The Project Gutenberg e-Book of The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 5, April 1836, by Various

TO AN ARTIST, who requested the writer's opinion of a Pencil Sketch of a very Lovely Woman.: by M.

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

MSS. OF BENJ. FRANKLIN.¹

A LECTURE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LETTER FROM ANTHONY AFTERWIT.

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

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

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

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

Had we stopped here it might have done well enough. But my wife being entertained with tea by the good women she visited, we could do no less than the like when they visited us, and so we got a tea table with all its appurtenances of china and silver. Then my spouse unfortunately overworked herself in washing the house, so that we could do no longer without a maid. Besides this, it happened frequently that when I came home at one, the dinner was but just put in the pot, and my dear thought really it had been but eleven. At other times when I came at the same hour, she wondered I would stay so long, for dinner was ready about one and had waited for me these two hours. These irregularities occasioned by mistaking the time convinced me that it was absolutely necessary to buy a clock, which my spouse observed was a great ornament to the room. And lastly, to my grief, she was troubled with some ailment or other, and nothing did her so much good as riding, and these hackney horses were such wretched ugly creatures that—I bought a very fine pacing mare which cost 20l.; and hereabouts affairs have stood for about a twelvemonth past.

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

LETTER FROM CELIA SINGLE.

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

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

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

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

TO THE EVENING STAR.

GENIUS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A LOAN TO THE MESSENGER.

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

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

TO ———.

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

SOME ANCIENT GREEK AUTHORS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also, Cratinus and Eupolis, who with Aristophanes, are mentioned by Horace—they were celebrated for their comic writings. B.C. 431.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TO AN ARTIST,

MARCH COURT.

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

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

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

THE DEATH OF ROBESPIERRE.

SCENE I.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daughter.—I trust I do not.
I hope that Heaven beholds not—Earth contains not
A being capable of such an offer.

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

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

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

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

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

SCENE II.

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

Tallien.—Attend him hither—
Fouché—perhaps to sound me; let him try—
I yet may baffle him, and one more fatal——
(Fouché enters.)

Fouché.—So you are in the scales with Robespierre,
And which do you expect will kick the beam?

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

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

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

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

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

Fouché.—Not quite. To offer service—
[p. 306] A politician should not start as you do
At every word.

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

Fouché.—My present post and what
Beside is mentioned in this schedule.
(giving a paper.)

Tallien.—Your price is high, but I am pledged to pay it.
(giving his hand.)

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

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

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

SCENE III.

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

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

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

Fouché.—And ere its night sets in we hail thee Ruler,
Dictator of the land.

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

SCENE IV.

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

Fouché.—Doubt not my aid—denounce him where he stands—
And lose no time—this hour decides our fate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Robes. (to St. Just.) Come thou with me—I see an opening yet
To victory, or a funeral pile—whose light
Shall dazzle France and terrify the world.
(Robespierre, St. Just and others taken out by the guards.²)

SCENE V.

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

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

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

St. Just (to the officer.) Whose obsequies are these,
That look as if the dead one had not perished
By trying our Republican proscription,
The guillotine?

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

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

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

1st Woman.—Descend to hell, I triumph in thy death!
Die, thou accurs'd of every wife and mother!
May every orphan's wail ring in thy ears,
And every widow's cry, and matron's groan!

2d Woman.—Thine execution maddens me with joy:
Monster, depart—perish, even in thy crimes,
And may our curses sink thee into depths
Whence even omnipotent mercy will not raise thee!
(they shout and hiss him.)

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

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

WOMAN.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LINES TO ——.

READINGS WITH MY PENCIL.

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

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

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

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

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

LINES TO ——.

A TALE OF JERUSALEM.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lucian calls unmeaning verbosity, anemonæ verborum. The anemone, with great brilliancy, has no fragrance.

LEAVES FROM MY SCRAP BOOK.

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

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

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

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

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

II.

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

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

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

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

III.

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

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

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

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

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

IV.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Editorial.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It will be necessary for a proper understanding of the subject, that we repeat here in a few words, the routine adopted by the exhibiter in disclosing the interior of the box—a routine from which he never deviates in any material particular. In the first place he opens the door No. 1. Leaving this open, he goes round to the rear of the box, and opens a door precisely at the back of door No. 1. To this back door he holds a lighted candle. He then closes the back door, locks it, and, coming round to the front, opens the drawer to its full extent. This done, he opens the doors No. 2 and No. 3, (the folding doors) and displays the interior of the main compartment. Leaving open the main compartment, the drawer, and the front door of cupboard No. 1, he now goes to the rear again, and throws open the back door of the main compartment. In shutting up the box no particular order is observed, except that the folding doors are always closed before the drawer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CRITICAL NOTICES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

But there is another point of which we disapprove. While in our reviews we have at all times been particularly careful not to deal in generalities, and have never, if we remember aright, advanced in any single instance an unsupported assertion, our accuser has forgotten to give us any better evidence of our flippancy, injustice, personality, and gross blundering, than the solitary dictum of Col. Stone. We call upon the Colonel for assistance in this dilemma. We wish to be shown our blunders that we may correct them—to be made aware of our flippancy, that we may avoid it hereafter—and above all to have our personalities pointed out that we may proceed forthwith with a repentant spirit, to make the amende honorable. In default of this aid from the Editor of the Commercial we shall take it for granted that we are neither blunderers, flippant, personal, nor unjust.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is more than probable that from among ten readers of the Culprit Fay, nine would immediately pronounce it a poem betokening the most extraordinary powers of imagination, and of these nine, perhaps five or six, poets themselves, and fully impressed with the truth of what we have already assumed, that Ideality is indeed the soul of the Poetic Sentiment, would feel embarrassed between a half-consciousness that they ought to admire the production, and a wonder that they do not. This embarrassment would then arise from an indistinct conception of the results in which Ideality is rendered manifest. Of these results some few are seen in the Culprit Fay, but the greater part of it is utterly destitute of any evidence of imagination whatever. The general character of the poem will, we think, be sufficiently understood by any one who may have taken the trouble to read our foregoing compendium of the narrative. It will be there seen that what is so frequently termed the imaginative power of this story, lies especially—we should have rather said is thought to lie—in the passages we have quoted, or in others of a precisely similar nature. These passages embody, principally, mere specifications of qualities, of habiliments, of punishments, of occupations, of circumstances &c., which the poet has believed in unison with the size, firstly, and secondly with the nature of his Fairies. To all which may be added specifications of other animal existences (such as the toad, the beetle, the lance-fly, the fire-fly and the like) supposed also to be in accordance. An example will best illustrate our meaning upon this point—we take it from page 20.

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

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

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

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

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

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

In a world where evil is a mere consequence of good, and good a mere consequence of evil—in short where all of which we have any conception is good or bad only by comparison—we have never yet been fully able to appreciate the validity of that decision which would debar the critic from enforcing upon his readers the merits or demerits of a work by placing it in juxta-position with another. It seems to us that an adage based in the purest ignorance has had more to do with this popular feeling than any just reason founded upon common sense. Thinking thus, we shall have no scruple in illustrating our opinion in regard to what is not Ideality or the Poetic Power, by an example of what is.⁸ We have already given the description of the Sylphid Queen in the Culprit Fay. In the Queen Mab of Shelley a Fairy is thus introduced—

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

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

There is Ideality in these lines—but except in the case of the words italicized—it is Ideality not of a high order. We have it is true, a collection of natural [p. 333] objects, each individually of great beauty, and, if actually seen as in nature, capable of exciting in any mind, through the means of the Poetic Sentiment more or less inherent in all, a certain sense of the beautiful. But to view such natural objects as they exist, and to behold them through the medium of words, are different things. Let us pursue the idea that such a collection as we have here will produce, of necessity, the Poetic Sentiment, and we may as well make up our minds to believe that a catalogue of such expressions as moon, sky, trees, rivers, mountains &c., shall be capable of exciting it,—it is merely an extension of the principle. But in the line "the earth is dark, but the heavens are bright" besides the simple mention of the "dark earth" and the "bright heaven," we have, directly, the moral sentiment of the brightness of the sky compensating for the darkness of the earth—and thus, indirectly, of the happiness of a future state compensating for the miseries of a present. All this is effected by the simple introduction of the word but between the "dark heaven" and the "bright earth"—this introduction, however, was prompted by the Poetic Sentiment, and by the Poetic Sentiment alone. The case is analogous in the expression "glimmers and dies," where the imagination is exalted by the moral sentiment of beauty heightened in dissolution.

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

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

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

This poem contains also lines of far greater poetic power than any to be found in the Culprit Fay. For example—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marco Bozzaris appears to have much lyrical without any high order of ideal beauty. Force is its prevailing character—a force, however, consisting more in a well ordered and sonorous arrangement of the metre, and a [p. 335] judicious disposal of what may be called the circumstances of the poem, than in the true materiel of lyric vigor. We are introduced, first, to the Turk who dreams, at midnight, in his guarded tent,

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Field of the Grounded Arms contains twenty-four quatrains, without rhyme, and, we think, of a [p. 336] disagreeable versification. In this poem are to be observed some of the finest passages of Halleck. For example—

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

A Sketch should have been omitted from the edition as altogether unworthy of its author.

The remaining pieces in the volume are Twilight; Psalm cxxxvii; To ****; Love; Domestic Happiness; Magdalen; From the Italian; Woman; Connecticut; Music; On the Death of Lieut. William Howard Allen; A Poet's Daughter; and On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake. Of the majority of these we deem it unnecessary to say more than that they partake, in a more or less degree, of the general character observable in the poems of Halleck. The Poet's Daughter appears to us a particularly happy specimen of that general character, and we doubt whether it be not the favorite of its author. We are glad to see the vulgarity of

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SUPPLEMENT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Loan to the Messenger, including Life, a Brief History, in three parts, with a sequel, by CUTTER, is not only "exceedingly neat," but surpassingly beautiful. It is a rare instance of the union of tender sentiment and epigrammatic point. For example—

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

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

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

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

In the Poetry of Burns, by JAMES F. OTIS, we see much of the fine lyrical feeling which distinguishes the "Readings with My Pencil." The subject, to be sure, is au peu passe—but we can hardly have too much of BURNS. Mr. OTIS seems fully to understand and appreciate him.

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

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

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

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

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

"The Patriarch's Inheritance."—Rich language, fine conception, smooth versification. "T. H. S." improves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Loan to the Messenger, is beautiful—very beautiful—witness the following—

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

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

To Helen—by the same author—a sonnet full of quiet grace—we quote it in full.

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

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

Natural Bridge of Pandi, and Fall of Tequendama are both acceptable articles.

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

To Randolph of Roanoke. These lines have some fine points and the versification is good—but we do not like them upon the whole.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Southern Literary Messenger.—The February No. of this periodical is before us—rich in typographical beauty as ever, but scarcely so fortunate as in some former instances in the character of its original contributions. Such at least is our judgment; and yet of some twenty articles the greater number will be perused with decided satisfaction. Of these, No. X. of the "Sketches of the History of Tripoli" and other Barbary States, affords an interesting account of the series of outrages on the part of the Algerine Regency which provoked the entire overthrow of that infamous banditti and the subjugation of the country. [We take occasion to say here that we trust France will never restore the Algerine territory to the sway of the barbarian and infidel, but hold it at the expense, if need be, of a Continental War.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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