SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER:

EVERY DEPARTMENT OF

LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II, NUMBER 6

MSS. OF BENJ. FRANKLIN.
    LETTER FROM ALICE ADDERTONGUE.
    QUERIES TO BE ASKED THE JUNTO.
    LETTER FROM THE CASUIST.

TO A COQUETTE
    TO THE SAME

LIONEL GRANBY, Chapter X: by Theta

THE PRAIRIE: by C. C.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

ODDS AND ENDS: by Oliver Oldschool

ON THE DEATH OF CAMILLA: by L. A. Wilmer

SONNET: by E. A. P.

THE LAKE: by C. C.

THE HALL OF INCHOLESE: by J. N. McJilton

A LEAF FROM MY SCRAP BOOK

THE CORPUS JURIS

A LOAN TO THE MESSENGER No. III: by J. F. O.
    TO —— ——: by George Lunt

GERMAN LITERATURE: by George H. Calvert

LINES

ALLITERATION

READINGS WITH MY PENCIL, No. IV: by J. F. O.

AMERICAN SOCIAL ELEVATION: by H. J. G.

DYING MEDITATIONS of a New York Alderman: by E. M.

IRENE: by E. A. P.

VERBAL CRITICISMS

EDITORIAL
    LYNCH'S LAW

CRITICAL NOTICES
    SPAIN REVISITED: by Lieutenant Slidell
    SALLUST'S JUGURTHINE WAR, AND CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE: by Charles Anthon
    PARIS AND THE PARISIANS IN 1835: by Frances Trollope
    A LIFE OF WASHINGTON: by James K. Paulding
    DIDACTICS—SOCIAL, LITERARY, AND POLITICAL: by Robert Walsh
    SKETCHES OF SWITZERLAND: by an American
    THE MARTYR'S TRIUMPH; BURIED VALLEY; AND OTHER POEMS: by Grenville Mellen

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

MSS. OF BENJ. FRANKLIN.¹

¹ These pieces from the pen of Dr. Franklin have never appeared in any edition of his works, and are from the manuscript book which contains the Lecture and Essays published in the April number of the Messenger.

Mr. Gazetteer,—I was highly pleased with your last week's paper upon SCANDAL, as the uncommon doctrine therein preached is agreeable both to my principles and practice, and as it was published very seasonably to reprove the impertinence of a writer in the foregoing Thursday's Mercury, who, at the conclusion of one of his silly paragraphs, laments forsooth that the fair sex are so peculiarly guilty of this enormous crime: every blockhead, ancient and modern, that could handle a pen, has, I think, taken upon him to cant in the same senseless strain. If to scandalize be really a crime, what do these puppies mean? They describe it—they dress it up in the most odious, frightful and detestable colors—they represent it as the worst of crimes, and then roundly and charitably charge the whole race of womankind with it. Are not they then guilty of what they condemn, at the same time that they condemn it? If they accuse us of any other crime they must necessarily scandalize while they do it; but to scandalize us with being guilty of scandal, is in itself an egregious absurdity, and can proceed from nothing but the most consummate impudence in conjunction with the most profound stupidity.

This, supposing as they do, that to scandalize is a crime; which you have convinced all reasonable people is an opinion absolutely erroneous. Let us leave then, these select mock-moralists, while I entertain you with some account of my life and manners.

I am a young girl of about thirty-five, and live at present with my mother. I have no care upon my head of getting a living, and therefore find it my duty as well as inclination to exercise my talent at CENSURE for the good of my country folks. There was, I am told, a certain generous emperor, who, if a day had passed over his head in which he had conferred no benefit on any man, used to say to his friends, in Latin, Diem perdidi, that is, it seems, I have lost a day. I believe I should make use of the same expression, if it were possible for a day to pass in which I had not, or missed, an opportunity to scandalize somebody: but, thanks be praised, no such misfortune has befel me these dozen years.

Yet whatever good I may do, I cannot pretend that I at first entered into the practice of this virtue from a principle of public spirit; for I remember that when a child I had a violent inclination to be ever talking in my own praise, and being continually told that it was ill-manners and once severely whipped for it, the confined stream formed itself a new channel, and I began to speak for the future in the dispraise of others. This I found more agreeable to company and almost as much so to myself: for what great difference can there be between putting yourself up or putting your neighbor down? Scandal, like other virtues, is in part its own reward, as it gives us the satisfaction of making ourselves appear better than others, or others no better than ourselves.

My mother, good woman, and I, have heretofore differed upon this account. She argued that Scandal spoilt all good conversation, and I insisted that without it there would be no such thing. Our disputes once rose so high that we parted tea-tables, and I concluded to entertain my acquaintance in the kitchen. The first day of this separation we both drank tea at the same time, but she with her visitors in the parlor. She would not hear of the least objection to any one's character, but began a new sort of discourse in some such queer philosophical manner as this: I am mightily pleased sometimes, says she, when I observe and consider that the world is not so bad as people out of humor imagine it to be. There is something amiable, some good quality or other in every body. If we were only to speak of people that are least respected, there is such a one is very dutiful to her father, and methinks has a fine set of teeth; such a one is very respectful to her husband; such a one is very kind to her poor neighbors, and besides has a very handsome shape; such a one is always ready to serve a friend, and in my opinion there is not a woman in town that has a more agreeable air or gait. This fine kind of talk, which lasted near half an hour, she concluded by saying, I do not doubt but every one of you has made the like observations, and I should be glad to have the conversation continued upon this subject. Just at this juncture I peeped in at the door, and never in my life before saw such a set of simple vacant countenances. They looked somehow neither glad nor sorry, nor angry nor pleased, nor indifferent nor attentive; but (excuse the simile) like so many images of rye dough. I, in the kitchen, had already begun a ridiculous story of Mr. ——'s intrigue with his maid, and his wife's behavior on the discovery; at some of the passages we laughed heartily; and one of the gravest of mamma's company, without making any answer to her discourse got up to go and see what the girls were so merry about: she was followed by a second, and shortly by a third, till at last the old gentlewoman found herself quite alone, and being convinced that her project was impracticable came herself and finished her tea with us; ever since which Saul also has been among the prophets, and our disputes lie dormant.

By industry and application I have made myself the centre of all the scandal in the province; there is little stirring but I hear of it. I began the world with this maxim, that no trade can subsist without returns; and accordingly, whenever I received a good story, I endeavored to give two or a better in the room of it. My punctuality in this way of dealing gave such encouragement that it has procured me an incredible deal of business, which without diligence and good method it would be impossible for me to go through. For besides the stock of defamation thus naturally flowing in upon me, I practice an art by which I can pump [p. 350] scandal out of people that are the least inclined that way. Shall I discover my secret? Yes; to let it die with me would be inhuman. If I have never heard ill of some person I always impute it to defective intelligence; for there are none without their faults, no, not one. If she be a woman, I take the first opportunity to let all her acquaintance know I have heard that one of the handsomest or best men in town has said something in praise either of her beauty, her wit, her virtue, or her good management. If you know any thing of human nature, you perceive that this naturally introduces a conversation turning upon all her failings, past, present and to come. To the same purpose and with the same success I cause every man of reputation to be praised before his competitors in love, business, or esteem, on account of any particular qualification. Near the times of election, if I find it necessary, I commend every candidate before some of the opposite party, listening attentively to what is said of him in answer. But commendations in this latter case are not always necessary and should be used judiciously. Of late years I needed only observe what they said of one another freely; and having for the help of memory taken account of all informations and accusations received, whoever peruses my writings after my death, may happen to think that during a certain time the people of Pennsylvania chose into all their offices of honor and trust, the veriest knaves, fools and rascals, in the whole province. The time of election used to be a busy time with me, but this year, with concern I speak it, people are grown so good natured, so intent upon mutual feasting and friendly entertainment, that I see no prospect of much employment from that quarter.

I mentioned above that without good method I could not go through my business. In my father's life time I had some instruction in accounts, which I now apply with advantage to my own affairs. I keep a regular set of books and can tell at an hour's warning how it stands between me and the world. In my Daybook I enter every article of defamation as it is transacted; for scandals received in I give credit, and when I pay them out again I make the persons to whom they respectively relate, Debtor. In my Journal, I add to each story, by way of improvement, such probable circumstances as I think it will bear, and in my Ledger the whole is regularly posted.

I suppose the reader already condemns me in his heart for this particular of adding circumstances, but I justify this part of my practice thus. It is a principle with me that none ought to have a greater share of reputation than they really deserve; if they have, it is an imposition upon the public. I know it is every one's interest, and therefore believe they endeavor to conceal all their vices and follies; and I hold that those people are extraordinary foolish or careless, who suffer one-fourth of their failings to come to public knowledge. Taking then the common prudence and imprudence of mankind in a lump, I suppose none suffer above one-fifth to be discovered; therefore, when I hear of any person's misdoing, I think I keep within bounds, if in relating it I only make it three times worse than it is; and I reserve to myself the privilege of charging them with one fault in four, which for aught I know they may be entirely innocent of. You see there are but few so careful of doing justice as myself; what reason then have mankind to complain of Scandal? In a general way the worst that is said of us is only half what might be said, if all our faults were seen.

But alas! two great evils have lately befallen me at the same time; an extreme cold that I can scarce speak, and a most terrible toothache that I dare hardly open my mouth. For some days past I have received ten stories for one I have paid; and I am not able to balance my accounts without your assistance. I have long thought that if you would make your paper a vehicle of scandal, you would double the number of your subscribers. I send you herewith accounts of four knavish tricks, two * * *, five * * * * *, three drubbed wives, and four henpecked husbands, all within this fortnight; which you may, as articles of news, deliver to the public, and if my toothache continues shall send you more, being in the mean time your constant reader,

I thank my correspondent, Mrs. Addertongue, for her good will, but desire to be excused inserting the articles of news she has sent me, such things being in reality no news at all.

QUERIES TO BE ASKED THE JUNTO.

Whence comes the dew that stands on the outside of a tankard that has cold water in it in the summer time?

Does the importation of servants increase or advance the wealth of our country?

Would not an office of insurance for servants be of service, and what methods are proper for the erecting such an office?

Whence does it proceed that the proselytes to any sect or persuasion, generally appear more zealous than those that are bred up in it?

Answer. I suppose that people BRED in different persuasions are nearly zealous alike. Then he that changes his party is either sincere or not sincere: that is, he either does it for the sake of the opinions merely, or with a view of interest. If he is sincere and has no view of interest, and considers before he declares himself how much ill will he shall have from those he leaves, and that those he is about to go among will be apt to suspect his sincerity: if he is not really zealous, he will not declare; and therefore must be zealous if he does declare.

If he is not sincere, he is obliged at least to put on an appearance of great zeal, to convince the better his new friends that he is heartily in earnest, for his old ones he knows dislike him. And as few acts of zeal will be more taken notice of than such as are done against the party he has left, he is inclined to injure or malign them because he knows they contemn and despise him. Hence one Renegado is (as the Proverb says) worse than ten Turks.

SIR,—It is strange, that among men who are born for society and mutual solace, there should be any who take pleasure in speaking disagreeable things to their acquaintance. But such there are I assure you, and I should be glad if a little public chastisement might be any means of reforming them. These ill-natured people study a man's temper, or the circumstances of his life, [p. 351] merely to know what disgusts him, and what he does not care to hear mentioned; and this they take care to omit no opportunity of disturbing him with. They communicate their wonderful discoveries to others, with an ill-natured satisfaction in their countenances, say such a thing to such a man and you cannot mortify him worse. They delight (to use their own phrase) in seeing galled horses wince, and like flies, a sore place is a feast to them. Know, ye wretches, that the meanest insect, the trifling musqueto, the filthy bug have it in their power to give pain to men; but to be able to give pleasure to your fellow creatures, requires good nature and a kind and humane disposition, joined with talents to which ye seem to have no pretension.

If a sound body and a sound mind, which is as much as to say health and virtue, are to be preferred before all other considerations,—Ought not men, in choosing of a business either for themselves or children, to refuse such as are unwholesome for the body, and such as make a man too dependant, too much obliged to please others, and too much subjected to their humors in order to be recommended and get a livelihood.

I am about courting a girl I have had but little acquaintance with; how shall I come to a knowledge of her faults, and whether she has the virtues I imagine she has?

Answer. Commend her among her female acquaintance.

According to the request of your correspondent T. P., I send you my thoughts on the following case by him proposed, viz:

A man bargains for the keeping of his horse six months, whilst he is making a voyage to Barbadoes. The horse strays or is stolen soon after the keeper has him in possession. When the owner demands the value of his horse in money, may not the other as justly demand so much deducted as the keeping of the horse six months amounts to?

It does not appear that they had any dispute about the value of the horse, whence we may conclude there was no reason for such dispute, but it was well known how much he cost, and that he could not honestly have been sold again for more. But the value of the horse is not expressed in the case, nor the sum agreed for keeping him six months; wherefore in order to our more clear apprehension of the thing, let ten pounds represent the horse's value and three pounds the sum agreed for his keeping.

Now the sole foundation on which the keeper can found his demand of a deduction for keeping a horse he did not keep, is this. Your horse, he may say, which I was to restore to you at the end of six months was worth ten founds; if I now give you ten pounds it is an equivalent for your horse, and equal to returning the horse itself. Had I returned your horse (value 10l.) you would have paid me three pounds for his keeping, and therefore would have received in fact but seven pounds clear. You then suffer no injury if I now pay you seven pounds, and consequently you ought in reason to allow me the remaining three pounds according to our agreement.

But the owner of the horse may possibly insist upon being paid the whole sum of ten pounds, without allowing any deduction for his keeping after he was lost, and that for these reasons.

1. It is always supposed, unless an express agreement be made to the contrary, when horses are put out to keep, that the keeper is at the risque of them (unavoidable accidents only excepted, wherein no care of the keeper can be supposed sufficient to preserve them, such as their being slain by lightning or the like.) This you yourself tacitly allow when you offer to restore me the value of my horse. Were it otherwise, people having no security against a keeper's neglect or mismanagement would never put horses out to keep.

2. Keepers considering the risque they run, always demand such a price for keeping horses, that if they were to follow the business twenty years, they may have a living profit, though they now and then pay for a horse they have lost; and if they were to be at no risque they might afford to keep horses for less than they usually have. So that what a man pays for his horse's keeping, more than the keeper could afford to take if he ran no risque, is in the nature of a premium for the insurance of his horse. If I then pay you for the few days you kept my horse, you should restore me his full value.

3. You acknowledge that my horse eat of your hay and oats but a few days. It is unjust then to charge me for all the hay and oats that he only might have eat in the remainder of the six months, and which you have now still good in your stable. If, as the proverb says, it is unreasonable to expect a horse should void oats who never eat any, it is certainly as unreasonable to expect payment for those oats.

4. If men in such cases as this are to be paid for keeping horses when they were not kept, then they have a great opportunity of wronging the owners of horses. For by privately selling my horse for his value (ten pounds) soon after you had him in possession, and returning me at the expiration of the time only seven pounds, demanding three pounds as a deduction agreed for his keeping, you get that 3l. clear into your pocket, besides the use of my money six months for nothing.

5. But you say, the value of my horse being ten pounds, if you deduct three for his keeping and return me seven, it is all I would in fact have received had you returned my horse; therefore as I am no loser I ought to be satisfied: this argument, were there any weight in it, might serve to justify a man in selling as above, as many of the horses he takes to keep as he conveniently can, putting clear into his own pocket that charge their owner must have been at for their keeping, for this being no loss to the owners, he may say, where no man is a loser why should not I be a gainer. I need only answer to this, that I allow the horse cost me but ten pounds, nor could I have sold him for more, had I been disposed to part with him, but this can be no reason why you should buy him of me at that price, whether I will sell him or not. For it is plain I valued him at thirteen pounds, otherwise I should not have paid ten pounds for him and agreed to give you three pounds more for his keeping, till I had occasion to use him. Thus, though you pay me the whole ten pounds which he cost me, (deducting only for his keeping those few days) I am still a loser; I lose the charge of those [p. 352] days' keeping; I lose the three pounds at which I valued him above what he cost me, and I lose the advantage I might have made of my money in six months, either by the interest or by joining it to my stock in trade in my voyage to Barbadoes.

6. Lastly, whenever a horse is put to keep, the agreement naturally runs thus: The keeper says I will feed your horse six months on good hay and oats, if at the end of that time you will pay me three pounds. The owner says, if you will feed my horse six months on good hay and oats, I will pay you three pounds at the end of that time. Now we may plainly see, the keeper's performance of his part of the agreement must be antecedent to that of the owner; and the agreement being wholly conditional, the owner's part is not in force till the keeper has performed his. You then not having fed my horse six months, as you agreed to do, there lies no obligation on me to pay for so much feeding.

Thus we have heard what can be said on both sides. Upon the whole, I am of opinion that no deduction should be allowed for the keeping of the horse after the time of his straying.

TO A COQUETTE.

The Lady was playing the Penserosa, and the Bard rallied her. She suddenly assumed the Allegra, and rallied him in turn. Whereupon he sung as follows:

TO THE SAME.

LIONEL GRANBY.

You judge the English character with too much favor Lionel, said Col. R——. The Englishman is not free! Though vain, arrogant, and imperious, there is not a more abject slave on earth. His boasting spirit, his full-mouthed independence and his lordly step quail to [p. 353] and he is ever crawling amid the purlieus or over the threshold of that fantastic temple of fashion called "Society." It is an endless contest between those who are initiated into its mysteries and those who crowd its avenues. Wealth batters down the door—assumes a proud niche in the chilling fane, and uniting itself to that silent yet powerful aristocracy which wields the oracles of the god, its breath can create you an exclusive, or its frown can degrade you to the vulgar herd. Rank, which is the idol of an Englishman's sleepless devotion, wealth because it is curiously akin to the former, and some indistinct conception of the difference between a people and the mob, render him, in his own conceit, a gentleman and a politician. His first thought if cast on a desert island would be his rank, and if he had companions in misfortune, he would ere night arrange the dignity and etiquette of intercourse. Literature seeks the same degrading arena, and alas! how few are there who do not deck the golden calf with the laurels won in the conflicts of genius, and who, stimulated solely by lucre, shed their momentary light athwart the horizon, even as the meteor whose radiance is exhaled from the corruption of a fœtid marsh. But there is a class who, ennobled by letters, are always independent; and though they be of the race of authors whom Sir Horace Walpole calls "a troublesome, conceited set of fellows," you will find them too proud and too honest to palter away the prerogatives of their station.

But we are now at the door of Elia; come, let me introduce you to one of his simple and unaffected suppers!

I cheerfully assented to this invitation, and following my conductor up a flight of crooked and dark steps, we entered into a room, over a brazier's shop. A dull light trembled through the small and narrow apartment where, shrouded in a close volume of tobacco smoke, sat in pensive gentility—the kind—the generous—the infant-hearted Charles Lamb; the man whose elastic genius dwelled among the mouldering ruins of by-gone days, until it became steeped in beauty and expanded with philosophy—the wit—the poet—the lingering halo of the sunshine of antiquity—the phœnix of the mighty past. He was of delicate and attenuated stature, and as fragilely moulded as a winter's flower, with a quick and volatile eye, a mind-worn forehead and a countenance eloquent with thought. Around a small table well covered with glasses and a capacious bowl, were gathered a laughing group, eyeing the battalia of the coming supper. Godwin's heavy form and intellectual face, with the swimming eye of (ες τε σε S. T. C. How quaint was his fancy!) Coleridge, flanked the margin of the mirth-inspiring bowl.

Col. R——'s introduction made me at home, and ere my hand had dropped from the friendly grasp of our host, he exclaimed—And you are truly from the land of the great plant? You have seen the sole cosmopolite spring from the earth. It is the denizen of the whole world, the tireless friend of the wretched, the bliss of the happy. You need no record of the empire of the red man. He has written his fadeless history on a tobacco leaf.

At this time Lamb was a clerk in the "India House," a melancholy and gloomy mansion, with grave courts, heavy pillars, dim cloisters, stately porticoes, imposing staircases and all the solemn pomp of elder days. Here for many years he drove the busy quill, and whiled away his tranquil evenings, in the dalliance of literature. He was an author belonging to his own exclusive school—a school of simplicity, grace and beauty. He neither skewered his pen into precise paragraphs, nor rioted in the verbose rotundity of the day. He picked up the rare and unpolished jewels which spangled the courts of Elizabeth and Charles, and they lost beneath his polishing hand neither their lustre nor value. He was a passionate and single hearted antiquary, ever laboring to prop up with a puny arm, the column on which was inscribed the literary glory of his country. He was familiar with the grace of Heywood, the harmony of Fletcher, the ease of Sir Philip Sydney, the delicacy and fire of Spenser, the sweetness of Carew, the power and depth of Marlow, the mighty verse of Shakspeare, the affected fustian of Euphues (Lilly) "which ran into a vast excess of allusion," and with the deep and sparkling philosophy of Burton. With all of them he held a "dulcified" converse, while his memory preserved from utter forgetfulness, many of those authors who to the eye of the world, had glittered like the flying fish a moment above the surface, only to sink deeper in the sea of oblivion.

Lamb possessed in an eminent degree, what Dryden called a beautiful turn of words and thoughts in poetry, and the easy swell of cadence and harmony which characterised his brief writings declared the generosity of his heart, and the fertility of his genius. He could sympathise with childhood's frolic, and his heart was full of boyish dreams, when he gazed on the play-ground of Eton, and exclaimed "what a pity to think that these fine ingenuous lads in a few years will be changed into frivolous members of parliament!" He had the rough magnanimity of the old English vein, mellowed into tenderness and dashed with a flexible and spinous humor. He was contented to worship poesy in its classic and antique drapery. With him the fountain of Hypocrene still gushed up its inspiring wave; and Apollo, attended by the Muses, the daughters of Memory, and escorted by the Graces, still haunted the mountains of Helicon, lingered among the hills of Phocis, or, mounted upon Pegasus, winged his radiant flight to the abode itself of heaven-born Poesy. These were the fixed principles of his taste, and he credulously smiled (for contempt found no place in his bosom) upon the sickly illustrations and naked imagery of modern song. His learning retained a hue of softness from the gentleness of his character, for he had gathered the blossoms untouched by the bitterness of the sciential apple. He extracted like the bee his honied stores from the wild and neglected flowers which bloomed among forgotten ruins, yet he was no plagiarist, no imitator, for he had invaded and lingered amid the dim sepulchres of the shadowy past, until he became its friend and cotemporary!

How has he obtained those curiously bound books, I whispered to Coleridge, as my eye fell on a column of shelves groaning under a mass of tattered volumes which would have fairly crazed my poor uncle?

Tell him Lamb! said Coleridge repeating my inquiry, give him the rank and file of your ragged regiment.

Slowly, and painfully as a neophyte, did I build the pile, replied Lamb. Its corner stone was that fine old folio of Beaumont and Fletcher, which, for a long year had peeped out from a bookseller's stall directly in my [p. 354] daily path to the India House. It bore the great price of sixteen shillings, and to me, who had no unsunned heap of silver, I gazed on it until I had almost violated the decalogue. Poetry made me an economist, and at the end of two months my garnered mites amounted to the requisite sum. Vain as a girl with her first lover, I bore it home in triumph, and that night my sister Bridget read "The Laws of Candy" while I listened with rapture to that deep and gurgling torrent of old English, which dashed its music from this broken cistern. To her is the honor due, her taste has called all these obsolete wits to my library, for she keenly relished their fantasies, and smiled at their gauderies. In early life she had been tumbled into a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much selection or prohibition and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I twenty girls they should be brought up in this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be diminished by it, but I can answer for it that (if the worst comes to the worst) it makes most incomparable old maids.

But there are some fearful gaps in my shelves, Mr. Granby! See! there a stately and reverend folio, like a huge eye-tooth, was rudely knocked out by a bold borrower of books, one of your smiling pirates, mutilator of collections, a spoiler of the symmetry of shelves, and a creator of odd volumes.

The conversation now became general, and many a little skiff was launched on the great ocean of commonplace. Lamb most cordially hated politics which he called "a splutter of hot rhetoric;" and he only remembered its battles and revolutions when connected with letters. He had heard of Pharsalia, but it was Lucan's and not Cæsar's; the battle of Lepanto was cornered in his memory because Cervantes had there lost an arm. The glorious days of the "Commonwealth" were hallowed by Milton and Waller, and he always turned with much address from the angry debates about the execution of Charles I. to the simple inquiry whether he or Doctor Ganden wrote the "Icon Basilike."

Godwin in vain essayed to introduce the "conduct of the ministry," and being repeatedly baffled, he said pettishly to Lamb, And what benefit is your freehold, if you do not feel interested in government?

Ah! I had a freehold it is true, the gift of my generous and solemn god-father, the oil-man in Holborn; I went down and took possession of my testamentary allotment of three quarters of an acre, and strode over it with the feeling of an English freeholder, that all betwixt sky and earth was my own. Alas! it has passed into more prudent hands, and nothing but an Agrarian can restore it!

The bowl now danced from hand to hand, and I did not observe its operation until Lamb and Coleridge commenced an affectionate talk about Christ's Hospital, the blue coat boys, and all the treasured anecdotes of school-day friendship. This is the first and happiest stage of incipient intoxication, and the "willie-draughts" which are pledged to the memory of boyhood, ever inspire brighter and nobler sympathies, than are found in the raciest toasts to beauty, or the deepest libations to our country.

Do you not remember, said Lamb, poor Allan! whose beautiful countenance disarmed the wrath of a town-damsel whom he had secretly pinched, and whose half-formed execration was exchanged, when she, tigress-like turned round and gave the terrible bl—— for a gentler meaning, bless thy handsome face! And do you not remember when you used to tug over Homer, discourse Metaphysics, chaunt Anacreon, and play at foils with the sharp-edged wit of Sir Thomas Browne, how your eye glistened when you doffed the grotesque blue coat, and the inspired charity boy (this was uttered in an under tone) walked forth humanized by a christian garment. Spenser knew the nobility of heart which a new coat gives when he dressed his butterfly.

Col. R. now motioned to me to retire, and I bid a reluctant goodnight to the joyous scene, the exclamation "do you not remember!" from Coleridge, and the cheerful laugh ringing through the whole house and its dying echo following us to the street.

Gentle reader! the critics have called Lamb a trifler, the scholars have called him a twaddler! Read Elia, and let your heart answer for him.

THE PRAIRIE.

This word is pronounced by the common people pa-ra-re. I was in the peninsula of Michigan, and had been for a day or two traversing the most dreary country imaginable, when I saw for the first time a salt or wet prairie, which is only a swampy meadow, grown up in a rank, coarse, sedgy grass.

Not long after we began to catch glimpses of the upland prairies. These are either clear prairies, totally destitute of trees, or oak openings which consist of clear prairie and scattered trees. A clear prairie—a broad unvaried expanse—presents rather a monotonous appearance like the sea, but surely the human eye has never rested on more lovely landscapes than these oak openings present. They answered my conceptions of lawns, parks and pleasure grounds in England; they are the lawns, parks and pleasure grounds of nature, laid out and planted with an inimitable grace, fresh as creation.

In these charming woodlands are a number of small lakes, the most picturesque and delightful sheets of water imaginable. The prairies in the summer are covered with flowers. I am an indifferent botanist, but in a short walk I gathered twenty four species which I had not seen before. These flowers and woods and glittering lakes surpass all former conception of beauty. Each flower, leaf, and blade of grass, and green twig glistens with pendulous diamonds of dew. The sun pours his light upon the water and streams through the sloping glades. To a traveller unaccustomed to such scenes, they are pictures of a mimic paradise. Sometimes they stretch away far as the eye can reach, soft as Elysian meadows, then they swell and undulate, voluptuous as the warm billows of a southern sea.

In these beautiful scenes we saw numerous flocks of wild turkies, and now and then a prairie hen, or a deer bounding away through flowers. Here too is found the prairie wolf which some take to be the Asiatic jackall. It is so small as not to be dangerous alone. It is said however, that they hunt in packs like hounds, headed by a grey wolf. Thus they pursue the deer with a cry [p. 355] not unlike that of hounds, and have been known to rush by a farm-house in hot pursuit. The officers of the army stationed at the posts on the Prairies amuse themselves hunting these little wolves which in some parts are very numerous.

RANDOM THOUGHTS.

The Age.—Its leading fault, to which we of America are especially obnoxious, is this: in Poetry, in Legislation, in Eloquence, the best, the divinest even of all the arts, seems to be laid aside more and more, just in proportion as it every day grows of greater necessity. It is still, as in Swift's time, who complains as follows: "To say the truth, no part of knowledge seems to be in fewer hands, than that of discerning when to have done."

Dancing.—The following are sufficiently amusing illustrations of the fine lines in Byron's Ode,

The French translation of St. John (de Creve cœur's) American Farmer's Letters—a book once very popular—was adorned with engravings, to fit it to the European imagination of the Arcadian state of things in America. The frontispiece presents an allegorical picture, in which a goddess of those robuster proportions which designate Wisdom, or Philosophy, leads by the hand an urchin—the type, no doubt, of this country—with ne'er a shirt upon his back. More delightfully still, however, in the back ground, is seen, hand in hand, with knee-breeches and strait-collared coats, a band of Pennsylvania quaker men, dancing, by themselves, a true old fashioned six-handed Virginia reel.

But of the Pyrrhic dance, more particularly: the learned Scaliger—that terror and delight of the critical world—assures us, in his Poetica, (book i, ch. 9) that he himself, at the command of his uncle Boniface, was wont often and long to dance it, before the Emperor Maximilian, while all Germany looked on with amazement. "Hanc saltationem Pyrrhicam, nos sæpe et diu, jussu Bonifacii patrui, coram divo Maximiliano, non sine stupore totius Germaniæ, representavimus."

Ariosto.—Has not the following curious testimony in regard to him escaped all his biographers? Montaigne, in his Essays, (vol. iii, p. 117, Johanneau's edition, in 8vo.) says, "J'eus plus de despit encores, que de compassion, de le veoir à Ferrare en si piteux estat, survivant à soy mesme, mecognoissant et soy et ses ouvrages; lesquels, sans son sςeu, et toutesfois en sa veue, on a mis en lumiere incorrigez et informes."

"I was touched even more with vexation than with compassion, to see him, at Ferrara, in a state so piteous, outliving himself, and incapable of recognizing either himself or his works; which last, without his knowledge, though yet before his sight, were given to the world uncorrected and unfinished."

Thin Clothing.—It would be difficult more skilfully to turn a reproach into a praise, than Byron has done, as to drapery too transparent, in his voluptuous description of a Venitian revel.

form the very climax of many intoxicating particulars.

The Greeks seem not to have practised a very rigorous reserve, as to the concealment of the person. The Lacedemonians, indeed, studiously suppressed, by their institutions, whatever of sexual modesty was not absolutely necessary to virtue. Among the Romans, however, the national austerity of manners made every violation of delicacy in this matter a great offence. Their Satyrists (as Seneca, Juvenal, and others) abound in allusions to the license of dress, which grew up, along with the other corruptions of their original usages. The words of Seneca, indeed, might almost be taken for a picture of a modern belle, in her ball-room attire. He says, in his De Beneficiis, "Video Sericas vestes, si vestes vocandæ sint, in quibus nihil est, quo defendi aut corpus, aut denique pudor, possit: quibus sumtis, mulier parum liquido, nudam se non esse, jurabit. Hæc, ingenti summa, ab ignotis etiam ad commercium gentibus, accersuntur, ut matronæ nostræ ne adulteris quidem plus suis in cubiculo, quam in publico, ostendant." "I see, too, silken clothing—if clothing that can be called, which does not protect, nor even conceal the body—apparelled in which, a woman cannot very truly swear, that she is not naked. Such tissues are brought to us at enormous cost, from nations so remote that not even their names can reach us; and by the help of this vast expense, our matrons are able to exhibit, to their lovers and in their couches, nothing at which the whole public has not equally gazed."

Mythology.—Bryant and others have puzzled themselves not a little to give a rational explanation to the story of Ariadne; who, it will be remembered, was abandoned upon the isle of Naxos by her seducer, Theseus: but Bacchus chancing to come that way, fell upon the forlorn damsel, and presently made her his bride. All this may well puzzle a commentator, for the single reason, that it is perfectly plain and simple. The whole tale is nothing but a delicate and poetic way of stating the fact, that Mrs. Ariadne, being deserted by her lover, sought and found a very common consolation—that is to say, she took to drink.

Naples.—Its population of Lazzaroni appears, after all, to be but the legitimate inheritors of ancestral laziness. They were equally idle in Ovid's time: for he expressly calls that seat of indolence

Exhibition of Grief.—There is a curious instance of the unbending austerity of Roman manners, in the trait by which Tacitus endeavors to paint the disorder with which the high-souled Agrippina received the news of the death of Germanicus. She was, at the moment, sewing in the midst of her maids; and so totally (says Tacitus) did the intelligence overthrow her self-command, that she broke off her work.

Snoring.—The following story of a death caused by it is entirely authentic. Erythræus relates that when Cardinal Bentivoglio—a scholar equally elegant and laborious—was called to sit in the Conclave, for the election of a successor to Urban VIII, the summons found him much exhausted by the literary vigils to which he was addicted. Immured in the sacred palace, (such is the custom while the Pope is not yet chosen,) his lodging was assigned him along side of a Cardinal, whose snoring was so incessant and so terrible, that poor Bentivoglio ceased to be able to obtain even the [p. 356] little sleep which his studies and his cares usually permitted him. After eleven nights of insomnolence thus produced, he was thrown into a violent fever. They removed him, and he slept—but waked no more.

Human Usefulness.—Wilkes has said, that of all the uses to which a man can be put, there is none so poor as hanging him. I hope that I may, without offence to any body's taste, add, that of all the purposes to which a soul can be put, I know of none less useful than damning it.

Sneezing.—It is the Catholics (see father Feyjoo for the fact) who trace the practice of bidding God bless a man when he sneezes, to a plague in the time of St. Gregory. He, they say, instituted the observance, in order to ward off the death of which this spasm had, till then, been the regular precursor, in the disease. If the story be true, such a plague had already happened, long before the day of St. Gregory. In the Odyssey, Penelope takes the sneezing of Telemachus for a good omen; and the army of Xenophon drew a favorable presage, as to one of his propositions, from a like accident: Aristotle speaks of the salutation of one sneezing as the common usage of his time. In Catullus's Acme and Sempronius, Cupid ratifies, by an approving sneeze, the mutual vows of the lovers. Pliny alludes to the practice, and Petronius in his Gyton. In Apuleius's Golden Ass, a husband hears the concealed gallant of his wife sneeze, and blesses her, taking the sternutation to be her own.

If there be a marvel or an absurdity, the Rabbins rarely fail to adorn the fiction or the folly with some trait of their own. Their account of the matter is, that in patriarchal days, men never died except by sneezing, which was then the only disease, and always mortal. Apparently then, the antiquity of the Scotch nation and of rappee cannot be carried back to the time of Jacob. Be this point of chronology as it may, however, it is certain that the same sort of observance, as to sneezing, was found in America at the first discovery.

Aristotle is politely of opinion that the salutation was meant as an acknowledgment to the wind, for choosing an inoffensive mode of escape. But a stronger consideration is necessary to account for the joy with which the people of Monopotama celebrate the fact, when their monarch sneezes. The salutation is spread by loud acclamations, over the whole city. So, too, when he of Sennaar sneezes, his courtiers all turn their backs, and slap loudly their right thighs.

Honor.—The source of the following passage in Garth's Dispensary, is so obvious, that it is singular that no one has made the remark.

In the debate among the Doctors, when war is proposed, one of the Council speaks as follows.

Implicit Faith.—I am delighted with the following excellent contrast of ignorant Orthodoxy with cultivated Doubt. It is from the learned and pious Le Clerc's Preface to his Bibliothèque Choisie, vol. vii, pp. 5, 6.

"Il n'y a, comme je crois, personne, qui ne préferât l'état d'une nation, où il y auroit beaucoup de lumières quoiqu'il y eût quelques libertins, à celui d'une nation ignorante et qui croiroit tout ce qu'on lui enseigneroit, ou qui au moins ne donneroit aucunes marques de douter des sentimens reçus. Les lumières produisent infailliblement beaucoup de vertu dans l'esprit d'une bonne part de ceux qui les reçoivent; quoiqu'il y ait des gens qui en abusent. Mais l'Ignorance ne produit que de la barbarie et des vices dans tous ceux qui vivent tranquillement dans leurs ténèbres. Il faudroit étre fou, par exemple, pour préferer ou pour égaler l'état auquel sont les Moscovites et d'autres nations, à l'égard de la Religion et de la vertu, à celni auquel sont les Anglois et les Hollandois, sous prétexte qu'il y a quelques libertins parmi ces deux peuples, et que les Moscovites et ceux qui leur ressemblent ne doubtent de rien."

"There is, I think, no one who would prefer the state of a nation, in which there was much intelligence, but some free thinkers, to that of a nation ignorant and ready to believe whatever might be taught it, or which, at least, would show no sign of doubting any of the received opinions. For knowledge never fails to produce much of virtue, in the minds of a large part of those who receive it, even though there be some who make an ill use of it. But Ignorance is never seen to give birth to any thing but barbarism and vice, in all such as dwell contentedly under her darkness. It would, for example, be nothing less than madness, to prefer or to compare the condition in which the Muscovites and some other nations are, as respects Religion and Virtue, to that of the English or Hollanders; under the pretext that there are, among the two latter nations, some free thinkers, and that the Muscovites and those who resemble them doubt of nothing."

The whole of this piece, indeed, is excellent, and full of candor, charity and sense, as to the temper and the principles of those who are forever striving to send into banishment, or shut up in prisons, or compel into eternal hypocrisy, all such opinions as have the misfortune to differ with their own.

Friendships.—There are people whose friendship is very like the Santee Canal in South Carolina: that is to say, its repairs cost more than the fee simple is worth.

Benefits.—There are many which must ever be their own reward, great or small. Others are positively dangerous. That subtle courtier, Philip de Comines, declares, that it is exceedingly imprudent to do your prince services for which a fit recompense is not easily found:¹ and Tacitus avers that obligations too deep are sure to turn to hatred.² Seneca pursues the matter yet further, and insists that he, whom your excessive services have thus driven to ingratitude, presently begins to desire to escape the shame of such favors, by [p. 357] putting out of the world their author.³ Cicero, too, is clearly of opinion, that enmity is the sure consequence of kindness carried to the extreme.⁴

¹ "Il se fault bien garder de faire tant de services à son maistre, qu'on l'empesche d'en trouver la juste recompense."—Memoires.

² "Beneficia eo usque læta sunt, dum videntur exsolvi posse: ubi multum antivenere, pro gratiâ odium redditur."

³ "Nam qui putat esse turpe non reddere, non vult esse cui reddat."

⁴ "Qui si non putat satisfacere, amicus esse nullo modo potest."

Heroes.—Marshal de Saxe is accustomed to get the credit of a very clever saying, "that no man seems a hero to his own valet de chambre." Now, not to speak of the scriptural apothegm, "that a prophet has no honor in his own country," the following passage from Montaigne will be found to contain precisely the Marshal's idea.

"Tel a esté miraculeux au monde, auquel sa femme et son valet n'ont rien veu seulement de remarquable. Peu d'hommes ont esté admirez par leurs domestiques: nul n'a esté prophète, non seulement en sa maison, mais en son pais, diet l'expérience des histoires."—Essais, vol. v, p. 198.

"Such an one has seemed miraculous to the world, in whom his wife and his valet could not even perceive any thing remarkable. Few men have ever been admired by their own servants; none was ever a prophet in his own country, still less in his own household."

ODDS AND ENDS.

MR. EDITOR,—Many months having passed away since I last addressed you, I have flattered myself, as most old men are apt to do on such occasions, that you might very possibly begin to feel some little inclination to hear from me once more. Know then, my good sir, that I am still in the land of the living, and have collected several "odds and ends" of matters and things in general, which you may use or not, for your "Messenger," as the fancy strikes you.

Among the rest, I will proceed to give you a new classification of the Animal Kingdom—at least so far as our own race is concerned; a classification formed upon principles materially different from those adopted by the great father of Natural History—Linnæus, who you know, classed us with whales and bats, under the general term, Mammalia! Now, I have always thought this too bad—too degrading for the lords and masters (as we think ourselves) of all other animals on the face of the earth; and who deserve a distinct class to themselves, divided too into more orders than any other—nay, into separate orders for the two sexes. With much study, therefore, and not less labor, I have digested a system which assumes mental—instead of bodily distinctions, as much more certain and suitable guides in our researches. This may be applied without either stripping or partially exposing the person, as father Linnæus' plan would compel us to do, whenever we were at a loss to ascertain (no unfrequent occurrence by the way, in these days) whether the object before us was really one of the Mammalia class or not: for such are the marvellous, ever-varying metamorphoses wrought by modern fashions in the exteriors of our race, that the nicest observers among us would be entirely "at fault" on many occasions, to tell whether it was fish, flesh, or fowl that they saw. My plan, therefore, has at least one material advantage over the other; and it is quite sufficient, I hope, very soon to carry all votes in its favor.

With whales and bats we shall no longer be classed!—if your old friend can possibly help it; and he is not a little confident of his powers to do so; for he believes he can demonstrate that there is not a greater difference between the form, size and habits of the bats and whales themselves, than he can point out between the manners, customs, pursuits, and bodily and mental endowments of the different orders of mankind; and, therefore, ex necessitate rei, there should be a classification different from any yet made. The honor of this discovery, I here beg you to witness, that I claim for myself.

Before I proceed farther, I will respectfully suggest a new definition of man himself; as all heretofore attempted have been found defective. The Greeks, for example, called him "Anthropos"—an animal that turns his eyes upwards; forgetting (as it would seem) that all domestic fowls, especially turkeys, ducks and geese, frequently do the same thing; although it must be admitted, that the act in them is always accompanied by a certain twist of the head, such as man himself generally practices when he means to look particularly astute. One of their greatest philosophers—the illustrious Plato—perceiving the incorrectness of this definition, attempted another, and defined man to be "a two legged animal without feathers:" but this very inadequate description was soon "blown sky high" by the old cynic Diogenes, who, having picked a cock quite clean of his plumage, threw him into Plato's school, crying out at the same time, "Behold Plato's man!" True, this is an old story; but none the worse for that. This was such "a settler,"—to borrow a pugilistic term—as completely to discourage, for a long time, all farther attempts to succeed in this very difficult task; nor indeed, do I recollect, from that day to the present, any now worth mentioning. "The grand march of mind," however, has become of late years, so astoundingly rapid, and so many things heretofore pronounced to be unknowable, have been made as plain as the nose on our faces, that Man himself—the great discoverer of all these wonders, should no longer be suffered (if his own powers can prevent it) to be consorted, as he has so long been, with a class of living beings so vastly inferior to himself. To rescue him therefore from this degradation, shall be my humble task, since it is one of those attempts wherein—even to fail—must acquire some small share of glory.

I will define him then, to be A self-loving, self-destroying animal, and will maintain the correctness and perfectly exclusive character of the definition, against all impugners or objectors, until some one of them can point out to me among all the living beings on the face of the earth, either any beast, bird, fish, reptile, insect, or animalcula, that is distinguished by these very opposite and directly contradictory qualities. Man alone possesses—man alone displays them both; and is consequently distinguished from all the rest of animated nature in a way that gives him an indisputable right to a class of his own.

I will next proceed to enumerate the different orders into which this most wonderful class is divided. The females, God bless them, being entitled, by immemorial usage, to the first rank, shall receive the first notice; [p. 358] and I will rank in the first order all those who have unquestionable claims to pre-eminence.

Order 1st. The Loveables.—This order is very numerous, and forms by far the most important body in every community, being distinguished by all the qualities and endowments—both physical and intellectual—which can render our present state of existence most desirable—most happy. Their beauties charm—their virtues adorn every walk of life. All that is endearing in love and affection—either filial, conjugal, or parental: all that is soothing and consolatory in affliction; all that can best alleviate distress, cheer poverty, or mitigate anguish: every thing most disinterested, most enduring, most self-sacrificing in friendship—most exemplary in the performance of duty: all which is most delightful in mental intercourse, most attractive and permanently engaging in domestic life: in short, every thing that can best contribute to human happiness in this world, must be ascribed, either directly or indirectly, much more to their influence than to all other temporal causes put together; and would the rest of their sex only follow their admirable example, this wretched world of ours would soon become a secondary heaven.

Order 2d. The Conclamantes, which, for the benefit of your more English readers, I will remark, is a Latin word, meaning—those who clamor together. They possess two qualities or traits in common with certain birds, such as rooks, crows and blackbirds, that is, they are gregarious and marvellously noisy; for whenever they collect together, there is such a simultaneous and apparently causeless chattering in the highest key of their voices, as none could believe but those who have had the good or ill fortune (I will not say which) to hear it. But there is this marked characteristic difference. The latter utter sounds significant of sense, and perfectly intelligible, often very sprightly and agreeable too, when you can meet them one at a time; nor is juxta-position at all necessary to their being heard; for you will always be in ear-shot of them, although separated by the entire length or breadth of the largest entertaining-room any where to be found. Their proper element—the one wherein they shine, or rather sound most—is the atmosphere of a "sware-ree" party, or a squeeze: but as to the particular purpose for which Nature designed them, I must e'en plead ignorance; not, my good sir, that I would have you for one moment to suppose, that I mean any invidious insinuation by this excuse.

Order 3d. The Ineffables.—I almost despair of finding language to describe—even the general appearance of this order, much less those mental peculiarities by which they are to be distinguished from the rest of their sex. But I must at least strive to redeem my pledge, and therefore proceed to state, that they rarely ever seem to be more than half alive: that their countenances always indicate (or are designed to do so) a languor of body scarcely bearable, and the most touching—the most exquisite sensibility of soul; that even the most balmy breezes of spring, should they accidentally find access to them, would visit them much too roughly: that to speak above a low murmur would almost be agony, and to eat such gross food as ordinary mortals feed upon would be certain death. As to their voices, I am utterly hopeless of giving the faintest idea, unless permitted both to resort to supposition and to borrow Nic Bottom's most felicitous epithet of "a sucking dove." You have only to imagine such a thing, (it is no greater stretch of fancy than writers often call upon us to make) and then to imagine what kind of tones "a sucking-dove" would elicit; and you will certainly have quite as good an idea of the voice of an Ineffable as you could possibly have, without actually hearing it. No comparison drawn from any familiar sounds can give the faintest idea of it, for it is unique and sui generis. This order serves the admirable moral purpose of continually teaching, in the best practicable manner, the virtue of patience to all—who have anything to do with it.

Order 4th. The Tongue-tied, or Monosyllabic.—This order can scarcely be described—unless by negations; for they say little or nothing themselves, and, therefore, but little or nothing can be said of them; unless it were in the Yankee mode of guessing; which, to say the least of it, would be rather unbecoming in so scientific a work as I design mine to be. The famous Logadian Art of extracting sun-beams from cucumbers would be quite easy in practice compared with the art of extracting anything from these good souls beyond a "yes" or a "no," as all have found to their cost, who ever tried to keep up the ball of conversation among them; the labor of Sysiphus was child's play to it. They serve however one highly useful purpose, and that is, to furnish a perpetual refutation of the base slander which one of the old English poets has uttered against the whole sex in these often quoted lines—

Order 5th. In vivid and startling contrast to the preceding order, I introduce—The hoidening Tom-Boys. These are a kind of "Joan D'Arkies," (if I may coin such a term), female in appearance, but male in impudence, in action, in general deportment. They set at naught all customary forms, all public sentiment, all those long established canons, sanctioned by both sexes, for regulating female conduct; and they practise, with utter disregard of consequences, all such masculine feats and reckless pranks, as must unsex them, so far as behavior can possibly do it. They affect to despise the company of their own sex; to associate chiefly with ours, but with the most worthless part of them, provided only, they be young, wild, prodigal and in common parlance—fashionable, and alike regardless of what may be thought or said of them. The more delicate their figures, the more apparently frail their constitutions, the greater seems to be their rage for exhibiting the afflicting contrast between masculine actions performed with powers fully adequate to achieve them, and attempted—apparently at the risk of the limbs, if not the lives, of the rash and nearly frantic female adventurers. Egregiously mistaking eccentricity for genius—outrages upon public sentiment for independence of spirit, and actions which should disgrace a man, or render him perfectly ridiculous, for the best means of catching a husband, they make themselves the pity of the wise and good, the scorn and derision of all the other orders of the community, who see through the flimsy and ridiculous veil of their conduct, the true motives from which it proceeds.

Order 6th. The Hydrophobists.—These are, at all times, such haters of water—especially if that unsavory [p. 359] article called soap be mixed with it—that insanity is by no means necessary, as in the case of animals affected by canine madness, to elicit their characteristic feeling. Their persons and their houses too, when they have any, all present ocular proofs of it; proofs, alas! which nothing but the luckless objects of their hatred can "expunge," if I may borrow a term lately become very fashionable. Whether this antipathy be natural or superinduced by the dread of catching cold, I can not pretend to say; but its effects are too notorious, too often matters of the most common observation, for its existence to be doubted. The striking contrast, however, which it exhibits to that admirable quality—cleanliness, aids much in teaching others the duty of acquiring and constantly practising the latter.

Order 7th. The Bustlers.—The difference between this order and the last mentioned is so great, so radical, so constantly forced upon our notice, that they might almost be ranked in distinct classes: for the members of the order now under consideration, are such dear lovers of both the articles which the others hate, as to keep them in almost ceaseless appliance. At such times, neither the members of their families, nor their guests, can count, for many minutes together, upon remaining safe from involuntary sprinklings and ablutions. And what—with their usual accompaniments of dusters, brooms, mops, and scrubbing brushes, if you find any secure place either to sit or stand, you will owe it more to your good luck than to any preconcerted exemption between the mistresses and their operatives. "Fiat cleaning up, ruat cælum," is both their law and their practice. After all however, they are, in general, well meaning, good hearted souls; those only excepted among them, whose perpetual motion is kept up by a modicum of the Xantippe blood, which developes its quality in such outward appliances to the heads, backs and ears of their servants—as key-handles, sticks, switches, boxings and scoldings.

Order 8th. The Peace-Sappers.—These, like the underground artists, after whom I have ventured in part to name them, always work secretly; but whereas, the sappers employed in war, confine their humane labors solely to the immediate destruction of walls, fortifications and houses, with all their inhabitants, thereby putting the latter out of their misery at once; the peace-sappers make the excellence of their art to consist in causing the sufferings which they inflict to be protracted—even to the end of life, be that long or short. The master spirits of this order view with ineffable scorn such of their formidable sisterhood as are incapable, from actual stupidity, of exciting any other kind of family and neighborhood quarrels, than those plain, common-place matters which soon come to an explanation, and end in a renewal of friendly intercourse and a reciprocation of good offices. They despise—utterly despise—such petty game; and never attempt sapping but with a confident belief—not only that its authors will escape all suspicion, but that its effects will be deeply and most painfully felt—probably during the entire lives of all its devoted victims. Their powers of flattery and skill in every species of gossipping, gain them an easy admittance, before they are found out, into most families wherein they have set their hearts upon becoming visiters. There they are always eager listeners to every thing that may be said in the careless, innocent hours of domestic intercourse; and being entirely unsuspected plotters of mischief, they treasure up as a miser would his gold, every single word or expression that can possibly be so tortured as to embroil their confiding hosts with some one or all of their neighbors. If no word nor expression has been heard during a long intercourse which can either fairly or falsely be imputed to envy, jealousy or ill-will towards others; absolute falsehoods will most artfully be fabricated to attain their never-forgotten, never-neglected purpose: for they sicken at the very sight of family peace—of neighborhood-harmony; and "the gall of bitterness," that incessantly rankles in their bosoms can find no other vent—no other alleviation—than in laboring to destroy every thing of the kind. Their communications being always conveyed under the strongest injunctions of secrecy—the most solemn protestations of particular regard and friendship for the depositaries of these secrets, it often happens that entire neighborhoods are set in a flame, and most of the families in it rendered bitter enemies to each other, without a single one knowing, or even suspecting what has made them so.

The Romans had a most useful custom of tying a wisp of hay around the horns of all their mischievous and dangerous cattle, by way of caveat to all beholders to keep out of their way: and could some similar contrivance be adopted for distinguishing the Peace-Sappers, as far off as they could be seen, the inventor thereof would well deserve the united thanks and blessings of every civilized community.

Order 9th. The Linguis Bellicosæ, or Tongue Warriors.—The distinguishing characteristic of this order is, an insatiable passion for rendering their faculty of speech the greatest possible annoyance to all of their own race—whether men, women or children, who come in their way: and few there are who can always keep out of it, however assiduously they may strive to do so. Most of them are very early risers, for the unruly evil, as St. James calls it, is a great enemy to sleep. When once on their feet, but a few minutes will elapse before you hear their tongues ringing the matutinal peal to their servants and families. But far, very far, different is it from that of the church-going bell, which is a cheering signal of approaching attempts to do good to the souls of men; whereas the tongue-warrior's peal is a summons for all concerned to prepare for as much harm being done to their bodies as external sounds, in their utmost discord, can possibly inflict. Nothing that is said or done can extort a word even of approbation much less of applause; for the feeling that would produce it does not exist; but a cataract is continually poured forth of personal abuse, invective and objurgation, which, if it be not quite as loud and overwhelming as that of Niagara, is attributable more to the want of power, than of the will to make it so. It has been with much fear and trembling, my good sir, that I have ventured to give you the foregoing description; nor should I have done it, had I not confided fully in your determination not to betray me to these hornets in petticoats.

Having done with the description of the female orders of our race, as far as I can, at present recollect their number and distinctive characters, I now proceed to that of my own sex.

Order 1st. The Great and Good Operatives.—Although [p. 360] in counting this order I will not venture quite as far as the Latin poet who asserted, that "they were scarce as numerous as the gates of Thebes, or the mouths of the Nile," it must be admitted that the number is most deplorably small, compared with that of the other orders. The multum in parvo, however, applies with peculiar force to the Great and Good Operatives. All the orders certainly have intellects of some kind, which they exercise after fashions of their own—sometimes beneficially to themselves and others; then again injuriously, if not destructively to both. But only the individuals of this order always make the use of their mental powers for which they were bestowed; and hence it is that I have distinguished them as I have done. How far this distinction is appropriate, others must decide, after an impartial examination of the grounds upon which I mean to assert the justice of its claim to be adopted. Here they are. It is to this order we must ascribe all which is truly glorious in war, or morally and politically beneficial in peace: to the exercise of their talents, their knowledge and their virtues, we are indebted for every thing beneficent in government or legislation; and by their agency, either direct or indirect, are all things accomplished which can most conduce to the good and happiness of mankind; unless it be that large portion of the god-like work which can better be achieved by the first order of the other sex.

Order 2d. Ipomœa Quamoclit, or the Busy Bodies.—These, like the little plants after which I have ventured to name them, have a surprising facility at creeping or running, either under, through, around, or over any obstacles in their way. Their ruling passion consists in a most inordinate and unexplainable desire to pry into and become thoroughly acquainted with every person's private concerns, but their own; to the slightest care or examination of which, they have apparently an invincible antipathy. Has any person a quarrel or misunderstanding with one or more of his neighbors, they will worm out, by hook or by crook, all the particulars; not with any view, even the most distant, of reconciling the parties, (for peace-making is no business of theirs), but for the indescribable pleasure of gaining a secret, which all their friends, as the whole of their acquaintance are called, will be invited, as fast as they are found, to aid them in keeping. Is any man or woman much in debt, the neighboring busy-bodies will very soon be able to give a better account of the amount than the debtors themselves; but it will always be communicated with such earnest injunctions of secrecy from the alleged fear of injuring the credit of the parties, as to destroy that credit quite as effectually as a publication of bankruptcy would do. Does the sparse population of a country neighborhood afford so rare and titillating a subject as a courtship, it furnishes one of the highest treats a busy-body can possibly have; and it not unfrequently happens that this courtship is, at least interrupted, if not entirely broken off, by the exuberant outpourings and embellishments of his delight at possessing such a secret, and at the prospect of participating in all the customary junketings and feastings upon such joyous occasions. The whole of this order are great carriers and fetchers of every species of country intelligence; great intimates (according to their account) of all great people; and above all—great locomotives. But, unlike their namesakes, the machines so called, they rarely if ever move straightforward; having a decided preference for that kind of zig-zag, hither and thither course, which takes them, in a time inconceivably short, into every inhabited hole and corner within their visiting circle, which is always large enough to keep them continually on the pad.

N.B. There is an order of the other sex so nearly resembling the one just described, that I am in a great quandary whether I should not have united them, since the principal difference which I can discover, after much study is, that the former wears petticoats and the latter pantaloons. You and your readers must settle it, for Oliver Oldschool can not.

Order 3d. Noli me tangere, or Touch me not.—These are so super-eminently sensitive and irritable, that should you but crook your finger at them apparently by way of slight, nothing but your blood can expiate the deadly offence: and whether that blood is to be extracted by a bout at fisty cuffs or cudgelling, or by the more genteel instrumentality of dirk, sword or pistol, must depend upon the relative rank and station of the parties concerned. If you belong not to that tribe embraced by the very comprehensive but rather equivocal term—gentlemen, you may hope to escape with only a few bruises or scarifications; but should your luckless destiny have placed you among them, death or decrepitude must be your portion, unless you should have the fortune to inflict it on your adversary.

Order 4th. The Gastronomes.—The description of this order requires but few words. Their only object in life seems to be—to tickle their palates, and to provide the ways and means of provoking and gratifying their gormandizing appetites. They would travel fifty miles to eat a good dinner, sooner than move fifty inches to do a benevolent action; and would sacrifice fame, fortune and friends, rather than forego what they call the pleasures of the table. They show industry in nothing but catering for their meals; animation in nothing but discussions on the qualities and cookery of different dishes; and the only strong passion they ever evince is, that which reduces them merely to the level of beasts of prey. During the brief period of their degraded existence, they live despised and scoffed at by all but their associates, and die victims to dropsy, gout, palsy and apoplexy.

Order 5th. The Brain Stealers.—The chief difference between this and the preceding order is, that the former steal their own brains by eating, the latter by drinking. For the idea conveyed by the term brain-stealers, I acknowledge myself indebted to Cassio in the play of Othello, where, in a fit of remorse for getting drunk, he is made to exclaim, "Oh! that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!" This order may well follow its predecessor in dignity, or rather in uselessness, since the greatest optimist ever born would be puzzled to find out the way in which either can render any real, essential service to mankind. Although the alleged excuse for their practice—so long as they retain sense enough to offer any—is to cheer the spirits—to gladden the heart, the undeniable effect of that practice is, to depress the one, and to pain the other. Melancholy expels merriment, and the solitary feeling banishes the social; for the intolerable shame inspired by the consciousness of the [p. 361] self-larceny they are continually committing, drives them into secret places for its perpetration; and into solitude during the short intervals between their self-destructive acts, to brood over their own indelible disgrace, the hopeless misery they inflict on all their friends and relatives, and the damning guilt they incur if there be any truth in Holy Writ—any such thing as eternal punishment in another world, for deeds voluntarily perpetrated in our present state of existence. But these are matters which never for a moment seem to arrest their desperate course. During the few intervals of sanity which chance rather than design seems to afford them, the retrospect is so full of self-condemnation, agonizing remorse, and awful anticipations of future retribution, of future and eternal punishment, that they recklessly hasten to drown all feeling—all consciousness of existence in the deadly draughts which they continually swallow. Thus they linger out their brief and pitiable lives in a kind of comatose stupor—a wretched burden and disgrace to themselves and a misery beyond description to all connected with them.

Order 6th. The Devilish Good Fellows.—These possess, in an eminent degree, the art of concealing much thorough selfishness under the guise of what are called companionable qualities; for although loud professors of sociality and great company keepers, (except that of the ladies, which they never voluntarily seek,) they mix in society rather oftener at other people's expense than their own. Their money is lavished chiefly on themselves, except the modicum most skilfully expended in purchasing a character for generosity, and that which in common parlance is miscalled good fellowship. This is easily and often most profitably done, by giving a few well-timed dinners, suppers, and card-parties to their select companions and bosom friends, whose money they scruple not to win on such occasions to the last cent; having first made these dear objects of their disinterested regard drunk, while they kept sober for the purpose, although apparently encountering a similar risk of intoxication. All they do is for effect—for gulling others to their own advantage, rather than for any particular pleasure which they themselves derive from their own actions. Thus they become uproarious at the convivial board, not so much from impulse as design; not to excite themselves but their companions; and frequently clamor for "pushing the bottle," (for they are brain stealers) more to stultify others than to exhilirate their own feelings. They are great depositaries and retailers of all such anecdotes and stories as are called good, but rather on account of their obscenity than their genuine humor or wit. Now and then they incontinently perpetrate puns; make practical jokes; and are always merry in appearance, (whatever the real feelings may be) so far as antic contortions of the risible muscles can make them so. But they are utter strangers to that genuine hilarity of heart which imparts perennial cheerfulness to the countenances of all who are blessed with it, and which springs from a consciousness—both of good motives and good actions. Their lives are spent in a feverish course of sensuality—often of the lowest, the very grossest kind; and they generally die of a miserable old age, just as truly rational, temperate and moral people reach the prime of life.

Order 7th. The Philo-Mammonites, or Money Lovers.—Although this term would comprehend a most numerous and motley host, if the mere existence of the passion itself were deemed a sufficient distinction, yet I mean to apply the designation only to such abortions of our race as love money for itself alone, independently as it would seem, both of its real and adventitiously exchangeable value. Others burn with affection for the beloved article, only as a means to attain the ends which they most passionately desire. These ends are as countless as the sands; some, for example, make it the grand object of their temporal existence to buy fine clothes, others fine equipages; others again fine houses, fine furniture, fine pictures, fine books—in short, fine any thing which the world calls so, whatever they themselves may think of it; for, as Dr. Franklin most truly says, "other peoples' eyes cost us more than our own." The exclusive money-lovers despise what others love; with "the fleshly lusts that war against the souls" of other men, and cost money, they have nothing to do—no, not they! and even the common necessaries and comforts of life are all rejected for the sake of making, hoarding, and contemplating the dear—all-absorbing object of the only affection they are capable of feeling. In this respect, the money lover differs entirely, not only from all other human beings, but from every race of brutes, reptiles, and insects yet discovered. They, for instance, accumulate the food which they love, evidently for use, and not solely to look at, to gloat upon, as the ultimate, the exclusive source of gratification. Their accumulation, therefore, is but the means of attaining the end—consumption, from which all their real enjoyment seems to be anticipated. The propensity to collect for future use, which is called instinct in the latter, is identical with what is deemed the love of money, as it operates upon all the orders of mankind, except the Philo Mammonites. With the former, it is not the money they love, but something for which they have a passionate regard, that they know their money can procure: with the latter, the sole enjoyment (if indeed they may be thought capable of any) seems to consist in the mere looking at their hoards, and in the consciousness of being able to exclaim—"all this is mine, nothing but the inexorable tyrant death can take it away. Let others call it pleasure and happiness to spend money, if they are fools enough to do so; we deem it the only pleasure and happiness to make and keep it." To such men, the common feelings of humanity—the ordinary ties that bind together families and communities, are things utterly incomprehensible; and consequently neither the sufferings of their fellow men, nor their utmost miseries are ever permitted, for one moment, to interfere with that darling object which occupies their souls, to the exclusion of all others. This they for ever pursue, with an ardor that no discouragement can check; a recklessness of public sentiment that defies all shame; and often with a degree of self-inflicted want, both of food and raiment, which must be witnessed to be believed.

Order 8th. The Confiscators.—In this order must be included (strange as it may seem) not only all thieves, pickpockets, swindlers, robbers and professional gamblers, but even many others, who, although professing most sanctimonious horror at the bare idea of violating the letter of the laws relative to property, scruple not to disregard their spirit, whenever pelf is to be made by [p. 362] it. To make money is the great end of their existence; but the means are left to time and circumstances to suggest—always, however, to be used according to the law-verbal, in such cases made and provided. The general title indicates rather the wills than the deeds of the whole order; the former being permanent, intense, and liable to no change—whereas the latter terminate, now and then, in such uncomfortable results as loss of character, imprisonment, and hanging. Self-appropriation, without parting with any equivalent, without incurring any loss that can possibly be avoided, is the cardinal, the paramount law with every grade: they differ only in the "modus operandi." Some, for example, work by fraud—others by force; some by superior skill, or exclusive knowledge—while hosts of others rely for success upon practising on the passions and vices, or the innocence and gullibility of their fellow-men. To do this the more effectually, they make much use of the terms justice, honesty, fair-dealing, in their discourse, but take special care to exclude them from their practice; for they are to prosper, even should the Devil take all at whose expense that prosperity has been achieved, if, indeed, he deemed them worth taking, after their dear friends, the confiscators, have done with them.

Order 9th. The Blatterers.—Although this word is now nearly obsolete, or degraded to the rank of vulgarisms, in company with many other good old terms of great force and fitness, once deemed of sterling value, I venture to use it here, because I know, in our whole language, no other so perfectly descriptive of this order; nor, indeed, any other which conveys the same idea. And here (if you will pardon another digression) I cannot forbear to express my regret at being compelled, as it were, to take leave of so many old acquaintances in our mother tongue, who have been expelled from modern parlance and writing. Our literary tastes and language will require but very little more sublimation—little more polishing and refining, to render that tongue scarcely intelligible to persons whose misfortune it was to be educated some half century ago, unless, indeed, they will go to school again. To call things by their right names, is among the "mala prohibita" in the canons of modern criticism; the strength, fitness, and power of old words, must give way to the indispensable euphony of new ones; and all the qualities once deemed essential to good style, must now be sacrificed, or, at least, hold a far inferior rank to mere smoothness, polish, and harmony of diction. I might give you quite a long catalogue of highly respectable and significant old words, once the legal currency of discourse, which have long since been turned out of doors, to make room for their modern correlatives; but neither my time nor space will permit me to mention more than the following, out of some hundreds. For instance, my old acquaintance, and perhaps yours, the word "breeches," has been dismissed for "unmentionables," or "inexpressibles;"—"shifts" and "petticoats" are now yclept "under dress;" and even "hell" itself, according to the authority of a highly polished Divine, perhaps now living, must hereafter be softened and amplified into the phrase, "a place which politeness forbids to mention." But let me return to the description of the Blattering order.

To say, as I was very near doing, that their peculiar trait is "to have words at will," would have conveyed a very false notion; for that phrase is properly applicable only to such persons as can talk or be silent—can restrain or pour out their discourse at pleasure. But the Blatterers, although their words are as countless as the sands, seem to exercise no volition over them whatever, any more than a sieve can be said to do over the water that may be poured into it. Through and through the liquid will and must run, be the consequences what they may; and out of the mouths of the Blatterers must their words issue, let what will happen. So invariable is this the case, that we might almost say of their discourse as the Latin poet has so happily said of the stream of Time:

They will unconsciously talk to themselves, if they can find no one else to talk to; but this soliloquizing they are rarely forced to perform—for so great are their diligence and tact in hunting up some unlucky wight or other upon whom to vent their words, that they are seldom unsuccessful in their search. Horace, in one of his epistles, has most pathetically described, in his own person, the sufferings of all those who are so luckless as to be caught by one of these very benevolent tormentors of their species; and he has hit off, most admirably, their multiform powers of inflicting annoyance. But many ways and means, never "dreamt of in his philosophy," have since been discovered, which it devolves upon others, far his inferiors, to describe. In regard, for instance, to the choice of subjects, if a Blatterer may be deemed capable of choosing, our modern logocracies have opened a field of almost boundless extent, which, in Horace's day, was a "terra incognita." Their loquacity would utterly shame that ancient braggart, whose boast it was, that he could extemporize two hundred Latin verses, while standing on one leg; and their matchless talents for political mistification—for comminuting, and spreading out all sorts of materials susceptible of being used for party purposes, were never called forth, and consequently never developed, until many a century after Horace was in his grave. The present age—I may say, the present times, may justly claim the distinguished honor not only of furnishing more aliment for the nurture of the Blattering order than any other age or times—but, on the political economy principle, that, "demand will always beget supply," to them must be awarded the exclusive merit of furnishing a much greater number of such patriotic operatives than ever could be found before, since our father Noah left his ark. In proof of this assertion, I would ask, where is there now any hole or corner, either in public or private life, in which Blatterers may not often be heard? Where is there any electioneering ground—any hustings to hold an election—any forensic assemblage, or legislative halls, exempt entirely from these most successful confounders and despisers of all grammatical and rhetorical rules—of all the plainest dictates of common sense? As every thing they utter seems the result rather of chance than design, it might be supposed that the former would occasionally lead them, (especially when acting as public functionaries,) at least into some approximation towards argument or eloquence; but, alas! no such chance ever befalls them. By a kind of fatality, apparently unsusceptible of change or "shadow of turning," all their efforts at [p. 363] either eloquence or argument, turn out most pitiable or ridiculous abortions; for they invariably mistake assertion for the latter, and empty, bombastic declamation and gasconading for the former. Vociferation they always mistake for sense, and personal abuse of every body opposed to them, for the best means of promoting what they understand by the term, "public good"—meaning, thereby, the good of whatever party they take under their special care.

Order 10th. The Would Be's, or Preposterous Imitators.—This, probably, is the most numerous of all the orders of our class, although very far from comprehending the whole human race, as that witty satyrist Horace would have us believe, with his "Nemo contentus vivat." But it includes all, who by their array and management of "the outward man," would pass themselves off, upon society, for something upon which nature has put her irrevocable veto. Some few of the brute creation have been charged (falsely as I humbly conceive) with this warring against her absolute decrees; for, as far as we can judge, they are all perfectly content with their own forms and conditions, and live out their respective times without apeing, or manifesting any desire to ape, either the appearance or manners of their fellow-brutes, as we so often and abortively do those of our fellow-men. It is true that the monkey, one of the accused parties, seems to possess no small talent in this way; but if the exercise of it were fully understood, it appears probable that we should always find it to be done at our expense, and in derision of those only who are continually aping something above their powers—as much as to say, (had they the gift of speech) "Risum teneatis Amici?"—see what fools ye are, to labor so hard and so vainly, in efforts to do what we can do better than yourselves! If we consider their tricks and their travesties in any other point of view, we shall commit the same ludicrous blunder that one of our Would Be's of the olden time was said once to have committed at a certain foreign court, "in mistaking a sarcasm for a compliment," to the great amusement of all who had cognizance of the fact, except the poor Americans, of whom he was rather an unlucky sample.

The poor frog has also been accused of this preposterous mimicry; but it is only a single case, much at war with our knowledge of this apparently unambitious quadruped or reptile, (I am not naturalist enough to know which to call it)—much at war, too, with the chivalric principles of attacking none incapable of self-defence; and moreover, it is related by a professed inventor of fables, with whose professional license of fibbing we have all been familiar from our childhood, and are therefore prepared to estimate at its true value. I allude, as you must suppose, to our school-boy tale, wherein it is asserted (believe it who can) that a poor frog, demented by vanity, burst himself open, and of course perished, in his impracticable efforts to swell himself to the unattainable size of the portly ox. Why this far-fetched and incredible story should ever have been invented for illustrating a matter of frequent occurrence among ourselves, I never could well understand. The constant puffings and swellings-out of thousands and tens of thousands of our own class, to attain dimensions which nothing but gum-elastic minds and bodies, or something still more expansive, could qualify them to attain, are quite sufficient, manifest, and ridiculous, to render useless all resort to the invention of fabulous tales—all appeal to the imagined follies and gratuitously assumed vices of brute-beasts, reptiles and insects, for the laudable purpose of proving that man himself is no better than a brute in many of his propensities and habits. As to his particular folly of trying to change himself into something which he never can be, why should fabulists or any others attempt to drag the poor monkeys, frogs, and other animals into such a co-partnery, without a solitary authenticated fact to warrant the imputation, when innumerable facts are daily occurring among ourselves, to satisfy even the most sceptical, both in regard to the indigenous growth of this folly, and of man's exclusive right to it. The Would Be's, in fact, are to be seen almost in every place, and in all the walks of life; but especially in villages, towns, cities, and at medicinal springs, for in these the chances of attracting notice being generally proportioned to the population, there will always be more notice-seekers—in other words, more Would Be's than elsewhere.

Streets and public squares constitute the great outdoor theatre for their multiform exhibitions. The first you meet perhaps, is one who is enacting the profound thinker, although, probably, if the truth were known, not three ideas that could lead to any useful result, have ever crossed his brain, once a year, since he was born. His pace is slow, but somewhat irregular and zig-zag; his eyes are generally fixed on the ground, as it were geologizing; the tip of his fore-finger is on his nose, or his upper lip compressed between that finger and his thumb; the other hand and arm unconsciously swung behind his back; and so deep is his abstraction, that, should you be meeting him, you must step aside, or risk a concussion of bodies, which must end either in a fight or mutual apologies.

The next sample, probably, may be in quite a different style, although equally burlesque and preposterous. This one may be striving to play the gentleman of high official station, or great celebrity for talents, learning, or some other attainment which deservedly elevates him in the estimation of mankind. But mistaking exterior appearances for sure manifestations of internal qualities and endowments, which he is incapable of acquiring, he foolishly imagines that by means of the former he can pass himself off for what he wishes. Thus you will meet him, strutting and swaggering along, most majestically, with head erect, elevated chest, and perpendicular body—with a face, the owl-like solemnity of which nothing but the look of that sapient animal itself can equal, and a pomposity of air and manner which says, as far as pantomime can express words—"Who but I—I myself—I; look at me, ye mean and contemptible fellows, one and all!"

Pass him as soon as you have had your laugh out, and you will not go far before you will meet some other, probably quite dissimilar to both the others, although actuated by the same indomitable passion for conquering nature. The two former moved at a rate such as would suit a funeral procession; but your next man may be seen hurrying along with the speed of a courier despatched after an accoucheur, or for a doctor to one at the point of death. His legs are moving with the utmost rapidity short of running, and his feet are [p. 364] thrown forward with a kind of sling, as if he were trying to kick off his shoes; while his arms, from the shoulder joint to the extremities, are alternately swung with a force and quickness of motion, as if he expected from them the same service that a boatman does from his oars. This worthy gentleman's highest ambition is, to be mistaken for a man nearly overwhelmed with business so multifarious and important, as scarcely to allow him time to eat or sleep, when it is very probable that he either has none at all, or none which would prevent him from moving quite as slowly as he pleased.

When tired with contemplating what I will venture to call the physiognomy of walking, you may betake yourself to some large dinner party, should your good fortune have furnished you with an invitation. There you will rarely fail to have an in-door treat quite equal, if not superior to the former, in witnessing other modes developed by speech, in which "the Would Be's" betray their ruling passion—a treat, by the way, which some travesty wag has most maliciously called "the feast of reason and the flow of soul," when all who have ever tried it, perfectly well know, that in nineteen cases out of twenty, it is very little more than the flow of good liquor, and the feast of good viands—not that I, Mr. Editor, mean to object to either, when used in a way to heighten all the innocent enjoyments of social intercourse, without endangering health or shortening life, as they are too often made to do. But having been always accustomed to deem it very disgraceful for rational beings to rank either eating or drinking to excess among these enjoyments, I cannot forbear to enter my protest against any such misnomer. Might I be permitted here to say what should be the chief object of all social parties whatever, I would decide that it should be mutual improvement, and that the individuals who compose them should consider themselves as members of a kind of joint stock company, met, on such occasions, to perfect each other in their parts, as performers in the great drama of human life—that whenever called on to act, they might acquit themselves most naturally, agreeably, and usefully, both to themselves and others. Few indeed, "and far between," will be the dinner parties answering this description; for, in general, there are no social meetings at which you will find a greater assemblage of the Would Be's. Here you will often find very garrulous and deep critics in wine, who if the truth were known, would probably vastly prefer a drink of fourth proof whiskey, gin or brandy, to the choicest products of the best vineyards in the world. Occasionally you may also see exquisite amateurs of music, who, would they be candid, must plead guilty of utter ignorance on the subject, or confess a decided preference for some such old acquaintance as "Poor Betty Martin tip toe fine," or "Yankee Doodle," on a jews-harp or hurdy-gurdy, to the finest compositions of the most celebrated masters, performed by themselves, in their highest style, on their favorite instruments. A good assortment too of gormandizers is rarely wanting at such places; men whose gift of speech is never exercised but in praise of good cookery—whose mouths seem formed for little else than to eat and drink, and whose stomachs may truly be called "omnibuses," being depositories for full as great a variety of dead eatable substances, as the vehicles properly so called are of living bodies. The chief difference consists in the latter moving on four wheels—the former on two legs! There, likewise, may sometimes be seen the Virtuoso, "rara avis in terris," at least in our land, whose affected skill in ancient relics transcends, a sightless distance, that of the renowned Dr. Cornelius Scriblerus, the antiquary, rendered so famous by mistaking a barber's old rusty basin for an antique shield of some long deceased warrior.

Although science and literature are articles generally in very bad odor, if not actually contraband in such assemblages, (bodies and not minds being the thing to be fed,) still both are now and then introduced, and rare work are made of them by the would be scholars. To the real scholar—the well educated gentleman, there cannot well be any more severe trial of his politeness and self-command, than is afforded by their ridiculous attempts to display their taste and erudition. But the farce, incomparably the best of the whole, will usually be enacted by the little party politicians, who almost always constitute a considerable portion of a dinner party in these times. With these the settling of their dinners is quite a secondary affair to the settling of our national affairs, a most important part of which duty they most patriotically take upon themselves. Ex necessitate rei, their vehement volubility, their ardent zeal, constantly blazes out with an intensity of heat in full proportion to the self-imputed share of each in our national concerns. With this volcanic fire burning in their bosoms, cotemporaneously with so large a portion of the government of fifteen millions of human beings pressing on their shoulders—gigantic though they be—it is truly amazing with what alacrity and perseverance they at the same time talk, eat, and decide on the most difficult problems in political science—the most complex and really doubtful measures of national policy and legislation—when their whole outfit for so arduous a work consists, in all human probability, of a few hours of weekly reading in some party newspaper, edited by some man equally conceited, ignorant, and opinionated with themselves.

All this while, although the entertainer and a portion of his guests may be well qualified to sustain conversation both highly improving and interesting, fashion has vetoed the attempt—and they must either be silent, or join in the usual frivolous, desultory, and useless verbosity generally uttered on such occasions. Alas! that man, made after God's own image, and endowed with the noble gifts of speech, intellect, judgment, and taste, should so often and so deplorably abuse them.

When satiated with the dinner party, should you still wish to see more of the Would Be's, hasten to the Soirée or the Squeeze, and you will there find fresh and most titillating food for your moral palate, if you will pardon the figure. All that is most exquisitely ridiculous, either in attitude, gesture, or language, may, not unfrequently, be there witnessed in its most comic, most laugh-provoking form. There you may often witness nearly every possible disguise under which vulgarity apes gentility—every imaginable grimace and gesticulation that can be mistaken for graceful ease of manner—and every style of conversation or casual remark which "the Would Be's" may imagine best calculated to substitute their counterfeit currency for that which is genuine and acceptable to all. In these motley assemblages [p. 365] you may prepare to behold, among other sights, the now universally prevalent walk for fashionable ladies, in its highest style. This consists in a kind of indescribable twitching of the body, alternately to the right and left, which the gazing green-horns, not in the secret that fashion commands it, would surely mistake for the annoyance occasioned by certain pins in their dresses having worked out of place, and would accordingly commiserate rather than admire the supposed sufferers.

But to cap the climax of these abortive contests against nature, you must move about until you come to the rocking-chairs, those articles which, in bygone times, were used only by our decrepid old ladies, or the nurses of infant children; but which, in our more refined age, are now deemed indispensable appendages of every room for entertaining company. When you come to one of these former depositories for nearly superannuated women and nurses of infants, instead of similar occupants to those of the olden time, you will find them sometimes occupied by those of "the woman kind" who are making their first fishing parties after "a tang-lang,"¹ and who have been taught to believe that a well turned ankle and pretty foot are very pretty things, the sight of which it would be quite unreasonable and selfish that the possessor should monopolize. But generally, the operatives in these quasi-cradles for decrepitude and helpless infancy, will be found to be youths of the male sex scarcely of age, and surrounded often by ladies old enough to be their mothers, and wanting seats—but wanting them in vain. These exquisite young gentlemen will always be found, when thus self-motive, so entirely absorbed, as to have forgotten completely not only the established rule, even in our rudest society, of offering our seat to any standing lady, but almost their own personal identity, which is frequently any thing but prepossessing. Rocking away at rail road speed, self-satisfied beyond the power of language to describe, with head thrown back, and protruded chin, "bearded like the pard," as much as to say, "Ladies, did you ever behold so kissable a face?—pray come try it"—they rock on to the infinite amusement, pity, or contempt of all beholders.

¹ "Tang-lang." For this term and the little story in which it is introduced, I am indebted to that admirable writer Oliver Goldsmith; but before I give the tale itself, I must beseech your readers not for a moment to suspect me of any such treasonable design against the fair sex, as to represent all young ladies, upon their first entrance into company, as fishing for tang-langs. My purpose is merely to supply them with a few very useful moral hints, in the highly entertaining language of an author, who being "old fashioned," may probably be little known to many of them. But now for the story.

"In a winding of the river Amidar, just before it falls into the Caspian sea, there lies an island unfrequented by the inhabitants of the continent. In this seclusion, blest with all that wild, uncultivated nature could bestow, lived a princess and her two daughters. She had been wrecked upon the coast while her children as yet were infants, who, of consequence, though grown up, were entirely unacquainted with man. Yet, inexperienced as the young ladies were in the opposite sex, both early discovered symptoms, the one of prudery, the other of being a coquet. The eldest was ever learning maxims of wisdom and discretion from her mamma, whilst the youngest employed all her hours in gazing at her own face in a neighboring fountain.

"Their usual amusement in this solitude was fishing. Their mother had taught them all the secrets of the art: she showed them which were the most likely places to throw out the line, what baits were most proper for the various seasons, and the best manner to draw up the finny prey, when they had hooked it. In this manner they spent their time, easy and innocent, till one day the princess being indisposed, desired them to go and catch her a sturgeon or a shark for supper, which she fancied might sit easy on her stomach. The daughters obeyed, and clapping on a goldfish, the usual bait on these occasions, went and sat upon one of the rocks, letting the gilded hooks glide down the stream.

"On the opposite shore, farther down at the mouth of the river lived a diver for pearls, a youth who, by long habit in his trade, was almost grown amphibious; so that he could remain whole hours at the bottom of the water, without ever fetching breath. He happened to be at that very instant diving, when the ladies were fishing with a gilded hook. Seeing therefore the bait, which to him had the appearance of real gold, he was resolved to seize the prize; but both hands being already filled with pearl-oysters, he found himself obliged to snap at it with his mouth; the consequence is easily imagined; the hook, before unperceived, was instantly fastened in his jaw; nor could he, with all his efforts or his floundering, get free.

"Sister, cries the youngest princess, I have certainly caught a monstrous fish; I never perceived anything struggle so at the end of my line before; come and help me to draw it in. They both now, therefore, assisted in fishing up the diver on shore; but nothing could equal their surprize upon seeing him. Bless my eyes! cries the prude, what have we got here? This is a very odd fish to be sure; I never saw any thing in my life look so queer; what eyes—what terrible claws—what a monstrous snout! I have read of this monster somewhere before, it certainly must be a tang-lang that eats women; let us throw it back into the sea where we found it.

"The diver in the mean time stood upon the beach, at the end of the line, with the hook in his mouth, using every art that he thought could best excite pity, and particularly looking extremely tender, which is usual in such circumstances. The coquet, therefore, in some measure influenced by the innocence of his looks, ventured to contradict her companion. Upon my word, sister, says she, I see nothing in the animal so very terrible as you are pleased to apprehend; I think it may serve well enough for a change. Always sharks, and sturgeons, and lobsters, and craw-fish, make me quite sick. I fancy a slice of this nicely grilled, and dressed up with shrimp sauce would be very pretty eating. I fancy too mamma would like a bit with pickles above all things in the world; and if it should not sit easy on her stomach, it will be time enough to discontinue it, when found disagreeable, you know. Horrid! cries the prude, would the girl be poisoned? I tell you it is a tang-lang; I have read of it in twenty places. It is every where described as the most pernicious animal that ever infested the ocean. I am certain it is the most insidious, ravenous creature in the world; and is certain destruction, if taken internally. The youngest sister was now, therefore, obliged to submit: both assisted in drawing the hook with some violence from the diver's jaw; and he, finding himself at liberty, bent his breast against the broad wave, and disappeared in an instant.

"Just at this juncture, the mother came down to the beach, to know the cause of her daughters' delay: they told her every circumstance, describing the monster they had caught. The old lady was one of the most discreet women in the world; she was called the black-eyed princess, from two black eyes she had received in her youth, being a little addicted to boxing in her liquor. Alas! my children, cries she, what have you done? The fish you caught was a man-fish, one of the most tame domestic animals in the world. We could have let him run and play about the garden, and he would have been twenty times more entertaining than our squirrel or monkey. If that be all, says the young coquet, we will fish for him again. If that be all, I'll hold three tooth-picks to one pound of snuff, I catch him whenever I please. Accordingly they threw in their lines once more, but with all their gliding, and paddling, and assiduity, they could never after catch the diver. In this state of solitude and disappointment they continued for many years, still fishing, but without success; till, at last, the Genius of the place, in pity to their distress, changed the prude into a shrimp, and the coquet into an oyster."

But in tender mercy to your own patience and that of your readers, both of which I have so severely taxed, I will conclude for the present, and remain your friend,

ON THE DEATH OF CAMILLA.

SONNET.

THE LAKE.

The way we travelled along the southern shore of Lake Michigan was somewhat singular. There being no road, we drove right on the strand, one wheel running in the water. Thus we travelled thirty miles, at the rate of two miles an hour. In the lake we saw a great many gulls rocking on the waves and occasionally flying up into the air, sailing in circles, and fanning their white plumage in the sunshine.

While thus slowly winding along the sandy margin of the lake we met a number of Pottowatimies on horseback in Indian file, men with rifles, women with papooses, and farther on we passed an Indian village—wigwams of mats comically shaped. This village stood [p. 367] right on the shore of the lake; some Indian boys half-naked were playing in the sand, and an Indian girl of about fourteen was standing with arms folded looking towards the lake. There was, or I imagined there was, something in that scene, that attitude, that countenance of the Indian girl, touching and picturesque in the highest degree—a study for the painter.

Alas—these Indians! the dip of their paddle is unheard, the embers of the council-fire have gone out, and the bark of the Indian dog has ceased to echo in the forest. Their wigwams are burnt, the cry of the hunter has died away, the title to their lands is extinguished, the tribes, scattered like sheep, fade from the map of existence. The unhappy remnant are driven onward—onward to the ocean of the West. Such are the reflections that came into my mind, on seeing the beautiful Pottowatimie of Lake Michigan.

THE HALL OF INCHOLESE.

Venice is the very outrance—gloria mundi of a place for fashion, fun and frolic. Does any one dispute it? Let him ask the San Marco, the Campanile, the iron bound building that borders one end of the Bridge of Sighs, or the Ducal Palace, that hangs like a wonder on the other. Let him ask the Arena de Mari, the Fontego de Tedeschi, or if he please, the moon-struck Visionaire, who gazed his sight away from Ponte de Sospiri, on the Otontala's sparkling fires, and if from each there be not proof, plus quam sufficit—why Vesuvius never illuminated Naples—that's all.

Well! Venice is a glorious place for fashion, fun and frolic; so have witnessed thousands—so witnessed Incholese.

Incholese was a foreigner—no matter whence, and many a jealous Venetian hated him to his heart's overflowing; the inimitable Pierre Bon-bon himself had not more sworn enemies, and no man that ever lived boasted more pretended friends, than did this celebrated operator on whiskey-punch and puddings.

His house fronted the Rialto, and overlooked the most superb and fashionably frequented streets in Venice. His hall, the famed "Hall of Incholese," resort of the exquisite, and gambler's heaven, was on the second floor, circular in shape, forty-five feet in diameter. Windows front and rear, framed with mirror-plates in place of plain glass, completed the range on either side, all decorated with damask hangings, rich and red, bordered with blue and yellow tasselated fringe, with gilt and bronze supporters. It seemed more like a Senate hall, or Ducal palace parlor, than a room in the private dwelling of a gentleman of leisure—of "elegant leisure," as it was termed by the politesse of the Republique. A rich carpet covered the floor, with a figure in its centre of exactly the dimensions of the rotondo table, which had so repeatedly suffered under the weight of wine; to say nothing of the gold and silver lost and won upon its slab, sufficient to have made insolvent the wealthiest Crœsus in the land—in any land. Over this table was suspended a chandelier the proud Autocrat of all the Russias might have coveted; and forming a square from the centre, were four others, less in size, but equal in brilliancy and value. Mirrors in metal frames, and paintings of exquisite and costly execution, filled up the interstices between the windows. Chairs—splendid chairs, sofas, ottomans, and extra wine tables, made up the furniture of the Hall of Incholese. This Hall however was not the sole magnificence of the huge pile it beautified. Other and splendid apartments, saloons, galleries, etc., filled up the wings, and contributed to the grandeur of the building. Yet, strange to say, the proprietor, owner and occupier of this vast establishment, had no wife, to share with him its elegances—to mingle her sweet voice in the strains of purchased melody and revel, that made the lofty edifice often ring to its foundation. He had no wife. And why? Let the sequel of his history rehearse.

Thousands flocked to this magnificent Hall—citizens, strangers, travellers; many drank, gambled, revelled—were ruined. Few left it but were blasted wrecks, both in health and fortune. Thousands left it, tottering from their madness, cursing the brilliant revel that lighted them to doom.

Millions rolled into the coffers of Incholese; he seemed a way-mark for fortune—a moving monument of luck. Hundreds of his emissaries went out in different directions, and through different kingdoms, supplied with gold, for the purpose of winning more for their wealthy master. The four cardinals of the compass with all the intermediate points became his avenues of wealth.

"Wealth is power"—Archimedes knew it when he experienced the want of means to make a lever long enough to reach beyond the power of this little world's attraction; and the ingenious Tippet often felt the inconvenience and uncomfortableness of the want of it in executing his admirable plans for perpetual motion.

Incholese had wealth—he had power—c'est un dit-on. The Venetian Senate resolved on a loan from his ample store, and bowed obsequious, did every member, to the nod of the patron of the State. The Spanish minister forgot to consult as his only guide the Squittinio della Liberta Veneta and was seen whispering with Incholese; and instead of the Marquis of Bedmar, first minister to Flanders, the primum mobile received in mistake from Rome the hat of the cardinal. The fingers of a man of wealth turn every thing they touch to gold. We have said Incholese was a foreigner—so was the Spanish minister, and they whispered about more than State affairs and gold, though the gambler had gone deep into the pockets of the friend of his Catholic majesty.

The Doge, Antonio Priuli, had a daughter, adopted or otherwise, who was considered by the most popular amateurs the perfection of beauty. She had more admirers than all the beauties of the Republic put together; but the scornful Glorianna looked with disdain upon them all. She curled her lip most contumeliously at the crowd of waiting votaries humiliated at her feet. Pride was her prevailing, her only passion; love and affection were strangers to her haughty nature. She reigned and ruled, the absolute queen, in thought, word and deed of the vast throng that followed in her footsteps, and fain would revel in her smile. Incholese attended in her train, and swore by the pontiff's mace, that he would give his right ear for a kiss from her sweet lips; he worried the saints with prayers and the priests with [p. 368] bribes, to bring the haughty fair one to his arms, but prayers and bribes proved fruitless—the daughter of the Doge was above them all, and only smiled to drive her victim mad.

Incholese was proud and spirited, and so completely was he irritated at the repeated efforts he made to gain a single hour's social converse with the lofty Helen of his hopes, that he vowed at last at the risk of a special nuncio from his Holiness to go the length of his fortune to bring her upon a level with himself if he remained in the parallax but fifteen minutes.

The Spanish minister was married; but a star on the fashionable horizon higher than the Vesta of his own choice, prompted the proffer of his help, in the establishment of a medium point of lustre. The Senate did not assemble oftener to devise ways and means for the discharge of the public debt and for the safety of the State, than did Incholese and the minister, to humble the haughty heiress of the rich possessions of the Doge; and the conspiracy seemed as perilous and important as the great stratagem of the Duke de Ossumna against the government of Venice. A thousand plans were proposed, matured and put in execution, but their repeated failure served only to mortify the conspirators and make them more intent upon the execution of their plan. It was to no purpose that the Doge was invited with his family to spend a social hour, or that in return the invitation was given from the palace; the uncompromising object of innumerable schemes, and proud breaker of hearts, still kept aloof—still maintained her ascendancy.

While these petty intrigues were going forward, a conspiracy of a more daring character was in the course of prosecution. It was nothing less than the conspiracy of the Spaniards against the government of Venice—a circumstance which at the present time forms no unimportant portion of Venetian history.

Every thing by the conspirators had been secretly arranged, and Bedmar, notwithstanding his being among those who were deepest in the plot, never once hinted the subject to Incholese, though at the time they were inseparable companions, and co-workers in establishing a standard of beauty for the Italian metropolis. This however may be easily accounted for; he knew the government was debtor to Incholese; he knew also of the intimacy that existed between the Doge and the gambler, and he was too familiar with intrigue not to suspect a discovery when the secret should be in the knowledge of one so interested; he therefore bit his lip and kept the matter to himself. Had there been a no less villain than Bedmar in the conspiracy, the plot might have succeeded and the Spaniards become masters of Venice. But the heart of Jaffier, one of the heads of the conspiracy, failed him, and he disclosed to Bartholomew Comino the whole affair. Comino was secretary to the Council of Ten, which Council he soon assembled and made known the confession of Jaffier. Comino was young and handsome, and he took the lead in the discovery of the plot and bringing the conspirators to justice. His intercourse with the Doge was dignified and manly, and at such a time with such a man, the proud Glorianna condescended to converse. She was won to familiarity, and requested the secretary to call at her apartment and tell her the history of an affair, in which she, with all the household of the Doge, were so deeply interested. She insisted particularly that he should take the earliest opportunities to inform her of the further procedure of the Council with the faction. The secretary consented, and every intercourse tended to subdue her haughty spirit, and he was soon admitted to her friendship as an equal.

Bedmar was disgraced and sent back to Spain in exchange for Don Louis Bravo, the newly appointed minister. Incholese followed the fallen Marquis with his hearty curse, and vowed if so deceived by man again, the villain's life should appease his hate. The conspirators who were not screened by office were executed, and peace and tranquillity were soon restored to the State. The new minister being averse to the society of gamesters, Incholese and himself could not be friends—a singular enough circumstance that a titled gentleman from the great metropolis of Spain should despise the friendship of a gentleman gambler, highly exalted as was the famous Incholese. Bartholomew Comino in the discharge of his official functions, was compelled to visit and exchange civilities with the popular gamester. Incholese had observed the condescension of the empress of his heart's vanity towards this individual, and determined to avail himself of his friendship. He solicited an introduction to the south wing of the palace of the Doge, and to the scornful Glorianna. The palace of the Doge he had frequently visited, and as often gazed, till sight grew dim, upon the celebrated south wing, where, in all the indolence of luxurious ease, reposed the object of his anxious thoughts.

The last effort succeeded. Incholese was invited to the south wing—talked with Glorianna, who seemed another being since her intimacy with Comino—and resolved on a magnificent entertainment at his own Hall, where he knew the Doge and the most prominent members of the Senate would not refuse to give their attendance, and he devoutly hoped the influence of the secretary would bring the humiliated heiress. He was not disappointed. All came—all prepared for splendid revelry.

Incholese had but one servant whom he admitted to his sanctum sanctorum, the only constant inmate of his house beside himself. Other servants he had to be sure, but they were employed only when occasion demanded them. Farragio was the prince of villains, and the only fit subject in Venice for a servant to the prince of gamesters. Eleven years he had waited on his table of ruin. His conscience had rubbed itself entirely away against his ebon heart and left a villain to the climax. He hated his master—hated his friends—hated the world—supremely hated mankind, and meditated deeds of blackest crime. Hell helped him in his malignant resolve, and the fell demon smiled when he whispered in his ear the sweet madness of revenge. Revenge for what? "Eleven years," said he, "I have labored in the kitchen of Incholese and performed his drudgery—eleven years I have been his messenger of good and evil. I have toiled and panted beneath my burdens of viands, rare and costly, and I have rested on my way with wine, and what I have devoured myself I have stolen—stolen and devoured in secret. I hate—hate—hate the world—and I will be—aye, will be revenged." He yelled with fiendish exultation at the thought.

Three weeks before the time appointed for the great festival in the Hall, Farragio was alone in his kitchen [p. 369] preparing his own supper—soliloquizing as usual on his lonely and miserable situation. He remembered his youthful sports on the banks of the grand canal, and thought over the time when his mother called him from his little gondola beneath the Rialto, and sold him to Incholese—sold him for a slave. Eleven years had brought him to the vigor of manhood, and strengthened the purpose he had formed in youth of gratifying when he had the opportunity the only feeling that occupied his heart—revenge. While occupied in retrospection and smiling with seeming joy in the thought of executing his purpose, the latch of the yard door raised and the door itself slowly moved upon its long iron hinges; when about half opened a little figure in black limped upon the threshold and, bowing to Farragio, took his station by his side.

"Pretty warm for the season," said he, as he cast a glance at the fire where Farragio's supper was cooking.

"Pretty warm," replied Farragio, raising his head from the fire and wiping the perspiration from his forehead. He eyed the little gentleman closely, and from the worn and threadbare appearance of his coat, began to entertain some doubts in his mind touching his probable respectability. After surveying the stranger longer than politeness required, suddenly recollecting himself he removed his eyes from his dress and asked,

"Have you travelled far to-day, friend?"

"Travelled! ha, ha, ha, ha; no, I have been at your elbow for a month."

The eyes of the little gentleman flashed fire as he spoke, and Farragio for the first time in his life felt affrighted. He retreated a few steps and repeated with a trembling voice—"at my elbow for a month—fire and misery, how—how can that be? I—I—never saw you in—in my life before."

"Well, Farragio," and he pronounced the name with great familiarity, "whether you ever saw me or not, I have been your constant attendant for a month past, and I have had a peculiar regard for you ever since you were born."

Farragio's astonishment increased, and he gazed for some minutes in mute wonder upon the little stranger. A little reflection, however, soon restored his courage, and in an unusually authoritative tone he demanded the name of his visiter, and the purport of his singular and unceremonious visit.

"Oh!" replied the little fellow with a careless shake of his head, "it's of no importance."

By this time the supper was ready, and placing his dishes upon the table, Farragio invited his guest to partake of the fare, which consisted of ham and chicken, with cheese, hot rolls and tea.

The little man did not wait for a second invitation, but immediately took his seat at the table and commenced breaking a roll with his fingers.

"Will you take some ham?" asked Farragio in a tone of true hospitality, and appearing to forget that his guest was an intruder upon the peace of his kitchen.

"Ham—no, no, no, I hate ham—hate it with a perfect hatred, and have hated it since the foun—foundation of the Chris—Chris—Christian—since the foundation of the world. The followers of Mahomet are right, and the outlaw Turk, that is outlawed by re—re—reli—religious dispensations, which are always arbitrary in the extreme, I say he displays more sound judgment than all the philosophers that ever lived, that is—I mean those of them who have ever had any thing to do with ho—ho—ugh—hog."

Farragio helped himself largely to ham, swearing he was no follower of Mahomet, and if he was, and held emperorship from Mecca to Jerusalem, he'd eat ham till he died.

The little stranger manifested no surprise at this bold speech of Farragio, but continued to eat his roll in a very business like manner.

"Take some chicken," said Farragio after a short pause, which was permitted for the sake of convenience, "Take some chicken," and accompanying the request with an action suited to the unrestrained offering of a generous heart, he threw the west end of a rooster upon his plate.

"Chicken—chicken—yes, I like chicken, so did Socrates like it. Socrates was a favorite of mine. When he was dying he ordered a cock to be sacrificed to Esculapius—poor fellow, he thought his soul would ascend through the flame up to the gods, but he was mistaken; his soul was safe enough in other hands."

"I understood it sprouted hemlock," said Farragio knowingly.

"And where?"

"On the south side of the Temple of Minerva, wherever that was."

"Who gave you the information?"

"O, I—I saw—rea—hea—heard my master Incholese talk about once when he wished to appear like a philosopher before some of his company."

"Who told him?"

"Who? Why I've heard him say a thousand times that he was a real Mimalone, whatever that is, and for years had slept on bindweed and practised the arts of a fellow they call Dic—Dip—Dith—Dithy"—

"Dithyrambus I suppose you mean."

"Aye, that's the fellow."

"A particular friend of mine, I dined with him twice, and the last time left him drunk under the table."

"His soul sprouted grapes I've heard, and was the first cause of vineyards being planted in Edge e—e—Edge"—

"Egypt you mean to say."

"Yes."

"That's not exactly correct, but it will answer about as well as any thing else."

"Do you like cheese?"

"I was formerly very fond of it, but I once saw Cleopatra, Mark Antony's magnet as she was called, faint away at the sight of a skipper, and since then I've only touched cheese at times, and then sparingly.—I saw ten million skippers at once fighting over a bit of cheese not bigger than your thumb in that same Cleopatra's stomach, and that too on the very night she dissolved her costly ear-bob to match old Mark's greatness. But I never said any thing about it."

"You must be pretty old, I guess; I've often heard my master talk of that Clipatrick, and he said she died several hundred years ago. I've heard him say she was the very devil, and must have been trans, trans"—

"Transfused. I take the liberty of helping you along."

"Yes, transfused—her spirit transfused down through [p. 370] mummies and the like, till it reached the old Doge's daughter, for he swears she's the very dev"—

"Don't take that name in vain too often; a little pleasantry is admissable, but jokes themselves turn to abuse when repeated too many times—say Triptolemus, a term quite as significant, and not so much used."

"Triptolemus, hey—and who's Triptolemus? I don't mean him. I mean the old dev—devil himself." Farragio shuddered as he uttered the last words, for the countenance of his heretofore pleasant and good humored companion changed to a frown of the darkest hue, and Farragio imagined he saw a stream of fire issuing from his mouth and nostrils; terrified, he dropped his knife and fork, and fled trembling into the farthest corner of his kitchen.

"Have you any wine?" asked the little gentleman, in a tone of condescension.

"Plenty," was the emphatic reply of Farragio, willing to get into favor again at any price, and away he went in search of wine. It was with difficulty the article was obtained, and Farragio risked his neck in the enterprise—the wine vault in the cellar of Incholese was deep, and the door strongly fastened; he was therefore obliged to climb to the ceiling of the cellar, crawl between the joists of the building, and drop himself full ten feet on the inside. He however surmounted every obstacle, and procured the wine. On his return to the kitchen with four or five bottles, curiosity prompted him to wait awhile at the door before he opened it to ascertain what his little visiter was about. He heard a noise like a draught through a furnace, and thought he saw fire and smoke pouring through the pannels of the door. It was some time before he recovered sufficient courage to enter, and then only, after the door had been opened by the little gentleman.

"Have you glasses?" said he, surveying the apartment, where none were to be seen, and Farragio having already commenced pouring the precious liquid into a cup, he added "I do not like to drink wine from a tea cup."

"Glasses—glasses, I—we—no—yes—yes, plenty of them," and off he started to another apartment for glasses.

"Now we'll have it," said the little gentleman; "wine is good for soul and body. I've seen two hundred and sixteen shepherdesses intoxicated at one time upon a mountain in Arcadia."

"They enjoyed the luxury of drinking wine to the full, I suppose."

"O, it's no uncommon thing—women love wine, and they're the best amateurs of taste,—but here's a health to Pythagoras, (turning off a glass,) a man of more affected modesty than sound judgment, but withal a tolerably clever sort of a fellow: I used to like him, and helped him to invent the word philosopher—it was a species of hypocrisy in us both. I never repented it, however, and have found it of much service to me, in my adventures upon this ugly world."

"You invented the word philosopher. I thought it was in existence from the beginning of time; inventor of words, good gracious! what an employment; now if I may be so bold, what business do you follow?"

"O, it's no matter. Pythagoras was a pretty good kind of a man, and"—

"I never heard of him; who was he any how?"

"Ha! ha! ha! you've much to learn—Pythagoras was a hypocrite, but he gained an immortality by it."

"How?"

"How? why if you've brains enough to understand, I'll tell you. The learned before his day were called ΣΟΦΟΣ, that is, wise, what they really were; but professing not to like the appellation, and through my instrumentality I must confess, for I suggested it, proposed that they should be called ΦΙΛΟΣ the friend, ΣΟΦΙΑΣ of learning, hence the word philosopher: but it's no difference; names are arbitrary at any rate, and I like Pythagoras about as well as any of his cotemporaries; they were all deceitful, fond of flattery, and as jealous a set of villains as ever tried to rival each other out of fame. Did'nt they all imitate each other in some things, and at the same time swear that they differed, and each was the founder of his own especial system, which was distinct and separate from the rest, when the real truth was, they had all only parts of the same system; and by their rivalry and meanness in keeping the parts distinct, for fear of losing a little of what they thought was glory, they have prevented the world from understanding them ever since. I like hypocrisy, but I like it on a large scale. Your grovelling hypocrite has'nt a soul big enough to burn. Man is only a half-made creature at best. If I had the making of him, I'd—but you're asleep," said he, looking up at Farragio who was nodding over his wine. "My long discourse has wearied you."

Farragio started. "No—O! no—not—not asleep. I was thinking that—thinking how that—I wondered how you liked the wine."

"Very much, very much; that's good wine—here, try this, it's better than yours." Farragio drank of the little gentleman's glass, and soon felt the effects of the draught upon his brain. He fancied himself a lord: his guest persuaded him he was one, and a far better man than his master. "Yes," said he, springing upon his feet at the mention of his master's name—"and I swear by all the horrors of my servitude, that I will soon convince him of my superiority." The effort was too much for his relaxed muscles, and he fell full length upon the floor. The little gentleman very carefully assisted him in rising, and handing him to a chair, presented another glass to his lips. He pledged his soul in the bumper, and reeled a second time to the floor. It was now past midnight, and the little gentleman thought he had better retire; he did so, during the insensibility of Farragio, and left him to repose "alone in his glory."

In the morning Farragio awoke sober, but his head ached violently; the lamp was still burning, and was the first thing to remind him of his last night's revel. After his surprise had abated, he examined the apartment to ascertain if the little gentleman had taken any thing away with him; he had left many of his master's fine dishes, and some silver spoons, in the kitchen, and felt anxious for their safety. Every thing was safe, and he pronounced the little stranger honest. In looking around he discovered a strange impression upon the floor, the print of a foot, circular, except at one point, where it branched out into four distinct toes, all of a size—the foot was about three inches in diameter. "Hang the rascal," he exclaimed, "I knew he had one short leg, but had I known he was barefoot I would have given him lodgings in the sewer."—"In the sewer" was [p. 371] audibly echoed, and Farragio rushed from the room. The bell of his master's chamber rang. It reminded him that he was still a slave, and he went up cursing his fate and vowing an eternity of revenge.

For two or three days the little gentleman kept his distance, and Farragio bore the wine and its etceteras to his master's table unmolested, save by the discontented spirit that struggled in his bosom, and brooded over the deadly purpose it had given birth to. Farragio felt himself to be the meanest of slaves, but he possessed an ambition superior to his servitude. His intercourse with his little mysterious visiter, if it had failed to teach him the meaning of philosophy, had learned him to philosophize. "If," said he, "I am to wear the chain that binds me to my master's service, why do the feelings of my bosom prompt me to despise it? When I was young, I was happy in the yoke I wore, but years have brought another feeling, and I despise the yoke, and hate—hate the hand that fixed it on me. My curses cannot reach the mother that was so heartless as to make merchandize of her child, but my revenge shall fall on Incholese, my master—master, despicable word—and if it must exist, I'll be master and Incholese, aye Incholese, shall be my slave; the hand of death can hold him passive at my feet. Deep and deadly as my hate, shall be the revenge I seek—and by my soul I swear!"—A voice repeated "thy soul!" and the little gentleman in black was before him. Farragio, provoked beyond endurance at his intrusion, bit the blood from his lip with rage, and attempted to hurl him from his presence; thrice he essayed to seize him by the throat, but thrice he eluded the grasp, and the foaming Farragio beat upon the empty air; wearied with his exertion he sought a moment's respite and sunk upon a chair.

"It's my turn now," said the little gentleman, "and your fury, my dear fellow, will quickly give place to repentance. Go—faithless to thy oath—wait still upon thy master." For three days and nights the figure of the little gentleman, perfect in all its parts, kept before him; it was beside him at his meals, and floated in the wine he carried to the hall. In every drop that sparkled in the goblet the little figure swam—his threadbare coat and club foot were outlined in admirable distinctness, and the contumelious smile that followed the threat he made in the kitchen, played upon his lips in insupportable perfection: the figure was shadowed in the tea he drank and seemed tangible in the empty dish; it clung like vermin to his clothes, was under his feet at every step, dangled pendulous from his nose and was snugly stowed away in both its nostrils. Farragio felt him continually crawling upon the epidermis of his arms and legs, and carried him between his fingers and his toes. The figure danced in visible shadow upon the very expressions that fell from his lips, and roosted in number as an army upon the tester of his bed. Did the bell of his master summon him to his chamber or the hall, the figure, large as life, was in the door way to impede his passage; if he went to either place, it was between him and his master or with whomsoever else he was engaged. His goings out and his comings in, his lyings down and his risings up, were all molested by this singular Protean thing, which, though always the same figure, accommodated itself to any size. If he laid his hand upon any of the furniture of his kitchen, or felt in his pocket for his penknife or his toothpick, his fingers were sure to encounter the elastic contour of his accommodating but most uncomfortable companion. On the third day his torment was excruciating, and the poor wretch seemed about to expire in unsufferable misery.

"Wretch that I am!" he exclaimed, when alone in his nether apartment—"Wretch that I am, born to misfortune and tormented while living by the execrable brood of hell." "Execrable brood of hell!" sang the little gentleman with a most musical sneer, as he rolled from all parts of the body of his victim and appeared in propria persona before him.

"I meant no offence," roared the affrighted Farragio.

"Nor is it taken as such," replied his polite tormentor, who appeared to be in a very pleasant humor, accompanying every word with a most condescending smile. Farragio stammered out "I was—you know when—sir—you are acquain—that is you—you remember—remember the advice you gave me on the night when—I sa—you said I ought to be re—re—rev"—

"Revenged."

"Exactly."

"To blood."

"Aye, and more than blood."

"What! would you touch the soul?"

"Yes, and punish it forever."

"Would you have it transformed to millions of animalculæ, each to teem with life, and sensation the most acute, and continued in pain throughout eternity?"

"Aye, and longer, and for such sweet revenge I'd punish my own soul with his."

"Meet me to-morrow night, we'll fix it; success is certain."

Farragio hesitated, he was afraid of his accomplice; more than once he had suspected the smell of brimstone, and would have given worlds to be relieved from such acquaintanceship.

"Meet me to-morrow night," repeated the impatient little gentleman in a voice of thunder.

"At what hour?"

"Nine."

Farragio was about to offer an excuse, but the threatening aspect of his companion, and the remembrance of his misery warned him to acquiesce. He replied "I'll meet you," and the little gentleman disappeared.

At nine the confederates met, punctual to their engagement. Farragio was there through fear, the little stranger to effect some deeply hidden purpose. They talked of science and the arts, of philosophers, philosophy and religion. The little gentleman appeared to be perfect master of every subject, and astonished Farragio with his loquacity. He drank wine, and was much more familiar than at any previous visit; he sang, danced and left the impression of his foot as before. Farragio had prepared for the entertainment of his guest, and for two hours they rioted in the profusion of sweetmeats and wine, furnished from the sideboard and cellar of Incholese. At length said the little gentleman, "Mr. Farragio, I am happy of your acquaintance."

"Not at all," answered Farragio, whose vanity had been considerably excited.

"And you shall be happy of mine."

"And if my revenge shall be fully and entirely gratified, I'll thank you from my soul."

"And with your soul."

"With all my soul."

"Then we are friends for ever. Hear me—In a short time Incholese will hold a magnificent entertainment; nothing like it has ever happened in Venice since I have been interested for the welfare of its people. The great hall will be crowded with visiters—the four splendid chandeliers will be lighted, and without doubt the hall shall glitter more brilliant than the jewelled cavern of Aladdin. The beautiful, the young, the gay, will be there, and in the midst of the merriment old age will forget its infirmities and leap like youth. The old, however, will get weary and retire. When the Doge and his attendants have gone, pour the contents of this vial into the wine you carry up, and the morning will afford your heart a brimming revenge. Venice is just restored to tranquillity; the plot of the foolish Bedmar and his more foolish associates has failed, and the reason why I will tell you—it was, because I was not consulted; the conspirators relied in their own cunning and strength and were justly disappointed. The guardian genius of this republic and of all republics can be overcome, and prostrated by a power not inferior to my own, but times and seasons and circumstances must be consulted if even I succeed. Our little plot is of far less import, and with the exception of the Doge and a few of the high officers we can sweep the hall. Be firm to the purpose. Give them the contents of the vial in their wine, and in three nights after I will show you the souls of all, and then you may roll in vengeance for your wrongs. Farewell, Farragio; remember to follow strictly my injunctions." It was past midnight, and without another word the little gentleman took his leave.

Time rolled heavily along, and nothing but the bustle of preparation enabled Farragio to endure its tardiness.

The eventful evening came. The Doge with the members of the Senate and their wives, and many distinguished citizens and their families, graced the sumptuous feast. Comino, according to promise, led in the beautiful Glorianna. The chandeliers blazed like jasper in the sunbeams, and threw additional charms from their lustre around the "fairest of the fair." She walked amid their light—proud as the Egyptian queen whose beauty made slaves of kings and brought conquerors at her feet. Lightly went the revel on; song and wine followed each other in quick succession; each guest seemed gayest of the gay, and gave heart and soul to the bewitching joy.

The Doge retired, the elder citizens soon followed; one by one they dropped off till youth alone was left to roll the revel anthem on—and loud and long it rang, till merry peals broke on the morning's verge.

Farragio, true to his hellish purpose, mingled the contents of the vial with the wine. All drank—and as if by the power of enchantment were hurried on to doom.

In the morning, smiles were on their marble lips. Incholese sat like one rapt in ectsacy, and Glorianna's fingers were still upon the harp whose melody had charmed the host to bliss—a silent throng they lingered there.

The little gentleman was also true to his appointment—in three days he showed to Farragio the souls of his enemies. But his own looked from its infernal abode upon those—in a place of less torment than the bottomless abyss that foamed its fury upon him.

A LEAF FROM MY SCRAP BOOK.

My friend Bob for the most part made verses in commendation of the eyes and cheeks of Betty Manning. After her death, however, he at times left these to the worm, and wrote upon other matters.

One thing for which Bob was renowned was his disregard of everything like accuracy in his literary statements, and in his quotations from books. I find the following singular note appended to a little poem which with many others, fell to my care at his death.

"The flight of the Huma is in so rarified an atmosphere, that blood oozes from its pores; its plumage is constantly colored with it. The eyes, too, of this comrade of the clouds, unlike those of the eagle or hawk, have a sorrowful and lack lustre appearance."—Spix.

Bob must have found this note on the same page with the description of the "Chowchowtow." But that is no business of mine.

The verses to which the above note was appended were headed "The Huma."

THE CORPUS JURIS.

The "Corpus Juris," which is written in Latin, has never been translated into any living tongue; yet it is the basis of law in nearly all Europe and America. It was written by Tribonien, Theophilus, Dorotheus, and John, and although called The Roman Law, is in nothing Roman but the name. It is in four parts—Institutes, Pandects or Digests, The Code, and The Novel Law. This celebrated book is full of pedantry, and abounds in the most whimsical platitudes. For example, in the chapter, "De patria potestate," 'The father loses his authority over the son in many ways, firstly, when the father dies, secondly, when the son dies,' &c. There is a Greek version of the Institutes by Angelus Politianus.

A LOAN TO THE MESSENGER.

The following is from a poet of no ordinary talent, whose main fault is indolence. He gave it me for my collection, where I believe it has slumbered until now, since its conception. I think it a very pretty song, and hope it will be a favorite with your readers, to whom I lend it for May.

TO —— ——.

GERMAN LITERATURE.

A Lecture on German Literature, being a Sketch of its history from its origin to the present day, delivered by request, before the Athenæum Society of Baltimore, on the 11th of February 1836, by GEORGE H. CALVERT, Translator of Schiller's Don Carlos: now first published.

A nation's literature is the embodied expression of its mind. That in a people, there be impulse, depth, individuality enough to give clear utterance to its thoughts, passions, and aspirations, and that these have the distinctness and consistency necessary to mould them into definite forms, denotes a degree of mental endowment and cultivation traceable in but few of the nations of whose history we have record. But few have attained to the creation and enjoyment of a literature. Regions of the globe there are, whole continents indeed of its surface, hitherto inhabited by races of men, who, like the cotemporaneous generations of brute animals, have only lived and died, leaving behind them nought but a tradition of their existence,—communities, in which the essentially human was too feebly developed to erect the brain-built structures, which, while they preserve and refine the spirit whence they arise, from it derive the indestructible character that perpetuates them, as honorable monuments of the past, and for the present ever-open temples whither the wise resort for worship and inspiration.

Out of the darkness that envelops all else of the primeval ages, the words of the Jewish writers shine upon the minds of every successive generation as brightly and fixedly as do the stars from the mysterious heavens upon the shifting appearances of our shallow earth; and the books of the Old Testament stand, the sole human relics of eldest time, as lofty objects of admiration to the literary as they are of wonder to the religious. Of the architectural and sculptural creations of the gifted Greeks, embodied in perishable marble, but a few fragments have been saved from the consuming breath of time; but in the poet's lines, fresh and perfect, lives the spirit which produced them. As audible and musical as is to-day the murmur upon the Chian shore of the same waves to which Homer listened, is still the sound of Grecian song, imparting through our ears as deep and new a pleasure as it did to those who fought at Salamis. The conquests Cæsar made with his sword, a few centuries wiped from the face of the earth, but time has not touched and cannot touch those of his pen; and, though the language wherein the imperial chiefs of Rome gave orders to the prostrate world, has passed from the mouths of men, so long as they shall value beauty and wisdom, will the cherished lines of Tacitus and of Virgil be reproduced for their enjoyment.

Of the many nations of antiquity, these three are the only ones that possessed enough of mind to have each a distinct literature.

Within a much shorter space of time than elapsed between the birth of Moses and the birth of Seneca, have grown up to the maturity needed for the cultivation of letters, double the number of modern nations, separately formed out of the deposites of northern hordes, who, overrunning central and southern Europe, settled upon the mouldering strata of the Roman Empire, infusing apparently by their mixture with the conquered people, a new vigor into the inhabitants of these regions. As the states of modern Europe date their origin from the confused period of this conquest, so does the literature of each trace its birth to the same, presenting in its history a bright and elaborate picture, standing forth on a rude and dark back ground.

Notable among them, for the depth and nature of its foundations, for the character of the influences which affected its progress, for the richness and fullness of its late development, and for its present power upon the general mind of the human race, is the literature of Germany. Little more than a sketch of its history is all that I can on this occasion undertake.

In order to present to your minds an outline whereby will be rendered easier the following of its course from its rise to the present day, I will, in the first place, label three great epochs in its progress, with the names which made them epochs. Of the first, however, can be given but the name of the work, that of its author being unknown. I allude to the Nibelungenlied, the Song of the Nibelungen, the great Epic of the Germans, written about the beginning of the thirteenth century, more than a hundred years before the birth of Chaucer. Luther makes the second epoch, and Goethe represents the third. We have here a period embracing six hundred years. But long before the production of the Nibelungenlied, and the cotemporaneous lyrical poetry, letters were cultivated in Germany and books written, which, though containing nothing worthy of preservation, deserve to be considered and respected as bold forerunners, that fitted the Germans to value the singers of the Nibelungen period, while for these they cultivated [p. 374] the language into the degree of flexibility and fullness required for the medium of poetry. Charlemagne, who in the eighth century, conquered and converted Germany to Christianity, established schools in the monasteries, caused to be collected the ancient songs and laws, ordered the preaching to be in German, and had translations made from Latin. As the immediate result of this beginning, chronicles and translations in verse of the Bible, were written by the inmates of monasteries during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries.

The first period of German literature, I have named after the Nibelungenlied, a work which is not only the greatest of its age, but stands alone and unapproached as a national epic in the literature of all modern Europe. This period is commonly called the Swabian, from the influence of the Swabian line of emperors, who commenced to reign as emperors of Germany in the twelfth century, and who, by their zealous and judicious encouragement of letters, made the Swabian dialect prevail over the Franconian, which had hitherto been predominant. In the Swabian dialect is written the Song of the Nibelungen, which, like the Iliad—according to the well supported theory of the great German philologist Wolff—is wrought into a compact whole out of the traditions, songs and ballads, current at the time of its composition. The name Nibelungen, is that of a powerful Burgundian tribe, whose tragic fate is the subject of the poem. Nibelungen is obviously a name derived from the northern mythology, and is transferred to the Burgundians, when these get possession of the fatal Nibelungen hoard of treasure. The time is in the fifth century, and the scene is on the Rhine and afterwards on the frontier of Hungary and Austria.

Chriemhild, a beautiful daughter of a king of the Burgundians, is wooed and won by Siegfried, a prince of Netherlands, who possesses an invisible cloak, a sword of magic power, the inexhaustible hoard of the Nibelungen, and, like Achilles, is invulnerable except in one spot. Brunhild, a princess, endowed, too, with supernatural qualities, weds at the same time king Gunther, Chriemhild's brother; having been won by force by Gunther, aided by Siegfried. Jealousy and discord grow up between the two princesses, and reach such a pitch, that Brunhild plots against the life of Siegfried, and has him treacherously assassinated by the brothers of his wife, who wound him through the vulnerable spot between his shoulders. After years of grief, during which she harbors designs of vengeance, Chriemhild accepts, as a means of avenging her wrongs, the offer of the hand of Etzel, king of the Huns, the Attila of history, and leaving Gunther's court, accompanies Etzel to Hungary. Hither, after a time, she invites with his champions, Gunther, who in the face of dark forebodings, accepts the invitation, and with a chosen army of Nibelungen, comes to Etzel's court, where by Chriemhild's contrivance, he and all his band are enclosed in an immense Minster and therein slain.

Such is the outline of the story of this poem, which consists of thirty-nine books, or Adventures, as they are called, extending to nearly ten thousand lines. Over the whole hangs the dark northern mythology, under whose mysterious influences the action proceeds. The narrative is full of life and picturesque beauty. The story is developed with life-like truth and sequence, and with a unity of design unsurpassed in any poetic work. Naif simplicity and tragic grandeur unite to give it attraction.

At the time when the song of the Nibelungen was written, Germany was richer than any European country in poetic literature. Besides this great Epic, many poems of an epic character were written, relating, in addition to national themes, to Charlemagne and his knights, King Arthur and his round table, and others noted in the times of chivalry. There too flourished the Minnesinger, that is, love-singers, numbers of them knights and gentlemen, who, in imitation of the Troubadours of southern France, cultivated poetry and sang of love and war. The characteristics of the Minnelieder, or love songs, are simplicity, truth, and earnestness of feeling, joined with beautiful descriptions of nature. The golden age of German romantic poetry, was in the beginning of the thirteenth century. After the fall of the Hohenshauffen family from the imperial throne in the middle of this century, anarchy and civil war prevailed for a time in Germany. The nobility, given up to petty warfare, soon fell back from the state of comparative culture to which, by devotion to poetry, they had ascended, into rudeness and grossness.

Meanwhile the towns, particularly the imperial cities, which were directly under the emperor, were growing into importance. In these the civilization of the age centered. To them too, Poetry fled for preservation, and, deserted by nobles, took refuge with mechanics. And in a spirit that cannot be too warmly praised, was she welcomed. Zealously and earnestly did the worthy shoemakers, and carpenters of Nüenberg, Augsburg, Strasburg, and other towns betake themselves to reading poetry, and writing verse,—for with all their good will and zeal and laborious endeavors, they could produce only a mechanical imitation of their predecessors. Nevertheless, much good did they do. For carrying on the business of verse-making, they formed themselves into guilds or associations, on the principle of those established by the different trades: hence their name of master-singers, an apprenticeship being required for admission into the guild. So respectable and so much respected were these associations, that knights and priests did not disdain to belong to them. Thus did the master-singers, though ungifted with the soul of poetry which animated the Minnesingers, keep alive the love of literature and preserve as it were its body. Their most prosperous period was in the 15th century, when several of their number laid the foundation of the German Drama, and by their writings, particularly the satirical, contributed to prepare the German mind for the influence of Luther. Especially distinguished were men with the unmusical names of Hans Folks, Hans Rosenplüt, and Hans Sacks. The last,—an industrious shoemaker who still found time to write numberless dramas, not without wit, spirit and invention,—still holds an honorable place in German Literature.

During the same period, the result of the tendency to intellectual developement then manifested throughout Europe,—were first founded in Germanic Universities. The oldest is that of Prague, established by Charles IV in 1345. In imitation of it, that of Heidelberg was founded in 1386; and in the following century they multiplied all over Germany. Their effects were for a time injurious. By introducing Latin, they brought [p. 375] contempt upon the native language, and as a consequence, contempt also upon native poetry. This influence lasted until within less than a century of the present time. It is only indeed fifty years since the practice, for a long while universal, of lecturing in Latin, was entirely disused in the universities of Germany. As the universities rose, literature sank. Latin usurped the place of German: scholastic philosophy, theology, jurisprudence, and medicine with its kindred studies,—for, as yet there was no science, engrossed these seats of mental labor. But even in the early stage of their existence, while delving blindly at veins, many of them not destined ever to yield a precious metal, they have a claim to be regarded with honor and thankfulness, not only as the sources of so much after-fertility, but that within their walls was disciplined and instructed, and stored with the manifold learning which made more fearful its gigantic powers, that mind whose startling flashes fixed, in the opening of the 16th century, the gaze of the world it was about to overspread with a purifying conflagration. In 1503 was first heard in public, lecturing in the university of Erfurt, on the physics and ethics of Aristotle, the voice of Martin Luther.

On the long undulating line of human progression, here and there appear, at wide distances apart, men, in whom seem to centre, condensed into tenfold force, the faculties and spirit of humanity, apparently for the purpose of furthering by almost superhuman effort, its great interests,—men who, through the union of deep insight with wisest action, utter words and do deeds, which so touch, as with the hand of inspiration, the chords of the human heart, that their fellow men start up as though a new spring were moved in their souls, and, shaking off the clogging trammels of custom, bound forward on their career with freer motion and wider aim. High among these gifted few, stands Luther,—the successful assertor, in the face of deeply founded and strongly fortified authority, of mental independence. This is not the occasion to dwell on the keen sagacity, the wise counsel, the hardy acts, the stern perseverance, the broad labors, wherewith this mighty German made good his bold position, and, partly the trumpet-tongued spokesman, and partly the creator of the spirit of his age, so powerfully affected the world's destiny. I have here to speak of his influence upon the literature of Germany. That influence was twofold. First, by the mental enfranchisement—whereof he was the agent and instrument—of a large mass of the German people, he gave an impetus to thought and a scope to intellectual activity, and thereby opened up the deep springs of the German mind; and secondly, by one great and unsurpassed literary effort, he fixed the language of his country. The bold spirit of inquiry, of which he set the example with such immense consequences—and with such immense consequences because it was congenial to his countrymen,—has been the chief agent in working out the results that in our age have given to German literature its elevated rank: while upon the dialect which, two hundred years after his death, was the pliant medium for the thoughts of Kant and the creations of Goethe, he exerted such a power, that it is called Luther's German.

When Luther began to preach and to write, Latin was the language of the learned. Towards the end of the 15th century, that is, about the period of his birth, unsuccessful attempts were made to circulate translations of the ancient classics. The translations found few readers and made no impression. Cotemporaneous with Luther, and a forerunner of the great Reformer in attacking with boldness and skill the usurpations of the Roman hierarchy, was Ulrich von Hutten, a name much honored in Germany. But he wrote excellent Latin and wretched German. The union in one man of the power to fix upon himself, and hold as by a spell, the minds of his countrymen, with the power of a language-genius over his native tongue—a union consummated in Luther—was required, to raise the German language from its degraded, enfeebled condition, to its due place, as the universal medium of intercommunication among Germans of all classes.

About this time, two dialects contended for supremacy—if in a period of such literary stagnation their rivalry can be termed a contest. These were, the Low German, prevalent in Westphalia and Lower Saxony, and the High German, spoken in Upper Saxony. The latter had just obtained the ascendancy over the former in the Diet and the Courts of Justice. The High German, therefore, modifying it however, in his use of it, Luther adopted in his great work; and by the adoption for ever determined the conflict. This great work was the translation of the Bible.

While by speech and deed, writing, preaching, and acting, he fomented and directed the mighty struggle for liberty, whereto his bold words—called by his countryman Jean Paul "half-battles"—had roused the civilized world, Luther took time to labor at the task whose accomplishment was to forward so immensely his triumph, and which, executed as it was by him, is an unparalleled literary achievement. At the end of thirteen years, he finished his translation. "Alone he did it;" and alone it stands, pre-eminent in the world among cotemporaneous performances for its spiritual agency, and in Germany for its influence upon literature. Before him, there scarcely existed a written German prose. He presented to his country a complete language. With such a compelling and genial power did he mould into a compact, fully equipt whole, the crude and fluctuating elements of the German language of the 15th century, that it may be said, his mother tongue came from him suddenly perfected. And not only did he, in vigor, flexibility, precision, and copiousness, vastly excel all who had written before him, but not even could those who came after him follow in his footsteps in command over the new language, for a century. The time when the pliant, well-proportioned body he created was to indue the spirit of the German people, was postponed to a distant period: and of this very postponement, was he too the cause; for the religious and civil wars, the disputes and jealousies, consequent upon the great schism he produced, so engrossed during a long period the German mind, that literature languished. In the latter half of the 16th century, it was poor. In the 17th, through the impulse given to thought by the Reformation, it would have revived, but for the outbreaking of the terrible thirty years' war, which, remotely caused by the division between Catholics and Protestants, commenced in 1618 and lasted till 1648, and which not only during its continuance desolated and brutalized Germany, but left it impoverished, disorganized, and, by the protracted internal strife and foreign [p. 376] participation therein, in spirit to a great degree denationalized.

Here in our rapid survey of German literature, it will be well for a moment to pause, and before entering upon the period in which it attained its full multiform development, cast a look back upon the stages through which we have traced its progress.

We have seen, that in the 12th and 13th centuries, the mind of the German people manifested its native depth and beauty in the fresh rich bloom of a poetry, characterised in a rude age by tenderness and grandeur. Before this, it had evinced its ready capability, in the production of chronicles and translations in verse from the Bible, the moment opportunity was given it in the monasteries early founded by the enlightened spirit of Charlemagne. Afterwards, in the 14th and 15th centuries, in the wars and contests incident to the political development of Germany, the nobles—to whom, and the clergy, the knowledge of letters was at first confined—were drawn off by grosser excitements from the culture and encouragement of poetry. With the fine instinct that knows, and the aspiring spirit that strives after the highest, which denote a people of the noblest endowments, poetry—thrown aside as the plaything of idle hours by warrior knights—was cherished by peaceful artizans, whose zealous devotion vindicated their worthiness of the great gift about to be bestowed; by whose wondrous potency, not only were the hitherto barred portals of all pre-existing literature thrown down, but a highway was opened to all who should seek access by letters to the temples of wisdom or fame.

The invention of printing preceded the birth of Luther about half a century. This great event—infinitely the greatest of a most eventful age—facilitated vastly his labors and made effective his efforts. It showered over Germany the new language and the new ideas embodied in his translation of the Bible and his other writings. Thus, through its means chiefly, the German mind was progressive, notwithstanding the long period, extending through a century, of internal convulsion, ending in physical exhaustion, which followed Luther's death. The language, nervous, copious, homogeneous, as it came from Luther, was fixedly established,—a standard by which the corruptions and ungerman words, introduced through the long and intimate intercourse with foreigners during the thirty years' war, could be cast out.

In the beginning of the 17th century, in the midst of the civil war, an attempt was made to revive literature by Martin Opitz, a Silesian. Silesia was then not included in the German empire. The language of the peasantry was bad Polish; but German had been introduced into the towns. Silesia suffered little from the thirty years' war. Here, therefore, was made the beginning of the endeavors which, after various fluctuations, resulted in the rich literary produce of the 18th century. Opitz was a scholar, versed in ancient literature as well as in that of France and of Holland, which latter had in the age of Hugo Grotius higher literary pretensions than at present. He endeavored to introduce a classical spirit into German poetry, and to create a new poetical language; but he was not a man of high genius, and therefore, though entitled to praise for his zeal and for having given to the German mind an impulse towards the path, so long deserted, neither he nor his feebler followers are now read but by the literary antiquarian or historian. Through the 17th and first part of the 18th centuries, writers were not wanting; but their productions were without force or originality. Though heartily devoted to letters, they were powerless to revive literature. Their efforts betoken a craving for that which they could not supply. Vile imitations of French taste, extravagant romances, exaggerated sentiment, are the characteristics of the works wherewith it was attempted to supply the national want of a literature. The authors of these were, however, the precursors of a class, who, themselves shining luminaries compared to those who preceded them, were made pale by the brilliant light of the mighty spirits in whom and through whom the literature of Germany now stands the object of admiration and of study to the most cultivated scholars of all nations, and, by general acknowledgment, unsurpassed by that of any other people for richness, for depth and truth of thought and sentiment, for beauty in its forms and solidity of substance, for, in short, multifarious excellence.

Gottsched, Bodmer, Haller, Gellert, Rabener, Gleim, Kleist, Gessner, Hagedorn, are names worthy of honor, though their volumes are now seldom disturbed in their repose on the shelves of public libraries. They broke the long darkness with a promising streak of light, which expanded into day in the works of Klopstock, Winkelman, Lessing, Herder, Wieland, Goethe, Schiller, Richter.

The two first named of the first class, Gottsched and Bodmer, are noted in German literature as the chiefs of two rival schools, in the merging of which into more enlarged views,—whereto their lively conflict greatly contributed,—appeared the second class. Gottsched aimed to create a German literature by imitating French models and introducing the French spirit. Bodmer warmly opposed Gottsched, and by translations from English authors,—far more congenial to the German people than French,—endeavored to produce good by English influence. This was in the first half of the 18th century. They both did service. Their keen rivalry excited the German mind. The fertile soil was stirred, and from its depths burst forth in thronging profusion a mighty progeny, as though the land of Herman and of Luther had been slow in bringing forth the children that were to make her illustrious, because they were a brood of giants, whose first cries startled even the mother that bore them. In one grand symphony ascended their matured voices, lifting up the minds of their countrymen to loftiest aspirations, and sounding in the uttermost parts of the earth, wherever there were ears that could embrace their artful music.

Accustomed to spiritless imitations, the souls of the deep-minded Germans were moved with unwonted agitation by the Messiah of Klopstock, of which the first books were published in the middle of the 18th century. A voice, free and vigorous, such as since Luther none had been heard, was eagerly heeded, and with warm acclaim all over Germany responded to. To literature a new impulse was given, to swell the which rose other voices, similar in strength and originality—especially those of Kant in philosophy, and Lessing in criticism. 'Mid this heaving and healthy excitement, came with maddening power the first wild outpourings of the master-spirit, not of Germany only, but of the [p. 377] age. Twenty years after the Messiah, appeared the first works of the then youthful Goethe, whom in our day, but four years back, we have seen at the age of four score descend gently to the tomb, having reached the natural end of a life that was only less productive than that of Shakspeare. Ten years later, another mighty genius announced himself, the only one who has been honored with the title of Goethe's rival, and Schiller burst upon Germany and the world in the Robbers. Poets, philosophers, critics, historians—of highest endowment, genial, profound, of many-sided culture, world-famous, illustrate this brilliant epoch.

A brief description of the career and best productions of the most noted among them, will enable you to understand why, in the latter half of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries, German literature suddenly reached so high a stage of perfection.

Klopstock has the high merit of being the leader of the glorious band, through whose teeming minds the want of a national literature was so suddenly and fully satisfied. Klopstock was the first who by example taught the Germans the lesson they were most apt at learning, that the French rules of taste are not needed for the production of excellence. Therefore is he called by Frederick Schlegel the founder of a new epoch, and the father of the present German literature. Born at Quedlinburg, a small town of North Germany, he was sent to school to the Schulpforte, then and now one of the most famous schools in Germany. As a boy, he was noted for warmth of feeling and patriotic enthusiasm. A youth under age, he conceived the idea of writing a national epic, taking for a subject the exploits of Henry I, Emperor of Germany. This design he however abandoned for that of a religious epic, and at twenty-one planned and commenced, before he knew of Milton's poems, his Messiah. In his own deep meditative mind, wrought upon by religious and patriotic zeal, originated and was matured the bold conception. Klopstock was in his twenty-fourth year when the first three books of the Messiah appeared. His countrymen, ever susceptible to religious appeals, and prepared at that period for the literary revolution, or, more properly, creation, of which the Messiah was the first great act, received it with an enthusiasm to which they had long been unused. The people beheld the young poet with veneration, and princes multiplied upon him honors and pensions. The remaining books were published gradually, and in the execution of his lofty work, the German bard felt, as was natural, the influence of the genius and precedent verse of Milton and of Dante. Like Paradise Lost, the Messiah has won for its author a reputation with thousands, even of his countrymen, where it has been read by one. Klopstock also attempted tragedy; but in this department he failed signally. Indeed, he had no clear notion of the essential nature of the drama, as may be inferred from the fact of his choosing as the subject for a tragedy, the death of Adam. But, as a lyrical poet, he is even greater than as an epic, and for the excellence of his odes justly has he been styled the modern Pindar. In these,—distinguished for condensation of thought, vigor of language, and poetic inspiration,—the Germans first learned the full capacity of their language in diction and rhythm.

As to Klopstock is due the praise of being the first to teach the Germans by great examples, that reliance upon native resources, and independence of the contracting sway of meager French conventional rules, were the only paths to the production of original, enduring literature; to Lessing belongs that of enforcing the wholesome lesson by precept. Lessing is the father of modern criticism. Born in Kaments, a small town of Lusatia, in 1729, five years later than Klopstock, he wrote at the age of twenty-two a criticism of the Messiah. Later, in his maturity, he produced his Dramaturgie, or, theatrical and dramatic criticism, and his Laocoon, or, the limits of poetry and the plastic arts. He sought always for first principles; and in the search he was guided by a rare philosophic acuteness, co-operating with strong common sense. His fancy—whereof a good endowment is indispensable to a critic—is ever subordinate to his reason; his fine sensibility to the beautiful, supplying materials for the deduction of principles of taste and composition by his subtle understanding. Though greater as a critic than as a poet or creator, he has nevertheless left three different works in the dramatic form, that are classics in German literature;—Minna von Barnkelm, a comedy; Amelia Galotti, a domestic tragedy; and Nathan the Wise, a didactic poem of unique excellence. He himself regarded as his best work his Fables, remarkable for sententiousness, simplicity of language, and pithy significance. His prose style, concise, transparent, forcible without dryness, is a model for the literary student. Not the least of his great services is, that he was the first to draw attention in Germany to Shakspeare, whose supremacy over all poets has since been no where more broadly acknowledged, and the causes of it no where more lucidly developed.

Cotemporary with Klopstock and Lessing, and, from his works and influence, deserving of being mentioned next to them, was Wieland, born in 1733 in Biborach, a town of Swabia. Wieland commenced writing at the age of seventeen, and finished at that of eighty, during which extended period he addicted himself to almost every department of authorship. He is the first German who translated Shakspeare. As the author of Oberon, his name is familiar to English readers. This is much the best work of Wieland, more remarkable for grace and sprightliness than force or originality. He drew largely from the Greeks, Italians, English and French, and though a poet and writer of high and various merit, but a small portion of the much he has written is now read.

Following chronological order in this fertile period, we come after Wieland to Herder, born at Mohrungen, a small town of Eastern Prussia, in 1744. Like Wieland, Goethe, and Schiller, Herder was drawn to Weimar by the munificient spirit of the Duchess Amalia, and her son, the grand Duke Augustus, illustrious and ever memorable, as enlightened fosterers of genius—shining examples to sovereigns, kingly or popular. Herder was appointed in his thirty-second year, court preacher at Weimar, and there passed the remainder of his life, in diversified usefulness, simultaneously inspecting schools and elaborating philosophical essays, learnedly elucidating the Old Testament, and at the same time reviving and awakening a taste for national songs. His greatest work, entitled Ideas for the Philosophy of History, is esteemed one of the noblest productions of modern times. Herder is called by Richter, a Christian Plato.

And here, next to Herder, and a congenial and profounder spirit, we will speak of Richter himself, born in [p. 378] 1763. Richter, better known by his Christian names, Jean Paul, is a fine sample of the German character. The truthfulness of the Germans, their deep religious feeling, their earnestness and their playfulness, (far removed from frivolity) their enthusiasm and their tendency to the mystical, their warm affections and aptness to sympathy, are all not only traceable in his works, but prominent in the broad vivid lines of his erratic pen. In the union of learning with genius, Richter surpasses Coleridge. His wonderful fictions are out of the reach of common readers, not more by their learned illustrations and their subtleties, than by their wild irregularity of form and arbitrary structure, whereby the world generally is deprived of the enjoyment of a fund of the most tender pathos, gorgeous description, bold, keen wit and satire, and the richest humor in modern literature. His two greatest works are on education, and on the philosophy of criticism. He was several years in writing each; and storehouses they are of deep and just thought, of searching analysis, and of great truths, evolved by the reason of one of the world's profoundest thinkers, and illuminated by flashes of genius of almost painful intensity. They are works, each of them, to be studied page by page. Nothing similar to or approaching them exists in English literature.

Of the writers who in this remarkable epoch belong to the first class in the highest department of letters, the poetical or creative, we have spoken—in the cursory manner necessary in a general sketch—of all, save the two greatest, Schiller and Goethe.

Frederick Schiller was born in 1759, at Marbach, a small town of Wurtemberg. In his mind seem to have been blended, and there strengthened, elevated, and refined, the qualities of his parents—the one, a man of clear upright mind; the other, a woman of more than common intelligence and taste, who both enjoyed the fortune of living to witness the greatness of their son. Schiller had the benefit of good early instruction. At the age of fourteen he was placed in a high school, just founded by the reigning Duke of Wurtemberg, and conducted with military discipline. Here, while his daily teachers were tasking him with irksome lessons, first of jurisprudence and afterwards of medicine, the chained genius, chafing like the lion in his cage, was brooding over the thoughts, and by stealth feeding with a translation of Shakspeare the cravings, which nature had implanted in him to produce one of her noblest works—a great poet. At eighteen he began, within the walls of the Duke's military school, The Robbers, often feigning sickness, that he might have a light in his room at night to transfer to paper his daring conception and burning thoughts. He postponed its publication until after he had finished his college course and had obtained the post of surgeon in the army, in his twenty-first year. The appearance of The Robbers, as a consequence of the formal drilling of the self-complacent pedagogues of the Duke of Wurtemberg, I have elsewhere¹ likened to the explosion of a mass of gunpowder under the noses of ignorant boys drying it before a fire to be used as common sand. Schiller himself, in after life, described it as "a monster, for which by good fortune the world has no original, and which I would not wish to be immortal, except to perpetuate an example of the offspring which genius, in its unnatural union with thraldom, may give to the world." Never did a literary work produce a stronger impression. With enthusiastic admiration, the world hailed in it the advent of a mighty poet.

¹ North American Review, for July 1834.

That which roused enthusiasm throughout Germany, roused anger in the sovereign of Wurtemberg; and while all eyes were turned towards the land whence this piercing voice had been heard, he from whose bosom it issued was fleeing from his home to avoid a dungeon. For having gone secretly to Manheim, in a neighboring state, to witness the performance of The Robbers, the Duke had the young poet put under arrest for a week, and Schiller, learning that for repeating the transgression a severer punishment awaited him, fled in disguise, choosing rather to face the appalling reality of sudden self-dependence than brook the tyranny of mind, which to the soaring poet was even more grievous than to the high-souled man. He quickly found friends. Baron Dalberg supplied him with money, while he lived, for a short time, under the name of Schmidt in a small town of Franconia, until Madam von Wollzogen invited him to her estate near Meinungen. Under this lady's roof he gave free scope to his genius, and produced two more dramas—Fiesco, and Kabal und Liebe (Court Intrigue and Love.) These, with the Robbers, constitute the first or untutored era of Schiller's literary life. With faults as glaring as their beauties are brilliant, they are now chiefly valued as the broad first evidence of that power, whose full exertion afterwards gave to the world Don Carlos, Wallenstein, and Tell, and to Schiller immortality. Their reputation obtained for him the post of poet to the Manheim theatre. Thence, after a brief period he went to Leipsic and to Dresden, developing his noble faculties by study and exercise. In 1789, at the age of thirty, he was appointed by the Grand Duke of Weimar, at the instigation of Goethe, professor of History in the university of Jena. Here and at Weimar he passed, in constant literary labor, the remainder of his too short life.

Schiller's great reputation rests, and will ever rest, unshaken, on his dramas. Regarding his first three, which we have named, as preparatory studies to his dramatic career, he has left six finished tragedies, viz.—Don Carlos, The Maid of Orleans, Wallenstein (in three parts,) Mary Stuart, The Bride of Messina, and William Tell—works, in whose conception and execution the highest principles of art control with plastic power the glowing materials of a rich, deep, fervent mind, ordering and disposing them with such commanding skill, as to produce dramas, which are not merely effective in theatrical representation, and soul-stirring to the reader as pictures of passion, but which, by the rare combination of refined art with mental fertility and poetic genius, exhibit, each one of them, that highest result of the exertion of the human faculties—a great poem. Possessing, in common with other gifted writers, the various endowments needed in a dramatist and poet of the highest order, the individual characteristic of Schiller is elevation. The predominant tendency of his mind is ever upwards. Open his volumes any where, and in a few moments the reader feels himself lifted up into an ideal region. The leading characters in his plays, though true to humanity, have an ideal loftiness. You figure them to yourself as of heroic stature, such grandeur and nobleness is there in their strain of sentiment [p. 379] and expression. The same characteristic pervades his prose and lyrical poetry. Had he never written a drama, his two volumes of lyrical poetry would suffice to enthrone him among the first class of poets, so beautiful is it and at the same time of such depth of meaning, so musical and so thought-pregnant. No where is the dignity of human nature more nobly asserted than in the works of Schiller; as pure, and simple, and noble, as a man, as he is powerful and beautiful as a poet. In the full vigor of his faculties, his mind matured by experience and severe culture, and teeming with poetic plans, he died in 1805, having reached only his forty-sixth year.

Of Schiller's great rival and friend, Goethe, as of Schiller himself, I can, in the limited space allowed in such a lecture as this, only give you a rapid sketch.

John Wolfgang Goethe was born at Frankfort on the Maine in 1749, ten years before Schiller. "Selectest influences" leagued with nature to produce this wonderful man. To give its complete development to a mighty inward power, outward circumstances were most happily propitious. Upon faculties of the quickest sensibility, and yet of infinitely elastic power, wide convulsions and world-disturbing incidents bore with tempestuous force, dilating the congenial energies of the young genius, who suddenly threw out his fiery voice to swell the tumult round him, and announce the master spirit of the age. For a while, the thrilling melody of that voice mingled in concert with the deep tones of the passionate period whence it drew so much of its power. Soon, however, was it heard, uttering with calmer inspiration the words of wisdom, drawn from a source deeper than passion—passion subdued by the will, and tempered by culture. "It is not the ocean ruffled," says Jean Paul, "that can mirror the heavens, but the ocean becalmed."

Goethe's father was a prosperous honored citizen of Frankfort, improved by travel and study—a man of sound heart and sharp temper; his mother, a woman of superior mind and of genial character, to whom in her old age Madam de Stael paid a visit of homage, and who enjoyed the pleasure of introducing herself to her distinguished visiter with the words,—"I am the mother of Goethe." Under the guidance of such parents was Goethe's boyhood passed in the old free city of Frankfort, ever a place of various activity, where he witnessed when a child the coronation of an emperor of Germany, and the stir of a battle, fought in the neighborhood between Frederick the Great and the French—events of rare interest to any boy, and of deep import to one in whose unfolding a great poet was to become manifest. In due season he was sent to the university of Leipsic, famous then by the lectures of Gottsched, Gellert, Ernesti, and others. To the young Frankfort student the admired discourses of these sages of the time were but lessons in skepticism; their magisterial dicta and hollow dogmas being quickly dissolved in the fire of a mind, already in its youth competent to self-defence against error, though with vision too untried yet to pierce to the truth. From Leipsic he went to Strasburg, to complete his studies in the law, his father having destined him for a lawyer. A more imperious parent, however, had laid other commands on him, and while the words of law-professors were falling upon his outward ear, the inward mind was revolving the deeds of Goetz von Berlichingen, and shaping the vast fragments of which in after years was built the wondrous world of Faust.

In his twenty-third year appeared Goetz von Berlichingen, the firstling of a pen, which, in the following sixty years, filled as many volumes with works of almost every form wherein literature embodies itself, a series of boundless wealth and unequalled excellence, to gain access to which, a year were well spent in daily labor to master the fine language it enriches. Two years later, appeared Werter, an agonizing picture of passion, which, like the first crude outburst of Schiller's genius, shot a thrill through the then agitated mind of Germany, and which Goethe afterwards, in the tranquillity of his purified faculties, looked back upon as a curious literary phenomenon. This work has never been directly translated into English (and a good translation of it were no easy achievement,) the book called "The Sorrows of Werter" being a translation of a French version, that does not give even the title of the original, which is, "The Sufferings of the Young Werther." And yet, by this doubly distorted image of a youthful ebullition, was the Protean giant for a long while measured in England, and through England, in America.

Soon after the publication of Werter, Goethe was invited to Weimar, where, honored and conferring honor, he lived the rest of his long and fruitful life. Appointed at once a member, he in a few years became president of the Council of State; and finally, after his return from Italy, at about the age of forty he was made one of the Grand Duke's Ministers, a post he for many years held. Directing the establishment and arrangement of museums, libraries, art-exhibitions, and theatrical representations, he contributed directly by practical labors, as well as by the brilliancy which the products of his pen shed upon his place of abode, to the fame and prosperity of Weimar.

In the poems of Shakspeare, is disclosed a mind, wherein capaciousness and subtlety, vigor and grace, clearness and depth, versatility and justness, combine and co-operate with such shifting ease and impressive effect, that ordinary human faculties are vainly tasked to embrace its perfectness and its immensity. Contemplating it, the keenest intelligence exhausts itself in analysis, and the most refined admiration ends in wonder. Inferior only to this consummation of human capabilities is the mind of Goethe, akin to Shakspeare's in the breadth and variety and subtlety of its powers. In comprehensiveness of grasp and ideal harmony in conceiving a poetic whole, the German approaches the mighty Englishman, and displays also in the delineation, or, more properly, the creation of characters, that instinctive insight and startling revelation of the human heart, which in Shakspeare almost at times make us think he were privy to the mystery of its structure. The same calmness and serene self-possession—a sign of supreme mental power—are characteristic of both. Like Shakspeare, Goethe never intrudes his personal individuality to mar the proportions of a work of art.

To pour out the wealth of a mind, which ranges over every province of human thought and action, Goethe adopts all the various forms in which poetry, according to its mood and object, moulds itself. In his epigrams, elegies, songs and ballads, he embodies the highest excellences of the lyrical. In Egmont, you have a bold [p. 380] specimen of the romantic tragedy; in Iphygenia, a beautiful reproduction of the classical Greek; while Torquato Tasso, a drama of the most exquisite grace and refinement, occupies a middle ground between the two. To pass from this to Faust, is to be suddenly borne away from a quiet scene of rural beauty to a rugged mountain peak, whence, through a tempest, you catch glimpses of the distant sunny earth, and mid the elemental strife, beautiful in its terrors, hear sounds as though a heaven-strung æolian harp snatched music from the blast. In Herman and Dorothea, executed with matchless felicity, reigns the pure epic spirit. This one poem were enough to make a reputation. But the highest exhibition of Goethe's manifold powers is Wilhelm Meister, in which a mixed assemblage of fictitious personages, each one possessing the vital individuality and yet generic breadth of Falstaff and of Juliet, bound together in a vast circle of the most natural and complex relations, presents so truthful and significant and art-beautified a picture of the struggles and attainments, the joys and griefs, the labors and recreations, the capacities and failings of mortal men, that from its study we rise with strength freshened and feelings purified, and our vision of all earthly things brightened. Unhesitatingly characterizing this work as the greatest prose fiction ever produced, I close this brief notice of its wonderful author.

The writers I have named are they who have given existence and character to modern German literature. Yet, to omit all mention of a number of others, would be not only unjust to them, but an imperfection even in so rapid a sketch as this.

By the side of Lessing, I should have placed Winkelman, born in the beginning of the last century, whose history of ancient art is esteemed the best of all works in this department of criticism. It had great influence upon German literature. Among the poets who, next to the brilliant series already described, hold high places, are, Bürger, Koerner, (both known to English readers through translations), Voss—to whom, and to their own copious, flexible language, the Germans are indebted for the most perfect translations of Homer possessed by any people—Tieck, Novalis, Grilpazer. Besides these may be mentioned the Stolbergs, Hoelty, Tidge, Leisewits, Mülner, Collin, Mathison, Uland. Among a crowd of novelists, distinguished are the names of Engel, Fouquet, Lafontaine, and Hoffman, and Thummel, whose satirical novels have a high reputation. Of miscellaneous writers there is a host, among whom should be particularized, Mendelsohn, Jacobi, Lichtenberg. In historians Germany is especially rich. Johan von Müller, Heeren, Niebuhr, Raumer, O. Müller, are writers whose merits are acknowledged throughout Europe, and acquaintance with whose works is indispensable to the scholar who would have wide views and accurate knowledge of the spirit of history. In criticism the two Schlegels have a European reputation. The "Lectures on the Drama" of Augustus William Schlegel constitute the finest critical work extant. Of the well known learning, profoundness, and acuteness of the German philologists, theologians and metaphysicians, it were superfluous here to speak. In short, to conclude, the Germans, endowed by nature with mental capabilities inferior to those of no people of the earth, and enjoying for the last half century a more general as well as a higher degree of education than any other, and thus combining talent and genius with wide learning and laborious culture, possess a vast and various accumulation of productions, wherein are to be found in every province of letters works of highest excellence, which to the literary or scientific student, whatever be his native tongue, are inexhaustible sources of mental enjoyment and improvement.

LINES.

The following lines were composed in January 1830, while passing the night in the wilderness before a huntsman's fire, in company with a party of friends engaged in a hunting expedition.

ALLITERATION.

"Pierce Plowman's Vision," by William Langlande, in the reign of Edward III, is the longest specimen extant of alliterative poetry. It proceeds in this manner without rhyme, and with few pretensions to metre—

READINGS WITH MY PENCIL.

26. "There should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric: and pure invention is but the talent of a liar."—Byron, by Moore.

This seems harsh judgment—but is it so, in reality? Ethically, as well as in a mere worldly view, I think it is. "There is nothing new under the sun," and he who tells what is not, lies—under a mistake, or otherwise. All fiction is woven on a web of fact, except the liar's fiction, which is all woof and no web, and so must soon fall to pieces from its own want of consistency. Apropos! I saw a play advertised, within the week, which was announced by the author, as founded neither in fact, fancy, or imagination!

27. "The piety implanted in Byron's nature—as it is, deeply, in all poetic natures," &c.—Moore's Byron.

Devotion arises very naturally from viewing the works of God with seriousness. If Byron had not some holy stirrings of devotion within him, when painting his loveliest pictures, I greatly err in my estimate of human nature. These remained, perhaps, to show him how much he had lost in his misanthropic musings over the dark and gloomy past: and had he followed gently those motions, with which, in thinking of the sublime and beautiful of nature, his mind was visited, it would have but been a compliance with a call from heaven, guiding him to true happiness.

How vividly does this bold but beautiful figure at times come back upon me, when I have been walking at deep midnight—when the stillness that pervaded all around me was so deep and intense as to make me, for very fear of breaking it, restrain my breath: while the fine array of stars was gloriously marshalled in high heaven: the belted Orion—the Serpent showing its every fold between the Bears. Lyra had not set, the Eagle was just on the western edge, and the Dolphin's cluster near its precursor. The Canès, Major and Minor, were bright in the east; nearly over head was Capella, and the Gemini as bright as the prince of the Hyades, Aldebaran. Jupiter lighted his gas-like flame, eastward of Castor and Pollux, and meteors were flitting in various lines across the whole western sky. And again, on some still, clear, fair night—when the blood-red planet, Mars, was high in heaven, and the brighter and purer Jupiter, and the Dogstar were fading in the horizon—how have I stood, listening to nothing, while the hum of the fairies was melting in my ears! For what else can I call that deception of the fancy, or perhaps that real sound from an unknown source, which, in the most profound silence, is still sweetly rising up around us?

29. "Do not we all know that the whig laureate, Tom Moore, actually published in the Morning Chronicle, the substance of conversations which had occurred at the royal table itself, to which he had been incautiously admitted? And that the most pungent and piquant things in * * the Twopenny Post Bag, and the Fudge Family * * *, are derived from information picked up in the progress of social intercourse?"

I believe these inuendoes are now beyond all cavil. The excuse of Tom was, that George deserted his party, and that all's fair in politics. Whether or not this were reasonable excuse, casuists may settle; but there is one reflection incident to the anecdote, to which the years 1835-6 has given rise; and this is, how ungracefully looks the Irish Anacreon, after such a well-authenticated charge, in raising a breeze against poor Willis, for repeating what himself had said about O'Connell, as a public speaker merely, at a large dinner party of Lady Blessington's! The mote and the beam!

AMERICAN SOCIAL ELEVATION.

The Spartan knew no other stimulus to exertion than the shining glories of war. From infancy to old age he was ever learning the skill and daring which belong to the battle field. His every mental development was martial in its tendency. He saw in every feature of his country's institutions an appeal to his warrior spirit. Imagine a band of young ambitious minds circled around some aged patriot, who, in the all-glowing language of arms, is describing the daring, the glorious achievement which had immortalized the Spartan character. Listen to him as he portrays the bravery unrivalled, the death unequalled, of those who fell at Thermopylæ or Leuctra; as he calls upon their mighty shades to witness his words—and mark the youth how intent, how all-intent they grow as he proceeds; their eyes flashing with fire; their hands clenched; their teeth set. Do this, and you have a faint idea of that kind of influence which moulded and directed the mind of the Spartan. Is it wonderful that Sparta became the military school of antiquity? Thus taught, the highest worship of her youth was offered on the altars of war. Thus taught, their imagination was ever picturing the fierce onset, the high conflict, the battle won, and the laurel immortal which graced the victor's brow. Thus taught, they were ever ready to seize the sword and shield and rush to meet the invader. Thus taught, they served well their country and went to their fancied home in the distant Elysia, to join the heroes whom they had learned to admire, mourned and remembered by their countrymen.

We propose to point out those objects which actuate the American mind; to show their inadequacy to produce the general elevation of society, and humbly to suggest what should be the controlling stimulus. Need we ask what are the chief motives which influence our national mind? Need it be told that our young growing mind is fast becoming a money making, political mind? The most casual observer has only to glance at the state of things, to feel sensibly its truth. Observe that man of quick step and active air, as he moves through the street of the commercial city; how, all absorbed in himself, he passes heedlessly on, as if he were the only being in society: his mind is intensely bent on making a few dollars; and he is but one among the thousands. Observe the throngs of men who have met to-day on public exchange, to transact the business of thousands and millions. Mark this one in deep meditation; that one lively with a face brilliant with joy; here one telling in whispers some long expected news to one all attention; there one earnest in persuasion with one [p. 382] feignedly reluctant. There is a variety of mental exercise, of thought, of emotion; but the desire of gain, the secret spring of action, is the chief mental development. Go into the extensive manufactory, and while with delighted mind you admire the beauties and power of invention, and believe the veil of the Holy of Holies of Science's temple to be lifted, and her mysteries revealed, reflect to what end these fruits of inventive genius are applied. Go upon the hill-top, and looking down upon the verdant meadow, the rich fields of grain, the orchard and vine-clad arbors, all in luxuriant growth, ask yourself, why so much industry in bringing forth the products of the soil. There is but one answer—the desire of gain. Nor are the manifestations of this desire seen only in the outward world; it is the deity of the fireside circle. It moulds the earliest thought, and directs its action. Around it bow in low submission the powers and affections of mind. For it, all, all which belongs to the man, mentally and physically, is offered a willing sacrifice.

Now, it may be asked, are the fruits of this desire the elevation of society, the full developments of the mind's faculties, the beautiful, the active, the useful, the noble? Being the controlling power which influences every thought and feeling, it becomes the sole arbiter of every action. Self-emolument being its highest aim, it shapes every exertion to this end. It requires activity, unrelaxing activity—but it is not an activity for the promotion of general good. It requires sleepless attention, even such as belonged to the virgins who tended the sacred fires of Vesta's temple. But it is a watching which takes care of self. It requires the exertion of the intellectual powers, but only so far as to bemean them to its purposes. In fine, it concentrates the whole soul, its entire thoughts and feelings on a single point. And whatever attractions there may be around, however glorious or grand, it never turns from this point. This point is self.

Now, where in this system is that cultivation of mind, which lifts society from the depths of barbarism to the mountain heights of power and civilization? Where those brilliances and glories of intellect, which die not with nations but live in the admiration of all coming time? Where that eloquence of the heart which flows from the deep well of the affections? That eloquence which strengthens and chastens the social relations; which, silent, unobserved, connects men together by chains of sympathetic love and benevolence? Or where in this system, is that love of country, that lofty patriotism, which is the foundation of national character? What is patriotism? It is a love of ancestry; a love, the very antithesis of self; a love, which like the Christian's love, beautifies and elevates society. Can it exist in this money-getting age? As well might you bid yonder queen river of the west to roll backwards. Does it exist? Who can doubt that this is an age of degenerate patriotism? Patriotism! that which holds a nation up, which forgotten lets her fall into the common sepulchre of departed empires. Patriotism! alas! that the signs of the times are ominous that this people are fast bidding you a long, long farewell.

But the fruits, say the advocates of this money-seeking desire, are industry and wealth. We grant wealth as its result, and that it is not an effect of enchantment; but as there must be much labor, chiselling and hammering, before the edifice can rise in beauty and magnificence, so in its acquisition there must be inflexible industry. But is it that kind of industry which unfolds and invigorates the mind, thereby producing social elevation and refinement? History informs us how some of the mighty cities of the east, by industry, rose to opulence, but laments over their low state of society, and as a consequence, their fall, like Lucifer from the halls of heaven, never to rise again. This industry, so beloved, so enticing in the view of the many, is directed to one end—individual gain. Considered in reference to the well-being of communities as a whole, it is a gilded fatality. It explores the deep centres of the earth, and brings forth its long buried riches; covers every river, sea, and lake with commerce; ransacks all nature, animate and inanimate. But what is all this, without a fully developed mind to direct, to manage, to enjoy? What would it avail us, though industry should roof our houses with diamonds, if there was not within a virtuous feeling, an elevation of thought? Does this money-loving industry purify and ennoble the social relations—show their nature and point out how they should be observed?—or, does it lift the mind to the contemplation of the ineffable glories and majesties of the eternal King of worlds?

We have said we grant wealth as the result of this desire, but it is not general wealth. All may strive, all may labor with intense anxiety and assiduity, but all will not gain the mountain's summit; a great majority must ever be at its base. Speculation, which is the mean of immense fortunes, bankrupts more than it enriches. The follies of mankind, their diversity of thought and feeling, their ignorance, their mistaken notions of pride, render it impossible for all to be alike successful. The result is obvious. The few, the mighty few, are the wealthy. Now, wealth in the present state of things is power; for the sicklied conception of the age has thrown around it all that is great or glorious. And it is a well founded principle that power, whatever its nature, will govern. Who can picture that state of society, governed by aristocratic wealth, untempered by the virtues of the heart and intellect?

Further; it is not only by the sacrifice of its mind that this age will acquire its wealth, but by the sacrifice of that of posterity. One generation stamps a character upon another. Whatever this age thinks and does, will more or less characterize the thoughts and actions of the succeeding.

Nor is this all. This, with coming generations, by their industry, by the stimulus of an unquenchable thirst for wealth, will, in all probability, accumulate countless riches—will, if we may speak thus figuratively, erect in our land immense moneyed houses filled with gold and silver, the reward of their desire. But these generations, like all things below, must pass away, and sink into the common tomb of the dead. Then these moneyed houses, though locked and barred, and ironed, will be burst open, and their gold and silver, amassed with miserly care, be made to flow in streams to slake the thirst of a debased posterity. And the result is beyond the power of human imagination. Having the wealth of their ancestors in their hands, and being, as man is, naturally prone to idleness, they will forget the industry of their fathers, and only think how they may live most lavishly, most splendidly. The gratification of the senses, attended [p. 383] by its concomitants, vice and degradation, will be the sole desire of all human aspiration. Society—its beautiful dependences and proportions destroyed—will fall into fragments and return to original anarchy. Mind uncultivated, will shed no illuminations, but, like "expression's last receding ray," will be lost in the universal midnight of heart and intellect. For to this idol of their worship, sensual pleasure, they will bring as daily offerings the lovely and beautiful in the heart, the noble and sublime in the intellect. But amid all their dissipation, like the revellers at Belshazzar's feast, surrounded by the luxuries and glittering splendors of earth, unsuspecting, the thunderbolt of their destruction will come upon them—fearfully, suddenly, to their annihilation.

We have now briefly shown the nature of this money-getting desire, and its inadequacy, from its total neglect of all mental cultivation, to promote the general elevation of society. There is another stimulus of American mind which sometimes combines with the desire of wealth—occasionally acts alone. It is an aspirancy for political fame.

Bear with us while we attempt very concisely to show its nature and effects. No one who looks abroad upon the present aspect of society can doubt the existence of such a desire. It is the controlling stimulus of our young educated mind. It has its origin in our nature, for man is naturally fond of distinction, fond of wielding the sceptre of governing power. Our institutions in their high and impartial wisdom have said, that all men possess equal rights; and upon this declaration rest the pillars which support the sky-dome of our national temple. But the mind of this age has perverted its original intent, and made it the all-stimulating cause of a thirst for political elevation. The state of society, its love of political excitement, its seeming willingness to reward political effort, likewise awaken and nourish this thirst.

What is its nature? It does not develope the various mental powers. It does not strengthen the affections or awaken their inborn eloquence. It does not teach us the nature of that great chain of relations which holds society in union. Being common to the many, and attainable but by the few, it creates an ungenerous rivalry among its votaries. All in fancy gaze upon the shining halo of greatness which encircles the rulers, and beholding the unbounded adoration paid it by the ruled, each resolves, in newness of purpose and strength, to gratify his selfish aim, though at the expense of the best hopes of society.

What is its effect? All the faculties of mind are applied and made subservient to one end—individual elevation. A fondness for excitement is created, and the mind is ever longing and panting for this excitement. Parties start up, and society is engrossed and agitated by party dissensions—dissensions which awaken and cherish old prejudices and sectional feelings, to the smothering of those which are purer and nobler; dissensions, which combine bad ambition and immature intellect; dissensions, which elicit cunning and chicanery, instead of throwing out the brilliant thought or touching the chord of high affection; dissensions, in which that calm serenity which chastens the powers, passions, and emotions which unfold the higher graces and charities of our nature, is unknown; dissensions in which patriotism, which is a love as universal, as it is noble and inspiriting, is forgotten; dissensions, which terminate in the elevation of some ambitious leader to the high throne of power; who, having reached the summit of his wishes, looks down upon the servile mass, and with the utmost complacency throws upon their bended necks the yoke of their bondage. Where is here the elevation of society, pure feeling, pure thoughts?

The same train of thought may be exemplified by a reference to those nations of antiquity, where now the "spirit of decay" has its abiding place. The history of ancient republics is familiar to every one; their unequalled greatness, their decline and fall are the schoolboy's tale. And what does this history tell him? That in times of great political excitement there was less virtue, less elevation of mind, less real patriotism; that what is noble or excellent in our nature, was lost amid the whirl of party dissensions; as in the times of the Gracchi when the first seed was sown which led to the fall of the "seven-hilled city"—or still later, when the mighty Cæsar rose, and the elements of old parties were stirred up and new ones created, until the imperial mistress of the world reeled and fell to the dust. This history likewise tells him that the same is true of the democracy of Athens—that in periods of high party contention the excellences and glories of mind, so congenial to that "bright clime of battle and of song," were unknown, as in the ages of Aristides and Socrates, or of Demosthenes and Æschines, when the gold of the Macedonian bought their purest patriots.

We come now to the last point which we proposed to set forth. What is essential to the elevation of society? Before proceeding in its investigation, we would correct all misapprehensions. We would not have this age unmindful of the importance of wealth, but would have it exert due energy in its acquisition. Wealth, in the hands of enlightened mind, is a powerful mean in the improvement of morals and intellect, adorns the social structure by its offerings of the beauties and elegances of art and nature, dispenses far and near the comforts and blessings of life—and is one of the great levers by which society is raised to its highest elevation. Nor would we have this age unmindful of political interests. Politics, from the nature of the social organization, enter into and necessarily become an inherent characteristic of all society. There must be a government of laws; and whether the people or their representatives legislate, it is necessary that the people understand the nature and effect of legislation. Without such knowledge, the maxim, that power is ever stealing from the many to the few, would be too truly, fatally, verified; for the power-loving nature of man would be enabled, first, to throw around the mass an illusive gilded snare—afterwards, to crush it in its iron despotic grasp. There must then be both wealth and politics. But we would not have either wealth or politics the controlling desire of the mind; thus considered, they debase and destroy this mind. We would have them as subordinate instruments to one grand desire, the elevation of society. We would have them as the satellites which revolve in glorious harmony around the great sun; and we would not have them take the place of the sun, for then the system would be broken, the music of the spheres hushed, and all nature return to primeval chaos.

The promotion of the general well-being of society by a cultivation of the heart and intellect, is impliedly required of Americans, from the nature and structure of [p. 384] our government. It was not reared by the gold of the conquered, or on the bones of the subject. It rose into being all glorious, the creation of free minds enlightened by the reason and experience of centuries. Being the opposite of despotism, it does not chain down the powers of mind or shrivel away their existence. Nor does it like Sparta, unchain the mind, only to stimulate its martial character; for the rainbow of peace is the circling arch of our national fabric. Founded in morals and intellect, it appeals to their cultivation as the means of its prosperity and perpetuity. It says to the mind, be free!—free, to expand in full bloom and vigor—free, to be noble—free, to rise and soar with the strength and majesty of the eagle! And it attaches a meaning to freedom of mind. That mind is free which is not bound to the will of party; which is not the slave of any imperious passion or desire. That mind is free which can love and rejoice over the prosperity of the Union. That mind is free which does not allow the still current of the soul's affections to be chilled by impure passion or feeling, but increases its onward flow in warmth and strength. That mind is free which thinks and acts as becomes the "noblest work" of Deity. That mind is free which enjoys a full and chaste development of all its powers, passions and emotions; which knows and observes its relations; which can concentrate its thoughts on a single point; which, when it looks abroad upon nature's works, beholds the reflected power and wisdom of a God; or, which, as it gazes upon the azure sky, the verdant forest, the beautiful river, the sparkling lake, the storm-rolling ocean, feels inexpressible delight and reverence. Such is the meaning which our government attaches to the phrase "freedom of mind." What in the nature of things can be clearer? Does it not require of this people a general cultivation of mind?

Consistency then with the objects of our government requires, that the great pervading desire of society should be its elevation by its universal mental cultivation. Such a desire is opposed to the selfish system—is the protecting angel of patriotism. It combines the excellences of intellect and pure ambition. It lifts the mind from low and grovelling objects to the contemplation of those which are purer and higher, delighting in the good, the exalted. In it is concentrated whatever is noble in morals, whatever is sublime and unanswerable in truth.

What is meant by universal mental cultivation? We find it not in the history of nations. The history of the world is no more than a record of human usurpations based on human ignorance. A powerful few have ever moulded and wielded the destinies of mankind. Learning has shone only to render more brilliant some kingly reign. Unlike the great luminary of day, which it should resemble, its beams have ever been confined within the compass of a court or palace. The mountain peaks only of society have felt its light, while at the base, where the great mass congregate, there has been utter darkness. True, we are told of remarkable eras in the history of learning—of the Augustan age, when all that was beautiful and powerful in thought, all that was magic in conception or grand in imagery, shone forth in the most attractive forms; of the reigns of queens Anne and Elizabeth, when the graces and elegances of English literature were unrivalled, as they appeared in the majestic imaginings of Shakspeare, the nervous beauty and simplicity of Addison, and other master minds; of periods in the learning of Italy, when Dante, Tasso, Petrarch, gave a new name and a new being to Italian intellect. But was the state of society, as a whole, refined and elevated in any of these remarkable eras? The lights were chiefly intellectual, and belonged to the higher grades of society; besides, they shone but for a short time and departed, leaving the deeper darkness. Moreover, they were purely literary, and pure literature never reaches the mass of mind. True, it is perpetual, and shines down from age to age, as do the lights of those eras which now illumine in some degree the mind of the present; but it is only a reflection from eminence to eminence—the people see it, feel it not. We repeat it, learning has ever been confined to the few; the many have never known its invigorating influence.

Now, mind is the moving and guiding principle of all human action. Mind teaches the nature of the delicate and momentous relations which unite society, preserves their beauty and uniformity, developes their power and usefulness. This mind dwells with the mass of mankind. We would then, that society may be elevated, have the rays of knowledge penetrate and expand this mind. We would have the genius of learning courted and wooed from her mountain residence, that literature and science might come down, and walk radiant with truth and loveliness through every grade of the community. We would have the bright light struck out from the mind of the mass, and its illuminations reach the uttermost boundaries of the land, as extensive as the circling canopy of the sky. So speaks the voice of humanity, even as the voice of an angel.

Again: What is meant by universal mental cultivation? It is not the expansion of any single mental power or susceptibility. There should be no brilliancy of intellect unmellowed by the radiancy of moral feeling—no strength of passion or sentiment uninfluenced by other of the mind's faculties. There must be a mental balance, which is the great secret of all education. From the want of such balance, Ignorance, with her offspring, Superstition and Prejudice, has ever weighed down the intellectual scale and destroyed the noblest results of mental effort. That system should be discarded which developes only the powers of intellect. Variety, the high thought, the virtuous sentiment, the beautiful and sublime emotion, the chaste passion, all, in happy union, raise communities to power and happiness.

Surely, it is not illogical to maintain, that an endowment of diversified powers and affections of mind, impliedly requires their cultivation. Why the gift of reason, of memory, of imagination? Why the gift of moral and religious feeling, of love, of sympathy—or of any faculty? It would be absurd to say that they are mere trifles, mere butterfly appendages, to gratify taste or pleasure. Further, this diversity of mind, entering into, necessarily creates the numerous individual fibres which are the sources of the vigor and strength of the social frame. Is it not then evident, that the expansion of any one mental power to the neglect of all, or of some to the neglect of others, would take away more or less of this vigor and strength; would disfigure the social frame and destroy its beauty and harmony of proportion? Here, the mind suggests [p. 385] an analogical argument. Look abroad over the material world. Is there sameness? Is there the exclusive development of any single feature? Is the earth's surface one barren, limitless plain? or its soil of one kind? or its deep mines all gold, or silver, or iron? Or do we behold a world of water, of inconceivable sublimity? No! There is the mountain, bold and rugged, bleak, or crowned with magnificent foliage, to awaken the emotions and give wings to the imagination; the valley of varied soil suited to the production of the comforts of life; the vein of gold, of silver, of iron, each and all, in happy effect, increasing the embellishments and blessings of society; and there are the river, the lake, and still worlds of water. What is there useful or harmonious, or ornamental, or enlivening, or grand, unseen in this, the Deity's material creation? Now, observe the mental world. There is reason, producing the solid and beneficial; memory and imagination, her handmaids, assisting her vigor and research, and robing her in loveliness and brightness; the affections, diffusing through all and throwing over all a glow of love, beauty, and peace; thus, preserving the necessary relations, and showing their glorious influences when developed and joined in union in this the Deity's mental creation. Should you take from the material world one of its parts, you would destroy its harmony and uniformity. A similar result would follow, should you take from the mental world one of its parts. Let there, then, be no single mental development since it destroys the other powers and their relations, but let there be a full growth of all to their greatest, their proudest stature. Let the systems of the past be forgotten, and in contemplation of the future, let us resolve that no one passion or desire of mind, shall erect its tyrant throne on the prostration of other nobler powers. For the mind fully cultivated is a "museum of knowledge," lives forever "serene in youthful beauty."

The principle of universal mental cultivation being set forth, its bearing and effect will be seen in its application to the various classes of society. First, in the professions, that of the law being the one of our adoption, and therefore most congenial to our thoughts, we select for illustration. The science of law considered strictly, only in reference to rules, forms, and the gathered opinions of centuries, may be styled an isolated system in character, cold and forbidding. But construed liberally, in all its relations and bearings, it embraces within its circle all that belongs to human action. It appeals to, and acts upon the good sense and good feeling of mankind. It is the protector of morals, and may be the defender of religion. It is the guardian and dispenser of social rights, and their invincible champion with power. It combats vice and ignorance, unravels the cunning and chicanery of men, and brings forth truth all beautiful and overwhelming. In short, founded in justice and the good of society, it becomes the conservator of religion, morals, and intellect. What should be the qualifications of the high priests who administer around the sacred altars of the judicial temple? They should sound deep the wells of knowledge, and be familiar with nice and subtle distinctions. They should know every motive of human conduct, from that which causes the most delicate to that which causes the most stupendous movements in society. They should examine well the passions, their sources and effect upon the mind. They should look abroad upon society, understand its origin, the nature of its relations, their beautiful adaptations, their harmonious influences, and love to increase its glory and happiness by the cultivation of fresh virtues and excellences. They should, for this end, unlock the store-houses of wisdom and knowledge for original and sound principles, for apt illustration. They should be thoroughly indoctrinated in a spirit of true philosophy—of that philosophy which teaches the intimate nature of the transactions and interests of men—of that philosophy which teaches what should characterize every action whether in the family or in the outward world. They should be old acquaintances with the master spirits of literature and science, both in ancient and modern times; that "halo" of mingled character, of light, grace and magic, which encircles the Muses, should likewise be to them a fount of inspiration. Now, such a preparation presupposes a full development of minds—of minds, not only powerful in stern reason, but rich and dazzling in imagination, and useful in the exercise of all other powers; of minds, not only great in some one of the affections, but deeply imbued in all the higher and sympathetic feelings of the heart. Such being the case, these minds, which we may call by their prototypes, Marshalls and Wirts, will raise the profession to the loftiest pinnacle of eminence, will stamp its character for moral and intellectual power and usefulness. The same remarks apply to the other professions, and the same train of cause and effect will raise them to a similar eminence.

But is the elevation of the professions the elevation of society? So has thought the world, and generation after generation has passed away, and others and others have followed, and still it is thus thought. But it is time that this fatal delusion, which has hung like an incubus over society, blasting its bloom and vigor, should be dispelled—that all grades may rise to their rightful station. Never was suggested to mortal mind a fairer scheme, or one of more moral grandeur. The mechanic possessing the same mental gifts, enjoying the same rights, holding the same momentous relations to society as the professional man, should likewise have his heart and intellect fully developed. It is not sufficient that he be a mere mechanic. A mere mechanic is a child in the world of knowledge. It is not sufficient that he be a good workman, though he be as skilful and precise in the use of his instrument, as was the Moorish king Saladin, in Scott's story of the Talisman. In mere workmanship there is no illumination of intellect, no awakening of emotion, no refinement of passion. The principles of science are closely interwoven in every piece of mechanism. He should master well these principles, the effect of their application, consider them as the solid basis of the comforts and conveniences of life, and not the least among the means of human power and enjoyment. He should love his trade because of the science engrafted in it, because of its usefulness, because of its affording him an enduring place in Fame's temple. For this purpose, he should go back to the earliest, feeblest dawn of science, when first Israel's shepherds gazed upon the star-gemmed firmament, and mark its gradual but onward progress; how, at one period, it shone all luminous; how, at another, it went down in universal midnight; how again it revived under the touch of a few mighty geniuses, and rose [p. 386] clustered with new principles and discoveries, with the glory and splendor of the sun itself. The productions of Newton and Franklin, and other great lights both of the past and present, should be the aliment of his mind; their thoughts, which when sought, come clear and inspiriting from the living page, should be familiar to him as household words; and how they studied and thought, he should learn to study and think. And like them, whatever is important in the material world, above or below, he should make the playthings of his inquiring mind. And like them, he should not be ignorant of whatever is excellent in religion, useful in philosophy, enrapturing in song, or thrilling in eloquence. He will thus exhibit a mind not stinted in its growth, not controlled by any one desire, but a mind, like Milton's tree of paradise, weighed down with rich and delicious fruits—a mind, elevated, useful and polished. He will thus exalt his trade, and add to it new and brighter glories. But the elevation of professions and mechanical trades is not sufficient to produce the general elevation of society. They compose no more than half of the great mass of mind. There are yet the merchant and the farmer, who should be raised to a like eminence. Commerce, viewed in reference to buying and selling, retards the moral and intellectual improvement of mankind. Thus viewed, and connected with avarice for money, it would create a nation of pedlars. But, considered in its widest sense, as influencing the business and interests of men, and thus acting on thought and feeling, as entering into every social relation, as drawing on the resources of the earth, the air, and the water, as connected with foreign climes, and uniting nations by golden links of sympathy and interest, it is by far the most comprehensive and important of all life's vocations. The merchant then should possess a mind sure, deep and searching; nor should he be a novice in knowledge of any kind. What is peculiar to variety of soil and climate, what to the habits and feelings of countries, what to their wants and desires, should be fully known to him. What are the duties and obligations, arising from the many and weighty relations which his calling creates, should likewise be fully known to him. He should therefore be a historian, a philosopher, a scholar, and a Christian. Commerce will then rise to the highest degree of perfection and usefulness.

And is the mind of the farmer, amid all this moral and intellectual illumination, to remain uncultivated? Is he an isolated being, unconnected by any relations with society? or has he no obligations to perform in common with his fellow men? Has he not those varied mental endowments, which are the glory of his species, which exalt, adorn, bless, and refine? Or is he incapable of feeling the poetry of the emotions, delight, beauty, and sublimity? or of that warmth and exaltedness of sympathetic virtue, which stimulate and invigorate the spirit of love and benevolence? Is there no knowledge or science in agriculture? Agriculture is closely allied to commerce, and has a bearing greater or less on every pursuit in life. It may be called an unfailing source of national wealth and prosperity, supplying the wants of man, and imparting new life, and stirring, ceaseless activity to trade of every kind. Besides, its followers—uninfluenced by the vanities and vices of the world, so effeminating, so debasing to the mind—are the repositories of the integrity and patriotism of society. Indeed, we may say that the farmer is the guardian of government, rights and laws; the watchman, sleeping neither by day nor by night, on the outposts of defence. We would then have his mind cultivated both morally and intellectually, that he may know and observe the duties imposed upon him by society—by Heaven. We would then have him conversant with all that is noble or mighty, with all that is inspiriting or strengthening in literature, science, and philosophy, both in the ancient and modern world, for then agriculture shall become a fountain of power and usefulness, and a "wall of fire" around society.

And what is the effect of this principle thus applied to the various classes of society? Heretofore, and at present, to a certain extent, as we have before remarked, learning has ever belonged to a few, constituting a single class of society, and of course, the repositories of all moral and intellectual power and wisdom. And these, having the power in their own grasp, and standing on lofty stations and surrounded by a false show of glory and goodness, the result of admiring ignorance, mould and wield the destinies of society. To them the mass of mind looks up, as to oracular deities, with much the same faith and confidence as the ancient pagan, when consulting the Pytho of the Delphian shrine. Thus, the elevation of society has ever been characterized by the moral and intellectual education of a single class; and as this class has been cultivated, communities have risen or fallen. Thus, the history of society has ever been, like the waves of a rolling sea, a series of fluctuations. Now, this principle of universal mental cultivation, as above applied, destroys this usurping, tyrannizing system. It takes from the few the power of holding and disposing of the rights of the many, giving to the many the same mental superiority and knowledge. It presents not an isolated point, but raises all grades to the same glorious, elevated level.

The mind of society is composed, to a greater or less degree, by the mingling of purity and pollution. As the pure rivers of intellect and affection flow on, they are met by counter streams deeper and broader, emanating from the sources of evil and ignorance. Thus, good is counteracted, and its tendency destroyed by evil; thus, society is full of bitter animosities and contentions, and kept in a deleterious, feverish excitement, destructive of all noble effort. By the introduction of this principle, peace, active and beauteous, will calm the angry waters, and the countless currents of thought and feeling which sweep society, will only tend to the magnifying of one grand current flowing to universal good. Moreover, at the approach of this light, struck out of the mind of the mass, ignorance, though sitting upon her throne of centuries, shall find her throne to crumble from under her, and her reign over mankind to depart forever. Superstition, too, which has ever chained down the soaring spirit of mind, and destroyed the harmony and independence of society, shall find her power vanish—her altars prostrate—"her spell over the minds of men broken, never to unite again." In their place, whatever is glorious, noble, and sublime in mind, will reign supreme. And instead of any one desire giving tone productive of sordid selfishness to the thought and action of society; or instead of that levelling spirit, originating in lawless passion, which tramples upon and bids defiance to all law and good order—which marches [p. 387] through society with the terror and fatality of a thousand plagues—from a union of the virtues of the heart and intellect, a spirit of high-mindedness will arise, full of nobleness and power, to guarantee the force of law, to strengthen the social ties, and, like the star of the east, which marked the coming of the Saviour, ensure to the world universal happiness.

Are the effects of this principle sufficient to create a motive conducive to the universal cultivation of mind—or is something more required? As an effect creative of a motive, we would merely refer to the immortality of mental achievement. It is a fact, known to every one of common observation, that a virtuous mind dies not with the clayey tenement, but lives forever in its hallowed results. It is founded in reason and philosophy. The mind of the past is not different in its essential characteristics from the mind of the present; and therefore, the thoughts and feelings of the past are in a measure congenial with our thoughts and feelings; and from this kindred sympathy, it is, that the intellect of the remotest antiquity lives in the intellect of the most distant future. Are Homer, or Cicero, or any of that galaxy of mind which casts so brilliant, so undying a lustre over the ancient world, forgotten? Are Milton and Shakspeare, or Newton and Franklin, or any of the illustrious moderns, whatever their sphere of action, forgotten? The beautiful fanes and consecrated groves, where genius was wont to shine in her full power and brightness; the elegances of art, her towering domes and her magnificent columns, once the centre of admiration; the luxuries and splendors of opulence, once affording rich continued gratification—where are they? They have passed away, like "shadows over a rock," and are lost in the dust. But the mind which created them, admired them, enjoyed them, lives, will live, shall live, forever, forever.

Cincinnati.

DYING MEDITATIONS

IRENE.

VERBAL CRITICISMS.

Guessing and Reckoning. Right merry have the people of England made themselves at the expense of us their younger brethren of this side of the Atlantic, for the manner in which we are wont to use the verbs, to guess and to reckon. But they have unjustly chided us therefor, since it would not be difficult to find in many of the British Classics of more than a century's standing, instances of the use of these words precisely in the American manner. In the perusal of Locke's Essay on Education a short time since, I noticed the word guess made use of three times in our way. In section 28 he says, "Once in four and twenty hours is enough, and no body, I guess, will think it too much;" again, in section 167, "But yet, I guess, this is not to be done with children whilst very young, nor at their entrance upon any sort of knowledge;" and again, in section 174, "And he whose design it is to excel in English poetry, would not, I guess, think the way to it was to make his first essay in Latin verses."

Was John Locke a Yankee? Or have the people of the United States preserved one of the meanings of the verb to guess which has become obsolete in England?

In several passages of the English version of the New Testament the word reckon is used as the people in many parts of the United States are in the habit of using it. In the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 8, verse 18, is an instance, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us."

"Take and tell." "If you do so I will take and tell father," such is the constant language of children. What will they take? Is the expression a contraction of some obsolete phrase? Who can tell me if it is to be met with in print?

Had have. I have for some time noticed this corruption in conversation. It has lately crept into print. Here are instances of it, "Had I have gone, I should not have met her," "If I had have been at the sale I would not have bought it at that price." I have a suspicion that a rapid pronunciation of "would have," "should have," and "could have," has given rise to this. "I'd have gone," "I'd have come," and similar phrases have probably introduced it, the contraction answering as well for had as would, could, and should. It is very awkward and incorrect.

Fully equal. This is a tautologous expression in constant use. "This work is fully equal to its predecessor." The writer means to say that the last work is equal to the first; but what is the use of the fully, unless there can be an equality which is not full and perfect?

Eventuate. The editor of Coleridge's Table Talk, very justly denounces this Americanism. He says it is to be met with in Washington Irving's Tour to the Prairies. If so, so much the worse for the book. It is a barbarism, "I pray you avoid it." We do not need the word, so that it cannot be sneaked in, under the plea of necessity. The English verb, to result, means all, I presume, that the fathers of eventuate design that it shall mean. If we may coin eventuate from event, why not processiate from process, contemptiate from contempt, excessiate from excess, and a hundred more, all as useful and elegant as eventuate?

Directly. Many of the English writers of the present day, use this word in a manner inelegant and unsanctioned, I am convinced, by any standard author. They appear to think that it has the same meaning as the phrase "as soon as." For instance: "The troops were dismissed directly the general had reviewed them." "The House of Lords adjourned directly this important bill had passed." I am happy to find that the writers in this country have not fallen into it.

Mutual. When persons speak of an individual's being a mutual friend of two others, who perhaps may not know each other, they attach a meaning to the word mutual which does not belong to it. A and B may be mutual friends, but how C can be the mutual friend of A and B it is difficult to comprehend. Where is the mutuality in this case? We should say, C is the common friend of A and B. Several of the associations for interment which have lately been instituted, have seized upon the word mutual and used it very absurdly. They style themselves "Mutual Burial Societies." How can two individuals bury each other? and yet this is implied by the term "mutual."

Is not the familiar phrase, "now-a-days," a corruption of "in our days?"

"If I am not mistaken." This is evidently wrong. If what I say to another is misunderstood, I am mistaken, but if I misunderstand what is said to me, I am mistaking, and so we should speak and write.

Degrees of perfection. "The army," says president Monroe, in one of his messages, "has arrived at a high degree of perfection." There can be no degrees of perfection. Any thing which is perfect cannot become more [p. 389] perfect, and any thing which falls short of perfection is in a degree of imperfection.

"Is being built." This form of expression has met with many and zealous advocates. It is an error almost exclusively confined to print. In conversation we would say, "the house is getting built," and no one would be in doubt as to our meaning. Being built is the past or perfect participle, which according to Lindley Murray, signifies action perfected or finished. How then can prefixing the word is or are, words in the present tense, before it, convert this meaning into another signifying the continuation of the building at this moment? We say, "the house being built the family moved in," and imply absolute completion by the phrase being built, as people are not in the habit of moving into unfinished houses. To say that the house is being built, is no more than saying that the house is built, and by this we understand that the building is completely finished, not that the work is still going on.

I do not know that any of Shakspeare's hundred and one commentators has noticed the pun in Hamlet's address to his father's ghost, "Thou comest to me in such a questionable shape, that I will speak to thee." Perhaps the great bard meant to exhibit the coolness of his hero by placing a jest in his mouth. Hamlet immediately after proceeds to question the spirit.

Editorial.

Frequent inquiry has been made within the last year as to the origin of Lynch's law. This subject now possesses historical interest. It will be perceived from the annexed paper, that the law, so called, originated in 1780, in Pittsylvania, Virginia. Colonel William Lynch, of that county, was its author; and we are informed by a resident, who was a member of a body formed for the purpose of carrying it into effect, that the efforts of the association were wholly successful. A trained band of villains, whose operations extended from North to South, whose well concerted schemes had bidden defiance to the ordinary laws of the land, and whose success encouraged them to persevere in depredations upon an unoffending community, was dispersed and laid prostrate under the infliction of Lynch's law. Of how many terrible, and deeply to be lamented consequences—of how great an amount of permanent evil—has the partial and temporary good been productive!

"Whereas, many of the inhabitants of the county of Pittsylvania, as well as elsewhere, have sustained great and intolerable losses by a set of lawless men who have banded themselves together to deprive honest men of their just rights and property, by stealing their horses, counterfeiting, and passing paper currency, and committing many other species of villainy, too tedious to mention, and that those vile miscreants do still persist in their diabolical practices, and have hitherto escaped the civil power with impunity, it being almost useless and unnecessary to have recourse to our laws to suppress and punish those freebooters, they having it in their power to extricate themselves when brought to justice by suborning witnesses who do swear them clear—we, the subscribers, being determined to put a stop to the iniquitous practices of those unlawful and abandoned wretches, do enter into the following association, to wit: that next to our consciences, soul and body, we hold our rights and property, sacred and inviolable. We solemnly protest before God and the world, that (for the future) upon hearing or having sufficient reason to believe, that any villainy or species of villainy having been committed within our neighborhood, we will forthwith embody ourselves, and repair immediately to the person or persons suspected, or those under suspicious characters, harboring, aiding, or assisting those villains, and if they will not desist from their evil practices, we will inflict such corporeal punishment on him or them, as to us shall seem adequate to the crime committed or the damage sustained; that we will protect and defend each and every one of us, the subscribers, as well jointly as severally, from the insults and assaults offered by any other person in their behalf: and further, we do bind ourselves jointly and severally, our joint and several heirs &c. to pay or cause to be paid, all damages that shall or may accrue in consequence of this our laudable undertaking, and will pay an equal proportion according to our several abilities; and we, after having a sufficient number of subscribers to this association, will convene ourselves to some convenient place, and will make choice of our body five of the best and most discreet men belonging to our body, to direct and govern the whole, and we will strictly adhere to their determinations in all cases whatsoever relative to the above undertaking; and if any of our body summoned to attend the execution of this our plan, and fail so to do without a reasonable excuse, they shall forfeit and pay the sum of one hundred pounds current money of Virginia, to be appropriated towards defraying the contingent expenses of this our undertaking. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands, this 22d day September 1780."

CRITICAL NOTICES.

Spain Revisited. By the author of "A Year in Spain." New York: Harper and Brothers.

Some three months since we had occasion to express our high admiration of Lieutenant Slidell's American in England. The work now before us presents to the eye of the critical reader many if not all of those peculiarities which distinguished its predecessor. We find the same force and freedom. We recognize the same artist-like way of depicting persons, scenery, or manners, by a succession of minute and well-managed details. We perceive also the same terseness and originality of expression. Still we must be pardoned for saying that many of the same niaiseries are also apparent, and most especially an abundance of very bad grammar and a superabundance of gross errors in syntatical arrangement.

With the Dedicatory Letter prefixed to Spain Revisited, we have no patience whatever. It does great credit to the kind and gentlemanly feelings of Lieutenant Slidell, but it forms no inconsiderable drawback upon [p. 390] our previously entertained opinions of his good taste. We can at no time, and under no circumstances, see either meaning or delicacy in parading the sacred relations of personal friendship before the unscrupulous eyes of the public. And even when these things are well done and briefly done, we do believe them to be in the estimation of all persons of nice feeling a nuisance and an abomination. But it very rarely happens that the closest scrutiny can discover in the least offensive of these dedications any thing better than extravagance, affectation or incongruity. We are not sure that it would be impossible, in the present instance, to designate gross examples of all three. What connection has the name of Lieutenant Upshur with the present Spanish Adventures of Lieutenant Slidell? None. Then why insist upon a connection which the world cannot perceive? The Dedicatory letter, in the present instance, is either a bona fide epistle actually addressed before publication to Lieutenant Upshur, intended strictly as a memorial of friendship, and published because no good reasons could be found for the non-publication—or its plentiful professions are all hollowness and falsity, and it was never meant to be any thing more than a very customary public compliment.

Our first supposition is negatived by the stiff and highly constrained character of the style, totally distinct from the usual, and we will suppose the less carefully arranged composition of the author. What man in his senses ever wrote as follows, from the simple impulses of gratitude or friendship?

In times past, a dedication, paid for by a great literary patron, furnished the author at once with the means of parading his own servility, and ascribing to his idol virtues which had no real existence. Though this custom be condemned by the better taste of the age in which we live, friendship may yet claim the privilege of eulogizing virtues which really exist; if so, I might here draw the portrait of a rare combination of them; I might describe a courage, a benevolence, a love of justice coupled with an honest indignation at whatever outrages it, a devotion to others and forgetfulness of self, such as are not often found blended in one character, were I not deterred by the consideration that when I should have completed my task, the eulogy, which would seem feeble to those who knew the original, might be condemned as extravagant by those who do not.

Can there be any thing more palpably artificial than all this? The writer commences by informing his bosom friend that whereas in times past men were given up to fulsome flattery in their dedications, not scrupling to endow their patrons with virtues they never possessed, he, the Lieutenant, intends to be especially delicate and original in his own peculiar method of applying the panegyrical plaster, and to confine himself to qualities which have a real existence. Now this is the very sentiment, if sentiment it may be called, with which all the toad-eaters since the flood have introduced their dedicatory letters. What immediately follows is in the same vein, and is worthy of the ingenious Don Puffando himself. All the good qualities in the world are first enumerated—Lieutenant Upshur is then informed, by the most approved rules of circumbendibus, that he possesses them, one and each, in the highest degree, but that his friend the author of "Spain Revisited" is too much of a man of tact to tell him any thing about it.

If on the other hand it is admitted that the whole epistle is a mere matter of form, and intended simply as a public compliment to a personal friend, we feel, at once, a degree of righteous indignation at the profanation to so hollow a purpose, of the most sacred epithets and phrases of friendship—a degree, too, of serious doubt whether the gentleman panegyrized will receive as a compliment, or rather resent as an insult, the being taxed to his teeth, and in the face of the whole community, with nothing less than all the possible accomplishments and graces, together with the entire stock of cardinal and other virtues.

Spain Revisited, although we cannot think it at all equal to the American in England for picturesque and vigorous description (which we suppose to be the forte of Lieutenant Slidell) yet greatly surpasses in this respect most of the books of modern travels with which we now usually meet. A moderate interest is sustained throughout—aided no doubt by our feelings of indignation at the tyranny which would debar so accomplished a traveller as our countryman from visiting at his leisure and in full security a region so well worth visiting as Spain. It appears that Ferdinand on the 20th August, 1832, taking it into his head that the Lieutenant's former work "A Year in Spain" (esta indigesta produccion) esta llena de falsedades y de groceras calumnias contra el Rey N. S. y su augusta familia, thought proper to issue a royal order in which the book called un ano en Espana was doomed to seizure wherever it might be found, and the clever author himself, under the appellation of the Signor Ridell, to a dismissal from the nearest frontier in the event of his anticipated return to the country. Notwithstanding this order, the Lieutenant, as he himself informs us, did not hesitate to undertake the journey, knowing that, subsequently to the edict in question, the whole machinery of the government had undergone a change, having passed into liberal hands. But although the danger of actual arrest on the above-mentioned grounds was thus rendered comparatively trivial, there were many other serious difficulties to be apprehended. In the Basque Provinces and in Navarre the civil war was at its height. The diligences, as a necessary consequence, had ceased to run; and the insurgents rendered the means of progressing through the country exceedingly precarious, by their endeavors to cut off all communications through which the government could be informed of their manœuvres. The post-horses had been seized by the Carlist cavalry to supply their deficiencies, "and only a few mules remained at some of the post-houses between Bayonne and Vitoria."

The following sketch of an ass-market at Tordesillas seems to embody in a small compass specimens of nearly all the excellences as well as nearly all the faults of the author.

By far the most curious part of the fair, however, was the ass-market, held by a gay fraternity of gipsies. There were about a dozen of these, for the most part of middle stature, beautifully formed, with very regular features of an Asiatic cast, and having a copper tinge; their hands were very small, as of a race long unaccustomed to severe toil, with quantities of silver rings strung on the fingers. They had very white and regular teeth, and their black eyes were uncommonly large, round-orbed, projecting, and expressive; habitually languid and melancholy in moments of listlessness, they kindled into wonderful brightness when engaged in commending their asses, or in bartering with a purchaser. Their jet-black hair hung in long curls down their back, and they were nearly all dressed in velvet, as Andalusian majos, with quantities of buttons made from pesetas and half [p. 391] pesetas covering their jackets and breeches, as many as three or four hanging frequently from the same eyelet-hole. Some of them wore the Andalusian leggjn and shoe of brown leather, others the footless stocking and sandal of Valencia; in general their dress, which had nothing in common with the country they were then in, seemed calculated to unite ease of movement and freedom from embarrassment to jauntiness of effect. All of them had a profusion of trinkets and amulets, intended to testily their devotion to that religion which, according to the popular belief, they were suspected of doubting, and one of them displayed his excessive zeal in wearing conspicuously from his neck a silver case, twice the size of a dollar, containing a picture of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Saviour in her arms.

Four or five females accompanied this party, and came and went from the square and back, with baskets and other trifles, as if engaged at their separate branch of trade. They had beautiful oval faces, with fine eyes and teeth, and rich olive complexions. Their costume was different from any other I had seen in Spain, its greatest peculiarity consisting in a coarse outer petticoat, which was drawn over the head at pleasure instead of the mantilla, and which reminded me of the manta of Peru, concealing, as it did, the whole of the face, except only a single eye.

I asked a dozen people where these strange beings were from, not liking to speer the question at themselves; but not one could tell me, and all seemed to treat the question as no less difficult of solution than one which might concern the origin of the wind. One person, indeed, barely hinted the possibility of their being from Zamora, where one of the faubourgs has a colony of these vermin, for so they are esteemed. He added, moreover, that a late law required that every gipsy in Spain should have a fixed domicil, but that they still managed, in the face of it, to gratify their hereditary taste for an unsettled and wandering life. He spoke of them as a pack of gay rogues and petty robbers, yet did not seem to hold them in any particular horror. The asses which they were selling they had probably collected in the pueblos with a view to this fair, trading from place to place as they journeyed, and not a few they had perhaps kidnapped and coaxed away, taking care, by shaving and other embellishments, to modify and render them unknown.

I was greatly amused in observing the ingenious mode in which they kept their beasts together in the midst of such a crowd and so much confusion, or separated them for the purpose of making a sale. They were strung at the side of the parapet wall, overlooking the river, with their heads towards it and pressing against it, as if anxious to push it over, but in reality out of sedulousness to avoid the frequent showers of blows which were distributed from time to time, without motive or warning, on their unoffending hinder parts, and withdraw them as far as possible from the direction whence they were inflicted. As they were very much crowded together, there was quite scuffling work for an ass to get in when brought back from an unsuccessful effort to trade, or when newly bought, for these fellows, in the true spirit of barter, were equally ready to buy or sell. The gipsy's staff, distributing blows on the rumps of two adjoining beasts, would throw open a slight aperture, into which the nose of the intruding ass would be made to enter, when a plentiful encouragement of blows would force him in, like a wedge into a riven tree. The mode of extracting an ass was equally ingenious, and, if any thing, more singular; continually pressing their heads against the wall with all their energy, it would have required immense strength, with the chance of pulling off the tail if it were not a strong one, to drag them forcibly out; a gipsy, taking the tail of the required animal in one hand, would stretch his staff forward so as to tap him on the nose, and, thus encouraged, gently draw him out.

The ingenuity of these gipsies in getting up a bargain, trusting to be able to turn it to their own account, was marvellous. Mingling among the farmers, and engaging them in conversation on indifferent subjects, they would at length bring them back to the favorite theme of asses, and eventually persuade them to take a look at theirs. "Here is one," measuring the height of an individual with his staff, "which will just suit you;—what will you give for him? Come, you shall have him for half his worth, for one hundred reals—only five dollars for an ass like this," looking at him with the admiration of a connoisseur in the presence of the Apollo; "truly, an animal of much merit and the greatest promise—de mucho merito y encarecimiento—he has the shoulders and breast of an ox; let me show you the richness of his paces," said the gipsy, his whole figure and attitude partaking of his earnestness, and his eye dilating and glowing with excitement. He had brought the unwary and bewildered countryman, like a charmed bird, to the same point as the eloquent shopkeeper does his doubting customer when he craves permission to take down his wares, and does not wait to be denied. Vaulting to the back of the animal, he flourished his staff about its head, and rode it up and down furiously, to the terror of the by-standers' toes, pricking it on the spine with his iron-pointed staff to make it frisky, and pronouncing the while, in the midst of frantic gesticulations an eloquent eulogium on its performances and character, giving it credit, among other things, for sobriety, moderation, long suffering, and the most un-asslike qualification of chastity. To add to the picturesque oddity of the scene, an old monk stood hard by, an interested spectator of some chaffering between a young woman and a seller of charms and trinkets stationed beneath an awning, and no accessory was wanting to render the quaint little picture complete.

In our notice of the American in England, we found much fault with the style—that is to say, with the mere English of Lieutenant Slidell. We are not sure whether the volumes now before us were written previously or subsequently to that very excellent work—but certain it is that they are much less abundant than it, in simple errors of grammar and ambiguities of construction. We must be pardoned, however, for thinking that even now the English of our traveller is more obviously defective than is becoming in any well educated American—more especially in any well educated American who is an aspirant for the honors of authorship. To quote individual sentences in support of an assertion of this nature, might bear with it an air of injustice—since there are few of the best writers of any language in whose works single faulty passages may not readily be discovered. We will therefore take the liberty of commenting in detail upon the English of an entire page of Spain Revisited.—See page 188, vol. i.

Carts and wagons, caravans of mules, and files of humbler asses came pouring, by various roads, into the great vomitory by which we were entering, laden with the various commodities, the luxuries as well as the necessaries of life, brought from foreign countries or from remote provinces, to sustain the unnatural existence of a capital which is so remote from all its resources, and which produces scarce any thing that it consumes.

This sentence, although it would not be too long, if properly managed, is too long as it stands. The ear repeatedly seeks, and expects the conclusion, and is repeatedly disappointed. It expects the close at the word "entering"—at the word "life"—at the word "provinces"—and at the word "resources." Each additional portion of the sentence after each of the words just designated by inverted commas, has the air of an after-thought engrafted upon the original idea. The use of the word "vomitory" in the present instance is injudicious. Strictly speaking, a road which serves as a vomitory, or means of egress, for a population, serves also as a means of ingress. A good writer, however, will consider not only whether, in all strictness, his words will admit of the meaning he attaches to them, but whether in their implied, their original, or other collateral meanings, they may not be at variance with some portion of his sentence. When we hear of "a vomitory by which we were entering," not all the rigor of the most exact construction will reconcile us to the phrase—since we are accustomed to connect with the word vomitory, notions precisely the reverse of those allied to the subsequent word "entering." Between the participle "laden" and the nouns to which it refers (carts, [p. 392] wagons, caravans and asses) two other nouns and one pronoun are suffered to intervene—a grammatical arrangement which when admitted in any degree, never fails to introduce more or less obscurity in every sentence where it is so admitted. Strict syntatical order would require (the pronoun "we" being followed immediately by "laden") that—not the asses—but Lieutenant Slidell and his companions should be laden with the various commodities.

And now, too, we began to see horsemen jantily dressed in slouched hat, embroidered jacket, and worked spatterdashes, reining fiery Andalusian coursers, each having the Moorish carbine hung at hand beside him.

Were horsemen, in this instance, a generic term—that is, did the word allude to horsemen generally, the use of the "slouched hat" and "embroidered jacket" in the singular, would be justifiable—but it is not so in speaking of individual horsemen, where the plural is required. The participle "reining" properly refers to "spatterdashes," although of course intended to agree with "horsemen." The word "each," also meant to refer to the "horsemen," belongs, strictly speaking, to the "coursers." The whole, if construed by the rigid rules of grammar, would imply that the horsemen were dressed in spatterdashes—which spatterdashes reined the coursers—and which coursers had each a carbine.

Perhaps these were farmers of the better order; but they had not the air of men accustomed to labor; they were rather, perhaps, Andalusian horse-dealers, or, maybe, robbers, of those who so greatly abound about the capital, who for the moment, had laid aside their professional character.

This is an exceedingly awkward sentence. The word "maybe" is, we think, objectionable. The repetition of the relative "who" in the phrases "who so greatly abound" and "who for the moment had laid aside," is the less to be justified, as each "who" has a different antecedent—the one referring to "those" (the robbers, generally, who abound about the capital) and the other to the suspected "robbers" then present. But the whole is exceeding ambiguous, and leaves a doubt of the author's true meaning. For, the words "Andalusian horse-dealers, or, maybe, robbers of those who abound about the capital," may either imply that the men in question were some of a class of robbers who abounded, &c. or that they were men who robbed (that is, robbers of) the Andalusian horse-dealers who abounded, &c. or that they were either Andalusian horse-dealers, or robbers of those who abound about the capital—i.e. of the inhabitants of the suburbs. Whether the last "who" has reference to the robbers, or to those who abound, it is impossible to learn from any thing in the sentence itself—which, taken altogether, is unworthy of the merest tyro in the rules of composition.

At the inn of the Holy Ghost, was drawn up a highly gilded carriage, hung very low, and drawn by five gaily decorated mules, while two Andalusians sat on the large wooden platform, planted, without the intervention of springs, upon the fore-wheels, which served for a coach-box.

This sentence is intelligible enough, but still badly constructed. There is by far too great an interval between the antecedent "platform" and its relative "which," and upon a cursory perusal any reader would be led to suppose (what indeed the whole actually implies) that the coach-box in question consisted not of the platform, but actually of the fore-wheels of the carriage. Altogether, it may safely be asserted, that an entire page containing as many grammatical errors and inaccuracies of arrangement as the one we have just examined, will with difficulty be discovered in any English or American writer of even moderate reputation. These things, however, can hardly be considered as more than inadvertences, and will be avoided by Lieutenant Slidell as soon as he shall feel convinced (through his own experience or through the suggestions of his friends) how absolutely necessary to final success in any undertaking is a scrupulous attention to even the merest minutiæ of the task.

Sallust's Jugurthine War, and Conspiracy of Catiline, with an English Commentary, and Historical Indexes. By Charles Anthon, L.L.D. Jay-Professor of Ancient Literature in Columbia College, and Rector of the Grammar School. Sixth edition, corrected and enlarged. New York: Harper and Brothers.

In respect to external appearance this is an exceedingly beautiful book, whether we look to the quality of its paper, the clearness, uniform color, and great accuracy of its typography,¹ or the neatness and durability of its covering. In this latter point especially the Harpers and other publishers would do well, we think, to follow up the style of the present edition of Sallust—dropping at once and forever that flimsy and unsatisfactory method of binding so universally prevalent just now, and whose sole recommendation is its cheapness—if indeed it be cheaper at all. These are things of which we seldom speak—but venture to mention them in the present instance with a view of seizing a good opportunity. No man of taste—certainly no lover of books and owner of a library—would hesitate at paying twice as much for a book worth preservation, and which there is some possibility of preserving, as for one of these fragile ephemera which it is now the fashion to do up in muslin. We think in short the interest of publishers as well as the taste of the public would be consulted to some purpose in paying more attention to the mechanics of book making.

¹ In the course of a very attentive perusal we have observed only one typographical error. On page 130, near the top, we see Fatigatus a fatre in place of fratre.

That Mr. Anthon has done more for our classical literature than any man in the country will hardly be denied. His Lempriere, to speak of nothing else, is a monument of talent, erudition, indefatigable research, and well organized method, of which we have the greatest reason to be proud, but which is perhaps more fully and more properly appreciated in any other climate than our own. Of a former edition of his Sallust, two separate reprints, by different editors, total strangers to the author, have appeared in England, without any effort on his part, as we are very willing to believe, for procuring a republication of his labors. The correct and truly beautiful edition now before us, leaves nothing to be desired. The most striking emendation is the placing the narrative of the Jugurthine war before the conspiracy of Catiline. This arrangement, however, as Mr. Anthon we believe admits, has the merit of novelty in America alone. At least we understand him to make this admission in saying that the order he has [p. 393] observed is no novelty on the continent of Europe, as may be discovered from the works of the President De Brosses, the Abbé Cassagne, and M. Du Rozoir. At all events we have repeatedly seen in England editions of Sallust, (and we suppose them to have been English editions,) in which the Jugurthine war preceded the Conspiracy. Of the propriety of this order there can be no doubt whatever, and it is quite certain to meet with the approbation of all who give themselves even a moment's reflection on the subject. There is an obvious anachronism in the usual arrangement—for the rebellion of Catiline was nearly fifty years subsequent to the war with Jugurtha. "The impression produced, therefore, on the mind of the student," (we here use the words of our author,) "must necessarily be a confused one when he is required to read the two works in an inverted order. In the account of Catiline's conspiracy, for example, he will find frequent allusions to the calamitous consequences of Sylla's strife with Marius; and will see many of the profligate partizans of the former rallying around the standard of Catiline; while in the history of the Jugurthine war, if he be made to peruse it after the other, in the ordinary routine of school reading, he will be introduced to the same Sylla just entering on a public career, and standing high in the favor and confidence of Marius. How too will he be able to appreciate, in their full force, the remarks of Sallust relative to the successive changes in the Roman form of government, and the alternate ascendency of the aristocratic and popular parties, if he be called upon to direct his attention to results before he is made acquainted with the causes that produced them?"

The only reason assigned for the usual arrangement is founded upon the order of composition—Sallust having written the narrative of the Conspiracy before the account of the Jugurthine war. All the MS.S. too, have followed this order. Mr. Anthon, however, justly remarks that such an argument should weigh but little when positive utility is placed in the opposite scale.

An enlarged commentary on the Jugurthine War, is another improvement in the present edition. There can be no doubt that the notes usually appended to this portion of Sallust were insufficient for the younger, if not for all classes of pupils, and when this deficiency is remedied, as in the present instance, by the labors of a man not only of sound scholarship, but of great critical and general acumen, we know how to value the services thus rendered to the student and to the classical public at large. We subjoin one or two specimens of the additional notes.

Page 122. "Ingenii egregia facinora." "The splendid exertions of intellect." Facinus denotes a bold or daring action, and unless it be joined with a favorable epithet, or the action be previously described as commendable, the term is always to be understood in a vituperative sense. In the present passage, the epithet egregius marks the character of the action as praiseworthy.

Page 122. "Quippe probitatem, &c." "Since it (i.e. fortune) can neither give, nor take away integrity, activity, nor other praiseworthy qualities." Industria here means an active exercise of our abilities.

We might add (with deference) to this note of Professor Anthon's, that industria, generally, has a more variable meaning than is usually given it, and that the word, in a great multiplicity of instances, where ambiguities in translation have arisen, has allusion to mental rather than to physical exertion. We have frequently, moreover, remarked its connection with that idea which the moderns attach to the term genius. Incredibili industriâ, industriâ singulari, are phrases almost invariably used in the sense we speak of, and refer to great mental power. Apropos, to this subject—it is remarkable that both Buffon and Hogarth directly assert that "genius is nothing but labor and diligence."

Page 133. "Vos in mea injuria," &c. "You are treated with contempt in the injustice which is done me." Despicere always implies that the person despising thinks meanly of the person despised, as compared with himself. Contemnere denotes the absolute vileness of an object.

We may here observe that we have no English equivalent to despicere.

Page 135. "Quod utinam," &c. "But would that I may see." The use of quod before many conjunctions, &c. merely as a copulative, appears to have arisen from the fondness of the Latin writers for the connexion by means of relatives.

Page 135. "Emori." "A speedy death." The infinitive here supplies the place of a noun, or more correctly speaking, is employed in its true character. For this mood, partaking of the nature of a noun, has been called by grammarians "the verb's noun" (ονομα ρηματος.) The reason of this appellation is more apparent, however, in Greek, from its taking the prepositive article before it in all cases; as το γραφειν, τον γραφειν, τω γραφειν. The same construction is not unknown in English. Thus Spencer—

Besides the new arrangement of matter, and the additional notes on the Jugurthine war, the principal changes in the present edition are to be found in two convenient Indexes—the one Geographical, the other Historical. We are told by Mr. Anthon that his object in preparing them was to relieve the Annotations from what might have proved too heavy a pressure of materials, and have deterred from, rather than have invited, a perusal. The geographical and historical matter is now made to stand by itself.

The account of Sallust himself, and especially the critical examination of his writings, which appeared in the ordinary way in previous editions, is now resolved into the form of a dialogue, and has gained by the change much force and vivacity, without being at all deteriorated in other respects. Upon the whole, any farther real improvement in the manner of editing, printing, or publishing a Sallust would seem to be an impossibility.

Paris and the Parisians in 1835. By Frances Trollope, Author of "Domestic Manners of the Americans," "The Refugee in America," &c. New York: Published by Harper and Brothers.

We have no patience with that atra-bilious set of hyper-patriots, who find fault with Mrs. Trollope's book of flumflummery about the good people of the Union. We can neither tolerate nor comprehend them. The work appeared to us (we speak in all candor, and in sober earnest) an unusually well-written performance, in which, upon a basis of downright and positive truth, was erected, after the fashion of a porcelain pagoda, a very brilliant, although a very brittle fabric of mingled banter, philosophy, and spleen. Her mere political [p. 394] opinions are, we suppose, of very little consequence to any person other than Mrs. Trollope; and being especially sure that they are of no consequence to ourselves we shall have nothing farther to do with them. We do not hesitate to say, however, that she ridiculed our innumerable moral, physical, and social absurdities with equal impartiality, true humor and discrimination, and that the old joke about her Domestic Manners of the Americans being nothing more than the Manners of the American Domestics, is like most other very good jokes, excessively untrue.

That our national soreness of feeling prevented us, in the case of her work on America, from appreciating the real merits of the book, will be rendered evident by the high praise we find no difficulty in bestowing upon her Paris and the Parisians—a production, in whatever light we regard it, precisely similar to the one with which we were so irreparably offended. It has every characteristic of the Domestic Manners of the Americans—from the spirit of which work, if it differs at all, the difference lies in the inferior quantity of the fine wit she has thought proper to throw away upon our Parisian friends.

The volume now issued by the Harpers, is a large octavo of 410 pages, and is embellished with eleven most admirable copperplate engravings, exclusive of the frontispiece. These designs are drawn by A. Hervieu, and engraved by S. H. Gimber. We will give a brief account of them all, as the most effectual method of imparting to our readers (those who have not seen the work and for whom this notice is especially intended) a just conception of the work itself.

Plate 1 is the "Louvre." A picture gallery is seen crowded with a motley assemblage of all classes, in every description of French costume. The occasion is an exhibition of living artists, as the world chooses to call the exhibition of their works. Poussin, (consequently) Raphael, Titian, Correggio and Rubens, are hidden beneath the efforts of more modern pencils. In the habiliments of the company who lounge through the gallery, the result of newly acquired rights is ludicrously visible. One of the most remarkable of these, says our authoress, is the privilege enjoyed by the rabble of presenting themselves dirty instead of clean before the eyes of the magnates. Accordingly, the plate shows, among a variety of pretty toques, cauchoises, chaussures, and other more imperial equipments, a sprinkling of round-eared caps, awkward casquettes, filthy blouses, and dingy and ragged jackets.

Plate 2 is "Morning at the Tuileries." It represents that portion of the garden of "trim alleys" which lies in front of the group of Petus and Aria. In the distance are seen various figures. In the foreground we descry three singular-looking personages, who may be best described in the words of Mrs. Trollope herself.

It was the hour when all the newspapers are in the greatest requisition; and we had the satisfaction of watching the studies of three individuals, each of whom might have sat as a model for an artist who wished to give an idea of their several peculiarities. We saw, in short, beyond the possibility of doubt, a royalist, a doctrinaire, and a republican, during the half hour we remained there, all soothing their feelings by indulging in two sous' worth of politics, each in his own line.

A stiff but gentlemanlike old man first came, and having taken a journal from the little octagon stand—which journal we felt quite sure, was either 'La France' or 'La Quotidienne'—he established himself at no great distance from us. Why it was that we all felt so certain of his being a legitimatist I can hardly tell you, but not one of the party had the least doubt about it. There was a quiet, half-proud, half-melancholy air of keeping himself apart; an aristocratical cast of features; a pale, care-worn complexion; and a style of dress which no vulgar man ever wore, but which no rich one would be likely to wear to-day. This is all I can record of him: but there was something pervading his whole person too essentially loyal to be misunderstood, yet too delicate in its tone to be coarsely painted. Such as it was, however, we felt it quite enough to make the matter sure; and if I could find out that old gentleman to be either doctrinaire or republican, I never would look on a human countenance again, in order to discover what was passing within.

The next who approached us we were equally sure was a republican: but here the discovery did little honor to our discernment; for these gentry choose to leave no doubt upon the subject of their clique, but contrive that every article contributing to the appearance of the outward man shall become a symbol and a sign, a token and a stigma of the madness that possesses them. He too held a paper in his hand, and without venturing to approach too nearly to so alarming a personage, we scrupled not to assure each other, that the journal he was so assiduously perusing was 'Le Réformateur.'

Just as we had decided what manner of man it was who was stalking so majestically past us, a comfortable looking citizen approached in the uniform of the National Guard, who sat himself down to his daily allowance of politics with the air of a person expecting to be well pleased with what he finds, but, nevertheless, too well contented with himself and all things about him to care overmuch about it. Every line of this man's jocund face, every curve of his portly figure, spoke contentment and well being. He was probably one of that very new race in France, a tradesman making a rapid fortune. Was it possible to doubt that the paper in his hand was 'Le Journal des Debats?' Was it possible to believe that this man was other than a prosperous doctrinaire?

Plate 3 is "Pro patria"—and represents two uniformed soldiers in a guard-room of the National Guard.

Plate 4 is entitled "'Ce soir, à la Porte St. Martin'—'J'y serâi,'" and is full of humor. Two conspirator-like republicans stand in the gardens of the Luxembourg, with short staffs, conical hats, dark bushy eyebrows, fierce mustaches, and countenances full of fate. The hand of the one is clasped in the hand of the other with a vice-like impressiveness and energy, while the taller, looking furtively around him, lays his hand upon the shoulder of his associate, and is whispering some most momentous intelligence in his ear. This plate is explained thus in the words of Mrs. T.

It seems, that ever since the trials began, the chief duty of the gendarmes (I beg pardon, I should say of La Garde de Paris) has been to prevent any assembling together of the people in knots for conversation and gossippings in the courts and gardens of the Luxembourg. No sooner are two or three persons observed standing together, than a policeman approaches, and with a tone of command pronounces "Circulez Messieurs!—circulez s'il vous plaît." The reason for this precaution is, that nightly at the Porte St. Martin a few score of jeunes gens assemble to make a very idle and unmeaning noise, the echo of which regularly runs from street to street, till the reiterated report amounts to the announcement of an émeute. We are all now so used to these harmless little émeutes at the Porte St. Martin, that we mind them no more than General Lobau himself: nevertheless it is deemed proper, trumpery [p. 395] as the cause may be, to prevent any thing like a gathering together of the mob in the vicinity of the Luxembourg, lest the same hundred-tongued lady, who constantly magnifies the hootings of a few idle mechanics into an émeute, should spread a report throughout France that the Luxembourg was beseiged by the people. The noise which had disturbed us was occasioned by the gathering together of about a dozen persons; but a policeman was in the midst of the group, and we heard rumors of an arrestation. In less than five minutes, however, every thing was quiet again: but we marked two figures so picturesque in their republicanism, that we resumed our seats while a sketch was made from them, and amused ourselves the while in fancying what the ominous words could be that were so cautiously exchanged between them. M. de L—— said there could be no doubt they ran thus:

Plate 5 is the "Tuileries Gardens on Sunday," in which the prominent and characteristic group is a "chère maman" in half toilet, and seated beneath a tree reading, or attempting to read, while her children, attended by their bonne, are frolicking about her knees.

Plate 6 is "Porte St. Martin," and commemorative of one of the thousand and one little émeutes which have now become too much a matter of course at Paris to excite very serious attention, and which are frequently (so we are assured by Mrs. Trollope) quieted by no more effective artillery than that of a slight shower of rain. The prominent figures in the plate, are two gentlemen of the National Guard, who are vehemently struggling to secure a desperate and mustached republican, equipped cap à pie à la Robespierre, and whose countenance is indicative of deadly resolve, while a little urchin in a striped jacket, not having before his eyes the horrors of an arrestation, and being probably body squire to the republican, shoulders manfully a banner somewhat larger than himself, and, standing upon tiptoe, amuses himself with bellowing Vive la République!

Plate 7 is a "Soiree," in which the peculiarities of Parisian sociability are humorously sketched. All the countenances are especially French. The prominent group is that of two little awkward-looking specimens of imperial noblesse who are making love upon a chaise-longue. The opinions of Mrs. Trollope are quite orthodox in the matter of hereditary grace. Some of her good things upon this topic we must be allowed to quote, for the sake of their point, without being responsible for their philosophy.

I have heard that it requires three generations to make a gentleman. Those created by Napoleon have not yet fairly reached a second; and with all respect for talent, industry, and valor, be it spoken, the necessity of the slow process very frequently forces itself upon one's conviction at Paris.

It is probable that the great refinement of the post-imperial aristocracy of France may be one reason why the deficiences of those now often found mixed up with them is so remarkable. It would be difficult to imagine a contrast in manner more striking than that of a lady who would be a fair specimen of the old Bourbon noblesse, and a bouncing marechale of imperial creation. It seems as if every particle of the whole material of which each is formed, gave evidence of the different birth of the spirit that dwells within. The sound of the voice is a contrast; the glance of the eye is a contrast; the step is a contrast. Were every feature of a dame de l'Empire and a femme noble formed precisely in the same mould, I am quite sure that the two would look no more alike than Queen Constance and Nell Gwyn.

Nor is there at all less difference in the two races of gentlemen. I speak not of the men of science or of art; their rank is of another kind: but there are still left here and there specimens of decorated greatness, which look as if they must have been dragged out of the guard-room by main force; huge mustached militaries, who look, at every slight rebuff, as if they were ready to exclaim, 'Sacré nom de D——! Je suis un héros, moi! vive l'Empereur!'

And again. My parvenue duchess is very remarkable indeed. She steps out like a corporal carrying a message. Her voice is the first, the last, and almost the only thing heard in the salon that she honors with her presence—except it chance indeed, that she lower her tone occasionally to favor with a whisper some gallant décoré military, scientific, or artistic, of the same standing as herself; and, moreover, she promenades her eyes over the company as if she had a right to bring them all to roll-call.

Notwithstanding all this, the lady is certainly a person of talent; and had she happily remained in the station in which both herself and her husband were born, she might not, perhaps, have thought it necessary to speak quite so loud, and her bons mots would have produced infinitely greater effect. But she is so thoroughly out of place in the grade to which she has been unkindly elevated, that it seems as if Napoleon had decided on her fate in a humor as spiteful as that of Monsieur Jourdain, when he said—'Your daughter shall be a Marchioness in spite of all the world; and if you provoke me I'll make her a Duchess.'

Plate 8 is "Le roi citoyen." He is represented as a well-looking, portly, middle-aged man, of somewhat dignified appearance. His dress differs from that of any common citizen only by a small tri-colored cockade in the hat, and he walks quite at his leisure with one hand clenching a rough-looking stick, and the other thrust in his breeches-pocket. A republican, habited in full Robespierrian costume, is advancing towards him with a very deliberate air, and eyeing him nonchalantly through a lorgnon.

Plate 9 is entitled "Prêtres de la Jeune France." The flowing curls, the simple round hat, the pantaloons, &c. give them the appearance of a race of men as unlike as possible to their stiff and primitive predecessors. They look flourishing, and well pleased with themselves and the world about them: but little of mortification or abstinence can be traced on their countenances; and if they do fast for some portion of every week, they may certainly say with Father Philip, that 'what they take prospers with them marvellously.'

Plate 10 is the "Boulevard des Italiens," with a view of Tortoni's. The main group is "a very pretty woman and a very pretty man," who are seated on two chairs close together and flirting much to their own satisfaction, as well as to the utter amazement and admiration of a young urchin of a Savoyard, or professor of the gaie science, who, forgetting the use of his mandoline, gazes with open mouth and eyes at the enamored pair. To the right is seen an exquisite of the first water promenading with an air of ineffable grace, and deliberately occupied in combing his luxuriant tresses.

Plate 11 is called "V'la les restes de notre revolution de Juillet!" and like all the other engravings in the volume is admirable in its design, and especially in its expression. In the back ground are seen the monuments erected at the Marché des Innocens over some revolutionary heroes, who fell here and were buried near the [p. 396] fountain, on the 29th July 1830. A mechanic leans against a rail and is haranguing with great energy a young girl and a little boy, who listen to him with profound attention. His theme is evidently the treatment of the prisoners at the Luxembourg. We cannot too highly praise the exquisite piquancy of the whole of these designs.

In conclusion, we recommend Paris and the Parisians to all lovers of fine writing, and vivacious humor. It is impossible not to be highly amused with the book—and there is by no means any necessity for giving a second thought to the political philosophies of Madame Trollope.

A Life of Washington. By James K. Paulding. New York: Harper and Brothers.

We have read Mr. Paulding's Life of Washington with a degree of interest seldom excited in us by the perusal of any book whatever. We are convinced by a deliberate examination of the design, manner, and rich material of the work, that, as it grows in age, it will grow in the estimation of our countrymen, and, finally, will not fail to take a deeper hold upon the public mind, and upon the public affections, than any work upon the same subject, or of a similar nature, which has been yet written—or, possibly, which may be written hereafter. Indeed, we cannot perceive the necessity of any thing farther upon the great theme of Washington. Mr. Paulding has completely and most beautifully filled the vacuum which the works of Marshall and Sparks have left open. He has painted the boy, the man, the husband, and the Christian. He has introduced us to the private affections, aspirations, and charities of that hero whose affections of all affections were the most serene, whose aspirations the most God-like, and whose charities the most gentle and pure. He has taken us abroad with the patriot-farmer in his rambles about his homestead. He has seated us in his study and shown us the warrior-Christian in unobtrusive communion with his God. He has done all this too, and more, in a simple and quiet manner, in a manner peculiarly his own, and which mainly because it is his own, cannot fail to be exceedingly effective. Yet it is very possible that the public may, for many years to come, overlook the rare merits of a work whose want of arrogant assumption is so little in keeping with the usages of the day, and whose striking simplicity and naiveté of manner give, to a cursory examination, so little evidence of the labor of composition. We have no fears, however, for the future. Such books as these before us, go down to posterity like rich wines, with a certainty of being more valued as they go. They force themselves with the gradual but rapidly accumulating power of strong wedges into the hearts and understandings of a community.

From the preface we learn, that shortly after the conclusion of the late war, Mr. Paulding resided for several years in the city of Washington, and that his situation bringing him into familiar intercourse with "many respectable and some distinguished persons" who had been associated with the Father of his Country, the idea was then first conceived of writing a Life of that great man which should more directly appeal to the popular feeling of the land, than any one previously attempted. With this intent, he lost no opportunity of acquiring information, from all authentic sources within his reach, of the private life, habits and peculiarities of his subject. We learn too that the work thus early proposed was never banished from the mind of the author. The original intention, however, was subsequently modified, with a view of adapting the book to the use of schools, and "generally to that class of readers who have neither the means of purchasing, nor the leisure to read a larger and more expensive publication." Much of the information concerning the domestic life of Washington was derived immediately from his cotemporaries, and from the "present most estimable lady who is now in possession of Mount Vernon." In detailing the events of the Revolution, the author has principally consulted the public and private letters of Washington.

The rich abundance of those delightful anecdotes and memorials of the private man which render a book of this nature invaluable—an abundance which has hardly more delighted than astonished us—is the prevailing feature of Mr. Paulding's Washington. We proceed, without apology, to copy for the benefit of our readers such as most immediately present themselves.

Although it is of little consequence who were the distant ancestors of a man who, by common consent, is hailed as the Father of his Country, yet any particulars concerning his family cannot but be a subject of curiosity. In all my general reading I have only chanced to meet with the name of Washington three or four times in the early history and literature of England. In the diary of Elias Ashmole, founder of the Ashmolean Museum, are the following entries:—

"June 12th, 1645. I entered on my command as comptroller of the ordnance."

"June 18th. I received my commission from Colonel Washington."

Hume, in his account of the siege of Bristol, has the following passage:—"One party led by Lord Grandison was beaten off and its commander himself mortally wounded. Another, conducted by Colonel Bellasis, met with a like fate. But Washington, with a less party, finding a place in the curtain weaker than the rest, broke in, and quickly made room for the horse to follow." This was in 1643. Five years afterwards, that deluded monarch, Charles I., suffered the just consequences of his offences against the majesty of the people of England, and from that time the cause of royalty appeared desperate. The more distinguished and obnoxious adherents of the Stuarts exiled themselves in foreign lands, and the date of the supposed arrival of the first Washington in Virginia, accords well with the supposition that he may have been the same person mentioned by Ashmole and Hume. In an old collection of poetry, by Sir John Menzies² and others, there is a fine copy of verses to the memory of Mr. Washington, page to the king, who died in Spain. In the year 1640, William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Washington. But the name and family of Washington are now extinct in the land of our forefathers. When General Washington was about making his will, he caused inquiries to be instituted, being desirous to leave some memorial to all his relations. The result was a conviction that none of the family existed in that country. But the topic is rather curious than important. The subject of this biography could receive little additional dignity through a descent from the most illustrious families of Christendom. He stands alone in the pure atmosphere of his own glory. He derived no title to honors from his ancestry, and left no child but his country to inherit his fame.

² Perhaps Mennes—Ed.

The house in which Washington was born stood about half a mile from the junction of Pope's Creek with the Potomac, and was either burned or pulled down long previous to the revolution. A few scanty relics alone remain to mark the spot which will ever be sacred in the eyes of posterity. A clump of old decayed [p. 397] fig trees, probably coeval with the mansion, yet exists; a number of vines, and shrubs, and flowers still reproduce themselves every year as if to mark its site, and flourish among the hallowed ruins; and a stone, placed there by Mr. George Washington Custis, bears the simple inscription, "Here, on the 11th of February," (O.S.) "1732, George Washington was born."

The spot is of the deepest interest, not only from its associations, but its natural beauties. It commands a view of the Maryland shore of the Potomac, one of the most majestic of rivers, and of its course for many miles towards Chesapeake Bay. An aged gentleman, still living in the neighborhood, remembers the house in which Washington was born. It was a low pitched, single-storied, frame building, with four rooms on the first floor and an enormous chimney at each end on the outside. This was the style of the better sort of houses in those days, and they are still occasionally seen in the old settlements of Virginia.

On page 106, vol. i., we find the following interesting particulars:

It has been related to me by one whose authority I cannot doubt, that the first meeting of Colonel Washington with his future wife was entirely accidental, and took place at the house of Mr. Chamberlayne, who resided on the Pamunkey, one of the branches of York River. Washington was on his way to Williamsburg, on somewhat pressing business, when he met Mr. Chamberlayne, who, according to the good old Virginia custom, which forbids a traveller to pass the door without doing homage at the fireside of hospitality, insisted on his stopping an hour or two at his mansion. Washington complied unwillingly, for his business was urgent. But it is said that he was in no haste to depart, for he had met the lady of his fate in the person of Mrs. Martha Custis, of the White House, county of New Kent, in Virginia.

I have now before me a copy of an original picture of this lady, taken about the time of which I am treating, when she captivated the affections of Washington. It represents a figure rather below the middle size, with hazel eyes, and hair of the same colour, finely rounded arms, a beautiful chest and taper waist, dressed in a blue silk robe of the fashion of the times, and altogether furnishing a very sufficient apology to a young gentleman of seven and twenty for delaying his journey, and perhaps forgetting his errand for a time. The sun went down and rose again before Washington departed for Williamsburg, leaving his heart behind him, and, perhaps, carrying another away in exchange. Having completed his business at the seat of government, he soon after visited the White House, and being accustomed, as my informant says, to energetic and persevering action, won the lady and carried her off from a crowd of rivals.

The marriage look place in the winter of 1759, but at what precise date is not to be found in any record, nor is it, I believe, within the recollection of any person living. I have in my possession a manuscript containing the particulars of various conversations with old Jeremy, Washington's black servant, who was with him at Braddock's defeat, and accompanied him on his wedding expedition to the White House. Old Jeremy is still living while I am now writing, and in full possession of his faculties. His memory is most especially preserved, and, as might be expected, he delights to talk of Massa George. The whole series of conversations was taken down verbatim, in the peculiar phraseology of the old man, and it is quite impossible to read the record of this living chronicle of the early days of Washington, without receiving the full conviction of its perfect truth.

The following account of his last illness is copied, we are told, from a memorandum in the handwriting of Tobias Lear, his private secretary and confidential friend, who attended him from first to last.

On Thursday, Dec. 12, the general rode out to his farms at about ten o'clock, and did not return home till past three. Soon after he went out the weather became very bad; rain, hail, and snow falling alternately, with a cold wind. When he came in, I carried some letters to him to frank, intending to send them to the post-office. He franked the letters, but said the weather was too bad to send a servant to the office that evening. I observed to him that I was afraid he had got wet; he said, no; his great coat had kept him dry: but his neck appeared to be wet—the snow was hanging on his hair.

He came to dinner without changing his dress. In the evening he appeared as well as usual. A heavy fall of snow took place on Friday, which prevented the general from riding out as usual. He had taken cold (undoubtedly from being so much exposed the day before,) and complained of having a sore throat; he had a hoarseness, which increased in the evening, but he made light of it, as he would never take any thing to carry off a cold,—always observing, 'Let it go as it came.' In the evening, the papers having come from the post office, he sat in the room with Mrs. Washington and myself, reading them till about nine o'clock; and when he met with any thing which he thought diverting or interesting, he would read it aloud. He desired me to read to him the debates of the Virginia Assembly on the election of a senator and governor, which I did. On his retiring to bed he appeared to be in perfect health, except the cold, which he considered as trifling—he had been remarkably cheerful all the evening.

About two or three o'clock on Saturday morning he awoke Mrs. Washington, and informed her that he felt very unwell, and had an ague. She observed that he could scarcely speak, and breathed with difficulty, and she wished to get up and call a servant; but the general would not permit her, lest she should take cold. As soon as the day appeared, the woman Caroline went into the room to make a fire, and the general desired that Mr. Rawlins, one of the overseers, who was used to bleeding the people, might be sent for to bleed him before the doctor could arrive. I was sent for—went to the general's chamber, where Mrs. Washington was up, and related to me his being taken ill between two and three o'clock, as before stated. I found him breathing with difficulty, and hardly able to utter a word intelligibly. I went out instantly, and wrote a line to Dr. Plask, and sent it with all speed. Immediately I returned to the general's chamber, where I found him in the same situation I had left him. A mixture of molasses, vinegar, and butter was prepared, but he could not swallow a drop; whenever he attempted he was distressed, convulsed, and almost suffocated.

Mr. Rawlins came in soon after sunrise and prepared to bleed him; when the arm was ready, the general, observing Rawlins appeared agitated, said, with difficulty, 'Don't be afraid;' and after the incision was made, he observed the orifice was not large enough: however, the blood ran pretty freely. Mrs. Washington, not knowing whether bleeding was proper in the general's situation, begged that much might not be taken from him, and desired me to stop it. When I was about to untie the string, the general put up his hand to prevent it, and, as soon as he could speak, said, 'More.'

Mrs. Washington still uneasy lest too much blood should be drawn, it was stopped after about half a pint had been taken. Finding that no relief was obtained from bleeding, and that nothing could be swallowed, I proposed bathing the throat externally with sal volatile, which was done; a piece of flannel was then put round his neck. His feet were also soaked in warm water, but this gave no relief. By Mrs. Washington's request, I despatched a messenger for Doctor Brown at Port Tobacco. About nine o'clock, Dr. Craik arrived, and put a blister of cantharides on the throat of the general, and took more blood, and had some vinegar and hot water set in a teapot, for him to draw in the stream from the spout.

He also had sage-tea and vinegar mixed and used as a gargle, but when he held back his head to let it run down, it almost produced suffocation. When the mixture came out of his mouth some phlegm followed it, and he would attempt to cough, which the doctor encouraged, but without effect. About eleven o'clock, Dr. Dick was sent for. Dr. Craik bled the general again; no effect was produced, and he continued in the same state, unable to swallow any thing. Dr. Dick came in about three o'clock, and Dr. Brown arrived soon after; when, after consultation, the general was bled again: the blood ran slowly, appeared very thick, and did not produce any symptoms of fainting. At four o'clock the general could swallow a little. Calomel and tartar emetic were administered without effect. About half past four o'clock he requested me to ask Mrs. Washington to come to his bedside, when he desired her to go down to his room, and take from his desk two wills which she would find there, and bring them to him, which she did. Upon looking at one, which he observed was useless, he desired her to burn it, which she did; and then took the other and put it away. After this was done, I returned again to his bedside and took his hand. He said to me, 'I find I am going—my breath cannot continue long—I believed from the first attack it would be fatal. Do you arrange and [p. 398] record all my military letters and papers; arrange my accounts and settle my books, as you know more about them than any one else; and let Mr. Rawlins finish recording my other letters, which he has begun.' He asked when Mr. Lewis and Washington would return? I told him that I believed about the twentieth of the month. He made no reply.

The physicians arrived between five and six o'clock, and when they came to his bedside, Dr. Craik asked him if he would sit up in the bed: he held out his hand to me and was raised up, when he said to the physician—'I feel myself going; you had better not take any more trouble about me, but let me go off quietly; I cannot last long.' They found what had been done was without effect; he laid down again, and they retired, excepting Dr. Craik. He then said to him—'Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go; I believed from my first attack I should not survive it; my breath cannot last long.' The doctor pressed his hand, but could not utter a word; he retired from the bedside and sat by the fire, absorbed in grief. About eight o'clock, the physicians again came into the room, and applied blisters to his legs, but went out without a ray of hope. From this time he appeared to breathe with less difficulty than he had done, but was very restless, continually changing his position, to endeavor to get ease. I aided him all in my power, and was gratified in believing he felt it, for he would look upon me with eyes speaking gratitude, but unable to utter a word without great distress. About ten o'clock he made several attempts to speak to me before he could effect it; at length he said, 'I am just going. Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than two days after I am dead.' I bowed assent. He looked at me again and said, 'Do you understand me?' I replied, 'Yes, sir.' ''Tis well,' said he. About ten minutes before he expired, his breathing became much easier: he lay quietly: he withdrew his hand from mine, and felt his own pulse. I spoke to Dr. Craik, who sat by the fire; he came to the bedside. The general's hand fell from his wrist; I took it in mine, and placed it on my breast. Dr. Craik placed his hands over his eyes; and he expired without a struggle or a sigh.

We proceed with some farther extracts of a like kind taken at random from the book.

His manly disinterestedness appeared, not only in thus divesting himself of the means of acquiring glory, perhaps of the power of avoiding defeat and disgrace, but in a private act which deserves equally to be remembered. While the British fleet was lying in the Potomac, in the vicinity of Mount Vernon, a message was sent to the overseer, demanding a supply of fresh provisions. The usual penalty of a refusal was setting fire to the house and barns of the owner. To prevent this destruction of property, the overseer, on receipt of the message, gathered a supply of provisions, and went himself on board with a flag, accompanying the present with a request that the property of the general might be spared.

Washington was exceedingly indignant at this proceeding, as will appear by the following extract of a letter to his overseer.

"It would," he writes, "have been a less painful circumstance to me to have heard that, in consequence of your noncompliance with the request of the British, they had burned my house, and laid my plantation in ruins. You ought to have considered yourself as my representative, and should have reflected on the bad example of communicating with the enemy, and making a voluntary offer of refreshment to them with a view to prevent a conflagration."

And here I will take what seems to me a proper opportunity of refuting a false insinuation. In the edition of Plutarch's Lives, translated by John and William Langhorne, and revised by the Reverend Francis Wrangham, M.A., F.R.S., there is the following note appended to the biography of Cato the Censor, whose kindness is said to have extended to his cattle and sheep: "Yet Washington, the Tertius Cato of these latter times, is said to have sold his old charger!"

On first seeing this insinuation of a calumny founded on hearsay, I applied to Colonel Lear, who resided at Mount Vernon, and acted as the private secretary of Washington at the time of his death, and many years previously, to learn whether there was any foundation for the report. His denial was positive and unequivocal. The horse of Washington, sold, not by him, but one of his heirs, after his death, was that which he was accustomed to ride about his plantation after his retirement from public life. The aged war-horse was placed under the special care of the old black servant who had served the same campaigns with him; was never rode after the conclusion of the war, and died long before his illustrious master.

As illustrating his character and affording an example of his great self-command, the following anecdote is appropriate to my purpose. It is derived from Judge Breckenridge³ himself, who used often to tell the story. The judge was an inimitable humorist, and, on a particular occasion, fell in with Washington at a public house. They supped at the same table, and Mr. Breckenridge essayed all his powers of humor to divert the general; but in vain. He seemed aware of his purpose, and listened without a smile. However, it so happened that the chambers of Washington and Breckenridge adjoined, and were only separated from each other by a thin partition of pine boards. The general had retired first, and when the judge entered his own room, he was delighted to hear Washington, who was already in bed, laughing to himself with infinite glee, no doubt at the recollection of his stories.

³ Author of Modern Chivalry.

He was accustomed sometimes to tell the following story:—On one occasion, during a visit he paid to Mount Vernon while president, he had invited the company of two distinguished lawyers, each of whom afterwards attained to the highest judicial situations in this country. They came on horseback, and, for convenience, or some other purpose, had bestowed their wardrobe in the same pair of saddle-bags, each one occupying his side. On their arrival, wet to the skin by a shower of rain, they were shown into a chamber to change their garments. One unlocked his side of the bag, and the first thing he drew forth was a black bottle of whiskey. He insisted that this was his companion's repository; but on unlocking the other, there was found a huge twist of tobacco, a few pieces of corn-bread, and the complete equipment of a wagoner's pack-saddle. They had exchanged saddle-bags with some traveller on the way, and finally made their appearance in borrowed clothes that fitted them most ludicrously. The general was highly diverted, and amused himself with anticipating the dismay of the wagoner when he discovered this oversight of the men of law. It was during this visit that Washington prevailed on one of his guests to enter into public life, and thus secured to his country the services of one of the most distinguished magistrates of this or any other age.

Another anecdote of a more touching character is derived from a source which, if I were permitted to mention, would not only vouch for its truth, but give it additional value and interest. When Washington retired from public life, his name and fame excited in the hearts of the people at large, and most especially the more youthful portion, a degree of reverence which, by checking their vivacity or awing them into silence, often gave him great pain. Being once on a visit to Colonel Blackburn, ancestor to the exemplary matron who now possesses Mount Vernon, a large company of young people were assembled to welcome his arrival, or on some other festive occasion. The general was unusually cheerful and animated, but he observed that whenever he made his appearance, the dance lost its vivacity, the little gossipings in corners ceased, and a solemn silence prevailed, as at the presence of one they either feared or reverenced too much to permit them to enjoy themselves. He strove to remove this restraint by mixing familiarly among them and chatting with unaffected hilarity. But it was all in vain; there was a spell on the little circle, and he retired among the elders in an adjoining room, appearing to be much pained at the restraint his presence inspired. When, however the young people had again become animated, he arose cautiously from his seat, walked on tiptoe to the door, which was ajar, and stood contemplating the scene for nearly a quarter of an hour, with a look of genuine and benevolent pleasure that went to the very hearts of the parents who were observing him.

In regard to the style of Mr. Paulding's Washington, it would scarcely be doing it justice to speak of it merely as well adapted to its subject, and to its immediate design. Perhaps a rigorous examination would detect an occasional want of euphony, and some inaccuracies of syntatical arrangement. But nothing could be more out [p. 399] of place than any such examination in respect to a book whose forcible, rich, vivid, and comprehensive English, might advantageously be held up, as a model for the young writers of the land. There is no better literary manner than the manner of Mr. Paulding. Certainly no American, and possibly no living writer of England, has more of those numerous peculiarities which go to the formation of a happy style. It is questionable, we think, whether any writer of any country combines as many of these peculiarities with as much of that essential negative virtue, the absence of affectation. We repeat, as our confident opinion, that it would be difficult, even with great care and labor, to improve upon the general manner of the volumes now before us, and that they contain many long individual passages of a force and beauty not to be surpassed by the finest passages of the finest writers in any time or country. It is this striking character in the Washington of Mr. Paulding—striking and peculiar indeed at a season when we are so culpably inattentive to all matters of this nature, as to mistake for style the fine airs at second hand of the silliest romancers—it is this character we say, which should insure the fulfilment of the writer's principal design, in the immediate introduction of his book into every respectable academy in the land.

Didactics—Social, Literary, and Political. By Robert Walsh. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard.

Having read these volumes with much attention and pleasure, we are prepared to admit that their author is one of the finest writers, one of the most accomplished scholars, and when not in too great a hurry, one of the most accurate thinkers in the country. Yet had we never seen this collection of Didactics, we should never have entertained these opinions. Mr. Walsh has been peculiarly an anonymous writer, and has thus been instrumental in cheating himself of a great portion of that literary renown which is most unequivocally his due. We have been not unfrequently astonished in the perusal of the book now before us, at meeting with a variety of well known and highly esteemed acquaintances, for whose paternity we had been accustomed to give credit where we now find it should not have been given. Among these we may mention in especial the very excellent Essay on the acting of Kean, entitled "Notices of Kean's principal performances during his first season in Philadelphia," to be found at page 146, volume i. We have often thought of the unknown author of this Essay, as of one to whom we might speak, if occasion should at any time be granted us, with a perfect certainty of being understood. We have looked to the article itself as to a fair oasis in the general blankness and futility of our customary theatrical notices. We read it with that thrill of pleasure with which we always welcome our own long-cherished opinions, when we meet them unexpectedly in the language of another. How absolute is the necessity now daily growing, of rescuing our stage criticism from the control of illiterate mountebanks, and placing it in the hands of gentlemen and scholars!

The paper on Collegiate Education, beginning at page 165, volume ii, is much more than a sufficient reply to that Essay in the Old Bachelor of Mr. Wirt, in which the attempt is made to argue down colleges as seminaries for the young. Mr. Walsh's article does not uphold Mr. Barlow's plan of a National University—a plan which is assailed by the Attorney General—but comments upon some errors in point of fact, and enters into a brief but comprehensive examination of the general subject. He maintains with undeniable truth, that it is illogical to deduce arguments against universities which are to exist at the present day, from the inconveniences found to be connected with institutions formed in the dark ages—institutions similar to our own in but few respects, modelled upon the principles and prejudices of the times, organized with a view to particular ecclesiastical purposes, and confined in their operations by an infinity of Gothic and perplexing regulations. He thinks, (and we believe he thinks with a great majority of our well educated fellow citizens) that in the case either of a great national institute or of State universities, nearly all the difficulties so much insisted upon will prove a series of mere chimeras—that the evils apprehended might be readily obviated, and the acknowledged benefits uninterruptedly secured. He denies, very justly, the assertion of the Old Bachelor—that, in the progress of society, funds for collegiate establishments will no doubt be accumulated, independently of government, when their benefits are evident, and a necessity for them felt—and that the rich who have funds will, whenever strongly impressed with the necessity of so doing, provide, either by associations or otherwise, proper seminaries for the education of their children. He shows that these assertions are contradictory to experience, and more particularly to the experience of the State of Virginia, where, notwithstanding the extent of private opulence, and the disadvantages under which the community so long labored from a want of regular and systematic instruction, it was the government which was finally compelled, and not private societies which were induced, to provide establishments for effecting the great end. He says (and therein we must all fully agree with him) that Virginia may consider herself fortunate in following the example of all the enlightened nations of modern times rather than in hearkening to the counsels of the Old Bachelor. He dissents (and who would not?) from the allegation, that "the most eminent men in Europe, particularly in England, have received their education neither at public schools or universities," and shows that the very reverse may be affirmed—that on the continent of Europe by far the greater number of its great names have been attached to the rolls of its universities—and that in England a vast majority of those minds which we have reverenced so long—the Bacons, the Newtons, the Barrows, the Clarkes, the Spencers, the Miltons, the Drydens, the Addisons, the Temples, the Hales, the Clarendons, the Mansfields, Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Wyndham, &c. were educated among the venerable cloisters of Oxford or of Cambridge. He cites the Oxford Prize Essays, so well known even in America, as direct evidence of the energetic ardor in acquiring knowledge brought about through the means of British Universities, and maintains that "when attention is given to the subsequent public stations and labors of most of the writers of these Essays, it will be found that they prove also the ultimate practical utility of the literary discipline of the [p. 400] colleges for the students and the nation." He argues, that were it even true that the greatest men have not been educated in public schools, the fact would have little to do with the question of their efficacy in the instruction of the mass of mankind. Great men cannot be created—and are usually independent of all particular schemes of education. Public seminaries are best adapted to the generality of cases. He concludes with observing that the course of study pursued at English Universities, is more liberal by far than we are willing to suppose it—that it is, demonstrably, the best, inasmuch as regards the preference given to classical and mathematical knowledge—and that upon the whole it would be an easy matter, in transferring to America the general principles of those institutions, to leave them their obvious errors, while we avail ourselves as we best may, of their still more obvious virtues and advantages.

We must take the liberty of copying an interesting paper on the subject of Oxford.

The impression made on my mind by the first aspect of Paris was scarcely more lively or profound, than that which I experienced on entering Oxford. Great towns were already familiar to my eye, but a whole city sacred to the cultivation of science, composed of edifices no less venerable for their antiquity than magnificent in their structure, was a novelty which at once delighted and overpowered my imagination. The entire population is in some degree appended and ministerial to the colleges. They comprise nearly the whole town, and are so noble and imposing, although entirely Gothic, that I was inclined to apply to the architecture of Oxford what has been said of the schools of Athens;

Spacious gardens laid out with taste and skill are annexed to each college, and appropriated to the exercises and meditations of the students. The adjacent country is in the highest state of cultivation, and watered by a beautiful stream, which bears the name of Isis, the divinity of the Nile and the Ceres of the Egyptians. To you who know my attachment to letters, and my veneration for the great men whom this university has produced, it will not appear affectation, when I say that I was most powerfully affected by this scene, that my eyes filled with tears, that all the enthusiasm of a student burst forth.

After resting, I delivered next morning, my letter of introduction to one of the professors, Mr. V——, and who undertook to serve as my cicerone through the university. The whole day was consumed in wandering over the various colleges and their libraries, in discoursing on their organization, and in admiring the Gothic chapels, the splendid prospects from their domes, the collection of books, of paintings, and of statuary, and the portraits of the great men who were nursed in this seat of learning. Both here and at Cambridge, accurate likenesses of such as have by their political or literary elevation, ennobled their alma mater, are hung up in the great halls, in order to excite the emulation of their successors, and perpetuate the fame of the institution. I do not wish to fatigue you by making you the associate of all my wanderings and reflections, but only beg you to follow me rapidly through the picture-gallery attached to the celebrated Bodleian library. It is long indeed, and covered with a multitude of original portraits, but from them I shall merely select a few, in which your knowledge of history will lead you to take a lively interest.

I was struck with the face of Martin Luther the reformer. It was not necessary to have studied Lavater to collect from it, the character of his mind. His features were excessively harsh though regular, his eye intelligent but sullen and scowling, and the whole expression of his countenance, that of a sour, intemperate, overbearing controversialist. Near him were placed likenesses of Locke, Butler, and Charles II., painted by Sir Peter Lely; with the countenance of Locke you are well acquainted, that of Butler has nothing sportive in it—does not betray a particle of humor, but is, on the contrary, grave, solemn, and didactic in the extreme, and must have been taken in one of his splenetic moods, when brooding over the neglect of Charles, rather than in one of those moments of inspiration, as they may be styled, in which he narrated the achievements of Hudibras. The physiognomy of Charles is, I presume, familiar to you, lively but not "spiritual." Lord North is among the number of heads, and I was caught by his strong resemblance to the present king; so strong as to remind one of the scandalous chronicles of times past.

The face of Mary queen of Scots next attracted my notice. It was taken in her own time, and amply justifies what historians have written, or poets have sung, concerning her incomparable beauty. If ever there was a countenance meriting the epithet of lovely in its most comprehensive signification, it was this, which truly "vindicated the veracity of Fame," and in which I needed not the aid of imagination to trace the virtues of her heart. In reading Hume and Whitaker I have often wept over her misfortunes, and now turned with increased disgust from an original portrait of Elizabeth, her rival and assassin, which was placed immediately above, and contributed to heighten the captivations of the other by the effect of contrast. The features of Elizabeth are harsh and irregular, her eye severe, her complexion bad, her whole face, in short, just such as you would naturally attach to such a mind.

Among the curiosities of the gallery may be ranked a likeness of Sir Phillip Sydney, done with a red hot poker, on wood, by a person of the name of Griffith, belonging to one of the colleges. It is really a monument of human patience and ingenuity, and has the appearance of a good painting. I cannot describe to you without admiration another most extraordinary freak of genius exhibited here, and altogether unique in its kind. It is a portrait of Isaac Tuller, a celebrated painter in the reign of Charles II., executed by himself when drunk. Tradition represents it as an admirable likeness, and of inebriety in the abstract, there never was a more faithful or perfect delineation. This anecdote is authentic, and must amuse the fancy, if we picture to ourselves the artist completely intoxicated, inspecting his own features in a mirror, and hitting off, with complete success, not only the general character, but the peculiar stamp, which such a state must have impressed upon them. His conception was as full of humor as of originality, and well adapted to the system of manners which the reigning monarch introduced and patronized. As I am on the subject of portraits, permit me to mention three to which my attention was particularly called on my visit to the University of Dublin. They were those of Burke, Swift, and Bishop Berkeley, done by the ablest masters. The latter must have had one of the most impressive physiognomies ever given to man, "the human face divine." That of Burke is far inferior, but strongly marked by an indignant smile; a proper expression for the feelings by which his mind was constantly agitated towards the close of his life. The face of Swift from which you would expect every thing, is dull, heavy and unmeaning.

Portrait painting is the forte, as it has always been the passion of this country. Happily for the inquisitive stranger, every rich man has all his progenitors and relatives on canvass. The walls of every public institution are crowded with benefactors and pupils, and no town hall is left without the heads of the corporation, or the representatives of the borough. The same impulse that prompts us to gaze with avidity on the persons of our cotemporaries, if there be any thing prominent in their character, or peculiar in their history, leads us to turn a curious and attentive eye on the likenesses of the [p. 401] "mighty dead," whose souls as well as faces are thus in some degree transmitted to posterity. Next to my association with the living men of genius who render illustrious the names of Englishmen, no more sensible gratification has accrued to me from my residence in this country, than that of studying the countenances of their predecessors; no employment has tended more efficaciously to improve my acquaintance with the history of the nation, to animate research, and to quicken the spirit of competition.

I quitted Oxford with a fervent wish that such an establishment might one day grace our own country. I have uttered an ejaculation to the same effect whenever the great monuments of industry and refinement which Europe displays exclusively, have fallen under my observation. We have indeed just grounds to hope that we shall one day eclipse the old world.

The only paper in the Didactics, to which we have any decided objection, is a tolerably long article on the subject of Phrenology, entitled "Memorial of the Phrenological Society of —— to the Honorable the Congress of —— sitting at ——." Considered as a specimen of mere burlesque the Memorial is well enough—but we are sorry to see the energies of a scholar and an editor (who should be, if he be not, a man of metaphysical science) so wickedly employed as in any attempt to throw ridicule upon a question, (however much maligned, or however apparently ridiculous) whose merits he has never examined, and of whose very nature, history, and assumptions, he is most evidently ignorant. Mr. Walsh is either ashamed of this article now, or he will have plentiful reason to be ashamed of it hereafter.

Sketches of Switzerland. By an American. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard.

These very interesting sketches are merely selections from a work of much larger extent, originally intended for publication, but which, as a whole, is, for private reasons, suppressed. There is consequently on this account, and on some others, several vacuums in the narrative. Mr. Cooper commenced the year 1828 in Paris, whence, after a short stay, he paid a visit to England. In June he returned to France by the way of Holland and Belgium. The narrative embraced in vol. i commences at Paris after his return from England, and terminates at Milan. The remainder of the year 1828, and the years 1829, 1830, and 1831, with part of 1832, were passed between Italy, Germany, France and Belgium. Volume ii recommences at Paris, and a great portion of it is occupied with matters relating to other countries than that which gives a title to the book.

We either see, or fancy we see, in these volumes, and more particularly in the Preface affixed to them, a degree of splenetic ill humor with both himself and his countrymen, quite different from the usual manner of the novelist, and evincing something akin to resentment for real or imaginary ill usage. He frankly tells us among other things, that had the whole of his intended publication seen the light, it is probable their writer would not have escaped some imputations on his patriotism—for in making the comparisons that naturally arose from his subject, he has spoken in favor of American principles much oftener than in favor of American things. He then proceeds with a sneer at a "numerous class of native critics," and expresses a hope that he may be permitted at least to assert, that "a mountain fifteen thousand feet high is more lofty than one of fifteen hundred, and that Mont Blanc is a more sublime object than Butter Hill." We quote a specimen of the general tone of this Preface.

The writer does not expect much favor for the political opinions that occasionally appear in these letters. He has the misfortune to belong to neither of the two great parties that divide the country, and which, though so bitterly hostile and distrustful of each other, will admit of no neutrality. It is a menacing symptom that there is a disposition to seek for a base motive, whenever a citizen may not choose to plunge into the extremes that characterize the movements of political factions. This besetting vice is accompanied by another feeling, that is so singularly opposed to that which every body is ready to affirm is the governing principle of the institutions, that it may do no harm slightly to advert to it. Any one who may choose to set up a semi-official organ of public opinion, called a newspaper, however illiterate, base, flagrantly corrupt, and absolutely destitute of the confidence and respect of every man in the community, may daily pour out upon the public his falsehoods, his contradictions, his ignorance, and his corruption, treating the national interests as familiarly as "household terms," and all because he is acting in an admitted vocation; the public servant, commissioned to execute the public will, may even turn upon his masters, and tell them not only in what light they are to view him and his conduct, but in what light they are also to view the conduct of his associates in trust; in short, tell them how to make up their judgments on himself and others; and all because he is a public servant, and the public is his master: but the private citizen, who merely forms a part of that public, is denounced for his presumption, should he dare to speak of matters of general concernment, except under such high sanction, or as the organ of party.

It may be well to say at once, that this peculiar feeling has not been permitted to influence the tone of these letters, which have been written, in all respects, as if the republic did not contain one of those privileged persons, honored as "patriots" and "godlikes," but as if both classes were as actually unknown to the country as they are certainly unknown to the spirit and letter of its institutions.

The spirit of these observations seems to be carried out (we cannot say with what degree of justice,) in many other portions of the book. On page 71, vol. i, we observe what follows.

Among other books, I have laid my hands, by accident, on the work of a recent French traveller in the United States. We read little other than English books at home, and are much given to declaiming against English travellers for their unfairness; but, judging from this specimen of Gallic opinion, our ancient allies rate us quite as low as our quondam fellow subjects. A perusal of the work in question has led me to inquire further into the matter, and I am now studying one or two German writers on the same interesting subject. I must say that thus far, I find little to feed national vanity, and I begin to fear (what I have suspected ever since the first six months in Europe) that we are under an awkward delusion respecting the manner in which the rest of Christendom regards that civilization touching which we are so sensitive. It is some time since I have made the discovery, that 'the name of an American is not a passport all over Europe,' but on the other hand, that where it conveys any very distinct notions at all, it usually conveys such as are any thing but flattering or agreeable.... I shall pursue the trail on which I have fallen, and you will probably hear more of this, before these letters are brought to a close.

At page 113 of the same volume we have something of the same nature, and which we confess astonished us in no little degree.

We have just had a visit from two old acquaintances—Manhattanese. They tell me a good many of our people are wandering among the mountains, though they are the first we have seen. There is a list of arrivals published daily in Berne; and in one of them I found the name of Captain C——, of the Navy; and that of Mr. O., an old and intimate friend, whom it was vexatious to miss in a strange land. Mr. and Mrs. G——, of New York, are also somewhere in the cantons. Our numbers increase, and with them our abuse; for it is not an uncommon thing to see, written in English in the travellers' books kept by law at all the inns, pasquinades on America, opposite the American names. What a state of feeling it betrays, when a traveller cannot write his name, in compliance with a law of the country in which he happens to be, without calling down upon himself anathemas of this kind! I have a register of twenty-three of these gratuitous injuries. What renders them less excusable, is the fact, that they who are guilty of the impropriety would probably think twice before they performed the act in the presence of the party wronged. These intended insults are, consequently, so many registers of their own meanness. Let the truth be said; I have never seen one, unless in the case of an American, or one that was not written in English! Straws show which way the wind blows. This disposition, in our kinsmen, to deride and abuse America, is observed and freely commented on by the people of the continent, who are far from holding us themselves in the highest respect.

And again, on page 327, vol. ii.

I have made this comparison as the last means I know of to arouse you from your American complacency on the subject of the adjectives grand, majestic, elegant and splendid, in connection with our architecture. The latter word, in particular, is coming to be used like a household term; while there is not, probably, a single work of art, from Georgia to Maine, to which it can with propriety be applied. I do not know a single edifice in the Union that can be considered more than third rate by its size and ornaments, nor more than one or two that ought to be ranked even so high. When it comes to capitals, and the use of the adjectives I have just quoted, it may be well to remember, that there is no city in the Republic that has not decidedly the air and the habits of a provincial town, and this too, usually without possessing the works of art that are quite commonly found in this hemisphere, even in places of that rank, or a single public building to which the term magnificent can with any fitness be adjudged.

We can only say, that if the suppressed portions of Mr. Cooper's intended publication embraced any thing more likely than these assertions and opinions to prove unacceptable to American readers at large, it is perhaps better, both for his own reputation, and for the interest of his publishers, that he finally decided upon the suppression. Yet Mr. Cooper may be right, and not having the fear of punishment sufficiently before our eyes, we, for ourselves, frankly confess that we believe him to be right. The passages which remain of a similar nature to those we have quoted, will only serve we hope, to give additional piquancy to these admirable Sketches. As a work affording extensive and valuable information on the subject of Switzerland, we have seen nothing in any shape, at all equal to the volumes before us.

The extract we now subjoin, will prove beyond doubt, that the fine descriptive powers of the author of the Prairie, are in as full vigor as ever.

It is at all times a very difficult thing to convey vivid and, at the same time, accurate impressions of grand scenery by the use of words. When the person to whom the communication is made has seen objects that have a general similarity to those described, the task certainly becomes less difficult, for he who speaks or writes may illustrate his meaning by familiar comparisons; but who in America, that has never left America, can have a just idea of the scenery of this region? A Swiss would readily comprehend a description of vast masses of granite capped with eternal snow, for such objects are constantly before his eyes; but to those who have never looked upon such a magnificent spectacle, written accounts, when they come near their climax, fall as much short of the intention, as words are less substantial than things. With a full consciousness of this deficiency in my craft, I shall attempt to give you some notion of the two grandest aspects that the Alps, when seen from this place, assume; for it seems a species of poetical treason to write of Switzerland and be silent on what are certainly two of its most decided sublimities.

One of these appearances is often alluded to, but I do not remember to have ever heard the other mentioned. The first is produced by the setting sun, whose rays of a cloudless evening, are the parents of hues and changes of a singularly lovely character. For many minutes the lustre of the glacier slowly retires, and is gradually succeeded by a tint of rose color, which, falling on so luminous a body, produces a sort of "roseate light;" the whole of the vast range becoming mellowed and subdued to indescribable softness. This appearance gradually increases in intensity, varying on different evenings, however, according to the state of the atmosphere. At the very moment, perhaps, when the eye is resting most eagerly on this extraordinary view, the light vanishes. No scenic change is more sudden than that which follows. All the forms remain unaltered, but so varied in hue, as to look like the ghosts of mountains. You see the same vast range of eternal snow, but you see it ghastly and spectral. You fancy that the spirits of the Alps are ranging themselves before you. Watching the peaks for a few minutes longer, the light slowly departs. The spectres, like the magnified images of the phantasmagoria, grow more and more faint, less and less material, until swallowed in the firmament. What renders all this more thrillingly exquisite is, the circumstance that these changes do not occur until after evening has fallen on the lower world, giving to the whole the air of nature sporting in the upper regions, with some of her spare and detached materials.

This sight is far from uncommon. It is seen during the summer, at least, in greater or less perfection, as often as twice or thrice a week. The other is much less frequent; for, though a constant spectator when the atmosphere was favorable, it was never my fortune to witness it but twice; and even on these occasions, only one of them is entitled to come within the description I am about to attempt.

It is necessary to tell you that the Aar flows toward Berne in a north-west direction, through a valley of some width, and several leagues in length. To this fact the Bernese are indebted for their view of the Oberland Alps, which stretch themselves exactly across the mouth of the gorge, at the distance of forty miles in an air line. These giants are supported by a row of outposts, any one of which, of itself, would be a spectacle in another country. One in particular, is distinguished by its form, which is that of a cone. It is nearly in a line with the Jung Frau,⁴ the virgin queen of the Oberland. This mountain is called the Niesen. It stands some eight or ten miles in advance of the mighty range, though to the eye, at Berne, all these accessories appear to be tumbled without order at the very feet of their principals. The height of the Niesen is given by Ebel at 5584 French, or nearly 6000 English feet, above the [p. 403] lake of Thun, on whose margin it stands; and at 7340 French, or nearly 8000 English feet above the sea. In short, it is rather higher than the highest peak of our own White Mountains. The Jung Frau rises directly behind this mass, rather more than a mile nearer to heaven.

⁴ Jung Frau, or the virgin; (pronounced Yoong Frow.) The mountain is thus called, because it has never been scaled.

The day, on the occasion to which I allude, was clouded, and as a great deal of mist was clinging to all the smaller mountains, the lower atmosphere was much charged with vapor. The cap of the Niesen was quite hid, and a wide streak of watery clouds lay along the whole of the summits of the nearer range, leaving, however, their brown sides misty but visible. In short the Niesen and its immediate neighbors looked like any other range of noble mountains, whose heads were hid in the clouds. I think the vapor must have caused a good deal of refraction, for above these clouds rose the whole of the Oberland Alps to an altitude which certainly seemed even greater than usual. Every peak and all the majestic formation was perfectly visible, though the whole range appeared to be severed from the earth, and to float in air. The line of communication was veiled, and while all below was watery, or enfeebled by mist, the glaciers threw back the fierce light of the sun with powerful splendor. The separation from the lower world was made the more complete, from the contrast between the sombre hues beneath and the calm but bright magnificence above. One had some difficulty in imagining that the two could be parts of the same orb. The effect of the whole was to create a picture of which I can give no other idea, than by saying it resembled a glimpse, through the windows of heaven, at such a gorgeous but chastened grandeur, as the imagination might conceive to suit the place. There were moments when the spectral aspect just mentioned, dimmed the lustre of the snows, without injuring their forms, and no language can do justice to the sublimity of the effect. It was impossible to look at them without religious awe; and, irreverent though it may seem, I could hardly persuade myself I was not gazing at some of the sublime mysteries that lie beyond the grave.

A fortnight passed in contemplating such spectacles at the distance of sixteen leagues, has increased the desire to penetrate nearer to the wonders; and it has been determined that as many of our party who are of an age to enjoy the excursion, shall quit this place in a day or two for the Oberland.

⁵ We have received this notice of Mellen's Poems from a personal friend, in whose judgment we have implicit reliance—of course we cannot deviate from our rules by adopting the criticism as Editorial.

The Martyr's Triumph; Buried Valley; and other Poems. By Grenville Mellen. Boston, 300 pp.

We took up this book with the conviction that we should be pleased with its contents, and our highly wrought expectations have not in any degree been disappointed. It is as high praise as we are able to bestow upon it, that we have read most of its contents with the very associations around us, which are required for the perfect production of the impressions intended to be produced by the poet—and that we have, in each and all, still found those impressions strengthening and deepening upon our minds, as we perused the pages before us. "The Buried Valley," in which is portrayed the well remembered tragedy of the avalanche, which, in 1826, buried a peaceful cottage situated at the foot of the White Mountains, with all its inhabitants, at midnight, is not perhaps the best, though a most deeply interesting part of the volume. It is too unequal in its style, and at times too highly wrought, perhaps, as a picture. But the idea which it gives the reader of the wild and magnificent spot upon which this terrible catastrophe occurred is perfect, and the description of the circumstances and incidents of the scene most faithful.

The Scenery of the White Mountains of New Hampshire forms the inspiration of another poem also in this collection, which we boldly place beside any emanation from the most gifted of our poets. We allude to "Lines on an Eagle," on pp. 130 and 131. We must be chary of our space, and can therefore give but a single stanza, in corroboration of our opinion.

The "Martyr's Triumph" is a most splendid poem, and deserves all the praise it has received from reader and critic. What can be more beautiful than the exordium?

And what more purely inspired than the following?

And these are but single "bricks from Babel." Specimens, only, of the beauty and grace with which the poem abounds.

Were we looking for faults, doubtless we should be able to find them, for who is faultless? But that is not our aim. Yet would we suggest to the author that the use of the word dulce in stanza six, is somewhat forced,—and though a sweet word in itself, is yet "like sweet bells jangled, harsh, and out of tune," on account of its rarity, which induces the reader to note its strangeness rather than to admire its application. The whole book abounds with proofs of Mellen's fine musical ear, and therefore does it seem to us a fault that he should have suffered the compositor to do him the injustice of printing such a line as this.

But it is for the minor, or shorter pieces which the volume contains, that it is most highly to be valued. Mellen is delightful in his "occasional poems." Take the following, addressed to one of the sweetest singers, whose strains, like angel-harmonies from heaven, ever floated upon the rapt ear of the poet, as a proof.

There are many such, as, for instance, "To Sub Rosa," "Death of Julia," "The Eagle," "The Bugle," "To Gabriella R——, of Richmond," &c. &c.

Mellen is distinguished for his lyric powers. His Odes are all very fine. That "To Music," in the volume before us, is deserving of particular mention, as indeed are those "To Shakspeare," "To Byron," "To Lafayette," and others, written on several public occasions.

The volume has but one general fault, and that is, its deficiency in the lighter and gayer strain, in which we have private proofs that Mellen certainly excels. It were to be regretted that the poet did not throw into his collection some touches of that delicate and graceful humor, which none can more happily hit off than himself. The general tone of the volume is grave, if not indeed severe—though relieved by many exquisite verses like those already alluded to, and of which the following may serve as another specimen.

We may add to the critique of our friend O. that in looking over cursorily the poems of Mellen, we have been especially taken with the following spirited lyric.