ah! my dear Mrs. Siddons, what an unexpected gratification to see you at Cambridge! How d'ye do? Ah! but you are altered, when one comes to look at you! very much altered! Let me see; it must be thirty years ago since Sir Benjamin and I were first delighted with your Lady Randolph. How life ebbs away! What changes we see! It was poor Edwin's night, I think. Surely, that was the Augustan era of the British Theatre! Ah! poor Edwin! he's gone! And Palmer, Gentleman Palmer, he's gone! And Dodd—clever actor, Dodd—he's gone! We live in a world of changes!' Mrs. Siddons looked sad, and was silent. 'I've been recollecting when it was I saw you last. It must be about fourteen years ago. You played Queen Catherine, and your gifted brother John played Wolsey. What a heat it was! Dear John Kemble! and he's gone!' Mrs. Siddons burst into tears. 'Amiable creature!' said Lady —— to the astonished by-standers; 'what an affectionate heart she has!'
We once saw a painting of the Saviour of Men, which we could well deem to be like the divine original; and never while we live shall we forget the heavenly face which the artist had depicted. It was the countenance of a 'man of sorrows, acquainted with grief:' there was a pervading pathos in its expression, which 'brought the water-drops to our eyes.' The picture is now in Germany, where it was painted; and we can never hope to see another so perfect an embodiment of our conception of the lineaments of the Redeemer. There was something in the ensemble of the picture which we remember to have thought was like a description, by an eye-witness, of the Saviour's personal presence, which we had read in our youth, and which we were glad recently to encounter in an old common-place book. It was addressed by Publius Lentullus, President in Judea in the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, to the Senate of Rome:
'Conscript Fathers: There appeared in these our days a man of great virtue, named Jesus Christ, who is yet living among us, and of the Gentiles is accepted for a Prophet of truth; but his own disciples call him the Son of God. He raiseth the dead, and cureth all manner of diseases. A man of stature somewhat tall and comely, and in proportion of body well shaped; his hands and arms delectable to behold; with a very reverend countenance, such as the beholders may both love and fear. His hair is of the color of a filbert full ripe to his ears, whence downward it is more orient of color, somewhat curling or waving about his shoulders. In the midst of his head, is a seam or partition of his hair, after the manner of the Nazarites. His forehead is plain and delicate. His cheeks without spot or wrinkle, beautified with a comely red; his nose and mouth exactly formed. His beard is thick, the color of his hair; not of any great length, but forked. His look innocent and mature. His eyes gray, dear, and quick. In reproving he is awful; in admonishing, courteous and friendly; in speaking, very temperate, modest, and wise. It cannot be remembered that any have seen him laugh, but many have seen him weep. A being for his singular beauty surpassing the children of men.'
Let us add here a beautiful sonnet, on this great theme, which we derive from an esteemed friend and contributor, who has been kind enough to copy it for us from the writer's manuscript:
JESUS.
By Rev. Theodore Parker.
Jesus, there is no dearer name than thine,
Which Time has blazoned on his ample scroll:
No wreaths nor garlands ever did entwine
So fair a Temple or so vast a Soul.
Ay, every Angel set his comely seal
Upon thy brow, and gave each human grace,
In a sweet copy Heaven to reveal,
And stamp Perfection on a mortal face.
Once on the earth, before dull mortal eyes,
Which could not half thy sacred radiance see,
(E'en as the emmet cannot read the skies,)
For our weak orbs reach not Immensity,
Once on the earth wast Thou a living shrine,
Where shone the Good, the Lovely, the Divine.
The 'Plebeian' daily journal of Gotham is down upon the Yanokies or Yankees, with a weapon swung round like a flail; and like another valiant defender of the Knickerbockers before him, he has raised such a buzzing about his unlucky head, that he will need the tough hide of an Achilles or an Orlando Furioso, to protect him from their stings. We do not like the nucleus of the ball which our sturdy democrat has set in motion—the glorious battle of Bunker-Hill; but for the rest, we should do dishonor to the spirit of our great historian and sire, if we did not applaud the prowess which is displayed in this warfare upon a set of 'dieven, schobbejaken, dengenieten, twist-zoëkeren, loozenschalken, blaes-kaken, kakken-bedden;' a squalling, bundling, guessing, questioning, swapping, pumpkin-eating, molasses-daubing, shingle-splitting, cider-watering, horse-jockeying, notion-peddling crew! Let the 'Defender of the Faithful' continue to ply his trenchant quill: thousands of crowded and jostled Knickerbockers are heart and soul in the contest; and the spirit of William the Testy, who was translated to the firmament, and now forms a very fiery little star somewhere on the left claw of 'the Crab,' looks approvingly down upon the warfare! We confess that we find it in our hearts greatly to rejoice that the descendants of Habbakuk Nutter, Return Strong, Zerubbabel Fisk, and Determined Cock, those losel scouts who overreached Stoffel Brinkerhoff, are to be taught that the 'sins of the fathers may be visited upon the children,' by a right valiant son of New-Amsterdam. When we bethink us how these Yankee varlets penetrated into the New-Netherland settlements, and bored our taciturn progenitors with their volubility and intolerable inquisitiveness; bringing the honest burghers to a stand on the highway, and torturing them with questions and guesses; 'and which is more,' seducing the light affections of the simple damsels from their ponderous Dutch gallants, and introducing among them the ancient practice of bundling; when we call to mind how that long-sided, raw-boned, hardy race received the proclamations of the sage Governor of New-Amsterdam, treating them with contempt, and applying them to an unseemly purpose, and foully dishonoring the valorous Van Curlet, who bore them; when we remember these things, and also how that the tribe has been spreading wider and wider, and growing more impertinent every day; we cannot find it in our heart to regret that a doughty champion has come out against them, to expose their braggadocia and annihilate their pretensions. By the beard of Mahomet! do they think that wisdom and patriotism lived alone and is to die with them? Because they are virtuous, are there to be no more cakes and ale? Is their aspiring metropolis, climbing upon its little hills to look down upon itself, to eclipse the great capital of the Manhaddoes? Is imperial Rome, in comparison, to be voted a rat-hole, 'Nineveh,' a nook, Babylon a baby-house, and Pekin the paltriest pile of the pigmies?' Unanimously, in this meridian, the Knickerbockers 'reckon not!' * * * We place the following passages from recent letters of two excellent friends in juxtaposition, for an especial reason. The epistles are not dated far apart; and in the second, the writer, who dwelleth near 'Mason and Dixon,' descants upon the awful climate hereabout in the summer months. Infatuated person! Observe what he of Tinnecum, living scarcely eight miles away, saith: 'I have watched a fair opportunity to invite you to this 'verum et secretum μουσειοι.' The woods are gloriously animated; the fields deliciously green; the west winds overburdened with clover; the sea-shore breezes are life-inspiring; and to quote Greek again from one of the noble bursts of the chorus, I love to sit upon a piazza, with my picturesque head of hair ensnarled in the breeze, and sing out:
Αυρα, ποντιας αυρα,
Αυρα, ποντιας αυρα.
'The strawberries (an old writer has remarked that doubtless God might have made a better berry, but he never did) are as deliriously ripe as if they had been smiled on by Venus, and dear goddess! she had imbued them with the sweetness of her own lips: 'Quinta parte sui nectaris imbuit.' They are charming! To see them piled up in little heaps, like the fruits of an early harvest, not to be stored away for a winter of discontent, but to cheer the immediate moment, to be refreshed every now and then by the anticipation of their sweet breath as it comes up, not obtrusively, gushing into your face, and causing you to throw back your head with a smile, as if all the senses were lulled into a dear security! To see them lying in so many wanton attitudes, as rubicund as if they were intoxicated with sun-beams, in all their variety of shapes; some preciously diminutive, others of an incredible, jovial plumpness; variegated, luxurious, shaped like some pyramids I know of, with their great circumference overshadowing the narrow base; conveying by their very size a provoking, insulting challenge, that they are too big to be swallowed up—by Phœbus! it is a treat to merge expectation in fruition; and if there is any danger in swallowing them up, then I say again with Horace: 'Dulce est periclum'—the danger is sweet. 'These delights if thou canst give——' Indeed can I; and you shall have others beside—Και πλεον εξεις—as Venus said, when she advertised her missing boy. There is a pleasure in sitting by the window, to be lulled by a variety of murmurs, or to listen to them in the solemn groves; whether it be the sound of the sea, or the winds undulating among the tree-tops, or the swarming of bees, I can hardly tell, they are so like; and if the heart beats at regular intervals not too much in a hurry or with an inconsiderate knocking, being kept from agitation by a good conscience, as may without vanity be claimed both by you and me, we shall be captivated by a music more sweet than Bellini. Come out here right off!' Thus far the favored occupant of this delectable region. Give ear now to that other scholar and gentleman, 'hereinbeforementioned:' 'It is truly a blistering day, and the breath from the mouth of the approaching Dog is enough to stifle a Christian. I keep continually thinking of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, and repeat, with more fervor than I could wish, 'Bear me, Pomona, to thy citron shades!' etc. But 'Oh! Jimmy Thompson, Jimmy Thompson, oh!' never in Green England did you experience such an atmosphere as this! Pah! it goes down my throat like the spirit of melted lead. Oh! for some water-sprite to bear me under his dripping wings to the summit of Dawalageri; there among the notched rocks to sit sipping of iced sherry, and with pine-apples pendant to my very mouth, to whiff the cool Havana and read Dante's Purgatorio! There might some 'swift-winged courier of the clouds' bring me the July number of the Knick.; and after laughing at the wit and melting with the pathos of American talent, might some prophetic angel unscale my eyes, and show me in the future the Chinese wall blown up by a match of opium, and the wheels of the Juggernaut carrying a train of burden-cars and a crowd of travellers from Calcutta to Delhi! What an unimaginable world lies behind the vale of that same wonder-pregnant Future! Oh! that one might raise that veil and see all that is to be, save the destinies of himself and his own beloved land! The sight, however, might be far from pleasing to the philanthropist. Freedom may fly again to her hereditary mountains; Knowledge may burn her lonely lamp in conventual cloisters; the 'march of mind' may make a retrograde advancement; another Caliph may fire the Royal Library of Paris; and posterity may be sufficiently unfortunate to have lost all trace and all memorial of you and me! God forbid!' * * * Repining reader, bethink you in your moments of despondency, or even gloom, of the mind that traced, in the 'enduring dark' of his lonely apartment, these touching lines:
'Oh, who on earth would love to live,
Unless he lived to love!'
'When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone bewail my outcast fate,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope;
Featured like him; like him with friends possessed;
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope;
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee—and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at Heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my happy state with kings!'
The following, which we derive from a Boston friend, who assures us that it is a 'statement of a veritable occurrence,' we can very readily believe. Indeed, we have never been able to doubt any thing which a bird might say, since we heard Uncle Bezonnet's 'Poor Mino' in Nassau-street, laugh, and sing, and exclaim 'Good morning!' 'What's your name?' 'Uncle John! Uncle John! somebody's in the store;' and then, changing his tone, remark, what nobody could deny, 'What an extraordinary bird!' But to his 'Boston contemporary:' 'I came across a pious parrot the other day, while strolling down toward the wharves. It was the first of the class I had ever seen. I was just passing by a sailor boarding-house, when I heard, several times repeated, the words, 'The Lord ha' massy on Poor Poll, a sinner! Lord ha' massy! Amen!' Turning round, I perceived they were uttered by a parrot in a cage, who with one claw drawn up on her breast, head bent reverently down, and eye cocked solemnly upward, was now following her ejaculations by the most piteous moans. Talking parrots are generally sad creatures, and seldom very choice in their language. 'But here,' thought I, 'is an exception; and surely, a race which has in it even one individual capable of attaining to a knowledge of its utterly depraved condition, cannot be altogether lost.' What seemed to me to be the more remarkable, was the fact that such knowledge should have been attainable in a sailor boarding-house, in one of the most vicious streets of the city. While these thoughts were passing through my mind, the parrot had been eyeing me with an eager, sidelong glance, as if she were quite ready for a chat, and waited only for me to begin it. 'Pretty, pretty Poll:' said I, stroking her head gently with the end of my cane; 'Polly have a biscuit?' 'Yes, G—d d—n you! hand over!' was the sharp, quick reply.' * * * Few and far between, now, are the scenes recorded below by a Southern correspondent. The last of the old hearts-of-oak will soon fall to the ground: 'Since I last 'drove pen,' I have sat by the death-bed, watched by the corpse, and shovelled earth upon the coffin, of an old revolutionary soldier. He served four years in Washington's own division of the army; and doubtless, although he attained no high official rank, his blood was as freely offered, and his services should be as gratefully appreciated, as those of any general of them all. He was a forgotten unit in that subaltern rank, on whose individual merits the titled built their edifice of fame. His offering was like 'the widow's mite,' an offering as dear to him as any the costliest oblation made unto his country's treasury of glory. Requieseat!' * * * 'You will find,' says a friend writing from London, by the last steamer, 'that your portrait has been extensively circulated about Great-Britain and her dominions, in the last number of 'Chuzzlewit.' The artist who draws the illustrations, has given, in the person of young Martin, who is reading one of your flash newspapers, in presence of the editor and his war correspondent, a very faithful transcript of the lineaments of the Editor of the Knickerbocker, as we remember them.' We cannot say how far our correspondent is correct in his impressions; although they were corroborated by a score or more of American friends, before we had seen the engraving in question; but this we know, that if any of our readers desire to see a portrait, as life-like as if he had sat for it, of the late lamented Willis Gaylord Clark, they may find it in the person of young Martin Chuzzlewit, in the English edition of Mr. Dickens's last issue of the work of that name. The outline, the air, the manner, are perfect. * * * It may be thought remarkable, that while to the mass the illusions of the theatre possess unwonted interest, those who know the most of its secrets affect it the least. Theodore Hook, we are told by his reviewer, had a fixed and rooted aversion to the stage, and a consummate contempt for the player's profession, as a school of character and manners; an absolute physical loathing, as it were, for every thing connected with the green-room, from the mouthing art of managers, to the melancholy pirouettes of the 'poor plastered things with fringes to their stays, which they call petticoats.' Fanny Kemble herself, overcoming so many proud and glorious associations, did not sicken of it more heartily. Doesn't this militate against the argument of 'C.'? Rather, we think. * * * If the reader does not discover something sparkling, quaint, and decidedly original in 'No'th-East by East,' in preceding pages, we shall inevitably have thrown away and sacrificed 'our guess.' There is a touch of Dana, a dash of Coleridge, and the 'slightest possible taste in the world' of Halleck, yet withal no imitation, in that amphibious poem. Some lines seem somewhat amendable; 'As lightning had sprung sudden then,' is one, for example. Lightning is rather 'sudden,' we believe, in most cases. We scarcely remember ever to have seen a very slow flash; yet the line could hardly be bettered, and there is good precedent for the apparently adscititious word. A few 'common substantives' in the poem may require elucidation for the uninitiated. The 'Graves' are rocks in Boston harbor, near the outer light, or 'big bright Eye.' Near this light, and past George's island, by 'Nix's Mate,' is the main channel, through which ships must make a 'procession' in coming up toward Boston. The 'pinkie' is a schooner-rigged craft, sharp at both ends, a short peak running up aft, and designed for a chasing sea. The annexed lines were written to follow the passage wherein the courier-star says 'The sun is coming up this way,' etc., but they came too late for insertion:
'The sun is now uncovering
The mid-Atlantic—scattering
The mists, with many a toss and fling
Of dangling skirts and weary wing;
Half frantic, as they knew not where
To hide them from his fiery glare;
The iceberg from his ocean-bed
Lifts loftily his glittering head,
But shakes not off one burnished spear,
To ring in the frosted atmosphere.'
Perhaps we are amenable to the criticism of our New-Haven friend. Certain it is, however, that 'the lightness which predominates in our cogitations and gatherings' is often to us a veritable relief; and if we may trust the candor of many friends, it has been grateful to them also,
... 'when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world
Have hung upon the beatings of the heart.'
We are not all constituted alike, dear Sir; yet what is one man's meat we would not have another's poison. 'The amiable qualities of cheerfulness and good-humor,' says an old writer, 'cast a kind of sunshine over a composition, and resemble the gentle smile that often lights up the human countenance, the never-failing indication of a humane temper.' As for wit, we consider it a species of poetry. It amuses and delights the imagination by those sudden assemblages and pleasing pictures of things which it creates; and from every common occasion can raise such striking appearances as throw the most phlegmatic tempers into a convulsion of good-humored mirth. We fear our censor will consider us 'past mending.' We must still hold with the excellent Fletcher, that 'a little mirth now and then is a great purifier:'
''Tis mirth that fills the veins with blood,
More than wine, or sleep, or food;
Let each man keep his heart at ease,
No man dies of that disease.
He that would his body keep
From diseases, must not weep;
But whoever laughs and sings,
Never he his body brings
Into fevers, gouts, or rheums,
Or ling'ringly his lungs consumes;
But contented lives for aye—
The more he laughs, the more he may.'
Does our critic remember an ancient motto on a sun-dial? 'Non numero Horas, nisi serenas?' It is capable of application. * * * We are glad to say, since our opinion in this place is requested, that the essay on 'Education of Youthful Morals' is an excellent one. It is only too long for our Magazine, if we would preserve our accustomed variety. It would make at least fifteen printed pages of the Knickerbocker. We hope however to see the article published. No parent who feels as he ought for the children which God has given him, growing up around him, but would honor its aim and emulate its salutary lessons. Years pass quickly away. Yet a little while, and our dear ones will be actors in this busy world, of which at present their knowledge is so small. The article in question has been returned, as requested, through the Upper Post-Office. * * * Something akin to the following, were certain lines written by 'S. C. M.', now well known in America and England under a popular pseudonyme, many years since. There is rather more of the 'cautionary,' however, in this 'limning from life:'
THE NOVEL-READER
'Twas very sweet of a summer's eve,
To hear her talk and sing
Of stars, and dews, and rocks, and caves,
And all that sort of thing.
I loved her for her mild blue eye,
And her sweet and quiet air;
But I'm very sure that I didn't see
The novel on the chair.
I longed to have a quiet wife,
For a noise quite drives me frantic;
But to be a novel-reader's spouse
Is any thing but romantic.
The live-long day does Laura read
In a cushioned easy-chair,
In slipshod shoes, and a dirty gown,
And tangled, uncombed hair.
The children look like beggars' brats,
And little have they of breeding;
Yet this is but one of the many ills
That flow from novel-reading.
For oh! the meals! I'm very sure
You ne'er did see such 'feeding;'
For the beef is burnt and the veal is raw,
And all from novel-reading.
The bed-room's very like a sty,
And the kitchen seems a stable;
The lap-dogs litter the parlor o'er,
And the nursery is a Babel.
Ho! youth in search of a quiet wife,
Before to the shrine you lead her,
Take care, I pray you, take good care
That she isn't a novel-reader!
We had lately missed our friend Mr. L. P. Clover, from his establishment under the Astor-House, in Vesey-street, and were ignorant of his whereabout; until happening one day to pass Dr. Lyell's church in Anthony-street, near Broadway, we observed, near the door of a building adjoining that edifice, a couple of large paintings, representing the Falls of Niagara. Entering to inquire the name of the artist, we opened upon Mr. Clover, which 'fully accounted' for the presence at his door of works of art; for although his establishment is better known for its excellent looking-glasses and picture-frames, for the sale of which, on reasonable terms, it has become so popular, yet we have been often indebted to the proprietor's taste and enterprise for the enjoyment of some of the best paintings to be met at any similar place in the metropolis. To test the justice of our commendations, let our town readers drop in at Number eighty-three Anthony-street, and examine Vanderlyn's Views of the Great Cataract, and several of Ward's fine landscapes. * * * We hear of various changes and some deaths among our contemporaries. Our friend 'Sargent's Magazine' has been swallowed up in 'Graham's;' two or three 'lady-periodicals,' as they are termed, have been similarly wedded; the 'Southern Literary Messenger,' since the death of its amiable and persevering proprietor, has been advertised for sale at public auction; the Charleston 'Magnolia' is we hear to be discontinued: Mr. Simms recently transferred its editorial functions. The 'Orion,' we are informed, will commence its third volume in September, with increased attractions, literary and pictorial. How many Magazines have arisen, struggled, and fallen, within the last ten years, that were going to throw the 'Old Knick.' into the back-ground, and darken his out-goings! We could at this moment count up a score of such upon our fingers; and yet Maga 'flourishes in immortal youth!' 'Be virtuous, and you will be happy;' 'Rome was not built in a day;' and so forth. * * * 'Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-Day,' is a lesson beautifully enforced in the following lines by Sir Matthew Hale. We give them in place of our Baltimore correspondent's remarks upon 'Sunday in the Country,' in our last number:
'A Sabbath well spent
Brings a week of content,
And health for the toils of to-morrow;
But a Sabbath profaned,
Whatsoe'er may be gained,
Is a certain forerunner of sorrow.'
The article upon 'President Tyler and his Family' in our last number seems, according to the newspapers, to have given offence to a portion of the public. The sketch was from the pen of an old correspondent of the Knickerbocker, who had never failed to please its readers; his articles having always been widely copied and warmly commended. Assured that it had no political bearing, and that it could in nowise trench upon our neutrality, we gave the paper a place; not without the thought also that the recent tour of the President and a portion of his family in this section of the Union would give it additional interest to our readers in the Northern States. The reception of the article, however, has satisfied us that while politics run high, it is not expedient for a neutral work like the Knickerbocker to intermeddle either with public men or public measures. We shall therefore eschew all kindred themes hereafter. * * * We are indebted to a kind friend for the following 'incident of travel.' We have heard before of the couplet which he transcribes, but never of a serious application of the lines. We did not however need the assurance of our correspondent that he 'actually saw them, as stated:' 'During a recent journey through New-Hampshire, with a small party of choice friends, we stopped to refresh ourselves at a little inn in a village that shall be nameless, although it has a name at home. The parlor into which we were ushered was ornamented, as is usual in New-England villages, with two or three rude pictures; and among the rest, the indispensable family mourning-piece. This latter is always irresistibly attractive to me. Poorly as it is executed, it is the work of love. It speaks of the natural and holy desire to remember the dead, to hold their images and their memorials near; to bind the members of the little family, in whatever worlds, together into one. It is one of the many symbols in which the affectionate heart imbodies its instinctive prophecy of the indissolubleness of the holy and beautiful alliances of friendship and home. It seems to say: 'We have not yet done loving the dead. Our sympathies and attachments are too strong to be so soon dissolved. Virtuous friendship must endure for ever, or love is a cheat. Our holy associations must abide, or we have no confidence in any thing eternal.' The picture was the work of the needle, representing with wonderful originality of conception, a weeping willow bending over a small obelisk, upon which was recorded the name of an infant, aged seven weeks. Beneath the name were the following lines; the perusal of which, I need not say, produced a most sensible effect upon the feelings of all the travellers, and left an impression never to be effaced:
'Since that I so soon was done for,
I wonder what I was begun for.'
The brevity of human life is a mystery, which has often perplexed the wisest heads. But the difficult question is here propounded 'with a vengeance,' considering the quarter from which it is represented to have come, that is perfectly overpowering.' * * * What an admirable reproof of selfishness is conveyed in these few words of Bacon: 'Divide with reason between self-love and society, and be so true to thyself that thou be not false to others. It is a poor centre of a man's actions, himself. It is right earth; for that only stands fast upon its own centre, whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens move upon the centre of another, which they benefit.' * * * We like parts of 'The Summer-Storm' very well; but as a whole, it lacks clearness, and in one or two places the language is tame; mere prose, indeed, and not over-felicitously divided. We can well imagine the appearance of such a storm, however, in the highlands of Rockland county. Thomson has a spirited picture of a similar scene:
'At first, heard solemn o'er the verge of heaven,
The tempest growls; but as it nearer comes,
And rolls its awful burthen on the wind,
The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more
The noise astounds: till over head a sheet
Of livid flame discloses wide; then shuts
And opens wider; shuts and opens still
Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze!'
For one only reason, we decline the 'thrilling story' of 'M. D.' of Hudson. We do not affect a fight in a tale. Indeed, we crossed out a great battle of fists recently in one of the best articles that has appeared in the Knickerbocker for several months. Sidney Smith's advice on this point is most judicious: 'Nobody should suffer his hero to have a black eye, or to be pulled by the nose. The Iliad would never have come down to these times, if Agamemnon had given Achilles a box on the ear. We should have trembled for the Æniad if any Tyrian nobleman had kicked the pious Æneas in the fourth book. Æneas may have deserved it, but he never could have founded the Roman empire after so distressing an accident.' * * * Now in this fervid summer solstice, forget not, O ye sedentary! that most important requirement of the body, frequent ablution. Bathe! bathe! A recipient ourselves of 'the early and latter rain' of Dr. Rabineau's shower-bath, and eke the benefits of his unrivalled swimming-bath, we speak by the card, and as one having authority. Of Mr. H. Rabineau's warm salt water baths, at the foot of Desbrosses-street, on the North River, we hear also the warmest praises, from the lips of invalids and others. * * * If we were to write a page of fine print in reply to one point of 'S.'s remarks upon 'Street Alms-Giving,' it could not so well express what he at least will understand, as the annexed brief sentence: 'That charity which Plenty gives to Poverty is human and earthly; but it becomes divine and heavenly, when Poverty gives to Want.' * * * We submit it to the reader whether our correspondent is not excusable for the tardy fulfilment of a promise in which they were interested:
'I've had the tooth-ache, Diedrich, and have taken
All sorts of extracts, essences, and lotions;
Have held on blisters, till my jaws were baking,
Of mustard, vinegar, and other notions;
And for about a week, at midnight waking,
Have drank raw fourth-proof brandy, in such portions,
(Mixed with quinines, valerians, and morphines,)
'Twould put a dozen stout men in their coffins.'
'M.'s curt notelet is impertinent and ungentleman-like. His article was a mere ébauche, and very indifferent at that. The nuclei of his associations were objects of the very smallest kind, and the language was kept down to a sympathetic degradation and due correspondence with the thoughts. The article was 'respectfully declined,' and in the manner prescribed by its author; and for this we are berated in no measured terms. 'Go to; you are a fishmonger.' * * * The 'Lines to Old Ocean' possess a kind of latent rough-and-tumble sublimity, not unlike a good borrowed thought smothered in windy words by John Neal. But we like Dickens's prose picture of 'the main' much better: 'The sea never knows what to do with itself. It hasn't got no employment for its mind, and is always in a state of vacancy. Like them polar bears in the wild-beast shows, as is constantly a-nodding their heads from side to side, it never can be quiet.' This is at least 'clear to the meanest capacity.' * * * It is said of Richter, that his foremost thought about a wife was, that she should be able to 'cook him something good.' Our Port-Chester epigrammatist seems to have a taste for the fragile in his estimate of the sex:
'Lovely woman's a flower, so when you address her,
If you wish to retain, I advise you to press her.'
The others 'will do.' They bide their time; as also the 'Night on Lake Erie.' * * * The recent death of Washington Allston, the painter, the poet, in all respects the man of genius, has left a void which will not soon be filled; and one there is, in a foreign land, who will feel this sad event in his very heart of hearts. Washington Irving and Washington Allston were for many years friends of as confiding a faith and firm an attachment as Damon and Pythias. They rose to fame abroad together; were constant mutual advisers in literature and art; and at one time, when they were residing temporarily in Rome, we came near losing our renowned author, through the love he bore his friend, and a desire to unite with him in the common pursuit of his delightful art. We shall hope to obtain for these pages a tribute from the pen of Mr. Irving to the memory of his illustrious friend. * * * Here is a fact related by an eastern correspondent, that raises Handy Andy's character for truth and veracity greatly in our estimation. It matches the best blunder recorded by that amusing narrator: 'Not many days since, a little child, two years old, the son of a poor Irish widow, lay in the middle of a new road, kicking up a dust, and roasting in the sun. Presently came along an Irish teamster, who in the most deliberate and careless manner walked his team over the little fellow, and crushed him to death. Some dozen or twenty Irish shanties were in full view of the catastrophe; and as might be expected, there was a rush and an ullulloo from a hundred women at once. While some took up the dead body, others shouted after the teamster, who, apparently unconcerned, was making slowly off. They forced him back to the scene of the catastrophe, where they did not hesitate to accuse him of having caused it purposely. Pat of course denied it strenuously, declaring that he did not see the child, and was therefore wholly blameless. But with a hundred fierce eyes glaring upon him at once, and fifty tongues hissing in his ear, he became confused, began to waver, and finally gave up the point entirely, probably as a peace-offering to his tormentors: 'Thrue, thrue, Mistress Conolly,' said he to one of them, while he scratched his head sorrowfully, 'I did see the boy lying there, 'pon me word; but I thought he was asleep!' This, Mr. C., is a positive fact.' * * * Did you ever peruse these 'Lines written upon a Watch?' We derive them from a favorite contributor, who informs us that his honored father, in winding up his watch, used often to repeat them:
'Could but our tempers move like this machine,
Not urged by passion, nor delayed by spleen,
But true to Nature's regulative power,
By virtuous acts distinguished every hour;
Then Health and Joy would follow, as they ought,
The laws of motion and the laws of thought:
Sweet Health, to pass the present moments o'er,
And endless Joy, when Time shall be no more!'
'One more last word' to 'Mein Herr of Albany,' to whom we alluded in our last number. We admit the justice of your satire; but with deference, it strikes us that it does not require a cimeter to cut down a gnat. Hood somewhere mentions an Irishman who apologized to the keeper of a menagerie for insulting his elephant by a rude assault upon his most prominent feature. He couldn't resist, he said, the only chance he had ever had to pull a nose that he could take hold of with both hands! Our correspondent has a kindred excuse, certainly, in one sense, but not in another. 'Fleas are not lobsters,' nor are asses elephants. * * * A VERY charming story, friend 'G.' of Illinois; simple, well-told, and not too long—the bane of kindred performances. Love-stories should end once in a while, by way of novelty. How many novelists have elaborated chapter after chapter, to depict the true-hearted constancy which is better described in these four lines:
'I LO'E nae a laddie but ane,
He lo'es nae a lassie but me;
He's willing to make me his ain,
And his ain I am willing to be.'
'T.'s manuscript is wretched. The words are strung together like a bunch of onions. Some of the conglomerated syllables reminded us of a sign in London, mentioned by Hook, whereby a plain manufacturer of Roman cement was turned into a manufacturer of Romancement; as if he were anxious to solicit business from the prolific fashionable novelists of the time. * * * We do not accept 'The Signs of the Times.' The writer looks through a pair of very dark spectacles, we should say. Going upon the assumption that every man is a rascal until he proves himself an honest man, would be a course as unjust to a community as to an individual. Our correspondent seems to think that 'the world is in a state of bankruptcy; that it owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into chancery and be sold!' The best-laid plans of honest men, our censor should remember, often fail. The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, as many a delving, toiling 'two-footed worker' can bear witness:
'Dame Fortune is a fickle gipsy,
And always blind, and often tipsy;
Sometimes for years and years together
She'll bless you with the sunniest weather,
Bestowing honor, pudding, pence,
You can't imagine why, or whence;
Then in a moment. Presto, pass!
Your hopes are withered like the grass.'
We have received a very indignant epistle from 'The Mail-Robber,' who read our last number at Saratoga, where he is temporarily sojourning. We shall present it to our readers, with another poetical epistle, in our September issue. 'Mohawk, a Cluster of Sonnets,' by our friend H. W. Rockwell, Esq.; 'Green places of the City,' by Mrs. Hewitt; and 'Thoughts at Niagara,' are in type for our next. A word here to a few correspondents whose articles were not named in the large list enumerated in our last, or who have not been privately advised of the reception and disposition of their papers: Where is our venerable friend to whom we have been indebted for 'The Young Englishman?' We look for him in our next. The 'Treatise of Books' by 'R.' struck us as rather stiltish and labored in its style, although its thoughts were unexceptionable. It was declined, however, because our port-folios contained three or four papers on the same theme, for whose insertion at some future day we have been looking for several months. The 'Treatise' awaits 'R's order at the publication-office. 'H. W. R.'s indignation at the silly charge of plagiarism of 'The Southern Pinewoods' by Bryant—whose lines on 'The Prairies,' written for the Knickerbocker, furnished every thought and simile for the imitation—would be thrown away upon a 'weak invention.' The whole affair is a stupid joke, not worth a resurrection. 'Chronicles of the Past,' by an esteemed friend and contributor, is filed for insertion. 'Peter Brown and Dolly Cross,' a Legendary Ballad, and 'Night and Morning,' by 'W. H. H.,' bide their time. They are 'booked.' 'T.'s 'Lines on the Death of a Young Girl' are under 'hopeful' advisement. We shall be glad to receive the 'Inquiry concerning the Manifestation of Mind by the Lower Orders of Animals.' The theme is a fruitful one. Notices in type, of several new publications, are unavoidably omitted.
[LITERARY RECORD.]
'Washington: a National Poem.'—Who was it contributed five pounds toward the payment of the English national debt? He was such a benefactor to Britain, in a pecuniary point of view, as the author of this 'Washington' poem is to our national literature. To judge from his high-sounding preface, one would think that Milton was to be out-done, and the fame of by-gone poets utterly eclipsed. The writer went into a 'state of retiracy' and 'threw himself into his task.' He 'read, mused, and meditated; wrote and re-wrote.' He rose early and reposed late; 'sleepless himself, to give to others sleep!' He 'prepared himself long and laboriously' for his great effort, and 'laid his foundations deep.' And the result is, that he has given us an original poem which sets criticism at defiance. In this judgment, unless 'we bedoubt them o'ermuch,' to use our poet's words, his readers will at least agree with us. Since the 'travail in spirit' of Dr. M'Henry, in bringing forth 'The Antediluvians' in twelve books—an ominous number in the present instance also—we have seen nothing to compare with the pains and perils which our poet must have suffered and dared, in giving birth to the literary offspring under notice. Our candid and deliberate advice to the author is, to bottle up Book First in spirits, and strangle its eleven brothers.
'Illustrations of the Croton Aqueduct.'—We regret that we did not receive this noble work of Mr. F. B. Tower, of the Engineer Department, in time for adequate notice in the present number. As it is, we cannot forbear to call public attention to its great merits. The volume is a superb quarto, containing upward of twenty large and exceedingly well-executed engravings, illustrating all the important structures on the entire line of the Aqueduct, from its source; its tunnels, aqueducts, bridges, reservoirs, fountains, etc. In the letter-press, which we should not omit to add does great credit to the care and skill of the printer, Mr. Osborn, we find a clear and comprehensive history of the preliminary measures which led to the accomplishment of this great enterprise, together with accounts of the aqueducts of ancient Rome, and of the Romans in other parts of Europe, as well as of the modern Roman, Italian, French, Mexican, and South American works, of a kindred character. Messrs. Wiley and Putnam are the publishers.
'Clontarf, or the Field of the Green Banner,' is the title of an Irish Historical Romance, in verse, by John Augustus Shea, which reaches us at too late an hour for adequate perusal and notice. Not to pass it wholly by, however, we are fain to say, that in hastily reading a passage here and there through the volume, we have been struck with the warm spirit of freedom which it breathes, the easy flow of its versification, and its frequently agreeable imagery and faithful pictures of passion. The poetical introduction is fervid and felicitous. A few minor poems, which have acquired general celebrity, among them that fine address to the ocean, 'Likeness of Heaven!' etc., close the volume; which being published by Appleton and Company is of course in good keeping in its externals.
The North-American Review, for the July quarter, is an excellent issue of that always respectable Quarterly. The leading paper, upon the life and character of Thomas Paine, is written with great power, and with evident familiarity with all the details of the history of its notorious subject. Stephens's 'Travels in Yucatan' and Miss Bremer's novels are noticed in terms of well-deserved praise. These, with an entertaining and instructive article upon the cod, mackerel, and herring fisheries, are all which we have found leisure to read. The remaining papers are upon the 'Mutiny of the Somers,' Drake's 'Northern Lakes and Southern Invalids,' 'The School and the School-master,' 'The Nestorian Christians,' 'Classical Studies,' and the usual briefer 'Critical Notices.'
Mr. Nisbet's Lecture.—We have perused the lecture delivered before the Georgia Historical Society at Savannah, by Mr. Eugenius A. Nisbet, with satisfaction and pleasure. The writer's remarks upon the drama; the tendency of French literature; the necessity of an international copy-right law; the intellectual inheritance which we have derived from England; and the influence of domestic airs and national songs; are exceedingly forcible and just. We commend especially Mr. Nisbet's argument in favor of literary protection to those liberal-minded casuists who would at the same time pick an author's brains and his pockets, and defend the justice of the operation, on the ground that the victim could not help it, and that somebody would rob him if they did not!